Legacy

Saturday, September 23, 2023
Twenty Years Earlier

“Mamma! — Mamma! — Larry’s got Terry’s pee-pee in his mouth!” Those immortal words were being screamed by our daughter, Emma, as she ran down the stairs and into the kitchen. It was Saturday but, as was usual since her father passed away, Cathy was spending the morning in the office leaving me to deal with the kids. Moments before, our daughter had asked me if she could have her best friend Carolyn for a sleepover that night. I’d told her she needed to be sure Larry’s best friend, Terrell, wasn’t already planning to spend the night as he so often did on the weekends. Our house was just too small to handle two adults and four children, so we had a rule that only one of our kids could have a friend stay over at a time.

Little Emma ran upstairs before I even had a chance to remind her that she needed to knock first before barging in on her older brother and his best friend. The result was that she’d obviously interrupted something she wasn’t meant to see. A few minutes later, a very red-faced Larry and ‘Terry’ as we all called him, quietly made their way into the kitchen.

Turning to my daughter, I told her, “Emma, I think you’d better go to your room so I can talk to Larry and Terry.”

“But why, Mamma?” Emma complained. “Are you punishing me or somethin’?”

“No, Honey,” I replied. “I’m not punishing you, but we will need to talk again about how you need to knock before you go barging in on people.”

“I know, Mamma,” she answered, “but sometimes I forget, an’ I still don’t understand why Larry had Terry’s pee-pee in his mouth.” Then turning to Larry, she innocently asked, “Why’d you do that, Larry? Were you tryin’ to get milk to come out of it?”

I didn’t think Larry could get any redder, but he did when Emma asked him that, particularly when I started laughing my head off. Poor Emma had no idea what she’d just said and then asked, “I don’t get it. What’s so funny?” which only made me laugh harder.

Finally, after getting myself under control, I told Emma, “I need to talk to Larry and Terry in private. It’s personal. You and I will have our own private discussion about what you saw, later on. Please go to your room, and I’ll make Larry go to his room when it’s time for you and me to have our talk.”

“OK, Mamma,” Emma replied, and then she ran up the stairs, leaving me alone with my son and his ‘best friend’.

“I’m sorry, Mamma,” Larry began. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you and Mom about it but, well — you know. And I know I shoulda locked the door — I thought I did, but I guess I musta forgot.”

Before I could answer my son, Terry chimed in, “It’s not what you think, Ms. M. Larry’s not gay. He likes girls. He likes ’em a lot. It’s me — I’m — I’m — gay. I feel terrible. I did something really bad. I kinda feel like I took advantage of Larry.”

“You weren’t taking advantage of me!” Larry countered. “I liked what we were doing. I like you, Terry. I like you a lot! Maybe even more than like you. I’ve never been in love before, but I kinda think maybe I love you. It’s not like I like other boys — well, except maybe for Greg Anders. Even straight boys like Greg Anders.”

“Yeah,” Terry giggled, “that boy’s a walking wet dream.” Then Terry turned red and added, “Oops, I’m sorry, Ms. M.”

“That’s OK, Terry,” I reassured the boy. “I’m not so old that I don’t remember what it’s like to be fourteen,” I added with a smile.

“So I guess what I’m getting at is that I must be bi,” my son clarified. “I know I’m not straight, ’cause I really like doin’ stuff with Terry.” As I started to open my mouth, Larry interrupted me and continued, “I know that straight boys sometimes experiment with each other, but that’s not what I’m doing with Terry. We’re way past experimenting. I like girls, but I like Terry even more. Maybe even love him.”

With tears flowing down his cheeks, Terry looked at my son and said, “You never told me you love me before. I’ve been in love with you for, like, ever — but I never thought you could ever love me back.”

“I’m sorry, Terry,” my son replied. “I know I shoulda told you, but this shit’s scary, you know?” Then turning to me, Larry said, “Sorry, Mamma.”

Before I think either boy knew what was happening, their lips came together in a gentle, yet passionate kiss. When they broke the kiss, they both turned bright red as they seemed to realize they’d just kissed in front of me.

“Terry loves Larry — Larry loves Terry,” came the voice of my devious little daughter from just outside the door. The little stinker had snuck back down the stairs!

Sneaking back into the kitchen, she again asked, “but why did you have Terry’s pee-pee in your mouth, Larry?”

“Emma,” I admonished her, “that’s something that’s very, very private. I’ll tell you about it later.”

Getting a very serious look on his face, Terry looked right into Emma’s eyes and said, “Emma, you mustn’t tell anyone about what you saw.”

“But why, Terry?” she asked innocently.

“Like your mamma said, it’s private, and some people wouldn’t understand about a boy loving another boy.”

“Why not?” my daughter asked. “Mamma and Mom love each other, so why can’t you and Larry love each other?” As they say, from the mouths of babes…

“It’s — complicated,” Terry answered. “Some people just don’t understand. Like my parents. My dad would beat me up if he found out — or worse.”

“But why Terry?” Emma again asked.

“I don’t know, Emma,” he answered. “He just would.”

“You know if he tries anything, you can always come here,” I reassured Terry.

“Thanks,” my son’s boyfriend — his boyfriend — responded. “Someday I may need to take you up on that. I’ve been keepin’ it a secret for near two years now, and have more than three to go. It’ll be a miracle if I make it ’til I’m eighteen.”

Rather than say anything, I merely squeezed Terry’s shoulder and smiled at him. He sheepishly smiled back.

Turning back to Emma, I told her, “I’m really disappointed in you, Emma. I wasn’t mad at you before, but I’m mad now. Barging in on your brother was wrong, but it was an accident. Listening in on a private conversation was very wrong and you know it. I have to punish you for it.

“You’re grounded. You’re going to go to your room and stay there for the rest of today and tomorrow. No TV, no phone calls and no Internet. You’re only allowed out of your room to go to the bathroom and to eat. If you sneak out again, you’ll be grounded all this week and next weekend, too. Do I make myself clear?”

With tears in her eyes, she replied, “Yes, Mamma. I’m sorry…”

“There’s someone else you need to apologize to,” I reminded her.

At first she had a blank look on her face, but then realization dawned on her and she turned to her brother and Terry and said, “I’m sorry, Larry. I’m sorry, Terry. I shouldn’t have listened in.”

“I understand, Sis,” Larry replied, and then added, “but you know what they say about curiosity killing the cat. Someday your curiosity could get you in a lot worse trouble than being grounded for a couple of days. Believe me, I know.” Then smiling at her, he said, “Tell you what — later on, I’ll come up to your room and I’ll explain why I had Terry’s pee-pee in my mouth. OK?”

Giggling, Emma replied, “OK,” and then she took off for her room.

After Emma left, I told my son, “I’m not sure I want you telling Emma about sex.”

“Don’t worry, Mamma,” Larry answered. “I’m not gonna tell her about sex. I’m just gonna say that when people fall in love, sometimes they do funny things because they feel good. Things like kissing. I’ll tell her that Terry and I got carried away and that what we did was like kissing, only we went too far. I’ll tell her there’s nothing wrong with it, but we’re too young to do things like that, and I’ll apologize for leaving the door unlocked so she could see it.”

“That’s a good explanation,” I said in admiration. “It’s actually a lot better than what I would have told her — but moving on, I get the impression that wasn’t the first time you’ve done anything sexual with each other.”

“No, Mamma,” Larry answered. “We’ve been doin’ things with each other for close to two years.”

“Has it gone beyond oral sex?” I asked.

With a look of shock registering in his eyes, he answered, “OH NO, Mamma! We haven’t done that! Maybe someday, I kinda think I’d like to, but we haven’t yet.”

“I don’t think we’re ready for anything like that,” Terry added. “I know someday I’d like to, but I’m not ready to have sex yet.”

“I hate to break it to you boys, but oral sex is a form of sex, and it does involve a transfer of body fluids, so there is definitely a risk of getting an STD from it,” I noted. “Now you have been using condoms, haven’t you?”

“I thought that was only for  — for anal sex,” Larry exclaimed.

“You can still get Gonorrhea, Chlamydia, Hepatitis, Genital Herpes, Syphilis, Cancroids, HPV or LGV from oral sex, not to mention HIV. Any time there is an exchange of body fluids, you need to use protection. You can either wear a condom or use something called a dental dam, which goes inside the mouth. One way or another, you need to protect the one you love.

“Now have either of you had sex with anyone else?” I asked. I was probably being unfair and I’d ask each boy in private separately, but I needed to know.

“I’d never have sex with anyone but Terry,” my son answered. “Not even with a girl,” he added.

Rather than answer, Terry just seemed to stare off into space.

“Terry?” my son asked with a bit of a quiver of his lower lip.

Coming back to life, Terry answered, “It’s not like that, Larry. Back before you and I did anything, I did it with Jamal. It was just one time and it was before either of us could squirt. I’d never cheat on you!”

With a sad look on his face, Larry replied, “I’m sorry I doubted you, Terry, but I still wish you’d told me. You said I was your first. You didn’t need to lie to me.”

“I know…” Terry answered. “I just didn’t want you to think I was a slut.”

“You shoulda known I wouldn’t think that,” Larry admonished him.

“I realize that now,” Terry sheepishly admitted, “and I’m really, really sorry.”

“I forgive you, man,” my son replied, and I was proud of him.

“Strictly as a precaution,” I interjected, “I think it would be a very good idea for both of you to be tested for STDs. It’s not at all that I don’t trust you — on the contrary, I do, but I think we’d all feel better knowing beyond a doubt that you’re both clean. Even if the results do come back negative as expected, however, I want you to always use condoms.”

“Does that mean it’s OK for us to have sex?” Larry asked.

“I didn’t say that,” I countered. “Actually, I’d prefer you not to have sex until you’re at least twenty-one, but I know how hard it is once you’ve had sex to refrain from it. Larry wouldn’t even be here otherwise.”

“MOMMA!” my son shouted.

Sheepishly, I turned to Terry and admitted, “I guess I shouldn’t have said that, but there was a brief time when Larry’s Mom and I broke up. Her parents wouldn’t let her date girls and so she dated boys. We’d been together for four years and she had trouble — well, with the loss of intimacy. Larry was the result of that.”

“Wow!” Terry exclaimed. “I’m kinda glad it happened, though. I wouldn’t want to think of my life without Larry in it, regardless of the sex and all.”

“Now as to the sleeping arrangements, however,” I continued, “from now on when Terry spends the night, the door to your room will remain open.”

“Mamma!”

“Don’t ‘Mamma’ me,” I admonished my son. “This is something that is not open to negotiation.”

Unfortunately it was less than a week later that Terry showed up on our doorstep with a bruise on his cheek and tears in his eyes. We later found that he had welts on his back as well from the whipping his father had given him. Although our Emma didn’t say a word about what she saw, she took what Terry said literally and somehow decided that it was OK to tell her best friend that Larry and Terry were boyfriends. Carolyn of course told all her friends, and they told their friends and so on. It didn’t take long at all for Terry’s father to learn that not only did his son’s best friend have two dykes for mothers, but that he and his best friend were themselves ‘faggots’ as he so rudely put it.

When confronted as to whether he too was really gay, Terry couldn’t lie to his father and so his father beat him and then tossed him out of the house. Naturally, we took him in, but there was no way we could care for the boy ourselves for the long term — not unless we moved to a bigger house. Although he and Larry might have enjoyed sleeping together on a nightly basis, they really needed their own space.

Had our friends Randy and Altaf still lived in the area, they would have undoubtedly been happy to take Terry in, but they now lived in New York City and the last thing we wanted to do was to uproot Terry from the only community he’d ever known. Larry would have never forgiven us for sending his boyfriend away. Instead we contacted another friend, the Colts’ star quarterback, Billy Mathews.

Billy and his husband, Rick Simmons, had a long track record of helping the gay youth of the community and had recently started a group home for gay African American boys. It seemed like the perfect solution until we told our boys about it. The group home was on the city’s north side, near where Cathy and I had grown up. No matter how much we promised to make sure the boys could see each other on a regular basis, however, they absolutely didn’t want to be separated. They both had some pretty strong words for us. We ended up telling them we would try to find an acceptable solution, even if it meant we had to move.

“Trouble in paradise?” Emma Lee asked us the next day as I retrieved our copy of The Star from the front porch. She already knew of Terry’s ordeal and had undoubtedly heard a little of the heated discussion we’d had with the boys the previous evening. The walls between the two halves of the duplex were pretty thin, after all.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” I admitted. “The boys are adamant that they not be separated, but we can’t let them continue to share a bedroom, and certainly not a bed. It would be different if they were brothers or just friends, but they’re boyfriends. It’s not about sex, but each boy needs his own space. They’re bound to have their disagreements and, when that happens, they each need a safe place to go other than their boyfriend’s arms. They may not even remain boyfriends, for all we know. Larry’s bisexual — he might end up falling in love with a girl someday.”

“Why don’t you let Terrance stay with me?” Emma suggested.

“We couldn’t do that,” I countered. “For Pete sake, you’re 91 years old!”

“Why the hell not?” Emma challenged. “Sure, I’m as old as the hills, but I’m not dead yet. Terrence is a good boy. He’s old enough to take care of himself, and he could even help me out around the house when I need it. All he needs is a little supervision and you know I’m good at doing that.” Truth was, I did know — she practically raised Larry herself while Cathy and I were still in school, and she’d been a huge help with little Emma, too.

“You know I’ve left you my half of the house,” Emma added. Actually I didn’t know. I’d had no idea. “None of my children or grandchildren want it,” she continued, “and the way the neighborhood’s going, they wouldn’t get much if they sold it, and I’d really hate to stick you with the kind of neighbors who’d likely move into it if they did sell it.

“This way you can rent out my half if you want, or maybe you’d like to break through the walls and make it one big house. Actually when we were raising our four kids, we had a door on the first floor between the two halves. We bought the other half when we outgrew the first, but never got around to fully combining the two. We’d always planned to but, once the kids were grown and my husband passed away, there wasn’t much point anymore, and so I closed off the door, walled it up, and rented out the spare half. I rented it to some pretty nice kids, too,” she added with a smile.

“I’ll tell you what,” Emma went on. “Why don’t I add a bedroom and bathroom up in the attic, just like you did? That way Terrence can have his own place, separate from me. We could even put a door between the two halves of the attic, so the boys could be together when they want, but still each have their own space.”

“You’d do that for us?” I asked incredulously.

“I’d be doing it as much for me, child,” she answered. “After all, you’re family. And some day the whole house will be yours and this way you’ll have two bedrooms and two full bathrooms up on the third floor. You can break through the walls and combine the two front bedrooms and the two back bedrooms and the two left bathrooms and the two right bathrooms. That way you’ll have two large bedrooms and two large bathrooms on the second floor. You can combine the two kitchens to make one really nice one, and you can combine the two living rooms and take out one set of stairs to make a larger living room and a formal dining room. It’s what my husband and I were always going to do, but we never got around to it.”

“Emma, I know I’ve said it before, but you’re truly a Godsend,” I said as I hugged her tightly.

“And so are you, child,” she replied.

Terry moved in with ‘Miss Emma’ that very evening, and stayed with her on the second floor of her side of the house during the two months it took to renovate her attic. He then moved upstairs, where a new door connected the two halves of the attic. The door always remained open and although they tried to hide it, it was quite evident that on any given night, only one bed was being used.

Sadly, Emma Lee passed away less than two years later, at the age of 93. She’d lived a long and full life but, nevertheless, we all cried our eyes out. She was family. Terrence seemed to take it particularly hard, perhaps because she, an elderly African American woman, had shown him total and complete acceptance when his own parents had rejected him.

Three months later we began renovating the house, combining the halves exactly as Emma had suggested. It truly became our dream house. Unfortunately, most of the houses around us were little more than tiny shacks, many of which had fallen into disrepair. There was no doubt about it — the neighborhood was going downhill.

The one saving grace was that we had a very strong neighborhood association, which was one of the main reasons we’d managed to keep drugs out of the area. If things were allowed to continue as they had been, however, it wouldn’t be long before there were boarded-up, abandoned houses and with them, drug dens. None of us wanted to see that happen. For inspiration we needed only to look on the other side of the canal, where a developer had reclaimed the land between the canal and the river and built modest, but very attractive and modern, single-family homes.

With a large infusion of cash from the money Cathy inherited from her father, a grant from the city and the help of Habitat for Humanity, the Upper Canal Redevelopment Corporation was formed. Working closely with an architect who lived in the neighborhood and donated his time, we developed an ambitious plan to salvage those houses that were worth salvaging, demolish those that weren’t and, in their place, build a mix of low, moderate and high-end housing, much as had been done on the canal downtown. None of the current residents were left behind.

The triangle of land bounded by the canal to the west, Interstate 65 to the northeast and 33rd Street to the south was reclaimed and donated to the city, which in return cleared it of houses and built a large neighborhood park on the site, complete with basketball and tennis courts, a small skate park and lovely tree-shaded picnic grounds. The city also built sound barriers all along Interstate 65. The remaining strip of land between 30th Street and 33rd, was redeveloped, creating a mix of affordable and luxury housing that quickly became among the most sought-after in the city. We more than recouped our investment and were able to keep our beautiful, four-bedroom home, right on the canal.

In the meantime, Cathy expanded her company and invested heavily in the technology for manufacturing optoelectronic silicon chips.  She went on to develop and patent technology based on carbon nanotube-based semiconductors and the technology for holographic projection that became the basis of virtually all video holographic projectors. Renaming the company ‘Anderson Optoelectronics’, she took it public and it quickly grew. No one would ever have guessed from our relatively modest house on the canal that we were billionaires, but we never believed in showing off. Indeed, we’ve given away much of our wealth anonymously to worthy causes and to the McLaughlin Foundation, which we founded to advance the cause of gay and women’s rights throughout the world.