Nude Wrestling in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin

Rock Island, July 2017

Bob and I are on a road trip from the Plains to New York. We spent the night in Rock Island, Illinois, my home town.  Now we're having egg white omelets and fruit cups at the Quad Cities Pancake House.

"So, what's on the schedule for today?"  Bob asks.

"Chicago, about three hours from here.  We'll hit a couple of the museums, spend the night, and then drive on to Cleveland tomorrow."

"Would you mind if we take a little side-trip first?  I have a cousin I haven't seen since we were kids.  It's a couple of hours out of the way."

"Where?"

"Fond du Lac, Wisconsin."

4 hours out of the way!  But this is Bob's trip, too, so he should have a say in the itinerary.  Besides,  I have a history with Fond du Lac.


During my senior year in high school, although I was still Nazarene, I became obsessed with all things Catholic.  I read The Seven Story Mountain and The Dark Night of the Soul, learned to say the Rosary, and even went incognito into a Catholic Mass. I didn't actually convert, but I was considering it.

 And I considered applying to Marion College in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.

Dad even drove me up for a tour.  I remember a vast snow-covered campus with round white buildings, pristine, pure, as quiet as a cloister.

You could feel the presence of God everywhere.

I imagined living in an austere dorm room, all white, empty except for a bed with white covers, some statues of saints, and a shelf of contemplative classics: the Little Flowers of St. Francis,  The Cloud of Unknowing.  Of walking among buildings of brilliant white other-worldly splendor every day, en route to my classes in medieval philosophy, Catholic theology, Ecclesiastical Latin, and Koine Greek.


Saying the rosary, walking the Stations of the Cross, going to Novenas, blessing myself with holy water before daily Mass.


Spending every day in communion with the Divine.

I decided to go to Augustana instead, but ever since, Fond du Lac has remained entrenched in my mind as a place of peace and serenity, as close as you can get to heaven in this life.

"Could we go to a Catholic Mass while we're there?" I ask.

Bob blinks.  "Well, it's Wednesday, and I'm not Catholic, but...ok, if you want.  I'll text my cousin."

On the four hour drive to Fond du Lac, Bob tells me more about Cousin Tark (short for Tarkington).  He's older than Bob, a big brother who used to babysit him and sneak him into R-rated movies, until he went away to college in Wisconsin, and then got a job in Fond du Lac.

"Was he cute?" I ask.

Not an athlete, but big and tall, with a thick beefy chest and nice biceps.

"Any sausage sightings?"

"Man, we used to wrestle in the nude.  I remember it getting hard once!  Really big -- and thick!  Man, that thing was like a beer can!"

 A beer-can penis somehow seems out of place in a world of quiet contemplation.  Surely trivial matters like sex fade away when you are in the presence of the Divine.

Fond du Lac, Wisconsin

We arrive in Fond du Lac at around 2:00 pm.  Tark doesn't get off work until 5:00 pm, so we go to Lakeside Park and walk along the lake.

I try to imagine how different my life would have been if I had gone to Marian, and stayed in Wisconsin, instead of going to Augustana, then Indiana University, and then West Hollywood.  Would I have been to 10,000 daily masses by now?  Said the rosary 20,000 times?  Spent my life in quiet contemplation of the Divine?

Next we go to St. Paul's Cathedral.  No Mass is going on, but I bless myself with holy water and light a candle in front of a statue of the Blessed Virgin, while Bob texts on his cell phone.

Then Marian College itself, which is a disappointment: an Erbert and Gerbert's sandwich shop in the student union, a jazz concert coming up on Friday, a sports team called the Dockspiders, and "A Beginner's Guide to Star Wars" in the student newspaper.  Hardly contemplative or otherworldly!

At 5:30 we go to Joe's Fox Hut, a rather scary dive bar next to the army induction center, with a Schlitz Beer sign out front.

The server takes us into a dark, dismal room with country-western music blaring, and hands us menus: pizza! corn dogs!  garlic bread!

Nothing healthy on the menu.  Even the chicken breast comes with french fries and cole slaw.

Suddenly a very tall, chubby guy with short hair and a reddish-brown beard sneaks up behind Bob, motions for me to keep quiet, and grabs him.  Bob yells.

"Gotcha!"

Bob hugs him.  "Hi, Cousin Dweeb. This is my boyfriend, Boomer."

Tark slides into the booth next to me and shakes my hand.

"Cousin Dork, you're all grown up -- sort of.  You're still scrawny -- and dating your professor!  How did you pull that off?"  He nudges me.  "I'll bet the little guy gets all A's, huh?"


"He's not actually in any of my classes."

"Well, there's always next semester."

He orders a sausage-mushroom pizza with mini corn dogs on the side, and tells us about his job as an auto detailer.

"It's great -- they bring the cars right to my house, and I do the work in my driveway.  No overhead.  Sure beats working in a stuffy office all day -- or teaching a bunch of whiny brats."

"True," I say.  "But some of those whiny brats are cute."

"I heard that.  Man, if I was a professor, I'd be inviting every gal in sight for some extra tutoring in my office.  Maybe a little oral exam, huh?"

I don't like him.  In a world of quiet contemplation, all he can think of are corn dogs and oral sex.

Eventually his girlfriend Diane joins us: a music professor at Marian specializing in jazz history.

Jazz?  Not Gregorian chants?  

We go to a place called the Backstage Bar and Grille to drink beer (soda for me and Bob) and listen to live music, more pop than jazz.  Loud!

Then we go back to Diane and Tark's house to drink more beer, listen to more music -- loud! -- and play with their dogs and cat,.  Finally it's time for bed: they put us up in an upstairs bedroom with race car posters and stuffed animals.

Bob and I strip down.  "They seem nice," I say.

"Yeah.  He hasn't changed.  A little fatter, but still like a big brother."

We start kissing and fondling.  Bob pushes me down onto the bed.

I look up to see Tark.  Grinning, naked.

He motions me to keep silent.  Bob is kissing my chest.  Suddenly Tark grabs him from behind.

"Nude wrestling!" he yells, dragging a giggling Bob to the floor.  "Rowdy Roddy Piper versus the Dynamic Dork!"

No, we didn't "share."   But I did get a sausage sighting of his beer-can penis.

Yes, that makes up for the absence of quiet contemplation in Fond du Lac.

Troy Returns to Hell-fer-Sartain

Upstate, March 2011

Troy, my boyfriend in Upstate New York, was a high school French teacher and soccer coach -- rather an anomaly in a town obsessed with baseball --  25 years old, tall, slim, athletic  very handsome, except for the big black earrings and a pink triangle tattoo.

He had never been farther west than Buffalo, so in the spring of 2011, I offered to fly us to West Hollywood and San Francisco.

"That sounds cool," he said, "But you know where I'd really like to go?  Texas.  Cowboys, sage brush, cattle ranches, oil barons, all that glitz and glamour.  You know what they say: 'they grow them big in Texas."

"But...after 210 miserable days in Hell-fer-Sartain -- um, I mean Houston -- I vowed to never set foot in the state again!"

"I know -- you've told me lots of horror stories about your year in Texas.  But that was in 1985, before I was even born.  I'm sure it's changed a lot since then. Being gay is even legal now."

It took several conversations, but finally I agreed: three nights in Austin, Texas, a liberal, bohemian college town nowhere near Hell-fer-Sartain, and then March 15-19 in West Hollywood.

When the plane landed at Austin International Airport on March 11th, and the blue sky of Texas enveloped me, I began to feel anxious, almost panicky.  What if we were trapped here?  What if we could never escape again?

"Relax!" Troy said, taking my hand.  Wary of homophobes, especially in redneck Texas, I jerked it away.

The highway into town had tall barriers on either side.  I couldn't see anything.

We stayed at a gay bed and breakfast on Lavaca Street, just south of the State Capitol, near the Mexi-Arte Museum, a gay bar called Rain, and a sushi restaurant.  Adequately Bohemian.  I could stand spending three nights here.

But then Troy had another surprise: "I want to drive out to Houston.  It's only 165 miles."

"What?  Why?"

"The Montrose is one of the oldest gay neighborhoods in the country.  And besides, I've heard so many stories about Hell-fer-Sartain that I want to see it for myself.  We'll drive up tomorrow, spend the night, and drive back the next day, ok?"

"No way, Jose!  You talked me into coming to Texas, but no way I'm going near that place!  I haven't been there in 25 glorious years, and I'm up for at least another 25 years without setting foot in Hell-fer-Sartain."

"Ok, ok!  But would you mind if I go myself, just for curiosity's sake?  I'll keep a complete log of what happened.  Oh -- and carte blanche for cruising?"

"Sure, whatever.  You won't find anybody in Hell-fer-Sartain, anyway.  Lord knows I tried."

So I spent all day Monday and Tuesday by myself in Austin.  Troy returned in time for dinner Tuesday night.  As promised, he kept a log:

Monday 

11:00 am.  I arrive at Lone Star College, where Boomer taught bonehead English to rednecks.  I meet with Cammie, the head of the Gender-Sexuality Alliance, who prefers not to use gender pronouns.   "It's not a gay club," they tell me.  "Most of our members are transgender or genderqueer.  We have cisgender straight members, too. And a couple of gay guys."

12:00 pm.  Several members of the GSA -- two gay, two genderqueer, and one straight --  take me to lunch at the China Bear, near the campus.  They're going to be on a panel in a sociology class at 2:00, and ask me to go along.

2:00 pm.  The panel.  We sit on chairs in the front of a room with about 30 students -- not all rednecks (there's a Muslim girl in a hijab).  Each of us tells our "coming out" story (as gay, transgender, and genderqueer). Then the students ask questions, mostly about "what causes it?" and "how did your parents react?"  One asked me if I was attracted to buttholes the way straight guys are attracted to boobs.


3:00 pm.  The other gay gay on the panel, a biochemistry major named Mason, offers to take me on a tour of the area.  We try to find Boomer's old address, but the house is gone.  The streets are now paved, by the way, and have sidewalks.

5:00 pm.  Back to Mason's house.  I expect dinner, but instead he invites me to "share" with his partner Donovan, an older guy, balding but otherwise cute, firm hairy chest, big dick.  I go down on him while Mason is going down on me, and then he tops Mason.   Hot!

7:00 pm.  We shower (together) and then drive into Houston, where I check into my hotel and (finally!) go out to dinner at Baba Yegg, which disappointingly doesn't serve Russian food.  But there are lots of gay guys there, in groups and couples.

9:00 pm.  Time to hit the bars.  There are a dozen within walking distance of my hotel: South Beach, JR's, Blur, Ripcord.  Mostly dancing and drag queens, but there's one leather bar, the Eagle (naturally).

11:00 pm.  Mason and Donovan say goodbye and go back to the suburbs.  I  hit the Eagle, which is in full cruise mode.  Apparently bar life is still important in Texas.

12:00 am.  No luck at the Eagle, and I'm a little tired (and hungry), so I go to Boheme, an artsy wine bar with a pizza menu.  Naturally, I get cruised when my mouth is full of artisanal eggplant-kalimata olive pizza.

1:00 am.  Rolf is a little older than me, in his 30s, with too many scents and too much gel in his hair.  But otherwise he's hot, very muscular, bare hard chest, cut Kielbasa+, into "worship" (where you kiss and lick him all over the body).  I am glad to oblige! For sex, he's an oral bottom.  As Boomer knows, I'm mostly an oral bottom, too, but I don't mind getting a blow job every now and then, especially if the guy is hot.

Tuesday

8:00 am.  Breakfast with Rolf, then jogging through the Montrose.

10:00 am.  The Museum District: Museum of Fine Arts, Natural History Museum, then cruising at Rice University.  A cute college guy seems to be flirting with me, but I don't have time to stop.

1:00 pm.  Lunch, then a stop at the gay sex shop to buy Boomer some souvenirs, a 9" dildo and some nipple clamps (he'll use them on me, hopefully).  They have video booths with glory holes, so I stick around for awhile.  Soon a 9" penis comes through the glory hole at me.  I don't know who it belongs to -- it's dark, maybe Hispanic.  Who cares?

Later a college-aged guy puts his very hard average sized penis through.  Is it the same one who flirted with me before?  I can't tell for sure.

2:00 pm.  Time to leave Hell-for-Sartain.

"What about you?" Troy asked.  "What did you do during your two days alone in Austin?"
 
I visited the State Capitol and  the State History Museum, which was kind of boring.  I cruised at Oilcan Harry's but didn't meet anyone, worked out at the Gregory Gym at the University of Texas but didn't seen any Texas penises, bought used books at a public library book sale, not very interesting ones.

"Meet any hot guys?"

"No.  I saw Alvin Rangel's biceps and bulge at a dance recital.

I should have gone back to Hell-fer-Sartain...um, I mean Houston.

See also: Troy's First Video Booth

I Pick Up a Boy and His Daddy at an Airport in Montana

Helena, Montana, April 2013

In the spring of 2013, desperate to get out of Philadelphia, I sent out a lot of application portfolios, but being obviously over 40, with 13 years of temporary "visiting faculty" jobs, plus a resume-full of gay-themed research, made me less than desirable as a candidate.  I only got three interviews: a women's college somewhere in eastern Pennsylvania, a Catholic college in Montana, and a public university on the Plains (I took the Plains).

My flight to Helena, Montana gave me a 2-hour layover in Denver.

I don't mind layovers.  The Denver Airport has an artwalk with some of the most interesting public art in the U.S., plus a nice view of the mountains and a nice breakfast place.

Plus airports are great for physique watching: an endless variety of businessmen in suits, college boys in t-shirts and short pants, hot dads balancing their toddlers on their knees.

Helena Airport, on the other hand, is tiny, with a single lobby and a single restaurant, Captain Jack's Bistro and Bar.  Pictures of cowboys, pillars that look like trees.

After my interview, they took me to the airport at 3:00 pm for my 5:00 flight, even though I had my boarding pass and was through security in about 30 seconds.  Nothing to do but get on my laptop and look out at the dark clouds rumbling overhead and wonder if I was going to make it to Philadelphia.

Not a lot of beefcake to watch: a couple of high school athletes, a middle-aged cowboy with a nice basket.  Otherwise all women, kids, or elderly people.

And a twink: tall, slim, with weird wavy hair, a bearded oval face, prominent eyebrows, and those big round earrings, wearing a white button-down shirt and red jeans with a nice bulge.  Rather feminine, flaunting about with his carry-on.  I noticed that it had a rainbow flag on it.

My first gay guy in Montana, and he's not closeted!  Too bad that he's not my type.

Even though there were lots of empty seats, he plopped down next to me.

"Going to Denver?  Yeah, I guess we're all going to Denver.  I'm off to visit my sister in Tucson -- she just had a baby.  I haven't seen her in almost a year.  My name is Jacob."

"Congratulations," I said.   "My name is Boomer."

He grabbed my arm.  "Oh, I bet there's a story behind that."

"Three of them, in fact."  I don't usually make conversation in airports -- there's little point -- you'll both be flying off in different directions in a few minutes.  But -- the only gay person in Helena, Montana!   "I'm going home to Philadelphia.  I was here for a job interview."

"Oh,  Boomer, I hope you get the job.  I'd love to show you the sights!  Did you get a chance to see Cruse Avenue?"

"Cruise Avenue?  Is that the gay neighborhood?"

"No, silly!"  He slapped my shoulder.  "It's a great street that overlooks downtown and the mountains, so you can get a birds' eye view of everything! Oh, and I'd take you to the Holter Museum, and the 4J's -- that's our best casino, not like Las Vegas, but it's fun!  And if you like dancing, they have country-western line dancing at the Rialto."

"Boys dancing together?"

"Sure, whatever you want.  We're open minded in the Big Sky Country."

Did this guy work for the Tourist Bureau?  "I'm really more into classical music."

He grabbed my arm again.  "Babe, you're in luck.  My Daddy is one of the performers at the Montana Early Music Festival. That's why he's not going to Tucson with me --they're performing at St. Peter's tonight.  That's the Episcopal Cathedral downtown."

Daddy?  My ears perked up.  Adults did not refer to their parents as "Daddy," so Jacob was outing himself as the bottom in a fetish relationship that was about control rather than BDSM.  "So, how long have you and your...daddy been together?"

"About three years. I don't call him Daddy all the time, of course.  I call him Mike on campus and to his ex-wife.  She's not very accepting -- she thinks we're just roommates.  But most people in Helena couldn't care less.  It's live and let live up here."  Suddenly there was a rumble of thunder, and it started to pour outside.  The clouds were so dark they were almost black.

Jacob reached out and stroked my knee -- very open for an airport!  And how did he even know I was gay?   "It looks like we might be going to that concert after all."

About fifteen minutes later, our flight was indeed cancelled, so I was stuck in Helena overnight.  I could call the college and have them get me a hotel room, but whenever I've done that, I haven't gotten the job.  Besides, Jacob was already calling his Daddy to arrange for me to spend the night.

I wondered what Daddy looked like: older, of course, and an anal top, but...a stern leather master?  A cigar-chomping bear?  A hard-drinking, tattoo-covered redneck?

Well, it wouldn't hurt to meet him, anyway.

I got Jacob's full name and number, and emailed them to Troy in New York -- just a precaution -- then followed him to his car, clinging against him under his umbrella.

We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant -- he grabbed my knee under the table while I ate my arroz con pollo with guacamole, and briefly held my hand.

 Then we went to the Rialto, the country-western gay bar.  Deserted at 6:00 pm on a rainy Thursday night -- but we managed to find a secluded corner for kissing.

"I'm going to be servicing two Daddies tonight," Jacob murmured, running his  hand over my chest.  "One for each end.  Oh, I can't wait.  I hope you're as hung as my Daddy is."

"How hung is he?" I asked.

"Well, let's just say we grow them big in Montana!

We got to the concert just as it was starting. Jacob ushered me into one of the first rows and pointed to the choir.  "That's Mike," he whispered.  "Isn't he hot?"

"He sure is!" I said, although I didn't know exactly which of the elderly, portly singers he was referring to.

I'm not a big fan of Renaissance music, but the concert was interesting, mostly through the incongruity of hearing it in Montana, looking at a row of middle-aged bears and wondering which was the "daddy" of the twink beside me.  The husky, white haired baritone?  The chubby tenor?  The elderly, eye-glassed bass?

Afterwards Jacob led m up to the stage, past all of the middle-aged bears, to....another twink?

Mike was a professor of music at the college, slim, eyeglassed, blue-eyed...and in his mid-30s.  No more than five years older than Jacob!

This Daddy-Boy relationship was obviously not based on age.  Was it based on penis size?

Back at their house on the oddly-named Flowerree Street, Mike revealed a slim, firm, hairy chest and an uncut, average sized penis.  He was mostly an anal top, but agreed to let me go down on him.

Then Jacob went down on me while Mike topped him.

In the morning we went back to the airport for our flight to Denver.  They gave me their phone number, and said if I got the job, we would get together.

I didn't get the Montana job, but the Plains is only 900 miles away.  I might drop in sometime





By the way, Jacob, the bottom. had a Mortadella+. Go figure.

And I still don't understand how he knew I was gay.

See also: 36 Hours of Cruising at Lambeth International Airport.