“You’ll never guess what happened,” says my mother on the phone. “You know that big old scary house out off Highway 80 in Edwards? Someone bought it.”“Who? The Munsters? Gomez and Morticia Addams?”
“Even better,” she says, delighted. “We got gays!”
Edwards, Mississippi is the nearest “town”, and I’m using that term loosely, to the little lakeside retreat where my parents now reside. It’s got around a thousand people, so statistically they’ve probably had a few gays silently peppering their Podunk for a while. But these gays are different. They’re out and proud, they’re from New Orleans, and they’re apparently interested in restoring stately old homes in the middle of nowhere.
“Two of the girls from church saw them at the Stop-and-Shop the other day. One of them’s older, looks American, the other one’s younger. He’s Spanish or possibly a Latin person, and he wears those tight t-shirts like your friend George. Why do they do that? It can’t be comfortable.”
“Did the church ladies actually speak to them?”
“Well, no. The girls didn’t want to bother them. We all assume the gays are just going to keep to themselves.”
“Now, Mama. If it were any other new couple in town, you’d be over there with a housewarming gift before they signed the closing papers.”
“I suppose that’s true,” she says. “But I’ve never visited any gay people outside the family. You know, you and Preppy, or one of your cousins.”
“Come on, don’t you wanna be able to say you were the first one to meet them? And at the very least you can find out their names and stop calling them ‘The Gays’, which is really tacky.”
“Well, I could do a little basket. I have some pear honey put away, and there’s homemade bread in the freezer…”
Preppy and I have lived in our house since November, and nobody’s stopped by with a freakin’ bread basket. When my next door neighbor had a tree cut down in her back yard last month, Preppy and I did stand on the back deck and watch. Preppy also gave her a nod of greeting, which is something. The small-town boy in me cries out for neighborly interactions- borrowing of cups of sugar or various forms of yard-related equipment, or checking in on household pets while someone’s visiting their sick aunt in Delaware. My parents helped their next door neighbors capture fifty or so feral housecats which had taken up residence in the neighbors’ renovation-in-progress. My sister’s neighbors brought over heavy machinery to get her yard ready for a vegetable garden.
I want stories like that.
But after a decade of urban living, I’m just at a complete loss on how to get that ball rolling in the suburbs. I briefly consider the possibility of putting together my own gift basket and knocking on doors, but come on, y’all. That’s REALLY gay. I mean, like Clay Aiken-level gayness. I just don’t know if I can muster that kind of energy. I remember once when I was living in Midtown all the neighbors came out when a house caught on fire, and we all introduced ourselves. Someone showed up with beer, and it was a pleasant evening.
But after a decade of urban living, I’m just at a complete loss on how to get that ball rolling in the suburbs. I briefly consider the possibility of putting together my own gift basket and knocking on doors, but come on, y’all. That’s REALLY gay. I mean, like Clay Aiken-level gayness. I just don’t know if I can muster that kind of energy. I remember once when I was living in Midtown all the neighbors came out when a house caught on fire, and we all introduced ourselves. Someone showed up with beer, and it was a pleasant evening.
But I think my boyfriend would frown upon me resorting to arson just to get a block party started.
So basically, barring some sort of unifying disaster, I’ve gotta wait for a motivated lady to come knocking. I wish there were some way to get the word out to straights that it’s better for them to make the first move.
The next day, Mama calls me again.
“Well, get THIS,” she says. “Rodrigo, the one in the tight t-shirts, is an actor and model, though I don’t know what in the world he plans on doing with that in Edwards. Our entertainment industry isn’t exactly thriving, but I did tell him about the community theatre in Clinton. And they couldn’t have been sweeter, said they’d wanted to meet the neighbors but couldn’t decide how to approach it. And the other one, Frank, is a famous landscape architect. He designed Ann Rice’s private garden, and he’s coming over to look at our yard! I’m so EXCITED!”
“Well,” I say. “That sounds downright neighborly.”
So basically, barring some sort of unifying disaster, I’ve gotta wait for a motivated lady to come knocking. I wish there were some way to get the word out to straights that it’s better for them to make the first move.
The next day, Mama calls me again.
“Well, get THIS,” she says. “Rodrigo, the one in the tight t-shirts, is an actor and model, though I don’t know what in the world he plans on doing with that in Edwards. Our entertainment industry isn’t exactly thriving, but I did tell him about the community theatre in Clinton. And they couldn’t have been sweeter, said they’d wanted to meet the neighbors but couldn’t decide how to approach it. And the other one, Frank, is a famous landscape architect. He designed Ann Rice’s private garden, and he’s coming over to look at our yard! I’m so EXCITED!”
“Well,” I say. “That sounds downright neighborly.”
