The phantom of lost love

We met on a post-holiday night at the Jack’s Construction Site. I had never been to a gay bar before and didn’t even know what I should wear. I settled on jeans, cowboy boots and a leather jacket. He motioned for the bartender to hand me a beer. Because I looked so out of place, he said. I could see the twinkle in his eyes from across the bar. His stare suggested he knew our future. And then I glimpsed a fleeting look of profound sorrow. He knew I would love him forever. And he knew that he would leave.

I thought if I stood beneath this flickering lamp post on a deserted Park Avenue corner he would saunter through the snow shuffling along behind his basset hound. As he neared me he would pause, gasp, and then smile. His hound would sniff my feet and gaze upward knowingly into my eyes and then take a seat. He would look into my eyes and whisper, “Finally.”

In the early months I would follow and sometimes chase him, but he always got away. I was moseying daydreaming on Central Park South, when from a half block away, he looked at me, turned to walk into the park and then slowly, silently looked back. I continued walking, watching, but did not follow.

As I sat in the window at Fada exhaling slowly over a steaming mug of latte, I saw him bundled against the piercing wind and driving snow, darting among the lost souls on Driggs.

I caught a whiff of Hermes at Balducci’s and spotted him in the produce department rummaging, reaching for an unblemished bosc.

Dashing into an optometrist’s office clutching his broken eyeglasses.

Exiting the L two cars up as I boarded for my Bedford Avenue stop.

Thumbing through the Sunday Times at the newsstand at Union Square.

Rifling through a mangled pile of half-off cashmere sweaters at Barney’s.

When I slowly awoke nestled in flannel sheets on a frosty morning and watched swirling clouds of snow dance from rooftop to rooftop across the street from my Williamsburg flat, I heard him whisper, “Morning, my prince.”

“The avocado is not quite ripe yet,” I said to myself as I began to prepare a dinner for one. In another room I heard him chuckle, “Let’s have another gin and tonic and wait.” I imagined, I imagine.

It’s been 13 years since he left. And a few months since I’ve seen him. And a few weeks since I’ve thought about him.

I sat beside someone on the train this morning. Handsome, witty, kind. Loves dogs. Adores old ladies. Thinks television is a blight on humanity. Sees “A Confederacy of Dunces” as the funniest collection of words in the English language. Cries at my suggestion that Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time” is the most beautiful piece of music ever penned. Suspects that no one has ever been able to define passion better than Millay. Insists that no one has ever been able to sing as passionately as Brightman. Knows how to make cornbread. Stresses that the secret to having peace in the world is teaching all people how to entertain properly. Agrees with Thoreau that no companion is so companionable as solitude. Listens to country music because of its ability to convey feelings honestly. Argues that life without love is pointless. Falls in love slowly and then loves for life...

I looked into his blue eyes, oblivious to the rocking car and bustling throngs, and felt that almost forgotten feeling of warmth and comfort.

Saturday we’ll meet again for coffee and let our dogs romp in the park. And maybe, just maybe, I will stop seeing the ghost.

Opera, olives and acorns...

In January 2008 my friend Nanci and I were planning a trip to Italy to celebrate our birthdays. During the Christmas holidays I had read John Grisham's "Playing for Pizza" and had become enamoured with the notion of visiting some of the places he had mentioned in the book. We had already rented a second-floor walk-up on Piazza Santo Spirito in Florence for 10 days and were trying to decide what day trips to take. Nanci is one of those people who's impossible to surprise, but I gave it my best shot. I got on the interwebs and looked up the opera house that Grisham mentioned in the book. It indeed existed and, to my surprise, "Faust" was being performed while we were there. I bought two tickets. Then, when we got to Florence, I broke the news to Nanci that one of our trips was going to be to Parma. "Why the hell are we going to PARMA? And we are spending the night? Are you serious?" I told her I wanted to taste the prosciutto.

With our backpacks, we took the 20 minute stroll across the Arno to Santa Maria Novella to board the train. North we went to Bologna (yes, I have a long-standing love for cured meats), northwest through Modena (you can think of the olive oil and balsamic vinegar now), Reggio nell'Emilia (cheese!) and finally to Parma. I will admit to being the typical man here. I don't ask for directions in English and I sure as hell don't try it in a foreign language. In looking for the Teatro Regio di Parma, we found Trattoria dei Corrieri. But, I digress.

We found the hotel which was across the river from the old town. I didn't score major points here, but it was safe and clean. Then we were off to the opry. I thought having studied German in college would have prepared me for a good, old-fashioned opera. Wrong. The producers had taken the classic and had turned it into a 21st -century phantasmagoric extravaganza of laser lights, booming special effects and voices seldom heard this side of heaven--all within the walls of the early-19th century opera house of Bellini, Verdi and Toscanini. This Alabama rube recognized a few words they were singing but knew the story. It didn't matter. I was mesmerized. And smitten with opera.

We sauntered from the theatre down Strada Guiseppe Garibaldi. I knew the restaurant was southwest of the theatre and I knew the name of the street was Conservatorio. We were walking with a large group of people, talking about how the opera was so unexpectedly glorious and we weren't paying close attention to where we were going. Turning the corner, there it was: http://www.ristorantidiparma.it/old/CORRIERI/index.html And, the food...risotto with pears, prosciutto with olive oil and little puffy potato pillows, gnocchi with arugula pesto, and a bowl, nay, a VAT of tiramisu that would make your tongue slap your brains out. All washed down with two bottles of white Tuscan wine. (The fact that we were scoffed at from Rome to Venice and everywhere in between because of our aversion to red wine is another story for another day.)

As we strolled, sated and just a wee bit tipsy along the Parma River toward the hotel, I, with my chest swollen with pride in having executed such a memorable evening, asked Nanci if she was surprised. She said, simply, curtly, "Even a blind sow finds an acern ever once in a while."

Sissies, racism, and redemption

My friend Emo posted her recent experience at a healthcare reform town hall meeting today and it's been on my mind all day. It made me think of this excerpt from Kevin Sessums' "Mississippi Sissy:"

"Did you catch the Oscars last night, Matty?" I had asked her that morning. "Can you believe a nigger won Best Actor?"
Matty May sat down on the bed. A long slow sigh slid from her. She reached over and took a sip of the Tang she liked to drink instead of a morning cup of coffee. "Oh, baby...," she kept saying over and over and running her palm along the chenille spread. "Oh, baby...." The look of sad resignation in her eyes--all slyness had disappeared from them--was the same I had seen in my mother's only the day before in her hospital room, a look of utter fatigue, defeat. "I thought you was different, child. Lawd be, if they can get you t'sayin such things, there ain't no hope. No hope." She started to cry. I sat down next to her and reached out and held her hand. I turned her palm over and, as I loved to do when taking a nap with her sitting at my side, I gently rubbed her calluses with my fingers, amazed by their toughness and how very tender they made me feel. "No hope. No hope," she kept repeating.
"Nigger's a ugly word?" I quietly asked her, trying to understand this newest storm of tears in my presence.
"Child, it's d'ugliest. Jesus never say nigger in d'Bible. God made us colored folk in His own image, too, you know. So if we a nigger, God a nigger, too. You think about that. And you think about old Matty cryin' here like this, if you ever think about sayin' that agin." I looked up at her and asked her what I should call her then, since my grandparents, careful never to curse around me, used the word several times a day within my earshot. She straightened her bent shoulders and roughly pulled me up by the collar of the shirt she had just ironed for me to wear to school. She stood me up right in front of her. She always made sure to use a sweet tone when addressing me, but not in that moment. Her voice took on a hard edge, not lashing out at me exactly, but making me notice the angry dignity with which it was suddenly imbued. "Ah-woe!" she said, that special exclamation she always used for emphasis when she wanted your attention and was sure to get it. "I got a name, child. call me by my right name--Matty May. That's got a pretty sound to it. You don't need to use some ugly name when my mama give me two pretty ones. Sometimes when I'm shopping at Paul Chambers," she said, referring to the owner of the general store where many of the country folk in the area shopped for groceries, work clothes and gasoline, "and I hear some white fool use that word around me I just say my name over and over in my head to drownt it out, Matty May Matty May Matty May. Now I got a new one I can use--Poitier Poitier Poitier," she said, practically singing the name, her face aglow with pride." Sounds almost as pretty as my own."
I helped her make up the rest of my bed that morning. "Matty May," I asked, "when somebody calls me a sissy at school, can I say your name over and over in my head to make it go away?"
Se teared up again. She offered me the last sip of her Tang. I took it, defying my grandparents' admonition never to get a colored person's germs. "Child, you can use old Matty's name all you want," she said, kissing me on top of my head. "Plenty of me to go around now that I got something as pretty as Sidney Poitier to pronounce inside myself."

President Carter's comments last night were not "playing the race card." He spoke as an enlightened man who has witnessed throughout his life the ugly, painful truth of our American story. Sessums' story serves as a reminder of how far we've come. And today's cultural and political environment reminds us how far we've yet to go.