Date: Sun, 04 Feb 2001 03:45:22 -0500
From: Ritch Christopher <ballmusic69@hotmail.com>
Subject: that-was-then-14

Usual disclaimer: All rights reserved. Copyright owned by the author. This
is a work of fiction based on true events, mostly names and places have been
changed. If you are underage or offended by gay descriptions please leave
now.


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	Many years have passed. Friends and lovers are now gone. Crowds of memories
haunt at night. The room is quiet. I am alone. To recall those days seems
strange.. As they were important then, they are less significant now. It
took eons of endless searching to find Lance. He is living thousands of
miles away...still with the same wife. His children are grown. One even
adopted a child. So Lance is a grandfather so to speak. I tried calling him
at work, but when he discovered who was on the other end of the line, he
told his secretary to not to accept the call. I don't understand his
refusal. We never had harsh words or an unpleasant goodbye. Maybe it's
fear...fear of bringing back the past...fear of being "found out"...fear of
rekindling a love that almost was, but I guess, not meant to be.

	I had no ulterior motive other than saying "hello" to an old friend. I know
we will never see each other again. Maybe I don't want to see him again. I
found a newspaper clipping from his home town where he was receiving an
humanitarian award from the JayCees. He was now sporting a beard. His hair
and whiskers were prematurely grey...almost white. He looked twenty years
older than he should. Maybe that's why he didn't want me to contact him. He
was embarrassed for me to see what life had done to him. It must not have
been kind to him. Over the years I have met so many men who fought being
gay...not able to accept the trick nature had played on them. They had
married, had children, divorced, became addicted to booze or drugs. I knew
three that even committed suicide. What kind of world have we become when
society won't accept us that we may accept ourselves?

	One can be mentally ill with schizophrenia or be deformed physically with
three eyes and four hands and everyone will show you pity if not compassion.
But say you are gay, and suddenly you are a monster. No one wants you around
their children. You aren't able to hold down jobs, such as a teacher or
government official or law enforcement or military. Many companies won't
promote you as supervisors or leaders for fear you will taint their smooth
regime. So we continue hiding, travelling under assumed names and
occupations, partying in secret, worshipping in private. Being everything
but what we want to be. Every time we protest in political arenas, we are
looked at as purse-carrying freaks with heavy makeup and high heels. They
see the "drags" and assume that's what we are. The best thing about drags is
that they know who and what they are and are not ashamed to be or admit it.
Hooray for them!! At work, we gather around the water cooler and listen to
guys talking about the chick they laid last night. Who of us is brave enough
to talk to them about the good looking man they met for dinner last weekend?
Society, politics, and religion dictates to us what we must be and what we
must never show that we are. I know there are isolated cases where a few of
us have found our acceptance and freedom but on a massive scale we are
looked down on and shunned, What girl can bring her gal, or what boy can
bring his guy to the prom. No we must put up a front and date a member of
the opposite sex and dance with him/her while looking with desire at the
guy/girl dancing next to us. No...no...that's a taboo that continues to
exist through college and the adult world. The taboo that makes us marry and
have kids with a wife or husband not of our sexual preference. We live our
lives miserable, making our spouses lives empty, not understanding what is
wrong and we must never let our kids know that their dad or mom is "queer".
Gay life was more accepted in the days of ancient Rome or Greece. Men were
able to have their male lovers and no one thought anything about it...it was
the norm. In rebuttal to that, the holier than thous say, "Yes, and that's
why Rome fell". The famous gays we read about usually describe how they
suffered or spent their lives in prison for their wanton desires. Ever read
of a happy ending? Even the right wingers still say that AIDS is God's way
of punishing the homosexual. It's strange but I seen hundreds of children in
cradles suffering with HIV..is that the Almighty's solution to overcrowding
the population?

	I have sworn I will not try to contact Lance personally or by phone, but I
will right him one final letter:

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo


Dear Lance,

     One of the greatest things, to me, in our friendship, was being able to
talk to each other. Most people talk at each other. You know, one will say,
"I had the best dinner last night" and the other one will reply, "Did you
know there's a tire sale at Sears?" But when you and I talked it seemed so
personal to me that I wanted to write to you in the same compassionate tone
that we once shared.

	I would liked to have talked to you in person, but you refused to talk to
me, even over the phone. I know we will never meet again, but I wanted to
write to you and make one final attempt to contact my former best friend and
love. I warn you, this letter may ramble on and on, but there is so much I
want to say, I won't hold it against you if you read it in installments.

	First of all, when we met last at my house, that day during your military
leave, you told me you would meet me later that evening. When you didn't
show, I was disappointed, naturally, but I could understand your fear. You
had your wife and I had Brad. We both had our own lives to lead, and though
we only met for one afternoon before you departed, it would have been a joy
in knowing we could have had the potentiality of a lasting friendship, no
matter how far apart we would be.

	I accepted your decision to leave, since it was yours to make. But you must
forgive me if I try to hang on to a few remnants of the dream that might
have been...slipping off in your old Plymouth to find a hidden nook at
midnight, sneaking in the back of the church BYPU building for a quickie,
riding to school with you while you reached over to grip between my legs, or
the moments, although swift, we shared in you bedroom.

	Yes, I chose the gay lifestyle, and I'm certain in your current circle of
friends I would be called a queer or a fag. But there is more to my life
that you do not know, never have, nor never will know or experience. I would
like to think we are fated to be what we are or will be. Sometimes it is not
pleasant, but consider the alternative, to paraphrase Maurice Chevalier. I
have the same dreams and hopes I had as a boy of eighteen. I had no reason
to age...mature, yes...but not age. You change your styles of clothing,
food, literature, and music to meet the times, always keeping a memory of
what once was...and that's why we stay young. You still have sexual
fantasies as I, and if the truth be known, they are probably quite similar.
At our age we still hope and dream. We may get corns and calluses and
unexplainable aches and pains. One morning we may wake up and our back hurts
for no reason and by noon it passes. I know that once I go to a gay bar or
disco, suddenly I can revitalize myself and the ague will be gone.

	Some things happen to us over which we have no control. We lose out hair or
it turns grey. You can't run as fast or walk as far as you once did, but the
your spirit is still young inside...still dreamy and hopeful. As we get
older on comes a strange sad vulgarity. You belch, cough, sneeze, hiccup,
fart, all quite openly, And it offends others but you couldn't care less.
Obscene jokes no longer shock you, but you are still anused. The things that
troubled us when we were younger now seem to be a natural part of living and
seem as important as they once did.

	Sex. Remember when we thought we had discovered it? We thought no two
people in the human race had ever felt such pleasure, such ecstasy in all
history. No one had ever thought up the positions we had. We had embarked on
a voyage of experimentation and revelation. It was only later that we could
sit back and laugh and realize it had all been done before...and probably
better.

	Since this is my first and last letter to you...bringing up topics I would
liked to have shared with you as we grew old together. My last is death. I
don't know if there is an afterlife...if there is a God...whether we just
die and are dead. Sometimes I swat a fly or step on a cockroach. A moment
ago it was alive...now because of me, it is no longer alive. It is dead.
Why? Did its soul leave its body or did the life force just "stop"? That's
what I've come to believe, That when we take our last breath, we just stop.
Nothing more. The soul doesn't rise, expand, and seek God or another higher
power...we just stop.

	I read in a book once about a man describing a Life Clock. He had a theory
about memory...but then I have a theory about everything. He believed that
we are all born at twelve noon on a Life Clock. We start at the top and move
in a clockwise direction. At the ages of forty to sixty, we can't remember
names or things that happened or words to a song or dates. Then we reach to
the bottom and pass six o'clock and start coming up the other side. Suddenly
you begin to remember things...the name of your first grade teacher, that
little girl that gave you your first kiss. The time you got sick on the
ferris wheel. Your first trip to see the ocean in Florida. When you first
knew you were in love. The old senile patient at the nursing home can't tell
you his name, date, or where he is, but he knows every line to the song,
"Let Me Call You Sweetheart". That old man is coming up around the circle
and approaching twelve o'clock again...but this time, instead of noon, it's
midnight, and he can remember every thing that happened to him in the
beginning of his life.

	Do you suppose that's why old people are so good with children? They can
talk and play with each other for hours, Because they are closer together in
the circle. The old ones are coming up one side to the top again while the
children are starting down the right hand side.

	I'm glad you had children. That's the worse thing about being gay. Very few
of us can experience the joys of parenthood. I have no heir to carry on my
name. I will never wipe a little red runny nose. I will never put a band aid
on a skinned knee and kiss it to make it better. I will never watch my teen
get his driver's license or get in a tux for his firs prom. These things
belong in my memory of wishes. Another hollow space in my wish book is that
I will never again hold you in my arms. I will never again smell the odor of
you. It took five years before I felt your lips next to mine,,,and then, it
was only one afternoon.

	I will close by thanking you for all the wonderful times and things we
shared. I will thank you for making them memorable enough that I can still
fantasize about them when I go to bed at night. Yes, years and miles have
kept us apart...but my memories of you will become even more vivid when I
reach the bottom of the clock and start upward. At least, I have that joy.
Those memories and fantasies have remained alive through our hopeless
situation.

	Having known and loved you, for me has been a complete vindication of
staying young, no matter how my outward appearance may have changed with
age.

	With all my love always...with best wishes to you wife and your
family...and hopes and prayers for your future happiness...and with
appreciation for the love you allowed yourself to give to me...with all my
heart, I remain

                                        Yours truly,
                                           Mark