“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.