Gay militants in my basement, part II

The first thing they tell parents at those college orientation things is try not to make any dramatic life changes when they first leave home. But of course that is when everybody makes their dramatic life changes, and my parents were no exception. No sooner had I stickygummed my posters, than they divorced and sold the house. They split custody of the buses, with one going to my father’s condo and one to my mother’s townhouse, which was a new build. Thus did I find myself in the awkward position of telling our busdriver I really did live here but I was not quite sure which house.

I go to check on my father and stepmother (then his girlfriend) concerned – I admit it – that they might be uncomfortable about the proposition. My first trip home – can you imagine that phone call? Yeah, college is great,… yeah, classes are hard, sure, yeah, here’s the thing…

Well, of course they were gracious, so shame on me for not giving them credit (In my defense, in the years that followed, we had quite a few discussions about matters of sexual orientation that were, to say the least, not productive. Yet, for all that, difficult to say where stepmother really stands. Cagey, that one.)

Stepmother has cooked up a storm. Dad has cornered my friend. Let’s call her Grace Jones, as she had that haircut and that righteous demeanor. He’s bought a CD player and one CD – the Star Wars soundtrack – in order best to demonstrate the surround-sound feature. When all is said and done, the only observation he will make about the whole event will be how impressive he found her. This will blow my mind. Not that she doesn’t kick *ss. She totally does. But I had to see my dad in a whole new light knowing that he got how kick *ss Grace was.

Come the day of the march, we all bus and metro into DC, in our home-made pink triangle shirts, building excitement with each new group that boards, placards and flyers in hand. Whereupon my high school bud, Turtleduck, absconds with my erstwhile boyfriend, and they spend the day museum-hopping OR WHATEVER instead of experiencing the transformative moment. There, see? It ended happy for poor Fosco. How’s that, Turtleduck?