Rum and Coca-Cola (Excerpt from Coming Out Of Indiana)

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Rum and Coca-Cola (Excerpt from Coming Out Of Indiana)

Posted On October 23, 2014 By chromedust And has 50 Comments

Male friendships came hard to me as a kid. I was all about the girls. Not only was I more relaxed around girls, but they always seemed to understand and accept me. I connected with girls easily and automatically, and in turn, they saw things in me that made my sense of difference bearable. But I still wanted to have male friends and find my way in to that brotherly world of boys. That world seemed to be filled with ease and self-assurance – things I longed to have but never felt.

In sixth grade, at the zenith of my physical awkwardness, I met the epitome of confidence. His name was Mark. We sat next to each other in art class, which was the place where Mark’s creativity could flourish. He was not a “cool” kid in the traditional sense of the term, but I envied him because he didn’t give a damn about what anyone thought of him. He knew what he liked, what he was, and what he wanted. Being artsy and a little eccentric might have thrown people meeting him for the first time, but I was immediately drawn to him.

Mark didn’t take to other male classmates the way he’d taken to me. We didn’t have a romantic attraction, but what we did have was much more than friendship. When I spent time with him, I was more comfortable than I’d been around any other guy. The first time he invited me over to his house was during the summer before 9th grade. His mother, Viola, met me at the door and walked me to his tiny bedroom. Viola was a sweet and timid soul. I must have been the least imposing person she’d ever welcomed into her home, but she appeared jittery in my company. She admonished herself for not having offered me anything to drink after we had taken only a few steps. I politely refused and she made sure I wasn’t declining just to be mannerly. Our duel of manners ended when we reached Mark’s room and she left me with standing order to make myself at home. I opened Mark’s door and instead of a greeting he asked, “Do you like the Andrew Sisters?” I’d never heard of them, which I didn’t want to admit. As I closed the door behind me, Mark put on Rum and Coca-Cola. Once the music started, without speaking, we both nestled ourselves side-by-side on his twin bed.

I came to know the song as Mark’s favorite because every time I came over to his house, starting in ninth grade and continuing through high school, he dropped the needle on that record. I’m not sure why it didn’t wear out the grooves, but each time I was over, that indestructible vinyl answered the call. We’d laugh, thinking it was hysterical. It was my first encounter with kitsch, years before I’d ever hear the word. When the Andrews Sisters cooed the line ‘working for the Yaankee dollah” we would just hit the floor. Mark had the high-low taste thing down long before anyone else I knew. He introduced me to Roberta Flack, Laura Nyro and LaBelle too, but Bette Midler was the one who made him gush.

Bette’s debut album, The Divine Miss M., was a favorite of Mark’s. We’d sing along to it at first. By the time we got to the second or third drop of the needle, we’d lower the volume and talk to each other while we stared at the ceiling, my right shoulder tight up against his left in that tiny twin bed. My physical preoccupations subsided during those hours in Mark’s room. I stopped worrying about my own awkwardness long enough to enjoy the emotional connection that I couldn’t have imagined sharing with anyone else. I think of him whenever I hear Bette Midler.

Maybe it wasn’t the rough-and-tumble male friendship of a football field or a hunting trip, but it was my first true friendship with a boy. It showed me that I could have a male friend. And it showed me that not all men were jocks or standard-issue Indiana guys – some were artists or just appreciators of art, and no less male for it. It took me longer to understand all the ways a man can be masculine, but it was my friendship with Mark that helped me see that male friendships weren’t defined by a slap on the back or a punch in the arm. Men could listen to music together and be physically at ease in each other’s presence.

I realized later that Mark too longed for easy male friendship, and had his own secret identity, much like mine. But in those days, I think he wanted nothing more than what I wanted – a friend to listen to music with; a guy friend who thought Bette Midler was great. We were too young to drink Rum and Coca Colas then, and adulthood would be complicated and at time, deadly serious, but at least during those years, we had that carefree soundtrack to our friendship. As both the Andrews Sisters and the Divine Miss M sang “Calypso sing and make up rhyme, guarantee you one real good fine time.”

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