The Boy with Soft Hands

When I was growing up, Huey (not his real name) was one of my brother Kenny's friends.  Short, brown-skinned, a rarity among the pale Swedes and Germans of Rock Island, chubby, with black hair and soft black eyes, soft all over.  I especially remember his square soft hands with stubby fingers.

Kenny was 2 1/2 years younger than me, so in sixth grade when I was in ninth.  His best friend was Todd, a sports nut with sandy brown hair and blue eyes.

Huey was in a grade below them, a young kid who they tolerated because his Mom made primo snacks, and because he was funny.

He told knock-knock jokes.

While eating orange sherbet, he stuck out his tongue to demonstrate that it had turned orange.

He made his belly talk, long before Jerry Seinfeld did it.

On cool autumn afternoons they played baseball in the school yard, and then burst into the house for snacks and sodas, sweating, laughing, gossiping.

At least once, maybe more, Huey exclaimed "Feel how cold I am!", and lifted my shirt to press an icy hand against my belly.  I jumped back, and he laughed. 

Once I tried to retaliate by tickling him.  He grabbed my hands with his hands, and we did a sort of struggling dance.   Suddenly we were rolling on the living room floor.  But the dog started barking, thinking that I was being attacked, so we had to stop.

I remember them watching Kung Fu (1972-75), about a kung fu fighter in the Old West, and then pretending to do kung fu moves. Huey was shirtless, his belly bouncing as he jumped around yelling "Hai-ya!"   It must have been during a sleepover, but I don't remember the rest.

One spring when Kenny was in high school but Huey was still at Washington Junior High, the whole family went to see him in Oliver!.   He did comedic mugs and pratfalls that stole the show during "Food, Glorious Food."

The whole family went to see Kenny's friend, who was just in the chorus? Why?

Was he closer to Kenny than I thought?

(This model is over 18.)

By this time I had figured "it," out, and I wondered if Huey was gay.   My brother's gay friend, soft and warm and vulnerable, using jokes and pratfalls to hide his desire for men.

There's nothing to stop us from getting a thrill
When we all close our eyes and imagine...
Food, glorious food....

Cocks, glorious cocks....

I don't remember seeing Huey after that.  The years passed, and I met lots of gay men, and forgot about him.  But...

Time to call my brother.

"Sure, I remember Huey.  He was a little goofball, wasn't he?  Always cutting up and making jokes."

"Do you know what happened to him?"

"After junior high we sort of lost touch.  He went to Alleman, the Catholic High School, not Rocky.  Funny -- he just lived like three blocks away,but I don't remember seeing him at all."

"We went to see him in Oliver!"

"Oh,yeah.  I remember that.  It was a big deal, like his acting debut.  Hey, maybe he became an actor, and moved to L.A.,like you did. Have you checked the internet movie database?"

L.A.?  If Huey was in ninth grade in 1979, he graduated from Alleman in 1982, and from college in 1986. He would have arrived in L.A. a year after me.

Did we drive down the same streets?  Was he in the crowd of bears at the Sunday afternoon beer busts at the Faultline? At a table near me at the French Quarter?  Maybe he came to the bear parties in the Hollywood Hills.  Maybe, without knowing who he was, I touched his soft warm belly, squeezed his nipples, moved my hand down to his cock....

Food, glorious food -- what is there more handsome?
Gulped, swallowed, or chewed, still worth a king's ransom.
What is it we dream about?
What brings on a sigh?

He's not in the Internet Movie Database or the Internet Broadway Database.  He didn't become an actor, at least not a professional.

Alleman High School Class of 1982 has a web page.  No Huey.

An internet search reveals Robert with his last name, in his 40s, living in Moline, the next town over.  It's a long shot, but I call.

"Huey's my cousin.  He was a lot older than me, so we were never close.  We actually only met once, at my aunt's funeral -- his mother -- in I think 2003."

"Did you remember where he was living?"

"Um...I think Florida somewhere.  Maybe near Disney World...I can ask my dad.  He would know."

Dad doesn't know for sure, but he thinks Fort Lauderdale.

I lived in Fort Lauderdale after I got my Ph.D. in 2001!   Could we have walked the same streets, cruised at the Filling Station?  Maybe I saw him at the Club, in the glory hole room.  Maybe I went down on him without knowing who he was....

No Huey listed in Fort Lauderdale, but I find someone else with the same name.  It's a long shot, but I check his facebook friends.

There Huey is!

Four years younger than me, so 53, a hot bear daddy with tattoed biceps and probably a pierced penis.  Is he gay?  Did I get a gay hint from the soft, sweet jokester of my childhood?

Is it worth waiting for? If we live to be 84.  Every day we say a prayer....

Over half of Huey's facebook friends are women.  Three have his last name.  Not a good sign.

There are photos of him with kids, him with a graduating woman. Not a good sign.

He likes country-western singer Keith Urban.  Not a good sign.

He lives in Wapello, Iowa, a small town on the Mississippi about an hour's drive south of Rock Island.  Not L.A.  Not Fort Lauderdale.

I'm not going to call or visit.  I'm going to stay in that cool autumn day a thousand years ago, when a brown chubby boy with soft hands and big eyes grabbed my belly.

See also: Trapped in a Junior High Locker Room