Story 8: Larry

Larry was into Drag – Racing, that is (1970, 1976)

Of all the people I met in my first weeks in Atlanta, Larry was my first friend. He was a friend, not a trick, not a bar acquaintance, not a “sister,” as so many gay guys referred to those they hung out with but didn’t sleep with. He was a friend. They say a friend is someone who knows all about you and likes you anyway. That was Larry.

I met Larry my first night out in Atlanta, at the Joy Lounge, the night I used my first pickup line to take Danny home with me. I believe he was the first person who spoke to me that night and I remember that because he spoke to me not as someone seeking “fresh meat,” but as someone wanting to make a new face feel at ease. Besides, Larry didn’t need to find a trick that night; he was with his boyfriend. Over the next several years, until I lost track of him completely, Larry and I would carry our friendship through a variety of relationships. We’d help each other through the times of being single, being in relationship or just being confused.

Larry was unique in several ways. He was a small fellow and maybe we bonded at one level over that characteristic; we little guys seem to have an unspoken level of relationship that way. Larry also had a cleft palate, but it really only made him a bit more cute, a bit more boyish and vulnerable. And sweet.

Larry also fit at least one gay stereotype. He was a hairdresser. Actually, he managed one of a chain of salons owned by some fellow I never knew but heard a great deal about. Larry knew hairstyling and he knew makeup and he loved to critique the performers in drag shows.
But Larry never did drag. Oh, he did once, but not on stage. As for why he did it only once, we’ll get to in a moment.

What Larry – and his straight brother – did do was drag racing, not a stereotypically gay activity. Larry owned a Mustang and he knew every inch of it, inside and out. He lived just a block from my apartment and the first Saturday morning I decided to visit him, I found him under his car. What he was doing I don’t know, but it involved mechanical knowledge of the sort I pay fellows at garages to deal with. Actually, it was his brother who did most of the racing, but Larry shared his love of working on cars.

I rode with Larry often and he was a good driver as well as mechanic. Yet it was one night that he wasn't such a good driver that led him to never do drag again.

One thing I learned about Larry – and I have no idea how the subject arose – was that he seldom if ever wore underwear. No, I don’t know why he did this and I doubt that it matters.
One day at his house, I watched as he sorted and folded his laundry. As he was opening bureau drawers, I spotted a pair of black panties and I just had to ask how they came to be in the bureau of a guy who didn’t wear underwear of any kind.

Larry explained that he wore them one night, the one and only night that he got in drag. It was Halloween and he was talked into doing it, much against his will. Yet, Halloween being sort of a national gay holiday, he acquiesced. He fixed up a wig he borrowed, did his makeup and wore a short dress he got from somewhere. Apparently he looked quite good and headed out for a night of Halloween club life.

All went well until the drive home. Larry wasn’t much of a drinker, but that night he’d had more than his usual. On the way home he got caught in a police sobriety check. He failed and had to spend the night in the drunk tank. In full drag. His first time – and his last time – either in the drunk tank or in drag.

Larry and I remained the closest of friends during my stay in Atlanta and, when I moved back to Tennessee, he was always a willing host when I came to visit. If he was single, I shared his bed (but not him.) If he was living with someone, I had the couch or the spare bedroom if there was one. Many a Friday evening, while I was living in Knoxville, Tennessee, I would arrive home from work to receive a call from Larry that a new club had opened and I should come down and see it. Tonight. So I’d clean up, pick out an outfit and zip two hundred miles down the interstate to Atlanta, arriving just as the Friday night crowd appeared at the new venue.

This went on long after I had left Atlanta and moved on, from Knoxville to Rockwood to Kingston and back to Knoxville.

Then came a weekend in June of 1976. My week of vacation from the radio station I’d spent at home, mainly at (and in) the apartment complex pool. Steve, my former lover, now roommate/best friend whom I still loved, was busy with work now that he had finished his degree in commercial art. (He worked as a manager of an Arby’s Roast Beef Restaurant, but at least he had the degree.) I hadn’t been to Atlanta in almost two years and got it into my head to finish the week with a Saturday night in Atlanta. I’d be tired the next day and have to go to back to work on Monday, but I didn’t care. I didn’t call Larry before leaving, but had his new address with me.

He was glad to see me, although he was disappointed I’d let my bleached surfer-blond hair grow out to its natural dirty blond. He was also disappointed to tell me he and his current boyfriend would be out very late, so I couldn’t spend the night. He’d be glad to see me in the morning though.

For some reason I was unfazed by this. I guess I figured I’d hit the clubs, have some fun and find someone to spend the night with. I’d done that enough before. I wasn’t as fresh a face as I’d been that first night at the Joy Lounge over six years earlier, but I was still fresh enough, especially since I hadn’t been seen in Atlanta for two years.

That evening, though, I discovered that freshness isn’t everything. Maybe I looked too desperate, maybe the crowd wasn’t right, but nothing clicked. Who knows? Maybe, like the young girl, Cher, in the movie, “Clueless,” I was standing in bad light. Whatever the reason, my bar search came to naught. It was almost two a.m., Larry wouldn’t be home for some time and I needed a place to sleep, even sleep alone.

So, for the one and only time in my life, I checked into the baths. The Locker Room was located in a suburban strip mall, giving all outward appearance of a health club. I paid my ten dollars for a locker and a room and off I went. I’ll explore the rest of that night in detail at another time, but suffice to say the sun came up, I checked out, and headed for Larry’s house.

Larry and his boyfriend were home and happy to see me, although Larry feigned shock when I told him where I’d spent the night.

We gathered in the living room and Larry brought in breakfast, a real southern style, Sunday morning breakfast: scrambled eggs, grits, sausage, coffee, orange juice. And a couple of joints.
Well maybe it wasn’t such a typical southern breakfast.

We enjoyed it all, though, while watching “Gold Diggers of 1932,” or some such Busby Berkeley film on TBS. It’s the one that end with the huge production number, “Lullaby of Broadway.” It was fun, campy and a perfect accompaniment to our meal.

I mellowed out for a while, then said my goodbyes to Larry and his boyfriend and headed up I-75 to Knoxville. I arrived home to an anxious Steve. He needed a ride to the airport where a charter flight would take him home to see his dying father.

My vacation over, I returned to work. But I wouldn’t return to Atlanta for another fifteen years. Larry never called again to tell me to come down to see a new club. Anyhow, he couldn’t have found me a year later since I moved to a new job out of town. Then, a year later, I moved out of state to begin a life in academia. There was academic life there, all right, but no gay life and my gay life pretty much became dormant, only to be reawakened years later when I finally returned to Atlanta. I tried to find Larry then, but to no avail. It seems we’d said our last goodbyes that Sunday morning in 1976.

Story 7 - A Heck of an Engineer

“A Heck of an Engineer” (March, 1970)

Of all the tricks and all the relationships (a relationship being a trick that lasted more than one night) I had in Atlanta, few were with college guys. Now that I think of it, that’s rather strange since Atlanta has an abundance of colleges and universities. Most of the twenty-something guys I met were in the work force, many having moved to Atlanta to work as well as to come out. Many had jobs that also allowed them a rather active social life. All of them had modest apartments that reflected their economic status. Some had graduated from college, but I only remember tricking with one who was actually in college. He was an engineering student at Georgia Tech.

I don’t recall where we met, I don’t recall his name, and I don’t recall why we went to his place instead of mine.

But, oh, do I recall the time we had in his apartment.

He was small built and, though attractive, had the look – if there is a such a thing – of an engineering student. His features were soft, his hair was barber-cut and his clothes were utilitarian. I don’t remember his hair color or exactly what he was wearing, but he gave the impression of a young guy more attuned to solving quadratic equations for fun than keeping up with the latest dance crazes. He wasn’t wimpy or geeky in appearance, but definitely not a slave to fashion. He was a Georgia boy, polite and soft-spoken. All this is to say that what was soon to happen would be a complete surprise to me.

Arrival at his apartment was uneventful and customary for such occasions. He turned on the stereo system for some “mood music.” Nothing unusual about that. He offered me a drink. Nothing unusual about that. He drew close to me and put his arms around my shoulders. Nothing unusual about that.

Just as I was expecting him to draw even closer, perhaps for a kiss, he reached one arm around my back, another behind my legs and picked me up and carried me to his bedroom!
Definitely something unusual about that.

I didn’t put up any kind of resistance. Shock does that to a person. I wasn’t afraid, just shocked. Who expected a geeky but cute Georgia Tech student to be so butch? OK, he wasn’t effeminate in any way, just soft-spoken (up to that moment, anyway.) His apartment was very utilitarian-masculine, with a drafting table, some sensible but well-worn furniture and no decorations or bric-a-brac on the tables or walls. The entire apartment, except for the bed itself, could have been furnished by Home Depot, if Home Depot had existed in 1970. Actually it could have been – and probably was – furnished by the local rent-to-own store.

So much for the furnishings. And I sure wasn’t thinking about interior design as he lifted me and carried me down a short hallway into the bedroom and dropped me on the bed. Yes, he dropped me. It was a soft landing but abrupt nonetheless.

I suspect he was counting on shock value and he was right. After all, I was the one who had made the first move at the club. I’m sure I did because, well, I always did. And I would have remembered had it been otherwise. I was short, small, looked younger than my years – and my years weren’t that many to begin with – yet I somehow ended up assuming the “butch” role, what today would be referred to as “top.” Butch guys took the initiative. Butch guys made the first move. We all knew that.

Tech Boy apparently hadn’t gotten the memo, I thought.

As I lay there looking up at him standing beside the bed, I saw him slyly smile.

He’d gotten the memo all right. And thrown it out. This engineer was on a mission. A mission to put butch boys in their place. In this case, on their backs.

On my back was where he had me and on my back I would stay. It was his apartment. It was his bed. It was, apparently, his rules.

Rules? Hadn’t I been the one to set the rules up to now? Didn’t I just say I would have remembered if he had made the first move at the club? Because I always made the first move. And because, if someone else made the first move, I would be likely to reject it. (In a nice way, of course. Usually.)

No, I wasn’t a control freak. (“Oh yes you were,” says a voice in my head. “Oh, shut up!” I reply.) It was just a pattern things had fallen into since I had first come out less than a year before. If, when you first arrived on the scene, first stepped into a gay club, you weren’t immediately classified as a “queen,” then you were assumed to be butch. The mold had been set. If you were marked with a scarlet “B,” you could hang out with other butch boys, you could drink with them, but you weren’t supposed to go home with them. Same thing for queens. “I couldn’t sleep with her! We’re sisters!” I guess that made us butch boys “brothers,” but it would be hard to think of it that way and none of us did.

Even then I was a transgressor. When I went on the prowl, I didn’t ask for gay role-playing identity papers.

Were they male? Were they gay? Were they cute?

All I asked was three out of three, although the last requirement was open to interpretation (and the number of drinks I had consumed.) I didn’t ask what they liked to do in bed. I only asked if they wanted to get into bed. With me. We’d work out the, um, details later.

Tech Boy had upset the scheme of things. There was nothing to work out. We were at his place, in his bedroom and he was in charge. He was standing beside the bed and I was on the bed, on my back. I had a pretty good idea of where things were heading and I had a pretty good idea that I would have little or no say about where things were heading.

And then he surprised me.

Again.

Story 6: About that bar raid . . .

It’s a good thing my Camaro’s interior was red . . . (February 1970)

In another six months, it’d be different. Hell, in another six months, I’d be different.

It would be a hot Saturday night in August. The crowd would be huge, the deejay’s music would be loud, and that funny thing we’d later come to know as a disco ball would be spinning, I - and every gay guy within miles of Atlanta - would be partying at the Sweet Gum Head.

But it wasn’t six months from now. It was a cold Saturday night in February. The crowd was small, the music came from a jukebox, and the only flashing light came from the neon beer signs. I - and several gay guys from Midtown - were partying at the Joy Lounge.

Gay Atlanta in February 1970 offered two alternatives. There was Mrs. P’s, a fairly decent restaurant open late to serve a hungry and cruisy crowd. Or rather a hungry and cruising crowd. But it was just a restaurant, not a bar, not club, not a real party place.

The other alternative was just a short walk east on Ponce De Leon. The Joy Lounge occupied the first floor of a large house, one that had once had been home to a wealthy family when Ponce De Leon was a boulevard of old Southern wealth and not a commercial strip leading to Decatur. It was owned, so I understood, by two lesbians, one of whom usually tended bar. It’s front room had a few tables and some old living room furniture, while it’s back room held the bar, some booths, a few tables and space for dancing near the jukebox.

That’s what made the Joy Lounge special. The dance floor. A place where guys could dance with other guys. (There were rarely any female customers; where lesbians went to dance with each other, I have no clue.)

Yes, the dance floor was the Joy Lounge’s drawing card for us gay boys. And the dance floor was the Joy Lounge’s drawing card for the not-so-gay boys in blue. You see, the Joy Lounge didn’t have a permit for dancing. Without a permit, dancing wasn’t legal at the Joy Lounge. And boys dancing with other boys wasn’t legal even with a permit.

So the owners made a deal - a financial deal - with the local police. Money changed hands, apparently, and it was agreed that “Lily Law” wouldn’t invade the premises unannounced. (They were required to make periodic inspections but, with advance warning, the tables could be moved to fill the dance floor space.)

It was a satisfactory deal for all, until that night in February when the deal apparently fell through.

I’d almost not gone out that night. I was tired from work and I’d already tricked twice that week. Tomorrow was a day off and I could sleep in. Atlanta bars had to close at midnight on Saturdays anyhow. I could just stay in, lay back on my shag covered couch - everything was shag then - and listen to Simon and Garfunkel. But as Paul Simon sang, “I am a rock, I am an island,” I felt vaguely nauseous at the thought of a Saturday night alone. It was about nine, enough time to do the typical gay boy primping and arrive at the club at a decent time.

I parked my white ‘67 Camaro in the gravel parking lot adjacent to the Joy Lounge and found the crowd surprisingly festive; there were even some fresh faces, ones I hadn’t tricked or tried to trick with. In a little over a month since that first night, the night my first pickup line had begun a volatile three-week relationship with Danny, I’d become a familiar face in the Joy Lounge crowd, but a face that still seemed fresh enough to attract other fresh faces. I’d even made some friends. Even Danny, no longer a lover, was still a friend and I got to meet his friends, many of whom were apparently his former lovers also. But remember that this was a different time, time in which, if you gathered a dozen gay guys in one room, you’d discover that most of them had slept with each of the others.

So I sat with my friends, drank with my friends, and danced with my friends. For a while, all was well with my Saturday night world. I’d likely go home alone, but it would be my choice. I did go home alone, but it wasn’t my choice.

My departure was the result of another arrival, the arrival of Atlanta’s finest.

What happened next took only seconds, but I lived a lifetime during them.

The cops had come to the front entrance, as the Joy Lounge had no apparent back entrance, at least none I was aware of. Until that night. I was dancing with some fresh face when I heard a commotion and cries of “Raid! Raid! It’s Lily Law!”

Did I panic? Sure I panicked. But just when my mind was racing to scenarios of calling home to upstate New York to ask for bail money, someone’s arm grabbed mine and said, “This way!” I was hustled behind a black curtain that formed the bar’s backdrop and, sure enough, the Joy Lounge had a back entrance.

As it had only been three years since I was on my college’s cross country team, I made it across the gravel parking lot really fast. Too fast. I slipped, I fell, I got up and ran. I cranked that white Camaro, peeled out the parking lot not even bothering to look back or look for police cars, headed down Ponce De Leon to Highland to North Morningside to my apartment.

Once in parking place, assured I hadn’t been followed, I began breathing again. I shut of the engine and grabbed the shifter to put the car in gear. And I felt something wet and sticky. Turning on the dome light, I could see the shifter. And the steering wheel. And my hands. All covered in blood. Then I remembered my fall in the gravel parking lot. I’d driven all the way down Ponce De Leon, all the way up Highland and onto North Morningside with my hands bleeding. For a moment, I panicked again, but only for a moment.

After all, I was in my apartment parking lot. I wasn’t in jail. I could go wash my hands and the cuts would heal. And I was thankful my Camaro’s interior was red.

Story 5: "I like to hit my boyfriend"

“I like to beat up my boyfriend” (February, 1970)

After Danny and I broke up, I didn’t have another long-term relationship the remainder of my time in Atlanta. And since Danny and I lasted slightly less than three weeks, my definition of “long-term” was clearly a flexible one.

So what did I do the remaining eight months in Hot’lanta?

I tricked.

A lot.

But I did it respectably. I never picked up street trade and never, ever used a public restroom for other than its intended purposes. I wanted to get to know the guy, if only for the night. Or part thereof.

Sometimes I’d meet someone at a club. Other times I’d meet someone at a party. Sometimes I’d meet someone at a club and we’d go to a party.

In the my early months in Atlanta, I worked a basic nine-to-five shift at the radio station, doing middays on the air, trying to sell ads, producing commercials and trying to keep the automation on the FM side working. This meant I could stay out fairly late on weeknights, as I didn’t have to leave for work until about 8:30 in the morning. For someone with experience getting up at 4:15 to be on the air at 6 a.m., this was like sleeping in all day.

One night, through circumstances I do not recall, I ended up at a party.

Party, in this case, simply meant a gathering of gay guys at someone’s apartment for the purpose of doing what we had originally gone to club for – to drink and have sex. It could be a rather desperate gathering as being at the party indicated one had not already found someone to “go home with,” so to speak.

Not only do I not recall how I got invited to this particular gathering, I don’t remember knowing anyone there. Apparently some guys at whatever bar I was at saw me and asked me to join them. If this sounds bizarre, it wasn’t unusual. If the hour was late, the bar was about to close, and one was still alone, it wasn’t difficult to get included in a group of strangers heading for some party somewhere.

There were maybe a dozen of us, maybe an even number, maybe not, but almost immediately the “pairing off” began and couples began to form. For all I know, some may already have been couples, but other “pairs” may have been total strangers. Just as I was considering my options, the guy whose apartment this apparently was decided to “pair off” with me and led me to his bedroom. He suggested I undress and told me he’d be right back.

The party, at this point, was about five minutes old.

I hesitated about undressing right away. I’d always regarded disrobing as part of foreplay, but maybe I was just old-fashioned in that way. Or maybe modest. Modest? Nah. But it did seem awkward. I didn’t know him; I didn’t know any of the others in the living room. Throwing caution to the wind (and my clothes to the bed), I stripped to my briefs and awaited his return. The strangeness I felt standing alone in a stranger’s bedroom in only my white nylon Jockeys was soon to be surpassed by even greater strangeness.

He (no, I never got his name) returned, put his arms around me as I stood by his bed and moved his hands down to my waist. “Mmm. Fancy underwear!” he exclaimed, which surprised me since nylon Jockey briefs weren’t all that uncommon at the time and mine were at least white. But he liked them and wanted me to keep them on. He undressed but left his briefs on and we lay down side by side, on our backs on his unmade bed. Well, it was more than unmade; there was only a bottom sheet and two pillows.

And then he asked me the strangest question.

“Do you like to get hit?”

“Excuse me?”

“I liked to hit my ex when we were in bed – right here.” He pointed to my chest.

“Uh, may I ask why?” I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know. I wasn’t sure I really wanted to be there.

“Oh, it’s fun to do,” he said, almost giggling. “So, do you like to be hit?”

Now you might expect that I’d immediately say something like, “No!” or “Not really.” But I hesitated, not because I liked to be hit or wanted to be hit, but because I wasn’t sure just where he was going with this question. He didn’t seem the S&M type, but maybe there was some kinky subculture I hadn’t yet learned about. I’d only been “out” less than a year at this point and in Atlanta only about four months. He seemed normal enough otherwise. He had a relatively slim and smooth body, dirty blond hair and a nice smile (even as he spoke of hitting ex-boyfriends.) I just couldn’t get a read on this boy.

He must have noticed my hesitation and sought to change the subject.

“So, what do you like to do?”

Oh no, not that question! I’d almost prefer, “Do you like to be hit?”

It’s amazing that a gay guy can be bold enough to come on to a total stranger in a club, invite him to his place or agree to go to the other guy’s place, both with total confidence in what they are doing. Yet when the moment arrives, when they are both in bed, both undressed, the question arises:

“So, what do you like to do?”

Granted, this question is sometimes asked at the club, but seemingly the answer is either ignored or left for consideration at a later time, in bed that is. Or it can be used to get away from someone at a club, as in:

“So, what do you like to do?”

“Improve my skills as a serial killer.”

Right now, in this room, in this bed, with this guy, didn’t seem the time for levity.

Finally, instead of words, I replied with action. No, I didn’t hit him. I embraced him. I came on to him. I started making out with him. Choose your cliché.

I wasn’t so much trying to be “butch,” or a “top,” as would be said today. But someone had to take charge of the situation and better I take charge than someone who likes to hit ex-boyfriends.

It worked. We had sex. We fell asleep.

In the morning I left him, still asleep on his bed, stepped gingerly over the sleeping bodies sprawled around the living room, and went downstairs to my car. It was 8 a.m. I started the car. Nothing happened. The battery was dead. I’d left the car’s lights the night before. I had gotten “hit” after all.

Story 4: Measuring Boys' Inseams

Measuring Boys’ Inseams (February 1970)

Charlie had a thing for measuring teen boys' inseams. Charlie was Danny's roommate and ex-lover, and in his bedroom door was the alleged bullet hole.

By day, Charlie was a banker, although I never really ascertained just what sort of work he did. I just know that he worked in a bank. He looked like a banker. Though he was likely in his mid-to-late twenties, just slightly older than Danny and me, he affected the appearance of one approaching middle age. His well-kept mustache, his conservative attire – even when dressed for clubbing – and his slight paunch created an impression of aging betrayed only by his youthful complexion.

Whatever Charlie did at the bank, it apparently didn't pay well enough, for he worked several evenings a week in the teen and young men's department at Davidson's, a major downtown Atlanta department store.

And while Charlie never said much about his banking duties, he regularly regaled us with tales of his Davidson's customers. It wasn't that he talked about how cute or studly some of his customers were. Most any gay guy does that. Charlie's particular joy came when a customer needed to be measured for slacks and Charlie had to measure the lad's inseam.

Charlie was sensible enough never to take liberties with any of his customers, especially since most, at best, were of the age so often described as "barely legal," and some likely wouldn't be legal for sometime. Oh, Charlie was careful, but he was also very observant.

Charlie provided me with quite an education. I'd never really been aware that some males dressed with their, um, equipment, to the right side and some to the left. I also learned from Charlie that such positioning was not a matter of chance, but personal preference. I thought it rather odd that, after 24 years of life as a male, I’d never given any thought to the matter of “positioning.”

Especially exciting – and perhaps risky – for Charlie were those occasions when the boy to measured what wearing shorts. Boys at this time didn’t wear the khaki knee-length shorts one finds at Gap or Banana Republic, or the long nylon shorts favored by today’s basketball players, ones that can almost be stretched to one’s ankles. Shorts were, well, short. Very short. Boys and young men wore briefs. Boxer underwear was not yet in fashion for any male under the age of, say, 60. Boxers wouldn’t have worked in a time when the look in clothes was the tighter, the better.

As a result, Charlie often got an eyeful or at least a glimpse of underwear. And sometimes – on very rare occasions – Charlie got a glimpse of no underwear. That surprised me. Oh, I had heard once that Elvis (who, at the time was very much alive and on the comeback trail) never wore underwear, but I had assumed he was probably the only male who did so. And I doubted that – in 1970, at least – many of Charlie’s young male customers were Elvis fans.

After I found an apartment of my own, I came to miss Charlie’s nightly tales of adventures in inseam measurement. But when I would occasionally encounter him at a club, I’d be sure to ask him about any recent inseam exploits.

To this day, every time I need some pants shortened – to my 24-inch inseam – I think of Charlie and what he taught me. And I wonder if the clerk doing the measurement takes note of my “positioning.”

Story 3: About that Bullet Hole in the Door

About that Bullet Hole in the Door . . . (January 1970)

The dog had found a home all right – for about a month. My relationship with Danny didn't last that long – about two weeks.

Oh, it started out fine, even passionately. Danny and Charlie shared a rather spacious two-bedroom apartment and I shared Danny's bedroom. And I don’t just mean that Danny and I shared the bed. We did that, of course, but we also shared the bedroom. I worked days at the radio station, basically nine-to-five, and Danny worked the graveyard shift at Dunkin Donuts next door to the apartment complex. He slept days; I slept nights. And between night and day, from just after his arrival home around 6:15 until my departure for work around 8:45, we slept together. We had our evenings and weekends too, but that proved to be too much time together.

What led to our break up? That's never easy to say, but there were at least three factors: astrology, opera and inappropriate laughter. Oh, and a bullet hole in a bedroom door.

Astrology. “Aquarius and Taurus should never fall in love,” observed Danny that first night we shared together. Whatever, I thought to myself. He was Aquarius; I was Taurus. He took star signs seriously; I didn’t. Perhaps I should have. Danny’s birthday was Valentine’s Day. My birthday was once observed in most southern states as Confederate Memorial Day. Lovers or would-be lovers exchanged cards on Danny’s birthday. Southerners put flowers on graves on my birthday. And Hallmark didn’t make cards for Confederate Memorial Day.

Opera. Danny was the first opera queen I'd met and he introduced me to several others. Now, I didn’t hate opera, but I guess the opera “marker” was missing from my gay DNA. (I was later to realize I was also missing the “show tune” marker.) But Danny was passionate about opera. Saturday afternoons meant listening to live Met broadcasts. When we went to the nearby branch library, I checked out books; Danny checked out opera recordings. He knew each work, he knew each performer – he even knew their nicknames, for gosh sakes. Love Danny, love his favorite operas. Love me, love rock and roll.

Inappropriate laughter. One evening one of Danny’s fellow opera queens dropped by. Despite his passion for opera, Danny was a fairly butch boy. Not so his friend, the ultimate overweight screaming queen, manifesting every effeminate gay stereotype imaginable. I’d never been comfortable with gay guys referring to one another as, “she,” but here I made an exception. The conversation was pleasant enough – even fun – for a while, until we began to regale one another with tales of bad tricks we’d had. “What really turns me off,” she said, “is to get some gorgeous stud home and discover he’s wearing silk panties!”

We all laughed. But then I kept laughing, recalling Danny’s attire that first night at the motel. And I kept laughing. I couldn’t stop. Even as Danny glared at me, I couldn’t stop. I don’t really think I was laughing at Danny, more likely at the thought that this outrageous effeminate queen would take offense at a trick wearing female underwear. But the damage was done. Danny was livid. And he never forgave me.

Which brings up the matter of the bullet hole.

During my first day tour of the apartment, as Danny showed me Charlie's bedroom, he pointed to a hole in Charlie’s bedroom door. “That’s from a bullet I fired once – when we had a fight.” For some reason, this chilling revelation didn’t, well, chill me at first. But now that I’d made Danny really angry, I thought again of the bullet hole. Did he still have the gun? I didn’t really want to stay around and find out. The next day I began apartment hunting.

Story 2: Dog Catches Car

Dog Catches Car (January 1970)

My first pickup line had worked. Danny had agreed to go home with me, “home” being a cheap motel in Marietta. Since Danny lived in Atlanta, in what I would later realize was the gay ghetto, he followed me in my car to our tryst in suburban Cobb County.

As I drove, checking my mirror periodically to be sure I hadn’t lost him in traffic, I pondered what I’d just done. I was a bit like a dog that chases a car. The dog has no idea what it will do if it catches the car. I had caught Danny. Now what would I do?

Remember that this was my first pickup, my first “catch.” Before this, I had been the one who was chased and caught. Well, I thought, Danny had done this before. I’ll just take my lead from him.

Upon arriving at the motel room, I checked all my worldly belongings I had earlier unloaded from the car and introduced Danny to Athena, my two-year-old tabby cat. He petted her a bit, she sniffed his clothes and checked him out a bit, then headed for a corner to nap, leaving Danny and I to check each other out.

Then began the customary embrace-fondle-grope-explore routine, the start of most all making out, straight or gay. Standing face to face, we embraced, then began exploring each other with our hands, first all around the back, then down toward the waist, then back up again, kissing all the while, first the lips, then the cheeks, then the lips again, whatever we desired. Once I glanced aside to the corner. Athena was sound asleep. As a cat, she apparently was uninterested in what a dog does when it catches a car.

My hands continued to explore Danny’s back, his shoulders and spine, then his waist. And then, remembering what others had done to me, I slid my hands down and began caressing and, I think, squeezing his butt. He returned the favor.

Then I almost screwed up. I slid my hands up and slipped them under the waistband of his jeans, and over his underwear. Boxers or briefs, I wondered, but I couldn’t tell. Well, one way to find out. I removed my hands and slipped them between us to undo his belt. And then he – rather gently – pushed me away.

“Uh, can I use your shower? I really need one before we go any further.”

I was taken aback, suspecting he had some concern other than personal hygiene. Had I come on too strong? Did he have second thoughts? Though I was new to all this, I knew most guys showered before heading to the club, in order to be ready for just such an occasion as this. But he insisted, saying he hadn’t planned to go out that night, so he’d just gone to the club for a couple of drinks and really needed a shower.

Stupidly, perhaps, I wasn’t buying any of it. Much to my surprise I pulled him back toward me and proceeded to undo his belt buckle and top jeans button. I had to wrestle him as well as his zipper as he continued to protest – though not at all violently – that he really, really needed a shower. His protest failed, the zipper came down, followed by his jeans. It was then I saw his concern.

He was wearing blue nylon panties.

A brief awkward silence. “Well, I guess that answers the ‘boxers or briefs’ question,” I said, smiling. “Actually, they look quite good on you,” I continued, and they actually did, but this boy would have looked good in anything.

“Uh, they’re not mine,” he stammered, “I don’t usually, uh . . .”

“Relax,” I lied, “I’ve got a pink pair just like them.”

I don’t know if he believed me or if he was just relieved I didn’t ridicule him, but he seemed to relax a bit. “Go take your shower,” I said, gently patting his pantied behind, another first time experience. I needed time while he showered to think about what would – or should – happen next. Actually, I needed time to consider my own behavior up to that point, being rather surprised at the aggressiveness I’d just shown. I was still too new to all this to have any understanding of male-male roles, of “top” or “bottom.” I had assumed Danny would “take the lead,” but my libido seemed to have other ideas. That would soon change.

Danny emerged from his shower, a towel wrapped around him. I was still fully dressed, but Danny soon remedied that situation, then dropped his towel and pushed me on the bed.
What exactly happened next – and for the next few hours – isn’t nearly as important as the fact that Danny was still there with me in the morning. Today was to be my first day at my new job, selling advertising for a local radio station. Danny didn’t have to be to work until just before midnight as an assistant manager of a Dunkin Donuts franchise located next door to his apartment complex.

He asked, “What are you doing tonight?” I told him that I was going to ask off early to locate a place to live.

“Well, you can come and stay with me and Charlie for a while.” His reply was so quick, I was sure he’d already thought about the offer. I reminded him that it wouldn’t be just me, but my beloved cat, which would join them. “No problem,” he replied, again appearing to have already considered the matter.

I had just about an hour to get cleaned up, properly dressed and presentable for my first day of work, so I agreed. He wrote the address and drew a sketchy map on a piece of motel stationery, kissed me goodbye and left.

The night of “firsts” had continued into morning. My first pickup line had resulted in my first pickup and my first pickup had been my first sexual encounter to stay the entire night and now he was to become my first gay roommate.

No, we hadn’t said the “L” word. Yet. But when – and if – we would (and we would), it would be another first.

The dog had caught the car. Now the dog had apparently found a home.

My First Pickup Line

This is the story that started it all, started, that is, my quest to document my gay life in the 1970s.
It was published in an anthology called Bar Stories by Alyson Books in 2000. (Don't worry. I hold the rights to it.)
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My First Pickup Line (January 1970)

It was a dump but it had a dance floor. And that made it beautiful to me.

My first night in Atlanta. The night before my first day of my first job in Atlanta. And my first visit to a gay bar.

Oh, it wasn't my first night “out.” That had been some six months earlier, in Knoxville, Tennessee. July 4th, in fact. Independence Day, though that bit of irony didn't hit me until the next afternoon, as I reflected on the night before, a night that had begun on a neighbor boy's front porch and ended on the floor of my apartment. In the days and weeks that followed my sexual Declaration of Independence, I'd become a part of the Knoxville gay subculture and, as “fresh meat,” I'd had my share of sexual opportunities. But it was always at someone's party, someone's apartment, for “K-town” had only two gay bars, tiny places located down back alleys of downtown that I wouldn't have visited in broad daylight, much less at night. Besides, I had the fresh-out-of-the-closet fear that every new gayboy has about entering his first gay bar. So I stuck to private parties.

But now I was in Atlanta, having landed a radio job in suburban Marietta that would start the next morning. I'd arrived that afternoon, found a motel for me, my Camaro-full of personal belongings and my cat. And now, armed with a map of a city I'd explored for a month while job-hunting, I headed in search of a bar I'd heard about from Knoxville friends.

The Joy Lounge was a two-story house, the first floor of which had been converted to a bar. It faced Ponce DeLeon, a main east-west drag north of downtown Atlanta, with an adjacent gravel parking lot. I probably noticed it was gravel that first night, but it didn't become important until a few months later when, while escaping through the back door from a police raid, I’d fallen and cut my hands on the stones, a fact I was unaware of until arriving safely home and noticing the blood on the steering wheel. But that's another bar story for another time.

It was a Monday night and so the front room of tables was empty and maybe a few dozen people occupied the back room, a room consisting of the bar itself, a few booths and tables and, oh yes, a dance floor. Well, at least a space from which tables had been removed and jukebox had been placed. Yes, a jukebox. I guess I should mention this was just six months after Stonewall and gay club life hadn't yet entered the Disco Era of lighted dance floors and DJ booths. In fact, the police raid I mentioned was because the club wasn't supposed to have a dance floor, at least not one on which boys danced with other boys.

Of course my presence immediately drew attention. I was short (very short), blond (bleached blond), young (24 and looking 16, if that) and not exactly (well not at all) a stud. But I was fresh meat. The scent of freshly packed USDA prime gay boy was instantly picked up on.
Now I'd been accustomed to this at some Knoxville parties, but at least there I had friends to “protect” me. This night I was on my own. So, having no friends to run to, I headed for the bar and ordered a beer, perching myself on a stool (from which my very short legs dangled) and turned my face toward the bar. Well, almost.

My defensive technique worked too well. While eyes were still upon me, no one approached; no one spoke. Finally, I turned a bit to the boy on the next stool, only to realize I had no idea what to say to him. “Come here often?” would be much too trite. “God, you're incredibly cute!” seemed much too forward. Until now, I'd never had to come up with an opening line.
Others had offered theirs to me.

So I did the obvious. I briefly stared, then looked away, then stared again, and then looked away. Smooth operator I was. Real smooth.

Then someone played the jukebox, a great dance number. I was definitely a dancing fool, if not yet a dancing queen. So I turned again and asked the cute boy, “Wanna dance?” That I'd never danced with another boy, much less asked one to dance, didn't matter. Another first for a first night.

“All right,” came his plaintive reply and we headed for the dance floor where we stayed for, oh, maybe three songs. They were all fast, so we never touched, but then came a slow song and, in another first night first, I was dancing in the arms of another boy, a boy I learned was named Danny.

From the time of my first-grade dancing school lessons, I'd loved to dance even if I'd never learned to love girls. And the girls I'd never learned to love loved to dance with me. My above-average dancing ability was a saving social grace for a guy not otherwise likely to be a “chick magnet.” I knew how to hold a girl; I knew how to lead. And I guess the girls especially liked the way my hands never “wandered” when I held them, although they may not have known why they didn't wander.

But dancing with Danny was different. It was almost like coming out all over again. If I'd had any doubts of who I was that personal Independence Day, all doubts now faded in Danny's arms. Yes, I was gay all right. I was a boy who was born to dance with other boys. I was in an unfamiliar town, in an unfamiliar place, with an unfamiliar boy, but it all seemed so familiar. The anxiety I should have felt – and prominently displayed – was absent. The Joy Lounge might as well have been called Heaven, for that's certainly where I was. It was a tiny, dumpy, hole-in-the-wall, police-protection-paying Heaven, but that didn't matter. I was there and so was Danny and we were slow dancing.

The music ended, for it was closing time, just before midnight. Yes, midnight, the hour when beer-only bars had to close. Danny and I returned to our adjacent bar stools, there to finish our beers and make our respective exits.

“So what are you going to do now?” Danny asked.

It was time for a final first.

“I'm taking you home with me,” I replied.

“You are?”
“Of course I am. You're going home with me.”

And he did. The next day I moved in with him.

My first pickup line. And it worked.

My most recent story

Now that AOL is closing down Hometown web pages, I'll begin posting stories here until I get a new place to put them.
Here's the latest installment:
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Tom, the Discount Drug Dealer and Closet Case (1974) I met Tom through Joe. Joe was my afternoon DJ, an affable, heavy-set, baby-faced guy who had an affinity for smoking illicit substances. In other words, Joe was a stoner. Tom was his dealer. And a more unlikely drug dealer I had never known. Tom was twenty, but looked about sixteen. His late parents (I never knew the circumstances of their death) had left him a trust fund but he didnt have full control of it yet. It paid for his classes at the community college, but not much else. So he sold marijuana. The Roane County airport was lighted but unstaffed at night and, being located up on Roosevelt Mountain, was rather isolated. It was, therefore, a major drop-off point for marijuana shipments. At the time, apparently, most marijuana sold in the greater Knoxville area arrived at the Roane County Airport. Somehow Tom was part of the distribution network. As far as I know, Tom never dealt in any heavier drugs and he only did enough dealing to pay his rent and basic expenses. It was known to many that Tom was a dealer. It was known to very few was that Tom was a closet case. I didn't know it at first. My gaydar barely went off when I first met him. I did find him very cute, however, in the sort of why cant he be gay sort of way. It also took me a while to figure out just while Tom was hanging around the radio station so much. In a small-town radio station, things can get a bit informal. Friends do drop by and most of them know the protocol if we let them in the control room. When the red light goes on, shut up! At first I didnt know just whose friend Tom was. Then I realized he was usually around during Joes afternoon shift, which ran from two to six. Since I did the six to ten a.m. shift, I was usually busy with production work when Tom would come around. Or Id be ready to leave for the day. But then Tom began showing up when Joe wasnt there. I really doubted he was dealing to any other staff members. The owner and his wife preferred margaritas as their drug of choice. The news director was a family man into church activities and martial arts. The station secretarys idea of living on the edge was extra sugar in her morning coffee. That left just me. And my drug of choice was, well, tricking. Perhaps Tom wanted to be my dealer too. Or maybe he just liked hanging out at the station between classes. But then he started dropping by during my Saturday morning shift when I was the only one at the station. Mostly we talked about music, not unusual considering we were in a radio station control room, listening to music I was playing. And then, one day, he invited me to his apartment. To listen to music. Toms apartment was in the back of a large old house. It was really a studio with one L-shaped room serving as dining area, kitchen, living room and bedroom. The living room furniture consisted of two chairs and his bed. I quickly realized that Tom knew I was gay. Perhaps hed heard about the hickey incident with Joey. Perhaps he had gaydar. Perhaps he was gay. I wasnt yet sure. In fact while we talked about me being gay, Tom seems at pains to indicate that he was not gay. At first he played the, Oh Im straight, but Im very cool with gay guys. Id heard that from a lot of guys. Some Id ended up having sex with. Others just became friends. Tom was fun to be with, fun to discuss music with, so I pretty much played along with his claim of heterosexuality. Until the back rubs started. Tom was only a few inches taller than me, but very slender, basically a healthy version of skin and bones. From his energy and his healthy appearance, I suspected he did little or none of the drugs he sold. In fact we never smoked weed together. Maybe he knew I wasnt a stoner; maybe he wasnt a stoner, just a businessman. One night I arrived just as Tom had finished a shower and he was wearing only his jockeys when he let me in, although he was holding his jeans as if in the process of getting dressed. Do you know any massage techniques? he asked. It was an interesting conversation starter, not the usual, Hi, come on in. Can I get you a drink? Not in a professional way, I replied, but I was in sports and I know some things about sore muscles. Who knows, I thought, maybe he strained a shoulder lifting a bag of Colombian. I really need a back rub, man. Im really tight and tense. He apparently took my silence for assent and, dropping his jeans on a chair, lay face down on his bed. I was still standing by the door and hadnt yet taken off my jacket. Just over a minute had elapsed since Id knocked on Toms door and now I was removing my jacket and Tom was lying face down on his bed in only his jockey shorts. The boy is fast, I thought. And I'd always prided myself on cutting to the chase with a trick. But Id never gotten them undressed and on a bed this quickly. I got up on the end of his bed on my knees and leaned forward to begin working on Toms shoulders. I was no professional masseuse, but Id seen enough and experienced enough muscle massages during my years as a college athlete to know the basics. I worked down from his shoulders to his upper back. He was indeed quite tense and tight and he told me it felt good, so I continued. I moved down the middle of his back and then his lower back toward the waist band of his briefs. Up to now, although I was enjoying the experience, I treated it as one guy giving another a back rub. Id done this for teammates in college and been the recipient a few times as well. No big deal up to this point. But then I got a bit silly or maybe just horny and snapped the waist band of his briefs as if I were planning to go lower. I wasnt sure if straight-proclaiming Tom would tell me stop right then and there. Instead he reached back with both arms and slid his briefs down below his butt cheeks. That had never happened to me in college. Straight-proclaiming or not, Tom was about to get his butt cheeks massaged. He had a small, smooth, not-quite-bubble butt. I began where the waistband had been snapped, then smoothly over each cheek, then ran my fingers across the bottom where the leg openings had been. Then, sensing no objection, I pulled his briefs down further and went to work on his legs, then slipped his jockeys all the way off, even giving his freshly-showered feet a bit of a rub. It was like a fantasy, the inspiration for a wet dream. Me, kneeling at the end of a boys bed while said boy lay face down and naked and asking for a back rub. Tom lay still for a moment. I remained still too, wondering what would happen next. What would he say? What would he do? Where would we go from here? Sorry to disappoint, but what follows isnt an erotically arousing tale of passionate, unbridled sex that lasts late into the night. Didnt happen. Not that night. Tom slid off his bed, retrieved his underpants, put them on, finished dressing in jeans and a flannel shirt and asked if I wanted a Coke. Youre good, he told me. I thanked him and then we spent the rest of the evening talking about and listening to music. But the next time I visited Tom he wanted another backrub. And the time after that. And the time after that. Eventually no visit to Toms was complete without him stripping to his briefs and lying face down on his bed. And, eventually, it led to something more. Never was a word said about Toms sexuality, the conversation of the evening remaining about music or about the radio station or about school. Tom never spoke about his drug-dealing sideline and we never consumed any of his product. Then one night when Tom had stripped down to his briefs I stripped down to mine too and went to work giving Tom a backrub. When I finished I asked if he would return the favor, the favor I had offered so many times now. He seemed to be confused by the request. Maybe he hadnt heard me, I thought. Maybe I'd sent him into such a state of bliss with the backrub that he was having trouble receiving communication from here on Earth and, for a moment, he remained motionless, lying still face-down on his bed. Suddenly he got up, keeping his back to me, reached down for his briefs and put them on, then turned around and gestured for me to lie face down on the bed. As I did, I couldnt help but notice that either Toms briefs were rather loose or he was somewhat aroused. Not wanting to ruin the moment, I said nothing and just lay down awaiting Toms touch. I was curious as to how this role reversal would work. Until now I had given the massages and Tom had received them. And I had been making it all up as I went along, trying to recall post-practice massages from the college athletic trainer. As far as I knew, Tom lacked any such memories. But it didn't seem to matter. Tom was either a natural or he was channeling my college trainer. Of course, my trainers hands never went some of the places that Toms hands were going. For the most part Tom followed my pattern. He began with the shoulders and the upper back, then the lower back, all very legitimate moves my college trainer would have approved. He also followed my moves around the waist and below. Down came my briefs followed by Toms caressing hands all the way down to my ankles. As he finished and I lay there face down, I found the answer to my earlier question about Toms briefs. No, they werent loose. I was about to discreetly get up and retrieve my underwear when Toms hands grabbed my waist and turned me over on my back. And "massaged" away any of my remaining stiffness.

Change does seem to be the theme these days

AOL is getting rid of Journals at the end of October so here is Rough Draft (now two words) on blogger.com.

I hope this will (a) motivate me to post more often and (b) bring more traffic to this site. 

And, since Hometown AOL is also going away, I'll be transferring my stories to this site soon.

Ethan