My mother and I lived in Chesterfield, Virginia when I was littler. Me: about 13 or so when we moved there. It was a small horse ranch; a 3 bedroom house, a huge lovely old red barn with white trim, horse corrals and paddocks and fields. It was all run down though; but serviceable. Mother and I spent hours scruvving the accumulated oil layers off the cabinets in the kitchen, fixing fences, painting. Picking up trash-- lots of room to roam and have a horse and grow corn and the like. It would have been idyllic had my family not been so dysfunctional. I grieve the loss of it daily. I called it "Ginger-Bred Farms" as I wanted to breed my Shetland pony and raise them to sell. I had no idea what was actually going to happen out there... wild debauchery on the part of my siblings mostly with a healthy side of unrestrained wild ruffian hellcat me zooming around on a pony and then a motorbike then a full sized horse.
My mother was a dog groomer and I was in junior high. I will write a seperate story about that debacle. The siblings came and went, living there sometimes, moving back to Alabama sometimes. I had months without them, months with them around. During one particular summer when there was only my brother David living with us, mother gets a wild hair and joins a touring Passion Play of all things. I managed later to sneak a peak at her diary musings from this time and there was not one mention of me: only debauchery, drinking and flirting. It was a 3 month tour.
During her absence I was left with a Mormon family down the street. As a wild child used to being out on my horse all day every day and doing whatever I wanted to , this was terribly restricting. I rebelled at every turn. I was not to listen to my KISS albums (lectured about how KISS stood for KINGS IN SATANS' SERVICE) even when the house was empty... not allowed to ride my horse with boys unescorted (I had a friend I rode with often. He was not allowed to ride with me without an escort so he stopped coming around). I was not allowed to hang out in my old room in our own house alone. I would do my farm chores then have to come home to the Mormons where I was just another mouth to feed. It was a very lonely and horrible 3 months for me. I was so glad when mother came home and I got to go home too although home was only a 1/8th of a mile away... my gay brother was staying up there alone. He was 23 and living it up with the house to himself.
When mother came back she told me that during the tour she had reconnected with a very old friend, an actor she'd known in Alabama. John Purdy. I remembered him from my childhood when I'd hung out backstage at the theaters my mom directed at. I think he and my sister were in a play once (Can-Can-- they did the Apache Dance).
Well I didn't think much more about John for some time. My mother found a cowboy in a personal ad in the back of a magazine and he comes to pick us up with this old Dodge Power Wagon pickup and a four horse trailer. We pack up everything in that truck and pack the horses (I don't know what all I had to leave behind. I don't recall but it must have been a lot)-- oh that's where my toys went-- and off we go to Arizona. I'm 14. I leave behind my friends, my other pony, my trails. My woods. My land. They take me to Flagstaff.
I don't fit in, I'm an outcast at school. I get in trouble. My PE teacher sexually harasses me. I can't do math. I skip those classes. I am always high. I am dealing pot and drinking at school.
Mother sends me to spend a summer with John. And on my last night home before the trip, I remember sitting on the bed I share with my mother at the age of 16, in our tiny apartment that has no shower-- hearing my mother from the bathroom saying "OH, did I tell you that John was GAY?"
Here I am. I'm 16. I'm boy crazy. I have like 3 suitcases and a trumpet of all things. I have boxes of stuff for some reason. I sit next to a dude on the Greyhound that fingers me while I sit there paralyzed. He had a blanket ready for such a thing. I can't fight back.
Fortunately he has weed and that makes it palatable.
I arrive in the LA bus terminal and some guy grabs my stuff and puts it all in his car. I didn't know you could pretend to be a taxi driver and not be a taxi driver. He takes me to John's house and when we get there he's got his hands between my legs. I am panicked. What if I fight back, will he take off with my stuff? I can't fight back, I'm paralyzed. I just sit there, terrified. He does his thing for a while and eventually loses interest thank god and drops me off with my stuff. I pay him.
There was no way I was going to tell John about any of this. He was at work when I arrived, and I managed to get all the boxes in then read his note for me to come see him at his work. So I put a KISS tape in my cassette player and head on down the road to see him at his work.
Quite the walk... a couple of miles, past the citrus trees and the lovely Bungalows. The day was radiant. Past the supermarket (KINGS?), all the way to to the Antique Mart. And there he was, John, in the middle of cutting some carpet for the mart. He was helping his friend Bea. And there was another man named... Don? Also a gay man. Those three were as thick as thieves.
********************************************************
That first morning I was sent to the store down the road a piece, for breakfast ingredients. Tasked with cooking breakfast, I started to do it the way I knew and poor John had to glide over and help out. I'd never put spinach or cottage cheese in eggs... nor used fresh garlic (he taught me how to saute, that morning in 1978!). Another thing I'd not encountered before was 7 grain bread! To see brown bread for one thing and on top of that there were visible seeds. To be perfectly honest I was afraid to try it. But once I tasted the cold fresh butter on the warm grainy toast I was in heaven. To this day the taste of fresh cold salted butter on grain toast takes me back to that first morning with John and the crew. I still make my eggs that way most mornings. Saute onions and fresh garlic, with salt and pepper. Then add spinach; then break the eggs in the pan and put in dollop of cottage cheese, and some 1/2 & 1/2. Mix it all up and it is so moist. Ah, John.
After breakfast we worked on laying the carpet-- I was introduced to adult jokes and terribly embarrassed yet intrigued. " We're Laying carpet " -- "At least someone is getting laid " etc. I hesitate here to tell the reader that I did not know what getting 'laid' meant and it had to be explained to me when I asked what was so funny. The look on my face when I grasped said explanation must have been priceless because they guffawed and I'm pretty sure John slapped his knee for emphasis.
I was in top form being a part time ranch hand and a high school drop out (just the month before!) working in a bronze foundry. [When I have a nice grey beard and have someone's kids sitting around listening to my stories no one is going to question my gender when I say my first job was smelting bronze!] Naturally the brunt of the labor fell to me, the young yokel. By the time we were done it was dark out. We'd none of us eaten since brekkie so it was decided we go to ARRIBA! for nachos. Arriba was to become our home of a night; gathered around the table, antique loving adults laughing and flirting and one little ragamuffin 16 year-old sitting there filling up on nachos, listening to adult stories and not knowing half of what is going on in them, and getting huge spoonfuls of Margarita ice from Edward under the table. 10 spoons and I was as happy as they were. Ed was John's FWB and long time confidante. He looked like a cop on a 70s action show. Longer red hair, big stash, patrolman sunglasses,bellbottoms, thick white leather belt, you know the look. John looked... Jewish. No getting around that. Ed looked middle American cop. Beatrice looked... like a soccer mom. But we didn't call them that then.
After a raucous evening of drinks and Mexican appetizers we finally left around midnight and went back to the Mart. Drunk as fools all, naturally no one wanted the party to end. John and Ed saunter off into the kitchen and Bea hands me the longest extension cord I'd seen in my life to date, tells me to plug it in over yonder and then carry the male plug up to the roof. I do as instructed and find myself going up this staircase then a ladder and on up to a hatch. I open the hatch and go out on the roof with the cord. There's chairs and a table up there... and you can look right down on the street below. We were about 4 stories up.
The three musketeers climb up and bring with them booze, a blender, ice and some watermelons. I was about to get ripped and eat watermelon my first night in Pasadena. We got belligerent. I told them stories of my childhood and they immediately become protective over me from then on out. John promised to talk to my mother about some things, they all promised to teach me things I needed to know and had not been taught. I felt like I had a family for the first time in my life. It was a good night. There was a group hug at the end and then Beatrice, drunk as a lord, decided to throw the watermelon rinds down on the sidewalk. I got involved-- and of course it was me the cops saw when they pulled up. I ran down the ladder and hid so well no one found me for two hours. The cops warned John and John pooh-poohed them and it was just a big laugh the next day. I had some experience running from the cops as a youth. And hiding.
My life was rich that summer. I was a nervous wreck and anxious and scared of course, as usual, but I felt part of. Walking to the mart every morning and doing work with John-- whatever was asked of me. He 'loaned me out' to the neighboring antique dealers. I remember there was this one lesbian couple, first ones I'd ever seen (that I knew of). They were middle aged. They were creepy. One of them asked me to go up and down the ladder to the loft above their shop to get items. And when I was going up they were at the bottom of the ladder watching and when I came down the ladder I backed right into her. Me being me, I froze and could not move, nor could tell anyone this was happening: so I refused to go over to the lesbian's shop anymore. Not because I wasn't intrigued but because it felt abusive.
John's apartment was something I'd never seen before: spartan on purpose. The living room was so sunny and it had in it one huge baroque table and one big beanbag. Oh and a candle stand in every room. At night, everything was candles. In the kitchen: a breakfast nook, also sunny. Lacey breeze blown curtains, squeaky clean glass, an old refrigerator (small!), tiny but well organized and laid out kitchen. I loved it immediately! Such a huge departure from the utilitarian junk my mom pulled from dumpsters to furnish our houses when there was no man to buy us decent furniture. I'd not ever been to any sort of 'bohemian' dwelling like this. It thrilled me. To the bone.
John was a thoughtful and philosophical man-boy. Approximately 40 at the time, he'd been an actor all his life but only in the past decade become an antique dealer. He had a little car that had no back seat-- for transporting antiques. I adored the little foreign car. Everything about John was unique to me. He smoked pot too BUT his pot was very different from the shake I'd gotten used to dealing in school. His was-- sophisticated. John would smoke me up and then we would read from this book in his bedroom, where there were tons of candles and it was magical. I have been plagued with desire to remember the book's title. I suspect it was something like the Bhagavad Gita; but I cannot be certain. Many is the night I have gone to bed bidding myself to remember it in a dream. Whichever book it was, it was beautiful and I was mesmerized. We read to one another whilst rubbing each other's fingers with oil. A simple sort of thing but one I'd never even imagined. Those reading sessions were so important to me. He taught me something so important. And how then to go back to my cold mother and cold surroundings? After nights and nights of that? How? I have never recovered from it.
John was an imp as well. There was a 3rd gay fellow at the Mart named Sheldon. He was a larger fellow, jovial, stereotypical one might say. Effeminate he would have been called. Sheldon did not hang out with John and Ed as much as they would have liked; he was more elitist and liked his more elitist friends despite working the Mart with John and Ed. It was my understanding that "Shelley" (as they called him behind his back) thought he was a better anitquer than J & E & B. So Sheldon talked himself up among the clientele and they loved his lavishly appointed apartment (he seemed to have more money than anyone and kept most of the antiquese he did not sell) so they hung out there quite a bit. Any given night could find 4-10 - ish people sitting about in Shel's salon drinking wine and smoking dope. For some reason this all bothered the 3 friends and we set out to do something about it.
John gave me some sheet music (I'd brought my trumpet with me of all things) and told me to learn the song BY HEART. I put the mute in the bell and started practicing that hour. We'd work all day then come home and practice -- John would be cooking dinner and listening, nodding approval as I perfected the tune. He wanted it to be as comical in places as it was beautiful in others. Some trilling would be in order, some raspberries. I was having the time of my life. John directed me like a crazed conductor-- high as a lord. The older neighbors must have been rolling their eyes.
The appointed night for whatever they were planning arrived and I with my memorized song and butterflies for days got into the car to ride to my fate. Ed and John in front, me in the back with BEA on the hard metal car floor. I had my trumpet case in my lap. John parks and we have to walk a few blocks... we walk up the sidewalk, top a hill and I'm confronted with the most terrifying sight I've ever seen: Hollywood at night. John and Ed inform me it's not the best neighborhood and to keep my eyes peeled. Ed's a fair sized guy so he takes my trumpet for me. We walk in a bunch and I'm terrified! Every shadow holds a murderer or a rapist! Cars are honking and there are so many lights! But I soldier on and we get to an abandoned lot next to a tall old apartment building. The building looked like it had been somewhat grand in its past. John and Ed and Bea count floors, find the right room and its windows. I am instructed to get ready to play my heart out.
The song was "The Man in the Moon is a Lady"; and I played it with trembling gusto as the 3 comrades sang to the 5th floor balcony. I will put the lyrics here for your entertainment as you imagine 'Shelly' coming to the balcony and being irate then hamming it up as his social circle ate it up with huge spoons.
****************************************************
The man in the moon is a lady,
A lady in lipstick and curls;
The cow that jumped ovah cried,
"Jumpin' Jehovah,
I think it's just one of the girls."
She winks at the stars from her bed of green cheese,
That isn't a night-gown,
It's a Saturn chemise.
Oh, her friends are the stars and the planets,
She sends the Big Dipper a kiss;
So don't ever offend her,
Remember her gender,
The man in the moon is a miss.
********************************************************************************
John wanted me to learn some social skills and to assert myself more so one day he drove me to this building in LA and told me to go buy a ticket at the cashier. It was a ticket for a Universal Studios tour! But I was terrified to go to the window myself. John pushed me out of the car literally and shoved me to the ticket booth where I did finally purchase the ticket and eventually went on the tour. 1978-- "JAWS" had been a HUGE hit and "BRUCE" the mechanical shark was the main attraction. I'll never forget sitting in the trolley as we roll past a body of water and up pops BRUCE! We all recoiled in terror. Fantastic shit. And if you ever mention Jaws I will always mention that his name is BRUCE. The trolley went on to go over this bridge that 'collapsed', like in the movie "Earthquake", and then it went through a parting of the Red Sea like in the 10 Commandments. It was quite exciting for its time. I even bought a shirt at the end of the tour, which I'd kill to have now. All in all, a good day. I was still drying off from the Jaws exhibit when John picked me up. Not too long after that he took me to a thrift store and bought me some clothing-- a fringed leather jacket, a silk shirt a la disco style, etc. He bought me my first real haircut at a salon- his salon. I'd never heard of Vidal Sassoon. He bought me some shampoo and conditioner as well. And he got me some Yves St. Laurent cologne. I no longer looked like a hayseed. He taught me how to pluck my eyebrows, and how to find a bra at the thrift store. My mother had neglected to teach me anything about bras so I'd gone without for most of school and been teased relentlessly-- it was nice to be able to walk around without worry for once. (If a teen girl comes up to you in school and goes to pull your bra strap to snap it and their fingers find NO STRAP, you are in for it. Or that is how it was back then.) John taught me how to shave my legs, with my own razor. He would talk to me from the other room while I was bathing , ask me about my day if I'd not been with him. Bea was a real estate agent on the side and I often went to open houses to help her out as well. John liked to hear about those times.
Things went along fairly swimmingly until I'd been there about 2 months and John needed some privacy. So he asked if I would be ok with going to Bea's house for a week, so he could take a break and have some alone time. I agreed, reluctantly. When I got to Bea's house, I was shown a bedroom, it was messy, there were two beds, one was to be mine, make myself at home, etc. I moped around poking about until people arrived home later. Bea's daughter was my age, only slightly less tomboyish than me, but with confidence, and attitude. She took right to me and asked if I wanted to hang out at a party in Hollywood Hills later. Um, yes? but what to wear? Other than my new hip leather jacket of course. And the beret John gave me.
She told me to pick anything in her closet. I remember her saying she had to go do something and would be back later to pick me up for the party and meanwhile to try on and wear anything I wanted. I tried on stuff and then saw a pair of her pants crumpled on the floor and for some reason needed to try those on. When I got them on they were the perfect fit. I'd not worn fitted girls' jeans before and these really were sexy; and something about wearing HER pants, previously worn, really turned me on, I wore the pants around admiring myself in the mirror and developing a crush on the girl via her pants. I can't explain it.
I did find something clean to wear and we had a lovely time at the party. There were stars! And the lights floating in the sky-- the houses in the mountains-- and the way the party house was on stilts, overlooking the valley. In 1978 the HOLLYWOOD sign had been damaged by the earthquake and not yet repaired. I could see it from the party house. We got pretty drunk, smoked some weed, went walking around the street looking around at the houses, and eventually found our way home. I was crushed out fully by this time. It was a long week. We had fun though, I remember feeling part of.
It was my first girl-crush acknowledged as such. When I told John I thought I might be bi-sexual he said all kinds of stuff like 'could be a phase' etc. I told my mother when I went home and she said that all gays should abstain from sex their entire life if they can't change otherwise they are going to hell, and where oh where did she go wrong?? Never mind that she had touted the artistic vision, dedication, wit, humor, intelligence etc of 'the gays' for so long that I thought they were angels on earth. Now I am told that while they are wonderful, they are not to be emulated for their sexual orientation, that lands you in HELL. This is the first time my mother has told me I am going to hell. And it won't be the last. She goes on her crying jag and blaming her narcissistic self and doing her woe is me's and what not and I am left out in the cold pretty much, no longer any kind of favored child with any kind of hope for the future. You could see her dreams of salvation die and her eyes go flat. And that my friends would have been the PERFECT time for her to tell me that my brother was gay too and maybe I could talk to him. NOPE. That is kept from me for quite some time to come-- right up until the months before he died of AIDS. Thanks, mom. You're a fucking peach, you know that?
***************
Soon as I was out of Bea's house the crush on her daughter faded and I went back to John's but things were diff now, the 3 Musketeers had banded together in my absence and decided that it was time for me to go back home soon. Summer was drawing to a close and I had to go at some point. I wonder now, since I had dropped out of HS, if any of them ever considered having me stay instead of going back to Flagstaff and my narcissist mother. But it did not happen and I was put on a bus to return home. Some boxes, the things I had bought at the thrift store, and my new shampoos and the like, were to be sent later. I left those boxes at Bea's house and they never did get sent.
Bittersweet last couple of weeks at John's and the Mart... a few more Arriba! nights, and another party on the roof, and some never-to-be-forgotten memories: like the time John and Ed and I found a mannequin torso and put her in the toilet bowl with a cigarette hanging from her lips half smoked... cigarette ash all around the floor, and a disheveled wig with a flouncy blouse and big movie star sun glasses, some pearls... mimicking Beatrice. We unrolled toilet paper all the way from the door to the toilet just so it could not be missed (knowing that Bea was always first to unlock the building and would find it before anyone else). A few hearty guffaws and a long lasting in-joke stemmed from that prank I can tell you. We'd put a sign by the mannequin that read : fancy a fag?
But leave I did, on a bus, for a long ride back to Flagstaff. My stepfather picked me up, and he had no idea what I'd been through, the changes, any of it. He drove silently home, and did not ask me anything about my trip. It occurs to me now I never asked him to drive me anywhere or do anything for me. He took me to watch some Indians roping calves ONCE. He took me to dinner a handful of times. I knew him not at all.
So life on the ranch was interesting having been to California for the first time in my life and LOS ANGELES! Pasadena! I'd been to the Rose Bowl and I'd been to Universal Studios and the Hollywood Hills and the beach even! I'd seen it all. Now life on the ranch was absolutely impossible. I called John like always had before, every week, my mentor. We read that from book and we talked about our lives. He told me to stay strong until I could find a good job and leave Arizona on my own.
A few weeks later a friend of my mother's was traveling from Flagstaff fo Los Angeles and wondered if I would like to ride along, to visit John again and stay a day while she was at business. She'd pick me up on the way home and I'd be welcome company for the ride, with a day to see John again.
Sounded fun and perfect, One day surely he would not mind. I start calling him. He had no answering machine. I let the phone ring.
The ride was going to leave in a day or so and I kept calling. I started to worry. I called every hour from then on, for 2 days solid. Nothing. I gave up on the ride, because she had to go when she had to go, but I kept calling him. For a week or so. It turns out that John had been lying dead in his bed the whole time I was letting the phone ring for like 20 times. I didn't find out until many weeks later. John.
I'm sorry.
John wanted me to learn some social skills and to assert myself more so one day he drove me to this building in LA and told me to go buy a ticket at the cashier. It was a ticket for a Universal Studios tour! But I was terrified to go to the window myself. John pushed me out of the car literally and shoved me to the ticket booth where I did finally purchase the ticket and eventually went on the tour. 1978-- "JAWS" had been a HUGE hit and "BRUCE" the mechanical shark was the main attraction. I'll never forget sitting in the trolley as we roll past a body of water and up pops BRUCE! We all recoiled in terror. Fantastic shit. And if you ever mention Jaws I will always mention that his name is BRUCE. The trolley went on to go over this bridge that 'collapsed', like in the movie "Earthquake", and then it went through a parting of the Red Sea like in the 10 Commandments. It was quite exciting for its time. I even bought a shirt at the end of the tour, which I'd kill to have now. All in all, a good day. I was still drying off from the Jaws exhibit when John picked me up. Not too long after that he took me to a thrift store and bought me some clothing-- a fringed leather jacket, a silk shirt a la disco style, etc. He bought me my first real haircut at a salon- his salon. I'd never heard of Vidal Sassoon. He bought me some shampoo and conditioner as well. And he got me some Yves St. Laurent cologne. I no longer looked like a hayseed. He taught me how to pluck my eyebrows, and how to find a bra at the thrift store. My mother had neglected to teach me anything about bras so I'd gone without for most of school and been teased relentlessly-- it was nice to be able to walk around without worry for once. (If a teen girl comes up to you in school and goes to pull your bra strap to snap it and their fingers find NO STRAP, you are in for it. Or that is how it was back then.) John taught me how to shave my legs, with my own razor. He would talk to me from the other room while I was bathing , ask me about my day if I'd not been with him. Bea was a real estate agent on the side and I often went to open houses to help her out as well. John liked to hear about those times.
Things went along fairly swimmingly until I'd been there about 2 months and John needed some privacy. So he asked if I would be ok with going to Bea's house for a week, so he could take a break and have some alone time. I agreed, reluctantly. When I got to Bea's house, I was shown a bedroom, it was messy, there were two beds, one was to be mine, make myself at home, etc. I moped around poking about until people arrived home later. Bea's daughter was my age, only slightly less tomboyish than me, but with confidence, and attitude. She took right to me and asked if I wanted to hang out at a party in Hollywood Hills later. Um, yes? but what to wear? Other than my new hip leather jacket of course. And the beret John gave me.
She told me to pick anything in her closet. I remember her saying she had to go do something and would be back later to pick me up for the party and meanwhile to try on and wear anything I wanted. I tried on stuff and then saw a pair of her pants crumpled on the floor and for some reason needed to try those on. When I got them on they were the perfect fit. I'd not worn fitted girls' jeans before and these really were sexy; and something about wearing HER pants, previously worn, really turned me on, I wore the pants around admiring myself in the mirror and developing a crush on the girl via her pants. I can't explain it.
I did find something clean to wear and we had a lovely time at the party. There were stars! And the lights floating in the sky-- the houses in the mountains-- and the way the party house was on stilts, overlooking the valley. In 1978 the HOLLYWOOD sign had been damaged by the earthquake and not yet repaired. I could see it from the party house. We got pretty drunk, smoked some weed, went walking around the street looking around at the houses, and eventually found our way home. I was crushed out fully by this time. It was a long week. We had fun though, I remember feeling part of.
It was my first girl-crush acknowledged as such. When I told John I thought I might be bi-sexual he said all kinds of stuff like 'could be a phase' etc. I told my mother when I went home and she said that all gays should abstain from sex their entire life if they can't change otherwise they are going to hell, and where oh where did she go wrong?? Never mind that she had touted the artistic vision, dedication, wit, humor, intelligence etc of 'the gays' for so long that I thought they were angels on earth. Now I am told that while they are wonderful, they are not to be emulated for their sexual orientation, that lands you in HELL. This is the first time my mother has told me I am going to hell. And it won't be the last. She goes on her crying jag and blaming her narcissistic self and doing her woe is me's and what not and I am left out in the cold pretty much, no longer any kind of favored child with any kind of hope for the future. You could see her dreams of salvation die and her eyes go flat. And that my friends would have been the PERFECT time for her to tell me that my brother was gay too and maybe I could talk to him. NOPE. That is kept from me for quite some time to come-- right up until the months before he died of AIDS. Thanks, mom. You're a fucking peach, you know that?
***************
Soon as I was out of Bea's house the crush on her daughter faded and I went back to John's but things were diff now, the 3 Musketeers had banded together in my absence and decided that it was time for me to go back home soon. Summer was drawing to a close and I had to go at some point. I wonder now, since I had dropped out of HS, if any of them ever considered having me stay instead of going back to Flagstaff and my narcissist mother. But it did not happen and I was put on a bus to return home. Some boxes, the things I had bought at the thrift store, and my new shampoos and the like, were to be sent later. I left those boxes at Bea's house and they never did get sent.
Bittersweet last couple of weeks at John's and the Mart... a few more Arriba! nights, and another party on the roof, and some never-to-be-forgotten memories: like the time John and Ed and I found a mannequin torso and put her in the toilet bowl with a cigarette hanging from her lips half smoked... cigarette ash all around the floor, and a disheveled wig with a flouncy blouse and big movie star sun glasses, some pearls... mimicking Beatrice. We unrolled toilet paper all the way from the door to the toilet just so it could not be missed (knowing that Bea was always first to unlock the building and would find it before anyone else). A few hearty guffaws and a long lasting in-joke stemmed from that prank I can tell you. We'd put a sign by the mannequin that read : fancy a fag?
But leave I did, on a bus, for a long ride back to Flagstaff. My stepfather picked me up, and he had no idea what I'd been through, the changes, any of it. He drove silently home, and did not ask me anything about my trip. It occurs to me now I never asked him to drive me anywhere or do anything for me. He took me to watch some Indians roping calves ONCE. He took me to dinner a handful of times. I knew him not at all.
So life on the ranch was interesting having been to California for the first time in my life and LOS ANGELES! Pasadena! I'd been to the Rose Bowl and I'd been to Universal Studios and the Hollywood Hills and the beach even! I'd seen it all. Now life on the ranch was absolutely impossible. I called John like always had before, every week, my mentor. We read that from book and we talked about our lives. He told me to stay strong until I could find a good job and leave Arizona on my own.
A few weeks later a friend of my mother's was traveling from Flagstaff fo Los Angeles and wondered if I would like to ride along, to visit John again and stay a day while she was at business. She'd pick me up on the way home and I'd be welcome company for the ride, with a day to see John again.
Sounded fun and perfect, One day surely he would not mind. I start calling him. He had no answering machine. I let the phone ring.
The ride was going to leave in a day or so and I kept calling. I started to worry. I called every hour from then on, for 2 days solid. Nothing. I gave up on the ride, because she had to go when she had to go, but I kept calling him. For a week or so. It turns out that John had been lying dead in his bed the whole time I was letting the phone ring for like 20 times. I didn't find out until many weeks later. John.
I'm sorry.
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