Message of Love (17 page)

The idea of running a full marathon daunted me, so I had signed up for the ten-kilometer race. I’d put on a few pounds, and worried that despite our hasty few weeks of practice and gym workouts, I might tank.

But once the starting gun shot off, and the herd of runners took off around me, I eventually found a good pace while dodging others.

At first, the pounding hurt; it always did in the beginning. But once I got my breathing under control, and was able to glance up at the colorful autumn leaves, the race was half over before I noticed how many people had passed me. I cheated a glance back. Far beyond the others in my category, I saw a cluster of chairs approaching in the distance.

Part of me wanted to fall back, just run alongside Everett, competition be damned. But I turned back, got a good kick, dodged a runner who had stumbled, and kept going.

By the time the first of the wheelchair racers approached the finish line, I had recovered from the dry heaves, managed to stand, gulp some water, and wait for Everett to approach. Viewers cheered and clapped, and I checked the times.

The mean, determined look on his face stunned me. I had seen it on him during a few tense moments at his basketball games. But something about that last long haul just got to me, and I found myself screaming for him as he narrowly edged out another racer.

I brought him a bottle of water as he veered off to the side so others could speed by. The cold sweat and pounding of his chest almost frightened me as we hugged.

“You did good, Monkey.”

“Hell yeah, I did,” he panted.

We stayed for the kids’ race, and the numerous awards. Everett had placed among the top ten, and held up his little ribbon for a few photographers.

“Here,” he scooted his butt, extracted my sweatpants, which were wrinkled and damp. But I didn’t care. The sheer elation overtook our exhaustion. As we cooled down, hands were shaken, palms were high-fived.

“That was great,” he said after we tumbled back into the van and headed home. Everett had shared phone numbers with several of the other racers, and I knew that although it was great for us to be together competing, he had found a kinship beyond his basketball teammates, an expanded idea of a community.

Chapter 23

November, 1981

‘Ninety percent of 9,700 bird species mate for life. In mammals, only three percent of nearly 4,000 species are reported to remain monogamous through their mating. Among that list are bald eagles, beavers, ba n owls, red-ta led h wks   k’

The electric typewriter ribbon had nearly run out. My paper on native species for Principles of Zoology 101 had become a bit sidetracked as well, so I was relieved when Everett popped a question during the pause in my typing. Of course, I was already thinking about him, and us, in comparison.

Only weeks before, on a race to crank out several midterms, he’d run through three ribbons on the typewriter, until some wing of the library offered what he derisively called “Computing for Crips,” a city-funded course. That way, he got to print it out in sputtering reams of hole-punched paper, just not at home.

I was distracted by the music Everett had decided to play during our study session. A perky, almost magical sound distracted me as well as the imminent death of the typewriter ribbon.

“Who is this we’re listening to?” I asked, a bit loudly, since I was in the dining room where a small desk had become our typing space.

Everett sat on the floor, a few throw pillows under his folded legs. He had just had a new wheelchair delivered, and decided to adjust a few parts. The wheels, body, and various tools lay on the floor before him. The front room had almost become our second home. With the trees across the street bleeding down to ochres and russets, the day’s sun filled the room.

“Benjamin Britten; composer and notable deceased homosexual!”

I rose, walked to him. “Note-able. A pun?”

“Oh, I get it,” he deadpanned.

“Pretty snazzy ride ya got there.” I parked myself on the floor by his new chair and toyed with a wrench.

He tossed a rag at me. “Make yourself useful.” He pointed to the other wheel. I reached for it, handed it to him and watched, fascinated as he fit the pieces together, snapped and twisted a few parts, then reached under the seat to pull the brakes. As he hoisted himself up and onto the seat, he hopped around a bit, adjusted a cushion, then released the brakes, and broke into a spinning wheelie.

“Damn!”

I remembered the first time I saw Everett’s first chair, looming in a corner at his makeshift downstairs bedroom back in Greensburg. At the time, it had represented a gloomy moment of finality. He had since gotten a newer model, similar to his new one. But his active life had worn that one down in little more than a year, and the Runfest, he told me, had pushed his old chair’s limits.

Without the old-fashioned armrests and push handles, the angled wheels and new frame gleamed in the afternoon sunlight.

“It’s so much lighter, and the camber’s better.”

“You should get some decals.”

“Oh, like a flaming skull? It’s not exactly a Harley.”

“Maybe a flaming nerd.”

“Pretty sweet.” He rolled over to the dining room into the kitchen, then scooted down the hallway and back to me. “So, a shopping trip is in order this weekend?”

“I could just go to the student center for the cartridges.”

“No, no. Let’s make a day of it,” he announced. “Haircuts and shopping. New chair, new hair.”

“Haircuts? When did that come into it?”

Everett wheeled over to a small stack of newspapers on the floor by the sofa. He had been reading a local weekly newspaper, the
Philadelphia Gay News
. I had seen it, and read a few copies, but Everett was more interested in it since attending a few meetings of the gay and lesbian student group at Penn. In addition to his studies, he read through local newspapers, keeping up on current events, suggesting a movie or play to attend.

“Did you know there’s a gay bookstore?” he said turning a page of the newspaper to show me an ad.

“I did know that.”

“How could a pair of brainiac homos like us not have visited it before?”

I shrugged. Being boyfriends with Everett, and having a few gay friends, felt like more than enough. Shopping for stuff to be more gay hadn’t occurred to me.

But I had asked him what he wanted for Christmas, and he knew. My previous year’s gift of a small necklace, similar to ones he’d begun wearing, was met with mild appreciation. He wore it often enough, but with my comparatively small funds, I thought just openly asking him what he wanted would be better.

“Yeah, we should get some snazzy new haircuts. There’s a salon Gerard goes to. It’s right near the gay bookstore.”

Gerard had bragged about his plans to move off-campus at the end of the semester, after befriending a pair of older gay men who shared a swanky apartment near Rittenhouse Square. Even when he wasn’t around, he called every weekend to lure us, or more precisely, called Everett with me as an afterthought, with invitations to an eighteen-and-over dance night, a coffee house, a music concert or a poetry reading. After a few times, I just let Everett go without me, claiming I had to study.

“We can get New Wave haircuts. We’re looking a little seventies.”

I actually liked Everett’s hair longer, especially on weekends when he skipped shaving. The beard he’d grown at summer camp made him look more masculine and sexy. I also liked the feel of his face, but knew he preferred a clean-cut look when he had debates or yet another photo shoot for the university’s public relations department.

My own longer hair was a bit dated, but being self-conscious about my jug ears, I preferred my hair long. Still, he asked for it, so I relented. “Okay, let’s be trendy; change our… plumage.”

He made appointments for us on Saturday. He drove the van a few blocks to the student center, where I got a few ribbons and more paper while he waited at the curb, then drove the dozen blocks to Center City, the quaint part of town with a lot of historic brick townhouses. Every home, adorned with small shrubs or potted plants, seemed to hold a bit of Americana, shaded by elms along the sidewalks. I could almost imagine horses and carriages maneuvering the narrow streets.

But most of the shops’ front doors included a few steps, making casual shopping a challenge. Everett seemed to ignore the barriers, and instead narrowed our selections.

The receptionist and hairstylists saw Everett, and at first seemed a bit put off by his chair. But when he hoisted himself from his own into the salon chair, and I scooted his wheelchair off to the side wall, the lengthy bib wrapped around his neck and Everett and the stylist chattered away about plans for his new ‘do.

Shortly afterward, as I leafed through a copy of
Rolling Stone
from a stack of magazines, a voice called out my name, and a woman welcomed me to her barber chair.

“So, what look are we going for? Something new? It looks like your friend’s getting a makeover.”

“Yeah, he wants to look like a rock star, I guess.”

“And what rock star do you want to look like?”

“Just a minute.” I got up, retrieved the
Rolling Stone
, flipped to a page, and found an article on a new British band called Madness, whose lead singer looked rather handsome.

I pointed. “That’ll do.”

“You got a flat top?”

“So?” I said, as I helped Everett down the two steps of the salon and onto the sidewalk.

“No, it looks great. It’s just a little old-fashioned.”

“You said ‘rock star.’”

“So, am I ‘rock star?’ Whaddaya think?” Everett coyly turned his head in a few directions.

Sheared at the sides, with a wavy sort of pompadour on top, he looked…over-coiffed.

“Kinda Duran Duran, right?”

I wanted to say, the missing member of that band; their poodle. But then I remembered my mother’s words of relationship advice: ‘You don’t have to be honest about everything.’

“You look very stylish.”

“You don’t like it.”

“I do like it,” I said. I just knew I wasn’t going to make out with him until I’d hosed off all that hair gel.

The door to Giovanni’s Room had two cement steps, so I opened the door, then backed Everett’s chair up and into the bookstore. A friendly bald older man with an earring asked if we needed any help.

“We’re fine,” I said, as Everett turned and took the place in.

“I can get you something from upstairs,” he offered.

“Thanks,” Everett smiled. “We’ll just look around first.”

It looked like a home converted into a store, like many in the historic neighborhood. A few of the aisles were a little tight, so I brought him a few books he couldn’t reach. The array of titles overwhelmed me at first, books with shirtless men on the covers, lesbian health books, and further off, an entire shelf of porn magazines.

“Check this out.” Everett handed me a large paperback with large curling letters on the cover.

“
The Joy of Gay Sex
?” I whispered.

“I figure we could get a few pointers.”

“‘An intimate guide for gay men to the pleasure of a gay lifestyle.’ Does it include decorating tips?” I joked as I flipped through it, opening it to a page with a drawing of two guys going at it in an entirely unfamiliar position. The chapter heading read ‘Fisting.’

“Woah.” I handed the book back to him.

“Prude.” He perused it as if it were a textbook.

“Do you have any complaints?” I muttered.

“No, it’s just, you know, we do have… challenges.”

“Yeah, but–”

“It’s what I want for my birthday.”

“Your birthday’s in February.”

“Okay then; an early Christmas present.”

“Fine.”

“Besides, I have a feeling you’re going to enjoy this as much as I will.”

The eager clerk appeared before us. “You sure you gentlemen don’t need any help?”

“He needs a little Gay 101,” Everett said as he handed the clerk the sex book. “And I need an owner’s manual.”

He also ended up buying himself a small stack of books, magazines and a videotape that he said was “a surprise.”

When Carl, a Masters student in medicine, had approached Everett and asked him to participate in a study using massage, hydrotherapy and a different series of exercises, he had given Everett a small chart of a human body’s nervous system to use when he made notes of any changes in sensation.

While he’d said he felt healthier, and energized, I wondered how he would feel when the semester ended, and the Masters student, Carl, whom I’d never met, and pretty much didn’t want to, went on his studious way elsewhere. Who was he to get Everett’s hopes up when he’d already adapted, really begun to challenge himself, and others, by accepting who, or how, he was?

Yet Everett had become focused, with some sardonic jokes, on the possibility of regaining sensation in his lower body. He repeatedly pointed at the chart when the subject arose, with a hokey Ironside-like impersonation.

“Sir, may I provide the evidence.”

Over our desk hung the body chart of spinal nerve connections, how one vertebra’s nerves connect with different areas of the body. Everett had it enlarged at the copy shop. His amusement was about less than research, but more probably because the lower checklist included the odd phrase, which he announced in Lawyer-ese, “Anal Stimulation? Yes or No?”

Basically, I think he wanted to try fucking some sensation back into his tush. I blamed the porn. All those positions just made him competitive.

Everett had installed a videotape machine sent by his father. It was one of many appliances and comforts that would randomly show up via UPS, signed by Mrs. Kukka, packed and waiting by our bedroom door; pillow cases, books, socks, pre-framed family portraits, and forwarded stacks of letters and cards from his former classmates. Everett dutifully placed them on a side desk in the alcove in our room.

After our shopping trip to the bookstore, I had to turn away from the smiling family portrait.

We were in the middle of our third rather intense attempt to enjoy more than about twenty minutes of
Fox Studio presents School Daze
when we halted abruptly at the sound of our landlady descending the stairs.

Everett discovered that he got excited from watching porn. We had to keep the volume down, because the apartment walls were a bit thin, and Mrs. Kukka, despite her easy nature, probably wouldn’t appreciate the sounds of butt-slapping sex on tape. The sex sounds were dubbed from what seemed a silent film, and the music was awful, anyway. It was kind of creepy in silence, until I put some other music on and dimmed the light on the TV, which gave the room a harsh glare without another light on.

After watching the brightly lit butts getting plowed by glistening huge appendages, almost to the end, we were a bit wiped out, changed in a way.

Several positions had pretty clearly displayed themselves as being a lot of fun, but while watching the muscular oiled-up men, mostly we just lay there, a bit stunned. Maneuvering ourselves into those positions later was a little different. The gay sex book felt tame by comparison. The feelings from sex with Everett started in my head, fluttered through my chest, then stirred my body further down. Watching the videotape seemed to induce a strangely stiff erection with no connection to the rest of me.