Tales of the City 07 - Michael Tolliver Lives

like a nice guy…from the picture.”
    “He is, Irwin. He’s got a heart and a conscience and there’s a really solid bond between us. There’s stuff to talk about, you know. The age thing isn’t an issue.” I was trying to be straight with him now, since I wanted him to understand the gravity of what had happened to me. “I’ll be bringing him with me,” I said, “if he wants to come.”
    It took him a while to respond. “Well…that’s good. I mean…it’s good to have support, isn’t it?…at a time like this.”
    Not bad, Irwin.
    “I’d ask you to stay with us,” he said, “but Lenore’s got her puppets spread all over the guest bedroom. You never seen such a mess.”
    “Look, we really don’t—”
    “And…I almost forgot…we’re having the floors redone, so the whole place will be…you know, pretty much of a disaster area.”
    “Well, thanks for the offer, but…I think we’ll look for a motel. I kinda like the idea of a motel, actually. A neutral place, you know. And some privacy.”
    “You sure now?” Irwin’s relief was all but spewing from the receiver. “I could find y’all a condo at least. I think we’ve got an empty demo over by the Gospel Palms.”
    The Gospel Palms was Mama’s rest home.
    “That’s okay,” I told him. “We’ll just find some place near.” (Even in Orlando, I figured there had to be a decent gay bed-and-breakfast.)
    “All right, then.”
    “I’ll call you when we’ve set a date.”
    “Mama’s gonna be mighty happy, Mikey.”
    “Well, give her a hug for me, when you see her.”
    And the picture, big brother. Give her the fucking picture.

    Let’s put this in perspective: My family has known I’m gay for going on thirty years. I wrote a letter to my mother in 1977 when she joined Anita Bryant’s Save Our Children campaign, hoping against hope to save her own two sons from recruitment by homosexuals. The news that I was beyond saving—and happy as hell about it—was met first by silence, then by a lone pound cake that I chose to regard as an awkward step toward enlightenment.
    But, hey, it was just a pound cake. My folks still loved me all right, but they saw that love as cause for forgiveness, not acceptance. And while Mama and Papa eventually met Thack—and made a damn good show of liking him—they saw no reason whatsoever to modify their stance. My life had been conveniently reduced to a “lifestyle” by then, something easily separable from me, that they could abhor to their heart’s content without fear of being perceived as unchristian. By the time the Berlin Wall fell and queers replaced commies on the big TV screens at my brother’s church, I knew not to expect a miracle anymore; my family was as far beyond saving as I was.
    “And your brother’s an actual deacon in the church?”
    This was Ben, calling from the bathroom across the hall, where I could hear him rummaging in a drawer. It was just after eight that evening and I was already on the bed, flat on my stomach with my new Lucky jeans shoved down around my ankles.
    I twisted my head in his direction. “More like a Sunday school teacher, I think. I don’t understand the hierarchy. They’ve all got something to do.”
    “No shit?”
    “Last year Lenore—that’s Irwin’s wife—was in charge of the fetus key rings.”
    “C’mon!”
    “No…they were selling these little plastic fetuses that were supposed to be the exact size of an early fetus. You know…so you can carry it around with you and…get to know it better. Sort of…‘Fetuses are people, too.’”
    Ben came into the room and sat down on the bed next to me, tearing open a foil packet. “You’re creeping me out,” he murmured.
    “You should see the really big one they put up on Halloween.”
    “What do you mean?” Ben removed the alcohol swab from the packet. “Put up where?” He drew a line with his finger from the top of my ass crack to the mound due east of it and began swabbing the target area briskly.
    “In a haunted house,” I explained. “You know…like they have for kids. Only it’s not spaghetti guts and eyeballs in a bowl, it’s the Big Giant Aborted Fetus.”
    Ben groaned.
    “And right next to the Big Giant Aborted Fetus is the Gay Man With AIDS.”
    “Don’t tell me they actually took you to this thing?” There was barely a tingle as the syringe hit its target. And target is the word, too, since Ben is a kind soul and thinks he’s less likely to hurt me if he just