The experience was so demoralizing, and I knew I couldn’t go back to Myron and admit I had lied about my mental stability. If he took me back and my depression returned for real, then I would be in a boy-who-cried-wolf situation. My pride was getting in the way, and I wasn’t so certain Myron and the president of the company would take me back. I couldn’t take the additional rejection.
During the weeks that followed, I found my solace once again in vodka. I started seeing Dr. Willer twice a week again, using his office as a place to scream obscenities at my former boss for destroying my life when things were suddenly looking up. I cussed Mario and my stepfather again for good measure and came to the conclusion that Brad was with me only because I let him drive my new Mercedes and kept him supplied with tennis shoes, workout clothes, and sexy underwear. I had to get rid of him before he realized I was a loser with a shrinking bank account.
I felt failure and helplessness seeping into my being. I called Deborah and turned back to church, something I had slacked off on when my affair with Brad was in full swing. I did get him out of my life. In a crowded restaurant, I told Brad that the relationship was no longer working for me—the same words Vickie had used with me. His reaction surprised me.
The big muscle-bound jock and ladies’ man started crying in the restaurant, demanding to know why I would do this to him after I had roped him into this illicit relationship. He said he thought he could depend on me. When I pointed out all the ladies that constantly called for him on my phone, he said that made our relationship special because I knew about them but they didn’t know about me.
I tried to ease the blow by saying that I felt if I spent another night with him I would fall in love, and after being hurt, I couldn’t bear that again. Looking back, that was true. I loved having someone like Brad in my life. I enjoyed the look of envy I saw in the eyes of the few gay friends who knew the real deal about our relationship. I loved the fact that Brad totally dispelled the stereotypes I had about gay or bisexual men, and in a strange way he fulfilled some of my youthful fantasies.
Still, I saw how Brad treated women. I heard him cursing them out on the phone, calling them names. I was the one who consoled them when they came to the apartment looking for him after he had stood them up or when he owed them money. I told myself that if he treated these beautiful women like that, eventually he would treat me the same or worse. Deep down I knew he didn’t love me, as he had said when I broke off the relationship, but loved what I had to offer him materially.
Unable to find suitable employment, and not having the benefits of a salary and health insurance, I returned to some of my old destructive habits: partying every night of the week, drinking in excess, and not taking my medication or seeing Dr. Willer because I felt as though I had let him down, since I’d returned to my old routine.
One night, I went to the Rialto and spent the evening buying drinks for potential one-night-stand suitors. When the bar was about to close, I went to my car ready to head home for another night alone. Before leaving, I pulled my silver Mercedes in front of the club as men started to pile out. Many were paired together as couples. I noticed an attractive brown-skinned guy standing alone, smoking a cigarette. I blew my horn, and when he looked up, I lowered the passenger-side window and motioned him over to my car. When he walked over and asked “Whatsup?” I responded, “You. Come ride with me.” He smiled and jumped into the car, and that’s where my memory lapses.
I vaguely remember driving home and bringing the stranger with me through the lobby of my building and speaking to the late-night doorman. What happened after that will forever remain a mystery to me. All I know is that the next morning I woke up with a hangover from hell, and most of the expensive clothes from my wardrobe were gone along with my Louis Vuitton luggage. My first thoughts were to call the police and look for my keys. When I didn’t find them immediately, a fear swept through me that the stranger had also stolen my car. I found a pair of jeans and a sweater and raced to the parking lot. I was relieved to find my car still there.
Back in my apartment, I located my keys in the freezer, which told me I at least had enough sense to hide them, but my wallet was missing. Again I thought of calling the police, but didn’t because I didn’t know what I would tell them. So I did what I usually did when I got in trouble: I called Richard.
Richard was sympathetic for about a minute. Then he tore into me, telling me that I needed to get myself together and stop all the dumb shit. He told me that instead of worrying over clothes, money, and luggage, things I could replace, I should be on my knees thanking God that the stranger hadn’t taken my life. I told Richard that I knew he was right, but that I just wanted someone special in my life. He calmly replied that I was not going about it the right way.
For the next three days, I stayed locked in my apartment, not eating or drinking. My thoughts about what would happen next swirled in my head like damp autumn leaves. I was feeling so lost, so inconsequential. I didn’t even have a career. Even though I wasn’t that crazy about some of my previous jobs, I did get a feeling of satisfaction when I closed a big deal. I wasn’t answering my phone, and on day four, Richard contacted a friend of mine and asked him to come to my apartment and check to see if I was all right and for me to call him immediately.
That evening I called Richard, who had been promoted to a job in the Washington, D.C., area. I tried to put up a brave front but later broke down in tears again. Richard said, “Pack your shit up, bitch. Put it in your car and bring your ass to D.C.” At first I protested, saying how much I loved Chicago and that my doctor was here. Richard responded that D.C. had doctors, and he could help me find employment in the computer industry. He added that I could help him out for a change with some of the finishing touches on the new home he had built right outside Washington, D.C.
After hanging up, I thought maybe Richard’s suggestion made sense. Washington was close to New York and was the mecca for black gay men. Maybe the love of my life was waiting there. Maybe with Richard’s wisdom and big-brotherly love, I could pull it together.
At different points in my life I’d tell myself that if I found someone who truly loved me, and it didn’t matter if they were male or female, I could get myself together. I could live up to the promise so many people said they saw in me. It never really dawned on me in my search for love to look in the mirror. On those rare occasions when I was brave enough to look at myself, I saw sadness in my eyes and I understood how lonely my future might be. I needed more than my faith; I required more than my family and my friends with their wonderful lives, who just didn’t understand the pain the loneliness in my life was causing.
After giving friends most of the furniture I had bought while living in Chicago, I was on the road again, searching for peace of mind and looking for love.
CHAPTER 12
At times Washington, D.C., can be heaven for an African American gay man. Yet in many ways it can be hell. I liken it to heaven because of the large number of attractive and successful black men living in the city and the thousands who visit the nation’s capital regularly. But when solitary nights blend seamlessly, one into another, it becomes an abyss of loneliness.
During the next three years of my life, I would experience a little bit of heaven and a whole lot of hell that only depression can bring. And without even knowing it, I would learn valuable life lessons and begin to grow up mentally and spiritually.
I had been to D.C. countless times with The Group on our annual, unofficial black gay celebrations over Memorial Day weekends.
On late Sunday afternoons when the music was playing and I immersed myself in the packed and popular club Tracks, D.C. was heaven. I mean, never in my life had I seen so many beautiful black gay men. But hours later, after the music had stopped and dusk arrived, I watched so many of my friends leave the club with the loves of their lives or love of the night, while I went home alone. There were times when I was desperate enough to settle for a one-night stand, when my standards were no
nexistent. I still couldn’t meet someone with whom to share at least a couple of good nights, much less my whole life.
I began to feel that I needed to be perfect. The reason I wasn’t attracting someone was that people could see my weakness, they smelled my fear. I had always felt a certain amount of anxiety when I walked into a gay bar. There was a fear that if I spoke with someone or asked him to dance, he would base his decision on whether I looked like a suitable bed partner. This didn’t happen with me in straight clubs. I was never afraid that a woman would say no, but when one did, she was always polite. In D.C., on the surface there seemed to be so many more choices, yet rejection was still a possibility and I was once again reminded of how cruel men could be.
My home life was good. Living with Richard brought a certain degree of stability for me. He had rules I had to abide by, like keeping my room clean and making sure I put things back in their proper place. I hadn’t done that since I had left my mama’s house.
I found a new job the first week I arrived. It was a sales position with a medium-size computer firm. The white sales managers were still quite impressed with a black man who had been successful as an IBM salesman.
Whenever I felt depressed, which was at least five times a week, I just went upstairs to Richard’s (whom family and close friends called Richie) huge master bedroom and talked with him. With his quick wit and wonderful sense of humor about life, I wouldn’t stay depressed for long. I felt safe in his four-bedroom ranch-style house, located in an integrated neighborhood in Mitchellville, Maryland.
On many weekends, his wonderful father and mother would make the trip from upstate New York, and I felt like I was a part of a big, happy family. The first couple of times when they came I would get a hotel in D.C. because I didn’t want to get in the way, but after spending just one weekend with the Coleman clan, I looked forward to their visits almost as much as Richie.
Richie’s mother would cook big meals, while his father seemed to always be tinkering on the large mobile home he drove. After dinner, there would be card games and drinking while the Coleman family talked about the good ole days as we watched family movies on a projector flashing images on the den wall.
Some weekends Randy would make the trip from New York. I would get a hotel room and we would enjoy all the gay clubs D.C. had to offer. I made a few new friends, and renewed friendships with black gay men I had known in Texas and New York. It seemed everybody was moving to D.C., and though I didn’t think it possible, 1987 ended on a good note.
THE FINAL TWO YEARS of the eighties would have a lasting effect on the direction of the rest of my life. The year began festively enough. Randy came to D.C. to celebrate his birthday and the New Year. I rented a two-bedroom suite at the Grand Hyatt and had a small birthday party. On New Year’s Eve, I decided I didn’t want to start the year in a gay bar, and even thought about finding a church holding midnight service.
Randy wanted to go to Nob Hill, one of his favorite D.C. spots, but I talked him into staying at the hotel until midnight. He did, and at the stroke of midnight, we hugged and drank a champagne salute to Willa and Deric, Randy’s lover, who we knew were up in heaven partying. The champagne made me sleepy, so I decided to go to bed, while Randy caught a taxi to the club for an early morning of partying.
The day after New Year’s, as Randy was preparing to catch the train back to New York, I rushed to look for my jeans and car keys so I could give him a ride to Union Station, but for some odd reason Randy said he wanted to say our good-byes in the suite, pointing out that every time we had parted lately there were always tears. The hotel suite didn’t prevent the tears as Randy whispered he loved me and said he would see me in a couple of weeks when I visited New York.
Richard’s parents came the weekend I was going to New York, and I tried to convince Randy to come back to D.C. He told me he had a hot date with a Vietnam vet he had met on a job. Randy and I talked with each other almost every day, and I told him I would see him soon.
On the first Wednesday of February I spoke with Randy, and he said this might be the last time we talked for a while since New York Telephone was going to cut off his phone at day’s end for nonpayment. When I offered to help pay his bill, he declined, saying I had already done enough. I told Randy my offering to help was selfish in many ways because I looked forward to talking with him every day. He told me I could make it a couple of days without chatting and that he had a few freelance writing assignments coming up and after he got paid he would get his phone turned back on.
I missed talking to Randy, and a few days before Valentine’s Day I sent him a card with a fifty-dollar bill and signed it “From a secret pal.” I knew Randy could make some great but cheap meals for a couple of weeks on fifty dollars.
Around the end of February, the void of not talking to Randy became too much and I realized I had to take matters into my own hands. I called New York Telephone and arranged to send a check Federal Express so Randy’s phone could be turned back on. I was feeling pretty good about my plan and couldn’t wait to tell him what had been going on since the first of February.
I knew Randy talked to his mother frequently even when his phone was off, by calling her collect from the pay phones that lined his block, around 106th and Broadway. Randy and his mother, Pinky, were very close. He had given me her number to use in case of emergency, so as I sat in my office, I picked up my phone and dialed her. When a lady answered the phone, I asked to speak to Pinky and she told me Pinky wasn’t in.
“Do you know when she will be back?” I asked.
“I don’t know. She’s gone to New York,” the female voice said.
“Oh, she’s gone to visit Randy?” I asked.
“No, her son is dead, and she went up there to identify his body,” she said.
“Oh, who?” I asked, not thinking for one moment that she was talking about Randy. He had two other brothers, and I thought one of them lived in one of the other boroughs of New York.
“Randy,” the lady said.
“No, not Randy,” I said as I closed my office door and felt a chill ripple through my body so fast that it felt warm.
“Who is this?” the caller asked.
“This is Lynn. I’m one of Randy’s best friends. Are you sure it’s Randy?”
“Yes, baby, I’m sorry, but it was Randy.”
“What happened?” I shouted.
“I don’t know,” she said. Just as I was getting ready to ask another question, one of the secretaries from my sales unit knocked on my door. When I said: “Come in,” she peeked in and said she had an emergency call waiting for me. I hung up the phone without even saying good-bye. When my phone rang I recognized James’s voice, and he said, “Lynn, baby, I’ve got some bad news for you.”
“James, is it true? Is Randy dead?”
“Yes, baby, it’s true.”
“What happened?”
James told me that right then nobody knew. He told me that Randy’s super had called the police to open Randy’s apartment when his neighbors began to complain about a stench coming from his place. Once inside, they had found Randy’s badly decomposed body between his bedroom and bathroom, wearing only a pajama top. They had estimated that Randy had been dead for almost three weeks, and it was going to take some time to determine the cause of death. I thanked James and told him I would be in New York the following day.
After telling my boss what had happened I headed home, but before I reached Richard’s house, I stopped at the liquor store and bought a liter of Randy’s favorite vodka. I got to the empty house and quickly poured a naked glass of the vodka and drank it like it was water. Standing in the kitchen, I suddenly fell to the floor in tears, calling out Randy’s name. I prayed that this was some tragic joke. I finally composed myself enough to call Richard at work, and when I told him what had happened he told me he was on his way home.
My body ached with pain and misery so intense that I felt I couldn’t stand it for another second. Never had the death of
a friend or anyone I loved felt like someone had hit me in the stomach with a boulder.
Richard and Randy were not friends. In fact, they didn’t like each other at all. Richard had always thought Randy and the group were a bad influence on me, while Randy thought Richard was too pretentious. Still, both respected my friendship with the other. Before Richard got home, I’d finished half of the liter of vodka and had crawled into my bed, fully clothed, and passed out. Later that night I heard a knock on my bedroom door, and Richard came in with a cup of hot herbal tea. We talked about Randy and speculated about what had happened. Richard asked me if I thought Randy had AIDS, since his former lover had died from the disease. I told him I didn’t know. Then I remembered that Randy had often said AIDS would never be a part of his reality. Whenever he said it, I believed him.
THERE WAS NO FUNERAL for Randolph Leland Johnson and no conclusive information on the cause of his death. By the time I arrived in New York, Randy had already been cremated, but the coroner had kept some tissue samples and the police were treating his death as a possible homicide.
That weekend, several of Randy’s friends, including what was left of The Group, gathered at Robert’s Jersey City condo for our Saturday potluck dinner and to pay respects to our lost friend.
We promised to keep the evening upbeat, recalling the happier times with Randy. We each went around the room and shared our stories of how we had met Randy and a funny or special time we’d spent with him.
I talked about the time Randy and I had gone to Barbados for a weeklong vacation. I had planned the trip shortly after Willa and Deric had died to help Randy deal with his quiet grief. Five days into our trip, we grew bored with the island because it wasn’t like either Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic and seemed homophobic.
What Becomes of the Brokenhearted Page 19
