Tales of the City 07 - Michael Tolliver Lives

Taking a rough guess.”
    Irwin was aghast. “I never heard word one about this.”
    He looked so rattled that I put my hand on his knee in a way-too-awkward gesture of comfort. “She’s ready to go, Irwin. That tends to loosen people’s tongues.”
    He nodded numbly. We just sat there for a while, listening to that barking dog and the distant joyful noise of Ben and Sumter, yelling out their choices for American Idol. The kids were watching TV all right, and the grown-ups were facing the facts.
    I took my hand off Irwin’s knee. “I guess she just needed to tell us.”
    “She didn’t tell us, ” Irwin said bitterly. “She told you .”
    I could understand how he might be hurt. He and Lenore had spent years caring for Mama, and she’d repaid them by saving her biggest secret for the absentee son from the West. For a moment I considered telling Irwin about Mama’s fears of having to live on a respirator—and the obvious wedge that had driven between her and Lenore—but I knew that would open a whole new can of worms. It was best to just leave it alone.
    “Mama’s no dummy,” I said. “I’m sure she knew that I’d tell you.”

16
    Practical Considerations
    B ack in San Francisco, we hit the ground running. Ben joined his boss and two other craftsmen at the Concourse Exhibition Center, where they were setting up for a big furniture show. Meanwhile, Jake and I were up in Pacific Heights at the French Consulate, replacing the dead portions of a boxwood hedge. This was my second job at the consulate, and I loved working there, gardening for the government that had seriously pissed off Bush by declining his war.
    Consulates aren’t my usual thing. I was referred to the job by someone I’ve known for years, a socialite named D’orothea (the apostrophe was added during her modeling days) who ran a stylish restaurant here in the late eighties. She and her wife, DeDe, knew someone on a committee at the consulate, so I was called in at the last minute to gussy the place up for a garden party. They must have liked us, because there we were again, leaning on our pickaxes in the foggy sunshine. A nice lady from the staff who looked a little like Leslie Caron (the current version) had just handed us a tray of leftover goodies.
    “Mmm,” said Jake, lifting an éclair. “Freedom pastries.” He’s a dry little dude, but every now and then he fires off a good one.
    Chuckling, I reached for a pain au chocolat . “You should take some back to your beau.”
    Jake looked at me with a cheek full of pastry. “My beau ?”
    “Fuck off. I’ve been in the South.”
    “Orlando’s not the South.”
    “A lot you know.”
    “And Connor’s not my anything. We’ve only had a couple o’ dates.”
    “Connor, eh?” The new…whatever…had surfaced while I was away, but this was the first time I’d heard his name. I knew only that Jake had met the guy at Lazy Bear, the big gay shindig up at the river. They had taken a walk in the redwoods and talked about global warming. The second date, presumably, had been back in the city.
    “It’s no biggie,” said Jake. “It won’t go anywhere.”
    “Why not? He’s gay, right?”
    He nodded.
    “Does he know the score about you?”
    “Oh, yeah.”
    “And he’s cool about it?”
    Another nod. “Maybe a little too .”
    “What do you mean?”
    Jake turned over a bucket and sat on it, his hands dangling disconsolately between his knees. “Ever heard of Buck Angel?”
    I thought for a moment. “A country singer, right?”
    Jake shook his head. “A transman porn star. An FTM.”
    It took a while to wrap my head around that. “Okay.”
    “Connor’s totally hot for him.”
    “Hot for him in real life? Or just hot for his movies?”
    “His movies,” said Jake, sounding a little testy.
    I just didn’t get it. If Jake, an FTM himself, had a thing for a guy who liked FTM porn stars, what the hell was the problem? It looked like smooth sailing to me.
    “Help me out here,” I said.
    Jake sighed and looked up from his dangling hands. “He’s real proud of his pussy, you know.”
    “Connor?”
    “No…doofus. Buck Angel.”
    “Okay…thanks…keep going.”
    “He calls himself ‘a real man with a real pussy.’ It’s part of his whole macho image. He flaunts it.”
    The light began to dawn. I remembered the night Jake and I hooked up at the Lone Star and how utterly alienated he had seemed from the plumbing he was born with. “Don’t worry,” he’d