A Glimpse of Cousin Joe's Shame

Rome City, Indiana

When I was 7 1/2 years old, we moved from Racine, Wisconsin to Rock Island, Illinois.  My parents didn't want my brother and me  in the way during the move (yes, "me" is correct), so on July 18th, we left a fully-furnished house in Racine, and on July 28th, we returned to a fully-furnished house in Rock Island.

We spent the ten days in Rome City, Indiana, with my Aunt Nora.  She was a big, jolly woman who baked pies for a living -- we got pie every night for dessert! -- and who let us watch all the tv we wanted.  She and Uncle Henry (who died a long time ago) liked tv so much that they named her kids after popular tv stars:

1. Ed (left), 18 years old, after the star of The Ed Sullivan Show.
2. Eva Marie, 16 years old, after Eva Marie Saint, star of the The Phillco Television Showcase
3. Joe (top photo left), 14 years old, after the star of The Joey Bishop Show

Their house was only two blocks from the Limberlost Library, where kids could use the main room, not just the children’s room, and Cousin Joe let us check out books on his card. It was three blocks from Sylvan Lake, where we went swimming and fishing and rode pontoon boats.

Aunt Nora's house had a living room, dining room, kitchen, and three bedrooms downstairs (for Aunt Nora, Joe, and Eva Marie).  Upstairs there was one bedroom for Grandma Davis whenever she came for a visit (Kenny and I slept there), and an attic "pad" for Ed.

One night I woke up late and had to go to the bathroom, so I climbed out of bed and pieced my way gingerly downstairs and through the unfamiliar hallway. The bathroom door was ajar.  I shoved it open.

Cousin Joe was standing in front of the sink.

I saw him only dimly, in the silvery-black moonlight and the glow of a nightlight attached to a wall outlet, and only for an instant, but 40 years later, the image is still vivid:  a nude, muscular backside. A smooth chest visible in the mirror, and a belly -- thin, no abs.  A dark patch of pubic hair.  And what the grownups called his shame

I had only seen two shames before, my brother's and my Uncle Paul's.  I would see another two years later, at the Rock Island Pow Wow, but by that time I would know the correct term. This one was huge, a monster, a garden hose.  I wondered how he could fit it into a pair of pants.

Was he peeing in the sink?  No -- that was a trickle of water from the faucet.  He was washing it!

Why didn't he do that at bathtime?

Noticing me, Joe swung around, hands dripping, shame swaying from side to side. "What the hell are you doing!" he yelled.  "Get out of here!"

But I was transfixed.  I couldn't look away.

Suddenly the light came on in Aunt Nora's room, and I heard Cousin Ed's voice from upstairs -- Kenny woke up and started crying when I wasn't there.  Grunting, Joe brushed past me, and ran to his own room to put on a bathrobe.

Before long, everybody was gathered in the kitchen, talking furiously while Aunt Nora made hot chocolate.  Eventually it was decided that, though I had embarrassed Joe by seeing his shame, it was his own fault.  You should shut the bathroom door, even late at night when you think everyone is asleep.

I don't understand why they called it a shame.  It was certainly nothing to be ashamed of -- I'll bet it would win first prize at the Gay Horsemen's Club in Amsterdam, where I would find an A+++-sized boyfriend years later  -- and it provided me with a fond childhood memory.

Besides, I got hot chocolate.

I Fall Asleep in a Sailor's Arms

On a train near Norfolk, Virginia

When I was 10 years old, my Grandma Davis took me on a train trip from the station at Garrett to Washington, DC, and then to Walterboro, South Carolina, to visit my uncle and aunt and cousins.  We didn't get a sleeping car; we just reclined our seats with blankets and pillows.

I was too excited to sleep.  We went through so many interesting cities -- Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Norfolk, all lit up at night.  And people kept walking through the car -- the conductor, porters, passengers bustling about with suitcases.

About midnight, a cute boy in a sailor suit stumbled into the car and plopped into the seat across the aisle from me.  He was still a teenager, with brown hair and thick hands.  I still remember that he wore a class ring.

He looked over and noticed me staring at him.  "You should be asleep, little man," he said, smiling, in a distinctive Southern accent.  "You know what?  I just saw Santy Claus in the next car, and he told me you should go to sleep or he won't bring you any Christmas presents."

Did he think I was a baby? "I'm ten years old," I said stiffly, offended.  "Too old for Santa Claus."

"Sorry.  Hey, you want to see a magic trick?"

Sure, if it involves you taking your shirt off.  "My Dad was a sailor," I said.  "He went to Japan, Korea, the Philippines, and Hawaii."

"That's great!  I just enlisted, so I haven't been anywhere yet.  I never even been on a train before.  My name is Beau.  That's B-E-A-U.  It's spelled funny because it's French."  He reached out his big hand with the class ring.  It enveloped my small hand.  I didn't want to let go.

"My name is Boomer.  I'm visiting South Carolina with my Grandma Davis."

Grandma Davis had roused and was watching us with her weird knowing smile.

"Howdy, Boomer's Grandma.  I'm Beau Reynolds, from Morgantown, West Virginia, home of the Fighting Mountaineers."

"Pleased to meet you," she said politely.

I was briefly distracted by a skyline through the window.

"Hey, why don't you sit over here by me? It's a window seat, so you can look out."

"Can I, Grandma?"

"Sure, if you want to. But you should try to get some sleep.  It's late."

"Don't worry, ma'am.  Putting boys to bed is my specialty.  I'll get out my guitar if I have to."

I leapt across the aisle, squeezed past Beau's legs, and climbed into the seat next to him.   I pulled up the armrest so I could cuddle against him.  Our arms touched.

"I...um...I...have a little brother about your age.  He plays football on his junior high team, and he likes hunting and fishing. I bet you'd like him."

"Is he cute?" I said without thinking -- I was too tired to guard myself.

Beau gave me a quizzical stare.  "Well, he's big and tough.  You like hunting?"

"No."

"Fishing?"

"No."

"Playing football?"

"No."

"Um..watching football?"

"No.  I like to watch The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family.  Do you like Peter or Greg best?  Everybody says they like Greg, but I think Peter is way cuter."

"Yeah, The Brady Bunch, real cool show," he said in a weird hesitant voice.  "Hey, want to hear a dirty joke?"

"Ok," I said with a grin, feeling very grown-up.

Beau said something like this:
Dick Butkiss walks into a bar.  He's like a big, muscular football player, so all the girls think he's cute.  And there's a sissy at the other end of the bar.  So Dick Butkiss sits down, and he's like, got his shirt off and everything, and the sissy can't take his eyes off him.  So Dick Butkiss says, he says, "I'm so lonely I could kiss a cow."  And the sissy, the sissy chirps right up.  "Moo!  I say, Moo!"

He laughed and slapped my knee.

I didn't know that Dick Butkus was a real person -- later I discovered that he was a football player, for the Chicago Bears.  

But I liked the part about the "sissy" wanting to kiss him.  I didn't know that there were grownup men who wanted to kiss men.

I was getting sleepy.  I nestled against Beau.  His chest was pleasantly firm.  He smelled of some kind of sweet cologne.

He reclined the seat, and put his arm around me, then wrapped his blanket around us both.  "You got to be careful of them sissies.  Don't make friends with them, or sooner or later they'll try to kiss you."

"Did a sissy ever try to kiss you, Beau?"

He pressed me close.  "Don't worry about me -- I'm all man.  If any sissy tried anything with me, I'd knock his block off!"

Soon after, I fell asleep in Beau's arms.  He got off the train at Norfolk, never knowing that he had spent the night with a "sissy."

I've been trying to understand this memory from my vantage point of 44 years.  A lonely sailor, away from home for the first time, tries to bond with a boy who reminds him of his little brother.  But the boy doesn't like any "manly" activities, just girly stuff like The Brady Bunch.  So he tells him a cautionary tale about sissies trying to kiss you.

But the cautionary tale is about a lonely guy -- like Beau -- meeting a "sissy" -- like me.  Was the Beau trying to remind himself to avoid letting guys get too close, because they might stir uncomfortable desires?

The tale doesn't have an unhappy ending.  We aren't told Dick Butkus's response to the "moo" request.   Maybe he was, indeed, perfectly willing to kiss a man.

I like to think that, when Beau got to his naval base in Norfolk, he was perfectly willing to kiss men, too.

Sausage Sightings of Adult Devon Sawa and Jonathan Taylor Thomas

Vancouver, Canada

Cal me Rick.  In 1999, I was a a senior at King George Secondary School in Vancouver, a Glee Club geek, pale, skinny, eyeglassed, kind of homely, with a pretty good voice but no social skills.  I knew I was gay, but I wasn't out yet.

Then my buddy told me about auditions for minor parts in Final Destination (2000), starring Devon Sawa (the 21-year old star of Casper, The Boys Club, Wild America, and Idle Hands).   I figured it would look good on my uni apps, and I had a little crush on Devon, so off I went.

 I got the part -- one line and crowd shots, took about an hour -- but somehow Devon noticed me.  We went out to lunch, and then to the Aquarium, and before I knew it I was coming out to him -- the first person I told!  And that weekend he escorted me to my first gay bar.

We never hooked up -- he said I wasn't his type.  But I never forgot the emotional connection and support.

One night he asked me, "Of all the actors in Hollywood, other than me, who would you most like to sleep with?"

Without a blink I said "Jonathan Taylor Thomas."

I watched every episode of Home Improvement (1991-1999), even though I despised that awful, homophobic Tim Allen, and the "real men" grunting, playing sports, and talking about tools.  I had enough of that growing up in Vancouver, thank you.  But Jonathan Taylor Thomas (1981-), a teen dream fave rave, an androgynous prettyboy with soulful grey eyes and puckered lips.

How could you help putting his poster on your bedroom wall and kissing it every night?

Even though your parents misinterpreted your interest in Home Improvement and kept giving you tools for Christmas.

"Jonathan's pretty cool," Devon said.  "We've been friends for years.  Tell you what -- come visit me in L.A. sometime, and maybe I can arrange a meeting."

When filming ended, he went back to L.A., and I went on to the Victoria Conservatory to study voice, but we stayed in touch.

I finally did visit at Christmastime in 2001, and was disappointed by two things:

1. Devon is straight, or maybe bi. He was dating Danielle Fischel of Boy Meets World!  I did get a date with Ben Savage out of the deail, but that's a story for another time.

2. Jonathan Taylor Thomas had left Hollywood to study philosophy at Harvard, and wasn't in town for a hookup.

The next few years of my life were rough: I flunked out of the Conservatory, broke up with my boyfriend, lost my brother, tried to make it as a singer, and finally went back to uni for my teaching credential.  I got my degree in 2008, and became a high school music teacher, first in Hamilton, Ontario and then in Toronto.

Devon and I became "Christmas and Birthday Card" friends.  I was invited to his weddings, to Jessica and Dawni, but didn't go.  The last time I saw him in person was in Montreal in 2006.

My schoolboy crush on Jonathan Taylor Thomas dimmed a bit when I saw his gay-themed movies, Speedway Junkie (1999) and Common Ground (2000), and read his homophobic response to the reporters' standard question: "Does playing a gay character mean that you are gay?"

JTT: "Of course not!!!!!   I've played murderers.  Does that mean I'm a murderer?"

In his interview with The Advocate, his response was just as vociferous: "It's a blatant lie."

I didn't see him in any more movies, and assumed that he had left Hollywood for good.

[According to Popsugar, he graduated from Columbia in 2010 and left Hollywood, returning only to direct three episodes (and guest-star in four) of his pal Tim Allen's sitcom, Last Man Standing (2013-2016).  I don't know who the boyfriend is,]

Last summer, I had to go to Los Angeles for a conference, and I emailed my friend Devon to ask him to lunch.

"Lunch, nothing!" he responded.  "You're staying with me in Calabasas.  That is, if you don't mind a houseful of kids and cats."

Calabasas, California, July 2017

I flew into LAX on Thursday, rented a car, and drove up to Calabasas, in the San Gabriel Valley about an hour's drive away.  Nice house, very rustic, with mountains visible in the distance.

Devon was 38 years old, no longer blond, tall and tattooed and craggy -- but we've all gotten older, haven't we?

It was a little awkward at first, like you might imagine with someone you haven't actually seen in a decade, but soon we were talking about Vancouver in the 1990s, and coming out, and it was like old times.  Dawni was nice, but kept in the background, mostly running around with the kids, a toddler boy and a babe in arms.

"Are you going to be here Saturday afternoon?" Devon asked.  "We can go up into the mountains.  And I might have a surprise for you."

I had a couple of presentations to go to at the conference, but I promised I would be.

When I arrived on Saturday afternoon, Jonathan Taylor Thomas was sitting in the living room!

I didn't recognize him at first: he was 36 years old, no longer puppy-dog cute, more scholarly, like that cool philosophy professor who introduced you to existentialism and jazz.

Was Devon setting us up?

I played it cool, not sitting next to him, not gushing, and absolutely not bringing up Home Improvement.  Jonathan was quiet, a bit reserved.  Later Devon told me that they hadn't seen each other in about ten years.

After we chatted for awhile, Devon said "Ok, it's pool time.  Men only -- no wives, kids, or cats."

Jonathan shook his head.  "You're not going to get me that way again!  We're not fifteen anymore!"

"Maybe you're not, but I plan to stay fifteen forever!" Devon exclaimed.  "Rick, help me with grandpa here."

I didn't know what was going on, but I obliged.  We each took one of Jonathan's hands and pulled him through the living room and dining room, and out through the French doors to the pool.

"No!" Jonathan yelled.  "You jackass, I've got my smartphone in my pocket, and my wallet!  And I don't have a change of clothes!"

Devon laughed.  "You heard the man.  Get him out of his clothes, and don't be gentle!"

We quickly stripped Jonathan of his shirt, undershirt, shoes, pants, and underwear -- yes, I "accidentally" got a grope -- average size, cut.   Then we took him by his hands and feet and threw him into the pool.

"You jerks!  I'm going to get you for this!"  He hoisted himself out of the pool, naked and gleaming in the sun, his cock bouncing about.  Devon tried to run away, but Jonathan grabbed him and pushed them both into the pool.

Soon all three of us were naked, dunking each other, roughhousing like kids. Devon is quite well hung, by the way, a thick 4" soft.

There was no sex -- a bit of casual groping, maybe.  I never even found out if Jonathan is gay.  But being naked in the pool with my old friend and my childhood crush -- what could be better?