Dating the Preacher's Son

Verne, Mark, and a guy I don't remember

Rock Island, May 1977

During my junior year at Rocky High (1976-77), most guys were obsessed with demonstrating that they were not Swishes (our word for "gay").  The best way was to become a Rock (jock), or be seen in public with one -- they hated men with muscles.

I wasn't on a team -- being an athletic trainer didn't count -- so I had no choice but the only other option: date a Rock.

But most Rocks were very busy, having sex with eight or nine girls in various combinations every night, so they had little time or energy left for boys.

 One day in November, a few weeks after my date with Todd's girlfriend, I was running around the indoor track, when I saw the preacher's son Verne (not his real name) playing one-on-one basketball in the gym be-low. Verne was a senior, so our paths rarely intersected. At school, I saw him only in the locker room after football practice, when he was anxious to get to the showers.

At church, he was always encased in a shell of fawning groupies. Practically our only contact came a couple of months ago, when I helped him Pray Through to Victory at an altar call.

As I ran, Verne finished his game. He guzzled Gatorade from a plastic bottle, then ripped off his t-shirt and collapsed, shimmering with sweat, onto the lap of a girl.  He was hugely tall, with broad shoulders, hard thick biceps, short dark hair, and dark blue, almost purple eyes.  And he was a Nazarene -- no sex allowed!  He would be perfect.

It took a week for me to bolster my courage enough to call. Even then, I dialed and hung up three times. When Verne came on the line, I said, “There’s a gospel concert on Saturday. Um. . .if you’re not, like, busy or anything. . .would you like to go?”

Verne burst into raucous laughter.

“Sorry to bother you,” I said stiffly, my face burning with humiliation.

“No – it’s ok, sorry,” Verne said. “It was just funny the way you asked. I’m busy Saturday, but what about the basketball game Friday? You can do more touching at a game, anyway. I’ll get us a couple of girls.”

I spent the rest of the evening exuberantly calling all of my friends, and wondering why do we need girls?

During the game, Verne and I sat with the girls on either side, so that our thighs and knees sometimes brushed together, and whenever the Rocks scored a point, he enveloped me in a warm, sweaty hug. Next came Alfano's for Canadian bacon and sauerkraut pizza and two pitchers of soda, one for the boys and one for the girls.

We had a lot to talk about.  Verne was taking AP Spanish and French; if it hadn't been God’s Will for him to become a preacher, he would have become a linguist.

When we dropped off Verne’s girl, he walked her to her doorstep “for safety,” but returned almost immediately, complaining that her father had left the porch light on.

My girl came next; her porch light was dark.

When I returned to the car, Verne asked “Did you get any?”'

I assumed that he meant kissing, so I said “Sure. Lots.”  I had kissed her on the cheek.

Verne and me

Verne reached over and punched my shoulder and exclaimed “Awright!” I was disappointed that he didn’t walk me to my doorstep to “get some,” but otherwise I was elated by my success.

During the winter and spring of eleventh grade, we went to a a jazz concert, the spring musical,  an orchestra banquet, two basketball games, a baseball game, hiking, jogging, tennis, and swimming.  That was more enough for us to be “going together,” though no one at Rocky High seemed to notice, referring to us only as buddies.

 Dating Verne summarily ended any suspicion that I was That Way. Even at church, people spoke to me in a civil tone.  It also ended pressure by my Crowd to date girls -- apparently Vikings were dreamy enough.

 Maybe that's why he always insisted on girls for evening dates.  He usually provided them, but twice I brought Becky, my Just Friend, and once I acquired my own, by casually saying: “Oh, and Verne will be there, too.”

At some point Verne always disappeared with his girl for ten or fifteen minutes, and on the way home he had the annoying habit of asking “Did you get any?” But these complaints were trivial; I was dating a Rock!

In May we spent a weekend camping with his friends at Starved Rock State Park at Starved Rock State Park, about 100 miles from Rock Island.

 Though we shared a tent, I avoided any repeat of the scapular incident last summer at music camp. I didn't want to discover that Verne was one of these guys who drops you the moment things get physical.  But I did get a sausage sighting.

Sausage Sighting of the Preacher's Son

Rock Island, May 1977

When I was in high school, Verne the Preacher's Son was my kind-of boyfriend (at least when there were no girls around).

Nothing erotic happened, but we hugged, and I got a number of sausage sightings.

This guy is over 18, older than Verne at the time, but he has the grin, the same chest and shoulders, and the same beneath-the-belt gifts, a sizeable Bratwurst.

During my junior year, I applied for early admission to Olivet, our Bible College on the prairie, because Verne was going.   It offered 30 majors, but everyone assumed that I would be studying to become a preacher, evangelist, minister of music, or missionary.

As the days and weeks of my junior year at Rocky High passed, Verne began to conjure an idyllic future for us.  We would be roommates at Olivet, of course, and take lots of the same classes. He would play football, and I would be an athletic trainer.

Then, when we graduated, we would get called by the same church, maybe as preacher and minister of music.  They often worked as a team.  We would plan church services together.  We would go on retreats, prayer breakfasts, and sabbaticals. Our wives would exchange recipes in parsonage kitchens.  Our children would grow up together, and eventually marry each other.

Sometimes these conversations involved hugging.  Sometimes they involved playfully grabbing at each other while changing clothes.  I had already seen Verne nude in the locker room, and on our camping trip, but there was something especially erotic about nude horseplay, in his bedroom at the parsonage on a Saturday afternoon.

A random guy

One day in May 1977, shortly after Scott the Cornetist disappeared (later we discovered that he died), we were changing clothes after jogging, and I got tired of the "wives and kids" litany.  "Why will we need wives?" I asked.  "Why can't it just be the two of us?"

He looked at me like I was crazy.  Then, after a long pause: "Have you ever seen a Nazarene preacher that didn't have a wife?"

"Um. ...no."

"Every preacher -- every man --  has to get married.  It's  a fact of life.  But friends are just as important.  Maybe more."  He put his hands on my shoulders and drew me into a warm, sweaty, hug "The Bible says that David loved Jonathan 'more than the love of women.'"

I wasn't satisfied.  "Why can't David and Jonathan live together without women?"

Verne laughed and broke away.  "Man, you get the craziest ideas!  Without women, they would be Swishes!"

Gay Hints in High School

I entered high school utterly unaware that same-sex desire exists. Gay people were simply not mentioned, ever, in class, by parents, on tv.

I knew about swishes, boys who like girly things, but I never for a moment imagined that boys might desire each other, form romantic relationships, have sex.

In spite of all my crushes, romantic relationships, sexual experiences, and about a thousand hint and signals.  Here are 20 steps on my road to "figuring it out."

(All models are over 18.)

10th Grade

1. Soon after I enter high school, Warren, the head of my lunch table clique, warns me not to go out with guys at night, without girls along, or people will think I'm a swish.

But swishes hang out with girls.  Why would it be suspicious to hang out with a guy?

2. The coach offers me a job as an athletic trainer.  I had to measure the jocks for uniforms, including cup sizes,  massage them, and pass out towels as they walked naked toward the showers.  Best job in the world!  Why does the coach think I would be particularly interested?

3. Trying to convince me to go to work in the factory after I graduated, Dad takes me on a tour, including the locker room where sweaty factory workers showered and changed clothes.  Why does he think that he sight of naked men would dissuade me from my college plans?

4. At music camp, I share a room with Todd, a cute Lebanese boy.  I have a full-fledged sexual experience, although I didn't interpret it that way at the time.

11th Grade

5. I see my first real-life swish, a witness at a trial my political science class observed at the court house.   I discover that "swishes" date each other, and presumably have sex.  But what could they possibly do in bed?  Who would be the boy, and who would be the girl?

6. I catch Cousin Joe with a girl, and accidentally claim that I've "given BJs" to lots of girls.  They tell me that boys don't give them, they get them.  Unless, of course, they're swishes.

Now I know that gay people exist, date each other, have sex with each other.  But they're frilly, feminine swishes, nothing like me at all.

7. While I'm sick, I remember a comic book from my childhood about an Island in the Sky where Greek gods live together.   We look everywhere for it, but it's missing.

8. I begin dating Verne, the Preacher's Son.  Double-dating, actually: there's always a girl.  We envision a future together as preachers in adjacent churches, being "best friends."  But why do we need wives?  Why can't it just be two "best friends" together?

9. My friend Aaron, the Rabbi's Son, tries to outdo me in homophobia.  We both have "best friends," but we don't interpret them as romantic partners.

12th Grade

10. Our new preacher discovers homa-sekshuls, and blames every social problem and natural disaster on them.  Although I am homophobic, I can't believe that gay people are responsible for everything wrong with the world.

11. I have another sexual experience, with Tyrone after the Harvest Dance.  But he has a girlfriend.  Why can't it be two guys together?

12. At Christmastime, I kiss Brian under the mistletoe, then ask for his phone number.  He doesn't call.  I think "no way am I a swish!"

13. Aaron and I go to Leonard Bernstein's Mass, and I write a poem, "We live in masks."

14. Everybody seems to know.  Even my friend Craig invites me to a graduation party, and stresses that there will be mattresses downstairs, in case I want to "get down with...um...anybody."  No way am I a swish!

15. I lose it at the movies.  During the summer after graduation, I see Grease, with John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John.  The movie itself isn't exceptional, but the theme song is:

The adults are lying, only real is real.
We stop the fight right now, we got to be what we feel.

I'm probably the only person in history to start sobbing uncontrollably in the theater during Grease.

My Sausage Sighting List

A Sausage Sighting is a glimpse of a guy's beneath-the-belt gifts that doesn't go anywhere else -- no dating, no romance, no hooking up, not even a few minutes in the dark room at the Duplex Bar in Paris.

Sometimes just looking is enough -- a good sausage sighting can be more memorable than a dozen nights of passion, especially when it's unexpected.

You can't count glimpses of strangers in the locker room or at the urinal, or actors getting excited during movie love scenes.  It's only a valid Sausage Sighting if you know the guy, if he's a relative, friend, co-worker, or acquaintance.  If you've at least had a conversation.

I'll use the same scale as in my Sausage List (the list of gigantic endowments belonging to guys I actually dated):

Bratwurst: memorable, 7-8 inches.
Kielbasa: super-sized, 8-9 inches.
Mortadella: the stuff of dreams, 9-10 inches.
Kovbasa: Are you kidding? 10+ inches.

Childhood

Cousin Joe.  When I was 7 1/2 years old, we stayed with my Aunt Nora, and I caught a glimpse of Cousin Joe's Kielbasa+ in the bathroom.  It was the first I ever saw --many later ones were disappointingly small by comparison. I'll bet it wasn't even a Kielbasa.  Probably a Kovbasa.

Cousin Buster. I went into his bedroom late at night and caught him masturbating.  Probably a Kielbasa.

The Sanderson Brothers, a gospel group that worked as counselors at Nazarene summer camp.  I got to see one of them relieving himself. Kielbasa.

Brother Dino, my Sunday school teacher, and also a counselor at Nazarene summer camp when I was in junior high.  I saw him taking a shower.  Easily a Mortadella.

Verne, the preacher's son.  We  "dated" in eleventh grade. We didn't identify the relationship as romantic, and nothing physical happened, but I did see him nude. Bratwurst.

College

Jurgen, the hipster poet from Augustana College. who I thought was gay until I met his girlfriend. 

Mark, the Boss from Hell during my senior year in high school and freshman year at Augustana.  We tricked him into running out of a urinal, where he had been reading Playboy and...you know.  Kielbasa+.

Mr. Kim, a Korean immigrant, a surprisingly buffed muscle bear.  When I was in college, he rented the the house next door with his family.  He only stayed about six months before buying a house in Moline, but he gave me a memorable Sausage Sighting.  Bratwurst.









Jens, a slim, blond chemistry major at Augustana.  During my senior year, I joined the Baptist student union, and went on tour with them to perform at various churches.  When we had to all bunk down for the night in the same room, I had the bed, and Jens had a sleeping bag right below me.  He waited until the rest of us were asleep -- he thought. Bratwurst.

Andrew,  the blond physics major from Indiana University who I saw during a heterosexual bonding activity known as a "circle jerk."

Texas

Chad, a soccer player from Australia who sat in my class in Hell-fer-Sartain, Texas.  One day he came in late and stripped down to change clothes in my class. Ok, this one was in a jock strap, but I still saw enough. Bratwurst+

California

Brother Mike, a Baptist preacher who sat on the plane next to me on the way to a job interview.  Brother Mike was hot!  When our plane landed, we both headed to the bathroom -- along with 20 other guys.  We ended up standing side by side at the urinal.  Bratwurst+

Tyler, a contractor.  My parents were having their kitchen remodeled one summer while I was visiting.  From my chair in the living room, I got an excellent view of his front side as he stood on his ladder, doing things with wiring.  My friends and I ended up getting a sausage sighting. Kielbasa


New York

Huang, a fellow sociology student from Taiwan, one of my roommates during my first year in New York.  In 1998, at a conference in Montreal, I caught him in the act, and learned the truth about the Formosan penis.  Kielbasa.

Jason, the most homophobic of the grad students in my class on Long Island. We tricked him into revealing his Kielbasa.

Florida

Narveen, a Sikh guy who joined Barney's gym in Florida.  I tried to get a glimpse on several occasions, and finally he just let me take a peek.  Amazing. Mortadella+.

Ohio

More of a sausage "feeling."  Azi, the Dutch Caribbean at the Horseman's Club in Amsterdam.  I felt his gigantic kovbasa before going home with him and realizing that he was straight.  He wanted me for his younger brother, Eli.

Josh, an exceptionally buffed but straight waiter who often took my orders at the Lone Star Barbecue. I saw him all the time at the gym, too. In the sauna.  Kielbasa.

Upstate

Dr. Chester, a former professional wrestler who taught Sociology of Sports Upstate.  There was a private bathroom for faculty and teaching assistants -- one stall and one urinal.  One day I went in, and there he was, preparing to urinate.  He must have wrapped his faculty member around his waist a few times, like a belt. Easily a Kovbasa. (See: 15 teachers I may or may not have hooked up with).

19. Richard, the crazy bodybuilder downstairs when I lived in Upstate New York.  My balcony consisted of rough boards with wide gaps; you could look through them directly onto the balcony of the apartment below.  And one night...  Kovbasa++++.

The Plains

20. The Projectionist at the Film Festival.  Bratwurst, but he was tenting right there in the projection booth!

21. The College Kid at the Gym who tried to hide by facing away from me, toward the mirror.  Kovbasa++

22. The Straight Elitist Philosophy Professor  who bulged during the entire writing seminar, before I stumbled on him in the bathroom. Kielbasa+

Dating the Preacher's Son

Rock Island, Spring 1977

During my junior year at Rocky High (1976-77), most guys were obsessed with demonstrating that they were not Swishes (our word for "gay").  The best way was to become a Rock (jock), or be seen in public with one -- they hated men with muscles.

I wasn't on a team -- being an athletic trainer didn't count -- so I had no choice but the only other option: date a Rock.

But most Rocks were very busy, having sex with eight or nine girls in various combinations every night, so they had little time or energy left for boys.

One day in November, a few weeks after my date with Todd's girlfriend, I was running around the indoor track, when I saw the preacher's son Verne (not his real name) playing one-on-one basketball in the gym be-low. Verne was a senior, so our paths rarely intersected. At school, I saw him only in the locker room after football practice, when he was anxious to get to the showers.

At church, he was always encased in a shell of fawning groupies. Practically our only contact came a couple of months ago, when I helped him Pray Through to Victory at an altar call.

As I ran, Verne finished his game. He guzzled Gatorade from a plastic bottle, then ripped off his t-shirt and collapsed, shimmering with sweat, onto the lap of a girl.  He was hugely tall, with broad shoulders, hard thick biceps, short dark hair, and dark blue, almost purple eyes.  And he was a Nazarene -- no sex allowed!  He would be perfect.

It took a week for me to bolster my courage enough to call. Even then, I dialed and hung up three times. When Verne came on the line, I said, “There’s a gospel concert on Saturday. Um. . .if you’re not, like, busy or anything. . .would you like to go?”

Verne burst into raucous laughter.

“Sorry to bother you,” I said stiffly, my face burning with humiliation.

“No – it’s ok, sorry,” Verne said. “It was just funny the way you asked. I’m busy Saturday, but what about the basketball game Friday? You can do more touching at a game, anyway. I’ll get us a couple of girls.”

I spent the rest of the evening exuberantly calling all of my friends, and wondering why do we need girls?

During the game, Verne and I sat with the girls on either side, so that our thighs and knees sometimes brushed together, and whenever the Rocks scored a point, he enveloped me in a warm, sweaty hug. Next came Alfano's for Canadian bacon and sauerkraut pizza and two pitchers of soda, one for the boys and one for the girls.

We had a lot to talk about.  Verne was taking AP Spanish and French; if it hadn't been God’s Will for him to become a preacher, he would have become a linguist.

When we dropped off Verne’s girl, he walked her to her doorstep “for safety,” but returned almost immediately, complaining that her father had left the porch light on.

My girl came next; her porch light was dark.

When I returned to the car, Verne asked “Did you get any?”'

I assumed that he meant kissing, so I said “Sure. Lots.”  I had kissed her on the cheek.

Verne reached over and punched my shoulder and exclaimed “Awright!” I was disappointed that he didn’t walk me to my doorstep to “get some,” but otherwise I was elated by my success.

During the winter and spring of eleventh grade, we went to a a jazz concert, the spring musical,  an orchestra banquet, two basketball games, a baseball game, hiking, jogging, tennis, and swimming.  That was more enough for us to be “going together,” though no one at Rocky High seemed to notice, referring to us only as buddies.

 Dating Verne summarily ended any suspicion that I was That Way. Even at church, people spoke to me in a civil tone.  It also ended pressure by my Crowd to date girls -- apparently Vikings were dreamy enough.

 Maybe that's why he always insisted on girls for evening dates.  He usually provided them, but twice I brought Becky, my Just Friend, and once I acquired my own, by casually saying: “Oh, and Verne will be there, too.”

At some point Verne always disappeared with his girl for ten or fifteen minutes, and on the way home he had the annoying habit of asking “Did you get any?” But these complaints were trivial; I was dating a Rock!

In May we spent a weekend camping with his friends at Starved Rock State Park at Starved Rock State Park, about 100 miles from Rock Island.  Though we shared a tent, I avoided any repeat of the scapular incident.  I didn't want to discover that Verne was one of these guys who drops you the moment things get physical.  But I did see a few things.

Best Man at my Boyfriend's Wedding

Rock Island, September 1977

In August 1977, just before my senior year at Rocky High, I helped Verne, the preacher's son and my sort-of boyfriend, pack for his freshman year at Olivet Nazarene College. We hugged, and I waved while he drove away with Brother and Sister Tyler.

On September 12th, a Monday night, Brother Tyler called and asked to talk to Dad. This was disturbing in itself -- preachers never called, they preferred unannounced drop-ins.

After a long, solemn conversation on the phone in the kitchen, Dad returned to the living room and said: "He asked if I could get Verne a job on the assembly line at the factory."

"But Verne's at Olivet!" I protested.  "He just started two weeks ago.  Why would he..."

"He's going to drop out.  He needs to get a job."

I still didn't understand.  "No, that's impossible.  He's going to become a preacher.  We're going into the ministry together.  Is Brother Tyler losing his job, or. . . ."

Dorm at Olivet

A few moments later, Verne called from his dorm at Olivet.  "Hey, I know this is going to be a shock, but I'm getting married a week from Saturday, and I'd like you to be my best man."

No, that's impossible!  "Um. . .ok, congratulations, I guess.  I'll be happy to be your best man.  But why are you. . .I mean. . .who's the girl?"

"Kristie Davis." (Not her real name.)

She was a senior at Rocky High, saved along with her parents at the fall revival last year.  She had come along on two or three of my dates with Verne, an "arm dangler" to keep up appearances, but...

Yesterday at the evening service, she ran up to the altar while Brother Tyler was still screaming. Perplexed, he ended his sermon in mid-scream and announced an altar call.  I wondered a bit about her howling sobs and the wads of yellow Kleenix crumpled in her hands, but theatrics were quite common at the altar, so I didn't think any more about it.

Now I knew: Kristie was pregnant!

That's why Verne sneaked off in the middle of our dates, to have sex with the girl, Kristie or whoever!  And later, when he asked “did you get any?”,  he meant did I have sex!

Sex! And  intimacy, and passion, while all I got was an occasional hug!  And all that talk about pairing up at Olivet and then working in the same church forever – he meant a business partnership.  He would be sharing his real life with a woman!

The next Sunday, Brother Tyler announced the upcoming wedding, and his resignation -- he couldn't stay in the pulpit after the scandal of having his son get a girl pregnant.  He and his wife moved to Kansas City, where he took a desk job at General Headquarters until the furor died down, then found a new congregation far away from Rock Island.

After he had odd predicament of making his boyfriend his best man, Verne went to work in the factory, and eventually became an electrician.  He and Kristie stayed in the Nazarene Church for awhile, defiantly occupying a pew in the married-couple section of the sanctuary in spite of the glares of church members, but by the end of the year, they couldn't stand it anymore and dropped out.  We tried to stay friends for awhile, but we no longer had anything in common, and eventually we lost contact.

Now we're Facebook friends.  He's divorced from Kristie, and living in the Washington, DC area, very near the gay neighborhood of Dupont Circle.