It was a remarkable time in my life. But here’s the thing: in the midst of it all, the moment that had the most lasting impact on me, and eventually on many others, had little to do with rolling cameras. This larger moment began with a phone call that would set the next decade of my life in motion, and would ultimately bring the film’s value into sharper focus.
IV
INT. SAN FRANCISCO APARTMENT - MORNING / 2008
An impossibly sunny Bay Area Sunday. Considering his CELL PHONE, the Writer is up on his feet, carving circles around a COFFEE TABLE. Then, as if pulling a trigger, he taps in that 703 AREA CODE PHONE NUMBER, returning the call. After a few rings, a tough, tired voice answers.
MARCUS
Hey, bro.
“Hey, bro” was all Marcus said when, after a week of avoiding his calls, I finally rang him back. His voice was as tough as usual, maybe just a bit raspier from more than his usual share of Marlboro Reds, and he’d definitely had a few drinks the night before.
“Hey. What’s up?”
“I, uh…I got a problem. I need to talk about it…with you.”
Right. I had made the time: we had the day off from shooting, and I’d chosen not to hang out with the rest of the cast and crew in Dolores Park. Marcus had sounded vague but troubled in the latest messages he’d left; now he had my full attention. “What’s wrong?”
He fell silent.
“You okay, Marco?”
“Yeah.” But I could hear that he was on the verge of tears, and that wasn’t normal.
“Whatever it is, we can fix it. I promise. Did you…get someone pregnant?”
“No, bro. No.”
“Okay. I’m listening.”
After a pause, his tone grew even more dire. “You know Larry, right?”
“Yeah, of course,” I said. Larry had been one of Marcus’s best friends over the past five years. They’d met in a Virginia bar shortly after Marcus hit rock bottom in California and my mom convinced him to move back into her home. Marcus and Larry were a natural pair. They both liked shooting animals, drinking beer, and watching cars go around in endless circles on weekends. Like Marcus, Larry was rough around the edges, rarely shaved, and wore the same pair of jeans for weeks on end. Unlike Marcus, Larry had a missing tooth. I had always imagined that he’d lost it in a fight and wore his gap like a badge of honor. I could easily hear him saying, “Yeah, well, you shoulda seen the other asshole.”
So I asked Marcus, “What happened? Tell me. I won’t tell Mom.”
We had made this same promise a thousand times as kids: whenever he proposed we ditch school, the half dozen times we nearly burned down the house, and when we tried to kill our stepfather Merrill. I’d never spilled the beans to our mother. Not once. And so, when I said, “I won’t tell Mom,” he knew I actually meant I wouldn’t ever tell a soul. Perhaps this reassurance is what helped him feel safe enough to finally let his own deeply buried secret surface.
“Larry, uh…Larry…broke up with me.”
“What?” I said, as if suddenly unable to hear him.
I’d like to say that I handled this revelation like a gay pro, but Marcus was the most butch, redneck-and-proud, animal-murdering, NASCAR-loving Sears auto mechanic I had ever known. So it wasn’t that I had gone deaf, it was that I couldn’t process what I’d just heard.
He repeated himself. “Larry broke up with me.”
This had to be a joke, a prank.
Reading the disbelief in my silence, he told me the story. “About a year ago, I went over to Larry’s house, and we went down to his basement like we do to watch a race, and around the last few laps, Earnhardt was leading, which, you know, we were cool with…and…well, we had had some beers to celebrate, you know? And…we were sitting next to each other, like we do. And…well…he leaned over, and he…you know…he kissed me.”
I’m not sure if I said “Oh my God” out loud or to myself, but I said it.
“And…well, everything made sense finally. And I know he’s skinny, and the tooth, and you know…but I love him, bro. I always loved him as, you know…more than a friend…and then…we made a deal not to tell anybody, and I’m breaking that now, but you know…we were together for a year…” He went quiet. I could hear him holding back tears.
Continuing to blow it, I said, “Wow,” and sped up my circles around the coffee table in the top-floor San Francisco apartment the film had put me up in. I simply couldn’t believe that my big brother, whose undeniable toughness had made me feel so lousy for so long about being so fey, was also into men!
But I didn’t want to screw this up like I had when Tim told me he was Jewish, or when Ryan came out to me as gay, so I fought back every unhelpful phrase trying to leap from my lips—things like “Are you really sure?” or “Maybe this is just a phase” or “You just don’t seem gay to me, bro!” Instead, I gathered all the “hope speech” language I could marshal and told him how brave he and Larry were, and how much better he was going to feel now that he’d given voice to this. I assured him that his life was about to improve, that I loved him unconditionally, and that he had strengthened our brotherly bond by trusting me with this. I even had him imagine me giving him the biggest, most accepting hug possible. Done! I thought. I felt sure that I had finally succeeded in not completely screwing up someone’s big coming-out moment.
But there was still no hope in his voice. No matter how much love and acceptance I shared, no matter how many times I repeated my assurances, I couldn’t hear in him what I had felt when I came out. I couldn’t hear him light up the way I had when our mom had finally held and accepted me. Instead, he remained distraught, lost, and afraid.
Through quivering voice, Marcus went on. “Larry’s scared. He told me we have to stop, and I don’t know what to do to change his mind.”
“Why does it have to stop?!” I wanted Marcus to put Larry on the phone so I could give him a healthy dose of hope speech too, but he wasn’t with Larry.
“He’s afraid of what will happen if people find out.”
“Maybe people will accept him. How does he know? And if they don’t accept him, what kinds of friends are they?”
“Yeah,” he said. But I knew this wasn’t him agreeing. This was what Marcus said whenever someone wasn’t getting it and he was sick of explaining. He had a short fuse for such frustration and I’d already reached the end of it.
You would have thought my big brother had lucked out having an openly gay little brother armed with so much of our history, but his tone suggested otherwise. There was nothing I could say to give him hope, and if I couldn’t, he didn’t know who could. He made me reiterate my promise not to tell our mom, and I made him promise not to hurt himself and to call me back before he went to bed that night.
When he hung up, I sat down on the couch in disbelief, and I stayed there for a good long time as it slowly dawned on me what an arrogant jerk I had just been.
Of course I felt hope when I came out to Ryan: I came out in California, where at the very least we knew we couldn’t be kicked out of our apartment if our landlord found out we were gay. Of course I lit up inside when our mother accepted me: I was working in the film business, where I knew I wouldn’t be fired if my bosses found out. Marcus and Larry lived in the South, in Virginia, where even today they could legally be fired and kicked out of their homes if anyone found out they were gay. And they weren’t looking to escape. They didn’t want to move to New York, Los Angeles, or San Francisco. They loved the South; they loved their culture, their community, and the family they lived near. They didn’t want to uproot themselves, becoming refugees of the America they held dear just because they fell in love.
The truth was, Larry had every reason to be afraid of the repercussions of discovery. They lived in an area where a lack of legal protections set the bar horribly low for how gay ne
ighbors could and should be treated. Marcus and Larry had little reason to feel liberation, hope, or light.
For the first time, I saw it so very clearly. We didn’t live in one America at all. Ours was and is still a checkerboard nation of wildly disparate tribes and laws—particularly the laws affecting my LGBTQ family. In some areas, we could come out to our landlords, neighbors, and coworkers, dispel myths and lies, and create new bridges of understanding. In other areas, we dared not come out for fear of losing our homes, our jobs, and our ability to survive and support our families. And so, where personal stories can’t be told, the myths remain, and with them all the outdated prejudices and fears. And with those fears intact, too many places in our beautiful country remain truly dangerous for LGBTQ folks. Don’t believe me? Do a quick news search for “gay bashing,” or worse, look up the words “trans” and “murders” together.
I’ve always loved my country. I still do. So did Marcus. Hell, Marcus flew an American flag off the back of his truck, and stood tall and proud for the national anthem when he was lucky enough to attend a NASCAR race. But he knew all too well that the part of the country he loved most didn’t care to respect or protect him in return.
On Monday night, I walked down to our film’s set on Market Street, where we were shooting a re-creation of the enormously moving 1978 candlelight vigil for Mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk, who had been murdered by the homophobe Dan White. Six thousand volunteer extras, many of whom had been at the actual march on this very street three decades earlier, showed up with their own candles, all dressed in ’70s-style garb to help us replicate this moving moment. I stood holding a small monitor next to Gus and watched our actors march by, followed by so many LGBTQ San Franciscans and allies, who in reality, with their own bodies, blood, sweat, and tears, had fought so hard and for so long to get us to this point—where we at least had some safe areas, some free states, some places of refuge in our country.
Feeling the weight of what we were re-creating, much of the cast and crew began to shed tears. Even Gus did. But I didn’t. My mind was busy straddling three decades of LGBTQ history: from 1978 to 2008. And as this endless march of silent heroes continued past us, I realized that this film wasn’t enough. No movie would be. And my eyes began to burn in a new way. The South had taught me that families always come first and must be defended, no matter what. Now the South I loved was threatening one of my own family member’s most basic pursuits of happiness. I knew I had to square this. I simply had no idea how to. Not yet.
V
While I was in the throes of postproduction on Milk, Larry made good on ending his relationship with my big brother, and Marcus decided he’d pack up his truck and give California a try. He was moving in with me. That same month, with Walter Reed Army Medical Center likely closing to merge with the local navy hospital in Bethesda, my mom’s role as Queen of the Lobby saw its final curtain call, and she retired. With too much time on her hands now, she decided to join Marcus and his big black Labrador, Max, on their cross-country road trip to my house.
Marcus had come out to her and Todd within minutes of his phone call with me, and my mom’s response seemed to have given him more comfort than all of my fervent hope talk. She’d simply said: “Well, what the heck do I know about anything anymore, Marco? I mean…good for you.” When my mom shared the same sentiment with me on a phone call, I laughed and echoed, “What the heck do I know anymore either, Mom?”
Just as our family had mobilized before, mother and son set off across the country. This time, though, they were a touch less fearful about driving into Los Angeles because they knew I was waiting with open arms and a promise to take them to In-N-Out Burger. But somewhere in the Midwest, our tough mom’s right breast began to ache. She’d felt the lump for some time, but like many in medicine, she feared a dire diagnosis and slipped comfortably into what some call denial, but when married to my mom’s determination would be more aptly described as active refusal. By the time she and Marcus arrived in California, the tumor had grown so large and infected that it broke through the skin. She hid the blood. She hid the pain. None of us knew. This was her way.
Mom seemed tired when they arrived, but not too tired for a month’s worth of saved-up hugs and kisses. I held Marcus tighter than I ever had, and I stopped only when he let out a “You okay, man?” That meant “Cut it out.” Same old Marcus. Max ran around my little house and up the steps in the terraced backyard that looked out over the city. “This all the grass you got?” I could almost hear him protesting. Los Angeles isn’t some claustrophobic metropolis, but it’s not the wide-open space he was used to.
I set Marcus up in my spare room, put my mom on the foldout couch, and threw a barbecue that weekend to introduce Marcus to my many gay friends. Ryan showed up to welcome Marcus to “the family,” and my mom held court in the living room, surrounded by eager ears. Back home, she openly called many of my gay friends her “adopted sons” now. So here, she was the queen of us queens and absolutely loving it. I listened to Marcus struggle to fit in, occasionally slipping a “girl” into the end of his sentences like Ryan did. But it didn’t fit. He was a very different kind of gay guy.
I was busy packing my bags to head to London for the very first time to help record the score for Milk, but before I left, Marcus sat down in the backyard with me, lit a Marlboro Red, popped open a Budweiser, and asked, “Bro, are there any gays like me here?” I reassured him that there were, but I worried. He was a grease monkey with a pretty face and a twink body who liked heavy metal and killing animals. Los Angeles was home to plenty of self-proclaimed bears, twinks, jocks, cubs, daddies, otters, and leather queens, but to my knowledge, none knew how to gut a deer, and if you asked them what lube was best for, their first guess wouldn’t be a squeaky suspension. It wasn’t safe for Marcus to try to find love in the part of the country where he felt most at home, but after only a few days in Los Angeles, it was becoming clear that he was a fish out of water here.
One week later, I was in London, the then-unfamiliar city that I now call home, standing on a vibrant, bustling street in a doorway older than my hometown, when I got a call from the 703 area code. I picked up. I had been waiting all day for this call, waiting to hear my mom’s voice, and thrilled to finally tell her all about this remarkable country and what a thrill it had been to watch Danny Elfman conduct an orchestra playing the score for our film in the Beatles’ old studio. And as I did, I thought I could hear her smiling across the ocean.
Two years earlier, I had splurged at Christmas and, using Big Love residuals, bought her and Jeff a nine-day trip to Paris. I couldn’t really afford it yet, but going to Paris had been a longtime dream of hers, and now the many pictures of her on a dinner cruise on the Seine, and standing beneath the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower, were proof that it had been a dream come true. She had told me the story of my birth many times, how she’d looked into my eyes and said, “You’re going to teach me so many things.” I’d always known that this was my assignment, and now I was eager to play tour guide to the world for the Louisiana girl who once thought fruit from California seemed like a too-distant delight. Now I wanted her there with me to marvel at London. But surprisingly, she hadn’t called to hear about my new adventures. “Honey, do you think you could stop by here on your way back home?”
Though there was no fear in her voice, it was a highly unusual request and came with no explanation, so I asked for one. She refused. That was startling. So the battle of bullheaded blonds began. I reminded her that I didn’t need words to read her mind, that I knew something was wrong, and that now this was all I would worry about until I saw her. Finally, she relented.
“You can be a real pain in the rear, Lancer.”
It’s true. I admitted as much, and she continued.
“I went to the doctor. I have a lump in my right breast…”
I backed into the doorway, away from the bustli
ng crowd, and leaned on a wall for support as I awaited the inevitable next words. And without worry or drama, she shared:
“It’s cancer.”
Full stop. Everything in my life. Full stop.
As my swirling mind struggled to process this news, we somehow got to the part where she revealed that it was stage 4 cancer that had already spread, so it was about as bad as it gets.
“We can fix this. You can beat this,” I said by rote. But I meant it. After all, it had always proven true, so why not now?
She nearly laughed. “Lancer, you just think you can fix anything.”
“With enough tape and glue,” I said, knowing full well how absurd that sounded in that moment, but it managed to get a little laugh out of her.
Then, in classic Anne form, she took off her gloves and threatened that cancer with a helluva fight. “It’s not going to beat me, Lancer.” Then as if talking directly to the tumor: “I’m sending it straight to hell. Thank you very much.”
Making good on those words, she asked her doctors to hit her with all they had. She would undergo chemotherapy, then surgery, then more chemo, and top it all off with what proved to be painful, debilitating rounds of radiation. I flew home to Virginia immediately, and then every two weeks from then on as her body grew frailer but her spirit stayed just as strong.
One night, jet-lagged and nodding off in the very room where I had inadvertently come out to her a decade before, I heard a wailing sound from down the hall. I got up and walked to the master bedroom. Jeff was standing by the bathroom door, helpless. Something truly terrible was happening inside that bathroom, but she wouldn’t let him in.
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