Jeffrey McGowan - Major Conflict

I could’ve just gotten the E or R train not far south of Nello’s but I was so excited at having met Billy and at being back in the city again that I decided to walk awhile. The renovation of Grand Central was nearly finished, and I’d not yet seen it, so I figured I’d walk the roughly twenty blocks south to Forty-second Street, check out the terminal, and catch the 7 train back home to Eighty-second Street in Jackson Heights. Making my way down Madison Avenue I reviewed the afternoon with Billiam, hearing his words over and over again, seeing his face, hoping I hadn’t said anything too stupid. Thinking about it filled me with a kind of hope, a sense of possibility, that I’d never experienced before. There was no way of knowing, of course, how things would turn out with Billy, yet I sensed right away that something very, very special was happening, and I felt determined to get it right. I was a walking cliché now, heading south on Madison Avenue, a young man in the city whose step had suddenly been lightened by the prospect of love.

I cut over to Park Avenue and rushed through the Helmsely walkway and then entered the Pan Am Building (it’s the Met Life Building now, and it was that day, too, but for some of us it will always be the Pan Am Building) and made my way through the lobby and to the escalators that would take me down into the great vaulted concourse of the newly renovated Grand Central Terminal. As the sleek escalator dropped me slowly down into the main room, I was stunned by the transformation. The big Kodak sign was gone, allowing a full view of the giant windows up on the east side. The old ticket windows were gleaming with freshly cleaned brass, and none of them housed Off Track Betting. The air was smoke-free, and that fact seemed to make the ceiling all the more impressive. The great mural of constellations covering the ceiling had been deeply obscured when I’d last been here in the 1980s. Now it sparkled as clear as a night sky in upstate New York. Later on I couldn’t help seeing this as a kind of sign of my own newfound clarity regarding my sexuality and my whole life. That all the smoke and grime that had rendered the great muraled ceiling nearly invisible in the eighties was just like all the ambivalence, all the indecisiveness, all the pain of denial I’d put myself through during that time. And now all the smoke and grime was gone. I could finally see, and having met Billy, the clarity seemed to become even more profound, the ceiling seemed to reveal a universe that had been, a mere decade before, inconceivable to me, unimaginable, unreachable. Now here it was, looming so grandly over the freshly scrubbed train station, and seeming so close I felt, as the escalator gently deposited me onto the soft marble floor, almost as if I could reach out and grab a handful of stars and rearrange the Milky Way.

I stood for a moment in the center of the room, by the great brass clock set atop the information desk, and took the whole thing in, feeling immensely relieved and happy. And just as I was about to head off east toward the subway, I thought I saw two boys sitting on one of the counters across the way. Cigarette smoke fluttered over the head of the smaller one, while the bigger one seemed to be chewing on a large piece of gum. Their hands were locked together beneath the bigger boy’s left thigh. I thought I could smell smoke then, and the strong smell of, what—a strawberry Starburst, maybe?—but then the image disappeared, and I knew I was seeing things. I knew it was Greg and me, the memory unspooling. The image came and went so quickly that I tried to conjure it up again, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t coax it back. It wouldn’t return, those two boys were gone forever, I knew now, and so I got on the escalator to go down to the subway. Just as I reached the bottom, just as I passed the heavyset nun in full nun regalia, who was always stationed there at the bottom of the escalator on a stool with her cup, all my newfound clarity and joy was suddenly tempered and enriched with sadness, the sadness of regret over all the time I’d wasted, over all the youth I’d misspent.

But then I was on the train, and before I knew it we were bolting out of the earth at Hunter’s Point and I was feeling reinvigorated. There’s nothing like it, the way the train just emerges from beneath the ground on the Queens side, having just crossed beneath the river, and then rises up and up and makes the great sweeping curve north until the skyline of Manhattan appears to your left just behind the bridge. We pulled abruptly into the Queensboro Plaza station, the old Redbird rattling on the elevated, just as an N train pulled in on the other side, so that it felt like two roller coasters competing at Coney Island. The doors opened, then closed, and the train lurched forward again. And as the N veered off dramatically to our left, heading north into Astoria, and we started the climb up to Forty-third Street, I began to feel doubtful.

How could I be sure that this wouldn’t be a replay of Paul? Wasn’t this too good to be true? Suddenly all the pain I’d experienced from Paul came rushing back to me, and I found myself wanting to run and hide. But I’m being ridiculous, I thought to myself, as we rushed past the apartment windows at Fifty-second Street nestled right up next to the train tracks, revealing brief snippets of private lives—a man standing in front of a television set, a woman crossing a room. Billiam is out (of the closet, that is), I told myself, and I’ll soon be out of the army, and this isn’t going to be anything like Paul. By the time the train rolled into Woodside I’d decided that life was about taking risks, that just because I’d been hurt once didn’t mean I’d be hurt again, that I’d be a fool to pass up an opportunity to make something with Billiam. Not only was I attracted to him, I was really impressed with his intelligence as well, and his sophistication. And you know what, I thought to myself, after all the trauma with Paul, I think I deserve a shot at a relationship in this new, healthier context. So when the doors finally opened at Eighty-second Street, my mind was entirely made up: I would pursue a relationship with Billiam. That’s what I would do.

And so for the third time the light switch was flipped on, and this time nothing stood in the way of letting that light shine as brightly and freely as possible. My new life had begun to take shape, and all my anxiety about changing careers and fitting into civilian life were now made bearable by the presence of this special man who seemed to have arrived at just the right moment, as if on cue.

Before I knew it I was meeting the family, something I’d never done before. Billy’s sisters, Yvonne and Andrea, share his striking good looks. At that time Yvonne lived on Eighty-sixth Street on the East Side, not far from Central Park. When he took me to meet her, we walked in and were met by a tall, elegant woman, who bore a strong resemblance to Julia Roberts, with thick brown hair, and, despite being pregnant with her daughter Helena, a near perfect figure. She wore one of those smiles that manage to put everyone at ease instantly, and I knew right away that I was going to like her a lot. Next to her stood her husband, Chris, a tall, blond, sturdy fellow, with handsome features, who, it turned out, is a kind of Renaissance man—an accomplished corporate finance banker and oil painter. Seeing the two of them together I couldn’t help thinking that I’d somehow managed to stumble into an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel.

I was nervous at that first meeting, but it quickly became clear that they accepted me for who I was and were prepared to open their home to me with the same generosity and kindness they offered to everyone.

Soon thereafter, Billy took me to meet his sister Andrea, and her husband and daughter, at their home in Westchester. Like her two siblings, Andrea is stunningly beautiful. The moment I met her I was struck by her fierce intelligence and warmth. She’s so open and easy to talk to that she quickly took me into her confidence. To this day she is one of the people I turn to for advice. Her husband, Bill, a successful trader, comes from a large and wonderful family, and whenever we spend the holidays with them it’s always a raucous good time. The aforementioned Wilhelmina was only ten months old when I first met them, and she was already showing signs of being very precocious. I would be remiss if I did not mention the three children who followed, Helena, Claudia, and Harrison—all of whom are destined for greatness.