Prayers for Bobby - Leroy Aarons [48]
Bobby soon discovered to his delight that there were several lesbians among the thirteen or so assembly-line workers. Once they had come out to one another, Bobby and the women formed a tight little clique, chatting in code, bopping to the latest rock hits on the radio, and occasionally sneaking in booze during the night shift.
Bobby bonded with Alice Hamilton, Alice’s lover, Diane Haines, and two others at the worktable. Their presence, he wrote, “is the only reason I stay. I don’t feel so alone in the world.”
There was an underground feeling to the gay circle. CalFrame was Mormon owned, and many of the employees were Mormon, especially the print-division workers across the driveway—mainly male jock types driving forklifts. Though it was tacitly known that Alice and Diane were a pair, the gay group kept a sub-rosa buzz going while discreetly avoiding obvious provocations.
Their secret phrase for gay was “on a bike.” When a good-looking man came through, Alice, twenty-one and nearly six feet tall, plump and brassy, would ask in an audible stage whisper, “Hey, Bobby, is he on a bike?”
Bobby would reply, “I don’t know, but I’d love to find out!”
The radio blared throughout each shift, cycling with numbing repetition the hot groups of the early 1980s: Blondie and “Eat to the Beat,” the all-girl Go-Go’s, the Human League, the Cars (Bobby’s favorite group, with its hit “Shake It Up”).
They played Name That Tune, giving points for the first one to guess a song. They especially loved Devo’s “Whip It.” When it came on, their group would drop to the floor and writhe to the music; they’d twitch and roll about, “doing the bacon” and laughing.
They contrived to beat the system. They’d occasionally take long lunches, or sneak out early. One night they conspired to smuggle in a bottle of liquor for the night crew. Bobby took part enthusiastically.
He had his antic side. But it seemed to the women that while Bobby yearned to break loose, he didn’t know how to fully enjoy himself. Alice noticed the sad eyes behind the laughter, the need to be the “good boy.” Part of Bobby was always observing, watching to see others’ reactions. She thought of him as a tap dancer, always on his toes.
Once, returning from the lunch truck that showed up daily on the premises, Bobby asked Diane, “Did they say something about me?” “Of course not,” she replied. It may not have been all paranoia. The Mormon crew was capable of muttering slurs when Bobby or one of the lesbian group came by.
Typically, Bobby suffered in silence, venting his fury in his journal:
I hate the assholes across the street…. They can all burn in hell for all I care…. They’re cruel and insensitive. One of these days I’ll give them a piece of my mind when they catch me not caring about what in the fuck anyone else thinks.
The burden of differentness weighed on him. Alice and the blond, shapely Diane, also twenty-one, were two years older, self-accepting, and ages more worldly than Bobby. They could assume the role of guru. He said to Alice during one of their long talks about gay life over the assembly line, “If I could only know that it gets easier afterward. But it’s just so hard.”
Alice assured him, “It takes a while, but it does get better.” Yet she and Diane were not so sure the message would sink in. Bobby’s self-image seemed frayed. He dreamed of being a model, but worried constantly over chronic facial acne. He never confided much about his family, but he did let it be known that they did not approve of his activities.
That impression was confirmed for Alice and Diane by Joy, who seemed to them both to love her brother deeply while looking askance at his lifestyle. (Joy’s journal for that summer records, “Bobby is such a sweet person. Everyone loves him dearly. His talents, depth, understanding. I know he’d love to love, take care, be taken care of, loved by some girl of the same wonderful characteristics,