Southern Lady Code: Essays(8)

At Central High, on the eve of the last day of tenth grade, a regular boy and his lackeys went after a Southern Effeminate boy because—as far as I can recall—he had a funny name. They rolled that boy’s house with Quilted Northern, blacked out every window with split Oreos, salted obscenities in the grass, and shaving-creamed the cars. And the next day, they sold T-shirts commemorating the prank.

A local business had customized and printed those teal-and-white T-shirts without question. The regular boys sold them out of cardboard boxes in the school cafeteria. No teacher stopped them, and as far as I know, all 868 of us tenth graders bought one. Me included, I’m ashamed to admit. But so did the victim. That kid was so tough-skinned and ahead of his time, he considered himself a celebrity. Rightly so. Thirty years later, his name is one of the few I remember.

When I return to the South, I’m always unsettled when a man I assume is gay—because he has a face pulled tighter than a gift bow or starts every sentence with “GIRL, please!”—introduces me to his wife. Or when a straight man qualifies a comment that could be taken “the wrong way.” For instance, on a Delta flight out of Atlanta, a good ole’ boy in a trucker’s cap that read AMERICAN BY BIRTH, BUT SOUTHERN BY THE GRACE OF GOD struck up a conversation with me by saying, “Now, I’m not gay or anything, but I like making jam!”

After twenty-five years in New York City, I still get a thrill when I meet a man who’s out of the closet. Most gay men I meet here are out of the closet. So I live my life regularly delighted.

My friend Martin was my gateway gay. He’s four years younger, so I didn’t know him at Central High, but after I left for college, he took my sister to a dance. There is a photo of them standing shoulder to shoulder in our front yard. He was so “respectful” he never even tried to hold her hand. When Martin moved to Manhattan, we became friends. And like Heather Locklear in a Faberge Organics shampoo commercial, Martin introduced me to two of his gay men friends and they introduced me to two of theirs. Through Martin, I met Bernard; and through Bernard, I met Carmine.

In our thirties, Martin started a book club that was half gay men, half women. All the women, except for me, got pregnant and dropped out. When the last to leave—a woman who’d grown up in Manhattan—was debating whether to quit, she said to me, “I just don’t want to spend two hours a month listening to a bunch of queens bitch about books.”

I said, “That is all I want to do.”

To me, a room full of gay men is like Narnia. It’s a place I hoped was out there, on the other side of a closet door, full of talking lions that I always deep down suspected could talk.

To be beckoned into such a world makes me feel incredibly special.

Carmine’s bachelor party was at Raoul’s, an old haunt of an Italian restaurant on the Lower East Side. At the time, I had a Louise Brooks bob and still wore a Boy George red matte lip. I slipped into my highest heels and a chocolate-brown Tory Burch mini dress with white piping. The dress was stiff and had a deep V-neck. Nobody there would be interested in my cleavage, but I jockeyed up my breasts like I was setting out Waterford crystal ashtrays.

I made an effort.

I knew I was never going to be Cher or Barbra Streisand, but I could be Karen Walker or Auntie Mame: a fabulous lady of a mature age who can hold her liquor and carry on a conversation.

My friend Jason arrived and escorted me up a winding staircase to a private dining room. Hors d’oeuvres were passed by older professional male servers, the likes of which you’ll find more commonly in the French Quarter. I was introduced to some kind of vodka that’s not made from potatoes and thus doesn’t get you fat. Guests mingled before a candlelit table for twelve. There were architects, doctors, and lawyers. Men in publishing and TV. All were at the top of their games. I was the housewife. But it was my place card set next to Carmine’s.

At the far end of the room were a man and a woman whom nobody knew.

When the best man gave the first toast he ended it by saying, “Now, Carmine, to make sure you really want to marry Bernard, this heterosexual couple is going to have sex for us.”

The collective gay gasp was strong enough to suck the tablecloth out from under the china.

“Just kidding!” said the best man.

Throughout supper, the man played a keyboard and the woman sang every Broadway show tune related to marriage. There are a lot of such songs. She sang through cocktail hour and two courses.

Dessert was brought out by two waiters, who weren’t waiters. They were younger than our waiters. They were younger than all of us. They were gorgeous. They set down flourless cakes and, before anyone could take a bite, stripped nearly naked. There is a picture of me screaming with abandon with my hand on an ass cheek that is as chiseled and polished as Michelangelo’s David. If Michelangelo was into Puerto Ricans.

What happened after that, I’ll keep a secret. Because I want to continue to be invited into rooms of men with nothing to hide.





THE OTHER WOMAN’S


            BURBERRY COAT





This isn’t my trench coat, but it looks like my trench coat. It’s Burberry and tan; but on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, women have tan Burberry trenches like women in the South have gigantic dogs. It’s the same size as my coat and the lining is plaid like my coat, the pocket has a MetroCard in it like my coat did, but the belt buckle is wrong. My buckle was metal, it clanked when I walked. This buckle is plastic. Or leather. I can’t tell the difference and I don’t know which material signifies the more expensive coat—there must be a difference. This trench coat feels cheaper. Mine cost $795, which is more than my wedding dress (a charcoal-gray cocktail number I bought off the rack). My husband gave me my trench coat for Christmas after I’d lived in Manhattan for twenty-three years and been married to him for fifteen years. I wore it with everything: jeans and white shirt; a dress and high heels. And then I reached into a closet—at a friend’s house or at bridge club or at Elizabeth Arden’s Red Door Salon—and put on another woman’s coat and walked straight out the door.