Great Literature Must Always Be About Heterosexuals

Rock Island, Spring 1981

When I was in high school, I thought of becoming a writer.  After all, my friend Darry and I wrote a heroic fantasy novel back in junior high, I was the editor of our literary magazine, and I published an article in the Rock Island Argus.  

What changed my mind: Well, several things, but mostly a class in Fiction Writing, my junior year at Augustana.  We met once a week to analyze a "model" short story or novel, and then we criticized student writing (you had to submit three times).

First round:

Bernard Malamud, “Black is My Favorite Color."  “Charity Quietness sits in the toilet eating her two hard-boiled eggs.”  If you still have the stomach to continue after such a disgusting opening, it's about an old Jewish guy in love with a black girl, who won’t marry him because he’s Jewish.  And old.

Student Submission: "Temperature Inversion."  A man and a woman gripe because it's too hot to have sex.

Me: "Werewolf Planet."  Two anthropologists in the future discover that a “primitive” species actually has developed intergalactic travel.  Kind of interesting, right?

Wrong.  “Terrible!  Awful!  Don't demean yourself with that sci-fi trash!  Write about real people in the real world!"

Rule #1: Modern Literature must be about the dull, boring lives of people in the real world, preferably in New York.
  

Second round:

Flannery O'Connor, “Good Country People."  A Southern woman is depressed because she lost a leg as a child, so she majors in philosophy.  A traveling Bible salesman convinces her to climb up to the hayloft for a romantic evening, but instead he steals her artificial leg. Disgusting!

Student Submission: "Chicken T***s"  An adult woman has an affair with her uncle, who dumps her over fried chicken. (By the way, birds don't have mammary glands; "breast" is an old word for "chest").

Me: "The Island in the Sky." A boy befriends a grade-school bully, and they fall asleep reading comic books. Kind of touching, right?

Wrong!  "Terrible!  Awful! There's a happy ending!  Where's the misery?  Where's the tragedy?"  

Rule #2: Modern Literature must always be depressing, preferably with death at the end.

Third round:

3. J.D. Salinger (left), "A Perfect Day for Bananafish."  A man kisses a five-year old girl  and then kills himself while his wife waits.  Disgusting!.

Student submission: "Hand Sandwiches." A guy's wife is cheating with his best friend, so he assaults the friend and cuts off his "hand."  

Me: "The Letter."  In the 1930s, a guy dies of polio, and his best friend keeps his last letter in his pocket at all times.  Forty years later, the friend is dying, and the ink on the letter is so faded that a nurse in the hospital thinks it's a blank piece of paper, and throws it away. .

It's about a dull, boring life, and it's depressing. A sure-fire hit, right?

Wrong!  "Terrible!  Awful!  Where's the emotion?  Where's the men longing for women?"

Rule #3: Modern Literature must always be about heterosexual desire or romance.

I went on to major in literature, get a M.A., and almost a Ph.D.  But, except for unavoidable required classes, I never read Modern Literature again.

Cruising at the Levee

Rock Island, Fall 1980

After meeting the Mormon missionary on my trip back from Los Angeles, I started my junior year at Augustana College.  Still depressed.

1. I was living alone for the first time, in a single dorm room, and even though home was only about a mile away, I was homesick.

2. My classes in Modern American Literature, The Modern British Novel, and Survey of German Literature were all extraordinary heterosexist.

3. Anything about gay people that I saw on tv, like the drag queen episode of Trapper John MD, or in movies, like Cruising,  was oppressively homophobic.

4. My friends at Augustana were as aggressive in the "what girl do you like?" mantra as they had been in high school.

5. Two years after figuring it out, I had met a half dozen gay people, including Peter the male witch, Mary's brother, the "cannibal" hustler in Colombia, Wolfgang in Germany, and my ex-boyfriend Fred.  Only Peter currently lived in Rock Island, and he never wanted to hang out.

Site of JR's Tavern, Rock Island

How could I meet others?

There was a gay bar in Rock Island, JRs, the former Hawaiian Lounge redone in an urban cowboy motif (It's a straight strip club called the Body Shop now.)

 But you had to be 21 to get in (I had never heard of fake ids.)  Besides, I was scared of the place.

Then I got the bright idea of spying on the patrons, to see where they went after leaving the bar.

So I sat in the parking lot across the street one Saturday night in September, and noticed a number of patrons heading north two blocks to the levee.

The levee, looking toward Centennial Bridge

The levee was a long, narrow embankment to prevent flooding. By the way, if you're thinking of the song "American Pie," a levee can't go dry.  It's the river next to it.  That always bothered me.

 The Rock Island Levee was a sort of lover's lane: you could park and look at the Mississippi and the lights of Davenport on the other side.

Most people parked near the Centennial Bridge, but if you wanted seclusion, the levee extended for two miles, past railroad tracks and deserted factories.

The patrons of JR's wanted seclusion.

Every Friday and Saturday night, when it wasn't too cold or rainy, there were cars parked in the secluded part of the levee, as many as 30 before the night was over, plus some people who came on foot.  You would go up to a car window, and if you thought the guy inside was attractive, strike up a conversation, or wait for him to come to you.  An invitation to his home or to a hotel might follow.

Fratboy

Most of the men were in their 30s, 40s, or even older.  Sometimes I saw a college-age boy, a jock or a fratboy or a hustler, but I never talked to them.  The rule was: younger with older.

I knew nothing of gay political organizations, social organizations, churches, community centers, or pride festivals, so I concluded that all gay life was like this, hidden away, something you do in the dark.

I was too scared to actually hook up with anyone there, until I met the professor with handcuffs.

See also: 36 Hours of Cruising at Lambert International Airport.

Kissing a Boy Under the Mistletoe

See Kissing Brian Under the Mistletoe

High School Hint #11: The Parking Lot After the Harvest Dance

See  My Date with Tyrone

Best Man at my Boyfriend's Wedding

Rock Island, September 1977

In August 1977, just before my senior year at Rocky High, I helped Verne, the preacher's son and my sort-of boyfriend, pack for his freshman year at Olivet Nazarene College. We hugged, and I waved while he drove away with Brother and Sister Tyler.

On September 12th, a Monday night, Brother Tyler called and asked to talk to Dad. This was disturbing in itself -- preachers never called, they preferred unannounced drop-ins.

After a long, solemn conversation on the phone in the kitchen, Dad returned to the living room and said: "He asked if I could get Verne a job on the assembly line at the factory."

"But Verne's at Olivet!" I protested.  "He just started two weeks ago.  Why would he..."

"He's going to drop out.  He needs to get a job."

I still didn't understand.  "No, that's impossible.  He's going to become a preacher.  We're going into the ministry together.  Is Brother Tyler losing his job, or. . . ."

Dorm at Olivet

A few moments later, Verne called from his dorm at Olivet.  "Hey, I know this is going to be a shock, but I'm getting married a week from Saturday, and I'd like you to be my best man."

No, that's impossible!  "Um. . .ok, congratulations, I guess.  I'll be happy to be your best man.  But why are you. . .I mean. . .who's the girl?"

"Kristie Davis." (Not her real name.)

She was a senior at Rocky High, saved along with her parents at the fall revival last year.  She had come along on two or three of my dates with Verne, an "arm dangler" to keep up appearances, but...

Yesterday at the evening service, she ran up to the altar while Brother Tyler was still screaming. Perplexed, he ended his sermon in mid-scream and announced an altar call.  I wondered a bit about her howling sobs and the wads of yellow Kleenix crumpled in her hands, but theatrics were quite common at the altar, so I didn't think any more about it.

Now I knew: Kristie was pregnant!

That's why Verne sneaked off in the middle of our dates, to have sex with the girl, Kristie or whoever!  And later, when he asked “did you get any?”,  he meant did I have sex!

Sex! And  intimacy, and passion, while all I got was an occasional hug!  And all that talk about pairing up at Olivet and then working in the same church forever – he meant a business partnership.  He would be sharing his real life with a woman!

The next Sunday, Brother Tyler announced the upcoming wedding, and his resignation -- he couldn't stay in the pulpit after the scandal of having his son get a girl pregnant.  He and his wife moved to Kansas City, where he took a desk job at General Headquarters until the furor died down, then found a new congregation far away from Rock Island.

After he had odd predicament of making his boyfriend his best man, Verne went to work in the factory, and eventually became an electrician.  He and Kristie stayed in the Nazarene Church for awhile, defiantly occupying a pew in the married-couple section of the sanctuary in spite of the glares of church members, but by the end of the year, they couldn't stand it anymore and dropped out.  We tried to stay friends for awhile, but we no longer had anything in common, and eventually we lost contact.

Now we're Facebook friends.  He's divorced from Kristie, and living in the Washington, DC area, very near the gay neighborhood of Dupont Circle.