Where Have All the Good Men Gone? I Found Them.
A single lesbian brags about her favorite husbands
You straight girls can boast all you want about your boyfriends. All you wives out there have nothing on me. You gay guys crooning about your main squeeze, move over. I’ve got the best of the good men. Listen up.
STEVE
The afternoon shift was well underway but the nurse was late. She normally appeared like clockwork at 6:00 pm to take my pulse and change my tracheostomy tube. As the shadows lengthened in my room, I fell asleep.
An hour later I woke up to the familiar sound of the velcro on the inflatable cuff. Having no speaking voice since the wound to my throat, I whispered, “Traffic was bad?”
She chuckled softly so as not to disturb the old lady in the bed next to me. “No, I was just waiting until your husband left.”
My instant guffaw threw my torso forward into a wheezing fit. She stood back, looking a little offended.
“I gotta tell him what you said. That’s my friend Steve.”
Nurse Sharon stared at me. And no wonder. Ever since I had been moved from the Intensive Care Unit a week earlier into the Trauma Ward, Steve had spent most of every day sitting across my bed, doing errands for me, checking my neck, liaising with nurses, rearranging pillows, bringing me magazines, telling me jokes. When I woke up he would be sitting there across from me, quiet as a mouse, reading his books, sipping his coffee.
My other friends and family members spent one day here, one day there, an hour or two at a time. Steve showed up every day for a week and stayed for hours. Who else but a spouse would devote that kind of time?
Wait till Jackie hears this one! She had called yesterday and told me, “Laurie, as soon as Steve heard what happened, he started packing. There was nothing I could have done to stop him, even if I had tried.”
Yes, I had stolen her husband for a week. The country boy who detests crowds of any size had driven four hours to the busiest urban center in the country. The married man who lives on a dirt road half a mile away from his nearest neighbor had called his inner-city friends for a place to stay close to the hospital. The guy who spent half his life hiking in the wilderness and portaging from river to lake had trekked to the heart of downtown and held his nose.
All for me.
When he first appeared in my room I could hardly believe it. He told me he had asked for time off and did not care what the answer was. He was giggling. “I even took the subway, Laurie!”
Steve on the subway. I never thought I would hear that phrase, and it took me a few days to savor the visual. He was a wilderness man. He had spent many weeks in utter solitude, hiking in remote places like Algonquin Park. For a full year he had planted trees across Canada. He and I had spent many days at the lake, sharing canoes and campfires.
Steve on the subway?
His extended hospital visit remains one of the most precious gifts a friend ever gave me. It captures the essence of my rich relationships with men, over the course of my life. He and I first met 17 years earlier at Grandview Baptist Church in Kitchener. A few years later we accidentally met again in the produce department of a London ValuMart, and bonded over our parallel journeys out of our Baptist heritage.
We felt like little kids playing under the covers after bedtime. We doused our heated conversations liberally with wine and laughter. After going our separate ways, we exchanged a hefty dose of handwritten letters mailed via Canada Post, where we discussed God, Christianity, the Bible, sin, guilt, goodness, books we read, movies we watched, songs we listened to, and what little we had discovered about sex.
A single bump threatened to disrupt our mutual loyalty and dedication. When I came out as a lesbian, he gruffly declared it was nonsense and I did not hear from him for a full year.
Then one day he called me, admitted he had been an ass, and invited me to dinner. We resumed where we had left off, he sharing his stories of girlfriends won and lost, jobs on farms, escapades through the Rockies, sightings of bald eagles and giant turtles, I sharing stories of family drama, academic drama, student bloopers and my quest for love.
From time to time we met for a weekend camping in the Muskokas or the Kawarthas. We spent hours together in silence, he reading his fiction, I reading my non-fiction, sometimes in the middle of the lake on a canoe. He stayed overnight many times.
Once when he slept in my bed, I woke up to see his left arm splayed right across my belly. I left it there.
Steve is the quintessence of caring and tenderness. He personifies true friendship: no expectations, no obligations, no time constraints, and implicit trust. He lets me be me and I let him be him, and we both enjoy it just the way it is. We can go a full year without a single text message and then he picks me up at my daughter’s place to share breakfast and drive me to the airport.
One spring after a painful breakup with my girlfriend, he and Jackie and their son Ben whisked me away to the Gaspe for a week. They wouldn’t even let me pay for a breakfast sandwich. Every other year we meet at my place for New Years champagne, Dominican cigars and music.
ERIC
One thing Steve and I don’t share is sports. And I am a big sports fan. Enter Eric. I met him at Kick-Off, a Waterloo hole in the wall with a single huge screen and every beer known to man. He and the bartender were chatting about the army, crime, justice, guns. I tuned them out. I preferred to watch Eli Manning take the Super Bowl from Tom Brady for the second time in four years.
But beer can be a bonding agent. There was something in my cheers and boos he liked, and something about his indignance that I found adorable. He drove me home in his impeccable red 1991 Chevy pickup. It was 20 years old but looked brand new. I am sure when I stepped out he dusted the armrest.
We had nothing in common. But I was curious. I had never had a friend who was a sergeant in the army reserves, a mechanical engineer who manufactures guns for Colt Canada, and a lover of beer. He was handsome, fit, well-employed, friendly, and, judging from the state of his vehicle, neurotically clean. He seemed to be in his late 30s, early 40s. Why on earth was he still single?
By this time I assumed my sexual orientation was obvious to everyone. It wasn’t. When Eric and I met for supper at a Thai restaurant uptown, and I started to talk about my ex-girlfriends, Eric looked a little stunned. He dropped me off at home with a cheery see-ya-later and I thought that was that.
Nope. A week later he called. “Wanna go for a beer?”
Now this impressed me.
“I’d love to, Eric, but I have a ticket to a play at the Button Factory tonight.”
“Oh. What kind of play?”
I thought for a moment. I knew it would broach sensitive subject matter with an emphasis on social justice. Not a good fit for Eric.
“It examines an incident of sexual assault on a First Nations reservation. The playwright is my drama teacher. I took a drama class last fall and I like him.” (Ciaran is another one of those good men.)
“Oh. Okay. Can I come?”
When I arrived at the Button Factory, Eric was sitting on the sidewalk bench waiting for me. I stopped in my tracks. You have got to be kidding. What is this guy made of?
We made our way up the creaky wooden stairs. At the top floor, as I expected, we were surrounded by booths for vegans, pacifists, and social activists. Skinny women wearing bandanas and long skirts stood behind the tables smiling, selling books and gluten-free snacks. Eric walked around with his hands behind his back, looking at the books, smiling at the ladies, chatting. I wanted to laugh. They had no idea.
The play was performed in front of a small crowd of maybe 50 or 60.
Well-written and produced, it was prefaced with the obligatory disclaimer saying we are standing on unceded land of the Six Nations and the play could trigger emotions. Afterwards they opened up the floor.
Eric put up his hand and asked a very thoughtful question. I could hardly believe my eyes and ears. And I wanted to laugh.
I could be friends with this guy.
He introduced me to a whole new world of army buddies, guns, fighter jets, tanks, engineering, and, of course, beer. There was always beer. One of his army associates hired me for a gig that lasted three years. Eric helped me move into a new home and was always eager to help me in any way he could. We attended ribfests, bluesfests and football games. With Eric I always had fun. He brought me to air shows and I brought him to parties and barbecues. And sometimes he fell asleep on my couch.
And one fine autumn I brought him to my family Thanksgiving.
We had to be ready for this one. I told him my Mom and maybe a sibling or two would be hopeful that he could compel me to switch teams and turn into a good wife.
Everybody loved him. And everyone looked puzzled. Finally, Mom popped the question everyone was thinking. “So how did you two meet?”
Eric did not miss a beat. “Well, funny you should ask. See, I’m a redneck right-winger who serves as a Weapons Tech in the Canadian Army and makes guns for a living. And I thought to myself, I know what I am missing. I need a lesbian social democrat in my life.”
A pause. Then bursts of laughter around the room. Eric had been hazed in to the Soper family.
Then he invited me to his Colt Christmas party. He got very drunk and came on to me in front of his co-workers. They enjoyed the display and so did I, but I realized then that I had to step back.
“Hey Eric, I have two words for you. E-Harmony.”
For months I did not talk to him. I wanted to give him space to find a good woman. He deserved the very best. To my further astonishment he took my suggestion to heart and acted on it. When spring arrived, he called me.
“There’s someone I want you to meet.”
She was a physicist working at the Perimeter Institute. Two years later I attended their beautiful wedding. They moved to Ottawa and now have two beautiful kids. Eric is on track to becoming a lieutenant.
I miss my beer buddy. But every year he wishes me happy birthday in the morning before anyone else has turned their phones on, and calls me from time to time on the way home from work to tell me how his new job is going, make sure I am okay, and send me kiddie pics. What a friend.
MURRAY
When Eric’s army associate hired me as the sales consultant for his company, I was in for another surprise. The day I started, I cracked a joke nobody seemed to get.
Except Murray. He laughed out loud.
Murray was the company’s repair genius. I was magnetized to his devotion to detail and perfection, but it was his humour that I found irresistible. The first time he drove me home in his beat-up Saturn, speaking loudly to outdo the clank and drone of the engine, he confessed to me he was a recovering Pentecostal.
“Really? I’m a recovering Baptist!”
He turned to face me with wide eyes. “Oh no. You’re going to hell!”
So began one of the most exciting friendship adventures of my life. We worked together for three years, went on business trips together all over the United States and Canada, cycled all over town together, shared meals at each other’s house, drank beer all over town, and engaged in conversations about everything under the sun. We never ran out of things to talk about. He even accompanied me to the cottage last spring.
Whenever I am preparing for company, I clean my kitchen and tidy up my home in anticipation of their arrival. But Murray started showing up so often that I wouldn’t even start washing my dishes until he had poured his first beer. This started a whole new tradition.
“Yeah, hi, Murray, how are you doing? I have to do my dishes, can you come over?” Ten minutes later he shows up and leans against the door jamb drinking his beer. While I don my rubber gloves and get to work, we talk about Laine’s hat-trick last night, that awesome pick-six by Willie Jefferson, the new bike lanes the city is building down Belmont Avenue, how sexy Beyoncé is, and how special our kids are. Before you know it, the dishes are done.
You talk about handy. Murray helps me keep my kitchen clean.
Murray is the most sensitive guy I have ever met. He cries at movies. He cries when he reads touching poems and stories. He cries when he tells his own stories. He a wise and loving parent, father of three and grandfather of two. He is also one of the most avid learners I have ever met, who ponders things with unyielding commitment. Once he comes to his own conclusions, he allows me to challenge them and he starts all over again.
For two years he endured my disparaging comments about his clothes. He looked like he was homeless and I told him he was hiding his natural beauty behind rags. I offered to transform his image and he refused. He is not one to be prodded into anything by anybody.
But as with everything, Murray pondered it.
One day our bosses asked us both to go on a sales trip. I looked at Murray. He was as excited as I was. But there was no way I was going on any business trip with his current wardrobe.
“Whaddya say, Murray? Wanna go shopping?”
He sighed, pretending to be upset. “Well, I guess so.”
I warned him this shopping day was going to be a lot of work and would test his patience. I told him we had to pace ourselves, take breaks, and finish off with a good meal. And I warned him to budget at least $500. He agreed.
What a day that next Saturday was. Murray spent no less than six hours in ten stores trying on 30 pairs of pants, 40 shirts, 10 shoes, and 10 coats. By the time we were finished, he looked like a million bucks.
On Monday a brand new Murray showed up for work and startled everyone. It was like the ending of the show What not to wear.
I was so proud I could hardly contain my joy. To me, this was one of the most amazing demonstrations of confidence and friendship I had ever witnessed. He had taken a plunge into the unknown and shifted his very identity. And although he was the primary beneficiary, he did it because he trusted me.
Murray and I spend so much time together that, before a get-together my family and friends will ask, “Is your husband coming?”
And yes, if you are going to dream about the perfect husband, Murray is it. I fulfill my role as wife quite well, serving him delicious meals in exchange for him assembling my captain’s bed and installing LED lights over my sink. He is the ultimate protector, with muscle mass to go with it, built up over the first two decades of his life slinging hay on his father’s farm. I can go anywhere with him and feel perfectly safe.
From time to time my friends and family members say, “Why don’t you two just get married?” So we composed some comebacks.
“No way, man. I don’t want to wreck a perfectly good friendship.”
“Get married? Really? So I can brag about how wonderful marriage is, like you always do?”
“Well, I would, but I’ve heard she just won’t put out.”
“Why? I already have the perfect wife. She never asks me where I am going, how I spend my money, how many beers I’ve had, or what other women I am seeing. She never nags me to pick up my socks, clean the dishes, or take out the garbage. She is grateful for everything I do for her and never takes me for granted. Plus she’s a great cook.”
When Murray arrived for Christmas dinner, he presented me with a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and a bouquet of flowers. “That’s the first time I have bought flowers for anyone in twenty years,” he announced as he poured himself an ice-cold Steam Whistle in the chilled steins I keep in my freezer.
I’ve heard people say I must be gay because I haven’t found the right man. Oh, I’ve found the right man. Several times. Steve, Eric and Murray are three of the best husbands a lesbian could ever dream of.
