One vs. Borg
I suppose to say it was a conservative town would be like saying Attila the Hun just had a bad temper. The five thousand people of this little part of Dixie were of majority opinion that Bill Clinton was the anti christ everyone had been waiting for, that Wal Mart was a viable option for dinner out with the family and most of the Democrats in the country worshiped the devil ( all true based on first hand experience ).Buried in the deep woods of central Alabama is this little arch conservative collection of church going folks most of whom fear deeply travel much outside the boarders of the State.
Through some very weird karma, a kid raised in Southern California, me, wound up living here in this foreign, or closer still, alien land.
Being in the video business as I was, you meet lots of people and you get to know their taste in movies. I once had a female customer tell me that she was hoping they would remake Gone With The Wind and cast Sylvester Stallone as Rhett. I watched the new releases closely for such a movie but, never was able to deliver. Imagining Sly saying “Yo Scarlet “ piqued my interest too and I started sort of hoping for the same movie. I was always in the mood for comedy and this one sounded good.
I also had an overall dressed weather beaten man come in with his grandson who must have been all of 5 or 6. His taste ran to hunting videos as the only entertainment choice which made him think, and he liked that. He picked up one tape called "Hunting North American Whitetail" while his wide eyed grandson watched his every move. The man said "we don't need no tape bout North America deer. We in Alabama" and he placed the box indignantly back on the shelf.
It was in this town I met a guy who I'll call Ronnie. Ronnie was a tallish overweight high school kid. He had dark straight hair he kept oiled and combed in perfect lines across his forehead. He never wore overalls or jeans, much anyway. He was always smiling and had some subject on his mind to get a conversation started. He was worldly beyond his years from what I could tell talking with him. His interests spanned history, social culture, science and a little mythology. I always thought it strange that he did not have the deep, barely translatable southern accent most in those parts had including his brother. Tim was a muscular, chisel chinned football player a year older than Ronnie. Tim had one of those tough guy acts but it fit his looks perfectly. Tim and Ronnie were outwardly, direct opposites.
I had known them both for perhaps a year or so when Ronnie landed a job at the local pharmacy which also offered videos for rent. He came in and poked fun at the fact that we were now competitors and he was always on a "reconnaissance mission"for his new employer checking us out.
Tim, as I recall, had gone the way most in the area did working for one of the two close by paper mills after he graduated from high school. Aside from the professions and business people in that town, it was the only way to make a decent living. Ronnie was obviously targeting larger fish but his folks were hard pressed to finance any college education for him what so ever. Ronnie just needed school money, not a life at hard labor. He took the job that fit what he was after.
There were three sit down restaurants in town and 3 fast food places. Then, there was the last option of Wal-Mart. The sit down restaurants were a seafood place, a steak house of sorts and a local, do it all diner. When word of a new restaurant opening was leaked, some say from City Hall itself, the town telephones were lit up like it was the fourth of July.
"It's a whut? Whut did yu jus say?!!!"
"I sed, it's a China place a movin in to the diner."
"The diner? They sold the diner??!! Oh Lord help us on Sundies."
A Chinese restaurant replete with the obligatory Chinese family ( a whole passle of em ) was moving into the spot known for many years as, The Diner. Finally, this was news with some meat on it's bones people could get their teeth into. This was Pulitzer caliber stuff for the local weekly and, like I said, the whole town lit up talking about it.
Now, I had been there for some time and I had heard conversations that go on amongst the men on Sunday afternoons after church. I was truly horrified at some of the things I heard and this was, almost, the 90's. Intolerance is a vast understatement. These church going, morally upright ( at least on most of every Sunday ) people harbored genuine, visceral hate for anything other than like minded, like looking people anywhere. I was truly worried for a time about the new family moving in.
On opening day, the place was packed. Wall to wall, overall clad men with wife and kids in tow, Nanas, pawpaws, young couples on their first date. They had all come to sample the culinary delights of the orient as one patron I heard put it "Right here in Alabama too!"
He was as amazed as I was. Not only was there foreign food being served within the boarders of our rural county, foreigners was "runnin ever wicha way, a doin the servin an th cookin an talkin to th people findin out what they wuz gona eat". And the townsfolk reciprocated by talking back to them. An actual conversation or two on something other than the menu could be heard now and again. The people seemed taken by this sudden immersion in another culture.
One toothless but respected local who was well know for his insight into local horticultural cycles and climates, lent his wisdom to the occasion by saying "thayz ever whar an kinly hard t' understand but it sho wuz good eatin in thaya. Hewww!" in talking about all the Chinese people he had seen working the crowd in the new restaurant. This was something akin to the Good Housekeeping seal of approval for the place.
They were a hit and I was in shock. I had no idea the people in that town would embrace foreigners, especially ones so very different than themselves, with such open arms. Now, this is not to say that the doors at homes in town were thrown open en masse to have visiting time with the new folks. Still, it was good to see the business doing so well.
They had a son about 20 or so. He and Ronnie started coming into the store renting movies. I was happy to see Ronnie. He had been scarce since starting with "the competition". Ronnie hadn't changed and I found his new friend was equally outgoing. Through his somewhat broken English he also always had a story and a smile. He and Ronnie were seldom seen apart unless they were at their respective jobs.
As it works in small towns, people are very nice and hospitable face to face but, as soon as you are out of earshot, bang, the whispering starts. I know because I have not only gotten a few ears full but I had been whispered about pretty much since the day I first showed my face in that town.
As it always went in that town when people get bored, the rumors start. "Did you know that Ronnie and that new Chinese boy is.........uh, what you call,................homysexall?!"
"Na! How do yew know ayut?"
"Well, Lindy said he seen em going into the woods tgether and then ther wuz N'Orleans.! They went down er and stayed t'gethuh...in the SAME room naw!"
"Good Gawd!"
This rumor plus truck loads more swept the town like fire in a gas factory. After a couple of weeks hearing the same things about Ronnie and his friend I was afraid for them. The town et al was on a pseudo witch hunt and the truth was going to be told whether it was or not. After all this was, well, the case of cases. There was the H word involved in this one and no matter how you pronounced it, everyone knew what it meant.
All the while, behind the scenes as the rumors flew, the townsfolk were tirelessly gathering more facts, comparing notes, and formulating the course of events since the Chinese family had arrived and their evidence trail had started. They worked with the efficiency of an FBI crime lab and had assembled the complete story in a few short days. It was told and retold until it was a different story.
As this pattern runs it’s course, people get bored again even with a story as big as this, and the gossip about the two died down. I quit hearing about them as much. I was relieved for them.
I hadn't seen either of them for some time but, I had heard that Ronnie wasn't working at the pharmacy any more. Something had happend but no one would tell me, a foriegner myself, exactly what.
One day some time later, Ronnie walked in to the store. He looked quite different. His smile was gone, he didn't have his friend with him and his movements were slow, somehow measured with none of the spontaneity I had always known him to have. He asked me if we had any openings. When I asked him what had happened at the drug store, he told me in a very subdued voice that his managers had confronted him with "the facts". They demanded to know if it was true.
Ronnie really could have told them anything he wanted, just as long as it involved being saved, lots of time in a Baptist Church and the commensurate daily praying. Really, it's true. Once, a man in town had almost killed his wife beating her. He went and got himself saved at church and was truly sorry for what he had done and had cried out to God to smite him in open court for his sins. That was his defense and it worked. Not only was he acquitted, after this outpouring the folks in town decided that he had repented and was therefore safe for society ( and his wife ) again.
Ronnie told them instead that everything they had said was in fact true. He admitted he was gay in no uncertain terms and the Chinese man was his partner. They dismissed him at the pharmacy immediately upon his "confession".
Word of Ronnie's admissions spread rapidly and nearly brought the phone system down in those parts according to one company employee. It was a genuine scandal unearthed and shown the light of day and everyone that was anyone needed to see it because, well, this was town business after all. You can’t just have a person in town like that unless everyone knows all about it. It’s just not right.
Most individuals in Ronnie's situation would have left. Just packed up and hopped a plane somewhere, anywhere away from Alabama. He could have at least gone to Mobile where no one knew him and landed a job easily enough.Instead, he chose to stay in a place where he knew he was hated and even feared and try to rebuild his young life. His brother Tim had even said Ronnie wanted to stay in town because it was his home.
Now, he was out asking people who he knew had already condemned his soul to hell for eternity about jobs. Everyone he runs into everywhere he goes knows who he is and exactly the nature of the so called sins he has committed. He has to put up with the scowls and cold eyed stares as he walks by. He hears the whispers behind cupped hands and knows exactly what they are saying.
Some wanted to kill him outright (this is not second hand information) figuring they would be doing the world a service. There is nothing hated more than a homosexual south of the Mason Dixon line. Not even armadillos are despised like this ( it's a hunting thing. The armadillos make noise that scare the deer that hunters want to shoot. The only sensible answer to this problem is to exterminate every armadillo in the south. The same logic applies to gay people who are all so sick you can't get them back )
All Ronnie wanted to do was to live his life on his terms and pay his way for an education.
I left my relatives in Alabama behind and moved north westward in the early 90's to a more culturally open society. I had to really if for nothing else than to pay homage to diversity.
I heard some time later that Ronnie had indeed stayed in town and was getting his life back on track again, to the degree he could, considering the attitudes about gay people he had to contend with. I don't know how he did it other than guts and determination in measures not often seen.
As things for him were slowly improving, they suddenly took a turn in the wrong direction. Drastically wrong. He died in the mid 90's after he had contracted AIDS.
Ronnie,
I just want to say thank you sir. You are one of the most courageous men I have ever had the honor to know and I am truly humbled by your memory
posted by Knot @ 10:38 PM
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