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An Unspectacular Life, Part 4
03/13/09

I apologize for the delay. I've returned to work and Eddy returned home from
a month in Mexico this week. It's been hectic but I found time to write at
the expense of sleep.

PART FOUR

Despite the attempt to save their relationship by moving to a new apartment,
John's sister, Susan, left Laurie and moved to our weekend party city and
into a lesbian rooming house. This left Laurie a little heartbroken and in
need of room mates. John and I moved in. It was a main floor two bedroom
apartment in a big house. I still wasn't paying any rent so I slept on the
couch which was far more comfortable than cushions on the floor. Laurie was
almost a man. When she was still with Susan, they were the classic
femme/butch pairing. She worked as a chef but never cooked at home. Since I
was becoming more unemployable by the week due to ever more creative
expressions of individualism, the domestic duties fell to me. I cooked,
cleaned and changed the kitty litter which was deemed an unnecessary expense
so I filled the litter box with dirt from the backyard. This apartment was
closer to the mall which still played a large role in my daily itinerary.

Laurie was newly single and not wanting to be so we took her to Whispers. She
had never been to a gay bar before despite the fact that she had been out for
years. It is a phenomena that small town lesbians are able to come out, meet
other lesbians, live together and generally live their lives without ever
having to experience the gay culture at large or even be detected by
neighbours. Laurie had a car which made the need for overnight accommodation
unnecessary. We would drive the hour to Whispers, party our asses off then
drive back or sleep in the car if Laurie was too smashed to drive. Neither
John nor I could drive. Laurie never had any luck meeting girls. Besides
being a social retard, Susan was always out at Whispers. All of the lesbian
rooming house tenants where Susan lived would go out together and take over a
corner of the club. Whispers attracted all stripes of gay but was
self-segregated. The dykes in a corner, the new wavers in another, the clones
at the bar, the preppy university kids to themselves. There was some mixing
of the species but everyone was content with the arrangement. In a truly big
city, all of these classifications of gay would have had their very own
clubs. Even though Whispers was in a city considerably larger than my home
town, it was by no means a big city so we all shared the same space, happily.
Music, even more more than sexuality, was the element that bound us all
together. Dance music was dance music to a leather chapped popper snorting
daddy clone or a cross dressing Donna Summered drag doll.

It wouldn't take Laurie very long to find herself a new girlfriend. She was
introduced to Melanie through Kevin. Kevin was in his mid-twenties, married
with one kid and owned a convenience store franchise where Susan worked
before moving away. Melanie was newly divorced with two kids, a four year old
girl and a baby boy and had taken over the afternoon shift after Susan left.
I don't think that Mel was a true lesbian. She had been abused by her
ex-husband and had become afraid of men but was in desperate need of
affection. As soon as Mel and Laurie were introduced, they became
inseparable. Laurie was mechanically adept and liked to fix things like cars
and small motors. For Laurie, Mel was another thing to put back together.
Laurie was never home but I would see her at work. She hired me as a line
cook. I had never worked in a kitchen before but she was impressed with my
domestic cooking skills and couldn't have cared less of my blue black
asymmetrical hair and powdered face. She actually flaunted my look. Though
taking her to Whispers had not gotten her a girlfriend, it empowered her in a
gay way. She had made the mantra of, "We're here. We're queer. Get used to
it." hers years before it was popularized on the streets of New York and San
Francisco.

The restaurant was a busy English pub. The work was not difficult though at
times hectic. I mostly deep fried things that had nothing to do with England
or a pub; battered mushrooms, onion rings, breaded zucchini sticks. Now that
I was working I had to pay rent which still left me with more money than I
was getting from social services. I paid less than John and Laurie as I was
still sleeping on the couch but that would soon change. Laurie was going to
move in with Mel and her kids but before she moved we had a small house
party. It was a going away party for Drew. He was moving to pursue his career
as a hairdresser. He had finished his apprenticeship here but needed to be
where there was more call for creative cuts. We would still see him every
weekend because he was only moving an hour away to our weekend party city but
it was kind of a big deal. He was the first one of us, other than Susan who
really wasn't part of or clique, that was leaving town in the name of fashion
freedom.

The party guest list was small; Laurie, Melanie, John, Kevin, me and of
course, Drew. We didn't want to invite any of the old queens. We were getting
bored with the same old stories and music. They were becoming increasingly
irrelevant to our hunger for everything new. Even John was listening less to
Barbra Striesand and more to Madonna though, he would never give up on Babs
completely, not by far. We had all suspected that Kevin was gay even though
he was married. He was very girly when he was around us and the night of
Drew's bon voyage was the night that Kevin kicked down his closet door.

Kevin was homely and over weight; a double curse in the gay universe but he
was a lot of fun and he always had money. We soon found out that his pockets
were so deep because he treated the safe at his convenience store as his
personal bank with no regard for paying his suppliers. A few months after
coming out, he lost his business and his family. There was another surprise
at the party. Drew had talked John into moving away with him. John wouldn't
be leaving with Drew the next morning. He would wait a month. He really liked
his boss at the t-shirt transfer shop and wanted to give her ample notice to
find and train his replacement. I would only have my own bedroom for a month
before moving in with Laurie, Mel and her two kids. There, I would sleep in
the laundry room.