His Eyes Were Blue

From time to time I reminisce about the "good ole days". And by "good" I mostly mean "those", because I can't always recall how frequently there were good ones compared to bad ones. Even if I was a kid back then, who is to say. I get like this when I spend a day or so binging on LGBTQIA+ movies, stories, and other artforms et al. I see the stories that playback in my mind as I imagine how they would have played out in today's modern world. Things weren't as progressive and liberal back in the 1990's as they appear to be these days. Being out and open about being gay, especially in high school, was not something that folks really talked about. I think that I mentioned liking other boys to maybe two girls that I knew, but that was it. For the most part, I tried to keep the topic of my sexuality as ambiguous as I could keep it. It's kind of what we did back then, in order to avoid constant bullying and harassment. Which, regardless of how hard I tried to avoid it, still happened. It may not have been as extreme as it could have been, but I knew my place in my school environments. I avoided certain halls and locker areas to avoid certain people. I made sure not to stick out like a sore thumb, even though I managed to stick out regardless of what I tried to do. Truth be told, I did my best to survive in an environment that I knew was hostile and unforgiving, because I knew the handful of outcomes that would surely transpire if I were to live my truth in the moment. 

I used to crush hard on other boys in school. My first crush was in kindergarten, his name was Eli. Now I can't quite remember what made Eli the object of my affection, but I knew that I wanted to be around him. I remember that he had this million dollar smile, the kind of smile that could melt hearts, and I just enjoyed looking at him with puppy dog eyes and an unnamed feeling in my heart. There were others throughout elementary school, like Aaron, the boy who lived in my neighborhood and who was a constant wave of terror and bullying since I moved into his neighborhood. He was beautiful. He reminded me of Billy Idol and all I wanted to do was be the best friend he could've ever asked for. When Aaron did something that others thought was cool, I immediately wanted to follow his lead. There was a time when his style was the kind of style that I wanted to model myself after. A few attempts on my part, to look and be cool, went off without success. I remember he had turquoise Chuck Taylors. I begged and begged and begged for someone to get me a pair of turquoise Chuck Taylors and when I did, I couldn't wear them. They didn't fit right on my feet and were too tight, but I was determined to match machismo with machismo and make sure that Aaron saw that I was just as cool as he was with my brand new Chuck Taylors. Honestly, I don't know if he ever took notice. Back then I had no concept what a poser was and even if I had an inkling of what it meant, I wouldn't have wanted anyone to think of me as such. Even though I tried to be like all of the other boys, I failed miserably at it when it actually came down to the social hierarchy that I was born into. Aaron and his friends all came from somewhere in the middle class, I was poor white trash. I wore my Chuck Taylor's maybe once or twice and they lived in my closet until they were properly disposed of. I would eventually move on to other things.

The subject of physical education hits a nerve with me as I have gotten older. I never liked the idea that I had to have physical education as a means to graduate high school. In the late 80's the typical spectrum of physical education came with boys go with boys, girls go with girls, never the two shall mingle. Which was fine. I didn't care that I had to take P.E., but I was concerned with the fact that I would have to take my clothes off in front of a bunch of strangers, some of them who bullied me and called me names like "fag or faggot" and even worse, I would have to be naked and shower with these people. It wasn't a choice, it was a part of the system. Also, when you are outside in the Arizona heat sweating it up with other boys, you kind of really want to wash away the funk that comes along with it. My concern, mostly, was with arousal. Aaron was in a lot of my P.E. classes, as were other neighborhood boys. They all talked about girls, brought pornographic magazines to school to flaunt, the were rowdy and obsessively horny about almost everything. And they always, without a fault, preyed upon the weakest of the pack when engaged in locker room banter. I managed to keep my eyes down. When I took a shower, I didn't engage in conversation. I didn't look at the penises that I know I looked at when I went from my locker to the shower, and then back to my locker. It was a mental game to remember to be just like all of the other boys. I didn't want to be singled out. And even though some of the boys who teased and taunted me in and out of gym were never cruel in the locker room, I didn't want to give them a chance at being the first to do so. Poor Talmadge though...he didn't have the same luxury. I remember the first week or so of 7th grade and we were all showering up in the locker room. A shriek or shrill came from one of the other boys who pointed out that Talmadge had "popped a boner". Poor Talmadge, he probably didn't understand why it happened, but the onslaught of gasps and profanities that came after killed his spirit. I knew his embarrassment and shame. Poor Talmadge was a quite boy, almost the kind of boy that you would classify as a nerd, with his stark white blonde hair and pointy nose, poor Talmadge, was flush red with embarrassment and humiliation. The other boys were terrible and relentless. Talmadge never returned to our gym class afterwards. Come to think of it, all of the bullying he endured caused him to have to change schools. I felt bad for the poor kid as he kind of became the butt of all of the boys jokes in gym. Even the coaches joined in on the mockery. It was a hostile environment to be in if you were one of those boys who could not keep your dick in control. Thankfully, I didn't let it come to that ever. I made sure to keep focus on where I was during the day. And let a few pop at night when I was in the privacy of my bedroom.

Boys were always hard to figure out. I had crushes on a few of the neighborhood boys, including Aaron, there was Charles, David, Travis, and Mikey. Charles was the neighborhood god, who walked around the block with his hairband strut and stoner good looks. I wanted to see him naked so  many times I could barely stand it. All the girls in the neighborhood would sit outside and casually wave to him as he walked by on his way to wherever it was that he was going. I never had the balls to say hello to Charles. I was almost certain that if I said anything to him, he would react to me the way that most popular pretty boys reacted to dorks of that time. He would have thrown me in a dumpster. On the flip side of that coin, there was Travis. The boy who lived across the street and who had a pool. Travis and I became friends for a period of time when he had moved to Arizona from Minnesota. I couldn't say what it was about Travis that I liked the most, except that he was one of the only neighborhood boys who would play with me. I mean, there were other neighborhood kids that I played with. We would all play hide and seek throughout the neighborhood. Or from time to time, an adult or maybe just one of the older kids would start a touch football team out in the road and we played out the evening until the streetlights would come on and we would have to get inside. Travis was different than the other boys. I used to be able to stay the night over at his house. We would go swimming, his parents were nice to me. And from time to time I got to enjoy having a boy as a friend. We played with our G.I. Joes and Transformers. We goofed around like stupid kids do. And we watched tv or chatted about dumb things like how I said the word "fuck" and we just enjoyed each others company. Then he moved to another neighborhood. I only ever saw him at school or in gym. What was a cool kind of friendship fizzled after he moved and made new friends. I still wanted to hang around him when I could so I thought the best idea would be to try out for wrestling, because of course I was built for wrestling. The day that tryouts were announced, I made my way to the auditorium after school, opened the door to a group of angst ridden teens, most of whom tormented me in the halls, and I quickly turned around and made my way home. I wasn't about to welcome any kind of abuse from them. My tail between my legs, and my heart no longer on my sleeve. I made due with whatever attention I could get.

Enter David. The cute boy, who did not like my company, but didn't mind having me around to goof off with. All of the girls loved David. He was sweet, he looked like a TigerBeat centerfold, and he rode his skateboard through the neighborhood like Paul Peralta on acid. David liked all the things that I did not. He was free with his laughter and receptive to the attention that others gave him. There wasn't a thing that I wouldn't have done to be like David. Except that I knew what it was like when the girls that were my friends, were only ever friendly with me, whenever he was not around. I was introduced to what it was like being a third wheel from an early age, and David was the teacher of that lesson. Whenever he was around, I did not exist. Whenever others were around and David came into view, I had to leave or be somewhere else. David taught me a lot of things in the small amount of time that I knew him. I learned that not everyone was who they claimed to be. And I learned that he was a snake from the moment he was born. It was hard to function with him being around and always getting the glory. I wanted to be like him and I wanted to destroy him. He was the "brother figure" that I could never live up to and he was a jerk. 

As time pushed me from one crush to another, I was always reminded by the tormenters where my place in society was and how often I should never stray. When my Mom moved me out of the school district that I started making friends in, to a new school system that I would eventually grow up in, then back to the first school system to essentially try to make friends with the kids I started school with, I was caught between two different worlds. I wanted what I was familiar with. All of the kids that I started school with had all of the sudden grown up. All of the boys that played soccer in the fields, now had facial hair and wore clothes that they bought at the mall with the money they made from after school jobs. I ran into boys like Adrian and Brandon, who lived down the road from me when I was 8, and now they were part of the cool boys clubs at school and had no idea or recollection of who I was. The boys that tormented me in my youth, from 4th to 9th grade, now existed outside of my gravitational pull. I had to deal with bigger bullies and newer fears. I also had to start riding the bus which caused another level of anxiety, because movies and television showed folks who rode the bus were almost always mischaracterized as poor and from bad neighborhoods. I mean, I was of both of those characteristics, but at least when I walked to school as a kid...I could imagine neither of those characteristics as a definition of who I was. Riding the bus meant that I didn't have a driver's license. It also meant that my Mom didn't pick me up from school. It meant that I was one of those kids who lived on the outskirts of the school system and I was subject to daily humiliation the moment I stepped foot on one of those yellow social cavities.

 High school was a weird experience. I didn't know anyone. By 10th grade I had decided that I wanted to see what smart things that I could do, only to find out that I wasn't terribly smart at doing much of anything. The friends I started to make, mostly female, kept me masked while I fortified the wall of ambiguity that surrounded me. Sure, I would give a little into the peer pressure that hounded me on a daily basis to find and have a girlfriend, but nothing of any emotional or physical manifestation ever came to be. I was simply one of those non-interesting, sexless types, that some people talked to and shared a laugh with in between classes. Invisibility is what most of us closeted types strived for. When it came to things like social issues and causes, we wanted our voices heard, but we did not want our faces seen. I knew this because the other boys that I could see, the ones with giant question marks above their heads, did everything that they could not to be labeled as queer. I wanted to be funny like Sonny. I wanted to be sparkling beautiful and the bestest thespian like Shawn. I wanted to be adored like my girlfriend adored her (very closeted) boyfriend Sean, and I wanted to be mysterious like Joseph. 

Joseph used to ride the bus from time to time. I never thought about his sexually, but in a manner of brotherhood, I wanted to be a part of his world. Joseph was quiet, and I could never catch his eye. I think that most of the time, when I did notice him, he was being soft spoken and always looking at someone else. Us gays, we know when others are gay too, so I suspect that my gaze in his direction, whenever it came, he could sense and wanted to ward it off. Yes, Joseph was a chameleon of my 90's life that made riding the bus so stupid and weird from time to time. I remember when he started riding the bus with another boy, John, and I couldn't help but imagine the two of them together. Their interactions were playful and jovial, like they just couldn't wait to get on the bus to occupy one anothers time. Me, like a troll, sitting rows behind them and imagining every glance made toward one another, every smile, like some kind of pubescent love story that would never get told on shows like "My So Called Life", because in those days being queer was never part of the main storyline. I wanted to talk to them and befriend them. I wanted so much to know what made Joseph laugh. I wanted to know what made John smile. I also wanted to know why they never looked my way. I was too shy to make any moves and I was too stupid to be smart in order to figure out how to ask someone for help in my studies. Eventually, Joseph would stop riding the bus. John would kind of be there, somewhat melancholy, until he too stopped riding the bus. My fantasies about either of them began to fade until I stopped thinking of them altogether. These days I wonder if Joseph ever became the writer that he wanted to become. I wonder if John talks about the love he had when he was in high school. I wonder if they still know each other.

It was a fault of mine to be somewhat elusive about being gay, and also, give hints to some that I might like guys. I told a girlfriend of mine, quite casually, that I was gay. At the time it seemed fine, Nicole kind of hinted around that she was an equal opportunity person and I felt comfortable enough with her to let her know my secret. After all, she knew other gays. One guy in particular, Jason, was the school gay guy. He was outwardly flamboyant and openly artistic about who he was. And I am pretty sure that she told him that I was gay. I remember how I treated him in school. Because I didn't want to be a part of the association, I disregarded his kindness and thought of him as some kind of ugly deviant who was going to jump my bones the first chance he had. I made no apologies as I gave him kindly acknowledgements of "I know you know we know who we are but don't make it known" up until the point a vague hello as I quietly, and flushed with embarrassment, made my way to another part of the campus where he could not be spotted. That is the one part of queer youth that we didn't get to learn about in those days. We didn't get to learn how to deal with one another in any kind of social capacity. Acknowledgement meant identification by those who were not LGBTQIA and that put a specific target on our backs. Some dealt with that target bravely and welcomed the daily onset of name calling and torment. Others remained in the shadows until it was safe to "come out". 

I took to my senior year of high school with one goal in mind. I did not want to be one of the kids who didn't make an impression. I wasn't terribly popular in high school, and if you were to ask anyone at my 30 year high school reunion, who the fuck I was/am, only a handful would be able to recall me. But I made my mark. I managed to join choir. Instead of taking P.E., I was one of two boys that was in an all girls dance class. I auditioned for a play. I didn't get the part, but I got to be around the thespians that I knew were queer as fuck. I tried being in the poetry club, and I even got a few of my crappy poems published in the school literary magazine. I tried being in the yearbook class until I realized that I didn't have the means, nor the attention to detail, or follow through, that was required to capture those moments of growing up that everyone ooohhed and ahhhed after at the end of the school year. At one point, I auditioned to be a model for a school assembly to model formalwear for the prom. I never did make it to the prom, but I got to change with some really cute boys backstage during the assembly. Frankie and Howie were high on the list of popular boys that I could never be like. Being in their orbit gave me some validation. Seeing them with other popular boys and girls made me envious. I could never be like them or be acknowledged by them, but during and after the fashion show, we could give each other glances of recognition when we passed one another in the hallway. I don't think that either of them were gay, far from it if I am being honest. I know that the kind of boys I usually crossed paths with, who had friendly smiles, were mostly friendly because of manners. After high school I never heard from or crossed paths with any of them ever again. In fact, it wasn't until MySpace and Facebook came along, that I could even entertain the thought of interacting with any of them again.

Which brings me to the world of social media. I often wondered what my crushes have done with their lives. I have searched for a few of them from time to time. After high school I had the best friend a guy could ever ask for, who just disappeared into obscurity. I blame myself for losing him. Brian was the kind of guy that, at the time, wasn't at all what I wanted in a man. There were times when I was curled up on the floor in the fetal position, heartbroken and wrecked, that I turned to him and asked him to hold me. And he did. He would hold me until I was done needing the intimacy. I rarely ever returned that intimacy, because he wasn't the man that I thought I wanted to find. Sure, he and I did things all of the time. I don't think there was a moment when he and I were hanging out that I didn't feel how appreciative I was to have him. I think that what happened, over time, I was so wrapped up in myself, that I didn't even take the time to find out how he was doing. We were trapped in a give and take relationship where I was the taker and I rarely gave back to him the kindness and love that he gave to me. I should have been a better friend to him and he should be here in my life today. If only I had been smarter about things back then. 

And I worry what happens going forward with life. There are still those men who I give pieces of myself to who go missing without even so much as a goodbye. Then there are the others who tragically pass away and I am left stunted wondering two things, could I have made a difference and what was my role in their life. I wonder if I will ever see them again. Being so casual about friendships has cost me too many friendships. It's not something that I can forgive myself for, knowing that I could have fostered something greater in life, if only I had just known how to separate my wants from my needs. I wanted sex. I wanted attention. What I needed was intimacy and companionship. That is the thing about the younger generation that I am insanely jealous about. They grew up in a time when having or showing emotions, even though it is still somewhat frowned upon, meant that they could overcome certain degrees of toxic masculinity. That isn't to say that it is 100% across the board actuality. We still have high suicide rates. We still have bullying and tormenting in schools all over the world. The difference between todays LGBTQIA and those of days since past, are the stories that are being told and the voices that are being heard. Everything we do has significance and there is more representation. I wish my teenaged heart didn't have to endure all the trauma though.