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| Image from Wayfair.com |
My first job in Chicago, after moving there from college, was at a small furniture store that specialized in futons.
The store was owned by D____ and managed by W____, two good-looking gay men in their thirties. D____ was tall, dark and swarthy; W____ was shorter with long blond hair and almost pretty. Were they a couple? Perhaps. Probably. No one else who worked there could or would confirm it one way or the other. But looking back all these years later they almost certainly were. I was much younger then, just a few months away from Iowa, and still naïve.
D____ could be a bit of bully and had a habit of picking fights. When he did, he would say the most vicious and humiliating things. I wish I could remember some examples, but it's been so long ago and I have a tendency to block out unpleasant memories. I do recall the word "failure" being used a lot. Sometimes in a teasing way, more often as a condemnation.
W____ was D____'s favorite target, but anyone at the store would do if he wasn't around. I worked at the store for about eight months, but everyone knew I had my heart set on becoming an ad copywriter. During that time D____ became increasingly abusive toward me.
One afternoon I decided I'd finally had enough. (Most likely, I'd been thinking about it for quite a while, wondering what I was doing there when I really wanted something else.) So rather than meekly taking what D____ was dishing out--as I'd seen W____ do so many times before--I fought back.
The particulars are forgotten except for how it ended. D____ said he was paying me more than I was worth. I shot back, "You can't afford to pay me what I'm worth." And with that, I walked out, fueled by a blind belief that something better was waiting for me.
The seed for this was likely planted by an astrologer I'd consulted with several times during my college years, who said to me, "As a Capricorn, I will only tell you this once: there will come a time when you'll have to leave everything behind in order to get what you want. Don't be afraid." Over the course of my life this has become a combination escape hatch and self-destruct mechanism.
As fortune would have it, a month or so later I found a freelance copywriting position with a catalog company, writing film summaries for a company that sold VHS tapes by mail. It paid $9.00 an hour, a significant raise from what I'd been making. I remember feeling as though I'd finally made it, and being very proud of my work. As I said earlier, I was young and still very naïve.
Many years later I stopped in at the futon store. I needed to replace the futon that was serving as a sofa in my apartment, but if the opportunity arose I also wanted to let D____ know that I'd done okay. That I wasn't a failure.
D____ was working at the counter that day. He greeted me warmly and even reminisced some about my days at the store without animosity. A photo of W____ looked down from a spot on the wall, and I learned that he had recently died of AIDS. D____ was also visibly ill.
I bought my futon and scheduled the delivery and wished him well. But rather than feeling any kind of vindication or triumph, I left shaken and saddened. There were no anti-retroviral therapies back then, and none of the hope they would later provide.
Since then I've often wondered if D____'s cruelty hadn't been, at least in part, his way of encouraging me to move on toward what I really wanted and was supposed to be doing. I don't mean to excuse or justify bad behavior, but there are times I feel as though he gave me the motivation to make a change that otherwise might have taken me much longer or not have happened at all.
So after all this preamble you might be wondering, where's the dream?
Here.
I found myself visiting D____ and W____ at their home. They were living in a beautiful high-rise condo, all deep colors and dramatic lighting, with one of the most stunning views of the Chicago skyline I'd never seen. It seemed as though the whole city was at our feet, sparkling in the night like stars on the ground. On one wall a giant photo of Oprah Winfrey smiled out at us, and I had the impression that D____ had been associated with Oprah in her early days. (As it turned out, I would spend several years of my career working for her.)
They were both older than I remembered, and bemoaning some of the health problems typical of aging, but were otherwise fine and happy and doing well. Even though I'd played a very small part in their collective story, they treated me like an old friend who'd returned after a long time away. I was comforted by this improbable reunion, and their welcoming presence, and the fact that they were still together after so many years.
