The mid-40s are that time in a gay man's life when his major paradigm shifts from sexy to Sansabelts. But when Barry Grooms's partner of twenty years is killed on Barry's forty-fifth birthday, his world doesn't so much evolve as it does explode.<br><br>After navigating through the surreal conveyor belt of friends and family, he can't eat another casserole or swallow much more advice on what constitutes grief. Still numb, he leaves his homestore and design business in the care of others as he escapes to Key West, then New York. There he gets a thankless new job working for a crazy lady in a poncho, then has too many drinks with a narcissistic Broadway actor. Next it's a nude exercise class that redefines flop sweat, and from there he's on to a relationship with a man twenty years his junior.<br><br>Yet no matter how great the retreat from the man he used to be, life's gravity spins Barry back to the small town where he grew up for one more ironic twist that teaches him how to say goodbye with grace.

The Cool Part of His Pillow

Dee takes LezbyAnn’s arm and drops her voice to congratulate me. “That no-minister thing? Good call.”


Absently shaking hands, I watch and listen, fearful of LezbyAnn’s fearlessness.


“Find me an ashtray, dude,” she’s saying to Dee.


“Fuck me with a table leg! Who doesn’t need a cigarette to work through this shit?”


I glance at my open palm at a business card. “Whoever handed me this was good, like a pickpocket. I didn’t even know it.”


Potsy takes it and reads: “G.R.P.L.Grieving Person’s League. A support group.”


Kerrick offers me a piece of chewing gum.


Potsy whispers, “It’s The CoDepends.”


A Liberace pompadour and Dame Edna’s eyewear shuffle toward me. Lou and Herb are old queens we met at gay tennis. They sat on benches and provided hilarious commentary on whose balls were out. They are both wearing something at the throat not quite ascot, not quite tie.


Chapter 20