Monday, September 19, 2011

Spooning Wesley: My First Mentor

Wesley owned a hair salon in Old Town Alexandria and performed drag at Ziegfeld’s in Southwest, DC. His parents never understood how talented he was, nor his lifestyle. They lived close to our farm in Virginia but he rarely visited them when he made the trip to see us in Rapidan. He’d come for weekend visits, starting around 1986.

I was eleven and whenever we expected him to arrive, I would take extra time doing my hair and try to make myself cute for Wesley. I had a crush on him, something I knew was absurd even then. He was about 35 years old and wasn’t attracted to females, of any age. But he was extremely tall and slender with dark hair and eyes. He drove an old, white convertible Mercedes. He wore Gucci watches and Italian loafers and had a natural elegance in every movement. He was a great cook, introducing us country folk to treats such as steamed artichokes and baked vidalia onions. He smoked cigarettes and drank Scotch and always spoke the truth in that blunt way gay men can without being insulting.

One time, Wesley scolded my dad, a rather burly guy, for using the straw in his cocktail. “Real men don’t drink through straws!”

He was a part of our family, and usually spent his holidays with us including Christmas Eve – which was also his birthday. We have him on video one year singing “Oh, Holy Night.” It was so beautiful and emotional – the thirty of us sat in silent tears, until his voice cracked on the last note and we all erupted in laughter -- including Wesley, of course.

In a way, my family adopted him, but in other ways, he adopted us. When I was fifteen, he taught me how to walk in heels. He made me pace back and forth in the soft part of our back lawn, instructing me to keep the weight on my toes. I learned to balance that way, so my expensive slingbacks wouldn’t get muddy up the heel.

He told me that if I ever tripped, just look up and smile. That way, anyone watching would forget my last fumble.

He spent more than his means, something I didn’t understand until years later.

When his HIV turned into full blown AIDS, he started to live carelessly. Then when his boyfriend Kevin died, Wesley’s own dementia worsened. I was in college by then and my parents had split up. Holidays were fractured and smaller – no more large gatherings in the family farmhouse.

We started to dread Wesley’s visits. The man was so sick, mentally and physically, it was difficult to handle him. He traded in his antique car for a brand new, big, white Lincoln Continental. My mom had moved into a ranch-style house in a subdivision near town and he would drive that car up and park it on the lawn at whatever angle was is mood that day. He always had beer, was always drunk, and was always talking to his dead friends. Wesley was dying and we could see it in his dull eyes, skin and hair, and his bony limbs. He rarely slept.

Easter of my sophomore year in college, I was left alone with Wesley. My mom and brother had to work and I wasn’t going back to school for another two days. I stayed up with him as late as I could the first night. I remember him crying, telling Kevin that he’d be “up there” to see him soon. The next day he wanted to visit his brothers and sisters and he needed me to go with him -- his last family visit I had figured.

Wesley was drunk before we left the house but I was too afraid to tell him not to drive the thirty minute distance. Halfway to Culpepper, we stopped at a small general store to restock his beer supply. When Wesley wasn’t looking, the woman behind the counter whispered to me, “Are you going to be ok?” It was obvious things were totally whacked but I just nodded my head.

When we got to his sister’s house, everyone came outside. We didn’t go inside. And they were silent. They had always thought Wesley was weird. Now they were just scared – and probably thought they’d catch whatever he had.We didn’t stay very long.

That night Wesley wanted to make dinner – one of his old traditions. I’ll never forget walking into the house to the horrific scene in the kitchen. Every cabinet door was open and he had pulled all the canned goods and pots out onto the floor. He was sitting in the middle of it, not strong enough to stand up again, waiting for us to come help him. There was some mixture in the skillet on the stove – a gross hashed meat concoction with eggs – except he didn’t crack the eggs out of their shells. He just threw them in, whole. It smelled terrible and was simmering over the edges. “It will be brilliant,” I’m sure he had told himself.

Wesley asked me to sleep with him that night. He needed my body heat to help stay warm. So when we finally crawled into bed sometime well after 2am, he spooned me as snuggly as possible. He tucked his knees up into mine and wrapped his long skinny arms around my torso.

That’s when I realized how labored his breathing was. I thought each breath he took would be his last. Ten seconds, maybe, to suck in the air. Then he’d hold it. Then exhale. There were times I thought he had stopped breathing altogether. I barely slept at all that night, petrified he was going to die, wrapped around me like a stiff pretzel, unable to get enough oxygen into his body.

In the morning, he said that was the best night sleep he'd had in months.

That’s really the last time I remember seeing Wesley. I know I drove to NIH with mom once, but I can’t remember even what he looked like in the hospital room. I don’t remember if his hair was blond or black or auburn, if he even had hair at that point. I didn’t go to his funeral and I have never been to his gravesite.

I just want to remember the first Wesley I knew -- the funny, elegant man who seemed to have this world all figured out. I want to go back to 1990 when he pranced through our back yard in his silver pumps, showing me how to turn gracefully. "You learn to carry yourself like that," Wesley said, "and you’ll keep their attention."

He did just that.