Message of Love (15 page)

Chapter 22

October 1981

Our new ‘home sweet home’ proved to be as comfortable as we’d hoped. With the Penn campus only a few blocks away, Everett managed to get to classes with relative ease.

The tedium of my trolley and train commute to and from the Temple campus was countered by Everett’s affectionate daily farewells; a kiss in the privacy of our new home, with a more platonic light hug on the street when our morning departures matched.

We shared enthusiastic greetings when I returned to find him toying with Mrs. Kukka’s expansive array of kitchen equipment as he prepared a simple yet deftly served dinner. Other late afternoons I’d find him in the cozy living room, studying or napping on the sofa, his chair nearby. With an almost tranquil smile, he’d remind me that it was my turn to cook with, “What are you making for dinner, darling?”

We became domestic.

As Everett and I figured out a routine in those first joyful weeks, we got to know Mrs. Kukka as a kind if not eccentric woman. She had been more than reasonable to hold the room for us over the summer and not charge rent, despite inviting us to leave some of our stuff there.

I had only been upstairs once, when she asked me to move some boxes. The middle room had a small kitchen, and I could see her bedroom in the front. But the door to the room above our bedroom was closed. She mostly kept to herself, with occasional visits to the kitchen.

But the small house was old, and creaked a little. Fortunately, Mrs. Kukka’s bedroom was in the front of the upstairs, yet her padded feet above us squeaked a few floorboards. On weekends, her early morning routine nearly prevented the need for Everett’s alarm clock.

Early one brisk October Saturday morning, the sounds of her preparing something in the kitchen woke me.

Everett was not holding me when I awoke, nor I him. The sheets, a tangled mess, contorted between us, left our legs exposed. I sat up, my stomach growling already, my bladder pressing for relief against my stomach.

“Good morning!” our landlady called out from the kitchen as she spotted me cross the hallway to the bathroom.

Holding in my need to pee, I shyly approached her as she fussed with a gurgling coffee machine.

“Oh. Thank you. I was just on my way to–”

“Yes, yes, don’t let me interrupt. I’m on my way out.”

She seemed a bit distracted. I headed back down the hall.

“Oh!”

“Yes?” I turned.

“There was some article in
The Times
, I can’t recall. Something about, well, of concern for your community. I’ll have to look it up.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

She returned upstairs as I ducked into the bathroom. My hunger outweighed my need for a shower, and Everett joined me in the kitchen.

“What was she going on about?” he rolled in, also still in his sweatpants and a T-shirt.

“Who knows?”

Everett dismissed it. “Probably some gay-friendly resort in Borneo.”

“There was something in the newspaper. She has a lot of stuff up there.”

As we settled at the table to eat, we heard Mrs. Kukka coming down the stairs again. Wearing a coat, but looking a bit distracted, she hovered near the table.

“Couldn’t find it. Perhaps Rosita moved it.”

She inquired about our studies, and after reminding us of her upcoming pre-Thanksgiving party, to which we were invited, she left us with a cheery farewell.

As we cleaned up in the kitchen, Everett asked, as if merely curious, “Have you met the maid yet?”

“No, have you?”

“Once, for a minute. Remember when I got caught in the rain?”

“Yeah.”

“And you were at classes all day.”

I nodded as I rinsed dishes.

“I got out of the bathroom and she was mopping the hallway, muttering, ‘De wheels, de wheels,’ then pointed to my treadmarks.”

“Oh.” I pondered a response. “Was that… did you feel offended?”

“No, I thanked her,” he said. “She was just showing me what she does for a living.” He shut a cabinet door with a slap of finality.

Everett’s affection for Helen, his family housekeeper back in Greensburg, didn’t match up with his dismissive attitude toward Rosita, our new mystery maid. And as quickly as he abandoned the subject, he changed it again.

“So, I’m off to Magee. Wanna come with me?”

“For your rehab?”

“Actually, I only stop by for that every once in a while. I need to do some recruiting.”

“For what?”

“You’ll see.”

Since it was only a few blocks from City Hall, I had met up with Everett several times after his physical therapy sessions at Magee Rehabilitation Center, and a few times after his occasional gathering with his basketball teammates. But I’d never been inside for long.

The stout brick building, set on a side street not far from the highway, had an adjoining parking garage, which Everett eased into.

“Can you get the flyers?” he said as he transferred from the driver’s seat to his chair.

Everett greeted the woman at the reception desk before heading for the elevator.

“Thanks for coming,” he said, smiling, almost eager.

With a sort of pride, Everett toured me around each floor of the building. The first was quiet, more like a hospital. On the second floor, he led me into a large room with about a dozen people sitting or lying on a series of large square padded tables. Each patient had a therapist who helped them with exercises. Some tossed balls a few feet, others had their legs stretched, while a few more struggled across a few parallel bars with braces.

Almost overwhelmed, I calmed as Everett greeted several people, waited for others to finish their tasks, then followed him as he chatted up several people. With each interaction, he handed them one of the flyers.

After finishing with tacking a few flyers on bulletin boards on each floor, he handed me the last of them.

“And one for you.”

As part of the United Nation’s International Year of Disabled Persons, Alpha Chi Rho, one of the Penn fraternities, had joined up with the United Way to organize an event in two weeks at Fairmount Park called Runfest, which would include a wheelchair race.

Scheduled for an early morning, I at first shied away from considering it, since I hadn’t run seriously in months. But as usual, Everett had already gotten application forms. Despite his usual cynical dismissal of such “touchy-feely” events, he had engaged me with a dare, claiming he could beat me in the race.

“Fine. Let’s do it,” I said as I followed him down another hallway and into the elevator.

“Maybe we can meet some cute jocks,” he smiled.

“Like the ones you flirt with at the gym?”

“I don’t flirt. I’m just friendly.”

“You’re a regular belle of the balls.”

I noticed the elevator was going up. “You pressed the wrong button.”

“No, I didn’t. Come on. You gotta see the roof.”

“The roof? It’s freezing outside.”

“It is not.”

The air was brisk, but he was right, it wasn’t too cold. The view of the downtown buildings, City Hall and nearby parks did offer a terrific view.

“They used to play basketball up here, believe it or not. Now,” he scooted around a corner, and I followed. “They mostly work out here.”

Set before us was a series of recreated curbs and sidewalks. “Folks have to learn how to navigate,” he huffed as he hopped his wheels up and down the ramps and curves. Finally finished, he wheeled over to the edge of the roof.

“Come ‘ere.” He waved me over until I was beside him. “Closer.”

I understood, leaned down for a kiss, bashful for a moment. Our breath escaped in misty trails.

“It’s okay. There’s nobody else up here.”

I felt his comfort there, his sense of being, and understood how it energized him. We kissed some more, and he toyed with my ears. “Cold.”

“Good cold.”

I could have stayed with him there until the shivers overtook us, but he had other plans.

After we left, Everett pulled out of the parking garage, steered carefully onto the street, and said with a casual air, “Do you know anyone who smokes pot?”

“Why?” I asked.

“Um, to get high?”

At first I thought he was joking, but Everett explained.

“It might help us with the back end merchandise.” Another euphemism for ‘the butt sex.’

“I don’t need to do that.”

“But I want you to. You get … amorous.”

He was right. I did get more excited under the spell of a pot high, but I sometimes lost myself and forgot to be careful with him.

“Well, it works on you, at least.”

He did have a point. But I dismissed it, at first. “You should have gotten some from Kevin when we were in Greensburg. We can’t smoke it in the house anyway. Mrs. Kukka would smell it.”

“I know. Just. Okay, whatever.”

A few minutes passed, each of us looking at the traffic and passing buildings as we drove through downtown and back to the house.

Then, not at all unrelated, but chirped by Everett in a bald-faced attempt to make it seem so, “How’s your friend Devon?”

“Wait. You think Devon knows how to get pot because he’s Black?”

“No. Your implied racism contravenes economic probability.”

“What?”

“He lives in West Philly. Statistically, it figures. Plus he’s my friend, too.” Everett braked at a light, the van lurched to a halt.

“I haven’t seem him in months.”

“Neither have I. He doesn’t go to Magee anymore. He doesn’t play basketball. That’s my crip crew. I don’t– Just…”

“Fine. Whatever. I’ll call Devon.” He drove, humming some tune I couldn’t recognize.

We shared code words in front of guys we considered befriending, or whose company we preferred to leave, like when some drunk guy would half-sob out a sympathy pity-patter Everett couldn’t stand. And, there were a few out-and-out jerks. It was college.

There were also guys who withheld their pervy intentions, so we cautiously befriended a few. We hadn’t sorted that out yet.

But the real stares were in the gym. I spotted Everett, helped him hold steady as he grunted, pushed and pulled on bars and weights. Other athletes looked on, admiringly or just curious.

Some of those fit guys got to see us naked together, me in the next shower stall, or sometimes with Everett, between transfers to and from his chair. Guys sometimes stared at us from a distant stall.

Training gave me an excuse to touch him. We enjoyed being seen. Despite the exhibitionistic tickle we both shared, being naked together offered a feeling of liberation, Everett refusing to hide, and me with him. And that had an allure, sometimes made clear by the pointed interest aimed at us by certain guys.

One of those guys befriended us as we left the gym. His point of entry was being in Everett’s Poly Sci class.

With a few casual introductions that dodged his having cruised us in the gym, Rodger “with a D,” told us he lived off campus and he and his several housemates were hosting a party that Friday night. What kind of party it would be left me confused.

“A lot of creative types’ll be there,” Everett repeated one of our inside jokes. “It’ll be fun.”

Everett seemed to be waiting for my response.

“What?” Everett blurted as I stood, waiting for him to continue rolling until after he’d stuffed a piece of paper with Rodger’s phone number and address into his backpack.

“Oh, nothing. It’s just fascinating to watch as some ‘creative type’ hits on you right in front of me.”

“It’s just a party. I should invite Gerard.”

“Sure,” I shrugged it off as we continued on our way.

“Besides,” Everett added. “What makes you think he was just hitting on me?”

Blondie’s “Accidents Never Happen” blared from the house as we approached the daunting porch steps. Neighbors in the nearby row houses in the run-down off-campus area didn’t seem to mind the noise.

Since the house was only six blocks away on Pine Street, and our intended goal was to get drunk, stoned, or both, we decided not to drive the van.

As we reached the steps of the row house, he said, “Are we ready?”

“I suppose,” I sighed as I backed up toward his chair. Everett wrapped his arms around my neck. I pulled him up behind me, spied a ratty lawn chair on the porch, placed him delicately onto it, then trotted down the stairs to retrieve his chair.

Two other guys entering the house offered curious stares, then a too-late, “Need any help?” to which I replied, “I got it. Thanks.”

After we entered, to a few more glances, Gerard gave us a friendly wave, amid a cluster of green and red-dyed hairstyles on girls who smoked cigarettes. The guys varied, from overdressed imps to generic frat types (“The theatre techies,” Gerard later explained to us. “They’re all hot; and straight.”)