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.)
---------------
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:
----------

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