My Uncle and His Boyfriend in the Kentucky Hills

Eastern Kentucky, Summer 1973

It's the summer after seventh grade.  We're visiting my Uncle El, the only one of Mom's family to stay behind when the rest of them moved to Indiana.  Dinner is over, and we're telling stories of long-ago times, before I was born, when Mom was a little girl.   Sometimes the adults laugh at jokes I don't understand.

Uncle El's wife tells about the time she rode her bicycle all the way into Salversville to see a boy, but when she got there he was spooning with someone else.  (she obviously did not mean "sleeping front-to-back."  It was probably something like "making out.")

An elderly lady I don't know tells a story about witches.

Now it's Uncle El's turn.

"I'm going to tell about my brother, Manus, and his friend Graydon, two boys with the same soul."

I've been dozing off, but now I perk up -- sounds like this will be interesting!



Eastern Kentucky, Fall 1939

Manus and Graydon, the boy from down the holler, were born at the same moment, and some said they shared the same soul.

Oh, on the outside, they was as different as night and day:

Graydon was tall and dark, with thick arms and a tight chest, fond of wrasslin' and huntin' and fishin'.

Manus was short and slim and pale-skinned, a moody boy, always readin', but a good singer, with a clear tenor voice.

They was different down below, too.  You don't have much privacy in the hills, when you sleep three to a bed, and I saw them many times jumping nekkid into the creek, or lying on the soft grass.

Lordy, did that Graydon have a whopper!

"Eliot!  There are children present!"  the elderly lady snaps.

"Why, Marcy, surely they know that boys have something down there!"

Yet for all of their differences, Manus and Graydon were never separated, from sunup to sundown, when their parents forced them into different cabins for dinner.  Even then, they sometimes sneaked out to have secret adventures in the darkness.

Life was hard in the hills during the Depression.  Eight people in a four room cabin.

Kerosene lamps for light, a wood-burning stove for heat, and the woods outside for an outhouse.

They raised chickens and grew corn, beans, taters, and maters.  For everything else, they depended on Dad's job at a factory in Hueysville, eight miles away.

Still, they had fun. There were church socials and square dances.  In the evenings the neighbors came around to tell ghost stories and sing songs.  There'd be no dry eye in the house when Manus  sang "Barbara Allen."

Oh mother, mother, make my bed,
Make it long and make it narrow.
Sweet William died for me today,
I'll die for him tomorrow.

"I always hated that song," Mom says.  

In the summer of 1939, Graydon bought and fixed up an old clunker car.  Now they could drive all the way to Salyersville, 20 miles down the pike, to get malteds and go to the movies.

They liked Little Tough Guy, with the Dead End Kids, and Out West with the Hardys, with Mickey Rooney.

In late October of 1939, Graydon and Manus took ill, maybe from going swimming nekkid in the cold Brushy Fork Creek.  

They gave them herb medicine and mustard plasters and poltices, and Manus got better, but Graydon got sicker and sicker, and he died on November 5th, the day of the first snowfall.

His dad and older brother built a pine box to put him in, and they buried him in the graveyard up atop  the hill.

Well, needless to say, Manus was inconsolable.

He cried and cried, and after he stopped crying he wouldn't eat, he wouldn't sleep, he just sat on the bed in the room he shared with me and Edd, staring out the window, up at the hill where Graydon was buried.

Then one night he yelled to the family, "Hey, there's a light up on the hill!"

It was a swaying yellow light, like from a kerosene lamp.  But who would be up there in the middle of the night?  It was pitch dark, with just a narrow trail through the brush and trees.  

"I'm going up!"  Manus yelled, pulling on his coat.


But Mom and Dad forbade him.  It was too dangerous. He could wait until morning to investigate.

"No, I gotta go now!  I gotta!"  He tried to push past them out the door.  Dad grabbed him by the arms.  He fought.

There was no help for it: they had to lock Manus up in the room, where me and Edd could look over him.

Well, Manus paced and rumbled, and yelled, and cried, and finally sat down in a chair, still staring up at the light on the hill.  Finally Edd and me fell asleep.

The next morning, when we woke up, Manus was gone!

The door was still locked from the outside.  The window hadn't been touched.  There was no way Manus could have gotten out!

Some say one of his sisters let him out, and he went dashing up the hill and fell in a ditch, and got eaten by a bear.

El glances pointedly at my mother.  But she was only two years old at the time.

Some say a neighbor sneaked him out, and drove him to Salyersville, where he bought a bus ticket Out West, like the Hardys.

Some say Graydon came for him.

Whatever happened, no one ever saw Manus again.

But that night, up on the hill, we saw two glowing lights.

See also: My Kentucky Kinfolk; The Naked Man at the Crossroads; Erotic Story about Me and My Grandpa #1

Joseph and I Hook Up in a Haunted House

Terre Haute, Indiana

One day the July after my first year in grad school at Indiana University, my friend Joseph called: "You up for a road trip this Saturday?"

"Where to?"  I asked, hoping he wanted to go to one of the gay bars in Indianapolis. 

"I gotta go to Terre Haute to pick up some stuff, then drop it off at my parents' house in Broad Ripple [a suburb of Indianapolis]."

"How much stuff?" I asked suspiciously.  I didn't want to be conned into helping him move.

"Not a lot, just a few keepsakes.  My parents are selling my great-aunt Rose's house, and they want me to go get what I want before everything gets packed up and sold."

"Are other guys coming, too?"

"There aren't a lot of guys around Bloomington during the summer, so it will be just you and me."  He paused.  It's a pretty long trip, so we'll probably have to spend the night in Broad Ripple before heading back."

Spend the night!  I know what that meant!

 Joseph was  one of the first gay guys I met in Bloomington: an undergraduate history major, with black curly hair, a baby face, and a lean tan physique.  And short -- Definitely my type!  But he was also very popular, dating Rick the philosophy major, then Mark the optometrist, then a medical student named Manfred (really!), so I never managed to squeeze in.

Obviously I wasn't his first choice, but who cared?  This was my chance to get intimate!

Saturday after lunch we set out for Terre Haute, about 1 1/2 hours away.  Joseph said that he grew up in Broad Ripple, but they drove out to visit his mother's aunt Rose almost every weekend.  He had fond memories of fishing in the Wabash River, drive-in movies, dinner at the Pizza King, and drinking hot chocolate at Christmastime

"Aunt Rose is in a nursing home with dementia," he told me. "She fades in and out.  Some days she's almost normal, and others she thinks it's 1961, and I'm her brother Oscar.  But she can still name all of the U.S. presidents, in order, up to Richard Nixon."

"Did she know about you [being gay] before her dementia?"

"No.  I'm not out anyone in my family, and I sure wasn't going to come out to a hard-core Methodist lady.   She was always worried that I wasn't dating enough.  One of the last things she said to me before her dementia began was 'You shouldn't be so picky, or you'll never find a girl."

Aunt Rose used to be a professor of American history at Indiana State University.  She lived in a big, two-story house in West Terre Haute, just across the Wabash.  It was painted a depressing shade of grey, but it had a wide porch and a big, carefully mown front lawn.

As we walked up to the house, I saw what looked like a face in the attic window.

 "Who's that?"  I asked. 

"Who's who?"

But it was gone.

I didn't want to turn him off by being leery of an old house, so I said "Does anyone else live here?"

He shrugged.  "No, but about a dozen members of the family have keys.  We drop by to do housework, pay Aunt Rose's bills, and such.  Why?"

"Oh, um...it's just well kept up." 

The living room was mostly packed up and ready to go, all of the pictures taken from the walls and the furniture all carefully marked with the name of whoever had claimed it.  Joseph took a candy dish and a ceramic figure of a dog.

The kitchen was cluttered with pots, pans, dishes, and various obscure implements in piles on the counters and tabletops.  Joseph took a fondue set, a long-ago Christmas present that had never been used, and the cup his Aunt Rose used to serve his juice in.

It was very warm.  He turned on the air conditioner, but we still had to take our shirts off.

Next came the study, heavy laden with books from a career as a college professor: a three-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill's History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Bruce Caxton's Civil War trilogy, plus mystery novels, literature, folklore, music, and about a hundred books on gardening.  Joseph and I filled five boxes with books to argue over later.

He left Aunt Rose's bedroom alone.

Upstairs was a storage room that was pack rat heaven.  50 years of Christmas and birthday cards. Stacks of report cards and school papers. Old magazines, carefully bundled.   Old wrapping paper.  Slide carousels.  Souvenirs of long-ago trips.  Joseph took a nativity set, some Christmas tree ornaments, and a painting of the house.

He left the first bedroom alone and zeroed in on the second, where he stayed whenever he slept over.  There were two twin beds with flowered comforters, a night stand between them, an old-fashioned dresser, and a little card table with framed pictures of Aunt Rose's family.

"Help me get this comforter.  And I think I want the lamp, too.  I used to fall asleep with the light on, and Aunt Rose would come in and turn it off.  Sometimes I just pretended to be asleep, so I would know when she came in..."  he stopped short.  He was trembling.

"Are you ok?"

"She joked that I liked this room so much, I should spend my honeymoon here.  I just... wish Aunt Rose could know about who I really am.  I'm sure she'd be ok with it...I'm so much happier now then when I was trying to be straight, with all the friends I've made...and .."  He started to cry.  I rushed to put my arms around him.  Then somehow we were kissing.

More after the break. Caution: Explicit

The Gay Ghost of Ocracoke

Ocracoke, a community of 900on the Outer Banks of North Caroline, is so isolated that it has its own dialect,  the Ocracoke Brogue, with terms and usages leftover from Shakespeare's day.

buck: friend
mommick: to make a mess of
offshore: crazy
quamish: queasy
scud: a short trip

And it is full of ghosts.

Springer's Point, where Blackbeard the Pirate was beheaded, is haunted by a burly man with matted hair and red glowing eyes, who chases trespassers with an axe before disappearing.

The British Cemetery features a lady in Victorian costume who tells visitors that she lost her way en route to a party.

After closing, the employees at Gaffer's Bar often see an elderly man sitting at a booth by himself.  When they approach, he vanishes.

But the most unusual ghost lurks in Tarik's attic.

When Martin and his then-lover Paul bought the house in 1990, they expected the usual haunted house noises: footsteps, slamming doors, mysterious voices.  Maybe some things moved around.  But they didn't expect a horny ghost, a sex-crazed demon, or whatever it was.

The attic was once used as a library -- there were about a dozen thick, heavy bookshelves which absorbed all of the light and made the sloping rafters look forlorn and abandoned. They planned to use it as an overflow bedroom, so they put a in a futon, a nightstand, a lamp, and a couple of chairs.
One weekend a few weeks after they moved in, there were 7 guys in the house, so they put up their old friend Josh in the attic bedroom.

He came downstairs the next morning and said "I don't know which of you did it, but thanks.  That was the best blow job of my life!"

Everyone denied climbing up to the attic to give Josh a blow job.

"I actually didn't get a good look -- it was too dark.  Now that I think about it, I never even opened my eyes.  I didn't reach down to touch the guy's head or shoulders, either."

"How do you get a blow job without touching the guy?" Martin asked.

He shrugged.  "It just never occurred to me.  So, come on, 'fess up, guys -- which of you is the culprit, and can you come back tonight?"

Josh eagerly waited for his mysterious visitor the next night, but nothing happened.

The second guy to encounter the ghost or incubus, Michael, was not so pleased. After a long trip from the mainland, he went right up to bed.

He was lying on his back with his eyes closed, having a sexual fantasy, starting to masturbate, when suddenly he was frozen in place.  He couldn't even open his eyes.  It was like being paralyzed!

Then someone went down on him.  He couldn't feel a body, just the mouth bobbing up and down on his cock, the tongue licking his head, the suction of a demonic throat.

He didn't even like oral -- he got too sensitive -- and this was torture!  It seemed to last for hours.

Finally Michael had a painful orgasm.

He looked up to see a dark male figure, naked, vanishing into a bookcase!

He bolted downstairs, and slept on the couch for the rest of his visit.

Martin and Paul avoided placing guests in the attic room after that.

Martin tried to research the house, to see who the horny gay ghost might be.  Someone with unfinished business, who died without acknowledging that he was gay, or without having a sexual experience.

The house was built in 1906 as a summer home for a Dr. Carroll, a physician from Raleigh. One day in 1910, the village constable broke up a party there with "only men present."  Probably a gay party.

Dr. Carroll died in 1941 -- but not in the house.  And if he had been having sex parties for 30 years, it's unlikely that he died with unfinished business.

Next Dr. Carroll's married daughter took possession, but she and her husband lived in Norfolk, and rarely stayed in the house.  There was a series of summer tenants.

In the 1960s a psychic name Sandor bought the house, and saw hippie clients in the attic library, which at that time had its own private entrance.  He wasn't married -- gay?  He died in 1990 -- but in a hospital on the mainland, not in the house.  Could he be the horny ghost?

The only other possibility was a hippie who was staying in town for the summer in 1971.  He may have known Sandor, or he may have been a stranger -- the newspaper article was unclear.  One night, high on LSD, he was attracted by something in the attic window, and tried to climb up the wall instead of going up the stairs.  He lost his footing, fell, and broke his neck.

Whoever or whatever was giving nonconsensual blow jobs in the attic room, Martin and Paul thought it best to keep him under wraps.

They broke up in 1998.  Martin could no longer afford two mortgages, so he sold his house in Chapel Hill and moved to Ocracoke permanently.  To help with the loneliness, he got two roommates, both gay men, of course.  One of the roommates eventually got a boyfriend, Tarik.  Now there were four gay men in the house, with boyfriends and dates staying over, and mainland friends visiting all the time, and often there was no choice but the attic or a sleeping bag on the floor.

Martin and his roommates always warned the guys about the gay ghost.  Sometimes they hoped to get a ghostly blow job, but nothing happened.  Sometimes they laughed off the warning, only to run down the stairs ashen-faced with horror.

They tried sending couples up to the attic, but one of them got a blow job while the other slept, oblivious.

As the legend grew, gay men volunteered to be ghost busters from as far away as West Hollywood.

The neighbors started talking -- they were already famous as "the gay house," and now "the house with the gay ghost."

You don't need notoriety in a small town.

Then one weekend Tarik invited his Norfolk friend, Bammy, for a visit.  They called Bammy "Monster" because he was hung -- way hung.  8" long, thicker than a beer can -- and that was soft.  When aroused, he was 11" long, with a head as big as a baseball.

He was an oral and anal bottom, but not by choice.  No one had been able to give him a blow job  since he was 16 -- the most they could do was lick the shaft. Lots of guys wanted him to plow their butt, but he didn't get hard enough to enter -- his arousal was more like a spongy tumescence.

"Let me at this so-called ghost," Monster said.  "If he can take it, he's welcome to it."

So he spent the night in the attic room, naked, lying on his back, with the covers down, inviting.

Nothing happened.

About 2:00 am, Monster grew tired of waiting, and started to masturbate.  He displayed his aroused cock.

Nothing happened.

Finally he dozed off, and turned over onto his stomach.

Monster awoke to the feel of an erect penis pushing against him.  Figuring that Tarik had come up during the night, he lifted his head and opened his mouth.  The cock pushed up against his throat.  Average size, very hard, uncut, not cold or anything, just like a regular cock.

He bobbed up and down on it, feeling the pubic hair against his face.  reaching up to grab two butt cheeks.  He saw nothing but a dark form.   Still thinking that it was Tarik.

The spurt came a few minutes later, a huge mouthful.  Bammy swallowed, and the dark form moved away.

"Thanks, man," Monster whispered. "Always happy to take your load."

Then the dark form moved off the bed.  Monster watched as it moved toward the bookcases -- and vanished!

With a shout he ran downstairs to Tarik's room, and jumped into the bed like a little boy afraid of the dark.

"That darn crazy ghost!  He couldn't go down on me, so he made me go down on him!"

That was the last anyone saw -- or felt -- of the horny gay ghost of Ocracoke.

My Friday the 13th Date with Kevin the Vampire

Plains, Friday, January 13th, 2017

It's my second date with Wagner the Music Major, who I picked up in the Student Union earlier this week.  We're seeing Hairspray at the University Theater -- in the first row, of course.  I always sit in the first row, when possible.

At intermission I look around the audience.  No one I know, which seems strange -- I know lots of theater buffs.

Then suddenly, about 10 rows back, I see Kevin the Vampire!

 "That's impossible!" I exclaim.

"What?"

"My old boyfriend from San Francisco. I haven't seen him since -- um, 2003.  Nearly 14 years ago.  What would he be doing here?"

I look back again.  No Kevin.

 When we met in San Francisco in 1996, Kevin the Vampire was in his 30s, tall and buffed, with pale skin, a hairy chest, and a Satanic goatee.  We dated for almost a year, although I didn't care for his elitism, his smoking, or his exhausting  bedroom calisthenics.

"Why do you call him Kevin the Vampire?  Did he like biting you on the neck?"

"No, but he had weird paranormal powers.  He could control people's minds..  He could get hookups by going up to a cute guy and saying ''You want to come home with me, don't you?'"

"That's a nice power to have," Wagner says.

"And he could make himself invisible.  You couldn't drop by for a visit -- if he wasn't expecting you, his apartment was impossible to find.  But he wouldn't just show up on the Plains."

I've been posting stories about him on my blog, most recently in December.  Could that have summoned him?

No -- just my imagination!

After the musical, as we are walking out to the parking lot, Kevin is suddenly standing beside me! He doesn't walk up -- he just appears, like Jesus on the road to Emmaus.

"Um...hi, Kevin," I say, pretending to be nonchalant.  "Nice to see you again."

It's been nearly 14 years, but he doesn't look any different.  I guess vampires don't age.

"Wonderful to see you, too, Boomer!"  He wraps me into a hug.  His body is cold, as if he's been running around outside without a coat.  "You have no idea how difficult it was to track you down!  Florida to Ohio to Upstate New York to Philadelphia, and now to this charming little town on the Plains."

"Why didn't you just get my email address from David?"

 "And who is your very attractive companion?: Kevin asks, ignoring my question. "If this is an example of the beefcake on the Plains, I'll be scanning the real estate ads!"



"Beefcake is very common here, and readily available."

He shakes hands with Wagner.  "How long have you and Boomer been an item?"

"This is our second date."

"Oh, my, the second date, a pivotal moment in a new romance!  I wouldn't dream of interfering.  Boomer, let's meet tomorrow to catch up.  I'll be at your apartment at -- say 10:00 am?"

And he vanishes.  He doesn't walk away -- he's just sort of not there.

"I see what you mean," Wagner says.  "Appearing and disappearing like that is kind of creepy."

"But fun," I say with a bit of sad nostalgia.

Saturday, January 14th

Kevin appears at my apartment at 10:00 sharp.  I take him to the gay-friendly coffee house for brunch -- vegetarian quiche for me, only coffee for him.  Vampires don't eat.

He is noncommittal about what he'd been up to since 2003.  "Oh, I puttered around, bought books, went to beer busts, invited men into my bed.  You know what life was like in Gay Heaven: we were busy all the time, but nothing really happened.  Every moment was an eternal now."

"So...what do you want to do during your visit?  Anything special you'd like to see?  Want me to arrange a hookup for you?  I know some guys, or I can go on Grindr."

"Sampling the cornfed beef of the Plains?  That does sound tempting, but I'd really rather have some time alone with you. After all, our relationship was one of the most important in my life -- perhaps the most important -- and I couldn't bear the idea of shuffling off this mortal coil without holding you in my arms again.  If Wagner doesn't object, that is."

I know Kevin --  no quick blow jobs for him!  Exhausting two hour sessions involving weird oils, massage,  licking and sucking everywhere, Tantric edging, multiple positions, multiple orgasms, leaving you drenched with sweat and other fluids, ruining the sheets.

But he has mind control powers.  How can I refuse?

We spend the day sightseeing and cruising, have dinner with some gay guys from the Unitarian church, and then return to my apartment.  We go into the bedroom and start kissing and fondling.

I kneel and go down on Kevin -- he's bigger than I remember, a Bratwurst+, cold and hard as iron.  Then he pulls me onto the bed.  He lies atop me, chest against chest, thigh against thigh, mouth against mouth.  His body is cold and hard, too.   His aroused penis goes between my legs.

Interfemoral -- my favorite position!  We never did this while we were dating!

He puts his arms around me and thrusts while we kiss, his tongue darting in and out of my mouth.  I grab his butt.  We finish at the same moment.

Apparently Kevin is still the same age as he was in 1996, but I'm 20 years older, and one orgasm per evening is enough.  I soon fall asleep.

Sunday, January 15th

When I wake up, Kevin is gone.  No note, no phone number, nothing.  He vanished.

I feel a little frisson of dread.  Did I imagine the whole thing?

No -- the sheets are definitely soiled with bodily fluids.

Wait -- what life "was" like in Gay Heaven.  It "was" an important relationship.  Shuffle off the mortal coil.  Cold skin.  Vanishing even more abruptly than when we were dating...

Was Kevin a ghost?  A ghost vampire?

I rush to my computer and start emailing people.  David. Zack.   Kevin's ex-boyfriend Seth.  His former best friend Marius.

The responses trickle in.  No one has seen Kevin or talked to him in years.

Desperate, I think of the number Marius gave me in 2003.  It didn't work then...

I find it in my old address book, and call.

This time it works -- Kevin answers!  "Boomer, what a surprise!  Did I leave my underwear in your apartment?  I've just arrived back in San Francisco, so I'm afraid you'll have to keep it as a souvenir."

"Um...no, no.  I was just wondering...you left so abruptly... if you were angry or upset."

"Oh no, not at all.  I simply had a plane to catch!  Well, there's the BART.  It was wonderful seeing you again -- I'll be sure to stop by the Plains next time I'm flying across the country."

Kevin is not a ghost. He's not a vampire.  He's just an ordinary guy, a bit eccentric, like everyone lucky enough to live in Gay Heaven.

Or maybe....

See also: Desperately Seeking Kevin the Vampire.; The Sunday Morning Orgy; I Go Home with the Amazing Invisible Boy.

I Go Home with the Amazing Invisible Boy

San Francisco, May 1997

One Sunday afternoon, Kevin the Vampire and I were at the beer bust at the San Francisco Eagle, when a twink caught my eye .  He was wearing a white t-shirt with a weird dark stain at the belly, jeans torn at the knee, and a light brown jacket -- quite out of place amid the leather-clad bears and muscle daddies.

He was in his 20s, tall, slim, blond, very pale.  Not my usual type, but he had a handsome, almost angelic face, and he looked...lost.  Everyone was giving him major attitude.

"Poor guy wandered into the wrong bar," I told Kevin.

He looked around.  "Who do you mean?"

I pointed. "The cute twink in the brown jacket?"

He peered into the crowd.  "Sorry, I can't pick him out.  But cruise him, if you like.  I'll be more than willing to share anyone you find attractive."

Too late -- a drunken muscle bear with thick bear-hair on his chest and shoulders had already approached.  He had skipped the conversation stage of cruising, moving immediately into groping.  The twink looked uncomfortable, even frightened.  Didn't he know how to give Attitude?

That was my "in" -- coming to the rescue.  I grabbed a bottle of beer from the bartender, walked over, and said "Here's your beer, babe.  Sorry it took so long."

"Didn't know you spoken for," the muscle bear growled.  He dislodged his hand from the boy's crotch and loped off.

"Thanks for saving me.  I'm Mickey."  (Not the leatherman who never left South of Market -- another Mickey.)

"Boomer."  I tried to hug him, but he stiffened -- not interested?  Instead, he held out a slim hand to be shaken.

Yes, his hand was warm to the touch.

"I don't go to gay bars much, and I don't know the rules yet.  I thought if I just stood quietly, I'd be invisible."

"That's funny, it worked on my friend over there.  I tried to point you as 'the cute guy in the brown jacket,' but he couldn't see you.  Would you mind coming over so I can introduce you?"

I led him to where Kevin was standing.  "Introducing Mickey, the Amazing Invisible Boy!"

Kevin stared, visibly frightened.  "Um...very nice to meet you.  Boomer, could I borrow you for a moment to discuss that project?"

He pulled me out of earshot.  "You're out of your league with this one, Boomer.  Better leave him alone."

"Why?  Is he a hustler?  A druggie?"

"No, but...it's difficult to explain.  He's dangerous."

"He looks harmless to me.  A little lonely, and kind of starved for affection.  Why don't we invite him home?"

"No sharing tonight, sorry -- um, I'm not feeling well.  And I'd advise you to pick someone else.  I have to be running along now."

You never abandon someone in the midst of cruising -- it's just not done.  But Kevin did.

It would pay to be prudent, of course, and not invite Mickey home instantly, so I took him to a Thai place on Folsom.

Yes, he ate.

 And asked him the usual precautionary questions.  Mickey was eager to talk.

He lived with his parents and younger brother in a small white house on Custer Road in Hayward, in the East Bay.  He graduated from Tennyson High School.  He had a job in a department store, and he was taking classes at the junior college in the hope of becoming a bookkeeper.

I asked about the stain on his shirt.  He said it was probably spaghetti sauce, but he didn't remember where he got it.

It was starting to get dark.  "I have to get to the station soon," Mickey said, looking apprehensively out the window.  "The last train to Hayward leaves at 7:00 pm."

"Oh...I was hoping we could spend more time together.  Why don't you come back to my place and spend the night?  I'll spring for breakfast in the morning, and then put you on the BART."

He looked hesitant.  "You're sure it won't be any trouble?  I snore."

Back at my apartment, he took off his jacket and draped it on a kitchen chair.  We watched Nick Freno, The Simpsons, King of the Hill, The X-Files, some old sitcoms on Nick at Night, ate ice cream, and talked, talked, cuddled, kissed, and talked.

Mickey wasn't out to anyone, and hadn't had sex with anyone but a high school friend.  He turned 21 a few days ago.  On a whim he took  BART across the Bay, got off at the 16th Street Station, and looked for the nearest gay bar.  That turned out to be the Eagle.

Finally it was midnight, past my bedtime.  "I have to get up early," I said, "So we should go to bed.  We don't have to do anything, if you don't want.  We can just cuddle."

Mickey kissed me on the cheek.  "You're the first guy I met with who didn't try to push me into the bedroom right away,  But I have to go home now."  He stood and walked around the couch toward the door.

"BART's closed.  You'll have to spend the night..." I began.  But he was gone!

He was only out of my sight for a second.  He didn't have time to get to the door, and besides, it was still locked.  I opened it and looked out onto the balcony and the street below.  They were deserted.

I ran back and checked the bedroom and bathroom.  No.  Mickey had just vanished.

In retrospect, there were some weird things about him.
1. His invisibility.
2. Kevin's warning.
3. There aren't any junior colleges anymore.  They're community colleges.
4. Who in the computer age studies to be a bookkeeper?
5. He didn't know how to use a VCR.
6. He had never seen The Simpsons.
7. That weird stain, like a blood stain.
8. This was his first time in a gay bar, but he had taken several guys home before.

Had I been making out with a ghost?  Maybe a boy who came to the City for his 21st birthday, was killed in a hate crime, and ever after has been trying to find his way home.

What would have happened if I insisted on bedroom activities?

The next day Kevin called.  He said, "I was just jealous that you were so into that Cute Young Thing.  I'm sorry that my attempt to scare you away made you hallucinate."

By the way, I couldn't do a "Vanishing Hitchhiker" thing: Mickey took his jacket with him.


See also: The Leatherman Who Never Left South of Market; Ozzie Meets John Kennedy Jr.; and A Quiet Night in Gay Heaven.

Kissing a Boy at the Bell Tower

Rock Island, March 1981

When I was in college, Bruce and I and some other English-philosophy-modern language majors hung out at a little bookstore off the student union.  It sold mostly science fiction and fantasy novels, with a scattering of mainstream literature and philosophy, basically whatever the manager, Adam Horowitz (not his real name) liked.  Adam was older perhaps twenty-five, taut and muscular, surprisingly tanned, with an open, expressive movie-star face.  Not at all the sort of person you'd expect to spend his life selling science fiction novels.

Once an English major, he was expelled halfway through his junior year after a scandal that no one would talk about.  With no degree, no job, and nowhere to go, he got some faculty allies to help him open his little bookstore.

What scandal?  A same-sex affair, perhaps? 

It made sense: Adam never dated girls, or talked about girls.  Actually, he never said much about his personal life at all.  It sounded like the hesitations, dissimulations, and omissions that gay people made in the Midwest in the 1980s to avoid revealing their "secret."  

But there was only one way to find out for sure: get him alone, and then zoom in for a kiss!  It worked with Fred, my boyfriend last year.

On a cold, drizzling Friday afternoon in March 1981, the campus was nearly deserted.  I had been alone in the bookstore for nearly an hour, studying Paleontology on the green couch by the western window, while Adam sat on his stool reading the underground Zap Comix.  This was a perfect opportunity!

“I'm heading over to the Comics Cave," I said in a tentative voice.  "Why don't you come along?  I don't think you're going to get any more customers today."

Adam stared at me in shock, as if I had suggested skinny-dipping in the pond behind Old Main.  "Um...sure, why not?" he said finally.  He wrapped on his coat and locked up the store, and we walked out into the blustery gray afternoon.  He talked nonstop about R. Crumb and Steve Ditko, and then of Little Nemo who explored Dreamland in the newspaper comics of a century ago, as if he couldn’t bear a moment of silence.

He was really nervous!  That must mean he was gay!

To get to the parking lot, you had to walk past East Hall, left toward the Bell Tower, then right, up the heavily wooded ridge to 38th Street. Adam paused.

“Have you heard the secret of Bell Tower?” he asked.

“I don't know.  I’ve heard a lot of secrets since I came to Augie.”

“The Fratboys bring their dates there, because if you kiss a virgin under the bell, it rings. Thus notifying everybody up in Andreasson Hall that she is 99.99% pure.” He gestured toward the freshman girls’ dorm on the ridge.

"Cool!  Let's check it out -- I've never seen it up close before."

"Um..ok, I guess."  We turned away from the path, crossed the wet grass, and stood under the Bell Tower with its graffiti-blackened benches where Fratboys and their girlfriends kissed. It was very damp, and smelled of sawdust and brine.

“Did the bell ring for any of your....dates...when you were a student?”  I asked, deliberately avoiding the word "girl."

"Um..well, actually I never got a chance. It’s really sort of Fratboys’ turf. They have dibs on all Augie babes.  I was  a Head Case -- an English major."

"So you never heard the bell ring?  That's a pity."  I pressed my hand hard against his shoulder. I saw that he was beginning to blush.

But at that moment a professor appeared, trundling down from the ridge: short, balding, round as a goblin in a yellow slicker raincoat, with an umbrella shoved under his arm like a stage sword and a bulging briefcase at his side. I recognized him: Dr. Dahlquist, who taught American literature and journalism.

He flashed an odd, alarmed look at me, then at Adam. We said “H’lo” politely, but he brushed past us and walked on quickly, almost trotting, to East Hall.

Adam stopped and stared at his retreating form. The snub obviously bothered him.  I wondered if Dr. Dahlquist discovered Adam at the Bell Tower before, on another lazy Friday afternoon many years ago. I wondered who was kissing him then.

"Um...ok, you've seen the Bell Tower.  Do you mind if we take your car?"  He walked briskly toward the south, toward the student parking lot.  We drove to the Comics Cave and bought a few comic books, but he refused my offer of a milkshake at the Belgian Village.  He had a headache, he said.

I asked Adam for out for comic books several more times, but he was always "too busy."

A few years after graduation, I returned to Augustana for a visit and found the bookstore gone.  I heard that Adam had taken a job as a newspaper editor in Missouri, but b eforethe internet, could find no other information.

Today Adam has his own wikipedia page!  He actually ran a museum in Missouri before he retired.  He's published a lot of science fiction and comic book criticism, plus a book about a famous lynching incident.  

So, what about the Bell Tower kiss?  Was he gay, and scared?  Or straight, and scared?  I'm still not sure. 

"Why Don't Yah Come Ovah?": Tarik's Hookup with a Ghost

Norfolk, July 2000

Tarik was 32 years old, working as a dietician in a hospital and cruising for older white guys, preferably cops.

Norfolk was a rough town, and rather homophobic, so you had to be careful: a lot of the cops would let you go down on them, then rob you or beat you up.  But there weren't a lot of gay venues other than the bars: he went to the MCC, the gay church, and wrote for Our Own Community Press, the local gay newspaper.

It was at the MCC that he met Mitchy: in his 50s, short, thin, greying, a bit on the femme side  (I have an image of Leslie Jordan), and something of a dollar-dropper (trying to attract guys with an ostentatious display of wealth).  Three minutes into the conversation, he had mentioned that he lived in Linkhorn, the wealthiest neighborhood in Virginia Beach, and that he owned a Rembrandt.  All in a thick Tidewater accent: "Hello theah, deah.  Ahm'm from Linhohn.  Ah own a pictuah by Rembrandt."

Maybe because he grew up poor and a member of the black-supremacist Nation of Islam, Tarik always found topping rich white guys very erotic, so he accepted Mitchy's invitation to "come ovah."

Not a great hookup.  A 45 minute drive, and turns out that Mitchy wasn't into anal; he wanted Tarik to go down on his very small, wrinkled cock, and when that took too long,  "Lick mah balls, deah.  That allus gets me off."

And no reciprocation.  He played with Tarik's cock for a bit, but wouldn't go down on him.

Plus his house was very cold, the Rembrandt was of a woman, there was another picture of a naked woman in the bedroom, he had torch songs playing constantly, and he was a bit racist: "Would you lakh to heah something else?  I know y'all lakh rap..."

But Tarik was not used to being pursued, so when Mitchy called two nights later and asked "Why don't yah come ovah?", he agreed.

More going down on Mitchy's small, wrinkled cock while a naked woman looked down on them and torch songs played, and it was so cold that they had to stay under the covers.  This time, at least, Mitchy went down on Tarik -- badly.

"Deah, ya'll are so big.  Ah can't get mah mouth around it."

Three nights later "Why don't yah cove ovah for dinnah?"

Mitchy served pork chops!  Tarik didn't belong to the Nation of Islam anymore, but he still avoided pork.  He filled up on mashed potatoes and green beans, and went down on Mitch's small cock right at the dining room table, before dessert.

And Mitchy insisted that he spend the night.

This was turning into a full-fledged relationship, except Mitchy never wanted to go out.  Apparently he was too closeted to go to the bars, and the day they met was the only time he attended the MCC.  He hooked up in online chatrooms, and went to First Landing State Park, the outdoor cruising area in Virginia Beach.

Great, an unwanted boyfriend who was in the closet!

Tarik accepted "Why don't yah come ovah?" invitations two or three more times before getting the gumption to say "No.  Sorry, I don't feel like it tonight."

"But deah, I'm horney.  I have needs."

It was always about Mitchy's needs, wasn't it?  "Sorry, I don't feel like it."

"But deah, if you won't come ovah, I'll have to go to the park to meet a fella."

"Do what you want.  I'm not coming over."  Tarik hung up on him.

The next night when he went to the office of Our Own Community press, they were talking about a newspaper article. "Does anyone know if he was gay?  Was it really a bashing incident?"

Mitchy's housekeeper found him dead in his bedroom.  He had been beaten and strangled.  Nothing was taken. The police were baffled, but Tarik figured that he had gone out cruising and propositioned the wrong guy.   

Tarik felt guilty, of course.  If he hadn't said "no" that night...but Mitchy made the decision to pick up rough trade.  He made the decision to stay in the closet.

A few weeks later, Tarik was lying in bed, just starting to doze off, when the phone rang. 
"Hello, deah.  Why don't yah come ovah?"

A prank call? But Tarik had told only a few people about his hookup/dates, and no one about Mitch's signature phrase or thick Tidewater accent.

Mitchy still pestering him for a hookup from beyond the grave? 

See also:
Tarik and the Blue-Eyed Demon

The Naked Ghost at the Crossroads

Eastern Kentucky, June 1905

[This is the story that my aunt told me when I was about nine years old, in the trailer in the big woods, while a cold wind howled outside.]

Mary Shepherd was only 16 when her parents announced that they had arranged for her to be married to 33-year old Ell Hicks.

She didn't mind: he was a good catch.  He had a nice farm near Pyramid, Kentucky, about 14 miles south of Prestonburg.  And he was handsome, athletic, and "well-knit."  Girls had been trying unsuccessfully to land him for years.

Ell turned out to be a good provider.  He bought Mary the latest fashions, and took her to moving picture shows, and in 1904 they became one of the first families in the hills to own a new horseless carriage.

He was always kind to her and the children.  He never raised his hand in anger.

There was only one problem, something that Mary couldn't tell anyone about except her mother.  And many years later, her favorite daughter, Gracie.

Ell wasn't...um...we'll, he wasn't keen on his...um...on doing his duty as a husband.

Mary had to coax and cajole him, and even then it happened only once in a blue moon.

She blamed Ell's friends.  That's why he waited so long to marry -- he preferred the company of men.  Especially that wastrel Silas.  Why, they were joined at the hip, like Frick and Frack!

Sometimes those two stayed out carousing until midnight, leaving Mary rumbling around the house all by herself.

Finally Mary put her foot down.  "You can't visit Silas unless I go with you!"

That quieted things down, for awhile.

One day in the summer of 1905, Ell told Mary that Silas's elderly grandmother was sick, very sick, and everyone was gathered at the house to "sit up" with her, like you did in the hills.  She gave her consent for him to "sit up," too, as long as he was back by suppertime.

Well, suppertime came, and then sundown, and no Ell.  At first Mary was worried.  Then she got angry.  Maybe he wasn't sitting up with Silas's grandmother at all.  Maybe the old woman wasn't even sick!  No doubt it was just an excuse to go carousing with that wastrel!

Near midnight, Mary had enough. She woke Dewey, her toddler, wrapped six-month old Gracie in blankets, and set out to catch Ell in the act.

Ell took the carriage, so she had to walk.

It was very dark, but she could see well enough in the moonlight.

She went down the dirt road for about a mile, and then she came to a crossroads.  The left fork led to Pyramid, and the right on to Prestonburg.

There was something glowing on the side of the Prestonburg Road!

At first she thought it was someone holding a lantern.  But no -- the light was pale and cold, like moonlight.

It was like a human figure with legs spread and arms akimbo.  But much bigger -- at least ten feet tall! She couldn't make out a face.

It moaned like a ghost.

Mary was petrified with fear, but she couldn't run away, with Dewey clinging to her legs and Gracie howling.

She thought of going back, but Silas's house was closer, and there were people there.  So she persevered, walking slowly, with the boy still clinging to her legs and the baby still howling.

Finally she made it to the house, where she discovered that Ell was telling the truth.  It was full of people sitting up with Silas's grandmother, who died at the precise moment that Mary saw the figure in the woods.

But there was a problem: the figure was definitely male.  It was naked.  She distinctly remembered seeing...um...manly parts. . .dangling between its legs.

If it wasn't Silas's grandmother, who was it?  What was it?

Gracie didn't remember the incident, of course.  Mary told her about it when she was a teenager, just before she married my grandfather.

Years later, Gracie told the story to each of her daughters, just before they married.

Aunt Mavis broke with tradition, and told me.

No doubt the details changed over time, but I'm certain that the core of the story is intact: the wastrel, the sick grandmother, and the ghost in the woods that couldn't have been her.

What kind of cautionary tale is this for mothers to pass on to their daughters?

Maybe to be careful -- some of your husband's infidelities might not involve women.

But wait -- did Mary even know that gay men, or men on the downlow, existed?  Did Gracie? Or Aunt Mavis?

See also: The Ghost Lovers of Eastern Kentucky

Ozzie Hooks Up with John Kennedy Jr.

Old Westbury, New York, October 1999

It's raining hard outside, so Ravi's Bear Party in Old Westbury had rather a low turnout to begin with, and now there are only five of us left:
Ravi and his partner Ken
Yuri and me, waiting for the rain to lighten up a bit.
Ozzie, a NYU undergrad whose ride left, so he's stuck. He'll probably be staying overnight.

We're sitting in the living room, finishing the last of the snacks and swapping stories about the biggest guys we've ever been with, dates from hell, and celebrity hookups.

I tell about my date with Michael J. Fox
Ravi tells about his hookup with Elton John.
Ken tells about his date with Barry Manilow.

Then Ozzie says "Have you ever heard of John F. Kennedy, Junior?"

The jetsetting son of President John Kennedy, lawyer, journalist, athlete, a fixture of New York high society?  Of course!  He was rumored to be gay or bisexual throughout his life, but we haven't heard about anyone who actually dated him.

"I helped him come out," Ozzie says.

"But..he never actually came out," Ravi protests.  "He was married to the end of his life."

"To the end of his life, yes."

Eastside Club, New York, Summer 1999

Ozzie was 19 years old, a biochemistry major from Morocco, newly out, enormously attractive and enormously well-hung.  He had a fake id, and he was living in the city with the largest concentration of gay men in the world.  Where could he go to meet some?  As many as possible?

He wanted to go to the bars, but his friend Jeremy suggested a bath house.  No blaring music, no drunks, you could see the guys naked without bringing them home, and you could get with them instantly.

New York had only two bathhouses.  The closest was the East Side Club on 56th, a very perfunctory affairs with showers, a small sauna, a video room with bleachers, and rows of small cubicles.

They went on a Friday in July.  It was stormy, with black clouds and thunder.

"So, like tonight?" Yuri asks.  "Is this a Halloween story?"

Ozzie smiles.

The club wasn't very busy:  a scattering of old guys, a few  hustlers, and two scared, newly-out teenagers with fake ids.

Jeremy wandered off, and Ozzie checked out the video room, with old porn movies playing.  There was only one guy there: completely out of place, neither old guy nor hustler.  In his 30s, very attractive, with thick brown hair, an oval face, a moderately hairy, muscular frame, and a Bratwurst beneath the belt.  He was dripping wet, like he had just gotten out of the shower, but he wasn't wearing a towel, like most guys in bath houses.

Ozzie didn't know a lot about cruising, but he figured he could play up the Middle Eastern angle.  He sat next to him and said "Hi, I'm Ozzie, from Morocco, but now I am at NYU."

Ozzie thinks that the guy murmured the name "John."

He didn't look over, or offer a hand to be shaken.  He kept staring at the screen, and in a low monotone, he said "I'm nowhere.  I'm in a dark pit.  I'm on a winding road with no ending, and all the stars went out."

"Ok, this guy sounds high!" I exclaim.  "You'd better give him a miss!"

"I know," Ozzie says.  "But there was something about him...I could't move.  I couldn't look away."

"It can't be that bad," Ozzie told him, touching his shoulder.  It was cold.  John must have just come in from outside.

"That's why he was wet -- it was raining," Ravi says.

"All my life I did the things I was supposed to do," John said.  "I saw the people I was supposed to see.  All my life I waited.  And for what?"

"Notice that he said 'waited,' not 'I've been waiting,'" I point out.  "This guy is dead."

Ozzie looks annoyed.  "You're giving it away."

Back at the East Side Club, Ozzie decided to move on.  "Good luck with...that," he said.

John grabbed his arm. His hand was very cold.  "No -- wait," he said, still staring ahead.  "Stay with me here.  Just for a minute.  I just need a minute."

He stood.  His Bratwurst was fully aroused.  Ozzie noticed that his ankle was in a cast, but he didn't use crutches.

John led Ozzie to a dark corner and hugged him -- he wouldn't kiss -- and felt his chest and penis.  The cold, wet skin was a little distasteful, but the guy was cute, so Ozzie quickly found himself aroused.  John knelt and went down on him, his hands clamped on his buttocks.

Even his mouth was cold!

Ozzie pulled John to his feet and went down on him.  John's Bratwurst was very hard, like iron, but still cold from the rain outside.  He had shaved pubic hair.  He didn't moan, or speak, or make any sound.  It took him only a few minutes to finish with a monumental spurt.

Ozzie rose to his feet.  "I'm ready now.," John said, still not looking at him.

"Ready for what?"

Without another word, John walked off into the darkness.


Old Westbury, New York, October 1999

"I was with two other guys that night," Ozzie says.  "I didn't think anything about it at the time -- I don't know American celebrities very well.  But then I saw the pictures on tv the next day.  John F. Kennedy Junior, who crashed into the ocean.  He was my guy!"

"Wait -- when was this?"  Ravi asks.

"I was at the East Side Club on July 16th, 1999, the day of the crash.  I saw his picture on tv the next day."

"His plane crashed late at night.  He must have gone from the bath house directly to the airport."

Ozzie shakes his head.  "No.  I looked it up already.  We got to the bathhouse at 9:00 at night, and John took off at 8:39.  The crash was about an hour later.  When I helped him come out, John was dead already."

"You had sex with a ghost!" Ken exclaims.

"Well, at least it was with a famous ghost," I say.

Ok, what happened that night at the East Side Club?

The last few days of John F. Kennedy Jr.'s life are well-documented

He spent July 13th-15th at the Stanhope Hotel on Fifth Avenue, depressed over his financial difficulties and his relationship with his wife, Carolyn.

They were on their way to a divorce.  She thought he was a "fag" because of his many male friendships, especially with the muscular Michael Bergin.


Explanation 1: Struggling to come out, to admit his same-sex interests to himself, Kennedy went to the East Side Club sometime during the week, and Ozzie got the date wrong.

Kennedy had an ankle cast, but it was removed on the 14th.

But Ozzie swears that it was the 16th.

On July 16th, Kennedy got up and went to the office of George magazine at 1633 Broadway.  He stayed in the office all day, except for lunch with his editors and working out in the gym.  At about 4:00 pm, his sister-in-law Lauren Bessette arrived, and they began their trip to the Essex County Airport, where they would meet his wife and fly to Martha's Vineyard.

Explanation #2: Kennedy went to the East Side Club early in the day on the 16th, and Ozzie got the time wrong.

But Ozzie swears that it was in the evening

Explanation #3: Ozzie hooked up with a guy who looked like John F. Kennedy, Jr., who had just come in out of the rain, and who was a little high..

Explanation #4: There are ghosts wandering the hallways of the East Side Club.

See also: The Amazing Invisible Boy; The Boy Who Refused to Leave My Room

A Sausage Sighting of the Mysterious Boy at the Old House

Garrett, July 1972

Just up the hill from my Grandpa Prater's farmhouse in northern Indiana was the Old House: over 100 years old, now fallen to ruin.  We could go up and play in the dusty yard, or hunt for frogs in the little pond, but we could not go inside.  Uncle Paul said that it was full of "witch's blood" that would turn us into "ghosts," but most likely it was just unstable.

We usually stayed away from the Old House, unless there were adults up there, playing horseshoes or skinning and cleaning the animals they hunted.  We didn't like the weird shadows in the upstairs windows, like dark figure moving about, or the porch swing that sometimes moved by itself.

But one day in the summer of 1972,  when I was eleven years old, the farmhouse was full of people: Mom and Dad, my aunts and uncles, and some people I didn't know, an old guy Grandpa Prater's age, some husbands and wives, and a couple of surly teenagers.  They were in the living room, the kitchen, in Grandma Prater's memorial room, even on the front porch.

They were all laughing loudly and talking about things that happened thirty years ago.  Boring!  And no kids to play with!  My brother and baby sister were out with Grandma Davis, and Cousin Buster was visiting his other grandparents.

It was noisy and oppressively hot; I had to get out of there!  I told Mom I was going to play outside.

But what to do?  Nothing is more boring than a farm with no animals on it.

I decided to go up to the Old House and throw rocks into the pond, to see if I could scare some fish.

Even though it was a bright, sunny day, the Old House seemed more sinister than usual.  I shivered with nervous excitement.

The porch swing was swinging by itself.  I heard the rusty scrape.

Trying to avoid looking in the windows at whatever might be inside, I rounded to the back yard, and and almost ran into a boy.

I yelled and jumped back.

He didn't approach.  He just stood there, staring.

He was a few years older than me, but not yet a teenager [models in the nude photos are over 18].   Tall and slim, with a round face, sharp features, and black curly hair.  Wearing a thin brown jacket, which seemed weird on a hot day.

Someone to play with!  And cute!  I thought, smiling at him.  "Do you live around here?"

"I think I used to live here," he said, still staring.

"Me, too.  We moved away when I was little."

"Do you want to go inside?  I can show you my old room. I carved my initials on the wall."

"No way...Grandpa told me to never go in there.  There's witch's blood."

He frowned.  "Ok, well -- let's swing."

We climbed on the porch swing and started swinging back and forth, until we were banging against the wall.  It felt like the whole house was about to fall down.  I jumped off.

"Let's throw some rocks in the pond," I said.

"No.  It's hot.  Let's go swimming!"

"In there?  It's all full of moss and gunk."

"No, it isn't.  When I was a kid, I swam in there all the time.  It's fun."

"Well...I don't have a swim suit."

"You weenie!  Come on, I'll race you." He started taking his clothes off.  I stopped instinctively to watch,   I saw a nice smooth hard chest.  He  turned his back to take off his shorts, but then turned back, giving me a nice view of his "shame."

A beautiful cut Bratwurst!  I hadn't seen very many at that time, but I could tell it was special, the stuff of dreams.

The boy ran and jumped into the pond with a big splash.

"Is it deep?" I said doubtfully.

But the boy wasn't paying attention.  He stood and started walking off, into the pond, like he belonged there...

At that moment, I heard my Mom yelling for me.  "I got to go," I said, and ran down the hill.

"Where have you been?" Mom asked.  "We've been ready to go for fifteen minutes while you traipsed around at the Old House."

I decided not to tell them about the boy, and get him in trouble, too.

For years I wondered about the mysterious boy.  Who was he?  Why was he at the Old House?  Was he a ghost?

I sort of wanted him to be a ghost, but I knew there was a realistic explanation.

Eventually I asked Mom, who told me that the people visiting that day were Grandpa's Cousin Crit and his family.  They moved to Indiana with Mom's family in 1942, and lived in the Old House until 1965.

"Was there a boy a little older than me?"  I asked.

"I think all his kids were my age, but let's check."  She went to get a family Bible to check.  "Cousin Crit, born in 1910.  Married Sarah, had six kids: Delmar, Ethel,  Wilkie, Alice, and Carl."

Carl, the youngest, was born in November 1943.  He would have been 28 years old.  Maybe a grandson, who lived with them?

 Mom didn't remember any, but she spent a couple of years in Long Beach, right after she got married, so she didn't know for sure.

North Manchester, Indiana, July 2006

Over 30 year later, when I was living in Dayton, Ohio, I thought about the boy at the Old House again, and tried to look up Cousin Crit's kin online.  There were dozens of people with his last name in North Manchester, including the mayor, but with a little digging I managed to find Carl.  A phone call got me an invitation to visit my third cousin.

Carl was 62 years old, a buffed muscle bear with a hefty gray beard, retired from the military and back in his home town to take care of his invalid sister (his other siblings had died).  He told me about his career: joining the army right after high school in 1961, being stationed in Korea, Vietnam, Germany, Afghanistan, always on the move, never able to find a home.    

"I remember that visit!" he said.  "It was first time I was back to the Old House since I moved away  But I don't know who the kid was."

"He said he used to live in the house."

"I don't know what he was telling you, but I was the last kid to live there.  Maybe one of my nephews stayed for a week or two.  But none of them were 12 or 13 in 1972."

I shruggd.  "I must be remembering it wrong."

"You know who it sounds like?"  Carl said.  "Me.  I was born in the Old House.  I carved my name on the wall of my room upstairs, and banged on the wall with the porch swing, and I used to go skinny-dipping in the pond all the time.  But I didn't do any of those things that day, and besides, I was 28 years old, not 13."

"Unless a younger version of you went skinny dipping with me while you was sitting in the farmhouse," I said with a laugh.  "A preteen doppelganger trying to recapture the lost freedom of his childhood."

"Huh?"

"It must have been a kid from down the road."

Carl didn't share my interest in the paranormal, and I didn't want to explain.  Or to ask him to drop his pants, so I could compare his penis to that of the mysterious boy I saw at the Old House 30 years ago.

See also: The Naked Man in the Peat Bog; Lane's Weirdest Paranormal Experience.; The Boy Hooks Up with a Fairy