Focus, Kevin, focus.
Ah yes, she thought Roger and Al en had been fighting about something.
And I stil didn’t know enough about Paul and Michael Harrington. What was Paul doing with that shrew Alana? And what was up with Michael’s group, The Center for Creative Empowerment Therapy? It sounded like a quack factory to me.
Al these thoughts swirling around in my head-it was time to get organized. My psychiatrist often told me that people with AADD should make lists. I was lazy about fol owing his advice, but I felt overwhelmed enough to admit I needed al the help I could get. I took my iPhone out of my shorts. Along with a very smal canister of Mace I kept on my keychain (we little blond boys need al the help we can get), it was something I carried with me al the time. I opened up a note and started typing.
1. Fol ow up with Roger Folds-fight?
2. Talk to Randy Bostinick
3. Research Paul and Michael Harrington.
4. Look into those gay suicides-was that true?
Then, just for the heck of it, I added
5. Fuck Tony
I wasn’t sure how I meant that last item, but what the hel. Either way would be immensely satisfying.
I looked over the list. Items one and two looked pretty doable. With the help of the Internet, I could at least get started on three and four.
Item five I had waited seven years for. I could afford to wait a while longer.
My first to-do, talking to Roger Folds, I might be able to make short order of. Feeling pumped from the gym, I walked to The Stuff of Life for my morning shift. By the time I got there, the summer heat had deflated my pump, soaked through my shirt, and left me a sweaty mess. Yuck.
I got to The Stuff of Life early and headed straight to Roger’s office. The door was closed. I knocked, once quietly, once with a little more oomph. No answer.
Next I went to see Vicki. She was sitting with her feet up on her desk, back to the door, phone held to her ear. Black cowboy shirt, black jeans, black boots. Black hair slicked back like Elvis. She was talking on the phone. “So I said to her, ‘listen honey, I wouldn’t eat her pussy with your mouth,’ and she said…”
I tapped on the door to let her know I was there.
Vicki held up a finger.
“Hey, listen, someone’s at the door. I’l cal you back later. Yeah, love you too, Mom.” She hung up the phone.
“Jesus,” I said, “you talk to your mother like that?”
“Please,” Vicki rol ed her eyes, “once my mother found out I was a dyke, she got more interested in lesbianism than I am. She read every book she could find on the subject, rented Desert Hearts, and begged me to take her to a gay bar.”
“Did you?”
“Of course! She had a great time. Haven’t you ever taken your mother out?”
“We went to the supermarket last night.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Listen, there’s not a gay bar in New York big enough to hold me and my mother.”
“You should try it. Maybe you guys could come out with me and my mom sometime. Who knows, maybe our moms wil hook up.”
I put my fingers in my ears. “La, la, la, la…”
“OK,” Vicki said, laughing, “I take it back. So, if you didn’t come here looking to hook your mother up with some hot lesbo action, what does bring you my way?”
I explained that I was looking for Roger Folds.
“Wel, don’t look here,” Vick answered. “He quit.”
“When?”
“Yesterday. He said he never wants to come back, either. Just asked if someone could bring his personal stuff to his apartment.” Vicki pointed to a cardboard box sitting on her floor. “That’s it over there. He doesn’t live too far from me, so I figured I’d do it. Give me a chance to tel him what an asshole I think he is.”
“Listen,” I said, “think you could tel him in a letter?
Cause I’d really like to see him.”
“Can’t imagine why. But if you wanna deliver his shit, be my guest. Just be sure to send my disregards.”
“Thanks. I’l pick it up when I’m done.” I kissed Vicki on the cheek. “Tel your Mom I said ‘hi.’”
“Hey, tel her yourself when your mother brings her home for Christmas. As her date.”
“Ewwwww.”
My talk with Vicki had taken longer than I expected. I had to hurry to the kitchen to get today’s volunteers started on the meal preparation. I was racing down the hal way, not real y looking where I was going, when I ran smack into a wal. “Oomph!”
“Sorry,” the wal mumbled.
“It’s OK,” I said, realizing that the wal, in fact, was a woman. Not a heavy woman, but large and solidly built, with the muscles of a high-school footbal player.
Our eyes met with a flash of recognition. The Wal blushed and looked down at her feet.
“Lori,” a voice cal ed from down the hal way, catching up to us, “I got the papers we need and…”
The tal er, thinner woman recognized me immediately. “Oh!” she said. “Hel o. Connor, right?”
“Kevin,” I corrected her. “I met you two…”
“At the reading of Al en’s wil,” she finished my sentence. “I’m May. And this,” she said gesturing towards to her companion, “is Lori. My partner at the Association for the Acceptance of Lesbian and Gay Youth, as wel as in life.”
They were the women from the group Al en funded in his wil.
Lori shifted uncomfortably. “Huh,” she said by way of greeting.
May put her hand on my shoulder. “I’m so sorry for your loss. I could tel you and Al en were close. The way he spoke about you in that video-it was obvious he cared. You must have been very special to him.”
Had anyone talked to me with compassion about Al en’s death, I wondered? I found myself tearing up.
“Thanks,” I said. “He was a very good man.”
“He was obviously a big fan of yours,” I said. “Of your work.”
“Yes,” May said. “I think the plight of queer youth real y touched him. After al he had been through.
And his son of course.”
This was new. “His son?”
“Wel, you know he didn’t have much contact with either of his children, right?”
“None,” I said.
“Right. Stil, he kept track of them. Tried to be involved. He told me that he thought one of them might be gay, but that he had gotten married anyway.
It made him so sad to think that his son might be making the same mistake he had.”
The only one of the sons who was married was Paul. “Did he say what made him think that?”
Lori, or as I would always think of her, The Wal, cleared her throat. “We r-r-real y have to go, May.”
For such a big girl, her voice was soft and breathless. You could see how shy she was, too, as she continued to regard her shoes as if they were the most interesting things on Earth. I always wondered what quiet people like her did with al their feelings.
“One minute,” May responded. She gave Lori a reassuring pat on the back. I wondered if Lori wasn’t a bit impaired. May turned back to me.
“No, he never said.”
Freddy thought Paul seemed a little light in the loafers, too. Although I wasn’t sure what difference it made.
We stood awkwardly for a moment. “So, do you work here?” May asked me.
I explained that I was a volunteer.
“That’s wonderful,” May enthused. “Good for you.”
“Hey,” I said, “maybe I could do some work with you guys,” I offered. “Kind of a way to honor Al en’s memory.”
Lori and May looked at each other. “We’re not real y set up for that,” May said.
“Wel, let me know if I can help. Do you have a card or something?”
“Not yet,” May smiled. “That’s what Al en was helping us with. Infrastructure costs. We’re kind of a start-up. Al en had been looking to build an organization that catered specifical y to the needs of sexual minority youth, and he was very impressed by some of the work Lori and I had been doing with homeless teens. But maybe I could take one of yours?”
Not surprisingly, I didn’t have any business cards.