Fallow Park Today

by Joseph Glenn

  “Poor Sybil,” she repeated out loud.

  “Stop beating yourself up,” Jack said as he reclaimed his corner of the bed.

  Meredith supposed they struck a cozy, clandestine couple just now. The lateness of the hour, Jack, or “Bill” as he was believed to be, in a state of undress, and both of them with end of the day drinks in their hands. Were someone to interrupt them, assumptions would be made. But such a misconception would only further Jack’s image as a straight man living on the outside. Strange how many people could be manipulated into accepting an image simply because it was one they wanted, or expected, to see. And who knew that better than Jack? Despite all the hypervigilance of recent years, the testing that helped characterize and pigeonhole people into one category or another, he had escaped detection for years. And he expected to continue doing so. As he had assured Meredith he would, he had pulled off this return to Fallow Park. He had stood as close as two feet from Doctor Charles Makepeace several times and it had been clear the park director had not recognized him.

  Meredith was in a state of awe, but one, too, of concern at how easily he scoffed at the danger inherent in the situation. He was more than merely cavalier, he was brazen. He had been no more than amused when Meredith and his former boyfriend, the man she had freed from jail, told him of the prison cell Makepeace had prepared for him. Meredith had joined the men in Jack’s room after she arranged for the younger man to be released from prison. She had urged the young man to share all the details about the linen and the Sunday dinner. The prisoner, of course, had required little coaxing. “That,” Jack said after the man relayed Makepeace’s plan, “is why the dolt is an unworthy adversary. He’s so focused on his end-goal he’s missing the easy victory standing right in front of him. ‘Surely Jack Harbour would never return to Fallow Park.’ Consequently, it’s probably the safest park for me to break into.”

  “Safe,” she laughed. “I trust you aren’t going to try it again?”

  “No,” he answered her. “I don’t need to. My organization is big enough now—and I’ve got enough straight people on board—none of the gay members have to take the risk. As I’ve told you before, because of the personal nature of this particular coup, I wanted to be here to witness it. But to answer your question: no. No, I will not return to Fallow Park after tomorrow.”

  “But you’ll still be based in the country?”

  “Definitely. I’ve got a cover that’s working for the time being. I’m glad you’re taking Tyler and Carl out of here, and I hope all three of you have enough sense to stay away until it’s once again safe here. But I need to be here in the U.S., hiding in plain sight and close to the action.”

  Now alone with Jack, the prisoner returned to his apartment in Building G, Meredith could ask questions Jack might have been reluctant to address in front of the former lover. “When do you expect to return to the U.S.?”

  “Soon.” He clicked his plastic cup against hers and downed the last of his brandy. “Within the week. We’ll arrange some kind of press thing when we get to Paris, but I don’t want to make any arrangements—don’t even want to commit anything to writing—until we’re off this continent. Then it’s back to my life in Wyoming.”

  “Back to the patient wife and heterosexual children.”

  “It’s a perfect arrangement. Lucky for me, my wife and her girlfriend feel the same way.”

  “And the extra baggage you’re acquiring? This man who prompted you to take the incredible chance of returning to Fallow Park? You’ve said you don’t intend to renew your relationship with him. How does he fit into your plan?”

  “I’ll get him set up in London. He’ll have something to do there.”

  “With the cause you mean?”

  “Yeah, that was always my plan. He can make a contribution there and still be out of harm’s way. I certainly haven’t gone to these lengths to just let him roam about the U.S. He wouldn’t last a month.”

  “He thinks you’ve settled down with another man.”

  “I know. I haven’t got around to telling him that ended. I have to be careful how he finds out. I don’t want him to think we have a future. On the other hand, my work brings me to London often enough we can still maintain some semblance of a friendship. It’s not ideal, but it will work for now. I’m glad I’ll have him out of the country. One less distraction; one less person to worry about. I feel I have to maintain my alias as a straight man in society—I’m too out of touch if I’m based outside the U.S. I need to be close to the problem, more connected to the people in the parks. Plus it’s an easy identity to assume when I need to disappear.”

  “Still, it’s a strange sort of half-life.”

  “It is, but I’ve become accustomed to it. I’ve found I can live within its limitations. It’s not forever, thank God. This living under the radar is not for everyone.”

  “I know. I know about living under the radar.”

  Jack Harbour knew of her struggles. This much he had known since their not-so-by-chance meeting the previous year. It had been inevitable, indeed necessary, that they should get to know each other well. Eleven months of planning had gone into the preparation for this week. That was the time frame they knew they had before a rinky-dink production company would bring them inside the gates of Fallow Park, the oldest and best known of the internment camps. It was Meredith who learned of the project; the producers had approached her with the job of hosting the program after several lesser names had turned them down. She immediately seized on the program’s potential and brought Jack onboard. From that point on, they had been nearly inseparable.

  “There are some straight people in this country living out their own versions of Fallow Park,” she reminded him.

  “Although timing was everything for you,” he pointed out. “If you’d been born a generation later your life would have panned out quite differently. You would never have been permitted the opportunities you had as a young woman. You, a tainted woman, a woman who might bring forth more gay people into the world. It’s an identity subsequent generations have to live with, and live with their whole lives. You could have had it worse.”

  “It’s true.” She thought of Ansel’s mother but said nothing to Jack. He had been oblivious to her frequent dalliances with Ansel, and she intended to keep him in the dark. Someday she might tell the whole story, but probably not. Doing so would only undermine the discretion she, with some pride, had exhibited toward the encounters. “It’s true,” she repeated, “but I, too, have had to be secretive. I’ve lived under a radar for decades, and have lived within the limits of my circumstances these fifteen years with one end goal in sight.”

  Meredith St. Claire was in Toronto to make another paint-by-number telefilm for one of the U.S. cable channels. It was financed by an American company, was set in Boulder, Colorado, and would ultimately air on U.S. television. It was filmed in Canada as a cost-saving measure. Meredith, now relegated to mean mother roles, played the wealthy, snobby matriarch of the piece, conniving between commercial breaks to end her daughter’s engagement, and later marriage, to the handsome lead actor. He played a boy from a working class home who was trying to make a better life for himself. He met the young woman, the lead character and Meredith’s daughter, though they bore no resemblance to each other, and opened her eyes to the simple joys in life. Meredith had been playing such tripe for years. It was not what she would describe as glamorous, and it did not pay exceedingly well, but it brought her enough exposure to keep her name in front of the public and provided her with enough of a salary to protect her investments.

  Shortly before the masterpiece of mediocrity wrapped, Meredith met Jack at a cocktail party. He lived as himself in Canada and Western Europe. In Toronto he was something of a heroic figure. His exploits were well publicized outside the United States and she had followed them with great interest. She assumed their paths would cross at some point, and if necessary she would have arranged an introduction on her own. The fortuitous meeting at a pa
rty was preferable. It created no documentation or paper trail and was unlikely to raise eyebrows. Even as an only occasionally employed actress Meredith was conscious of the fact that she still had to keep her gay son a secret. As soon as she was labeled “that kind of woman,” though now well past menopause, the industry would shun her.

  The cocktail party was the perfect setting. It was almost innocuous. Was it not wholly possible that two celebrities should meet under such circumstances? Well-meaning social climbers snapped Jack Harbour up as a guest of honor at dinner parties and cocktail parties whenever he passed through a major city. At this particular party he was being fêted for two reasons: his autobiography had just cracked the Canadian best seller lists and his recent air bombing of leaflets over Chrysalis Park had gone well. The book, Medal from St. Kolbe, detailed his experiences in Fallow Park and his efforts to change sentiment about the internment of gay men and women in the United States. Banned though it was in the U.S., it was turning out to be a money-maker for Jack’s cause. In addition to a sizeable advance, lucrative deals had been signed for translations in French, Spanish, and Italian. He turned over all his proceeds to his foundation. The foundation in turn relied on this income and all other donations to cover its ordinary business expenses: staging demonstrations, lobbying Congress, and engaging in the covert, illegal activities designed to upset the functioning of the parks. Every escape and attempted escape from the parks was blamed on Jack’s organization—and some of them quite rightly so.

  As for his recent success with his leaflets, this incident was fairly, and unsurprisingly, attributed to him because the handouts advocated opposition to the parks and encouraged the residents of Chrysalis to leave by any means possible. The American press, prompted by statements from the parks and the Federal Bureau of Investigation—statements swallowed in their entirety—gave the story the expected anti-Harbour slant. Not surprisingly to Meredith, the Government’s characterization of the incident was that it was in fact a bomb that had been dropped on the park. Nothing of the sort had happened; the leaflets fell over the park like confetti. If anyone received any injuries, they were no more than paper cuts. The press reported that there was another bomb on the plane that unexpectedly detonated, causing the plane to crash land, killing all four of the men on it. In truth, the plane landed as expected at a nearby private airfield and the men and women onboard, eight people total, escaped on land before the authorities could reach them. For the third time in as many years, the media reported that Jack Harbour had been killed. Actually, although he masterminded the effort, Jack was not even on board the plane.

  As Jack recounted these events at the cocktail party, Meredith absorbed all of him, not just the daring exploits, but everything about the man. Their rapport was immediately established. Jack had the gift—one too sorely lacking in her circle of acquaintances—an inherent ability to make a woman feel unique, respected, yet unabashedly adored. And when he spoke to her, never breaking eye contact as an endless array of Toronto’s young female offerings scampered over to meet him, she felt as if she were the only woman in the room. How she had missed the company of gay men! There was a cockiness about him to be sure, but this was no more than the captivating self-assurance of someone who knew his value. It could not be said that he believed his own press or that he had been brought to a point that he thought his Paul Bunyan-sized persona was an accurate perception. While he undeniably had a high opinion of himself, he was at least to be credited for consciously forming this impression on his own. He was not merely a little arrogant, he was aware of the fact that he was a little arrogant. And he was a bit of the peacock. He was mesmerizingly handsome, more so than most of the leading men she had known. It was no small wonder that the press, at least outside the U.S., provided him with so much coverage. He was so camera friendly, so spotlight ready. His hair was its natural blond then, and his complexion was slightly rugged from too much time out of doors. His clothes were designer wear. He later told her everything came off the rack, but what racks they must have been. He insisted he had a lucky physique and little beyond sleeve and pants lengths ever required tailoring. He made no apology for his wardrobe, explaining that he was frequently called upon to participate in parties such as this. It was necessary for his work, he explained, as such parties funded much of his foundation’s work. He unabashedly solicited the crowd for money. As most shared his vision or mission, and all had been prompted in advance that he would be in attendance, many showed up with checkbooks, or good old fashioned untraceable cash, in hand. He pointed out that when he travelled in the U.S., the designer wear stayed at home and he reverted to a nondescript wardrobe.

  That evening, Meredith pledged eight-and-a-half thousand dollars. A large sum, she believed, and also just random enough to catch his attention. A perfect five or ten thousand might have been added to the kitty without comment. But Meredith wanted to make an impression. She was pledging more than just money to this cause.

  In the ensuing conversations she was approached by some of the higher ups with Jack’s foundation. Would she be willing to make a public statement? Would she consider being the public face for the cause? She was noncommittal but favorable to these overtures. Agree to nothing, was her strategy, but be sufficiently encouraging so that they continued to approach her. Finally Jack himself called her and she was able to unload her agenda on him.

  “And no one knows he’s your son?” he asked in a phone call he placed from New York. He was passing through on his way to France for regrouping and wound licking after a failed attempt to infiltrate Chester Park.

  Meredith, back in Los Angeles, the telefilm completed, told him, “No. How could anyone? I’m still a working actress.”

  “Yes, that’s true,” he noted. “I guess it’s understood that celebrities who are known to have gay children, or the genetic code that might create such people, are pretty much finished in the entertainment industry.” Such people he noted were regularly exposed in the tabloids.

  “True,” she said. “Gay shocker for so-and-so’ (whoever the latest celebrity happens to be) the headlines scream at me every time I go shopping. The conservative groups go after those entertainers and somehow convince producers, executives, and advertisers that such people are undesirable.”

  “And the predictable, conservative, pander-to-the-dumbest-element industry responds to their hate.”

  “With the exception of the apologetic self-denouncers,” Meredith corrected him. “The ones who carry on as if they’ve done something wrong. The self-haters who throw themselves on the public’s mercy are able to get by. Of course, their careers as romantic leading men and women are over, but some of these beggars are able to find work. It’s just necessary that they first make quite a spectacle about expressing that guilt and shame.”

  “Yes,” he noted. “That’s the ironic lament isn’t it? ‘Don’t blame me because my kid is gay. I can’t help it that this is my genetic makeup’.”

  “The hypocrisy just about kills me. ‘Don’t blame me. I can’t help it that I was born this way.’ But when their gay kids—and the gay men and women of yore—made the same argument, deaf ears and blind eyes turned away. Every parent who ever rejected a gay kid should be consigned to a special corner of hell. It’s so clear now that if blame for homosexuality should be assigned, it should be assigned to the parents who created the gay kids.”

  “How did you manage to stay under the radar?”

  “Well,” she said with feigned embarrassment, “I’m a fair bit older than I look.”

  The cryptic sentence explained it all. She told the rebel, the “sexy vigilante” as the European, and largely pro-Harbour media often dubbed him, that she was of the generation that had missed the compulsory testing. She chalked it up to chivalry that he listened to her story as though he had not already heard dozens of variations of it. She pointed out that she had been over fifty when such testing became mandatory, and she fell into the group deemed menopausal, or at least premenopausal, and unlik
ely to reproduce.

  “Yes,” he agreed, “you got kind of lucky with the timing. A few years younger and you’d have been exposed. But what about the boy, Tyler?”

  Meredith detailed the melodramatic circumstances of his birth and upraising. She had found herself pregnant at the age of sixteen. Her parents were shocked, disappointed, what have you, all the things middle class, well-educated parents say and do in this age-old scenario. The young man was out of the picture, content to believe the pregnancy had been terminated, or that the child had been put up for adoption with the indication, “father unknown.”

  “Abortion was rejected?”

  “I was one of those dumb kids who waited too long,” she explained. “I buried my head in the sand until I started showing. And thank goodness I did. I’m glad I became a mother—an untraditional mother though I’ve turned out to be. That’s not to say that I’m prolife. I’m prochoice, and this was the choice I made for myself.”

  A scheme was hatched between Meredith—Vicky as she was known at the time—her parents, and their best friends, the couple across the street. “I was Victoria Esther Kolby once upon a time,” she said with good-grief exasperation. “A fact the media has never forgotten. It’s an Archibald Leach or Frances Gumm kind of a name; everyone seems to say, ‘No wonder she changed it!’”

  “Did you come down with mononucleosis?” Jack asked.