That afternoon I went to BC’s boyhood home. His father was there, looking great for being 93 and still sharp as a tack. Brother Billy was there of course, drunk as usual. And Sister Bar. So much history in that living room, the first time I entered that room I was 19 and scared to death. Now I was 54 and this time I had no strong emotion. You can’t be too sad when someone dies at 93. But it was odd. Not seeing BC’s Mom there with that sweet smile. Mom had a special naivety and gentle grace. She adored BC and since I did too she loved me.
Mom was a devoted Anglophile. She loved all things British. She always observed tea time. And she always beamed when BC and I arrived with scones, clotted cream, and strawberry jam. David Niven, Cary Grant, and Vincent Price were her favourite actors. I got soaked by rain while waiting in a line to get Vincent Price to autograph one of his cookbooks so I could give it to her for Christmas. You often found Mom engrossed in a worn, dog eared copy of an Agatha Christie mystery that knew she had read a dozen times already. When BC and lived in London, we brought Mom over to stay with us for the summer one year. We served as her tour guides, chauffeurs, valets, and dinner companions. She had the time of her life. And God, how she glowed when we took her for tea at the Palm Court in the Ritz.
There was a visitation the next day, followed by a funeral mass. I laughed, standing there in the nave of St. Vincent de Paul, remembering Monsignor Connelly’s words. I had been an altar boy and president of the CYO at the Houston/Galveston diocese. And the good Monsignor had hoped to snag me for the priesthood. He had heard so many of my confessions and his penances were never much. But he wasn’t happy when I told him I was gay. We had several heated discussions and one shouting match which occurred in the very same nave. I yelled that I rejected the Church and it’s condemnation of my love for BC. And I promised I would never set foot in his church again. He pointed his finger at me shouting “You will be back.” And he was right. You can be a lapsed Catholic till the end of your life but you always are a Catholic. And here I stood, one more time, back in his church,
but still unrepentant.
I spent that afternoon driving by old haunts; my parents home, my high school, theatres I had acted in, houses BC and I had owned, old neighbourhoods; and even that hideous, vast, frigid air conditioned, temple to conspicuous consumption, the Galleria. I didn’t feel anything at any of those places. I was saying my goodbyes. Just before closing I went back to the cemetery where that large flat granite marker lay, chiselled with BC’s name and that of his parents. BC and I had hadn’t put out burial wishes in writing. I let his father decide. Besides that idea of a disco mausoleum with a light show and Gloria Gaynor blaring from the speakers would never have worked. I put the flowers I brought into their holder. Then I took the photo out of my suit pocket, knelt, and put it between the flowers. It was the photo of BC and I, with Mom smiling in the middle, tightly holding our hands taken that day at the Ritz. Then I left. Houston is the past. I headed home the next day. I drove back to TN and looked to the future.
*** Addendum ***After reading the last two posts I almost wanted to stick my tongue into a light socket. Next week I think I’ll write about lesbian whores, that blind cat, and the night the horse crapped onstage.
