1. Personal (Otis McDonald, Mani Draper)
“I met someone,” my uncle, Thomas Livingston, said smiling.
We were in Ladoga of all places, in the backyard of my grandfather’s house. The men of my family; including my brother, my father, uncle Thomas, my aunt’s husband, and my grandfather; had met to discuss the meat situation for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. Our families would convene at my grandfather’s house on the day and it was shaping up to be a very special holiday because my grandmother would make an appearance. When my grandparents separated, it wasn’t on friendly terms and I had never known a time when the two of them were friendly to one another. Somehow, my father and his siblings had organized a ceasefire in their decades-long feud and my family would spend at least the Thanksgiving holiday in one city without feeling bad for the grandparent we wouldn’t be seeing in person. Apparently, my father’s parents were very passionate and that passion often led to fights, both verbal and physical, and my father and his siblings have stories about the police breaking up family gatherings over the years. At the Easter brawl of ’81, my grandfather had to get fourteen stitches after my grandmother hit him over the head with a wrench from his tool shed. She was convinced that he was flirting with her sister in the church, and knowing my grandfather, there is a good chance that he was.
The Livingston Valentine’s Day Massacre of ’76 is among the most cruel stories I’ve ever heard and if it’s true, if no one exaggerates any of the details, then it’s a wonder that my grandparents lasted so long together and that the proposed ceasefire would even be possible. Apparently, my grandmother had two parakeets that she loved as much as her children and my grandfather killed them both with his bare hands because he hated the noises they made. My grandfather has experience working in chicken plants, but I imagine snapping the necks of parakeets is fairly easy comparatively. My grandmother cried and cried over her dead birds and she never wanted to celebrate Valentine’s Day ever again after that. When I asked why it happened on Valentine’s Day, my dad told me that his parents were trying to have a romantic dinner at the house, but it seemed that the birds were interrupting. And my grandmother said she’d rather hear her birds sing than argue with my grandfather, and it all went downhill from there.
So needless to say, the Thanksgiving holiday was an important one and all the men of my immediate family wanted to be sure that the food situation, particularly the meats, would be delectable. But then, the day of preparation turned into another one of those long conversations with my uncle that I cherish so much. And it all started when I was standing on my grandfather’s back porch, trying my best to hide the fact that I was smoking because so many of the men of my family had been strong enough to quit and I was still struggling with the habit. At first, I thought uncle Thomas could smell the smoke and he was coming to reprimand me, but when he came out of the back door, he looked over his shoulder and turned to me like he was happy that we were alone.
“I met someone,” he said and because I noticed a hint of a smile as he said it, I assumed that my uncle was finally in a real, reciprocal, adult relationship; not like the one with his Czech friend, Petar, who I genuinely liked and hated at the same time, but that is very much another story.
“Give me one.” Uncle Thomas said.
“One what? Are you,” I practically yelled the first question and whispered the second because my uncle wasn’t exactly out of the closet to all of men of my immediate family, “dating a guy?”
“A cigarette. Just because you’re outside the smell doesn’t just disappear.”
“I thought you quit.”
“I did. I’m only smoking this one so that when I get lung cancer you feel so bad for giving it to me that you never touch another one again.”
“That’s messed up, unk.”
“I care about you.”
We both walked towards the woods near the edge of my grandfather’s backyard, hoping that no one else would come out and catch us.
“So, who is he?” I asked, elbowing my uncle.
“It’s not like that. We’re not dating. He’s just cool and we were spending a lot of time together.”
“You were spending a lot of time together?”
“Yeah, but then the weather changed. I haven’t seen him since the fall started.” Uncle Thomas took a long drag of his cigarette and I looked at him confused.
“Is he a goose? Did he fly south for the winter?”
“No. I was doing some volunteering at a community garden this past summer.”
“You could have led with that.” I’m no psychologist, but I think my uncle could be diagnosed on the Autism Spectrum. I’m convinced that his mind just works differently than most people.
“He oversaw all of the volunteers.”
“So, what happened? Tell me about him.”
“You’re going to write another story about me aren’t you?”
“Of course,” I said smiling and I patted him on the back. “But I think you knew that.”
“He actually came by the restaurant in Brooklyn passing out flyers,” uncle Thomas explained. “He was looking for help revitalizing the garden and he was reaching out to local restaurants, hoping they would volunteer and make it a shared effort. He was in the Army, but he’s been retired since he lost his leg on his last deployment. The garden will eventually sale organic stuff locally and donate to veterans’ charities. He also wants to use it as a therapy garden. He said a lot of vets worse off than him really benefited from time working in a garden.”
“His name?” I asked.
“Oh, Chuck. He’s like mid-thirties, did multiple tours in the Middle East before the injury. Very industrious guy. When he came to the restaurant, the head server introduced us because I do all of the produce orders and we talked in my office. Of course he’s attractive and all that, tall guy, muscular, but he was really nice to talk to. He said that during his physical therapy with the prosthesis, gardening really saved his life. He’d never done it before, but someone suggested it and it just worked for him. He wanted to do the garden on a large scale to make money for veterans and help as many people as he could through the therapy. He showed me his business plan and everything. I was on board immediately, it sounded like a good idea, but I was worried about other local organic sources, you know? But he was moving forward with their blessing and most of what he had planned for the garden wasn’t the specialty of any of the local growers.
“So we’re talking, talking, next thing I know the front end manager interrupts us ‘cause we had been at it for a couple hours. And when Chuck was leaving, he asked if I wanted to meet him for a drink later that night.”
“Let me guess, it was then that you realized he was into you?”
“No, I thought he just wanted to continue the conversation. He’s a veteran, Wes, I never imagined that he would be gay.”
“There are gay soldiers, unk.”
“I know, but that’s not where my mind went. We had been talking the whole time about cooking and gardening and finding new passions at different stages of life, and meeting new people based on those things. It didn’t feel sexual at all.”
“But you wouldn’t know.” I definitely wasn’t asking.
“I think I would. I’m much better about all that. Petar helped me a lot. I know I can be frustrating because, yes, there are some things that I just don’t know or how to respond to, but all the years with Petar have taught me a lot.”
“Don’t let that man make you feel bad or anything. You’re not frustrating, you’re like an innocent person before they become interested in sex. He’s the one that’s frustrated. That man probably regrets not marrying you every day of his life.”
“You’re wrong about a lot of that. I’ve never been innocent; I’ve always had a healthy sexual curiousity…”
“Yeah, but, I mean…”
“I know what you meant, and you’re wrong. Having trouble expressing sexual interest is not the same as being without sexual interest or experience. I’ve been sexually active a long time.”
I was shocked to hear that. I’ve said it before that I can’t imagine when my uncle started having sex based on things he’s told me about difficulties in his love life, so I had just assumed he must be a forty-pushing-fifty year old virgin. I looked shocked at my uncle who was smiling, but before either of us could say anything, we heard my brother Cedric behind us.
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