Aged Auntie - 1. Chapter 1

An overstuffed mahogany magazine rack tried to look as if it had come out of Thomas Chippendale’s London shop in the eighteenth century, but instead it looked merely English. English prints covered the walls, almost floor-to-ceiling, almost hiding the tired English floral wallpaper; English castles, churches, great house, villages, Napoleonic battles with hordes of red coats annihilating blue, fox hunting scenes replete with hounds and red jackets; handsome English furniture seemingly arranged so as not to disturb the tall stacks of books which cluttered the floor, an English-looking overstuffed armchair beside reading lunettes on an English Chippendale-style table holding another stack of books that reached almost to the lampshade, hiding the English Chinoiserie base--even the early evening sunlight filtering through the English lace curtains seemed English: it had clearly been the home of an Anglophile, as well as a lover of books, for a very long time. I thought it all looked as if your old English auntie had invited you over for tea. And that was, indeed, partly true.

A person’s bookshelf is a window into their soul, I’d always thought. When I saw those stacks of books, I had the sense that he knew what was in each stack and could find any book in any stack on a momentary impulse. I glanced at the spines: philosophy, literature, history, the classics—the type of books I loved to read, and to talk about. I told him what I’d been reading, and he said, “Let me tell you about some of my literary exploits,” which I quickly understood to mean the books he’d read.

I’d met John at a dinner party not too long after I came to San Francisco: he was in his fifties, I guessed; gray hair, average height and slightly overweight. When he spoke, it was always with a hint of formality and a glint of amusement in his eye. Jovial and often witty, he might be self-deprecating or incisive, and he enjoyed exaggerating for conversational effect; at other times, as he spoke of serious matters, he appeared to be contemplating the “inscrutables of the universe,” as he liked to say.

When I first met him, he'd immediately taken to me and we’d exchanged phone numbers; soon after, he called me, inviting me to a performance of Hamlet. “I always buy two tickets for a performance,” he explained, “so I can be squired around by a handsome young man. Come over to my place first for a light dinner—I never like to eat very much before a performance.”

He insisted I call him “Aged Auntie.” But why? I asked, still absorbing the overwhelming Englishness of his flat.

“You see,” he answered, “when I was about your age, I was called ‘Father’ John. I was an Episcopal priest—a young priest.” He winked at me: “a young and, yes, a very sexy priest. Just out of seminary and newly ordained, I landed in a small parish in a small town in upstate New York. From time to time, I would sneak off to Greenwich Village and hang out with my gay friends, mostly in the bars. One night they talked me into doing drag. And--wouldn’t you know? —that happened to be the very night the police raided the bar! And there I was, my exceedingly glamorous self, wearing the most painful stilettos, a huge blond wig, a fancy narrow-waisted satin dress, and showing off my most shapely gams, being arrested on some silly charge, loaded into a paddy wagon, and hauled away.”

His face seemed to darken, and then he went on. “Needless to say, my position was in jeopardy. Pronto--the vestry of the parish gave me the—” he drew quotes in the air, “the ‘It would be better if you didn’t show your face around here again’ treatment. So, for all practical purposes, you might say I was defrocked for wearing a woman’s frock,” he laughed, clearly amused at the irony of his words.

Then he backtracked: “Speaking of shapely gams—have you ever done drag?” When I told him I hadn’t, he said, teasing me, “With those sexy gams of yours, Robbie, you would make a marvelous drag queen.” We both laughed, and then he added, as if to reassure me, “I only did it that one time.”

A pungent, curiously English smell wafted in from the kitchen. “I hope you like steak and kidney pie—freshly baked today, from a bakery downtown.” I said I’d had it before, in England, and liked it. “Because, if you don’t, then I get to eat it all!” he chuckled, gleeful as a child. “I also bought a quiche. That’s in the oven too, if you prefer that.”

I asked him when he came to San Francisco.

“So—right after my most inglorious deposition, when both my brocades and my satins–my chasuble and my cocktail dress–had been unceremoniously ripped away from me,” he continued with pompous self-deprecation while we ate, “I escaped to San Francisco to start all over. I was young and very sexy then and soon became a most lovely ornament in the bars in North Beach--” He winked at me. “— indeed, a very desirable catch.”

“I wasn’t single for very long. One night, my late lover saw me at the Capri and took me home, and I never left him. He took me to England many times. He was the love of my life, but, sadly, he passed away suddenly in 1958. Only fifty-three.” A cast of sadness crept over his face.

“As you might guess, he was an inveterate Anglophile and left me all this.” He waved his hand above us in the direction of the prints. “I haven’t had the heart to take any of this stuff down.”

“Hm, this is delicious,” he said, delving into the steak and kidney pie, and I agreed.

“Not too long after I lost him, a strikingly handsome young man expressed interest in me, but, for better or worse, I turned him down. I wasn’t ready yet, and, for various reasons, I didn’t feel he was the right one for me. He was quite bitter about it, and to this day will not speak to me.”

He paused. “He was the one who first called me ‘Auntie’, although what he called me at first was ‘Widowed’ Auntie. He was just teasing me, but I didn’t like the ‘Widowed’ part very much, so he very obligingly changed it to ‘Aged’ Auntie, and the moniker stuck.

“More quiche? More pie?” he asked.

I confessed to him that I was agnostic.

“And that’s not a bad thing,” he said. “It means you are a thinker.

“You see, I was never officially tried and defrocked. Despite everything that happened back then, I am still a priest, and always will be. I grew up in the church, I loved the church, and it was my ambition to spend my life in the church. I love the tradition, the liturgy, the music—I loved the feeling of peace the church gave me. Being a priest gives me a sense of purpose—helping others manage the pitfalls of life, celebrating their births and marriages, soothing their grief... that’s still my calling.

“But I struggled, all through seminary, and afterward. You see, I felt that though I had faith, I couldn’t bring myself to believe. You know--the virgin birth, the miracles, the resurrection—I couldn’t reconcile myself to all that. For a priest, that dilemma puts you in a rather contradictory situation, to say the least. Being gay, also, didn’t make my life any easier. So, when I was so unceremoniously outed, I felt a sense of liberation.” He paused, as if for emphasis, and before going on, he put his hand on his chest.

“I found my true church right here in my heart.” Then he added, “So you see, you might also consider me an agnostic.

“But enough talk about myself. By the way,” he said, shifting the subject, “Have you read -- ?”