I Can't Afford a Lifestyle

Shannon and I are sitting here watching that strange prime-time game show “Power of 10” which asks people to predict what percentage of Americans to a random question. The last question was “ How many Americans believe that people are born gay”. The winning answer: 51%.

I wasn’t surprised (my guess was 50%), but more than a little appalled. It’s just further evidence of the religious right’s vigorous and misleading campaign to portray homosexuals as degenerates who will burn in hell for all eternity. And their primary tool has been the unceasing repetition of the phrase “gay lifestyle.”

Even with all the inroads we’ve made to gain acceptance and the right to left alone, that phrase is still in popular use.

Well, I got news for you: I’m gay, and I don’t have a lifestyle. I have a life. I can’t afford a lifestyle.

My life as a gay man has included mourning the death of my first partner who had so much more to give to the world and standing by Shannon through bouts of depression and insanity. It’s included having to help make the gut-wrenching decision to turn my father’s life support off, knowing that he would most like die within a few minutes (he did). It’s included holding a responsible job and stepping up to help take care of the company when it wasn’t convenient, but necessary.

Sounds a lot like the lives of many Americans.

We are, in fact, a couple of contented homebodies dealing with the problems and enjoying the same pleasures as all people of the homebody persuasion.
So enough of this “gay lifestyle” crap. There is no such thing, and the perpetuation of the myth that there is only reinforces stereotypes, encourages discrimination and, ultimately, demeans gay people everywhere.

And it’s a patently dishonest phrase that people who claim to be moral leaders should erase from their vocabulary.

Be Still, and Know that I am God

I have a hard time being still. It’s not in my nature. I’m used to moving, doing, making things happen.

And then I hit a wall where I can’t do or move or make anything happen the way I want.

Daddy died, and I was privileged to be there and help make the decisions that allowed him to go on. In dignity. In his own time and way.

Shannon got schizophrenic while I was gone. I had to talk him down over the phone and convince him to take a sleeping pill so he would be better. I was 750 miles away and couldn’t be home in less than 12 hours.

It was all I could do, and I was painfully aware of how little that was and how far away I was.

He took his pill, finally, thank the Lord.

I got back home to work and home and laundry.

Life and death come and go. Laundry always remains.

I went back home again a couple of weeks ago. The “circus” had left town, as I put it. Me and Mama had time to visit. We went to see my grandma in the nursing home. We put flowers out on Daddy’s grave. And we picked out a headstone for the two of them.

I came back home to find that one of our closest friend’s mother-in-law had been killed in an auto accident. I didn’t know Jeanne, but, now that I know more about her, wish I had.

Doesn’t matter. I know her daughter and son-in-law and grandkids and great-grandkid.

Life is swirling around me to the point that being still just doesn’t seem an option.

I was on the phone with Mama earlier today, and as I was saying goodbye, I just busted out in tears. She said, “It’s okay, Jeffery. I do that sometimes, too.”

I’m going to concentrate on being still for now. I have gone and done and moved and shaken all that I can. Now it’s time to let someone else drive.

Not that someone else hasn’t been all along.

Bon Apetit

Last Thursday, Mama and me went to see Granny. Mama tries to make it down at least one day a week to feed her lunch so that my aunt, who lives nearby, doesn’t have to. They can’t rely on the nursing home staff to grind her food properly or take enough time to see that she eats as much as she should. They have too many patients, and she takes a good half-hour to 45 minutes to feed.

I hadn’t seen her for several years, so I was prepared for the worst. And walking in, I realized that all nursing homes, no matter what they call them or how nice they make the reception area, are the same. Once you get past the lobby, they all look and sound and smell the same: the wallpaper and nicely framed prints in the halls do nothing to cancel out the random cries and grunts or the smell of a bathroom that hasn’t been properly cleaned.

Granny’s room is about halfway down a long hall and then at the end of another shorter one, so I had plenty of time to soak up the atmosphere before we got there.

Then I walked into her room. She shares it with a lady named Marie who’s had some strokes, so she can’t do much more than laugh or make monosyllabic sounds when she’s afraid. Granny’s not much better off, but there was no mistaking the two of them.

At 89, her cheeks are still rosy-red, her eyes—though not vibrant like I knew—still striking, and she has less grey hair than me. Instead of being tinged with auburn from being in the sun like it used to be, it now has pieces of white and grey. And her lack of teeth only emphasizes her strong chin.

Mama fed her lunch, after grinding up the creamed corn that she didn’t approve of (she takes a portable food processor when she goes), and Granny ate like a farm boy, as if the sense of taste is one of the last she has left. Corn, green beans, mashed potatoes, chicken and lemon icebox pudding. Plus iced tea, cranberry juice and milk.

Maybe it was my imagination, but she seemed to savor the tastes. They were all things she grew up eating and ate all her life. In fact, she didn’t seem to care so much for the chicken, but she had grown up eating mostly vegetables with a smaller amount of meat. And unless they let her have hog jowl, I don’t think she’ll get excited about much except the vegetables and the desert.

In her day, Granny never knew how many people would show up for lunch: could be 5 or it could be 25. Still, she always had more than enough. Mostly things that she and Grandpa had grown or that she had baked. She’s the only woman I’ve ever known that could, at a moment’s notice, bring out 4 or 5 cakes and pies that just needed to thaw for a bit before they were just like fresh-baked. (Her red velvet cake was to die for, by the way.)

These days, other people have to feed her. If there is a part of her that is still aware, I know that she hates it. It was always her job to feed everyone, one that she always did without fail.

Mama says that she thinks that sometimes Granny knows where she is and how debilitated she is. Mama says that sometimes she responds like she knows what’s going on around her and with her.

I hope not. Just for her sake. I want her to keep on eating and enjoying the food she loves.

And if the taste of a good meal is the last thing she takes to her grave, so be it.

It’s only fitting that a woman who fed so many people in her life be able to enjoy food even when she doesn’t recognize much else.

My wish is that she go on with the taste of something good lingering on her palate.

Afterwards, she can make St. Peter a real Southern meal that would clog his arteries, if saints had arteries to clog.

And after he had feasted and tried to thank her, she’d just grin and say, “It wasn’t nothing. But glad you liked it.”

Even St. Peter will be charmed.

This time, he'll have to stand in line.

Jeffery and the Jets

When I left Austin last Wednesday on my first flight in the post-9/11, eticket era, I thought things could not get anymore inconvenient.

Buying the ticket online was easy enough, but getting the automated check-in machine at the airport to figure out who I was another story. None of the many pages of confirmations I had printed out contained any information that Delta’s computer could use to identify me.

With some human help and valid photo ID, I was able to get the automated system to work. (Kind of takes the point out of “automated”, doesn’t it?) I got my boarding passes and proceeded like a good little sheep to security, where I had to show my valid photo ID and boarding pass to at least three more people, empty my pockets, take off my shoes, put my plastic baggie of nose spray and asthma inhaler in a plastic box, open my New York Times crossword puzzle handheld computer for scanning and put my carry-on on the conveyor to be scanned also.

For the seasoned traveler, that is all de rigueur. For me, it was confusing. When I went to pick up all the goods I had divested to the x-ray machine, I missed the metal detector and was quickly escorted back by a stern-looking teenager posing as a TSA officer. I honestly didn’t see the thing (the metal detector, not the TSA guy--he was too cute to miss). I just figured the kid would want to see my boarding pass and valid photo ID once I picked up my shoes and other stuff.

Turns out, he wanted to me to go through the metal detector that I had missed.
After that, things went a little more smoothly. I had put off going through security until the last possible minute (turns out I could have waited longer) because I knew that once I went through, no more smokes for the foreseeable future. By that time, my Xanax had kicked in, so I window-shopped for magazines and $3.99 Diet Cokes.

The magazines were either Yuppy-fix-your-wreck-of-a-house, Ladies-Home-Journal-on-steroids or Field-and-Stream-and-Guns-and-Trucks. I declined. As did I the extortionately-priced soft drinks. It’ll take heat wave in January for me to pay $4 for a Diet Coke, and I’m talking 105 or so on New Year’s Day.

Things were better in Atlanta. The airport is huge, but they apparently limit the price of Diet Coke to no more than 25 cents over the outside world. Also, they have a “smoking lounge.” “Lounge” is a stretch: it’s a very small room with fewer chairs than smokers and, surprisingly, not many ashtrays.

Still, I thanked God for small favors: a Diet Coke that I didn’t have to take a mortgage on and a tiny, cramped room to have a cigarette in without having to find my way out of the miniature city that the Atlanta airport is, only to have to face going through security again.

I had time to grab a relatively decent tuna sandwich for, again, not-too much over the going rate in the outside world, pace some more and say a short prayer thanking God for Xanax.

From there, I was off to Nashville, Music City, USA. I haven’t flown in or out of there in close to 20 years. Back then, the airport was brand new. Or at least the terminal was. They kept and expanded the runways, but built a new terminal complex on the other side. It’s held up well, for the most part, and been expanded, even though it has the same problems of isolating secure and non-secure areas that every pre-9/11 airport has.

And it has a smoking lounge!

Before I went to get my bags or pick up my rental car, I found it and had a cigarette. Or two.

It was nicer than the one in Atlanta. More seats for fewer people, ashtrays and a big window that looked out at the plane I had just gotten off of. Someone said something about an armored car and police, so I looked out and saw a conveyor belt loading bales of money from the cargo hold directly into a waiting Wells Fargo vehicle. The man I had seen being let off the plane first and going down the outside stairs to the tarmac was inspecting and marking each bundle as it came off the plane.

I didn’t know that such large currency transfers were transported on commercial airliners, but I figured that we probably had above average security for that leg of the flight, so I was happy.

I finished my cigarettes, got my rental car and headed out just in time to beat most of Nashville’s rush hour traffic and made it to Mama’s house before the sun went down, when I have problems seeing on dark, country roads.

The trip back was a different story.

I left out from Mama’s early to allow for traffic delays or other unforeseen circumstances. Turns out the circumstance was finding a gas station to refill the tank of my rental car (so as to save the $6.99/gallon they would charge to refill it) and then figure out how to get to the airport I could see but couldn’t get to.

I spent over half an hour after getting off on one exit that had no way to turn around on for miles, backtracking until I found a gas station, filling up and then getting back on the interstate only to find that the airport exit was the one before the one I used to get onto the interstate. I got off the interstate onto another road with few turn-around spots, finally found one, got back on the interstate, and arrived just in time to turn in the car, get a receipt and go through security.

Only to find out that my flight was delayed. There was a mechanical problem. “Better that they find it now that when we’re in the air,” I thought. So I wandered off to have a beer and a margarita to wash my pre-flight Xanax down with.

When I booked my tickets, I didn’t realize my return flight would be on Commair, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Delta that’s based out of Cincinnati. That means two things: you can’t get there without going to Cincinnati, and get ready for a third-world experience.

I had done some research once I realized that I wouldn’t be coming back on one of the nice, cushy Delta jets. Commair uses Canadian-built planes that seat either 50 or 70 passengers. That didn’t bother me until I realized that they were putting 50 or 70 people into a space that could comfortably accommodate 40 or 50.

I knew something was up when I had to walk down a service stair in the Nashville airport, then across the tarmac and climb up more very steep stairs to get on the plane. If the seat I was assigned was 16” wide, I’d be surprised. My ass ain't that big, and it barely fit. And as a fairly short man (5’9”) with short legs, my knees were hitting the seat in front of me.

It was a mercifully short hop to Cincinnati. But that’s where the real third-world experience began.

As we were taxiing in for what seemed like miles from what must be the most remote runway to the terminal, the stewardess announced that anyone whose flight was ending in Cincinnati should wait by the plane to pick up their checked luggage. There would be a cart outside the plane for them to pick their luggage up at.

I double-checked that the bag I had given to the nice Delta people in Nashville would follow me on to Austin without me having to stand outside on the hot tarmac and recheck it somewhere else. Thank heavens for flying out of Nashville, because my bags didn’t require me to escort them any farther.

However, I did have to climb down another steep set of stairs, walk across the tarmac and into a hall that serves as “gates”. Down the long hall and into the cattle zone. I emerged into what looked like a cross between a shopping mall and a disaster shelter: places to eat and shop and people camped out anywhere they can find a place to sit down.

They did have a smoking lounge, by the way. Much nicer that the others with more ashtrays and vending machines that did not require a credit check.

That part of the Cincinnati airport doesn’t really have gates so much as doors. There are a few enormous waiting rooms with far too few places for passengers to sit and a bunch of doors that lead to the same hallway I came in on. To get on a plane, you have to find the right door to go through and wait until that door is boarding 1 or 2 flights at the same time, given delays and such.

Once I made through the magic door into the same hall I came in through, I had to find my “gate”. In airport lingo in Cincinnati, apparently “door” and “gate” mean the same thing. Hundreds of people swarm down the same hall looking for their "gate" at the same time. In this case, a "gate" being a door that led across the tarmac to another steep flight of stairs where I had to show my boarding pass yet again.

I was lucky.

The people who were just getting on and wanted to check bags had to tote them down that long hall and dump them onto a cart waiting outside the plane. My bag was being toted and hauled by someone else.

Before we left the ground, the stewardess made sure to point out that “we’re going to Austin, TX, and if you’re on the wrong plane, please come forward now.” In most airports, if you go through a door labeled “Gate 29”, there’s only one place you can end up. Cincinnati is a twilight zone where, if you pick the wrong door, you might end up in Topeka.

The Commair planes are small, and so are their seats. Luckily, the girl sitting next to me was skinny and did not intrude into my allotted few inches. We could probably fit the entire passenger cabin into my 1000 square foot apartment. And it was packed.

They only concession to civility was the lavatory at the back of the plane. The facilities were exactly the size of two seats. Two very narrow seats without enough legroom for even a short man.

I won’t even bother to tell you how much my left hip is hurting today from the bad seats and lack of legroom. Or how I expected to see someone bringing chickens or other livestock onboard.

Suffice to say it was overcrowded and primitive. I haven’t had to walk across the tarmac since I was in Lisbon 20-something years ago. I didn’t know that commercial operators still did that in the US.

Luckily, when we got to Austin, they had a real boarding ramp. Since I had checked my bag in Nashville, I didn’t have to climb down and then back up the outside stairs to collect my luggage at the side of the plane. I just walked on back into the first world of civilized travel.

I didn’t even fret that it was taking so long for my checked bag to show up on the carousel. After all, that little delay gave me time for a dearly needed cigarette. And I didn’t have to stand out on the tarmac and wait to tote my own bag too far.

The last time I drove back from Tennessee without Sister and dogs, I made the trip in 12 hours. From the time I left home this time until I made it to Mama's house took over 11. The return trip took as long.

Factor in 30-45 minutes to the airport, a one hour check-in time (Delta cuts check in off at 30 minutes prior to a flight's scheduled departure), layovers and the 3 or so hours it takes to drive from Nashville home, I saved less than an hour.

I don't like flying to begin with--thus the Xanax. And I don't need Xanax to drive. The price of a plane ticket cannot begin to justify the 45 or so minutes it cut off my trip.

And driving is less stressful. No going through security wondering what it was that I missed that might look suspicious even though it's totally innocent. No wondering when the plane that's not working right will be fixed and how well it will be. No being jammed like sardines into a space that not even a small human being can occupy comfortably. No driving a rental car that's okay, but that I would never pay money for because it's controls make no sense and it can't get up and go on the Interstate.

Next time, it'll be me and Baby. Baby's much better than any rental car. She knows how to get up and go when she needs to, her seats are always comfortable, and she doesn't mind if I smoke.

Just so long as I keep the windows down.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

I'm off again home in a day and a half. Back to Tennessee, where my heart will always be, but where I'll probably never live again.

It's where I come from, and to some degree, the place that defines me most. It certainly shaped my values: we take care of our own up there.

Still, I've made my life elsewhere. When I was home last month, I realized acutely that I was just a visitor, a tourist revisiting his old stomping grounds.

I live in Austin now, and that is where my life is and will remain.

Still, part of me will always be there.

Daddy's death has brought up strange conversations between my mother and me. Maybe strange isn't the best word. "Unusual." How's that?

When I talked to her over the weekend, we talked about a life insurance policy that she and Daddy had maintained since I was about 18. They bought one for each of us three kids--just enough to get us buried and then a little bit more. She can't really afford to maintain it, and I was already planning to increase my insurance. The price is good, so I'm going to take it over.

That led to a conversation about funerals and final arrangements. I told her I wanted to be cremated. I had expected her to not like that idea, but her response was "Well, it's definitely cheaper."

Yes, it is.

She was surprised that I also want a small memorial in the little country cemetary where a lot of my family is buried in Medina, TN. Just a small stone with an urn that can hold half of my ashes. The other half will go to Shannon.

For whatever reason, having part of my incinerated husk at Hopewell seems more important than ever. I'll be close to Daddy and Grandma and Douglas (my little brother) and Carol (my cousin) and even Granddaddy Morgan (he's over on the other side of cemetary where Grandma can't see him--don't ask). Mama will be there before or after. And part of me will be back where I grew up in the place that helped make me who I am.

Part of me will stay with Shannon, too, to do what he wants with. He can keep what's left, toss it in the ocean or leave it in Bastrop State Park (site of some of the loveliest pines you'll ever see).

Going home makes me think too much. And that is just one more reason God made Xanax. In times like this, it's almost like Holy Communion.

The Last Word

It all started at 11:45 on a Thursday. I was trying to decide what to do for lunch when I got a call.

“Jeff, you need to call home.”

It was Shannon.

“It’s your father. He’s in the hospital.”

He almost started crying when he told me.

I dragged my boss out of a Board of Directors meeting and told her I was going home and didn’t know when I’d be back. And not home, 2 blocks away, but home 2 states away.

That’s how it started. The rest is a blur.

The 15 hour trip with my sister and her 4 dogs in my very small car. Visiting Mama in the hospital waiting room at about midnight on our way in. Getting in at 4:30 in the morning and turning around and going back to Memphis the next day.

And the next day driving and sitting in a waiting room. Waiting for the short time they allotted for visits. Walking constantly. I’m not good at waiting, so I walk.

And the next and next a repeat of the one before.

Waiting and watching my mother. Her heart was breaking right in front of me. Nothing to do but say “Everything’s going to be all right”, when I didn’t even have that conviction.

She’s never looked so sad or old.

Nothing I said could make it right or even better.

Mama and Daddy were married for almost 45 years. Mama was 15 ½ when she went on her first date with him. That makes almost 50 years.

The blur included a deathbed scene when the lines on the monitors flattened out. The nurse was kind enough to turn off the sound and lead us in a couple of songs.

What happened in between, I’m still not sure. People were there from the funeral home to collect Daddy’s body, and I needed to get all our stuff out of the ICU waiting room before they turned out the lights for the night. I didn’t want them to have to be disturbed because they were likely going through the same thing I was. They needed their sleep, and I knew I wasn’t going to get any.

Everything that came before that runs together in my mind like a watercolor bleeding color into color.

I remember the phone call, the tremble in Shannon’s voice and the death bed.

I also remember the night of talking to Daddy before he left. He was still there. It wasn’t the final visit I wanted, but it’s one I’ll always have and cherish and that no one can ever take away.

After the Fact

There’s no such thing as an easy death, not for the family or for the dying. But some are easier than others. Some leave a closure and completion and peace that many others do not.

I was lucky when Daddy died. He fought hard. But his body was shutting down. The cascading blackout went through just about every important system in his body. He wanted to give up, but promised me he would fight, if just for my sake. He tried, but that battle was not for him to win.

I have a strange sense of peace about the whole matter, one that I’m not sure I’ll ever understand. I’m sad, but at peace. Maybe it’s because he died surrounded by his family who helped ease him on into the next life. Maybe it’s that I loved him too much to see him suffering any more. And maybe it’s because withdrawing life support was the right thing to do on a level I don’t fully understand but have a glimpse of.

Right now, I’m still digesting it all. Some of it is real and some isn’t. Part of me wants to call him up and tell him what good gas mileage I’m getting with my new car. Another part realizes that I can’t.

It’s all so new, not having him around. I guess I’ll get used to it one day, but I’m not sure when.

When my mother and I were talking privately about the possibility of withdrawing life support, I told her two things: “You’ll know when it’s time, and it’ll be the hardest and the easiest thing you’ve ever done. Hard, because you don’t want to let him go. Easy, because you love him.”

I was speaking from my own experience of withdrawing life support from my first partner, Rich. It hurt like hell to say those words--"unplug everything"-- but it was the right thing to do and the right time to do it. It was my final act of love.

If I haven’t already said it, Daddy was a great man who led a simple life of quiet dignity.

He was able to die as he lived: with dignity.

For that, I am eternally grateful.

I did not want to let him go, but the choice was not mine.

He was a good man. A great man, even. But he was not ours to keep.

And when I said my final goodbye at the funeral home, I didn’t say “goodbye.” I said “I’ll see you later. Meet you on the other side.”

7/24/07 4:30 a.m.

Note: This is one of a series of pieces that I'll be posting which were written out in longhand as events were occurring.

When I was a teenager and young man, Daddy and me had one thing in common: insomnia. Coutless nights we sat up in the living room--often in the dark--talking or not, somtimes reading, others staring at the TV screen.

And sometimes it wasn't insomnia so much as storms: if one woke us up, we were up for the duration. I either chattered on nervously or paced the floor, while he, always the force for calm, remained unshakened.

I was scared. He was just awake.

Now I'm sitting up with Daddy again, only this time it's me trying to help him by be being a reassuring voice. Through all the tubes and sensors and dings, dongs and beeps, I know that, somewhere, somehow, he hears me.

So I remind him of how this is almost like old times. Almost. Then again, not at all.

I'm not sure who's providing comfort to whom. I know I'm certainly more at peace sitting by his hospital bed that I would be downstairs in the waiting room. It's just me and him tonight.

Some of my fondest, most cherished memories are of me and him, late at night or early in the morning, just the two of us. As men, we were always out-numbered in the family. When the women-folk were asleep, we weren't. It was our own little world for just a little while.

I don't know if this will be our last night sitting up or not. Regardless, I'm excactly where I want to be: in that little world that only Daddy and I can make.

Maybe it's more like old times than I thought.

Postscript:

That was our last night sitting up together. At one point, I grabbed onto his hand and told him that I knew that somewhere, somehow he could hear me. He squeezed my hand ever so gently. That was his last communication with anyone. He died later that day. Insomnia served me well that time.