Silencing the Creak
by Michael Van Kerckhove
I wake up suddenly, rub the sleep out of my eyes with my fists, and find myself in a strange woman's arms. Wait. That doesn't sound right at all. Let's back track.
I am three going on four years old. I am sitting in the audience of the Grease Paint Players' production of Deadwood Dick, a dime novel melodrama with its requisite cast of damsels, villains, and heroes. My mother is next to me. My grandmother—my father's mother—is on stage: a frontier woman in a dark green dress and bonnet.
I don't remember actually seeing much of the play. But I do see her standing stage left, screaming in a stylistically appropriate manner, flashing her black cape across my vision… And then I wake up—and realize my mother isn't holding me. Instead, I'm in the arms of a woman I don't know. Hopefully my mother—whose arms are too tired to hold me the entire time—does.
After the curtain call, I run crying, “Grandma! Grandma!” She takes me backstage and I exclaim, “This is what I want to be when I grow up!” Thus a common ground established.
In the spirit of our love of the stage there co-exists our love of art. My grandmother volunteered at the Detroit Institute of Art, both in its hallowed halls and at schools in the area, where she brought treasures from the museum to share with the students. She often rehearsed her presentations by showing her slides to us on her dining room wall. She even trekked across town to my school when I was in 4th grade. She let me work the slide projector, and I felt so cool.
Best was actually visiting the museum with her. That meant sleeping over and getting up early and feasting on blueberry pancakes. We'd roam the galleries of paintings, Greek statues, suits of armor. She taught us—my brother and I—not to touch. She inspired us to appreciate, stand back, read the description cards.
I eventually started calling her “Graham Crackers,” either by way of my developing word play or inspired by stories told over late night snacks in the breakfast nook, seated at the chrome sided kitchen table where I'd had my fill of cold meatloaf sandwiches on white bread with butter, carrot Jell-O, and the aforementioned pancakes. Stories lit by the glow of her Blessed Mary night light—our own Virgin Queen campfire.
One story we often read was a book about a little ghost who haunts a family's home. One day, the family decides to oil all the doors in the house in order to silence its mysterious creaking. Now forced into even deeper invisibility, our saddened ghostly friend goes in search of a new house to haunt, only to discover they are already taken by other ghosts. And how can a ghost who can't haunt, be himself? Upon closing the book, we'd walk through the darkened living room, press our fingers into the holy water soaked sponge at the foot of the stairs, make the Sign of the Cross, and climb up to our slumber.
Catholicism—our point of departure, created extremes in our most sacred relationship. When I stopped going to church in the 11th grade, my mother told me not to tell my grandmother. She was well aware of our church's schedule and would often call our house on Sunday mornings when she knew we should be in prayer. Keeping this secret was easy enough as my mother had a rule: There would be no discussion of sex, politics, or religion in her house on a holiday.
But while home from college for a family gathering, the inevitable day came. I was a theatre major, and so we always had that to talk about. But then she finally asked me if I attended Mass at school. Never wanting to lie about it, I simply said, “No.” I could hear her heart breaking in the silence that followed. And then we went back to following the rule.
Our one-on-one conversation in the years since has been, for the most part, friendly and I wouldn't say superficial, though it often avoids scratching the surface—with a few exceptions, including the time she threatened to give me pamphlets from some Catholic ex-gay group. And then there was the walk we took with our dog, Pugsley, during which my grandmother told me how sad my parents must be about my “lifestyle.” Do not ever assume, Grandmother, you know how anyone else feels.
We've mostly kept the deeper issues to our written correspondence: birthday and Christmas cards and letters in between. Whereas I always enjoy the greetings and well wishes—and the accompanying check—the price I often pay in exchange is her standing on her podium. And as much as I try to let it bounce off me or blame it on a sign of her time, it does hurt. She has lamented, telling of the tears she has shed. All I can say is, “You really don't need to cry for me.” But she will, until the day she and her tears both evaporate.
In so many letters she tells me how disappointed she is in me in this regard and she urges me to “pray, pray, pray!” because “by not practicing your Catholic Faith, you have cut off your 'pipeline' to God.” And it's that possessive that bothers me so much: “Your True Faith.” My True Faith. As if I still own it. As if it still wants me. As if I still own it. As if it still wants me. But it's only a memory—one that has in all its kernels of purity made me the kind heart I believe I am today. Despite my weaknesses.
In my belated 21st birthday letter, she suggested—after quite a sermon—that we have a talk during the coming Thanksgiving weekend. Despite the rule, I suppose. Well, having been with my then boyfriend for a couple months, I decided that if we were to talk, we were going to talk about everything. I dodged the bullet over the holiday season, but in the first days of the New Year I wrote one of the most passionate letters I've ever written to anyone. After a few pleasantries, I cut to the chase. “I'm gay—as in 'homosexual,' not 'happy' (though I'm pretty happy too.)” I tell of my self discovery, my boyfriend. And then, “We're all just looking for love. We all need to be held. We all need to touch the skin of another human being, and it really shouldn't matter who's wearing it.”
From there I get on my own podium about the pitfalls of organized religion and my lack of ability to forgive the blood that has been shed in the name of True Faith. At least I know where my stubborn streak comes from.
My hands shake as I open her response a few weeks later. She isn't shocked. She still loves me. Etc. Then, “Unwittingly, people will say things that will hurt you without ever knowing the reason why.” In the spirit of being as frank as I, she says, “It is unnatural.” Does she know the reason why that's hurtful?
I wish I could say things have gotten better. For my 29th birthday, I received this sentiment: “I want to reflect the joy you felt when you wrote the news of your upcoming commitment to Ernie, but it is against the dictates of my conscience to accept this as the correct thing to do. It may be 'politically correct' but it is wrong in the eyes of God. I have nothing against a chaste friendship and your living together to share expenses and creative work, but….” So, we can live together, but we cannot hold each other or touch each other's skin. She was not invited to the ceremony. If not for ideological reasons, then for the fact she'd be allergic to all the food.
When I called to invite her to my 30th birthday dinner this past October, she worked in, “Ernie's great,” for which I feel blessed, “But if you could just change your lifestyle a little…” I wanted to yell, “Why am I inviting you again?!” Instead, I simply said, “That's not going to happen.”
“Just a little.” Just change who you are, that's all. No big deal, right?
Please stop. Just stop, or I'm going to go crazy….
This past Christmas we came full circle. We stood in the hallway—Grandma, Ernie, and I—and she told of her time in Gypsy with the Grease Paint Players. It's a story I'd heard before. If this is the oil that silences my own unwanted noise, then let it be.
And even though I feel like she'll be around forever, when she goes, I will probably cry and creak the loudest. With more stubborn passion than anyone else.
Michael Van Kerckhove (www.michaelvkplaywright.com) has lived in Chicago since 1998 and is both a Network Playwright at Chicago Dramatists and a member of the Dramatists Guild of America. In 2001, he received an Illinois Arts Council grant 2001 for The Melted Lampshade, which was later produced by The House of Bü in Minneapolis. With director Ernie Nolan, he has co-written a new version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears for the Marquis Theatre in Detroit. Michael is also the “Chicago Scene” columnist for On The Purple Circuit, a GLBT theatre Web site, and has appeared in several NewTown Writers shows.
 |
| Photo by Robert Klein-Engler |