The Fancy Dancer

“I’m going to come out there, and anybody who doesn’t like it is gonna need false teeth.”
    Valium being a depressant, I was very depressed. “You’re mad at me,” said Vidal.
    “No. All summer I’ve been praying for you to talk about college.”
    “It doesn’t mean we won’t see each other. We’ll get together a lot.”
    “Sure, sure,” I said, knowing I was being childish. “Look, gay people talk an awful lot about how hard it is to find a good relationship. You say to some guy, This is forever,’ and a month later you can’t stand the sight of him. But I’ve always felt that isn’t the real problem. Look at the divorce rate for straights. My God, even married people in their sixties are splitting up. Straight people don’t have such an easy time finding a good lover either. Maybe I’m biased, because I’m such a loner anyway. But I feel we’re going into an age where it’s important to know how to be alone. If you get too dependent on a good relationship, it goes bad. You have to have a good relationship with yourself first. People don’t know how to be emotionally self-sufficient anymore. I think that’s the real sickness of our time.”
    “Vidal,” I whispered, “you’ve just barely given me a bite of the apple, and now you’re taking it away.” “You’ve gotten too dependent on me,” he insisted. “You’re working it out with these religious guilts of yours, and you’re going to need every ounce of strength you’ve got. You can’t be dependent on someone in the state you’re in. And let’s face it, I’ve gotten too dependent on you.”
    “You—on me?”
    “It’s gotten so it bothers me a lot.”
    “You wouldn’t even say you loved me,” I said bitterly.
    “Do you really need to have it spelled out?” Vidal was very cross. “You believe God loves you, but did God ever tell you so? I mean, in person?”
    I was silent, overwhelmed.
    Finally I said, “What about Patti Ann and the baby?”
    “They’ll go with me,” he said. “Who else is gonna look after them? I just won’t use them anymore.”
    “Common-law marriage is recognized in Montana. If you live with her for two years, she really will be your wife.”
    He shrugged. “Who gives a damn?” he said.
    He crawled painfully under the covers. “I’m in no shape to get it up tonight, okay?” he said.
    “Neither am I,” I said.
    8 B 8
    The conference week passed.
    Every day I smiled at the Shoups. I had lunch with them a couple more times. When I left Regis in the afternoons, I found myself looking back to see if we were being followed.
    The Shoups’ presence in Denver made Vidal a little nervous, but not much. He didn’t have as much to lose as I did. He had already written to the registrar’s office at Missoula and had the necessary forms mailed to Cottonwood.
    Pains were starting to knot my stomach, and every night the only thing that could knock me out was the •Valium. Sometimes it took two instead of one. Next it’ll be phenobarbitals. I told myself. My scalp was so tight with tension that an iron band seemed to be tightening around my head. Sometimes my skin burned as with some fiery disease, but it looked perfectly healthy.
    “You better watch it,” said Vidal. “You look like a wreck.”
    I finally went to a couple of Dignity meetings.
    Those people were so enviable with their peace of mind and their involvement in their crusade. I wanted to be involved too—the retreats, the publications, the sit-ins, the workshops on homosexuality that were starting at a few of the big Catholic universities. But I hung back.
    On Friday, the day the conference closed, I finally had a formal confession to Doric, at his office.
    It was a general confession. I went back over my whole life, being as honest as I could. It took about an hour. For my penance Doric charged me to make a special effort at understanding the next thorny case of a gay person that came into my life.
    But curiously, the absolution brought little peace of mind.
    While I was close to believing that my feelings were not sinful, the fear of exposure now overwhelmed everything else. Every time I saw the Shoups, a terrific shock wave flashed through my system.
    It would have been nice to linger in Denver over the weekend. But I called Bill Flavey, and he said, “Better be at the airport at eleven Saturday. I’ve gotta fly back up that day.”
    »a a
    Doric drove me out to Stapleton Airport.
    It was a rainy day and the great