Lovers & Such/ Volume 1

By rj Longren

Lovers and Such: Volume 1 is a story about queer adolescence in the Midwest in the 90's. A memoir unfolding the layers and reflections shimmering deep inside my queer adulthood.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: May 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9781387935710

Book preview

Lovers & Such: Volume 1

By rj Longren

Copyright 2022 rj Longren All rights

ISBN#9781387935710

*the names have not been changed because no one is innocent.

Details I left out— a prologue

First a story about privilege, it takes place on a cruise ship over the last two weeks in December of 1994.  My father saw himself as a redneck but taking his wife and children on a holiday vacation every year felt like a power move.    We flew from Kansas City which is the nearest international airport to our home.  In Florida we walked up the gangplank of a run down decade old mid sized liner, our cabin near the bottom meant we would be waiting on an upper deck until our luggage made it to our cabin.  This was not our first time on a cruise ship.  Our second time on that specific one meant we proceeded up to an upper deck lounge to snag a couch with the best view of the line of luggage ascending onto the vessel.  After the first year of cruising, my mother had found a large bag of an extraordinary color which although it matched nothing else it was hard to lose.  I could fit inside it but this was probably the last year it would accompany us anywhere.  Much like the matching wind suits we wore to fly from Kansas to the port of departure, I had outgrown it.  The lounge had the same color scheme as the year before a jazz night club feel but as I learned several years later set up as a neighbor hood bar with three small private booths.  One of which the three of us were now resting upon.  Me with my face against the plexiglass locating the large vibrant square. 

It’s like 30 feet from the feed line. I tell my father not facing him as he has lit up a cigarette. He smokes non filtered loose tobacco, I never knew him to buy a pack but I can tell you, he can not roll with one hand. Often he works from a tin he keeps in his top shirt pocket.   

He gets up probably to see if the bar is going to serve before we leave port.  He has booze in the luggage in case there’s a delay.  Mom is looking out the other window, she is still wearing the full track suit, her socks match in shade but have faded a bit. I took off my jacket, the piece that still fits me, shoving the sleeves through the straps of my backpack.  We did go down and get our life jackets as once the ship pulls away from the pier there will be a life boat drill.  Mom has the number of our station but hasn’t located it yet on the map.  Our luggage will get on board in about an hour then another hour before the tug pushes us from the pier. 

Dad has found a crew member to chat with, not the bartender but someone walking through doing a pre check.  My father has put out his cigarette, clasping his hands together as he is clearly not pleased that alcohol will not be served until dinner and then after dinner throughout the ship.  The crew member does give my father a plastic glass with ice from the well before disappearing aft.  Left without booze he chews the ice.

Where’s our life boat station?  He takes out a folded up map of the ship from his fanny pack.  He offers it to me. 

Two decks down port I tell him

Okay. He sits on the couch.  None of us want to play cards after we played countless gin hands throughout the day.  In airports, on planes, we did keep score because knowing how close I am to unseating my father and older sibling is a priority this year.  My father is good at gutting everyone for points while my mother enjoys the victory of a gin bonus. 

Working our way to the life boat station we find a few others milling about, my mother is comfortable talking to strangers.  Even though it might be an hour before the drill is called most of the people milling about are wearing life jackets.  During the information part of the drill, usually when the safety person is talking about leaping from the side of a sinking vessel, my mother will refer to this as the ultimate salt water douche.  This statement will never leave my brain, years later I will use this information to put my shipmates at ease before the drop off the tower in boot camp,  plunging into a deep pool. I sailed the seas more as a child than I did as an enlisted sailor. 

Down in our cabin having weaved through the clots of luggage in the hallway, Dad fishes out a large medicine bottle filled with bourbon.  He pours two fingers in a fresh plastic cup tosses it back before dropping his fanny pack on the bed mom isn’t sitting on.  The cabin is small.  Two beds with a nightstand between them, the other beds are folded up but while we are at dinner our room will be turned down with chocolates on our pillows.  The international crew speaks nearly 20 languages, announcements are done in three everyday over the loud speaker.  On the deck below us is where the crew cabins begin, other than sleeping Dad will spend most of his time in the lounge probably the one we stopped at earlier.  Dad takes out a list of ports.  Each day the Plan of the day will be delivered to our door, it will be the day’s events both on board and in the port of the day.  Mom will want to go on a few tours but I was told by Dad that if Mom went shopping I was to do my best to dissuade her from spending too much.  Dad was worried the booze he intended to buy in the Caribbean might not fit in the luggage to make it home.  Every year he was able to count both children in regard to the amount he could bring back.  My mother preferred booze to hot sauce, as once a bottle did ruin several pieces of clothes.  She didn’t drink herself or care for spicy food. 

Passengers lined up for dinner early, a few had beers in their hands and my father inquired to find out that much like him, they had put it in their luggage.  Not because they had cruised before but