All Over Him

by Ronald L Donaghe

  He said his name. “I’m a freshman at UT. I don’t know what I’m going to be majoring in, yet, but I think it will be…um…I don’t know. And as for being gay?” he said, inflecting his voice into a question. “I knew about myself in high school. I guess I’m interested in GPA because I get a chance to meet other gays. Like Tim said,” he nodded across the room at the sissy-boy in high heels, “I think we should have a dance, though I’m not sure about dressing up, because I pretty much like being male, you know? Though it’s fine with others. But I want to meet regular guys.”

  At this, Tim looked angry. “That’s narrow and discriminatory!”

  “It cuts, doesn’t it,” said the same woman who disagreed with Tim earlier, “when you’re the one feeling excluded?”

  But John Watson held up his hand. “That’s part of what this group is supposed to explore, Tim. Barb. Charlie. Let’s not attack each other. Rather, we need to learn that we’ve all been programmed by the State, right? We’re Uncle Toms, but we shouldn’t fight among ourselves about it.” He nodded to Charlie. “Do you have anything else you’d like to add?”

  I noticed that Tim’s outburst had made Charlie even more nervous. He shook his head. “I didn’t mean to upset anybody, but for me…I’m hoping to meet someone I can love.”

  “And what about you big guy?”

  I realized that John Watson was speaking to me, and I felt my face burn. He was right, though, I was the biggest guy there. I had always been big for my age. Tall. I’m six-foot three. I looked around and everybody was looking at me. Some people were smiling wanly. Others were just curious.

  “Well, I guess I am big.”

  People laughed good naturedly, but I still felt embarrassed. I told them my name. “I played football for three years in high school. I’m a freshman, too, like Charlie.”

  When I said I played football, I heard a kind of pleased outburst. “My hero!” someone said. I think it was the guy sitting next to the sissy-boy. When I looked in his direction he blew me a kiss. I didn’t know if he was being sarcastic or not, but I plowed ahead. I told them about the talk with my English teacher who had asked me to write themes in his class about being gay. “And I guess I’ll do it. If it causes any of the… what you call…straight people to think, it’ll be worth it.”

  “Very good!” John said. “This is precisely the kind of political activism I’m talking about.”

  “But you’re not afraid, Will, that you might get beat up?”

  I looked around until I found the questioner.

  “He’s a jock, remember! They won’t mess with him!”

  Everybody laughed, and again, I didn’t know if they were being sarcastic or not. It was my fault if they were because I didn’t have to tell them about being a football player.

  “I don’t think of myself like that,” I said. “Being a jock I mean. It was just something all the guys did where I come from. Everybody played sports, and football was our biggest game.”

  When someone asked where I came from, I was hesitant to tell them, because I didn’t want them to put me in the country-hick box. “A tiny school in the middle of nowhere,” I said. “I grew up on a farm but, just like playing football, that doesn’t mean—”

  “It’s all right,” Charlie said. He put his hand softly on my back. Our eyes met, and I was drawn into his eyes. I always notice guys’ eyes, almost as the first thing I look at. And their lips. In that category, Charlie’s were thin, but it didn’t really detract from his looks.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I guess that’s all about me. Except I’m married. My husband is going to art school in San Francisco. I miss him. We met in high school when we were juniors.”

  It was kind of neat, though, as people continued to introduce themselves, many of them said things about what I’d said. “My name is…” then “I think it’s great that we have a jock in our group. Goes to show that gays can be anything they want.”

  “The married thing, though,” someone else said—a guy I’d noticed who sneered at much of what others said. “That’s selling out to the State. It’s self-loathing to be a faux heterosexual.”

  This time, it was the sissy-boy, Tim, who spoke up. “That’s you’re opinion, Lee. You seem to think that being gay is just about having sex. You’re always just looking for new meat!”

  Again, John Watson smoothed over the ruffled feathers and moved on. We set up a meeting for February and signed a sheet on a clipboard, giving our phone numbers. I was surprised that with all the talk of freedom and liberation, some people said they couldn’t give out their numbers. Others didn’t want to put down their last names. I understood how these people felt, though others objected. “If you’re not willing to come out of the closet, maybe this isn’t the group for you.”

  When we broke up and people were gathering up their jackets and coats, the Watson guy came up to me. He was about as short and skinny as my English teacher, though his eyes sparkled. He put a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t mind how some people reacted to you,” he said. “We’re not here to judge and say what’s right and wrong for each other.”

  I nodded. “Thanks. I just think it’s neat that there’s a group for gays to belong to. I pretty much had to feel my way along by myself.”

  “Because of where you grew up?”

  “I guess so,” I said. “But it seems like even those who figure they’re more in the know and I guess sophisticated are as judgmental but in a different way than folks back home.”

  “Right on, Brother!” John said. “I like where your head is at. I hope you’ll share your essays with the rest of us. You could even write letters to the editor for the DT.”

  “DT? What’s that?”

  “The student newspaper. The Daily Texan. They like controversy, too.”

  When I was leaving, Charlie Greenwood caught up to me. “Hey, you wanna go somewhere for coffee?”

  I didn’t know if I should. But I agreed. “Walk or drive?”

  “Let’s walk,” Charlie said. “I got a joint we can share. How about it?”

  I didn’t tell Charlie that being offered a joint almost made me back out, but I was kind of drawn to him, because other than myself, he seemed more down to earth and less snooty than some of the other guys at the meeting. I have to admit, too, that I was a little turned off by the sissy-boys. Not that I thought they shouldn’t dress and act any way they wanted as long as they weren’t hurting anyone, but they kind of scared me, reminding me a lot of Margie Collins back home in Hachita and the way she had come on to me that one time that scared me deep down.

  We were on Guadalupe, which runs past the campus and cuts through downtown Austin. It has an eclectic mix of shops, bookstores, theaters, cafes, where people walk at all hours of the night. Our breath was showing in the air as we left the meeting and began walking down the street. Traffic whizzed past us—city buses, bicycles, and people cruising slowly up and down in their cars, shouting out their windows. It was almost a party atmosphere as Charlie and I walked. So I was surprised that he lit up the joint under a street lamp, sucking deep on the cigarette and holding the smoke in much like Uncle Sean had done that time when he had first come to the farm after getting out of the hospital.

  Charlie passed the joint to me pinching it with his thumb and forefinger, so I took it the same way and, not wanting to let on that I hadn’t done it a hundred times before, I sucked in the smoke as deep as I could and clamped my throat shut, even though I felt a cough coming on.

  We walked on, passing the joint back and forth and I urged Charlie to tell me about himself. In a way I felt like I was betraying Lance’s trust by just spending time with another gay guy, until I remembered that he was doing the same thing there in ‘Frisco. He was up front about telling me about the friends he’d made, and it seemed like every one of them were gay. So I was determined that when we next talked, I’d tell him all about Charlie.

  “I came from San Marcos,” Charlie said. “It’s just a small city south of here. I could
have gone to college there, but I wanted something a little more…exciting, maybe.”

  I knew where San Marcos was, though I had only passed through there a few weeks before on my way to Austin.

  “Besides,” he said, kind of looking off down the street, “UT’s a way better school.”

  I noticed all of a sudden the way the light from one street lamp trailed along with us and joined the next one in a rainbow of colors, and my knees began to shake, because I was ‘stoned’ and just beginning to feel the effects.

  “I only came…here…because.” I stopped talking, because it sounded like I was almost shouting, and I could hear my voice echoing off the buildings. I looked at Charlie.

  He was grinning at me and I could swear there were green lights shooting out of his eyes. In a way it scared me.

  “What?” he asked.

  “What were we talking about?” I said, forcing myself to keep walking along at a slow pace, breathing deeply, not liking the sudden floating act my feet did, rising up, then drifting lazily down to meet the sidewalk.

  “Why you came to UT?”

  “Because…my Uncle lives here, and I’ve always wanted to live with him.”

  “But what about your husband back in ‘Frisco?”

  At first I was stunned to think that Charlie knew about that, then I actually slapped my forehead, remembering I had announced it to the group at the meeting. I started giggling. “He…we were both planning on moving out here.” I told him about Lance’s scholarship and how good he was at art. “But I need to help my uncle. He’s so lonely, Charlie. His boyfriend dumped him a couple of years ago and he ran away from ‘Frisco himself.”

  “Your uncle’s gay, too? Wow!”

  “So is one of my sisters,” I said. “I guess it runs in the family.”

  “It sure doesn’t in mine,” Charlie said, suddenly taking my hand.

  That definitely felt wrong to me, but I walked on holding onto his hand for a minute, feeling how warm his fingers were against my palm. But as soon as I could I dropped it, not wanting to seem like the gesture angered me or anything, and then I felt my face turn hot, because I didn’t know if I had said aloud what I was thinking.

  I glanced at him, but he didn’t seem angry, though he had lowered his eyes. “I’m dying to meet someone like you, Will,” he said. He glanced at me then flicked his eyes away. “I couldn’t believe you showed up at the meeting.”

  I remembered he said we had a math class together, then I remembered more clearly just then that he had spoken to me before on campus, but it was between classes. Then I felt like a dope. He’d obviously been trying to strike up a conversation with me long before tonight. “Why couldn’t you believe I showed up?”

  “Because it was too good to be true. I just could not believe it.”

  “Why?”

  He grinned, looking me right in the eye. “Because you act so straight. I never would have hoped—”

  He stopped.

  “What d’you mean? You didn’t think I was gay? But you were hoping I was?”

  He kind of giggled like he was nervous. “I doubted you were, but I just had to meet you, and then you showed up at the GPA meeting. Man, I could not believe it!”

  I thought he’d said that just a second ago, and our conversation was just going in circles. So I started giggling too. “I’m getting confused,” I said.

  So we walked on.

  “Do you mind if I ask you something?” Charlie said. “You don’t mind my asking, do you?”

  “What?”

  “Are you and your lover…are you monogamous?”

  By then we had come to a coffee house called the Java Joint with a neon sign filling the window, backed by tie-died curtains that glowed a soft red from other lights behind it. The neon was bleeding colors as the street lamps had been, but I was finally familiar enough with the feelings oozing through me that I felt comfortable.

  So we went in and found a table in the corner of the tiny room. There was a stage set up across from us, and an acoustic guitar leaned against the back wall of the stage beside an empty microphone. People talked all over the room in private conversations and no one lifted their eyes for even a glance in our direction.

  In a little while we had mugs of coffee, and Charlie leaned on his elbows. “So? Are you or not?”

  “What?”

  “Monogamous.” Again Charlie’s eyes were almost lit, but now I saw it was not from inner light, but reflections of the light around us.

  I wanted to be friends with Charlie. He would be the first person I even considered a friend here, and I felt good about that. But I nodded. “I am, Charlie. I love Lance so much it hurts. Just like the kind of love it sounds like you’re looking for. He was my first and only, too.”

  Charlie looked hurt, but then he smiled. “Okay. I understand. But can I tell you something and you promise you won’t get angry?”

  “Of course.”

  “I have a crush on you. And it hurts, too, Will. I’ve been following you around for at least two weeks.”

  Neither of us spoke for a moment. I couldn’t think of anything to say in response. I felt flattered and nervous at the same time. I retreated to my coffee and sipped on it looking around at the people. They were all of a type, wearing the same grungy clothing I saw everywhere; but here, the clothing fit, because even the coffee house furnishings were dingy, the lights low. It was a comfortable place, definitely not for a cowboy with short hair. I laughed to myself at that.

  “Do you find that funny, then?” Charlie asked, looking hurt and angry.

  I felt my face burn. “No! I was thinking of something entirely different, Charlie. Not what you just told me.” I went on to tell him how I stuck out on campus in my clothes from back home. “You wouldn’t believe how much I worried about what to wear tonight. I don’t like being thought of as a hick, and people thinking I’m dumb or something.”

  He looked relieved. “Sorry. I guess I’m a little touchy. It’s just that, unlike you, and probably everyone in the meeting tonight, I’ve never…I’m…still a virgin.”

  “That’s not the worst thing in the world,” I said.

  “It sure feels like it to me, Will. I…I’ve always known I’m gay, you know? And there are things I want to try, things I think about when I whack off. I don’t even know how it feels to kiss a guy!”

  I can’t write down all the things that passed through my heart at Charlie’s confession, but whole chunks of my own urgent feelings about Uncle Sean rolled through my mind and made my heart pound. I knew what he was going through. “Well, at least you’ve started in the right place, then. Going to that meeting. Remember how we talked about having a dance? We can go together, if you want, and we’ll…” I trailed off.

  “What? We’ll what?”

  I shuddered with apprehension. Until that moment I hadn’t planned on going to the dance, but now I’d committed myself to it. “You and I can go and we’ll meet a bunch of regular looking guys, like you say you want to meet. We’ll team up and…” again I trailed off, but Charlie picked up my words. He talked about loving to dance, and if he didn’t have to go there by himself, he said he could meet other guys. “What a great idea! Then it’s a date?” he said, with a grin, his eyes twinkling at me, leaving me feeling uncomfortable. I hoped he wasn’t going to make more out of it than it was.

  “We’ll go together, Charlie, but I can’t call it a date, okay?”

  * * *

  So as far as the Gay People of Austin thing went, I helped out with putting up posters around campus. I wrote a theme for Mr. Hardmon’s class, and even though I was embarrassed to read it aloud, I did. Mr. Hardmon had prepared the class before he called on me to read, about choosing topics of a controversial nature, researching such subjects adequately enough to treat the subject fully. He praised my work as an example of what he was trying to teach, how to form a topic paragraph and develop it. Dot. Dot. Dot. It sparked a lively discussion in class. Actually it was heated and, at
times, some of the other students, mainly other guys, made cutting remarks. I had titled my theme ‘What it’s like to be Gay in a Straight World,’ and one of the most outraged guys mocked it. “Yeah! It’s like you’re a twisted freak!” But so many of the other students shouted him down that, afterwards, as I was leaving the class, I felt embarrassed by all those who followed me out, asking questions. I noted that Mr. Hardmon was grinning from ear-to-ear at the noisy class that day. I figured I would pass the story on to the GPA.

  Charlie and I did become friends and ate lunch together at the Union South almost every day, though I kept putting him off about going out in the evenings. I could tell he hadn’t given up on me as a boyfriend. And I had gone as far as I was going to in that direction. I felt sorry for him and tried to make him see that he was plenty good looking, and if he just hung on, he’d meet someone. I sounded a lot like Uncle Sean had a long time ago, when I thought I’d die if I couldn’t be his boyfriend. In a way, Charlie’s predicament and urgency to lose his virginity made me feel glum much of the time.

  In March, the GPA group was recognized as a campus organization, and I went to the first and only dance I’d ever been to on campus. The GPA had set it up as a victory celebration in the Texas Union ballroom. What struck me most was how many gays there really were at the university. Both men and women. Gawkers and well wishers also came to the dance, I’m sure. The smell of marijuana was heavy in the air, as Charlie and I made our way into the building, and I relented one more time and shared a joint with him. So feeling a little of the effects of the marijuana, I let down what there was of my short-cut hair. It was getting over the collar of my shirt by then, so at least I didn’t stick out like I had in January, and as I had promised Charlie, he and I made a team, wandering around the room asking guys to dance. I was glad that most of them were agreeable and seemed to like being asked.

  Again, I was reminded of myself and Uncle Sean and the time he and I had gone out together back in New Mexico, when we had eaten hamburgers at an A&W, and he would ask me which guys I thought were pretty. So Charlie and I would confer, kind of keeping our eyes on certain guys. “Do you think he’s regular enough?” I asked, pointing at someone, and Charlie would say, “sure,” then laugh. “You ask him to dance and then give him to me!” So I did. It didn’t matter at all that I couldn’t dance. I listened to the repetitious rhythm and just jerked my body around in time to the music. Then toward the end of the evening, I came up to Charlie when the band was playing a slow song and held out my arms. “You wanna dance, Charlie?”