drop them smack-dab into another diametrically opposed world. Like a drug dealer’s home. Yvonne talks to me like I’m a grown-up and gives me the full details on all kinds of things I’ve been wondering about—things June would never talk about, if she even knew they existed—and a lot of things I haven’t.
“Liberace is gay as the day is long,” Yvonne says to me one afternoon while watching The Mike Douglas Show . Liberace is doing his whole full-frontal piano thing, which I find fascinating, not just because I suspect I was a gay man in one of my past lives, but also because we didn’t do pop culture at the Ericsons’. The Lawrence Welk Show doesn’t count.
“Gay?” I ask. “What’s gay?”
“See his outfit?”
“Uh-huh.” I see it. How could I miss it? I love sequins.
“It means he has sex with men.”
This could be shocking, but it isn’t. Probably because I already know Liberace is gay. That is obvious, even to an 8.7-year-old. I just didn’t know that there is a whole word dedicated to the concept of gay. And until Yvonne filled in the details for me, I didn’t know what gay actually did to qualify it as gay. But the energy of gay—that, I know. Now I have a term for it.
Sometimes, Yvonne helpfully sets me straight on some of the things June and Gene taught me. Like the day I was telling her how Jesus rose up on a cloud and she looked at me, raised one of her long, thin, Bette Davis eyebrows, and said, “Tracy, you mean to tell me you really believe Jesus floated up into the sky? On a cloud ?”
“Not into the sky,” I correct her. “Into heaven.”
Yvonne smiles and shakes her head. “Really?”
Suddenly, I’m not so sure. “Well, um…yeah.”
“So let me get this straight. Jesus is just standing there. Preaching to the masses, people everywhere, listening to him preach. And suddenly he’s hovering above everyone, on a cloud.” Yvonne’s not mocking me; she sounds more like a panelist on Meet the Press. “Think about it,” she says. “That cloud sounds more like a magic carpet.”
“But—” I stop. Hmmmm . Actually, now that I think about it, she sounds kind of…right.
“Doesn’t make sense, does it?”
“I guess not,” I say.
“You’re way too smart for that stuff,” Yvonne declares.
There go four and a half years of intense Christian indoctrination. Poof! Yvonne School is very effective.
Other times Yvonne just wants to talk. About random stuff. She only really has one girlfriend that I know of, and they don’t hang out all that often. I think maybe Yvonne is glad to have me around, just to have some company.
“A lot of people mistake this for a Mercedes,” Yvonne tells me one afternoon as we settle into her white Peugot sedan. It’s a nice car—the seats are leather, so it smells good—but until this moment, my thoughts about cars have been limited to big, small, convertible, and stick shift . Those last two being very rare species not native to the Upper Midwest.
“What’s a Mercedes?” I ask. Whatever it is, I like the sound of the word as it rolls out of my mouth.
“It’s a German luxury car. They’re the ones with the little peace sign on the hood?” Yvonne helpfully jogs my memory. “Rich people drive them.”
I’ve seen those. Not very often, but I’ve seen them. From now on, I’m going to pay special attention. Maybe I’ll start counting them, like the “slug-bug” game Betsy and I play in the car where we punch each other every time we see a Volkswagen bug.
“The Germans make the best cars, you know,” Yvonne says. “And cameras. They’re a very precise and logical people.”
“Oh,” I say. I have no idea why Yvonne’s telling me all this, but I’m always up for some new information, so I listen attentively.
“Best engineers in the world,” she goes on. “It’s even in the language.”
That I can relate to, since I took sixty-four days of German at that dull school I went to when I was living with the
“Liberace is gay as the day is long,” Yvonne says to me one afternoon while watching The Mike Douglas Show . Liberace is doing his whole full-frontal piano thing, which I find fascinating, not just because I suspect I was a gay man in one of my past lives, but also because we didn’t do pop culture at the Ericsons’. The Lawrence Welk Show doesn’t count.
“Gay?” I ask. “What’s gay?”
“See his outfit?”
“Uh-huh.” I see it. How could I miss it? I love sequins.
“It means he has sex with men.”
This could be shocking, but it isn’t. Probably because I already know Liberace is gay. That is obvious, even to an 8.7-year-old. I just didn’t know that there is a whole word dedicated to the concept of gay. And until Yvonne filled in the details for me, I didn’t know what gay actually did to qualify it as gay. But the energy of gay—that, I know. Now I have a term for it.
Sometimes, Yvonne helpfully sets me straight on some of the things June and Gene taught me. Like the day I was telling her how Jesus rose up on a cloud and she looked at me, raised one of her long, thin, Bette Davis eyebrows, and said, “Tracy, you mean to tell me you really believe Jesus floated up into the sky? On a cloud ?”
“Not into the sky,” I correct her. “Into heaven.”
Yvonne smiles and shakes her head. “Really?”
Suddenly, I’m not so sure. “Well, um…yeah.”
“So let me get this straight. Jesus is just standing there. Preaching to the masses, people everywhere, listening to him preach. And suddenly he’s hovering above everyone, on a cloud.” Yvonne’s not mocking me; she sounds more like a panelist on Meet the Press. “Think about it,” she says. “That cloud sounds more like a magic carpet.”
“But—” I stop. Hmmmm . Actually, now that I think about it, she sounds kind of…right.
“Doesn’t make sense, does it?”
“I guess not,” I say.
“You’re way too smart for that stuff,” Yvonne declares.
There go four and a half years of intense Christian indoctrination. Poof! Yvonne School is very effective.
Other times Yvonne just wants to talk. About random stuff. She only really has one girlfriend that I know of, and they don’t hang out all that often. I think maybe Yvonne is glad to have me around, just to have some company.
“A lot of people mistake this for a Mercedes,” Yvonne tells me one afternoon as we settle into her white Peugot sedan. It’s a nice car—the seats are leather, so it smells good—but until this moment, my thoughts about cars have been limited to big, small, convertible, and stick shift . Those last two being very rare species not native to the Upper Midwest.
“What’s a Mercedes?” I ask. Whatever it is, I like the sound of the word as it rolls out of my mouth.
“It’s a German luxury car. They’re the ones with the little peace sign on the hood?” Yvonne helpfully jogs my memory. “Rich people drive them.”
I’ve seen those. Not very often, but I’ve seen them. From now on, I’m going to pay special attention. Maybe I’ll start counting them, like the “slug-bug” game Betsy and I play in the car where we punch each other every time we see a Volkswagen bug.
“The Germans make the best cars, you know,” Yvonne says. “And cameras. They’re a very precise and logical people.”
“Oh,” I say. I have no idea why Yvonne’s telling me all this, but I’m always up for some new information, so I listen attentively.
“Best engineers in the world,” she goes on. “It’s even in the language.”
That I can relate to, since I took sixty-four days of German at that dull school I went to when I was living with the
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