Jack Tripper, Charlie Brown, the Paper Rose & me, pt. 5 (Conclusion)
by Eric Franklin Crow
After parting with Chuck on Monday morning, I just couldn't get him off my mind. I called the next day, and on the third try, he actually answered, bringing all the butterflies right up to my throat. “I want to take you to dinner tomorrow night. I have something I want to discuss with you. Where would you like to go?” I did that composure thing that happens in sitcoms, a bundle of excitement on the inside, but calm and collected on the outside. “I get off work at 9, but wherever you want to take me is just fine.” He asked what my favorite foods were and I brought up Sorrento's, an Italian restaurant, on El Cajon Blvd., between 40th & Central, a block from home and almost next door to the adult bookstore I'd come to know so well (torn out over the course of the 90s to make way for a freeway overpass. “Done,” he responded. I'll pick you up at 9:15 pm."
Ladies and gentlemen, I'd just been asked out on my first date.
After parting with Chuck on Monday morning, I just couldn't get him off my mind. I called the next day, and on the third try, he actually answered, bringing all the butterflies right up to my throat. “I want to take you to dinner tomorrow night. I have something I want to discuss with you. Where would you like to go?” I did that composure thing that happens in sitcoms, a bundle of excitement on the inside, but calm and collected on the outside. “I get off work at 9, but wherever you want to take me is just fine.” He asked what my favorite foods were and I brought up Sorrento's, an Italian restaurant, on El Cajon Blvd., between 40th & Central, a block from home and almost next door to the adult bookstore I'd come to know so well (torn out over the course of the 90s to make way for a freeway overpass. “Done,” he responded. I'll pick you up at 9:15 pm."
Ladies and gentlemen, I'd just been asked out on my first date.
I don't know how, but that night I managed to make it through my 4-hour shift (cold-call phone solicitation for the Paralyzed Vets of America, selling trash bags for charity, within walking distance from the house). Work was just a couple blocks from home, so when I clocked out, it was a quick walk over to my place to wait outside for him as he asked. I was antsy, to say the least. Every pair of lights that turned the corner I thought was him for sure, but ten excruciatingly long minutes later, he rounded the corner and parked by where I was standing, got out of the car, greeted me with a kiss and opened the door for me.
We walked hand-in-hand to Sorrento's. It is everything you think of when you think of an old-fashioned Italian pizzeria—dark-lit, candled in red holders on every table, red and white checkerboard tablecloths, and rich, heavy Italian food on the menu. We ordered a pizza with spaghetti & meatballs. While I talked about my day, he grabbed my hand and listened intently, waiting until this long-winded, babbling young man was done rattling off the last minute detail.
“I have a proposition for you. I want a relationship with you—I want you to be my help-mate. I want you and I to be there for each other like married couples. I want us to be together and eventually live together. I love you, and I think you're a catch. You're good company and you have a lot going for you. We would be really good together. Would you do that for me? Would you be my help-mate?” After I was done being gob-smacked, I nodded and say “Yes. I'd love that. I love you.” He reached over for a kiss when no one was looking and I rested my head against his shoulders for a quick second. As we walked over to his car, I asked if we were going to go some place private like over the weekend. He asked me to wait until Thursday. “I have a surprise for you.” We did spend a few moments in his car, acting in ways of limerance as all new couples do.
Mind you, this is very quick movement on both our parts to get into a relationship, caution thrown to the wind. We had four dates over the next week and a half. On our next date, he took me to the place I got off the bus in Hillcrest to find that first night at the Vulcan. Club San Diego was not quite as Mother Eddie described it--I found it a lot friendlier and more amenable, and it meant the world to sleep with him in very close quarters. A few days later, date night was on me--dinner and overnight in a hotel (The Berkshire on El Cajon, a very dark time in my life a few years later). We couldn't wait to get our hands on each other once in the room, falling asleep to Golden Girls reruns. The next day, Chuck was in a fender bender while we were driving through Marston Point (The Fruit Loop). I tried to help, as a help-mate should do, but there wasn't much I could do, except wait in the passenger seat while he negotiated with the woman who bumped into him. When he got back in, he didn't fault me for anything, but looking back, this had all the hallmarks of the Joan Crawford "it's not you, it's the dirt" bit in Mommy Dearest.
Fast forward through a wonderful weekend of camping in Poway, where Chuck drove through the woods like a madman at night to get to the campsite on time (and it thrilled me like I was on a roller coaster), where I roughed it for the first time and we drove back to the City in a haze of ash because of a forest fire that had started early Sunday, where I sang along to the live version of "Forever In My Life" from the Sign O' the Times live video, to the moment I realized he was the only one for me and I needed to be with him 24/7, and we moved me out of my parents house to the Eaglecrest Hotel on 8th & University Avenue (a residential hotel now called "Friendship Hotel"). This hotel had two buildings across the street from each other--we stayed in the main hotel on the west side of the street. Of all the places like it we stayed at over the next 18 months, this was the safest and most endearing to my memory. Things were quite fine, but I came to understand that though he would ask my opinion on things, his word was final--he was head of the household. I was fine with that and even appreciated it during that initial time period, because it attracted me to him even more.
We stayed at this hotel for three weeks, and it was during that time that I tried crystal meth for the first time. I'd heard the stories from Mother (Eddie) about the times they had done lines in the bathroom at the Vulcan, and while I wasn't inclined to indulge, I certainly didn't see anything in their behavior that was a warning sign for me at the time, nor did I see this in Chuck. So I finally mentioned one Friday night that I would be willing to try it if he brought some home. Two days later, he came back from an errand, went into a small tan leather case he carried close to him, which had all the paraphernalia necessary for a party for two. When I saw this, I got about as scared as I did when I was 17 and in the van and then when I was asked, "So you're gay?" Only this time, I should have listened to what the still, small voice inside was saying. I didn't. That's another story, which I have already told in countless poems. As crystal clear as that night was, it was also a big, all-night-long blur, and it set the tone for the next 4.4 years of my life (actually, 5 years with an 8-month period where we moved to Portland, Oregon, and stayed clean)
Just as I was started to enjoy being out on my own and bringing home a regular paycheck, I came home one Saturday and found Chuck inside the room, packing up our stuff. Apparently, we needed to move quickly, Chuck's reason being that one of his past lovers had found him and they got in a bad fight. This worried me, and I was willing to do whatever was necessary to get us to safety. We would figure out what to do soon enough, but for now, we pulled up to Club San Diego and rented a "suite" (anyone remember room #69?) for the weekend. I'd only just had my first experience with meth the previous weekend, and I'd done a complete 180 about my fears over using, and we were both up for whatever would come in the sleepless weekend to follow. Fast forward to the following Thursday, and we were starting to run out of gas, out of money and out of options.
Except for one. It took some doing, but I managed to convince my parents to come let him stay with us, and I'd managed to get him okay with coming to stay at my parents. Everything was smoothed over, and my new “friend” was coming to stay with me for a couple days. With one catch. Chuck and I knew the score, and he gave me an ultimatum. “If I'm gonna come and stay with you, you need to tell your parents who I really am. Because I'm not going to live with you there in secret. Either you tell them, or I'm out of here."
I thought a long second and then relented. We went upstairs to sit with them. For the first couple minutes, we all sat there, still and cautious. I had to search every part of my being for the courage to go ahead with this. Because while it's just two words that barely take a second to say, when it's your parents and you're telling them at the height of the panic years of AIDS, it's the hardest thing in the world to say. But I remembered at 18, my mother telling me, "I don't care what you do or who you do it with, just don't get a girl pregnant." And it almost happened a week before, while I was visiting her one evening and opening up to her about my new "friend," she asked directly, “Is that what you're trying to tell me?” I denied it quickly--”oh no, Mom, don't worry about me." As if these past four weekends with this new friend didn't already tell her everything she needed to know. But she let it be.
Not tonight, though. After about five minutes of my rambling, she stopped me and said, in the stern love of a mother, "Stop beating around the bush, Eric, and just come out with it." A long moment of silence passed, and I did. “Mom, Dad...I'm gay." Another long moment. "Chuck is my boyfriend. We are in love.” Another long moment. "This is who I want to have stay with me."
There. I said it, all in one burst. I could feel my heart pounding and my blood racing. Some would say that my partner giving me an ultimatum to come out or else was wrong, others might have understand him not wanting to live in secret, since he had been out for years. It is what it is, and it was all out in the open. Finally. In the moments that followed, there was no dusty uproar, no screaming match that would get physical. They accepted it in the moment, and Chuck decided it would be better for us to come back tomorrow. Mom hugged me and Dad went to his room.
We went to Club San Diego for the night. I called her about an hour after we got there, and had showered and eaten. “Yes, Eric, I still love you, no matter what, and I accept you. So does Dad. I'm glad you stopped hiding this from me. It'll just take some getting used to." She asked and I confirmed that we were safe for the night and before we hung up, she said, "Come by in the afternoon." All there was for me to do was leave her alone to work things out in her way.
When we showed up she hugged me and reaffirmed her love for me, then turning to Chuck to question his intentions with me. He was eight years older than me, but she and Mom were ten years apart, so it probably didn't seem that out of place to her that I loved someone older than me. She turned to me after she was done interrogating Chuck and said, "Your father wants to see you." I went right in and our conversation was quick. He asked me how long I'd known I was gay and was I out sleeping around with other men every night. I think the only way my Baptist-turned-Atheist father who called that man a f***** could reconcile this whole situation was by turning that part of me into a woman. By that I mean, he seemed more interested in whether or not I was a whore than if I was gay. It wouldn't have come up if I hadn't come out. He was not shy about his discomfort that I was "one of them," but agreed with Mom that "this doesn't make me love you any less."
So there you have it. My coming out story doesn't end with a bang or a whimper. It ends with a beginning. I didn't kick down my closet door, but I did swiftly open the door and walk through to the rest of my life. It will not be the last coming out I have, either. Since that moment, there have been five more experiences that qualify as coming out moments. For me, coming out is a journey, and where it ends I'm not sure. I know I'm not going back in the closet, and none of the powers that be can ever force me to go back to a place that hasn't existed for years. I am out. I am as God made me. If you are reading this, you understand this on some level, maybe more than one. I'm glad you came along with me on this journey. Thank you.
We walked hand-in-hand to Sorrento's. It is everything you think of when you think of an old-fashioned Italian pizzeria—dark-lit, candled in red holders on every table, red and white checkerboard tablecloths, and rich, heavy Italian food on the menu. We ordered a pizza with spaghetti & meatballs. While I talked about my day, he grabbed my hand and listened intently, waiting until this long-winded, babbling young man was done rattling off the last minute detail.
“I have a proposition for you. I want a relationship with you—I want you to be my help-mate. I want you and I to be there for each other like married couples. I want us to be together and eventually live together. I love you, and I think you're a catch. You're good company and you have a lot going for you. We would be really good together. Would you do that for me? Would you be my help-mate?” After I was done being gob-smacked, I nodded and say “Yes. I'd love that. I love you.” He reached over for a kiss when no one was looking and I rested my head against his shoulders for a quick second. As we walked over to his car, I asked if we were going to go some place private like over the weekend. He asked me to wait until Thursday. “I have a surprise for you.” We did spend a few moments in his car, acting in ways of limerance as all new couples do.
Mind you, this is very quick movement on both our parts to get into a relationship, caution thrown to the wind. We had four dates over the next week and a half. On our next date, he took me to the place I got off the bus in Hillcrest to find that first night at the Vulcan. Club San Diego was not quite as Mother Eddie described it--I found it a lot friendlier and more amenable, and it meant the world to sleep with him in very close quarters. A few days later, date night was on me--dinner and overnight in a hotel (The Berkshire on El Cajon, a very dark time in my life a few years later). We couldn't wait to get our hands on each other once in the room, falling asleep to Golden Girls reruns. The next day, Chuck was in a fender bender while we were driving through Marston Point (The Fruit Loop). I tried to help, as a help-mate should do, but there wasn't much I could do, except wait in the passenger seat while he negotiated with the woman who bumped into him. When he got back in, he didn't fault me for anything, but looking back, this had all the hallmarks of the Joan Crawford "it's not you, it's the dirt" bit in Mommy Dearest.
We stayed at this hotel for three weeks, and it was during that time that I tried crystal meth for the first time. I'd heard the stories from Mother (Eddie) about the times they had done lines in the bathroom at the Vulcan, and while I wasn't inclined to indulge, I certainly didn't see anything in their behavior that was a warning sign for me at the time, nor did I see this in Chuck. So I finally mentioned one Friday night that I would be willing to try it if he brought some home. Two days later, he came back from an errand, went into a small tan leather case he carried close to him, which had all the paraphernalia necessary for a party for two. When I saw this, I got about as scared as I did when I was 17 and in the van and then when I was asked, "So you're gay?" Only this time, I should have listened to what the still, small voice inside was saying. I didn't. That's another story, which I have already told in countless poems. As crystal clear as that night was, it was also a big, all-night-long blur, and it set the tone for the next 4.4 years of my life (actually, 5 years with an 8-month period where we moved to Portland, Oregon, and stayed clean)
Just as I was started to enjoy being out on my own and bringing home a regular paycheck, I came home one Saturday and found Chuck inside the room, packing up our stuff. Apparently, we needed to move quickly, Chuck's reason being that one of his past lovers had found him and they got in a bad fight. This worried me, and I was willing to do whatever was necessary to get us to safety. We would figure out what to do soon enough, but for now, we pulled up to Club San Diego and rented a "suite" (anyone remember room #69?) for the weekend. I'd only just had my first experience with meth the previous weekend, and I'd done a complete 180 about my fears over using, and we were both up for whatever would come in the sleepless weekend to follow. Fast forward to the following Thursday, and we were starting to run out of gas, out of money and out of options.
Except for one. It took some doing, but I managed to convince my parents to come let him stay with us, and I'd managed to get him okay with coming to stay at my parents. Everything was smoothed over, and my new “friend” was coming to stay with me for a couple days. With one catch. Chuck and I knew the score, and he gave me an ultimatum. “If I'm gonna come and stay with you, you need to tell your parents who I really am. Because I'm not going to live with you there in secret. Either you tell them, or I'm out of here."
I thought a long second and then relented. We went upstairs to sit with them. For the first couple minutes, we all sat there, still and cautious. I had to search every part of my being for the courage to go ahead with this. Because while it's just two words that barely take a second to say, when it's your parents and you're telling them at the height of the panic years of AIDS, it's the hardest thing in the world to say. But I remembered at 18, my mother telling me, "I don't care what you do or who you do it with, just don't get a girl pregnant." And it almost happened a week before, while I was visiting her one evening and opening up to her about my new "friend," she asked directly, “Is that what you're trying to tell me?” I denied it quickly--”oh no, Mom, don't worry about me." As if these past four weekends with this new friend didn't already tell her everything she needed to know. But she let it be.
Not tonight, though. After about five minutes of my rambling, she stopped me and said, in the stern love of a mother, "Stop beating around the bush, Eric, and just come out with it." A long moment of silence passed, and I did. “Mom, Dad...I'm gay." Another long moment. "Chuck is my boyfriend. We are in love.” Another long moment. "This is who I want to have stay with me."
There. I said it, all in one burst. I could feel my heart pounding and my blood racing. Some would say that my partner giving me an ultimatum to come out or else was wrong, others might have understand him not wanting to live in secret, since he had been out for years. It is what it is, and it was all out in the open. Finally. In the moments that followed, there was no dusty uproar, no screaming match that would get physical. They accepted it in the moment, and Chuck decided it would be better for us to come back tomorrow. Mom hugged me and Dad went to his room.
We went to Club San Diego for the night. I called her about an hour after we got there, and had showered and eaten. “Yes, Eric, I still love you, no matter what, and I accept you. So does Dad. I'm glad you stopped hiding this from me. It'll just take some getting used to." She asked and I confirmed that we were safe for the night and before we hung up, she said, "Come by in the afternoon." All there was for me to do was leave her alone to work things out in her way.
When we showed up she hugged me and reaffirmed her love for me, then turning to Chuck to question his intentions with me. He was eight years older than me, but she and Mom were ten years apart, so it probably didn't seem that out of place to her that I loved someone older than me. She turned to me after she was done interrogating Chuck and said, "Your father wants to see you." I went right in and our conversation was quick. He asked me how long I'd known I was gay and was I out sleeping around with other men every night. I think the only way my Baptist-turned-Atheist father who called that man a f***** could reconcile this whole situation was by turning that part of me into a woman. By that I mean, he seemed more interested in whether or not I was a whore than if I was gay. It wouldn't have come up if I hadn't come out. He was not shy about his discomfort that I was "one of them," but agreed with Mom that "this doesn't make me love you any less."
So there you have it. My coming out story doesn't end with a bang or a whimper. It ends with a beginning. I didn't kick down my closet door, but I did swiftly open the door and walk through to the rest of my life. It will not be the last coming out I have, either. Since that moment, there have been five more experiences that qualify as coming out moments. For me, coming out is a journey, and where it ends I'm not sure. I know I'm not going back in the closet, and none of the powers that be can ever force me to go back to a place that hasn't existed for years. I am out. I am as God made me. If you are reading this, you understand this on some level, maybe more than one. I'm glad you came along with me on this journey. Thank you.
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