Memorizing You (23 page)

I did laugh. “What do you mean?”

“You know how you hear every little girl talk about their wedding day? They try to picture themselves in the future? What they’ll be doing? Who they’ll marry? What their wedding gown will look like? All of them do it. They try to look ahead and project what their future will look like.”

“Yeah.”

“Have you done that? Have you ever tried to do it?”

“I’m not sure what you’re getting at?”

“I’ve heard other guys do it. You ask them where do you want to be in thirty years. They’ll say things like, ‘I’ll be married, have a mess of kids, a nice home in the suburbs with a two-car garage’. Those kind of things.”

I had. But it had been shorter termed. I knew I couldn’t afford college. I knew that Dad and I would work the business and make it bigger. But after that I blanked. It was like I’d been afraid to look any farther than that. I didn’t realize I’d done that. Now it perplexed me why I hadn’t.

“I’ll tell you why you haven’t, Dave. It’s because you can’t dream in the light, if you can’t live in it.” anyone who thought theyey fy

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

I don’t think one sentence anyone has ever uttered, in the course of my life, remained with me as long as that one.

“You can’t dream in the light, if you can’t live in it.”

It’s a thought-changer. A life-changer, if you permit it to be. How many lives have been less lived than they could have been…if they could have been lived more openly? Less in fear? Not just in our time. But in every decade of every year of every century? True lives not compelled to be lived in veils and lies.

It’s one of those improbable questions people pose that actually make you think: what if? If you could go back in a time machine and change one thing that would make the world better, what would it be? Ryan had a ready answer. Religion of every kind would not exist. Without its superstitions and without its fables, repressed ideas and laws would not exist. Or, so we could imagine. But would that have changed anything at all? What would keep them from springing up just from the well of man’s own prejudiced nature? What could anyone really do that would make the world a better place?

It was certain we were entering the age that made us question everything. Especially authority. We could thank Vietnam for that. The war that no one believed in. The war that made us distrust the government. The war that made men cross borders to abandon their home. A world of lies. A world that the fearless and fearful took to the streets to protest.

My God’s better than your God, my God’s better than yours. My God’s better and my God’s bigger. My God’s better than yours.

Substitute anything you wanted for God. Your country. Your politics. Your sex. It all came down to the same thing. People looking down on other people. People believing they were more equal than others. People trying to force someone else to live by their standards. People forced to live in the shadows. Not in the light.

There weren’t any of the guys in high school that weren’t concerned about the War. We’d all been touched by friends or family whose sons died. Guys only a$. And y actually few years older than us. And even though the politicians talked daily about ending a war that had no end, we worried. Everyone talked of how they could escape the draft. Canada was one option. Rich families could buy their son’s way out. Conscientious Objectors. Others dreamed up ways to injure themselves to make themselves ineligible. No one wanted to use the one real excuse that government readily accepted as making someone unqualified to serve in the armed forces. Being homosexual. Yes, the government considered being gay to be a detriment. A threat. A real danger.

The world was screwed up.

If it came down to it, I’d tell the truth. Let them brand me as dangerous because of the way I loved. That would be one less gun they shoved in an unwilling hand of a young man to kill another. They couldn’t justify their reason. I could justify mine. I was honest.

Ryan was right. How could anyone dream of a future? The only way we’d be able to have a real future would be for things to change. We all had to change.

But we weren’t there yet. All we could do was inch our ways toward the light. Find our small paths to freedom. But we were now cognizant of our need for a sense of permanence, and legitimacy.

Midnight. Rosemary and I sat on the porch roof. The temperature had turned much cooler. We were in sweaters and stocking caps. The night was clear. Star-filled. We both had mugs of Mom’s hot cocoa.

“Have you thought about your future with Ryan?” she asked.

I was honest. “I’ve tried to. We don’t have the same advantages that everyone has.”

“The white wedding. Dad leading…one of you…down the aisle?”

“It would be mine. My dad.” I made the point clear.

She acknowledged the difficulty on the second step of the scenario. “But can you see yourselves together…I mean like the prince…who…well found his prince? Glass…boot and all? Living happily ever after.”Z a aup

“Ironic, isn’t it? Even the fairy tales don’t help us.”

She chuckled at that, leaned into my shoulder. “The world seems to be pretty single-minded. And that’s a shame. I’ll bet there’s some pretty wonderful stories like that out there that we’ll never know…and should have been told.”

“I’d like to think so. I’d like to think one day they can be told. I’d like to think that one day they’re not the minority. More commonplace. Routine. You know, oh no, not another guy/guy romance story. I’ve heard so many. It’s so dull.”

“Me too. I hope that day’s out there.”

I tried to push my imagination into the future like she’d asked me. “I’d like to see Ryan and me…like…when we’re fifty, still holding hands. Still looking into each other’s eyes and feeling what we feel now. To know that love, in spite of everything, can make its way through time and still be just as strong. I’d like to be able to tell someone a story like my mom and dad told me of when they met, and still have that look of love in my eyes.”

“Your folks are pretty amazing.”

They were. No denying it.

“I don’t know. I want to dream large dreams. I want to believe great things are coming. But this isn’t like someone not liking your boyfriend because he has long hair. This is like someone not liking your boyfriend…because he’s a boy. He can cut his hair, but dang it, he’s still a boy. That’s a whole new ballpark to try to play in.”

“You know what gets me?” She gazed star-ward.” I don’t know who made up these rules. Being gay has existed as long as history has been recorded. Back to the Greeks. How can something be called an aberration if it’s existed as long as the Parthenon? Hell, gays existed before Christ did, and they accept him being legitimate even with all his walking on water and God-screwed-my-mom-who-was-married-to-another-man nonsense.”

“Give you a anyone who thought they

“I’ve got a stake in this thing.” She made the remark like it was an important one.

“What’s that?” I was intrigued.

“Maid of honor.” She stated it, and punched me in the arm like I should have known that.

That night I dreamed of a wedding as Rosemary lay in my arms. And I walked down the aisle with my Prince Charming waiting for me. I’d never wished for a dream to be more real. To not have to wake up and go, “Aw shucks!”

During this time, Ryan’s parents were becoming more and more estranged. They rarely saw or talked to each other. As bad as that was for their family, it was good for us. His father disappeared almost every night. We were able to see each other on a regular basis, in the evening when he was gone. And Ryan had grown closer with his mom. I could tell that made them both happy.

His dad spent less than half an hour with the family on Christmas. Once he left “to work on some office stuff”, my family joined Ryan and his mom, and a real celebration occurred. Mom made Christmas ham and all the fixings. We listened to Bing Crosby and Burl Ive’s Christmas records, drank Ryan’s mom’s special eggnog, and exchanged presents. Rosemary joined us after celebrating with her own family.

It had snowed two nights before, and we had half an acre of the untouched stuff behind their house to build a snowman, have a snowball fight, and for Dad to make his famous snow-cream ice cream. That was a big kettle of snow mixed with vanilla, sugar, and milk, and tasted just like ice cream. Sorta. But it was one of his traditional things to do, along with making popcorn balls with sorghum molasses.

We did the same for New Year’s as we rang out the sixties and ushered in nineteen seventy. We did that at our house, watching the ball drop in Times Square on television at midnight.
Auld Lang Syne
by Guy Lombardo. Ryan’s mom had brought champagne. It was the first time I’d ever tasted it. I knew then it would be my lifelong favorite drink. Ryan and Rosemary would find they had a dissimilar taste for it.

We entered the new decade with both Rosemary and Ryan sleeping with me in bed again, like my own personal cocoon. They woke up the next morning with a headache from the champagne. They took turns talking to the toilet. I was perfectly fine.

“I will never drink that wicked crap again,” Ryan said, looking gray-eyed and limp.

Rosemary fared no better. She laid face-down in my bed most of the morning, into the afternoon. If I mentioned food, she’d moan and wave me away. She finally got up after noon to have my dad drive her home.

New Year’s Day, according to my dad, was a day for snoozing. And that’s exactly what he did in his lounger. Ryan and I fell asleep on the couch, watching
Lucy
reruns. Mom disappeared to her bedroom with her Harlequin. When Ryan woke, he had the imprint of my zipper on his cheek from sleeping on my lap. I found that hysterical.

Mom and Dad planned a dinner together at a local Chinese restaurant. Ryan figured he’d treat me to some Steak N’ Shake.

I didn’t expect it to be as crowded as it was. Almost every booth was filled to capacity, and we had to stand in line. While standing, I caught sight of the booth in a far corner next to the street windows by which we’d entered. There sat an old nemesis. Ryan’s teammate, Connor. He was there with another teammate named Reggie and two girls from school. When Connor saw that he’d caught my eye, he leaned forward, ducking behind a raised arm like he could disappear behind it. Ryan saw this. His reaction came quickly.

“Okay, that’s it with this crap,” he said. He looked at me and signaled me to follow. “C’mon!” Then added, “Please.”

He took off in a march toward their booth.

“What’re you doing?” I called after him.

No answer. He just kept marching straight at them.

Connor saw us bee-lining toward his table and began to shift unnaturally in his seat. An onset of fight or flight syndrome.$ at the y fy

We were at their booth. Ryan peered down at Connor who had gone ghostly white. His hand gripped his teammate’s shoulder..

“Ryan, Reggie. Happy New Year’s, guys,” he said in a voice that was surprisingly pleasant.

The teammates mumbled back at him. They kept their eyes down, shielded.

Ryan dipped his head toward the girls. “Evening, ladies. I see you’re here with ‘The Man’.” He patted Connor on the shoulder.

Connor looked up, shock written on every square inch of his face.

Ryan went on, “The team wouldn’t be anything without this guy. He makes my butt look good. I got two bad ankles that only make me decent for a quarter and half. If this guy wasn’t carrying it most of time, I’d look like an imbecile out there. You’re looking at a future NFL champion in this booth with ya’ll. Don’t you think, Reggie?”

Reggie was suddenly all teeth, nodding in agreement. “We’re thinking he deserves to get a scholarship at the end of school.”

Ryan looked at the girls, also all teeth. “I’m betting on it. Ain’t I, David?” He turned to me for affirmation. “You all know David?”

As we left their booth, every face was beaming. Connor had his color back, and I’d just witnessed one of the most clever turnarounds I’d ever seen.

Behind us, we could still hear them whispering. One of the girls asked, “Are they a couple? They’re sure cute.”

We could hear Connor whisper, “They’re nice guys,” back to his date.

I could see Ryan’s grin out of the corner of my eye. A waitress guided us to a booth. He pushed in next to $k aupme so we could share a menu. Like a couple. He moved in close for all to see.

“What was that all about?” I asked as we walked home.

“The only people who hide are those who are afraid or ashamed,” he stated. “I ain’t either.”

And with that, he reached down and took my hand as we continued walking.

I recall two quotations from Chevy, Judy’s meditation guru from India. They’ve remained with me all these years and helped me in many difficult situations. One was, “Peace is not the absence of conflict from life, but the ability to cope with it.” The other was, “There are no bad things, just good lessons.”

This was one of those occasions that I could see both of those bits of advice in action. The change in Ryan had been activated by his father who was trying to keep him from being who he was. His dad thought if he kept him away from something, that the ‘something’ would go away. That the world would not learn about that ‘something’. He also saw that it was the very same ‘something’ that made his fellow teammates treat him as an outcast. These things compelled him to find a method to cope with it. It was with honesty. It would change everything.

I began to notice the differences right after the new year. The people at school, who would never meet my eye when I passed, began to nod. Say, “Hey.” Smile. I began getting invitations to parties with “that’s Ryan too, of course,” added to the invitation. We never went, just because our schedules didn’t allow it, but the idea that we were now being included into the ‘normal’ crowd was a nice feeling. Connor never passed me now without a salute, and a “Hey, big guy!”

There was a difference in my dad as well. I noticed his anxiety. The stress of not having any work during the winter months made him anxious to find something to make money. That happened as he shoveled snow off the sidewalk and driveway. He had an epiphany. He converted the truck into a snowplow, and we added snow removal services to our business. We soon had a growing list of homes and businesses hiring us to clear their sidewalks and lots.