Remembering History

Eric had long assumed it was a story he would take to his grave.  But as he neared his eightieth birthday, the memories were strengthening, getting more vivid.  He could barely remember what he did the day before or when to take his blood pressure and cholesterol-fighting medications, but what transpired on a warm June night in New York became crystal clear, though it was six decades ago.   For the first time in his married life, he yearned to tell his dutiful, faithful wife what had happened.  He had participated in the Stonewall riots.  Before he married, had children and embarked upon a semi-successful career at the bank, he had been, once, at the forefront of history.

It’s June 1969, and he’s wearing a pale yellow, plaid, button-down shirt and a pair of ripped dungarees, the only clothes he owns.  He has unruly black hair and a youthful, androgenous look that attracts wealthy and dangerous men.  At sixteen, he’s already streetwise, with all that entails, living on the dirty, rubbish-filled streets of Lower Manhattan with the other vagabonds.    He’s found salvation in a place called the Stonewall Inn, where they accept him, even cherish him, despite his ungodly attractions.  When he was kicked out of his house by his knife-wielding father after he was caught with his mother’s dress two years earlier, he couldn’t have imagined that he could still find Paradise in this world.  

Eric waited until Cynthia has prepared breakfast - freshly squeezed orange juice made into mimosas, pancakes with Vermont maple syrup that they procured the summer before from a homely bed and breakfast, bacon and eggs.  He sat down with the paper, comics first, as Cynthia softly hummed along to tunes on the radio.  These days he used a magnifying glass to see the funnies and he didn’t always understand why they were supposed to make him laugh.  Each time he was confused, he would ask Cynthia, who invariably knew.  

Cynthia had contracted cancer some years back.  When her hair came back, it was not golden anymore, but pure white.  In time, it flowed down to her shoulders again.  She was eighty, but looked twenty years younger with a smile always wrapped around her porcelain, yet unbreakable face.  Eric stared at that face for a moment, wondering if this was the right time, but there weren’t going to be so many times left.   He had already survived one heart attack.  His doctors told him he might not be so lucky next time.

The young man always knew that Stonewall was a place of potential danger.  With people like him welcomed, how could it have been otherwise?  But the danger was in the background, obscured by love and joy.  And dancing.  It was said Stonewall was the only place in all of the Big Apple where gay men were allowed to dance.  Boogying along to Diana Ross and the Supremes and the Shangri-las made him forget his worries, at least for a while. 

Eric put down his fork, which clattered loudly against the china, and Cynthia looked at him expectantly.  She always knew when he had something to say.   But this time, the words didn’t come, though he had rehearsed them a thousand times.  He wanted to tell her his untold story, but at the same time not hurt her with revelations that could change everything between them.  An impossible needle to thread.  He wished he were a wordsmith like her - a published romance author - but he had always had more of an affinity for numbers, for calculations, than for language.  He cleared his throat, and thought: fifty-five years of marriage should be able to survive an old story where all the main characters, except for him, were dead or forgotten.

The police sirens start blaring.  Normally, the owners of the bar, which he learns much later is the Mafia, tell them when the authorities are on their way.  The police come, turn on the lights, make them line up and show their state lDs to connect pictures to names.  Then they leave, having confiscated the alcohol to fuel their own parties.  Then the guys go to the hidden store of booze in the back and replace what was lost.  But this time is different.  The officers don’t joke around.  Their mood is darker, angrier, as if they’re fed up at being played for fools, by us, by the world.   They have jobs to do, too, masters to answer to, in a society that doesn’t think we deserve to live. 

 A cop approaches a man beside Eric.  The man’s wearing a long, yellow dress and two-inch silver stilettos.  The cop sucker punches him in the face.  He staggers back, then falls onto the linoleum floor.  He hears a crack and hopes it’s the floor.   Eric is grateful he didn’t wear mother’s dress that day, which he stuffed into his suitcase the day he left.  So he could remember her scent, he tried, futilely, to convince himself.  Adrenaline is rushing through his body, and he starts screaming at the cop, calling him obscenities that he didn’t think he knew. The cops couldn’t treat them like that, not today, not anymore.  He searches for a bottle to fling, but he can’t find one.  The cops are everywhere now.  A female officer is taking men into the bathroom, including his friend, who has managed to get back up.  From experience, he knows she’s checking to see if they are really men underneath their dresses.  

Cynthia looked at Eric expectantly.  “Honey, you’re shaking.  What’s wrong?  Was it something in the papers?  At our age, you really should stick to Garfield and the Wizard of Id.  The crises in the Middle East don’t have any discernible effect on us.  Reading about it is not good for your soul.”

Eric eyed the photograph on the wall showing their family on vacation in Hawaii: the two of them and their three children when they were kids - seven and nine and twelve - and said softly, “Can I tell you a story?  One I’ve never told you before?”

“Tell me, love,” she said, brushing his hair out of his eyes. He still had the same black curly hair he wielded as a youth, still unwieldy, still adorable.

He took a sip of his mimosa to clear his throat, to relax.  Then another.  “I thought I knew how to start it, but I don’t.”

She put her small, manicured hand with bright red nail polish on his weathered cheek, massaged it.  “Well, why don’t you start at the very beginning, then?  Isn’t that what they say in that song?”

“As long as you promise you won’t run away,” he said.

Usually the raid ends, with an arrest or two, and the crowd disperses.  But not tonight.   People are screaming at the police and they reciprocate.  A cop hits a lesbian, a regular at the bar, on the bar as he forces her into a police van.  She responds by inciting the others to act, and they oblige.   Not ten minutes before, they were dancing, having the time of their lives, but now they’re throwing pennies, bottles, stones at the police.   The mob enters Stonewall, penetrates the barricade set up by the police and sets fire to the bar.  He wants to go in himself - his friends are there - but someone holds him back - the man in the yellow dress.  And then, the fire department enters and puts out the fire.  It’s all over now, but he’s still trembling.  Lives could have been lost and for what?  He doesn’t understand.  There’s so much he doesn’t understand.   He’s been living on the streets for two years, but for the first time he’s truly scared.   He’s sixteen.  He doesn’t want to die.

Though Stonewall returns to normal after a few days, he returns home.  He tells his parents he made a mistake to take the dress.  He is not one of those “homos,” just confused.  He begs for a second chance.  His dad is silent, arms crossed.  His mom smiles and says she knows of a girl, Cynthia.  She makes a few phone calls and they meet, fall in love, have beautiful children together.

Eric said, “I was at Stonewall Inn in the 1960s.  I was a part of history.”  He tells the entire story, concluding by saying,  “I didn’t want to die without you knowing that. I’m sorry.  I should have told you a lifetime ago.    I should have come out to you.  You had a right to know, to have regular intimacy that I couldn’t provide.”

Cynthia said, “I just want to know one thing. “Are you going to leave me now, after all these years.  Is that why you told me?”

“No, absolutely not.  I just needed someone to know it after I was gone. That I tried, though I failed, to make a dent in this world.

“More than a dent, you make an indelible mark on our friends and our family.  On me.  Good for you for finally opening up.  You’ll rest better now, love.”

Eric returns to Stonewall once more, to say goodbye to the fiercest friends and defenders he’ll ever know.  There are no words in the English language to describe the bond that he had with those kin.  Through hugs and kisses and tears, he wishes them well on their struggles.  He desperately wants to be a part of them, but his friend, now decked out in sunglasses and a cocktail dress says, “We will fight for you now.  One day, you will come back to us.  And if you don’t, you will remember us.”

Eric cancels his subscription to the newspaper.  During Sunday breakfast and many other times, too, he sits down with Cynthia and tells her all the stories of his gay friends from long ago, and so they live again.