After returning to the states in 1985 from my first year of teaching in Costa Rica, I spent a year substituting in the local system before getting hired as a teacher. I also worked part time at the college where I'd graduated as the theater arts shop manager. Basically, I designed and built the sets for the drama department. My assistant was a student named Michael. We hit it off well. The thing about Asbury College, many of the students come from families that are well established members of the broader Evangelical Christian community, members of a club that in one way celebrate the arrival of new inductees, and in another isn't really interested in who the newbees are as much as who they are to now become. Mike and I were both proselytes. He was born in Germany on a US military base. His father was an American who was killed in action when Mike was very young. His mother was German and a few years after his father's death emigrated with Mike's younger step brother and sister to Huntsville, Alabama. One of the things that I always found fascinating about Michael was how thoroughly bilingual he was. He always claimed that he never spoke English as a child, but his English was flawless with not even a hint of an Alabama drawl.
Eventually, he moved in with me taking over the spare bedroom. Our cohabitation was very copesetic. Mike was easy to live with, clean and considerate, Spartan. He kept aquariums and set up a 60 gallon freshwater tank that in lieu of a TV became the central focus of the living room. His large fish required smaller fish for sustenance, and feeding time became an event attracting a devoted group of students from the college who cheered on the carnage like Roman citizens rooting for the Lions in the Coliseum.
Mike was dating the daughter of one of the college's English professors during the time we shared the apartment. Eventually, he proposed and a date for their wedding was set. As the weekend approached, over breakfast one day I asked him about the details (the marriage was going to occur in Huntsville). At one point the conversation became comically confused, and he looked at me and asked, "Why are you asking about that? You're going to be one of my groomsman." I hadn't assumed anything up to that point, and he hadn't said anything about who those people would be. I knew Mark would be his best man. And he talked all the time about a couple of friends from high school... The wedding was only a two of weeks away, and I said, "But you haven't even talked about tuxes, and you didn't actually ask me." He smirked, "Tuxes? No tuxes, dude. You have a suite coat. That's enough. Honestly, I didn't think I had to ask." Well, that cleared up; on to the wedding day.
So you can see, Mike was not about showy anything. Practical, unsentimental; assumed that words should not be wasted on stating the obvious--at least, what was obvious to him. Here's where the Berlin wall comes into the story. The rehearsal dinner was at his mom's house. She prepared it. Dancing was not an Evangelical thing, so no band or booze. After all the sparkling cider toasts and jokes, Mike spoke to the men who were there to witness his nuptials. At the conclusion he handed each of us a little box with a token of his appreciation. Inside were little chunks, chips really, of concrete. Each bore a patch of smooth surface, coated in layers of paint; Pieces of the Berlin Wall, collected by an uncle and mailed to the U.S. to Michael for this purpose. Wow! Best wedding tchotchke ever.
That was almost thirty years ago. I have cherished this little piece of history every since. Unfortunately, my relationship with Michael is likewise relegated to an historical event. His marriage coincided with a time in my life when I was coming out as gay. His response kind of surprised me. We never talked about anything particularly sexual during our time living together. He acted affirmed by a suspicion about me he'd never vocalized. Michael always like to be right about everything. He calmly explained how my thinking was completely wrong and how it was up to me to change. And that's where and when the friendship ended. Not in animosity. Not in betrayal. Just a fizzle...a sigh. This fundamental and blossoming aspect of my personhood had no nook, no crevice where in to reside in his world view, ergo, neither did I.
December 1989 Huntsville, Alabama
[L-R: Mark (best man), ME!, Michael]
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