The Wedding: A Family's Coming Out Story (32 page)

            “Where
do you love now?” she asked in a salty rasp that oral surgery had branded her
with.

            “New
York.”

            “How
long?”

            “
Six
years
,” I answered, pleading guilty, thought the charges were still
pending.

            She
leveled a lethal stare. And after a beat for dramatic intimidation, she
growled, “You’re full of crrrrrrrap!”

            It’s
hard to argue with the facts. And it’s funny how she managed to let me know, in
so few choice words, that I had a hell of a nerve living in New York six years
without ever visiting her in Long Beach. After I’d been cut down to size, with
only my nervous laugh distinguishing me from a mound of quivering jelly, I
moved on to my Aunt Sylvia. Other than my Aunt Verona and Uncle George, my Aunt
Sylvia and her family were the people whom I felt most conflicted about not
having invited to the wedding. Granted, I’d only seen them half a dozen times
in my life, yet that was twice the contact I’d had with almost anyone else in
the room.

            Now,
standing here at Aunt Verona’s shiva, I wondered what Miss Manners would say
about announcing that your gay wedding would be playing on national television
in seventy-two hours, to the very relatives you hadn’t invited to your nuptials
in the first place. Somehow, I wasn’t quite sure this was the appropriate time.

            I
weighed the options: would I step up and tell them all, boldly, what to expect,
or was I going to simply lie back and let fate determine if they’d catch it on
the tube by chance?

            I
snapped back into recline, lay flat down, and let destiny ride roughshod over
me.

ANDREW   
I had my own decisions
to make. After the wedding, and the completion of my internship, I was
fortunate enough to find a job fairly quickly as a substance-abuse treatment
center in Manhattan. As it happened, Denise Schreiner wanted some footage of me
at work, and I knew permission from hospital administrators was required. And
until now, few of the staff knew about either the wedding, the upcoming
program, or even my sexual orientation.

            As
the
Turning Point
airdate neared (it was scheduled to air the Thursday
of election week, November 7), I shared my excitement with some of the
treatment-center staff. Some reacted to my disclosure with genuine surprise,
and seemed curious. Others smiled nervously and examined their shoes. It made
for some strained conversation, from which I quickly excused myself.

            I
hoped that once they saw the show, the reactions would improve.

ROSLYN
   
The day
that the program was to air, I awoke at 5:30AM. I couldn’t sleep, so I figured
that I might as well plunge into my exercise routine. Today it was especially
important to get rid of the tension I was feeling. I was stressed because I
didn’t know what to expect. We didn’t know if we’d like how we came across, or
what the general tone would be. We hoped that Andrew and Doug would do us proud
and that they would be pleased with us. Simply, I was scared.

SHELDON   
We would appear sincere,
truly concerned, but also truly supportive parents – or idealistic,
self-righteous, self-proclaimed heroes? (God forbid!)

            At
ten that night we sat down to watch, just the two of us. As the program
progressed, I must say that both Roslyn and I were pleased with the
presentation (even-handed without preaching or taking sides) and the choice of
couples (just as Denise promised, from all categories of the population – older
women, younger women, intelligent professionals), all from good, normal,
middle-of-the-road families (perhaps with the exception of the one villain – if
you saw the show, you know which one I’m referring to – who actually, I think,
made a positive contribution by making outlandish remarks and behaving so
inappropriately as to show up at her sister’s wedding with a card denouncing
the proceedings). But frankly, the reason I was so happy about the program was
that I felt all of the participants (including Roslyn and myself) came across
not as playacting and giving the answers they thought the interviewer wanted,
but as genuine and natural.

ANDREW   
Only once did I find
fault with the show – and you might say I’m too close to the material – but I
wish they had included when the salesman in the Judaica had said, “I hope you
have many happy years together.” It was the surprise twist that provided the
punch line to the entire encounter. I didn’t want it included just for dramatic
purposed, but because it showed how unfair all stereotypes are: We pegged him
before we walked in the store, without even meeting him. And he proved us dead
wrong.

DOUG   
When it came to Sheldon’s big
speech, he appeared calm and self-possessed. Cut to me, blubbering. Cut back to
Sheldon finishing the speech to rapturous applause. When he left the podium to
take his seat, Denise added and inspired touch. While Andrew and I hugged
Sheldon, the audience heard a piece of what must have been Sheldon’s earlier
interview. The quote was (and it soon became the most misquoted line I’ve heard
since “Play it again, Sam”); “In twenty years from now, we’ll look back at this
and say, ‘What was all the fuss about?’”

SHELDON   
As soon as the program
was over, we received a call. It was Lona, who catered our wedding, expressing
her admiration for us. The conversation lasted two or three minutes, no longer.
After it ended, our telephone indicated that we had some messages on the
machine. Would you believe
nine
(9!) in number? Remember, it was now
after 11:00PM. We just let them wait until the next day. I leave early for work
every day, about 7:00AM. As I pulled out of the garage driveway, a passing
jogger whom I knew stopped to tell me how great the show was and how well we
came across. Needless to say, after I arrived at my office, the phone started
to ring off the hook all day. All the calls were very flattering, some quite
revealing (for example, one disclosed having a gay son, one a gay brother,
etc., and they all thought this program would help – both their relatives as
well as themselves.)

DOUG   
The next morning, back in the
Turning
Point
office, computers were humming. The e-mail flurry had begun.

            It
goes without saying that the thousands of e-mails were directed to Denise Schreiner
and the rest of the producers, from executive to associate, and everyone else
on the production staff. Yet being in a profiled family and seeing the massive
computer file that was building up, it felt like the story we were part of had
taken on a life of its own. And American was writing it a collective letter.

            A
disk of the latest mail was copied off a main computer, and I scrolled through
it on my laptop. If the thousands that would eventually arrive, several hundred
were already in the system. I saw only a fraction of those.

            I
set aside a few key pages and faxed them to Sheldon’s office. He and Roslyn
could see the response once he went into the office on Monday. I knew Roslyn
would be gratified. I hope Sheldon would be shocked.

            When
I got home from work there was a message on my machine from Uncle George’s son,
my cousin Barnet. “I’m here at the house with my dad, and Aunt Sylvia. We saw
the show last night.
Mazel tov!
Give us a call.”

            It
turns out another cousin, Barry, was watching television on Thursday morning
while he was on the treadmill, and saw a promo for the show. He’d just seen me
a couple of days before at Aunt Verona’s shiva, so he was pretty sure the image
on TV was me. He called Barnet, and they all tuned in that night.

            I
tried to excuse my way out of how I handled it all, and Barnet seemed
understanding. Aunt Sylvia, however, wasn’t letting me off the hook. I squirmed
while she stuck me with a couple of sharp questions.

            A
few weeks later, I saw Barnet and his family at their home in Los Angeles,
where he told me the story behind the story. “When the show was over, Sylvia
turned to my father and said, ‘I don’t know if I approve… and why wasn’t I
invited?’” It reminded me of the old joke about the two Jewish ladies going out
for dinner. One says, “Such terrible food!” and the other answers, “And such
small portions!”

            Anyway,
Barnet then reminded me of a story that put a memorable spin on Aunt Sylvia’s
response He late husband was Greek. A non-Jew. When they married some fifty years
ago, it split the family. Everyone had to choose sides. Isn’t it funny how the
great stories stay the same, and only the players change places? Marriage
cleaving a rift through a family has been one of humanity’s favorite plat lines
since long before
Romeo and Juliet
. By today, the Montagues and the
Capulets would have hung up their swords, unless that is, Juliet was a Julius.
And the travails of Bridget and Birney probably wouldn’t warrant a sitcom
today. So what’s in the next in fifty years? Maybe that’s what scares people.
We’ve come so far, it’s hard to imagine what the next frontier could possibly
be.

            Not
long after that, I got a call from my Aunt Ruth.

            Though
her trademark gravel was tougher to make out over the phone, I heard her ask,
“So when you come out to see me, you’re going to bring your better half? Don’t
you think it’s about time?”

            It’s
tough to answer Aunt Ruth without sounding like a yammering dope by comparison,
so I stuck to short statements. “Yep,” I answered.

            “Loveyabunch,”
she signed off.

ANDREW   
The weekend after the
show aired, Doug and I were invited to a friend’s wedding in Florida. I flew
down first on Friday morning, and Doug met me that evening. I picked him up at
the curb at the airport, so when we went upstairs in the condo elevator, it was
the first time we’d been in public since the show aired. One of the building’s
countless septuagenarian busybodies got in with us on the ground floor. As the
cab rose slowly, she glanced back and forth between me and Doug. When I caught
her squinting our way, she looked down. When the elevator stopped at her floor,
she stepped out, then turned back, propping the door open with a bony,
perilously tanned arm. “Did I see the two of you on television the other
night?”

            Doug
and I gaped at each other, flabbergasted that anyone would recognize us, let
alone a little old lady from Miami Beach. “Ummm, yes… What did you think?” I
genuinely wondered over her response.

            She
screwed her face up tight, like a Cabbage Patch doll in a vise, composed her
thoughts carefully, and looked me squarely in the eye. “The parents they
interviewed were yours, right?” I nodded as brightly as possible. He face
uncrinkled, then she deadpanned, “They are
incrrrrrrredible
people.” The
delivery could have been subtitled, “Wild horses could have dragged me up to
the
chuppah
! Either your parents are
meshugge
, or they’re the
first Jewish saints!
Feh!
”

            Then
the elevator closed again, and it was just me and Doug. We stared slack-jawed 
at each other, then laughed out loud. “What the hell was that?”

            Just
the beginning.

            After
we dripped off Doug’s bags at his parents’ apartment in Miami, we took a walk
down Ocean Drive. As soon as we hit the main drag, a few Roller Bladers
traveling toward us hit their brakes and asked, “Were you the guys on TV the
other night? Is this your honeymoon?” We told them the show had been shot two
months ago, and one of them said, “Good going! Great job!” and before we knew
it, a couple of cars slowed to a creep, and people started calling out of their
windows, “Hey, that was great! Good for you!” For the rest of the afternoon and
evening, wherever we went, shopping, walking, you name it, people stopped us –
straight couples, gay couples, singles, men, women, whatever – to tell us how
much they liked the show, how they admired all of us, and my parents in
particular. It sounds like an ego trip, and in a way it was. But the thrill
wasn’t merely in being recognized. The real thrill was in being recognized for
doing something we cared about, sticking with it, making it happen, and in
doing so, making an impression, a dent, being a part of change.

            Time
and again gay couples told us they had taped the show and were going to send it
to their families, or watch it together with them. Time and again we heard how
my parents’ acceptance and support was an inspiration. And time and again
people would say things like, “Your parents were so comfortable with the whole
thing!”

            Finally
we said out loud to each other, “If only it was as easy as it looked!” Once we
spoke the truth to each other, we started telling people who approached us that
our journey was infinitely more challenging than it appeared on television. The
reality of our
ceremony
was portrayed on TV, but somehow a truth or two
about the
wedding
got lost along the way.