Love
May 29, 2009
NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION
Before I begin the next phase of my narrative, a word about non-proliferation. It seems to me the notion is flawed, as it maintains some who have the bomb, and some who do not. Inevitably, those who do not have the bomb want it, hence Iran, and other countries trying to make one, or buy one from North Korea (who needs the money and will sell anything to anyone).
My answer would be to scrap the non-proliferation treaty and offer a bomb (or several) to any country that wanted one and was willing to take on the expense of maintaining, protecting and accounting for it. It seems to me that everyone who does not have one would take one (or a few – the number does not matter). What matters is that when everyone had “the bomb” anyone tempted to use one would know they would be subjected to instant annihilation if they did so. The plan is Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) carried to its ultimate extreme. While it could lead to the end of the earth as we know it, my feeling is that would not happen. MAD did a good job of staving off nuclear war for many years, until Dubya substituted his “Preemptive Strike” (PS) doctrine, and see what that got us! The problem with preemptive strike is that anyone can strike preemptively: there is nothing to prevent Iran or North Korea or any other country from adopting that policy, and there is really no rational protection against it. MAD would be a far more potent dis-incentive to “strike first and ask questions later”, which is how George implemented PS. The total destruction of a sovereign nation (Iraq) was the result: there is a lot of blood on George’s hands, and I wish to see him pay the appropriate price for it.
CALM BEFORE THE STORM
The two years between 1964 (divorce from Johnny) and 1966 (next love) were relatively uneventful. At work I was moving up the ladder slowly; away from work I was foot-loose and fancy-free. I played the field, often spending Friday and Saturday nights at a mixed bar called Bligh’s Bounty. At the time, it was a pretty laid-back place where guys who liked black men could hang out, and where black men who likes whites could do the same. I got to know some very nice fellows: most of the time the juke-box was low enough so a decent (and occasionally indecent) conversation could be had. That came to an end with the installation of live go-go boys, who danced to a much louder juke-box.
The guys were pretty enough, though they rarely were allowed to “let it all hang out” in those days: they wore skimpy speedos or posing-straps. But the notion they were up there being looked at by all the guys in the place resulted in awesome attitude problems: they were untouchable, whereas the more ordinary folk in the bar were at least open to the notion of a toss in the hay. I managed to trick from Bligh’s now and then, but most of my sex was occurring in the tubs, specifically the Turk Street Baths.
The TSB was, in those days, a fairly classy and reasonably safe place. It generally filled to over-flowing on weekends, but my favorite night was Thursday. The Thursday night crowd was mainly made up of guys who couldn’t wait for Friday and who were “hot to trot”. In the feverish weekend crowd, too many guys were waiting for “Mr. Right”, so a less-than-perfect guy like me went without. But on Thursdays? Whooooopee! I could usually score, and had some really wonderful nights there.
Just once in those days, I contracted a case of anal clap. I knew I was taking a chance on a fellow I’d not seen before and who was a bit more drunk than I’d have liked: but he was cute, and hung poorly-enough that I could manage. Later, at the City Health Clinic, a nurse gave me two shots of penicillin, one in each hip.
She said, “A few deep squats will help relieve the sting”.
I replied, “Lady, how do you think I got into this condition?”
She fell out, laughing: I’d made her day.
I resolved to be more careful.
FATEFUL MEETING
One night I stayed at Bligh’s later than usual, and joined some fellows who invited me to ride with them over to the Jumping Frog on Polk Street. I’d heard of it, but had never gone: it stayed open “after hours”. But when we got there, it was packed beyond managing, and was filled with fumes from smokers, and everyone there was more drunk than I, and more drunk than I cared for, so I departed, planning to catch an “owl” bus that took me within a block of where I was then living. I missed a bus by minutes, and had to wait an hour on the street for another. When it arrived, now around 3 in the morning, there was only one person (beside the driver) on it, a black dude seated at the back of the bus. I dropped down beside him, and we struck up a desultory conversation that soon lapsed, until it devolved that we both got off at the same stop. I suggested he could stop in for coffee, and he agreed.
I was not immediately drawn to Cornell: I got the impression he was straight, but we were engaged in somewhat similar work and there were topics we could discuss meaningfully. We drank coffee and chatted amiably until nearly 5 A M, when he decided he should be getting home. For whatever reason, as he stood, I simply said, “I’d really like to hug you before you go”.
THE STORM
That was all it took! Pretty soon we were rolling around on my bed, kissing and carrying on. We were in no hurry to get undressed, and in fact never did. He got my manhood out of my pants, but for the most part, we engaged in frottage, something with which I was not very familiar. We went at this for at least an hour, and I found him very exciting: he was gentle and caring: what of him I could feel was smooth and silky, and I wanted more, more, MORE!
All of a sudden, he leapt out of bed and ran to the bathroom. I got there soon after to find him mopping up: he’d had an orgasm in his pants! The familiar smell of cum (not to mention hours of exciting fore-play) led me to jack off and add my seed to his, a process that took only a few moments, but which was explosive on my part. Then I helped him clean up, gave him a clean pair of my own tighty-whities, and sent him on his way after exchanging phone numbers.
The upshot of all this is we saw a good deal of each other for a few months. I discovered that Cornell was an expert fucker: he fucked me often, and made me enjoy it every time. To do so, he had to get nude, and I reveled in his superb body, very black, glabrous, and without any adipose tissue at all. He was not particularly muscular, but just perfectly constructed and sexy. I was very soon wrapped up in Cornell, and it seemed like he liked me and appreciated my sense of humor and my horniness whenever he came around.
In late March that year I took a short job in Albuquerque, New Mexico, then took a train to Chicago, thence to Montreal and St. Hyacinthe, PQ, home of the famous pipe organ builders Casavant Freres Ltee. The notion at the time was I should go to work there. Cornell looked after my place while I was gone.
But the weather sucked! Winter was over, but Spring hadn’t sprung: it was miserably cold, and I quickly decided it was no place for a native Californian. Also, I spoke no French, and it was clear that to work there I would have had to do so. I shortened my stay and took a train to New York: Easter was fast approaching, but I really wanted to get back home to Cornell. I phoned him my ETA and headed west by plane on Easter Sunday.
When I entered my house, it was empty. Until I reached the bedroom, where Cornell was waiting to surprise me. Man, oh man! Coming home to a beautiful guy I was hoping before long to call my lover: what more could a 30 year old gay boy want?
What, indeed!
A few days later, the roof fell in on my life. Cornell announced he was already married (to a guy) and that his dalliance with me was over. It had just been a ”lark”, a conquest, and it was done.
Jesus H. Christelberger! I went into a deep funk. I managed to keep working, but going home every night, alone again, no prospects, no nuthin’, sent me into a tail-spin. I stalked his house, hoping for glimpses of him, but he eluded me. I was, to put it mildly, heart-broken.
How I got out of this depression will be reported in my next episode, so stay tuned!
June 29, 2009
BEFORE I COMMENCE MY TALE
June seems to be “Pride Month”. I think it is misnamed.
Being homosexual for me has never been anything I’m proud of. I’m not ashamed of it, either. It’s simply part of who I am, or at least who I have been all these years. Although I have no qualms about telling the few people who ask that I’m, “gay”, I often now say I “was gay”: at 73, my homosexuality is physically no longer much of an issue. Mentally, I’m still as queer as I ever was, possibly more-so, judging by the time I spend surfing the net for photos of good-looking guys!
Anyway, back to “pride”. I take pride in many things, not the least that I have tried all my life to get through it without hurting anyone. I haven’t always succeeded, often due to ignorance or conditions beyond my control, but avoiding making other people feel bad has always been one of my goals. I wish it were a goal shared by everyone! There seem to be some who live for the opposite: to hurt as many as they can. I’ve been the victim of a few of these, but have learned to avoid them.
But “proud” of being queer I am not, and never have been: homosexuality and pride are concepts that simply do not fit in the same category as far as I am concerned.
ONE MORE THING:
I’m recovering rapidly from the gall bladder operation. I’ll stay away from my work the rest of this week, there being a holiday Friday anyway. I have the first post-op visit with the surgeon Thursday. All is well!
SHRINKAGE
As my depression deepened over the failure of my hopes for a life with Cornell, I had the sense to realize I needed some help. My doctor put me on Dalmane to assist with sleep, but recommended a psychiatrist. I spent nearly a year in “fifty-minute hours”, initially several a week. At first, whenever I tried to tell him what happened, I just fell apart and cried, but eventually he began to lead the discussion, and led me to some discoveries about myself.
One of these was how I interpreted Cornell’s behavior in bed. He always “came” as result of frottage: I never did. I thought anyone who could induce me to cum that way would have to be someone very special indeed. Ergo, I believed he found ME someone very special indeed. This was not the case at all: it was his MO, the way he always got off, no matter who he was with! I had very little to do with his orgasms: I was something convenient to rub against. Period. It was an ego-deflating notion, but it explained the facts. It was the first step in getting over this guy.
Cornell probably had his first orgasm sitting on an uncle’s knee, or being bounced of someone’s leg, or just rubbing himself on his mattress at night. Whatever, it came to be his preferred method of getting his kicks. I eventually met others who had encountered him, and they told the same tale: frottage was “it” for him.
A psychiatrist never cures anything: he leads one to new discoveries. We talked about the various categories people fall into, and I realized I am a classic “nest-builder”. I suppose it was because of my happy family life as a kid, that I would want to re-create this as best I could with a lover. (Nowadays, we see gay guys raising families: nest builders!) Unfortunately for me, Cornell was not a nest-builder. He was a classic “home-wrecker”. There had been no possibility of a “long term relationship” between the two of us from the get-go.
The psychiatrist agreed that I was ready to end our sessions after a year, and I felt far better than when I’d begun. I see it as the way to go, when depression sets in or the going gets tough.
EPILOGUE
Oddly, Cornell’s star was crossed with mine whether he liked it or not. I kept running into him in unexpected places, usually at professional conferences (we were in somewhat similar lines of work). Years later in Manila (of all places!) I glanced up from my breakfast and saw a back-side in the lobby I recognized instantly: it was Cornell, picking up a colleague who was staying in the same hotel I was. We got together over drinks at the Peninsula Hotel that evening. That’s where I learned he had AIDS. (I had to assume he had learned another way of getting off). He told me no male member of his family had ever lived past 55, and he did not exect to do so either. He didn’t.
ONE MORE THING:
A reader asked me what I look like: it’s gratifying to know someone wants that information. Here’s the first passport I ever got, at the tender age of 20. Unlike most passport photos, this one was a pretty good likeness.
Me at 20
Thank you for asking! [email protected]
Coming up next: I get into it with the IRS