Beau, Lee, The Bomb

by Mary McKinley

“Then you need to come back to see it in summertime!”

  Beau glares at us as we start down the hilly sidewalk.

  “Uh, yeah . . . doubtful.” He sounds pretty chilly.

  “What? You can’t have a disagreement and still be friends? Goodness, that’s terribly fragile of you! Both! That’s what families do, I thought.” Oscar tsk-tsks all the way to the restaurant.

  Beau has nothing to say the entire walk.

  Which isn’t too long. We enter this amazing restaurant, a different amazing restaurant: vegetarian cuisine. Which I have no experience with and am delighted by. We all are.

  Oscar orders for us, and there are these giant mushrooms for the entrée. Like giant.

  “These are portobello mushrooms, which I think are more delicious than any other. Aren’t they? I’ve been trying to eat lower on the food chain. I think they taste like steak.” I totally agree. I think I’m going to research vegetarianism.

  We are awarded our salads because that’s what it feels like; the salads are so good.

  We dig in. Too good to talk. We look at each other and nod with our mouths full.

  As they are clearing for the next course, Oscar pats his mouth with a linen napkin and addresses Beau.

  “Would you like to hear a few things about your uncle Frank?”

  We sit up. We all would. Even if Beau’s still ticked.

  “Let me start with the story of why Frank loves your mom like he does. To infinity and beyond. I told him I was going to tell you, if you didn’t know, and he said fine.

  “Okay, you know you lived in L.A. once when you were a baby, right? You do? You don’t? What does shruggy-shrug-shoulder mean? Well, whatever, you did. You moved there when you were the age you first appear in our photo albums, not even a year old yet. You all used to come up and visit us a lot, hence the pictures. Your mom and dad. They’d moved from the Midwest out here, because of this thing I’m going to tell you.

  “Your dad and mom and Uncle Frank, then Frankie, grew up and went to school in the Midwest, the name of which town escapes me, but it wasn’t very big and there weren’t many people who were different there.

  “Now, even though you might have noticed Frank is not as fabulous as some of us, he was different enough to get himself noticed by the gentle townsfolk around the time he was a teenager in . . . oh, let’s call it Hooterville till I remember the name.”

  We snort. Oscar is so snarky. He enjoys our enjoyment and continues.

  “Well, they formulated the enlightened opinion that their town didn’t need no stinkin’ fags; at least that’s what the more charitable townspeople determined, and thus the fireworks began!

  “According to Frank it started with just a little harassment. Just words and spit wads and ‘bumping’—oops, sorry, accident!—when they were in junior high, which is what we called it. I don’t know what you call it now . . . middle school?”

  We nod. That crap all sounds totally familiar. Oscar’s brow furrows as he describes what happened next.

  “Yeah, so okay, it started small, but when no one stopped it, it escalated, quickly but surely, till kids were doing things like putting syrup in Frank’s car, which completely destroyed the engine one year. He said it took him three months to save up enough to repair it. It wrecked his whole summer. He had to walk everywhere he wanted to go, and that can make a child nervous! And why, again? Oh right! Because someone disagrees! I forgot! Well, boo-hoo! Silly mean people and their attitudes! It’s hard sometimes to remember to let it just float away.”

  He’s being all campy to stay light and not get too angry. He tosses back the last sip of wine and continues.

  “Any-hoo, when your mom gets to high school, this has already been going on for a couple years and everyone is pretty used to him being treated like crap. Including him. But not your mom! She immediately starts to patrol the halls with Frankie. They become inseparable. She didn’t just let things pass; she spoke up and yelled at the jerks. She returned the name they’d poisoned—carloads of buffalo screaming out in falsetto ‘Frankieeeeeee!’—to the proud name that your grandma gave him, given with love in honor of her dad.

  “So, of course, this confuses the cretins. They wonder if she’s his girlfriend. I’m sure they had never heard of a fag hag, as they’re so flatteringly called, or they would have called her that too, though in this case she was just behaving decently. You haven’t heard of it either? Whoops, I did it again! Well, it’s a girl—or woman—who likes to hang out with gay guys.”

  “Fag hag?” We exchange glances. What?!

  “I don’t know where it came from. I imagine some dreadful place where they hated gay allies as much as gays. Hopefully that will change forever. That’s what I work to accomplish.”

  “What’s your job?” asks Leo.

  “I’m at GLAAD.”

  “About what?” She looks puzzled.

  “No, I didn’t say I was glad. I said I’m at GLAAD.”

  “Oh. What’s that mean?”

  “It stands for Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.”

  We nod, though I’ve never heard of it. Beau has, when he was going to the websites, and sits up, in spite of himself. I see him start to listen. So I ask Oscar more.

  “What all do you do?”

  “We are changing the image of the LGBT community, going after what is now hate speech and showing that it’s just not okay to dump on us anymore. We have been considered fair game for a long time, but those days are finally drawing to a close. You would be amazed at what is still allowed before it’s considered hate speech! Right now I’m after a school that has a horrible reputation; they have a bunch of bullies that apparently everyone knows about, called the Fruit Juicers.” He shakes his head and rolls his eyes. “Which isn’t even particularly clever.”

  “What? Why Fruit Juicers?” asks Leonie.

  “Because that’s something else homophobes call gay people: ‘fruits.’ ”

  “Why?” We look at him in bewilderment. He shrugs and smiles, wide-eyed.

  “Who knows . . . because we’re crisp and refreshing? I know, right? What does that even mean?” Oscar makes a face and laughs. “But hang on, let me finish the story about Frank.

  “So they start going everywhere together. Because Frankie had been disrespected for so long, it takes a long time for the good people of Hooterville to adjust their thinking, but they did.

  “Now they were mean to Gina, too, for hanging out with the town weirdo! Who says people can’t change, huh? They easily can, and they did—for the worse! After a while, wherever she went, the catcalls and insults started up. According to Frankie, they were at least as awful, verbally, to Gina, because the girls got involved too. And why? Because they were jealous! Just look at her, for cryin’ out loud! She should have gone to L.A. to be in the movies!

  “Soon they make plans to leave their crappy town after Gina graduates and go somewhere where people are more open-minded and -hearted. Then Frankie sees an ad for sunny California, to ‘come for a day or a lifetime’ and ‘live out your dreams’ and all these hot people on the beach, in bathing suits, having a good old time! So he goes to L.A. and sees the sun set on the ocean and the way things can be, out in the orange groves, and he falls in love with the place.”

  Oscar orders another glass of wine. We’re almost done with the entrée, slowing down, still picking at the food, but comfortably full. We are busy listening. We wait as he nibbles.

  Oscar thanks the waiter when the wine comes. He sips and swirls the red in the glass so its shadow-light makes a ruby jewel tone on the textured plaster wall. He sighs.

  “Where were we? Oh, right, L.A.

  “Okay, so Frankie comes out and falls in love with the place. That’s where we met, in L.A. I had come from the East Coast and was searching for someplace. Did I mention I lived in Seattle, too, for a second? Yeah . . . I did. I like Seattle; it’s just too cold. Anyway, I come down from the north to see the scene I’d heard was in L.A. and lo: It’s just
as much fun as they said. Lots of beautiful people, all trying to get a break, make their mark, and become a star. Lots of beautiful men, and so many of them gay! Out in the open gay! I remember being thrilled, and I was from the East Coast. So imagine when Frankie came from the Great Plains! It was life-changing to him. He’d never seen the like.

  “I remember the first time I saw him. I was not looking for a relationship. Jojo had been gone for a while; I could finally get my head around that, but I did not want to care about anyone anymore. I’d lost so many friends by that point I was sick of it! I was sick of loss and death. No more loss for me.

  “Imagine, you guys, if everyone you know started getting sick . . . if your friends started dying, at almost your age, just dropping like flies—like a sniper attack! Seriously, try to imagine all your friends leaving you.

  “It’s weird. You become disoriented after a while. Then you think, Oh no, I’m not going to lose you too! every time you meet someone you think is great. You refuse to engage. You start running scared. Running on empty . . . it’s awful. Emptiness is awful. Being alone is awful.” Oscar sighs and sips and fiddles with the garnish on his plate. The waiter comes to clear the course.

  I stare at him, riveted. Everything he is saying is echoing through my mind like truth. The worst thing is solitude when you are not in the mood for it. Worst. Oscar resumes.

  “Loneliness can eat you. It destroys. It’s a wasting sickness. Loneliness leaves no memories. Your time passes, and there is nothing to consider. A life lived in loneliness is like an exile, like if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears, did it make a noise? If you live and leave no mark, no trace . . . there was nothing you loved, well, that’s not a life well-lived. That’s a near miss and a waste . . . a life lived in fear. That’s how Scrooge lived, and he wasn’t exactly a role model for a happy life, until the end, when he finally understood.

  “So I meet Frankie and he meets me, and though I’m older (and I’m feeling a lot older than he does, at the time), we hit it off, much to my chagrin! I wasn’t going to fall for anyone again! But there he was, looking so cute and bright and shiny! I couldn’t resist! No one could! He was the life of the party wherever we went. It was so much fun that summer!” Oscar looks into the past, and his eyes twinkle in remembrance. I wish I could see what he is seeing. Abruptly, his thoughts return to us.

  “And then we got serious and I felt like I couldn’t live without him. It was just terrifying.” I see Leo start to listen very closely when he says that. He goes on.

  “Do you guys know what ‘a point of reference’ is? It’s sort of like a yardstick to measure other things by. Before LA, Frankie had no point of reference for how awful it really was back in Hooterville, but when he saw how people can just get along, the thought of going back became intolerable. He got really glum when it was autumn and he was supposed to return. Even though you can’t really tell when it’s fall in L.A. ’cause it’s still sunny and seventy degrees.”

  “Did he stay?” asks Leo hopefully. She wants love to conquer all immediately.

  “Sort of. He kept putting off his return. School started for Gina again back home and he was still here. I remember him feeling bad, but then the thought of returning to those, um—”

  “Monkey people?” I interject helpfully.

  “Hah! Precisely! The thought of returning to those monkey people became more than he could handle. Fall turned into winter, still sunny, but now a hazy sixty-five degrees, and winter turned into spring. Spring is beautiful in L.A.!” As he speaks, our waiter comes up to us with a look like, “More yummy treats in store for you!” Oscar doesn’t see him for a sec.

  “And here is Frankie. He’s not in Hooterville. He’s deserted your—oh, hey, wait, do we want some dessert? I do, and coffee. Yes, thanks, dessert all around. Get the chocolate bomb, kids. If you like chocolate, it’s a masterpiece!”

  We do, because of our “Bomb,” and when it comes, we toast her with gooey spoonfuls of triply decadent fudge.

  “So what happened to my mom?” Beau redirects Oscar.

  “Well, she wasn’t too happy about it, as you can imagine. He was gone to the coast, but she was stuck back in Hooterville and the cattle were lowing whenever she went outside. By which I mean the townspeople were still being mean. She and Frank used to talk on the phone every day, which used to be expensive! She stopped begging him to come back for her, but he still called because he felt so bad. She said she’d be okay, and she’d come out as soon as she could. He said there was something in her voice that really worried him. So he finally went back to see her.

  “It was so bad! Apparently she was now not only considered ‘the crazy chick who loves gay weirdos’ but now they were whispering that she was ‘easy,’ as we said back in the day, that she’d sleep with any and every guy who asked! That used to be an even worse insult than it is now! Everyone was calling her a slut and all kinds of rotten things. The fact that it was all lies didn’t stop anyone. The rumor mill was spraying sludge full blast.

  “During her last year in high school, your mom got a job at a nursing home—because she is awesome—and by now she has become an aide and has started saving money to leave the hellhole, which makes Frankie feel so much better that he returns to L.A.

  “So he’s left her again.

  “That was the year your dad started high school. You know your mom is older than your dad, right? Whew, finally something I didn’t give away! So when your dad starts school, the whole thing starts over again, only your poor dumb—sorry—dad isn’t even gay! They are just being horrible to him because of his brother whom they cannot torment anymore! Which gives your daddy just an awful attitude. . . .

  “Of course, Gina isn’t going to let that be the case, either! She’s known him for most of their lives. She starts to walk the halls with him too, which makes it worse for her, but that doesn’t stop her. She put his safety before her own; she saved him from getting beat up more than once just by refusing to leave! She used to carry a PE whistle, Frankie said, and she’d blow it if anyone started to mess in any way, shape, or form with your dad. She didn’t care if that made it worse for her. She was so done with that town!

  “She was getting ready to get out of there when the bad news came about her mom, your grandma. She was sick. Very sick. I guess your grandma almost died, Beau. Thank God she got better, but it took years. She had something called Guillain-Barré. It’s a terrible disease that goes on and on. . . . I don’t really know what that is, but she was in a wheelchair for a couple years, I think, and at one point, I remember Frank saying she was on a breathing tube. But your mom stayed right beside her. It was a good thing she was a nurse’s aide because it made it a little easier on them both, her and her mom.

  “So anyway, she didn’t go to L.A. I think she probably started going out with your dad when she couldn’t get away. He was the closest thing to a friend she had in that town after Frankie left. And you can see why he fell in love with her—she’s amazing! I’m not saying your mom never loved your dad because I don’t know . . . I mean, Gina’s so loving. . . . And there was no one else in town that was decent to her.”

  Beau just frowns and looks down.

  Oscar looks at me when he continues, though he’s still addressing Beau.

  “Maybe that can help you see your dad with just a little compassion, if he was in love with someone who didn’t feel the same way about him? There is nothing worse than unrequited love,” he adds. Beau grunts and inhales to say something rotten—but too slow.

  Oscar cuts him off. “No, I do know—he’s been a jerk. You are very entitled to that opinion. . . . So eventually they got married and then there you were a year after that. By the time your grandma felt better, your mom had already made some life choices that she couldn’t just walk away from; she couldn’t just pick up and leave for L.A. Though eventually she did manage to get out here. She got your dad to agree to move out.

  “By that time we had gotten over West Hollywood and had mov
ed up here to San Francisco. That visit was the first time either of them had seen San Francisco. Predictably, your mom loved it and your dad hated it. Notice his happy face in the pics? Yeah, exactly! Way too gay for his comfort zone. So they continued to live in L.A. for a couple of years, and he hated it so much they left and then I’m not sure where you all went after that. I know Frank was so sad that your mom had moved away.

  “What I always thought made sense was how your dad could find somewhere else exactly like Hooterville to live, someplace small and suspicious. Someplace like his hometown, but where no one knew he had a gay brother. That became his quest. And your mom went along with it till she couldn’t stand it anymore.”

  “She went along with it until he turned on me,” Beau says stonily. “That was when she left him. She lived this crazy life just for me, and I didn’t even realize it at the time! I was such a jerk to her! I said I wanted to go live with my dad when she wanted to get married to Matt! That’s the only reason I was even back with my dad! I was mad because I wanted it to always be just her and me! She put off marrying Matt for years. They didn’t get married till, like, last year, just ’cuz I didn’t want her to! Even though I liked him fine! I remember back when she first said she wanted to. She goes, ‘Why do you get to do what you want, and hang out with your friends, but I don’t get the same right?’ And I was such a douche I yelled, ‘Fine, I want to live with my dad!’ So eventually I did . . . and that went well, didn’t it?” Beau looks miserable. “I actually thought if I lived there and tried to act like my dad thought I should it could all be different, you know? That maybe I could turn into the son he wanted, all tough and badass and whatever it is, but no. He would just stink-eye me with this look, whenever I forgot to be a tough guy and was singing or something, this disgusted look of . . . disgust. Whatever, I’m just sorry I yelled at my mom so much.”

  Oscar wags his finger at Beau gently.

  “Not your fault, chimichanga. Kids are always awful to their moms. They are unaware their mother, or either of their parents for that matter, had a life before them. It’s when you grow up that you realize she was a person before you were around to take up every last waking second of her day, and that she still is. Don’t kick yourself too hard, just be super nice to her when you get the chance.” Oscar winks at him kindly, then giggles and polishes off his wine.