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“My father got drafted shortly after he moved to Springfield. By the time he returned from the army, Grampy Eddie had moved to a swanky building with a doorman on the Grand Concourse, where he rented an apartment big enough for three. My father sent for my mother, and they were married a few months later. They lived in the apartment with Grampy Eddie until a few months after I was born, when he moved into a separate suite of rooms off the kitchen that had been, during the building’s heyday, the servants’ quarters.”
“What was your fight with your grandfather about?” Jackson asked, suddenly switching topics.
I shrugged.
“Was it about me?”
I nodded.
“Want to talk about it?”
“No,” I said. “But I learned there’s a word for what we are. Invert.” I could hear the bitterness in my own voice.
Jackson winced. “That’s an ugly word. The correct word for us is homosexual. Though a lot of us prefer the term gay.”
I was surprised Jackson seemed to know so much. It turns out having his truck gives him the freedom to go to other nearby towns with bigger libraries and a more open-minded populace. He’s read about gays inTimeandNewsweekand has even read James Baldwin’sGiovanni’s Room.
Jackson handed me a towel from the back of his truck so we could towel off the water we splashed on ourselves riding my bike through the town center’s perpetual puddles.
“Shit! I forgot my lotion,” I said, knowing my dry skin would irritate me all the way home. Jackson reached into his glovebox and pulled out a small jar of Lubriderm lotion. When he handed it to me, I looked at him in surprise.
“What? I know you lotion a lot, so I thought having a jar on hand couldn’t hurt.”
I nearly cried.
“C’mon,” he said. “We’ll put your bike in back and I’ll drive you to the farm road, then you can ride home from there.
Jackson parked at the end of the road leading to the farm. “I wish we could just keep driving and find someplace quiet and live together,” he said. Before I could say anything, he kissed me goodbye, then he lifted my bike out of the back of his truck. I waved at his taillights and hopped on my bike, and we each headed home. My face didn’t burn as much.
When I got to the farmhouse, it was dark. Soon enough, it would be morning, and dust would fall from the hills above and rise from the valley below, faithful as the sunrise.
Yellow (1977)
Sunday, January 2, 1977, Locust Hollow—Like Carole King, I feel the earth move under my feet whenever Jackson looks my way—in the hall as we rush to our different classes, at church from across the aisle when he raises a wicked eyebrow at his father’s sermon. The sky doesn’t come tumbling down, though; instead, it seems to go brighter whenever he is around.Jackson and I have grown closer. And it’s becoming obvious to folks how close we’ve become. We are inseparable. Though we were mostly ignored by our classmates before, now they seem keenly interested in us. They whisper about us, as if we cannot hear them:they go with boys. “Whatboys?” Jackson and I wonder. There are only the two of us. We are all we have.
We haven’t been too concerned about the whispers and speculation. That is until this morning in church. When Reverend Jack called sinners to the front to confess their sins and repent, my grandfather rose and pulled me to my feet. I stood bewildered as he pushed me into the aisle and toward the front of the church, where Reverend Jack stood like a storm cloud about to release a bolt of lightning. On the other side of the church, Jackson’s mother pushed him to his feet and into the aisle. With their hands on our shoulders, my grandfather and Jackson’s mother pushed us to our knees.
Reverend Jack called out the demon possessing us, urged us to repent our sin and pledge to return to the path of righteousness. He named neither the demon nor the sin; neither did he assign a name to the path we’d strayed onto.
Two weeks ago, Reverend Jack, from the pulpit, had thundered about the sin and scourge of homosexuality.
“Thatwordis the sin,” Jackson had whispered to me.
“I hate it, too,” I’d whispered back.
Now, I wondered why Reverend Jack was holding back, why he was refusing to name the obvious thing. I glanced over at Jackson, who looked terrified. Praying no one would notice, I reached over and squeezed his hand before quickly drawing it back to my side. My prayer was in vain. The organist’s tempo increased; the drums grew louder; the prayers grew more fevered; one of the deaconesses swaying in the aisles fainted.
The praying over us wasn’t the worst part, though. The worst part was the “laying on of hands.” Hands from every direction, so many hands. Touching us, clutching, grabbing, as if they would tear us to pieces.
Finally, we were allowed to return to our respective pews, while other, lesser sinners replaced us in front of Reverend Jack.
After service, we met, out of sight, in the field behind the church, shaken if not chastened. Jackson stumbled into my arms. We held on tight to each other until our heartbeats slowed, until we were able to speak again.
Thursday, January 20, 1977, Locust Hollow—His truck wheezed, shuddered, and came to a halt as Jackson guided it to the curb; steam rose from under the hood.
“Overheated,” he sighed. “Again.”
The old truck was leaking coolant. Jackson was waiting till he had enough money saved to fix it. He refused my offer to pay for it, knowing I was saving for college in the fall.
