Jessie knew Dad had bad taste in women. These were the wives, but there had been many terrible girlfriends as well. The only one Jessie liked was Padraigin. She pined for my father, but she was far too sane and sweet to suit his tastes. He needed bitter, resentful, crazy and cruel or he just wasn’t happy.
The Shepherd’s Pie was delicious. We had Dreyer’s Tin Roof Sundae for dessert. I was stuffed. Jessie invited me to Kirk’s place up the street. I thought about the wiggle in his walk. Part of me was terrified to be in a room with him because that might mean people will know I’m gay. It was a weird, leftover internal homophobic reflex.
She whispered. “There’s weed at Kirk’s.” That meant laughter and good times, so I agreed to go. Kirk lived further up the hill in an apartment building much like my father’s. It didn’t face Park Boulevard, so it was quiet. Kirk had a bunch of people over. There was no way to tell who was gay. I avoided eye contact with everyone. The weed made that fear worse. I wasn’t laughing. I was afraid that the straight men would beat me up, and the straight women would tie me down and fuck me. It was ludicrous, but a pot-addled brain knows no logic. I felt a pounding in my head that grew more and more intense. The walk to Kirk’s had been much further than I had imagined.
Jessie asked, “Ethan, what’s wrong?”
“I have a headache and I’m sweating.”
Kirk’s friend Eric said, “He’s paranoid. Come on kid, let me take you home.”
Eric was the one guy in the room I thought was a hunk. He had a mustache and tight Levi’s with K-Swiss sneakers. He wore an Oakland A’s baseball jersey that strained against his pectoral muscles. We got into his Chevy truck. There was a tiny dream catcher hanging from his rear-view mirror. That still meant nothing. Eric was ambiguous. I was stoned, with diarrhea-mouth.
“Is that your dream catcher?”
“Who’s else would it be?”
“Your girlfriend’s.”
“I don’t have a girlfriend.”
I got so far, but I forgot my lines. Or maybe I never had any because I thought he had a girlfriend. We rode down Park Boulevard in awkward silence. He pulled into my Dad’s driveway.
Eric said, “Here we are. I’m sure I’ll be seeing a lot of you.”
I nodded. Then my inner imp said aloud, “I hope I see a lot more of you soon.”
It was bold; it was dangerous. Eric frowned and laughed. “I’m not gay, but if I was, I’d be into you.”
“Okay.” I got out and slammed the truck door. He waved. I plastered a fake smile on my face and waved back. As soon as he was gone, I sunk into a deep funk. I was a virgin, and always would be. That’s why I never put myself out there. Rejection is excruciating.
The following night, we had dinner with La Wanda. A few of Dad’s friends were there, but Violet was not. As we ate the delicious yam casserole, green beans and seared chicken, the group of friends started an intervention.
“Allan, we’ve all met Violet, and we don’t understand why you would want to marry her.”
My father kept eating, not looking up from his meal. I imagine he was thinking, “If I pretend not to hear them, they’ll stop.”
LaWanda stood up and threw a coffee mug across the dining room. It smashed into shards. “Allan! We’re serious! Why are you marrying Violet?”
My dad blushed. “Things are in motion. It’s too late.”
LaWanda smacked my dad hard on the cheek. “It isn’t too late. Call this wedding off. You’re breaking Padraigin’s heart!”
My dad looked up. “Padraigin? She doesn’t care for me. She said so.”
Dick, another music friend, said “She’s barmy about you. You’re afraid because she’s too lovely.”
Despite how much I agreed with all the things being said, I felt terrible for Violet. She was selfish, but she wasn’t cruel. She was an improvement over my mother. I had only met Padraigin once. I thought she’d make an awesome stepmother.
My dad turned to me, “How about you, Ethan. Do you think I should marry Violet?”
“I’m too close to the situation to be a fair judge.” I had no idea what that meant, but it worked.
The haranguing and badgering continued until finally my father said, “I’m calling it off. I’m calling off the wedding first thing tomorrow.”
But he didn’t.
I crashed on the sofa and slept until noon the next day. Nobody was home. I didn’t have a key. I called down to the Diggery Inn. Jessie had the keys. I had nowhere to go. The commuter bus to San Francisco left ages ago, and there wasn’t a BART station for miles. I dig through my duffle bag and find a letter David Barrett wrote me my senior year. David is a student at UC Berkeley. I knew him from when I was hanging with the Sonoma crowd. In his letter is a phone number. I try it, and he answers on the first ring.
“Ethan! How are you? I thought I would never hear from you again. Aren’t you in New York?”
“No, I came to stay with my Dad in Oakland for a while. Are you busy?”
“I’ll come get you. We can hang out at my place.”
David arrived on a hospital green Lambretta with chrome trim. It was a cool bike. We rode back to North Berkeley where he was living in a cabin on stilts.
“I’ll call Rob Schaefer to see what he’s up to.”
Rob worked at a tobacconist on Dwight. He said to come by. We walked across campus to his shop. I remembered Rob from some of the Sonoma house parties. I always assumed he was straight, but I was wrong. Rob lived near Ashby in a flat with a bunch of straight guys. It was spacious, with a great big couch.
Between the three of us, as we walked down Telegraph, we ended up talking about gay porn. It didn’t seem to come from any one of us, it just happened, like a Ouija board. I was a gay porn video virgin. Tower Records rented porn, and we went in to browse the catalog. Through a process of elimination, we were deciding between “The Bigger the Better” and “The Biggest One I Ever Saw.” Both sounded good. We pooled our cash and agreed we could afford a double feature. As the girl behind the counter put our purchases in a bag, she said, “You know, my friend saw ‘The Biggest One I Ever Saw’.” She paused. “It wasn’t the biggest one she’d ever seen.”
At Rob’s we made popcorn and put in the first video, “The Bigger the Better” starring Rick Donovan. Rob’s roommate Howie was the only one home. He sat with us and watched, peeking through his fingers during the painful parts. He said the teacher was a straight porn star; he’d seen him in many videos. I wanted to get off badly, but I felt ashamed. I kept my hands away from my lap. Of all of us, only Howie the straight guy was touching himself. It felt like the room could explode into an awkward orgy at any minute. When the first film ended, the Pizza arrived. Nobody wanted to answer the door, but Rob got up stiffly and paid the delivery guy.
“I don’t want to see the second one.” Rob said. “Can you just take it home with you, David?”
David packed up the videos. After pizza, we had a long walk back to the house on the North Side. We caught a Humphrey Go-Bart to shave a couple miles off the journey. It wound up dropping us off in front of David’s place. The driver had no other passengers and he was bored.
We put the second movie into David’s giant VCR and watched the military themed “The Biggest One I Ever Saw.” This time, we were in tacit agreement that each of us would leave the room for a little while to give the other a chance to take care of business. I had this weird problem where my balls got large and painful if I spent too long with an erection and didn’t take care of it. David said it was blue balls, but I knew enough to know mine was worse than mere blue balls.
It was almost comical how we played along with the charade.
David said “I’ll make us grilled cheese sandwiches, but first, let me get you a napkin. Oh, I’m out of napkins, you’ll have to use paper towels.” And he brought a roll out. “I can only make one sandwich at a time. Do you want yours first?”
“Yes, please.” Then he left the room. I did my business in a jiffy.
>
“David, I just need to go to the toilet. I’ll be out in about fifteen minutes.”
And so it went.
There were never any grilled cheese sandwiches and we both knew it. It was close to midnight, so David took me back to my Dad’s place. Jessie was sound asleep when I tapped at the window. I was flummoxed when Violet answered the door.
Violet snapped, “What are you doing?”
“I left a note. I was visiting an old friend in Berkeley.”
“Well you can’t just come traipsing in here in the middle of the night. I thought you were a burglar!”
Jessie intervened. “He said he was coming home late.”
Violet pivoted viciously. “I didn’t ask for your input.”
Jessie looked like she was going to punch Violet. For a British person to display that much emotion requires a tremendous misdeed, and Violet knew it. She slithered back to bed.
“Thanks, Jessie.”
She motioned me into her room and shut the door. In a soft whisper she said, “Allan is kicking me out. Violet told him to.”
My eyes grew wide. “That bitch!” I whispered savagely.
“It’s okay, Eric’s got a place in West Oakland with a flat to let. We can carpool.”
“Do you have the same schedule?”
“No, but I can get a cab or whatever if I need to.”
I felt like crying. I had just found my long-lost big sister, and she was leaving.
“Can I go with you?”
“You can come over anytime you like.” She gave a warm smile.
“I’m going back to school in a couple of weeks.”
“Well, come home on holidays, won’t you?”
I nodded.
✽✽✽
After Jessie moved to West Oakland, I thought I would get her room for the rest of the summer. I thought wrong.
“I’m moving my Science Fiction collection in here,” Violet announced, “and this is where I sleep when Allan is snoring too loud.”
So, I remained on the couch. Jessie rang me up with some interesting news.
“I got two free tickets to a psychedelic poster show in the City at the Oasis. Do you want to go?”
“Won’t we need LSD or something?”
“I have some. Eric gave it me. It’s like the real thing.”
I took the 18 bus down Park Boulevard to BART and got off in West Oakland. Jessie was still getting ready. I was wearing zebra fur pants and creepers. She had a Marimekko drawstring dress in grey and black plaid. Together we were snazzy.
The walk from Civic Center to the Oasis was a long one. Jessie had a ton of money - apparently the tips at the Diggery Inn were good. She sprang for a cab when our feet hurt. We dropped acid in the cab.
The show was all original posters from the 1960s. I was drawn to an Avocado with eyes that was growing greener the longer I stared at it. It was a Led Zeppelin poster from 1971, the year “Stairway to Heaven” came out. There were some old hippies with an overhead projector and colored oils creating a series of lava-lamp style blobs on the wall. It pulsated like a heart. I had a sloe gin fizz and Jessie had a margarita. We talked to dozens of people. I don’t remember any of them. We got there on the late side, and they roll up the carpets at 1:30 am in San Francisco, so the event ended abruptly. The lights came on, and we all filed out. Jessie hailed a cab back to West Oakland.
“Can you afford it?”
“I’m making loads of money don’t worry.” It was nice to be driven all that way. Jessie opened her jacket and I saw a pair of eyes staring back at me. It was the Avocado. She had stolen the poster.
“Because you loved it so much.” What an awesome Auntie.
Back in her apartment, Eric came over and offered us weed. I smoked it and immediately regretted it. The mixture with acid was terrible. I started to see Mayan hieroglyphs on the walls of the apartment. I had to run to the bathroom with painful stomachache and diarrhea. I was starving but everything I ate tasted like perfume. I needed to sleep. My Dad didn’t know I was out, and he would be waking up for work soon. Jessie gave me twenty dollars for a cab home. We hugged and I asked her to guard the poster for me until I got back for holidays. Violet would probably throw it in the trash.
As the cab pulled up to my Dad’s house, I grew terrified. He would see me on acid and know I was doing drugs. Then he’d kick me out like he’d done with Jessie. The cab driver waited for me to build up the courage to get out.
“What’s the matter, dude?”
“I’m tripping on acid and my Dad is probably awake now.”
“He ain’t gonna know. I didn’t know, and I do a lot of acid.”
“Thanks, man.”
I climbed the stairs to my Dad’s place. Violet was sound asleep in Jessie’s old room. I tapped softly on the door and Dad opened it.
“You’re coming home late.” It was factual, not angry or upset. He wasn’t Mom.
“I was at Jessie’s new place. It’s real nice.” I didn’t mention the owl sitting on my father’s shoulder. He might not have known it was there.
“That’s great. Look, I never got around to having a key made, so Violet is going to give you hers and you can walk to the hardware store across from the Diggery.”
“Cool. Oh man.” I yawned and stretched. “I really am overdue for bed.”
“Sweet dreams.” He left, and I crashed on the sofa.
I woke up at noon with Violet standing over me. Hands on her hips, toe tapping, she seemed pissed.
“Sleeping Beauty awakes!” She tried to say it in a funny, friendly tone but it came out cruel and sarcastic. Still, I could see she was extending an olive branch.
“Hey, Dad said I should borrow your key.”
When I got back from the hardware store, Violet was in a good mood.
“What are you doing this afternoon, Ethan?”
“I don’t have plans.”
“I’m going to a sort of giant swap meet in the town of Benicia.”
“The Peddler’s Fair?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“I grew up in Downtown Benicia. The Peddler’s Fair was the best thing that happened all year.”
“Maybe you’ll have some insight on parking. Care to come along?”
I hadn’t seen Main Street in 4 or 5 years. It made me nostalgic. I wanted to see my old house on East D Street, the one where Jack London supposedly used to stay. Violet was excited to see it too. I walked to where my house should have been, and a brand-new office building stood there. Tears stung my eyes. It was my old home and it was gone. It was terrible.
We walked through the many vendors, who were increasingly selling new Chinese or Mexican toys instead of groovy antiques. The guy who would crack open geodes wasn’t in his usual spot; it was a white supremacist group selling Nazi memorabilia.
“Violet, I’m kinda freaking out. My town is changed.”
“That’s what happens. Time marches along and bulldozes your memories. I’m sorry it happened so soon for you.”
We drove home through Martinez and Concord. I was holding back tears. I hadn’t realized how much it hurt to see your home vanish. Violet understood. She wasn’t a monster. She talked about her career in nursing and urged me to decide on a major at Columbia so I could get working early. “You want to buy into the pension early.”
I had no idea what it meant, but I appreciated the advice. I was hoping to be a filmmaker or a writer, not a nurse, so I had trouble relating to her story. She talked about Richard Speck, who had raped and killed nurses at a nearby nursing college in Chicago. Violet had almost gone there. “Could you imagine. We were so scared until they caught him two days later.”
The traffic on the 13 was light, and we were home by dusk. Dad took me and Violet out to the Montclair Golf Course for supper.
The Montclair Golf Course was a public facility. The clubhouse was always crowded with heavy drinkers and locals from down the hill pretending to hang somewhere fancy. The cook referred to himself as a
chef. His entrees were mostly meat with cheese. I didn’t mind. I had Chicken Penne Alfredo. It came with a huge bowl of Kraft Parmesan cheese. Adding lots of pepper made it edible. Violet and my father loved this restaurant. I have no idea why. Parking was easy, and it was in a secluded woodland setting but super tacky. It was like you’d found the worst restaurant in Big Sur. Underwhelming is the best word to describe it.
Afterwards, Dad took us to McCallum’s on Solano Avenue for an ice cream sundae. The servers wore Scottish kilts and tartan scarves, even the boys. We got the kind you could share, which struck me as gross about halfway through, but it was so delicious I had to keep eating. I regarded the old black and white photo of children struggling to eat a “Nightmare” sundae bigger than they were. That was how New York felt.
Without Jessie under the roof, I got bored. One night, David took me in to San Francisco in his mother’s car, a white Mercedes named Cruella. We went to the best bar in town, the Stud. It had been there since the 1960’s, across from Hamburger Mary’s on Folsom. I had a stomachache brought on by the excitement and thrills of the underaged bar crasher. So did David. We both had fake IDs and we both got in. Inside was unlike any place on Earth. The bar was in the middle of the building, with narrow walkways going down the length. The Dance floor was at one end, and the pool table at the other. It was butt-to-front crowded. Everywhere you went, your dick rubbed against something or someone. And you couldn’t stay in one place. It was like the gay Hajj. We swept in a counterclockwise circle with cold Buds and warm nether regions. The bathroom was so tiny, it forced you up against another guy. I was self-conscious but I had to pee. “Wow, you’re a big boy,” my pee buddy said. I don’t know why; I wasn’t unless you count the balls. “Are you a top or a bottom?”
“I’m the styrofoam packing material in between.” I didn’t know how else to answer, being a virgin.
David was much more forward, and he had a type that went for him. He liked the type. I didn’t like the type that went for me. This wasn’t like Whispers night at the Pyramid. This was full on hardcore gay gay gay, San Francisco style. I felt uncomfortable.
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