Philadelphia

by L B Winter

  “What are you guys doing here?” I asked gleefully.

  “You happy to see us?” he shot back, eyes still dancing.

  “Yeah, I’m really fucking happy!”

  I tried to be quiet so Mom wouldn’t hear, but even from across the house I heard her mutter, “Language, Pauly! Honestly, you spend way too much time with Taylor, always cussing like a sailor. What his mother thinks, I’ll never know.”

  Trent chuckled lightly. “Lynn and I are on our way to Cleveland to visit Steven, and we passed the New Tower exit, and I thought, hey, let’s check on Paul.” Trent said this like it was the most natural thing in the world, and the fact that they both remembered me after knowing me for less than 24 hours touched me deeply. It wasn’t just an act; they truly cared about me.

  Blinking away my tears of surprise and happiness as quickly as I could, I guided Trent toward the living room, saying, “That’s where you went to college, right?”

  Trent sounded pleasantly surprised, “Yeah, that’s right. So how’ve you been? You seem like you’re doing okay. All settled at home?”

  “Yeah, things are great. I’m settled. I’m—”

  Then Lynn and Mom came back into the room, and Mom said, “Paul is applying to Franklin, you know. Maybe he’ll end up living in Philly, near you two.”

  “Oh, that would be so fun,” Lynn said warmly, smiling at me. She wasn’t dressed so fruity today, and I decided my initial impressions of her as a hippy were unfair.

  While Mom and Lynn chatted, Trent asked me if I wanted to maybe take a walk, catch up a bit. I thought that was a kind of strange request, and Lynn was the one I’d rather chat with, to be honest. But Trent seemed really sincere, and Mom appeared to trust them both completely, because she smiled and nodded, so Trent and I headed out.

  “Oh!” I said as we approached the sidewalk. “I’ve got clothes to give back to you! Your coat and the sweats you lent me—”

  Trent laughed. “Oh, kid, don’t worry about that. I’m a designer, remember? I have a new outfit every day practically, and those didn’t fit me, anyway. I mean, if you don’t want them, donate them to charity or something, but I don’t need them back. Didn’t expect them back when I gave them to you.”

  “Okay,” I said, and sank into silence.

  “So, I’ll bet you’re surprised to see us,” he said with a knowing smile.

  “Yeah, I am,” I admitted readily.

  “When I dropped you off here, I told your mom that we’d found you outside our store looking like garbage and smelling even worse, and that you were hungry and scared out of your wits, and all alone with only a ratty old blanket to keep you warm. And that’s all it took,” he glanced at me before continuing. “I knew then that she didn’t mean to kick you out, whatever you thought. She wanted you home.”

  “I know,” I said. “We talked about it. I guess it was a misunderstanding, because when we talked it sounded like…well…” I really didn’t want to finish that thought, and luckily Trent didn’t ask me to.

  “She told me I was an angel for bringing you home. Can’t say I’ve ever had that particular compliment paid to me before,” he added with a wink. “I didn’t want to take all the credit, though, so I told her about Lynn, and next thing I knew we had an open invitation to visit. This is the first chance we’ve had, though.”

  I shook my head at him and smiled. “I can’t believe you guys even remember me.”

  Trent tossed his head back and laughed out loud. “What, you think it’s every day we bring home a runaway teenager and drive him off to his mansion in New Tower?”

  “It’s not a mansion,” I frowned, but Trent just laughed again.

  “Your mom mentioned your dad’s a pastor. I would have gone into pastoring if I’d known it paid like this! Well, that and if I weren’t a homo,” he added drily.

  I cracked up and said, “No, pastoring has many rewards, but money is not typically one of them. Mom’s the breadwinner in our house. But hey,” I added, not at all able to smooth out the awkwardness of the question, “does my mom know you’re gay?”

  “Hell, no!” he said, laughing. “Why would that come up?”

  I shrugged and muttered something about maybe if she asked, and he said, “And why would she ask, Paul?”

  He was looking at me kindly now, but I looked away when I said, “Because…because I’m gay, too.”

  “Hmm.” Trent nodded, and when I finally worked up the courage to look him in the eye again, he was smiling at me. “We figured.”

  “We?”

  “Me and Lynn. She said you were practically drooling over the guy making your sandwich at that restaurant, and then when you said you wanted to come home but you weren’t sure you could…well, it sounded a lot like a situation a friend of mine had once.”

  I didn’t know what to say. “A friend of yours?”

  “My boyfriend, actually. Steven. He hasn’t seen his parents in years. Yours seem cool, though.”

  I nodded. “They are cool. They’re…they’re amazing, really, considering…everything.”

  Trent smiled and paused for a moment before saying, “So, Lynn and I want to keep in touch with you, if you’re okay with that. We want to make sure you know you have people who…people who get it. People who won’t judge you. You know?”

  “Yeah, I’d love that!” I gushed, a bit too excitedly. I tried to tone it down then, adding, “You know, I won’t call all the time or anything, but—”

  Trent laughed, clapped his hand on my shoulder, and said, “Call whenever you want, kid,” before grabbing the cell phone from my outstretched hand and typing his and Lynn’s numbers into it. We’d only gone around the block once, and we were approaching the house again, and he said something to me that Jamie said before, and this time it meant something completely different.

  “It gets better, kiddo.”

  ***

  After that, I spoke to Trent or Lynn on the phone about once a week. Mom knew about it and was fine with it, and usually extended an invitation to dinner “at some point.” Sometimes I think she really did believe they were guardian angels or something. You’d have to know her.

  Our phone calls were never about anything important, but I loved talking to my random, awesome, fashion-industry friends. They were far and away the only good thing to have come out of my whole fucked up conversion therapy experience. I now knew fully and without question that taking that train to Philly instead of coming home was the stupidest thing I have ever done, and I was not proud of it. But somehow, I did end up safe and back at home, and feeling loved (if not fully accepted) by my parents. And Trent and Lynn might be the only reason why I’m still alive to tell the tale.

  So, our phone calls. I wasn’t out at school, but even knowing this, it never stopped Lynn from being shocked that I “still don’t have a boyfriend!” Then I asked why she didn’t have one, either, and she shut up and called me nosy. I heard all about it when Steven finally moved out to Philly. By December, he was getting in on the phone calls, too, and I couldn’t wait to meet the guy. I was planning to come out to the city for college visits, and Steven’s reputation as the fiercest drag queen in Ohio (his words) preceded him. I told him that when I finally met him, I expected full drag—gown, wig, make-up, dancing, the works.

  “Oh, challenge accepted!” he said. I knew right then that I liked him; it’s not every day I meet somebody else who never turns down a dare.

  I came to Philly with Mom during Spring Break because I’d gotten accepted to Franklin in Philadelphia, and it had been a little over a year since my last time in the city. Now it was my third visit, and first with my mother, and it didn’t completely suck, after all. Franklin had a really nice campus right in the middle of the city, and it seemed like there was a ton to do. Great food, cool artwork, fun music scene. I loved being here as a tourist and not a homeless runaway (shocking, I know!).

  We came early in the morning for our visit, and afterwards Mom dropped me off at Lynn and Trent’s apa
rtment so I could hang out while she went shopping for a bit. They’d hired some high-schooler to work at the shop part-time and they’d both taken a half-day so they could see me.

  Steven answered the door, wearing nothing but tights and a bra, with a long yellow wig hanging from his head. “I heard you coming,” he declared excitedly as he pulled me in through the open door, “and I remembered you wanted full drag but I didn’t have enough time!”

  From the couch, Lynn and Trent sat watching us, cracking up, and then Steven ripped off the wig, revealing a mop of blonde curls. He smiled and said, “Fuck it, they don’t pay me enough for this shit!” before pulling me into a hug and saying, “Baby, you’re even cuter in person than you are on the phone!”

  And that’s how I met the guy who would eventually become my second-best friend in the world.

  The four of us had dinner at a cheesesteak place, where Trent wouldn’t even let me order because he said ordering Philly cheesesteaks is an art and I’d just embarrass myself. The sandwich was delicious, but Steven brought carrot sticks and explained that he was a vegetarian because he can’t stand the thought of hurting cows. Trent squeezed Steven to his side, saying, “That’s why Stevey didn’t play football in college. Would’ve had a full scholarship, but he couldn’t bear to touch cow skin!”

  Steven, slender and every bit as beautiful as Lynn, giggled and almost kissed Trent’s cheek before pulling away and saying, “Blech, you smell like cow carcass!”

  That got us all laughing, but didn’t deter me at all from devouring my sandwich and then helping Lynn finish hers (it turned out she truly couldn’t finish a sandwich by herself—who knew?).

  So, unless you count the people at Freedom—and I really don’t—I’d never had gay friends before, and I absolutely adored my new friends from Philly. After that visit, I decided I definitely wanted to go to Franklin, and to make things even better, so did Taylor. I also started talking to Steven a lot more on the phone. Unlike Lynn, he didn’t think he was my mother, and unlike Trent, he didn’t terrify me. (I know, I know, Trent really shouldn’t have terrified me anymore, but what can I say? The guy’s gigantic, and old habits die hard.)

  Steven was an amazing friend. He was the only one I could tell about therapy, and how I felt about Jamie. At first, he was intrigued. But then, after I got through the whole drama of it all, he was just disappointed.

  “You deserve so much better, sweetie,” he told me, sighing sympathetically.

  “Thanks.” It didn’t feel true. “Don’t tell Trent, okay? Or Lynn.”

  “Why not?”

  That was a good question. “It’s just weird. Like, I feel like if I’d met this guy under different circumstances, we would have been so perfect for each other. And on that level, as much as he doesn’t deserve it, I guess I just still really like him. But on the other hand, it was always hopeless, so—” I sighed. “I just feel like you get it. Trent said that your family didn’t approve of you being gay either, so I thought maybe you would get it.”

  Steven got quiet, then said, “Honey, please. I mean, I can try to understand, but my life back then was cushy compared to yours. Nobody tried to reorient me and then left me homeless.” And we laughed, even though neither of us found it funny, really.

  Then Steven added, “Besides, your parents came around, and you don’t know how lucky you are that that happened. Too often, they never do.”

  I knew that he was right, and I began to appreciate more the transformation that made my parents so different from his. It was another one of my “rearview mirror” moments.

  Another day, we talked while my parents were away at a couple’s retreat. I told him about promising my dad I wouldn’t do anything “gay,” even if I always felt like I wanted to.

  Steven was quiet for a long moment, and when he finally answered, he said, “Sweetie, that can’t last forever. You know that, don’t you?”

  “No,” I told him seriously. I really believed it when I said, “I don’t want to act on these feelings again. I really don’t. It just made me feel shitty.”

  “What about it made you feel shitty?” Steven asked. “The sex? Because from what you told me, there is not a man on earth who would have enjoyed that. That boy did not know what he was doing.”

  “No, no,” I said. “I just—we were friends, and then after he just dumped me and he said he wanted this girl instead. I mean, I’ve already told you all this, but—like, what about that wasn’t shitty?”

  “Well…” he said softly, “it’s an important distinction, Paul.”

  I knew he was serious, if he was using my real name instead of one of the hundred pet names he normally used. “What is?”

  “Acting on your feelings didn’t bother you. The way the guy acted afterward is what bothered you. Because he’s a raging douchebag, you now think you shouldn’t be gay. But really, he’s just a dick.”

  “Okay, for argument’s sake, I’ll buy that. But isn’t that a good enough reason to call it quits? Like, that sucked! I don’t want to feel that way again, ever.”

  “That’s love, baby,” he said quietly.

  “You say love, I say torture,” I answered.

  “Synonyms,” he replied. “Look, when Trent and I—”

  “Seriously, Steven?” I interrupted. “Gonna overshare about you and Trent?”

  “No, no, Trent’s the oversharer, you know that,” Steven said briskly. “No, I’m telling you just in general, something that I think might help. Because the fact that you were sad about the way things went with Jamie—that means something. That’s how you know he was important to you.”

  “Somebody can be important to me without the sex part,” I said.

  “Yes, and you can have sex without somebody being important to you. Technically, all these things can happen.”

  “Okay, well—”

  “But when you love somebody, it always means more. It isn’t possible to act like it means nothing if you really love that person. And it is absolute and complete shit if you love him and he doesn’t love you back, Paul. That is just one of life’s irrefutable facts. But,” he added slowly, “when he loves you back…it’s everything.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” I asked, aching in my gut. I knew that if Jamie had just been honest after that night, if he’d just chosen me instead of Ellen, I would have fallen so deeply in love with him that I’d never let him go. Even though he hadn’t, he was still a constant fixture in the back of my mind.

  “Because you can’t stifle who you are, baby,” Steven said. “And you shouldn’t have to.”

  CHAPTER 5

  I Have Ears

  __________

  After that, things started moving pretty quickly, as time frequently does when it feels like everything is changing.

  In our last track and field season, Taylor and I were on the 800 Relay team, and we ended up in the State Finals, which was a huge rush for us. It was while we were there, staying in our hotel room, that I told him what really happened when I left Freedom, when I went to Philly for the second time. Since he’d be meeting my Philly friends soon, I just thought it would be best if he heard it from me.

  “Holy shit, Paul!”

  “Okay, calm down,” I said. “It was over a year ago, and it’s over now.”

  “Why would you ever do something so stupid? Even if your parents didn’t want you, Paul, you could stay with me. Did that ever occur to you?”

  Huh. No, it really hadn’t. I said, “Look, I was in a really bad place. It isn’t personal. It doesn’t even matter anymore, but I just wanted you to know because Lynn and Trent are gonna want to meet you, and Steven, too, and they all know.”

  “Well, you can always tell me anything,” he countered.

  “If I want a lecture about how stupid I am, I can,” I replied.

  “Okay, fine. Sorry,” he said. “I just didn’t want anything bad to happen to you.”

  “Bad things happen to everybody,” was my cryptic reply.

 
“At least you won’t be alone in Philly this time,” he finally said after he came to terms with it all. “You’ll have me!”

  I was ecstatic about my move to Philly by the time fall rolled around. My fourth time going to the city was easily my favorite. It was the time when I had my friends and my family and my future all lined up in a row.

  Well, almost. Tay had always known he wanted to become a doctor, so he declared pre-med on his college applications, but I couldn’t quite decide what I wanted to major in. Tay’s clear and obvious sense of direction kind of drove me nuts, because I just wasn’t like that. Steven said obviously I should go into fashion, because then he’d have not one but two men who could make dresses for him when he performed drag in Pittsburgh on the weekends. Trent thought I should study finance because then I’d be rich and could finally pay him back for the clothes I maliciously stole from him (I know, Trent’s insane). And Lynn, my wonderful Lynn, said to just take general education classes until I figured out what I liked.

  Tay and I moved into our dorm and enrolled in classes, and his were about ten times harder than mine because he was already on track with his crazy organic chemistry and advanced calculus and whatever else he had to take to become a doctor. I, on the other hand, was taking freshman experience, intro to sociology, advanced algebra, and computer sciences.

  I was in one of these classes, just filling my head with new ideas and taking in the college scene when I was hit with a blast from the past that I never expected—a person that I sort of knew.

  My soc lecture hall was pretty big, so I never noticed there was a familiar face in there—though I guess he noticed me on the first day. He came up to sit next to me one day about a month in when I arrived to class early, but I couldn’t quite place him.