My Most Embarrassing Hookup, in Hell-fer-Sartain, Texas

Houston Texas, January 1985

I spent nine horrible months in 1984-85 in Hell-fer-Sartain, Texas, in the northern suburbs of Houston, the worst place in the world.

The gay neighborhood of the Montrose was only 25 miles away, but still, it was nearly impossible to meet people.  First, it was nearly an hour's drive away, in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

All of the gay organizations met on weeknights, when I didn't have time.  That left bars, which were dangerous, with good old boys driving by to issue homophobic threats, and undercover cops waiting to arrest you for "homosexual conduct."

And when you got past the danger, you found a barful of very closeted guys with weird quirks.

But at Christmastime in 1984, I went back to Rock Island and hooked up with my old bully at JR's.  After he turned out to be both apologetic and massive (#7 on my Sausage List), I thought it might be possible to meet someone nice in a bar after all.

So one Saturday night in January 1985, I drove down to the Montrose, to a cruise bar called the Ripcord, a very dark, rather dingy expanse, with peanut shells on the floor and the bottles of the last customers still on every table.

But for some reason I didn't get any attention.  Guys my own age, even older guys gave me nothing but Attitude.

I was 24 years old, but I looked a bit younger.  I was wearing a leather jacket, a short-sleeved shirt that displayed my physique, and very tight jeans, and I knew how to "stand and model" with a phallic beer bottle thrust up from my crotch.  I was the hottest guy there!

Can you figure out why I was getting Attitude?

After an hour, I was desperate.  In order to maintain my self-esteem, I would have to find a "sure thing," someone so inept or unattractive that he would be open to practically anyone.



I found someone standing in the shadows by the pool table: mid-40s, bushy-haired, glasses, a nerd's unstylish shirt and slacks.  But he was shorter than me and a bit chubby, both characteristics that I find attractive.

When I walked over and said "hello," he gave me as much Attitude as everyone else.  But I didn't care: I started talking to him anyway, and gently stroking his thigh.  He didn't move away.

Eventually he began to look at me -- with a cold glare -- and to respond to my questions -- with curt monosyllables.  Better than nothing. 

His name was Warren.  He wouldn't say what his job was, so I didn't volunteer mine, either.

I might have mentioned that it was hard making ends meet; I was always short on cash.  

No, he wasn't from Houston.  He had just been living here a few years.  He grew up in Utah.

"Mormon?" I asked, thinking of the Mormon missionary I met on my way back from California in 1980.

"It's the Reformed Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," he said, looking around suspiciously.  "But let's not talk about that here."

Did he think he could be identified by his church membership?  "Ok, well, why don't we go somewhere else?"

He continued to glare, but reached out to fondle my chest. "Where should we go?"

I didn't want to admit that I lived in a far suburb -- an instant turn-off in gay neighborhoods -- so I lied: "We can't go back to my place.  I live with my parents."

"Well...how about a hotel room?"


I followed Warren to one of those sleazy discount hotels on the edge of downtown, and he got us a room.  He turned out to be respectable beneath the belt, and very passionate, into kissing and cuddling as much as the more advanced activities.

I awoke in the morning to the bouncing of the bed as Warren, already dressed, was putting his shoes on.

"Want to go out for breakfast?" I asked.

"Oh, no, I can't afford any more.  Besides, I have to be going.  I'm late already."

Can't afford any more?  What did that mean?

His shoes on, Warren checked his wallet to make sure his credit cards were still there, and headed out the door.

"Wait...you forgot..."  I began,  You always exchanged phone numbers with a hookup, just in case...

"It's on the nightstand.  Thanks, this was fun."  And the door slammed behind him.

I lay in bed, naked, shocked.  Why was he so anxious to be out of there?

I leaned over to the nightstand to retrieve his phone number.  Instead, there was:

An unmarked envelope containing five $20 bills.

The cruisy outfit, the "short on cash," the "living with my parents": Warren thought I was a hustler!

My face burned as I realized that everyone in the bar must have thought so, too. That's why they gave me so much Attitude!

I was too mortified to ever go near that bar again.

See also: Topping and Bottoming in Texas

The Mormon Missionary of Beaver, Utah

Beaver, Utah, August 1980

August 6th, 1980, a Wednesday night.  I was in my 1974 Dodge Dart, chugging along the Interstate.

I was depressed. I had been planning to stay in Omaha with my minister boyfriend Fred forever, but it didn't work out.

Then I spent a week recuperating with my high school friend Tom in Los Angeles.

Now I was on my way back to Rock Island, where there were almost no gay people that I knew of, wondering what went wrong.

In Utah, near where the I-15 meets the I-70,  I decided to stop for the night in the quaintly named town of Beaver, at the Delano Hotel, one of those old-fashioned neon hotels that advertises "color tv" and "telephones," as if those amenities are noteworthy.

The desk clerk, Derek,  was college-aged, handsome, with short black hair, black eyes, and a muscular frame.  He had a rugged, leering look.  In a 1980s gay nerd movie, he would play the arrogant jock who is dating The Girl before the nerd comes along and wrests her away.

Somehow I mentioned that I visited Colombia last year, and Derek said, "I'll be in South America  in September.  Brazil. My church is sending me there to be a missionary."

This was unexpected!  I expected Derek to be a juvenile delinquent, maybe, but not a missionary. "What church?"

"The Latter-Day Saints," he said.  "Pretty much everyone around here is LDS."

Mormon!  Nazarenes hated Mormons almost as much as Catholics -- an idolatrous, polygamous cult.  Of course, Nazarenes were wrong about almost everything.

I remembered the incongruous sight of pairs of clean-scrubbed, grinning young men riding bicycles while wearing suits.  There was always something erotic about them, a sensuality hidden just beneath their feigned asexual wholesomeness.

"What do you do for fun around here?"  I asked.

He mentioned a bowling alley.

"No, I mean real fun." I stared at him suggestively.  "You know, guys only."

He grinned.  "Oh, you can find just about anything you're looking for down in St. George."

"That's a long way.  I passed it like two hours ago."

"In the countryside you learn to be patient.  Sooner or later, the fun comes to you."  He paused.  "I'll be here all night, in case you get lonely or want to talk -- you know, about God or anything."

I went to my room and lay down on the bed.  Anything you're looking for. In case you get lonely.  Could he be gay?   Maybe his missionary partner was his lover?  Riding on bicycles side by side through the streets of Rio de Janeiro, returning to their room every night to cuddle and kiss?

I want to say that I invited Derek to my room, and we spent the night together.  Or that he came out to me, and we talked all night about growing up gay and Mormon.

But what actually happened was: I fell asleep before I could muster the nerve to call.  And when I woke up in the morning, someone else was staffing the front desk.

I kicked myself all the way across Utah and Colorado.

And I wondered how many other gay men were stranded in small towns in the mountains, longing to reach out but never getting the nerve.  Or the chance.

Thirty years later, I ran into Derek again.

See also:

My Date with the Grooms' Grandson at a Gay Wedding

Salt Lake City, Utah, September 2015

One day in the summer of 2015, a few weeks after the Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage in the U.S., I get a wedding invitation in the mail, and a request to be in the wedding party!

Heterosexuals complain that they're constantly going to weddings, as their friends one by one tie the knot.  I've never had that problem.  Until recently, gay people were not permitted formal, official ceremonies, and they rarely had informal ones.  The boundary between boyfriend and partner was too fluid, and besides, your parents and the other heteros often didn't know that you were with someone, sometimes didn't even know that you were gay.

A gay wedding!  I can't wait.

Besides, it's from Lane, my ex-partner, so all of my West Hollywood friends will be there.

I've only met his partner Ben once, when I flew back to West Hollywood for a week-long visit.  A week was way too long!

He was in his early 60s, tall, rather buffed -- he spent every afternoon at the gym -- with greying salt-and-pepper hair and a moustache. Attractive, but elitist, conservative, and a bit crotchety.

No sharing, no parties, no going out to the bars to cruise.  I couldn't even invite a guy over to spend the night with me.

I pointed out that Lane and I went to every bath house in Europe, plus bear parties and sex clubs, and nearly every Saturday night we were at the Faultline or Basgo's, looking for someone to "share."

Lane shrugged.  "I grew up."

Grew up, or got stodgy under Ben's tutelage?

And when I was asked out by a 20-year old, all hell broke loose:

"What are you doing dating a guy young enough to be your son?"  Ben exclaimed.  "Stick to guys your own age!"

"Um...I'm a twink magnet.  I can't help it."

"Nonsense.  You just like twinks because you can't handle the responsibilities of a grown-up relationship."

I almost walked right out the door, but I thought, this is Lane.  You've been friends for nearly twenty years, and Ben will probably be out of the picture in a few months.

Guess he's still in the picture.

I check the invitation again.  It's not even in West Hollywood.  It's at Saint Mark's Episcopal Cathedral in Salt Lake City, Utah

A gay wedding in Salt Lake City?  Homophobic redneck country?  Whatever for?

Friday

I arrive at Salt Lake City International Airport at 3:00 pm.  Lane picks me up and drives me directly to the church for the rehearsal.

"So, why are we in Salt Lake, and not West Hollywood?" I ask.

It seems that Ben grew up Mormon in Bountiful, a suburb of Salt Lake.  He married, had two sons, and remained faithful to the church until he started trying to deal with his gayness in the 1990s.  Saint Mark's was where he first felt accepted as a gay person, so it's got a special significance.  Besides, his ex-wife, one of his sons, and many other relatives are still in Salt Lake.

Heterosexuals are invited to a gay wedding?  I figured they'd be picketing and thumping Bibles, or Books of Mormon.

The wedding party isn't divided into bridesmaids and groomsmen, like in a hetero wedding.  There are six people: Ben's sons and grandson, a lesbian couple, and the ringbearer, his five-year old granddaughter.  And me, feeling out of place.

After the rehearsal, the wedding party and their husbands, wives, and kids are all going out to dinner at an Italian restaurant.  "You're riding with us and Jan and her wife," Lane says.  "It will be a little cramped..."

"Hey, Grandpa Ben, I'll drive him over."  It's Brandon, the grandson, tall and thin with thick brown hair and "wholesome" movie star looks: blue eyes, dimples, a cleft chin.

Ben glares at me, probably thinking that I'm going to try to seduce the boy, but consents.

"I heard you lived in New York," Brandon says when we get in the car.  "That must have been great, Broadway shows every night."

"It wasn't really like that.  You spend so much on rent and food that there's not much left over for shows."

"Still, you were in New York!  I'm moving there soon.  I graduated from U.U. in May, and right now I'm doing choreography for Fiddler on the Roof at the Pioneer Theater.  I've been interrogating Lane about Jewish folk dances.  He was really into it, back in the day."

My gaydar goes off.  "So, your church doesn't have any objections to Ben and Lane getting married?"

"Please!  I haven't set foot inside a church since I was ten!  I'm just Mormon for the culture  -- and to get a starring role in The Book of Mormon!"  He reaches over and grabs my knee.

Is this boy cruising?  I know I'm a twink magnet, but...a friend of his grandfather? 

I imagine flirting with one of Grandpa Prater's hunting buddies...and burst out laughing.

Brandon quickly moves his hand away, frowning.

"Sorry, I wasn't laughing at you.  I just thought of something funny."

At the restaurant, Brandon tries to sit next to me, but Ben says "You're up here," and places me between him and one of the lesbians.

During dessert, Brandon comes up again and presses against the back of my chair.  "Have you ever seen Temple Square at night?  It's really breathtaking..."

Ben presses my arm.  "Sorry, we need Boomer to talk over some details of the ceremony."

We drive to the hotel.  To my surprise, I don't get my own room -- I'm sharing with Ben and Lane.

"The wedding is tomorrow at noon, and then after the reception we're leaving for our honeymoon," Ben says, "So this room will be all yours tomorrow night, for cruising or having orgies or whatever."

"And this will be the last time we see you until you visit again," Lane added.  "So I thought we should share?"

"Really?  But..."

"It's a special occasion."

Ben has a very nice uncut Bratwurst.  He offers to top me, but I refuse, going down on him instead.  Then he does interfemoral with me while kissing Lane.

I rarely finish more than once in an evening, but tonight it's two, then three times, and Ben is still ready for more, his mouth and hands everywhere.

The night before his wedding, he is way over-exuberant with another guy?  Something is off here. Is he trying to tire me out so I won't "seduce" Brandon?

Saturday

In the morning I'm too exhausted to go to the hotel's exercise room.  We meet the lesbian couple for breakfast, have a brief tour of the city, and then go to the church.

Brandon catches me in the foyer.  "Did you have a good night?"

Yes, I went down on your Grandpa! "It was busy," I tell him.  "You'd be surprised how many details have to be ironed out."

"Um...." he begins, then stops.  "Um...I was thinking, if you don't have any plans for tonight, you should see Fiddler.  It's a great show.  I'll be backstage, but we can hook up afterwards and have dinner."  

"Sure, that would be great."

"Ok!  I'll reserve the ticket, and pick you up at the hotel at 6:30."  He looks around to see if anyone is watching, then leans in for a brief kiss.  "I can't wait!"

It was a great show.  Lane reads this blog, so I'm not going say what, if anything, happened afterwards.

But, after all, Brandon is not my grandson.


See also: 21 Surprising Facts about Lane; Cruising My Cousin's Son at a Funeral; and Picking Up the Best Man at My Sister's Wedding.

Finding the Mormon Missionary of Beaver Utah

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