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

My inflamed gallbladder, opines the lab technician, shows dramatic indication of rupture. Things happen fast. I’m immediately prepped for an outpatient laparoscopic procedure. I have no reason to seek a second opinion, and now that I know the diagnosis, I’m in agony. If it goes well, I will be able to leave by the end of the day, the surgeon assures me.


I want to tell him to take my broken heart, sliver by sliver, while he’s at it.


The IV is started. A cap is placed over my hair. Right about now I might ask for a deep-conditioner to kill two birds, but I’ve learned my lesson about joking. My gurney and I are parked in an empty hallway to wait for the anesthesiologist, who’s finishing another procedure.


I obviously dozed. I now wear hospital-issue footies, probably put on at the same time they clasped on the plastic band that identifies me, and I am at a nursing station. Surgeons and doctors on-call and RNs congregate.


Chapter 32