World Traveller Series III ~ Relationships ~ Episode 1

by Brett Hayhoe

A note on the title of this series: it concerns all relationships — romantic, platonic, passing, positive and negative. When you have traversed the globe as much as circumstance has allowed, you meet a great many people from every one of those categories. Interestingly, only a handful fall into the romantic kind. It turns out that when you reach a certain point in life, people are rather less straightforwardly forthcoming in matters of romance than they once were. This series is about the full range — the people who left a mark, however briefly, and the ones who simply never left at all.

Alan

The Friendship

The most significant relationship made across all those years of travel — and the one still kept in constant contact to this day — is Alan.

Let me be clear: we have never slept together. Our relationship is as close as geography permits. We are probably a step above brothers but certainly nowhere near lovers. I would do anything for him, and vice versa. Quite simply — the very best of friends for life.

Since meeting Alan in Vancouver, and subsequently staying in his lovely apartment in Astoria, we grew closer with each visit. I became part of the family — Alan’s family, New York City’s Pride family, and the neighbourhood itself. I lived like a local.

Estelle

Alan’s mother Estelle would become a huge part of my life, though I didn’t fully realise it at the time.

It is an ongoing joke among colleagues in the Pride movement that Estelle was the only person who could make ‘Brett’ into three syllables. She was a southern belle and one of the loveliest ladies I have ever met. I could probably fill a hundred volumes based on our interactions over a ten-year period of visiting New York City. I intend to feature one story per episode of this series.

The first — and perhaps the most precise illustration of her sense of humour and her timing — was an evening when Alan, Estelle and I had been out for dinner, a very regular occurrence. On reaching her apartment building, she signalled for me to get out of the car. I assumed she simply wanted to say goodbye, as I was flying home the following day. Instead, she gave me a hug and, simultaneously, whispered in my ear: ‘don’t move — the neighbours are watching through their windows and I want them to think I have a young boyfriend.’ Alan and I laughed about that for a long time. It is a precise example of how Estelle operated.

Our relationship was also, for a period, subject to Estelle’s own interpretation. At some point — I imagine around my fourth or fifth extended stay — she gave Alan the third degree about the nature of our friendship. She offered her full support and said she hoped I was Alan’s One. Alan corrected the assumption, but I don’t believe Estelle ever truly accepted the ‘friends only’ explanation, or at the very least, she held a hopeful torch that it might one day become otherwise.

The Sister

On a different occasion, many years later, Alan announced he needed to visit his mother and that I should come along. As we approached her building, he turned to me and said he needed a promise. Alan could ask me anything at any time and the answer would always be yes, without question. He continued: I would be meeting his sister, and I was not to laugh at her accent.

I answered with some indignation. Alan, I said, I would never be disrespectful to your sister.

I really should have reserved that answer.

I followed Alan up the stairs to Estelle’s apartment. His sister opened the door, said hello, offered some general words in the cheerful fashion of a first meeting, and I kid you not — it was like meeting Fran Drescher. Oh my.

I cannot accurately recall what came immediately next, but I believe I maintained my composure until a suitable moment arose to step outside and laugh my head off. I got to know her over the ensuing years and the accent eventually ceased to register — but on that first occasion, you really could have knocked me over with a feather.

Astoria

Alan lived on a gorgeous street in Astoria running off Broadway, Queens. Across the road was an international deli-style store with a hot food service at the back — a huge selection at extremely competitive prices. It became my regular for lunch, which would frequently double as dinner.

At the end of the street, back toward Broadway, was a small neighbourhood bar called Crescent Lounge. Through Alan I met the owner and the staff. I was not, as a rule, fond of sitting in bars on my own in foreign cities. Crescent Lounge was different. I always felt welcome, and I was never harassed, hit on, or treated in any unsavoury manner.

The bar changed owners and names not long after I began spending time in New York, which gave me a new group of people to get to know. On one trip — the only one where I stayed a little too long, well into the beginning of winter — it was genuinely, unforgivingly cold. The bar’s new owners took a large collection of photographs and had them framed together as a kind of family portrait, which still takes pride of place in my Melbourne apartment.

Alan’s neighbourhood was, and I suspect still is, a glorious mix of the world’s people. I remember walking down Broadway and hearing two older Jewish men arguing enthusiastically in Yiddish, followed by a pair of Greek gentlemen conversing loudly over their morning coffees, then three women gossiping together in yet another language entirely. That international character never went away, and Astoria was much the better for it.

One small detail worth adding — something that tends to be known mainly to New Yorkers — is that while the train system is called the subway throughout, the sections running through the outer boroughs of Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx travel on elevated tracks above street level, earning them the affectionate local name ‘the el.’ The announcement ‘stand clear of the closing doors, please,’ delivered in a voice that sounded surprisingly close to a cartoon character, played at every station before departure. Writing this, I can hear it still.

The World Traveller Series III: Relationships is written and produced by Brett Hayhoe — publisher, editor and administrator of Q Magazine.

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