Guilty Little Secret
Page 10
But, we hit the road the very next day. I gazed back at Myrtle Beach with regret. It symbolized something powerful for me. Some post-puberty landmark, being finally on my own, out from under the Koster-Morgon-Carelli shadow. I felt free. I felt good. I felt a part of the earth, a part of the highway. My manhood was birthed on Myrtle Beach. Lying on the sand with Terry, cavorting with men we would never see again, I came to know myself and to accept even those desires that I guarded secretly in my heart.
“Charleston is about 100 miles away,” Terry remarked as we began our trek down Route 17. “We should be in Georgia in four days. Then two more days to Florida.” He smiled suddenly, brightly. “We’re almost there, Paulie! What d’ya think?”
“Well, I’d rather just stay at Myrtle Beach. What a cool place!”
“Hey, Daytona will be a blast, too! I’ve got some cool connections there. Trust me.”
By mid-afternoon we reached Awendaw. We began to slow our pace. It was time to look for evening shelter. This was the uncertain part of our trip, where we didn’t have advance reservations. Neither AAA nor Mobil nor Villons had any motels to recommend along this section of Route 17. We were on our own. We pedaled through Awendaw, finding nothing promising.
Grimly we pushed southward. I was beginning to worry about finding lodgings by sundown. I glanced back at Terry, who smiled at me encouragingly.
Terry knew me well. “Paulie, stop fretting, man! It’s not even three yet. We’re in great shape, time-wise and otherwise. There’s another town in seven miles.”
The next town was Visteroy. I could smell the salt air. I thought of the party raging on Myrtle Beach at that very moment. I smiled valiantly at Terry.
A tidy, but rundown, motel was tucked among Southern pines on the west side of the highway. On another day we might have passed it by. But that day it might be our only chance for 20 miles or more. Terry looked at me for some sign of reluctance. I nodded and smiled my approval.
We rode up to the front entrance. Terry dismounted and turned to me. “Watch my bike while I go in and get us a room?”
I shook my head. “It’s too hot to wait out here. Let’s lock up our bikes and go in together.”
Terry studied my face anxiously. “Are you okay?”
“Yeh, sure. Just hot. I want to get a soda.”
We were chaining our bikes to the porch railing when the office door opened. A large, red-faced man stepped onto the porch. I glanced up at him. Across his broad face, his skin was stretched tight although, below his chin, his fleshy jowls flapped like waddles. His eyes were tiny, pig-like, sunk deep in his head. He glared at us with his little pig eyes.
‘Whatchall think youallerdoing, parking youraller bikes on my proppaty?” he asked, heaving like a bulldog.
“We were looking for a room to stay for the night,” Terry answered him pleasantly. “You have any vacancies?”
Pig-eyes snorted. “I don’t ‘low queers to stay in my rooms. Now get amoving on, y’hear?”
I gulped and looked down at the ground, too embarrassed to look even at Terry.
When we didn’t move as fast as he wanted, Pig-Eyes came over and kicked my bike, nearly knocking it over. “Get off my proppaty, y’hear? ‘fore I call the sheriff. Being queer is still a crime in this state!”
Without a word, even to each other, we grabbed our bikes and pedaled away. Furiously. I felt so humiliated that I didn’t think I had enough energy to ride another mile. We passed another hotel, Pine Rest, but Terry shook his head.
“Let’s get out of this town, Paulie. One asshole goes a long way, you know what I mean?”
I laughed appreciatively, but my mirth was short-lived. My good mood was shattered. The trip was ruined. I wanted to go home. I looked into Terry’s eyes. “I want to go home, Ter.”
“Jesus, Paul, don’t let one fucker ruin this trip! We’ll go to the next town and get a place.”
“What if we can’t get another room in South Carolina?” I whimpered.
Terry sputtered, “This is ridiculous, Paul! Don’t let some creep do this to you! Not everyone in this state is fucked up like him. Remember all the great people we met at Myrtle Beach!”
But, not even memories of Myrtle Beach could revive my holiday spirit. My eyes misted with tears, making it hard for me to ride. The front wheel of my bike wobbled unsteadily each time I reached up to wipe away tears. “I want to go home, Ter,” I repeated, insistence ringing in my voice.
We reached the next small town on Route 17 within a half hour. Rainbow’s End was nestled there, on the north end of town, as we peddled into town. Terry nodded to me and pulled into the driveway.
Rainbow’s End. I grimaced. It didn’t feel like the end of the rainbow. It felt like the end of the sewer. I felt like I belonged in the sewer. I felt like a piece of shit. I looked like a queer to Pig-Eyes. I was a queer. The problem was nobody had ever called me a queer before, not seriously, not like Pig-Eyes, with such disgust, such venom, such hate.
I followed Terry up the driveway. “I’ll stay here with the bikes,” I told Terry, afraid of encountering another Pig-Eyes.
Within minutes, Terry emerged from the office, jingling a room key. “We’re home,” he said, jubilantly.
But, when Terry opened the door to our room, I looked inside and dissolved into tears. “Only one bed! This motel owner must think we’re queer, too!”
Terry wrinkled his brow. “Let me find out what’s going on,” he replied.
“I want to go home, Ter. I’m sick of this!” I began to sob like a small child. I reached out instinctively for Terry.
Gathering me into his arms, Terry began to console me, caressing my cheek in long strokes. He whispered into my ear, “I’ll be right back, Paulie. We’ll get this straightened out.”
As it turned out, all the rooms at the Rainbow’s End had only one bed. So Terry got two rooms. Mine was several doors down from Terry’s.
“I don’t want to stay in a room by myself!” I complained. “Especially in this state. I’ll sleep on your floor.”
“Do what you want,” Terry replied. “But, lock your bike in your room and take your backpack. There’s not enough room in here.”
Without another word, I did as Terry directed. I returned to Terry’s room immediately, without showering. My biking pants were sweaty and itchy. But, my room gave me the creeps. I grabbed a change of clothes and hurried back to be with Terry, where it felt safe.
Terry was on the phone when I pounded on his door. He let me in quickly and turned back to the phone. He was talking to Drew, as he did every day, first thing when we dismounted for the night. As usual Terry was assuring Drew that he missed him and was trying to persuade Drew, as he did every night, to fly to Daytona to meet us.
I secretly hoped Drew wouldn’t.
“Hey, Paulie, come’ere and talk to Drew a sec!”
Suddenly I was in no mood to talk. I looked around the cheaply furnished room, breathed in its Pine-Sol odor, and felt sick to my stomach. I wanted to go home. I told Drew so. “Hi, Drew! I want to come home. Tell Terry to take us home. I miss you and I miss my parents and I miss --” I began to sob uncontrollably.
Drew’s voice sounded deep and reassuring. “Paulie, it’s okay, pal. Look, I’d love to have you both come home tonight. But don’t let some jerk ruin your trip.”
“He called us ‘queers’!” My voice cracked on “queers.” “He said he was going to call the police on us! I want to come home. It’s not safe here!”
“I know, dear. Terry told me what happened. But, Paulie, people are going to call you much worse, I’m afraid, by the time you’re my age. Straight people, especially straight men, are terribly threatened by homosexuality. Ever been turned on by a straight man?”
“I don’t know,” I replied, my voice unsteady. “I want to go home. I don’t want to go to Florida. I want to get out of here. It feels real dangerous here.”
“Heard you liked Myrtle Beach a lot, huh?” Drew tried to distract me.
Terry continued his chatter with Drew, about how much he loved him, how much he missed him. As upset as I was, I was still able to eavesdrop on Terry’s conversation.
“Yes, dear… Yes, I will… Okay, dear… Yes, Charleston is closest… Westchester is easiest, do you think?... Okay! I’ll do that. Let me make some reservations right now, and I’ll call you back… Great!... Yes… Yes.. Me, too.” Terry hung up and smiled at me. “I’m going to get us on a plane in Charleston tomorrow, and we’ll be home tomorrow night. How does that sound?”
I smiled brightly, through my tears. “Yes! Thank you, Ter, oh, thank you! I can’t believe how much I want to go home!”
“I can’t either,” Terry told me, a bit glumly. Then he picked up the phone and called his agent, who quickly made reservations for us to fly to Westchester by private jet at 6:00 the next day. “We’ll have to ride our bikes to Charleston and make arrangements to have the bikes packed and loaded on the jet. Think we can do it?”
“Yes!” I replied, relieved to be almost home.
Terry smiled. “Yeh, I think we can do it, too. Let me call Drew back.” And he did, giving Drew the flight information. Then he pulled his mouth from the receiver, winked at me, and asked, “Do you want to talk to your dad? He just stopped in to visit Drew.”
Eagerly I seized the phone. I really needed to hear my father’s voice. I figured I would feel safer once I connected with Dad. But, when I croaked “Hello?” into the phone and actually heard my father’s voice, reassuring, soothing, I lost it again. I began to tremble uncontrollably and sobbed, “I want to come home, Dadda! I don’t like it here!”
Terry gently took the receiver from me, speaking into it quickly to reassure Dad that we were safe. At the same time, his free arm stroked my arms and back. He repeated the flight information to Dad. “See you tomorrow!” He told Dad before he hung up, “Give Drew and Justine my love. Paul’s too. ‘Bye now!”
I flung myself on the bed, my face in Terry’s pillow. I felt like a baby, crying like that, but somehow, for some reason, I couldn’t pull myself together.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Terry crooned softly. He lay down on the bed beside me and drew me into his arms, the way he used to when I was a small child.
And, as I did when I was much younger, I began to calm down in Terry’s arms. Before long, my weeping subsided. I loved Terry. I raised my wet face from Terry’s shoulder to smile into Terry’s eyes. “I don’t want to be gay,” I told him, quite seriously.
Terry laughed in response. “Oh, you think you can turn it off, just like that? Since when did you have a choice?” He smiled at me and ran his fingers lightly across my cheek.
That realization, that I did not actually choose to be gay, that I had no desire to be straight, that I had no interest in women, that realization renewed my tears. I clung to Terry, terrified. “Oh, Terry, make me happy I’m gay.” Our eyes met. “Make me happy to be gay,” I repeated. I raised my mouth for a kiss.
Terry’s mouth felt wet and warm on mine. I’d never experienced Terry’s mouth as warm and wet before. Maybe warm and dry, but not like this. I immediately pressed my mouth to Terry’s again, enjoying the sensation. And again. And again.
“Hey,” Terry protested, holding me at bay. “What gives here, Paulie?”
“Please,” I pleaded, my eyes on Terry’s. “Please, Ter, oh, please.” I dove for Terry’s mouth again, but Terry jerked his head away, avoiding my kiss.
“Paulie, this has got to stop. This is not good. I don’t like where you are taking this.” Terry ran his hand down my arm before pushing me away and scooting to the edge of the bed. Then he quickly stood up and looked down at me, lying on the bed. Without another word, he walked into the bathroom and closed the door.
For my 18th birthday, Drew and Terry gave me a cool little red Jaguar XJ. Terry probably loved it more than I did. We spent many hours in it, cruising around France, then in New York and New England.
We never talked about what happened at the end of our bike trip, before we rode to Charleston, packed up our bikes, and flew home. Terry never brought up the subject of my trying to seduce him in that raunchy motel in South Carolina. He walked out of the bathroom that night, freshly showered and fell into bed. I showered next, then asked for permission to sleep on the bed with him, rather than sleep on the floor. Terry gazed into my eyes for a long moment before saying “yes.” I was too embarrassed to even begin to apologize for my behavior. I figured it was best to pretend it never happened.
But, my desire for Terry didn’t relent. I just kept it to myself, avoiding physical contact with Terry at all cost. I had no interest in other men. I wished I did, but I didn’t. At Ziggy’s, I had lots of opportunities, plenty of men who flirted, men who cajoled, men who begged. None of them were Terry, however. None of them had the look, the smell, the feel of my Terry.
I was confused and had no one to talk to about this. There was no one I could trust. I considered asking Jeff for advice, but I knew he would just say “go for it.” But, I couldn’t just go for it. I didn’t know where to begin, how to start. The need I had to be with Terry as a child had morphed into a sexual obsession that was unnerving.
One Sunday afternoon in the spring of 1984, when Dizzy and I were both home for dinner with our folks, I decided to broach the subject with my brother. Dizzy was in medical school at this point, and I figured he had a lot of experience with these things. I invited him to ride bikes with me around the lake on our property. It was something we did often, and he readily put down the book he was reading to join me.
As we rode down the drive to the lake, we engaged in our customary, and ridiculous, contest, which started in our childhood after I first learned to ride a bike, to see who could ride with no hands for the longest distance. The lane was on a downhill slope, so it was easy to coast and ride no hands. I let Dizzy win that afternoon, which put him in a buoyant mood.
He crowed about his no-hands performance, wishing me “better luck next time, bro,” before leaning on his handlebars to ask me, in a serious voice, “What’s up?”
I shrugged. “What do you mean?”
He made brief eye contact with me, then looked away, down the lane. “Something is on your mind, I can tell. Is something troubling you?”
Tears were gathering in my eyes. I blinked to clear my vision. I turned to look at my brother, who was watching me with his serious gray eyes. “I need your advice, Dizzy,” I began.
Dizzy nodded. Then he settled back on his seat and rode another 200 feet or so with no hands. He smiled at me, encouragingly.
“Dizzy, you know I’m gay, right?” It was the first time I’d admitted this to my brother.
“Yeh, when Jeff showed up in Anjoie last year, I figured you were gay. I am sorry about all the names I’ve called you over the years. Shit, I was really mean to you.”
I waved a hand at him. “It’s okay. I was afraid to tell you. I left boarding school because the boys there called me a homo and made fun of me.”
Dizzy looked sad. His eyes became darker, and he wrinkled his brow. “I’m sorry, Paul.”
“It still stings to think about it. I was so alone.”
“What about Terry and Drew? You could have talked to them. Terry is your best friend. He would have understood.”
I shook my head. “I know, but I didn’t. I was so embarrassed and confused about being gay. I kept it to myself. I was afraid you would find out and really make fun of me.”
Dizzy shook his head then. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t help at all, did I? Shit, I was so homophobic. You’d think I would have had a better attitude, with Drew and Terry around all the time.”
We turned down the narrow lane to the lake. Many years ago, before Dizzy was born, Dad had put in a gravel drive, about the width of a large tractor, around the 7-acre lake. It was beautiful there. W
hite pine trees grew wild around the lake. It was like a cathedral with pine trees for walls, and sunlight filtering through the long, green needles, producing the visual effect of stained glass. We entered the pine cathedral, slowing to enjoy the pine scent and the quiet beauty.
“Have you ever been in love?” I asked my brother.
Dizzy answered immediately, without hesitation. “No.”
“But you have had so many women, so many lovers. Every time I come to your place, you are banging some chick, Diz.”
“Just lust. I am waiting for the perfect woman to come along. I am probably not a good person to ask for advice about love, Paul.”
“You’re smart, Dizzy. You can help me. I know you can.”
He made a face, a typical Dizzy face, a face that said “bullshit!” to whatever ever was being said to him. It was his bullshit face. “Try me.”
Suddenly I regretted even asking Dizzy for help. But, I had no one else to turn to. I blurted, “So, I’m in love with this guy.”
“Mmmhmm.” Dizzy slowed down to listen, his bullshit face gone. “Does he know?”
“No, of course not. He is in a relationship with someone else.”
“Ouch.” Dizzy studied my face for a moment before raising his face to the warm, green light. “How do you know you’re in love?”
“Well, I think about him all the time. I write songs about him. I want to fuck him.”
“Could be just a crush, Paul.”
“Maybe. But I don’t want to be with anyone else. And, believe me, I have plenty of opportunity.”
Dizzy laughed. “With a gorgeous body like yours, I bet you have all sorts of men panting after you!”
“My problem is I don’t know how to start. I don’t know how to approach him, tell him how I feel.”
“Ask him to meet you somewhere, and tell him honestly what’s in your heart.”
“Dizzy, he’s in a relationship. I just can’t haul him away and unload on him.”