Big Love

The first time I slept with a gay man, Dana and I were living together in Davis and getting more and more serious.

She was in law school at the time, and I was working as a reporter. On weekends when she was particularly busy, she’d kick me out of the apartment, knowing I’d only pester her every second of the day.

“Are you done yet?”

“Come on, let’s grab a bite.”

“What do you mean you can’t read during sex? Isn’t that what lawyers do anyway — screw people all the time?”

So I’d pack an overnight bag and head to San Francisco, where our friend Joe was living on the outskirts of the Castro. I’ll always remember the thrill of crossing the Bay Bridge into the “big city” — the way the downtown buildings glowed or the way the sun set over the Golden Gate, washing the cityscape in a kaleidoscope of deep purples and dappled oranges.

It was Joe who introduced me to Dana so many years ago. Joe and I had met in a French language class and, not having any work at the time, he asked if I wanted to pick up a few extra hours at his job.

“What do you do again?” I asked.

He said he took large-scale inflatable games — like the velcro wall or a blow-up slide — to corporate events and business team-building meetings.

“So you’re a carny?” I asked.

“Well,” he hesitated, “I guess so.”

“Then sign me up!”

I had always wanted to try meth and lose a few teeth.

It turned out that the company didn’t actually employ drug-addicted ne’er-do-wells or those on the lam. But they did employ clean-cut college kids who looked presentable enough to run events for companies like Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard or LucasFilms. I met George Lucas a few times and, if I had known at the time what he was thinking, I probably would have said, “Please, don’t hire Hayden Christensen. Nooo!”

I also met this girl there.

If it wasn’t for Joe, Dana and I never would have met and she probably would have lived a long, happy life of unimaginable bliss.

When Dana and I first started dating, Joe was hurt. He never said it, and I certainly never knew it, but it turned out he was also interested in Dana, and then here I came swooping in — what with my imperfect French skills and talk of losing my teeth “like a real carny!”

He never really had a chance.

“I can’t believe you would do this,” Joe told me, storming off.

Then he did what any guy would do in a situation like that: He went to a gay bar on Polk Street and met the man he would later marry.

“I’m gay,” he announced.

Dana and I shrugged.

“So I guess this solves the dilemma?”

Joe soon moved into a first-floor apartment on Church Street, and this is where I would go when Dana kicked me out of the house. Joe and I would play tennis during the day or go see a movie. We could eat for hours on end and usually did. At night, we’d wind up at a bar before going for montecristos at a late-night diner. We’d get back to his place, drink some more, talk into the morning sometimes or maybe sometimes just watch a movie and pass out.

One night after a round of drinks at a favorite Market Street bar, we came stumbling back to his place and crawled under the covers together. I remember Joe kept crisp linens and the coolness of them and the sound of them rustling was almost heavenly.

“You know,” I slurred, “I really love her.”

“I can tell,” he said, turning off the light.

“I’m going to marry her.”

“I know,” he said, “Now shut the fuck up so I can sleep.”

I don’t want to romanticize the friendship too much, because Joe snores with the depth and determination of a hippopotamus who swallowed a Volkswagen. Dana and I would later kick him out of a hotel room in Paris because of it. But on the eve of this great election, I look back on those days when two friends were let loose on the big city, when they played sports during the day, argued over which movie to see or which restaurant to dine at, when they talked about their lives or laughed or fell asleep together, it just seems so, so … normal.

I hesitated to write about this grotesque thing on the ballot in California — this proposition that would rewrite our state’s Constitution to ban gay marriage — not because this is a site normally reserved for diatribes on clueless parenting or because I was worried about offending people. I habitually write about my love affairs with sewing, interior decorating and singing Broadway show tunes — I mean honestly, did you think for a second I was not pro-gay rights?

No, I simply realized there’s really not anything I can say to someone who truly believes that with a million other things to worry about, their god has it in for gay people. Instead, I wanted to paint a picture of why I cannot remain on the sidelines during a critical test of my generation’s support of civil rights.

Years later, Joe now lives only a few blocks away. We meet for lazy lunches. He comes over to sew with us and sometimes babysits for Emmeline. He was almost Dana’s man of honor but instead stood as my “best valet.” He helped me with my tie and cufflinks and somehow kept a straight face when we demanded he “read” a Ray Charles song during our ceremony.

He is a part of our family and it pains me to think of our laws treating my relationship any differently than his own. It pains me to think of a day when I might have to explain to my daughter why we gave money, sure, but remained mute while Uncle Joe was stripped of his rights to live like the rest of us or to declare the kind of love he helped bestow upon our family.

So please, vote No on 8.