Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:03:29 -0600
From: l_w@hushmail.com
Subject: In Search of Another, Chapter 1

    This story is about a boy's love of boys.  It contains sexual innuendo
and sex between boys.  It is not to be reprinted in part or whole without
the permission of the author.  My copyright, my property, please show
respect.

    According to the laws of your country, if you are under the legal age,
you are not allowed to read it.  Obey the law of the land that you live in.

    The following story is part true, part fiction.  My childhood /
adolescent memories and fantasies are recalled from from the archived,
spider-webbed, guarded areas of my mind.  Names have been changed to
protect the innocence and embarrassment of any people who might take
offense.  I mean no intentional harm to anyone.  Things, situations and
circumstances happen in life.  Either we accept them and go on with our
lives or we develop some mental illness by worrying about them the rest of
our lives.  One way or another, you can't walk the razor's edge without
hurting yourself or others that you love, or both.


In Search of Another
     by Mindley Quillwright

Chapter 1: New Neighborhood, New Fear

    The year was 1970.  Long hair, bellbottoms, bare feet, shirtlessness,
flare pants, patched flare dungarees, cut-offs, cigarettes and pot were the
staples for the guys.  Girls went braless, wore hip huggers, ironed their
hair, cussed, used the "F" word in normal conversations and thought nothing
of it.  The Vietnam War and demonstrations against it made the daily news
headlines.  It was the year after the Woodstock Festival.  Peace and love
were the themes of the era, not war.  Some of the older dudes in the
neighborhood were returning from military service after being either
drafted or having volunteered.  Above all else, there was no longer a hint
of, but, sex was dominant everywhere.

    Baltimore, Maryland was my home.  I had just graduated from parochial
elementary school (8th grade).  In the fall, I was going to a new Catholic
high school.  Nervousness and excitement filled my mind and body, but fear
dominated it like a dictator.  This new school had only been opened a year
and it was being run by an order of brothers.  I had always been taught by
nuns.  Only boys attended the new school.  I tried to put any thoughts
about this new school out of my mind.  Summer vacation was just beginning.

    My family and I had moved to another area of the city the previous
September.  It wasn't too far from the Baltimore City/Baltimore County
line.  During the previous nine months, I attended the school in my old
neighborhood.  I didn't want to transfer to the one in the new
neighborhood.  My old school was 98% black children.  I was the only white
boy there.  And there was only one white girl.  I liked my old school.  I
was friends with everyone there and besides, I had attended it the 7 years
before this one.  The new neighborhood was middle class to lower middle
class white.  We were in the bottom bracket and just barely.  Sometimes we
slipped out of that bottom bracket and went back to being poor.  I was
always a nervous shy kid and only ventured out to go to the corner store.
Virtually, I did not know anyone other than by recognition of face as they
walked on the street by the house that we rented.  Our house wasn't far
from the corner of the block.  The corner, I discovered was a hangout, for
mainly, the neighborhood boys.  I was always scared to sit on our steps
when there were boys hanging around there.  Being as elusive as I was, I
never made friends with anyone during those nine months.

    One day, I was upstairs putting a new plug on the cord of my mother's
iron.  I was always kind of a maintenance boy.  I liked to fix things and
take things apart.  I could put washers into spigots, take traps off of
sink drains and unplug a stopped-up sink.  Rebuilding bicycle brakes, the
old coaster type was my specialty.  Anyway, after I fixed my mother's iron,
I stuck my head out of my parent's bedroom window and there was a boy
sitting on our steps.  I guess he heard me take the screen out of the
window and looked up.  It was summer and air conditioners were virtually
unheard of and unseen in houses.  They were an item for people who could
afford them and we certainly could not.

    The boy looked up and saw me and said "Why don't you come on out?"

    "I have to do some things, maybe later" I said.

    Defensive lie, the truth was that I was actually scared.  I feared
meeting new people on my own.  He left an immediate impression on me.  Good
looking and taller than me and a definite boy's voice, a kind of high
pitched whine.  Almost everyone was taller than me.  I never did go out
that day, but I thought about that boy that night before I fell asleep.  A
pictured memory of my cousin and I also came into my mind.  It was some
time last summer that I visited my grandparents.  I always spent a lot of
time with them.  They lived with my father's sister and her family in a
house in Baltimore County, about a twenty minute drive from us.  The memory
of my cousin and I sitting on the screened front porch of his house and
talking about sex.

    I explicitly remembered saying "I'd do it with a boy.  Would you?"?

    He looked at me with a "really ?" expression on his face and gave a
negative reply.  He was 13, six months older than me, I was still twelve.
That was the end of our sex talk.  Very strange that I would think about
that over a year and a half later.

    The very next day, a letter was in our mail box from my new school.  My
mom said that I had to read three books over the summer, go to the new
school in early August to buy my new text books for the classes listed in
the letter.  I also had to buy a gym suit for P.E., along with a jock
strap.  I thought to myself, man this wasn't fair, vacation was just
starting and I had to read three books during vacation.  They were
available from a downtown bookstore in Baltimore.  Also, a complete
physical examination was to be completed by my physician and a copy of the
results were to be mailed to my new school by mid July.  I was already
worrying about getting three boring books read over the summer, but showers
with other boys and a physical examination terrified me.  Here I was, 14,
embarrassed by my body, shy and scared about a lot of things, particularly
being naked in front of boy strangers and a doctor.  I grew depressed in no
time flat.  My mother certainly knew her boy and could tell that I was not
taking all of this news well.  She told me not to worry, things always work
out.  She had said it so casually.  She didn't have to do any of it.  She
told me that she would try to get the money for the summer reading books
from my father that night.  I would have to take the bus downtown tomorrow
to the book store on Park Ave.

    One thing I always liked to do when I was younger was ride the bus.  I
would go the the movie theaters in downtown Baltimore when a new movie was
being presented.  I loved to explore the city.  I knew my way around it
very well.  Although I was never a Boy Scout, I always had a good sense of
direction and a pretty good memory.  Of course, I always kept an open eye
for trouble.  Downtown Baltimore had changed quite a bit since the riots by
the black people.  I really did not fully understand at that time, but I
had no hatred of black people.  After all, I went to a school that was
almost completely black except for me and one girl.  Sometimes, I would
have to evade small groups of black boys.  They knew I was alone and
probably had at least a little money on me.  One time I got chased by 3
black boys but managed to get away.  I avoided walking into certain areas
where there were likely hangouts for these types of kids.

    Back in my old neighborhood which was 95% black, all the people knew
me.  I knew them.  There was never any trouble between them and me.  Sure I
got into fights with some of their kids, but I was never singled out
because I was white.  Sometimes strangers came into the neighborhood.  One
time at nightfall, I was going home, walking up the alley behind our
apartment.  We always used the back door.  I was about 10 or 11 at the time
and a boy that I did not know asked me if I had a nickel.  I told him no
(which was the truth) and then I noticed another boy come out of nowhere.
All of a sudden, I was hit on my head with some sort of truncheon.  Just
like cartoons, when a character got hit on the head and stars appeared
revolving around it I saw stars and started crying and screaming.  That was
my first experience with violence.  I never have forgotten it.  Why would
two older boys accost a younger boy for money and physically assault him
with a foreign object?  I have come up with many answers, but none
specific.  Was it race?  I didn't know.  I never would.  Those boys were
never caught.  After that incident, I always tried to be aware of strangers
and my surroundings.  Baltimore was in its predawn stage of starting to
become a very violent city.  I wasn't aware of it until I got older.  With
time, the violence in Baltimore seemed to be happening all the time.

    Too much input was going into my mind and processed negatively.  I
tried to convince myself that tomorrow would be more satisfying than today
had been.

    The bus ride into downtown was almost uneventful.  Nearly full to
seating capacity with only a few opened in the back, I was sitting a few
rows behind the driver.  I looked across the isle from my window seat and
saw this guy wearing a German-Swiss Alps type of hat with a 12" to 15"
feather that was horizontal with the hat band.  It had a little arch to it,
then stuck straight out in back of him.  He was talking and it seemed like
for no reason at all would lean his head back.  Every time he did this, the
feather would almost poke the face of the lady who was sitting behind him.
As she was alert, she was able to dodge it.  She seemed clearly irritated
by it, but said nothing.  I wondered if the guy kept leaning his head back
on purpose.  I had stepped on the bus about 12:15 p.m.  I came to my stop
at about 12:55 p.m.

    I walked a few blocks to the bookstore to see what time it closed.  The
closing time was 5:00 p.m.  I wanted to go the the movies.  I didn't want
to be hauling books with me.  I gaited the somewhat long distance to the
Town theater.  In its prime, it was an grand movie house.  Then, it was
kind of run down.  "Easy Rider" was playing there.  I was kind of
fascinated by it.  I decided to stay for the next showing also.  After
waiting for the next showing to start (I got there early) and after the
lapse in time to the second showing to its' conclusion, I had enough time
to get to the bookstore.  After I had purchased my books, I walked the
distance to the bus stop and waited for it to arrive.  Traffic was pretty
heavy at that time.  People were getting off work and leaving and entering
the city.  The bus came and I boarded, stood and waited for a seat.  I
luckily got a window seat after a few minutes of stop and go with all the
bus stops in the city.  It was a Thursday, late afternoon/early evening as
the bus fought its way through traffic to pick up and discharge its'
passengers.  As it moved along the long block with the large city park
there on its right and smaller blocks with row houses on its left, I
noticed something.  My being seated on the left side of the bus facing the
smaller residential blocks, I saw at least one boy, sometimes two on every
corner.  I thought it very peculiar.  It was as if they were all waiting
for someone as the buses stopped on their side but not one of them boarded.
Before the bus distanced itself from the park area, I noticed a car turn
one of the corners.  A boy ran to get to it as it rode up to the next
corner of the side street and seemed to wait for the boy. I thought well,
maybe he knew whoever it was in the car.  My thoughts on that particular
subject matter ceased at that time, but would be reawakened in the future.

    The bus finally made its way out of the heavy downtown traffic.  I was
daydreaming as I was thinking about the movie that I had just watched twice
and thought about how far out it would be to have a motorcycle.  I thought
that I would be one cool dude.  I was about six months into really
listening to music.  Yes, I loved Rock 'n' Roll.  It was so cool.  The song
"Born to be Wild" was constantly on my mind.  But, the Beatles were my
all-time favorite group.  They had songs like "Yellow Submarine" which
appealed to little kids as well as adults.  Mind blowing songs like "A Day
in the Life", "Across the Universe" and "Mean Mister Mustard" that were
just totally far out and so likeable.  With music and lyrics on my mind, I
almost missed my stop.

    My newly purchased summer reading books in a bag and under my arm, I
started to trek the long block to where I now lived.  Baltimore had some of
the longest blocks of row houses (now called town houses) on the east
coast.  The block that I walked to get home did not consist of row houses,
however, but a bus terminal that housed the Baltimore Transit Company (BTC)
buses.  BTC was to be later called the Maryland Transportation Authority
(MTA).  At one time, the terminal was used to garage the street cars.  They
were the old trolleys that ran on train-type tracks powered by electrical
lines overhead.  They were put out of service in 1965 and 1966, I believe.

    The long block behind me, I rounded the corner and started to cross the
street when I noticed that boy that I saw yesterday.  He was again sitting
on the steps of my house.  Butterflies awoke in my stomach when I made eye
contact with him.  I approached the steps very cautiously.

    He looked at me and said "Well I see that you finally came out of your
house".

    I didn't say anything immediately.  We were sizing each other up.  He
was very good looking.  Brown hair adorned the top of his head, just
starting to get bleached by the sun and amber eyes that you couldn't tell
if they were friend or foe.  He had a high soprano voice that was also kind
of falsetto.  Olive skin shaded the tall slender, but not skinny body, that
I wished I had.

    I put my foot on the bottom step of five up and said to him "Yeah, I
had to go get some books required for summer reading for the school that
I'm going to in the fall".

    "Do you play baseball" he asked?

    I answered "I've played before but I'm not good at it.  I can barely
hit and I can't catch the difficult stuff.  I drop balls a lot".  He nodded
his head as he kept looking at me.

    Then I said "I'm really not good at any sports".

    He replied "That's okay, we have some guys that can't play all that
well either.  Why not come play with us tomorrow?"

    "I'll think about it". I told him.

    He again nodded his head, looked at his watch, stood up, walked down a
couple steps.

    "I have to get home for supper, bye" he said as he turned his head over
his left shoulder.

    "See you later" I replied.

    He was taller than me by a head and a little more, maybe.  I looked at
my watch on my wide leather band (which was popular at the time) and
thought that my dad would be home at any minute and we would eat supper.  I
was still thinking about the boy and thought that we didn't even give our
names during our brief conversation.  It dawned on me that he kind of
looked like an older version of the kid who played "Dennis the Menace" on
TV, only less toothy and more good looking.

    We had supper.  Pork chops with mash potatoes, gravy and string beans.
It was one of the few meals that I could eat.  Usually, I preferred potato
chips, soup, french fries, eggs, bacon, ham, lima beans, yellow cheese and
canned corned beef.  Tuna fish and pancakes were also favorites.  When we
didn't have these foodstuffs, I didn't eat.  Iced water (my favorite),
soda, milk, "Kool-Aid" and orange juice were what I drank.  Also, I loved
my Nana's (grandmother's) homemade bread, biscuits, cakes and pies.  Of
course, anything sweet was always accepted and consumed.  I savored steak
which we seldom had.  The smell of it cooking always infatuated my
nostrils.  After eating it, I was always satiated as it lay digesting in my
stomach.  In fact, I was a very poor eater and lacked a lot of badly needed
nutrition.  I was a stick.  My dad and mom were both small bodied.  My
sister (4 years older) was the same.  All three of them had weight in
proportion to their bodies.  I was not severely, but definitely,
noticeably, underweight.

    I wanted to watch television that night, but my dad had control.  You
never dared to ask him to turn the channel so that you could watch
something other then what he watched.  He had "Hee Haw" on, adjusting the
sound.  I despised that show and anything that was associated with that
twangy southern-accented hillbilly type stuff.  By the way, black and white
TV's were prevalent at the time and remote control was not to be found in
the homes of common folk like us.  Color TV was around but was pretty
expensive and definitely a luxury for those who could afford it.  I do
think that a primitive form of remote control existed (hospitals and bars
from what I can remember).  It consisted of a UHF type aerial on the TV and
a bulky looking handheld device.  It was primitive technology, but very
futuristic at the time.

    I went up to my room and started looking at the books that I had to
read during the summer.  "The Yearling" was one of them.  A book titled
something like "Brother Petroc's Return", concerning religion and miracles
was another.  The third book was one by Steinbeck, "The Pearl".  I already
saw the movie about the young deer, Gregory Peck and a very white paste
looking kid by the name of Claude Jarman Jr. starred in it.  I liked the
movie.  Of course, the movies were always somewhat different than the
books.  I was scared that I would not be able to answer questions that I'm
sure were to be asked at my new school about these books.  I was determined
to start reading them, but just not right away.  I started thinking about
the boy that I had briefly spoken to earlier when I got home.  What was it
that made me stare at boys when they weren't looking?  Why was I more fond
of their looks than girls?  I mean, I knew what my favorite color was.  Did
I really know what my favorite sex was?  Such hard questions I was asking
myself.  I didn't have any answers.  Who could I have gone to for
knowledge?  I was too scared to talk to anyone about it.  Idea (light
bulb!), - the library was where I was to begin my journey, a seemingly
endless quest to find forbidden, hidden knowledge.  What was even more
confusing was trying to understand my lack of coordination of an
unsynchronized body and mind.  Outside, I was still the same kid that those
who were acquainted with me always saw.  Even though I was small, I was
still growing.  Inside, my mind was starting to create barbed-wire fences
that I would get tangled in and get out of, but scars would be created.
Inside those scars, a part of me would always remain hurt.  Those scars
would be like a stigmata to remind me that my life was never going to be
easy.  As sleep began to overtake my body, my mind was wondering, if
tomorrow, I would have the guts to play baseball with the neighborhood kids
that I've yet to meet.  Why was I so shy and scared?

    I decided that they were too many "why's" in kids' lives.  It wasn't
until many years later that I finally realized that those who provided the
answers were not always correct in their assessment of certain realities.
Kids were supposed to have gained knowledge and wisdom from the questioning
"why".  As I was being captured and taken to the darkness of REM, I had
already decided that life was becoming more complicated.  My mind consisted
of devil and angel thoughts.  Why was I getting pleasure from both?
Knowledge and a little wisdom were there for the taking, to be absorbed
into a still expanding and exploratory maze of gray matter seeking to fire
off the electrical impulses to find the answers.  Tomorrow would serve up
some sought after clues, but surely inundate me with more unhappy thoughts
and questions of living my life the way that was considered normal.


    Chapter 2 - A Physical Examination and The Neighborhood Boys
(tentatively titled)

    This chapter will be forthcoming as I find the time to reconstruct
memories, write, read and edit it.