PIANOS IN LATCHKEY TOWNSHIP
GUEST POST BY MICHAEL JAI GRANT
Since Day One of Latchkey Township, I have taken a wandering approach to introducing you to the extraordinary inhabitants of this land so that you may get a chance to treasure each of these charmers as much as I do. In light of the open hostility from the current U.S. government toward queer and trans people, today’s newsletter is GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY.
As the attempted erasure of LGBTQAI+ folks from history, museums, research, education, and health care unfolds, I am interrupting this catastrophe to tell at least one gay story. But really, this is a story like any other story, it just happens to have queer protagonists at the center.
The resiliency of every LGBTQAI+ person I know right now, as we wake up to a new horror in the news each day, is crushingly impressive. Trump and his advisors are, at this very moment, demanding that the Smithsonian American Women's History Museum remove trans women from its halls or lose federal funding. All mentions of “gay” have been flagged for removal from federal websites. The National Park Service has removed the word “transgender” from the Stonewall National Monument website, although trans people were at the very center of this historical movement for change. This administration has given federal agencies a license to openly discriminate against trans employees and has ordered the removal of LGBTQAI+ historical data from the public record.
We have persevered through attacks of this nature before and will weather this storm together. I recommend An Open Letter to Queer Artists by Kate Bornstein for an injection of resiliency.
And if you are not already subscribed to Erin in the Morning, get thee there ASAP.
AND NOW, OUR LATCHKEY KID OF THE MONTH.
I first met Michael Jai Grant in my early twenties. Michael is the husband of my sister’s best friend, which authorizes him to be a member of our family because, in our home, from the time anyone remembers, best friends have always been embraced as full-fledged family members. I thank Michael’s husband Jon for my teen discovery of Erasure, The Housemartins, and Joan Armatrading. He and my sister shared an apartment in the 80s, and I scoured his record collection for any hints of queerness. It was all right there for me to discover.
One year, we gathered for a holiday at my apartment. Everyone had a great time fussing over the meal and reconnecting. We laughed—there has always been laughing. Bodhi, Michael’s puppy, kept asking to go outside. We indulged, thinking he simply loved being in a new place surrounded by what a novel forest offers to a dog’s senses. After much eating, drinking, and familial revelry, we eventually turned in for the night.
About two hours later, every single person in the apartment was awoken by the smell of decay as sweet Bodhi, for the first and only time in his life, experienced an “explosive intestinal issue.” EVERYWHERE. What ensued was a lot of pajama scuttling and midnight groaning. After a few hours of scouring and disinfecting, we all returned to bed. Only by the light of the next day did we discover that an intrinsic aspect of my mother’s process for making her signature fish dish was dumping the used cooking oil on the soil just outside the kitchen door! Unbeknownst to us, every time Bodhi went outside, he headed straight to this never-ending grease spout for a lavish top-off.
In May 2014, Jon and Michael were the first LGBTQAI+ New York State couple to marry legally in Massachusetts. Still, they prefer to mark their first date as their anniversary, and recently celebrated thirty years together. Michael’s new book, The Limited Edition Bicentennial Cadillac Convertible Joy Ride, has won Best Contemporary Fiction and Best Female Empowerment awards.
Michael has provided a discount code for readers of Latchkey Township. Use code LATCHKEY for $4 off the "DIRECT FROM THE AUTHOR" book with a signature and bookmark from his website.
HOMEWORK AND PIANO
by MICHAEL JAI GRANT
Robin wore the house key on a cheap metal chain that left a little green circle on the back of her neck. She tried washing it off, but it always came back. Michael offered to wear it — he didn’t care if he slowly turned into a Martian — but Robin was given the responsibility because Robin was the oldest. She was eight. Michael was four days shy of being two years younger than his sister. Every August 2nd, he leapt ahead to only one year younger, but then August 6th would arrive, and she'd jump ahead, too. The difference between six and seven was like swimming in the same lake, but the difference between six and eight was an uncrossable ocean of time, and Michael was only an average swimmer.
The carpool typically returned them home at 3:50 p.m. Their anxious mutt greeted them with a ferocious tail and generous ankle licks while backpacks and lunchboxes smelling of old bananas were flung to the couch. Brandy invariably provided a few errant drops of pee for the sculpted auburn carpet while they all ran to the back door. With Brandy leaving most of his business in the yard, Robin and Michael went to separate bathrooms until they reunited in the orange and green kitchen for an afternoon snack. Brandy got a chicken biscuit, which he swallowed before he had time to chew it.
Robin ate maple syrup mixed with margarine, raw powdered cocoa mix from the can, or three granola bars from a box intended to last a week. Michael scarfed down half a sleeve of graham crackers or half a box of cereal. Whatever there was, he ate half. Snacks were washed down with the morning’s orange juice remains, reconstituted from one of a dozen cans entombed in the back of their growling freezer.
The siblings ignored their homework, piano practice, and the larger family room TV, opting for the preferred luxury of their hardworking parents’ queen-size bed. They sprawled out on six pillows (two were carried in from their rooms) and planted themselves just in time to see 3-2-1 Contact and The Bloodhound Gang. If it was a rerun, they might summon the energy to get off the bed and physically flip the knob to one of the other two available channels, where Scooby Doo, Thundarr the Barbarian, or Johnny Quest lay in wait. But never, oh never, The News. Switching to The News, even by accident, was a capital offense punishable with Death by Tickling.
Finally, the real shows beamed to earth from Syndication Heaven: What trouble would Tootie get into on The Facts of Life? How would Doctor Who outsmart the Daleks? And what was the deal with Jack on Three’s Company? Or Mork? By the time their sugar highs crashed and the dog was done with his late afternoon nap, they would sense the vibration of the garage door from the other side of the house. A mad-and-practiced scramble ensued, giving the realistic appearance that no one under fifty inches ever dared venture into Mom and Dad’s sacred quarters.
“What did you do this afternoon?” Mom would ask, dropping her pile of research books, her purse, her groceries, and the mail on the lemon-shaped kitchen table. She reached for the peanut butter and Tam Tams kosher crackers.
“We walked Brandy. Then Michael did his homework, and I practiced piano. Then we switched.”
“That's great,” Mom said while reaching for the coffeepot. “After dinner, we can all relax and maybe watch some TV.”
Until next time,
Jacinta