August 1984: An Ole Miss Undergrad Named Elmer

Oxford, Mississippi, Summer 1984

I've just finished my M.A. degree, and I'm on my way south to Hell-fer-Sartain, Texas, a far northern suburb of Houston, where I will be teaching English.  I stop for the night in Oxford, Mississippi, the home of Ole Miss.

I tour the university and the William Faulkner house, get take-out fried chicken from Lenora's Family Restaurant, and check in to my hotel to settle down for an evening of Family Ties, Cheers, and Night Court.

I'm not planning to go out.  I have to take occupancy of my new apartment by 5:00 pm tomorrow, or I'll be stuck in hotels all weekend.  That means getting up at 5:00 am.

Besides, I'm in Mississippi, the heart of the heart of the most horrifyingly homophobic state in a horrifyingly homophobic country.  Where is there to go?

My Gayellow Pages listed only 1 bar in the whole state, in Jackson.

And I definitely am not going to go to a straight bar!

Still, I'm restless.  I have to go somewhere.

In the gathering darkness, I leave my hotel, walk down Lamar Boulevard, past Lenora's again, around the courthouse.  The same coffee houses and pizza places you would find in college towns anywhere,  Down University Boulevard, toward the campus.  

Elegant but rundown Victorian houses, gas stations, clothing boutiques, a lot of churches, a Christian Science Reading Room.

I see a cute guy heading in my direction, coming from the campus -- about my age, light brown hair, clean-shaven, slim, smooth chest.  His shirt is tucked into the right pocket of his jeans.  He gives me a long cruisy stare and turns south, onto 11th Street.  Curious, I follow.

He turns right onto Lincoln Avenue, a residential street that dead-ends at a traffic barrier.  He walks around -- there's a dirt path into the woods.

I follow him into the dark woods lit only by twilight and an occasional street light glimpsed far away -- and cigarettes.  The woods are populated!

Rugged Ole Miss Rebel football players, well-kept businessmen-types, bears, blue collars, rednecks who drove a dozen miles to stand in seclusion in the warm, humid night. Lots of muscles. 

The smell of beer and cigarettes and sweat.

This must be an outdoor cruising area, like the one Viju took me to in India earlier this summer.

The guy I followed in stands with his back to a tree and drops his pants.  Average beneath-the-belt-gifts, but already standing at attention, pale in the moonlight.  I kneel on the damp earth and go down on him.  

It takes him a long time, but he finishes with a barely suppressed moan.  Then he pulls me to my feet and zips up.  I try to kiss him, but he moves his head away  

"My name is Boomer," I say.

He looks startled, but says "Howdy, Boomer.  I'm Elmer."  He extends his hand.  It seems odd to be shaking hands with someone after we've been intimate.  Sex first, introductions later.  "Thanks, that was awesome."

He vanishes into the darkness.


A few guys have gathered to watch our performance.  I go down on a slim, blond guy in his 20s, with a Bratwurst+.  Then another Bratwurst is pushed into my face, and I try to go down on them both at once.

I can't see who it belongs to.

Sex first, introductions later.  If at all. 

One finishes and walks away; the other pushes my head off and walks away..

I wander through the woods. 

Someone is trying to go down on a middle-aged guy with a hairy chest, a little belly, and a gigantic Kovbasa, a  foot-long baseball bat  It's too big, so mostly he is using his hand.  I stand beside them, and he goes down on me as well.

I try to kiss the middle-aged guy, but he pushes my head down to his chest instead. I kiss and lick his nipples.

After a few moments, he leaves, and the guy on his knees goes down on me alone.

I don't finish; it's hard to concentrate in the semi-darkness, with the bugs and the heat and the sweat.  Besides, I don't know anything about the guy I'm having sex with.  At least in the bathhouse in Chicago last year, you could see their faces and physiques.


Some guys have gathered around to watch.

Finally I pull him to his feet, so at least I can see his face.  It's Elmer!

"Oh, hi, Boomer, I didn't know that was you."  

"You can't get rid of me that easy," I joke.  I try to kiss him, but he pulls his head away.

"You got a room?"

"Yeah, I'm at the Graduate, up on Lamar."

"Let's go there, ok?  The mosquitoes are getting pretty intense out here."

On the way out of the woods, he stops to go down on a tall, muscular redhead with a military crew cut.

Then we go back to Lamar Boulevard.  Elmer stops at a small grocery store to buy a toothbrush.  

"Do you know any of these guys?" I ask.  "Like, last name basis?"

"I know some of the faces of the regulars, but we don't talk much. We're mostly just there for the sex.  I think you're the only guy who ever told me his name."

It sounds horribly depressing, something out of a Truman Capote novel.  At least Rock Island has some gay bars.  "Is that all there is for gay guys to do, here in Oxford?  Have quickies in the woods, with mosquitoes and muddy knees?"

Elmer slaps me on the back.  "You gotta be kidding me, boy!  Them woods are just for sex.  I got a lot of gay friends in town.  I got two boyfriends.  We go to movies, to football games, out to eat, that kind of thing.  There's a professor that throws real fancy parties once a month  30 gay guys, with dancing and hors d'oeuvres."

"But it's like...Mississippi!  Are you out to people and everything?"

"No, coming out is a Yankee custom.  We keep a low profile down here, no camping it up and calling each other 'Mary,' and if somebody asks, you just say you haven't met the right girl yet."

When we get back to my hotel room, Elmer goes immediately into the bathroom.  I hear the sound of tooth brushing and gargling.  He returns: "Ok, you go brush your teeth, too.  And use mouthwash."

I comply.  When I come out, he is lying naked on the bed.  "Now I'll kiss you."

Sex first, intimacy later. Last names, not at all.


See also: Cruising Rednecks in Oxford, Mississippi

The Rich Kid and the Crying Truck Driver

Upstate, September 2008

In 2008, my "visiting" position in Dayton was coming to an end, and I had to find a new job.  I only applied to colleges in Blue States.  First just in gay neighborhoods.

As January and February passed and the best jobs were taken, I expanded to an hour away from gay neighborhoods.

Then three hours.

Just as I was about to start searching in Red States, I was offered a job in New York!

Well, Upstate New York, about six hours by car from the gay neighborhoods of Manhattan, Boston, and Montreal.

I figured I would be driving to one or the other every weekend.  Maybe even renting a second apartment there.

But snow, car wear and tear, the expense, and being busy limited my weekend jaunts to once every couple of months.

So 98% of my life happened in the Straight World, in a small town Upstate with no gay bars, just one gay-friendly church, and no gay organizations except PFLAG.

Just like in Dayton, most adult gay men had fled to gay neighborhoods elsewhere,  Most of the others were living aggressively heterosexual public lives: they escorted women to events; they had no gay friends; they took their same-sex dates into the next town over to avoid being spotted at home.

But there was a coterie of gay men, a Gang of Twelve, who were out and open.

They were mostly in their 40s and 50s, one or two older or younger.  Most had lived their whole lives Upstate, so they knew the towns and the people: the restaurants where they could be served without a fuss, the stores where they could shop without rude stares, the clubs where no women would hit on them.

So, except for a few basic precautions like not holding hands on the street, they were not closeted.

The New Guy in Town is always popular, but Upstate, my social calendar filled up astonishingly fast.  All I had to do was meet one of the Twelve, and he told his friends, who told their friends. Phone calls were made, emails sent, meetings arranged.  By Christmas, I had been out on dates with five of the twelve.  By summer, nine (the others were involved or not interested).

Date #1: The Rich Kid (top photo) got "dibs": he was first in line for everything in the county.  He and his sister and parents owned most of the county, sat on every board of directors, donated to every charity.

I was impressed by his physique: short, compact, and quite buffed for someone in his 40s.

He took me to Alex and Ika's, a very expensive restaurant in Cooperstown, for sesame-encrusted wild salmon and a plantain and goat cheese salad.  Then back to his family's summer home -- a gigantic wood-lodge on Lake Otesaga, decorated in a weirdly incongruous Southwestern motif.

The Rich Kid was a bit on the domineering side, but he had two of the five traits I find attractive, and he was well-educated, articulate, and generous.  I would have gone on a second date, except before we got around to it, he ordered me to attend the Glimmerglass Opera Festival next Tuesday night  He was on the board of directors, and they needed ushers.

Drive 30 miles to be an usher at a production of Madame Butterfly? No, thanks.

One simple didn't say "no" to the Rich Kid.  He cancelled our second date, and sent out memos to the other 11 that I was "cute but stubborn."

Date #2: The Crying Truck Driver.  A tall, thin white guy with expressive hands and a cute British accent.  He invited me to his apartment for a "traditional Zambian dinner": a chicken breast, some kind of corn gruel, and mushrooms in peanut sauce.  I was still hungry afterwards.


Then he suggested that we watch a DVD from his collection of every British sitcom ever made.  I selected Are You Being Served.  But when I invited him to sit down next to me on the couch, Truck Driver hesitated and then yelled: "But I don't want to have sex with you!"

"Um...since when does sitting on the couch count as sex?  I've sat next to my brother lots of times!"

He ran into the bedroom, collapsed onto the bed, and started crying.

"I'm sorry," he sobbed.  'I just broke up with the Love of my Life.  My friends thought I should start dating again, but I'm not ready...I'm just not ready..."

He then told me all about the Love of His Life.  The relationship, from start to finish.  His faults, fetishes, faux-pas, and favorite foods.  What he should have said that time.  What happened at the Rich Kid's Christmas party.  Did I think there was any chance of them getting back together?

This turned out to be commonplace: most of the Gang of Twelve had dated most of the others, so on most dates, I got an earful of the others' problems with jobs and relatives, triumphs and defeats in cruising, and scandals from a decade ago.

And, since they all talked to each other, my size, shape, pecadillos, and preferences were soon common knowledge.

But this breakup was new, raw, and still painful.

I didn't realize at the time that the Truck Driver was describing the next guy on my social calendar!  Apparently the ex-boyfriend was also being advised to start dating again, and the Rich Kid gave him my email address.  We had a date tomorrow night!

See also: Picked Up by a Boy and His Dog.

Don't Call Bruce "Gay"

Rock Island, December 1979

My best friend at Augustana College, Bruce, didn't realize that we were friends.  He thought I was just another member of the Boosktore Gang, the group of comic book-science fiction-Monte Python fans who hung out at the Student Union Bookstore, but never had real conversations and never saw each other socially.  A casual acquaintance, a "school friend" at best.

Bruce also didn't realize that I was gay..   In fact, he often tried to fix me up with girls, or assumed that I was hot for whatever girl I happened to be chatting with.  But he was my connection to the daylit world, an interpreter of all those alien heterosexual folkways and mores

I chose him because:
1. He was an English/drama major

2. He didn't date much, so I didn't have to hear the play-by-play of nights of heterosexual excess.

3.. He was not cute: tall and skinny, with a mop of unruly hair and a sharp, angular face.  So there would be no weird sublimated attraction.  (This guy will give you an idea.)

4. He was pro-gay, at least in theory, though he roiled when someone insinuated that he might be gay.

He flew into a rage when you called him "Brucie" or anything that sounded similar.

The Fratboys soon got wise, and took to saying:
“Are you busy?”
“Do you bruise easy?”
“Do you think Diana Ross is too bluesy?”
Or my favorite, “I bought a new record, Strange Brew -- see?” 

They never tired of seeing Bruce redden with rage.

So all hell broke loose that December night with Leanne.

Leanne was a junior drama major, plump and aggressive with thin sandy hair.  In December of our sophomore year, she invited me to a new Chinese restaurant in Moline, the next town over, and I invited Bruce.  I didn't realize that they were old enemies, but they sniped at each other constantly.

Later I heard that last year Bruce won the role of Algernon in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest over Leanne’s best friend, a senior who would be auditioning professionally soon. Was she still angry about that?  

Or maybe she thought this was a date, and resented Bruce's intrusion.

After kung pao chicken and sniping, we drove through downtown on the way back to Augustana.  As we neared JR's, Rock Island's gay bar, Leanne said "Shall we stop?  You in the mood for a slow dance, Bruce?"

"What are you talking about?"  Bruce asked from the back seat.

"That's your bar coming up, isn't it? Wanna duck inside for a quickie?"

““It’s not my bar! I’m not even old enough to drink yet!”

He didn't realize that  it was a gay bar!  

Leanne slowed down. “I didn't mean that you owned it, dear,  I thought you were the entertainment for the evening."  She flashed a limp wrist.

I saw Bruce's face reddening in the rear view mirror. Now he got it. "Eat me!", he yelled.

"Better ask one of your friends to do that, dearie."

Bar next to JR

“That’s it! Stop the car!” Bruce shouted.  He snapped off his seat belt and opened the car door while we were still moving. Leanne skidded to a stop in front of a sandwich shop on the next corner (it seems to be an Irish bar now).

“You can’t get out here,” I told Bruce. “We’re two miles from the school. It’s cold out.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

"I've got a better idea.  We can both get out, and call my brother to pick us up.  I'm getting kind of carsick."   I got out of the car and slammed the door.  Leanne sputtered for a moment, then zoomed off.

I went inside the sandwich shop and asked to use the phone, while Bruce stood on the corner, sputtering a bit himself.  

"Where'd she get the idea that I was gay?" he asked when I returned.

"I don't know," I said.  "What's the big deal?  I thought you were in favor of gay rights."

"Well, sure, gay rights.  But...but...what if word gets around?"


I remembered Rocky High, where hanging out with a guy with muscles was a sure sign of heterosexual identity.  "Just find a jock to hang out with, and no one will suspect you."

The "accusation," oddly, served to strengthen our friendship.  We began talking on the telephone almost every night, first talking about how ludicrous it was for Leanne to think that he was gay, and then moving on to other things.  Like Fred -- Bruce became the only Augustana friend to meet my ministerial-student boyfriend.

But he never figured it out.  Not even when I got a boyfriend.

When we invited him over for dinner at Fred's apartment, he said: "Cool pad! Does Fred ever let you bring girls over?"

See also: Bruce Travels Forward in Time to Bring Me Guys

My Ex-Boyfriend Fred's Nine Lovers

We don't live just one life.  We may be "only dancing on this Earth for a short while," but during that short while, we are many different people.  We move to new cities, and take on new jobs. Friends and boyfriends come and go.

My first boyfriend Fred had many different jobs, cities, friends, and relationships.  In trying to make sense of his life, I decided to go with his lovers.

1. The Farmboy.  Fred was born on a farm in rural Western Illinois in November 1952.  Growing up, he milked cows and fed pigs, but he was not isolated from the social ferment of the 1960s. He watched The Smothers Brothers and listened to Jefferson Airplane.

In high school, Fred was a clean-cut all-American, lettering in football, taking girls to school dances, leading Sunday school classes at the United Methodist church, respected by his parents and the oldsters, who thought he was the exception to a generation full of "draft dodgers and hippies."

No one talked about gay people.  He was not aware that they existed, certainly not aware that he was himself gay.

He had no same-sex experiences except with the Farmboy, his girlfriend's brother, who lived about a mile down the road.  After his dates, he dropped off the girl with a chaste kiss on the cheek and then met the Farmboy behind the barn for moments of homoerotic joy.

2.  The Greek Professor.  After graduating from high school in 1971, Fred enrolled at Western Illinois University in Macomb, but transferred after a year to Knox College in Galesburg.

He majored in psychology, because he wanted to understand his desires better, and in Classics, because he was in love with his Greek professor: a Harvard Ph.D. in his fifties with a thick beard, a hairy chest, a little belly, and a Bratwurst beneath the belt.  The Greek Professor mentioned the gay loves of Zeus and Apollo -- the first time Fred ever heard gay people discussed in public.

Incidentally, he also initiated Fred into bottoming, which in those days was called "Greek passive."

3. The Episcopal Priest.  From 1976 to 1979, Fred was attending McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, studying for his Master of Divinity degree with a concentration in pastoral counseling.  He had a girlfriend, and then a fiancee, because that was the only way you could get a job in the Methodist Church.   But somehow he found the gay neighborhood of Chicago, with its bars, bookstores, and bathhouses, and had several brief relationships and hookups.

Among his more memorable hookups was Ron Reagan, son of the future president, who he topped in his first Greek active experience.

His most memorable relationship was with Thomas, an Episcopal priest from Des Moines, who told him that it was ok to be gay and Christian.  They remained friends for the rest of Fred's life.

See: The Priest with Three Boyfriends and Fred Hooks Up with the President's Son

4. Boomer.  Shortly after breaking up with the fiancee, Fred moved to Rock Island for his internship year at the First United Methodist Church.  There he met Boomer, a 19-year old college student.  Fred fell hard and fast; within a week, he was thinking of Boomer as his soul mate, the one God or fate had predestined for him at the beginning of the time.

After his internship,  Fred found a job as a youth minister at a United Methodist church in Gretna, Nebraska, a suburb of Omaha.  In the summer of 1980, he convinced Boomer to drop out of college and follow him.

Neither was prepared for the daily routine of a live-in relationship.  Fred became controlling and argumentative, Boomer surly and jealous, certain that Fred was cheating with the teenager downstairs (and perhaps he was).   After five weeks, Boomer left, to return to college.

But, like the Episcopal priest, they remained friends.  Fred tried his best to keep his old loves in his life.

See: My First Date, with Fred the Ministerial Student and Fred and the Teenager Downstairs

5. The Nephew.  In the fall of 1980, Fred rebounded, falling hard and fast into the arms of another 19-year old college student, a University of Nebraska sophomore who moved in with him after only two dates.  Closeted, Fred introduced him as his "nephew."  They stayed together for about two years.

I don't know why they broke up -- I suspect that the Nephew graduated and moved somewhere for a job.

In 1982, Fred left Gretna to become senior pastor of the United Methodist Church in Horrible Small-Town Kansas. He was pressured to date women, and in fact had several lady friends, keeping his same-sex activity strictly on the downlow.


See: I spend the night with Fred and his boyfriend, in his parents' house.






6. Matt.  In 1985, Fred decided that he couldn't take the closeting anymore, so he left the ministry altogether for a job as a mental health counselor in Kansas City.  In May 1987 he met Matt, a recent Harvard graduate who was elitist, sarcastic, and all kinds of crazy, but had a good heart.  They were together for ten years.

In 1988 they moved to Claremont, California, where Fred studied for his D.Min degree at the Claremont School of Theology.

After graduating,  Fred got a job as a youth pastor in San Bernardino, then a family counselor in Fresno.  Matt, who had never had a job, stayed home to cook and clean, becoming a veritable "housewife."

Fred believed in monogamy, staying faithful to one guy forever.  He was never comfortable with the West Hollywood custom of sharing, or of going down on guys as entertainment at a party.   Yet there were so many Cute Young Things around, a kaleidoscope of biceps and bulges.  It was impossible to resist.  He began a pattern of hookups and even full-fledged affairs without telling Matt.

In 1996, Matt discovered that Fred had been cheating, and left him.  But they stayed friends, of course.

See: Matt's First Night with Fred and His Brother; and How Matt Began Renting Himself Out

7. Jester.  Fred did not handle breakups well.  He was so distraught when Matt left that he quit his job and returned to San Bernardino, where he went to work as a mental health counselor.

He immediately began dating Jester, a college student, later history teacher, blind, with an upbeat attitude and a footlong beneath the belt.

They were together for five years, finally breaking up in 2001.  The breakup was rough, with accusations and rage on both sides.  They didn't stay friends afterwards.

See: The Blind Boy with the 12" Penis and The Blind Boy Finds His Way into Fred's Bed.

8. The Icelandic Photographer.  The next decade is a blur of cities -- Sandusky, Ohio; Bemidji, Minnesota; Pocatello, Idaho; Mesa, Arizona.  A blur of jobs -- homeless advocate, assistant pastor, manager of psychiatric services.  And a blur of boyfriends, Cute Young Things by the dozens finding their way into Fred's apartment for a month, for a week, for a single day.

Why didn't he commit to anyone in particular?  Maybe he was afraid of losing his heart -- and soul -- yet again.

Maybe it was difficult for a guy in his 50s to form permanent relationships with the twinks he found most attractive.

Or maybe, after so many years of monogamy, Fred wanted to sit back and enjoy the ride, enjoy all the fun of a relationship with none of the responsibilities.

The only relationship that stands out in the blur is the Icelandic Photographer, who I met in 2001. An art student at Bemidji State University, with long hair, a moustache, a hard smooth chest, and a Kovbasa beneath the belt.  He had an Icelandic flag tattooed on his hand.

"This is it!" Fred told me.  "I've never met anyone like him before!  We're going to be together for the rest of our lives!"

Fred never mentioned him again.

See: Fred and the Icelandic Photographer

9. Tyler. In 2011, Fred landed the fest, most prestigious job of his life: director of mental health services for the Disciples of Christ Church at its main headquarters in Indianapolis.

After hooking up with a 26-year old chef named Tyler, Fred moved in with him, but only as a roommate.  He became close to Tyler's mother, Georgina, and a surrogate father to his brothers, Rusty and Max.  They even took family portraits together.

Fred and Tyler were Platonic friends, a stepfather and stepson.  After that first night, they never slept together, not even for "sharing," and each sought out other lovers. But it was Tyler who took care of Fred when he got sick in 2016, who helped him into and out of his wheelchair and drove him to his doctor appointments, and who was holding his hand during those last days in the hospice.

Maybe, at the end of his life, Fred finally found his soulmate.

See: I Spend the Night with Fred's Son