My Coming Out Movie

Rock Island, June 1978

I didn’t go to movies much when I was a kid. Our church forbade them, and besides, I didn’t get an allowance until junior high.  In 1968, I saw only 3 movies in a theater: Blackbeard’s Ghost, Yours, Mine, and Ours, and Oliver!

But during the summer of 1978, shortly after my senior prom, I was a high school graduate.  I had a job at the Carousel Snack Bar and my own car: money and freedom. And I went to all the movies I could.

During the 10 weeks of summer, from Memorial Day to Labor Day of 1978, I saw 21 movies, alone, with my brother, with Aaron and Darry and a boy I liked: Old Marx Brothers comedies at the Film Club, dollar movies at the Augustana Student Union, The Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Nuart, and lots of blockbusters at the Showcase Cinemas (Animal House, The Cheap Detective, The End, The Eyes of Laura Mars,  Grease, The Greek Tycoon, Seniors....). 

One of them was my coming out movie.  I never actually got to the end: I began to sob uncontrollably.  I ran from the theater and ran to my car and sat in the front seat, sobbing.  And when I stopped sobbing, I was able, finally, after 17 and a half years on the planet, to say the word.

Gay.

You probably think that Rocky Horror did it.  No, it was Grease.

It's a heterosexist boy-meets-girl fable, drawing on the 1950s craze, and therefore kin to Lords of Flatbush,  Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley): during their senior year at Rydell High in the 1950s (actually 1962), "nice girl" Sandy (Olivia Newton-John) falls for greaser Danny (John Travolta), but he is only interested in girls who "put out." So her friends, the Pink Ladies, give her a tramp-makeover, and Danny is lured in.


But more: it's about masks, surface conformity hiding our true selves. Danny is sweet, sensitive, and caring, but his culture requires a pretense of machismo. When he falls for Sandy, he is forbidden from acknowledging that he is in love; it's supposed to be all about sex.  Sandy, meanwhile, learns to hide her true self under a sleazy, leather-clad, cigarette-smoking facade.

At the time, both were heavily rumored to be gay.  Conforming, wearing a mask.

But girls can only lure, hint at sexual availability.  There are dire consequences for actually giving in, as Rizzo (Stockard Channing) learns.

What do the teenagers want, when they are their true selves?  Not sex.  Not romance. They want belonging, an emotional connection.

As the movie ends, the eight friends wonder what will become of them after graduation.  Will they go their separate ways?  "No," Danny exclaims.  "That'll never happen. We'll always be together."

"Grease," performed by Frankie Valli, was constantly on the radio that summer.

This is a world of illusion, out of control, makes us confused: nothing is real, you have to wear the mask, say things you don't mean, pretend things you don't feel.

 The adults are lying -- only real is real.  It's all one big lie.

Over and over, day after day, year after year, they try to make you believe that what you feel doesn't exist, what you want doesn't exist, that you cannot possibly be attracted to these men, that no same-sex love has ever happened in all the history of the world.

They are lying.  Only real is real.

We stop the fight right now, we got to be what we feel.

That did it.

I may be the only person in history to start sobbing uncontrollably during Grease.

See also: A Nude Party with the Golden Boy.; Grease Live.

High School Graduation: Getting Down with a Dude

Rock Island, May 1978

My brother Ken wasn't the only one who seemed to "know" in the winter and spring of 1978, my senior year at Rocky High, as I studied for AP exams and filled out college applications.  It seemed that I spent the whole semester protesting "No way am I a Swish!"

1. Darry (below), who explored the ghost of Davenport House with me, gave me a portable chess set for Christmas, with the card saying: "You'll need this for your honeymoon with Xaviera Hollander."

Xaviera Hollander was a New York City madame who told about her exclusive brothel in an autobiography, The Happy Hooker.  She was widely recognized as the most beautiful woman in the world.  Why would I need a chess set for my honeymoon with her?  Obviously because we wouldn't be having sex!








2. My Career Planning teacher assigned the Strong Interest Inventory, which matched you to jobs based on a series of Zen paradoxes: would you prefer to draw maps or feed zebras,  solve people’s problems or drive race cars, chop wood or program computers? When the results came, I was a good match for journalist, chemist, historian, and astronomer.

And female lawyer.  But not male lawyer.

Hot with rage, I stormed up to the teacher.  “This test thinks I’m a Swish!” I yelled.

With the offending score under his nose, he stumbled around for a few moments and finally came up with an excuse:  "Male and female lawyers draw on different sets of skills. The men are more aggressive,  and the ladies are more nurturing."  He looked up at me with watery wounded eyes.  "It doesn't mean that you have homo...homosexual tendencies or anything."

3. After the Sunday evenings service, the teens gathered for "Afterglow," a sort of party with games, Gospel music, and snacks.  Since it counted as a date, the ten or fifteen minutes between altar call and Afterglow was filled with preening, evaluating, and drama.

Church royalty usually had many invitations to choose from, especially Debbie, who was spoiled, snooty, and arrogant.  So I was surprised when she approached me with three of her cronies in tow, pressed her flat palm hard against my chest, and commanded, “You’re taking me to Afterglow.”

When I refused, she stared open-mouthed for a moment, as if she had never heard such nonsense, and then said "Figures.  I knew he was a Swish."  Her cronies giggled with delight.

4. For a skit in Spanish class, my female partner and I pretended to be parked at a lover’s lane. I took her in my arms, and an accomplice cut the lights, giving us time to muss our hair and clothes as if we had been necking. It wasn’t supposed to be funny, but the class roared.

Later my friend Tom, who would invite me to visit him in Los Angeles two years later, explained: “It was just the idea of you with a girl!”

I thought he meant a Nazarene, forbidden anything past first base, but now I realized that he thought I didn't like girls, so the sight of me pretending to kiss one was hilarious.

5. Craig, who went streaking with me in junior high, invited me to his graduation party.  "There'll be mattresses in the basement," he said, "In case you want to get down with. . .um. . .anybody."

Surely he meant "with a girl." He would be shocked and outraged if I used the mattress to get down with a dude.

Wouldn't he?

But he did say "get down with...um...anybody."

No way was I a Swish!

Seeing My First Gay People: The Fairy at the Court House

Rock Island, November 1976

Up until my junior year in high school, I had no idea that gay people existed.  I knew about fairies, boys who had the audacity to pretend that they were girls (bad at sports, good at schoolwork), and fags, monstrous beings who conflated masculine and feminine. But I never associated these beings with same-sex desire or acts.

No one did.  Everyone I knew dismissed same-sex desire as something else, hero worship or friendship, and same-sex acts were simply beyond the boundaries of what could be imagined.

Even though I engaged in some at music camp during the summer after my sophomore year.

Still, I didn't figure out that gay people existed until that fall.

1. September 29th: On TV, Alice met an ex-football player (Denny Miller, left), who said that he was gay.  So of course he has no romantic interest in her.  But all men, I was told, spent their lives in passionate pursuit of the feminine.  Who was this exception?  What was "gay"?

2. October 6th: in Rolling Stone, Elton John stated that he was "bisexual."  Nowhere in the article was the word defined, but I knew"bi" from "bisect" and "bicentennial": divide into two.  Did he have "two sexes"?

October 9th: On TV: a  new patient (Howard Hesseman) joined Bob Newhart's therapy group, and the others were horrified to discover that he is gay.  Elliot Carlson (right) is particularly worried about...something.  But what?

November 1st:  On TV, Phyllis dated a man who did not find her attractive.  He explained that he was gay.



November 10th: my political science class car-pooled down-town to the County Courthouse to see a real criminal trial in progress.

The case was about a shooting that took place outside the Hawaiian Lounge, which we all knew was a fairy hangout.  Sure enough, a swish was called to the witness stand: tall and gaunt, with long, greasy hair and mascara-ed eyes. He explained that he was parked across the street at the time, so he saw everything. The attorney wanted to know why he was parked in downtown Rock Island on a bitter cold January evening.

“We had just come from the Hawaiian Lounge, and we were deciding where to eat.”
“Who was in the car with you?” the attorney asked.
He named two men and a woman.
“Why was there a woman with them?” I whispered to my friend Darry. “Swishes hate women.”
“Maybe it was two of Them and a normal couple,” he whispered back. “Maybe it was two swishes on a double date!”

This made no sense. Swishes hated women, so how could they date. ..unless he meant. ..but they couldn't possibly date each other! They were both boys!

But if you don't find women attractive, maybe you find men attractive, so you want to date....

November 14th: in the public library, researching prisons (for the same civics class), I was leafing aimlessly through a book, when I happened upon a black and white photo (not this one).

It took a long moment for me to comprehend what I was seeing; it simply didn't make sense.  Two male prisoners were standing in front of a chain link fence, with their backs to the camera. Holding hands.

I stared for a long time, thinking “No, this is impossible.” Only little kids, parents and children, and boyfriends and girlfriends held hands.. Men didn’t even touch each other’s hands. If their hands met by accident, they would jerk away, too disgusted for words.The caption talked about the “problem of homosexuals in prison.” So fairies  -- swishes -- homosexuals -- gays dated each other, held hands.

Suddenly embarrassed, as if I had been caught viewing pornography, I slammed the book shut.  Darry looked up at me quizzically.

November 15th: On TV: Maude's husband (Bill Macy) dreamed that he kissed a man, and worried that he might be gay.

So gays not only dated and held hands: they kissed!  Maybe they reached under frilly sweaters to feel each others' powdery marshmallow bodies.  Maybe they even had sex.

But I still didn't connect gays holding hands with the boys holding hands among the candles in the Don Grady song.  Or gays dating with my dates with boys.  Or gays having sex with me and Todd spending the night together at music camp.

I wouldn't make the connection for another year and a half.

We Look for a Gay Comic Book

Rock Island, December 1976

At Christmastime in my junior year in high school, shortly after I caught Cousin Joe in the act, I caught the flu.  I lay in bed for a week, missing the District Jump Quiz Tournament, unable to concentrate on books or comic books, unwilling to make the arduous trek across the room to turn on the portable tv atop the dresser, I mostly listened to KSTT on my clock radio. Boston sang "More Than a Feeling" about a thousand times; their only competition seemed to be "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing," by Leo Sayer.  I know what he made me feel like doing.

Once I heard a song called “Walk on the Wild Side,” about a man’s  descent from Acting like a Girl to Fairy to Swish: “he shaved his legs and then he was a she.” But I was puzzled by the line in which the Swish “goes to see Apollo" (I had never heard of the Apollo Theater in Harlem).  What did the Greek god, the epitome of muscular manliness, have to do with a sinister, soul-destroying walk on the wild side?







On December 29th, I was feeling a little better, so I asked Darry to bring Robert Graves' massive two-volume Greek Myths, and read up on Apollo.  In one story, he and his friend Hyacinth were playing with a discus.  The wind Zephyr became so jealous of their love that he blew the discus off course, and it hit Hyacinth in the head, killing him. The distraught god created a flower from the bloodstained grass, the hyacinth, with petals that spell out ai, alas!

“Zephr was jealous of their love,” I read. “How can you be jealous of a guy? You can have hundreds of buddies. You’re only jealous of girls.”

“Maybe Apollo and Hyacinth were girls, sort of,” Darry said. “You know. . . .” he flashed a loose wrist.

“Don’t be ridiculous! They couldn’t be gay.  There weren't any swishes in ancient times, and besides, they were like, built!”  Everybody knew that gays were thin, wispy things who hated muscles.

“How do you know how built they were? There aren’t any pictures in the book.”

Slightly embarrassed, I told him about the comic book that my boyfriend Bill gave me long ago, with Casper the Friendly Ghost making a mystical ascent to the Island in the Sky. Darry wanted to see it, so I asked him to find my box of old Casper comics in the closet. The Island in the Sky comic was missing!

Thinking it was misfiled, we sorted through my boxes of Disney, Tarzan, Archie, and superhero comics. Nothing. We even crawled into the attic  crawlspace to look through a box labeled “Boomer," leftover from our move two years ago.  It contained old toys, puzzles, coloring books, cartoon kits, Viewmaster slides, birthday party photos. No comic books.

Exhausted by the effort, I clomped back to bed and collapsed. Darry pulled the covers over me and went downstairs to fetch some orange juice. When he returned, he said, “Don’t get all obsessed. Your fever-addled brain probably invented it. A bad acid trip about Casper the Friendly Ghost, imagine that!”

“No, I’ve read the comic book – lot of times.” I remembered every detail. I remembered when I first read it -- a hot summer night, my boyfriend Bill asleep beside me, breathing softly, and Casper flying to the Elysian Fields to meet Greek gods.

 It was an essential part of my childhood, like Chekhov and Sulu smiling at each other or Robbie Douglas singing about boys holding hands.

“So, tell me all about the story you dreamed up. . .I mean, that you read in that mysterious vanishing comic book.  Casper goes to an island in the sky."

“And he meets Apollo, Pan, Bacchus, and some others. All men, no women. Muscular physiques. They live together. It was like heaven.”

Darry laughed. “Sounds like the Hawaiian Lounge to me! Nothing but fruits, on double dates with each other!  Except for the muscles, of course.”

“Waste your time doing something else!” I exclaimed, scandalized. “Nobody was gay! It was a kid’s comic!”

When Darry left, I huddled beside the space heater, trembling.  First the secret message "Brian gives free LBJs," and now the Island in the Sky.  Why did all of my most cherished childhood memories involve swishes?

It would take me another year to figure out why..

Warren Tells Me about Swishes

Rock Island, September 1975

When I first arrived at Rocky High for 10th grade, I was impressed.  It rose like a fantasy-world castle on the western summit of the Hill, just north of the statue of Chief Black Hawk.  There were lots of interesting classes like Quad Cities History, Arthurian Legends, Archaeology, and Latin.  And there were hundreds of cute boys!  I watched shirtless guys perform in South Pacific from the orchestra pit; I measured Rocks (athletes) for uniforms as an athletic trainer; I had lunch with the King of Sweden.

But soon I realized that Rocky High was not a castle but a fortress, a bulwark against an unnamed evil.

One night in September, Darry made use of his new learner’s permit to drive us to Happy Joe’s, the pizza place that only high schoolers went to. After we found a booth and sat down, we saw Warren Hodge (not his real name), the cute blackhaired cellist who was in charge of our lunchtime crowd, sitting at a small table with his Just Friend Colleen.   The guy second from the right looks like him.

He was gesturing angrily, so I left Darry looking at a menu and went over to see what he wanted.

“Are you from East Moline, Spazz?” he yelled, standing to make himself heard over the noise.
“What’s bugging you?” I asked.
“What’s bugging me is two guys  -- neither of them Rocks -- in Happy Joe’s – alone -- at night!”
“Boomer doesn’t know any better,” Colleen said, mollifying. She reached out a chubby hand to touch Warren’s arm. “It’s not his fault.”
“Ok, so now he knows better! Get out now, and don’t let me catch you doing it again!”
“What’s not my fault?” I asked, still not comprehending.
“Look -- if you and your buddy-buddy are so strung out for pizza, invite someone else – a Rock -- a girl -- your Mommy if you have to. But never just two guys. What will people think, if we see you in a booth at Happy Joe’s, at 8:00 pm, with a guy?”



“Why would they care? And what’s so jazzed about 8:00 pm? Would 7:30 be ok?”

Overcome by my stupidity, Warren sat down again. He dropped his head into his hands and moaned  “Why do we let tenth-grade Spazzes into our Crowd?”

Colleen touched my wrist. “It’s an important rule. Haven’t you heard it yet?”
“I’ve only heard rules about dating girls.”
“Well, there are rules about boys, too!"
Fascinated, I said “Lay it on me, Mr. Wizard. What do I need to know to date boys?”
“Don’t get smart!”

Colleen turned to me. “Ok, so never go out at night with just another guy. Invite a Rock or a girl, or go in a group. On account of if it’s just the two guys, and neither are Rocks, people might think you’re. . .you know.” She displayed a wrist hanging loosely from her hand.

“I know what?
“Pardon my French,” Warren said, “But people will think you’re a Swish, ok?”
I had never heard the term "Swish" before -- people usually just said "That Way." Warren and Colleen had to explain it to me.

Every boy occasionally slipped up and acted like a girl,  and the Fairies of junior high pretended to be girls, getting good grades or disliking sports -- to the consternation of junior high bullies like Dick Sunstrom -- but Swishes (called Fags on TV) weren't pretending.  They actually were girls, or rather a bizarre hybrid, physiologically male but far more feminine than any real girl.  They reeked of perfume and face powder, and wore low-cut evening gowns with strands of pearls, and carried handbags, and called you "Thweetie" in a baby-doll lisp.

No one ever suggested that Swishes might desire sex, with mortal men or with each other. A year later, when I heard the term "gay" for the first time, I didn't immediately make the connection.

How could boys and men, drawn to the masculine, revolted by the feminine, ever become Swishes?  You could turn by choice, a suicidal rejection of the masculine, but most commonly you turned by force.  Swishes took perverse delight in creating more of their kind, so they lurked in bars, in alleys, in deserted hallways, waiting, ready to pounce.  All it took was a touch of a limp, many-ringed hand on your shoulder or a few lisping words whispered in the ear like an incantation.

How could you distinguish a Swish from a mortal?  They could hide their most blatantly feminine traits, but it was impossible to hide:
1. Their violent aversion to women (they wouldn't even be in the same room with a woman, if they could help it)
2. Their intense hatred of Rocks, especially the most muscular (they wouldn't even pass the locker room, if they could help it).

So naturally I demonstrated that I wasn't a Swish by sitting with girls at the lunch table, and by going out to dinners and movies every weekend with the most muscular jocks I could find.

See also: High School Hint 2: My Job in the Locker Room.

The Ghost of the Davenport House

Rock Island, July 1977

11th grade was so crowded with new friends and boyfriends - - the preacher's son who liked nude horseplay, the rabbi's son who didn't know he was gay, the boy I slept with at music camp, plus others I haven't posted on -- that you may think I dropped Darry, my best friend in junior high.

But he was there every day, by my side through all of the events at Rocky High, steadfast in his loyalty and affection. He accepted my interest in boys without question, though he often tried to push me toward girls as well.

One night in the summer of 1977, shortly after I returned from Switzerland, Darry took me to a stand-up comedy show at Augustana College.  Afterwards we drove onto Arsenal Island, to the Davenport House, where Colonel Davenport, the first European settler in the Quad Cities, was murdered on July 4, 1845.

"What are we doing here?" I asked. "The Davenport House is closed at night."

“I work here, remember?” Darry said. He had a part-time job as a docent.

It was a two-story clapboard facing north to-ward the dark-flowing Mississippi, with green-shuttered windows and chimneys on each end. From the front porch I could see the lights of downtown Davenport, with the Centennial Bridge spanning the river.

When we climbed onto the porch, Darry pulled out a flashlight.

“I’ve been here before,” I protested. “Lots of times."

“Have you ever seen the room where Colonel Davenport died?”

“No – that’s always closed to the public.”

“Closed to the public, maybe. Not to us.”

Darry led me through the parlor, now a museum, past the gift shop and the dining room to the kitchen, which had mostly modern furnishing, including a new refrigerator and stove. An old servants’ stairway led up to the second floor, to a narrow hallway.  The banister staircase on the other end led down to the parlor.

Darry  pointed his flashlight beam down the hall. “They found him in his wife’s sitting room, there by the banister, and carried him to his bedroom, here, where he died.” He opened the door on the east end. It was sparsely furnished, with an old four-poster bed, a wash basin with an old-fashioned pitcher, a dresser, and two round red-upholstered chairs. One window looked north, onto the dark yard with the Mississippi beyond, 

Darry walked over to the dresser, creaked open a bottom drawer, and retrieved a pile of magazines. He climbed onto the bed -- not the one Col. Davenport died on, I hoped -- and sat propped up against the pillows. I climbed up next to him. The bedspread smelled of must and lavender room deodorizer. He began leafing through one of the magazines  –Playboy, I realized, shocked.

“Hey, that’s porn!”

“On the contrary, it’s the noble quest after the Eternal Feminine,” Darry said. “But I can’t keep them at home. Mom and Dad go through everything.”

He held open a page featuring a naked girl, smiling open-mouthed, with shiny hair and pale pendulous breasts. It was disgusting. But Darry obviously found it stunning, so wonderful that he sequestered them at the Davenport House and risked being fired just for the joy of gazing at a few centerfolds once in a while.

I had a place at home where I invited boys to have sex...and watch.  Was this Darry's place?

“I don’t like pictures of naked ladies,” I said softly. “Could we go home now?”

“There’s nobody here but us, so you can stop the Herr Holy-Pants attitude. Tell me you don't like this one!" Darry held up the issue. A girl who looked something like Gloria, the daughter on All in the Family, holding a telephone between her breasts.

“It’s gross!” I jumped off the bed, felt my way for the door, and pulled it open. The hallway was completely dark, except for thin pale lines of door frames bathed in moonlight. I wanted to run away, but if I left Darry, how could I get home again? The island would be nearly deserted at night.

Maybe if I tried, if I looked very closely, I would see what Darry saw. Maybe I would know what the fuss was all about. Maybe I would finally bow to the tripods.

Darry slid off the bed and walked toward me.  "If you don't like blondes.." he began.  Then he trailed off.

The door at the end of the hall, by the banister staircase, was invisible except for a thin line of pale light. But the line was getting bigger. The door was slowly swinging open!

Later I could recall the inside of the wife’s sitting room: a small table with a lace tablecloth and a tea service, a low bookcase, two overstuffed chairs from the Victorian era, a window framed with lace curtains. But at that moment I saw only a shadow at the half-opened door: the outline of a man! No facial features or clothing, just a head and torso, and an arm  propped lazily against the lintel, as if someone was investigating the noise.

We clattered down the servants’ stairway, through the kitchen door, and into Darry’s car. We zoomed down Rodman Boulevard, slowing only when we reached the Government Bridge.  

The ghost – if it was a ghost -- was too thin to be Colonel Davenport. Maybe it was one of the murderers, returning to check on his handiwork. Or Colonel Davenport’s son,  George L’Oste. Or a draft creaking the door open. Or a prank.

Darry swore that he wasn’t playing a prank. In fact, he was too scared to go back to the Davenport House.  The next day he called to quit his job.

I've always wondered why the ghost appeared at the exact moment Darry started looking at Playboys.  Maybe it was a gay ghost who resented the intrusion of heterosexism.

See also: The Naked Ghost of Hylton Castle.; Boys with Baseball Bats in my Attic Sanctuary