The Bisexual Fairy Godfather of the Summer of 1984

Between 1982 and 1984, I was studying for my M.A. in English at Indiana University.  I did not do well.  I couldn't focus on any one topic, or any one department -- I rushed around in the 3,000+ courses taught every semester, grabbing onto things like Mandarin Chinese and Russian Folklore, and ignoring my actual English classes

Besides, who had time to study?  I had just discovered bar pickups.  My friend Viju and I were out at Bullwinkel's, or a a gay bar in Indianapolis, two or three times a week, and we never came home alone.

Sometimes I brought a guy home, had sex with him, then went back to the bar to pick up someone else.

Meanwhile my classes faltered, and I squeaked by with B's and an occasional C+.  In grad school, anything below an A is considered failing. But who cared?   I was going to become a book editor, not a literature scholar.

So I squeaked by, and in the spring of 1984, I sent out resumes:130 publishing companies, 48 newspapers,  34 television stations, and 16 translation agencies.   No openings, no openings, no openings, no openings.

Classes ended. I received my M.A..  No job. I spent ten days visiting India with Viju, then a week in Rock Island, then returned to Bloomington.

I couldn't afford our apartment any more, so I got a room in Eigenmann Hall, and went back to my old job in the snack bar.

It was fun when I was a student.  But as my life's work?.  I imagined myself at age 50, still living in that coffin-sized room with the bathroom down the hall, still selling burgers and fries to undergrads.

All of my friends had graduated and moved away.  And any new friends I made would graduate and move away, again and again, an every-changing blur of faces and cocks for the rest of my life.

That summer was an endless cold, dark night.

53 people died in a mass shooting at a McDonald's in San Ysidro, California, the worst mass shooting in modern American history.

The lunatic in the White House (not as bad as the Orange Goblin, but still a lunatic) almost ended the world by "joking" that the U.S. had launched nuclear missiles at the Soviet Union.

The AIDS crisis was making national news for the first time, and dubbed "a gay disease."  Fundamentalist churches latched onto it to decry the "clinically insane, disease-ridden homosexuals" coming for your children.

All four of the factories in Rock Island closed, doubling the unemployment rate.  My father and brother were both laid off.  I couldn't even fall back on a factory job.

The movies I saw (by myself) are now hailed as classics, but I found them depressing: Ghostbusters, Gremlins, The Karate Kid, The Neverending Story, Revenge of the Nerds, Bachelor Party, Conan the Destroyer

Laura Branigan's "Self Control" was playing on the radio:

I live among the creatures of the night.
I haven't got the will to try and fight.
I must believe in something, so I guess I'll just believe that this night will never go.

Then came my fairy godfather, aka Ben, who worked in the bank downtown.  He was my teller when I withdrew some money (this was before ATMs), and two nights later I saw him at Bullwinkle's.

About ten years older than me, a chunky redhead with a long face, a smooth chest, and no biceps to speak of.  Not at all my type.

And bisexual -- he mentioned watching Family Ties, not for the hot teen idol Michael J. Fox, but for Meredith Baxter Birney, who played his mother!

I couldn't help imagining Ben screwing the lady.  His butt bouncing up and down while he plowed into her lady parts, squeezing her breasts, kissing her.  Gross!  Complete turn-off.

But I was depressed, and I would have gone home with Boy George just to avoid going back to my coffin-sized room in Eigenmann Hall.

Ben had a house in Unionville, about 10 miles of dark, scary country roads from campus. An old-fashioned wood-and-plaster living room, a four-poster bed with black sheets, a drawer-ful of porn magazines, both gay and straight.  Very cold for July.

We didn't start kissing until we were both under the sheets.  He had smooth, soft chest, a bubble butt, and a big cock, about 8", thick and ruddy.  I went down on him, and he finished with interfemoral.  Then he beat me off while we were kissing.  Not bad.

After the sex, it was too early to sleep, and I didn't want to  leave, so we sat up and turned on Saturday Night Live. I told Ben about my master's degree, my dismal job prospects, and my future at the Eigenmann Hall snack bar.  He said that he was working on a Ph.D. in sociology --- very slowly.  This was his seventh year in the program, and he wasn't nearly ready to start his dissertation.  The job at the bank took up most of his time.  But he still planned to finish, and become a college professor.

"I love being in front of a class -- it's an amazing rush.  Hey, why don't you go to work at a college?  They always need teachers."

"Yuck!" I exclaimed.  "I taught during my first year.  Surly students who didn't read their assignments, didn't know even the basics about...well, anything, and made homophobic comments."

"It beats making hamburgers, I bet.  Besides, just think of the beefcake!"

"But it's July.  Won't they have all the teachers they need for the fall?"

"Let's find out."  Ben walked naked into the next room and came back with The Chronicle of Higher Education.  5 English teaching jobs available in the fall that required just a M.A.

A month later, I was heading for Hell-fer-Sartain, Texas, an English instructor. It would be horrible, but later, I would teach as an adjunct, then get my Ph.D. (not in English), and spend the next twenty years standing in the front of classrooms.

It definitely beats making hamburgers.

And Ben was right.  The beefcake is amazing.

August 1984: Public Sex in Mississippi

Oxford, Mississippi, August 1984

Studying for my M.A. at Indiana University was lots of fun, but an academic failure.
1. Faced with 3,000 possible courses, I went crazy: South Asian Anthropology, Russian Folklore, Mandarin Chinese, Tibetan Culture, Languages of Africa.  Competing with students majoring in these topics, I didn't do well, and eked by with B's (failing grades in grad school).
2. I planned to become a book editor, not a literature scholar, so why did I need to read Ralph Roister Doister, Pamela, The Mill on the Floss, Love's Alchemy, The Vicar of Wakefield, Sartor Resartus, Ulysses, , The Waste Land, and The Duchess of Pembroke's Arcadia?  I got B's in my English classes, too.

So there was no question of going on for a Ph.D. -- it wasn't going to happen. Instead, in the spring of 1984,  I sent out resumes to 130 publishing companies, 48 newspapers,  34 television stations, and 16 translation agencies.

Nothing.

Then one day in July, Ben the Fairy Godfather asked "Why don't you teach?  They always need English professors."

"But...I hate teaching!  Surly students who never do the assigned readings, fall asleep in class, and make homophobic comments!"

"Do you hate it more than making sandwiches?"

He gave me a copy of the Chronicle of Higher Education, which lists academic job openings.  It was mid-July, so there weren't a lot of jobs for the fall still open, and most required a Ph.D.  But I applied for five teaching positions, and in mid-August, I got a phone call from a college near Houston, Texas:  "Classes start in a week: Intro to Literature, Survey of American Literature, and two Freshman Comps.  How soon can you be here?"

Houston, Texas or making sandwiches?

The Lyceum, Ole Miss

On August 19th, 1984, I packed my car with two suitcases and two boxes of books, and drove 1000 miles south through Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and finally Texas.

As I was driving through Tennessee, I saw two country boys with guns (top photo), and thought "This is a good sign."

I spent the night in Oxford, Mississippi, and walked onto the campus of Ole Miss, the University of Mississippi.  The Lyceum was brightly lit in the darkness.

 I wondered if I would see Luster and Quentin from The Sound and the Fury, or Bo and Luke Duke from The Dukes of Hazard, or at least more country boys with guns.

The Lyceum pointed the way to the Mississippi equivalent of the Levee in Rock Island,  a wooded area outside William Faulkner's Rowan Oak, with grassy walkways and secluded groves of oak, elm and magnolia trees, where men met each other in secret, in the dark.

Lots of men -- 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.

And a cute U. of M. undergrad named Elmer.

Another good sign.  Maybe Texas wouldn't be so bad after all.

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

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