Does This Baby Make Me Look Straight?: Confessions of a Gay Dad (3 page)

If we went with the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, we’d have to say we preferred malls over museums, we worshipped at the altar of TiVo, and while we loved movies and documentaries, who were we kidding? More
often than not we could be found watching
Amazing Race
,
Project Runway
, and
Intervention
, a show with gut-wrenching stories of young people shooting up in a Taco Bell bathroom before being forced to get clean! Now
that’s
entertainment.

Next came the grueling task of picking photos to include in this brochure. Dan in front of Harrods in London. Don on a quaint street in Rome. “See, birth mom? With Don and Dan, your baby will get to see the world!”

We wanted her to know we could be good male role models even though our only relationship to sports was watching figure skating on TV and making fart noises with every triple salchow. That’s not gonna get us a kid. Instead we had to turn to the hard sell. Here’s an actual quote from our BML:

“Dear Birth Mom: First of all, we want to thank you. We know there are many couples asking you to consider them and so we want to say how much we appreciate you taking the time to read our letter.”

I read it back, horrified by how we sounded:
We know you have a choice when it comes to air travel. Thanks for choosing Dan and Don Air!

Whatever we did, it worked. Twice. First, with a young woman from Las Vegas who was three months pregnant and picked us to adopt her baby. It didn’t ultimately work out. But on my birthday in September of 2004, we got a call from a plucky yet sweet nineteen-year-old, already a mother of twins, from Wisconsin who
did
want to fly Dan and Don Air. Her name, let’s say, was Monica. And she wasn’t a stripper. And she didn’t care about our brochure. She picked us because she and her mom were fans of the television show
Queer Eye for the Straight Guy
and thought we’d make “ahhsome dads.”

I’ll never forget the day we first laid eyes on Monica, coming down the escalator at LAX. We’d talked on the phone a bunch of times and we’d noticed how she had a loud, slow, gruff voice. Her mother told us she got nervous around new people and did not like to be photographed. We immediately pictured a clinically obese girl with thick glasses and a stained Hello Kitty sweatshirt, teetering on the edge of “mentally challenged.” She turned out to be a beautiful, wide-eyed, tough-talking, pack-a-day teen in stretch jeans and her boyfriend’s football jacket, as if she had literally been conjured from the pages of a Don Roos screenplay. Chain-smoking and Slurpee-drinking, Monica was the epitome of “street smart.” She was affable, confident and had an enormous heart. She was, she
is
, affectionate, stubborn, playful, proud, funny, opinionated, and of course, generous. The sacrifice she was able to endure? I am forever changed by her and inspired by her strength and courage. Okay, she could’ve learned a thing or two about birth control. But she always insisted “birth control just doesn’t work” on her! I kept wondering if it wouldn’t have worked better had she remembered to take it out of the box and put it in. Or on. But then, imagine if she had? Unfathomable. It was Monica’s lack of impulse control that made the creation of our family possible.

The whole experience bonded us. And then, in that delivery room Don, Monica, and I held hands as first Eliza and then, two years later, Jonah were cut from their umbilical cord—and from their nine-month lifeline to Cinnabons, Mountain Dew, and Marlboro Menthols. Tears streamed
down all our cheeks. It was clear, as sentimental as it may sound, that our kids were born out of the hearts of three people. Not just two of us. And not just the one.

It’s funny, though, becoming a “Daddy.” I fully expected to discover what that director had spoken to me about, the “father within.” But what I never imagined—what I could
never
have ever predicted—was finding the
mother
within me. There is no doubt that when Eliza got home, I fully took on the role of mother to my cub. If I could have stuck a boob in her, I would have. And I always became defensive when people assumed I didn’t know what I was doing. Like when we would be traveling and
every woman on the plane
would offer us important advice, like “Don’t forget to feed her” or “Air pressure makes baby’s ears go ouchy.” I’d be, like, “Really? And here I was about to stuff her in the overhead compartment!”

It’s like that Elizabeth Stone quote: being a parent is like deciding to “have your heart go walking around outside your body.” I wanted the world to know that something had changed in me. Shifted. On a cellular level. Something that made certain things like her gestures, smells, and particular smiles make me want to burst into tears. What is that? Sadness? Joy? Pride? Being a parent.

•   •   •

Back in the bathroom, Eliza looks up at me with a little shrug. It’s cute. But clearly I’m meant to do something, say something. I wasn’t prepared for this. Why wasn’t this in any of the books we read prior to having kids?

“Hey, listen, polka dot. It’s your body and you’re the boss of it. Yeah? But not so much with the fingers in your, you
know, front tushy, okay? You just want to keep all of your areas, um, clean.”

Not bad, given I had no lead time to prepare my response. Anyway, it’ll have to do. But let’s face it. “Front tushy” instead of just saying “vagina”? I got work to do.

I
t was the fall of 1992, and I’d recently moved from New York to Los Angeles for a one-year trial to kick-start my acting and writing career in film and television. I was performing, but not making money performing, a two-person show I’d written about relationships and love—a topic I realize now I knew absolutely
nothing
about.

To pay the rent I got hooked up by a friend with the glamorous job of selling pencils, CDs, and T-shirts for the musical
Forever Plaid
at the Canon Theatre in Beverly Hills, which is now the Montage Hotel. To this day, whenever I’m in that hotel’s lobby, I feel the impulse to ask people if they want “small, medium, or large.”

That Valentine’s Day, I began a sneaky little affair with this guy—I’ll call him David—who also worked at the theater. David had a house, dogs, a coffeemaker—oh, and he wore a gold band so he also had a husband. Oops. For some reason, these were all things I found
very
attractive, perhaps in their power to symbolize the guy’s capacity to love. I had never before given much thought to having a relationship. It certainly wasn’t that high up on my list. I was always far more focused on my career. But the feelings I had for David were
bigger than me. I thought only about him. It felt like there was a magnetic force drawing us together. And when we were apart, I was counting the minutes until I’d see him again. I guess it was as close to a drug addiction as I’ve ever come.

Oh my God
, I thought to myself,
this must be love
. I felt powerless in the face of it. And, at the same time, so relieved that I was capable of it. For years I had feared I just wasn’t cut out for love.

Our relationship was all very passionate and exciting except for those times we’d be in his car and he’d see someone he knew and make me duck down by the floor mats. With some dried mud and a piece of gravel against my skin, it occurred to me:
This can’t be love, can it?
But I somehow convinced myself to keep going. I was young. And I believed David’s assertion that he was capable of loving two guys at the same time. All that, paired with my powerlessness over the seductive nature of our affair, convinced me that what I was experiencing was the very definition of “true love.”

Six months later, I’d grown some balls. Not a lot. Maybe more like
a
ball. It was enough to break up for the third and last time: “If you aren’t ready to choose me over Tom, then we must never, ever speak to each other again.” We burst into tears. We might as well have burst into flames: it was a ridiculous, can’t-catch-your-breath, over-the-top, way-too-gay kind of grief. I fell to the ground as I looked up to the skies and thought,
WHY? Why is this happening to me? And why is there always gravel digging into my skin?

A short ten days later, I’m trying to keep busy at the theater box office, listening to Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me” on a loop. I’m not just riding the self-pity bus but
driving it—feeling sorry for my sad, puffy-eyed, pathetic self. That’s when my close friend Linda walked into the box office to invite me to play Celebrity with a bunch of her friends. She didn’t hide the fact that she was using the party as a chance to fix me up with a thirty-seven-year-old screenwriter named Don. She was, however, ignoring the fact he didn’t want to date someone so young and an actor. I didn’t want to date anyone so much older and well established. She was also ignoring the fact I was in mourning over the end of my love affair and trying to nurse my broken heart. I was shocked she’d think I could date anyone so soon after the breakup—or
ever again
. I went anyway, grateful for the distraction and free food.

I was most definitely the youngest person in the room and, besides Don, the only other guy. It was a circle of women, Don’s closest friends, sitting on the couch like a quilting bee, a firing squad, or perhaps a judges’ table. One woman in particular was sitting on the floor, leaning against the couch, where Don sat giving her a back rub. She was—how should I put this gently—
very
plain-looking. She was heavy, with thick eyeglasses, too-short hair, and a big gummy-tooth smile. Within a minute I got the story: her name was Mimi, she was dying of cancer, and Don was her primary caregiver. Hi! Welcome to the party!

I’d never met a dying person before. I remember feeling suffocated by the information, like it was way over my head and out of my comfort zone.
Just get through the night and you never have to see any of these people again
, I thought. As I mentioned, I was still in my twenties and easily intimidated. Scared, maybe, I wouldn’t be able to rise to the challenge. Or
maybe scared the whole dying thing might somehow rub off on me.

As it turned out, I liked Don. We got each other’s sense of humor and could talk really easily. Over the next few weeks, Don and I spoke on the phone almost every night. We finally met for coffee and I had the super awesome good sense to spend every minute talking about David and my broken heart. Don tried hard to hide his rolling “check please” eyes. I couldn’t imagine why he’d give me another chance, but he did.

We made a date to have dinner. We met at an Italian restaurant in West Hollywood. He apologized for being late, as he’d had to stop at Mimi’s to bring her food and cigarettes. Yes. Don and Mimi were smokers at the time. Benson & Hedges 100’s Menthol. Cartons of them. It confused me.

“Should she be smoking with, you know, cancer?” I asked.

Don shrugged. “Well, what’s the point? She’s terminal. And she knows it. Who am I to police her?”

I kicked myself. Like maybe if I had an ounce of compassion, I would’ve thought of that. Don was the manager of her care, and I decided to leave it alone. I had just returned from New York, so I brought him a bag of Zabar’s coffee. He brought me a pack of cigarettes. We sat on the patio and smoked. Clearly, or perhaps ironically, back then, smoking was reserved for those he cared the most about.

Don was a real grown-up—smart, confident, and blessed with a magnanimous personality. He’s always been funny, sharp-witted, and unapologetically honest. One had to have a tough skin around him. His verbal sparring was hilarious but could leave a mark. He’d even joke about Mimi’s illness,
which surprisingly put everyone, especially Mimi, at ease. After another bad doctor’s report, Don would simply ask, “Honey, why
does
God hate you so much? Maybe he’s jealous of all the attention.” Or he’d tell her, “Hey. Quit whining, will you? It’s not like you’re dying. Oh, wait. You are.” And she’d laugh and laugh. Or she’d be stuffing her face with donuts: “Don’t hold back, angel, those tumors need their strength!” It was disarming. But it also took the ominous tension right out of the situation. Mimi just loved it. We all did, the seven of us who came together to help Don take care of Mimi.

I loved his rough edges paired with such sweetness and generosity. I’d never met anyone like him before. I knew I wanted to pursue a relationship with Don. In my head. My heart, however, was still pining for David, who was no longer even living in L.A.

Don knew I thought he’d be good for me. “The healthy choice,” he called it. Nutritious. Like he was the oat bran muffin with omega-3s rather than the caramel chocolate donut with buttercream frosting. Making matters worse and conspiring against our relationship, Mimi’s health was deteriorating. The more involved Don became with me, the needier Mimi was becoming. Not so odd, actually, as we all knew she was in love with him. And why wouldn’t she be?

Her own family had disowned her for reasons I didn’t quite understand. She seemed to have only Don in her life. And his friends. And now, me. Don had spent a year taking her to support groups or waiting outside hospitals. He even took her to Lourdes, even though she was Jewish, because she read an article about the healing effects of bathing in
the holy water. She was getting desperate for a cure. And he was committed to learning how to “care with respect” as he had learned in Shanti. “Let the patient be in charge of her own illness,” they told him. “Never try to know more than she knows . . .” Patients talk to their own doctors and make decisions about their own care. Don had learned from his mistakes. He’d had two friends die of AIDS and gotten too involved in the medical side of their care. He was determined to do it right this time.

I learned, slowly, how to be a caregiver. But I felt awkward and ill-equipped, at best. Impatient and mean, at my worst.
Just
die
already
, I’d think to myself when she’d hijack a romantic weekend in New York by keeping Don on the phone to describe the consistency and frequency of her poop. I’d get so mad. And then furious and depressed about being the guy who was wishing a dying woman would just get to it. I’d wonder what she’d do if we weren’t around to help her. My thoughts ran like a news ticker in my brain:
Who else could she call? And why doesn’t she call them right now? Why doesn’t she ever feel guilty? And why is she so fucking fat after all that chemo?