twenty-something

Make The Man | A Story By Patrick Raymond
Part Two, Section Two: "The Allison and Sam Variety Hour"

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Allison Flannery is my Lois Lane. I never told her such, but in my mind, that is how I will always think of her. I'd heard a lot about Allison Flannery before I officially knew her. Preceded by her reputation, she was the big, bad sophomore Assistant News Editor for The Good Five Cent Cigar, URI's unfortunately named student newspaper. I was a lowly Freshman Journalism major, a cub sports reporter on the paper's staff, more Jimmy Olsen than Clark Kent.

I first met Allison on my second day on the staff of the Cigar, my fourth at URI. She walked in late, a little flustered, but ravishing. The blonde sat across from me at the staff meeting and I was instantly, homosexually smitten with this woman.

In staff meetings, we vaguely acknowledged that we lived in the same dorm, the same floor even, but never took things beyond the professional level. It was Columbus Day when we finally got over ourselves and got together. We were two of only a dozen people left in the hall over that long weekend. Most had taken the opportunity to go home or away for the first time all semester. There was a knock on my door around 11pm. I opened it to find her standing there, with my two favorite things in her hands.

"Do you like pizza and beer?" she asked with a grin.

I of course said yes and immediately invited her in. The pizza was pepperoni and black olives, and the beer was Cider Jack. Already, I knew the girl had taste. That night, we got drunk and watched Cary Grant's Arsenic & Old Lace together. We discovered that we had everything in common and, from that moment, became inseparable.

Our mutual love of old movies led to weekly trips to the video and liquor stores. Arsenic proved to be too slow for us, so we stuck to Hitchcock's old classics until we wore them out. After we rented Psycho, we both went out and bought clear shower curtains and chain locks for our bathroom doors. After The Birds, we visited a pet store and squawked at all the caged creatures. When we had watched all of Alfred's films at the campus video store, we decided to move onto more lightweight fare: Doris Day movies. The far and away best of all the movies was Pillow Talk with Rock Hudson. Ally, like Doris, was the bright and beautiful blonde and I, like Rock, was tall, dark, and, well, gay.

She said she'd known since the moment she saw my CD collection. No self-respecting straight guy would openly claim ownership to Natalie Merchant and Duncan Sheik CDs, she insisted. And yet the simple fact remained unsaid. My sexual orientation was always there out in the open -- I was out, potentially obvious -- but never stated. I never tried to "come out" to Allison, or Rich, or Carly, or any of my other friends at URI -- nor did any of them ask. I just lived my life, openly, but carefully, cautious not to explicitly let the cat out of the bag. Without a "very special episode" of Sam North's life, in which our hero gathers his friends and emotionally reveals, "Guys, I'm gay," they were left to ponder, speculate, and assume.

The stalemate continued for a few months. It was about two weeks before the end of the fall semester, right before the on-set of finals, and the gang gathered together for some late night drinking. Somehow, truth or dare came up, and somehow I ended up spilling my guts. I said the words they wanted to hear -- "Guys, I'm gay" -- and, with an audible gasp from Carly, all weight was lifted off our collective shoulders. Allison and I only became closer from there. I could finally be open about my crushes, and she could finally trust me as the gay best friend she'd always wanted.

I'd secretly wished that somebody would pick up on the gay guy-straight chick dynamic of us and dub us "Rock & Doris," "Will & Grace," or something equally moronic, but no one ever did. The closest we came to being truly campy was being called "The Allison and Sam Variety Hour" for one short week in February. To my dismay, the nickname didn't last.

We were close friends but the Object Of My Affection dynamic really never existed between us. On some level, I wanted to be in love with Allison, and I wanted her to be in love with me, on some level, in return. But that wasn't the case. We were just friends. Best friends.