I Prove I'm Not Gay By Kissing a Guy

Many non-runners don't realize that runners get harassed a lot.  People yell out criticisms, slurs, and epithets, Over the years, I've heard:

"Run faster!"
"Run!  Maybe you'll catch up with them!"
"Where's the fire?"
"You lost your pants?"

And the standard array of epithets:
"Fag!"
"Fruit!"
"Dork"
"Wimp!"

They throw things or spit out of cars.

They mimic your actions,

They try to trip you.

Sometimes they even attack.



Rock Island, June 1976

It was the summer after my sophomore year at Rocky High, about a month after my date with King Carl Gustav of Sweden.  I had been running for a few months, in preparation for joining the track team in the fall (which never happened).

I know now that you should always vary your route and time of day, to minimize the harassment, but in 1976 I  always followed the same route: down 20th Avenue to 38th Street, down to 31st Avenue, over to 24th, up to 18th, and back, about three miles.

At the same time of day.

Past a school.

I know, dumb!

As I passed, I always saw a group of three boys, one junior high age, two younger, playing basketball or hanging out in the school yard.  Sometimes they were in a kiddie pool in the front yard of one of the houses across the street.

The junior high boy was sort of cute, with thick brown hair, and a tan chest with pinprick nipples, but too young for me (I was 15, and he was probably 13 or 14).  So I didn't pay him much attention.

Not even the day he grabbed his crotch and yelled "Fag!" while his cronies laughed.

I shrugged, figuring that he was a junior high Mean Boy.  I was in high school, beyond that sort of bullying.  It wasn't worth changing my route over.

Then one day the Mean Boy and his cronies attacked.

They lay in wait in the bushes behind the school, and when I came past, they jumped out and surrounded me and squirted viciously with squirt guns and a squeeze bottle, looks of sheer malice on their faces.

Soaked, roaring with rage, I grabbed one of the squirt guns from a boy's hands and threw it onto the ground.

They scattered in three different directions.

I chased the Mean Boy, the oldest of the pack.  He ran across the street to the house with the kiddie pool, into the back yard, toward a play house, but before he could make it, I tackled him and dragged him to the ground.  I used my wrestling training to pin him.  I was holding his hands above his head, pressing our chests together, pressing our crotches together, panting.

"Get off me, faggot!" the Mean Boy snarled.  And then "Ow!  Help!"

What would you do if you had a cute boy pinned to the ground?

"I'll show you who's a faggot, faggot!" I yelled.

"What you going to do about it?" he asked, struggling.

"I'll tell you, tough guy.  I'm going to kiss you!"

He laughed.  "You wouldn't have the nerve!"

"Try me."

He continued to struggle.  "Ok, wise guy, let's see what you got."

The Mean Boy's eyes widened as my mouth clamped down onto his.  "Mmph!" he protested.

I shoved my tongue into his mouth.

This was my first "French kiss."   I seem to remember the Mean Boy responding, darting his tongue against mine.  but it might be my imagination.

After a few minutes, I backed up.  The Mean Boy didn't say anything.  He just stared.

"Oh, you want another kiss?"

He shook his head.  "I guess you're pretty tough."

I jumped to my feet and turned and ran on, trembling with rage and a strange erotic excitement.

 I glanced back.  The Mean Boy was propped up on one elbow, staring at me.

This story could end in several ways.  The boy could become my first boyfriend.  I could run into him years later, and discover that he was gay.

But actually I never saw the Mean Boy again.  I started running a different route -- several different routes, actually.  If he was two years younger than me, he must have been a sophomore at Rocky High during my senior year, but I don't remember him.

But I definitely remember the kiss.

See also: My Date with Carl Gustaf, the King of Sweden; My First Kiss, from a Boy Vampire.

My Third Grade Boyfriend

Rock Island, July 1968

When I was 7 1/2 years old, we moved from a nice house in Wisconsin, a block from the beach, to a gross house in Ill-An-Noise, in back of the grade school. Yuck!

This new world was stupid and boring, but I was determined to make the best of it.  The first thing I needed was a boyfriend.  Somebody to show me around, introduce me to other kids, point out the places to get necessities (like cookies and comic books), and the places to avoid (with mean dogs, mean boys, crazy ladies, and escaped killers).

He should be a boy, of course, around my age, and preferably both nice and cute.

In August, when school started, there would be a whole roomful of boys choose from, but that was over a month away, an eternity for a 7 1/2 year old!  I needed somebody now!

Fortunately, 1968 was the heart of the Baby Boom, the biggest generation in history.  There were 77 million kids growing up in the U.S., some in nearly every house on every street in the country.  It didn't take long to compile a list of prospects who lived within a couple of blocks.

Bill, who became my boyfriend in February, wasn't on the list -- I think he was away on vacation at the time.  Joel and Greg, who would become close friends later on, lived three blocks away, too far.

But there were a lot of boys left. You have to figure out who I chose:

1. The Little Kid, aka Mike (top photo), who lived next door.  He was a year younger than me, but he had muscles and a brown smiling face.  We ran under the sprinkler in his front yard, clothes and all, which soaked my shirt and pants and got me in trouble.

2. The Cereal Boy, a cute redhead with freckles, a year older than me (left).  He invited me to watch Saturday morning cartoons and eat cereal -- but it was Froot Loops!  I hate Froot Loops!

3. The Football Player, aka Mean Dave, who punched me in the stomach and called me a "girl," then helped me to my feet and said "I was just kidding.  You want to go to the high school and watch the football players practicing?"  They didn't have football at Denkmann, but he was playing on a summer enrichment team, and he wanted to be a football player when he grew up.

4.  The Parakeet Boy, aka Nice Dave (left), a curly-haired blond boy who had two dogs, a rabbit, a parakeet, and a hamster.  He talked to the parakeet, and made it eat a cracker out of his mouth, which I found gross.  But I liked petting the dogs and the rabbit.

5. The Old Guy, much taller than me, with all kinds of muscles.  But he was eleven -- almost a teenager!  Way too old for me, sort of like a West Hollywood twink dating someone in his 70s.  And he said crazy things, like he already knew how to drive a car and he could stay up until midnight if he wanted.  He had tons of toys in his room, plus a sticker labeled "panic button"; he said if he pushed that, sirens would go off and the whole house would shake.

I tried.  Nothing happened.  He said "It only works for me."

6. The Sick Kid (left), pale, kind of ugly, always looked like he was pain, but he had a round plastic pool in his back yard, and his Mom brought us lemonade in plastic glasses with little palm tree straws.

7. The Angel, aka David Angel (there were a lot of Davids in the neighborhood): puppy-dog cute, but  painfully shy.  When I try to talk to him, he ran to the back of the house.  When I went to the back of the house, he ran to the front.

8. The Rock Star, aka Craig (left), who wanted to be a rock musician.  He had weird hippie hair that turned me off, but he never wore a shirt, which was nice. We went into his basement and played rock stars with his drums and guitar.

9. The Indian, aka Bobby,  a year younger than me, short and slim with black hair and a bright smile.  He wasn't really from India, but he looked like Raji, the boy on Maya.   But it was hard to get close to him, since he lived on the other side of the house where the Killer lived, a crazy-evil blond boy who attacked anyone who came nearby.

Ok, which of these 9 hot guys did I choose to become my summertime boyfriend?

Answer after the break.

The Four Bullies of Denkmann School

Denkmann Elementary School in Rock Island had four doors, on the north, south, east, and west sides.  There was no rule saying that you had to enter by a certain door, so I always went in through the north door, closest to my house.

I always left through the north door, also, unless I was planning to play with a friend who lived in another direction,or I had a chore there.

Each door had its own peril, a Mean Boy who stalked it out, searching for prey.

1. West Door:  The way to 38th Street, the main busy street of Rock Island, with Schneider's Drug Store where you could buy comic books.  My friend Greg lived in that direction, too.  The Mean Boy was the Killer (top photo), a belligerent blond who took every action as an insult requiring you to fight him, either right on the spot or after school.  He fought by biting, kicking, and punching anything he could find, while the grownups looked on and said "Nobody likes a tattletale."

I don't remember the Killer in junior high.  Maybe he moved, or maybe he exploded in a burst of rage.  But recently, looking at all of the rosters of nearby prisons and mental asylums, I managed to find him.

He's a Distinguished Professor of New Testament Studies at a fundamentalist seminary, author of several books on why the Bible is literally true. His wife studied missiology at a Baptist seminary.

No doubt if I come out to him, he'll start biting, punching, and kicking me again.

2. South Door: Actually the main door of the school, opening onto the ritzy South Side neighborhood.  The only reason to go that way was to stop at Dewey's Candy Store.  The Mean Boy was Dick, very tall, with broad shoulders, big hands and an enormous penis (as I found out later).  He yelled out humiliating names:  "Wimp!  Dork!  Fairy!", and the worst possible insult, "Girl!"  ad its own perils, in the form of Mean Boys.

After we grew up, Dick and I reconnected.  He turned out to be gay.  The insults?  Well, you know, boys only tease you because they like you.

We stayed friends, sharing hookups and lovers, for about 20 years.

3. East Door: A few blocks to Moline, the next town over.  Joel lived in that direction, and if you went further, Country Time Ice Cream.  Its Mean Boy was Duane, tall, dark, and swarthy, with a preference for bicycle shorts.  He would extort money out of you: "Lend me a nickel...lend me a dime..."

Sometimes he stole other things: pens, caps, textbooks (to throw them in the mud), your lunch (or he'd chew on it, say "Ok, I'll give it back," and deposit it back on your plate).

His most expensive theft was my watch:  "That's a nice watch...let me look at it,"  Of course, it went straight into his pocket, and when I asked for it back, "You never gave me any watch!"

I found Duane on Facebook.  His photos include an inordinate number of Confederate flags and MAGA caps.  The guy on the left is reputedly his son at an..um...event.

4. North Door.  It was the back end of the school, not heavily patroled and so the site of all deviant and illegal acts: fights, smoking cigarettes, reading comic books, boy-girl kissing, bullying.  No one Mean Boy took precedence: several roamed about.  Fortunately, home was just across the schoolyard, so I could avoid any confrontation by running fast.  I only remember one major incident:

Bruce was very tall, then, and ugly.  He used to write on his hand, which I found disgusting.  He specialized in sexual bullying.  He would approach his target and say "Lemme see your dick," or else skip the request and just grab.

Today that would be a warning sign that Bruce had serious emotional problems, but in the 1970s no one thought anything of it: "Just innocent play.  Boys are naturally curious."

I usually ran away when he approached, but once in the fifth grade, he cornered me by some rain puddles.  "Lemme see your dick!" he ordered.  When I didn't respond, he reached out and groped me.  To get even, I reached out and groped him (sorry, I don't remember what it felt like,but we were both 10 years old, so it can't have been very impressive).

Apparently no one had ever turned the tables on Bruce before.  He got a weird dazed expression and ran off.

I just found Bruce on facebook.  Wife, kids, grandson, the hetero works.

Corrupting a Mean Boy

Racine, Spring 1968

Growing up strictly fundamentalist prepared me for a lifetime of civil disobedience.  We had to be on guard constantly.  Teachers, other kids, police officers, store clerks, anybody who belonged to the World would try anything, from seduction to threats, to get us to deny God.

In second grade at Hasche Elementary School in Racine, Wisconsin, my teacher, Miss Donovan, was adept at promoting evil.  She was tall and thin, with black hair and bright red lips and a perpetual scowl.   Evil.

1. She told us that proper nouns, specific People, Places, and Things, had to be capitalized.  So on the spelling test, I capitalized "Heaven," and got it marked wrong.

"Heaven is a specific place!"  I yelled.  "You can't make me say it's not!"'

Hansche School was torn down a few years ago

2. We had to do dreaded square dancing.  Nazarenes were not permitted to dance, ever.  I told my parents, who had the preacher call and set her straight, but not before I had to sit in the corner for a full class session.

3. She made us learn the expression "Nobody's perfect."  But Nazarenes were perfect!  The foundation of our theology was Christian perfection, the inability to ever commit any sins.  "You can't make me say it,"  I protested.  "It's a lie!"

Another day sitting in the corner!


I couldn't take much more of Miss Donovan's mind-control torture.

I decided on a pre-emptive strike.

There was a Mean Boy in my class named "Mean Dave" to distinguish him from Nice Dave.  He had muscles and sandy hair and a brash smile.  I didn't associate with Mean Boys much, but Mean Dave was always getting in trouble with Miss Donovan, too, and in wartime, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.  And did I mention the muscles?

We borrowed some gag gifts from Mean Dave's older brother, and while Miss. Donovan was out patrolling the kids at recess, we sneaked into the classroom and put fake vomit under her desk, a whoopie cushion on her chair, and pop-up snakes in her chalk drawer. To be on the safe side, we also wrote "Donovan eats worms!" on the blackboard.

At the end of recess, she marched into the classroom, shrieked "Who wrote this!", and forced us all to put our heads on our desks until someone confessed.  But we could hear her opening the chalk drawer -- shrieking as the snakes popped out -- then a farting sound as she sat in her chair -- then a shriek as she thought she stepped in vomit.


Mean Dave and I were discovered almost immediately. We had to stay after school, AND apologize to Miss Donovan. AND Mean Dave was not allowed to play with me anymore.  His parents said I was a bad influence.

Imagine -- a "perfect" Nazarene was a bad influence on a Mean Boy!