Black （2014） #2
He laughed; our eyes met in the mirror. “And your eyesight gets worse every year.”
Jackson seems to have amassed a fan club.
He makes a habit of assisting everyone in the neighborhood—mostly the single older women, but he helps the men, too, fixing shutters and cutting down trees.
And of course, being a master plumber, he is a wiz at unclogging toilets and changing faucets and hot water heaters.
The men seem to like him, but the women adore him.
“You’re so lucky,” they coo, while sighing over Jackson.
He’s so helpful. Jackson is so handsome.
I’d hear these adjectives, this gushing adoration, and wonder who they were talking about.
For when I think of Jackson, I think simply, he’s mine.
And in that thought is all the love and pride and gratitude I have for Jackson.
And surety that we are meant to be, that we will be together always.
Friday, July 4, 2014, Janus—Kitt seems to appreciate men.
“He’s a cutie,” she’ll say about the UPS guy, or comment, “He’s hot,” about our weightlifter neighbor.
Once she said about some actor or other, “He’s so fine, I would drink his bath water.
” Now there’s an image I’ll never get out of my head!
Usually, I agree with her; we seem to share a type, as much as a lesbian can have a type of man, anyway.
I am always surprised by her comments on men.
I mean, what kind of lesbian notices men?
Her view of men is oddly chauvinistic, as if a man’s only value is an aesthetic one.
She never comments on their personalities or sense of humor.
In her mind, men fall into two categories: comely objects and unbeautiful ones who require no comment or recognition.
This isn’t true of Jackson, though. She sighs and fawns over him, singing his praises to me.
“He’s so good, you’re so lucky,” she often says.
If Jackson has his fans, Kitt is the president of his fan club.
When I tell Jackson Kitt was fangirling over him again, he just grunts.
Tonight, the three of us were in the conservatory waiting for the fireworks to start.
With its glass walls and ceiling, the conservatory is a perfect spot to catch the fireworks display, even if the windows do rattle a bit in their steel frames from the noise.
Jackson and I were sharing a bottle of wine; Kitt was swigging flavored seltzer water as if it was gin.
Jackson laid his head against my shoulder then snuck a kiss on my neck.
“I can’t believe you two have been together forty-odd years,” Kitt said. “Aren’t you bored of each other by now?”
I was too startled by the sharpness of the question, by its bitter edge, to respond.
Jackson lifted his head from my shoulder and grinned at her.
“Have you met Oren? Every day, he surprises me—with a thought, or a book he’s read, or the million and one ways he shows me he loves me.
I’d never felt loved before I met him. Even now, forty-odd years later as you say, I’m sure he’s the only person who’s ever loved me. ”
“That’s not true,” Kitt murmured, looking away from us.
The first fireworks lit up the sky, distracting us from Kitt’s sudden unhappiness.
Saturday, August 2, 2014, Janus—In college, my work-study job was with the Office of Residential Living.
In addition to answering the phones and filing, I was charged with planning events that “foster a sense of community,” which simply meant commandeering the rooftop lounge and stocking the room with food and non-alcoholic drink.
On his days off, Jackson would often stop by to “volunteer.” I suspected he simply wanted to be with me, in this, my other world that didn’t revolve around him.
No one minded his presence. Everyone was charmed by our coupledom, that we were so out and open and clearly adored each other.
One Friday, we were assigned to go pick up a party tray and cookies from the caterer—A Moveable Feast. I swear the university was their only customer.
On our way out the building, Jackson commandeered a wheelchair, sat down and insisted I push him to the caterer.
A Moveable Feast is located in a narrow, crumbling rowhouse several steep steps up from the sidewalk. I locked the brakes on the wheelchair and left Jackson sitting in the sun.
Noticing him, the owner, a kind, pale, motherly type, said, “We have a wheelchair ramp in the back. You can bring your friend in.”
Glancing out the window at Jackson, sitting in the sun, inspecting his nails, I said, “Nah. I’ve pushed that cripple all over campus. I’m tired. He can stay out there in the sun. He needs the vitamin D.”
The kindly mother grew paler still, her fingers fumbling against the aluminum foil.
On the way back to campus, the tray of sandwiches and warm cookies in his lap, I related the story to Jackson, who whooped and hollered as if he’d won the lottery.
This all came rushing back to me today in Target, when I turned around from looking at birthday cards to find Jackson had climbed into our cart.
“Get out,” I laughed.
“No,” he said. “Push me.”
“Jackson,” I warned.
“Push me,” he insisted. “Please.”
“Fine,” I said, giving up and pushing the cart, now impossibly heavy with him in it.
At the self-checkout, everyone discreetly stared at us, at a grown man sitting in a cart and another grown man calming pushing him.
A couple of kids pointed and giggled; their embarrassed parents slapped their hands down.
Jackson was, of course, delighted. When I reached between his legs for the last item in the cart, besides him, he leaned over and kissed me.
Watching us, the entire line of people erupted into cheers. God, I thought, I love this man.
It was only as we were loading the car that it dawned on me how far we’d come.
Monday, September 1, 2014, Janus—Jackson and I were working in near-silent tandem, setting up for the Homeowner Association’s annual Labor Day cookout.
He was lighting the grill—hardwood coal, not gas; “Real men use charcoal, not gas,” Jackson insisted in his best gay voice to all who would listen—as I poured sangria and chunks of ice and watermelon into an enormous cut-glass art deco punchbowl.
Some sangria splashed against the immaculate cuts on the bowl’s exterior; I grabbed a damp paper towel and polished it to its highly reflective luster.
“You love that punchbowl, don’t you?” Jackson said building his charcoal tower. I hadn’t realized he was watching me.
I’d admired it in the window of an antique store for months, wanting to buy it but unable to justify its cost. I’d talked to Jackson about it incessantly. Finally, he’d surprised me by buying it for me.
“I can’t believe you bought me this,” I’d exclaimed, unwrapping the unexpected midweek gift.
“Why not?” he’d asked. “You deserve it. You deserve beauty. You deserve everything.”
“I do,” I admitted now. “Thank you for giving it to me.”
“No need to thank me,” Jackson said. “Not when you’ve given me everything.”
“Do you two ever fight?” Kitt asked suddenly.
Her question startled me. I’d forgotten she was there. None of the homeowners wanted to deal with her any more than was absolutely necessary, so Kitt “voluntold” us to help because she couldn’t do it alone.
“Yeah, of course,” I said. “But rarely.”
“And when we do we make up.”
“How?” Kitt seemed genuinely curious.
“I start walking his way and he starts walking mine,” Jackson said.
“Ain’t no road too long when you meet in the middle,” I finished.
Jackson squeezed my shoulder and, standing on his tippy toes, kissed the top of my head.
“Ah, more country wisdom,” Kitt said derisively before adding more aggressively, “Why do you two continue to play at being simple country boys when you’re clearly not. You lead a good life, you have this charmed romance…”
“We don’t pretend to be country boys,” I said.
“We are country boys. Like coal under pressure becomes a diamond, we became who we are—who you see—under the pressure of growing up when we did, where we did, surrounded by the ignorant people who lived there with us.” And I believed what I said was true, even as I understood every accolade, every promotion, every raise I earned, every watch I bought Jackson pushed us farther from where we’d grown up, who we were told we needed to be.
“I can’t with you two,” Kitt said.
The first of the neighbors began to arrive; Kitt retreated to her house.
The afternoon skipped along easily enough.
There was more than enough food and plenty of neighborly banter.
Kitt was nowhere to be seen, leaving Jackson and I to act as hosts.
Our delicately wrought tranquility was nearly shattered, though, when one six-year-old, seeing Kitt emerge from her garage, fairly shouted, “Uh-oh. Here comes Kittzilla,” which statement was met with a furious chorus of, “Shhh!”
Kittzilla—that’s what the reluctant members of the HOA call Kitt behind her back, which is to say always because they seldom speak to her face-to-face.
Kitt sauntered over smiling, and everyone smiled, relieved, in return. As it turned out, we’d avoided one catastrophe only to careen straight into another.
I was talking to Simon, our newest neighbor, who had just moved into the house at the apex of the cul-de-sac yesterday evening. Kitt walked over to where we stood at the punchbowl and proceeded to introduce herself to Simon.
Looking up at her, he inexplicably blurted, “Shit, you’re tall.”
Kitt looked down at him and said, “Since we seem to be stating the obvious, may I say, shit, you’re an ill-mannered, fat, little troll.”
His mouth fell open as if the springs that had held his smile in place had suddenly broken. Stifling a laugh, I quickly poured him a cup of sangria. He took it, his mouth still hanging open, and waddled towards Jackson and the grill.
As we were getting ready for bed last night, Jackson said, “We survived the cookout.”
“Indeed, we did—no thanks to that kid. Or Kitt.” Then, remembering our earlier conversation with Kitt, I asked him, “Does it sometimes feel like Kitt resents us for…being us?”
“Sometimes?” Jackson asked, rolling his eyes and kissing me goodnight. He lay down and rolled onto his side, facing away from me, and immediately reached behind to pull me against him. Tonight, he clearly wanted to be the “little spoon.” I promptly forgot about Kitt and snuggled against him.