25: Tall & Tan & Young & Lovely

Originally emailed on May 19, 1999

Last night, I went swing dancing with Michael at the local glitzy gay bar. As we drove into the parking lot, I said, "I thought Tuesdays were country-western line dancing."

"Oh, my, no," Michael said. "Nobody's line dancing anymore. It's all Tommy Dorsey these days. Every bar in town has somebody teaching swing dancing at least one night a week."

"But what happened to all the people who were teaching line dancing? Are they all unemployed now? And where have all the swing dance teachers been? How can there have been none, and then suddenly one for every bar in town? Were they all delivering newspapers in the morning and perfecting their Ladies' Underarm Turns in the afternoon, just waiting to come jitterbugging out of the woodwork when their country called?"

Michael laughed. "Oh, no, honey. They're all the same people. They just buy some new CDs and trade in their cowboy neckerchiefs for silk ties, and then they all rotate one bar to the left so the customers think they're getting some new expert and not the same old washed-up Broadway chorus line aspirant."

"Well, I just hope I don't make a fool of myself," I said.

"You won't," Michael said. "The first hour is for beginners, and after that you can just sit back, sip a daiquiri, and watch me do my Advanced Swing Dance stuff."

"You've done this before?" I asked.

"Oh, I come every week," he answered. "But I learned swing dancing in high school when I played Nathan Detroit in the St. Luke's Catholic High School production of Guys and Dolls."

"I didn't know you had acting talent," I said.

"I don't," he said. "But small Catholic high schools take what they can get. I'm not a bad dancer, though. You'll see."

We were in the bar, in dance position, and learning the basic jitterbug step before the other shoe dropped. "Michael," I said.

"Shh," he said. "Don't try to talk. You'll get confused if you don't count out loud."

"Dig, step, dig, step, rock, step," I said obediently. Then, "Michael, you're Jewish. What were you doing at a Catholic high school?"

"I'm only Jewish on my mother's side. My father was raised Catholic, and his mother offered to pay the tuition if they'd send me to St. Luke's. She was trying to keep me in the fold. Catholic school was not the way to do it. I told you not to talk," as I rocked when I should have dug and blew the whole step. Michael patiently counted out loud to me, tapping my shoulder in time with the music, and we started again.

"When does this get fun?" I asked. "I mean, when do I start to look like Ginger Rogers in 'The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle' instead of like a grace-impaired mother of two?"

"In about twenty lessons," Michael answered.

"This is going to be a short-lived fad," I said. "It's too hard."

"It's easier if you don't talk while dancing," Michael said. "Except to count."

"You never see Ginger Rogers counting out loud," I answered.

"She'd had at least twenty lessons," he answered.

Forty-five minutes later, I was sipping a virgin strawberry daiquiri and lounging at a table near the dance floor, watching the so-called advanced dancers. Most of them could be observed to move their lips while dancing, as if still counting quietly to themselves, but Michael had paired up with an extremely lithe young man and was spinning, flipping, and tossing him around with abandon.

After a couple of numbers, the two of them came sweatily over to me. The young man stood like a fashion model, leaning into Michael with one sharp hip thrust provocatively forward. Michael's arm draped possessively around the young man's waist, his fingers resting casually on the hip bone. "Louella, I want you to meet my friend," he said. "We've been dancing together the last few weeks."

I let my gaze travel upward from the scandalous hip bone, and past the trendy chest stripe on the young man's T-shirt--a T-shirt tight enough to reveal the outline of several ribs, and a nipple ring. For a moment, I was too busy cataloging bits of metal--a green bead in the lower lip, a silver ring in one nostril, two gold rings in the left eyebrow, and enough metal in both ears to sustain the heavy industry of a small European nation for at least one fiscal year--to see the face behind the piercings. But only for a moment. "I know your friend," I said to Michael. "This is Harriet's little brother Ron."

"Louella!" Ron said. "I thought that was you! It's so nice to see you. Grandma and Harriet tell me all about you, of course, but it's not the same as catching up in person." He dropped into a chair and lifted my glass, raising the un-pierced eyebrow questioningly. I nodded, and he took a sip. "Oh, virgin," he said.

"I wouldn't have let you have any otherwise," I said. "What are you, sixteen?"

"I'm nineteen," he said.

"That's not possible," I answered, "unless you've aged five years since 1996."

"I'm nineteen in here," he whispered confidentially. "At home I'm seventeen. Almost. In my heart, I'm a grown man. And Michael thinks I'm twenty-one, so don't blow it for me, OK?"

Michael had sat down by this time. "Harriet's little brother?" he said. "I didn't know."

Ron shrugged. "I didn't know you knew Harriet. She's my half-sister, anyway."

"How's your brother?" I asked him.

"Mr. Clean-Cut College Boy?" Ron said. "Clean cut. He still thinks if he does everything right Mom and Dad will reward him with their warm regard and approval."

"Whereas you," I said, "have chosen another route."

"Totally," he said. "I choose to be me."

"How's school?" I asked pointedly, and Ron looked pained.

"It's fine," he said, "but I don't really want to talk about it."

"Oh, that's too bad," I said. "I thought you might have been involved in all that Gay-Straight Alliance brouhaha, when the administration tried to ban the organization from the high school?"

Ron gave me a killing look, but Michael wasn't listening. "I'm going to the john," he announced, and left me alone with the precocious lad.

"So, does Harriet know you hang out in bars?"

"One bar," he said, "on swing night. And I don't drink in here. I don't want to get this place in trouble. But don't tell Harriet, OK? She figures prominently in my future plans."

"Which are?" I said.

"Well, as soon as I turn eighteen, I want to move in with her and Grandma at their new place. They've got that one room they hardly use, you know?" The room in question is half Harriet's study, half Miriam's dog supply storage room and grooming salon, and half Nona's guest room for when her daughter and grandkid come to visit, complete with a single bed, a crib, a collapsed play pen, a lifetime supply of Huggies Nona bought on sale at Kroger, and a huge turtle-shaped bin full of toddler toys. "Yeah," I said. "I know the room."

"I'm going to finish high school in a supportive environment where people don't harass me all the time about my tattoos"--I hadn't even noticed the tattoos, preoccupied as I was with the jewelry, but sure enough as soon as he mentioned them, I could see at least two peeking out from beneath the sleeves of his shirt--"and then go to the community college for a couple of years. The I'll finish up at one of the cheaper state colleges, full time if I can afford it, and part-time if I can't. I figure Harriet and Grandma can afford to help me out by letting me crash"--for five or six years, I thought wryly--"at their place."

"Aren't your parents going to send you to college?" I asked.

"Like I want to take their money. It comes with so many strings you might as well call me Pinnochio. No way. I want to be independent as quick as I can." Independent, I thought, at Grandma's house.

I saw Michael making his way back from the bathroom. "So, you know Michael's in a relationship," I said to Ron.

"With who?" Ron asked.

"My ex-husband," I said. "They just bought a condo together."

"Whatever," Ron said, pecking Michael on the cheek and standing up as Michael sat down. "I've got to go. Some friends and I are meeting for a late dinner, and then taking in Phantom Menace at the 12:01 show. First in town to see the hot summer movie! It rocks. See you next week, handsome. And you and I," he said to me, "must arrange to be invited to dinner at Grandma's on the same night. We've got so much catching up to do." He took a last sip of my daiquiri, kissed my hand, and slouched out the door, hips first.

"Nice boy," I said to Michael on the way home. "Very pretty. Acts older than his age, though."

"Oh, I don't know about that," Michael said. "He's very much like I remember being at twenty-one: full of energy, including sexual energy, enthusiastic about the world, not too clear about the future, willing to wear ridiculous clothing in order to look good. And shining with a pure, youthful beauty he doesn't even know he possesses."

Oh, he knows it all right, I thought. "Do you think he's really twenty-one?" I asked, trying to drop him a hint without betraying Ron's confidence.

"Maybe not," Michael said. "But it doesn't make any difference. It's not like I'm sleeping with him."

I thought about Michael's fingers resting familiarly on Ron's hip-bone. "And you're not going to, right?"

"Louella, I'm in a relationship with Sam," Michael said. He pulled into my driveway and turned off the engine. "Mind if I come in to say goodnight to the boys?"

"They may be asleep," I said, "but come on in." I followed him up to the door and into the house, thinking about answers that sound like answers but aren't really answers at all. I hope this turns out to be a quiet summer.

25: Tall & Tan & Young & Lovely

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