We’re
not
alone. We’re loved. People come up to us after we’ve spoken about our lives together, and theytell us we’re loved.
Tammy begins churning out articles for several local gay publications about violence, legislation, and other issues that concern us. We both get a huge thrill when
Out! Magazine
publishes one of his pieces.
We have family. So do Ma, Stacy, Sharon and Natalie, who have discovered countless new friends at the local chapter of PFLAG.At the GayPride parade in San Francisco, Natalie meets a couple from Idaho who married several years ago. She often visits them, and becomes such a great friend of theirs that they will eventuallyask her to surrogate a babyfor them!
We get birthday, Easter and Christmas cards from Marilyn, Sylvie and Alice, Patti, Deanna, Tammy’s old boss at the Davis station, Pete Bloom, Mrs. Cooke, Officers Lord and Howard, and even ol’ Paulina Holstein, if you can believe that.
We meticulously plan our cat sanctuary. All around the property, we build runs that allow cats to flee from the always possible coyote or hawk and take shelter in a covered kennel, while letting them choose between sleeping or dwelling inside or outside. We stock up on food, litter boxes, medicines, beds, and catnip toys. We name the shelter the Lloyd C. Tafford Cat Sanctuary and we adopt every starving stray and condemned-todeath shelter animal we can until we have nearly eighty cats and twenty dogs within the first year. Tammy decides to write a book about our brainchild. His second book is a work of fiction based on our lives and the inspiration for our shelter, Lloyd.
We all take care of the sanctuaryduring the day, and three or four nights a week, Tammy, Stacy and Ma take over while I minister to hospice patients with HIV and AIDS along the Mendocino coast. I have a pager on me at all times, and frequently, I find myself driving late at night to sit by a patient and their grieving partner until the sun is up and the patient is either feeling better for the moment or laying peaceful in his bed, his body still, his skin translucent. It’s a job that leaves me sad on some days, but it’s rewarding in ways I’ve never dreamed.
I also work one weekend a month as a telephone counselor for gay youths who are suicidal. Tammy feels the call and comes aboard a short time after. We collaborate on everything, Tammy and I, and we’re doing God’s work. We both feel the call to help, to reach out to people who are going through what we’ve been through.
I wake up every morning with a reason to get up and out of bed with him.
He’s mystrength as much as I am his.
I’ve finally learned to harden myself against those who hate me and Tammy and everyone like us, spewing their scriptures of damnation. I’ve learned to use their own tactics against them. “Well, some religions don’t believe in eating shellfish,” and “Some churches are against blood transfusion and life-saving surgeries,” and “What about hermaphrodites? They are both male and female. What if a hermaphrodite went to one of those churches that don’t believe in cosmetic surgery? What if a hermaphrodite had a surgery to become a man and later discovered “he” feels more female than male? Is he going to hell too?” And, “We’re all female at the beginning of gestation…can it be possible that some of us men still have ‘female’ brains?” The dogmatics I tryto talk to won’t listen, but I’m not going to keep silence. I’m tired of being bullied, and I’m tired of being lied about by people like James Dobson, Dubya and the charming people behind California’s Proposition 8.
I’ve learned that sometimes anger can make me stronger, if it’s the right kind of anger. I get mad at the waysome people think they know more about God than the rest of us, the way they think they’re more entitled to God’s love than others. Tammy and I are like any family. We pray. No, we don’t get down on our knees together and pray for hours, but we do pray, almost every night before bed. We know God listens, and that He/She cares.
I’ve quit smoking, so needless to say, I’ve quit burning myself. I’ve replaced tobacco with red licorice.And I blow bubbles. I take a little bottle of bubbles with me wherever I go. The clean scent and the white film of soapy dish bubbles permeates our home.
I’ve become accustomed to eating more than just one small daily meal. I’ve gained a little weight…maybe seven pounds or so…Tammy seems to like it…a lot…he can’t keep his damn hands off me…
And he’s been wanting something new from me that I haven’t been too comfortable about. One night, he asks once again if I’ll “top” him.
“Trade places with me,” he whispers.
“Oh, Tammy…I can’t…it seems too
mannish
for me…” “You
are
a man,” he reminds me with a smile.
“I know,” I sigh. I’ve just never felt like I want to do that. Awhile
back (Actually, it was during a little excursion to the coast, before we moved there for good, a badly needed getaway after Tammy’s horrified reaction to those terrible photos), I appeased him by using myfingers. It was wonderful, watching him, feeling that little gland swelling as myfingers grazed against it. He began to touch himself, and I grabbed his hand, gesturing, “Let me...”
I do that again tonight. One hand caressing him in front, one hand maneuvering my fingers, I watch him writhe and thrust restlessly, wordlessly begging me for more. I love the faces he’s making. “You’re so beautiful, Tammy…”
He smiles, closes his eyes, and watching his amazing, erotic dance, watching his soft lips parting as sighs of pleasure float past them, watching his dark green eyes open halfway…my heart beats harder in my throat, so hard, I can barely speak as I pull myfingers awayand cry, “Tammy, I want to be inside of you…”
“I want you inside of me,” he answers desperately. “I don’t want to hurt you!”
“I don’t care if you hurt me,” Tammy moans. “All I care about
is whether you love me.”
“I do love you, Tammy.”
“I
know
you do…”
As I put on a condom for the first time in my life, I’m so
scared I’m going to be clumsy and hurt him, and the old terrible fear that I’m turning into myown father tries to snatch the moment away from us, but I rebuke it, like I always have to, and shove it away.
As I gentlyenter myhusband’s bodyfor the first time…I watch his face below mine, feel his body around me…he’s the most beautiful, selfless person on earth…I feel so safe, so warm…I feel so loved…within him…His body belongs to me as much as mine belongs to him…I know that so acutely at this moment…
Does he have any idea howmuch he’s given to me? Howmuch he’s giving to me now? Does he knowwhat he’s sharing with me?
Of course he
must
know…because he loves me, and wants me to feel what he feels when he’s inside of me…I do…I feel it…
Does he know how much I love him? Does he know, really, howimportant, howutterly priceless he is to me?
There’s nobodylike him, nobodyin the world. He wanted me to feel what he feels…and now I know. “You’re so beautiful,” I tell him. “You’re so wonderful…”
His body contracts around me, bear-hugs me, crushes me, loves me.
“I love you, Tammy,” I gasp.
“I know you love me, Baby,” he whispers.
He
knows
…
We’re one flesh…
He calls me, “Baby,” and I call him “Tammy,” or “Sweetie,” or “Honey.” Now, unbelievable as it seems, I can play with him, and call him, “Daddy,” without feeling guilty or dirty or disgusting, without giving my biological sire more than a perfunctory mental
and he knows I love him, and what we have is honest and beautiful and healthy…We’re part of something wonderful. We’re happy. We’re happy…at last…
We’re on a journeythat will never end.
This is part of the testimonial we give to our community.
No…it’s not perfect every single minute…when you’re a victim of hate, it’s never easy to sort through all the shit and recover yourself. You’re in pieces and it takes the whole rest of your life to find each one and bring it back into you. Unlike in fairy tales, true love cannot totally erase everything I’ve suffered. I still have nightmares, but not as often now. I still struggle with bitterness and doubt. I still have trouble with that peskyshame I’ve known all mylife. It pops up when myguard is down, and Tammy helps me with it, and I help him when his guilt rises out of nowhere and tries to slap him down.
I stopped asking myparents, “Why?” after mywedding night. I actuallystopped.
Because there is no why…I have to accept that.
And I have to forgive them.
Forgiveness. It took nearly dying for me to realize that I have to forgive those who have hurt me, that only forgiveness can free me of myhatred. It’s for me, not them.
It’s taken a long, long, time, but I finally realize my parents had something terribly wrong in their souls. I loved them so much…then I hated them. Now I simply pity them. I have a life. Theydon’t.
As for forgiving Yvette, Benny, Lydia, Ray and Cantrell…well, I’m still working on it…
Tammy often says he feels that Lloyd is looking down from heaven with love and pride and happiness, and sometimes I find myself almost believing it, believing that our loved dead watch over us as we struggle through life. The day I married Tammy in Vancouver, I wondered if indeed Lloyd was up there watching us, overjoyed, knowing that we’re both safe, and happy. And I wondered if, at last, my Dad was able to breathe a sigh of relief before retiring to a silver cloud he now calls his bed.
But I keep remembering that passage from the Bible about the dead knowing nothing, and it gives me solace when I ponder the visions I had of Lloyd, as I fought for life in that orange grove. The apparitions of Lloyd and of myattackers and myparents, well, theymight have been real, in their way, who knows?And naturally, I’d love to believe Lloyd was there to comfort and encourage me as I tried to find mywayin the dark.
But when I think of him actually witnessing the gruesome, indefensible way in which I was beaten, the nefarious things that were said and done to me, the long, frigid night I spent in that orchard, when I imagine how helpless and angry and terrified he felt while he beheld the events of that horrible night, I truly prefer believing that my visit from Lloyd was a mirage, a reverie, completely hallucinatory, and that in actuality, he’s asleep, safe in God’s arms, blissfully unaware of the course of my life since his death, even if I am happynow.
To be absent from the body is to be present with God
. And years from now, when Tammy and I are separated by death, whoever dies first will float in that warm, welcoming womb of darkness, asleep, oblivious to the world below, in the presence of a loving and merciful God. When we’re both deceased, I don’t want us aware and missing each other. I don’t want us wandering in the dark, calling for each other, receiving no answers, lonely, traversing the universe alone…
My voice did return, for good, that breezy, twilit July evening during
The Jack Benny Program
.
On the blackened, industrialized coast of downtown Fort Bragg sits a warehouse-turned-bar and grill. It’s called The Wharf, and now we, Old Reliable, Stacy, Natalie, Tammy and I, have found a new place to indulge our karaoke fetish. In the dimly-lit room filled with drippy white candles and waitresses who wear hairnets and smell of fish and frying grease, Ma and Aunt Sharon sit at a table in the front, munching on garlic bread and crispy French fries, falling off the wagon and dipping them into the most delicious nonvegan buttermilk ranch dressing in the world, using almost an entire bottle until there’s barelyanyleft for the big green salad.
They sit, eating until they’re both ready to pop, cheering us on, along with a houseful of old, salt-coated fishermen who’ve found that theylove New Wave and Jammin’ Oldies.
Mysincere thanks to mycousin, Leslie Purkeyand to my mother, Joan Johnson, for being the first readers of
Crush
and providing your honest feedback.
To myfriends BeckyBaron, Joel Moran, PatsyMoran, Bonny York, Heidi Rose, Sherrie Harris, Annie Kelly, Cheryl Headford, and CathyWitbrodt, for your enthusiasm and support. I know I’ve
To Mark Coker and the amazing people at Smashwords… thank you for publishing
Crush
as an eBook and for tirelessly working to help dreamers like me share our work with the world. Thanks to Debbie McGowan and the staff at Beaten Track Publishing in England for reading, proofing and helping me to spread the word about
Crush
.
To my“kids,” who I will always love and miss wherever they go, and wherever theyare:
Ted, Sals, Sam, Toby, LeeLoo, Sylvester, Ginger, Pepper, Sugar, Patsy, Misty, Mollie and Baby.
Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays pflag.org
American Societyfor the
Prevention of Crueltyto Animals aspca.org