As Luck Would Have It (10 page)

She was an intrusive know-it-all with a limited education and a narrow knowledge base to rely on. 
The
National Enquirer
and
Entertainment Weekly
were
the most serious literature she read as far as I knew, and though she had expertise in virtually nothing save for creating controversy and disagreement, you would never have known it based strictly the opinions she expressed.  She wasn’t mean spirited in any particular way, just hardened by whatever it was in her life that fashioned her beliefs, which I was never able to figure out since she grew up at around the same time and in essentially the same environment as my mother, who was
in reality nothing like her sister.
Despite her
often
acerbic nature, they made for good siblings and stayed close throughout their lives.  Aunt Doreen appeared stoic following the loss of her sister, but I suspected, and Uncle Jack confirmed for me later on
, when things were calmer and more
settled,
that she was more than badly shaken by tragedy, she was very nearly broken.

She had opinions on everything, but almost never were they based on anything empirical.  Her prejudices seemed to result from some internal formulation
, rather than from
any particular experience.  She disagreed with almost everyone and incongruity seemed to follow behind her wherever she moved, like a late day shadow.  I don’t think that she was really
all that
bigoted
;
just not able to accept differences in people that in her view she could find no reason for or obligation to.  With a discernible dislike for most groups, and a condescending tone to
go along with it
, she was aloof on her best days and openly hostile on others.

So it should come as no surprise to you as you read this that Aunt Doreen’s attitude towards gay people was far from what you might consider to be progressive.  Gee Clifford, you might be thinking, this was only 1974 after all, with the gay rights movement still slogging along through its preadolescence.  Aren’t you looking down at her attitudes from the more enlightened perspective of 2020, when gays and lesbians have become well integrated in nearly every western culture, where they are allowed serve openly in the military of every modern democracy, even the United States, following the landmark
decision in Congress in 2011
that found the separation or exclusion of gays in the military
had no justification and was probably unconstitutional? 
Are you really being fair in judging her, a relatively uneducated woman born before the United States entered World War II?

She may have been born before the war, but she grew up, and her mind-set formed, well after it.  She wasn’t crazy about Jews either and on the two or three occasions when she’d been to a party my parents had thrown where the Kleins also attended, she didn’t do well in hiding her feelings towards them.  Yes, Edith Klein was a little loud at times and sure,
Harold
pushed his way a bit through the buffet line when my mother brought out her wonderful roast beef, but so what?  I could hardly wait my turn to get some
myself
, even as my mother would reproach me just a
little
and remind me of the virtue of being patient, which surely her sister Doreen never was.  But for whatever reasons that only they shared or understood, Doreen and Mom cherished their relationship.  That’s just the way it is, my mother would explain, if anyone raised an eyebrow.  So that’s why, I guess, that I found myself living in Aunt Doreen’s house by Christmas of 1974.  That’s just the way it is.

I was sullen and quiet over the following
weeks
.  School presented an interesting paradox in that it was often difficult to concentrate and my grades fell by a letter or more down the alphabet, but at the same time the harshness of middle school seemed to have eased up and I
didn’t hate being there like before.
  It was an escape from being at home, which I found to be nearly intolerable.  There was still so much around the house to remind me of what had happened; so many unresolved issues so up close, with Aunt Doreen and Uncle Jack having to attend to
the
many details while at the same time having to deal with the sudden appearance of me, a
grief-stricken and angry
teenager in their presence.

I doubted that it was really out of compassion, but the teachers seemed nicer to me and even Jamie showed a touch of human kindness by ignoring me
or just nodding a bit
when he went past.
I had no
close
friends, except for Joseph, who stayed even closer to me than before.  If school had become my sanctuary
;
he was now my savior.  I could not have fully appreciated it at the time, but I can look back on it easily now and recognize with near certainty that if he hadn’t been there, I would
probably not be here now and you would be busy doing something other than listening to me tell this sad story.

I
don’t know how he managed the huge responsibility of attending to me and
coaxing
me back to something approximating normal.  Maybe it just came to him naturally, or maybe it was out of a kind of love that I had never experienced.  He was with me almost every day after school and on the weekends as well.  It could not have been easy for him
;
I was depressed and
often
irate
.  I brooded and sometimes would not speak to him, but he
kept at it
patiently even when I yelled at him for no reason and told him to leave me alone.  Sometimes I’d refuse to talk to him on the phone or ignore him in school, but I’d still find him waiting at my locker faithfully every single day after class was over.  Are you afraid of what I’ll do if I’m alone
Joseph
?  No, I’m not really afraid of anything.  Not even Jamie?  Well, Jamie yeah
, I’m afraid of him
, he scares the crap out of me.

Mostly we would just listen to music and talk after school.  No one else could seriously approach the subject of my parents, but it seemed no problem for him.  He never said stuff like things will get better, or
just give it more time
.  He didn’t bother with such superficial counseling because in truth, he didn’t know for sure that it would get better or if all the time since creation would help.  Instead, he talked about our lives and our parents and our dreams for the future, never with a hint that I might not have one.  We’d pick out albums from his brother’s amazing collection; Jefferson Starship, Grateful Dead, Jethro Tull, and play them for hours.

How do you feel Clifford?  Like shit, thanks for asking.  I miss going to your parents house like we used to.
Remember when your father tried to teach me to play infield? Yeah,
you were just like
Brooks Robinson
at third. 
I wanted to both kill him and hug him at the same time.  Did I really need to talk about the days my dad hit them out to us at Bra
dford
Park?  The therapist said I did, but I never told Joseph that.  I think
maybe he needed a little therapy himself;
m
y parents treated him like a second child they never could have, and he
was
stricken
hard by the accident too.

I was getting used to living at the Neelson’s house, but I wasn’t exactly thriving there. 
My aunt and uncle never had children of their own, so the reality of unexpectedly finding themselves as halfhearted foster parents to a troubled teenager could not have been easy.  T
he house was often deserted
as
my uncle worked insane hou
rs as a pharmaceutical salesman, and my aunt would frequently visit her friends or her cousin Mildred as a release and a distraction from the pain she now
was forced to cope with somehow.
  Uncle Jack
often
was away
for a couple of days at a time, and even when he was not out of town, he would rarely be home before Aunt Doreen and I had finished eating and the dishes were washed and dried.  She would warm up his dinner at 8:00 or so while I would watch TV or make an attempt at my homework.  These days, Joseph did m
uch
of it for me
because I found it nearly impossible to concentrate,
and mercifully, he
had the compassion to not bring up
the ethical considerations.

Joseph created a problem for Aunt Doreen.  In all honesty, I think she made a fairly sincere effort to like him, but the fact that he was both a Jew and a homosexual was a lot for her to grasp.  I commend him for the effort he made to endear himself to her, but as we have seen, Joseph is a bit on the flaming side and
not exactly what you might to refer to as closeted. 
He’s coming over again tonight?  Clifford, are you sure he’s a good friend for you?

I was quite sure by now regarding the quality of his friendship,
and quite
positive that I would not argue with her about it, or for that matter make an
y
excuse
s for him
or try to come up with any justification for the fact that my best friend was queer.  Counter arguments carried little weight with Aunt Doreen; her convictions, whether rational or not, were as firm as cement.  It was late April and we were sitting in the living room watching a Blackhawk’s playoff game and going over our European History assignment, when there was a knock at the door.  Who could that be
at this hour,
she wondered out loud.

An old
er
man was standing in the doorway and introduced himself to Aunt Doreen, but I couldn’t really hear over the drone of the hockey announcer.  She went out on the porch after announcing that she’d be back in a minute, but at least five had past and she had not reappeared.  Joseph was absorbed in his history book as usual, so I walked outside to see what was going on.  I knew who he was before anyone could offer up introductions.  Even through the darkness, the smoke and the shock of that night, I recognized the man in the truck who stared, but did not speak.  Once again, we just gazed silently for several seconds like some bizarre replay of the event, right into each other’s eyes as we had back
in December.
  Aunt Doreen remained hushed for once, as we just stood there quietly waiting for what, I wasn’t sure.  He held out his hand which I took and after he introduced himself as Avery Casslemond, I noticed the te
ars that had formed in his eyes,
threaten
ing
to overflow.  How is your leg doing, was the first thing that came to mind, which caused him to nod and say it was doing pretty well now, thanks for asking.

I had tried to avoid the news stories on television and in the papers, but had never the less learned about Mr. Casslemond, his produce business and his badly injured leg.  It had not occurred to me that I would meet him and up until then, had no desire to know anything else.  He’d survived, I’d survived, we were both lucky, and that was enough for me.  But standing there in the cool spring air and seeing him, I was suddenly both interested and intrigued by the old man, who despite his age seemed to me to have maintained a certain vitality and it appeared that he carried himself with a sense of energy and purpose.

Aunt Doreen seemed uncertain when I asked him to come inside, but she didn’t verbalize any objection just then.  I introduced him to Joseph, who
just sat their
gaping at Mr. Casslemond
without speaking.
  For both him and Doreen to fall silent at the same
moment in
time was even more surprising to me than Mr. Casslemond’s abrupt emergence from the
evening's
darkness.  Maybe they could just sit there gawking at him, but not me.
I’m glad you decided to come by sir.  My wife
wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do, but
I really needed to see for myself that you were alright.

What could I say, that I was doing fine, when in fact I was still suffering terribly, feeling more alone and disengaged from living than I could possible describe?  Should I tell him that I cried in bed still every night until sleep thankfully overtook me, but only as a ploy to coax the nightmares back into my brain to torture me even more than when I was awake?  Or maybe I should talk about how my mother loved to knit sweaters and make the holidays special, but oh wait, this past Easter was so lonely with the Kleins out of town visiting the relatives in New York for Passover and me alone with my sober aunt and uncle, who tried, I’m sure to make things good, but could not possibly double as replacement parents.
Or s
hould I should tell him about my father instead, who stood up to that prick Strickmann when he went to school after Thanksgiving that time, or when he stayed up all night with me once when I was
nine or
ten because my fever had spiked to
103
degrees
and the doctor said to keep a close eye on me, and so he did, for
ten
straight hours until the fever broke.  I’m doing OK
now
Mr. Casslemond, thanks for checking on me.  I’m so glad to hear that Clifford.