She was a blonde, middle-aged woman, a little older than my mother.  Not flabbous in the least, but big; a husky, solid person.  And one of the most human people I have ever known. 

Her name was Lorraine, but she preferred the nick-name Gus, a contraction from her last name, which doesn't need to be spelled-out here.  I used to think full names were essential to reminiscences, mostly to preserve them since my memory is like tissue paper.  But what's remembered is all that's important.  So it will suffice to say her name was Nordic, and we called her Gus. 

She was a nurse.  I was never her patient, not formally.  We worked together in an emergency room some decades ago.  She was never sullen, never morose (like me).  Her vocabulary contained no words for whining.  I remember thinking that she was suspiciously cheerful, that her uncommon good humor had to be an act, that she must be hiding something, or seeking something.  As it turned out, the suspicion was only on me.  Gus was genuinely cheerful, her smiles on seeing you were sincere, her big-bosomed embraces always gave more than they took.  And laughter for her was like breathing; why else should we have windpipes, and chests full of air, and bellies—if not to laugh?  Her optimism saved my life. 

But she could rage. 

She went after a trio of cops once for brutalizing a teenager they had dropped-off at the ER, called them back from the parking lot as they were leaving.  In a hallway full of patients and staff—but most importantly, in view of the boy they'd beaten-up—she ripped them a new set of assholes.  She was transfigured, like Gandalf at Bag End.  We had never even seen her mad, but she stepped into that fire, did her duty, and stepped back out again, like it was second nature.  The worst of the three cops, the swaggering arrogant one, retaliated with some vague threat, like she should be careful with her mouth.  She could get it broken.  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he knew it was the wrong thing to say.  She moved to him so fast he grabbed his stick.  He cringed beneath her glare.  If not for all the onlookers, I swear he would have run away. 

"What?  Are you going to beat me up, too?  This big ole broad'll take you on, boy.  And in a fair fight, I'll win."  A long pause.  His eyes darted around to the spectators, then to his comrades who were clearly impotent before this righteous rage.  "You're a coward... beating-up little boys.  You should know better."  They fled.  And we were stunned. 

She was my hero.  But not all threats are as tangible as that, nor as easily confronted. 

You take my breath away
Rex Smith
1979
 
 You
 I don't know what to say
 You take my breath away
 You're every song I sing
 You're the music that I play
 And you take my breath away
 
 You
 You smile and it's okay
 You take my breath away
 Like water from a stream on a sizzling summer day
 You take my breath away
 There are words for the magic of a sunrise
 Only none of them will due
 For You
 You take my breath away
 And I don't know what to say
 Cause you take my breath away
 
 You
 You take my breath away
 And I don't know what to say
 Cause you take my breath away
 You take my breath away
 You take my breath away
 You take my breath away
 You take my breath away...

I was eighteen.  Which is to say, I was a slender and energetic mass of hormones with a propensity for spontaneous erections that I can only dream about today.  And since I had been a little boy, it had always been men, or other boys, who inspired my eruptions.  It's not that I didn't like girls; I just never looked at them twice.  But boys, they plagued my every waking thought, and most of my dreams as well.  Elegant and gentle, strong and kind, masculine and eager, and never any high-pitched squealing.  However, I was taught—in ways I will never be able to fully catalog, much less spell-out—that I simply could not be gay.  The term I used was 'homosexual'; 'gay' did not sound as medicinal, as bitter and loathing as 'homosexual'.  With contempt, and in secret, I called myself a homosexual. 

I had to keep it a secret, but actually, everyone else knew.  They never spoke of it because they could tell it was not an open topic.  I guess I have to laugh—what else are we built for—but my denial did nothing but preserve a foolish self-deception which I thought was required.  Silly, really.  But it almost cost me my life. 

Some, who can succeed better at denial, are able to maintain the duplicity of a half-assed persona and a half-touched soul.  But the boys, the beautiful boys...  I had linked my survival to the success of my self-deception, and as silly as it may sound, one popular singer at the time, a boy, made me realize that my self-deceptions would never succeed.  He was just too cute.  I could fend off most threats to the lie I had been living, I had whipped them all into submission, but I was done.  It wasn't Rex.  It was the timing.  It was my weariness.  Rex Smith was just a wisp of breath when all my lies were ready to collapse.  I knew that maintaining my denial against the onslaughts of my own heart would be too much. 

And I didn't want to any more. 

Love, by its nature, is exuberant and kind.  It is intolerant of deceit which is why we so often try to inflict deceit upon love—it is our assertion that we have the power.  But in truth love has all the power, and we have none.  Maybe that is why I was so despondant, and why I was incapable of crafting a teneble space within my homosexual closet. 

J. Edgar Hoover, and Roy Cohn are two characters who succeeded in making a permanent home within the closet.  I am glad to have failed where they succeeded.  However, had I been of their era, maybe I too would have been of their ilk—deceit possessed and tragic.  But in 1979 the pressures on gays to stay hidden were far less than thirty years earlier.  I am no better than J., or Roy, but I think I have been much more fortunate. 

Gus knew.  She could see my dire saddness, and she drew me out as far as I was willing to go.  Which as it turns out, was just far enough.  She talked to me a lot during my darkness.  In moments of deep concern and tender care—once in that same hallway where she faced down those cops—she invited me to the place I needed to go.  She loved me, and she offered to help me on the way.  And I wish I could have accepted Gus's love then, acknowledged my self-deceit, and let go of all my secrets in her care. 

But I couldn't.  So I made a truce with my denial. 

I suppose I became no different than most everyone. 

The decades since have been like eating a wedding cake one ingredient at a time; a spoonful of lard one day, a mouthful of flour on another, occasionally a snort of confectioner's sugar.  My friendship with Gus was two years long.  We worked together in an emergency room.  I was an EMT, and I saw a lot of car crashes and a lot of trauma.  I had a car, and I knew the highways.  And at age eighteen, I'd had no experience with lethal despondancy.  If not for Lorraine Gustavson, who we called Gus, I would not be here today. 

This is the story of what happened instead of suicide.