An Oral History of Being A Polykid

I always knew that Arch and Iggy were my Mom and Dad, and Anne and Harold were my Godparents. It wasn’t until I was 9 that I found out about the extent of the relationship between the two “couples.” I asked the four of them to allow me to interview them this past Christmas. I did my best to transcribe things as accurately as possible. When necessary, I’ll add details for clarity.

Gallina: Here’s the thing I’ve been wondering lately, which is why I asked if I could interview you. Did you guys intend to wait until Anne and Harold were planning their wedding to tell me about being poly?

Harold: Yes, because you had to know what was going to happen at the wedding so it wouldn’t be a shock. Your Mom was my Best Matron, and your Dad was the Man of Honor. We came up the aisle in those pairs holding hands. Kisses were going to be exchanged all around. We also knew you were ready to know.

Arch: Your Dad and I also wanted to make sure you were old enough to understand why we divided your care and our pairings the way we did. We didn’t want you thinking there would be a chance that the pairings would change one day.

Gallina: You succeeded there. Arch and Iggy wanted to make and raise a baby. Anne and Harold wanted to help educate and nurture the child starting with toddlerhood.

Iggy: Precisely. Plus, when my sister got pregnant [with Nora], we contemplated adopting the baby until we found out you were on the way. My sister didn’t want to go through adoption, and my parents didn’t think us taking care of 2 infants that would be born 4 months apart was a good idea.

Anne: An idea I wholeheartedly agreed with. It’s enabled both of you to get very similar opportunities over the years.

Gallina: So besides the kid thing, was Beatles versus Stones a factor in pairing off, too? *giggles*

Harold: I was more into The Kinks and The Beach Boys, personally.

Arch: Iggy used to joke that he chose me because we both adored George Harrison and Anne was all about Mick Jagger.

Anne: My counter to that was always that I couldn’t love a man who didn’t love Mick as much as I do.

*everyone laughs*

Gallina: We’re approaching Anne and Harold’s 40th Wedding Anniversary, which has brought all this back to the front of my memories. Do you remember when you told me you’re all my parents?

Iggy: Yes, because I spent a lot of time working on it! laughs Anne and I met when we were nine, when we started carpooling to piano lessons. We went to junior high together and started singing in church for Saturday night mass. We were always friends and kind of liked each other.

Anne: My parents told me it’s ok to like Iggy, but I should not be romantic with him until I was older and dated other boys first. I think they could see that we’d end up together one way or another, but didn’t want us to start dating too soon and end up having a kid before we graduated high school.

Iggy: Mine told me that there was plenty of time to be a man after I graduated high school. And then Arch’s family moved into the neighborhood and started going to our Church. Arch began singing on Saturday nights as well.

Harold: They both fell for her immediately.

*everyone laughs*

Anne: Well, I knew I felt very drawn to Arch. I knew about homosexuals, but I wasn’t sure if I was one. I also felt very drawn to Iggy, and attracted to other boys at school. So I didn’t know what I was, exactly. *laughs*

Arch: We were all attending different high schools, so Mass was the only time we were guaranteed to see each other each week. The three of us started to go out for burgers after Mass on Saturday nights. My parents encouraged me to use our “rec room” to have people over. We’d play records and play cards or read to each other or watch TV. Every now and then we’d go to a movie or a carnival. It was a lot of fun and I felt very comfortable with the both of them.

Iggy: It took Anne and I a year before we told each other we were attracted to Arch.

Anne: By then, I accepted that I had feelings for Arch, but thought at the time I could never tell her. I knew I could tell my parents [they supplied her with an abridged version of the Kinsey report right before she started high school and were always open to discuss any part of it], but I didn’t want to. I also knew I could tell Iggy, as we’d talked about homosexuality and both saw nothing wrong with it, even though society at large was still hugely homophobic back then.

Iggy: Once we realized we were both in love with Arch, we immediately knew we couldn’t make her choose. It would be unfair. Besides, she might not want either of us anyway. There was always that risk.

Arch: One of the things I loved the most about Billie Holiday was her bisexuality, and at that age, I’d figured out that it was because I was one as well. I’d already very subtly flirted with both of them. They knew subconsciously, but I knew to wait until it came up to the surface. So, one Saturday night, they both told me. So I said, “Oh good, because I like the both of you and don’t want to choose.” We were what, sixteen?

Anne: Yes. Though being good little freshly-confirmed Catholics, we agreed that we had to save ourselves for marriage. We all figured that once we graduated and went off to college, things might change between the three of us. I’d already intended to attend college in Northern California.

Iggy: It kind of scared me, the thought of Anne being so far away. But I knew she’d hate me if I tried to talk her into staying local.

Anne: Yes, I would have! Thankfully, you knew better. *reaches over to Iggy and pats him on the shoulder* I mean, yeah, we played around a little–

Arch: But, we all graduated high school virgins with no regrets.

Harold: Speak for yourself. laughs And two years after that Saturday night that will live in infamy, Anne went off to college and met me halfway through the first semester in one of those obligatory math classes we all had to take at the time. I just knew she’d be in my life forever the first time I saw her.

Arch: I remember the letter Anne sent Iggy and I–“I met the most enchanting man. His name is Harold and we all must get to know him very well. You guys need to come up for a weekend!”

Iggy: Anne had never spoken that way about anyone else before, so I knew he had to be special.

Harold: Meanwhile, Anne was telling me about her two dear friends back home that I would totally get along with and she was trying to get them to drive up for a weekend.

Anne: Right after Halloween, they made the trip, and it’s been the four of us ever since.

Gallina: That was, what, 1964?

Arch: Oh god, yes! So that means it’s our sixtieth coming up! How the hell did that much time go by?

Harold: One second at a time, Lovely. *He leans to the right and kisses Arch on the cheek*

Anne: And yes, back in nineteen-fucking-sixty-fucking-FOUR, we know it would be a little easier for us to look like two couples, especially since Harold and I were a couple hundred miles away from Arch and Iggy. But so many love letters were exchanged between all of us.

Iggy: I felt drawn to Harold, but for awhile I thought it was just the fact that we were both in love with the same two women. The more I got to know him, the more comfortable I got showing him small signs of affection.

Harold: Yeah, it wasn’t until The Summer of Love when we took acid that we were able to discover our sexual attraction.

*communal laughter while I blush and cringe a tiny bit*

Arch: Okay, let’s not scar her anymore than we have already. Thankfully, both guys had the status of being students and only sons of only sons to keep the draft at bay. So, when Iggy and I were 21, we transferred to a state school close to where Anne and Harold were going. They were literally three miles apart. So, we rented a 4 bedroom house with the help of my parents.

Anne: We all wanted our own rooms, even though we’d end up sharing beds.

Harold: If we all wanted to sleep communally, we slept in my bed because I had the king sized bed.

Arch: That didn’t happen too often because it was too crowded.

Iggy: As the years went on, we moved around to support whoever got a great opportunity. It always seemed to work out for us.

Arch: Then, as we got into our mid-20’s, we started thinking about children. I knew I wanted to have one. So we all talked about it.

Iggy: I knew Arch wanted babies and I wanted to have them with her. So, when we felt we were ready to have children, we decided to get married.

Harold: Both Anne and I bonded early over our mutual desire not to raise children.

Arch: I had Anne be my Maid of Honor and Harold was Dad’s Best Man, as that’s just how it was done back then. It’s also why we did things the way we truly wanted them when Harold and Anne got married.

Harold: By that time, Anne and I had decided to go the professor route and managed to get hired at the same place, so we headed a little ways East.

Anne: Around this time, Harold decided to get a vasectomy to make sure he wouldn’t get Arch or I pregnant.

Gallina: Which I didn’t learn until I was a teenager, thanks to my Aunt. *Iggy and Arch exchange eyerolls.* But let’s not digress. So, Anne, Harold, what took you so long to get married?

Harold: We both wanted to achieve tenure first. It was easy to keep our relationship private, as we were on opposite sides of the campus and had different schedules.

Anne: And as the only woman teaching programming back then, I pretty much had to act like a Nun in order to be accepted. Honestly, it was a little easier to talk about my best friend Arch and her husband Iggy and joke about being the third wheel.

Gallina: The wedding was one of the best days of my childhood. It was so obvious you were all happy that you could finally declare your communal love in front of your loved ones. Speaking of that, Mom and Dad, when did you tell my grandparents?

Iggy: My parents talked to me when I had Arch and Anne over to watch TV one night and we fell asleep cuddling on the couch when we were seventeen. Our affection was glaringly, but not obscenely, obvious. They told me to treat Anne and Arch with respect and not to play with their hearts or bodies. My sister loved to say I was gay because I didn’t sleep with either of them. My parents always told her that a man should always respect a women’s purity.

Arch: I told my parents a little bit before then. They were always really open with me about things–Maman had an Aunt who was born in 1900 and spent her 20’s and 30’s in Paris. She lived with us at the house we had until I was fifteen, and she often entertained us with stories during Friday night dinners. I knew they’d understand. They just told me that they wanted me to use birth control if I planned on having sex with Iggy.

Gallina: At the wedding, I also met Rael.

Anne: Oh god, someone hand me a joint if we’re going to start talking about him. I’ve been missing him lately.

*Arch reaches for the basket on the table, produces a small blue pipe, lights it, takes a small puff to make sure it’s lit and hands it to Anne, who takes a very long and deep drag, the bowl glowing a distinct orange*

Gallina (as the above was happening): Me too. But I thought it was interesting that you guys were very subtle about him until I was older.

Harold: It was outside of our fearsome foursome, so it was less your concern, anyway.

Anne *handing the pipe, now filled with ash, to Arch*: What do the kids say now, it was complicated? I’m just glad he attended the religious college down the street, not where I was teaching. It was so horribly cliche to begin with, a newly tenured professor falling for a 21-year-old undergrad she met at the local computer store.

Harold: He was a very special man. I still don’t know why he just worked so well with Anne and I. I guess because it was always open-ended. We made sure he knew he always called the shots over his life, and he left us when a wonderful work opportunity fell in his lap. I miss him too.

Iggy: *while loading a bowl* You three were hilarious together. Here, Harold. *Harold nods, takes a hit, and passes the pipe to Arch*

Harold: The three of us bonded over a love of British humor and Thai food.

Arch: You two were good for him, especially after he lost his parents and Mama Benton within three months of each other. *passes the pipe to Arch*

Anne: Yeah. *sighs and smokes the bowl Arch handed to her* The first time I made Tom Ka Kai after he died, I had a meltdown when I tasted it. *takes another hit*

Harold: I had to give him the help I wish I had asked for when I was in that situation.

***

Anne: Speaking of bonding over things, your parents and I bonded over watching American Bandstand when most of our peers shunned it for some reason.

Iggy: That’s right! I’d almost forgotten about that. We always talked about it before Mass. Saturdays before church was always about cleaning the house and homework, if there was any. American Bandstand was the one bright spot of the day in all that.

Arch: Totally! My parents also had the weird position of being white people raising a brown kid. So they consulted Iggy’s parents quite a bit after we met to make sure I had exposure to “my heritage” while raising me with their customs as well. I guess all that “rebellious teenager” stuff all over the media scared them a little.

Anne: Ah yes, Rebel Without A Cause. That scared so many parents, but not mine. They were academics, after all. *laughs*

—–I need to transcribe more—–