Boy Crazy, page 8
Larry’s father goes to Larry’s room to tell the boys the plan. Briskly, he raps at the door and pushes it open. His son and his son’s friend, clothes off, are entwined on the bed. All three freeze. Then Larry’s father retreats, closing the door.
Shocked, not entirely sure what exactly he has seen, he says nothing to his wife, but she knows something has happened and she has a good idea what, in general terms, it must have been.
Larry and Ralph slip quickly out of the house. Over burgers and shakes, they talk about running away to some other city. By ten o’clock, both are home, Larry going directly to his room.
It will be weeks before Larry and his father can look each other in the eye. They will never talk about what happened.
Soon, within months, the heat between Larry and Ralph will cool. They will find other guys to tussle with, fall in love with.
Over the next two or three years, as Larry’s father watches him grow to manhood, he will come to understand that the world really has changed and that his son, brave and strong, will make his way in it free of the burden that he himself has carried all his life.
A BEAUTIFUL MOTORCYCLE
Martin Delacroix
One afternoon in 1964, a beautiful motorcycle greeted me when I came home from school. I was fourteen then, incurably queer, in a constant state of sexual arousal, and I planned to masturbate in the privacy of my bedroom just as soon as I could. But the motorcycle parked in our driveway trumped sex for the moment. I couldn’t keep my eyes off it. I walked around it in circles. The gas tank was red and shiny, like a maraschino cherry, with HONDA and a bird’s wing displayed on both sides of the tank. The twin tailpipes were funnel-shaped, each as long as my leg, fashioned from perforated chrome. The seat was black leather. The bike’s headlamp was the size of a cereal bowl, with a ribbed lens. Sunlight glanced off a curvy chrome mudguard in the rear. A white plastic helmet with a leather chinstrap hung from one handgrip.
Placing my schoolbooks on the concrete driveway, I swung a leg across the bike’s seat, and when I lowered my butt to the leather it squeaked. I leaned forward and seized the handgrips, making revving sounds in my throat. Rumm-rumm…rummrumm .
“Don’t get too comfortable,” a male voice said from behind me.
I jerked with surprise, then turned. My sister, Patricia, age fifteen, stood beside a guy who looked older than her, maybe seventeen. My sister wrenched her lips and told me to get off the motorcycle. Now.
I left the seat slowly. (My sister couldn’t boss me around.) I lifted a leg and swung it over the bike’s handlebars, pivoting and jumping off. Then I rose to my feet. I stuck my hands in my back pockets and looked at the guy. He was slender, narrow in the hips, with blond hair precisely combed in the fashion of the day, kept in place with hair cream. His eyes were cornflower blue and his eyelashes were the longest I’d ever seen on a guy or even a woman. He wore blue jeans and a white T-shirt and leather boots. My sister told him I was her brother, Curtis.
He stuck out his hand. “Hi, Curt. I’m Dan.”
We shook and he gave me a firm grip. His hand felt warm and I smelled tobacco on his breath. He stood half a head taller than me.
“Nice bike,” I said, pointing with my chin. “Is it new?”
He nodded, speaking with an accent. (Philadelphian, I later learned.) “I got it a month ago. It’s a CB92R, fifteen horsepower, four-speed. It’ll do eighty.”
I said, “Cool.”
“I’m in a hurry right now,” Dan said to me, “but I’ll give you a ride sometime if you want.”
I told Dan I’d like that.
He climbed aboard the Honda, put on his helmet, and fastened the chinstrap. He turned the key and the engine started. It growled and sputtered, very cool sounds. He waved to my sister and me, then drove away, trailing a noise like a disturbed beehive.
“Where’d you meet him?” I asked Patricia.
“School. He’s a senior.”
“Are you going to date him?”
My sister glanced down the road. “Maybe.”
My mother wasn’t thrilled about Patricia going out with a senior. “Invite him to dinner,” my mother said. “After I meet him, we’ll see.”
Dan appeared two days later, on a Friday evening. He wore a starched, long-sleeved Oxford-cloth shirt, dress slacks, and leather slip-ons. A pack of Winston cigarettes rested in his shirt pocket and he offered my mother one, then lit it for her with a brushed-nickel Zippo that made a ringing sound when he flipped the lid open with his thumb.
We sipped Cokes on the screened porch at the rear of our house. We sat on rattan furniture upholstered in fabric with a hibiscus motif. It was six thirty. The sun hung low and shadows were long, and my mother switched on a table lamp. This was October and the central Florida weather was still warm. My sister wore shorts and sandals and a sleeveless blouse, and she’d fixed her hair more carefully than usual. She sat beside my mother on the sofa while Dan and I occupied cushioned chairs facing it.
“My family moved here from Pennsylvania, in June, just after school let out,” Dan told my mother. “My dad’s an engineer, he works for a defense contractor.” Dan had two siblings, he said, a brother and a sister, both far younger than him. His mom was a homemaker.
“Did you date up north?” my mother asked.
Dan shrugged. “Some, but nothing serious. I didn’t have transportation.”
“Yes,” my mother said, shifting her weight on the sofa. “I’m not keen on motorcycles. If you plan to take Patricia places, you must borrow a car.”
Dan dropped his gaze to the porch floor. He nodded but he didn’t say anything. Lamplight reflected off his identification bracelet, silver with chunky links.
“My husband passed away five years ago,” my mother told Dan. “I function as both mother and father in this household, so I’ll be blunt: I think Patricia’s too young to date a boy your age. She’s…inexperienced.”
My sister squirmed on the sofa. “Mom, I’m not—”
My mother raised a hand to Patricia’s face and gave her an icy stare. “Let me finish.” She turned back to Dan. “I’m not naïve. I know what teenagers do—boys and girls—when they’re alone.”
I glanced at Dan. He’d rearranged himself in his chair, and he rested his forearms on his knees. His fingers were interlaced and his cheeks were flushed. He kept his gaze on the floor while my mother continued:
“If you plan to date Patricia, you must treat her with respect. Her blouse will stay buttoned, and you’ll keep your zipper closed. Am I making myself clear?”
Dan’s entire face turned brick red; so did his ears. He raised his chin and looked at my mother for a moment. Then he nodded and dropped his gaze to his hands. “Yes, ma’am.”
My mother rose. “Now that we understand one another, I’ll get dinner on the table.” She turned to my sister. “Patricia, give me a hand in the kitchen.”
My sister scowled while she followed my mother out of the room.
Dan looked at me and drew a hand across his forehead, wiping away imaginary beads of sweat. “Whew,” he said. “Your mom doesn’t mince words, does she?”
I rolled my eyes and shook my head.
Dan produced his pack of cigarettes, pointed to them, and looked at me. “Are you allowed?”
I shook my head. “But sometimes I sneak one when I’m alone.”
Dan glanced at the doorway leading into the house. Then he tapped out two cigarettes and he handed them to me. He winked and said, “Between us, okay?”
I smiled and nodded.
The day after Dan came to dinner, I met my best friend, Gus Andriakas, at a gas station temporarily closed for renovation. Two steel holding tanks, big as tanker trucks, rested on the station’s concrete apron. The gas pumps had been removed, the station’s sign as well, and the property was roped off and tagged with NO TRESPASSING signs. We sat in back, among treadless tires and discarded batteries, smoking the cigarettes Dan had given me.
Gus came from a Greek family. Boys at school teased him about being queer since everybody knew Greek men butt-fucked Greek boys. Gus often sported a shiner, as he frequently got into fistfights over the teasing. He was a tough kid and he wouldn’t take shit off anybody, but he wasn’t a good brawler. He was slender and he lacked moves, and he took more punches than he landed. This particular day Gus was shinerless, but his lower lip was swollen and split. He brought his cigarette to his mouth gingerly.
When I told Gus about Dan and his motorcycle, Gus said, “Cool.” Then he drew on his cigarette. He made an O with his lips and blew a stream of smoke.
I said, “Dan told me he’d take me for a ride, but I don’t think my mom will let me.”
Gus looked at me and chuckled, shaking his head. “She doesn’t let you smoke, either.”
My mother worked at a department store, as division manager in ladies’ undergarments. She worked Saturdays, then took Sundays and Mondays off. After my sister and Dan began dating, Dan would visit our house on Saturday afternoons, when my mother was absent, to spend time alone with Patricia. They’d watch TV or listen to records or sun themselves on a blanket in our backyard.
One Saturday, Dan appeared on his motorcycle right after lunch. My sister was already in her swimsuit out back. I was lying on my bed, reading a comic book, when Dan stuck his head through my bedroom doorway. He clutched a pair of bathing trunks.
“Mind if I change in here?” he asked.
I told Dan it was fine. He closed the door, and then he placed the trunks on my desk. He pulled his T-shirt over his head and hung it on the desk chair. His chest and shoulder muscles were defined and his belly was flat. I stole glances while he removed his shoes and socks—my dick was already swollen. Dan unzipped his jeans, shucked them down and off his legs, and hung them over the chair as well. He wore white briefs (we all wore white briefs back then) and slipped his thumbs inside the waistband to peel them down to his ankles, then kicked them off. The briefs joined his other clothes on the chair, and he stood naked with his pecker dangling just a few feet from me.
My heart hammered against my rib cage and my mouth went dry while Dan fumbled with his swim trunks, looking for the label so he wouldn’t put them on backward. I’d seen tons of guys naked in the locker room at school, of course, but they were my age or younger, not seventeen. Dan was fully developed and, to me, highly arousing. It was hard not to stare.
I thought to myself: What a wicked little fag I am—what an asp—exploiting poor Dan’s nudity. He’s Patricia’s boyfriend, for god’s sake. The moment he left the room I locked my door and masturbated. My orgasm exploded, and fifteen minutes later I did it again.
I was in love.
On a Saturday night in mid-November Dan appeared at our house in a white dinner jacket, dark slacks with silk stripes on the outer seams, and patent leather shoes. His parents’ station wagon sat on our driveway. He was taking my sister to their school’s homecoming dance. She wore an ankle-length gown and her hair was piled on top of her head, held in place with bobby pins and several ounces of hair spray.
Dan’s shirt was pleated in front, heavily starched, with a winged collar. He held a bow tie—the kind with an adjustable elastic band—in one hand. Passing the tie to me he said, “Will you help me with this?”
We went to the bathroom, where he removed his dinner jacket and draped it over the shower curtain rod. He studied his reflection in the wall mirror. Our bathroom’s high-wattage light fixture made Dan’s eyes sparkle and his teeth gleam. I stood behind him and stretched the tie’s elastic band with my fingers, then I slipped it over Dan’s head, taking care not to muss his hair. I worked the band under his collar, a little at a time. Dan wore cologne—English Leather—and the scent was intoxicating. I fumbled with the tie’s clip, tightening the band as my nose brushed against Dan’s hair. My hips pressed against his buttocks and I became erect. My cheeks burned.
Dan tugged at the tips of his tie, testing the fit. He looked at my reflection in the mirror. “A little tighter, please.”
I adjusted the band and my boner nudged Dan’s behind.
“That’s good,” he said. “Thanks a lot.”
Dan became a growing presence in my life. I couldn’t get him off my mind. I’d sit in my algebra class, working on equations, and I’d think about Dan’s eyelashes or the way he held his fork at the dinner table when he cut steak and placed the meat in his mouth. (I’d noted that he didn’t shift the fork from one hand to the other and he kept the tines pointed downward: that’s how obsessed I was becoming.) On the school bus, I’d stare out the window and daydream about Dan and me spending time together. We’d go fishing or bowling or we’d attend a ball game. At home, I’d enter our family room and I’d see Dan and my sister seated on the sofa watching TV. Dan’s arm would lie across Patricia’s shoulders and I’d feel jealous. Dan’s arm belonged around my shoulders.
I did stupid things: one breakfast I poured orange juice into my coffee instead of cream. I left the house to walk our dog with a dog leash in my hand but no dog. I wore mismatched shoes to school. I forgot to brush my teeth for days at a time and my smile turned gummy. Some nights I couldn’t sleep a wink. I’d lie in bed and think about Dan. Then, the next morning, I’d fall asleep in class and I’d receive a tongue-lashing from my first-period teacher. My grades suffered and my mother received notes from two of my instructors. They expressed concern about my lack of focus, about my lethargy.
I lost weight. I developed raccoon eyes.
My mother took me to our family physician. He looked in my ears and nose and he peered down my throat. He drew blood from my arm. He listened to my heartbeat and my breathing and he tapped my liver while I lay on his exam table in my underwear. He asked if something was troubling me but, of course, I couldn’t tell him what it was. I couldn’t say, “Dr. Feinberg, I’m obsessed with my sister’s boyfriend; I’m lovesick.”
I felt increasingly isolated from my peers. Being gay was socially unacceptable in 1964. If guys thought you were queer they’d knock your front teeth out. You’d be ostracized, labeled a freak, and you probably wouldn’t get accepted into college. Plus the word cocksucker sounded so nasty, so…derisive.
Would I go through my entire life like this? Lusting for Dan? Hiding my feelings from him—and everyone else?
I had to tell someone I was queer, I had to speak about my feelings for Dan. But who could I share these secrets with? Not my mother; she’d have a nervous breakdown. My sister was a heartless wench and she’d revel in my misery. Discussing matters with Dan was out of the question.
I thought about Gus Andriakas. I was pretty sure he wasn’t queer, but everyone thought he was, so maybe he’d understand my situation, perhaps listen with an open mind. On a Friday afternoon, after school let out, I stole two cigarettes from my mother’s pack and I phoned Gus.
We met behind the gas station. By now the holding tanks were buried, new pumps gleamed beneath the station’s canopy, and a sign with a dinosaur trademark rested on a pole, but the place still wasn’t open for business. Gus and I had the property to ourselves. Again, we sat out back where we couldn’t be seen from the street, among the stacks of bald tires and dead batteries. I leaned against a cinder block wall and Gus sat on an empty, overturned oil barrel. The afternoon was cool and overcast, and we both wore jackets with elastic bands at the cuffs and waists. A breeze fluttered Gus’s dark hair. He was olive-skinned with large brown eyes. One eye was swollen nearly shut and the skin around it was purplish-green. He took deep drags from his cigarette.
I said, “What’s it like? Getting picked on all the time?”
“Awful. I keep hoping they’ll stop, that one day they’ll leave me alone. But it goes on and on.”
“Maybe you should move to Greece, you and your family.”
Gus chuckled but his expression was grim and he didn’t look at me. He poked an oil patch with the toe of his sneaker.
I said, “If you were queer…”
“But I’m not.”
“I know that. I said if you were queer…”
Gus looked at me with a strange expression on his face. “What?”
“Would you tell anyone?”
He got to his feet and looked away from me. Drawing on his cigarette, he said, “I don’t know. Maybe.”
I tapped my ash and rearranged my feet. I shifted my weight from one leg to the other, waiting till Gus swung his gaze back to me. Then I said, “I’m queer. I’m in love with another guy.”
Gus put a hand in his jacket pocket and he looked away again. He blinked and said, “Who’s the guy? Someone I know?”
I explained.
Gus shook his head. “What a mess. You should forget this guy, this Dan.”
“I can’t. It’s hard to explain, but he’s all I care about.”
Gus turned down a corner of his mouth. “He’s dating your sister; he likes girls. Nothing will happen between you and him.”
A funny feeling began in my feet, and it worked its way up my legs, then to my shoulders. I shook all over. My jaw trembled and my eyes burned. I wept and tears itched my cheeks, and I sucked air through my mouth because my nose was full of snot.
Gus flicked his cigarette away. He came to me and put his arm around my shoulders, speaking in a whisper. “Come on, Curtis, don’t cry. It’s okay.”
For Christmas, Dan bought me a Swiss Army knife with multiple functions. It featured four different cutting blades, a nail file, a screwdriver, a little pair of scissors, a bottle opener, and a corkscrew. Forty years later, I still own the knife. I keep it in my top dresser drawer.
I gave Dan a carton of cigarettes and a can of lighter fluid for his Zippo.
On New Year’s Eve, Dan took my sister to a party. Again, he drove his parents’ station wagon. He wore a long-sleeved, mock turtleneck velour shirt, a pair of dress slacks, and his leather slip-ons, looking better than ever to me. I stood in the kitchen, making popcorn in a pan, and he snuck up behind me, seized me in a headlock, and rubbed his knuckles against my scalp. “Happy New Year, Curt.”
