alpha before omega

the homo recog, when did it happen? when did i know for sure that it wasn't going to be girls Geigered anymore? i remember feeling all sorts of something for Steve M lying face down on the floor of his much-poorer-than-ours living room rug, reading comics leg to leg, but it wasn't anything that stuck in my 7 year old brain. playing Flash Gordon in a barn, we de-pantsed each other one dark afternoon, but no 'hey, faggot' light bulb popped off. Richard T (the new kid in 2nd grade) and i told each other that boys were better than girls 'all over', 'comparing' on my bed when Grandma burst into the room and yelled at us for 'being bad', her face cop red. we didn't get it. we weren't sure what she was riled up about. we certainly weren't aware that our identity was anything out of the ordinary. next up was the canvas covered haystack probe. Brandy L called them 'boner cosmetics'. he persuaded the boys across the street and me to take off our blue jeans so he could nudge a carefully whittled and greased 'dick stick' into our tiny, reluctant pink entryways. not so far as to hurt or suggest anything 'weird', just because. to tell the truth we liked to watch and it felt sorta nice, but still, when it all went down, there was no queer alarm. i can mentally Polaroid the boy who came over to our house with his family to let us pick out a Basset Hound puppy. he stood on a stone wall above me and i could see up his too short frenchie shorts, no underwear. his tiny testicles hung like apricot pits in crinkly skin. it kind of excited me, but i didn't know why. i shrugged it off. i felt up and got felt up by Gib L when his family came to town. crayon erections under damp sheets, but that was just something we did when he came over. didn't everybody? i still had miles to go before i got it about being bent. i slept over John K's house in a bed too small for two. he'd reach down under there and touch me up until i got a stiffy and had to go to the bathroom. something other than piss came out. it looked like puss and frightened the shit outa me. i thought i'd caught a disease, but i kept it to myself. you can't talk about dick when you're 9, not with clarity or safety or cool and definitely not in 1954. i was sure it would be girls in my future anyhow. that's how it was supposed to be. until Kin L. he broke down all the barriers. he'd ask me to lie on top of his back with my gear in his ass crack and that's when it happened, that's when the white stuff did a spit shot in my underwear. i was 13, a late bloomer, but that's when it clicked. that's when i wanted to do it again. to set it up. to revisit the 'moment'. to give him a woody and make stuff come out of him. but Kin was oddly unavailable after our bedroom camp out and there were no more sleep overs. plus i'd been warned. a friend insinuated, 'be careful. Kin and his brothers do things, dirty things at night.' so i kept my distance even though this piece of news made the possibility of a re-enactment all the more exciting. i waited in the wings and it wasn't til i was 16, be-zitted and able to drive that i took matters in hand. one morning around 3 am, i drove to Kin's house, tip-toed up to his room on squeaky stairs and climbed into his bed. i wanted to get him off the way he got me off, but he acted strangely, ornery and horny at the same time. when i'd feel him up (pistol hard), he'd roll to the far side of the bed and make conflicting sounds. back-of-the-throat gasps verses sneering disgust. had he uncovered homo files on himself that he wanted to reject? was he as uncomfortable and freaked out as i had been months before? i slid out from under the covers, boner bobbing and headed home. part way down the stairs he called out in a whisper for me to come back. that it was ok. that he was ok. that i could, i should, you know... and he would oblige. but i was too wigged out. i left and that was that. no more Kin. no more foolin' around. i was not gonna be a homo, no sir. i was going to fight back in my solitary teen tower until i wanted girls the way i wanted him. i slipped up here and there with an occasional 'we're not actually doing what were doing while we're doing it' encounters. there was the rip-off-the-towel wrestling match with Bill S, team captain, in a swimming pool cabana. ok, we weren't wrestling. flag pole erections quivered in the dank and the dust, but we never talked about it. i stuffed all erotic tug of wars deep in my psyche until i graduated from college and became, as a teacher, intimately involved with one of my students. he lived across the street from my boarding house. love, sex and the promise of scandal converged to bring me out of the closet. meanwhile, i heard that good ol' Kin had tried to schuss down Mt Washington. (the speed record for down hill still stands on that mountain.) he fell near the top and broke all 4 limbs. and charging down a motel hallway chased by horny brothers, he bolted through a plate glass window and cut himself to pieces. this kid, who is most likely married with children and grandchildren by now, brought it out of me, so to speak, a predilection that was inevitable, irrevocable and ultimately beautiful. i think about him often. i recapture those first awkward stinky steps. i owe him a nod for facing myself and my true truth.