Prayers for Bobby - Leroy Aarons [68]
They exchanged “hi”s but not much more. Mark got the impression that Bobby was hanging now with a material crowd for whom looking good was important. He was happy that Bobby seemed to have come to terms with his sexuality. But it struck him as strange that someone with Bobby’s gentle personality would look the way he did and travel in that kind of company.
In no time, it seemed, the vacation was over. Bobby said the obligatory good-byes, but without the emotion of his first departure. He gave Ed a pair of sand-colored paratrooper pants of his that Ed had admired, then shook hands in farewell. Ed was thrilled with the gift, but offended that his brother did not give him the customary parting embrace.
Joy took Bobby to the airport. “Will you be coming back?” she asked on the way. “I mean, to stay?”
“I don’t know,” he murmured. “I want to stick it out at least till December, to show that I gave it a real try.”
At the airport, she walked him to the gate and, feeling vaguely troubled, gave him a hug. She would not see Bobby again.
Back in Portland, Bobby resumed his routine. Cousin Debbie, who also worked at Crestview Convalescent, as a nurse, noticed how glum Bobby seemed most of the time. She’d sometimes watch him leaving work and heading for the bus stop, looking weary and down. Debbie was thirty, ten years Bobby’s senior. A stout woman with brown eyes and brown hair, Debbie had little in common with her younger cousin. They got along cordially as roommates, although Bobby had his complaints. (“Debbie grates my nerves sometimes,” he wrote. “I could wring her neck and shout ‘Shut the hell up!’ Of course I restrain myself.”)
But unlike her sister, Debbie was not equipped to reach out to Bobby. She felt sympathetic and knew about his struggles as a gay person, but she was predisposed by upbringing and nature to be stoic, to believe that life is hard and you simply take it and go on. She was not someone in whom Bobby would find a confidant. Relations between Bobby and Jeanette had improved, and were in fact almost back to normal, but they lived at opposite ends of town and Bobby had no car.
“It occurred to me how idiotic it is to be keeping a journal like this,” he told his diary on Wednesday, August 10.
I write down my deepest innermost feelings and if anyone read them, I’d be at their mercy. Sometimes I just have to write things down if I don’t happen to have someone to talk to.
Two days later, on Friday, he reported to his journal that he had gone downtown on a “small-scale shopping spree” and bought two jockstraps, a pair of sweats, and a few other items. “I was going to mow the lawn, but the lawn mower is having difficulties.”
The following Wednesday, August 17, still in a housekeeping mode, he took the bus to the Saint Vincent de Paul store and purchased a mattress and box spring for seventy-nine dollars. Delivery was set for the following Tuesday.
Toward the end of the week, Jeanette called: “Let’s go dancing Friday night, just you and me.” Bobby joyously accepted. She could tell he was feeling lonely. She had missed him, too. The love they had for one another was intact.
It was a great night. They both loved to dance, and they both were tireless. The Embers Club, a hot dance spot, had a driving disco sound with giant amps and ear-piercing speakers. Bobby swigged bottled water (he could down the booze, but it was never a big attraction for him) and sweated it out almost instantly. They had individual styles, but when they boogied together it looked almost choreographed. This was something Bobby felt he could do well, and in concert with his beloved cousin, bodies pulsing in harmony, the moment was sheer pleasure.
They stayed till 4 A.M. Finally exhausted, Jeanette drove Bobby home in