Remembering Rick

First things first, as always I enjoyed LarryInSeattle's helpful editing. As has always been and shall always be, any mistakes that remain are my own.

Second, everyone in this story is over eighteen. Everyone in this story, narrator included, is fictitious. I only wish I were twenty-six still.

It may start a little slow for some but the two young men do find their way to a bed eventually.

Some may be offended by the editorial comments of my narrator. I hope not but if I have offended please believe me, it was not my purpose.

I hope the story captures, at least a little, of the uncertainty and headiness of first love. If I failed, sorry.

I love helpful feedback and comments, including negative ones, if constructive in nature.

Enjoy

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I don't believe in "gaydar." I wish I did. If you do believe in it I have two words for you to consider: "Matthew Shepard." If you don't know who Matthew Shepard was, shame on you. Yes, life is probably better than it's ever been but don't imagine for a minute we live in gay nirvana.

"Gay." I don't really care for the word. It seems too, for lack of a better word, gay. On the other hand I don't like "faggot" or "queer." I know there are some who feel we should re-capture the words. As if our ownership of the words is an antidote for their poison. I doubt it. Hasn't worked for the N-word has it? I imagine our embrace of words filled with hate will simply make it easier for bigots and homophobes to use them while telling themselves that they aren't really bigots. I don't imagine owning the words "faggot" or "queer" took any of the pain out of Matthew's death.

The word "homosexual" is pretty clear, despite its muddled etymology of both Greek and Latin roots. The problem with "homosexual" is it comes laden with sterile clinical overtones. "Hello, I'm Bob. I'm a homosexual." Doesn't really roll off the tongue does it? Doesn't make you perk up your ears and say, this guy sounds like he'll be interesting, does it? The phrase has all the warmth of: "Hello, I'm Bob. I'm an actuary."

One could say: "Hello, I'm Bob. I'm attracted to members of my own gender." There's two issues with that construction. Again, BORING! Worse, gender has become a very touchy and complicated issue. Based on my understanding of the current world of gender issues, which I confess is likely to be too superficial to allow for meaningful comments, I would have to say: "Hello, I'm Bob. I'm attracted to individuals with a penis, who like having a penis and consider themselves to be 'male' in not only the anatomic sense but societal sense."

I am sexually attracted to people who have a penis and like having a penis. That's as clear and as simple as I am able to state my case.

As I scan what I wrote above I feel I need to make it clear that I'm not poking fun at gender issues. I'm poking a little fun at how we tie ourselves up in knots over issues. That's okay, when the tying into knots is part of a struggle to better understand each other. When it strikes me that the tying up in knots is more an attempt to establish that one group's suffering is "superior" to another's, that's when I start to lose sympathy.

It's possible that I'm an unusually slow learner, or that I am gifted with an incredible lack of self-awareness, but I suspect that I'm nothing more than average, although perhaps above average in acknowledging the fact. Through most of high school I was unsure whether or not I was truly more attracted to boys or girls.

I have acquaintances, and even a few friends, who tell me they had known they were gay from the time they were twelve, or eight, or three years old. I've no reason to disbelieve them but that certainly was not true of me. Hell, even though I have not been with a woman since high school, I'm not convinced even now that I'm exclusively gay. I mean for fuck's sake did anyone see Angelina Jolie in "Gia" and not want to jump that? At least a little, for a millisecond or two?

I was not hiding from myself. I was not hiding for fear my parents would reject me. If anything, I was hiding from the fact that they would probably trumpet my gayness as proof of their superior enlightenment. (Sorry mom, sorry dad, if you happen to read this.) I was quite aware I focused more attention on the male lead in a movie than the female. I was quite aware that I thought more of men while masturbating than of women, but not exclusively.

I enjoyed my forays into heterosexual dating. I was not repelled by the taste or feel of a female tongue in my mouth. Breast were a little soft and sweaty for my taste but not unpleasant per se. And though my examination was in no way thorough or exhaustive in nature, my limited exposure to a vagina did not leave me nauseated. I had no trouble getting it up while kissing a girl or to the feel of her hand on the skin of my abdomen. I have never had intercourse with a woman and I suspect the likelihood is low, but the thought does not send proverbial chills down my back.

By the time I donned my polyester robe and graduated, I was pretty sure I was a guy who was attracted to other guys. I may not like the word "gay" but I am forced to concede it is a lot simpler to write: By the time I graduated, I was pretty sure I was gay. I had not ruled out the possibility of falling in love with a women but given I was only interested in asking out other guys, the odds were against it.

By the time I unpacked my dorm room in 2006, there was more acceptance of gays on most campuses but I did not introduce myself to my roommate as "Hi I'm Rob. I'm gay." I had decided to drop "Bob" and go with "Rob." We got along fine. I never heard him say "fag" or "faggot," not to me or at any time. But you didn't have to go very far to hear that word. It was mostly used in a non-threatening, casual put-down fashion, much as one would call a friend who just kicked your ass at Mario Kart a "cock sucker." One did not really mean that one thought one's friend was a sucker of cocks, but it was a quick and easy all around, general-use insult.

Just don't fool yourself into believing that both those words can't very quickly become aggressive and threatening.

I've always been leery of grand pronouncements. I did not proclaim my newly accepted gayhood to my parents, or friends, most of whom probably were sure of it before I was, or to my new classmates. I debated joining the campus GLBTG club. I did join for a time. I am not ashamed of being gay. If asked I'm happy to say, "Yes I'm gay." But I'm not defined by just that one trait. I'd rather just be Bob, preferably Rob. (Please spare me. I've heard every "Gay Bob" joke there is. The only one I like is: What do you call two gay men named Bob? Oral Roberts.) Like all clubs, including the Chess Club and the German Club, I found it oddly restrictive. I shared many, but not all, of their concerns. I enjoyed the social events, though I never got a single date out of going to one.

I never saw Rick at one of the GLBTG meetings or events. He wasn't in the closet exactly but his family was the polar opposite of mine. His parents were part of the Reagan and Falwell Moral Majority. They strongly suspected Rick was gay. As much as he was wounded by their attitude, he strove to provide them the maximum ability to deny.

We were lab partners in Chem I. Romantic huh? Hey is this a Lewis acid or a Lewis base? I got your Lewis base right here big boy. He was unbearably cute. I thought he was totally out of my league. I knew nothing about his parents at the time but I am by nature, reticent. Plus, I was cautious. I knew very well who Matthew Shepard was. There was nothing about Rick that led me to imagine he and his friends would beat me and leave me to die hanging on a fence in the cold but I bet Matthew thought McKinney and Henderson were unbearably cute too. Don't waste electrons looking, they aren't.

Okay, that's it; that is the last negative thought I'll give vent to. For here on out, nothing but hearts and flowers. However, it ought not to be forgotten that some flowers have thorns.

Even with his nerdy lab goggles leaving red-creased crescents around his eyes, Rick was adorable. I was almost nineteen and I was in the middle of my first big over-whelming crush. I was in agony. Now, in this instance, perhaps being gay is tougher than being straight. You crush on a girl, everyone gets it. You suck it up and ask her out. You might get rejected but rarely does the object of a hetero crush threaten you with physical violence.

Have you ever been sitting in a lab or sitting in a coffee shop when some gal jumps away from a guy and starts screaming: "You vag monkey, you pussy eater, you think I'm straight, you fucking hetero, you touch me and I'll fucking kill you!"

Rejection always sucks but there is rejection and then there is REJECTION.

I couldn't sleep. There is no way to track how many times I jerked off imagining kissing him, or watching him undress, or lying beside him, or touching him, or...you get the idea. I considered and rejected scores of opening approaches and lines. I even considered letting A Boy's Own Story 'accidentally' fall out of my backpack. I visualized the entire scenario. Rick would pick the book up and glance at it. In the most common scenario, a glance would suffice. He'd look up with knowing eyes. In other permutations, he would turn the book over and over in his hands, read the back cover, his face a mask of questions before his eyes would light with comprehension. However the story played out in my head, the end result was a knowing and loving look would fill his eyes as I took him in my arms.

You can't get through four years of high school without at least brushing against a little bit of maturity, even if by accident. Despite how the above might sound, I never devolved into the "my life is over, woe is me" depths of a high school crush. I penned not a single angsty ode to unrequited love in my journal. Not one!

Mid-terms were approaching and still I suffered in silence, only my imagination holding despair at bay. You may have guessed already that as I sat and stewed and pined and behaved in a totally ineffectual and dipshitish fashion, it was Rick who broke the ice.

We had finished double-checking our results and were getting ready to hand in the last lab report before mid-terms when he asked, "Rob, you want to get a coffee or Coke or something before tackling the notes?" The old Bob had been unsure, questioning. The new Rob, the new me, was to be certain and questing. Except, it turns out, when he needed to be certain.

We already study together of course, most of the lab partners did. But we usually studied in a group and usually in one of the dorm or library study rooms. We had yet to "get a Coke" before studying. I was trying to process this, weighing his words and searching his tone for hidden meaning, cycling, rapidly, from joy to telling myself not to be stupid, and taking so long he was actually opening his mouth, probably to say, "That's okay, no big deal" when I managed to stammer out, rather too loudly, "Sure. That'd be super."

Yup, I said "super". I'm sure I got that from something Oscar Wilde wrote.

A half-assed smile that might have been mingled with a smirk of amusement appeared on Rick's face. I felt my own face grow warm, and cursed, not the first time, my Nordic genes and their tendency to turn my face beet red at the slightest provocation. A clear smile replaced the possibly tainted one and I felt my body relax, just a titch.

He shrugged his back pack over one shoulder. "Cool. Come on then. Let's blow this popsicle stand."

It sounded like something my dad would say. I smiled. "Let's make like an amoeba and split."

Rick groaned and retorted. "We could make like a library and book."

I held up my hand. "Enough, I surrender." I didn't need to. I had exhausted my late 70's slang repertoire.

I dropped our lab folder in the basket and we made our way up the stairs in silence. Melvin Hall is an old building. They remodeled it right after I graduated. I hope they left the old marble steps, sway backed and smooth-edged from generations of feet. All sorts of feet. When it was built in 1904, I imagine it was mostly male feet. It was a science hall after all and Madame Curie was a rarity. I get lost sometimes, picturing all the feet those stairs had supported, and the people the feet were attached to.

Some must have plodded up those stairs, certain they had failed a test, wondering how their folks could afford the cost of tuition and how could they admit they had failed them, wondering if she loves me. Surely, there had to be a few wondering if HE loves me. How many feet were attached to loved ones wondering about brothers in the trenches, the Spanish flu, Hitler, is my brother on Bataan okay? That one staircase must house a million stories, nearly all of them untold, private, many lost forever.

That day the feet attached to my body did their best not to skip up the stairs. The stairs were broad and our little exchange had allowed most of our classmates to exit ahead of us. We walked side by side. I matched my steps to Rick's.

The sun was warm but the air made it clear that it was almost mid-October. Standing still, even in the sun, a jacket felt nice. Walking, a jacket felt too warm. I didn't mind. Soon enough, the sun would struggle to warm your face. What to do with your hair when you yanked a crackling, sparking stocking cap off would soon be a daily struggle. Your body would desiccate in the furnace-parched air of the buildings. Your skin would go all flaky and dusty looking. By January, the skin around your fingernails would be so dried out that the skin would split and boy didn't that feel great? I was not, and am not, a fan of winter.

None of that was on my mind that day. As far as I was concerned a more perfect day had never been visited upon the planet. In my head I was holding Rick's hand as we crossed the campus. There was no question of where we were heading. The Den was not only the best coffee/soda/pizza/burger/video game/pin-ball arcade in town; it was the only one. Their coffee was adequate. Their pizza frozen. Do yourself a favor and skip their scones, a Hostess cupcake would be a better choice.

I was not playing much tennis that fall and the small pool on campus was generally occupied with phys-ed classes or the small swim team work-outs. I had avoided the freshman fifteen by being careful.

I had a skimmed mocha with no whip. Rick a black coffee.

He did not immediately pull out his chem notes. I took that as a positive sign. He took a few sips of his coffee before turning to me. "Hey, you hungry?"

I shrugged, "Not really, are you?"

He raised an eyebrow and glanced over his shoulder at the counter. "I didn't think I was but a pepperoni pizza sounds good doesn't it?"

If I was a more confident person I would have demurred. The Den's pepperoni pizza managed to achieve a dry crust while at the same time the pepperoni floated in a pool of orange grease. I remember wondering if Rick had skipped lunch. I distinctly recall a vision of his wallet. He'd paid for his coffee, his small black coffee, the cheapest option, with the only two bills in his wallet. I understood that he wanted a pizza but couldn't afford a pizza. I could.

"Yeah, that does sound good." I stood and walked back to the counter. As I waited behind the only other person in line, I asked over my shoulder. "Coffee doesn't sound very good with pizza. You want a Coke?"

"Sure."

I ordered the pizza and returned with the two bottles of Coke.

Rick picked up his and tipped it toward mine. We clicked bottles and he offered, "Cheers."

He sat, more or less, on my side of table, watching ESPN on what passed for a big-screen TV in those halcyon days almost a decade gone now. When they called our number, Rick retrieved the pizza. I wasn't hungry but I ate a slice. Rick polished off the rest. At some point, his foot ended up resting against mine. When he reached past me for the crushed red pepper flakes, his body pressed against my side. His chair moved just enough so that his leg remained pressed against mine.

Ordering a pizza furnished us the unspoken right to study at that table, at least as long as the Den wasn't busy. I returned the pizza platter while Rick got out his notes and chemistry text. When I returned, rather than get out my own text, I sat close, purely in order to see his notes.

Luckily, I had a knack for chemistry because I didn't get much studying done at that table. I tried. I really did, if no other reason than to distract myself from my over-powering sense of Rick's presence. Forget not being able to study chemistry, I was afraid I would become so lost in the feel of his leg against mine, his breath on the back of my hand, the smell of his shampoo, that I would forget my own name.

As I sat there, trying to focus, his leg began to move up and down against my own. Each movement of his leg caused me to become harder. It was as if his foot was working a bellows that directly inflated my dick. Throughout, Rick kept up a perfectly normal studying-for-chem-mid-term-exam banter, quizzing me and ignoring my mumbled answers. Anyone walking by, or sitting near-by would think nothing of us sitting together. It was a small campus in a small town. We knew, by sight at least, everyone in the place. At that time I knew nothing of Rick's family but even so, I was not yet ready to openly declare my affection for another guy. I told myself over and over there was no mistaking his gestures but I couldn't quite convince myself to trust my instincts.

Rick leaned under the table, rummaging through his back pack. He stretched further and his hand left the table. As if groping for balance or support his hand fell on my leg, on my erection actually. Rather than jerk away, his fingers squeezed, ever so slightly. When he sat up, clutching a notebook that had nothing to do with chemistry, he looked me directly in the eye for a moment. His fingers closed softly a final time and then returned to his notes.

"Understand?" He asked, head gesturing toward the notebook, a notebook that no longer held any interest for me, or apparently for him.

"Ye.." My voice croaked. I swallowed and tried again. "Uh-huh, I get it now."

"Good." He stretched. "Want to take a break?"

I nodded, not trusting my voice. My pack had sat untouched beside my leg. I stood as Rick began to stow his stuff. I was very conscious of my boner. My jacket would not cover it. My typical high school trick of hiding it behind a book wouldn't work, not with a back pack. I settled for shoving one hand in my left front jeans pocket.

Rick was shrugging into his back pack when I turned. My eyes fell on his crotch. His own erection was clearly outlined, except his was tucked to the right. He saw me staring and a huge smile bloomed on his face. Once his pack was settled, he put a hand in his own pocket, and without saying a word turned to leave, knowing I would follow.

The late afternoon sun was dipping behind the trees as we started to walk back across the campus toward the dorm. I kept one hand in my pocket even though my erection had begun to subside. I found myself wondering I had the courage to hold Rick's hand. I wonder how many of the friends I made over the past few weeks would begin to distance themselves once the word spread.

"Hey, did you hear about Rob? You know freshman dude, kinda big ears. He's gay." Or would it be: "He's a fag. He's a fudge packer. He's a fairy, a fruit, a homo queer pansy."

Straight people always say stuff like: "I don't have anything against gays but why do they have to suck each other off in the bathroom? Gross."

Well, interesting question, hmm, oh hey, how about this? If my roommate comes back to my room and there's a sock on the door knob and he hears later that I was seen going into the room with a girl. Well, no problem. I'm a stud. If he hears later I disappeared into our room with Rick, well that's a different story. It would posit that it is very unlikely I would earn any stud points. What is a great deal less unlikely is that word would get out that I was a fag, fudge packer, pansy, fruit, fairy, homo, or in the best of all possible worlds, gay.