We forged a tight bond that often
led to extracurricular outings after our shift—I distinctly remember late night
trips to Denny’s on the Somerville Circle as one of them. There were parties at
various houses when the parents were away, and then there was the one night we
all hung out at a park in Neshanic Station, near Jimmy’s old house on Pearl
Street. Now, I knew I was gay from a very young age, but this was the mid-1980s
at the height of the AIDS epidemic when the word “gay” was synonymous in the
minds of many with the disease. So, I did what many young gay kids did back
then, which was to “date” girls. I was pretty confident in who I was and the
type of life ahead of me, less so in those years about how to execute said
life. So, I played the role that was expected of me.
But that night in that little
park in Neshanic Station changed my life forever. Our group had all been
hanging out, drinking, laughing. As the hours wore on, members of the group
left one-by-one or in pairs until it was just Jimmy and me, alone, under the
most star-filled sky on a temperate night. I believe it was late June because I
had just graduated high school. There had been no discernible flirtation or
obvious attraction between us that I could recall, but that night we connected
in the most beautiful and gentlest of ways. The only way I can describe the experience
all these years later is that it felt organic. Don’t ask me who made the
first move or how a blanket or sleeping bag suddenly appeared—because I
remember so few of the details, only the feelings of the experience. And it was
beautiful.
That summer was the best summer
of my young life. I understood my own truth more than ever. Jimmy and I were
inseparable for those months—except for an agonizing week when he flew to
Seattle with his family. I still remember sending him off with a mix tape (I
can only remember that Anita Baker’s “Sweet Love” was on the playlist) and a
letter professing my feelings. Otherwise, we slept at each other’s houses where
the biggest worry was making too much noise, or we would hop in his ’67 green Mustang
and head down to the Jersey shore where we’d get a motel room for the night. There
were even one or two make-out sessions in the back seat of that old Mustang,
engine idling, parked down some dark, old dirt road when neither of our family
homes were accommodating. It was an intense summer during which my feelings
only deepened—and I never missed an opportunity to express them to Jimmy, who
was far less forthcoming with what was going on inside his head and heart. Our
nursing home group of friends knew on some level that there was something more
than a close friendship between us, but again, those conversations didn’t really
readily flow naturally back in those days. We acted out the roles prescribed to
us by society.
September came and Jimmy began
his senior year at Somerville High School. That was the beginning of the end
for our torrid summer romance. In the end, I think I’ve always been an old soul—knowing
what I wanted, which was stability and companionship…yes, even at that age.
Jimmy still wanted to experience all that lay before him. I didn’t handle any
of it well back in those days before I could recognize that love had turned into
infatuation. I know I made a lot of mistakes and hurt Jimmy, who was doing
nothing more than trying to be a high school senior. Wisely, he eventually cut
me off. I remember the intensity of those emotions and feeling alone and frantic
for an unrequited love. Relationships with friends suffered and I acted like a
fool, culminating in a stupid act of desperation in a last-ditch effort to get
his attention. Ultimately, he graduated from high school and went away to college
in Syracuse without looking back. Reluctantly, I eventually found a way to move
on with mine. Time has the best way of soothing over the jagged edges of
painful memories.
Flashforward 20 years later and through the wonder of the Internet and social media, Jimmy—who was now going by “CJ”—and
I reconnected back in 2010. We caught up and stayed connected all these years.
We made peace with our shared past. Apologies were exchanged and accepted. In
2011, we met up again for the first time since we were teenagers. Jimmy met me
at my weekend place in Manhattan. He treated me to a lovely Italian dinner at
ViceVersa on West 51st Street, and then I treated him to the theater
to see the limited engagement (and Broadway debut) of The Normal Heart
at the Golden Theater. That teenage love we shared briefly over that magical
summer of ’86 was far back in both of our rearview mirrors, but the act of
coming together again was a long overdue closure in some weird but comforting way.
That was the last time I saw
Jimmy. We’ve stayed in touch regularly via text and Facebook. We’d message
during his mother’s chemotherapy appointments a few years back, or I’d try to
cheer him during one of his own unsettling cardiac procedures, and there was
the one time—honest to God—that he saw on Facebook that Brian and I were about
to meet Chita Rivera in her dressing room following a performance of Terrence McNally’s
The Visit at the Lyceum Theatre and texted me a message to give to her. I
did as directed, and she lit up! Jimmy last sent me a message on March 16th
with a link to an interview about how Jamie Lee Curtis met and married her
husband. His sarcasm and naughty sense of humor was ever present in those exchanges
and never failed to make me smile.
Yesterday, I received word from
our dear mutual friend, Sharon, that Jimmy died on Wednesday afternoon. He laid
down for a nap and never woke up. I immediately cried and the memories flooded
back as their liable to do in times of the worst news possible. I’m eternally
grateful for our first shared experience with love and the lessons it taught us—and
even more so that we eventually made it out the other side, neither of us worse
for the wear and probably better people for it. I’m glad Jimmy got to live the
life he wanted, to experience love and heartbreak, to do things on his terms. Some
of the stories he shared were so colorful, and I remember being nothing but
happy that he got to experience life so fully, even if it’s been tragically cut
short at the age of 54.
As I wrote this blog, I stopped
and searched through the shoebox I keep of old photos. I was saddened but not
surprised to realize that I don’t have a single photo of Jimmy and me together
from 1986. We didn’t even take one together when we met up in 2011. This left me
momentarily heartbroken, but then I realized that maybe we were so busy living
those moments, present and engaged with each other, that we never thought to memorialize
our time together. Instead, I’ve chosen Henry Scott Tuke’s beautiful painting, “Aquamarine,”
to accompany and capture my sentiments here.
Fly high, Jimmy. You will always
and forever hold a very special and indelible place in my heart, even as it
breaks today over your loss.
xoxo Vince
1 comment:
Just beautiful...
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