32
We got to the bar or club, Eddy’s Place, and Eddy is a drag queen of the evening, and the female version of Eddie. Eddie was there and waiting for us.
When we walked into the main room, Eddie slowly walked over to Carmine and quietly asked, “Can I hold you, child?”
Carmine nodded silently, and Eddie wrapped his arms around her and hugged her in a manner that only a parent could ever hug a child.
I could see the love that this man had for my Carmine.
After a few minutes of barely noticeable words whispered between them, Eddie loosened his grip on Carmine and stepped over to me and said, “And I know who you are, love, and you get your own Eddy, love,” and he wrapped his arms around me, and I knew, I knew where Carmine had learned to love from.
And it was not her home, not her mother, nor her grandparents.
It was from this man who so obviously loved my future wife and was accepting of me.
After a few minutes and whispered secrets about loving another person more than yourself, he allowed his hold on me to end and then said, “Come, Carmine, to my office. We will talk, and then we will join the party that is waiting for you two love birds.”
And with that, we followed him into his office.
“So first, Carmine, how is your Mom? I was up to see her on Monday, and love, I am so, so sorry…”
“Eddie, it is OK. I don’t think that she is suffering anymore.”
“Well, you may be right, but I told her I had your back, and I told her that I have been following your woman, and I told her that you could not have chosen better. And I believe, dear, I believe in my heart that she heard.”
“Eddie, we stopped today, and I made sure that with Shannon there, I shared everything.”
“And you’re lovely, Shannon. It is so good to meet you, and I understand that you also had some, well, something comes to mind, news. I understand that you have been diagnosed as intersex. Are you OK with that, love? I know all about the ‘I am Shannon, I am male, cisgender, and heterosexual.’”
I could only laugh. This obviously gay drag queen had more empathy in him or her. I really have no clue, only that Eddy only came on drag nights. But this individual, I could tell, understood instantly.
“Eddie, it is difficult to accept, but it is also forgiving of being. I feel that before, what I was was a challenge to everyone in my life. But now, I can say, ‘Look, I have to do this.’”
“Eddie, is that the easy way out?”
“Did I walk away from myself?”
“No, Shannon. What you did is accept yourself on a different level. You went from accepting yourself based on courage, to accepting yourself based on issues you have no choice with.”
“Shannon, what Carmine has shared, and for the record, Carmine told me that she had your permission to share with me, so I hope that is right. You can never trust this little vixen, I know. I raised her from a pup, you realize.”
“Anyway, Carmine shared that a lot of who you are is linked to intersexuality and that if you had continued to do nothing, your very life was at risk. And love, at that point, at that instant, everything changes. Now, not for the good or for the bad,
but it changes who and what you are and how you have to accept and love yourself.”
“Before, you were playing a fun game, and you were winning, and that justified your playing. Not, do not misunderstand me, not that you did not have the right to play. But it was a game, dear. A game. And it was exciting and fun and explorative, and you got rich super quick,
and I was so bloody jealous of your covers and your clothes, love.”
“But now, now you are playing for keeps. Now, no fucking one alive has the right to question who and what you are. Ever. You, Shannon, are neither male nor female, and it no longer matters which you present as, because when you are neither, then you are both, and both are valid as fucking hell.”
“That is what everyone has to learn. Shannon is saving her life, and at the same time, Shannon is saving his life, because they are the same life.”
“It is called AI or Androgen Insensitivity, and far more gay men have it than you would imagine, because it can also affect sexual orientation. I have many friends who had AI, and most, well, I know what the testosterone did, I know what the estrogen does, and I know what doing nothing does.”
“In my world, we see everything, and we learn to accept everything. And that starts, that starts with seeing and accepting ourselves.”
“And Shannon, that is what you have started doing, OK? And you have my and everyone in Eddy’s Place total and unconditional support to be YOU.”
“And, I hear you two have tickets for Eddy, darlings…”
With that, Carmine pulled out the packet and explained that it was one ticket per individual, that no ticket means no entry, with no exceptions, as security will be extraordinarily high.
“And you two, the ones who are not introduced and do not speak, you are security, I hope, because these two are too precious to lose, sweetheart.”
Eddie was definitely a character unlike any I have ever met before. That said, I could see him in Carmine and her openness and ability to see beyond the surface. I definitely can see where she learned that.
“OK, Eddie, about the invite. And Shannon does not know what I am about to say. You, love, and your people, whomever we decide that you are bringing, are my family for the wedding. You get twenty-four tickets because Shannon has twenty-four grandparents, aunts, uncles, and adult cousins coming. So,
it was decided by Elise, who is Shannon’s mother, and Claire, Shannon’s sister, who is arranging the wedding and who is family, by the way. Both her sisters are, actually. Anyway, you are family in equal numbers to Shannon, my only family, as I have no one else.
My grandparents will not come due to the exposure to their personal devils.”
“And Carmine, I know you, little girl. You are going somewhere with this.”
“Well, Elise and I decided to do something different with the family. We are having a formal dinner, sit-down, catered, and A-list food and everything. And we are having round tables. We decided to split the family, four of mine and four of Shannon’s, to each table.”
“Oh, this is sounding like fun. Am I right in suspecting?”
“Yes, it is with Shannon’s mother’s family. Her Dad’s family is fine, liberal New Englanders who love Shannon for who she is. But her mother is deep southern Scots-Irish hill people and has caused significant issues for Shannon last fall. Unfortunately,
there is no way not to invite those family members. So… Eddy, love, and this is Eddy and not Eddie, would you ask a few of your sisters, please, to attend my wedding as my personal guests in drag?”
“Sweetheart, what a wonderful idea, and I assure you that I will carefully choose a few of our very good friends who would never embarrass you with hairy arms or flaming red hair. But we will make sure that your family is well contained, excuse me, I misspoke, well entertained. And love,
as you know all so well, we can be very good at training doubters that we are real women…”
And I learned that there was yet another level of happening at my wedding in a week.
And yes, I really want to see all of that videotaped. I will have to make sure that I have several cameras assigned to the correct tables, no, do not I?
And then we were out to the bar where there was a private party.
These were the folk, the queers as they call themselves, who oversaw Carmine’s life before college.
These were the men and women who taught her right from wrong, established her as a strong and independent woman, and instilled in her the need to get that education.
And I could see, without a doubt, I could see why Carmine would sacrifice a modeling career for these folks.
Because the one thing she does not want to do in her life is disappoint a single one of them.
Everyone made me feel appreciated and loved, and told me how important my woman was to them. The impact of helping raise Carmine was on each of them, as she provided all of the folks the opportunity to share a wonderful daughter.
What more can anyone say?
Saturday, I got to ride Lightning. Lowri and Sharah joined me, and the three of us took advantage of Mom’s friends with the neighboring farms and were able to use the Creek trail, a private trail that stretches about five miles alongside the Slippery Rock Creek,
crossing some cottage areas on semi-private roads, but mainly following the edges of working fields in farms.
There are edges where agriculture is not happening because you have to have space to turn your bloody tractor around.
I do not mind working on a farm. I obviously grew up on one and was raised to work on one.
Still, I hate dealing with a tractor and something, and that changes depending on what you are doing, and trying to line up in the field margins because they are always too damn small for the equipment used.
Anyway, it is that edge that we ride on, not on the planted fields, which are almost always corn, hay, or soy.
Of course, we have to be different. We grow rye and oats that Mom has sent out and processed into feed for her horses.
Cheaper than buying when you may have fifteen to twenty horses at any given time, as Mom has had in the past.
And of course, the wedding meeting in the evening, where everyone is expected to report what they did for the day.
I talked about our ride.
I was not very popular around that table that night.
Hey, I contributed. I stayed the hell out of the way and never imposed my ridiculous wants on anyone.
Ridiculous because I did not grow up expecting to be the bride in the gown, and I really do not have any references about how a napkin is folded, and if it is OK to put the heads at fashion houses at the same tables.
I mean, like, who cares about this stuff?
Wouldn’t you rather see some great shots from up on the Crowther’s farm where I stopped and spent a half hour photographing the late summer tall meadow flowers?