Secrets Of A Gay Marine Porn Star (56 page)

Unfortunately, I am notoriously slow at getting ready in the mornings and I didn’t finish getting dressed until ten twenty. By the time I emerged from the bathroom, Dad was nowhere around.

Fuck!
I looked outside and saw that Dad had pulled the car out of the garage. He was sitting in the driver’s seat with the motor idling, semipatiently waiting on me to hurry up. This was it. We were going to have the confrontation. I was not about to acquiesce and let him drive; his safety, my safety, and the safety of every motorist on I-85 northbound through Greenville, South Carolina depended on me being firm.

Resolute, I walked out to the car and opened the passenger door. I leaned over and as gently as possible I said, “Hey, Daddy, why don’t you let me drive?”

Without hesitating or uttering a word, he got out of the driver’s seat and slowly walked around the car, getting in on the passenger’s side. Once we were on our trip, it was as if nothing had happened. Quite often in my life I had felt peaceful after doing the right thing, like when I had decided to return to the South. This, however, was not one of those times. I had done the right thing, but still felt miserable.

My mother didn’t have it quite so easy when she began insisting that he let her drive soon afterward. I supposed that it’s not as emasculating for an old-school Southern gentleman like my dad to have his son drive him around. To have to be escorted everywhere by his wife, however, is a different story. He protested and rebelled and continued to give my mom a difficult time when she drove him.

At the plant, Dad and I entered the front office and several ladies jumped with delight and hugged him as he walked around the administrative area. He leaned precariously against the sides of the cubicles as he chatted. I stood close to him so he could steady himself by placing his hand on my shoulder as he needed to. We put on some protective eyewear and walked into the manufacturing area. Men and women alike walked up to him everywhere we went, many of them talking about how he had been so friendly and nice to them all the years they had been there. Most of the women and a few of the men had tears in their eyes as we walked away.

“Oh, Barney’s promised me a position in the front, so I’ll be back soon,” he said to each one.

At one point, I had to excuse myself to go to the restroom, where I cried for a few minutes after being overcome with emotion. My dad had worked continuously at various jobs in his life since he was twelve years old. Today we would be leaving his work-place for the last time of his life. I couldn’t handle it. But I had to. I dried my eyes and washed my face with cold water on a paper towel, and returned to where my dad was still leaning against a table, joking with a small group of people about events of the past.

We went to his workstation in the back of the factory. He took down the small pictures he had of Jimmy and me in our dress blues and the picture of our mother from their days in high school. He opened the drawer and picked out a few personal items, including an old well-worn Bible. I placed the items in a box and carried them out of the building.

We had lunch at a hot dog place nearby with a friend of his who insisted on picking up the tab. In the world I operated in, picking up the tab was customary business practice depending on who was sucking up to whom. For my dad, this little gesture from his friend was extraordinary. At first he refused, but his friend insisted.

On the ride home Dad said, “I led him to the Lord when he started working here. He’s really turned his life around since.”

I smiled, nodded and sincerely said, “That’s wonderful, Daddy.”

He smiled and replied, “Yes, it is.”

I meant what I said. Just a few years ago I would have cringed at the very mention of someone’s “born again” experience. What was different now? Had I finally come to realize that we are all different, but that’s okay? That there’s nothing wrong per se with someone accepting Jesus Christ as their Lord and personal Savior if that’s truly what they want for their life? Maybe I had finally internalized all that I had been preaching for the last eleven years—that people should accept one another and truly love each other.

Maybe it’s the medication finally working, jackass.
I laughed. Or the therapy, or sobriety, I replied to the voice inside my head that I was beginning to recognize as my sarcastic God’s voice.

Dad remained silent the rest of the trip and went to sleep as soon as we got home. Our two-hour adventure had sapped him of his dwindling supply of energy. We had a hard road ahead of us.
God help my little family. Make us stronger because we are going to need to be.

My mom called early one morning. “Your grandma’s had another heart attack,” she said. “Of course, they don’t know what’s going to happen.”

As I raced the truck up the interstate, I recalled all that had happened in the thirteen months since my grandma’s first heart attack. Then it had seemed such shocking news. Now, with my dad’s sickness, my other grandma’s death and Mickey’s cancer, it was just one more thing to be strong for.

“Grandma, you pull this stunt every year just so the family will get together and pamper you, don’t you?” I joked, but Grandma was not yet ready to laugh. She was still weak and looked more fragile than I had ever seen her.

To help out my mom, I agreed to spend two nights in the hospital with Grandma. We didn’t want to leave her alone and, if I stayed, Mom could be home to take care of Dad. Fortunately this time, Grandma was in a room by herself. My aunts or cousins would arrive in a couple of days if Grandma stayed in the hospital that long.

The first night went okay. I slept a little bit on the little pullout sleeper chair provided for overnight visitors. The following day, I was a little short-tempered from the discomfort of sleeping on the pullout chair. My cousin Alice, who was a little older than I was, arrived to relieve me for a few hours.

Alice and I chatted some then she asked, “Richie, why did you move to Atlanta?”

Her tone was not pleasant. I simply replied, “To be near Momma and…”

“No, I mean why didn’t you move to Piedmont?”

Ugh, she could be so infuriating. “Well, for professional reasons, Atlanta is a better market…”

“But your momma needs you here!”

Fuck.
That was it. I was tired. I had had enough. “You know what Alice? You need to quit telling everyone else what they need to do and let them figure that out for themselves.”

Alice jerked her head back and I realized my tone had been a little harsher than I intended. But hey, what was I going to do? I went home and got a little rest, but not enough.

By the second evening with Grandma, I was still exhausted and at least a little bit cranky.

There’s a stereotype that Southerners are not nearly as direct as people from other parts of the country. Alice’s earlier comment aside, Southerners often won’t say what they’re thinking, leaving the other person to guess. Between Southerners, this is understood and both individuals know what the other means by indirect comments and interpretive actions and gestures.

After so many years in the Marines and living in southern California, my skills at interpreting Southernosity were somewhat rusted. And Grandma Schrader was the epitome of the Southern stereotype. Trying to figure out what she meant could be exhausting and by the second night of the hospital stay, I was depleted of energy.

“Richie,” she began, “don’t you think you might get cold without a sweater or something to put over your shoulders a little bit?”

Many people could safely understand this bit of communication to mean nothing more than that their grandmother was concerned about their level of comfort. With Grandma Schrader, things were a little more complicated than that.

“Grandma,” I said a little impatiently, “I’m fine. But if what you’re trying to tell me is that you are cold, just say so, and I’ll gladly go turn the heat up for you.”

She smoothed out a wrinkle in her hospital gown. “Well…if that’s what you want to do.”

I got up from the little sleeper-chair and walked across the room to the thermostat. Why couldn’t she just state what it was that she wanted? I knew that she was cold and that she wanted me to turn up the heat. Why didn’t she just say that?

Why do you care? You know what your grandmother wants. Just do it.
Ahh, the voice of sanity emerged from its slumber.

“You can watch what you want on the television,” she said when I returned to my makeshift bed.

I knew she didn’t mean this. It was almost time for
Will and Grace
. I flipped through the channels to see if there could possibly be any mutually agreeable shows. Considering Grandma’s home television was perpetually glued to the local religious channel, I doubted it.

“That friend of yours, what’s his name…Gary? Is he the one that’s married to the girl on the TV shows?”

Damn, she had a memory. The only time I could remember that she had even met Gary was at Amy and Colin’s wedding thirteen years earlier. My mom must have mentioned Hedy’s many television appearances to Grandma over the years, reminding her that she had once met the actress’s husband. Grandma had an extraordinary capacity to recall anything remotely connected to her family.

I sighed, recalling the most recent conversation I had had with Gary. “No, I’m afraid they’re getting divorced.”

Grandma scrunched up her face. “Aw, you say not! Well, I declare…it’s just too easy nowadays for people to get divorced. They oughtta stay together!”

Shut up, Rich, just keep your fucking mouth shut.
Unfortunately, the voice of sanity was as tired as my body was. Against my wiser, saner judgment, I found myself talking.

“That’s not true, Grandma. If two people are making each other miserable and they’ve tried everything else, like Gary and Hedy have, then it’s best for them to get divorced and get on with their lives.” Why the hell did I just say that to an eighty-seven-year-old woman in the hospital who had lived by the strictest interpretation of Scriptures her entire life? I had to be the stupidest person alive right now.

Grandma looked horrified. “Oh, no, Richie, you know better than that!”

I glanced at the hospital monitoring devices to ensure Grandma’s vital statistics remained within safe parameters.

She raised her hands in the air and looked at the ceiling. “It says in the Bible that people ought to trust God and live for Jesus, or they’ll go to hell!” She closed her eyes and moved her lips, mumbling a semisilent prayer to her Deity.

“There is no hell, Grandma.”
Okay, now you’re the stupidest person who has ever lived. Period.

Her prayers were now audible, as if to drown out my heresy. “Oh, Jesus, Jesus,” she exclaimed. I thought the nurses might come running in any second. “I want all my children and grandchildren to live for You so won’t none of them go to hell!”

Just damn the in-laws, huh, Grandma.
At least I didn’t say that out loud.

By now, even my insane voice that had dominated my consciousness for the last few minutes was out of energy. Grandma resumed her silent prayers and I turned the television to channel 16.

A woman with very large hair held a microphone close to her lips. With her eyes closed and one hand raised toward heaven, she proclaimed, “If you love the Lord and appreciate the message of the Gospel that we here at this station bring to you twenty-four hours a day, then call the toll-free number on your screen below and make your tax-deductible gift to Jesus…”

“Y
our daddy’s got Alzheimer’s, too,” Momma said over the phone. “The ALS doctor in Charlotte confirmed it.”

Since 2001 I had suspected my dad had Alzheimer’s, so this diagnosis wasn’t shocking news. Because my family had just been through ten awful years of Grandma Merritt’s Alzheimer’s, though, it was devastating to hear a doctor say openly what we had secretly feared.

“How can he have both?” My mom started crying. “I just don’t understand it.”

Three hours later I was back at my parents’ house.

“Can you believe that doctor in Charlotte said I had Alzheimer’s?” my dad asked with obvious contempt. “He just said that so I’d keep coming back to see him. All that money he gets and he don’t do a thing for me!” He shook his head. “Alzheimer’s…I’d remember if I forgot anything. I don’t forget anything!”

As if to prove his point, Dad began telling me stories from his past. But an hour later, he’d repeat the same stories, forgetting that he had just recounted these tales to me. Finally, after several days of denials, I decided to tell him what I had feared.

“Remember that time at Lake Tahoe,” I asked, “when we drove around the lake, and we talked about the narrow but high waterfall coming out of the rock? Then fifteen minutes later, you saw the waterfall again and started talking about it like we had never seen it. I was afraid you had Alzheimer’s back then.” Immediately I regretted having said this.

It was clear my dad didn’t recall ever having visited Lake Tahoe.

A few days later, my dad apparently forgot the doctor had given him the Alzheimer’s diagnosis, and we didn’t see the need to ever bring it up with him again.

My memories started to come into focus. When I had visited my parents at Christmas 2000, my dad had made some sharp and angry comments to me over our differences regarding issues like the disputed presidential election, racial profiling, and Hillary Clinton. That had been uncharacteristic of him and, looking back, perhaps that had been an early symptom of the changes in his personality. Five months later when I had returned for Grandpa Merritt’s funeral, Daddy had completely forgotten about our 1995 trip to San Francisco. His memory had always been sharp. These incidents stood out in my mind.

In the months leading up to his diagnosis, my dad had become short-tempered with my mom. Several other relatives had privately commented to me about the difference. Now I was able to explain to my mom that it really wasn’t my dad who was losing his temper with her, but the disease that was eroding his brain. The husband she had known for forty years was who my dad really was.

“You know, maybe it’s a good thing,” more than one well-meaning friend said, trying to be comforting. “The Alzheimer’s will mean he won’t know what the ALS is doing to his body.”

“Perhaps,” I’d reply. Maybe down the road that would happen, but right now, he knew exactly what the ALS was doing to his body, but the Alzheimer’s seemed to be preventing him from processing it completely. The mental disease had him stuck somewhere between anger and confusion over the ALS and he couldn’t get past those stages.

After one particularly heated tirade against my mom, I decided to have a talk with him.

“Daddy, you’ve got to be nicer to Momma. She’s doing all she can for you. And for Grandma. And she’s trying to keep working full-time. You’ve got to be more understanding, okay?” I tried to sound as gentle as possible yet communicate my meaning.

It seemed to work. My dad broke down in tears, a hard thing for me to watch. He started telling me stories I had never heard.

“Bobby James told me I needed to go up to McNeely Pentacostal Church and see this girl he had met. That’s what he told me. We were just barely teenagers. So I did. I drove up to the church. That was the first time I saw your momma. She was so pretty. I asked Mr. Schrader if I could come up to church on Sundays and sit with her. Finally he said I could.”

The following weekend, Momma asked, “Did you say something to your Daddy last weekend?”

“Yes. Why?”

“He’s been so sweet to me all week long,” she said, smiling. “Except when I drive him around. That still bothers him.”

Mom had stopped letting Dad drive anywhere, but we had heard that he had driven his car one day while Mom was at work. She confronted him about it and he admitted it. When he went to sleep she hid his car keys and he never mentioned driving again.

Gary called to give me several pieces of news. His divorce would be final in a couple of months; he had purchased a new house in Oceanside, California; he was still seeing the twenty-four-year-old; and best of all, he had started flying the F/A-18 again with his reserve unit. From my perspective, the best thing was that I detected no sign of resentment in his voice. Not surprisingly, a guy as “together” as Gary had quickly moved beyond the past and was looking only toward great things ahead.

“You bastard!” I said, recalling our conversation over a year ago when I thought we had agreed we were beyond the “macho bull-shit.” But Gary sounded happier than he had in a very long time. It was so good to hear him sound like this, I wasn’t about to say anything to dampen that. “Good for you, man. When are you coming to Atlanta? I haven’t seen you in six months.”

“Well, I’ve got my two week reserve commitment in July, so it will have to be after that.”

“That’s good,” I said, “I’m working on a political campaign and the primary election is in July, so I’ll be tied up until then. After that sounds perfect.”

“You’ve been in Atlanta only three months and you’re already working on a political campaign? Now
that’s
the Rich I remember!”

“Plus there’s someone I want you to meet,” I added.

“You’ve met someone? That’s awesome, Rich. I’m very happy for you. Can’t wait to meet him.”

Ah, it was good that my friend and I were both back on the right track in our lives. We agreed to get together sometime in August or September. A few weeks later, he e-mailed some photos of him, back in the cockpit of the F/A-18.

While Gary had returned to flying his F/A-18, I had little room to speak about us being over the “macho bullshit.” I went to work at a large law firm, back in the litigation department. I was also in a strange, new, exciting town, meeting people, knocking on hundreds of doors, trying to get people to vote for the candidate I was volunteering for. I guessed there was nothing wrong with macho, if that’s what we really wanted to be!

At the annual dinner for the Human Rights Campaign, I had been introduced to another attorney, Russ, who I thought was handsome. But I was not ready for a relationship and made that perfectly clear. My plans did not include a boyfriend. I had too much going on.

If you want to make God laugh, tell her your plans.
Anne Lamott’s writing echoed in my head. It didn’t take long for me to recognize what a wonderful, sensitive and caring man Russ was. And he seemed to be wild about me, despite my zany, wild, and offbeat personality.

When someone this good offers you his love, take it.
That voice was loud and clear. I didn’t need to be told twice. Once again, I was hooked. And very happy about it. When I met Brandon, I had wanted to get out and show the world what a cute boyfriend I had. I wanted us to be the king and, well, queen of the social circuit. I wanted to be on the A-list, whatever the fuck that was.

With Russ, I wanted nothing more than to just cuddle up on the sofa and watch a movie. So did he.

“Now, don’t laugh at me now,” he said one evening, “but I always cry when this part comes on. I love ‘Singin’ in the Rain.’”

I almost cried myself. “Laugh at you? Are you kidding? When I was a kid, I used to pray that God would send me one guy friend who I could watch musicals with and read the same books and talk about them. And I just realized…that prayer has been answered.”

Atlanta is a networking-oriented town and, through helpful connections, the job I got was ideal for me. I started working as an attorney at my fourth law firm in three years. I’d have to take the Georgia bar exam, but that was many months away. Perhaps an asteroid would collide with earth in the meantime sparing me the nightmare of another bar exam.

I could do my new job remotely on many days, meaning that, as my dad’s condition worsened, I’d be able to spend more time with him while working from my parents’ house. It was obvious to me that if all this bad stuff had to happen, at least some metaphysical force was looking out for me.

Dad’s condition slowly worsened. He spent more and more time in bed each day, and his mobility decreased to the point where he could barely walk from his bedroom to the living room. Once he was seated in his recliner, he would gasp for air, the short walk having taxed his limited lung capacity. He stubbornly refused to use the walker my mom obtained for him, saying he “wasn’t about to give up yet.” But despite his protests, the two diseases ravaging his mind and his body were taking their toll.

“There’s people coming in my room at night,” he informed me on one weekend visit. Mom had warned me about his night visitors. I listened intently.

“One guy messes with that flower your momma’s got on the dresser. Another comes over and prays for me. One night there was four little girls sitting on the foot of my bed, with three women standing over them talking to them. I can’t figure it. It just don’t make any sense.”

He spoke matter-of-factly and I paid attention the same way.

“The doctor says I’m hallucinating, but I think I’d know if I were hallucinating.”

The nature of my dad’s hallucinations wasn’t surprising. He loved children and he was a man of prayer. He had also always been amused by the meticulous way my mom had arranged every detail in the house.

“I got up to talk them one night,” he said, “but when I turned on the light, they disappeared. So I figure they must be angels.”

“That’s what it sounds like to me,” I said.

“I just can’t figure why your Momma can’t see them.”

I thought about this for a minute. “Hmm. Maybe only people with Lou Gehrig’s disease can see them,” I said. “Maybe God sends them to people with ALS for prayer and comfort. They must be ALS angels.”

“Must be,” he said smiling, his voice trailing, “but I still can’t figure it. It just don’t make any sense.”

As his energy declined, his mood mellowed considerably. He seemed to be coming out of the anger phase and maybe headed toward the acceptance phase after all. I was glad that with the visits from his angels, his religion seemed to be providing him some comfort.

People from the factory where he’d worked and members of his church visited sometimes. I walked into the middle of a gathering one Sunday after my mom returned from church. An elderly lady said, “Well you sure are good-lookin’! Why aren’t you married yet?”

Wow, I hadn’t gotten that one in a while. It wasn’t like I was in my late twenties anymore, when the question had seemed more appropriate. At the age of thirty-six, obviously there had to be something seriously wrong causing a man to be a bachelor. At my age, people didn’t dare ask why. At least not to the bachelor’s face and especially not in front of his mother.

“I’m just not,” I said smiling. My mom looked about as uncomfortable as I’d ever seen her look.

“Well you know Christie Casper, don’t you?” the woman persisted.

“Yes, I do.” My smile remained frozen.

“Well, she’s gotten married, but she’s got a cousin who’s almost as beautiful as she is who’s single.”

“Is Christie’s brother married?” I asked. I thought my mother was going to fall out of her chair.

“Well…no, he’s not,” the perplexed woman replied.

Hmm.
Christie’s brother was my age. Never married. I departed, leaving a roomful of confused—or maybe not so confused—visitors at my parents’ house.

Interstate 85 South had become my own personal “trail of tears.” I’d save my crying until the two-hour trip back to the city. I’d think about how sad it was that all of this was happening to my parents and how helpless I felt about not being able to do anything for them.

Our differences in the years past seemed minuscule now. We still never discussed my personal life, or anything remotely gay or gay-related. We avoided talking about taboo topics, such as religion or politics. But that didn’t matter to me anymore. I loved my parents, and they loved me, and now was the time for us all to pull together and be a family. Events had put things in perspective for us.

The only argument occurred when I put a “Kerry–Edwards” bumper sticker on the truck. I debated about this for weeks before doing it. This would really upset my mom, and technically the truck was not mine but belonged to my dad. But I was driving it, and I felt entitled to express my opinion. I could just buy the damn truck from them if it came to that.

“Do me a favor before we go out to eat,” my mom said angrily. “Turn that truck around so I don’t have to look at that bumper sticker you’ve put on that truck!”

I tried to be calm, but I could feel my blood pressure rising. “No, I’m not. I shouldn’t have to hide…”

“Well I just don’t want to have to see…”

“I’m a thirty-six-year-old man. I should be able to…”

“It’s a direct slap in the face to me!” she shouted.

“This has
nothing
to do with you,” I shouted in response.

And that was it. Just like that, the argument died down and she and I went out for dinner with Grandma. Maybe she understood finally that I had not become a liberal Democrat just to spite her. Hopefully she was on the path to that understanding at least. If she were, there was still hope for other things. Like the fact that I hadn’t chosen to be gay, and that even if I had, it would not have been to rebel against her.

Hello, pot…kettle.

That’s original, I replied to my inner voice. I knew exactly what it was saying to me.

Just because this asshole on the road in front of you has a “W ’04” sticker on his fucking SUV doesn’t mean that he wishes all homos would die.

He might, you never know.

He might, but probably not. It’s not always all about you, remember?