“It’s like the gay Super Bowl,” Gary said. He set the parking brake and checked his hair in the rear-view mirror.
“How is it like that?” I asked.
“All the men are gathered around yelling at the television set, and most of the women are hanging out in the kitchen,” he said. “Oscar Night is a very, very big deal for our people.”
I leaned in to grab the grocery bag from behind the passenger seat. I had to jump back to avoid the convertible top as it swung up from behind the tiny back seat.
Gary had been my mentor into gay life—he preferred the title “big sister”—from the time I’d first pushed the closet door open a crack to see what I might be missing outside. About half of what came out of his mouth was gay jargon, but he never made fun of me for my naïve questions, and as a 35-year-old fledgling queen, I was getting used to a lot of abuse. Some of it was good-natured, but a lot of it seemed to mask hostility toward my ignorance of so-called gay culture.
“Gary, are you sure beer is okay? Maybe we should have picked up vodka or something?”
“Oh girl, relax. One thing you’ll never be criticized for is showing up with alcohol. And don’t worry! They’re going to love you. Gregory and Antonio are really great guys, and they have nice friends. No one’s going to bite you.”
I let him lead the way up the sidewalk across the perfectly maintained lawn. Before he could ring the doorbell, the door swung wide to reveal a short, stout tuxedoed woman. In an East Texas twang that seemed out of synch with her outfit, she hollered, “Gary! You brought us a new victim!”
We stepped into the bright chandelier light of the foyer. “Eva, this is Marshall. I forbid you to harm one hair on his head.”
Before she could reply, a fanfare blared from the flat-screen television in the vast living room that opened to our right. An announcer’s voice: “Ladies and gentlemen, the nominees in the category of best original score….”
Eva pushed us toward the living room. “Find a seat, ladies. Let me throw those in the fridge for you.”
We squeezed onto one end of a white leather sofa. From where he perched on a throw pillow on the floor, a man in a floral silk shirt looked over his shoulder at us. “I don’t know how we’ve managed until now without your bitter two cents, Gary.”
My friend looked at me for a moment, rolled his eyes, and then turned to flash an exaggerated smile.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Note: I have to confess that this text is about as far as I’ve strayed from an assignment since the 50/50 class began. We were supposed to use some overhead dialogue as our first and last lines. I haven’t managed to overhear any dialogue that caught my ear or fired my imagination in the last few days, so I gave my roommate the assignment of picking up some tidbits for me on a foray to the bars tonight.
He didn’t send me anything I particularly liked. But he offered the excuse that the bars were empty because the Academy Awards show is on television tonight. (I have to take his word for it.)
So I selected a line from one of his text messages, its like the gay super bowl, and paired it with a fragment from an unrelated text message I received from my ex, who was also out at the bars tonight, I’ll take it as a compliment.
The fanatical fascination that some gay men have for the Oscars usually makes me want to voluntarily surrender my “Gay Card,” so I thought I’d use these found texts as the basis for some gentle ridicule of the eagerness of gay people to embrace the stereotypes about us. The story that came to mind also offered me the opportunity to practice writing dialogue, which is not my strong suit.
© 2008 Edward F. Gumnick
I say – good save! Whatever it takes to get the story, so if you got creative about getting lines, more’s the better. Besides, I’ve been to that Oscar party in my day and it made me smile to think of it. Although, I too would rather not these days. The story captures the event perfectly, and good for you for finding a way to get the exercise done and still be happy with the effort.
I love the creative way you used the text messaging – hey dialogue is dialogue – oral or written – I also like your dialogue
Great dialogue. You think you have trouble with dialogue but it is always right on target. Enjoyed your descriptions of people and places. You may have borrowed text but it was clever and well writtten. As Max said in our class it’s the fact that you have written something that counts. Straying from topic is OK.