Going to bed was interesting. The bedroom seemed much smaller with two
adult males trying to maneuver between it and the furniture—and me to unpack my
bags. The double bed consumed almost
all the space; the passages alongside of it were barely a foot wide. The bed was
held up by a brown-painted tubular metal frame that showed glimpses of earlier
paint jobs in different colors and different layers. Looking at the bed, I realized that the sleeping arrangement was
going to be a bit more intimate than I was used to. I hadn’t slept with a male in close quarters since I was about 11
years old at a friend’s house. And I
always slept on the right side, but Robbie had already appropriated that
side. And I liked to sleep nude, but
the bed wasn’t exactly very large to, well, maintain a proper distance.
If I hadn’t been so tired, I would
have tried to exercise my “Sawyer” charms to get Robbie to the other side of
the bed, which would have put my butt toward him in my normal sleeping position
and would have provided a bit more privacy for any protrusions that might
happen. I was too tired, though. I gave up my initial pretense of modesty and
climbed into bed with my boxers on; I slipped them off under the sheets and
tossed them on the floor under the bed before I finally put my head to the
pillow. And I fell into a deep sleep.
As I was slipping into sleep, I
realized that I liked that name that Robbie had assigned to me: Sawyer.
It appealed to the con artist that I knew was in me.
Wondrous Summer
In his story, Robbie told you about
most of the events of that summer, so I won’t repeat them here. I’ll just tell you what still remains in my
memories after a decade and a half: the two major impressions from the
summer. The first was the rainbow of colors
that pervaded everything that summer.
The second was: How I started
the summer heterosexual and ended the summer completely in love with Robbie. I didn’t know it at the time but that summer
was the first step in a journey to recognizing our sexuality and ending with, as
Robbie has written, our “shotgun” marriage.
This is what I remember about the
kaleidoscope of rainbow colors.
I remember the range of browns of
the people we worked with—from the light-Mexican-color matte to the
near-black-chromatic sheen of children’s skin, the clear-white in the eyes
balancing the browns of the irises, the intensely white teeth, all contrasting
with the rose of the lips and the pale colors of the palms. I remember the tan-red color of the dust in
the streets and the dullness of the institutional pale greens on the church
walls. I remember the dark greens of
vegetation accented with splashes of red and orange of the few summer flowers.
I remember the colors that people
wore: the burnt oranges, the purples,
the roses, the warm tans—never primary colors, always muted with shades that
accented the natural colors of the skin.
I remember the dark blue of the
boys’ baseball uniforms and the pewter sheen of their cleats on their scuffed
black shoes as they clacked on the sidewalks near the ball field.
I remember the dull manila yellow of
the light glowing through the shades of Grannah’s house--shades pulled down during the day as she tried to keep the
heat out. The light gave a yellow tinge
to everything inside the house, and the cast of light did not change much at
night when the few light bulbs went on in her house. The light was the same soft yellow tinge of my childhood, when I
used to go to my grandmother’s house to spend a month while my parents took
their vacation.
I remember intensely the colors of
the night we took Grannah to eat at Dinner at 18: her peach-colored dress and her white hair beneath her small and
stylish hat, the rich cherry-wood sheen of the wood on the walls, lighter where
the sconces directed light to the ceiling; the intense white of the linens contrasting
with the equally intense green of the golf course in the waning sun; the bright
shine of glass and the dull shine of silver; the black and white of the maitre
‘d’s tuxedo and the constant color of his face, until Mr. Stuart confronted him
at the side of the room.
I remember the dark, gloominess of
the bars and taverns we used to go to in the evening, a gloom broken only by the
bright neon reds and greens of the beer signs and the plastic reds of the
jukeboxes across the dance floor.
I remember the white of the sheets on
the bed in Grannah’s house and the flesh-pink of Robbie’s skin and the near
coal-black color of his hair that curled softly over his ears and forehead and
painted his chest.
Those are the colors that still turn
in my mind as I recall that summer.
The other thing I remember from the
summer was Robbie and my emerging sexuality.
I went to bed that first night in
Mississippi as a normal male, having no thought of anything but a heterosexual
life—normal marriage, wife and children.
I woke up the next morning to the sight of Robbie’s rear end and strong
sinewy legs, all covered with black hair, as he stood beside the bed and pulled
his white boxers on. When he turned around,
I noticed the diamond-shaped patch of hair in the center of his chest, dusting
the area between his nipples. I can
still see the trail of hair from his navel to the top of the underpants, and I can
see the shadow of black pubic hair through his white boxers. I felt something that I had never felt before:
I wanted to continue to stare at him. I
didn’t understand what was happening. It
had to be some anomaly resulting from the fact that I was somewhat
horny—unrelieved from the abstinence of the long bus ride.
“Grannah will have breakfast ready
in 10 minutes,” he said, breaking my stare.
My attention turned to his face—his
bright, brown eyes, thin dark straight eyebrows, almost-black straight hair
parted just off the middle, a sharp nose and thin lips—all with a fair skin, as
if the contrast button had been turned up between his hair and his skin. He had
almost model good looks including a body to match. I had never seen anyone that good looking up close. Magazine ads were two-dimensional; here were
three dimensions to observe—and I could feel the heat coming from his body as
he stood next to me, and I could detect both the freshness and muskiness of the
human body. I was taken aback—and maybe
a bit frightened.
I jumped out of bed, pulled on my
boxers and my jeans, grabbed my shaving kit and hurried off to the bathroom to
get cleaned up.
I quickly learned there was much more
to Robbie than his body. It was his
personality—the warmth of his smile, the considerate attitude that he had
towards everyone—and the finely honed and organized brain. Robbie was the first person, apart from my
parents, that, deep down, made me feel humble.
Me, the master of the universe? Me, humbled? Something was awry.
In truth, though, the depth of my
cockiness and bravado was never ever very great, but few persons could break
through to see what was real and what was not.
My dad had done that when he called me on my decision to go to
Mississippi, and it was only my stubbornness that took my out the door. My mother, I think, understood the brave
face I was putting up as she loaded me on the bus south.
Robbie was the other one to look
past the veneer. And in doing so, his presence
over that summer made me look more deeply at myself—at what I truly was as a
person—at what was on the other side of that thin shield that I had made sure
always surrounded me. The breach in
that shield would come later—when I was in Vietnam. But for that summer, I could see Robbie looking at the outside of
me and enjoying it, but also looking deeper into me where no one had gone
before and truly forcing me to examine who and what I was.
And I realize now that the deeper
examination of myself that began that summer was the first realization of my
sexuality. The realization was
slow. I went through changes that I
didn’t really understand but were to gradually alter my life forever, as
puberty had almost a decade earlier.
* * * * *
For two weeks, we worked at the
kitchen table on the play that I was writing for the kids until I was satisfied
with it. I sat with my fingers on the
keys of the ancient black Universal typewriter that Grannah had somehow drummed
up from the church. Robbie, the perfect
critic, would read parts and tell me that he was or wasn’t comfortable with
them, and usually for good reason. He
made suggestions as to where characters could be made deeper. Robbie made suggestions about introducing
humor.
Robbie’s critiques made my play much
better, and I was thankful for that—and I told him so. But his suggestions always made the script
more and more unrecognizable as I would type up changes and tape them into the
script and then retype the whole thing—sometimes late into the night after
Robbie went to bed. Maybe his
suggestions were the revenge for making him carry the heaviest bags from the
bus to Grannah’s
Toward the end of the writing effort
one night, we were lying on the bed at Grannah’s in just our boxers. It was too hot for any other clothing, and
it was really too hot for boxers. I had
written close to the last draft of my play and we were reading it aloud—me
taking the main part that I could recite from memory and Robbie taking all the
others. Our backs were to the headboard
of the bed, and he held the single typewritten copy of the play, turning it from
time to time to let me read it. I didn’t
really need to at this point. I had
most of the other parts memorized as well.
I took the script out of his hand only when I had to make corrections
with the yellow pencil that lay on the side table.
In these readings, I wanted Robbie
to take most of the lines, because I wanted to hear the dialogue spoken aloud
by another person besides myself. I could
write dialogue; I could read what I had written aloud as I wrote it, but that
wasn’t enough. I needed an outside
person, a new voice—a voice that changed emphasis and inflection.
Actually, Robbie wasn’t that bad of
an actor to be test reading for me. He
put his heart into the parts—female and male—with the accents that we had
picked up over the summer. I found
myself listening to him, his words soft and Southern on my ears.
I also found myself staring at his
near-naked body. I stared at his strong
legs as he moved his feet up towards his buttocks and as he let them stretch
out again. I could see the stubble on
his cheek and the same color reflected in the patch of hair on his chest. And, I looked at the trail of hair from his
navel to the elastic of his boxers. I
looked at the sharp lines of his face and the leanness of his arms, lined with
long dark hair.
“Jake?” I popped out of my reverie.
“This doesn’t read too smoothly,” Robbie said, looking at me a bit
peculiarly. I hadn’t been paying
attention.
“Read it again,” I tried to cover for my inattention. Robbie read it again, and I realized what he
was saying. I took the script from his
hands, looked at the offending dialogue and edited it down to be simpler. I handed the script back to him. “Now, try it.” He read the new section, and it sounded much better to me—and he
agreed.
“What do you really think of the
play?” I asked. He set the script down
between us.
“I think it is wonderful. To write a play to fit the actors has got to
be one of the most creative things I can think of—especially those actors: kids with very little training. It’s really wonderful.” Robbie was staring at the ceiling.
I looked at his profile, and then my
eyes drifted down his body again. I had
never felt this way before. I couldn’t
take my eyes off a splendid male body lying one foot away from me, barely
dressed. Robbie yawned, handed me the script and indicated it was time to go to
sleep, so I flipped off the light, pulled my pillow to me and turned on my
side.
As I look back on it, though, that
one night we were working together etched in my mind yet another picture of
Robbie. Over the years, that memory
would come back to me, especially when I was horny, but I never realized how
much it affected me until my last days in the Far East.
* * * * *
The sexual uncertainty continued
through the summer. I almost lost it at the swimming hole. It was another hot day. We were free from the scraping and painting of
Grannah’s house—our going-away gift to her—and there was no more baseball. Hot and sweaty from painting, Robbie and I had
decided to go swimming, and we drove out of town and down a dusty rutted road
to a bend in the river. We had stopped
and gotten a six-pack of beer, but without a cooler the beer was warming fast,
so when we got to the swimming hole, we drank a couple down quickly.
Maybe the beer removed my
inhibitions; maybe it was something else.
In any case, I stood, grinned at myself, stripped naked, ran and jumped
into the river. I had never done any
skinny dipping in my life, but it seemed the thing to do that day, giving me an
erotic rise. Robbie followed suit—or no
suit, depending on how you look at it.
We played around in the slow-flowing
river for about an hour, naked buttocks flashing above the surface from time to
time and more rarely a flash of pubic hair and penises. I think I lost a point or two in our contests,
because Robbie was a better swimmer than I was a cheater.
It was just after we had been
wrestling and dunking each other that I popped my head out of the water and saw
Robbie a few feet away from me, out of breath.
We both were tired from all the horseplay, and we just treaded water,
panting from the exertion. We looked at
each other for the longest time. I
looked into his face and there was something very different in how he was
looking at me; I saw what I think was love.
We both treaded water, and he drifted closer and closer to me. I realize I had become hard as a rock, and I
feared something was going to happen—something to take us to a place that I
might not be ready to go. My mind
whirled with fear mixed with lust, and we kept drifting toward each other. I was close to the point of no return, but
love and lust were clearly winning out.
I was rescued from what was about to
happen with the impending arrival of another car that fortunately made a lot of
noise as it came down the dusty road to the swimming hole. The fear of discovery deflated my erection
and sent both of us quickly to shore to put on our swimming suits. I was glad that Robbie hadn’t seen me
sexually excited, because I didn’t know how he really would have taken it, and
I didn’t want to lose the friendship that we had if he took it wrong.
We swam some more in our swimming
suits, got out, drank our beers and headed back to Grannah’s.
* * * * *
The next step in the course of the
recognition of my sexuality was the night I spent with Mary Lynn.
Robbie and I had just finished a
last, going-away dinner for her. The
other women tutors had already left, and Mary Lynn was leaving in the
morning. We had eaten southern-fried
chicken with collard greens, hush puppies and squash pie—plus lots and lots of
beer at the local bar. Robbie looked tired, so I wasn’t surprised when he
excused himself, giving Mary Lynn a warm hug and a kiss good-bye. I said I would be along in a while. Mary
Lynn and I finished the beer; then she
asked me if I wanted to do some dancing.
The dancing was up close and
personal, so to speak, and Mary Lynn pulled me to her during the slow
dances—and I responded as any good male would do. We were both drunk and were feeling the emotional impact of a
breakup of our group from the summer, and I was feeling her breasts, and her
groin was pushing against mine. My
senses led me to some insensible results, because I found myself an hour later
back at Grannah’s asking if I could borrow Robbie’s car—after waking him, of
course, to get the keys.
We drove to a secluded spot and
fucked. That’s probably too stark a way
to describe it, but it was pure animal instinct at work—or, rather, play. On my
side, at least, it was nothing but pure sex—a physical release. It was dark as our naked bodies writhed and
mingled in Robbie’s back seat. As I
climaxed, the strangest thing happened, however. What came to mind was Robbie and our skinny-dipping afternoon at
the river. I must have been too drunk
to think straight, I rationalized. Here
I was locked, body to body, my penis deep within Mary Lynn, pushing up against
her clitoris, moving back and forth within her, her hands and fingernails
pulling my butt toward her on my instrokes,
and it was the image of Robbie that flashed through my mind. I was doing what a healthy male should do,
and my mind drifted to something entirely different: what a healthy male shouldn’t do. Well, that wasn’t really correct, because there was something so
right about that erotic aspect of our afternoon at the swimming hole, but wrong
at the same time.
After we buttoned, hooked and zipped
ourselves up, I dropped Mary Lynn off, kissed her warmly good-bye, and wished
her well. I drove Robbie’s car back to
Grannah’s, somewhat unsteadily, I’m afraid.
I stripped down to my boxers and got into bed. I stared at the ceiling for a while, not understanding why my
thoughts were so disturbed. So, I woke
Robbie up to talk to him about it. Once
started, I couldn’t stop talking about the mixed feelings I felt about what I
had done. Robbie seemed to be a bit
short about my misgivings, but maybe he was short really about being wakened in
the middle of the night.
I couldn’t say anything about my
thoughts of Robbie, though, but I could talk about my ambivalence about the
loveless sex that we had just had. As
Robbie let me know, it wasn’t really loveless sex, because I really liked Mary
Lynn, so our session wasn’t entirely a sterile coupling for the purpose of
getting our rocks off. Robbie also reminded
me of that, pointing out that Mary Lynn and I had to have feelings for one
another and that I had the natural hormones of a college student that needed to
be satisfied. I wasn’t entirely
satisfied with our talk, but I eventually decided it was best to shut up.
Steamy Night
The last night of our summer was
stiflingly warm. I realized I was emotionally
in turmoil from the end of the summer, maybe falling in love with Robbie, and I
was really horny, the heat making my balls hang low, and the sweat making them
slide erotically around. Robbie and I
were sharing a bed, probably for the last time forever, after finishing a nice
evening of our favorite Grannah dishes and a game of cards with her.
There was no way I could make myself
comfortable. It was just too hot and sticky. I kicked off the blanket and later the clinging
top sheet, till I could finally feel the faint sweep of the air from the fan
moving across my body. I had removed
all my clothes except my boxers. But it
wasn’t enough. I felt like getting up
and going uptown to the Holiday Inn to rent an air-conditioned room, but I
didn’t have enough money, and it didn’t seem right to end the summer that way.
Then, there was Robbie lying beside
me. He was tossing and turning as well,
but he looked like he was asleep at least.
Thoughts of love and sex were churning in my mind, and the sex was with
Robbie, and, I noticed, Robbie was now naked, having kicked off his boxers. The only thing protecting his modesty was
the corner of the top sheet, which covered only his groin area.
I knew anything I did that seemed
deliberate or forward would risk our friendship, a risk I was unwilling to take. But I was driven by sexual desire for him—or
horniness, or both. I knew that I
wanted to see if Robbie felt the same about me as I thought I did about him—to
see if that brief moment in the river had the same meaning for him as it did
for me. I also knew what I was feeling
was so wrong, and society said that homosexuality was forbidden, and I was
entering into areas that would challenge society’s norms. There was a duel between mind and flesh, but
it was steamy hot, and the person I knew I loved and craved was lying naked
next to me—well, flesh was winning. Sexual
feelings were unstoppable and were
driving my actions.
My penis was hard. It had been hard since we’d gone to
bed. Every time I moved, every time
something touched me, the pressure and feelings grew, wanting release. I could feel the heat in my groin; without
touching my cock I could feel the nerve endings singing their primal song, blotting
out rationality.
The final temptation came when I
watched Robbie lying on his back, the sheet barely covering his
midsection. I slid the very short
distance across the bed, turned on my side and let my Sawyer hand “accidentally”
drift to his upper thigh, just below his testicles, and I let it stay there,
resting on the soft hairs between his legs.
I was being driven by pure lust.
I was unbelievably hard. In my
heart I wanted to move more aggressively; in my brain—or what was left working of
it—I knew that was probably a
mistake. But I had made the move with
my hand, and it was up to Robbie, even though I was ready to do more.
Nothing happened for minutes and
minutes. I thought and maybe hoped he
would react almost instantaneously. The
only thing that reacted was Robbie’s growing erection that I could see in the
dimness of the bedroom light. Robbie
was responding to my touch, though it might have been within the unconscious
realm of sleep. It seemed my hand was
there forever. I was about to give up
and pull it away when Robbie started to shift.
My breathing nearly stopped, and I could hear my heart’s rhythm thumping
within me. But Robbie turned his body the
other way, away from me, got out of bed and trundled off toward the
bathroom. There was no indication on
his part that anything had happened.
I took his reaction as a sign to me that
maybe what I did was all wrong. However,
I really needed to relieve myself before Robbie got back or be faced with the
same temptations, so I wrapped my palm around my cock, pulled on it for 30
seconds and exploded into a spectacular orgasm while my mind thought of Robbie
as if it was his hands on me instead of my own. I wiped myself off quickly with my undershirt that lay beside the
bed and turned over before Robbie came back.
The opportunity was over. As the
feelings of my orgasm retreated into doubt and maybe shame and as my sexual
excitement abated, I knew I had to forget about this incident: It was too uncomfortable to contemplate what
I had been about to do.
* * * * *
We were at the bus station. I was on my way back to Boston and then to
college for my senior year. I was
really depressed. The summer had been
wonderful, and I wished it could have gone on forever. I had made the first steps on my way to true
independence from my parents and their world and had established myself as my
own person. I had had an impact for
good on the world, I thought—at least on a few young people in
Mississippi.
I had also formed a close bond with
Robbie—a bond deeper than I could truly understand—but one that I wanted to
keep, even though we would be thousands of miles apart.
My bags were in their usual
state: two suitcases and some plastic
bags. I didn’t have much more than what
I had brought, except the baseball that we used for the challenge game. The team had given it to me, signed by every
player. I was proud of that baseball
and those kids. I was proud of their
cool at facing the all-white kids across town when things looked bleak and
Robbie and Grannah had to step in to take control.
Robbie had driven me to the bus
station. I didn’t make him carry the
heavy bag. I didn’t make it a contest,
though I wanted to; somehow, I couldn’t figure out a way and keep my
self-respect. The bus had arrived and
was scheduled to stay only 10 minutes.
I loaded my bags into the baggage compartment and accepted the claim
checks from the driver. I kept one of
the plastic sacks with some books with me to keep me occupied on the trip
north.
Robbie and I stood awkwardly near
each other, talking about things of which I have no recollection at all. It was getting close to departure time. Robbie stood aside as I picked up my last
bag. I turned around and there he was,
perhaps for the last time. I put my
hand out to shake his hand, then brought him to me in a hug. The bus driver was loading the other
passengers, and I was the last one still on the platform. I put my hands on Robbie’s shoulders and took
one last look at him standing about a foot from me, his eyes glistening. I told myself, “what the hell,” and I leaned
in and kissed him on the cheek and told him I loved him. He looked as if he didn’t know how to handle
what I had said. I became embarrassed,
turned away and quickly climbed on the bus.
I didn’t realize at the time that I
would not see him for over a decade.
Our paths diverged and might never have come back together again except
for an extraordinary series of circumstances.
…to be continued