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Jackson and I were dressed up as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. MJ looked us over from her station in the middle of our living room and nodded approvingly.
When DAX showed up looking like his normal self, Perils demanded to know where his costume was. “I’m wearing it,” he said.
“Oh? And who are you supposed to be?”
He waited a beat then, tossing his silvery head and placing his hands on his hips—thumbsforward—he lisped, “A young American homosexual.”
“Well done,” Perils said before declaring him the winner of the best costume contest that had until that moment existedexclusively in her head. She handed him his prize: a victor’s box of eclairs.
“Shall we go?” DAX asked.
We dispersed into the neighborhood immediately surrounding campus, joining costumed actual children, their harried-looking parents, and their trailing, picture-snapping grandparents. If anyone thought we were too old to be trick-or-treating, they certainly didn’t say anything, cheerfully inviting us to dive into proffered bowls of candy. We walked until our bags of candy became burdensome to carry. Next, we hopped the trolley into town and went bar hopping in the gayborhood, where we actually seemed like children compared to the costumed, bejeweled revelers—devils and witches, drag queens of every size and description, a Michelin man.
After, at home, stripped of his costume, Jackson fell onto the bed and said, “Man, what a night.”
Indeed. I looked around and didn’t see the devil seated anywhere in our apartment.
Blue (1979)
Thursday, February 15, 1979, University City—It was not quite midnight when we heard someone knocking on the front door. The knocking stopped for a few minutes, like a held breath, then started up again as I drifted back into sleep. The knocking became steady, insistent. Jackson, faster to rise than I and better at gathering his wits on waking, threw back the covers and headed into the living room. As I crawled out of bed, I could hear two voices, strident though whispering. I arrived in the living room to find Sue P standing with Jackson in heated conversation.
“What’s going on? I asked, yawning. “Sue P, what are you doing here?”
Jackson turned to me, his exasperation evident. “She’s looking for MJ. For some reason, she thinks she’s here.”
“Is MJ here?” Sue P asked me.
“What? No. Why would you think she’d be here?”
“You’re always together.”
Before I could respond, she sat on the sofa: to say she crumbled onto the sofa would be a more accurate description.
“What’s wrong, Sue?”
“Nothing. MJ’s mother called a little while ago wanting to talk to her, and I have no idea where she is, so I just thought she’d be here. Do you know where she is?”
“Actually, I don’t.” I didn’t want to point out that it was Valentine’s Day.
“Oh, dear. Oh, dear!”
“Where’s Faiz,” I asked, looking around.
“In his dorm room, sleeping, I imagine.” She looked at me in exasperation. “Why does everyone act like Faiz and I are always together?”
“Because ya are, Blanche, ya are always together,” Jackson drawled in his dead-on imitation of Bette Davis. I tried to think of a time when I’d seen one of them without the other; couldn’t.
“Do you really think MJ is OK?”
“I do.”
“OK. I should probably get back home. Night.”
This morning, when MJ slipped into her usual seat beside me in the lecture hall, I glanced at her. She didn’t look any the worse for wear, so I said, “So, youweren’tabducted by aliens?”
“Oh, yeah, that,” MJ said.
“Good Valentine’s Day?”
