Travels with Penny: True Tales of a Gay Guy and His Mother (2 page)

MY DAD
AND I NEVER WENT
to a bar in my entire life; in fact, we barely drank. So why were we meeting in a bar? Here we sat like some textbook description of redneck kin in a dark bar, complete with old wooden floor, exposed ceiling beams and polished brass. The huge mirror behind the bar put the finishing touches on the cliché-ridden scene. Except, of course, for the fact Dad was dead.

For a dead guy, he looked great—the dim light shone a dark illumination across the bar’s surface, yet I could see him clearly. He wore a long-sleeved flannel shirt and held the beer bottle between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. Despite the low light, every feature was visible, from the worry creases in his forehead to the crow’s feet around his eyes. He wasn’t happy per se; there wasn’t a broad smile or odd laugh, yet he wasn’t unhappy either. He looked like a man stuck in the cycle of remembrance, and everything appeared clear and sensible in the way only 20/20 hindsight allows.

“It’s a path she has to walk on her own,” he sounded matter-of-fact and unemotional.

“She’s going to be alone,” I said.

“There’s nothing you can do. This is a part of the path that only she can take.” He took no pleasure in saying this. He sounded sad. I knew these words hurt him, but just like cleaning the bathroom, there are some things that just need to be done.

“It’s going to be okay,” he said, not looking at me. “She’ll be okay.”

I let myself cry. Ever since his death, I’ve wanted to let go and even allowed myself to leak a bit around the eyes. Crying is an act I’ve always reserved for times of utmost privacy, best done alone in a remote location far away from human eyes—kind of like masturbation—but I couldn’t stop myself. I cried and cried, unable to control myself. We hate each other, this impulse to cry and myself. It tries to overtake me, and I battle it until it retreats into my psyche once more like a wounded animal. I don’t feel emotions as much as I beat them into submission. My shrink thinks this is a fascinating character trait. He likes to talk about it endlessly. I don’t like my therapist much, come to think of it.

But this time felt worse than any crying jag had ever felt: How can he say she would be okay? Ever since I had heard the news of his death, a sense of unbelievability has crept through me. We always know someday our parents will die, but when it actually happens, that fact remains in a state of suspended animation like some kind of bad dream that won’t go away; I vacillated between uncontrolled shaking, unexplainable hyperventilation and utter panic. I expected the shock of his death, I knew I would feel a sense of loss, but hadn’t expected the physical pain that accompanied it. My chest, arms and abdomen hurt like someone beat the shit out of me. I could barely breathe without concentrating. After arriving in Tennessee and spending time with my mother, I now felt afraid for her: How can she wake up every morning and go along eating, cleaning and cooking now that the man she lived with for the past forty-seven years was gone? How can she sleep in a bed where, until this week, another human had slept at her side? How can she feed the cat knowing that this cat liked Dad better than her?

“There’s nothing you can do.”

I tried to respond, but nothing came out. Then Dad was gone, and I woke up in the guest room, covered in sweat.

Ever since arriving in Tennessee for Dad’s funeral, I’d been hoping and praying that I would have some kind of supernatural experience. I desperately wanted to be one of those people who saw my dead father and have him impart some other-worldly wisdom upon me. I wanted contact from the spirit world. I wanted an apparition to speak to me.

Instead, he appears in a dream and talks about my mother. When he was alive, he made everything about her and now that he’s dead, he
still
makes everything about her.

Jeez, Dad … give a guy a break.

THE FIRST
DAY OF THE NEW YORK TRIP
, we behaved like stereotypical tourists; the weekend was all about standing in the streets, gawking at the Disneyfication of Times Square, eating bagels from some hole-in-the-wall deli and saying to ourselves, “Cool! It’s New York!” No wonder New Yorkers are so rude—locals can tolerate such behavior for only so long before their heads explode. I’m sure New York natives would much prefer to see the throngs of tourists stuffed into harnesses and herded like goats through the city on a predictable, clearly defined route. But lacking a herding-tourists-like-goats-union, they try to scare gawkers to death instead.

Our second day in New York was June 8, 1998, otherwise known as my thirty-fifth birthday and, since it had never occurred to me that I would reach my thirty-fifth year on this planet without going insane, I decided to do something nice for myself in celebration. In the movies, there’s a soundtrack to foreshadow foreboding events; in life, there are bad hair days. I thought of my friends who had just turned forty and debated following their leads: 1) parachuting out of a small plane; 2) running a marathon; 3) buy a hot car and start dating a twenty-one-year-old. I decided I’m too fearful of heights to make the plane a feasible option. That left the marathon and the car/twenty-one-year-old options. I decided that since I used to be a runner, running another marathon would be cheating and who the hell could afford a hot car, not to mention a hot twenty-one-year-old? I briefly considered eating candy while watching other people jumping out of a plane, eating lunch in a street café during a marathon, or watching a porn movie about a twenty-one-year-old in a hot car, but all these options seemed too boring. What can I say? I was young and still under the misconceived notion that your birthday was a celebratory occasion. That stops once you turn forty. There’s nothing more pathetic than a forty-something-year-old dragging himself into middle-age insisting that he isn’t cresting the hill. Besides, sooner or later you realize that millions of other people on Earth were born on the same day. Statistics say 4,000 babies are born every minute. Happy birthday to you and the 3,999 others.

I chose to do something I knew I could do to mark the day. I trimmed my beard. Hiding myself in the bathroom of the apartment while everyone else was asleep, I revved up the beard trimmer and took stock of the fur covering my jowls. I really dislike trimming my beard, but it’s better than the odd looks you get when the hair on your face is longer than the sparse hair on your head, and it beats shaving every day. Who was the sadist who invented the idea of a man putting a razor blade to his throat? Does that make any sense to anybody? Doesn’t society frown upon playing with sharp objects?

A snip here, a snip there and the beard was shaping up nicely. Until, of course, the knock on the door made me jump. The electric beard trimmer snipped right through my jawline, giving my cheek a racing stripe.

“Are you in the shower?” Mom yelled.

“No, Ma, I was trimming the beard.”

“What does it look like? Let’s see it.”

“Almost done. Do you want in?”

“No. Just checking.”

“No sweat.” I considered leaving the racing stripe, but in the end decided a reverse mutton chop was not hip nor cool, just plain stupid looking. What the hell, I thought as I shoved the machine over the rest of my face, I’ve always wanted a goatee anyway.

The plan for my birthday was to visit Greenwich Village. I wanted more than anything else to have a picture of myself outside the Stonewall Bar as a memento for my journal, which had become a depository of boring writing and half-finished poems. I figured a few pictures of famous locales would spice it up enough to make me want to open the cover again. I had read about the Stonewall Bar and seen the documentary about its role in the Gay Rights Movement, but have never been there. This fact embarrassed me, as during my college years I was an extremely vocal civil rights activist. I also did a lot of drinking and took a lot of drugs, but for some reason I didn’t connect these activities until after I turned forty and all my friends became members of the GOP.

After a late breakfast in a crowded deli, thick with the aroma of baking bread, where we all drank way too much coffee and ate too much schmear, we arrived in the Village. Schmear, I believe, is New York’s retaliation against tourists. Locals don’t eat “schmear.” They eat cream cheese. Cream cheese costs less than half that of schmear. Do the math.

“Want to go in?” Mom asked, pointing to the Stonewall Bar.

“Nah. Just a picture. Stand together, okay?” I dug out my camera.

Just as I framed the shot, Gary and Troy disappeared through the front door of the bar.

“They’re going in,” Mom sounded disappointed. “Come on.” She waved at me and disappeared into the bar after them. I chased after her.

Something mystical happens when a mother enters into a gay bar. She instantly morphs into “EveryMom: Fag Magnet.”

The bartender smiled. “Good afternoon!” He waved at her. He ignored me.

“Hi!” Mom said, nodding.

The guys sitting on the bar stools turned in unison and toasted her, wide smiles on their faces. Mom waved back. They ignored me.

“This is a very friendly place,” She whispered to me.

“Yep,” I agreed. If only I could get this much attention when I came to a bar without her, I thought. Is that the secret to gay dating in the ‘90s? Bring your mother?

By this time, Gary and Troy had circled the place and deemed it too slow for any action and accepted the fact that they needed to join us. They hovered at the door ready to go.

“What’s back there?” she asked, pointing to the black curtains pulled across the doorway at the rear of the place.

“Nothing, Ma,” I said. “Let’s hit the road.”

If there’s anything I’ve learned about hyper-sexual establishments, it’s that you never want your mother looking at the men behind the curtain.

“Let’s go get my picture.”

It was as I wandered down the sidewalk looking for a photogenic shot of Christopher Street that the huge display window caught her eye.

“Look at this!” she pointed. The display window sported several mannequins in various stages of undress. The one she pointed to was an androgynous figure wearing a colorfully outlandish mini-skirt, Elton John (circa-1970) sunglasses, a feather boa and a leather necklace. On its feet were eight-inch platform shoes made of clear plastic, inside of which were tiny goldfish swimming their little fins off. “Who wears those?”

“Drag queens.”

“They’re going to fall off their shoes and break their necks.”

“It’s the least of their worries.”

“What’s that?” she asked, pointing to the store that held the leather-clad mannequins behind the display window.

“Mannequins wearing leather.”

“I can see that,” she said rolling her eyes. “Duh. I mean the store. What store is that?”

“Probably one selling marital aids.”

“What?”

“Sex shop.” I looked at her. The perplexed look on her face touched my heart. It’s the same look a forlorn animal gives you right before you stoop to pet them and they bite your face off. “You go to one of those places to buy toys, clothing and other paraphernalia for … spicing up a relationship.”

“Oh. Have you ever been in one?”

I looked at her. “Do you really want me to answer that question?”

She thought about this a minute. “Let’s go in.”

“No, Ma, you cannot go in the sex shop.” As a friend of mine once told me, we all know our parents have (or have had) sex in their lives. We are all aware that our parents weren’t born yesterday and have a working knowledge of human anatomy. Regardless, we don’t want to discuss sex with our parents because we don’t want the visual picture of our parents fornicating to forever be imprinted on our minds. Besides, I couldn’t get my dad’s voice out of my head: “She’s your mother, for Christ’s sake. Take care of her. Don’t get her killed!” Granted, a sex shop doesn’t carry the same danger as a drive-by shooting, but I wasn’t taking any chances. She might see something that could give her a heart attack.

“Why not?”

“Because, Ma, if you go in there, Dad will think I’m not taking care of you.”

“Why do you worry so much about what your father is going to say?”

I hesitated for a minute, trying to decide if this was the time or place to start that conversation. Was it really something she needed to know? I was just about to make a flip comment and gloss over the topic when she let me off the hook by chuckling and grabbing my arm.

“We’ll buy something for your father. That’ll be fun.”

“No,” I turned to Gary and Troy for support. “Help!”

“I think it’s a great idea,” Gary said.

“Me, too,” Troy agreed. He took Mom by the arm and headed for the door. “Let’s go.”

I wedged them apart. “Let’s not, okay? Lunch. We need lunch.”

I turned and walked away. I took about five steps before I realized that Mom wasn’t behind me. I turned just in time to see her disappearing into the sex shop, nodding thanks to Gary and Troy, who stood holding the door open for her. They smiled at me, waved and followed her into the shop. I scurried after them, hoping to shield her from the worst of the marital aids, thus avoiding a lengthy and potentially embarrassing discussion as to how said devices are used. The first thing I saw was my mother standing in front of the glass display case talking to the tall, thin salesman wearing a leather harness, jock strap, and a dog collar.

I turned to the man with his ass hanging out of the chaps and nodded. “Hi.”

“Hi,” he quipped, before turning back to Mom.

“Come on, Mom. Let’s go.” I grabbed her elbow, intent on letting her walk out under her own power to retain some dignity.

“This is your mom?” The man’s face broke into a huge smile and he nodded furiously at her. “That is so cool. My mom would never come into this place.”

“She’s not supposed to, either.” I sounded more harsh than I had meant to be. It wasn’t his fault my mother was a horny senior citizen.

“He’s mean to me,” she said with a serious tone and a twinkle in her eye. “He never lets me have any fun.”

“Mom,” I sighed. “You’ve got to get out of here.” I turned to the guy. “Don’t sell her anything.”

“Don’t tell me what I can buy, I’m over twenty-one,” she said. She looked into the display case and pointed. “What’s that?”

“Don’t tell her.” I snapped.

He ignored me. “It’s a cock ring.”

“Oh,” she nodded. “A what?”

“A cock ring,” he said. “Want to see them?”

“Sure,” she said, putting her purse on the counter.

“No!” I snapped at Mr. No Shirt Ass Man.

She turned to me and said, “I am not talking to you. I am talking to him.” She leaned into Mr. No Shirt Ass Man and said, “Ignore him.”

He chuckled as he laid the display plate on the glass counter and gently lifted the products towards Mom. “These are leather strips with snaps,” he explained. “Very popular.”

I try to avoid awkward circumstances like dinner parties with people I don’t know, discussing hemorrhoids in public and watching a guy wearing a dog collar showing my mother cock rings. So I scurried away from them, keeping a sharp eye on Mom in case she tried to move further into the den of adult treasures. You never know when a running tackle might be necessary. When it comes to shopping, she’s the National League champion; if Cro-Magnon man had “shopping” as the requirement to be clan chief, we’d all be living in the basement of Tiffany’s today. There’s no evidence to suggest that to her, cock rings would be any different than diamond rings.

“Your mother is hysterical,” Gary said from beside me. “I love her.”

“Thanks, and I’m going to hurt you for this.”

“She’s an adult, Dave.”

“No she’s not, she’s my mother.”

Gary and Troy giggled and shook their heads. Those two were getting way too much enjoyment from this. They stepped backwards through the rack of woman’s erotic panties, chuckling to themselves as they hunkered down to watch Mom’s adventure through the voyeur glass. I paced behind a rack of overpriced nighties, trying to appear casual. When I looked up again, I saw Mr. No Shirt Ass Man placing the tray of cock rings into the glass display case, but Mom was nowhere to be seen.

“Where did my mom go?” I asked Mr. No Shirt Ass Man.

“She went that way,” pointing behind me into the bowels of the store. “You’re lucky. My mom isn’t half this fun.”

“She’s not supposed to be fun, she’s my mother.” Why the hell didn’t these people understand the seriousness of this situation? If other moms wanted to explore the wide world of cock rings, vibrators and anal ticklers, knock ‘em dead. Go Gloria Steinem. But for God’s sake, don’t take my mother.

I caught sight of her at the top of the spiral staircase that lead to the basement.

“Mom!” I shouted. Shoppers looked up; more out of curiosity for a possible new sex game than annoyance, I’m sure. Gary and Troy chuckled at me from lingerie. Mom ignored me. I dashed to the staircase and caught her elbow just as her foot hit the first step.

“Don’t go down there,” I said.

“Why? What’s down there?”

“The fun stuff.” Gary and Troy suddenly appeared at her side, their hands on her shoulders, urging her into the dark basement. That’s the moment I decided they were evil and must be destroyed. “Mom, really, there are things down there which defy description. Things you have never seen before and hopefully will die having never seen them.”

Mom’s eyes lit up, flashing JACKPOT.

“I’ll take you down,” Gary said. Mom took his outstretched arm. I burst between them and pried them apart.

“We’re leaving,” I said.

“Seriously, David,” she looked at me. “I’m curious and you never let me have any fun.” Then, with glee, she pointed over my shoulder, “Look! A sale!” With that, she jogged over to the erotic bras.

Several minutes later, I had the three of them safely back on the street. At the time, I was relieved to have my mother out of the den of depravity. It was only later that I realized I was living through one of the signs of the apocalypse: I now considered the streets of New York a Safe Zone.