Tag Archives: gay

1972 and a birthday move to N.Y.C.

13/12/2011 By in NYC 1972-1983 Tags: , , , 2 Comments

In order to make my move from Ohio to New York City even more momentous, I chose to do it on my twenty-third birthday. The entire episode was timed and choreographed to be as theatrical as I could possibly make it and of course the production was starring me. Leaving West Buttfok was something I had been dreaming of since high school, and living in NYC was a mission that began the very first time I stepped foot in Manhattan. It seemed only fitting that it deserved to be as big a production as I could possibly make it.

It was December, 1972 and I had spent the first week saying goodbye to family and the friends I still had left in the area. Few tears were shed on my part, and I have always been a crier, but I was just too damned excited to get weepy and so bloody happy to finally be escaping the Buckeye State. This would not be just a move, you see, but an entire rebirth, complete with name change. I was dropping my first name (which I neither liked nor ever identified with) and using my middle name, which had been my paternal grandfather’s. I was looking for a total change in life and pursued every avenue I could to make it as different as possible. At twenty-two, although University had coerced me to grow up, I still felt that my life had not yet really begun. It was as though my plane had been circling the airport for years, but hadn’t been given clearance to land. I would finally be bringing in my plane all on my own on the day I turned twenty-three.

But I would not be flying from Cleveland to New York.1) It was way too expensive. I had worked my summer job through November and had managed to scrape together $750, the most money I had ever before amassed and needed it all to live on until I became a working actor in the city. 2) It was only about a fifty-five minute plane ride, plus no airline had a flight to NYC much past early evening, therefore, air travel would just not be impressive enough to suit my melodramatic scenario. No, I wanted to arrive in the city as close to midnight on my birthday as possible and the train schedule didn’t fit within my plans either. The Greyhound Bus certainly did. I could take a bus midday on the day before and arrive at the old Port Authority Bus Station just before midnight. I also wanted to get a true sense of the distance between West Buttfok and NYC, and certainly the eleven-hour-plus bus ride would help me on that account – and then some.

My parents seemed to know me, but they seldom understood me and this particular brand of birthday celebration struck them as very odd. “Why don’t you just wait until we can celebrate your birthday with the whole family, and then move?” my dad asked. That wouldn’t work with my plans, I patiently explained to both of them. “But why not go after Christmas, so you won’t have to go and come back in just a few weeks?” Mom questioned. “I can’t come home this year. It doesn’t make sense”. My final bombshell was launched. It didn’t make either of them happy, but they knew not to push the issue further. It was my ball game and I was setting all the rules.

My birthday fell on a Saturday this particular year. Thursday night my parents chose to celebrate my ‘Birthday / Bon Voyage’.  It was only the three of us – I can’t remember why my younger brother wasn’t there. No one was saying very much and it seemed like a sad sort of non celebration. I had to be cautious and not show too much enthusiasm for my pending trip, and my poor folks were nearly funereal. I said I didn’t want a cake, just a nice supper together so my mother made some of my favorite comfort food. It was nearly silent at the big, round kitchen table that had been the home of so many loud arguments and wonderful family fights. I had always connected mealtime with acrimony and sparring matches. Tonight, the peace and quiet was deafening. Oh yes, it certainly was time for me to leave, I thought with every swallow of food.

After dinner they gave me a present –  a small box to open up. I was hoping it was several hundred dollars in travelers checks to supplement my survival kitty. It was a carved elephant “with an upturned trunk” my mother eagerly pointed out, “so the good luck doesn’t spill out”. She said it was to bring good fortune into my new home wherever that might be. I was to make sure that the elephant’s ass was always pointed in the direction of the front door to guarantee it worked. It was such a cool, totally impractical and heartfelt gift it brought me to tears. As I thanked them, she broke down too, while Dad sat somberly in his recliner, smoking his cigar. Thus ended the celebration as I remember it.

My mother taught high school and left the house very early, so she said we’d say our goodbyes that night, since Dad was taking me to the bus station alone. I told her to wake me up anyway, but she said I’d need plenty of sleep for my bus trip. So before bed that night there were more tears. Early the next morning I awoke when I heard her getting ready and thought about getting up to say goodbye again. At that moment I heard the door to my room open slowly, so I feigned sleep, as I opted to not begin this day of days with another flood of tears. She came to the side of my bed and I felt her hand ever so gently brush the hairs back from my forehead. I remained motionless in my imaginary doze as she patted my head and whispered “you were my favorite”. It sent chills through my body, because I felt like a corpse conscious of its mourners. I wanted to jump up and yell “I’m not dead, for christ sake,  just moving!”, but I remained in my faux comatose state. As she tip-toed out of the room, I saw her stuff a small envelope into the pocket of the jacket over my chair. Once I heard her car pull away, I dove for the envelope. It contained a wad of twenty dollar bills with a note that read simply DON’T TELL YOUR FATHER. It made me smile.

I got up shortly after and showered and checked my suitcase for the umpteenth time. It was jammed with clothes, shoes and toiletries and necessaries.I had shipped a large trunk to Matty’s apartment at the beginning of the week which contained bulkier items and loads of accumulated keepsakes and memorabilia. I thought they might make me comfortable in the big, bad city if I should get homesick. I couldn’t imagine that happening. My new life would be an exciting adventure. Dad got up soon after. He was paranoid about being late for anything, so I knew we would be getting an early start, and that was fine by me. I was ready to get this show on the road. We got to downtown Cleveland about an hour before departure. He wanted to wait with me until the bus left, but I talked him into leaving beforehand, telling him there might be traffic. Truth was, neither of us were comfortable enough yet to spend an hour alone with each other. I so wanted to give him a hug goodbye, or hear him tell me he would miss me but neither of those things happened. He told me to take care of myself and stay out of trouble and went to shake my hand. As he stepped closer, he shoved a wad of twenties into my pocket and said “Don’t tell your mother”. His gesture was as good as admitting that he loved me. I watched him walk out of the bus terminal, and once he was out the door, I quickly wiped my eyes.

I remember little about the bus ride other than how long eleven-plus hours on a coach can be, especially when you just want to be at your destination from the moment you step on the bus. Looking out the window it also astounded me how nondescript was the only part of our country that I knew at this time  -  Ohio/Michigan/Pennsylvania. They were all the same bland blur of nothingness and nowhereness to me. But that would all be over once I got off the bus tonight into the lights of Manhattan. I do remember that never once in those eleven hours, or in the days and weeks before as I planned this sojourn into my future, did I have any fears or anxieties or doubts about this move. It simply was what I had to do to live the rest of my life.

After what seemed at least half a lifetime, we finally made it to New Jersey and the entrance to the tunnel into Manhattan. This was an amazing part of the trip, those  bright lights shining harshly on the white tiled interior lining the tunnel. I watched in anticipation as the bus maneuvered its way to the opposite end which opened into Manhattan. We were just minutes away from the big finish to my opus. It felt as though my heart was lodged somewhere between my stomach and the back of my throat. We emerged into mid-town traffic – imagine traffic at nearly midnight. There were hardly any cars on the streets of West Buttfok at this hour. I had made it safely, and clumsily I jammed my way through the busy Port Authority terminal dragging my suitcase to the street to hail a cab. I breathed the cold December air, and wished I had worn a hat so I could have pulled a Mary Tyler Moore. I climbed into my cab, as I was on my way to Marie’s Crisis Cafe to meet my roommate Mattie and have my first  drink as a New Yorker.

Marie’s is a tiny gay bar in the cellar of 59 Grove Street off Sheridan Square in the West Village. Matty knew of my plan to arrive a little after midnight on my birthday. I was shaking with excitement as I pulled my suitcase to the curb and paid the cabbie. I could hear the piano music wafting up onto the pavement from below and the chorus of male voices crooning a familiar Sondheim tune. It acted like a beacon of hope for the career I dreamed of pursuing and whatever life would grow from it. I opened the door, left my suitcase on the landing, and looked over the room for Matty’s familiar face. I spotted him with a tray of drinks in his hand and I waved in his direction. He smiled, and went over to Terry at the piano, who looked up and in mid stream began to pound out a chorus of Happy Birthday. It was a surprise from Matty that I hadn’t included in my grand plan, and it warmed me right through. And then from somewhere in the darkness, a face I had never seen before stepped forward with a small birthday cake covered in more candles than frosting with my new name emblazoned on top. I was smiling so hard my face ached with happiness. At a table in the corner sat Richard, the not so strange stranger who already figured somewhere in my New York life and my heart leapt. We literally closed the place and Matty and I staggered home to the apartment at 24 King Street, taking turns dragging my suitcase for blocks. It was one of the most memorable of birthdays, yet I had celebrated  it with a roomful of people I didn’t know.

Sissy Boy

28/11/2011 By in Childhood, Junior/Senior High School Tags: , , 2 Comments

It’s taken six decades to accomplish, but in that time, I have been called: fag, faggot, fairy, fruit, homo, nellie, pansy, and queer. But by far, the most painful pejorative of them all has to be sissy and it was the very first I remember ever having been called at a very tender age. It was my older brother who often called me sissy boy whenever he was forced to have to include me in his play, or look after me while my mother had to do something that required her full attention. Being seven years younger, I was always a burden to him, something he was forced to put up with and he made it quite clear that it was with great detestation that he had to recognize my existence in his world at all. I didn’t expect him to like me, just not demean me by name calling. But that he did and with great gusto and he knew just how to zero in and make it hurt deeply. It was bad enough to have the cruel world of West Buttfok, Ohio hurl abusive epithets, but when it came from your own flesh and blood it was almost too much for me to bear. I even heard sissy from my father and mother, discussing me when they thought I couldn’t hear. And it all started very early in my life.

My mother saved most of my elementary school report cards, along with my childhood photos. I especially enjoy the one from Kindergarten. Miss Pete was my teacher, and we were evaluated at four separate times in the school year. Each of the evaluations was a typed paragraph which summed up our progress throughout the school year. In the first, she detects “a slight lisp which might be outgrown”  It wasn’t.  I had speech therapy in the third grade for a sibilant “s” (how appropriate for a gay-to-be). But more concerning “he does not seem to join in the play with the other boys in his class” and she was right. I naturally chose to hang out with the girls because they were a lot more well-behaved and played wonderful make-believe games while all the boys wanted to do was build forts with the huge wooden blocks, then proceed to knock them down and rough-house. What kind of fun is that? She comments in the following two paragraphs that “he enjoys story time” and that “he is a perfect gentlemen”. In the final paragraph she is “happy to report that he now enjoys the company of both his boy and girl classmates” which I think was actually bullshit, because I didn’t like them anymore than I did the first day and I had always identified more as one of the Kindergarten girls.

Elementary school got much better, and so did the boys. I enjoyed being one of the top students and each year, one of the teachers’ favorites and popular in the class as well. I always had one boy “best friend” each year; I guess I have always been a monogamous kind of guy. But none that I could play doctor with until fifth grade and that was a kid named Jim, who must have been held back twice, because he was already a few years older than me. To clarify, we didn’t play doctor in the classic sense (we were far too old for that-especially him) but he did teach me about masturbation, and demonstrated his technique for me and a few others in our class after school in his garage on several different occasions. I found it fascinating and couldn’t wait until it was physically possible for me to accomplish.

Then came junior high. It was a disastrous period for me. The whole socialization process had changed and it became boys against girls, yet at the same time our foes were also supposed to be our focus of sexual interest. It was all too confusing for me, perhaps because I was getting very different signals about who I was really attracted to in the first place. The only positive thing that came out of seventh and eighth grade was the locker room before and after Phys Ed class; I absolutely hated gym and anything connected with sports, but did I love getting naked with all those boy-men! Unfortunately, I had to endure all the awfulness of what junior high was daily, weekly, for only a few minutes of nakedness with about forty guys three times a week. Similarly, I had to brave a ton of name calling throughout each week as well. Junior high is where I learned, quite surprisingly, (and when it was far too late), that if you wore green on Thursdays you were a “fairy”. Up until this point, the only fairies I knew about were Tinkerbell and friends. Imagine my chagrin that first Thursday I chose to wear an outfit of olive corduroys and multi-shaded green sweater, that I would, for the balance of my West Buttfokian education, be forever branded “fairy” by some of my fellow students.

I need to interject here, that at this time I was thirteen, just under five feet tall and weighed not yet one hundred pounds. In other words, a typical skinny, scrawny  geek who would later that year be fitted with eyeglasses. Early on in the school year I made friends in study hall with a heavy-set girl named Connie. She wasn’t very pretty, over-teased and peroxided her hair and dressed like trailer-trash, but she had a filthy mouth and got into trouble a lot and for some reason this appealed to me. Maybe I felt she was “safe” because I knew she’d never expect to have a boyfriend , or maybe I was just attracted to her bad-girl image. She danced incredibly well and loved music and always had cigarettes for us to smoke. We walked home from school together, often with some of her friends. She wasn’t popular among the regular girls, but maintained her own pack of cohorts by shoplifting items according to their requests. It was limited only to what she could steal from a local store similar to K-Mart. This was totally out of my comprehension; I never knew anyone like this before. Finally, after several weeks of hanging out after school, I asked her if she could “crook me” a 45 of YOU CAN’T HURRY LOVE . Sure enough, a few days later she slipped it into my notebook as she entered study hall. I was amazed. But no good deed goes unpunished, and I was going to pay big time for Connie’s gift.

Shortly after the delivery of my hot 45, I began receiving a series of anonymous phone calls. They were from a guy, who referred to me alternately as either sissy-boy or queer-boy. He said I didn’t know him, but he knew me and he was going to beat me up one day after school. I asked him why he would want to beat me up if I didn’t even know him, and how could he know me and I not know him. That wasn’t important, he would quasi-explain, the only important thing was he was going to be waiting for me at my corner bus stop soon and “would beat the shit out of my queer face”. It was amazing how he was able to fill each of his short sentences with those stinging words sissy or queer. I always received these calls soon after coming in the door from school and he would make two or three brief, threatening calls each week. I was scared to death. I had, up to this point, avoided physical confrontation of any kind. I knew I would never be able to defend myself from even an elementary school kid. I now was the sissy-boy he accused me of being because all the years of name calling had instilled it in me.Who was this person, and why was he so angry with me? The only one I could speak to about it was Connie, because she was always threatening to beat everybody up, so certainly she would understand. I figured as a last resort, maybe she would help me beat him up. I know I would have been afraid of her in a fight because she was one tough broad. With each phone call and every passing week, I grew more and more paranoid. I developed eagle eyes whenever walking, especially to or from school. I was leery of any strange guys I saw anywhere, any time of day. This was crazy. I was being stalked long before I knew the word existed.

After nearly a month of these calls, my anonymous caller made a slip-up. As I attempted to reason with this insane teen terrorist, I asked him what school he went to. He had admitted earlier he didn’t go to West B. He gave me the name of a high school in the next town over. I knew no one there, but I remembered instantly that Connie had a cousin she often spoke about in that school who she was very close to. I paused, took a deep breath, and said “so then you must be Connie’s cousin”. There was silence on the line. Then he shot back with something to the effect of yeah but it didn’t matter because he was still gonna’ kick my queer ass. I don’t know what possessed me to say it, but knowing that he wasn’t totally anonymous anymore gave me a tiny morsel of courage, so I turned the tables on him. “OK, so when are we going to get this thing over with? When do you want to meet? Tomorrow?” Another longer pause. “I’m busy tomorrow”, he says. “Maybe next week. Don’t worry sissy boy, I’m still gonna’ get you”. He hung up.

The next day I didn’t even wait for study hall. I met Connie outside her homeroom. I told her we had to talk before study hall. We arranged to get hall passes at the same time from our first period classes. She knew what was up, because I’m sure her cousin must have called her after he hung up with me. I asked her point-blank why he was harassing me and the only answer she gave was a shrug of her shoulders and “he’s just a crazy asshole”.  I never did find out why this guy started calling me. Maybe she needed to intimidate me and couldn’t do it face to face so he was her surrogate. Or maybe he was jealous of Connie’s and my relationship (whatever the hell that was) and wanted me to leave her alone. I only know that he never called again. And Connie and I were civil to each other but never buddies again.

But it didn’t matter that his phone calls stopped. The ordeal made me so frightened, so unsure of myself and so afraid of even my own shadow, that I was haunted by the thought that sissy-boy-me would forever be taunted and jeered at and threatened with physical harm for the rest of my days. And for many, many years afterwards I was. Anywhere I walked, any time of the day or night, I lived in constant fear of being beaten up for being queer-just being me. If I saw a teenage guy coming my way, I hurriedly crossed to the opposite of the street. If, God forbid, a group of older boys was walking in my direction I would duck into the first open door or safe place and wait until they passed before continuing on my way. Even in my twenties, and my first few years living in Manhattan, I was intimidated by the mere sight of teenage boys, certain they would beat me up because I had “sissy” tattooed in invisible ink across my forehead. It literally took years to get over my phobia. It’s been uncomfortable for me just to write this paragraph nearly fifty years later.

Did any good come out of this? We always want to feel that overcoming obstacles in life makes us better people. It usually does. It toughened me up, certainly. Did I learn anything from it? Yes, that it was really difficult growing up gay back in the old days. And today with television shows like GLEE, and all the “out” pop icons, and Gay/Straight Alliances in high schools, and Pride Parades in cities all over this world, it’s still really difficult growing up gay.

My Guy Part Two

21/11/2011 By in College 1968-1972 Tags: , , , 2 Comments

What a difference a kiss makes. It took our first night together to another galaxy. The passion between us and the testosterone level was nearly palpable, as the years of pent-up everything had been released by us both. That tiny room had been filled with the collective sexual energy of a group orgy that was produced by only we two. We lay together until the sun came up, nestled into each other in a perfect fit, amazed by what we had found in the darkness of the night before. Without saying a word, we sensed that we had begun something that would take our lives on a totally new course. In a heartbeat we had become a couple.

From this point on we woke up either in my room or his, or possibly on the floor of someone’s apartment, had we crashed after a night of serious post-rehearsal partying. Guy hadn’t been a smoker before we met, but let’s just say that Tareytons were not the only smoke I introduced him to. We were rehearsing nightly and continued having weekend afternoon rehearsals on Saturdays or Sundays. We ate most meals together at the diner, the site of our first date, or the Student Union. I cannot remember ever cooking a meal in my apartment kitchen for him. About the only time we spent apart was for our classes in the day and if I could be with him, I often cut class to do just that. We were mutually consumed with each other, but not to the point of smothering. It was simply that we were absolutely nuts about one another and enjoyed laughing our way through university life together. It had always been enjoyable for me, but now, with the addition of Guy, it was heaven, because I wasn’t alone and had someone to care about and who truly cared for me. I loved to make him laugh and I believe I fine-tuned my sense of humor of today, by being my silly self for him all those years ago.

The play was coming together really well, after a lot of hard work on all our parts. We knew it was going to be BIG and it was also getting a lot more interest and publicity than a typical production because of the gay subject matter. So aside from being in this nearly constant state of ecstasy, I was enjoying a huge theatre high too. The entire cast had really bonded, so we also had a great group of friends to socialize with. Life was near perfect. I did worry, in a tiny dark place in the back of my mind, what might happen when the play was over. Would this all go away when the set was struck and the costumes were put into storage? Was this relationship just another part of the make-believe that comes with theatre? Every time that thought snuck out, I would push it further back, because I felt so confident that what we were enjoying was so much more than just a game of pretend.

And I was right; it wasn’t make-believe at all. Once the run of the play was finished and we came down from our hour in the spotlight together, we had so much more time to ourselves. We went back to being more vigilant about classes and schoolwork. I had papers to write and he had artwork to turn out. We enjoyed quality time together doing couples things: seeing movies, shopping, spending more time with our friends in the theatre department and meeting each other’s friends from our pasts back home. We even regularly visited his mom, a stunningly beautiful woman who adored her “baby” and luckily for me, anyone important to him. I wasn’t quite ready to bring him home to meet the folks, although my mother had come to see the play and spent time with the two of us afterwards. Without ever saying a word to either of us, both ladies were perceptive enough (and knew their children perhaps better than we knew our own morphing selves at the time) to read what was obviously going on between the two of us. For the first time in my life, I really wasn’t concerned what ANYBODY thought about me. I was so goddamn fulfilled.

There was a small town near the University called Hartville that had a flea market (every Monday I believe) and most weeks we would go religiously and dig through the tables of junk. Every once-in-a-while I found a piece of vintage clothing that I’d buy for him, like a shirt or a vest and he would buy a chotchke (knick knack) for me. On one visit I fell in love with a little framed miniature print that he secretly purchased then gave me for some silly anniversary, like three months together or some such nonsense. I treasured that tiny thing as if it were an original Degas.

He needed a portfolio of pictures for a painting class final grade that he had fallen behind on, so he was putting in late hours at the studio to finish. I would go and read while he worked. He decided the last piece was going to be a large nude of me. Of course I was thrilled. It was the ultimate in romantic-posing nude for your lover, to be forever captured in oils, seeing his fiery passion for me displayed on canvas. We would go to the studio at night, but there were still always lots of wonderfully weird characters around, working to finish end of the semester projects themselves. Guy wouldn’t let me see the painting’s progress because, he kept telling me, he didn’t want me to anticipate the outcome. “This was not going to be a traditional portrait” almost became his mantra. I had no idea what to expect. I only hoped he would capture his feelings for me visually. The student in the space next to Guy was a friendly kid. He always had a radio playing and I remember hearing Elton John’s YOUR SONG several times during the course of each evening. It was a huge hit that year. It always seemed to me, one of the songs in the soundtrack of my life, mirroring my feelings at the time as though I had written it myself. Little did any of us know that Elton was gay. I guess he may not even have known himself in those days. It’s ironic that this song was performed by a now gay icon. In those days, the only gay icons that I knew about were Oscar Wilde, or  Alexander the Great. There were no contemporary icons, because they were hiding safely in the closet with the rest of the gay world.

So the painting neared completion and Guy decided I could finally get my first glimpse. It’s difficult to imagine what I thought it would look like, but what I hoped I would see was nothing like what I saw, as I made my way around the back of the canvas. Instead of my near-black, thick, curly mop of hair, I was completely bald with multi-colored wires connected to a box in the upper right corner of the painting. Granted, my profile was spot on, as was my upper torso and thighs, but my legs from the knees down ended at the canvas bottom. And shockingly, my penis was attached to my thigh, it’s beautifully formed head melted somewhere inside. So much for capturing his feelings for me-at least that’s what I hoped as I tried taking it all in, mouth gaping in disbelief. “You hate it. I knew you would”, he said breaking the silence which rarely existed between the two of us. And for maybe the first time ever in my life, I had nothing to say. But I got over it. He had no idea why he painted it the way he did, he admitted, other than hopefully appearing to be somehow provocative. And P.S. his professor hated it even more than I did.

Late in spring Guy auditioned for an original musical our mutual friend Dennis was directing and choreographing. Guy got to take his tap shoes out of mothballs and tippy-tap his little heart out. He even had a tap solo in one of the big musical numbers. I had committed to doing costumes for the show and so we were back being a theatre couple again. It was fun, but quite different, since I was out of the direct loop in the rehearsal process, and he had no talent and little interest in costuming. But we both thought a bit of a break from the 24/7 would be fine for us. And it was, until this boy named Michael (aren’t they always somehow named Michael?) rode in on his cute little Honda motorcycle from God-knows-where. He was new to the theatre department and was doing another show at the same time as ours. I seem to remember meeting him at a party after rehearsals just before opening. Evidently he and Guy noticed each other more than I realized. I remember him riding on the back of Michael’s cycle one beautiful late spring afternoon to my apartment to pick up a shirt or sweater or something because they were going for a ride. I can still hear the sound of the bike leaving the parking lot with the two of them on it, still feel my heart sinking in my chest, stomach churning and the tears rolling down my cheeks. I knew in an instant, in that same heartbeat in which it all had begun, that this was the beginning of the end.

It only got a little bit ugly. We both cared and respected each other enough not to ruin all the beautiful goodness that we’d enjoyed. Was I so naive to have ever thought it would last forever? Probably, yes. How could you ever enter into a relationship anticipating its expiration date? But a summer’s worth of tears and the loneliness of being away from my University life and back in my parents’ home working my summer job, finally began to ease my broken heart. That, and the knowledge that he and Michael only lasted as long as that summer did. When I came back to school the following fall, I saw him for the first time in almost three months. It was in the lobby of the theatre building which had been our second home for the entire school year before-our year of loving. This meeting was something I had been dreading, but it was as inevitable as the seasons’ change. He asked if we could go for a coffee. I think we must have gone to the Student Union; I wouldn’t have been able to bear a return to the scene of the crime that was our first date. At one point in our sombre reunion, he took both my hands in his, and told me he didn’t expect to ever find someone who’d care about him as much as he knew I had. It was a lovely compliment, and a truly tender moment, but it didn’t replace the gaping hole I still felt inside where something huge was missing. It was the place I’d made for him. What I didn’t know then was that it would be many years before I’d ever feel for anyone like I had for my Guy. We got along fine my last year in school, but we had become two very different people living totally separate lives. He didn’t even look the same to me anymore.

I moved to New York City the following year. He went south the year after to New Orleans, I believe, and got a fantastic, very creative job. I heard through mutual friends how he was doing, and maybe five years later, literally ran into him crossing an Avenue in mid-town Manhattan. We hugged like crazy. He was in town on a business trip and we arranged to meet for drinks one night. It was a very grown up moment, and we enjoyed a wonderful long catch-up chat. I don’t believe either of us even had steady boyfriends at the time. We exchanged phone numbers and addresses before saying goodbye, but time and distance and the years apart just got in our way and we never met or even spoke again. It was in the early 90s, long after I left the city and moved to New England, that I got the news he died-another victim of the plague. Like all the names in The Quilt, it was so sad, but even sadder for me because of what it once had been.

After leaving University I’ve led a sort of gypsy life, moving from Ohio to NYC (in four different apartments) to Atlanta for nine months then back to NYC (in another four apartments) then finally to Massachusetts (in three apartments and one house). In all that gypsying about I’ve packed and unpacked, accumulated tons of crap and lost or threw out even more than a small town’s landfill could hold, but I have always managed to keep that little framed miniature print.

My Guy

16/11/2011 By in College 1968-1972 Tags: , , Leave a comment

Should I live to be an octogenarian in some nursing facility, merrily messing my pads and staring emptily at a tv screen in the lounge, may I somehow manage to recall the unequalled joy of my first guy love affair. Ironically, his name happened to be Guy. He was an extra-special bonus that came with my college production of BOYS IN THE BAND. He was an actor in the play with me. I had never seen him before on campus, since he hadn’t done any theatre, being an art major and also because there happened to be nearly 20,000 students in our University. He was a sophomore, and a very, very young 19 years old. Even though our two characters had little interaction in the script, I singled him out immediately as a person of interest on the very first rehearsal.

He was dreamily handsome to me. Tall and quasi-tanned, (soon I would learn it was only bronzer), he had a sweet, dimpled smile. His nose was strong and seemed purposely sculpted to give a look of elegance to the rest of his features. But Guy’s hair was definitely his crowning glory, naturally curly and a warm sandy-brown color. It was beautifully cut in a fashionable shag style, quite the rage at the time. He seemed genuinely friendly, but a little guarded and uncomfortably stand-offish which made me even the more fascinated. By this time in my nearly three years in the theatre department, my own personality had become so gregarious that I could bring out the shyest of the shy from their protective shells but Guy was not one of those. Yet I would never pursue anyone if I thought there was more than a fifty-fifty chance of being rejected. Wait a minute, was this what I had in mind? Was I actually going to go after another man in pursuit of romance? I think this is what one might refer to as a pivotal point in life and I needed to get ahold of myself, or maybe not.

Some background information is necessary here. My sexual experience up to this point was somewhat limited. I was technically a virgin all the way through high school. I had dated my high school sweetheart into the better part of my freshman year of college and I’d only gotten to second base with her. My sophomore year of college saw me determined to lose my virginity, which I did with the only woman in my life, Elizabeth. We were together for most of the school year in a great, sexually healthy relationship. That all ended (for me, at least) one morning in spring when I woke up next to her, as we had nearly every morning we were together, and I thought to myself: “is this what I want to do for the rest of my life”? I realized nearly immediately the answer to my query was a resounding “no”.  And it was not just no to Elizabeth; it was a no to all women. This was not the me I had become and now I was not able to fool even myself anymore.

My sexual experience with men at this time was what I would term playing doctor graduate level. My best friend from high school, Billy and I had played during the summers when we came back home from college. It wasn’t much more than mutual masturbation with a little puerile sexual experimentation. I remember at one point early on he had tried to kiss me, and I pushed him away knowing that doing that would take it further than I was ready to go. To this day I still feel guilty for rejecting his kiss, because it wasn’t him I was pushing away, but rather my acceptance of where our sexuality was headed and it frightened the hell out of me. Billy’s and my “friendship” was something I will cherish forever, because we grew from boys to men-from innocence to worldliness.

BOYS IN THE BAND rehearsals started in the middle of a long school break. Not many other students were on campus yet, and when it was just the townies, our college town looked and felt empty. It was a weekend afternoon, and probably our third or fourth rehearsal and as I gathered up my things to go back to my off-campus apartment, Guy approached me, smiling a melt-my-heart little smirk. I could tell he was trying to be casual, but there was a nervousness behind the grin. “Are you doing anything, or would you like to go grab a coffee?” he asked.  Am-I-doing-anything? This is the moment I had been waiting for since I first laid eyes on him, but I was going to be together and cool and not let on that my heart was leaping in time with the butterflies in my stomach. I felt like I was going to either pass out right then and there, or possibly piss my pants. Luckily I did neither, just smiled and matter-of-factly said something to the effect of “I could use a cup of coffee and a cigarette right about now” (I smoked like a Turk in college-Tareyton 100s). He had a car, a little white Triumph Spitfire that was almost as cute as he was. He certainly didn’t need a car to be more attractive to me, but it sure didn’t hurt either. I felt like a prince climbing into his sports car to sit next to him. Off we went to a little diner that was popular with the theatre folk, not that the food was so special, just that it was located within walking distance from the theatre building.

Normally the place was packed, but this late afternoon they had closed off most of the sections, so only a few tables near the door were being used. We found a table and ordered a pot of coffee. I lit up, offering a cigarette to Guy. He still seemed a little edgy, nervous, preoccupied with something.  He took a cigarette, and I could see he was holding it like a novice, or someone who only smokes a cigarette or two after they’ve gotten stoned. He admitted he was a bit nervous and that he rarely smoked, but it acted like the ice breaker he needed to relax a bit. He said he had noticed me from the first day and that I seemed to be one of the friendlier boys in the play, and that he was nervous about the part and fitting in with the rest of the cast. It was his first theatrical venture, except for dance classes he’d taken as a kid. He still loved to tap dance he admitted. I assured him he would be fine, that all shows start off shaky. He began his bio: he was an only child, spoke about his mother a lot and his father very little, lived at home in a city only about eight miles from campus, but rented a room in a house off campus where he stayed during the week most nights. I took in everything he told me about himself, making mental notes as though there might be a pop quiz at any moment. I was grinning until my face almost hurt, so happy to finally be alone with Guy and loving that he was sharing so much about himself with me. We were quickly becoming not strangers. As he spoke, I carefully watched his face, those graceful gesticulating hands, his small, golden-brown, piercing eyes punctuating his dialogue and at the same time I was savouring my own good fortune.

Suddenly, in the midst of this prologue, he announced: “I’m bi”. I almost laughed, having just assumed by now the boy was gay. It seemed so obvious to me, but he was being as honest as he could be and I respected his candid admission. Hoping to make things easier on the both of us, I leaned into him closely so that we were nearly nose to nose. “I’m gay”, I whispered, “but I think you already knew that when you invited me on a coffee date”. He started to laugh, a huge, billowing laugh and his entire face and body relaxed like magic for the very first time. I joined in the laughter, roaring myself, and no doubt the few people in the diner must have wondered what those two silly homos in the corner were carrying on about. We talked for at least another pot of coffee and most of my pack of Tareytons.

He  said he’d drive me home, but insisted first on buying me cigarettes.  On the way out he invited me to see his room. He said he hated it because it was just a place to sleep, and that the room had no personality because he spent time only sleeping there. Looking back, I really DO think all he meant was for me to see his room that night, and that’s all I expected from the visit myself. It was a tiny room, and he was right, it didn’t have any personality, just a cot-sized bed and a window. It was spartan incarnate and made the two bedroom apartment I shared with a roommate Versailles at the very least. We sat on the cot and continued talking, the both of us chain-smoking and chatting and laughing and drinking diet soda, which was all that he had. Hours were passing and by now it was evening, late evening. He suggested I could stay there. We had another rehearsal early the next day. His landlady had an air mattress in the basement we could put on the floor if he got rid of the cot. Now, I was getting scared, because there was only one place this was going. I thought I was ready for this in my head, but the reality of physically dealing with him in the flesh made my heart pound, but more in fear than from passion. Together we wrestled the cot out of the room and into the back hall, and carefully maneuvered the air mattress to fit into the itty-bitty room.

And there we were, face to face, with no distractions, nothing to look at but each other. We began to undress and I had already decided I would sleep in my underwear, even though normally I slept nude. I was so nervous, I didn’t even think to notice if he was nervous too. We found our places on the mattress and he turned out the only light in the room. It was pitch black. I wanted a cigarette so badly, but my lungs were aching from hours of power smoking and I had no idea where the pack, lighter and ashtray had ended up. I doubt that a minute had transpired, when I felt Guy’s body shift suddenly, and the warmth of his face over mine. And in seconds, his lips were on my lips as he kissed me, and I opened my mouth in amazement and our tongues met and the flame was lit in an instant.

(to be continued)

Coming out party

17/10/2011 By in NYC 1972-1983 Tags: , , , Leave a comment

By the spring of 1976 I had signed the lease for my first apartment on my own. This was a big thing for me. No, it was huge. I felt like I had finally grown up. The building was just off the corner of 17th Street and Eighth Avenue in Chelsea. At this time the West Village had grown too expensive for the starving artist types, so many were scrambling to find new digs elsewhere. Chelsea was ripe for the picking and quickly becoming a new gay sanctuary. The building had five or six studio apartments on each of its six floors and an elevator so things were looking up for me. It was said that the building had originally been built as a transient hotel in the 1920s (I never knew that to be a fact) and as a real bonus, each studio had a functioning wood burning fireplace. This apartment was truly a find and I was as happy as a clam-a place of my very own in MY city.

The apartment was on the sixth floor and my windows faced the building next door. There wasn’t much space between them, so there was no way to get the air to circulate and on warm nights it could be difficult to sleep. The closer we got to summer, the worse my nights were and even a window fan could do no good once the room heated up. I would never go to bed before midnight, but on those bad nights I would wake up in a sweat at two or three am and have trouble falling back to sleep. Rather than tossing and turning, I took to getting up, throwing on a pair of cut-offs and tank top and going for a walk in the neighborhood. The streets were very safe and this was Manhattan, remember, so people would be out and about at all hours. I’d usually walk to 23rd Street, which is a major cross street, and buy a cold soda, or a frozen treat to enjoy as I tried to walk myself back to sleep.

On this one, particular, hot June evening, I was having difficulty falling asleep. I had been in NYC since December of 1972, and still didn’t own a tv set, so I didn’t even have that to possibly lull me to sleep. It was probably close to 1:00 am when I knew I needed a walk, because this sleeping thing looked absolutely futile tonight. I dressed in my usual costume and was out the door. I walked up 17th Street towards Seventh Avenue, figuring I could spend some time looking in BARNEY’S windows. I wasn’t half way up my block, when I saw a guy walking towards me in jeans and a white tee-shirt. He had dark, curly hair and a black beard. So did I at the time, as did probably one out of every five gay guys in the city. It was the look at the time. I remember thinking I’d wished I had brushed my teeth before leaving for my walk. I slowed my pace and it seemed he did the same. The closer he got, the better he looked. My hormones began racing in rhythm with my heart, but on the outside I was continuing my nonchalant stroll.

There is a dance which could be done in a situation such as this. It had taken me most of my time in New York up to this point to learn it, and I was getting good at it, but this dance depended on the other partner. If he wasn’t at the same level of interest, the dance would never begin. If he was, then I certainly knew my choreography. We were both still pretending we had not really noticed each other-that we were not interested in anything but our individual night walks. We got to within about ten feet of one another and he moved a foot or so out towards the street, and I countered his move in towards the buildings. Now as we passed on the sidewalk, I turned my head slightly towards him and smiled a bit, more with my eyes than my mouth. As I did, he parted his lips and showed his teeth, returning a grin. Without even a hesitation, I continued to walk a few feet ahead. I stopped and turned in his direction, just with my neck, shoulders and my waist, my feet still planted in their original path. This was the crucial point in the dance. Had he done the same, or would I be staring at his back as he continued on his way, not interested in curly-haired, bearded, insomniac me?

And in one of those magic moments in a life, I saw that he had turned his entire body fully around and as we finally made eye to eye contact he said “well good evening, guy”, and smiled as he walked towards me. He extended a hand and shook mine as he introduced himself as though we were meeting at some sort of social function. I immediately detected a drawl. I had never really met a southerner in the city, and he acted like nothing but a gentleman and not street trash as one might expect at that hour of the night/morning cruising the streets of my gayborhood. He had been to a late showing of a film, he told me, and was walking home. He lived some blocks away on the Eastside and I explained my sleepless plight to him. I invited him up to my place (in great hopes of the two of us enjoying something that would really tire me out and help me sleep), but he had to be at work early the next morning. He was a psychologist and worked for some City office for social work. Neither of us had anything to write on or with, but he had a very distinctive three-part name and he said he was the only one in the Manhattan phone book. He went by his second name, which was Curtis. I called him the next day, well actually later that same day, and he became my boyfriend by the end of the following week.

Ours was an odd relationship; well at least for me it was. For Curtis, I think it was like any other he might have ever had. We saw each other regularly, getting together a few nights a week to eat and have sex. He was a foody and enjoyed an eclectic range of cuisines, as did I. He would cook one night on the weekend at his place and I would do the same at my apartment on the alternate night. We both enjoyed classical music. I liked opera more than him but couldn’t afford tickets very often and he favored piano and orchestral music, so we would attend recitals or smaller concerts at colleges and smaller venues that were more affordable. Curtis had no friends, at least he never talked about them. I had many friends who I was quite close to, but he seemed neither interested in meeting them nor in joining us when we got together. In the beginning, I was so infatuated with him and the incredible sex life we were enjoying and so much in love with the idea of our relationship, that none of this bothered me. I was having it all for the very first time in my life, plus it was the Bicentennial summer and the city was celebrating in a big way. At times, it seemed like everything the city was doing was also in celebration of my wonderful relationship with Curtis.

My parents usually visited every other year since I’d moved and they were due this summer, but because of the celebrations and huge crowds, they wanted to wait until fall. I didn’t know how I would pull it off, but I did want them to meet Curtis, because he had become important in my life. Up to this point, my parents knew nothing of my sex life nor the direction my sexuality was leaning in. One of the reasons I moved five hundred-plus miles away from home was so that I could live, what I was sure my family would have viewed as my depraved life, without them knowing about it. I had no plans to come out to them, but I wanted them to see maybe a tiny glimpse of the life I had hidden from them. If they wondered how this handsome southern gentleman fit into my world, all the better. I just wasn’t about to have my private life become fodder for an ugly family confrontation.

As uninterested as Curtis was in my friends, he was extremely excited about meeting my parents. He wanted to wait until the last day of their stay, and planned a Sunday morning walk in Central Park, and brunch in an Eastside restaurant. The weather was perfect and brunch was a lot of fun. My mother melted every time he called her Ma’am, even though she insisted each time that he call her Anne. My dad didn’t seem moved one way or another, but then he seldom was. We had some extra time before heading back to the apartment to pick up their suitcases and take them to the airport, so Curtis suggested stopping at The Plaza to show them how the other half enjoyed vacationing in New York. Both of my parents walked through the hotel with open mouths awed at the lobby, the Palm Court and the clientele. Curtis suggested we had time to enjoy a drink at the bar in The Oak Room. Suddenly Curtis became number one in Dad’s book. He loved nothing more than bellying up to a bar and parking his ass on a bar stool.

Curtis sat at one end, my father next to him, my mother and then me on the opposite end. We had already enjoyed cocktails with brunch, so my mother’s Southern Comfort Manhattan “up” quickly went to her head. It was her drink of choice and the only drink she knew to order other than a highball. She started talking quietly to me and her usually animated face looked as though she was struggling with something difficult that she needed to get out. She said that she was worried about me. It was obvious that I showed I could be responsible, and that I was living on my own in a very difficult place, yet I had made a nice home for myself. But she was worried that I didn’t have anyone in my life, that I wasn’t dating and never talked about any women in my life. She said something to the effect that a sex life was very important too. I smiled and told her not to worry about my sex life, I was doing fine. It might have been my second cocktail kicking in too, because seemingly out of nowhere I said “You see that guy at the other end of the bar”, pointing to Curtis, “he’s my boyfriend. I’m gay”. It was that simple. It just sort of fell out of my mouth and I couldn’t have said it better if it had been scripted by Neil Simon. She paused, looked me in the eyes and countered “I knew it. I knew it since you were five”. (I never did ask her what it was at five that made her think I was gay.) Then she ended the conversation with “Don’t say anything to your father. I’ll tell him myself when we get home”.

I told Curtis, the minute my parents were on the plane, what had transpired while he politely listened to my father regale him with stories of his local watering hole back home. He couldn’t believe it. He thought I was brave, because he said he could never be that real with his own mother (and this man was a psychologist, remember). We got back to my apartment, and made love, where I had the most intense orgasm  I’d ever experienced before. It had nothing to do with anything Curtis might have done. I never felt so free before. I really was on top of the world in every possible way.

P.D.A. in N.Y.C.

12/10/2011 By in NYC 1972-1983 Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

My first trip to New York City was a theatre tour I took through our university drama department my senior year, in the spring of 1972. It had been a dream going back to childhood, since the time of my first black and white 1940s movie that I watched on tv, to see the city for myself, and once I did I fell instantly head-over-heels in love. So much so that I cried inconsolably the first two hours on the bus back to school because I couldn’t bear to leave-especially to go back to life in awful Ohio. We saw something like seven plays in five days, and the whole experience totally blew me away. On that visit I don’t think I went further uptown than Lincoln Center, and didn’t make it much further downtown than Macy’s and Gimbel’s. We did blow through the Village in less than an hour early on Sunday morning but it was nearly empty because even street people aren’t up and moving that early. Once back in school, I decided I would move to the city before the end of the year and announced my plans to the family.

So my second trip was in September that same year. I continued working my summer job to build a nest egg before I left The Land of Cleves (aka Cleveland). This trip would be different, because I was traveling alone and I was meeting (for the first time) a guy with whom I shared a mutual friend. “Matty” was from the Youngstown area and had moved to NYC the year before. Our friend knew I needed to find a place after my move, at least for a few months, and she thought Matty might be interested in sharing his apartment as he was working two jobs and still finding it difficult to pay the bills. So it would be a unique experience for me, since I had never gone anywhere on my own and this visit would be to get a real feel for my future new home. Even though I hoped to see a few shows during my four night stay, my focus would be to get a taste of what social life and life in general was like in this exciting new world.

I was staying at the same hotel as on the theatre tour, the Piccadilly on 45th Street in the theatre district. It was cheap, clean, safe and already familiar to me so it made me comfortable knowing I could get my bearings and navigate the subway from there. I brought very few clothes with me, as I planned a shopping trip on the first day. I wanted to look like a New Yorker; I didn’t want people to see me as a hayseed from the Buckeye State!

Upon checking in, I called the phone number I had for Matty. It turned out the number was for his answering service. As an actor-wannabe, you needed to be able to get messages at any time, day or night (private answering machines were not yet common at this time) and he didn’t have a phone in his apartment. Can you imagine that a person could have an apartment in New York City and actually not have a telephone? Hard to imagine since now, forty years later, people seem to be born with cell phones attached to their right ears. I left him a message to call my hotel so we could make plans to meet and I was off to shop. Even though I didn’t know the area at all, I headed for the Village, since Matty lived and worked there, so I figured it would be the place to shop for a genuine New-York-hip-gay-guy look and my instincts were correct. I shopped for a pair of boots in a couple of neat small shoe stores on Sixth Avenue, and found several men’s stores were I got slacks (jeans were good, but when you dressed to go out at night, you still wore slacks) and…my prize purchase. It was a navy blue, double-breasted, very fitted, long trench coat with wide lapels. What a great look on five-foot-eleven, one-hundred-thirty-five-pound, twenty-nine-inch-waisted me. But I digress.

Once I got back to the hotel I found a message from Matty saying he couldn’t meet me that night, but that I should come to the bar where he would be working the following night (Saturday). So I was free on my first night ALONE in the big city. I went to the theatre, and afterward took a cab downtown to the Village and got out on Bleeker Street. I spent the better part of three hours meandering the winding small streets looking at shops, peering into small restaurant’s windows, and of course doing some first-class people watching. I was amazed at how many people still were out enjoying the night, when people in Ohio and everywhere else in the America that I knew, were most probably asleep in their beds, or at best passed out on their sofas in front of a tv set. In fact, it seemed the later it got, the busier the places became and the more crowded the small streets and alleys were. “What a friggin’ great place to be” I grinned to myself. Amazingly, a huge percentage of these people were gay couples: young, middle-aged, even some old, enjoying a romantic meal or drinking together, walking maybe arm-in-arm or hand-in-hand, but obviously together out in the open, publicly for all the world to see. You could never do that in Ohio. Even though I was alone, I was having a ball and loving this city more than I thought possible.

I cannot remember what I did the next morning. Probably breakfast in the Piccadilly Coffee Shop where they served “strictly fresh eggs imported from New Jersey”, which I thought was a real hoot to advertise. All I remember was getting ready to go out that night, putting on my semi-broken-in New York outfit, and heading down to Marie’s Crisis Cafe, a small bar near Sheridan Square, where Matty worked as a waiter from 11:00pm until closing. He told me it was a theatre bar, which I didn’t quite understand, but I would never have admitted my ignorance to him. I realized, once I got out of the cab, that I had walked past this area once or twice the night before, but hadn’t seen the bar.

As I walked to the door I heard a piano playing a song from CABARET and a chorus of male voices of various vocal ranges and qualities belting out the tune. I entered and asked the bartender to point me towards Matty. The minute I saw him I was relieved. He looked kind with friendly eyes and a nice smile and I doubted that he could be an ax murderer (my mother was concerned “well you NEVER know”). We compared notes about our mutual friend back in Ohio and laughed at her many antics. We clicked almost immediately. It was hard to talk a lot though, while he was working, so he introduced me to some of the regulars and I settled in at a table and took it all in. It was comfortable, non-threatening and a very fun group of all types of guys. Two of the boys joined me at my table. One was a tall guy who seemed just a bit too drunk but not slobbery. He was tall and handsome and maybe a little too touchy-feely but for the life of me I cannot remember even his first name. The other was a quiet guy, but not shy. His name was Richard (and I still remember his last name) and there was something about him that I found very attractive. He sat with me all night and was amazed that I wanted to come to the city and try pursuing an acting career . The hours flew by and I even helped close the place up. Matty asked if I wanted to get something to eat, “but is there anything still open after 4:00 am” I asked? They reminded me that this was New York City.

We all four of us walked around the block to David’s Pot Belly which never closed. Mr. Touchy-Feely had sobered-up a bit and Matty proved to be a real charmer with a great sense of humor. I hoped he would suggest sharing his apartment, because we hit it off really well, and I could tell he would be a very easy person to live with. Out of the dark of Marie’s and into the light of The Pot Belly, Richard looked even more attractive. He was not too tall, blondish, an early thirties All-American Boy type. I subtly made eyes at him every chance I got and he was getting my message, I could tell. I was having such a good time at my Village Baptism, I didn’t want to ruin the magic that had been happening all night, even though now it was after 6:00 am. Richard announced he had to be leaving to get home to the East Village (until that moment I didn’t know there was a West and East). I told him I would keep in touch with Matty and let him know before my move  as I wanted to get together again at Marie’s. He went to shake my hand, and I remember I boldly reached around and gave him a warm hug. I watched him walk out the door, knowing full-well I would be seeing him again. Matty had invited me to a Sunday matinée later that day at the theatre where he worked as assistant stage manager. He picked up the bill and I knew it was time for me to head back uptown to my hotel. Mr. Touchy-Feely said he would walk me to Sheridan Square where it would be easier to catch a cab at this hour.

Matty walked the other direction towards Seventh Avenue. Touchy-Feely draped his arm over my shoulder as we walked up the street and it felt good. It made me feel as though I was beginning to belong to Manhattan. The sun had just begun to light up the night sky. There were some delivery trucks unloading at an all-night deli and newspaper stand people were arranging the TIMES and other Sunday papers getting ready for morning readers. We got to the cigar store on the corner and he pointed out which direction was Uptown. He stuck out his hand to hail a cab coming our way. It stopped and I opened the cab door and announced “Piccadilly Hotel, 45th Street”. As I turned back towards him to say goodbye, in a millisecond he wrapped an arm around my waist, pushed me up against the cab and planted a huge, wet movie kiss that I swear lasted a minute and a half. It took me totally by surprise and I immediately thought “what is this cabbie gonna’ think”? That was the Ohio in me. This cabbie didn’t give a shit if another gay guy got kissed on Sheridan Square. It happened everyday-many times a day. God, what a great town.

The Boys in the Band

02/10/2011 By in College 1968-1972 Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

It was my junior year of college when I finally figured out, in my head at least, who and what I really was (or who I hoped to be). I was a theatre major and had become a member of a sort of underground group of gay guys who hung out together. I say underground, because not many of us were officially out, nor had we fully come to terms with what was simmering deep inside us. We might have had sexual experiences, but most often they had to be done covertly; certainly not in the open like our straight friends. We socialized with the entire theatre department and despite what you may have heard, not all theatre people are gay. In fact, there were far, far more straight people than gay in our department.

Regardless of our sexual proclivities, we all of us enjoyed the same things: (1) doing theatre, (2) getting together to celebrate theatre that we had done and (3) smoking dope. We did a lot of all three things and some friends actually also found time to go to classes as well. At this point, I was not one who put in much classroom time, unless it was theatre class. I was having way too much fun playing onstage and off to care about mere academics. I did just enough to keep my draft deferment status, because this was 1970 and thus Vietnam, you see.

We did a lot of theatre in a school year. Besides the University main stage shows, there were several very good student theatres where we were beginning to stage productions that would sometimes draw bigger audiences than the University shows. Early this particular school year, auditions were announced for The Boys in the Band. It was still running in New York and the movie had just been released the summer before. It was difficult to get the rights, but  the student director managed and Boys was all the buzz in the halls of the theatre building. There were more guys auditioning for the nine roles than I had ever seen before, especially for a student production. It was the most grueling and drawn out audition I ever went through,  but I got the part I so badly wanted.

The play deals with thirty-something-year-old gay men struggling with aging and dealing with the futility of a homosexual lifestyle. It is a very dark and dismal take on being gay, but at the time very true to the reality of the generation before ours. Here we were, all of us boy-men, barely twenty and most of us just discovering and experimenting with our own sexualities. It was an amazing theatre experience, but more so a personal psychodrama for me and many of my fellow actors. Of the nine of us, six were gay. Of the six, three came out during the course of the production.

It was a huge success. All in all it was a damn good production with some really fine acting. Audiences were huge and receptive. We actually sold standing room tickets and had to turn people away. If memory serves, we added extra shows. We were performing in a make-shift theatre space in the Newman Center. Can you imagine the Catholic Church giving a home to a production of a gay play? But it was the 1970s, when even the Church had a heart, I guess.

It was an example where I saw, first-hand, how theatre could move people-not just an audience, but everyone and everything around it. Bringing the play to our University changed that little world for the better. It forced people who had no idea that homosexuals were a part of their world too, to sit up and take notice. It put a face on what had been, for so many, just this idea out there that they knew existed, but was not yet a reality for them. And our straight peers in the theatre department looked at us a bit differently too, even though they had always been accepting of us, even when they didn’t know exactly who/what we were either. It was as though a huge theatre curtain rose, and a gay world was exposed in all its glory to everyone all at once. Now people could begin putting two and two together and realize “Oh, that’s why my cousin….” or “Do you think Uncle Whoever never got married because…”  and “I always thought maybe Mrs. So-and-So my eighth grade English teacher…”

And the best part, selfishly for me, was that the closet door that had only been open a crack here and there, on and off for what seemed a lifetime, opened wide and blew off its goddamn hinges.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 32 other followers

%d bloggers like this: