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An Unspectacular Life, Part 12
08/07/09

Almost a month between entries! I've been busy with the garden, which is now
giving me baby greens and still occupied with the house renos(I'll be
drywalling later today). I hope that you enjoy this chapter. I saw, "John"
last week at a Bluewater Buccaneer reunion. It was the first time that I had
seen him in almost 25 years. It was good.

PART 12

Lily, my landlady and geriatric room-mate, was rarely at home. She had a
boyfriend, Sam, who was a cross between Mr. Maggoo and Popey the Sailor. He
was a totally sweet, simple man with Navy tattoos covering almost all of his
two arms. He was a widower and had been Lily's "companion" for a couple of
years. She spent at least four nights a week at Sam's house. I always knew
when she would stay out because she would leave her son a note on the fridge.
I don't think that he cared or for that matter, even saw most of the notes.
This was Lily's way of being a caring mother to her forty year old son who
routinely passed out on her living room floor in a sleeping bag. I hadn't
bumped into him in the kitchen for a couple of weeks. Lily mentioned
something about him having a new girlfriend. I could only imagine what a
piece of white trash work she must have been but she didn't sleep on her
mother's living room floor so he was always at her place. The apartment was
basically mine.

Kevin called me on a chance mutual day off not having anything to do until
his almost daily phone call with Bob later in the evening when the rates went
down. Kevin would even call him from work while working the night shift and
was tensely waiting the fallout when his boss got the phone bill. He and Bob
would call each other on alternate days and Kevin drove the hour to see him a
couple of times a week. He would go even if it were only for a few hours. I
never accompanied him. As a matter of fact, I still hadn't met the bear. A
note, stuck on the fridge with an angel magnet, informed me that Lily would
not be home tonight so I invited Kevin over.

Kevin showed up an hour later in Levis, a denim shirt and cowboy boots with a
magnum of sparkling rose. We sat around in my room drinking, smoking and not
listening to the country music cassettes he brought with the wine. Kevin
hated my music but the rule was: My place, my music. His car, his music but
he always tried to control the auditory ambiance. He begged me not to play
Culture Club. Boy George was becoming to Kevin what Barbra Striesand had
become to me; unbearable, so we listened to Depeche Mode, New Order and Yaz.
I could never play an album all the way through, especially when I listened
to music by myself. I would change the album after one song. I was my own
personal DJ. Listening to music was an activity. It wasn't something that I
did while I was doing other things. I would put a record on the turntable
then spend the time while it was playing singing along and searching for the
next perfect song to spin. I made a lot of mixed cassettes but I was always
buying new music so the tapes became irrelevant quickly and I would give them
away to people who worked at the mall. Sometimes when I was at the mall, I
would hear my tapes which gave me a rush and made me feel a little famous.

It only took about an hour until I couldn't listen to another word about how
much Kevin was in love with Bob or another story about how Bob had overcome
so many obstacles or why Bob was so right for Kevin so I suggested that we do
something that I had been dying to do for weeks but was never bold or drunk
enough to actually do it; go snooping in Lily's bedroom.

I had peeked into her bedroom a couple of times but had never ventured past
the thresh hold. The room was Lily's refuge. When she wasn't at Sam's house
she was in her bedroom. She did everything in that room. She ate, drank,
smoked, watched TV, talked on the phone and barked at her son on the rare
occasions that they were both home at the same time. "Keep away from my
bottle!" was once half shrieked, half coughed at me from her sanctuary when
she mistook me for him. For some reason, her bedroom reminded me of Miss
Kitty from, "Gunsmoke". I don't ever remember seeing Miss Kitty's bedroom but
years earlier while watching it on TV with my mother there was an impression
made and Lily's boudoir recalled it.

The walls were covered in a burgundy flock on gold wallpaper in a huge
paisley design. Heavy curtains in the same design as the wallpaper hung over
the one window in the room and the few times that I looked in, were always
drawn leaving the room dark except for a single night light. The bedspread on
her queen sized bed came close to replicating the paisley of the walls and
curtains but not quite. The colour was a good match but the paisley was
different and much smaller. The bed was adorned with what must have been
twenty pillows; some large, some small, some round, others heart shaped and
frilly. The entire collection of pillows were colour coordinated in gold and
burgundy. At the foot of the bed lounged an almost life sized stuffed lion
with a huge gold bow around it's neck. Her dresser, night tables and dressing
table were all dark and heavy and covered with squares or runners of fabric
that were printed with yet another variation on the paisley theme. The room
was manic. I had no idea how she could spend so much time in it. Kevin and I
would only be in it for half an hour.

At first, Kevin resisted. He was afraid that we would get caught. I assured
him the Lily was out for the night by showing him the note that she had left
on the fridge. He still wasn't convinced and sent me in alone. I told Kevin
that wimps have no business wearing cowboy boots, opened the door and stepped
inside. There was so much to focus on that my brain had to work extra hard to
assimilate all of the visual information that I was being assaulted with. The
room was sobering, literally. After just a couple of minutes, I lost half of
my buzz. I almost retreated back to my room but couldn't back down after I
had called Kevin a wimp so I took a deep breath and told myself that it was
now or never.

I went directly for the dresser. The top drawers were filed with
undergarments that I scanned but didn't dare touch. The middle drawers housed
sweaters and cardigans that were obviously packed away for the summer and the
bottom drawers were used as her filing cabinet filled with documents and paid
bills. Kevin, keeping watch outside the door, kept asking me what was in each
drawer as I opened it but I wouldn't say instead telling him that if he
wanted to know he would have to look for himself. When I had fantasized about
this moment, I had no notion of what I was going to find but so far the
operation was sadly anti-climatic. I turned my attention to the closet and
slid open the mirrored door. My jaw dropped. Without even knowing it, this is
what I had been hoping for. The contents of Lily's closet had been calling
out to me through the walls. I thought that I was just curious but after I
saw what the closet held, I knew that there was something much bigger than
human curiosity at work. It was a sort of organized fate orchestrated by the
gay gods that brought me to Lily's closet. I was about to pass another gay
milestone no less important than losing my virginity or coming out of the
closet. I summoned Kevin. The tone of my voice was enough to bring him to my
side without resistance. "Holy shit." was all he could utter.