Tales of the City 07 - Michael Tolliver Lives

with sugar. “There ya go,” he said, setting them down. “Two butch Lemon Drops for the general.”
    He was just teasing, or maybe even flirting, but, proud old queer that I am, I didn’t want him to think that I had masculinity issues about glassware—especially in a room full of faux soldiers. “The short ones are easier to handle,” I said. “In a crowd.”
    “Gotcha,” said the bartender. “You from around here?”
    “No,” I replied. “Well…yes…but not lately.”
    “You sounded like you might be.”
    “I grew up out on Abbot Springs Road. My family had some orange groves out there.”
    The bartender shook his head. “Don’t think I know it.”
    I gave him a crooked smile. “Don’t think I do, either.”
    “Say what?”
    “Nothing.” I left him a ten-dollar bill, then lifted the Lemon Drop glasses in a double toast. “Keep the troops happy,” I told him ruefully.

    Two drinks later, the Full Moon was jammed, and, as usual, I was feeling both claustrophobic and disconnected. You wouldn’t think those two would go together, but they do for me, especially in a bar, where it’s all too easy to feel suffocated by nothingness. I was never a bar person, even as a young man; I preferred the wide-open spaces of the bathhouses, where willing members and stoned cuddling and a seven-grain sandwich with sprouts were never that far away. A noisy bar, on the other hand, is all posing and chaos; sooner or later I reach my limit and have to make a break for it, find some stars, breathe some clean night air, get Christina Fucking Aguilera out of my head.
    So Ben and I retreated to a bench under a big live oak that must have been there when I was a boy and the place was exclusively dedicated to the joy of killing animals. From this distance the pounding music in the Full Moon sounded almost bittersweet, like an orchestra heard across a lake. The actual moon was far from full—just a little nail paring caught in the branches—but it was lovely. My body was starting to remember the precise feel of a balmy Florida night—that easy, velvety containment.
    Ben slid closer, tucking a palm between my thighs. “This is better,” he said.
    “Ain’t it?”
    “Are you okay?”
    I didn’t speak right away. “You know what gets me?”
    “What?”
    I searched for the best way to frame it, the best way not to sound like a monster. “People always say, ‘ Of course you love her, you have to, she’s your mother,’ but that kind of love can die as easily as any of the others. It has to be fed by something.”
    “She loves you, Michael.”
    “Not enough to question her preachers.”
    “Well—”
    “You know they hauled her to the polls…oxygen tank and all…so she could vote for Bush one more time? The guy who wants to protect marriage from you and me. And they expect us to act like everything’s fine, like they’re not really waging a holy war against us. And what do I do? I make it easy for them. I’m a good boy and joke about speedboats and alligators and Mr. Grady with the drool rag.”
    Ben smiled benignly, letting me vent.
    “I’ve had thirty years of forgiveness,” I said. “I’m fucking over it.”
    Ben nodded. “I’m sure.”
    “She’s spent all that time trying not to know who I am, and now she’s entrusting me with her death. I should feel touched or something, but I don’t. I don’t feel much of anything. I let her go a long time ago. I’ve done my mourning already.”
    Ben kept his eyes on the moon. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”
    “I mean it,” I said. “I wish I didn’t, but I do. “
    Ben just shrugged and smiled. “There is no fifth destination.”

    This takes some explaining. Last year I bought a Prius, one of those cute, high-butted hybrids that are multiplying like rabbits in the streets of San Francisco. As you might imagine, I love how it saves on gas and cuts pollution. I also love its eerie silence at stoplights and its wacky rearview camera and that disembodied voice—female, elegant, and a little bossy—who can somehow lead us back to Noe Hill (beguilingly labeled HOME ) from anywhere in the country. During our trip through the Southwest, Ben and I grew so familiar with that voice that we named her Carlotta—well, all right, I did—after “the mad Carlotta” from Vertigo, because our own lady of mystery can sound downright loony sometimes.
    One night, for instance, when we were driving home from a trip to Tahoe, there was a serious chill in the