This is standard Margery, to tell my mother stories of all the sacrifices she's made to be here.
'They all said, 'Margery, come on! Come out and have some fun for a change.' They said, 'What is it with this sister of yours?' Then Chet's sponsor, Bobby, said, 'Sister, hell, I believe she's got a man tucked away somewhere on the sly,' and everyone laughed. They simply would not leave me alone.' Margery paused, shaking her head at the thought of them. 'Those people, bless their hearts. They've saved my husband's life and I love them for it, but still I worry about you and that's why I'm here.'
'The Angus Barn,' my mother says. 'Isn't that the place out on Highway 70 where they wheel around the raw steaks and let you choose the one you want? I believe I went there once with Les when Dale was a baby.'
'Les this, Les that,' Margery says. 'Let it go! You're a fool to even speak that man's name. You're allowing him to live rent-free in your head. Now's the time to let go of the past and move on! Look at me, I've moved ahead like you wouldn't believe. If you want my opinion, you're lucky that the man is dead and buried. Divorce is a lot worse than death, trust me. In death you get a lot more money. In divorce you get nothing but the same old promises that coupled with the chance of running into the fat creep every time you leave the house. Look at me, I ran into my ex-husband just this afternoon, at Clawsons.'
'Which one?' I ask.
'The one on Glenwood Avenue,' she answers, mocking my voice, high-pitched and acidic.
I meant which ex-husband, and she knows it.
'I ran into Terry Berringer and hardly recognized him. He looks like a snowman except, you know, made out of flesh. That man must have gained himself a good one hundred and fifty pounds since I left him. There he was pushing a cart like a death wish all of the food was fatty and cancerous. God, that man can shovel it in. Even his eyes have gotten fat.' She crosses her legs and dents her empty beer can. 'I hope I never get fat eyes like that,' she whispers, squinting at her reflection in the dark window.
'I don't think you have anything to worry about, Margery,' my mother says. 'You've got very slim eyes.'
'Everyone tells me I've got pretty eyes,' Margery says. 'Everyone. They start in with my eyes and work their way down. Eyes are the mirror of your soul; they reflect what's there, that's their job.' She places her hands to the side of her face and leans into them, removing the creases. That's the oldest trick in the book, that attempt to appear both young and pensive. You see it all the time in magazines. 'Eyes,' she says. 'I don't know why I even brought them up. Here I am carrying on and on when my problems are nothing compared to yours. Here you are without a pot to pee in, pardon my French, while I'm speaking philosophy.'
My mother rubs a washrag into the palm of her hand.
'Dale, run upstairs and get me another beer,' Aunt Margery says.
'Another what?'
'Beer,' she says. 'Can't you understand English BEER.'
'Go upstairs and get you an ear?' I am hoping to break my record.
'Dale,' my mother says, 'go upstairs and bring your aunt a beer before you drive me to distraction.'
So I head upstairs thinking that something is definitely wrong in this world when my aunt can order me to fetch the drinks for her. It should be the other way around! 'You there,' I'd say, 'bring me a Pepsi in a tall glass with five ice cubes. Now.'
'But Master,' she'd say, kneeling, 'there is no Pepsi left and the nearest store is closed for the evening.'
'Then run to the store that is open,' I would command. 'Don't bother me with the logistics run, woman, run.' She should be my slave, and yet I am hers.
There is one beer left in the refrigerator. I take it in my hand and dance about the kitchen. I dance the way I see them dance on television, as if I'm on fire. I shake that can and on my way downstairs I toss it from one landing to the next. Standing at the door to the basement apartment I notice that it has begun to snow, the first snowfall of the season. Snow is great that way, the first snowfall of the season and you look at the world as though you'd never seen it before, as if you had forgotten such a thing was possible.
I dart into the apartment, hand Margery the beer, and leave, saying, 'Time for my program. I've got to go.' Outside, on the landing, I hear Margery say, 'That boy watches too much TV if you ask me. He should be involved in sports or homework or something. It's not good for him, all this television. Ivey Ingers's son watched too much television and look what happened to him! He'll be in prison for the rest of his life.'
'Dale's not that way,' my mother says.
'That's what Ivey Ingers thought before the trial,' Margery says. 'Here she is, her only son ties naked ten- year-old girls to trees and she's on TV saying, 'He's not so bad.' '
I am waiting for the explosion. Margery rarely opens a beer while she is preaching. During her lectures she taps the can with her fingers as if the beer is her brain and she is prodding it for wisdom. Both of them are silent and it is getting late. In a moment or two my mother will say, 'Stay for dinner, Margery. I'll cook something nice.'
Then Margery will say thanks, but no thanks. She'll say that Chet is feeding her leftovers from the Angus Barn. She just popped in, she'll say. Just a quick yoohoo! She's sorry but she'll have to leave right after this beer.
Standing outside the door I press my head against the mailbox and wish that she might stay, knowing that, following her beer bomb departure, my mother and I will make certain phone calls. She'll listen in on the other line as I dial and soften my voice, identifying myself as the son of a man named Les Poppins. I will hear my mother's measured breath from the next room as these women, sleepy and innocent, whisper, 'What? Who? Why do you keep calling me? Why can't you leave me alone?'
Glen's Homophobia Newsletter Vol. 3, No. 2
DEAR Subscriber,
First of all, I'd like to apologize for the lack of both the spring and summer issues ofGlen's Homophobia Newsletter. I understand that you subscribed with the promise that this was to be a quarterly publication four seasons' worth of news from the front lines of our constant battle against oppression. That was my plan. It's just that last spring and summer were so overwhelming that I, Glen, just couldn't deal with it all.
I'm hoping you'll understand. Please accept as consolation the fact that this issue is almost twice as long as the others. Keep in mind the fact that it's not easy to work forty hours a week and produce a quarterly publication. Also, while I'm at it, I'd like to mention that it would be wonderful if everyone who readGlen's Homophobia Newsletter also subscribed toGlen's Homophobia Newsletter. It seems that many of you are very generous when it comes to lending issues to your friends and family. That is all well and good as everyone should understand the passion with which we as a people are hated beyond belief. But at the same time, it costs to put out a newsletter and every dollar helps. It costs to gather data, to Xerox, to staple and mail, let alone the cost of my personal time and energies. So if you don't mind, I'd rather you mentionGlen's Homophobia Newsletter to everyone you know but tell them they'll have to subscribe for themselves if they want the whole story. Thank you for understanding.
As I stated before, last spring and summer were very difficult for me. In late April Steve Dolger and I broke up and went our separate ways. Steve Dolger (see newsletters volume 2, nos. 14 and volume 3, no. 1) turned out to be the mosthomophobic homosexual I've ever had the displeasure of knowing. He lives in constant fear; afraid to make any kind of mature emotional commitment, afraid of growing old and losing what's left of his hair, and afraid to file his state and federal income taxes (which he has not done since 1987). Someday, perhaps someday very soon, Steve Dolger's past will come back to haunt him. We'll see how Steve and his little seventeen-year-old boyfriend feel when it happens!
Steve was very devious and cold during our breakup. I felt the chill of him well through the spring and late months of summer. With deep feelings come deep consequences and I, Glen, spent the last two seasons of my life in what I can only describe as a waking coma blind to the world around me, deaf to the cries of suffering others, mutely unable to express the stirrings of my wildly shifting emotions.
I just came out of it last Thursday.
