Every now and again I read the F-town Bee. It's a crap small-town paper, but once in a while they run very scintillating articles about the legal dealings of my mother's family, which I enjoy reading. They go to court as often as they go to the can, and everyone loves reading about a mother who sues her children. Anyway, in the interest of not running afoul of lawyerly advice, I'll stop there.
Today I read about one of my uncle's new tenants, a guy who captured my attention when I was twelve. He was a friend of my mom's best friend Gloria, a flamboyant and fun-filled Tower District type who threw elaborate parties, had a loud but warm laugh, and even had a way of charming an austere young girl who spent her days reading above her grade level and worrying that her daddy was about to die. I adored this man and wanted to follow him to the ends of the earth. Men like this were a rarity in F-town, but here was one who chose not to flee to the Bay Area and was sticking around his podunk hometown for some unknown reason. Fortunately he was my mother's age and single and I desperately wanted her to date him. I think this happened right before my mother met the legendary Sweenie, who deserves a blog entry all his own. Sweenie (not his real name) had a cheesy mustache, lived with his mother past the age of 35 (and still does now, in his fifties) and had trouble keeping his manhood under control. This guy, Gary (oh, Gary!) had spark, personality, and social skills. He wore suits and made us laugh.
I told my mother that she needed to start dating him stat, because I knew that she would never get back together with my dad and if I had to have a stepdad, I most certainly deserved an AMAZING stepdad, one who knew how to light up a whole room (y'all know this did NOT happen) with a joke and a bottle of bubbly. She gave me that look, which would be my very first introduction to the Smart Single Girl's Lament, the most prevalent provider of low-grade disappointment that the type of woman I would grow up to be confronts. Gary was the first of numerous men who have soft-shoed through my life and filled it with promise until that single pink lightbulb inevitably appeared over our heads. "I'm pretty sure he's gay, sweetie."
I was only twelve and had limited exposure to gay men, but it made sense. My mother had heard that he threw wonderful parties, but that he only invited men. My mother wasn't even cool enough to be the single lucky hag who got to sing show tunes around the piano with Gary and his well-dressed male friends. A couple of years passed and the miasma of my teen years set in: profoundly lame stepdad, C-Juana, baby, dead father, etc.
Today I cheerfully Googled old Gary to find his company's website. I found another article in the F-town paper about him. About his house. Of course he lives in a professionally-decorated, magazine-spread-worthy house! He's gay and successful! He has lavish parties in his lavish house hosted by himself and his successful wife!"
WHAT?!?!?
See, sometimes I really hate the Internet. I think I was better off believing for twenty years that this man, this monumental man who would have made a top-notch stepdad, was a big homo. But now he's married to a woman?!? Is this a new thing? Was he gay in the '80s but had some sort of conversion years later? Is she a beard? A cousin? Someone in need of a green card? Or for all these years, back then as now, did he actually like women?
It would be honest of me to admit that he probably wouldn't have wanted to marry my mother anyway, but Mom pre-stepdad was a drastically different person than the lump of sad oatmeal I have to deal with now. Whatever spark or vivacity she had was quickly Hoovered away. I know she let it happen and that it's not my problem, but my god! What a different person I would be today had I gotten a stepfather that was worth a damn! I think that's what made me cry, not that a man I barely remember turned out to be straight.
Posted by Zerd at August 8, 2007 01:02 AM