Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2009 20:44:00 +0000 (GMT)
From: Nexis Pas <nexispas@yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: Coffee in the Morning

Coffee in the Morning

Nexis Pas
Copyright 2009 by the author
Nexis Pas asserts the moral right to be identified as the
author of this work.

`Bitch.' The word hung in the air between the two young men
standing in the dark entranceway. Neither paid me the
slightest attention as I approached.

******
The snow began falling around midnight. On a trip to the
bathroom around three, I pulled the curtains away from the
hallway window and looked out. Enough had fallen by then to
hide the ground. Beneath the streetlight in front of the
Lovatts' house, the flakes spiralled slowly downward. When I
awoke again at six, there were three or four inches on the
ground and the wind had come up. One could track the blasts
of wind in the snow they kicked up from the ground. The
weather forecast on the radio said that the wind chill had
brought the apparent temperature down to minus twelve
Celsius, and the snow was expected to continue until mid-
day, with another seven to eight centimetres of
accumulation. I don't think I shall ever grow accustomed to
the metric system. Too many years of inches and pounds. I
mentally translated the figures into around ten degrees
Fahrenheit and another three inches of snow.

It was even darker outside than customary for that time of
the year and that hour of the morning. I debated whether I
should forgo my usual morning cup of coffee because of the
cold and the snow. It didn't take me long to decide.  Coffee
in the morning is a habit of a lifetime, and I've always
liked walking in the snow, especially at night. I like the
way one feels isolated within the snowflakes, the way they
come cascading out of the dark in a vortex that swirls
around you. The hissing noise the snow makes as it falls,
and the crunch as it compacts beneath your feet. The
hesitant way a flake touches your face or settles on your
clothes, almost as if it were surprised at finding something
in its path. Falling snow is a phenomenon that engages all
the senses.

I wrapped a woollen muffler around my neck and jaw and then
pulled on my boots and heavy coat. I decided the day
demanded a knit cap and thick gloves. As I walked out, I
glanced at myself in the hall mirror. `Stocky' would be a
generous description of my build. I looked like an aerosol
spray can with a domed lid done up in wool. I had pulled the
scarf up over my mouth and the tip of my nose, and the only
part of my face visible was a narrow band around my eyes,
between my cap and the scarf.

The snow was light and fluffy yet. I used the broom we keep
in the small anteroom between the door to the hallway and
the outside door to sweep a path down the steps and along
the short walkway to the street. The plough had been by an
hour earlier, but enough had fallen since then to leave an
inch or so of new accumulation on the street. The snow had
covered everything over and flattened the landscape, robbing
it of detail. Our small front garden and those of our
neighbours looked pristine and fresh beneath a smooth
blanket of snow. Only humps with a few twigs poking out
hinted at shrubberies growing beneath.

Kinross Street is an old residential area. The houses, all
of them solid brick structures, were built in the 1890s. The
street itself is narrow, and the few streetlamps are spaced
widely. Beneath each light, a radiant circle of white faded
quickly into thick darkness. A few of my neighbours were
awake, and lights dimmed by draperies cast yellow-grey
squares on the snow. It was one of those magically private
moments when one feels unobserved and free.

I had to walk in the street because the pavements had not
been cleared yet. No one had been out since the plough had
been past. There were no tyre tracks or footprints. Mine
were the first. I felt a responsibility settle on my
shoulders to make my prints neat, to disturb the snow as
little as possible. When I reached the corner at Strathmore
Road, I looked back toward our house. It always surprises me
to see evidence of how my feet turn out. I think I walk with
my feet pointing straight ahead, but my footprints gave the
lie to that notion. Two lines of prints, each one angled
outward about thirty degrees, marked my passage down
Kinross.

Strathmore is a busy street, and the council gives it
priority for cleaning. The plough must have been by only a
short time before. The street itself was almost free of
snow. The shops begin a block from the intersection with
Kinross, and most of the pavements had already been cleared
and salt crystals, or whatever `green' product that is used
now, thrown down. The snow was already becoming slush in the
gutters. Not nearly as attractive as the fresh version, but
then that never lasts long. A gust of wind made me suddenly
feel the cold, and I began to walk more quickly. I could see
the lights of the coffee bar ahead. Other than the news
agent's further down the street, it was the only shop open
at that time of the morning.

La Caffetteria Veneto opened about three years ago. The shop
is long and narrow. There is a counter on one side toward
the rear, with the coffee machines on a ledge built against
the wall behind it. At the back are shelves with packages of
coffee and brightly coloured and intricately patterned cups
and plates from Italy. Travel posters featuring scenes of
Venice hang on what little open wall space there is. The
small floor area is packed with seven round tables, with two
wire-mesh chairs at each. A well-wisher might say that the
seating is snug and conducive to friendliness. Someone
intent on being truthful would say that it is crowded. The
tops of the tables are made of brushed stainless steel. The
surface is polished enough to reflect objects and faces, but
the patterns and accumulated scratches scoured into them
break the images up and distort them. The odour of roasted
coffee permeates everything in the shop. For a coffee lover
like myself, the smell alone is a promise of heaven.

Leo, the young man who owns and runs it, isn't from Italy,
but he has a love of all things Italian. I'm not even sure
that Leo is his real name. I suspect he may have been
christened Leonard and was a Len for all but the past few
years. His light brown hair and fair complexion argue for an
English background. He is in his mid-twenties, I believe, at
most late twenties. He is unfailingly polite toward his
customers and friendly with those of us who are regulars. I
am usually the first or one of the first customers in the
morning, and we have over the years since Leo opened the
shop chatted often. He knows me well enough to know what
role Gabe plays in my life and to recognise him on the
street. Leo lives above his coffee bar, and we occasionally
see him in the other stores and restaurants in the
neighbourhood.

Now that I think about it, I actually know very little about
Leo's personal life. I suppose I do most of the talking in
the morning. I am become a garrulous old man since I
retired. Well, truth be told, I was both garrulous and old
long before I retired. In any case, Leo listens to me and
seems to have some interest in my life.

I have always been a quiet walker. Gabe sometimes complains
about my `sneaking up' on him. That may have been why the
two men standing in the doorway of the Caffetteria Veneto
didn't hear me approaching. The man with his back to me as I
walked up was wearing a duffel coat. The other man had no
coat on, as if he had just stepped outside for a moment.
There is no light over the door and the two men were
illuminated only by the light coming through the shop window
beyond the doorway. They were standing very close, almost
embracing, and conversing quietly. When I was within a few
feet of them, I saw that the man without a coat on was Leo.
The two were so intent on each other that neither registered
my approach.

It was then that the man wearing the coat said, `What time
will you be through today, bitch'? Leo smiled at him and
said something I didn't catch. It was so cold that their
words came out as white puffs of air that lingered in the
air. Then Leo looked up and saw me. He stepped back from the
other man and opened the door for me. `Good morning, Mr
Simmons. I'll be right with you.' I nodded to both of them
and said good morning. The other man glanced briefly at me
as I went in, the polite smile on his lips quickly fading,
whatever interest he may have anticipated dying as soon as
he registered my age.

Even before I had divested myself of my coat and other
paraphernalia, Leo came bustling into the shop and took his
place behind the counter. I always order the same thing
every morning, a triple caffS lungo--at least that is what
Leo has taught me to call it. Whatever its name is, I love
the richly nuanced bitterness of the taste. There are days
when I feel almost heady after drinking it, rather like
drinking whiskey on an empty stomach. Without asking, Leo
began tamping the coffee into the filters and wedging the
holders into the espresso machines. Soon the machines
started to hiss and the coffee began straining into the
pots. Leo swirled the liquid in the first pot around and
then sniffed at it cautiously. He scowled and then dumped
the contents into the sink and started over. When he was
satisfied with the brew, he poured the contents of all three
pots into a large cup for me and carried it over to my
table.

`Sorry about that earlier, Mr Simmons.'

My confusion must have shown on my face. I didn't know what
he was apologizing for.

`My friend.' Leo tilted his head toward the door of the
shop.

`Ah.' Comprehension. `Nothing to worry about. I'm glad to
see that you have someone.'

Leo gave me a rather uncertain look, as if my interpretation
had drawn his attention to the question of what his
relationship to the man in the duffel coat was. Perhaps I
had simply misread the situation, and it hadn't occurred to
him that others might see a relationship where there was
none. For a second I thought he was going to speak, but then
he simply nodded his head and went back behind the counter.
The surface of the coffee was covered with a layer of foam.
As I waited for it to cool, several of the bubbles popped,
and the black liquid under the brown foam began to appear.
I cautiously took several sips to gauge the temperature. I
half-turned in my seat to speak to Leo. `Oh, that's perfect.
You worked your usual magic.'

Leo looked up from the cups he was arranging on a towel and
smiled at me. `I think you may be the only customer this
morning. No one else is about in this weather.'

`You and your friend were the only other people I've seen
this morning.'

`We made a late night of it, and it had started to snow when
he got ready to leave. So he stayed the night.'

`May I ask something' It's not personal. I am just
interested in a word your friend used.'

`Sure.' He shrugged and looked at me with curiosity. `His
name's Jerome, by the way. Most people call him Jer.'

`I've heard other people use the term on the telly and on
the street. He called you a `bitch'--I know what the word
means but this usage is unfamiliar to me. What does it
signify when one young man says it to another'? Sometimes I
sound stilted and pompous even to myself. I tend to ratchet
myself up a notch when I fear that I am becoming rude--
formal politeness serving to excuse and ameliorate nosiness.

`Means different things, doesn't it? Depends how it's said.
Jer likes me. With him, it's a . . . a term of affection, I
guess. It also means that he's trying to make a claim on me,
calling me "his bitch".'

`Ah, I see. Thank you for enlightening me.' I took another
drink of coffee. I'm never sure what sorts of questions are
considered too personal nowadays. The young seem to discuss
everything so openly. I supposed that's why my next remark
was spoken so tentatively. `So this relationship with Jerome
could be serious'?

Leo looked toward the ceiling as if the answer might be
written there. He hesitated not, as I first feared, because
he was trying to think of a polite way to tell me to mind my
own business but because he wasn't sure of the answer. After
a moment, he dropped his eyes and looked at me. `Might be.
Not yet though. I think he's trying to rush things a bit,
and I'm not sure I'm ready to be his "bitch"--or anyone
else's for that matter. I hope you weren't offended. He was
just saying goodbye. He's affectionate, like. Very
physical.'

`No, I wasn't offended. It's heartening to see that two men
can demonstrate their feelings toward each other on the
street. It wasn't that way years ago. So we're--gay people,
I mean--we're making some progress. When Gabe and I were
your age, it was still against the law for men to have sex
with each other, even in private. We could never have kissed
on the street like that.'

Leo gave me a polite half-smile and went back to his work.
He wasn't interested in ancient history. I returned to my
coffee and the view out the window. Most customers at that
hour of the morning read the newspaper or pull out a laptop
or their phone and start tapping away. I like to look out
the window and watch the traffic and the people walking
past. I've reached an age when I enjoy being a spectator. I
have all day to read the newspaper, and I feel no great need
to be linked electronically to everyone I know during every
waking moment. But no one was venturing out that morning.
All that met my eyes was the snow coming down. Despite the
heavy overcast, the light outside was growing. The wind
appeared to be getting stronger. The snowflakes were no
longer drifting straight down but were being driven almost
sideways and forcibly blasted into the ground.

Gabe and I had been so circumspect when we were younger.
Furtive. I suppose that lent our relationship a certain
excitement. We were being daring. The camouflage of
convention was as much a part of our lives as the wonders of
love. Two staid young men at the beginning of the adult
lives and careers secretly making out like rabbits as often
as opportunity allowed. We thought we were being innovative
and avant-garde. I've never spoken about it with Gabe, so I
don't know what he thought, but I was certain that we had
invented sex.

We didn't dare live together at first. Gabe was a teacher in
a preparatory college before he retired, and in the nineteen-
sixties and even up into the seventies he would have been
dismissed if it were even suspected that he was gay. If it
had become known at the bank that I was gay, I wouldn't have
been fired, but I would probably have been shunted aside to
some corner of the office doing tedious tasks that no one
wanted to do, safely removed from contact with the bank's
customers and clients. I would never have been promoted or
granted a rise in salary. The bank would have done
everything it could to encourage me to leave.

When Gabe and I met on the street, we greeted each other
with hearty handshakes. In public, we were always careful to
maintain a physical separation. Straight `blokes' touched
their `mates' in public far more often than we did. We
couldn't do that because we couldn't afford any gossip about
our friendship. When I visited his flat, I always left at an
early hour, and vice versa. Our visits to gay pubs and other
such places were restricted to our occasional trips to
London. Secrecy and discretion just seemed second nature to
the way we had to live, part of the price we paid for being
gay lovers if we wanted to remain respected members of
society. Or even if we wished to remain members of society
at all. We had so many subterfuges, so many masks. People
who knew us may have suspected, but we were never indiscreet
enough to supply them with proof for their suspicions.

Once in the mid-seventies, the bank sent me to San Francisco
for a week to supervise the negotiations over a loan. The
end of the term at Gabe's school fortuitously coincided with
the projected end of the negotiations, and I arranged to
take time off to tour California. He flew over to join me.
It was such a week of freedom for both of us. We weren't
making out in the streets or anything like that, but it felt
so comfortable just to be able to walk around together and
not have to pretend to be just friends. Nobody noticed one
more couple of whatever gender or orientation. If anything,
our accents attracted more attention than did the fact that
we were a gay couple.

It was our first trip together. It was a wonderful luxury to
wake up in bed with Gabe. The bed was enormous, but we had
occupied very little of it. When I woke up the first
morning, we were curled up next to each other, my face
pressed into one of his shoulders. He held me tightly
against his body. We showered and then went downstairs to
the restaurant on the ground floor of the hotel. Oddly
enough, that was the first time we had ever had breakfast
together. Gabe conformed to the waiter's expectations and
ordered a pot of tea. My lover was very surprised when I
asked for black coffee.

`I didn't know you drank coffee in the morning. Or is that
just because we're in the States'?

`No, I always have coffee in the morning. Don't you?'

`Not very often. I usually drink tea.'

We had been together for nine years by that point. Each of
us knew a lot about the other, but there were many details
of our personal lives that the other never saw. In some
ways, ignorance was bliss. When we finally moved in
together, it was the petty details of daily life that caused
the most disagreements.

That visit to San Francisco did propel us into making a big
change in our lives. We decided after that we could no
longer live apart. Our jobs were secure enough that we could
contemplate the added expense of home owning, but at that
time there were legal complications about two, unrelated men
buying a place jointly. We decided that, because of my
connections in the bank, I would buy the house and take out
the mortgage in my name. We found the place on Kinross
Street. It was made for us and our situation. A previous
owner had remodelled the place so that the top floor was a
separate flat, reached through a back stairway. I had the
first two floors, and Gabe `rented' the flat.

It proved to be a perfect arrangement. When necessary, we
could keep up the fiction that Gabe was just the tenant of
the rental unit. He could invite his colleagues over for
drinks without confronting them with the awkward  question
of who I was, and I could do the same with my associates.
And when we were alone, we could spend time with each other.

We had a few gay friends, most of them couples of our age.
None of us flaunted our orientation. We were true to our
upbringing and kept our private lives fairly private. Two of
our friends lived together fairly openly as a couple, but
most of the others were as careful in public as we were. It
wasn't until nearly the end of the 1980s that I noticed a
change in attitudes. Change must have been happening all
along, because when it finally drew my attention, it was
well developed.

Oddly enough, it was remark of my mother's that drove home
to me how much things were changing. After my father died, I
began taking her out to dinner every Wednesday evening. She
was a far more adventurous eater than my father had been.
Unlike him, she liked to try new dishes. She read the
reviews in the papers each week and was always eager to try
restaurants that had impressed the critics. One Wednesday
she wanted to try a place in the country near Chelmdene. It
was raining when we arrived at the restaurant, and I let
mother out at the front door of the restaurant and then
drove off to find a parking spot. The closest one was a good
quarter of a mile away.

By the time I walked back to the restaurant, mother was
seated at a table and deep in conversation with the two men
who ran the restaurant. While I was hanging my coat up in
the entranceway, I watched her through the doorway to the
dining room. She had taken her coat off, but she still wore
her hat, one of the feathery confections she favoured. She
belonged to a generation of women that never appeared in
public with hair uncovered. In some areas, change could be
tolerated, perhaps even welcomed. In others, tradition was
sacrosanct. The feathers trembled lightly as she turned her
head from side to side to talk to the two men. One of them,
it turned out, was the chef, and the other was the maitre
d'/wine steward/waiter. The three of them had already
decided what I was to order. Mother liked us to eat
different things so that we could sample what the other had.

The two men weren't flamboyant, but it was clear that they
were gay. They were apparently a couple. Each treated the
other with a familiar joy in the other's foibles. When I
asked about the contents of the entr,e that had been chosen
for me, the non-cook informed me, `You have to be careful
with Richard. He thinks certain dishes require an excess of
pepper, and that's one of them.'

`I do not. I use only the amount of seasoning needed, never
an excessive amount. If Geoff ran the restaurant, everything
would be smothered in ketchup. We'd be serving sardines on
toast with tomato sauce.'

`Oooh, one of my favourites,' said the man named Geoff.
`That and beans on toast. Both underappreciated classics of
English cooking. It takes talent to scorch toast to attain
just the proper degree of crispness and burnt charcoal
flavour. Not everyone can do it up right.' He addressed his
next remarks sotto voce to mother. `He's been trying to
educate my taste buds for years. He finally gave up and
opened a restaurant so that he could feed people who
appreciate his skills.' The two men smiled at each other
over our heads with easy affection.

When one left to cook our order and the other to open the
bottle of wine for us, mother turned to me and said, `I
think God makes people what they are, don't you? What's
important is how people treat each other, not what sex they
are.'

My face must have registered my shock. I didn't know what to
say in answer to that remark. It was a remark so unlike
mother.

It was mother's turn to look at me with easy affection. `It
doesn't matter so much about being gay these days. No one
thinks anything of it any more.' One of my hands was lying
on the table, and she reached over and patted it and then
clasped it tightly. `I think it's past time that you asked
Gabe to join us, don't you? He must get tired of sitting at
home on our Wednesdays eating beans on toast or takeaway
while we're feasting. Invite him next week.'

Another sign of the change in attitudes came a year or two
later when the headmaster at Gabe's school invited the two
of us to a garden party at his house. As was my habit when
Gabe and I appeared in public together, I separated from him
shortly after we arrived. I was sipping at a glass of wine
and examining the rose bushes when a young woman accosted
me. `I saw you arrive with Gabe. Are you Bryan? Gabe's
always talking about you.' She didn't pause for answer. She
turned around and waved to someone standing with a group
several feet away. `Andy, come meet Gabe's Bryan.' Everyone
in the group turned to look at us. Six or seven pairs of
eyes looked me up and down. I suddenly felt very exposed. I
couldn't imagine what Gabe might have said about me that
would generate such curiosity. I had to fight an urge to
bolt down the pathway along the side of the house to the
street.

The next moment, I was surrounded and people began
introducing themselves. I was able to identify some of them
from comments Gabe had made about them over the years, but
most of them were strangers to me, but not apparently I to
them. To judge from their remarks, I was already well known
to them. All the other guests were colleagues of Gabe's at
the school and their partners. Most of them were married,
but there was one other gay couple, younger than Gabe and I.
I felt rather envious of the straightforward way they passed
in and out of each other's orbit and how physically
comfortable they were with each other. They weren't kissing,
but they felt no hesitance about touching one another in
public, the same way that any married couple might do. When
Gabe came up to me later, I stepped back from him
automatically. I couldn't bring myself to stand right next
to him.

Later that night, when Gabe and I were together in bed, I
expressed some surprise that he had spoken freely of our
relationship with this colleagues. `Aren't you worried about
what they will think?'

`No, they're adults. They know other gay people. And why
wouldn't I talk about you? I'm very proud of you. We all
talk about our marriages and our families. Don't you talk
about me at the bank?'

`No. The subject has never come up. Some of the staff talk
about their families, but I never pay much attention to
that. Does everyone at your school know about us? Surely not
the students.'

`I think everyone on the staff does. Some of the students
know that a few of the teachers are gay. William and Harry'
(the other gay couple at the party) `are the staff advisors
for the student gay, lesbian, and bisexual club.'

`There's a club for gay students? And they supervise it? But
doesn't that hurt them in school?'

`No, they're both quite popular. They're known as the "two
princes".'

`What about you? Do the students know about you?'

`William and Harry asked me to talk to the GLB club about
the "old days" and how it used to be. So at least those
students know that I am gay. I imagine that word got out and
a few more students have found out that I am gay.'

`You talked about us?'

`Yes. They were very interested in how we had to live. They
thought it was funny at first that we had to be so careful,
but I was able to show them why it was necessary. Don't
worry. I didn't mention your name or what you do. There
won't be students coming up to you in the streets and asking
about us.'

`I should hope not.' The very idea of a teenager confronting
me on the street for information on my relationship with
their maths master appalled me.

`You know, Bryan, we don't have to be as secretive any more.
Things are changing. At least in this area, straights
realise that the world isn't going to come to an end just
because a few of us are gay. Despite what you may think,
most of the neighbours have a good idea of what goes on
between us.' He kissed me on the side of the neck and
burrowed his head into my shoulder. `We're quite an old
couple now. People can learn to accept us for what we are.
If they can't, then fuck them. Speaking of which--'

I do admit that I tend not to be very observant about
strangers. I had schooled myself so strongly not to look at
other men in public that I hadn't really noticed how many
openly gay men there were on the streets. I suppose that
sounds like a stupid statement, but I had kept my own head
down and minded my own business for so long that I truly
hadn't allowed myself to see what was there.

I did try to be a bit more open after that. But it's hard to
change the habits of a lifetime. I was so used to being in
the `closet' with the door tightly closed that I was
reluctant to venture far outside it. I was used to it, and I
had grown, perhaps not to like--that would be an inaccurate
word--but at least to be comfortable with its conventions
and to draw some satisfaction from the notion that I was
doing the right thing and behaving correctly. It came as a
surprise to me that many people regarded this as old-
fashioned and silly if not immoral.

A week or so after the headmaster's party, Gabe and I were
having dinner at a friend's house. I mentioned my reaction
to discovering that Gabe's colleagues knew about us. It
turned out that everyone at the table was `out' in both
their personal and professional lives. They all agreed that
they didn't make an issue of it but saw no reason to pretend
to be other than what they were. In fact, several of them
chided me for not being open. One of them even accused me of
being a capitulationist and of failing to speak up for the
freedom to be ourselves. I was giving aid and comfort to the
enemy by allowing myself to be manoeuvred into obeying
`their' rules. He grew quite hot on the subject.

Of course, I took it all with a show of good humour. I even
had the presence of mind to defuse the situation by mocking
my own insecurities. But Gabe knows how much that sort of
unpleasantness upsets me. We've been together long enough
for him to know what to do to excite me, and what to do to
comfort me. And he realised that I needed comforting that
night. As we lay next to each other in our dark bedroom, he
pulled the covers up around me and then rolled on to his
side so that he was facing me. He held me for a while and
then began gently massaging my shoulders and the back of my
neck. After a while, he kissed me on the forehead and said,
`We just have to be what we are. We'll take things at our
own pace and not worry what other people think. Their
opinions of us don't matter. This is our life.'

I hope I provide as much to Gabe as he provides to me. I
would guess that most couples at some point find themselves
bored with their common life and irrationally irritated by
some everyday behaviour on their partner's part. I know both
Gabe and I have at times longed for things to be radically
different, if only for an hour or two. But there are moments
when the familiar has its enchantments and the well-worn
path of routine confers the blessings of unexpected grace.

Gabe was being polite in using the first-person plural and
in pretending that both of us were still in the closet. He
would in the months to come gradually ease me out of it.
I've always done most of the cooking, but he began
accompanying me on the trips to the market, pushing around
the trolley and making suggestions about dishes I might
prepare. Anyone who overheard him would have no doubt that
we ate together and lived together in every sense.

One evening when I returned home from work, he was standing
in our driveway talking to a neighbour. When I walked up, he
put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it. And left it
there. The neighbour's eyes darted to his hand on my
shoulder, registered it, and then looked back at us. The
three of stood there conversing naturally for several more
minutes.

Loosening up in public did take some effort on my part. I
did finally manage during a meeting at work one day to bring
myself to refer offhandedly to `my partner Gabe'.  One of
the juniors in my department asked if Gabe was the
`distinguished white-haired man' she had seen me playing
tennis with. When I nodded yes, she said that we made a
handsome couple and gushed, `Oh, you two must have looked
absolutely fabulous when you were young.' I advised her that
her flattery would have been more successful had it not been
tempered with an insinuation that Gabe's and my looks were
in decline. Everyone laughed, and that was that--a brief bit
of banter, and Gabe and I were officially a couple at the
bank.

Small things to be sure, but I found that the sky would not
fall if I acknowledged being gay. Oh, life wasn't suddenly
perfect and everyone tolerant and understanding. There are
still many who feel a need to register their hatred and
contempt. But one learns to accept even that. There are
people whose behaviour I disapprove. But my disapproval
won't cause them to change the way they act. It took me a
while to learn not to let others' disapproval make me feel I
had to change mine.

It isn't a world I had ever expected to live in. I'm not
sorry it's here, but the habits of a lifetime still impose a
certain reticence on me. I could never, for example, refer
to Gabe as `my bitch', even in private. I'll tell him about
the incident later. It will amuse him.

******

`Thank you, Leo.' I carried my empty cup over to the
counter. `I don't know what I would do without the Veneto.
You start my day off right.'

He smiled at me with delight. `I'm always happy to make
coffee for you. Not everyone appreciates a good cup of
coffee. Most of them just want something so sweet and tarted
up with other flavours that you can't taste the coffee.'

`My lover among them. If by some miracle I could ever
persuade Gabe to come in here, he would want a weak cup of
milky liquid with lots of sugar. The smell of coffee in your
shop alone would be too strong a brew for him.'

`Takes all sorts, doesn't it? Well, it leaves more of the
good stuff for those of us who appreciate it.' He pointed to
the snow falling outside. `Are you going to be all right
walking home by yourself? I could close up and walk with
you, just to make sure you make it back safely. It's no
trouble.' He reached behind his waist and began tugging at
the strings of the dark blue butcher's apron he always wore
at work.

`Yes, it takes all sorts. And no, thanks for offering, but
I'll be fine.'