Snowbound – with Hickeys (1973)
Someone has written that, “February is the cruelest month.” That someone never experienced January while working at a radio station. The Christmas rush is over, the advertisers aren’t advertising so the sales staff is in a bad mood. That puts the manager in a bad mood and the staff follows suit.
There’s no more Christmas music to play, but the labels don’t put out much new music until early spring, so even the regular playlist sounds stale.
So when Joey called and invited himself over for a few days, I was delighted. He wouldn’t start spring term at junior college for another week. Since I’d moved to the end of the world – otherwise known as Rockwood, Tennessee – a few months earlier, I hadn’t seen Joey much. (I was later to visit him and spend the night – against school rules – in his dorm room, but that’s another story.)
Joey didn’t have a car, so I drove over in my trusty ’67 Camaro to pick him up and bring him back to my rented trailer. OK, mobile home. No, trailer. In another year I would own an actual mobile home, but this place was too old, too metallic, too, um, rustic to be called anything but a trailer. Plus it was in a trailer park, basically a large front yard of a home in which the owner had placed – at various angles – a variety of trailers. The trailer had a living room/kitchen, a bathroom with shower, and a second bedroom that was more of a large closet into which could be squeezed a twin-sized bed. It was cozy, it was adequate, and it was cheap.
One of the other DJ’s from the radio station lived in another trailer in the “park.” He was an overweight and jolly stoner named Joe. His on-air greeting was “Hi on you,” which of course could be heard as “High on you.” When his mother visited and found his stash of weed, he promised to dispose of it. He did. He placed it in the trash barrel next to his trailer, lit it and stood over it inhaling, turning on most of the trailer park in the process.
Joey didn’t smoke weed or even drink much. I only drank at clubs and hadn’t yet met Tom, the local boy who was one of Joe-the-stoner-DJ’s suppliers and who would become a regular visitor to the radio station. He was selling weed to pay his way through community college until his trust fund kicked in. Roane County had an airport up on Roosevelt Mountain with a lighted runway and it was a drop-off point for most of the marijuana coming into that part of East Tennessee. Sometimes so much arrived that Tom couldn’t get rid of it quickly enough. One time he arrived at that mobile home I eventually bought offering “discount” Colombian saying he was having an “overstock” sale!
I wasn’t “out” at work, but that wasn’t an issue. I was young (and poor) enough not to be yet married and none of the other jocks were married either. We all conducted our social life either forty miles east in Knoxville or occasionally a hundred miles or so west in Nashville. None of us were local boys anyhow. I apparently didn’t give off any “gay vibes” in any case. Once, a sales rep who visited the station occasionally offered to lend me his Playboy Club key when I told him I was going to Atlanta for the weekend. He apparently assumed I’d be interested in using it.
As a result, having Joey stay a few days and hang out at the radio station during the day wouldn’t by itself raise any suspicions. Joey was as country in his ways as the owner and the other local staff. He’d fit right in.
And no one would have suspected a thing. Ever. If it hadn’t been for just one thing. Hickeys. Let me explain.
The first night of Joey’s stay was uneventful. We talked, watched TV, listened to music and fell asleep because I had to be up very early to sign the station on at 6 a.m. The plan was for him to stay two nights and then I would drive him back to school. He hung out at the station during my morning shift and my office work during the day and we headed back to the trailer.
That night snow fell. And fell. And fell. The roads were barely drivable the next morning, but we made it to the station. Being Saturday meant I had only my morning air shift to do. We stopped at a local grocery on the way home to get some food. The night was again uneventful although we did do a bit of cuddling on the sectional couch we had re-assembled into a makeshift double bed. The snow had let up but temperatures remained well below freezing so the area roads were basically impassible. We could get around town with difficulty, but getting in or out of town was virtually impossible. Joey called and learned that school wouldn’t open Monday because most students couldn’t make it back over the weekend. So he would be staying at least until Monday. And I didn’t have to work at the station on Sunday. The weather was not too bad to go anywhere and there was really no place to go in Rockwood even in good weather.
So we did what came, uh, naturally.
All. Night. Long.
As I explained in the previous story, Joey and I were never lovers and the term “boyfriend” wasn’t really in use at the time. A male sex partner was either a “trick” or a “lover.” The distinction could be vague. Someone might trick more than one night with the same person and they wouldn’t be “lovers.” “Lover” implied exclusivity, if only briefly. If one had a lover, one didn’t trick. Although Joey and I had “messed around” frequently during those first few months after meeting at the campus gay group, we hadn’t had many encounters since then. And although I’d spent some nights at his home in the mountains, his family was usually there and we had never “slept” together.
And although I know we meant a great deal to each other, even loved each other, we were not in love with each other. Two people in love and in bed whisper sweet nothings in each other’s ears, touch each other softly, share a physical expression of their innermost feelings. Two people who are tricking don’t whisper anything except perhaps, “Do you like this?”, touch each other rather briskly, and share a physical expression of their innermost hormonal desires. Two people in love will awake in the morning in each other’s arms. Two people who are tricking aren’t usually together when the morning comes.
So that night we weren’t “making love.”
We were tricking. With each other.
Since we were snowbound and would be through the coming day, we never went to sleep that night. We had sex, we talked, we had sex, we played some music, we had sex, and we talked some more.
And we gave each other hickeys.
It started innocently enough. About halfway through the night we hit a silly spot, a time of spontaneous unmotivated silliness and giggling. Perhaps it was the snow. Perhaps it was lack of sleep. But I grabbed him and, vampire-like, went for his neck and gave him a hickey. I wasn’t even sure it would work, but it did.
“Did it leave a mark,” he asked. I looked. “It sure did,” I replied.
So he retaliated.
Giving a hickey wasn’t that uncommon, but it usually stopped at one. Turtlenecks weren’t a fashion rage at the time (and really should never be) and even the horniest of gay guys usually had to go to work or school the next day and didn’t really want a visible mark of his nocturnal activity. There were no metrosexuals at the time, so only women and drag queens used makeup, so there was no way to conceal most hickeys.
Tricks seldom inflicted hickeys. That was almost taboo. Hickeys were generally considered as evidence of passionate love making, not tricking.
But silliness overcame gay social and sexual convention that night, so we kept at it. Vampires don’t attack necks as often as we did that night. It’s amazing we didn’t draw any blood.
The Sunday morning sun began to warm the air and by late that day the road ice was melting. We slept most of the day, watched some TV, listened to some music, ate, and then rested some more. Tomorrow we’d go to the station for my air shift and then we’d take Joey back to school.
It wasn’t until Monday morning that I realized we had a problem. We arose around 4:30 a.m., my usual time since I had to be at the station by 5:45. The problem hit me while I was shaving. The problem was what I saw in the mirror. On my neck. All around my neck.
Until about 8 a.m. it wouldn’t matter. Only Joey and I would be at the station. But what would everything think as they arrived? Even if Joey stayed at the trailer and I picked him up after my shift, that wouldn’t matter. Everyone had met Joey, everyone knew he had stayed the weekend, and everyone knew there was no one else who could have inflicted these marks on my neck. We had all been snowbound. So it didn’t really matter if Joey went to work with me or not.
The damage had been done.
I found a shirt with a high collar to wear under my sweater but it wouldn’t be enough. We would just have to tough it out.
We did. Everyone noticed. I know they noticed. But no one said anything, at least not openly. Had they already assumed we were gay? All I know is that were very happy to depart the station immediately after my air shift.
Problem solved, right?
Well, no.
We left the station and headed for Interstate 40. As we were halfway up the ramp the Camaro started to overheat. I pulled to the side of the ramp, stopped before the engine got too hot, waited a moment and started again. The problem was still there. So I turned around and drove the wrong way down the ramp back to the highway, stopped two or three more times to cool the engine a bit and finally made it to Rockwood’s lone service station.
We both were wearing jackets and scarves, but anyway I wasn’t thinking about my neck but about my beloved Camaro (not so beloved that it wouldn’t soon be replaced, however.)
There was no major problem with the car. It just needed a new thermostat and they had the right one in stock.
The problem was that it was cold outside so we waited indoors where it was nice and warm.
It was so warm that, without thinking, we took off our scarves.
Oh yes, we got away in good shape. No one said anything, at least while we were there. And we had an uneventful trip back to Joey’s school.
But I developed a sudden affinity for turtlenecks.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Story 11: Introducing Joey - "I'm not gay, but . . ."
The following story begins the second part of the collection - The Years of Joey
“I’m not gay, but . . .” (1972)
His name was Joe, but I called him Joey.
His name was Joe, not Joseph. Just Joe. He told me he’d gotten in a terrible row with his third grade teacher who told him, “Your name is Joseph. Joe is a nickname.” His mother was called in and she informed the teacher, “His name is not Joseph. His name is Joe.”
But I called him Joey.
We met at a meeting of the Gay Liberation Front, an organization of University of Tennessee students who had so far failed to get university recognition for the group. We met each week just off campus and the location was publicized through posters on university bulletin boards, utility poles and such, so it wasn’t unusual to have visitors at a meeting.
We began, twelve-step style, with introductions. When it came Joey’s turn, he began, “I’m not gay, but I’m doing a paper for a class.”
“I’m not gay, but . . .” Sometimes that was true. This time my gaydar told me it wasn’t, but neither I nor any of the others pressed the issue. Joey was personable, articulate, and likable. And cute. Well, everyone thought he was personable, articulate and likable. I thought he was cute.
Joey was a somewhat tall, slender, blond boy from rural Sevier County, finishing his first year at UT. His personality was southern country boy, but he clearly had an intellectual bent that he revealed in his conversation.
Part of what Joey said was true: he was writing a paper for a class. He asked some good questions and we answered.
When the meeting broke up, a few of us stayed to answer more of his questions. Joey received a fairly heavy dose of Gay 101, probably more than he needed for a class paper. As we all left, I asked Joey if he’d like to get something to eat. He did and we did. Eat, that is. I don’t remember where we ate, but I did learn his address and he got my phone number. I couldn’t ask for more than that. After all, he wasn’t gay. He’d said so.
At the time, I was only enrolled for three credits of thesis hours, which meant I wasn’t attending classes, but supposedly completing a great research work in philosophy. What I was doing was working on a government project for UT, working part-time at a country radio station, and living the club kid life. The university job was my third since returning to Knoxville from Atlanta, although the first job, at a fourth-rate AM station, had lasted only a few weeks. I left after the production room caught fire. I’d then spent most of a year as a copywriter and weekend DJ for a first-rate Top 40 station. The university job had flexible hours and I made them real flexible. Oh, I got my work done, but I had maybe twenty hours of work to stretch over forty salaried hours. This was government work, after all.
Joey lived in a rooming house just off campus and I visited that room often in the next few weeks. My first impressions about his intellectual depth were confirmed each time. My suspicions about his sexuality were more and more confirmed each time.
He hadn’t actually been lying when he said, “I’m not gay, but,” he just hadn’t come out to himself as yet. When a guy says, “I’m not gay, but,” it’s not the same as a bigot saying, “I’m not prejudiced, but.” The bigot knows he’s prejudiced; he just doesn’t want to admit it. The soon-to-be-out (or sooner-or-later-to-be-out) guy may not really know he’s gay. He may think being gay means very stereotypical things. Since he likes being a guy, since he doesn’t want to dress in drag (not yet, anyway), since he thinks all gay guys are easy to recognize by their speech and mannerisms, well, he thinks he’s not really gay.
I’d gone through that stage. How could a former college hockey player be gay? How could a sports-loving guy who screamed his head off when Tennessee played Alabama be gay? How could a philosophy major be gay? OK, maybe that last one was a clue. It’s not really being in denial, but being in the dark, the dark of the deepest part of the closet. It’s so dark you can’t even see that you’re gay.
Joey was going through that stage. He really was writing a class paper and I suspected he’d chosen the topic not just to fulfill an assignment, but also to better understand what he was going through.
Knowing this, I had to be sensitive in our relationship. I’d been out a whole two years at this point. I was a seasoned veteran. I was definitely attracted to him, and I could sense some attraction to me on his part. OK, OK, I was more than definitely attracted to him; I wanted him. Badly. For a gay boy like me who could find a trick for the night even when I arrived a half-hour before the bar closed, patience was difficult. Yet I sensed this would be too important a relationship to put in jeopardy by coming on too strong – or too soon.
Ultimately, we would not become lovers, although we would have sex. It took about three weeks for that to occur. The gay male world has elusive terminology for relationships. I’d say that we became boyfriends, except that so many equate that term with lovers. Oh, we did come to love each other, but we never became lovers.
My patience paid off. Even when we first became intimate, it was different that tricking. We were exploring our relationship, our bodies, and our identities. At times it was as if we were two straight boys in their early teens, best pals, just “messing around” until we could start dating girls. For a guy like me, who often imagined that the next trick might turn into a boyfriend or lover (as sometimes happened), intimacy with Joey was fun, refreshing, exhilarating even. Maybe even a bit innocent. And even a bit of innocence felt good.
The relationship wasn’t about sex, ultimately; it was about friendship, a friendship that would become even more meaningful over the years ahead. It wouldn’t always go smoothly, and there was a time when we stopped speaking (or, rather he stopped to speaking to me or just about anyone), but our relationship carried each of us through some strange times. We were so different and yet so alike. That probably made all the difference. We could be open with each other, share each other’s secrets, things we’d be afraid to tell someone else. I don’t mean scandalous things, but just those personal things you tend to withhold from friends and acquaintances for fear it will jeopardize the relationship. Gay guys have as many hang-ups about their masculinity as straight guys, maybe more. Like the drag queen who always wore Jockey shorts under his dress because, “wearing panties would make me a transvestite,” many of us felt the slightest hint of sensitivity or vulnerability would make others doubt our inherent maleness. We didn’t use the terms “top” and “bottom” then, but “butch” and “fem.” And if anything you did betrayed your “butch-ness,” you were subtly, or not so subtly, cast as “fem.” And that limited your social – or at least, your tricking – opportunities greatly.
Since Joey had yet to visit his first gay bar, he hadn’t been exposed to such oppressive attitudes. He was who he was and he wasn’t about to be labeled. Nor did he desire to label me. Since his first gay social exposure was to other members of the campus group, he got to see the diversity among us and receive the kind of acceptance he likely would not have received if his first gay gathering had been at a bar.
With Joey’s class schedule and my, um, flexible work schedule, we saw each other a lot. His rented room was a short five-block walk from my apartment.
Joey was from Sevierville, in the heart of the Great Smoky Mountains. Actually, he was from some distance outside Sevierville. His home place was an old house with indoor plumbing, but outdoor toilet, located along Douglas Lake. When TVA kept the lake level low, his front lawn was spacious bottom land. When TVA raised the levels, the lake covered the access road and you had to park nearby and traverse a hill to get to the house. There were warning signs aplenty that the lake level could rise at any time. Nonetheless, fishermen often ignored the signs, parked their cars, launched their boats, and returned a few hours later to see only their cars’ antennas.
It was about a month after we met that Joey invited me to visit his family. He lived with his mother and sister, his father having died several years earlier. As he was not out to anyone but me (he still maintained, to a degree, the “I’m not gay, but” front when around the others in the campus group), he certainly wasn’t out to his family.
His sister was just a few years older than Joey and was usually away from the house when I visited, creating whatever kind of social life she could in Sevierville or Gatlinburg or Pigeon Forge. Joey and I sensed that she suspected something, but wasn’t about to deal with it or mention it to us.
His mother, a solid old-fashioned country woman, took to me right away. Besides my weekday job at the university, I worked weekend air shifts at WIVK, the dominant country station in the area. And Mama was country and a big WIVK fan. Often she’d call in a request when I was on the air. She’d say, “Sing that new one by Merle Haggard.” She knew I didn’t sing the song, but that was her way of asking me to play a favorite of hers.
If Joey’s sister suspected anything about either him or me, Joey’s mama was without a clue. Gay people were something utterly foreign to her upbringing and environment. She’d been born and raised in the community that was now mostly under Douglas Lake. Folks around there were born there, married there, raised a family there, and died there. They’d go into Sevierville for shopping or maybe church, if there wasn’t one closer, and they’d occasionally journey to the big, big city of Knoxville.
Mama thus welcomed me with open arms, always glad to have me visit. And I welcomed those visits too. There was something calming, quieting, about escaping the academic world and the concrete of Knoxville and stepping back in time to an old house in the country by a lake. Joey and I would go walking paths he’d learned every inch of since childhood. When Douglas Lake was especially low, we’d even get to walk the “streets” of his mother’s old community, noting the cornerstone of what was once a store or the outline of a house foundation. We’d imagine what life was like before TVA came calling in the 1930s, life before the lake and life before electricity, for that is what TVA had brought the Tennessee Valley, along with flood control.
My own mother had grown up on a farm in upstate New York and they hadn’t gotten electricity until just before World War II. My father, the youngest of seven, just missed being born on his family’s farm, the family having migrated to Rochester a few years before his birth. Until fourth grade I’d lived in the city, where houses were set close to each other and to the sidewalk and where most shopping trips were to the corner grocery or bakery or cleaners. Then we moved to the wide expanses of suburbia, with spacious lawns and cars that we needed to get to the shopping centers that preceded the malls. Yet I somehow felt a kinship to the country; I somehow felt at home there. I doubt I’d have made much of a farmer, but I’d probably made a pretty good country boy. For a while at least, until, like Joey, I was ready to come out.
And Joey was ready, no matter what he said that first night.
“I’m not gay, but . . .” (1972)
His name was Joe, but I called him Joey.
His name was Joe, not Joseph. Just Joe. He told me he’d gotten in a terrible row with his third grade teacher who told him, “Your name is Joseph. Joe is a nickname.” His mother was called in and she informed the teacher, “His name is not Joseph. His name is Joe.”
But I called him Joey.
We met at a meeting of the Gay Liberation Front, an organization of University of Tennessee students who had so far failed to get university recognition for the group. We met each week just off campus and the location was publicized through posters on university bulletin boards, utility poles and such, so it wasn’t unusual to have visitors at a meeting.
We began, twelve-step style, with introductions. When it came Joey’s turn, he began, “I’m not gay, but I’m doing a paper for a class.”
“I’m not gay, but . . .” Sometimes that was true. This time my gaydar told me it wasn’t, but neither I nor any of the others pressed the issue. Joey was personable, articulate, and likable. And cute. Well, everyone thought he was personable, articulate and likable. I thought he was cute.
Joey was a somewhat tall, slender, blond boy from rural Sevier County, finishing his first year at UT. His personality was southern country boy, but he clearly had an intellectual bent that he revealed in his conversation.
Part of what Joey said was true: he was writing a paper for a class. He asked some good questions and we answered.
When the meeting broke up, a few of us stayed to answer more of his questions. Joey received a fairly heavy dose of Gay 101, probably more than he needed for a class paper. As we all left, I asked Joey if he’d like to get something to eat. He did and we did. Eat, that is. I don’t remember where we ate, but I did learn his address and he got my phone number. I couldn’t ask for more than that. After all, he wasn’t gay. He’d said so.
At the time, I was only enrolled for three credits of thesis hours, which meant I wasn’t attending classes, but supposedly completing a great research work in philosophy. What I was doing was working on a government project for UT, working part-time at a country radio station, and living the club kid life. The university job was my third since returning to Knoxville from Atlanta, although the first job, at a fourth-rate AM station, had lasted only a few weeks. I left after the production room caught fire. I’d then spent most of a year as a copywriter and weekend DJ for a first-rate Top 40 station. The university job had flexible hours and I made them real flexible. Oh, I got my work done, but I had maybe twenty hours of work to stretch over forty salaried hours. This was government work, after all.
Joey lived in a rooming house just off campus and I visited that room often in the next few weeks. My first impressions about his intellectual depth were confirmed each time. My suspicions about his sexuality were more and more confirmed each time.
He hadn’t actually been lying when he said, “I’m not gay, but,” he just hadn’t come out to himself as yet. When a guy says, “I’m not gay, but,” it’s not the same as a bigot saying, “I’m not prejudiced, but.” The bigot knows he’s prejudiced; he just doesn’t want to admit it. The soon-to-be-out (or sooner-or-later-to-be-out) guy may not really know he’s gay. He may think being gay means very stereotypical things. Since he likes being a guy, since he doesn’t want to dress in drag (not yet, anyway), since he thinks all gay guys are easy to recognize by their speech and mannerisms, well, he thinks he’s not really gay.
I’d gone through that stage. How could a former college hockey player be gay? How could a sports-loving guy who screamed his head off when Tennessee played Alabama be gay? How could a philosophy major be gay? OK, maybe that last one was a clue. It’s not really being in denial, but being in the dark, the dark of the deepest part of the closet. It’s so dark you can’t even see that you’re gay.
Joey was going through that stage. He really was writing a class paper and I suspected he’d chosen the topic not just to fulfill an assignment, but also to better understand what he was going through.
Knowing this, I had to be sensitive in our relationship. I’d been out a whole two years at this point. I was a seasoned veteran. I was definitely attracted to him, and I could sense some attraction to me on his part. OK, OK, I was more than definitely attracted to him; I wanted him. Badly. For a gay boy like me who could find a trick for the night even when I arrived a half-hour before the bar closed, patience was difficult. Yet I sensed this would be too important a relationship to put in jeopardy by coming on too strong – or too soon.
Ultimately, we would not become lovers, although we would have sex. It took about three weeks for that to occur. The gay male world has elusive terminology for relationships. I’d say that we became boyfriends, except that so many equate that term with lovers. Oh, we did come to love each other, but we never became lovers.
My patience paid off. Even when we first became intimate, it was different that tricking. We were exploring our relationship, our bodies, and our identities. At times it was as if we were two straight boys in their early teens, best pals, just “messing around” until we could start dating girls. For a guy like me, who often imagined that the next trick might turn into a boyfriend or lover (as sometimes happened), intimacy with Joey was fun, refreshing, exhilarating even. Maybe even a bit innocent. And even a bit of innocence felt good.
The relationship wasn’t about sex, ultimately; it was about friendship, a friendship that would become even more meaningful over the years ahead. It wouldn’t always go smoothly, and there was a time when we stopped speaking (or, rather he stopped to speaking to me or just about anyone), but our relationship carried each of us through some strange times. We were so different and yet so alike. That probably made all the difference. We could be open with each other, share each other’s secrets, things we’d be afraid to tell someone else. I don’t mean scandalous things, but just those personal things you tend to withhold from friends and acquaintances for fear it will jeopardize the relationship. Gay guys have as many hang-ups about their masculinity as straight guys, maybe more. Like the drag queen who always wore Jockey shorts under his dress because, “wearing panties would make me a transvestite,” many of us felt the slightest hint of sensitivity or vulnerability would make others doubt our inherent maleness. We didn’t use the terms “top” and “bottom” then, but “butch” and “fem.” And if anything you did betrayed your “butch-ness,” you were subtly, or not so subtly, cast as “fem.” And that limited your social – or at least, your tricking – opportunities greatly.
Since Joey had yet to visit his first gay bar, he hadn’t been exposed to such oppressive attitudes. He was who he was and he wasn’t about to be labeled. Nor did he desire to label me. Since his first gay social exposure was to other members of the campus group, he got to see the diversity among us and receive the kind of acceptance he likely would not have received if his first gay gathering had been at a bar.
With Joey’s class schedule and my, um, flexible work schedule, we saw each other a lot. His rented room was a short five-block walk from my apartment.
Joey was from Sevierville, in the heart of the Great Smoky Mountains. Actually, he was from some distance outside Sevierville. His home place was an old house with indoor plumbing, but outdoor toilet, located along Douglas Lake. When TVA kept the lake level low, his front lawn was spacious bottom land. When TVA raised the levels, the lake covered the access road and you had to park nearby and traverse a hill to get to the house. There were warning signs aplenty that the lake level could rise at any time. Nonetheless, fishermen often ignored the signs, parked their cars, launched their boats, and returned a few hours later to see only their cars’ antennas.
It was about a month after we met that Joey invited me to visit his family. He lived with his mother and sister, his father having died several years earlier. As he was not out to anyone but me (he still maintained, to a degree, the “I’m not gay, but” front when around the others in the campus group), he certainly wasn’t out to his family.
His sister was just a few years older than Joey and was usually away from the house when I visited, creating whatever kind of social life she could in Sevierville or Gatlinburg or Pigeon Forge. Joey and I sensed that she suspected something, but wasn’t about to deal with it or mention it to us.
His mother, a solid old-fashioned country woman, took to me right away. Besides my weekday job at the university, I worked weekend air shifts at WIVK, the dominant country station in the area. And Mama was country and a big WIVK fan. Often she’d call in a request when I was on the air. She’d say, “Sing that new one by Merle Haggard.” She knew I didn’t sing the song, but that was her way of asking me to play a favorite of hers.
If Joey’s sister suspected anything about either him or me, Joey’s mama was without a clue. Gay people were something utterly foreign to her upbringing and environment. She’d been born and raised in the community that was now mostly under Douglas Lake. Folks around there were born there, married there, raised a family there, and died there. They’d go into Sevierville for shopping or maybe church, if there wasn’t one closer, and they’d occasionally journey to the big, big city of Knoxville.
Mama thus welcomed me with open arms, always glad to have me visit. And I welcomed those visits too. There was something calming, quieting, about escaping the academic world and the concrete of Knoxville and stepping back in time to an old house in the country by a lake. Joey and I would go walking paths he’d learned every inch of since childhood. When Douglas Lake was especially low, we’d even get to walk the “streets” of his mother’s old community, noting the cornerstone of what was once a store or the outline of a house foundation. We’d imagine what life was like before TVA came calling in the 1930s, life before the lake and life before electricity, for that is what TVA had brought the Tennessee Valley, along with flood control.
My own mother had grown up on a farm in upstate New York and they hadn’t gotten electricity until just before World War II. My father, the youngest of seven, just missed being born on his family’s farm, the family having migrated to Rochester a few years before his birth. Until fourth grade I’d lived in the city, where houses were set close to each other and to the sidewalk and where most shopping trips were to the corner grocery or bakery or cleaners. Then we moved to the wide expanses of suburbia, with spacious lawns and cars that we needed to get to the shopping centers that preceded the malls. Yet I somehow felt a kinship to the country; I somehow felt at home there. I doubt I’d have made much of a farmer, but I’d probably made a pretty good country boy. For a while at least, until, like Joey, I was ready to come out.
And Joey was ready, no matter what he said that first night.
Story 10: Without a trick, without a clue . . .
Without a Trick, Without a Clue – After Hours at the Marriott (1970)
Midnight sucked. At least on Saturdays. The year was 1970. The place was Atlanta. (Not “Hot’lanta” yet – not by a long shot.) And on Saturday, Atlanta bars closed at midnight. And that sucked. Especially for a gay boy.
You see, straights will drop into their local club not long after dinner or maybe after an early movie. Not gay boys. Our timetable was much different.
Around nine, we’d start figuring out a wardrobe. By nine-thirty, if we’d figured out what to wear, we’d take a shower. Then the hair. Oh, the hair. When I saw Saturday Night Fever, I knew John Travolta’s character, Tony Manero, was straight. The boy showered, tried on three different outfits and styled his hair to perfection in the time between getting home from work and sitting down to the family dinner table. And he went to the club right after dinner. Definitely straight behavior.
Ten-thirty was the earliest a conscientious gay boy would make the club scene and, even then, the crowd would be sparse, as the “action” didn’t begin until at least eleven. So you can see that a midnight bar closing could really cramp one’s cruising style. Considering that the club lights would come on full about fifteen minutes before closing, that left barely an hour to find a trick, at least to find one in subdued lighting. Trust me, the old country song that says, “the girls all look prettier at closing time,” does not apply to gay bars.
So what did a boy without a trick – and without a clue – do when midnight came around? He could go home. Home alone? On Saturday night?
He could go to an “after hours” club, a very illegal gathering in some very dangerous neighborhood, as long as he had money for drinks — and for bail.
Or he could go to the Marriott.
The Marriott Hotel in downtown Atlanta had a restaurant open late. I don’t know if it was open all night, but it was open after midnight, for several hours after midnight, and that was all that mattered. And what a sight it was after midnight.
By twelve-fifteen, every trick-less gay guy was there, ordering omelets or pancakes or coffee. Tables were put together to accommodate large groups of people, many of whom wouldn’t even speak to each other in the bars. So why were we so sociable there? There were a couple of reasons.
First of all, we were alone. Some of us were there because we’d failed to hear those four romantic words, “Your place or mine?” sometime earlier in the evening. Some tragic cases might have begun the evening with someone, but it had ended badly – so they ended up at the Marriott. Whatever the reason, we were alone. And we didn’t want to be. Not yet, at least.
Second, there were the queens. They were never alone, always ready to perform for any audience, anywhere, any time. They didn’t go to bars to find partners for the night; those they would find in “tea rooms” or street corners. They went to the bars – and to the Marriott – to be fabulous, even though we didn’t use that word yet in 1970. They called each other, “girl.” They called everyone “girl.” Everyone, that is, but the cute male servers and bus boys, although most of them were gay anyhow. (Gay male server is probably about as redundant as gay church organist.) We “butch” boys (not too butch to spend maybe an hour getting our hair to look right, though) never called each other “girl.” But that made no difference to the queens; we were “girls” nonetheless. The only “real men,” according to them, were the straight boys they would trick with in the stalls or in cars. “I’m going to find myself a man,” they would declare, to a room full of males. Males, yes, but not “real men.”
Don’t get me wrong. Some of them were wonderful people, even cherished friends, but they didn’t sleep with other gay guys. And we didn’t sleep with them. Well, to be truthful, sometimes we did. And we discovered just how butch they could be in bed. Which probably isn’t surprising, considering the number of “butch” boys who must have been raised by dog trainers, the ones who responded really well to the words, “roll over.”
After hours at the Marriott was a social time. While we did indeed cruise, we knew that our chances for a trick were slim to none. That also meant we weren’t competing with each other, something males – gay or straight – are really good at. And it was a public place, so we couldn’t be too open with our affections. But we could actually talk. We could “dish.” We could listen to some queen “read” another queen’s “beads.” “If that bitch comes near me again, I will read her beads!” And they often did.
I don’t remember much what we talked about, at least not specifically. I guess at those times in those places you’re not really supposed to say anything you’d remember later. We were just there to be together. We were just there not to be alone. We were there without a trick. We were there without a clue. We were at the Marriott after hours.
And we were together.
Midnight sucked. At least on Saturdays. The year was 1970. The place was Atlanta. (Not “Hot’lanta” yet – not by a long shot.) And on Saturday, Atlanta bars closed at midnight. And that sucked. Especially for a gay boy.
You see, straights will drop into their local club not long after dinner or maybe after an early movie. Not gay boys. Our timetable was much different.
Around nine, we’d start figuring out a wardrobe. By nine-thirty, if we’d figured out what to wear, we’d take a shower. Then the hair. Oh, the hair. When I saw Saturday Night Fever, I knew John Travolta’s character, Tony Manero, was straight. The boy showered, tried on three different outfits and styled his hair to perfection in the time between getting home from work and sitting down to the family dinner table. And he went to the club right after dinner. Definitely straight behavior.
Ten-thirty was the earliest a conscientious gay boy would make the club scene and, even then, the crowd would be sparse, as the “action” didn’t begin until at least eleven. So you can see that a midnight bar closing could really cramp one’s cruising style. Considering that the club lights would come on full about fifteen minutes before closing, that left barely an hour to find a trick, at least to find one in subdued lighting. Trust me, the old country song that says, “the girls all look prettier at closing time,” does not apply to gay bars.
So what did a boy without a trick – and without a clue – do when midnight came around? He could go home. Home alone? On Saturday night?
He could go to an “after hours” club, a very illegal gathering in some very dangerous neighborhood, as long as he had money for drinks — and for bail.
Or he could go to the Marriott.
The Marriott Hotel in downtown Atlanta had a restaurant open late. I don’t know if it was open all night, but it was open after midnight, for several hours after midnight, and that was all that mattered. And what a sight it was after midnight.
By twelve-fifteen, every trick-less gay guy was there, ordering omelets or pancakes or coffee. Tables were put together to accommodate large groups of people, many of whom wouldn’t even speak to each other in the bars. So why were we so sociable there? There were a couple of reasons.
First of all, we were alone. Some of us were there because we’d failed to hear those four romantic words, “Your place or mine?” sometime earlier in the evening. Some tragic cases might have begun the evening with someone, but it had ended badly – so they ended up at the Marriott. Whatever the reason, we were alone. And we didn’t want to be. Not yet, at least.
Second, there were the queens. They were never alone, always ready to perform for any audience, anywhere, any time. They didn’t go to bars to find partners for the night; those they would find in “tea rooms” or street corners. They went to the bars – and to the Marriott – to be fabulous, even though we didn’t use that word yet in 1970. They called each other, “girl.” They called everyone “girl.” Everyone, that is, but the cute male servers and bus boys, although most of them were gay anyhow. (Gay male server is probably about as redundant as gay church organist.) We “butch” boys (not too butch to spend maybe an hour getting our hair to look right, though) never called each other “girl.” But that made no difference to the queens; we were “girls” nonetheless. The only “real men,” according to them, were the straight boys they would trick with in the stalls or in cars. “I’m going to find myself a man,” they would declare, to a room full of males. Males, yes, but not “real men.”
Don’t get me wrong. Some of them were wonderful people, even cherished friends, but they didn’t sleep with other gay guys. And we didn’t sleep with them. Well, to be truthful, sometimes we did. And we discovered just how butch they could be in bed. Which probably isn’t surprising, considering the number of “butch” boys who must have been raised by dog trainers, the ones who responded really well to the words, “roll over.”
After hours at the Marriott was a social time. While we did indeed cruise, we knew that our chances for a trick were slim to none. That also meant we weren’t competing with each other, something males – gay or straight – are really good at. And it was a public place, so we couldn’t be too open with our affections. But we could actually talk. We could “dish.” We could listen to some queen “read” another queen’s “beads.” “If that bitch comes near me again, I will read her beads!” And they often did.
I don’t remember much what we talked about, at least not specifically. I guess at those times in those places you’re not really supposed to say anything you’d remember later. We were just there to be together. We were just there not to be alone. We were there without a trick. We were there without a clue. We were at the Marriott after hours.
And we were together.
Story 9: Shopping with Larry
Shopping at Rich’s with Larry – “Do you have this in a 9?” (1970)
Typical of many gay guys, Larry and I loved to go shopping.
Not so typically, we loved to go shopping for electronics. And Rich’s in downtown Atlanta had a great electronics department, with stereos, radios, records, cassettes and all sorts of gizmos that usually appeal to the straight male.
There was only one problem in shopping the electronics department at Rich’s. To get to its second-floor location, you had to enter from the parking garage somewhere on the first floor. There were many entrances, but every one of them brought you through a women’s clothing section. Rich’s sold men’s and boys’ clothing, but you wouldn’t know it from the entranceways. One entrance opened into the Juniors, another into sportswear, and yet another into, “intimate apparel.” It wasn’t my idea of intimate apparel and Larry didn’t wear underwear anyhow, and neither of us did drag (if you don’t count Larry’s one unfortunate night that he spent in the drunk tank – in a dress.) Yet no matter where we entered the store, we two red-blooded American gay boys had to brave aisle after aisle of women’s wear just to get to the elevator to take us to our second floor destination.
Actually, there was a second problem shopping at Rich’s – an overzealous sales staff. For a store that did so much business, you wouldn’t think that rabid sales clerks would pounce upon each customer entering, but you couldn’t walk more than a few feet before being accosted. A few feet more, and there was another. And another.
“No, thank you, just looking,” didn’t seem appropriate since we weren’t looking, at least not at what was on the racks by the entrances. So we’d usually try to act as if they weren’t there, while trying not to be too rude. We had a destination. We had a mission and nothing could deter us.
But that didn’t stop them. One time I counted four assaults by sales clerks between the entrance and the elevator, a distance of maybe fifty feet. What were these people thinking? We were two young guys in jeans and sweaters or polo shirts and tennis shoes. Did we really look like dress shoppers? Did all the clerks on that floor have gaydar? Did most young men entering Rich’s come to buy women’s clothing?
Thankfully, the aisles leading from the entrances to the hub of elevators were wide and traffic moved along smoothly, so we escaped relatively unscathed. Until one day when Rich’s was having a very big sale.
We parked the car, headed for the nearest entrance, braced ourselves for what was to come and boldly walked in. Sure enough, we were attacked. We moved along. Again, we were attacked. We moved along. The next time we weren’t so lucky. We got caught in an aisle bottleneck, unable to move forward, unable to go back. We were stuck. In the juniors dress department.
Larry appeared calm and lit a cigarette. (This was before the no-smoking days.) He offered me one, although I rarely smoked. He lit his and handed me the pack of matches. I was just about to strike a match when a sales clerk struck.
“May I help you find something?” she cooed to Larry, who was stuck next to a rack of dresses. I pretended to hear nothing and lit a match.
Before lighting the cigarette, I glanced at Larry who, to my horror, was reaching for a one of the dresses.
“Do you have this number in a size nine?” he cooed back to her.
I gasped and the match blew out.
At that moment, thank God, there was an opening in the aisle and I pushed Larry through it. All the way to the elevators. Where we met another crowd. Perhaps they had shopping to do on other floors. Perhaps they were all escaping from overzealous sales clerks. Nonetheless, we were trapped again. And Larry had a captive audience.
“What’s the problem,” he grinned mischievously, “don’t you think I’d look good in that?”
He knew I was ticked, and he was waiting for an angry reaction. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. I wanted to pound him right there, but beating up on a short, hare-lipped hairdresser – albeit a cute one – didn’t seem appropriate, at least not in Rich’s. Besides, I had an audience to play to as well.
“Oh come on,” I chided him, in a voice that could be heard down the aisle, “you know that dress wasn’t your color.”
“And besides,” I added for effect, “a nine would be much too large for you.”
The crowd waiting for the elevators appeared to get rather quiet. But I said nothing more. That’ll teach him, I thought.
I was still holding the unlit cigarette and the match pack. I struck a match, and was just about to light up when the elevator doors opened and we were pushed forward by the crowd. Try as I might, I couldn’t get the cigarette lit.
Then, just before the doors closed behind us, with a crowd still outside, Larry saw my predicament and said, “Just suck on it, honey, just suck on it.” Then the doors closed.
That was the last time I went shopping at Rich’s with Larry.
Typical of many gay guys, Larry and I loved to go shopping.
Not so typically, we loved to go shopping for electronics. And Rich’s in downtown Atlanta had a great electronics department, with stereos, radios, records, cassettes and all sorts of gizmos that usually appeal to the straight male.
There was only one problem in shopping the electronics department at Rich’s. To get to its second-floor location, you had to enter from the parking garage somewhere on the first floor. There were many entrances, but every one of them brought you through a women’s clothing section. Rich’s sold men’s and boys’ clothing, but you wouldn’t know it from the entranceways. One entrance opened into the Juniors, another into sportswear, and yet another into, “intimate apparel.” It wasn’t my idea of intimate apparel and Larry didn’t wear underwear anyhow, and neither of us did drag (if you don’t count Larry’s one unfortunate night that he spent in the drunk tank – in a dress.) Yet no matter where we entered the store, we two red-blooded American gay boys had to brave aisle after aisle of women’s wear just to get to the elevator to take us to our second floor destination.
Actually, there was a second problem shopping at Rich’s – an overzealous sales staff. For a store that did so much business, you wouldn’t think that rabid sales clerks would pounce upon each customer entering, but you couldn’t walk more than a few feet before being accosted. A few feet more, and there was another. And another.
“No, thank you, just looking,” didn’t seem appropriate since we weren’t looking, at least not at what was on the racks by the entrances. So we’d usually try to act as if they weren’t there, while trying not to be too rude. We had a destination. We had a mission and nothing could deter us.
But that didn’t stop them. One time I counted four assaults by sales clerks between the entrance and the elevator, a distance of maybe fifty feet. What were these people thinking? We were two young guys in jeans and sweaters or polo shirts and tennis shoes. Did we really look like dress shoppers? Did all the clerks on that floor have gaydar? Did most young men entering Rich’s come to buy women’s clothing?
Thankfully, the aisles leading from the entrances to the hub of elevators were wide and traffic moved along smoothly, so we escaped relatively unscathed. Until one day when Rich’s was having a very big sale.
We parked the car, headed for the nearest entrance, braced ourselves for what was to come and boldly walked in. Sure enough, we were attacked. We moved along. Again, we were attacked. We moved along. The next time we weren’t so lucky. We got caught in an aisle bottleneck, unable to move forward, unable to go back. We were stuck. In the juniors dress department.
Larry appeared calm and lit a cigarette. (This was before the no-smoking days.) He offered me one, although I rarely smoked. He lit his and handed me the pack of matches. I was just about to strike a match when a sales clerk struck.
“May I help you find something?” she cooed to Larry, who was stuck next to a rack of dresses. I pretended to hear nothing and lit a match.
Before lighting the cigarette, I glanced at Larry who, to my horror, was reaching for a one of the dresses.
“Do you have this number in a size nine?” he cooed back to her.
I gasped and the match blew out.
At that moment, thank God, there was an opening in the aisle and I pushed Larry through it. All the way to the elevators. Where we met another crowd. Perhaps they had shopping to do on other floors. Perhaps they were all escaping from overzealous sales clerks. Nonetheless, we were trapped again. And Larry had a captive audience.
“What’s the problem,” he grinned mischievously, “don’t you think I’d look good in that?”
He knew I was ticked, and he was waiting for an angry reaction. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. I wanted to pound him right there, but beating up on a short, hare-lipped hairdresser – albeit a cute one – didn’t seem appropriate, at least not in Rich’s. Besides, I had an audience to play to as well.
“Oh come on,” I chided him, in a voice that could be heard down the aisle, “you know that dress wasn’t your color.”
“And besides,” I added for effect, “a nine would be much too large for you.”
The crowd waiting for the elevators appeared to get rather quiet. But I said nothing more. That’ll teach him, I thought.
I was still holding the unlit cigarette and the match pack. I struck a match, and was just about to light up when the elevator doors opened and we were pushed forward by the crowd. Try as I might, I couldn’t get the cigarette lit.
Then, just before the doors closed behind us, with a crowd still outside, Larry saw my predicament and said, “Just suck on it, honey, just suck on it.” Then the doors closed.
That was the last time I went shopping at Rich’s with Larry.
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