greglaviolette.com/blog

blog

An Unspectacular Life, Part 6
03/22/09

Laurie had moved in with Mel leaving John and I alone in the apartment with
very little furniture. She took the couch but left her bed. For the first
time in six months, I had a bedroom, though it would be only until the end of
the month when we had to vacate the apartment. We stayed in town all that
month because John wanted to save as much cash as he could for his upcoming
move. We were both working full time. John worked days and I worked evenings.
We didn't see a lot of each other but when we in the apartment at the same
time we battled for stereo control. My turn table choices were Culture Club,
Michael Jackson's, "Thriller" and the soundtrack to, "Flashdance". John's
world was about to change and he craved stability so fell back on his
musical constant, Barbra Stiesand. I was really starting to hate Barbra and
John wanted to listen to nothing but. It got to the point where we were
trading off single tracks from albums. Me: Do You Really Want to Hurt Me,
John: Second Hand Rose, me: Manhunt, John: Guilty, me: Billy Jean, John:
Stoney End. I thought that this arrangement was completely unfair because
John liked all of the music that I played and his choices not only made me
feel very uncool, they gave me headaches. Barbra Striesand was starting to
become a wedge between John and I.

At the end of the month and without any fanfare, John moved away. He had
stopped dating Brandon, our old colour guard instructor, not long after the
night that I came out to them but they had remained friends and John became
his new room mate. My new room mates were Laurie, Mel and her two kids. When
Mel left her husband, she had moved into a government subsidized town house
in a notoriously white trash neighbourhood. In elementary school, I would
avoid my class mates who lived in that part of town. Now, I was one of them
and worse, I would be sleeping in the basement laundry room. The town house
was basic. There were two bedrooms and a washroom on the second floor. The
main floor was split by a living room in the front and the kitchen in the
back and the basement shared a rec room and an unfinished laundry/utility
room. I defined my space directly beside the washer and dryer by hanging
sheets from the floor joists above. My allotted space was so minimal that the
hanging sheets hung perpendicular to and brushed the sides of my bed. I
thought that it looked somehow romantic, not unlike mosquito netting hung
over a four poster bed. There was a lot of room on the other side of the
washer and dryer but Laurie needed that space for her tools. I couldn't
complain. I was again living rent free though sometimes the best things in
life are not free.

Living with Laurie and Mel was a nightmare that I was not prepared for. Mel
was a cutter. This, I discovered when Laurie woke me up one of my first
nights there screaming that Mel was trying to kill herself. I ran up the two
flights of stairs to their bedroom to find that Mel had taken a knife and
scratched out a pen tattoo that Laurie had given her. Through the bloody
scratches, I could barely make out a Laurie+Mel heart. The same kind that
girls would write on the inside of their notebooks in grade six. Laurie was
hysterical and Mel was possessed. She was with us in body but I had no idea
where the rest of her was. Her eyes were vacant and she was screaming
gibberish when she wasn't hyperventilating or spitting at Laurie. The episode
was liquor induced. The kids were outside the bedroom door, wailing and
jumping up and down. Laurie wouldn't call an ambulance because Mel would have
surely been admitted to the psyche floor of the hospital. We had to sit with
Mel until she finally passed out. This drama replayed itself out every few
days. I stopped running up the stairs after the second time. I was in no rush
to see Mel spit or smear her blood on Laurie again.

Another reoccurring theme was Mel's ex-husband. He was a born again Christian
and a major wrench in the gears of Mel's reluctant lesbianism. He would stop
by every couple of days to see the kids. He didn't suspect that Mel was
sharing her bed with Laurie. Mel had told him that Laurie was a second cousin
from out of town. I, on the other hand, had to hide whenever he came around.
If he found out that she was living with a man, however strange a specimen,
Mel said that she could loose her child support money which was really her
beer fund. He would always leave Mel little pamphlets on how to get to heaven
through Jesus. He thought that the marriage could be saved, like his soul,
through prayer.

Mel and Laurie vacillated between bliss and agony. There was never any normal
laid back watching the t.v. time. They were either laughing and carrying on
like newlyweds or fighting and bleeding like mental patients released into
the population too soon. I spent as little time there as I could so I found
myself often visiting Ken, the accountant. He would constantly try to seduce
me and I gave in most of the time. There was something comforting in being
wanted even if it was for all of the wrong reasons. I took the affection
gladly. Behind the clothes, accessories and make up, I was a lonely eighteen
year old boy who had been rejected by his family and was emotionally lost,
though it would be years before I realized or admitted it.

While walking home from Ken's apartment one night, a cute sixteen year old
asked me for a cigarette. I was always very cautious of people on the street.
I was an obvious target. He was alone and seemed harmless. He walked with me,
asking about why I looked the way I did. We talked about music and of course,
Boy George. He said that he was also a fan. I suspected that his admitting to
like Boy George was code. He walked with me all the way to the town house. It
was late and the lights were off so I invited him in. We had clumsy teenage
sex and he left before anyone woke up. The next morning I was thrilled and
had to tell Mel and Laurie my story. It was, after all, my first street pick
up, something the old queens said would happen sooner or later. Mel and
Laurie were not nearly as excited as I was. They didn't think that it was
appropriate that I brought a stranger into their home. They were concerned
about how this could affect the kids although the kids had no idea what had
transpired two floors below them while they slept. I thought to myself that
excessive drinking, self mutilation, spitting on your girl friend and all out
screaming tantrums were fine in front of the kids but discreet sex in the
basement while they slept was not. It was time to find a new place to live. I
lasted three weeks with Mel and Laurie. My experience with them would taint
my view of lesbians for years to come.