The Truth is Bad Enough: What Became of the Happy Hustler? (33 page)

My experience at wielding a comb began decades ago when I volunteered to mastermind my mother’s hairstyles on the postdivorce nights that she’d venture out in her compulsive search for a new husband (and, in my fantasy, a new father). Like Tia’s hair, my mother’s hair was also black, but dyed with the delusional notion that it made her appear forever young.

While other boys were tossing baseballs with their nimble nine-year-old hands, I was creating hairy masterpieces worthy of a fashion magazine. Ratting hair (so that it resembled a rat’s nest) was big in the Fifties, and my adroit little fingers guided the teasing comb, resulting in dramatic styles for Mama that reached dizzying heights.

In my childhood memories, serving as a startling contrast to my assistance supporting Mommy’s quest, doing my beloved grandmother’s hair was neurosis-free and ultimately more fun than attempting, week after week, to transform my mother into marriage material. By the time Mommy landed husband number three, I was nearly twenty years old and had become focused on turning my own hair into a selling point as I began my search for Mr. Right.

Grandma Katie, my father’s mother, had long and luxurious chestnut brown hair without a trace of gray, which she fastidiously kept fastened in a tidy bun. But if her tactile grandson wanted to give her a makeover, she would allow me to go wild with her stash of pink plastic Spoolies, a fad curler in those days which I’d diligently use to glamorize this woman who was utterly void of vanity. Thank the Lord she worshipped that she didn’t own a mirror.

While she watched her favorite weekly television show, starring accordion-playing Lawrence Welk, on a grainy black-and-white, I turned her into a granny goddess with a mane of flowing curls. Think Loretta Lynn.

Tia’s hairstyles have undergone an evolution over the years—from the natural afro she sprouted as an infant to the neat rows of braids that I determinedly learned to embroider when she was a toddler. At various stages, there have been extensions of various lengths and colors, as well as the standard ponytails and pigtails.

Being in the proper hairdresser position—directly behind my client-daughter, who was seated below me so that I could work my magic—triggered memories of my mother and my grandmother. I could almost smell the Breck shampoo that my mother used and envision the glistening green tube of Prell that my grandma preferred.

The intimacy that results from an African American mother braiding her birth daughter’s hair is not better or worse, and certainly not more powerful, than the emotional entanglements, including my devoted participation in her hair care, that link my daughter and I, in spite of our obvious genetic differences.

I received a call from Tia’s grandmother, Sandra, letting us know that Marjorie Coleman had died. Would we come to the funeral?

CHAPTER 63
               

“Of course,” I said.

After having breakfast with Tia’s half sister and grandma, we went to the home of the deceased matriarch. Tia’s three half brothers were there with various other friends and relatives. I was the only white person. (There had been a cursory appearance by Tia’s birth mother the night before, but she had chosen to boycott the funeral.)

Miss Coleman’s presence in the house was palpable, beyond the photographs of her that were scattered on the dining room table. The photos served as a reminder of chapters of her life that she had shared with me: her days as a college student, her marriage, her career as a businesswoman. In all incarnations, she radiated.

When it came time for the limousine to depart for the church, I said to Sandra, “We’ll meet you there.” She gave me one of those “What are you talkin’ about, boy?” looks and said, “You’re comin’ with us.”

So there we were—Tia’s grandma, five half siblings and me—in a black stretch limo on the way to a family funeral. It appeared that I had been adopted by Tia’s blood relatives.

Back in our utilitarian car, on the way home from the stirring service, Tia took the opportunity to talk about illness. “Did you know that Mindy’s mom has a blood disease?”

“No, honey, I didn’t. What’s it called?”

“Luke something,” she said.

I tried to explain what I knew about leukemia. “It is caused by an imbalance in the blood cells,” I said.

“Is it like HIV?”

“Not really, honey,” I said.

There was one of those pauses when I knew that a zinger was about to pop out of her mouth.

“Do you have bad blood?”

I attempted to explain that my blood was not “bad” but challenged—in many ways. In terms of the tainted blood running through my body, I didn’t want to overwhelm Tia with the added burden of trying to comprehend the vagaries of hep C, but I did grab an opening to explain more fully the medical regime that I’d been undergoing for more than a year.

“I’m doing everything there is to medically improve the quality of my blood, honey,” I said. “The doctors are very determined and optimistic that things will only get better.” I have never deliberately hidden the ritualistic pill taking that I’ve committed to throughout my daughter’s life. “These meds,” I told her straightforwardly, “are keeping me alive.”

It did not seem accidental that she asked about my blood on a day that we were with her flesh-and-blood relatives and dealing with the reality of death. But I didn’t need to elaborate, as I’m prone to, on my bloodlines and hers; how they were different yet how we were bound by something even greater: love.

Yet that didn’t stop me from trying to find a deeper meaning in the blood of my family; that bruising mix that resulted from Joseph Kearns and Pauline Padgen. After fifty-five years of trying to distinguish myself from my family, especially my doomed parents, I came to the conclusion that there was no escaping their genetic code or the behavioral manifestations of their complex makeup.

When I copped to my depression, I was also able to begin vanquishing the unquenchable sexual hunger. I came to realize, and accept, that sexual compulsivity and depression had joined forces in an ill-fated marriage. Husband and wife. Mommy and daddy.

I am the product of those two individuals: blood bound and programmed by their unenviable traits. Daddy passed on belligerent depression while Mommy instilled the sexuality that lowered the volume on feelings of not being good enough. Instead of blaming them, it was time to forgive them all their humanness and appreciate the abundance of blessings that I’ve been given because of who they were and who I am becoming.

In looking back, I see that perhaps I had subconsciously chosen to allow my life to be eclipsed by the darkness of my parents rather than finding my own light. I was changing.

Even though gayness was something that Tia had never been sheltered from and, as a result, had accepted naturally, the sexual aspect likely remained mysterious. Since my daughter, in the sixth grade, appeared utterly heterosexual, any minimal birds-and-bees discussions we had would likely elaborate on the subject of straight birds and bees.

Tia knew what “I wish I could quit you” meant. The unbridled zeitgeist that defined
Brokeback Mountain
, Ang Lee’s masterful film, adapted from Annie Proulx’s short story, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger, was meaningful to me: a Hollywood movie in which two men connected—emotionally, spiritually and, yes, sexually.

Even though I, like millions of others, was swept away by the film’s epic and ultimately tragic love story, it is my job—as a gay artist—to contextualize. Even though I know it was an opening for mainstream America’s understanding, I got sick of the comments regarding the characters’ masculinity, as if that was what made the film a viable work of art. And while I agree that a love story without HIV/AIDS can be refreshing, the success of
Brokeback
confirmed, after more than two decades, that a Hollywood movie (excluding independent movies) depicting an AIDS love story in similar splendor was unlikely.

While it is no fault of Gyllenhaal’s or Ledger’s (spectacular actors), why did their off-screen sex lives also drive the film’s box office receipts? Whether spoken out loud or inferred, “they aren’t really like that” was part of the collective response, unless, of course, you happen to be one of those queens who insists that every hot Hollywood movie star is either gay or in the closet (I ain’t in that camp, honey). Not only were they masculine, we were reminded ad nauseam, but they were straight to boot.

On our way home to L.A. by plane from one of our voyages, one of the in-flight movie choices was
Brokeback Mountain
. “You can watch it if you want to, Tia,” I said. “There’s some sexual stuff that might make you uncomfortable, but you can also turn it off.” She listened with a look of discernment on her face.

Instead of viewing the movie, Tia chose to watch the in-flight preview of the film—repeatedly, throughout the trip: Heath and Jake, Ennis and Jack, Heath and Jake, Ennis and Jack. Every time I’d glance at her miniature screen, the preview was running. I did not utter a single word.

Traipsing through the massive L.A. airport on our way to pick up our luggage, Tia—eyes never veering in my direction—said, “Have you ever had a fuzzy kind of feeling in your stomach when you look at someone?”

It took me a few minutes to translate. “Yeah, honey, I think I know what you mean,” I said.

“That’s how I feel,” she said, “when I look at Heath Ledger.”

Let’s avoid the armchair psychoanalysis, pointing out that she was rendered “fuzzy” by a straight actor playing a gay character (most of my friends were, too). A bit like a homo kid experiencing yearnings while watching a hetero couple in the throes of romance, her comfort with homosexual expressiveness was evident.

I had managed to keep the rigorousness of my work separate from my life at home, even though Tia was certainly aware of my activism. I didn’t preach to her, but I did somehow communicate that I’d been depicting overtly sexual relationships between men for more than twenty-five years on the stage.

I directed and played Bert in the twentieth-anniversary production of
Jerker
—a glorious, otherworldly experience; in large part, because of the intensity I experienced with Joe Gill as JR. But we were on the stage, in a tiny (usually half-empty) theater—not fare for the big screen and millions of viewers. Fair enough. I get it.

But once again, my mission in the theater was realized: to transform life, every breath of its complexity, into art that melts any walls between the participants. In the same way that there was no barrier between me and the character I played, there was nothing that separated me from my fellow actor, the playwright’s words and every member of the audience.

Yet I certainly didn’t want to limit myself to revivals—or to gay material, for that matter; perhaps because of my role as the parent of a black child, my interests had spread and deepened in terms of other populations, especially the disenfranchised of Skid Row, many of whom happened to be African American. And female. Through one of my mentors, Mollie Lowery (and supported, in part, by a grant from the City of L.A.’s Department of Cultural Affairs), I wound up spending a lot of time at the Downtown Women’s Center.

Mollie and I were having coffee one morning, discussing the perils of the worldand I said aloud what I’d be thinking for a few years: “I want to go to South Africa!”

CHAPTER 64
               

Tia, along with our fave traveling companion, Zo, had a trip scheduled to Dublin before we would head to South Africa. Tia was fascinated by my ancestry. “You’re Irish, aren’t you?” she’d asked me since she was little, determined to find out who she was and never really including her blood family in that equation. I tried to explain to her the many permutations of ethnicities I’m comprised of, including Irish, German, Scottish, American Indian and Slavic—even though I wasn’t necessarily clear on much of it myself.

In addition to being in “our country among our people,” our trip to Ireland would provide yet another European adventure for Tia and another production of
Dream Man
, this time at the Dublin Gay Theater Festival.

What was impressive about Ireland, or what stands out, are a few things: the raucous pubs, of course, and we were also accosted on the streets by duplicitous gypsies begging for money. “Sir, sir,” they’d whine, coming up to me with “a baby” in tow, “my baby is hungry, baby hungry.” Unfortunately, the baby’s wooden foot was sticking out from the blanket. “Honey,” I said, “First off, I’m an acting teacher, and you ain’t holdin’ that wooden doll like she’s a baby, and Lulu’s foot is as wooden as a broomstick.”

We howled. And in between shows and walks along the trendy areas of town, everyone indulged my fetish for cemeteries. Dublin happens to have jewel of a resting place, as Byzantine as any I’ve ever seen, miles of baroque headstones: Glasnevin. In addition to the many headstones with the name “Kearns” (or one of its variations), there were the graves of the mighty Michael Collins, Christy Brown and Brendan Behan. We spent a lot of time, in a state of heartbreak, looking at the rows upon rows of children’s graves that were piled high with toys and stuffed animals, letters and religious symbols.

Dublin is a literary mecca, too and we paid tribute to James Joyce and a host of others. But I will never forget visiting Oscar Wilde on the morning we were set to depart, with little time left to stage a photo session with our fantastic hero. The sacred statue of Wilde in Merrion Square provides a splendid photo op. With a rather bemused look on his face, life-size and languidly sprawled on a rock, wearing colorful dandy duds, Oscar is lounging there to be adored.

From the land where I feel ancestrally connected—after all, a bus might be named “Kearns” and I’m full of Irish blood (and blarney)—we would take our next big trip: to South Africa.

South Africa called to me because of its activism, its ability to triumph over adversity. I also secretly hoped that Tia would become more connected to her blackness, but that remained an unspoken intention of the trip.

From the airport, we were driven directly to Cotlands, where we would be volunteering for a month. While the “orphanage” label seemed to be deliberately avoided, that’s what Cotlands is—predominately for AIDS orphans, children who’ve lost their parents to the plague and are often HIVpositive themselves. While the facility is impressive in its scope, it is the population of children—ranging from tiny babies to kids on the precipice of adolescence—that grabbed ahold of Tia and me.