A Guy from Jupiter
Maybe you think I’ve been taking this whole gay softball thing far too seriously. Well, now three bisexual men have sued the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance after their team was stripped of its second place finish in the Gay Softball World Series. The three men were grilled on their private sex lives and determined to be non-gay. This raises a whole series of issues regarding discrimination, freedom of association, the fearsome ire of pissed-off queens, and that whole icky question re: do straight men make better ball players? (No pun intended.)
Since I’ve been a part of the D league all of two months, I’m steering clear of that can of worms. But it did make me realize that I have no close straight male friends, and I haven’t had any since college. Due to living in San Francisco, where you can make your life as gay as an Easter bonnet.
Back in college I met Jake, a straight guy who drove a pick-up and took off one weekend a month for the Marine Reserves. He wore a crew cut and wife beaters, and liked to poke fun at his fish-out-of-water reputation at our school, known for its retro-hippie culture. He came from a Florida town called Jupiter, which he made sound like a glorified trailer park, and he spoke with a small-town drawl that didn’t quite count as southern.
He’d transferred to New College during my third year, and I used to watch him walk around campus with his bow-legged gait. Our school had all of 600 students, and there wasn’t much else to look at. By fate he was given the gayest roommate ever, a hairdresser from Jacksonville, whom I’d befriended. I invited myself over to their room a couple of times and did my best to charm Jake with my gay-but-totally-non-threatening demeanor.
That year Act-UP boys were shaving their heads and walking around the East Village in hot pants and combat boots, and I followed them through the pages of magazines. When I told Jake I’d been thinking of buzzing my head, he insisted on helping. Every week or so I’d sit in a chair in his bathroom. Jake would grab a pair of clippers from his regulation footlocker, strip down to his olive-colored boxers, and work on my head. Every once in awhile he’d absently brush his formidable package against the back of my neck.
That was pretty much how it went for us. I spent the next couple of years lusting after a boy who genuinely liked me, a boy whose motives I often had reason to question. He liked talking with me one-on-one, picking me up in his truck and driving me out to some deserted beach at night, where we’d joke around and trade war stories from our dismal love lives. Sitting next to me under a tree he told me that I had a very distinct scent. I don’t think he found it offensive.
He didn’t do such a great job buzzing my head; I bought my own pair of clippers to trim down the rough patches when I got home, but I never told him. Those weekly cuts were among the most erotic moments of my young life – the seed for my later love of barbers.
Jake knew how I felt about him, and one night after he’d had a couple of beers he confessed that he’d been having strange feelings. He told me how much he liked me and that he found himself wondering what it would be like to sleep next to me. Not sleep WITH me, NEXT TO me. Of course this thrilled me, but his own confession troubled him – I think it made him question too many things, and he got so anxious that he nearly threw up. I thought our friendship had come to an end that night.
But that awkwardness faded pretty quick. Another evening, before a party I was hosting, he came over to my place and suggested that we take a nap, so that we’d have the energy to stay up late. As we lay side-by-side in bed he stroked his bare chest and remarked on the curliness of his chest hair. “Here, feel it,” he said, and grabbed my hand. He laid it on his chest but after a second I snatched it away. So close to what I’d been wanting for so long, and so scared to fuck it up, I rolled over on my side, away from him.
I graduated in the spring of ’93. The night before I left Florida for good he drove us down to the bayshore. “There’s been so many times,” he told me, “that I wished I were gay, because I get along with you better than any girl I’ve ever known.” I silently cursed our fate, but his words weren’t lost on me. They made the night and its memory bittersweet.
Over the years I’ve regretted the moment that I took my hand away from his chest, sure that I’d blown the only chance he’d given me. A couple of times in a fit of nostalgia I tracked him down and we exchanged emails. He’d ended up with a nomadic life, working as a federal firefighter, hanging his hat in various cheap motels long enough to put out wildfires. As far as I could tell he’d stayed straight, and though I always wanted to ask him about his motives with me back in college, I left the subject alone.
I think I might have done the right thing, taking my hand away. Jake wanted something other than sex from me – he wanted a kind of intimacy, the kind rare between men, the kind more easily pursued in college, after we’ve left our families and younger selves behind, and before our identities have calcified. He’d given me a type of affection I’d never felt before or since, something made sweeter by the boundary between us.
I loved your College Crush Story. It was sweet. You should look that old college buddy up and see if he still wants to give you a Buzz.
April 23rd, 2010 at 1:41 amI had a similar College crush: A Straight Surfing buddy. He was more Open about Sex.
“There’s Nothing wrong with a good BJ between buds”?
We are still friends; He’s had two wives and 4 kids & Still loves to surf.
PS I forgot the most important thing
April 23rd, 2010 at 1:42 amHe was from Jupiter Florida.
What’s in the water in Jupiter? My parents live there. These days it’s transformed (like so much of south Florida) into New Jersey South.
April 23rd, 2010 at 3:46 amVery moving.
Maybe it’s good thing you took your hand off. It most certainly wouldn’t have happened the way you wished. At least you have a great, if bittersweet, memory.
April 23rd, 2010 at 5:06 amBeautiful story. I too miss my straight college male friends. I’ve a few of those questionable moments. Always wondering what if. I haven’t had a close straight male friend since that time. Thanks for bringing back fond memories.
April 23rd, 2010 at 11:11 amWow. Absolutely terrific writing of a moving story.
April 23rd, 2010 at 3:35 pm[...] thanks for sharing your story about Jake from Jupiter, Florida. It vividly reminds me that I had a very similar experience with one of my best friends [...]
April 23rd, 2010 at 5:13 pmMichael, thanks for sharing your story about Jake from Jupiter, Florida. It vividly reminds me that I had a very similar experience with one of my best friends from high school, and I am compelled to relate my own story back to you.
April 23rd, 2010 at 5:15 pmOh. I ache reading this.
April 23rd, 2010 at 8:44 pmThe first man I reall loved never knew. And neither did I – I ndidn’t figure it out for years. After his death. I miss him still.
Beautiful post, Mike. If you have not seen it yet, you should track down Alexander Sokurov’s film FATHER AND SON which (for me anyway) is all about exactly the kind of male intimacy it seems like Jake was after. Gets better and deeper every time I watch it.
April 24th, 2010 at 6:29 amSigh.
April 28th, 2010 at 11:00 amWhen does your book come out?
i was reading throught some of the posts and i identify them to be plumb interesting. sorry my english is not exaclty the very best. would there be anyway to transalte this into my patois, spanish. it would genuinely better me a lot. since i could be on a par with the english language to the spanish language.
December 6th, 2010 at 2:12 am