Love-struck choices led him to give me an engagement chain he had worn since junior high. We figured the rings would come soon enough. He claimed he never took it off, not even to shower, and that it was now mine to symbolize our newly established status as a couple. I cried as he gently placed it around my neck before we made love for the first time. He was the missing piece in my heart. He was a worker, a protector, a best friend, and a wonderful father.
Robert accepted my underlying bisexuality, but we never talked about it in depth. The only time it was mentioned was when we dropped off his daughter at her mother’s apartment. I was overwhelmed with the way it had all worked out between Robert, his ex, and me. She got what she gave in full circle, and I was secretly gloating over how ironic a turn the love triangle had taken.
I wanted her to see me sitting next to her daughter in the truck with Robert by my side. She caused me so much anguish on my living room floor that it wasn’t necessary to say a word to her. I remained speechless as we drove into the complex to meet her outside.
She was initially shocked to see me. It hurt her in a way that only the situation could provide. To me, it was worth every second to let her sort out her anger and disgust right in front of my smiling face. I sat quietly as they talked through the window about times for the next visit and argued about losing pacifiers.
When a friend of hers began to approach the car, I shifted uneasily in my seat, thinking surely they would respect a child’s presence and avoid physical violence. But this was white trash I was dealing with. Who knew if this girl had premade a shank in her hand with my name on it?
I never caught the girl’s name, but I remember her stares and accusations vividly. Without hesitation she walked over to my window and glared at me very mechanically and without emotion. She lingered in the moment, making it more uncomfortable than if she would have just punched me in the tit, causing me to gasp for air and ensuring a future fifteen minutes of fame on Jerry Springer.
She looked to Robert’s baby mama through the open windows in the vehicle. “Is this the bitch you talked to on the phone?” she asked, referring to a quick conversation gone wrong the day before.
“That’s fucking her,” the ex said as she stood at the driver’s side window.
“She’s not even cute.” Her face turned quizzical as she spoke to the ex on the other side like my presence was nonexistent. “Are you a dyke? I heard you were a dyke.” She finally directed her comment right at me.
All attention was diverted to my response. The ex stopped to listen; Robert looked over to me while the baby sucked on her sippy cup. The friend crossed her arms as I said, “No,” smiling in embarrassment, shock, and amazement at anyone knowing anything about my life in Arizona or Angel. The look on my face, I’m sure, was priceless. The rest of the shitty time spent in judgmental hillbilly hell was just as unpleasant. When we finally left, there wasn’t much to say to each other.
The ex must have relished in the moment as her friend waved to us on our way out. “See you later, ya fuckin’ dyke!”
When we didn’t see them in the side mirrors anymore, I nervously said, “What was that all about? God. Did you say anything to her about me?”
“I was with her a long time. I told her things.” He wasn’t exactly sorry, but he felt bad for it coming up when it was never meant to go beyond the ex’s ears.
“Jesus, Robert, that’s my business!” I said with a passive, hurt, betrayed exclamation point at the end of the sentence.
“Don’t worry about it. She knows about my experiments with that guy from work and tells everyone I am a fag. Everyone experiments. I’m not gay. No one believes anything she says anyway,” he assured me as he looked to me with his brilliant blue eyes then back to the road.
I began talking to him and to myself as we passed cornfields that created a distinct, yet indefinable smell. I didn’t look at him; rather, I mesmerized myself with the rows and rows of corn that were still too young to be harvested. “I can’t believe it. Did you hear that? How she just said it? A dyke.” I contemplated that thought and that word as it replayed in my head. Seems I’d been called that a lot lately. Was I?
I let the neatly lined rows of corn pass before my eyes as I visually blended it all together, making a green haze. I sat there swirling it all in my mind and, for a second, I thought, I don’t want to marry him, I’m gay.
Within the first week of my return to Arizona military life, I talked to Robert about the people we were seeing before our decision to be married. We agreed that, in the months before our anticipated wedding, we would be free to have sexual relationships with others to get it out of our systems. We understood our young bodies couldn’t place sex on hold. States divided us, but never our love. My heart knew where it belonged and where it had been since the day of his earth-shattering lie in my living room. I was ready to commit myself to him for the rest of my life, and together we joked about our last few months of getting it on with those who would never know the depth of our devotion.
I was boastful of my renewed love for Robert and showed anyone who would take interest my engagement chain. Steven accepted his future bride-to-be was just another bisexual girl returning to the security of a normal heterosexual world. He was happy for me, but I noticed we did not hang out like we used to after my announcement. I pushed everyone out who didn’t understand my decision.
Steven faded from my life, but I barely noticed.
CHAPTER 6
My new roommate, a Jamaican girl born in California, insisted on telling me how nuts I was about the whole thing. She didn’t know my sexuality like Annica did. In her mind, the barracks ho was suddenly getting married but still sleeping around. No wonder Tenesa kept her distance.
She didn’t say anything when I brought home this quiet virgin boy and, two nights later, slept with his squad leader, who’d I known from basic training. She never asked me about the tall, dark, handsome guy from the chow hall or the French Tori Amos fan. She let my business be my business and never intervened until the evergreen incident when the drunken French guy came into our room while she was sleeping. He shook her awake to ask if he could sleep in my bed. She knew I was down the hall with the freckle-faced boy and his amazing red hair.
Tenesa asked me never to put her in that situation again as she explained how Frenchie begged her in the dark to stay. He apparently showed her the scratches and green skid marks on his body from earlier in the night when he tried to climb an evergreen tree outside of my window to reach me and fell to the rocks.
Tenesa, in a California version of her Jamaican accent, reported, “Dis boy was cryin’ so hard. He totally smelled like beer and eva-green fuckin’ bush or some shit, girl.” We laughed at the stupidity of the story as we got ready to go clubbing and listened to the messages he left on my machine. Sober at first, just saying hello, then progressing through his drunkenness into anger and tears. It was sadly hysterical, this poor guy was love-struck over me, and I had plans to marry.
Tenesa kept her judgments to herself and never made any mention of how I was living my life. But it’s always the quiet ones who have the most to say. She would have given me an earful if she was sure I would listen, but, to her, I was a lost cause, and she was focused on her night classes at the local college. The last thing on her mind was trying to save me from myself.