Salvation

Only when I think back on the night I saved Ronnie from his attackers do I realize how emotionally detached I had become that year. How else to explain how calmly I drove us away from the 7-11, how chilly but not cruel I was when I turned down his offer of a thank you blowjob when I dropped him off in the alley. That I wasn't more astounded is proof enough for me that there was not just a gulf between my temporal lobe and my prefrontal cortex, but quite possibly a wall. Brick and mortar. Maybe corrugated steel. Something that would rattle and echo when you banged on it.

After all, I didn't even know Ronnie was gay until that night and the moment before he knocked on my car window and begged for rescue, I had just been on a quick trip to buy cigarettes.

Only a handful of months before, Ronnie and I had stood near each other in the Salvation Army Thrift Store, where I was a glorified cashier called assistant supervisor, and he was a general helper who picked up and moved furniture. He was trying to push back on some work I'd given him to do that day and when I put my hand on my hip to stand my ground, disgust slitted his eyes and twisted his lips.

He said, "Come on, man. Don't be a fag."

I can still remember the chill that overtook me when he said that. It wasn't like I had to worry about being outed. I was an open book as far as that went, which is not to say I talked about my sexuality at all. I just didn't care what you inferred by my walk, my clothes, or where my eyes might roam if you were watching my every movement. Still, no one was usually bold enough to use a derogatory term in front of me.

What made it worse was that we weren't alone. Alice was there with us, watching the exchange from behind a pair of glasses that made her faded brown eyes bulge like a staring owl. In order of rank at the store, there was Wanda the manager, Alice her assistant, and theoretically me. I didn't have any real power and never felt like I did. When Ronnie said the word 'fag', she blinked at me to gauge my reaction. There was definitely curiosity in the tilt of her head. I was too frozen to respond and she eventually threw up her hands.

"Everyone back to work. Ronnie, get those mattresses off the truck. Please. Paul, I need you back at the register before we turn the sign." She had turned first toward the cargo bay and then toward the front of the store as she talked, each time pointing us toward our tasks with both hands, fingers flat and arms stiff like an aircraft marshaller.

She was never usually this authoritative. Maybe she was the kind of person who was priceless in a crisis and useless under any other circumstance. I had written her off as useless a long time ago. Certainly now I think she should have handled things differently, told Ronnie not to call his coworkers names. This was the Salvation Army and an impassioned plea for LGBTQ dignity would have been a lot to expect then or now.

---

In 1995, I lived in a house with thin walls and groaning floors, an oldish sort of place in the historic part of town. It was just around the block from the thrift store and the easiest work commute I ever had in my life. Two years earlier, the house had been rented by four students when they were in the earlier and easier years of college. By the time they got to their senior year, the stakes were higher, their stress levels were toxic, and they had begun to turn on each other.

It was a Lord of the Flies situation.

The nursing students won over the musical theater majors and took the house. Luckily for me, I was friends with the winners and they offered me one of the empty rooms just as I was needing new digs. The nursing students weren't as colorful as the theater kids, but they were more grounded and definitely had better drugs.

This house was lean and mean, rough and ugly, from its peeling paint to its dingy wood floors. No amount of Mop n Glow could make those old pine boards shine. Similarly, the storm windows had somehow been etched by leaf rot or acid rain or something so that they never came entirely clean. The world always looked humid and overcast from inside that house, no matter how sparkling and blue the day was outside. My friend April, the main boss from the winning nursing student faction, had made curtains for the kitchen with a pattern or citrus cross-sections whirling on a white ground. Those yellow, orange, and green slices were the only colors that house was unable to sap of cheer.

My room was the lone one on the ground floor, a room by itself, just off the foyer, that had probably once been a formal living room. It had a door with glass at the top that one of the theater majors had tacked some white fabric over and left behind. It did not make the room feel any more private. I heard every coming and going and could read the moods of my roommates by the way their feet sounded on the steps.

There was the light, quick footfalls of a Saturday with no deadlines, usually accompanied by a call up the stairs, something carefree like, "We should take Norma for a walk!" That was April's dog, a sleepy-eyed Basset hound that had eaten the sofa, menaced the moldings, and pulverized my Birkenstocks. After a long day of clinicals, the future nurses of America took the steps with slow but leaden feet as they headed up to their bedrooms to crash or cram. When they were pissed about something or, as it sometimes happened, with one another, it sounded like an elephant was smashing its way through the treads. This was usually followed by a slamming door and a woeful howl from Norma.

Because the walls were thin, I heard things from outside, too. My room ran alongside an alley that cut between the backyards of nice old Victorians on one street and crooked little townhouses on another. There was always someone tripping their way along that alley when the bars closed downtown, probably using it as a cut through to keep from getting put in the tank. There were times when people argued with each other out there in the shadows. Slurred insults and rekindled past injuries were hurled back and forth. If it went on long enough, the anger would usually subside as one voice became cajoling and the other tearful.

I eventually figured out that most of the time these arguments were happening between a very short Black man named Teeny and his big-boned White girlfriend, Tonya. They lived in one of the apartments of the tipsy-looking townhouses. If you happened to walk along the alley in daylight, maybe to see just how far the spring daffodils ran among the weeds, you might see them sitting on the steps of the deck at the back of their building, Teeny sitting on the step above Tonya, brushing her hair, while they each let a cigarette smolder in the corners of their mouths. They seemed relaxed and perfectly matched when they weren't drunk.

The year I lived with the nurses, something got under my skin that left me feeling a little depressed. It may have been because my job at the Salvation Army Thrift Store was easy and I could not relate to the currents of emotion and stress the nursing students carried in and out of the house with their massive book bags and impossibly cheerful scrubs. A pattern of purple baby bunnies written all over their bodies could not disarm the murder in their reddened eyes, the panic in their sloppy top knots and white knuckled grip on the stair railing. I am something of an empath and definitely was internalizing that raw, nervous energy, but the very space had started to nibble away at my sense of well being. It was partly because my bedroom was always cold, partly because I heard Teeny and Tonya tearing each other down in stereo each Friday night, and partly because of the dingy floors and foggy windows. It started to seem like there was no way to put a shine on life.

More than that, I was starting to see what the future looked like, and it was not going to be easy. As the year had progressed, I had felt more and more estranged from my house mates. When they graduated in the spring, they would scatter back to their home towns. April was returning to Richmond. Alex would start her life in Fairfax. Only I would be left to figure out what to do and, finding myself feeling friendless and alone suddenly, I had no one to talk to about my future. Mostly I just didn't look at it much. I took my morning showers, fought with my curly hair, threw on some clothes and went to work. Afterward, I came home, smoked pot and cigarettes, ate junk, and read or listened to CDs. Rinse and repeat. This was how I let the late winter days and nights progress until those daffodils were back in the alley, a carpet of yellow scattered with a confetti of bluish gravel. Looking out on that patch of color did not bring a smile to my lips; it was simply a reminder that I was running out of time to start making decisions.

---

The night I went to buy cigarettes at the 7-11, I probably could have walked. It was only about five blocks away. In a city, you'd definitely have hoofed it. In a country town you might have, too, but for some reason I did not. Considering how often I smoked and how badly I ate back then, I probably was not excited by the idea of a brisk walk.

It was a relief to get out of the house, if even for a few minutes. April had started to take down the pictures she'd bought at thrift stores to decorate the house. They would go to Richmond with her in a couple of weeks. The bare walls and nail holes were a reminder that I still had not made plans. She had asked me one night in March what I wanted to to do, if I wanted her to transfer the lease to me and look for roommates of my own. I blew it off. Truthfully, I was feeling cool toward her by then. Maybe I was a little offended by too many of her dirty looks when I proposed an outing and she had to study, but mostly I think I was just protecting myself from the sorrow of a future good-bye by distancing myself. A family trait I carry very well is the ability to give off a chill. When I left the house that night, she was standing in the upper landing, pulling nails out of the wall. She didn't turn around to say hi and I eased the door closed without a word.

I was heading out of the convenience store when I saw Ronnie ambling across the parking lot with a limp. Middle sized and middle aged, Ronnie was a White guy with a bulbous nose, thick glasses, and a walrus mustache the color of weak coffee. At work he usually wore Dickie brand blue overalls and matching shirt. His hair was messy and he talked with such an exaggerated lisp he sounded like a cartoon character. His lips were thick and his teeth looked like a picket fence that lost a fight with a backhoe. That may have made it hard for him to speak clearly. He was a curious-looking person at any time, but that night he was not like his normal self.

That night at the 7-11 he was wearing tight jeans, big white sneakers, and a band t-shirt spotted with blood. He was also wearing a head-scarf with long tails. It was almost like it was Halloween and he was going as Steven Tyler's mic stand. It made him seem like an utterly different person, perhaps not surprising for a man who openly went by two different names.

I have worked with people who went by more than one name three times in my life. Maybe for each of them, they intersected with me just as they were going through some traumatic life change. There was Gloria/Christine, who cleaned at a campground I managed, and moved around like a zombie, exhausted from babysitting grandkids or maybe just high on ammonia. Gloria/Christine didn't give a shit which name you called her as long as you called someone else if the toilets were clogged.

Then there was a waitress at The Ground Round named Kim or Ginger. Some people she let call her Ginger. I was in the camp she asked to call her Kim. There was no knowing whether she liked you more or less depending on which camp she put you in, because she was equally distant and mysterious with everyone. She was as beautiful as an old movie star and I always romanticized a story about her running from a dangerous man. She had honey colored hair and skin and a thick southern accent.

And then there was Ronnie, who also went by John.

He went by John when he took on the seasonal job of ringing the donation bell for the Salvation Army every Christmas. He took that extra job more seriously than his usual one, moving furniture. He wore a long coat like a Victorian caroler and combed his hair back from his face. He had the scrubbed up skin and slick polish of a drunk headed to church. He put everything into that job and rang that bell like he got paid a dollar for every ding-a-ling.

And he sang Christmas carols just like his long coat implied. His voice was flat and heavy, but his smile was so wide and jolly you could count all the places where teeth ought to be from all the way across a parking lot. He was a favorite among the Salvation Army higher ups when it came to the donation drive and, strangely, he had a bit of a reputation in town as the enthusiastic bell ringer that always got parked out at the JCPenney. Over the winter, I had taken the seasonal job of picking up and dropping off the bell ringers and their kettles of money, so I had seen first hand the corny church types who stopped and pointed Ronnie out to their small fry, saying, "Isn't that great, Chrissy? How dedicated that man is to the Lord's work?"

When I saw him, I hastened to get my car started because some instinct told me that if he saw me, he'd ask a favor. A group of Black guys in wife beaters crossed the parking lot slowly and I was thankful they'd make a shield between my car and the front glass of the store. Maybe I'd get out before Ronnie spotted me. But as the car ignited and I reached for the gear shift, there was a tap on the passenger door glass. Before I looked up I knew it would be him.

"Come on, man, open up," Ronnie said. He was pitching his voice to be heard through the glass, but keeping it down, too. It lent an air of danger to his urgent tone, his wildly roving eyes. "These guys are trying to get me."

I'm sure my face said, 'Oh fuck.'

He tapped on the glass again, mouthed 'please' with his hands together in front of him like a child saying a prayer. Letting out a sigh, I reached over and unlocked the car door. He was in the seat before my arm was back on my side of the car.

"Go, go, go," he said.

"What's wrong?" I could see now that he also had some blood on the side of his face.

"Just go!"

I backed up and pulled away just as the group of guys emerged from the 7-11 and started to peer into all the cars. Ronnie lowered his face and said, "You've gotta get out of here now."

"I'm trying," I said.

They spotted us just as I threw the car back into drive and bolted forward and out of the parking lot. One of them made that threatening gesture that some men do, a sort of mock lunge, bringing a fist into their palm with a lick of the lips, like a dog straining at a chain and already tasting dinner.

"I can't believe they jumped me," he said.

I had already stopped being curious. Strangely, I never asked him if he should go to a hospital. Maybe there was a good reason I wasn't one of the nursing students in the house. I just drove up the street slowly, waiting for him to tell me what he needed.

But he didn't tell me where to go immediately. He was still processing what happened to him. He glanced back through my rear window to make sure we weren't being followed. Then he put a hand up to the side of his head.

"I shouldn't have agreed to go over to his house," he said.

I didn't ask who he was talking about. I didn't care.

"I just wanted that big Black dick so bad."

Now I was listening.

I didn't look over at him but I was waiting. He didn't say anything more for a time. Maybe he was giving me time to absorb what he had essentially confessed to me. Now his strange outfit made a tragic sort of sense. He had traded in his blue overalls for a look that, at least in his mind, might go over well with a Black man. He had basically gotten himself dolled up for a date. Then something bad had happened.

"I just didn't think it would go like that."

"Where can I take you?" Even Ronnie had to have friends. Or maybe he would ask me to drop him off at the Salvation Army headquarters. He wouldn't have to tell them everything. He could just say he got attacked by some Black guys. They'd eat that shit up and never ask more questions.

"I know a guy. I'll be safe there. Drive me up to Fairmont Avenue."

I made a turn at the next four way stop.

"Why you going that way?" he asked. His voice sounded more like work day Ronnie now, whiny and frustrated, like he could do my job better than me of only the higher ups could see it.

"Ronnie, I'm doing you a favor." His nerves had gotten in me and now my voice had a hard edge it usually did not. Maybe it got through to him. He settled back into the seat.

"Yeah, I know."

We were getting closer to the part of town he asked to be taken to and minutes had gone by without a word between us. What could we say? I was a somewhat depressed and detached young man driving a guy to safety who I didn't like and who had called me a faggot to my face. I was wondering if there would be blood on my car seat when he got out. Now knowing how badly he was attacked, I wasn't sure there wouldn't be blood and shit on my car seat. It was going through my mind.

Now the streets no longer looked like a mix of houses and businesses. The upright colonial buildings housing student apartments and venerated law offices fell away, replaced by wide lawns and big old trees. Brick mansions with terraces receded into the shadowy twilight, their windows glowing behind drawn shades and curtains. It was hard to believe he knew anyone here, but I knew that just beyond this stretch, there was the apple sauce factory, and after that the housing was sketchy. That seemed like where I'd wind up dropping him off. I was relieved to think he would soon be getting out of my car.

"Man, it was really nice of you to give me a ride," Ronnie said. His tone was different now. Warmer than it had ever been toward me, jus a wink away from unctuousness. On instinct I knew what was coming next.

"No problem," I said.

"No really, I feel like I owe you something."

"You don't."

"You sure I can't maybe give you a blowjob?"

I wish this part hadn't happened. It complicates a story in which a man was attacked, possibly sexually assaulted, to say that he also put the moves on me just moments later. Nonetheless, though Ronnie and I had so very little in common, I think I may know what was going on inside him that night. He was living a far lonelier life than I was because, unlike me, he kept his sexuality a deep and shameful secret.

For him to get up the courage to pursue the kind of sex he wanted, given the obstacles of being a closet case, being older and not gorgeous, living in a small town in the 1990s, meant he had wound himself up for pleasure and release. Maybe the universe, his god or his devil if he really believed in them, had thrown him a cruel punch when the man he hoped to get with instead brought a group to attack him, but then it had also put in his path a young guy who he knew to be gay. That he thought I'd consent is a sign of both his desperation and his naïveté.

"No."

That was enough. He didn't ask again.

We didn't go as far as the apple sauce factory. He had me stop at the mouth of an alley between two of those nice houses. I could see what those mansions usually hid when you drove by too quickly: rows of smaller houses slinking away into shadow, dropping away from sight onto ground that leveled out near the town run. Those houses were probably always a little cold, too, and maybe a bit damp from being close to the water.

I watched Ronnie limp into the beam of my headlights and descend the dip of the alley. He threw a hand up just before he dropped out of sight, a good-bye so hasty it did not demand an answering wave. I never saw him again because I had just left the Salvation Army a few weeks ago to take a job as a waiter, the only act of change I had permitted myself in the long, frozen winter. I wonder if he had a friend to take care of him that night. Were there curtains at the kitchen windows of the little house he would disappear into, patterned with cheerful lemons and limes, bright colors that made one think of clean smells and new starts?