Joining The Rotary
Walter Reddin used to give me shit about joining the Rotary. Apparantly my father and grandfather had snubbed them. Daddy’s opinion was that Men’s Clubs are great if you’re retired or looking for a boyfriend.
Daddy’s opinion on Jackson’s secret gay community was benevolent, but grumpy. I knew for a fact that several of the men he relied on were closeted gay. In those days, the only Out gay person I knew was Jack and Frank Hains. Two guys doesn’t make a very interesting social life. There were more; they just didn’t say so. Frank Haines existed under the steel wing of Eudora Welty. Nobody in Jackson was gonna say shit, well, not until he got murdered.
For Daddy and me, gays were kind of like Jews, Catholics, and guys who play hockey. We’re not agin’ ‘em, we’re just not among ‘em. It’d still be that way, except some mother fuckers think they can force you not to be gay. Just don’t pick on people. Just don’t. That does all kinds of fucked up things to my insides, and I get involved when really all I wanna do is watch the Spider-Man movie with Little Bird.
The amount of shit I did “as my civic duty” was starting to get to me. I spent a year working with a girl because she said if her life didn’t get better, she’d end up dead or at Whitfield, and when I arranged a trip to New York as a victory lap when things got better, she said she was going back to the previous guy--the one who dumped her when things got bad.
Serves me right. I didn’t love her. I loved someone else but decided never to mention it to her because she never seemed to need me for anything. I lied to, objectively, a lot of girls about that. Sorry.
Maybe I was in a bad mood. I dunno. One day, Walter started in with his “come to a meeting, bla, bla, bla,” and I really had just about had enough. It had been twenty-five years since the Scott Foresman readers were making us all rich. He was just another bookman, and he was getting on my nerves.
“Walter, I’d really just like to do my job.”
I didn’t mean to offend him or hurt his feelings, but even I knew I was too young for all the shit they were piling on me because my name was Boyd Campbell, and apparantly the entire goddamn state hadn’t accepted the fact that Boyd Campbell was dead; I’m an entirely different person.
Gee, Boyd. Tell us how you really feel.
The lady said I have a thousand Daughters. Maybe. I have a thousand sons too. i watch them intently. Boys get hurt too. Boys get hurt and never fucking tell you they’re hurt, and nobody really cares because big boys don’t cry, you sissy pants!
They do though.
Boys cry at night. They pull the covers over their head and wonder if it’ll ever get better. I know four guys, all bout Little Bird’s age. They’re trying to raise children with an absent mother. How does one become an absent mother? Sometimes they get in legal fights because ex-mothers-in-law or some other asshole wants to ruin their lives.
I can’t say, “Hey darlin’, your hair looks nice” and expect that to salve some of their wounds. All I can do is just say, “Hey Bud,” and hope they know that means I see them—because I do see them.
I’m working on a book of poetry. My poems are, well, decidedly masculine, even though I try to be emotionally open. Looking at some of them, one of my friends said, “This is like a Taylor Swift song.”
Apparantly, Taylor Swift writes songs about boys who were mean to her. Looking at the poems I included in the book, I removed nearly all the ones that were about a girl or girls who crapped all over me forty years ago. I don’t want revenge. I want, I don’t know, understanding? Maybe? I’d like to make the point that, although I don’t act like it, I do have feelings and perspective, and you can’t really hurt me anymore, but it does still leave a mark, and it always did.
Reading my stories, a woman thought Little Bird must be ten or eleven. She was surprised to find out she’s past thirty. The Little Bird isn’t Mary. The Little Bird is a caricature I made of Mary, partially to preserve her privacy and let her speak for herself, but also because I would have known Mary when she was ten or eleven, but I was stubborn and inconstant with my promises.
She knows this, and she’s pretty cool with it.
She moved away, then her friends moved away, then she moved back and “where is everybody?” A shy child anyway, she gets lonely sometimes. The people who were mean to her when she was sixteen are still mean to her. I don’t know what goes on at Prep, but I’m 300 years old, and this has been going on my entire life.
When I send her to bed at night, I pretend she’s ten again. “Sleep, child. I’ll send angels to count your breaths.” I would, actually. If I knew any angels.
We had a great First Thursday in Fondren Last night. I don’t rest well. My marketing degree is older than Little Bird, but it’s like brown-eyed girls: you may think it gets out of your system, but it never does. This morning I’ve been writing letters.
At an event like that, I silently count how many people are there, their ages, their culture, and their perceived economic status. The basic demographics you use to make a market study. Nobody pays me to do market studies. It’s just how I breathe and eat.
The Little Bird isn’t a true raven. She’s a hybrid, and her hair is red now, anyway. Not an actual Raven; I have the ability to tell her “no” any time I choose to. I just choose not to.
I let a lady paint Spida’ Man! on my bald head. There were two live-music groups, and two DJ’s. I had redfish because in Jackson, you have to eat redfish. Nice-dressed couples flowed in and out of Louis ’ Piano Bar. I hear Alison’s voice spill out on the street. I remember when she was little. Some of the people at Walker’s remember when I was little. I guess I’m technically still “middle aged” for whatever that’s worth.
I feel ancient, like the last unicorn that survived the great flood.
Scottish Unicorns aren’t actually part of the very Jewish flood story, but somehow they got added in. My people have two magic horses. Unicorns with a great golden phallus on their head and the Kelpies, which lure you into the water. If you touch them, you become stuck to them and sink below the waves. Kelpies are female. A Scottish siren. I’m pretty familiar with that.
There have been so many times when people said, “Well, that’s it for Boyd. He’s not coming back this time.” And then, I do.
Sylvester Stallone said, Life’s not about the beatings you give. It’s about the beatings you take, and then come back.”