RANDY & PATRICIA CALL IT A DAY

RANDY & PATRICIA CALL IT A DAY

By: Randy Gillis

It’s hard to describe the moment it happened.  Patricia and I were huddled together in my office, staring at Facebook.  It was Friday, June 26, 2015 at about 10:00 a.m.  We knew the decision on ‘gay marriage,’ ‘marriage equality,’ or ‘end-of-the-world (depending on your personal alliances),’ or however else you’d like to refer to it, could come down today which would be an awesome kick-off to Pride weekend and the anniversary of the Stonewall riots (the night all this shit got started). 

Not-to-mention making it much easier to remember for future anniversary celebrations.   We also knew it was down to the wire.  If it wasn’t today, it would definitely be Monday.  Our fingers were crossed.  We were watching Facebook as it is the fastest news source currently available. 

I glanced over at Patricia.  She was staring at the screen with an almost nervous expression, something rarely seen, by me anyway.  I couldn’t help but to think back to that day in 1972, on the playground of the elementary school, during recess, when a scary 10-year-old tomboy walked over to where I was sitting (far away from all the other kids), and quietly crying.  She plopped down beside me and asked why all the waterworks.  But how does a 10-year-old boy express in words the agony of reading in TIGER BEAT that David Cassidy is a ‘has-been’ and that Donnie Osmond is now cock-of-the-walk.  But I rambled my best effort, explaining all the levels of David Cassidy’s superiority in admittedly obsessive detail.


When I looked at her face, I thought that maybe I had made a mistake by confiding so much about my unshakable loyalty to the eldest Partridge because she seemed somewhat stunned.  She then spent the next 10 minutes lecturing me on why Susan Dey was the only Partridge with any real talent.  And we’ve been bickering ever since.

What followed was 4 decades of love, support, spats, love, anger, hate, love, loyalty, boredom, but always, always love.  We leaned on each other and kept the world at bay.  Okay, I did most of the leaning, but Patricia didn’t seem to mind.  I remember that one time some redneck kid started harassing me on the street and then having to intervene before Patricia did any real damage. 

I remember sneaking around the library and finding only a few cards in the card catalog (for all you youngens, a card catalog was like a manual Google) with the word ‘homosexual’ on it, finding the books and reading them secretly between the stacks and being horrified by what I read.  It was all terrible and it all ended in death.  It was Patricia who put it all into perspective with one simple proclamation.  ‘Fuck it.’ 

Then, I thought about our own well-intentioned but misguided wedding.  We were going to change the world by making lots of gabies.  Hind sight is always 20/20, plus I had a suspicion (that I kept to myself) that Patricia was premenopausal.  But our bond was never stronger. 

And here we are, the moment of truth.  Shortly after 10:00, and there it was.  ‘BREAKING: The Supreme Court just made gay marriage legal everywhere in the United States!’ And then, well, my newsfeed exploded with rainbows and with pictures and videos of a weary but elated community.  It was finally done.  Scars from years of torment, arguing, self-doubt, shame, fleeting suicidal thoughts,  coming out, the new-found determination to never again be shamed by others, the anger, the parades, the marches, the sign-waving, the defeats and the victories, all seemed to fall away.

I looked over and tears were streaming down Patricia’s face.  I’ve never seen that before.  She’s just not the crying kind.  I, on the other hand, cry at a Kleenex commercial.  She grabbed me and pulled me into a bear hug, our tears mingling as we sobbed cheek-to-cheek.  She leaned back and, laughing, wiped the tears from my face.  “I love you, you old queer,” she said.  “I love you too,” I choked out. 

 

Only, my tears were from a different place.  Journeys begin and journeys end, and I knew, just as surely as Antonin Scalia’s heart pumps a thick, oily, ooze that my journey with Patricia was over.  She is still a grade-A prime lesbian, and she deserved the happiness that all those years have built to.  I couldn’t continue holding on.  I had to let her go.

 

 

As we were dancing around the kitchen, or rather, as Patricia slung me around the kitchen a few times, I never felt more disoriented (and not from the spinning).  In that one headline, everything changed.  It felt like a beginning and an ending, a death and a birth, all at once.

Patricia let my hand go and took off toward the back door.  She turned around and, with tears still streaking down her face said, “It’s really a new world now, isn’t it.”  “It is indeed my love,” I smiled, wiping a new batch of tears myself.  She smiled again, blew me a kiss, and she was gone.

Goodbye Patricia.