"My Uncle's Queer": My Nephew's Transformation from Choir Boy to Punk Rocker

Rock Island, December 1999

I am in grad school in New York, visiting Rock Island and Indianapolis for the holidays, staying with my brother Kenny in his rundown, rambling house downtown.  The house is crowded with Kenny's children and stepchildren, plus a huge assortment of dogs, cats, hamsters, and parrots.

It's easy to miss Joel, Ken's youngest son, in the crowd: he's thirteen years old, short, slim, a quiet, polite Johnny Nazarene.  But a talented singer: he's toured in Iowa, Minnesota, and Sweden with the Moline Boys' Choir.  We go to their Christmas concert and hear his solo in "Come, O Come Emmanuel."

December 2000

Yuri and I are visiting Rock Island for the holidays. My family practices a "don't ask, don't tell" policy, so they don't know if we're friends or boyfriends or lovers.  Most of them probably don't even know that we are gay.  But Joel figures it out.  Although he claims to be straight, he asked us to teach him and his friend Max "how gay guys have sex."

Yuri and I teach him about gay kissing.





August 2001

I've completed my Ph.D., and I'm visiting Rock Island for a few days just before moving to Florida.  Joel is a cute 15 year old with short black hair, pale skin, and nicely rounded biceps.  Nazarenes aren't allowed to listen to "the devil's music," basically anything with guitars, but he likes Weezer, Nickelback, and other groups that I never heard of, but sound loud.

Oddly, ,my brother doesn't forbid it.  "It's his life," Kenny says.  "If he likes the devil's music, that's on him."

Joel asks why I didn't bring Yuri.  "You guys are, like, hot together, aren't you?"

Ken glares at me, accusing me of outing myself to his son.  "Boomer has a lot of friends, all kinds," he explains.  "Black, white, Jewish, Muslim, gay, straight.  He's so liberal, it hurts."



December 2001

It's only been six months since I saw him last, and the transformation is amazing.  Joel is a surly 15-year old, dressed all in black, who protests the "capitalist spending frenzy" of Christmas.  He spends most of his time in his room, listening to metal music.  He emerges to eat a bowl of Lucky Charms instead of Christmas dinner, and to ask "So, Uncle Gizmo, are the beach boys hot down in Florida?  I bet you get tons of action."

In front of the whole family, including relatives I wasn't out to!

"Um...well, I do ok," I stammer.

Later I ask Kenny if Joel is gay.

"Nope, nope, nope!" Kenny exclaims.  "He's totally hot for girls.  He's got a little gay friend, but that doesn't mean a thing."


June 2003

Maybe Kenny is angry about my accidental outing, or maybe he's just busy, but he doesn't invite me to Christmas in Rock Island in 2002. I don't visit again until June 2003.

Joel has just turned 17.  He has green hair, earrings,  and a pierced lip.  He gives me a hug and calls me "Beach Boy,"

He just got back from Hardcore Fest, where he heard Walls Of Jericho, Suicide Note, Saved By Grace, As We Speak, Provoke, How It Ends, Devastator, Preacher Gone To Texas, Blood In Blood Out, Too Pure To Die, For Death or Glory, Wings Of Scarlet, Uphold, Begin Again, King of Clubz, Pound for Pound, Undo Tomorrow, Haunted Life and Butt Lynt.

"Sounds like a great lineup," I tell him. I've never heard of any of them.

And naturally he's the lead vocalist in his own punk band, The Dead Eunuchs.

June 2004

Joel has a bright red mohawk and a nose ring.  The Dead Eunuchs has been performing all over the Quad Cities.  Tonight they have a gig at the Rusty Nail in Davenport.

"You should come," Joel says.  "We play a great set."

Well -- I'm not much for punk music in noisy heterosexual bars. "I don't think..."

 "You'll like one of our songs.  It's called 'My Uncle's Queer.'"


My face begins to burn.  Is Joel outing me in front of roomsful of drunken heterosexual rednecks?  "Queer?  Sounds homophobic!" I exclaim.

"The Dead Eunuchs are opposed to racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, fascism, capitalism, brutality, and the police state," Joel recites.  "It's right there on our MySpace page. Come Saturday night.  You'll find out."

It's a small club with a bar and grille and a little stage.  About 20 people in the audience, some rednecks, but mostly bohemians of all shapes and sizes.  The Dead Eunuchs, five guys in their late teens or early 20s, perform in mohawks, shirtless (nice abs), with lots of crotch-grabbing and pretending to lick each other.

Their songs are the standard punk "life is meaningless" shtick, until they come to "My Uncle's Queer."

As far as I can tell from the screeching, the lyrics are:

My uncle's queer, you heard me right!
He won't tell Dad, he's scared to fight!
Break the system, break the wall,
Press your cock against my balls.
We're all dying from the fear
Inside out, everybody's queer!

Not very complementary, but at least it's inclusive.

Guitar riff, and then the second verse:


My sister kissed a dyke for [?],
My brother sucked a stud for Jesus
We all got cocks, we all got balls,
We all got faces pressed to the wall.
I am queer!  You are queer!
Hear that preacher, the world is queer!

"Nice inclusive message," I tell Joel later as he sits, shirtless and sweat-soaked, at my booth eating a hamburger.   "But not entirely accurate.  I've been out to your Dad since high school.  He was the first one I told when I figured it out."

"The song isn't about you.  It's about everybody who's afraid to be who they are."

I hesitate about asking if Joel is really "queer" or not -- it would be contrary to his message of solidarity.

And no, he never invites me to "press my cock against his balls."  

The Boy with Soft Hands

When I was growing up in Rock Island, Huey (not his real name) was one of my brother Kenny's friends.  Short, brown-skinned, a rarity among the pale Swedes and Germans of Rock Island, chubby, with black hair and soft black eyes, soft all over.  I especially remember his square soft hands with stubby fingers.

This story has been moved to RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

My Night and Day with Sammy Blowfish

Mount Vernon, Iowa, July 2003

In the summer of 2003, I visited my old speech teacher, Mr. Lundquist, aka Mr. Blowfish, in Washington, Iowa.  I ended up asking my sister-in-law if I could borrow her car for another day, then driving an hour north to Mount Vernon, Iowa, to spend the night with his son, Sam.

Well, Sam was extremely hot: shorter than me, dark skin, red hair, and a tight, lean physique.

Besides, I was suffering from Florida's dearth of Asian men, and Sam was Asian (actually half Vietnamese, half Swedish)..

Besides, he had just taken a tenure track job at a small college in the heart of the Straight World.  I sensed that this might be my future, and I wanted to see what it was like.

He had literally just moved in to his apartment in someone's house a few blocks from the campus.  We had to walk through a clutter of boxes to get to the bedroom, where the bed was unmade and the lamps were sitting on the floor.

"Sorry about the mess," he said, wrapping his arms around me.  "When you drive down to spend the day with your Dad and brothers, you don't really expect to bring someone home."

Sam was very energetic and very passionate -- maybe too passionate.  We didn't get much sleep that night -- every time I dozed off, he would initiate another session.  Of course, he was 26 years old, but still, it seemed odd.

In the morning he took me to breakfast at a weird diner stuck in the 1950s, where scruffy men in overalls ordered things like "The Farm Boy": 3 eggs, 3 slices of bacon, 3 sausage links, hash browns, pancakes, and toast.  He tried to grab my crotch under the table, but I pushed his hand away.

Then we toured downtown -- 3 blocks of depressing brown brick buildings, mostly bars and small, deserted boutiques -- and the campus -- more of the same.

"Why Cornell College?" I asked.

"Well, I wanted a liberal arts college where I could really get to know the students.  And I'm basically going to be the entire art history program.  This year I'm teaching Italian Renaissance, Asian, and Precolumbian.   Try doing that at Stanford."

"Did you get an offer from Stanford?"

"Actually, my only other offer was in Utah.  Mormon country, full of rattlesnakes and homophobes!  Cornell is much more gay-friendly."

"But does it have a gay presence?"

"Um...I don't think so.  There's a gay bar in Cedar Rapids, about 20 miles away."

"20 miles isn't bad."  I didn't have the heart to tell him that I lived a 3-block walk from a dozen gay bars, restaurants, beaches, and boutiques.

"Besides, Des Moines is only 2 hours away, and Chicago is 4 hours.  I'll be driving to one or the other every weekend."

We both knew that he wouldn't -- once the semester began, he'd be too busy, or the weather would be too bad.  On most weekends, he'd be stuck in Mount Vernon.

Next Sam took me to his office, which was very nice, with real bookcases and a window looking out onto the quad -- actually, an alley, but if you stood right up against it and looked to your left, you could see the King Chapel.

He shut the door, drew me close, and started kissing me.

"Hey, wait -- this is your office!" I exclaimed, shocked.  "Anybody could walk in at any moment."  Besides, I was sweaty from walking around the campus on the second-hottest day of the year.

"Come on, it's Sunday -- there's nobody around," he murmured, nuzzling my neck.  He started to unzip my pants.

I've spent my whole life on college campuses, as student and professor.  But that was the first time I actually had a sexual encounter in a professor's office.

Sam drove us into Cedar Rapids that afternoon.  It was more of a city: there was a nice Vietnamese Restaurant, a nice park with jogging trails -- he tried to go down on me on the jogging trail, but I refused -- and an art museum that specialized in the work of Grant Wood.

He suggested that we finish the day in Cedar Rapid's one gay bar, but I was tired from lack of sleep, so we went back to his apartment in Mount Vernon and watched a movie instead.

Followed by another night of outrageously energetic bedroom calisthenics and another gut-buster breakfast.

"How long are you going to be in the area?" Sam asked.

"My flight to Fort Lauderdale is on Wednesday."

"Great, that gives us three more days...."

He wanted me to spend the rest of my visit with him?  But -- I came back to the Midwest to visit my family and friends! "Well, I have to get my sister-in-law's car back."

"No problem.  I'll follow you to Rock Island, you can drop off the car, and then we'll drive back."

"Um...it's about 70 miles."

"I don't mind...in the country, you have to drive a lot."

"Besides, I need to get to the gym," I continued.

"You can use the campus gym as my guest."

Suddenly I realized what was happening: Sam had latched onto me as an escape from Straight World isolation and tedium. If I didn't act fast, I would become "the boyfriend."  He might even ask me to stay in Mount Vernon.   "I have a better idea.  Let's spend the day in Rock Island -- I want to introduce you to some friends of mine.  I just have to make a couple of phone calls first."

After we worked out, Sam followed me to Rock Island, where we dropped off the car and toured all the old sights of his childhood.  In the evening we had dinner with Dick, my old bully, now a muscle bear in his 40s, and his partner Jack.

A night of energetic sharing followed.

The next day he drove back to Mount Vernon with their phone number in his pocket and an invitation to visit anytime.

And I got to visit my family and friends.

See: Mount Vernon Muscle on A Gay Guide to Small Town America.

Captain Ernie and his First Mate

 

Back before Nickelodeon, the Disney Channel, Netflix, and DVDs, you got your dose of kids' tv in two places:

1. On a sugar-rush five hours of cartoons every Saturday morning.

2. Weekdays after school, on local kids' tv shows hosted by an army of clowns, hobos, cowboys, and pirates.

The Quad Cities was on the Mississippi River, so we had Captain Ernie's Cartoon Showboat.

The tall, commanding Captain Ernie (Ernie Mims) stood on the deck of the Dixie Belle, to announce Bugs Bunny and Hanna Barbara cartoons and Three Stooges shorts.  Then he opened his "Treasure Chest" and passed out prizes to the kids in the studio audience.

When I was in fourth grade, my boyfriend Bill and I were in the audience.  I got a plastic "pirate cape," and he got a cardboard sword.

The cartoons and prizes weren't the only attraction: Captain Ernie was cute, with squarish hands, a hairy chest, and a pleasant suggestion of muscle.

Sometimes he performed skits with his "First Mate," Sidney.

I didn't know what a "first mate" was, but it was obvious that Captain Ernie and Sidney lived together on the Dixie Belle, and neither had girlfriends or wives.  Obviously a gay couple!

I found out that they weren't really a couple in fourth grade: one of the kids in my class at Denkmann was Captain Ernie's nephew.  Turns out Ernie Mims had a wife and kids after all, and Sidney was just an intern, a student at the Palmer College of Chiropractic, up the street from WOC TV.

Still, many of the iconic moments of my childhood took place in front of Cartoon Showboat, or with Captain Ernie: a local celebrity, he appeared at the Celtic Festival, the Bix Beiderbecke Jazz Festival, the Pow Wow, the annual Christmas parade, and various ribbon-cuttings and supermarket openings.

During the 1970s, our first PBS station brought the competition of the kinder, gentler Mr. Roger's Neighborhood and frenetic but non-violent Sesame Street, and in 1974 Cartoon Showboat was cancelled.  By that time, I was in junior high, too old to watch.

Ernie Mims went on to become the weatherman.

The last time I saw him was in the spring of 1979, during my freshman year of college  I was working at the Carousel Snack Bar when Captain Ernie -- not in character -- came up and ordered an ice cream cone.

As I passed it to him, our hands touched.

I wanted to say "Thanks for a great childhood," but I played it cool.

I Cheat on My Boyfriend with a Goblin

Davenport, Iowa, March 1980

In December 1979, when I was a sophomore at Augustana College, I got my first actual boyfriend: Fred, 27 years old, a graduate of McCormick Theological Seminary taking his internship year at the First United Methodist Church in Rock Island.

After Christmas I started spending two or three evenings a week with Fred -- dinner (he cooked), tv, and sex, then rushing home at 11:00 pm to tell my parents I had been studying late at the library.

By March  I had introduced them to Fred, and was openly spending the night on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday.

In June we moved to Omaha together.  After an execrable six weeks, we broke up, but stayed friends for the rest of his life.

Fred actually was from the Quad Cities, or nearby; he grew up in the small town of Aledo, about 30 miles south, and got his undergraduate degree in psychology at Knox College in Galesburg.  He was still in contact with several of his Quad Cities friends, some that knew he was gay, some that didn't.

One who did was Dale Schaefer-Shit (his real name, except for the shit part), a nasty little goblin, about 3 feet high, with a very thick, heavy torso, very long, hairy arms, long sharp claws, an ugly, warty face, pointy ears, green skin, prehensile toes, a tail...

 Ok, he looked more like the top photo: Fred's age, tall, buffed, with a black beard and a hairy chest. But I always imagined him as a goblin.

I arrived at Fred's apartment, across the river in Davenport, about 4:30 pm -- dinner was at 5:00 pm, standard for the Midwest -- and at least once a week, often more than that, Dale Schaefer-Shit was there.  Apparently he  had some sort of late-night goblin job with the city, so he got up around 2:00 pm, and came to visit Fred in the late afternoon to do morning-type activities.

Sometimes he was sitting at the kitchen table, slurping on Cheerios.

Sometimes he was on the couch, watching Captain Ernie's Cartoon Showboat.  

Sometimes he was coming out of the bathroom, toweling off after a shower, naked, his hairy chest glistening, his cock and balls dangling between his legs.

I should have been turned on, but I wasn't.  Seeing Dale Schaefer-Shit made me angry.  I could be in a perfectly good mood, on top of the world, but when I walked in and saw the goblin, my hackles raised.  There was just something about him that seemed unclean, disturbing.  Evil.

I do not love thee, Doctor Fell.
The reason why, I cannot tell.
But this one thing, I know full well.
I do not love thee, Doctor Fell.

Apparently the feeling was mutual.  Dale Schaefer-Shit rarely spoke to me.  Usually he pretended I wasn't in the room.  And he never stuck around long after I arrived.  He said "See ya, Flintstone" to Fred, flashed me an evil smile, and slithered off to do nasty goblin things.

Where did Fred, the ministerial intern, the theologian, the trained pastoral counselor, even meet that creepy little gremlin?

"He's my oldest friend.  We grew up together.  We were both in the same Cub Scout troop.  We went to sleepovers together, and trick-or-treating on Halloween."

With that face, he must have gotten a lot of candy...

"We called each other Flintstone and Rubble, because my name is Fred.  He's the first one I told when I realized that I was gay."

I get it...he was your shadow-self, the yang to your yin, the darkness to your light, the squirrelly  snivelly Gollum to your Frodo.

"Well, he strikes me as...um.."  A nasty little gremlim!  "As sort of creepy."

"He's a little on the shy side, but he's a good guy, really."

One wet, blustery day in March, before we took our trip to Des Moines to visit the Priest with Three Boyfriends,  I arrived at the apartment to find Dale Schaefer-Shit sitting on the couch under a blanket, shirtless, eating cereal and...reading one of Fred's Playgirl magazines!

"Um...hi..."  I said tentatively.

"Fred's not here -- something held him up."  He laughed at a secret joke.  "Sit down.  Want some blanket?"

I couldn't think of any way around it, so I kicked off my shoes, threw my raincoat on the floor, and sat down next to Dale Schaefer-Shit.  I pulled the blanket over my legs. He slurped down the rest of his cereal and put the bowl aside.

"Hey, Boomer maybe you can help me.  I've always wondered about something, and Fred's too square to talk about it.  What do gay guys do in bed?  Like rub your cocks together?"

I should have said "None of your business," but Dale Schaefer-Shit had dark mystical powers.  I don't think I had a choice.  "Sometimes we do that. Fred's favorite thing is Greek, which is plowing into your butt, but he's too big for me.  I like French, which means giving the guy a b.j."

He flashed an evil grin.  "No kidding?  You suck his cock? Well, I see why Fred likes that, but what do you like about it?"  I felt a hairy leg brush against mine.  Schaefer-Shit was wearing short pants -- or naked...

Startled, and inexplicably getting aroused, I stammered "Um...I get a lot out of it.  It's totally erotic...getting a guy off."

"Yeah?  Cool!  I've got blow jobs before, with girls, but I never gave one."  He grabbed my hand under the blanket and pushed it against his naked, hairy cock.  I instinctively began masturbating him.

"I'll bet gay guys do it better, though.  You know what it feels like."  He grabbed me by the neck and pushed me down toward his crotch.

I hadn't yet learned about the custom of sharing, and besides, I couldn't stand the little goblin.  But I moved like in dream, depersonalized, watching the events from above.

I got on my knees, stuck my head under the blanket, and took Schaefer-Shit's goblin dick down my throat.  It was  average sized but hard as a rock, and covered with short hairs, like it had just been shaved.

It wasn't pleasant -- like having a hairy rock prodding at me -- so after awhile I moved on to his balls.  They were huge, what they used to call "bull balls."

 I licked and sucked them -- one was a mouthful -- while beating him off, then returned to his cock in time for him to excrete a mouthful of lukewarm, salty goblin semen.

He pulled his pants up and found his shirt, and I returned to my place next to him on the couch.  We turned on the tv and watched a game show wordlessly.  Gradually my will power returned, and I realized that I had just sucked the cock of a vile little goblin.

"Don't tell Fred about this," I said, my eyes on the screen.

"Oh, no problem.  I can keep a secret.  I'm full of secrets."

Soon Fred appeared, carrying a grocery bag.  "You guys been watching tv?" he asked suspiciously.

"I've been keeping Boomer warm for you," Schaefer-Shit said. "But now I have to go to work.  See ya, Flintstone."

"Bye, Rubble."

The next time I saw him, the little goblin went back to his habit of ignoring me.

Good.

In June we moved to Omaha, and after six weeks Fred and I broke up.  I never saw or heard about Dale Schaefer-Shit again.

Good.

I never told Fred what happened that day.

Good.

Many years later, Fred revealed that he had been cheating on me with Schaefer-Shit.  Those times I ran into the little snivelly creep coming out of the shower, he had just been in the bedroom, being screwed by my boyfriend. 

I didn't blame Fred.  Schaefer-Shit had some kind of weird dark magic, and could get you to do what he wanted.

"Sometimes I didn't have a chance to clean up afterwards," Fred added, "So when you went down on me later, my cock had been inside...well, you know."

Yeah, I know.  Inside a goblin's butt.

My Boyfriend Bill Grows Up

Remember my first boyfriend, Bill, from Denkmann Elementary School?  We were inseparable for three years, walking to and from school, watching Captain Ernie's Cartoon Showboat, reading comic books, inviting cute boys over for sleepovers.

We had our own gang -- me, Bill, Joel, and Greg -- who liked looking at men with muscles.

I have lots of good stories about Bill:

The naked Indian god at the pow wow.

The time we went to A Little Bit O'Heaven for my birthday trip, expecting statues of naked Greek gods?

The time we got Dad upset by claiming to be a Mama and a Papa.

We stayed friends in junior high, but we drifted apart into other interests and social circles.

The last time I was at his house was for a Halloween party in tenth grade, probably October 31st, 1975.  I spent most of the evening talking to his big brother Mike, who used to call me "Bud" and drive us places.

The last time I saw Bill was during 12th grade, probably March or April 1978, when we visited David Angel in the mental hospital.  He thought we were a couple.  We laughed it off as ridiculous.



The years passed: Augustana College, Indiana University,  Texas, West Hollywood, San Francisco.
I didn't hear anything from or about Bill, though I often spoke of him as my first boyfriend.

The years passed: New York, Florida, Ohio, Upstate New York.  I started a blog about my childhood memories, and recorded all of my Bill stories.

I tried to look him up, but none of the high school or college friends that I was still in contact with remembered him, and he had a common name, impossible to google.

Before I knew it, I was 54 years old.  Nearly 40 years had passed since the day Bill and I visited David Angel.

Then out of nowhere I got a friend request from him on Facebook.

Eagerly I scoped out his Facebook profile.

Where was he living?  Reno, Nevada
What was his job?  Restaurant manager.

Most importantly, was he gay?  Were my memories real, or a misinterpretation of a straight boy's friendship?

Status: single.
Favorite TV shows: Breaking Bad, Lost, CSI.  
Favorite movies: Back to the Future, Men in Black, Star Wars
Favorite music: R.E.M., The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jefferson Airplane

Didn't tell me anything.  But then, my facebook profile is also vague.

Time for our first chat in 40 years.

We exchanged life histories in that stilted, obituary style that you use when reconnecting with someone after many years.  He studied culinary arts at Black Hawk College, then worked as a chef at Jumer's Castle Lodge, across the river in Bettendorf.  During the 1990s, he opened a restaurant near the resort of Wisconsin Dells.  It went bankrupt after the stock market downturn of 2004, and he moved to Reno, Nevada, where he now manages all of the restaurants in one of the casinos.

"But I've dabbled in other businesses, too," he continued.  "In 1999 I became co-owner of a strip club in Moline, out by the airport."

My heart sank.  A strip club?  Straight!

"I insisted that we were equal opportunity," Bill said.  "We had male strippers on Tuesday nights."

"I've been there!" I exclaimed.  "Christmastime 1999 or 2000.  On male stripper night.  I saw my old Sunday school teacher's sons, Mickey and Dom!"

If Bill noticed that I had just outed myself, he didn't let on.  "Sure, I remember them.  College boy act.  Very good, very professional, and they had the goods.  I always auditioned the strippers personally, to make sure they were up to speed."

"Men and women both?"

"Of course!  I have a pretty good eye for beauty, as you saw with Mickey and Dom."

Bisexual?  Or straight and nonchalant about gay people?

"What about romances?" I asked.  "Any long-term relationships?"

"I was married for 15 years.  We had an open relationship, though. We both saw other people.  Since then I've been single."

Bisexual?  Or straight?

"But what about you?" Bill asked.  "Any boyfriends, lovers, husbands?  After Dan at Washington Junior High, I mean."

Boyfriends, lovers, husbands -- he knew about me!  And he interpreted my friendship with Dan as a romance.  

I told him about Fred the Ministerial Student in college, Raul and my celebrity boyfriend in West Hollywood, 10 years with Lane, 5 years with Troy. 7 years with Yuri (we were friends, but closer than many lovers).

"You've been busy!" Bill exclaimed.  "Me too.  I'm single but not lonely.  I can still attract the hotties -- look."

He sent me a nude photo.  

It was eerie looking at Bill's face again after 40 years.  He was a little chunky, with a muscular, slightly hairy chest and big biceps.  

In all of our sleepovers, I never saw Bill nude.  He was a little small beneath the belt, uncut.  

"Hot!" I told him.

"Thanks.  It gets me a lot of action."

Ok, still noncommittal.  Time to ask.

"Action with men or women?"

Bill didn't hesitate.  "Oh, men, of course.  Women are nice and all -- I wouldn't kick Scarlett Johansson out of bed -- but at the end of the day you really want two muscular arms around you and a baseball bat pressing against your leg.  We knew that back in third grade, didn't we?"

"All but the baseball bat part.  I didn't figure that out until after high school."

"Well, I was precocious.  I started getting busy in 10th grade.  Remember Aaron, the Rabbi's son?  And Tyrone, on the football team?  And what about that cutie who played the violin...what was his name?"

"Todd."  Had he gone to bed with everyone I had a crush on?

We should have stayed friends.  It would have made high school a lot more fun.

Bill died recently.  One of our last chats on Facebook was his memory of the day we became a Mama and a Papa at the A&W Restaurant.

A Ginger Boy for Christmas

Wednesday, December 24, 1986:

I'm 26 years old. living in West Hollywood, but back in Rock Island for the holidays.  After the traditional Christmas Eve pizza and gift-unwrapping, at my parents' house,  Fred picks me up.

He's my ex-boyfriend, 34, tall, athletic, with a stern, rugged face, a smooth chest, and impressive beneath-the-belt gifts.

When we met, he was student clergy.  During my sophomore year in college, he got a church assignment, and talked me into moving to Omaha with him.  I lasted for a miserable month.  Now he's working as a mental health counselor in Kansas City.

He's  home for the holidays, staying at his parents' farmhouse, about 30 miles south of Rock Island.

We're going to spend the night together, and then have the traditional Christmas morning breakfast and present-unwrapping at his house.

"I told my parents you might have a friend with you," Fred tells me.  "I didn't know if you were bringing Raul home from West Hollywood."

"We broke up a couple of weeks ago, so I'm single again.  I just met [My Celebrity Boyfriend], but we haven't arranged a date yet."

"That's ok.  Who knows?  You might make a friend tonight!"

"I'd rather have you to myself.  We haven't seen each other since last Christmas."  We may be broken up, but Fred is enormously attractive, and I'm feeling especially vulnerable tonight.

"So we'll share.  That's all the rage in West Hollywood, right?"

We go out to JR's, the biggest of Rock Island's 3 gay bars, a sort of country-western disco.  It draws both gay men and lesbians.

It's crowded.  A lot of people home for the holidays and trying to escape from their crazy fundamentalist relatives.  I grew up in Rock Island, but I don't see any of my old high school friends.

But Fred does.  "Hey, I knew that guy!" he exclaims, gesturing at a short, rather buffed ginger guy in a black lumberjack shirt [top photo].  "Scotty, from high school!  He was a few years younger than me, my little brother's age. Cute!  I had no idea he was gay!"

"Did he knew that you were?"

He grinned.  "Let's go find out."

"Well, I was hoping..."

Scotty says that he doesn't remember Fred at all -- even in a small high school, there are rigid barriers between classes. But he is happy to reunite.

Like us, Scotty is back in Rock Island spending Christmas with his family.  He is doing some kind of marketing work for Hallmark Cards in Kansas City.

"What a coincidence!" Fred exclaims.  "I'm in Kansas City, too.  A counselor at Prairie Ridge [Psychiatric Hospital]."

"You should get together after the holidays,"  I suggest.

"Or now," Fred said, fondling Scotty's chest.  "I told my parents I would be having a friend spend the night."

"If you don't mind two of us," I added.

Scotty seem to see me for the first time.  "Oh, no, two is great."

So I get to watch while Fred and Scotty become re-acquainted in the attic of his parents' farmhouse.  Scotty has a nice, tight physique, smooth, hairless, and a thick cut Bratwurst, but I don't get a chance to do much with it.  Or with Fred, for that matter.  They're attached to each other the whole night.

In the morning, we have breakfast and open Christmas presents.  Fred's parents think that Scotty is my boyfriend Raul, and ask him about his Hispanic heritage.

I don't know if Fred and Scotty date back in Kansas City or not.  I don't hear from him again except for brief post cards for over a year, when he appears outside the French Quarter with Matt the Cute Young Thing.

Monday, December 24th, 1990

I'm 30 years old, living with Lane.  He can't get off work for two weeks (and doesn't want to leave West Hollywood)., so I'm back in Rock Island alone, free to cruise other guys, as long as I bring a close friend along.

After our traditional Christmas Eve pizza and present unwrapping, Dick picks me up.

He's my old grade school bully, now my only gay friend in Rock Island: tall, tan, thickly-muscled, with a gigantic Kielbasa+ beneath the belt.  We always get together when I'm in town at Christmastime and during the summer, sometimes for dinner, sometimes to spend the night.

We rarely cruise together, but Dick has just broken up with his boyfriend (I'm not the only one who has relationship problems at Christmas).  So he's anxious to meet someone, and suggests JR's.  But he doesn't want to leave me out: "You can spend the night too, of course.  Whichever of us meets someone, the other will share, ok?"

"Sure, sounds great."

We go to JR's.  It's crowded again.  Dick chats with a couple of guys he knows, and I scan the room.

There's Scotty the Ginger Boy again!  A little older, of course, with longer hair and a short red beard.  I take Dick's arm.  "Hey, I know that guy!  Fred and I hooked up with him a few years ago."

"Not bad, not bad.  How was he in the sack?"

"Well, I don't know, really.  He and Fred were so into each other that I hardly got my mouth on anything of his.  Or Fred's.  And I had been looking forward to being with Fred again for weeks."

Dick laughs.  "Sounds awful.  How about an instant replay?  But this time, I'll see to it you have a place to put your mouth.  Leave it all to me."

We walk over and start talking to Scott, who doesn't remember me until I mention Fred.  No, they didn't stay in contact in Kansas City.  He got busy, you know?

This guy is a bit of a jerk.

But Dick is working his magic, and within a few minutes, Scotty has agreed to come home with him.

"Boomer will be there too, of course.  You're into both of us, right?"

"Who?" Scotty asks, confused.

I raise my hand.  "Remember me from your night with Fred?"

"Oh, sure, two of you will be fine," he murmurs.

Now this guy is totally into Dick.  How am I going to get any activity?

 We go back to Dick's house, across the street from Denkmann School, go into the bedroom, and strip.

Scotty tries to kiss Dick, but instead Dick kneels and goes down on me.  And stays there. No matter how much Scotty tries to draw him to his feet.  Finally Scotty lies down on the bed, and I get to kiss and go down on him, while Dick stays firmly attached to me.

 "Hey, could I get some of that?" Scotty asks, grabbing at Dick's enormous Kielbasa.

"Sure, be my guest."  Dick moves up, lies on his stomach, and starts kissing me.  Scotty isn't into anal, so he has no place to go but onto me.

We fall asleep in each other's arms, with Scotty between us.  I have access to him all night.

The best Christmas gift ever.  And don't feel sorry for Scotty -- he got a lot of action.

See also: Topped by the Mayor; The Muscle Bear with the Pierced Penis

The Boy on the Prospect List

 

When I was growing up in Rock Island,  anyone who set foot inside the Nazarene Church for any reason, but didn't "get saved" and become a member, was placed on the Prospect List.

Even if they just came for Vacation Bible School, or to cheer for a friend at a Jump Quiz Tournament.

They stayed on that list forever, unless they asked to be removed or the Church Board decided to purge the list of names from many years ago.

Every August, about a month before the fall revival, our Sunday school teacher gave each of us the contact information for 10 age- and -gender appropriate Prospects.  We were supposed to make it our business to "win them for the Lord," or at least invite them to church.

During the next month, we received 1 point for each Prospect that we prayed for, 2 points for each letter or post card, 5 points for each telephone call, and 10 points for each in-person visit, plus an extra 10 point if they actually came to church.

You might think that the Prospects would be buried in letters or harassed by constantly-ringing telephones, but in fact most people settled for prayer. It's a daunting prospect to cold-call someone you don't know, who has been to your church just once.

During the fall revival, the kid, teenager, and adult with the most points received awards, usually Bibles, while the whole congregation clapped and yelled "Amen!"

During the summer after 5th grade, the first year I was eligible, I wimped out with "prayer only."

In 6th grade,  I sent a few post cards.

In 7th grade, I tried phone calls, only to get two "wrong numbers" (which didn't count) and one "You made a mistake -- I never went to that church."

During the summer after 8th grade, I decided to go all the way with a personal visit.

I was fascinated by a name that appeared on the Prospect List every year: Francis DePew, who came to Vacation Bible School one summer, but never appeared again. He was in the same grade as me, and he lived on the Hill, but he didn't go to Washington Junior High.

That meant he went to Jordan Catholic School!

The full story, with nude photos, is on Righteous Gemstones Beefcake and Boyfriends

My Hookup with the Son of Mr. Blowfish

Washington, Iowa, August 2003

The class I hated the most in high school was Public Speaking.  I didn't mind the speaking -- it was rather fun having an audience.  But the teacher, Mr. Blowfish!

Actually Mr. Lundquist, he was a prissy, snippy, ultra-swishy little gordito, balding, with a villain goatee, who lived to impress upon students that they were worthless.  He swept over the classroom, making condescending, sarcastic, and insulting remarks in his overmodulated, oversophisticated voice.

"Try speaking English.  Eng-Lish!"
"I have an idea.  Let's try to get it right."
"You can't be that stupid.  You must be putting me on."
"God, your parents must have been morons, to have you."

More than one student was reduced to tears, whereupon Mr. Blowfish would sneer "It's called real life.  Get used to it."

The whole class hated him.

I remember one piece of advice he gave us: When you're invited to a party, find out who's coming, and research their interests, so you'll have something to talk about.

Wait -- this miserable, mean-spirited little troll was invited to parties?

I eked by his class with a C-, which was pretty good.  No one got higher than a C, except for the two A's given to girls who, we assumed, were his relatives.

When I figured "it" out, the summer after my high school graduation, I realized that he was the first gay person I ever met.  A gay hint in junior high speech class!

The years passed.  I graduated from high school, moved to West Hollywood, then New York, then Florida.  When I came back to Rock Island to visit, I asked around the gay community.  No one had ever heard of Mr. Blowfish...um, I mean Lundquist.

Still, the little Truman Capote wannabe must be gay.  Nobody straight was that swishy.

Back in Rock Island in the summer of 2003, I finally found Mr. Blowfish: he was retired, living in Washington, Iowa, about 70 miles away.

Now, finally, I could find out if he was actually gay or just a swish!

I called and gushed, "You were my favorite teacher in high school!"

Naturally I got an invitation to visit.

On the hottest day of the year, I drove my sister-in-law's car to Washington, to a very nice grey-brick house with dormer windows.

27 years had passed since I took Mr. Blowfish's class, but still, I recognized the man who answered the door: a fat, bearded bear in his sixties, wearing only a swimsuit and flip-flops.  I saw a mass of thick white hair on the man-boobs of his chest.  I couldn't see a basket.

"Mr. Davis, how nice to see you again!" he said, offering a limp handshake.

"Dr. Davis, now."

"I know, I know!  Isn't that marvelous, even if you did go to a third-rate school!  You must be using the skills I taught you every day, or do you hide behind those dreary  -- what-do-you-call-it -- Powerpoint presentations?"

"Sometimes," I admitted.

"Cover-up for academic incompetence, I always say.  Well, why don't we go out to the back?  It's such a nice day."

Mr. Blowfish led me to the back yard, where there were lawn chairs, a little white table stocked with a pitcher of lemonade, and a children's wading pool amid miscellaneous toys.

My heart sank.  If he had kids, he couldn't be gay.  "Are those toys for the neighborhood kids?" I asked tentatively.

"Oh, those belong to the grandkids.  My boys are visiting just now.  No matter where they're living, they always visit at the same time -- safety in numbers, they say.  Stick around for a bit, and you'll meet them."

He sat his lawn chair, took off his flip-flops, and plopped his feet in the kiddie pool.  "Oh, feel free to take off your shoes.  And your shirt, too.  You obviously spend a lot of time in the gym trying to forestall the ravages of age, so you might as well show off the results."

I took my shirt off, to see if his eyes widened.  They didn't.  "So, how old are your boys?" I asked, still trying to salvage my lifelong belief that Mr. Blowfish was gay.

"Oh, Thanh is 32 now.   He was born just a couple of years after my late wife and I left Viet Nam. He lives in Des Moines, doing something idiotic with computers. Louie is 28.  He lives in Michigan.  He could have been a doctor, but he chose the stupid path, conducting low-paying research."

So Mr. Blowfish fought in Viet Nam?  I couldn't imagine it.  And when I was in high school, he spent his days berating, demeaning, and otherwise terrorizing his students, then going home to hold his five-year old and one-year old sons on his lap.  Named Thanh and Louie Lundquist.  The image was bizarre.

"...and Sam is 26.  He just got a tenure-track position in art history at Cornell College.  Not the good school -- the dinky one up by Iowa City. I told him to set his sights a little higher, but he chose the liberal arts. Now, I ask you, what good has lecturing on Rembrandt ever done the world?"

After about fifteen minutes of similar put-downs, there there was a roaring in the front of the house, and the back yard exploded with people and dogs and a flurry of voices.

"Grandpa, Uncle Sammy bought me an alligator!"

"We got ice cream, but we're still hungry for hot dogs!"

"Gross, your feet are in our swimming pool!"

After the introductions, Thanh and Louie set up for grilling hot dogs and hamburgers, their wives busied themselves with salads and pie, their four kids and three dogs roughhoused, and Mr. Lundquist yelled for everyone to keep out of his flower bed.  The youngest son, Sam, the one who lectured on Rembrandt, invited me for a walk down the silent, sizzling hot streets of Washington.  His eye-widening was unmistakable.

Yep, gay, not out to his family, but he was sure that they knew.  No one had inquired about a "girlfriend" for years.

"Was Dad really your favorite teacher?" he asked.  "A lot of people are turned off by his perfectionism."

"Well, maybe not my favorite.  But I thought he was gay, so we had kind of a kindred spirit."

"You thought Dad was gay?"  Laughing, he squeezed my shoulder.  "That's so bizarre!  After Mom died he was out with a different lady every night!  He always said that his three favorite things in life were wine, women, and...women."

"Mr. Blowfish...I mean Mr. Lundquist was a little swishy in class.  A lot swishy, actually."

"You called him Mr. Blowfish!  I love it!  Because you thought he liked...um...going down on guys?"

"No, no, because of his looks.  I never thought of that other connotation -- until now."

Sam smiled, and briefly touched my hand.   "That will be my nickname from now on -- Sammy Blowfish.  Apropos of nothing in particular, are you busy later?"

I ended up asking my sister-in-law if I could keep her car out overnight, and then driving home to Cornell with Sammy.

He was short, slim, dark-skinned, with a beautiful physique and nice beneath-the-belt gifts. And he lived up to the Blowfish nickname.

This story continues in Son of Mr. Blowfish

See also: I hook up with my "Uncle"; Getting the Chinese Delivery Guy into my Bed.

Sausage Sighting of My Parents' Contractor

Rock Island, July 1989

Monday

My sister has gotten married and moved out, the last of the kids to do so, and my parents are taking advantage of the newly-empty house by remodeling.  Her bedroom will become a tv room.  The kitchen will get new cabinets.  There will be a shower in the bathroom.

First up: the kitchen.  For the next five days, we'll have to eat out for every meal.

But it will be worth it: the contractor is a buffed, tanned demigod named Tyler: about 30 years old, with a handsome model-face: black curly hair, blue eyes, square jaw, unshaven scruff of a beard.  He's wearing a blue muscle shirt that reveals  massive shoulders, a hairy chest, and thick veiny biceps.

His tight jeans reveal a bubble butt and an enormous bulge on the right side.  I'm guessing a Kielbasa.

I try starting a conversation.  He speaks mostly in monosyllables and grunts, but I gather that we went to high school together -- he graduated two years before me (which makes him 31).  He has a live-in girlfriend.  

Straight!

I quickly closet myself, saying that I live in "Los Angeles," not "West Hollywood."

That night I look Tyler up in my old yearbook.  He was a jock, a football player and a wrestler.  I worked as an athletic trainer, so I must have seen him in the locker room.  I must have gotten a sausage sighting.

But that locker room was wall-to-wall beefcake. I don't remember Tyler, or his sausage.

Well, maybe I'll get the chance now.  He'll be here for a week --  he'll have to use the bathroom sometime.


Tuesday

I discover that if I sit on the couch in the living room, I can look directly through the dining room into the kitchen, where Tyler is working on cabinets, his bubble butt moving rhythmically up and down, up and down.

I call Anky, the best man at my sister's wedding who I hooked up with a few days ago:  "You've got to see my parents' contractor!  He's incredible!"

An hour or so later, Anky stops by.  We sit on the couch, drinking lemonade, chatting, and gazing through the dining room into the kitchen at Tyler's bubble butt.  Or when he faces us, his supersized bulge shifting and throbbing and....

Once Tyler goes to the bathroom, walking through the dining room and down the hallway.  He says "Excuse me, guys," as he passes.

Anky and I look at each other.

"Should I burst in and offer him a towel?" I ask.

That night I work out and go to the bars with Dick, my old junior high bully. I tell him about the contractor's bubble butt and bulge.

"Sounds hot!" he exclaims.  "Can I watch?  I get off work at 3:00, so I could be there by 3:30."

Wednesday

Anky and Dick arrive at 3:30, with popcorn and a VHS tape. We pretend to watch Beetlejuice while gazing at Tyler as he works on cabinets and light fixtures and wall wainscoting.

He's on a high ladder, doing something in the ceiling.  Anky rushes out and grabs him by the sides, to steady him.

"Thanks, but that's not necessary."

"Oh, I insist," Anky says, grinning back at us.

I kick myself for not thinking of it first.

Thursday

Anky arrives at 3:00 with a college friend, a biology major named Wayne.  Dick arrives at 3:30 with Terence, the theater nerd he's dating.  We sit around the dining room table, where there's an even better view of Tyler's bubble butt and bulge, pretending to play Risk.

Tyler is working on something directly above the refrigerator.  I go in and clap him on the shoulder and say "Sorry to disturb you, but we need more sodas."

"No problem, fella."  He steps out of the way.  I open the refrigerator, lean down to get the sodas, and get a beautiful close-up view of Tyler's crotch.

I return to the dining room.  "Someone throw water on me," I murmur.  "I'm about to faint."

Friday

The kitchen will be finished today.  Tyler just has to do some "clean-up and trim."

Dick takes off work and arrives at 11:00, bringing not only his boyfriend but his boyfriend's ex and a middle-aged queen who I know vaguely from church.  Anky arrives with Wayne.

My mother, getting ready to leave for an afternoon of errands and shopping, looks at us suspiciously.  "Are you sure you boys wouldn't be more comfortable in the rec room?  That's what it's there for."

"Thanks," I say, 'But we're going to have lunch soon.  I'm sending Dick out to get Kentucky Fried Chicken."

She shrugs.  "Ok, but don't leave a mess up here for me to clean up."

After she leaves, the six of us sit in the living room, four on the couch and two on the floor, pretending to talk and listen to music but actually gazing at Tyler's bubble butt and crotch as he...

Walks into the living room and stands facing us....

"I don't charge extra for a show," he says.  He begins to dance to Madonna's "Express Yourself."

The shirt comes off.  We stare at his massive, hairy chest

"You should come see me at Teaser's in Iowa City on Tuesday night,  It's Ladies' Night, but I can get you in."

The pants come off, revealing black bikini briefs.  Then they come off, and his thick, meaty Kielbasa swings between his legs.

I stare, rapt, not sure if I should offer him a dollar or a blow job.

When "Express Yourself" ends, Tyler picks up his clothes from the floor and wordlessly disappears into the bathroom.  He emerges fully clothed.

"You guys have a good day," he says, returning to work..

See also: Picking Up the Best Man at My Sister's Wedding; My Sausage Sighting List

Comic Books and Cocks at the Furniture Store

This story moved to RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

Seeing a Father, Son, and Grandson Naked

Plains, April 2017

I see the Geezer in the gym a couple of times a week: in his 70s, tall, ugly, and out of shape, with thin arms, no chest, and a sagging belly.   He never lifts weights or does cardio; he hangs around the pool and sauna, reads newspapers in the lounge, and talks to his buddies about the deadly dull things heterosexuals talk about, the game last night and the bathroom remodeling and the new job of the grandson.

I could not be less interested.

But one day we were stripping down at the same time, and I got a nice view of his penis.

Horse-hung!  A good 5" soft, uncut, veiny, as thick as a beer can.  It must be a thick 10" aroused.

The best sausage sighting ever!

And, I thought, the Geezer must have had a lifetime of admirers, men and women who wanted his penis, and more, who wanted the person he was before bitterness, disappointment, poor health, and the awareness of his mortality dimmed his days and nights.

So I struck up a conversation, said I was doing research on the older guys who went to the gym (which was true), and looked for a gay connection in the Geezer's biography.   Later I did some online research.

The Geezer

In 1964, the Geezer was a University of Nebraska jock named Dave, a farmboy from a small town near Lincoln.

He was on the swim team, and won some awards.  Swimming was a lifelong passion.

There must have been homoerotic hijinks in college.  Frat parties, late night bull sessions, romantic friendships.  

The Geezer didn't mention any particular close friends.

He graduated in 1964, but was never part of the youth counterculture.  Quiet, driven, conservative, he went to work for Mutual of Omaha, the insurance company. He married his college sweetheart, and had two sons and a daughter.

Was he sneaking into the gay bars, or going to the tea rooms? 

We were neighbors!  Dave was living in Omaha in 1980, when I moved there with my first boyfriend Fred.  A 38-year old householder with a wife and three children.

But our paths never crossed. 

Apparently nothing else happened.  A life of heterosexual monotony.  House, job, vacations, holidays, kids' piano recitals, watching them, one at a time, marry and leave the house.

He retired in 2007, and moved to the Plains to be close to his grown daughter.

"What about your sons?" I asked.

"The oldest got a job in marketing.  He lives in Des Moines.  The other wanted to be an actor or a model or some such nonsense, so he moved to California.  We see him maybe once a year."

My gaydar perked up.  That was my story, too, fleeing from the cage of heteronormative expectations -- wife, job, house, kids -- for the freedom of West Hollywood. Maybe this was the Geezer's gay connection!

The Geezer's Son

The Geezer's Son, Rich, was not hard to track down.  I told him I knew his father on the Plains, and we lived in L.A. at the same time, so he was happy to reminisce.

Rich graduated from the University of Nebraska with a degree in dramatic arts in 1988, and immediately moved to Los Angeles.  He did some bodybuilding work, and some modeling and commercials.

In 1988 I was living in Los Angeles, and working for Muscle and Fitness.  Had our paths crossed?

No.  He never appeared in Muscle and Fitness.  He never posed for Mandate, or Advocate Men.  He never went to the Rage, or Basgo's, or the French Quarter, or Gay Pride Festivals.

Rich is straight.

But...he did pose for Playgirl in the early 1990s.  You can see his photo on the Adonis Men database: heavily muscled, flexing, his dark, thick penis hanging down, a good 5" soft.

He inherited his dad's beneath-the-belt gifts!

The Geezer's Son married in 1993, and abandoned his dreams of stardom.  He and his wife moved to Phoenix, Arizona, where he went to work in real estate  They had two sons and a daughter.

Nothing else happened.  Like his father, the Geezer's Son has lived a life of heterosexual monotony, with houses, yards, dogs, vacations, kids' piano recitals and football games and high school graduations.  He just celebrated his 50th birthday.

No gay connection!

Um...maybe the Geezer's grandsons?

Rich's oldest son got married right out of high school, and now has a job in construction, a house, a wife, and two kids, aged four and two.

The other is going to Augustana College in Rock Island!

My alma mater!  But why did he pick a small Lutheran college 2000 miles from home?

"I couldn't tell you," the Geezer says. "Maybe to be near family -- he's got cousins there."  

"What is he majoring in?"

"Oh, music or some such nonsense.  He's a dreamer, like his father.  Wanted to be a pop star like...what's her name...Adele?"

My gaydar goes off.

More after the break