Little Blue Whistle

Soaked to the Bone

In a week my son, Paul, and his boyfriend will arrive here at our new home in South Carolina for Thanksgiving. Paul’s boyfriend’s name is Terrance. This will be the first time I have met Terrance. If you haven’t already figured the situation out, Paul has just come out of the closet and told us he’s gay. According to Paul this is the first time in his life that he’s been honest with us. It doesn’t seem fair, does it? Why does he get to be so soul-searchingly honest, when I’m not allowed to return the favor? Why do I have to walk on eggshells? Why can’t I respond to his announcement by saying, “What are you, out of your cotton picking mind?” But I didn’t say anything like that. I held my tongue.

I am a sixty-three-year-old heterosexual husband and father named Robert Ashcroft, and my wife, Veronica, is fifty-nine. We are as decent and old fashioned as ice cream and apple pie. For example, we were both virgins until our honeymoon night, and how many people can say that? And not that there’s any way we can prove this, but our love making ever since then has been as tame as a little girl’s tea party. There has never been any oral sex, nor any fancy sex toys, nor any screaming and hollering, nor any off-the-wall gymnastic stand-on-your-head positions. It’s just been a lot of decent and straight forward sex the way the good Lord intended, quiet, clean, and wonderful. I’m not trying to brag about our wholesomeness. I’m only saying that, as parents, we set a good example, and if Paul picked up any perversions, he didn’t learn them from us.

I’m not allowed to be honest with Paul, but I will be honest with you. But I have a question. Why am I allowed to bare my soul to complete strangers when I’m not allowed to be honest with my own flesh and blood? It’s the same old game I’m forced to play with Veronica. She asks, “Tell me the truth, Robert. Do these jeans make me look fat? Do they make my butt look big?” If I tell a lie, I can make her feel great. But if I tell the truth, I’m rotten to the core. Am I rotten to the core? Is there something wrong with me?

In any event, I’ve got just seven short days to come to terms with Paul’s lifestyle, and seven days isn’t a very long time. When you consider the fact that Paul is thirty years old, seven days is just the blink of an eye. For the past thirty years I’ve thought my son was as normal as a box of Cracker Jack at a baseball game. He did go out with some girls. And he was married for a few years, so what the heck happened? When he was a kid, we never caught him wearing any of Veronica’s clothes, and he never played with Barbie dolls or showed an interest in riding horses. He was a good ice skater, but never a figure skater. He did like daffodils, but I don’t remember him ever making flower arrangements out of them. For thirty years, in my eyes he’s been a character out of a Norman Rockwell painting, a red-blooded American boy who matured into a man. As queer as a three-dollar bill? No, never.

I can trace Paul’s life back to the exact date and time of his conception. Not many people can say that about any of their children, but I can say it about Paul. It’s not because I’m right, but because I want to be right. It could only be the evening I’m thinking of because it was by far the best evening nine months prior to his birth. It is also because my memories of that night are so vivid. To this day, I can close my eyes and see exactly where we were and what we were doing just hours before we participated in the love making that set all the wheels into motion that would result in the little mucous and blood drenched infant we named Paul.

We were in Barbados, getting ready to order dinner at a restaurant that called itself The Purple Dog. It’s true that we could’ve taken a taxi that night, but we decided to walk and enjoy the balmy evening air. We had called and made reservations for a table for two and had plenty of time to get there on foot. They sat us at a table with a marvelous view of the adjacent beach, and we were looking at our dinner menus, trying to decide what to order. When I say we, I am referring, of course, to me and Veronica. I was thirty-two years old at the time, and Veronica was twenty-eight. The year? It was 1987, the same year that Ray Bolger died. Do you remember Ray? “I don’t know,” he said, “but some people without brains do an awful lot of talking.” Yes, that Ray Bolger. The dude hit the nail on the head. Veronica and I were staying in Barbados for a well-deserved two-week vacation away from the rat race in Southern California. As fate would have it, we wound up at The Purple Dog.

Like I said, my memories of this evening are sharp and vivid, and if I close my eyes right now, it’s like watching a brilliant old Technicolor movie. If I had any talent as an artist, I could sit and paint you a wonderfully detailed picture of The Purple Dog on canvas, accurate inside and out. My painting would be true from the corny Coke bottle salt and pepper shakers on the tables to our waiter’s ill-fitting hair piece, to the little green bug the man sitting next to us found crawling in his salad. He almost ate the damn thing! I didn’t feel sorry for the man. I felt sorry for the poor bug, scrambling to get out of that slippery salad bowl before the man devoured it with his big, toothy mouth. What a horrible way to go.

Our waiter’s name was Omar. Have you ever met people who are just happy to have a job? Do you know the kind of people I mean? You don’t meet a lot of these people in Southern California. Where I lived, people actually seemed aggravated to have a job. They felt put upon when you asked them to do something, feeling degraded and wrongly taken advantage of. For some reason, people in Southern California all seemed to think they should be rich and famous, wearing solid gold Rolex watches, driving around in the backs of limos, and dodging the Paparazzi. You won’t meet many people like Omar in Southern California. At least, that has been my experience. Of course, as they like to say, your mileage may vary.

Omar had but one thing in mind when he took our dinner orders, which was to see to it that we were happy with our experience at The Purple Dog. Not since the morning after my ugly sister first got laid in high school have a seen a person smile so much. You would think Omar had just won the lottery, but he was just happy to be working and making himself useful to others, bringing home a paycheck, and having a purpose in life. “Are you ready to order?” he chirped like a little bird, and Veronica told him we needed a few more minutes. Well, she’s the one who needed the extra time. I was ready to order, but I’ve learned that when Veronica needs something, we both need it. I think this is a female thing, and it was fine. She always did this, and I was used to it.

“I don’t know what to get,” she said to me.

“What are you thinking of?” I asked.

“Well, either the swordfish or the pork chop.”

“You haven’t ordered swordfish for a while,” I said. “But you’ve had good luck with pork chops lately.”

“That doesn’t help much.”

“Which sounds better to you?”

“The swordfish sounds good.”

“The last time you ordered swordfish, you said you didn’t like it. I think that was at that little restaurant in Laguna Beach.”

“But that was their swordfish, and not the swordfish here at The Purple Dog. I like good swordfish. And I feel like having swordfish tonight.”

“Then order the swordfish.”

“How do I know if their swordfish is any good?”

“You’re asking me?”

“Well, which would you order? The swordfish or the pork chop?”

“I wouldn’t order either of them.”

“So, what are you getting?”

“I’m getting a hamburger and fries.”

“I had a hamburger for lunch. I don’t want to have the same thing for dinner as I had for lunch.”

“Then order the swordfish or the pork chop.” Veronica looked back down and stared at her menu. I was not going to get frustrated with her, because I knew exactly what she was doing. She just wanted the night to be perfect, and she wanted to order just the right dish. She wanted our experience at this restaurant to be a night we would both remember forever. We were, after all, spending a small fortune on this vacation, and we may as well get some good memories out of it. I let her stare at her menu for about a minute. Then I asked, “What do you think you’re going to get?”

“I’ve decided,” she said. “Call the waiter over.”

“Omar,” I said, and the man’s face lit up. He was so looking forward to serving us.

“Yes, sir,” Omar said.

“I think we’re ready.”

“Ma’am?” Omar said to Veronica with his pen poised and ready for action.

“I’ll have the halibut,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am. That’s a great choice. Our halibut is delicious.”

“I’ll have the burger and fries,” I said. “And bring me a bottle of catsup. And bring us a couple more drinks from the bar.”

So, she ordered the halibut. Yes, even I was a little surprised, and I thought I knew my wife pretty well.

But it all turned out great. There we were, husband and wife, four thousand miles from home on a Caribbean island surrounded by water, ordering dinner and drinks from a man named Omar in a place called The Purple Dog. We’d been in the sun all day, and our faces were a little raw, but not burnt. As you get older, you forget what it was like to soak up all that sun, and not worry about how it might damage your skin. To be so young! And to be so in love! There’s nothing like it in the world. You should know that it turned out Veronica loved her halibut. Maybe the halibut really was good, or maybe Veronica just wanted it to be good. I didn’t ask her. The truth was that my hamburger was fantastic. Omar said the beef came from the island locally, but I suspected he was making that up. What difference did it make?

During dinner we talking about our family to be. We were trying to have our first baby. Veronica asked me if I wanted a boy or a girl, and I told her I would be happy with either. “So long as the baby is healthy,” I said. “That’s all that really matters.” Isn’t that what people always say? But the real truth was that I wanted a boy. I had plans for a boy. I had hopes and dreams for my boy before he was even born. I can tell you precisely what was going through my head as I sat there eating my hamburger and watching Veronica eat her halibut. I was living the first thirty years of my son’s life, from the day he first came into the world to the day he and his wife would decide to have their own children.

Forget all the baby years. Those years didn’t really interest me, the years Paul would be drooling and crawling around on the kitchen floor at his mother’s feet, filling his diaper, guzzling down bottles of warm formula, and chewing on rubber teething rings. Those were really the precious years for the mother, when she could rock her little baby to sleep, sing it sweet lullabies, and burp it over her shoulder. The years that interested me were those after the baby years, the years we could call Paul a boy. Yes, I wanted a rough and tumble, messy-haired, card carrying little boy.

The Paul I dreamed about was no sissy. This Paul was an expert at catching frogs, lizards, and grasshoppers, and he’d bring them into the house, causing poor Veronica to stand up on the beds and scream for her life. This Paul always had dirt under his little fingernails, and grime behind his ears. This Paul wore holes in the knees of his grass-stained jeans faster than he would grow out of them. He would be master of his skateboard and bicycle, and he’d own a pocket knife I bought for him, a knife I told him he could never, ever take to school. School was for the birds, right? Classrooms and offices full of old fuddy-duddies with no sense of humor and a penchant for making life miserable. My Paul would be sent to see the principal a few times, not all the time like a problem child, but often enough to prove he was a boy. Maybe he would get caught opening his sack lunch early and eating a Twinkie during class, or maybe he would get in a schoolyard fight with some loud-mouthed boy. He would get in trouble for anything really serious.

My Paul would love to play sports. Doesn’t every all-American kid love sports? Paul would be a holy terror with a baseball bat in his hands, standing in front of the other team’s catcher with his bat on his shoulder and his eye on the ball, capable of knocking that ball clear over the fence, capable of putting the wood to almost any kind of pitch. Pitchers would fear him, and they’d duck when he hit the ball to keep from getting hit. Fielders would fall on their faces trying to get him out, and the coaches on the other teams would smack their foreheads with the palms of their hands. When Paul was in the outfield playing defense, there wouldn’t be a corner of the grass that’d be safe from his trusty glove. The boy could catch anything, and the coaches on the other teams would plead with their hitters not to hit the ball toward Paul, yet they’d do it anyway.

Or maybe Paul would be into football. Football is a great sport, isn’t it? Maybe he’d be a running back, or even a quarterback. Or maybe he’d be a sure-handed wide receiver with legs like Mercury. Who knew? The opposing teams would fear him, and their coaches would spend hours and hours talking to their players, trying to figure out ways to slow Paul down and keep him from inflicting too much damage. From Pop Warner he’d move on to high school football, and all the students, teachers, and parents would be cheering him on. The girls at school would be hog-crazy for him, and they’d all envy the lucky girl Paul finally set his sights on. His girl would be the cream of the crop, the cat’s pajamas, the loveliest and sweetest piece of candy in the bag.

After graduating from high school, Paul would go on to college, and after college he’d get a job, not just any old job, but a job that paid well and had a great future. Paul would have the world on the end of a string. My boy. My wonderful boy named Paul. So, yes, I wanted a boy, a boy who would grow into a fine young man with a future as big and promising as a Montana sky. I wanted to name him Paul after my grandfather, and I wanted Paul to be all the things I never was. My Paul would have everything. Paul would be loved, and Paul would get the girl.

But back to Barbados and my evening with Veronica at The Purple Dog. Apparently, all this daydreaming about my son at the dinner table had made me hungry, because I devoured my burger and fries like I hadn’t eaten anything for a month. Veronica was still picking at her food, and I looked at her. I remember it hit me just how beautiful this girl was. I realized this feeling influenced by my love for her, but what I saw was so real, and so palpable, that I actually felt light-headed, the way you feel when you stand up too fast. It’s amazing how a woman can do this to a man, stealing all rational thought from him and making him feel like a giddy schoolgirl experiencing her first crush. Right then and there I would’ve done anything for Veronica. I would’ve broken into the Tower of London and grabbed the Crown Jewels, or slayed a fire-breathing dragon, or even climbed to the top of Mount Everest in shorts and bare feet. All she had to do was name it, and I would’ve done it. Or at least I would’ve given it a college try.

On our way back to the hotel, it rained. I don’t mean as in a little drizzle or a few drops, but it was quite a downpour. What is it about tropical rainstorms that make one feel so romantic? God, we were laughing and holding hands like idiots, soaked to the bone, dripping all over the place and sloshing wet like fools. I remember the clerks and bellboys laughing at us as we returned to our hotel. “Do you like our island rain?” one of them asked, and Veronica shouted, “I love it! I love it!” We stepped to the elevator and pressed the button on the wall. When we finally got inside of the elevator, and when the elevator started moving up, Veronica fell into my arms and laughed like a little girl. We were dripping water all over the floor, and we were dripping water on each other. I looked down at Veronica’s face, and she looked up at me like she was posing for a picture. With her wet hair, and lovely brown eyes, and a smile that could melt all the glaciers in Alaska, she looked up at me, and honest to God, I couldn’t believe that this girl was mine!

When we got to our room, we shed our wet clothing and made love that evening with the patio door wide open, with the rain pouring down and splattering all over the outside deck and patio furniture. And that, I’m quite sure, is exactly when Paul was conceived. He was created out of the love between a young man and woman breathing heavily on a creaky hotel bed, rainstorm beating down outside, our wet clothes strewn all over the floor, and the rest of the world put on hold.

Now I keep telling myself over and over, “Paul is gay. Paul is gay. Paul is gay.” It makes no sense to me. Does it make any sense to you? It’s like mixing blue and yellow paints and coming up with orange.