Like a Moth to a Flamer

"Lover, I'm going to write about you. Would you be offended if I described you as 'gay as a maypole in Spring'?"

"I wouldn't be offended, but I prefer 'as queer as a three dollar bill.'"

This is my Cole. We address one another as "Lover" and we mean it. We delight in each other completely. When together, we are crass, bawdy and at the very least, politically incorrect. It was instant and lasting love. We met at Red Lobster in Wyomissing, PA. We waited tables there. I was fresh from college in the Midwest, with tattered Birkenstocks, Carole King hair and an anthropology degree. Cole had a Bette Davis shower curtain, worshipped Stevie Nicks and owned leather pants with side zippers. Together we wallowed about men, wrote depressing poems about heartbreak, and cracked each other up. Constantly. Consistently. Still do.

The summer of '93 was the best summer of my life for several reasons. Primarily, it was the last totally carefree time in my life, but another reason was Cole. He shared my sense of humor ("twisted," he calls it) and we learned quickly we could feed each other's need for idiocy. He flirted with me so intensely I didn't realize he was queer, despite his immaculate highlights, until another server told me. He seemed more fascinated with my lady bits than any man before or since, and has been loyally groping them for 22 years.

Me and Cole, summer 1993 in PA, at Maria-from-Red-Lobster's wedding.

We fit into the crew at Red Lobster perfectly - a cast of misfits well-suited for any combination of art school, rehab or vagrancy. Lost souls, all of us. But working was actually fun! I was always surrounded by humor, shenanigans and cigarette smoke. Cole and I pretend we are above it all. We pretend that we have grown up and no longer crave those salty delicious cheddar biscuits with comments like, "If only they were made with rosemary and a bit of truffle oil." Other times we get our Pennsylvania Dutch on and declare how a tall glass of chicken gravy would really hit the spot.

But the truth is, we have grown up. Cole has a well-established career and faithful clients; I straighten my hair and make science. His life overflows with decorative urns and designer footwear; mine with spreadsheets and national parks. Our "twisted" humor and our history tie us to the summer of '93 and remind us how carefree we were. Those things will keep us young-at-heart and crazy and coming back for more.

At the height of my dad's failing health, I visited Cole and his husband, Kevin. As I sat in their living room in a stress-induced stupor during the Oscars, I listened to them banter about Lupita Nyong'o's misunderstood pearl dress. I swelled with love for them. I was there because they are my balm. A tonic for what ails me, any time, any place.

In the Fall of 1993, I broke two hearts when I moved away - his and my own. We said if we were still single and pathetic at 40 that we would marry each other. To his mother, he describes me as the wife he would've had if he wasn't such a homo.

When I recently was in my file cabinet and discovered some old poetry, I found one that Cole wrote in '93 in honor of me. I treasure it, and I love my Cole!

Here today, gone tomorrow.
The sweet sorrow of knowing her.

Is she just an angel

sent to make me smile,

here to help me heal?

Or is she just a dream,

gone when I wake.

Leaving me with something

she did not take.

The reality of losing someone to

distance is haunting.

It won't be the same.

But someone in Minnesota will know my name

and I will be loved

a long distance away.

Me and Cole, summer 2015 in NC, selfie in the garden.