Sparkle: The Queerest Book You'll Ever Love (31 page)

“I know,” he said, “you were pretty obvious about it. Every time my shirt came off, there you were with your eyes practically glued to me. I wish I could’ve let you known back then that I felt the same way, but, well, you know.”

“Man, I wish you had as well. I used to beat off thinking about you every night. It kills me to think that I could’ve been doing it with you all that time.” I couldn’t believe that he was telling me those things. Seriously, I would’ve given my left nut to have known it way back then.

“Well, Bruce, there’s no time like the present,” he said and brushed his hand over his panties.

“What? Here in the office? Won’t you get in trouble?” I was hard as a rock and really didn’t care if he got in trouble or not; I was just nervous about finally getting to live out a childhood fantasy of mine.

“Bruce, silly boy, I own this dump. Actually, I do quite well for myself. See how crowded it is out there? (I nodded a yes.) It’s always like this, seven days a week. This is the only place for them to come to within a fifty-mile radius. Now, if you’re done asking questions, why don’t you take those pants off and join me here on this comfy, little chair?”

As I said, he didn’t have to tell me twice. Meaning, I was out of my jeans and on top of his lap in no time flat. My mind was buzzing and my entire body was tingling as I touched his chest for the first time and pressed my lips to his at long, long last. It was all so unreal, so mind-blowing, so perfect. All those years later and there I was, nearly naked and making out with Sonny. Wow, I should’ve come back to Kansas a hell of a lot sooner.

The whole event was over in about five minutes, but it was well worth it. (By the way, moisturizing cream makes for a great lube.) Funny how things have a way of working themselves out in the long run. I would never, in my wildest imagination, have believed that one day I would get off with Sonny Leary. And in a gay bar and with him in drag no less. But there I was, cleaning his you know what off my hands and grinning from ear to ear.

I gave him my number and he gave me his, and we promised that if either one of us was traveling anywhere near the other again that we’d give the other a call. Honestly, though, I didn’t much care either way. It couldn’t have gotten any better than those brief moments in that office at that time and place. And so, all cleaned up and completely satiated, I made my way back to the bar, while Gloria got redressed and back up on stage. Quickly, because it was a small bar, after all, I regrouped with Sparkle.

“Girlfriend,” he said, wiping his fingers over my apparently lipstick-smeared mouth, “this color is all wrong for you. You know, I never would’ve figured you for drag trash. By the way, is she hiding much in her tucker?”

“Very funny. I’ll have you know, we’re old friends from high school and we were just doing some catching up.” I tried to hide the obvious.

“Honey, unless you were doing some laundry back there, I’d say that funky smell on you came from something other than
catching up
. Anyway, I take it from the look on your face that you had a nice time and are ready to go. I, being the great friend that I am, will capitulate.”

“Slim pickings, I take it.” I could always read right through Sparkle’s bullshit.

“The slimmest. You’ll be glad to know that you missed nothing by waiting to come out until after college. These Kansas boys are a total bore. Plus, they actually measure the amount of booze they put into the drinks. How primitive.” (He said it, not me.)

“Well, tomorrow is going to be a long day, and I think I’ve experienced enough gay culture for the evening. Let’s go home and try to catch a few hours of sleep before our shopping extravaganza,” I suggested.

“Agreed,” he agreed and steered us out into the clean, crisp night air. “So, how ya doing?” he asked as we drove through the quiet streets back to my home. In truth, I missed the noise and commotion of the city.

“Okay, I guess. I just want to get it over with. That whole Peter thing was a bit much to take. Honestly, I should’ve seen it coming, but my brain has been a bit scattered of late,” I told him. “And how are you?”

“I’m okay. Your parents are a trip, by the way. It’s like being with the Cunninghams. I mean, I feel like The Fonz and you’re Ritchie. I had no idea that there are actually families like yours. It explains so much about you, too. Anyway, stop worrying about Peter and me and do what you came here to do. I have plenty of pills to keep me stabilized throughout the ordeal and enough for you to recover with.” (Always the trooper.)

“Thanks, Sparkle. I’m sure I’ll be taking you up on the offer. By the way, you might want to slip my mom some beforehand; it might make it easier on the both of us.” I was semi-serious.

“Ooh, how very Grace Slick. When she’s not looking, I’ll slip one in her coffee. What fun that would be.” (Sorry if you don’t get that one. Sixties trivia is so eighties, don’t ya think? Anyway, it’s funny, so laugh.)

Minutes later, we were pulling into the driveway and sneaking back into my house. I felt seventeen all over again. So many feelings and emotions were running through me as we tiptoed back to my room and climbed into our beds. In any case, I fell asleep dreaming about Sonny, but this time we were back in high school and he was begging
me
for sex. All in all, it’d been a good homecoming. (Emphasis on the coming.) Now it was time to batten down the hatches and prepare for darker waters.

***

The next morning, we woke up, showered, and lumbered downstairs. Peter and my parents were already chowing down on a sumptuous breakfast.

“Thanks for waiting,” I grumbled and sat down.

“The early bird catches the worm,” Peter replied, in between bites.

“Really, I hadn’t heard that. Thanks for the advice. Next time they’re serving worms, I’ll be sure to set my alarm. Now pass the toast.” I was grumpy without my first cup of coffee. (Okay, maybe my third, but then I was all sunshine and roses.)

“What do you say?” my mother admonished.

“
Please
,” I added, feeling like I hadn’t been away for all those years.

“That’s better,” she said, with a motherly look, before patting Peter on his head. I think he was having a great time of it. Certainly no one cooked like that for him or mothered him like that around Sparkle’s apartment. Naturally, he was eating it up. Literally. Heck, there was enough food at breakfast to feed certain third world countries, and Peter was making his way through it all. I wondered if I ate like that when I was his age. Probably, because I remember that my mom always used to cook that way when I was growing up. It’s a wonder, I suppose, that I’m not big as a house.

“I have some fabulous news,” my mom soon uttered, once she made sure that we all had everything we needed. (Short of a shovel, I’d say we did.)

With trepidation, I asked, “What would that be, Ma?”

“Your cousins, Tess and Albert, are going to be at your Aunt Rose and Uncle Jesse’s today. They’re driving in all the way from Iowa to be with the family and to see you. Isn’t that wonderful?” She was busting with joy. My father, however, looked less enthused. See, he always hated my mother’s side of the family, and, truth ne told, I could see why; they were a bunch of flakes.

Aunt Rose and Uncle Jesse were the only two hippies in the state of Kansas back in the sixties, and their kids were raised rather permissively, in my fathers’ eyes. What that means is that they were brats when we were all growing up together. Plus, they were older than me by at least ten years and always made me feel like the baby. Meaning, they teased me incessantly. I’d hoped never to see them again, but, alas, life has a funny way of bringing people back together again. Just look at what happened with Sonny and me.

I hadn’t seen either one of my cousins since I left for college, but my mother gave me regular updates on their lives. (As if I cared.) I felt a certain righteousness, even at a young age, when Tess had a baby out of wedlock at the tender age of nineteen and Albert dropped out of high school to pursue a field in music. Three years later, he was driving trucks cross-country. I guess my parents knew what they were doing in terms of child-rearing, and I was always glad that they were my parents instead of my aunt and uncle. Also, Dad felt the same way about them as I did, letting us know it whenever the subject was brought up.

“Oh, goodie,” I proclaimed, with mock enthusiasm. My father grinned, ever so slightly.

“Be nice,” my mom said, waving a finger at me. “We haven’t had the whole family together in ages.”

For that, I was grateful. Still, it was good to see my mother so happy, and I did love my aunt and uncle. They were so un-Kansas when I was a kid. And anything that goes against the grain when you’re a child is far superior to the norm. Still, it was always kind of scary and kind of exciting going over to their house. That weekend was no exception.

Shopping with my mother was an experience, too. I thought she went to extremes over breakfast; shopping with her went beyond that. Way beyond. Truly, I think she sometimes regretted being just a mom, even though I was finding out that being just a mom was a fulltime career. I mean, I couldn’t imagine what it would be like if Peter was any younger than he was. The responsibility was enormous enough, and I was only seeing it secondarily to Sparkle.

In any case, I think that what she would’ve liked to have done with her life was to go into a career in fashion. Which is not to say that she had any fashion sense in the least. It was just that she just adored dressing other people. Picking out a single outfit could easily take two hours with my mother. Heck, as a child, I would frequently be sweating by the time we were though. To leave with a shopping bag of just a few shirts and some slacks, I had to try on somewhere around sixty different combinations of clothes. To this day, I get hives just stepping into a J.C. Penny’s or a Mervyns. Once, I could’ve sworn I heard the salesperson that was helping us break into tears while we were in the changing room.

Now she had three boys to clothe and only a few hours to do it in. Funny, they could invent a whole new Olympic sport around my mother: marathon dressing. Ironically, as much as I hated the whole experience, Sparkle and Peter were in heaven.

Surprisingly, over and over again, I was finding that I took my parents for granted. What would it have been like not to have a mother who cared for me so much that she would agonize over every outfit I wore? Well, that’s what my friends’ childhoods were like. Again, I had it all wrong. Is this what it was like becoming an adult? Finding out that your parents were right all along? God, I’d hoped not.

The problem was, even though my mother’s heart was in the right place, her tastes in fashion was somewhere nestled between New Jersey and Hell. The only reason you never objected to the final decision was that you were so glad that the ordeal was finally over with that you would gladly have worn Bermuda shorts and a cashmere sweater just to get the heck out of the mall and away from any more articles of clothing.

Luckily for us, shopping stores in Kansas had caught up to the rest of the country by that time and our choices were considerably more acceptable than when I was a kid. Plus, my mother must’ve watched enough television and read enough magazines over the last decade since my childhood to finally know what was generally in style. In other words, the outfits we ended up with weren’t all that bad, all things considered. At least I wasn’t in a pair of Wranglers and an Izod shirt. And Peter, needless to say, made out like a bandit. By the end of the day, he was calling my mom, Mom. I didn’t mind one bit, either, and my mother, well, she couldn’t have been any happier if she’d won the lottery. Even Sparkle, who was obviously never one for family life, started calling her Mom towards the end of our shopping spree. I think it was more out of respect for her tenacity than her prowess, though.

So, arm in arm, we left the mall and made are way back home to get ready for the family get-together. Sadly, if there was no way to tell my mom that I was a flaming queer while shopping, I saw less of a chance over dinner. I mean, how do you tell your parents that you’re gay surrounded by your family? (Okay, I see how silly that sounds. Of course, that would’ve been the perfect setting. Talk about killing two birds. But, honestly, I wanted it to be just her and me. She could tell Dad, because I didn’t think I had it in me to handle them both simultaneously.)

After we got home, the three of us showered and changed into our new clothes and paraded past my parents like models on the runway. My mother couldn’t have been any more proud. My father, though, just sat there and shook his head. Poor guy. He never did fit in quite right with the family, but he did love us dearly, loons though we all were. Fashion show over, we headed to the car and on to my aunt and uncle’s house thirty miles away. (My parents actually had a Bobby Vinton tape in the car. I hid it beneath my seat. One crisis at a time, friend. One crisis at a time.)

We arrived, piled out of the family sedan, and, in a neat little row, headed on up the walkway to the house. Sparkle double-upped on the pills to be on the safe side, while Dad and I joked about the other side of the family. Only Peter and Mom looked tickled to be there, and had been feeding off each other’s family hysteria all day. In truth, it was fairly nauseating. Even without the coming out thing hanging over my head, the reunion would’ve been the last place I would’ve ever chosen to be.

My relatives were waiting for us at the door, and there was five minutes worth of hugging, kissing, and introductions, followed by more hugging and kissing before we finally made it into the house. Everyone looked the same as the last time I’d seen them. My aunt and uncle were a little pudgier and grayer, but they were still just as laid back looking as ever. My parents wouldn’t be caught dead in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt in front of company, even if it was family.

My cousins, though certainly more adult in appearance, still basically looked the same. Tess had aged more than Albert had, though. I suppose that was what you got for being a parent at such an early age. Albert, surprisingly, looked like he did when he was a gangly teenager. He still had the ratty ponytail, ripped jeans, and a cigarette dangling from his lips. There were, of course, the telltale age lines appearing, but the road, apparently, was good to him. In any case, it was creepy seeing them all again. How this family grew up together was and still is beyond me. Hell, we couldn’t have been more different if we tried. (And we did try.)