Dad Takes Me to See Naked Men

When I was growing up in Rock Island, the adults always asked "Is there any girl at school that you like?" but never "What do you want to be when you grow up?"  That was already decided.  I would go to work in the factory.

Rock Island was a factory town; almost every adult I knew, and the dad of almost every kid I knew, worked at J.I. Case, International Harvester, Caterpillar, or John Deere.  They all made tractors, harvesters, and other farm machines.

My factory was going to be J.I. Case Company, with its logo of an eagle digging its talons into the world.  Like my father and grandfather and three of my uncles and two of my older cousins.  Like everyone.

You started on the assembly line, then after a few years got promoted to lineman, and maybe, eventually, to foreman.

I could think of no fate more horrible than getting up at 5:00 am for a day of screwing things into things, then returning, dirty and dripping with sweat, to the small square house where my wife would have dinner on the table.

So, occasionally, in grade school or junior high, I said that I didn't want to work in the factory when I grew up.  Dad laughed.

"Of course no one wants to work.  You probably would rather spend the whole day playing football with your pals.  You have to, so you can make money to support your wife and kids."

"No, I mean, I want to do something else besides the assembly line at J.I. Case Company."

"Like what?  Sell shoes in the mall?  The factory pays better, and you don't have to work nights, so you can spend time with your wife and kids."

Tenth graders at Rocky High were put into "business" or "academic" tracks.  I had high grades, so they put me into the academic track, explaining that it was for kids who planned to go to college.


College?  The possibility had never crossed my mind before.  No one in my family had ever gone to college (actually, my grandmother went to art school, but I didn't know that at the time). Wasn't it just for rich people?

No, there were lot of scholarships.  I could probably get one.

"Don't be crazy!" Dad said when I told him about college.  "You don't need college to work in the factory!  Besides, what are you going to do in college but read books?," he added with a derisive sneer. Nazarenes thought of books other than the Bible as worthless at best, and most likely tools of Satan.

"Yeah, and play the violin," I said, to rub it in: classical music was also suspect, redolent of decadence and effeminacy.  "Maybe I'll major in art.  And grow my hair long, like a girl."

I expected Dad to yell, but instead he just stared at me, open mouthed.  Eventually he said "Why don't you come and take a look at the factory? Who knows, you might like it?"

So the next Saturday, we took a tour of J. I. Case Company in Rock Island.  There were three big buildings, all of featureless gray concrete.  The first building contained offices, with vast rows of desks where secretaries and stenographers worked.

"All ladies up here," Dad pointed out.  "But they never go out onto the floor.  That's 100% men."

The "floor" was a vast concrete hangar where the tractor parts moved on conveyor belts until they were assembled on a gigantic machine and then hauled out.  It was all noise and bright lights and grime, all wires and tubes and pipes and complicated sharp things.  I couldn't understand what anything was for, but I did notice that Dad was right: 100% men.

None with their shirts off, but still....

The third building was for painting, finishing, and licensing. There was also a small tv lounge that stank of paint, a lunchroom with vending machines, and because you got dirty and sweaty during the day, a locker room with showers, so you could be fresh and clean when you returned to your small square house, where your wife had dinner on the table.

Here they had their shirts off.  There were even some naked musclemen walking around, penises swinging -- much bigger than the ones I saw in the high school locker room!

Dad took me back to the car, and we drove up the hill again.  "That wasn't so bad, was it?  It's 100% men.  No girly influences at all.  Do you think you'd like to be down there on the floor every day?"

"No.  This was fun, but I still want to go to college."

Why did Dad bring me there?  I didn't understand at the time, but now I do:

He thought of college as a feminizing influence, a place where I would read books, study music and art, and "turn" gay.

So he was offering a masculine alternative: the factory floor, 100% men, sweat, grime, muscles, and swinging penises.

He hoped that looking at male bodies all day would "keep" me straight.

See also: Dad Explains the Facts of Life; Class Rings and Arabic

Dad Explains the Facts of Life

There are several traditional rites of passage between a boy and his Dad:

When he teaches you to shave.
When he lets you drive for the first time.
When you can beat him at arm wrestling.

But the biggest is The Talk, when Dad sits you down and explains The Facts of Life.

By which he means the mechanics of biological reproduction, how sperm and egg cells merge their chromosomes to turn into an embryo, and nine months later, a baby.

Why is this the sole subject matter of The Talk?

Finding out how you came to exist may be interesting, but it's irrelevant, the physiology of the past.  What about your respiratory, circulatory, nervous, and muscle systems?  What about the nutrition and exercise necessary to ensure that your body works properly?  Surely those are Facts of Life of more immediate importance.

The reason is obvious: The Facts of Life Talk isn't really about biological reproduction.  It's about Sex, aka heterosexual intercourse.

Dad assumes that the quest for heterosexual intercourse, will occupy your thoughts, color your decisions, throughout your life.  You will choose colleges and careers solely on the likelihood of heterosexual intercourse, marry to be ensured of a regular partner, get a job and a house and have kids to ensure that she sticks around, and spend your declining years on a park bench, gazing at "all the pretty girls" and wishing that you could have heterosexual intercourse with them.

By the time Dad sat me down for the Talk, I already knew all of the Facts of Sex, except for one.  I heard them through:

1. 7th Grade Health Class.  The teacher showed us a drawing of a man and a woman, facing us like the greeting to aliens on the Pioneer Space Probe, with the testicles and ovaries circled.  He explained that sperm from the man's testicles merged with eggs from the woman's ovaries, which was then embedded into the uterine wall and developed into a fetus.

Ok, but how did the sperm get to the ovaries, when they're a good five feet from each other?  Teleportation?

"Don't get smart!  You already know about sex!  That's all you kids think about!"

2. Sunday School.  Ok, so we reproduced through sex. That must be why Brother Dino admonished us not to have sex before marriage, or God would strike us with incurable diseases as a punishment.  He didn't want kids having kids.

But what exactly was sex?

"Good question!" Brother Dino said.  "It's not just sex.  God hates anything that defiles the body."

Which didn't answer the question.

3. Summer Camp.  At Nazarene summer camp the summer after seventh grade, I asked an older boy named Marty to explain the procedure.  He told me about going from first base (kissing) to second base (feeling the girl's breasts over her bra) to third base (feeling under).  He even demonstrated by feeling my chest under my shirt.  But then he got nervous and left before the home run.

How did feeling under a girl's bra make sperm go from your testicles to her ovaries?  The two organs were still a foot or more apart!

4. Mike. In eighth grade, my friends and the jocks claimed that they had sex often, a dozen times a week.  As we walked down the halls, they would say "I've had her...had her...had her..."  

I couldn't ask them, so I asked Bill's big brother, Mike.

"Ok," he said, "The home run: you put your penis inside the girl's vagina." (yes, he used the technical terms).  "That's an opening that leads all the way up to her ovaries. So the sperm comes out and goes right up the tube to the egg."

"But...but...pee comes out of your penis, too!" I exclaimed.  "How do you make sure that sperms come out instead?"

Mike began to blush.  "Um...when you get older, sometimes...you know, it gets bigger...and like turns into a baseball bat."

"Sure, I know all about...um, baseball bats," I said, feeling very grown up and sophisticated.  No one had ever mentioned that Fact of Life before.

"Well, when you're like that, only sperm can come out.  When you're not, only pee."

"But..you can't control when that happens.  How do you get it to happen when you want to have a baby?"

He laughed.  "Oh, you'll find out, Bud.  Believe me, you'll find out!"

So I sort of knew the procedure.  But Mike left out the most important Fact of Life.

5. Dad. In the fall of ninth grade, Dad took me out to the back yard, sat me in the grape arbor where, he said, someday he would host my wedding, and had the Talk.

"You had Sex Ed, right?" he started off.  "You know about sperm and eggs, and all that?"

"Sure."

"Do you have any questions?"

"Well..."  Yes, I had a question.  "I already learned about running the bases, and what to do with your penis if you want a baby.  But I hear guys talking all the time about having sex when they don't want to make a baby."

"Don't do it!" Dad said sharply.  "God will punish you with incurable diseases."

"Sure, sure...but...why would you want to?  I mean, if you don't want to make a baby, what's the point?"

"What's the point?" he repeated, staring at me.  "What do you mean, what's the point?  It's a girl -- let's say a really cute girl -- and you've been kissing her, and feeling her breasts."

I looked away, toward the garage.  "That's gross!  Girls are all soft, with no muscles, no penis.  Nothing cute.  I mean, why would you touch them like that, unless you had to?"  

I didn't realize that I had said too much until it was too late.  Dad stood abruptly, snarled "Don't be a wise guy!" , and nearly ran back to the house.

Dad left out the most important Fact of Life.  It took me years to figure out it out on my own:

Some boys want to hit a home run with boys, not girls.

Why Dad Was Proud of Me for Watching TV

When I was in kindergarten, first, and second grade, we lived in Racine, Wisconsin.  I have only a few memories from that period: going to the beach a few blocks from our house, going to the zoo, marrying the boy next door, my second grade teacher making me stand in the corner for refusing to square dance (she wouldn't believe that it was forbidden for Nazarenes, and at the age of 7 I was in no position to ask the preacher to telephone her).

And a very weird memory of my Dad being proud of me for watching a children's tv program.

Dad was in his late 20s, just out of the Navy, rather athletic, an avid swimmer (no, this isn't a picture of him), a stalwart Democrat and an avid Nazarene.  He worked on the assembly line at the J. I. Case Company, a job he would keep for the next 30 years.

The memory is vague:  Dad is sitting on the couch, half reading the newspaper, half snoozing, so he must have just gotten home from work, around 4:00 pm.  My brother and I are watching tv.  

Mom comes in from the kitchen and asks "What do you want to watch now?  Romper Room?"

"No," I say.  "The Land of Ziggy Zaggy."

Dad looks up.  "Ziggy Zaggy?  What kind of kookie show is that?"

Mom changes the channel, and we see a woman walking onto the stage, singing about the mystical land.

Dad laughs.  "Ok, I get it now!  You're starting early, just like your old dad!  A chip off the old block!  Come up here and sit by me."

I sit on the couch, and he puts his arm around me.  I'm thrilled.  Dad is usually kind of critical,but today I'm a chip off the old block!  I did something right, something that made him proud of me. But what?

50 years later, I don't remember anything about the show except for a woman singing "The land of Ziggy Zaggy," but after a few internet searches on various variations (zaggo, zongi, zuggi), I found it:

It was a local Chicago children's program, The Land of Ziggy Zoggo. Also called The Nancy Berg Show,   after the host.   Short lived, 1963-65.  We only moved to Racine in the summer of 1965, so I must have watched a few episodes at the end of the run.

There's a full episode on youtube.  Very amateurish, painted backdrop for a set, only one performer.  Three sketches, about 5 minutes each.

1. Miss Nancy visits a Middle Eastern land, where she meets a Go-Go Genie (herself) selling magic carpets in a parody of talky used-car salespeople.  She buys the carpet, kicking herself for being conned, but it works.  She then flies through the clouds while singing. 

2. The kimono-clad Miss Sukayaki (Nancy again), with a stereotyped "Ah so" accent, goofs up the  "ancient Japanese custom of flower arrangement." 

3. Miss Nancy flies a balloon to the African jungle to show film footage of various animals: a rhinocerous, a lion, a leopard.

No beefcake, no buddy-bonding, actually no male characters, but the exotic locations must have been appealing to me as a kindergartner.  And maybe the hint of social satire: you may get conned by a fast-talking salesperson.

But why was Dad so pleased?  Why was I "starting early" and a "chip off the block" for wanting to watch The Land of Ziggy Zoggo?

Easy.  He thought that I, at the age of 4 1/2, was lusting after Miss Nancy's bosom.  

What Do You Have Under the Hood?

When I was growing up in Rock Island, most boys were obsessed with being "men," doing exactly what men were supposed to do and nothing else.  The slightest of shifts in your hips as you walked, the most subtle of wrist movements, the tiniest bit of animation in your voice was proof positive that you were not a man at all, but a sissy, a "fag," or a girl.

Even if you got your body gestures, walking, and talking perfected, you could still give away your inner girlishness by not being knowledgeable and enthusiastic about three things: girls, sports, and cars.

The only one I had any hope of accomplishing was cars.

There was no way I was going to kiss and hug girls, sports were too confusing, but I had just got my driver's license, and Mom let me borrow her car sometimes.  Knowing how to fix a car was an attainable goal.  Masculinity within my reach!

The only problem: I was an aesthete, an intellectual, into Renaissance poetry and statues of naked men.  I couldn't tell a hammer from a nail. I got a D- in shop class.  I got carpentry and building toys for Christmas, and left them untouched in their boxes.



But I perservered.  In August 1977, I went to my father and asked him to teach me how to "fix cars."

"You?"  he asked in surprise.  "You hate mechanical stuff."

"Well, most mechanical stuff.  You couldn't pay me to solder an iron onto a lathe, or whatever.  But a car is different."

"Ok, I can give you some pointers.  There are three things about cars that every guy should know: how to change a tire, how to change the oil, and how to repair a carburetor."









1. Change a Tire.  

Dad took me out to the garage, popped open the trunk, and showed me where the jack and spare tires were stored.

"You've seen the ladies with flat tires on the side of the road, waiting for someone to help.  If you can change a tire, you'll be sure to get their phone number!"

What about a guy on the side of the road?  I thought.  

  And of course, if you're on a date and the tire goes flat, you'd better be able to change it, or the girl will think you're a sissy."

He showed me how to jack up a car and "unscrew the lug nuts."

I couldn't get the wrench to work.  It just slid along the nuts.  Finally Dad grabbed the wrench and did it himself.

"Well, you get the idea, anyway."

2. Change the oil.

"A garage will do this for you, but imagine how impressed the girls will be when they find out you can change your own?"

"And the guys,"  I said.

This involved getting under the car and unscrewing a gross greasy thing.

I balked.  "I'll impress the girls with my wit and charm, thanks."











3.  Fix the carburetor.

Next Dad showed me how to open the front hood and prop it up.

"Knowing what's under here is the key to impressing girls."

It was an incomprehensible mass of wires and pipes.

"Here's your fan belt, your carburetor, your radiator, your angler, your glockenspiel."

I stared into oblivion, imagining a hot guy with his shirt off straining over the engine.

"Loosen the rod here, angle the pipe so the screw goes counter-clockwise, then re-up the uptake on the valve here.  This knob goes with this fuel injector.  Then you just sort of squeeze the triangulator down the revolver, and gently push the socket into the wrench."

I stared into oblivion, imagining a hot guy with his pants off straining over the engine.  Dad hadn't mentioned the benefits of not knowing how to fix cars.

"Now you try."

I turned and headed back to the house.  "Thanks, anyway.  I'll just pay someone to do it."

Preferably a guy with his pants off.

October 1970: Bill and I Become a Mama and a Papa

Rock Island, October 1970

When I was a kid in the 1960s, my boyfriend Bill and I were constantly on the lookout for evidence that sometimes men like men, and marry them, and live with them in a house.  But the adults talked in riddles, or pretended not to know what we were talking about, or downright lied.  So one day, I think a Saturday in the fall of 1970, when I was nine years old, we took matters into our own hands and became Papas.

Bill was spending the night, and as a special treat Dad took us out to eat at A&W.

It was a drive in: you parked your car, ordered through a radio thing, and a girl in a short skirt (called a car-hop) brought your food on a tray that attached to the car window.

We actually preferred Sandy's, a few blocks away, where cute college boys in Scottish kilts sold Edin-burgers.  

A&W had good chili dogs, french fries, and root beer, and sometimes little toys came with the meal, but the hamburgers were heterosexist.  Selection was based on your role in the heterosexual nuclear family:

Papa Burger
Mama Burger
Teen (boy) Burger
Baby (girl) Burger

My brother and I always ordered the Teen Burger.  No one wanted to be a Baby, and we were too young to be Papas.

Even as a kid, I knew that there was something wrong with this scenario.  What about baby boys and teen girls?  Or young adults, like my Uncle Paul, who were married but didn't have kids yet?

Or boys who liked boys?

Bill and I looked at each other and grinned, tacitly agreeing.  When Dad asked what we wanted, we said "Papa Burger" in unison.  "And fries and root beer," I added.

He stared at us in the rear view mirror, perplexed. "Are you sure?  They're pretty big."

"We're hungry," I said.  "Being Papas is hard work."

"You can't both be Papas!"  my brother Ken exclaimed. "Where are the Mamas?"

"We adopted our kids," Bill said, playing along.

"Single men can't adopt kids," Mom pointed out. "You'll have to have Mamas sooner or later."

"Ok, so I'm the Papa and Bill's the Mama." Strangely, no one thought of the musical group.

"No way!" Bill protested.  "I'm not changing any diapers!"

"If you're a Papa and a Mama," Ken said, "You got to kiss."

"Ok."  I leaned over and tried to kiss Bill on the mouth, but he turned away, and I got his cheek.

"Ok, Skeezix, that's enough!" Dad yelled, suddenly angry.  "You're both getting Teen Burgers, and that's that!" (He always called me Skeezix when I failed to demonstrate heterosexual interest.)

We cringed in the back seat.  What was he so upset about?  We were just playing!

But sometimes even a hamburger can be a form of resistance.

Coincidentally, that was about the time Dad and Mom began insisting that I play a sport.   Sports as a remedy to gayness?

The Boy with a Crush on My Dad

When I was growing up, I was fascinated by a photo of my father sitting on a burro in Tijuana.

Dad is tanned, muscular, smiling, wearing a sombrero that invites us to "Kiss My Ass!"

The photo is dated September 8th, 1959, a little over a year before I was born. There are two names written on the back, "Frank" and "Jared."

Frank is my father, but who is Jared?  The burro?

And how did this grinning, bawdy, irreverent 21-year old turn into the Dad I knew, conservative, somber, serious, who rarely laughed and never joked or fooled around?  What changed?

Here is all I knew:

June 1956

Frank graduates from high school in Indiana, and joins the Navy.  He spends the next three years seeing the world, visiting Japan, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, and the Philippines, learning to repair things deep down in the hulls of the big ships, and buddy-bonding.  He calls it the best time of his life.

June 1959

Frank returns to Indiana for a two-week long shore leave and reunites with his high school sweetheart, who is working at the A&W.  They impulsively get married, and drive with her sister and brother-in-law cross country to Long Beach, California.  They move into a tiny apartment.

The next year is a blank space in their lives.  They don't talk about it.  There are only a few mementos and photographs.  I know that they went to Knotts Berry Farm and Tijuana, that a couple of relatives flew out for a visit, and that Mom bought a set of encyclopedias from a fast-talking salesman, and that's all.

June 1960

Frank's four-year tour of duty ends.  His Captain asks him to stay on, with a promotion to Chief Petty Officer, but he refuses.  Instead, he and Mom return to Indiana and move into a house on South Randolph Street.  He goes to work in the factory, which he calls a "godddam hell hole" for the next thirty years.

Why did Dad abandon a Navy career he loved for a factory job he hated?  

I could have grow up in Long Beach!  I could have met Randall and Will the Bondage Boy early in my childhood.  I could learned about gay people and been part of the gay rights movement of the 1970s.  Instead I rumbled around Rock Island in utter silence, my same-sex loves ignored, my most casual friendship with a girl applauded as the meaning of life.

Why did they leave Long Beach?

Indianapolis,  May 2016

I'm visiting my parents on the way back from New York. My nephew is digitizing their old photos, and I see the "Kiss My Ass" burro photo again.  Emboldened, I decide to coax as much information out of them as possible.

Maybe the statute of limitations has passed, or maybe after nearly 60 years they don't care about their youthful transgressions anymore, but Mom and Dad both open up, describing their apartment, the corner grocery store, the movie theater where they saw Ben-Hur and Pillow Talk.

"You went to movies?" I ask, shocked.  Nazarenes are forbidden from setting foot inside movie theaters.


"That's not all!" Dad says with a laugh.  "We played cards.  We danced.  We even drank -- just beer, one time, but if the preacher or my parents found out, we'd be in big trouble!"

"We made friends with all sorts of people that would set my Mom and Dad off," Mom adds.  "Blacks.  Jews.  Catholics.  Mexicans.  And...well, you know..."

"Gays?" I suggest.

Suddenly Dad becomes somber.  "It was the Fifties.  We didn't know about things like that."

"Or if we did, we thought it was very rare," Mom adds, "You'd never meet anyone like that in a lifetime, which is good because it was the worst thing possible, like a sin and a crime and a sickness, all rolled up into one.  Then we met that boy..."

"Jared, from the burro photo?" I ask with sudden inspiration.

"Yes," Dad says.  "We were supposed to give him a copy of the photo -- that's why his name is on the back.  But we didn't get a chance."

Long Beach, June 1959

Frank was 21 years old, newly married, living in a small apartment on Broadway Street in Long Beach.

Jared lived down the hall.  He was 16 or so, short, slim, kind of frail looking, with bushy black hair that was out of place in the crewcut 1950s, and a preference for bright colors, bold reds and greens.



His dad was overseas, and his mom worked, so he got ignored a lot, and he quickly latched onto my parents.  Frank, the youngest of four kids, never had the opportunity to be a big brother before, and he relished the attention.  They went out for hamburgers, to the movies, to the beach.

Jared liked hanging out with Mom, too.  He came over sometimes during the day, to watch her soap opera, As the World Turns. and then help her cook dinner.

Of course, they didn't think anything of it at the time.

When they showed Jared the photos from their trip to Tijuana, he asked for a copy of the one with Frank on the "Kiss My Ass" burro -- to show his friends at school.

 "That's a weird photo to show your friends," I point out.

Dad shrugs.  "That's what he told us."

I wonder if it ever occurred to them that Jared might have another reason to want a picture of the shirtless, muscular Frank.  

But before they had a chance to make a copy of the photo from the negatives, Jared vanished.  He just stopped coming around.

Dad wondered if he was upset with them, or sick.  He went over to check, and Jared's mom said that he went to a home "to get help."

What kind of home?  What was wrong?  She kept her eyes down and wouldn't say.  No, they couldn't visit.  No, they couldn't write.  He needed to be alone, to get better.

Talking it over, Mom and Dad began to suspect:  Jared was a soft, gentle boy, feminine, domestic.  Could he be suffering from that disease, the one that no one should talk about?  Could his parents have found out, and put him in an asylum?

Then just around Thanksgiving, Jared died.  A tragic accident, his parents said, but gave no more details.  The funeral was up in Fresno. Mom and Dad didn't go.

Indianapolis, May 2016

"That spring, when we found out I was pregnant," Mom says, "We thought it would be a good idea to move back to Indiana, to spare our baby the bad influences.  You know, the drinking, the movies, the Catholics."

"And the gays?" I ask.

She nods. "We were worried that if we stayed in Long Beach, whatever turned Jared that way, might turn you, too."  


"You can't turn gay," I tell them, annoyed  "Either you are or you aren't."

"Well, we know that now, but in the Fifties we thought it was like protecting you from the measles.  And remember, there was no Gay Pride then.  It was all shame and misery.  We wanted to spare you, and your brother and sister, when they came."

"Jared died almost exactly a year before you were born," Dad says.  "I don't believe in reincarnation, of course, but when you started acting like that, you know, with your Book of Cute Boys, or saying you and Bill were a Mama and a Papa, or asking for a statue of a naked man for Christmas, I knew that I was seeing Jared again."

See also: The Truck Driver who may have been my Dad's old navy buddy; Looking for Love in the Encyclopedia; My Book of Cute Boys

My Cousin Phil's Boyfriend

Rome City, Indiana, Thanksgiving 1971

A week after my 11th birthday, we are back in Indiana for Thanksgiving.

Grandma Davis, Aunt Nora, and Dad got up at dawn to fuss about in the kitchen, stuffing the turkey, making a scalloped corn casserole, putting little fork prints into pie crusts.  The rest of us watch tv or wander around outside with the dogs, as the house gradually fills up with aunts and uncles, great-aunts and uncles, cousins and second cousins, their boyfriends and girlfriends, miscellaneous friends invited at random.

I have door-answering duty when my Aunt Edna and Uncle John arrive with their grown-up son Phil.

Dad doesn't get along with his older sister, so we don't see them very often, even though they live only an hour's drive from Rome City.   I haven't seen Cousin Phil since I was a little kid.  Now he's grown up, in college: medium height, clean-shaven, light brown hair cut short, kind of cute but not "dreamy."

But waiting at the front door next to him is the most beautiful man I have ever seen!

Afro-American, and not just brown-skinned, but actually black., very, very dark, flawless.  A head taller than Cousin Phil, with a round smiling face and a huge v-shaped torso that pushes out his blue business suit and white overcoat. Huge hands.

As Aunt Edna and Uncle John head toward the kitchen, I stare, thunderstruck.  Cousin Phil looks nervous.

"Um...Boomer, this is my friend Malcolm from school."

"Hi, Boomer," Malcolm says in a beautifully accented English. "What subject do you study in college?"

"What...no, I'm not in college, I'm in sixth grade!"

He laughs.  "My mistake -- you seem so mature."  We shake hands.  My small hand is engulfed in his.

"Are you from Chicago Heights?"  I ask.  It' a stupid question, but I've never met anyone Afro-American before, and I remember seeing a lot of Afro-Americans on the street there.

"No, Little Man.  I am from Ethiopia, a country in Africa."

Africa!  I want to ask him about the languages and cultures and lost civilizations, like the ruins of Great Zimbabwe.  But, trying to be polite, I ask only "What's your favorite thing about America?"

"Hamburgers and french fries, of course.  Very good.  And the people -- very friendly."  He nudges Cousin Phil, who smiles.

Wait -- could Cousin Phil and Malcolm be best men?  Everyone is always telling me that I will someday "discover girls," and start dating girls, and eventually marry a woman -- it's inevitable, it happens to everybody.

But Cousin Phil and Malcolm are both in their 20s, with no wives.  Maybe they have each other!  Maybe they have found a way to reject their future of wives and kids, found a way to live with each other!

I'm anxious to interrogate them, to find out how they did it.  Unfortunately, I have to sit at the Kids' Table during dinner, but afterwards, when the men are watching some sports game and the women are washing the dishes, I tag along when Cousin Phil takes Malcolm out to see Sylvan Lake, a few blocks from Aunt Nora's house.

"How did you meet Cousin Phil?" I asked, hoping to hear about a meet-cute, an instant attraction, an invitation to dinner, a sleepover.

"We are taking physics together."

"A lot of late-night study sessions," Cousin Phil adds, nudging Malcolm.  They both laugh.

"My friend Bill and I are moving to Ethiopia when we grow up," I hint.  "We're going to live together and study lost civilizations.  And we're going to speak Swahili."

Malcolm pats me on the shoulder.  I notice that he and Cousin Phil aren't holding hands, but maybe they're just shy.  "Swahili is an important language in East Africa, Little Man, but in Ethiopia most people speak Amharic.  There are other languages as well.  In the north they speak Tigrinya."

"Tigrinya," I repeat.  "It sounds like Tiger."

He laughs.  "There are no tigers in Africa, but the Amharic word for lion is anibesi."

When it's time to say goodbye, I give Malcolm my address and ask him to send me something written in Amharic.  And he does!  About a week later, I get a letter postmarked Tiffin, Ohio, with a gospel tract in Amharic enclosed.

I write back, and through the winter and spring of sixth grade, Malcolm writes to me every couple of weeks.  Short letters, just a few sentences, but still -- letters!

Strangely, he doesn't say anything about Cousin Phil, but I guess he's just shy.

"Tell me when you come to visit your Aunt and Uncle," he writes.  "Then you will visit me, too.  We will go out for hamburgers."

A date with Malcolm and his Best Man!  Maybe we'll hug.  Maybe we'll have a sleepover!  

I imagine lying in bed between Malcolm and Cousin Phil, both of us in our underwear, their arms wrapped around me, our legs intertwined.   

The only problem is: Dad doesn't get along with my Aunt Edna and Uncle John.  He'll never agree to drive out to visit them.

Montpellier, Ohio, June 1972

I luck out: this year our camping trip is in Canada, and we're taking Grandma Davis with us.  Since we're driving right past Montpelier, it would be impolite to not stop and visit.

We sit on the porch of their big white house on Main Street, talking and drinking lemonade.  Suddenly Malcolm drives up -- by himself!

"Little Man, how are you?" he asks, holding out his hand.  I push him into a hug instead.

"Where's Cousin Phil?"

"He is busy at his job, but I took off.  I won't let my friend come to Ohio without saying hello."  He stops to shake hands with the adults, and answers polite questions about his classes and his job.  Then he turns to me.  "What do you want to do today, Mr. Boomer?  Get a hamburger?  Go swimming?"

"That's a good idea," Mom says.  "Why don't you take Ken with you, too?"

Great -- my baby brother tagging along on my date!

No sausage sighting -- we change at the house -- but at least I get to see Malcolm's strikingly hard-muscled body in a swimsuit, sit pressed next to him in the car on the way to the pool -- and, when we slide down the waterslide together, I lean back against Malcolm and feel his enormous package against my butt.


In the late afternoon we towel off and return to the house to change clothes, and Malcolm says goodbye.  I wrap him into another hug.

We continue to write, but the letters become more and more infrequent, and finally stop altogether.

Rome City, Indiana, Thanksgiving 1974

A week after my fourteenth birthday, we are back in Indiana for Thanksgiving at Aunt Nora's house, and Cousin Phil is there.  With his girlfriend!

I shake hands with her politely, but when I manage to get Cousin Phil by himself, I ask "Where's Malcolm?"

He stares, confused.  "Who?  Oh, Malcolm, from a few years ago.  I don't know.  We aren't really in touch."

"But I thought you were..."

He shrugs.  "We were in the same physics class, and when he didn't have a place to go for Thanksgiving, I invited him here.  Just to be nice.  We weren't really friends."

Or best men, I conclude, my eyes filling with tears.

Spring 1965: Chasing the Boy with the Guitar

Garrett, Indiana, Spring 1965

One of my earliest memories:

It's a warm night in the springtime.  We're  living on Randolph Street in Garrett, Indiana, so I must be about four years old.  My bedroom window looks out on the alley and then the back yard of the house in the next block, where there's a little grey-stone patio.

It's late, long after bedtime, but I'm still awake.  I go to the window.  Across the alley, some teenagers are sitting in green-striped lawn chairs on the patio, in kind of a circle, listening to a boy play the guitar and sing.

Mrs. Brown, you've got a lovely daughter.
Girls as sharp as her are something rare.

He is facing my direction.  Maybe he is singing to me!

I know I'm not anybody's daughter, but he said "lovely."  That means he loves me!

I push against the wire screen.  It must be broken -- it comes off easily.  I push myself out of the window, and land on the hard, warm grass.  The teenage boy keeps singing, looking in my direction. 

Our house on Randolph Street

Walkin' about, even in a crowd, well
You'll pick her out, makes a bloke feel so proud

He's seen me walking around!

I walk across the back yard.  My new boyfriend is cute!   He is wearing a pale orange shirt and short pants, and sandals.

Don't let on, don't say she's broke my heart
I'd go down on my knees but it's no good to pine

Next comes the alley, all gravel, hard and sharp against my bare feet.  But I'm willing to endure it to let him know that it's ok, I won't break his heart again. .

Then suddenly the music stops.  The teenagers are all staring at me.  I hear murmuring "Look, it's a kid!" "Where'd he come from?"  "Is he lost?"

They are interrogating me, accusing me.  Scared, embarrassed, I start to cry.

Herman's Hermits

 A teenage girl wearing sandals crosses the alley and sweeps me into her arms.  My boyfriend follows her. I get a glimpse of his smooth tanned chest, smell his Aqua Velva cologne.  They take me around to the front of the house, knock on the door, and deliver me to my parents, who yell a lot.

The screen in the window is fixed the next day.

I don't remember ever seeing my "boyfriend" again.

I've always thought of  "Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter" as a gay song, though I can't really find any gay subtexts in it, and Herman's Hermits is my least favorite boy band.

Spring 1965: My Book of Cute Boys

Indiana, Spring 1965

I love books.  Who cares about Kindles and Scribds and .pdfs?  I love browsing through used bookstores, driving home from the mall with a Barnes and Noble bag beside me, checking my recommendations on Amazon.

And reading every night before turning out the light, unlessI'm on a date

Whenever I'm depressed, I rearrange my books.

I have a lot of them.  I've been buying at least 2 per week since I moved out of my parents' house in 1985.  That adds up to over 3,000, but actually I have only about 1,000.  Every time I move, I pare down my collection to 30 boxes.

Where did this bibliomania start?  Maybe with my parents, who disapproved of books.  They were at best a waste of time, and more likely sinful.  The only way I could get away with reading was to claim that it was a school assignment (evidently my teachers assigned a lot of science fiction and fantasy novels).

Or maybe it's all due to a traumatic incident that happened when I was about four years old, when we were still living on Randolph Street in Garrett,  Indiana.

 I had a Little Golden Book  I couldn't read most of the words yet, but the front cover showed two boys hugging and waving.  So I called it my Book of Cute Boys.

I think it was this adaptation of the Disney movie The Swiss Family Robinson, about a family shipwrecked on a desert island.  The publication date is right.

One day in the spring of 1965, around the time that I chased the Boy with the Guitar, we were driving somewhere on a scary country road, and I was reading in the back seat (this was before car seats, or even seatbelts).  Dad yelled back, "Don't read in the car!"

But the book was too beautiful to look away.  Look at this man hugging a muscular blond boy.  He's wearing girls' shoes. They have v's of skin visible where their shirts are unbuttoned to their chests.

I said something like "I wanna see the cute boys."

"Dammit, Skeezix, do you want to get sick?"

I kept reading...

Look at blond boy now: he's much bigger and taller. The elephant is trying to unbutton his shirt, while the boy in purple pants looks on, his hand jauntily on his hip.

Dad always got mad easily while driving.  He may have warned me a few more times.  Then, sucking his lower lip  in his look of pure fury, he reached back, grabbed The Book of Cute Boys from my hands, and threw it out the car window.

It was lost forever!

There's a lot of gay symbolism in that distant memory:

Was Dad worried that I would get motion sickness from reading in the car, or that I would get sick from looking at cute boys?

(He only called me Skeezix when I was subverting gender expectations.)

When he threw away the book, was he trying to expel my same-sex desire in a sort of exorcism?

From that day on, my same-sex desire would be denied, suppressed, challenged, explained as something else, criticized, excoriated, qualified, discussed, or tolerated.

It would never again be allowed to just exist.

I've spent my life buying that book over and over again, but nothing will bring that innocence back.  

See also: The Boy with the Guitar/

Going to Bed with the Boy Next Door

Rock Island, November 1968.

 A Thursday, two days after my eighth birthday.  Mom isn't feeling well, so she's in bed already.  Dad made macaroni and cheese for dinner.  My brother and I are in our pajamas, watching The Flying Nun and reading books.

Suddenly Mom calls Dad into the bedroom.  He returns a few moments later.  "Boys, get your coats and shoes on.  You're going on a sleepover."

Cool!  They said I could start going on sleepovers when I turned eight, but I didn't think it would be so soon after. But why does Kenny get to go?   He's only six!   

"Who with?"  I ask.

"Mike from next door."

Mike?  But we aren't friends -- he's a year younger than me, in the second grade.  We only played together once last summer, when he talked me into running through a sprinkler with my clothes on, and got me in trouble.  

But -- a sleepover, like the big kids have!  "I'll go pack some clothes and toys."

"No, there's no time.  I'll bring you some clothes tomorrow.  Just put your coats and shoes on right over your pajamas.  And you can pick out one toy apiece to bring.  But hurry up."

Kenny and I run down the stairs to our basement room to get our shoes on, and then look for toys to bring.  My teddy bear (named Ted E. Bear) seems like an obvious choice, but I don't want to act like a little baby in front of Mike, so I choose a Tarzan action figure instead.

When we climb up the stairs again, Mike's Dad, Mr. Maartin, is standing in the living room.  "Ready to go, cowpokes?" he asks with a broad smile.

I smile back.  Mr. Maartin is tall and broad shouldered, with thick arms and a little tattoo of an anchor on his wrist.  He's way old, of course, almost 30, but sometimes old guys are nice to look at, too.  I wonder if I'll get a glimpse of his shame tonight, like with Cousin Joe last summer.

Dad helps us put our coats on over our pajamas, hands me a plastic bag with our toothbrushes and toothpaste in it, and gives us each a hug.

Mom comes out to say goodbye.  She has her coat on, and she is carrying a suitcase.

"Where is Mom going?" I ask.

Nobody answers.  Mr. Maartin takes our hands and leads us down the steps and across the fresh November snow to his house.  I see Mom and Dad walking across our back yard to the garage.

"Don't worry about a thing," he says as he opens the screen door.  "Your Mom will be fine.  This is all perfectly normal, the cycle of life."

My heart sinks.  Is she sick?  Is she going to the hospital?  Is she going to die?

I try to avoid thinking about my worries and enjoy my first sleepover.  It's not what I was expecting: no other boys except Mike.  Mr. and Mrs. Maartin right there all the time.  We watch Bewitched and That Girl and Dragnet, eat Jiffy Pop  Popcorn, read comic books, and play army men.  At 9:00, Mrs. Maartin brings us mugs of warm milk, and then sends us to brush our teeth.

9:00?  I thought you stayed up all night at a sleepover.       

Mr. Maartin stands at the bathroom door, already in his pajamas.  I see his broad pale chest with little hairs around his nipples, his thick biceps, his little belly.   "Ok, cowboys, which of you wants to bunk with Mike, and which wants to bunk with his old dad?"

"You!"  I exclaim.  Mike is cute, slim, brown-haired, blue-eyed, with small, hard biceps and an outtie belly button.  I like how his brown skin stands out against the white of his pajamas.  But -- Mr Maartin is big!  And I'll be able to see his shame!

"I want Mommy!" Kenny exclaims.

"She'll be fine, I promise," Mr. Maartin says.  He turns to me.  "Um...you know, pardner, if it's all the same to you, I think the little buckeroo might need a woman's touch tonight."  He takes Kenny by the hand and leads him down the hall.

Suddenly I realize that he meant him and Mrs. Maartin.  No way would I want to sleep with a lady!  All those disgusting powders and perfumes.  Besides, at church the preacher said boys should never sleep with girls unless they're married.

Mike smiles at me.  "Sometimes I snore, but all you have to do is shake me til I I wake up.  I don't care."

We climb into his single bed and wait for Mrs. Maartin to say goodnight and turn the light off.

The bed is very narrow.  I accidentally push my leg against Mike's thigh.

"Hey, stay on your own side!" he murmurs.

This isn't fair!  You get stuck with the second-best bed, far away from Mr. Maartin and his shame, and you can't even be comfortable!

"I don't got cooties!", I say, wrapping my leg over his leg and my arm over his thin chest.

I've never held a boy like this before -- it's amazing, warm, hard, intimate.  I flush with unexpected joy.

Instead of shrugging me off, Mike turns over onto his side.  My arm is around his chest, and my other arm slides against his butt.  After a few minutes, he begins to snore.  I kiss his shoulder.

I don't want to fall asleep, to miss even a moment of this joy.  I want to lie like this, with Mike in my arms, tonight and tomorrow night, and every night, for the rest of my life.

I never had another sleepover with Mike -- he was a year younger than me, an impassible age gap.  But in the next weeks, and months, and years, and decades, I had lots of sleepovers with lots of other boys and men.  Holding a boyfriend in your arms all night is way better than a sausage sighting.

By the way, as you probably guessed, Mom was having a baby.  In the 1960s adults never discussed such things with kids, so I was oblivious until Dad called the next morning to announce that I had a baby sister.

See also: I Get a Glimpse of Cousin Joe's Shame; My Third Grade Boyfriend; A Crush on the Girl Next Door's Boyfriend.