The Handyman's Dream (14 page)

“Mmm, if I was a cat, I’d be purring right now,” Ed said, thoroughly enjoying Rick’s back rub.

“Just an extra midweek delivery from the mailman to the handyman he loves.”

“Thanks, darlin’,” Ed murmured drowsily. “I know one thing. If my mom doesn’t like you, she’s got more screws loose than I think she does.”

* * * * *

Ed halfheartedly cleaned house Friday afternoon, stereo blasting away. He was dancing more than dusting, singing in his usual awful way, with Dusty Springfield’s “I Only Want to Be with You.” He wondered how many times over the years he had sang along with that record, wishing he had someone real to think about. He thought about stepping into Rick’s open arms. I didn’t stand a chance, all right.

He gave the record cabinet a swipe with his dustrag, then used it to jack the volume higher. He winced a bit at the distortion from the scratchy record, suspecting if he had known when he bought it in 1964 that Rick was on the horizon, the record would be completely worn out by now.

The phone rang, and Ed, throwing down his dustrag, ran to answer it. “Hello,” he said happily, assuming it was Rick.

“Ed? It’s your mother.”

Aw, crud, he thought. “Hi, Mom. What’s up?”

“The volume on that awful stereo. Turn that noise down. Didn’t I get enough of that when you were living here?”

“This is my house, Mom,” he shouted over Dusty. “I can listen to it as loud as I want.”

“Not while you’re on the phone with your mother, you can’t.”

Feeling abused, Ed slowly cranked the volume back. “Is that better?”

“It’ll do. Honestly! It’s a wonder you have any hearing left. Anyway, the IGA was having a good sale on pork chops, and I bought enough for an army. I want you to come over for dinner tonight.”

“Does it have to be tonight? I kinda have plans.”

“Plans! What sort of plans?”

“Well, Mom, it’s Friday. People often go out and have fun on Friday night.”

“Well, for Pete’s sake. Your social life is just growing all the time. And just who do you have these plans with?”

Ed sighed, feeling rather trapped. “I’m supposed to go to the movies with Rick and see Harold and Maude.”

“Harold and who? Who on earth are they? And why are you going to the movies with them?”

“No,” Ed said patiently. “That’s the name of the movie.”

“Well, I never heard of it.”

“It’s an old movie, from the early seventies. It’s Rick’s favorite, and he wants to see it again. They’re showing it at Crestland College.”

“Humph.” Norma was silent for a moment, a rare occurrence indeed. “Well, there’s plenty of food for three. You just bring him along with you, then you can do whatever you want. I’m beginning to think I need to get a look at this new friend of yours.”

“Oh, Mom,” he started.

“Edward, are you ashamed of your mother?”

Well, yes, he thought.

“If he’s such a good friend, there’s no reason why he can’t come over and enjoy a good, home-cooked meal. Why, I used to feed your high school buddies all the time. Even that fat Ted Gillis, and you know what a struggle it was filling him up. I couldn’t keep cookies in the house with him around. I always did wonder if they fed him at home. Whatever happened to him, anyway?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “You just pick up this Rick Benton character and be here at six. And if he wants anything other than water or coffee to drink, tell him to bring his own.”

“But, Mom—”

“Don’t ‘but Mom’ me! Just be here at six. Honestly, to even think of letting good food go to waste. Edward Stephens, I sometimes wonder how I even gave birth to you.”

Ed occasionally wondered the same thing. He could only imagine the hell she put Dr. Weisberg, their family doctor, and his delivery room staff through that night.

“Mom, they’re only showing the movie tonight. It’s part of a film series they’re doing. Rick’s been looking forward to it all week, and I’m not about to tell him he can’t go because my mother insists on feeding him pork chops.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake. Well then, come over tomorrow night. Those pork chops will keep. Dallas is on tonight anyway. There’s nothing on tomorrow night but that silly Love Boat and that awful island with the midget. Be here at six tomorrow night, then.”

“Okay,” he said, surrendering. He knew if he worked any harder to get out of it, he would never hear the end of it.

“All right. Say hello to Harold and Mona for me, and I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

“Harold and Maude, Mom.”

“Oh, whoever. Bring them for dinner, too. There’ll be plenty.” Norma laughed, enjoying her own joke.

“I’ll tell them when I see them.” Ed rolled his eyes at the phone.

Aw, yucky, shitty crud, he thought, hanging up the phone. How am I going to tell Rick that after a long week at work he has to give up our quiet Saturday night for dinner with my mother?

He turned the volume up on the stereo. “I Only Want to Be with You” had ended, and the record currently playing was the Zombies and “She’s Not There.”

“Geez, I wish I had that problem,” he grumbled. “Mom’s there all right. Boy, is she there.”

The back door opened, and Rick bounced in. “Hey, baby. Ready for some fun?”

“Ri-i-i-ick,” he began in a much higher than normal voice. A quick look at Rick’s smiling, bearded face brought another worry into his head. Unlike her son, Norma always claimed to distrust bearded men. “I sure hope you didn’t make any plans for us tomorrow night.”

* * * * *

“You know, at one time I used to break into pet shops to liberate the canaries,”Maude said to Harold on the movie screen, “but I decided that was an idea way before its time. Zoos are full, prisons are overflowing . . . ah, my, how the world still dearly loves a cage.”

Ed snickered in delight, completely fascinated with the movie unspooling before him.

“Enjoying it, baby?” Rick whispered.

“Oh, yes.”

Rick took Ed’s hand and squeezed it. Ed’s attention was diverted from the screen long enough to note that having his boyfriend hold his hand in a movie theater was a new and satisfying experience.

When the lights came up, Ed remained seated, embarrassingly wiping away a few tears.

“That’s one of the best movies I ever saw,” he said, watching the crowd file out of the theater.

Rick’s smile, “the warm and tender special,” as Ed had begun to think of it, shone on his face. “I’m glad. I was hoping you’d get it.”

“Oh, I don’t know if I got it.” Ed reached for his jacket. “I just know I can’t remember the last time I laughed that hard.”

“Cried a little, too, I see. I’m glad I’ve got me a man who isn’t afraid to cry at the movies.”

“Well, that ending. I mean, it’s sad and happy at the same time. I almost wish we could stay for the second showing. I used to do that when I was kid, going to the movies at the Strand in Porterfield. We’d hide in the bathroom, then sit through it again.”

“Much as I would like that, baby, I have to get home and get to bed,” Rick said regretfully, as they slowly followed the crowd into the lobby.

They paused outside the little college theater, zipping up their jackets against the cold November night.

“Did you get the lesson from the movie?” Rick asked.

“Darlin’, there were a lot of lessons in that movie. Which one do you mean?”

“Oh, the one that always hits me so hard, whenever I see it again,” Rick said, as they slowly made their way to Ed’s truck. “The one with the daisies.”

“You mean being your own self instead of being one of the crowd?”

“Yeah. I love that. I first saw this movie back when I was really struggling with the gay thing. I remember sitting there, in that movie theater, suddenly knowing that it didn’t matter if I was gay or purple or whatever, as long as I was true to myself and I didn’t try to be like everyone else.”

Ed paused by the truck, looking at Rick. “I know what you mean. I wish I’d seen this back then, too. I loved it, too, when they all freaked out about them being together. I want to remember that when someone gives us shit for being together.”

Rick sighed. “I really think that movie helped me survive. Remember that Isley Brothers song, ‘It’s Your Thing’?”

“Sure.”

“Well, I remember thinking it was a great song but a big lie. Everybody back then was running around saying, ‘Do your own thing, man,’ but when you did something different than they did, they ridiculed you for it. That drove me crazy for years, but then when I saw Harold and Maude kinda flipping the bird to society in general, I decided if they could do it, so could I. I could be whatever I wanted to be. Hell, I even thought about buying a hearse.”

Ed laughed, unlocking the door. “I’ll bet a lot people thought about buying a hearse after seeing that movie. Will my uncool, beat-up pickup truck do the job for tonight?”

Rick hauled himself onto the seat. “It’ll do just fine, but don’t drive like Maude. I wanna get home in one piece.”

“Well, from something as great as that, to dinner at my mother’s,” Ed said in disgust, as he turned south onto Highway 107. “Talk about letdowns.”

“Oh, baby, don’t worry about it. I’m not. She just wants to see what kind of company you’re keeping these days. And besides, I love pork chops.”

“If you get to eat any,” Ed said, passing a badly rusting Pinto. “She’ll probably slam you with so many questions, you’ll never get one bite to your mouth.”

“Man, Ed, give it a rest already. I have excellent table manners, thanks to my mom, and despite the fact that I was a twerp in high school, I’ve learned how to hold a dignified conversation with other adults, even my boyfriend’s mother. I swear to God I won’t chew with my mouth open either.”

“‘I suppose you think that’s very funny, Harold,’” Ed said, quoting from the movie.

Rick snickered. “Well, yes, as a matter of fact. I do.”

“Well, hang on to that attitude, then,” Ed grumbled, signaling his way back into the right lane. “’Cause you’re gonna need it, darlin’.”

* * * * *

Ed moped around the house all day Saturday, feeling as though he were facing an execution. He knew his mother well enough to know that she was suspicious about his sudden friendship with Rick, and this dinner was her way of getting to the bottom of whatever was going on between them. He honestly didn’t know if she suspected the truth, but he was well aware of the fact that her badgering might force him to admit it. After that, he simply had no idea what she might say or do.

He thought of the movie the night before, and the things Harold’s mother had said when he told her he planned to marry Maude.

“I wonder if Mom would be happier if I showed up for dinner with an eighty-year-old woman instead of Rick?” he said to himself, shuffling through his old records, looking for something to give him courage. He turned over “Give Us Your Blessings” by the Shangri-Las. His hand moved toward the turntable, then he remembered the song ended with the teenage couple dead in a car wreck after they ran off to get married against their parents’ wishes. “That’s not quite what I had in mind.” He shoved it back in the cabinet.

Rick arrived, appropriately dressed for the occasion, and soon they were back in Ed’s truck, heading to his childhood home on East Walnut Street.

“I’ve been dealing with cranky postal customers for almost ten years,” Rick said, turning the radio volume down. “And there’s no reason for her to think there’s anything weird about our friendship. We’re just a couple of guys hanging out together. What’s wrong with that?”

Ed was pretty sure Norma would come up with something. He turned the volume back up. Stephanie Mills was singing “Never Knew Love Like This Before.”

“Don’t turn this one down. It reminds me of us.”

Rick reached for Ed’s hand, shaking his head. “Oh, baby, you’re so queer. And I truly do love you for it.”

They both laughed, and Ed was pleased to relieve some of his tension. “Did you wear your bulletproof vest?”

“Oh, Ed,” Rick scolded him. “If your old lady was really the battle-ax you make her out to be, I don’t think you’d have turned out so good. Calm down already.”

Ed pulled up in front of the house and parked. Rick looked at the comfortable, old two-story house with interest.

“Now remember,” Ed told him. “Don’t mention the election. She’s still pissed as hell that Reagan won. And if it does come up, for God’s sake, don’t tell her you decided to vote for John Anderson instead of Jimmy Carter.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Rick said as they made their way up the front walk. “You gonna show me your room? Maybe we can sneak upstairs and make out while she’s washing the dishes. Just kidding,” he said, seeing the look on Ed’s face. “Shit! I’ll behave, I promise.”

Ed pulled open the storm door and reached for the knob on the inside door. “Mom?”

“Oh, come on in,” she hollered from the kitchen. “Don’t just stand there, letting all the heat out.”

Ed rolled his eyes at Rick, who smirked at him. They walked to the kitchen, toward the sound of her voice. Ed noticed, as they passed through the dining room, that the table was laid with the good china.