by Joseph Glenn
“I’ve always been of the opinion that the so-called experts, those self-appointed life experts—the ones who write self-help books and populate the talk show circuit—were out to lunch on this one. Where were the books? Why was there such an absence of professionals stepping up to help parents in the position your parents found themselves?”
Carl thought about this for a few moments.
“I guess because the stigma had become so great,” he finally said. “It was no longer acceptable—and certainly was no longer socially chic, even within the more liberally-minded circles—to have a gay kid. The blame—and blame was the word for it—was placed smack at the front door of the child’s parents. The books you wondered about existed, to a limited extent, but not very many people bought them. And the upswing of failing to prepare one’s child for the revelation—a responsibility of the parents—was that the situation was frequently mishandled.
“Their explanation,” he continued, returning to his thread, “such as it was, was more a defense of their silence. Now, remember, I was all of nine years old. Here I am placed in the position of the forgiver. ‘Can you understand how difficult this is for us?’ they asked. ‘You must realize why we didn’t want anyone to know. So how could we tell you?’ And, ‘We can only imagine how tough this is for you, but try and look at it from our position.’”
“That’s pretty bad,” Meredith agreed. “Selfish.”
“In their defense they wanted to be supportive, in their way. And I suppose I was lucky. In a previous generation, my parents would have been the type saying, ‘No son of mine is gay.’ That’s how old school my family is. They would have said, ‘You’ll be welcomed under this roof when you understand what kind of behavior we’ll tolerate!”
“Your relationship with them remains strained?” Meredith asked with caution.
“Not at all! They’ve more than risen to the occasion. I think reality finally set in for them. They both became very active, you know, politically. They cut off a fair number of friends and some relatives who refused to become involved in the whole park debate. All these years later, they still haven’t let those people back into their lives. They became quite one-sided about it: if you supported the imprisonment of gays, you were their enemy. I think my imprisonment here is the worst thing that’s ever happened to them. My father cried when they brought me here. My mother did, too, but she had been crying for weeks at that point.”
“You were among the mass brought to the parks against your will. So that was what, eleven years ago?”
“Ten years, eight months, and” he stopped to calculate, “four days.”
“Why the parks?” she asked. “You were a Humanities professor and, if my somewhat biased son can be trusted, a successful one. And your parents are doctors—”
“My mother has a Ph.D.”
“But a well-educated, upper middle class family. Certainly you had the resources to get out.”
“We debated that for some time,” he said. “I even did some job searching overseas. Finally we decided—all of us, my parents, my sisters, because it was very much a family debate; everyone felt they had a stake in it—that I should take a stand.”
Meredith looked about the cramped quarters, glanced at the muted television. “This is a stand?”
“This was the argument: I was smart. I was a contributing member of society. It certainly makes a statement about this society, about our leaders, when such a person is oppressed based on nothing but his sexual orientation.”
“And ten years, eight months later do you still feel that way?”
“Sometimes,” he said. “Not always. You can’t make much a stand when you’ve been filed away into obscurity.”
“And what do your parents say?”
“I think they have great guilt for encouraging me to stay in the U.S. They never thought it would go on like this. They can see it’s made no difference, this choice I’ve made. It has been a pointless gesture. I’m certain my father feels I’ve wasted my life.”
“They don’t actually say that in their letters?” Meredith asked with concern.
“No, not in those words. We’re all quite careful what we commit to writing. But we’ve learned to communicate obtusely; a natural code has developed over time.”
He hesitated before continuing, almost as if he felt guilty expressing himself. “But we don’t have to use code words or rely on innuendo or pregnant pauses when we talk in person. They’ve been here lots of times. I don’t suppose Tyler has mentioned that.”
With embarrassment, Meredith confessed that he had not. Surely Carl knew her relationship with Tyler was unique, and that there were extenuating factors that had prevented her from visiting. She was suddenly sullen, and winded from this kick in the stomach.
Carl’s reaction was either tactful or oblivious, more likely the former; he made no comment and appeared content to continue with his narrative. Meredith was relieved that he did not appear to be assuming the role of the protective spouse, prepared to scold her as an absentee parent. “My parents have been wonderful,” he continued. “We get a package every week—sometimes two a week. Wine, cheap vodka—Tyler’s vice, not mine—an assortment of gourmet cheeses. Quite a bit actually goes to waste because it spoils before we get to it. Sometimes we entertain and send friends home with the leftovers.”
Meredith chided herself for her visions of popcorn parties. Grown men drink hard liquor and throw wine tasting parties.
“You mentioned they visit regularly. I assume that means more frequently than once every fifteen years—like me.”
“They’re here four, five times a year. They’re getting on, of course, and I’d be surprised if we see as much of them in the coming years.”
She pressed her lips together, but forced a one-sided smile. She should, she knew, be grateful Tyler and Carl had been looked after by Carl’s parents. They had picked up the slack she had created with her absence, but surely they understood how crippled she had been these years, wanting to help, wanting to visit, and longing to be more involved. But tipping her hand then would have precluded any form of help she was now able to offer. Just like Carl’s parents, she had counted on the parks failing within a matter of years. She kept busy with her work so that she would be able to care for the men, her boys, when they reintegrated back into society. “You understand,” she said, “I would have been here many times myself?”
“Oh, absolutely!” Carl answered without hesitation. “My parents are in a very different place; they’re retired; they have the time.” He studied her face as though looking for a sign he had put her at ease. “And, of course, they aren’t celebrities.”
Meredith sighed. Carl’s quick response assuaged some of her guilt. Hopefully, Tyler felt the same as his partner.
“This moron,” Carl said, waving an animated hand at the television. He stepped to the television to restore the volume. “No batteries for the remote,” he explained. “Tyler finally threw it away. ‘What was the point in keeping it?’ he argued.” He again directed her attention to the screen with an extended finger. “This guy is a goon.” He had little emotion in his voice, Meredith thought, like an old-timer irritated by wild teenagers, or a busy shopper faced with a methodical cashier. He was annoyed, but powerless.
“Who is it?” she asked.
“Dumb-ass politician,” he said. “Running for Congress in this district of Minnesota. Probably going to win,” he added.
“…work too hard for their money to allow Washington to waste it. If elected, Mark Schure will lower taxes by cutting irresponsible Government spending,” a voice-over proclaimed.
“They always say that,” Meredith noted. “No one can get elected if they say, ‘The first thing I’ll do is raise your taxes and funnel that money into frivolous and ineffective programs.”
“But wait,” Carl warned her, “it gets better.”
“…your temperature rise when you see your tax dollars support the carefree lives of the gays in Fallow Par
k, or Barefoot Park, or Felker Park?”
The commercial cut to a vacuous-looking group of extremely young and physically fit men and women, apparently over-imbibing at a cocktail party. Most of them were fashionably dressed. Handsome men stood in groups of four or five. With a drink in one hand, a young man used his free hand to touch the face of the man to his left, as though assessing how closely the man had shaved. He turned to the man on his other side and, without invitation, felt the biceps of an arm. The women, similarly grouped by themselves, divided evenly into exaggeratedly masculine women in pants, no makeup, and closed cropped hair. The other women appeared to be mannequins in low cut dresses, deep red lipstick, and too much jewelry for what appeared to be an afternoon party.
“Oh, for God’s sake!” Meredith said. “I can’t believe they still run campaigns like this. How much more do they think they can wring out of the parks? What’s left to cut, the lunches? Clean linen? Electricity?”
“It’s still effective,” Carl pointed out. “Candidates who want to be elected, especially the conservative ones appealing to the right wing voters, still play this card. There are tens of millions of people who choose to know nothing about life in the parks, but because they prefer to be ignorant, they are prepared to believe Fallow and the others are a huge drain on the country’s resources. They pat themselves on the back as hard-working Americans and view people like me with contempt and disgust. They seem to have lost sight of the fact that they are the ones who put me and people like me in this place. They now perceive me as a free-loader, a slacker on a full-time vacation, a vacation they believe they alone are underwriting. And look at this woman in the back,” he continued, his face inches from the screen. “Wait, they’ll show her again. She somehow juggles a lit cigarette and two drinks. Never mind that the free booze—to the extent that there ever was any—disappeared a fucking decade ago! Pardon my language,” he quickly added. “And when were cigarettes ever available? And smoking indoors, for those able to secure cigarettes, has always been against the rules. Never mind that the only parties with alcohol or tobacco are funded by private citizens—friends and family members on the outside—who take pity on us. I don’t know where they filmed this, but I wish I lived there. It sure as hell isn’t here. And notice that everyone is under thirty-five—to emphasize how able bodied, and therefore inexcusably lazy, we are.”
The commercial cut to a close-up of the politician, Mark Schure, a man of roughly forty, Meredith guessed, but so heavily made up she had to assume he was older. He pronounced: “America can’t afford to provide a lavish lifestyle to healthy young citizens who don’t work. It’s time to tell Fallow Park the party’s over. And that’s a message I’ll take to Washington!”
“They always single out Fallow Park,” Meredith observed after Carl stepped up to the television and cut the volume.
“That’s because we were the first. We’re the name brand, the example used to represent all the parks.”
“Kind of like Auschwitz,” Meredith ventured, after weighing the pros and cons of drawing such an emotion-packed parallel.
The clicking and mechanical turning of the lock of the front door drew their attention. Carl, still at the television, again turned down the volume.
Tyler looked to his mother, to his partner, and back again to his mother. He must have read some degree of anticipation, some shared secret they wanted him to discern from their silence and blank stares. He smiled. “It’s the isolation tank episode, isn’t it?”
Chapter Eight
The front door was the same as Tyler and Carl’s. Meredith realized all the doors of the residences must be like this: heavy and metal, but seemingly hollow inside. The slightest tap resounded like a thunderclap. The door inched open under Meredith’s rapid knock. She peered through the crack she had created, but held back in the hallway, waiting for a formal welcome. A rustle of movement inside assured her that her presence was known. She noted as she waited that none of the hallway lights were out. Nor was there a noticeable lack of housekeeping. Even the air smelled pleasant, or at least free of the stale odor she had noticed in Tyler’s building. There was no trace of water damage. Odd pieces of furniture were placed in unexpected crevices and elbows of the hallway. They did not match the carpet or each other, but at least some effort had been made to make the space comfortable. There was even a scattering of photographs on the walls, including one picture, undoubtedly supplied by its subject, capturing the night she was presented with a Sarah Siddons award in Chicago. This building must be the Park Avenue of Fallow Park, she surmised. How befitting, she thought, for one of its more distinguished residents.
The movement in the apartment grew closer and at once the door was pulled open with surprising force.
Meredith stood face to face with Sybil Germaine. But she had to look down to see into her eyes. Sybil, in bedroom slippers, sweat pants, and sweatshirt, stood no more than five foot one. She was shorter than Meredith remembered. Old women lose height, she reminded herself. And Sybil was old. Meredith estimated her age at eighty. She had been close to sixty in their Pots of Luck days. She felt a chill when she realized she was now the same age Sybil had been when they first met. How old she had seemed back then.
Sybil popped her now white-haired head into the hallway and scanned in both directions. She cast a questioning look up at Meredith.
“Just me,” Meredith assured her. “They’ve granted me a thirty minute private visit before they take over and ruin everything.”
Sybil looked relieved at this, but quickly reclaimed her deadpan expression with suspicious sideways glances. “Come in already!” she barked, not as if it were an invitation, but as though Meredith lacked the sense to do so without instruction.
Sybil pointed to the chair where she wanted Meredith to sit. Two glasses of ice water, with the edges of the cubes still discernable, sat on coasters on the coffee table. The chair and table, and for that matter the other furnishings in the room, were once nice pieces as far as Meredith could tell. But it was a curious mismatch of American Craftsman, Danish modern, and old-lady Chippendale. It was as if the furnishings of three different homes had been merged. This made sense; Meredith recalled that Sybil had owned three homes at one time. One on each coast and a lake home somewhere in between, possibly Lake Geneva in Wisconsin.
“For you,” Sybil said. “Drink if you’re thirsty.”
Meredith sat in the armchair, noticeably in need of reupholstering, or at least cleaning. Though the exterior hallway was immaculate by Fallow Park standards, none of its polished order extended into Sybil’s home. There was a touch of Miss Havisham about the place, but this was congruent with its occupant; Sybil was far from what Meredith would envision as domestically motivated. Her artistic nature most assuredly rebelled against the demands of routine housework. The room had a musty feel of mementos, souvenirs, and decay. Meredith’s impression was further confirmed by the presence of a scrapbook on the end table closest to her. The cover was free of dust—no surprise to Meredith—as this was a resource Sybil no doubt consulted on a regular basis.
“Kick off your boots if you’re inclined,” Sybil told her as she pushed one of the water glasses towards her. It appeared to be crystal and its coaster had a border of onyx. “Still a blonde?” she asked. “Might want to think about transitioning to one of the auburns. A woman reaches a certain age.”
As Meredith attempted to settle herself into a semblance of comfort, she made a conscious effort to toss off Sybil’s badgering style. This brusque manner had always been off-putting to her. Confronted with it after all these years, Meredith noted it was one of the things about her former colleague she had not missed. Was she making a mistake orchestrating this reunion, she wondered. There was no point in pretending that they had had any kind of relationship when they worked together. What kind of connection could they create at this late date?
Sybil, she noted, leaned on furniture as she moved towards the couch. Once there, she was careful about gently recl
ining into it. Meredith spotted a four-prong cane by the door. She said nothing, reminding herself she was here to view, not comment, and to clear the way for their on-screen reunion in thirty minutes.
“Lemon cookies,” Sybil said, pointing at the plate on the coffee table. “A real treat. Thought about opening my bottle of wine, but I’m saving that for my birthday.” She sat down defiantly, as though she would never relinquish the bottle without a fight.
“Oh, I should have brought something,” Meredith quickly responded, realizing how crass it was to show up empty handed when Sybil’s provisions were so minimal. She took refuge in the fact that she had not been warned in advance of this mandatory interview with the actress. Certainly no one expected her to whip up a hostess gift or peace offering once she had arrived at the park. “I should have had them prepare something for us.”
“Nonsense, I’m the host today. Maybe I will get that bottle. This is a special event, a nice departure from my routine.” She added: “Don’t get enough of those.”
“Oh no, Sybil, please don’t. I’m not a special occasion.”
Sybil reclined back into the couch. Meredith read a look of relief on her face; she was clearly pleased that her wine had been spared. Or was she relieved that she was spared the trip to the kitchenette? Sybil was hard to read.
“Do you remember a critic named Wyatt Alter?” Sybil asked.
“Wyatt?” Meredith shook her head.
