5
I announced cheerfully as I ducked through the door into his room. “It’s Monday yet again!”
The room at Spice House was still dark and dreary, even though it was a after noon. The light from the hallway cut through the gloom enough that I could make out the humanoid shape in the chair next to the windows. Heavy draperies were pulled tight, blocking out the sun and beautiful day outside. Shivering at the temperature of the room, I shook my head and marched over to the twin bed to my left. I dropped the tote bag I’d brought with me on the made bed, and waltzed over to the windows.
When I grabbed ahold of the drapes and whipped them to the side, sunlight pouring into the room, an actual hiss emanated from the chair to my right. I turned to stare down at the scrawny, elderly man sitting in the chair, a pile of blankets smothering him. With the mound of blankets covering him, only his head was visible. His horn-rimmed spectacles were balanced preciously on the tip of his nose and the thick field of curly silver hair atop his head was impeccably trimmed and brushed.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I smiled jovially down at the man in the chair. A few age spots decorated the dark wrinkled skin of his face, but he was an otherwise handsome older man. Arthur stared up at me, absolute vitriol and venom plastered upon his face. Of course, I knew better than to judge a book by its cover. He was simply having a bad day. Within minutes, he’d be back to his usual self. Getting him from under the covers, out of the chair, and walking around was a start.
Turning the heat on would help, too. I thought to myself.
“What’s it today, Arthur, my man?”
I asked, staring down at him. “Breakfast full of foods you couldn’t chew?”
“You bitch!”
He hissed up at me. “I still have all of my teeth!”
I grinned and let my arms fall to my sides. “Too much fiber? Binding? They use black pepper and it’s just too spicy for you to handle?”
Arthur rolled his head dramatically to the side, laying it against the wingback of the chair.
“Oh, why must you torture me so?”
he asked. “Take your leave and let death have at me. I’m finally ready.”
“Did they take away your Netflix privileges again?” I asked.
Arthur sat up, the covers inching down his chest to reveal the collar of the pink button-down shirt and his eggplant-colored bowtie underneath.
“Those whores said it was riling me up!”
Arthur barked. “I don’t get riled up!”
“Clearly,”
I said, amused.
He slumped back in his chair. “But no. They haven’t removed my Netflix privileges. I am…blocked.”
I frowned, a furrow cutting through my brow.
“You…can’t poop?”
I asked. “Talk to Dr. Wesley when he does his rounds.”
“You hideous fashion victim of a manchild.”
Arthur gave me a once over.
I looked down at myself. My black sneakers, black basketball shorts, and navy pocket tee weren’t all that hideous. At least, I didn’t think so. My outfit was perfectly acceptable for going to classes—which I had done—and going to visit my elderly friend in the LGBTQIA retirement home—which I was currently doing.
“The words aren’t coming anymore,”
Arthur continued. “They elude me. Evade me. They’re in hiding. Perish I must.”
“You’re so dramatic, Artie,”
I said, sauntering over to sit on the edge of his bed.
The warm sunlight made the frigid room a little more bearable. With the natural light, Arthur’s fabulously adorned room was actually inviting. The mid-century modern décor, all of the memorabilia from his writing career, and the impeccable cleanliness made it a nice place to visit weekly.
“I’ve told you not to call me that.”
Arthur hissed, pushing the blankets down to cover his lap and legs. “If I was meant to be called ‘Artie’—”
“Your mother would have named you ‘Artie’.”
I finished his sentence for him.
He gave me a firm nod, then turned his attention back to the window. He laid his head back once again, resting it against the wingback. I sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, watching Arthur stare out the window at absolutely nothing. Arthur was my favorite person I’d met since attending Midway University.
Early in my freshman year, I’d taken a class that had a community service requirement. At a loss for what to do to fulfill that duty, I eventually discovered that Des Moines had an assisted living facility dedicated to elderly LGBTQIA people. Even more fortuitous, they were requesting younger LGBTQIA people to sign up to become “buddies”
with their residents. Since I had access to a car, the drive wouldn’t eat up too much of my gas budget, and I really needed the community service credit, I signed up.
Arriving on my first Monday to volunteer at Spice House, I was late. The only remaining resident of Spice House who had not been paired up with a buddy was Arthur. A curmudgeonly older black man with a penchant for dressing in slacks, button-up shirts, bowties, and loafers every day—as if he had somewhere to be—we didn’t get along at first. Arthur was dramatic, snippy, and insisted that he didn’t even want to be part of the buddy program. Vaguely hinting that he’d been forced by the staff of Spice House to participate, he didn’t make my job easy.
After a few weeks of showing up and sitting in his room every Monday, simply staring at each other, I gave up and pulled a book out of my tote to read. If Arthur wasn’t going to talk, I was going to pass the time one way or the other. At the sight of the book, Arthur came alive, and soon we were talking about books, writers, and everything literary. He regaled me with tales of his time in New York as a writer, his literary friends, and imparted an education about LGBTQIA history one would never get from some Netflix documentary.
At the end of my freshmen year, Arthur told me a secret. For decades, he had written a series of highly popular crime thrillers. When he told me he was “A.M. Thompson,”
the mysterious and elusive writer of the world-famous crime thrillers that were still selling hand over fist presently, I nearly didn’t believe him. However, when he pulled out his “memory box” of keepsakes from his career—including the original manuscript for his first bestseller, there was no doubt. After the novelty of talking about his famous books, the movies and T.V. show adaptations, and his experiences, we fell into amiable personal conversations.
The getting to know you kinds of things. Turned out, we kind of liked each other.
Even though I had no requirement to continue seeing Arthur after my freshmen year, when I returned for my sophomore year at Midway, my visits continued. On my first Monday back, as if by instinct, I got in my car after classes, drove to Spice House, and made my weekly visit to Arthur.
What are you doing here? Did you fail your class and have to endure me for another year? Arthur had sniffed.
I hadn’t responded, knowing Arthur’s snippiness was a defense mechanism. Instead, I retrieved the tube of Rolos from my tote I’d bought for him—his favorite—and handed them over. I sat on the edge of his bed as he ate and we talked. We’d been sitting and talking every Monday of the school years since.
“Do you want my reading list for American Literature,”
I asked? “I’m finally taking it this year. You’ve probably read all of the books, but we can discuss them as I read?”
Arthur waved a hand in my direction but didn’t look away from the window. I couldn’t help but smile at his dramatics.
“Went to Pizza Insanity last night,”
I said. “The bartender was really cute. Wanna know what his ass looked like?”
Arthur twitched slightly, but after a moment, he waved his hand at me again. I frowned deeply, wondering what would bring Arthur out of his homosexual writer fugue.
“We have a celebrity on campus this year,”
I said, kicking off my shoes and pulling my legs up to sit cross-legged on his bed.
“Unless it’s Shemar Moore…,”
he said, trailing off.
I chuckled. “He might be a bit too long in the tooth for Midway.”
“How very dare you?”
Arthur’s head turned from the wingback to glare at me, though the twinkle in his eye was apparent. “Until the day he is dead, that will be one fine-looking man!”
“Fair enough.”
I held my hands up defensively. “But, no. It’s not Shemar Moore. Well, it’s not really a celebrity by your standards. He didn’t tap dance in any musicals from the fifties.”
Arthur sat up in his chair, lifted an arm angrily and flipped me off. The twinkle in his eye was now a sparkle. He patted down the blankets on his lap, reached up to pat at his hair, then pushed his spectacles up his nose. He settled back in his chair and folded his hands in his lap.
“Well?”
he said. “Do I have to beg? Who is this non-celebrity?”
I shrugged. “Some social media influencer guy, and—”
Arthur made a noise with his throat that conveyed his disapproval.
“—I don’t even know much about him.”
I picked at a piece of fuzz on my sock. “So, you probably won’t even care.”
“I’m letting you sit on my bed in your outside clothes.”
Arthur eyed me. “So, I suggest you spill the tea, or I will chase you out of this room!”
I laughed. “With your knees?”
He sniffed. “No one has ever complained about my knees or how well they work.”
“Ew!”
I made a half-grin, half-grimace. “Arthur!”
He smiled wickedly, then began waving his hand at me. “Who is this social media influencer person? The only gossip around here for days is that Benjamin Rackell has been putting Tic Tacs in Henrietta Goldman’s Xanax.”
“Has anyone told Henrietta?” I asked.
“And keep him from fixing her steamy breath? Of course not. He’s a hero!”
Arthur exclaimed. “This person? The non-celebrity?”
“Steamy breath?”
I turned my nose up. “Ew. Maybe Henrietta needs to clean her dentures? Soak them overnight?”
“I’m growing impatient, child.”
I chuckled. “Theo Hendrix. He’s some popular guy on this app called—”
“Peepers.”
Arthur nodded.
I stared at him for a moment. Arthur patted down the blankets on his lap again nonchalantly.
“Sometimes I feel like I’m the only person who doesn’t know anything that’s going on in pop culture,”
I said, finally. “How do you know about Peepers?”
“I have an iPhone, don’t I?”
he asked, pretending to be offended. “I keep up with everything queer culture. It’s my duty as an aged homosexual to gain, retain, and store gay history so that I may impart it upon the youth if they should be so intelligent to sit down and listen.”
I smiled.
“Of course, other than yourself, I don’t see many of our youth caring much to know about their history.”
“Well,”
I said, “I apologize for my fellow youths.”
He waved me off.
“Theo Hendrix.”
Arthur reached up to rub his chin. “He’s the one who cheated on that other little boy at that other university, yes? Blaze? Two Gays from Blaze! That’s it.”
“You’re a better fag than me, Arthur,” I said.
He laughed. “I’ve had more time to practice. Well, is the campus abuzz? Do you have any classes with him? What’s he like?”
I blew out a breath.
“Yeah,”
I said. “He’s not really all that popular. I guess people are all upset about that cheating thing. Or whatever. I don’t know. I have a couple classes with him. He’s kind of standoffish.”
Arthur listened intently.
“But, then again, people are kind of rude to him,”
I explained. “Some people were yelling names at him the other night. People point at him and whisper in classes. So…I can’t really blame him for keeping to himself.”
Arthur looked thoughtful, turning his attention back to the window to stare out at the beautiful day for a moment. When he turned his attention back to me, his brow was furrowed.
“Years ago,”
Arthur cleared his throat, “my friend Morty and I were still living in New York, and he got invited to a socialite’s birthday party. Morty had a fabulously popular drag show at one of the bars in the city. He still performs to this day, mind you. That’s how good of a drag performer he is. Though, she’s never been on Drag Race, so she doesn’t exist to you kids.”
“Okay?”
I tried not to be offended at the ‘you kids’ comment.
“Well,”
Arthur said, “Morty invited me as his plus-one. He was terribly excited. Nervous, but excited. Bang Bang Baisemoi was moving up in the world!”
I’d heard the name Bang Bang before. A regionally famous drag queen, she was well known in the area. Nationally, I think enough people had heard of her to consider her a celebrity—and the longevity of her career made her an icon, in my mind. I leaned in, listening to Arthur recount the tale of his drag performer friend back in heyday of drag in New York City.
“We got all dolled up. Morty as Bang Bang, me as, well, myself,”
Arthur snooted haughtily, causing me to chuckle, “and we headed out to the party. The who’s who of New York City was at this party. It was decadent. The most fabulous décor, catering, drinks—oh, and the gowns! I can’t even begin to describe the fashion on display!”
Arthur’s eyes lit up and seemed to glaze over with the memory. He sat there in silence for a moment, marveling at the memory. Then he seemed to come back to the present and his face lost its cheer.
“What is it, Arthur?” I asked.
“Well,”
he said with a sigh, “being invited by the birthday girl herself, we assumed we’d get greeted with open arms. Alas, you may be surprised to learn that a drag queen and a dandy black man were not exactly that crowd’s cup of tea. Bang Bang gave the performance of her life—as if anyone was even bothering to watch. A professional always does. But Morty was devastated. We left right after he walked off the stage. He was so gutted he didn’t perform as Bang Bang for a whole week after that!”
I frowned, sad for my friend—and his friend.
“Sometimes,”
Arthur leaned forward in his chair, leveling me with his eyes, “you may be invited, but you still aren’t welcome.”
The words hit me in the gut.
“My people and our people, we all figure it out eventually.”
Arthur sighed and shrugged, then forced a small smile to his face.
We both sat there in silence for a moment. The story had gotten into my craw, and I simply couldn’t let that be the moral.
“Well,”
I demanded, “what do you do?”
Arthur scoffed. “You show up, drink as much free booze as you can, then you go back where you’re appreciated, and let those uppity straight white people eat their bland food at their boring party with dreadful music.”
I laughed.
“I might have failed to mention we each snagged a bottle of their hooch on the way out the back door,”
Arthur said with a wink. “Possibly one or two of the unwrapped gifts on the birthday table. And a caterer’s tray full of canapés. They tasted like shit, but the vodka was top shelf! And I have a darling diamond tennis bracelet somewhere around here…”
Arthur pretended to look around the room, as if trying to remember where he left his stolen goods. My laughter grew so that I had to tip over on Arthur’s bed and hold my stomach. He grinned at me as I laughed and shook my head at him.
When I left an hour later, I was smiling, but I felt guilty. I’d signed up to be a buddy at Spice House to make sure the elderly of our community knew they weren’t forgotten. To make sure they had a friend until the end. I was supposed to uplift and motivate Arthur. However, I always felt like it was I who left our visits better off.
Hopefully, he got something from my weekly visits, too.