Since We Last Met

On my way home last night, I bumped into someone I hadn't seen in at least a year.  Lucy was getting chicken-on-a-stick from a "street meat" cart next to the Capital One bank on Broadway.  So, I noticed, was a rugged-looking man who looked to be a couple of years older than her.

He's her husband.  He wasn't, the last time I saw her.  They met around this time last year, she said, and got married, in a very small ceremony, in September.  I'm not surprised that it happened so quickly:  I always figured that Lucy wouldn't have a long engagement after meeting "the one."  And, from what little I had seen of him, I wasn't surprised that he "fell" so quickly, either.  You know how it is:  those tough-looking biue collar guys can be, deep down, such softies sometimes.  Maybe that's the reason why the men who've mattered most to me in my life--save perhaps for Bruce--have all been blue-collar, in spirit if not in fact.  Somehow I think Lucy feels the same way.

It's a strange feeling, though, to meet a friend's spouse and realize that you've known that friend for longer than the spouse has.  You realize that, apart from the physical intimacy, there is something else that makes your friend's relationship with her husband different from her friendship with you or anyone else.  I'll describe it as best I can:   Although you are friends in this moment, your friendship is defined by its history.  On the other hand, if you are going to spend your life with someone, you have to be able to look toward the future, or at least forward from the current moment, with that person.  

I met Lucy some time during the first year I was living in Astoria.  I had just moved from Park Slope and the life I had with Tammy; I think she met me during the time when I was still going to work as Nick but was going to Manhattan and the LGBT Community Center whenever I could, as Justine.  I also believe it was just before I started taking hormones.  I'm pretty sure that I introduced myself to her as Justine, which would make her one of the very first people who would meet me that way.  


In any event, she recalled that she was nineteen years old then.  That sounds right; she was in her second semester of college--ironically enough, LaGuardia Community College, where I was teaching at the time.  Now she's twenty-seven and working with her husband, who is an independent electrical contractor.  


He talked about how he met Lucy.  The funny thing is that he said almost the same things I've said about her:  that she's pretty, but that's not what you notice about her.  It was "a light within her," he said.  And that, of course, is what I've always liked about Lucy:  that radiance from within.  "That's forever," he said.  "Someone who's pretty today might not be tomorrow."


Then, for no reason I could discern, he told me, "You must have been really beautiful when you were younger.  You're a beautiful lady now. But you really must have been something."


Lucy and I could only smile to each other.

A Wish At The End

Right now I want to be in Paris.  But not for all of the usual reasons.  Well, all right, I want to pedal along the quais and around the Notre Dame and Sainte Chapelle to the Pont Neuf, and over to the Place des Vosges.  And, of course, to spend time in la Musee Rodin.  And la Musee Picasso.


But I really want to be there for Janine's sisters and friends.  Of course they don't need me.  But we've been exchanging e-mails, and one of her sisters said that she valued reading the things I said about her--especially that my e-mail contained words like genereuse and phrases like une force vitale.  She was especially happy to see that toutes dites comme ca:  People who have never met each other--that would be me and some friends she knew a lot longer than she knew me--were describing her in exactly the same ways, and had the same sorts of wonderful memories of her company and her cooking.


I wish we could have seen more of each other toward the end.  But she went from hospital to nursing home, and some days she barely had the energy to get dressed.  I know there wasn't much I could have done about that. But I wish that I could have spent more time with her in my new life, especially after she took my transition with an attitude that bordered on nonchalance.


Then again, I think she always knew me as Justine, long before I started to go by that name.  We had "girls' nights out" even before the "M's" changed to "F's" on all of my documents.  And she knew, even before I did, that she--to paraphrase Bruce--had befriended a human being, not a gender.  You really can't ask more than that of anybody, which means that you are all you can, or have to, offer or give.  


So, I have no regrets about our relationship, save for the fact that I didn't get to spend more face-to-face time with her toward the end.  I guess everyone who loves and is loved wishes for that. 

Moving Day

Well, I've got about a dozen and a half boxes--about half of them books, or things related to books--piled around my living room. I'm going to sleep here tonight, in a canyon between some of those boxes and the wall behind the sofa on which I'm sitting. It's not a bad sofa, if a bit worn: The landlady insisted on leaving it here with me. "It's very comfortable," she pointed out.

That means my futon is in my bedroom. It's a convertible, but I might just use it as my bed. Then I could fold it back up, if I wanted to, and use the space in my bedroom for--well, whatever. And it's a bigger bedroom than the one I left.

Plus, John--Millie's husband--pointed out, "If it works for you, why buy another bed?"

They helped me with my move. Now tell me they aren't friends: It's the day after Thanksgiving and they could be doing all sorts of other things. But they helped me. And it left me in tears for a time.

Now they're not living next door or across the street from me. We're only about half a mile, if that, apart. Still, I miss having them as neighbors: They're the best I've ever had.

And, I miss the place I left. Maybe it's not the place itself, which wasn't bad, but the things I associated with it. For one thing, it was the first place into which I moved as Justine. My life as I know it now developed there. Finally, I had my operation while living there.

I must also say that my landlady there treated me well most of the time. But in the four and a half years I lived there, I often wondered whether I'd have to move on short notice. And that's precisely what I've done now.

About a year into living there, her father's health took a dramatic turn for the worse. One day, someone from a social service agency informed me that I would have to move because he needed to live in my apartment, which was at the street level. He was in a wheelchair and couldn't climb stairs.

I was literally hours away from moving--I'd paid a security deposit at a new place and was in the middle of packing--when she said that her father wasn't moving in after all. Turns out that he needed care that neither she nor her mother could provide. So, she offered to give me the month free if I'd stayed.

It wasn't the only reason I stayed. I simply didn't want to move, as I had grown comfortable in that place and neighborhood. Plus, I was rather liking the arrangement of living on the first floor of a private house with the landlady upstairs. If nothing else, it meant that the house would be well-maintained. And it was, until recently.

A few months ago, I noticed cracks in the plaster on the ceiling. Then parts of it started falling down. I asked her to fix it. To do that, I had to remove the bed from my bedroom. I'd wanted to replace the mattress anyway, as I'd had it for a long time. So I tossed the bed, figuring that I'd get another.

A family friend who is the superintendent of a building in another part of Queens did the job. He convinced my landlady that the room--in fact, the whole apartment should be repainted. That was in early October.

Well, one thing and another came up, and he didn't do the job. And, in the meantime, a city inspector came to the house. It turns out that the apartment from which I just moved is illegal. The landlady claims the apartment, which was created by constructing a barrier, was there when her family moved the house.

She asked me to leave the apartment "for a couple of weeks" so that she could board up the bathroom, remove or cover the stove, sink and refrigerator and have a new inspection. Then, she said, she'd like for me to come back.

I asked her what I could do with Charlie and Max in the meantime. Or with my personal belongings: If I left them there, wouldn't an inspector know that someone was living there? And, I wondered where I was supposed to go. I mean, I have friends with whom I could probably stay. But, to me, the only reason to live out of a suitcase is if you're traveling.

So here I am in my new place. At least, this time I knew about the city Department of Buildings website, where I was able to check the status of this house. I just hope this all works out for me.