RFD 198 Summer 2024

Issue 199* / Fall 2024

FIFTY YEARS

Submission Deadline: August 15, 2024 www.rfdmag.org/upload

In the autumn of 1974 RFD launched from Iowa, setting us on a journey from one coast to the next over the next fifty years. We’re asking you dear readers, writers and artists who may have contributed, read or were amused, informed or evoked by something on our pages these past fifty years to consider sending in your reflections, responses and appreciation for RFD, it’s readership and help us celebrate what makes RFD special for you.

If you yourself sent in your first poem, you attended a gathering after seeing a listing, or you helped in crafting RFD please send in your memories. If you know someone who helped shape RFD who is no longer with us please share their story.

We’d also love to hear about how RFD shifted your approach to the gay community over the years. What part of RFD’s initial “back to the land” ethos sticks with you and how has its attempts to bridge divides and explore commonalities and celebrate difference matters to you as we take in five decades together.

*Since 1974, RFD missed production of just one issue, which is why the 50th anniversary issue is number 199 rather than number 200.

Cover of the first issue of RFD.

Running From Domesticity

Between the Lines

Talk about jetlag! The RFD crew had a huge number of submissions; it was like getting a huge horde of travel postcards—tasty news, cool images and revelations about your journeys. We so appreciate all of the many submissions, we are sorry we could not fit more into this issue.

People sent in stories about our queer travel journeys, life on the road, reflections on community built on a global scale, and imagery and evocations of special places to readers who chose to share their journey.

We also had folks reflecting on Faerie origins, social protest, and remembering a dearly departed Cockette founder, Rumi Missabu.

One of the things we did in between sorting the stories and images for this issue was taking a hard look at our subscriptions prices in light of higher costs we face. We have not changed our prices since 2009 when RFD moved to New England. We see a slow erosion of our core cash reserves as we have been subsidizing subscribers across the board not just bulk subscribers. We hope the new subscription costs are reasonable for folks and now we have not taken to increasing the rates lightly. Meanwhile, we have to say we have been able to subsidize things with the help of generous donations as well as folks rounding up their subscriptions. We still offer US readers a low-income rate and we have done our best to make foreign subscriptions as reasonably priced as possible.

OK everyone, enjoy the summer, send us your vacation postcards and think about your reflections on RFD’s fiftieth birthday for the Fall issue. In addition, please send in your theme ideas for upcoming issues.

Peace Out from a balmy New England evening.

—The RFD Collective

Submission Deadlines

Fall–August 15, 2024

Winter–November 15, 2024

See inside covers for themes and specifics.

For advertising, subscriptions, back issues and other information visit www.rfdmag.org. To read online visit www.issuu.com/rfmag.org.

RFD is a reader-written journal for gay people which focuses on country living and encourages alternative lifestyles. We foster community building and networking, explore the diverse expressions of our sexuality, care for the environment, Radical Faerie consciousness, and nature-centered spirituality, and share experiences of our lives. RFD is produced by volunteers. We welcome your participation. The business and general production are coordinated by a collective. Features and entire issues are prepared by different groups in various places. RFD (ISSN# 0149709X) is published quarterly for $25 a year by RFD Press, PMB 329, 351 Pleasant St., Ste B, Northampton, MA 01060-3998. Postmaster: Send address changes to RFD Press, PMB 329, 351

Pleasant St., Ste B, Northampton, MA 01060-3998. Non-profit tax exempt #62-1723644, a function of RFD Press, Inc., with office of registration at 231 Ten Penny Rd., Woodbury, TN 37190. RFD Cover Price: $11.95. A regular subscription is the least expensive way to receive RFD four times a year. First class mailed issues will be forwarded. Others will not. Send address changes to submissions@rfdmag.org or to our Northampton, MA address. Copyright © RFD Press, Inc. The records required by Title 18 U.S.D. Section 2257 and associated with respect to this magazine (and all graphic material associated therewith on which this label appears) are kept by the custodian of records at the following location: RFD Press, 85 N Main St, Ste 200, White River Junction, VT 05001.

Front Cover "Returning Home" by Chris Moody

Back

Larger Than Life

Your anniversary is almost here, the d of b-and-d, and fittingly a date that falls in fall, in late September, so not as saddening as this would be had it not been the lovely time of year I fell in love with Venice, thanks to you. Back twice, all on my own, the atmosphere had less to do with me than you-and-me. A kind of brother in the role of father, you shared with me your late life fantasy of being ravished by a gondolier which made me feel more like a son to you. That memory’s a cherished souvenir, the kind you have to close your eyes to see, the kind one searches out any number of times. We’re in a gondola. I’m facing you and our gondolier. And he can’t help but hear what you’ve confessed and makes it clear to me he understands, which made him all the sexier a presence, since he’d smiled, as I would tell you

soon as I could once we were off the pier, getting the first bear hug you’d ever given me on a street. Another memory I’m nearer to feeling for having closed my eyes to see your towering sunlit figure reappear, god-like in his heavenly city, you devil you.

—Jerl Surratt

Tiago, My Love (Cavalinho Na Chuva)

by Manuel Igrejas

Joe Ianuzzi yawned and stretched in this strange, small new bed. He looked at his watch and panicked until he realized that he was on vacation and didn’t have to run anywhere or listen to the traffic reports on the radio. He curled back up in the spoon position and cupped his stirring cock and balls. He called them his kittens, and nobody else had touched them in a long time. A few minutes later, he was awake again and padded the few feet from the bed to the pint-sized, bruised-purple bathroom. He splashed water on his face and ran his wet hands through his sparse hair, where salt was overtaking the pepper. He looked in the mirror at the perpetual bags under his droopy brown eyes and said, “You are not a pretty girl, Miss Ianuzzi.” Then he saw the merry twinkle in the corners, which he hoped was part of his charm. He smoothed his sliver of a mustache and composed his sleep-blurred face into the alert and amiable one he liked to present to the world. Joe blew a kiss to his mirror image, which, like him, was fifty-six, about five-foot-seven, and, according to his doctor, about twenty pounds overweight.

He was in Lisbon at the Hotel Figueira. Figueira meant fig tree, and fig motifs were on every wall, plate, glass, and cocktail napkin. How he got here was a miracle, one lucky break after another, the cards falling in the right direction for a change. Joe sat on the bed and wondered what to do next. It was 5:13 pm, and Lisbon’s sun poured its gold through the window, lightening the figs and fig leaves one shade each.

He was glad not to be in his spotless garden apartment in Moonachie, New Jersey, a sleepy little rectangle of a town with 2,000 people, just off Route 17 in the shadow of MetLife Stadium. Refreshed from his two-hour nap, he decided to wander around the neighborhood and play it by ear since he hadn’t done any research or bought a guidebook. Joe picked up the business card on the nightstand and read “Tiago Pimentel, Luso Cafe” above a phone number and email address. Was it too soon to call Tiago?

The overnight TAP flight from Newark had been filled with Portuguese people. When it arrived at dawn, a good-looking, bearded driver from the hotel met him at the airport, greeted him enthusiastically,

and led him to a white Mercedes van. His name was Tiago, and he was tall with curly brown hair and merry eyes. He looked to be in his thirties.

“You are from New York!” Tiago said once they were in the roomy van. “I love New York!” Joe didn’t have the heart to tell him that he flew in from Newark, and he only went into New York City occasionally.

“Have you ever been there?” Joe asked.

“No, but I feel like I know it from watching Home Alone 2: Lost in New York when I was a boy. I saw it so many times that I know it by heart. Is it anything like that?” His English was good with a slight British accent.

“Pretty much,” Joe lied. He’d never seen the movie.

“Are you here for business or pleasure?”

“Pleasure, I guess,” Joe said, looking at Tiago’s inquisitive green eyes in the rear-view mirror.

“Let us make sure you have some,” Tiago said. He winked.

Lisbon whizzed by outside the tinted windows. Joe was so intent on the back of Tiago’s curly hair and his eyes in the mirror that the city was a picturesque blur.

Like the good salesman he was, Joe asked a lot of questions because he learned over the years that people like to talk about themselves. Joe didn’t. He thought himself the most boring man in the United States, or at least New Jersey.

Tiago was thirty-three, married, with a tenyear-old daughter, Pia, his pride and joy. He didn’t talk about his wife. He lived in Lisbon in Lumiar, a neighborhood near the edge of town. Driving the van was his part-time job; his main gig was in the marketing department of Luso Cafe, a big coffee company.

When they arrived at Hotel Figueira, Tiago jumped out and carried Joe’s bags to the front desk. Joe took two twenty euro notes out of his wallet to give to Tiago, though the airport ride was offered by the hotel and included in the Booking.com rate.

“Thank you very much,” Joe said. “I enjoyed the ride and your company.”

“As did I! As did I!” Tiago chirped.

Joe held out his hand to shake Tiago’s and slip him the bills, but Tiago surprised him with a big,

tight hug, his soft beard grazing Joe’s face. Was there a peck on the cheek in there too?

The hug made slipping him the twenties smoothly impossible, so once they separated, Joe shook Tiago’s hand and slipped them into his palm. Tiago pocketed the cash without looking at it and gave Joe another hug. This time he felt Tiago’s soft lips on his cheek.

“If you would like to see Lisboa, call me. If I am free, I would love to show you our beautiful city.” With that, Tiago was out on the street and back in the van. Joe’s face tingled from its brush with Tiago’s beard, and he realized that the hug had left him breathless. His body quivered in an agreeable and unfamiliar way. One hug from a handsome man, the graze of his beard, the brush of his soft lips, and he was undone? Was he really that lonely, really that hungry? Yes, and yes.

As a sales rep for Continental Restaurant Supply, The Ironbound section of Newark with its popular Portuguese restaurants was part of his territory, and Joe was there twice a week. He knew all about glassware, dinnerware, and flatware, but restaurant equipment was his specialty. The stakes were higher and so were the commissions. His clients trusted him and his twenty years in the business. His informed soft sell and reliability made him one of the best restaurant supply salesmen in New Jersey.

aromatic, communal late-afternoon meals; like music with a gentle, aggrieved undercurrent running through it.

This trip came at just the right time. Joe was stuck. The job was tolerable, he made a decent living, but there were no surprises. He got up at seven AM and was on the road by eight-thirty, first stopping by the office/showroom in Hackensack for sales meetings and paperwork. Then he hit the road, seeing ten to fifteen clients a day, and he usually got home by six-thirty or seven PM. His clients and the people at the office constituted his only social life these days. He used to stop at one or another of his clients’ restaurants for dinner, but after being told he had to lose weight, he just popped Hot Pockets into the microwave and ate them in front of the TV. Then he watched porn and scrolled the apps, hoping against hope he could meet someone nice or at least have an adventure. Instead, he felt trapped in a bad video game he couldn’t win, so he typed and swiped until he was exhausted. Two glasses of ice-cold Stoli right from the freezer, and then it was bedtime.

His body quivered in an agreeable and unfamiliar way. One hug from a handsome man, the graze of his beard, the brush of his soft lips, and he was undone? Was he really that lonely, really that hungry? Yes, and yes.

Arctic Air had a promotion on its new HC55 Merchandiser, the kind of thing that you reach into at a deli for a Snapple, or that a waiter would reach into for a carrot cake. Sell five of them and win a trip to Europe. He didn’t expect to win, he never won anything, but he liked the challenge of it. Thanks to his fact-filled, low-key sales pitch, a heat wave, and a power outage, Joe wound up selling five HC 55s, three in Newark alone, in a record three weeks. Arctic Air gave him a week in Lisbon, airfare, hotel, and $1,000 play money. He flew TAP, the Portuguese airline, to keep the vibe Portuguese, and because of his clients, he knew something of the complicated, intriguing language. He enjoyed it in the banter of the robust kitchen crews at their

But not tonight—Lisbon was waiting for him. He took a shower and got dressed, a baby blue Tasso Elba short-sleeve shirt, cotton pants, and a Tasso Elba tan linen blazer. As he was packing, he’d googled, “What to wear in Lisbon” and got “Smart, casual, understated. And wear nice shoes.” Perfect. That was his summer salesman uniform. Joe took the fig-leaffilled elevator three floors down to the lobby, then he was on the street in the middle of a crowd waiting for one of the quaint yellow street cars. He looked to the left and to the right. To the right, the lines for the streetcars clogged the pavement with tourists and there was a hill with an imposing castle on top of it. A castle!

There was more light and air to the left, and the balmy air carried a promising maritime tang. He walked toward the light, passing bakeries with creamy pastries front and center and those deceptively simple, addictive pasteis de nata, Portuguese custard tarts that he bought in Newark and used

to eat by the dozen. He passed spotless, upscale pharmacies staffed by what looked like models in dazzling white lab coats. He heard the insistent but benevolent sound of rushing water. Was there a waterfall in the middle of the city?

One more block and the street opened onto a massive, brightly lit square, Rossio. Its size and unexpected beauty took his breath away. Coming from the clogged roads and tight spaces of New Jersey, he wasn’t used to such an expanse. The waterfall turned out to be two massive, ornate fountains at each end of the square, green with age and algae, occupied by bronze mermaids, cherubs, gods, and goddesses either spouting the water or basking in its spray.

The pavement of Rossio Square, black and white tile in a zig-zag pattern, looked like a disorienting optical illusion, a yellow brick road on a black and white TV. Entranced, Joe walked around the perimeter of the fountain, admiring its striking green inhabitants.

In the center of the square sat an imposing white marble monument, topped by a dashing soldier who gazed sternly over his domain, a book in one hand. He was King Pedro IV, the plaque said. He looked like Tiago, his new friend. They both had curly hair and beards. Joe would ask Tiago about this king when next they met.

“It’s lovely,” an elderly British woman in a straw hat said to her elderly male companion. “But you did not want to be here in the 1500’s. This is where they burned heretics at the stake!”

“Heavens!” the old gentleman exclaimed and fanned himself with his boater.

The woman continued, “Auto-da-fe is a Portuguese word, you know.”

“The savages!” he replied. “Now I should like one of those scrummy custard tarts.”

Joe had a vague idea of what the Inquisition was. Wasn’t Joan of Arc caught up in it? He stood in the middle of Rossio Square, drank in its historic splendor, and wondered what to do next. He turned to the right, and there was a wide street, Rua Augusta. It was a promenade, closed off to traffic, with a black and cream tiled sidewalk in a soothing geometric pattern, and it was crowded on this Saturday evening. At its entrance was a life-sized green statue of a woman in a full-skirted dress on a small pedestal that turned ever so slowly. Who was she supposed to be, the Joan of Arc of Portugal? On her turning platform, she was a foot taller than him, and Joe stared up at her passive, mysterious face. Suddenly, she moved her arms into another static position. Oh! She was a puppet. She opened

her eyes and winked at him. Oh! He jumped. He’d never seen anything like her before. She had a green hat near the pedestal and Joe instinctively dug in his pockets but remembered he had no change, just three twenty-euro notes, and he’d have to catch her on the way back to the hotel.

After that, Joe encountered living statues every few feet: ballerinas, monks, knights, and he loved them—what dedication and technique! You would never see them at the Willowbrook Mall back home. Musicians held court every fifty feet or so: three young men in black capes playing guitars; a tall tan man pounding on a conga drum while his short, dark female partner played the marimba and sang a sprightly, hypnotic tune in a language he didn’t recognize; and the most energetic, a wiry African man with bongos and a boom box who had strollers clapping along and dancing with him. A block away, an over-miked and amped rock band with flowing blond hair looked like they stepped off a 1987 album cover.

Four-story pastel buildings with mini balconies on their second floors lined Rua Augusta. Every kind of shop took up the first floors: jewelry stores, aromatic bakeries, stylish pharmacies, a Zara, and an H&M. There were several cafes smack in the middle of the promenade with dapper waiters who beckoned you to have a seat. A fragrant gravitational pull lured strollers westward where the last rays of light beamed over an enormous, glistening white arch.

The pedestrian traffic thickened as he approached the majestic white archway, the end of Rua Augusta, with the promise of something grand and gleaming on the other side.

He waited for a light to change behind a beautiful Scandinavian family: a tall, lean father with sandy hair; a tall, lean, pretty mother with golden hair; a ten-year-old boy who looked just like his father; and a seven-year-old girl who looked just like her mother. He gazed at the father’s beautifully shaped little ears and wanted to nuzzle them. With a resigned sigh, he took in the rest of the crowd at the curb. They were all families and couples, in glowing spirits and holding hands. On this beautiful street on this golden evening, all these happy people were coupled up, and only he was alone. The thought zinged into his heart like a poison arrow. How had he wound up so alone for so long?

He grew up in Clifton, New Jersey, an only child in a small ranch house. His terse, unpleasant father wasn’t around much and walked out one day after a shouting match on his wife’s forty-sixth birthday.

A teenager, Joe was left with his mother, Connie, a squat, tart-tongued hypochondriac. To protest her husband’s departure, she refused to drive anymore so Joe became her chauffeur: once a week to Stop and Shop, once a week to CVS for her meds, twice a week to various doctors for a variety of ailments. Her singsong lament of a voice leaked out of her like an endless, toxic stream; after a few hours, you were nearly unconscious. Joe developed immunity over time. Each time Connie barked, he imagined the kindly face and melodious voice of his fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Feingold. He wasn’t a good student, but she was patient with him and when she came to his desk she rested a hand gently on his shoulder. It thrilled him.

“I hope that stupid doctor takes me right away. That waiting room is so dingy.”

Yes, ma.

“Are you listening to me?”

“Yes, Ma. Yes, Ma.” Twenty, thirty times a day or more.

“Pay attention when I talk to you!”

She liked to grab his wrist and twist it for emphasis with her surprisingly powerful claws. He longed for Mrs. Feingold’s lovely touch.

Connie and Joe were always side by side at home on the couch, at the kitchen table, in the car or a doctor’s waiting room, sharing twicechewed information about television shows, their neighbors, the family, and Connie’s health in high, plaintive voices. Connie had given up cooking too, so Joe learned how from an old Fanny Farmer and newer Nella Cucina.

They needed money so, while still in high school, Joe got a job as a busboy at Il Marinello, a big barn of an Italian restaurant on Route 46. He enjoyed the hectic pace and friendly racket of the restaurant, refreshingly different from life with Connie. When a coked-up waiter had a meltdown in the kitchen one night, Joe was pushed onto the floor to take over his tables. He did a good job and graduated to waiter.

The manager pulled him aside one busy evening and said, “You sound like a pussy. You need to work on your voice, and you’ll make more money,” Joe was mortified and went to the library where he found a book: How to Improve Your Speaking Voice. He listened carefully to news anchors and Jeopardy’s Alex Trebek and cobbled together his own Ianuzzi Process: slow down, breathe, talk from your diaphragm, and warm up with a mooing rumble that sounded like a buffalo stuck in the mud. He found a phrase that he liked and used it as a mantra and a diction warm-up; I’m sending you a bottle of won-

derful fundamentals. His tips doubled, and when that manager quit, Joe took over.

His salesman from Continental Supply was a short sexy Cuban, Julio, who breezed in and out once a week to take Joe’s order. Joe envied Julio’s freedom. As a restaurant manager, he had to contend with a drug-addled kitchen staff, flaky servers, sticky-fingered bartenders, lengthy, unconvincing excuses, and long hours. Julio pointed out that as a salesman he could leave all that behind and show up in a nice suit, write stuff down, and be home for dinner every night. He already knew the gritty, grunt end of the business, why not try the glamour side?

Joe couldn’t afford to take chances; Connie needed him, and this schedule worked for them. Pulled into Connie’s sour undertow, Joe’s days stumbled into years, and his youth evaporated. He came home from the restaurant one afternoon between shifts and found Connie on the couch, staring bug-eyed at Oprah! She was dead, and Joe, at age thirty-seven, was free.

Continental hired him and, after a slow start, he became a good salesman, using all the skills he learned on the restaurant floor: reading people and giving them what they want. His Ianuzzi Process voice didn’t hurt either.

While Connie was alive, there was the tacit understanding that if he had any social life whatsoever—it would kill her. She never asked him what he was up to or how he felt, so his sexual orientation was lost in the mist of her narcissism. He found a few outlets for quickies: adult bookstores, rest stops, some cruisy sections of parks, but now with Connie gone, he could finally go to a gay bar and stay out all night if he wanted. He had heard about Feathers, a famous gay club from prehistoric times, so he chugged some Stolichnaya courage straight from the bottle and went one Tuesday night. The crowd was a mix of very young guys and guys older than him. The blasting music made his heart pound, and he found a seat at the bar and took in the exotic sights. Joe liked the look of the thin, attractive young guy next to him. He had red hair and freckles, and when he spoke, he sounded just like a woman. Joe didn’t care, he imagined the boy’s pug-nosed profile on the pillow next to him. Joe’s elbow accidentally touched his, and the boy glanced at him, then glanced through him, scooped up his money from the bar, and walked away. Wounded, Joe looked across the bar and saw his own unhappy face in a mirror there.

But—it wasn’t a mirror. A guy on the other side of the bar had the same round face, the same little mustache, and a halo of brown hair. His shirt was

red, and Joe had to make sure that his shirt was blue, and he wasn’t seeing his own troubled reflection. His doppelganger held up a glass and toasted Joe, then he waved for Joe to come over and occupy the empty stool next to him. He introduced himself, Angelo Fiore, and bought Joe a drink. He was about thirty-five with prominent black eyes, a blunt nose and looked a bit like a bulldog terrier. There was a perpetual frown around his mouth, and his voice was sharp and scolding even in banter. When Joe got ready to leave, Angelo put his hand on Joe’s knee and squeezed it. They went back to Joe’s house. Angelo had a nice big ass. He moved in the next day.

Joe slogged through ten rocky years with Angelo. He was a hairdresser and a good one, but he kept losing jobs because of his terrible temper. Over time, his voice got more scolding, and he lost the terrier and just looked like a bulldog. After the first couple of years, they didn’t have that much to say to each other, but Joe felt better being part of a couple, even an unhappy one. So what if Angelo lied about everything? So what if he thought everybody was stupid? So what if he didn’t pay his share of the expenses and snuck money from Joe’s sock drawer and wallet? Even though Angelo cheated on him regularly and blatantly, Joe vowed to stick it out.

One night, Angelo picked a fight about a misplaced remote, stormed out, and took off for Jersey City to live with his sidepiece, a chubby Venezuelan masseur. Joe was relieved. To get away from the lingering exhaust of both Connie and Angelo, he sold the house and bought the condo in Moonachie, three miles away. That was twelve years ago. There were a few dates after Angelo’s departure, then a bunch of hookups, and then a lot of nothing for a long, long time. Instead, he fell instantly in love with every attractive man he saw and imagined romantic adventures with them that evaporated in a moment or two.

A horn honked, there was movement around him at the curb, and Joe dropped back into his body and the present. The light had changed, and he followed the delicate ears of the young Scandinavian father toward the magnificent white archway. It was a balmy evening in beautiful Lisbon, and he was alone, yes, but he was free to explore. There was a plaque on the arch: Arco da Rua Augusta. The clock at the top said it was seven-twenty.

He walked through the arch onto another enormous, glorious square, Praç a do Comércio. In its center stood another huge bronze statue of a man on a steed while churning white bodies on the marble base below tried to reach him. Beyond

the statue, the square ended with a body of rugged blue water.

But before that azure horizon, the massive plaza was generously sprinkled with booths sprouting rainbow flags. Some of the booths represented civic organizations, but most repped gay bars from across the city, and they offered beer, wine, cocktails, sausages, and grilled sardines. Joe had stumbled onto Lisbon’s Gay Pride celebration, and the square was filling up with an army of excited, vibrant gay people of every color and shape. Beautiful boys sashayed by him in tank tops and short shorts, glamorous lesbians clustered in rings, butch dykes strolled hand in hand beside burly drag queens and slender trans teens. Every few feet, Joe saw nondescript middleaged men, just like himself. No, like his former pre-Lisbon self. And, so far, he was the best conventionally dressed man on the square. Joe took a deep breath and remembered his mission to have fun and leave his boring old self behind.

There was a small stage up by the waterfront, and a DJ in a skintight purple body suit spun mostly American dance tunes. Joe stopped at a booth from the bar Shelter, and a beefy, bearded boy with glasses served him a gin and tonic in a plastic cup. He smiled a gap-toothed smile as he handed it over. The smile from the beefy boy, the good music, the crowd’s high spirits, and the first few sips of gin put Joe in a happy daze. Finally, for the first time in his life, this was exactly the right place to be, and he stood, happily, right in its joyous center. Yes, time for another drink; he wanted to see that smile again, and he got it.

Five people got up on the stage behind the DJ: a young woman dressed as a nurse, a young man done up as a sailor, a young woman as a nun, another boy as a priest, and a slightly older, dark-haired man with a goatee dressed as a cop. He seemed to be the leader, and he looked like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean. The quintet started a sweet, synchronized dance routine to “Pump Up the Volume” by M/A/R/R/S. The Johnny Depp guy looked to be about thirty-five, and his dancing was looser and more confident than the others. Joe got another drink and another smile from the beefy boy.

People were dancing in front of the bandstand, and in the center was a knot of pretty trans people with heavy mascara and spiky rainbow hair wearing identical pink tee shirts. The square filled, nudging Joe closer to the bandstand. He wanted to get a better look at the short and wiry Johnny Depp guy who danced ecstatically: was he in ecstasy or on ecstasy? The sun set in an orange sky, bathing the crowd in

its glow, and Joe decided that Johnny Depp would be his next boyfriend. He waved at the stage as his body rocked side to side to the hot dance music. Johnny led the on stage ensemble down a few steps, and they snaked themselves into a space right in front of the bandstand, ten or so feet from him.

Joe stopped dancing years ago after Angelo told him he looked like a gimpy elephant on the dance floor. But, right now, in this lovely, joyful crowd bathed in sunset and high spirits, this, whatever he was doing, felt good. The music had infiltrated his body, and maybe he did look like an elephant, but he felt like a gazelle. He edged closer to Johnny, who was just within reach. Joe just wanted to be face to face with him, and he hoped, like the rest of this enchanted night in this enchanted city, something good would happen. One more step.

His left foot landed on a piece of pineapple from a spilled pina colada, and he skidded into the hairy back of a burly leather bear who spun around, glared, then smiled at him, his teeth gleaming through his black beard. Joe realized he was drunk and that he was hungry too. Johnny had disappeared into the crowd.

Praça do Comércio was mobbed now, and he wanted air, so he squeezed his way back toward the arch where there were some food stands. He got a delightfully greasy sausage sandwich and washed it down with a refreshing bottle of orange Sumol. There was a comparatively quiet spot with an empty table, and Joe sat there watching more excited people entering the Praća. So, he didn’t wind up with Johnny Depp, but he was finally surrounded by his own tribe, and in its rousing midst, his belly and heart were full.

He woke up with a hangover, and he wanted coffee, lots of it, so he headed to Rua Augusta where he found a congenial, uncrowded spot under an umbrella and took a seat. A dapper, older waiter was immediately at his side with an ornate menu. The waiter spoke English and suggested a galao and torradas. Why not?

The waiter returned with the galao, a blend of espresso and steamed milk in a glass container and two large pieces of buttery golden toast, the torradas, on a bone china plate, his salesman’s eye noted. Perfect. A word popped into his head, civilized. Everything here was so civilized.

He called Tiago. Uh oh. His voicemail message was in Portuguese. Wait. Then it switched to English. Joe left a message and got a text in response.

Good to hear from you, my friend. I will call you later.

My friend!

Joe strolled down Rua Augusta, back to the splendid Praça do Comércio where a cleanup crew was efficiently dealing with the aftermath of last night’s celebration. He walked to the water’s edge and googled his location, ah, the Tagus River, Rio Tejo, with the Atlantic and the magnificent Golden Gate bridge tantalizingly within view. Wait. The Golden Gate was in San Francisco, right? He knew that much. He googled the bridge: “It is traditional for poets to refer to the entwining Tagus as Lisbon’s lover,” the Google entry read. “The 25th of April Bridge was named after the date of the Carnation Revolution in 1974.” It was the longest suspension bridge in Europe and built by the same company that built the Golden Gate.

As he gazed at the ocean, Joe felt the tug Portuguese explorers like Vasco da Gama must have felt, that you were at the edge of the world and a powerful magnet, like horizontal gravity, summoned you westward toward adventure—whether you could swim or not. He couldn’t.

Tiago called. Today he was with his family, but he could give Joe a tour on Monday, and maybe Tuesday, if that suited him. They settled on 200 Euros a day. While Tiago spoke, Joe could hear a young girl’s voice in the background, piping for her daddy’s attention.

Joe went back toward the hotel and saw hop on/ off tour buses leaving from Figueira Square. He got on one with a female driver, who was, alas, not in a good mood. The bus trundled up a particularly wide, stately boulevard, Avenida de Libertad, and then wove all over town, to the majestic Belém Tower and back again. The driver brusquely announced locations in Portuguese but didn’t explain them, and her mike cut out after every other word. Joe had not been on a bus in years and felt nauseous, so he couldn’t wait to disembark when it got back to Figueira Square. Between the bus and the hotel was a lively market with fragrant food stalls. Feeling better, he got a bowl of delicious shrimp and garlic and washed it down with a couple of bottles of good Portuguese beer then shuffled back to the hotel and took a long nap.

The Gay Pride celebration the night before whetted his appetite for more of gay Lisbon. He tried to remember the name on the booth where the boy smiled at him... Shutter? Sh-something. Shelter!

He Googled it, “Cozy and friendly bear bar in a relaxed atmosphere.” He took a shower, got dressed, and stepped outside, where he hailed a cab and gave the gaunt driver the address.

It seemed a long and twisty uphill route through narrow streets before they pulled into a tiny square surrounded by ancient buildings, and there, tucked in the corner, was Shelter.

It was comfy and intimate inside on this late Sunday afternoon. Four patrons at the bar all looked to be bearish and in their forties. They sat separately and looked at their phones while they nursed the beers in front of them.

There was no bartender to be seen, so Joe stood awkwardly at the bar, instantly invisible to the quartet, who glanced at and away from him when he entered. He heard clumping from a back room, someone coming upstairs. It was his young dreamboat from the day before wearing a lime green tank top from which his furry pecs and big arms bulged. He smiled as if he might have recognized Joe and said, “Ola.”

“Um. Gin?” Joe cleared his throat and asked. He saw a bottle of Hendricks behind the bar. “Hendricks. And can I have some cucumber with that?”

The bartender nodded. Under his scruff and muscles, he looked like an altar boy, with big dark eyes beneath his rimless specs. He disappeared into the back, and Joe took a seat at the bar, a couple of stools away from the nearest patron. There was a stack of gay pocket guides on the bar, and Joe flipped through one: bars, baths, masseurs, escorts, and parties. Was Lisbon the center of the gay universe?

The boy returned with his Hendrick’s and tonic. It was so full of thinly sliced cucumbers that it looked like an appetizer. How thoughtful! Now he loved the boy even more.

“This is gorgeous,” Joe said. He held out his hand. “My name is Joe.”

The boy gripped his hand with a big, warm paw. “I am Duarte.”

Joe tried to think of something to say but was stumped.

“I hope you enjoy,” Duarte said and went to the opposite end of the bar.

Joe smiled amiably into the empty space where Duarte had been just in case he returned momentarily. He sipped his drink and munched on the thin, crisp cucumber slices. He looked at the TV with its mismatched sound and video and looked down the bar at the other patrons who didn’t look up. How could he judge them? He wanted to hide in his phone too but this trip, this captivating city, was an opportunity for him to change. But without Duarte in front of him giving him a context and something to look at, he was just a chubby and lonely fifty-six-

year-old man.

No, none of that sad sack stuff tonight. The smooth gin seeped into and soothed his nervous system, and the crunch of the cucumbers kept him alert. There were so many! His drink was now a glass full of invigorating cucumber slices, and he happily crunched on them. When he got home, he would patent and promote these gin-soaked cucumber slices as an alternative to potato chips, refreshing and good for you.

Duarte set another gin and cucumber appetizer in front of him. Joe sipped happily, his chin comfortably in his hand in his new home away from home, and he spaced out for a spell. Another drink magically appeared.

“Oh boy!” Joe blurted, startling the guy next to him, who looked up and then right back down again.

“Buenos dias!” Joe said to him. He was drunk. What time was it anyway? He looked at his watch. There was no watch. Did he lose it or forget to wear it? What is time anyway? And who cares about it?

Duarte’s face swam before him. He looked so serious! How adorable. Duarte tapped his shoulder. “My friend. You are very tired. Let me get you a taxi.”

Joe nodded. Duarte took his hand and led him out the door, where a taxi was waiting.

“Where do you live?” he asked.

“Moonachie,” Joe said.

Duarte eased him into the cab, shielding the top of Joe’s head against a bump. Joe woke up at eight the next morning. He didn’t have a hangover, which he attributed to all those nutritious cucumbers.

Tiago called at nine and said he would be at the hotel by ten. Perfect! He knocked on the door at exactly ten, and his frame filled the doorway. Joe had forgotten that Tiago was over six feet tall. He had on a white polo shirt and jeans and a fresh, citrusy scent, which Joe smelled in the crook of his neck when Tiago hugged him. Joe recognized that it was Hermes Eau d’Orange Verte, a fragrance he’d sampled but it didn’t smell good on him. On Tiago it was intoxicating.

“What would you like to do today?”

“You take charge,” Joe said.

“Have you had breakfast yet?”

Joe shook his head.

The van was parked in front of the hotel, and they hopped in and drove a short distance uphill past posh stores, shops, and cafes that gleamed in the misty sunlight. Tiago parked on the street, and it was a short walk to their destination, a café called

"Cave Man" by Chris Moody.

a Brasileira, with bright white tables and chairs shaded by yellow umbrellas outside. In front of its ornate, Art Deco exterior sat one of those living statues, a serious bronze gentleman in a hat, his leg crossed, one arm resting on a small table, a vacant chair nearby. If the hat was on his head, Joe wondered, where did he expect people to put donations? This city loved its statues, living and otherwise.

“That is Fernando Pessoa, Portugal’s greatest poet,” Tiago declared.

Poor guy, Joe thought. A famous poet, and he still had to perform on the street for money. Joe had some change but wasn’t sure where to put it. Tiago rested his hand on the poet’s head, and he didn’t flinch. This Pessoa guy was the best living statue he’d seen yet.

Tiago cleared his throat and recited:

Nao seu nada

Nunca serei nada

Nao posso querer ser nada

Aparte isso, tenho em mim todos os sonos do mundo.

Tiago knocked on the poet’s head, and there was a soft metal clank.

Oh, it was a real bronze statue.

“What did you just say?” Joe asked.

“Oh, that is one of my favorite Pessoa poems. It translates:

I am nothing I shall never be anything I cannot even wish to be anything

Apart from this, I have within me all the dreams of the world.

“I don’t read much,” Joe said, “but that is interesting.”

“A Brasileira began in 1905, and Pessoa came here sometimes, as did other artists. Pessoa had a quiet and sad little life, but his writing is simple and strong.”

A quiet and sad little life, like me, Joe thought. I am nothing… Stop that!

Tiago squeezed Joe’s bicep. Did he read his mind? Was that for reassurance?

“Let us go inside,” Tiago said. “It is like stepping into history.”

The striking interior was like an expensive jewel box. The floor was composed of black and white tiles with a long bar on one side and wooden tables against mirrored walls and rich ochre wooden panels. Imposing brass lamps hung from the ceiling, which, like most of the room, was ablaze in red and gold with mahogany accents.

A waiter rushed up to Tiago, hugged him, and

kissed both his cheeks, and they were led to a table in the back.

“I am glad this worked out for us today,” Tiago said. “I enjoyed our ride from the airport.”

“Me too!” Joe said.

“Are you very hungry?” Tiago asked, glancing at the rococo menu.

“I know what I want,” Joe said. “A galao and torradas. I had them yesterday.”

“Esplendido!” Tiago exclaimed. “Now you are one of us!”

Tiago ordered the same thing.

“I would like to know more about you,” Tiago said. “Your surname is Ianuzzi, right? I remember from the pickup sheet. And you are Joseph?”

“Everybody… People call me Joe.”

“Ianuzzi? That is Italian, right? Does it mean anything?”

“Don’t think so.”

“In Portuguese Joseph would be Jose. We pronounce it Ju-ze. May I call you that?

“Sure.”

“My surname is Pimentel. It comes pimienta, the word for pepper, so my people must have been spice traders.”

“Tiago Pimentel. I like it,” Joe said.

“Tell me about yourself, Jose.”

No one ever asked him that before, and Joe was flummoxed. He haltingly talked about his job and the contest that got him here. The words squeezed out slowly, and Joe was embarrassed by relating his small life in front of this lovely man. I am nothing, I shall never be anything. He was quiet.

“What happened?” Tiago asked.

I am the most boring man in the world, Joe thought. And then the words slipped out of his mouth.

“Oh, I thought that was my father-in-law,” Tiago responded, unfazed, his eyes twinkling. “But if you won a contest, you must be a very good salesman, so you cannot be that boring.”

“Yes. I guess so.” Joe blushed. “This is a beautiful place. This is a beautiful city.”

“I like what you are wearing. You look sophisticated and comfortable,” Tiago said. “Not like the usual tourist.”

“Thanks!” Joe said. Sophisticated! No one had ever said that to him before. “It’s all Tasso Elba. They have a good range, stuff in my size, and it holds up. They’re Macy’s private label.”

“Macy’s!’ Tiago exclaimed, and he was instantly a little boy watching Home Alone 2 again. “I would love to visit Manhattan and stay at the Plaza Hotel!

I would wander in Central Park, walk on Fifth Avenue, and go to Duncan’s Toy Chest. It must be very exciting.” His face glowed, and Joe had never seen that kind of happiness in a real person, only on TV commercials.

“Yes,” Joe said. He saw the Plaza once when he and Angelo went to see the tree at Rockefeller Center. He wasn’t sure about Duncan’s Toy Chest, though. Was that a real place?

“I’m gay,” Joe blurted.

“Wonderful. Do you have someone?” Tiago asked as their eyes met momentarily.

Joe shook his head.

“I am surprised. You seem like a very warm and domestic person.”

Tiago’s phone rang. His ringtone was the theme from Star Wars. “I am a nerd,” he said with a shrug. He glanced at his phone and frowned.

“You can take that,” Joe said.

“No,” Tiago said. “It will only…” Tiago changed gears abruptly. “I would like to take you to Sintra today, a nice drive a few miles out of the city on the Portuguese Riviera. It is filled with palaces and castles. It is over the top, as you guys say.”

“Okay.”

The phone rang again, and Tiago glared at it. His Home Alone 2 joy had evaporated. He didn’t take the call and signaled for the check.

Tiago was quiet as they walked the colorful, crowded street to get to the van.

Once they were inside it, Tiago looked at his phone, read a text, and spluttered some Portuguese profanity.

“Are you okay?” Joe asked.

Tiago was quiet and stared out onto the street.

“I am sorry,” he said.

“No worries.”

“Sometimes being alone, as you are, is better than being with the wrong person, I think,” Tiago said. “My marriage is very… desafiador…”

“Huh?”

“It is very, um, problematic. ”

“Oh.” Joe didn’t know what to say. His conversations were all business-related small talk, and nobody had ever said such a thing to him. They were on the road now, quiet as they drove along the coastline with the sparkling Atlantic Ocean on their left.

“It’s like it’s alive,” Joe said, nodding his head toward the roiling blue expanse.

“Yes!” Tiago said. “You are a poet at heart.”

“Me? You mean like that statue guy? Nah.”

“Yes. Pessoa has a poem about the sea. Um,

something, something…

There are no more reasons for loving, hating, doing one’s duty

There are only the Abstract Departure and the water’s movement

The movement of pulling away, the sound

Of the waves lulling the prow

And a large, skittish peace that softly enters the soul.

“We could all use that large, skittish peace, yes?”

Joe could only nod. He’d only been in Portugal two days, and he felt like he was on another planet, in another dimension. This gorgeous view, this charming, civilized country, this adorable, poetryspouting man with his problematic marriage, compared with Joe’s mingy life back home. Suddenly his eyes burned. He never cried.

He felt Tiago’s warm hand on his.

“Are you okay over there, my friend?” he asked.

Joe nodded out the window.

“This is your holiday. I do not want you to be sad.”

Joe nodded again and rubbed his burning eyes. This lovely man was holding his hand and comforting him in his soothing voice. It was too much. He wanted to run back to his safe apartment, plant himself on the couch, watch TV, eat a Hot Pocket, and zone out into his cozy, benumbed Moonachie stupor.

No. Not today.

Joe composed himself. “I am okay. I’m sorry you are having a hard time.”

“Let us forget it. I am sorry it came up,” Tiago said with a shrug. “Cada pe dolorito, ha um chinelo rasgado.”

“Huh?”

“Something that my grandmother used to say, it means for every sore foot there is a torn slipper.”

They drove in silence, still holding hands, until the landscape got rockier and twistier, requiring both Tiago’s hands on the wheel. Joe drifted into a cozy nap as they navigated rugged, dun-colored hills. Tiago pulled into a parking area, and not far away, a large white cross jutted out onto the mountainside while fierce waves crashed way down below. They walked a winding path filled with a busload of exuberant Polish tourists, the wind whipping them while the ocean frothed to their right. In the distance, the sea and sky melted together into a slate-blue horizon that suggested infinity and that there just might be a God and a heaven.

“Where are we?” Joe asked.

“Cabo da Roca. It is the western-most point in all of Europe.” Tiago spread both arms as if he needed

to supplement its grandeur. “Centuries ago, people thought that this was the edge of the earth.”

Joe shivered a bit and wished he had a windbreaker.

“Oh, you are cold.” Tiago put his warm, furry arm across Joe’s shoulders and pulled him close. Its weight and temperature felt just right, and Tiago seemed his merry self again.

“I am sorry about earlier,” Tiago said. “I want you to have a good time. No more saudades.”

“No more… what?” Joe asked.

“Saudades. It is, um, a feeling of sadness, of, let’s see, missing something. It is very common in Portugal. We invented it!”

Tiago pulled out his phone and entered some text and then read: “Saudade or Saudades is a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one cares for and/or loves. Blah, blah, blah… Ah, here we go… One English translation of the word could be missingness.”

“Oh, ok,” Joe said, beginning to understand. If he didn’t keep himself busy. If he didn’t numb his feelings with TV and porn, there was an overwhelming ache at his core that he dare not explore.

“Yearning,” Tiago said. “I think that is a good word for it. Everyone has it, but we Portuguese have perfected it. There is the story of the old lady who complains, I am so thirsty, so thirsty. Oh, how thirsty I am. A stranger gives her water, and she gulps it down. She does not thank him. Instead, she says, I was so thirsty, so thirsty. Oh, how thirsty I was! That is being Portuguese!”

“I get it,” Joe said and meant.

“Just listen to our music. Have you ever heard fado? It is never good news,” Tiago said as they stopped walking. “We Portuguese are good at three things: complaining, teasing, and singing.”

“Do you sing?” Joe asked.

“I love to sing but am not very good,” Tiago answered. “I suck, as you guys say. Come my friend, we should go. You are cold, and we need to get away to from the end of the earth and into its warm center.”

They drove on to Sintra and visited the Pena Palace while Tiago acted the tour guide and recited valuable information that Joe had a hard time absorbing. Tiago knew the staff at the palace and was greeted warmly with double-cheeked kisses by men and women.

Who were the Moors exactly, and why were they so important? Joe wished he read more. Whatever he was saying, Tiago looked and sounded good

saying it, and Joe was touched that he was trying to give him his money’s worth. He had something that Joe had never experienced before. What was it?

Charm! It was his first time seeing charm in action up close and the effect it had on people, on him. There had been a drought of it most of his life, and now its effects were disorienting and overwhelming—but most welcome. After just a few hours with him, Joe felt closer to this lovely man than he’d felt to anyone. They had even held hands, which Joe had never done with anyone except maybe Connie when he was small, and they crossed a street.

They entered an airy room with walls covered in gleaming white and blue tile that pictured elaborate stories from history. Joe thought the tile, without all the stories, would work in his bathroom back home. Then he imagined shaving at the sink while he listened to Tiago singing in his shower as he rinsed Joe’s favorite shower gel, Cremo All Season No. 4, off his lean, furry body. Tiago, my love, Joe whispered to himself.

“What do you think?” He heard Tiago ask over the sound of imaginary running water.

Joe was startled. “Um. Nice,” he said. “I’ve seen this blue tile all around Lisbon.”

“Azulejos,” Tiago said. “Another thing we got from the Moors.”

They found themselves alone in an opulent bedroom, its gold-flecked walls absorbed and then reflected the sun pouring in through a large window draped in silk curtains. In its center stood a massive burgundy four poster, the kind of bed fit for a king, with matching, ponderous festoons dripping off its ebony bedposts. With the bed so close, Joe felt very, very tired and imagined lying down on it with Tiago, the two of them in a tender embrace as they drifted into sleep. They drove back along the coast to Lisbon in relaxed, intimate silence and parked on Rua Nova da Almada. They walked down the narrow street and passed an old bookstore that looked like it belonged on a movie set.

“We are back in Chiado, not far from the café we went to, a Brasileira,” Tiago said. “This bookstore, Livraria Ferin, began in 1840. Do you read very much?”

“No. Just trade magazines,” Joe said.

“Oh. I love this place. I had a reading here last year.”

“Nice,” Joe said. What was a reading?

Tiago looked disappointed, then recovered.

“Let us have a drink.”

They strolled a block or so south of the bookstore to Nova, a sleek wine bar. The door was open,

but the place was empty. The interior was woodsy, cool industrial chic with long blond plank tables and dark walnut shelves filled with hundreds of wine bottles. A short, sexy blond man with a goatee and a bodybuilder’s frame came out of the back and hugged Tiago, kissed his cheeks. Jeez, this guy knew everybody.

Tiago introduced him as Jose to the owner and chef, whose name was Pedro. He ordered a bottle of alvarinho and some tapas. Pedro and Tiago chatted intimately in Portuguese like old friends, and the chef giggled like a schoolgirl several times until he headed back to the kitchen to prep for the dinner crowd.

“So, my friend, I hope you are feeling better,” Tiago said.

“Oh, yes. Thank you.”

“You know, you are very relaxing to be with. You are very simpatico,” Tiago said.

“I think I know what simpatico means, and it’s good, right? I feel the same.”

“You are in sales, yes? Like me. Remind me, what exactly do you sell?”

“Restaurant supplies, refrigerators, ovens, plates, glasses, well, everything in this place.”

“I suspect that you are good.”

“I am the best restaurant supply salesman in New Jersey,” Joe said, echoing what the Arctic Air sales manager said when he handed him the prize check. It felt good to say it out loud. “Tell me about your work. What do you do at Luso Cafe?”

“Sales and distribution to wholesalers. It is very boring, but it pays well enough.”

“Do you like it?”

“Do you like your job?” Tiago asked.

“Yes. I do. ” Joe was happy to say.

“I do not feel the same way. I was, what is the word? Yes. Conscripted into service by my father-inlaw.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. His daughter was pregnant, and they wanted to make sure the princess would not go hungry, so we were married, and I went to work.” A cloud crossed Tiago’s face.

“Oh.”

“I love my daughter, Pia. She is ten years old and is the apple in my eye. The rest is not so good.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Joe said, not sure if he was, but he sensed Tiago’s distress.

“I am a writer, but now I am too busy to write. Her family thinks I am crazy, Que tenho macaquinhos na cabeça.” He made the international finger twirl sign for crazy. “They think that I have monkeys

in my head.”

“What do you write?”

“I write plays. Some of them have been produced. I like to write historical dramas. I would like to be on the West End and on Broadway. Do you go Broadway?”

“Yes.” He and Angelo went to Les Misérables years ago. Angelo skipped out at intermission and didn’t come home that night.

“My play, A Death in Coimbra, is about the murder of Ines, the mistress of Pedro the First.”

Joe lit up. “Oh, Pedro, the statue in the square.” He finally knew something!

“No. That is Pedro the Fourth. The first Pedro fell in love with his wife’s lady in waiting, Ines de Castro, and even after his wife died, he was not allowed to marry her. His father had her killed. The legend is that Pedro had her body placed on the throne. It is one of the great Portuguese love stories.” Tiago was his merry self again. His eyes really did sparkle.

“That sounds great,” Joe said.

“I can only imagine and write about such a grand passion, but I have never felt it. Have you?”

“No.”

“I feel it for life, for art, for people in general, for my daughter but not in that grand, romantic way for someone. I have had many romances but no great love.” Tiago took a sip of his wine and sighed. “My job is very tedious, but sou preso, I am, um, trapped. Pia is in private school, and it is expensive. I want to be independent, so I work with the hotel and do tours.”

“I understand.”

“That way that I get to meet interesting people. Like you!”

“Thank you,” Joe said and blushed.

“The value of things is not the time they last, but the intensity with which they occur. That is why there are unforgettable moments and unique people! That is from Pessoa too.”

“I like it,” Joe said.

“My wife and her father want me to quit writing. They say tira o cavalinho da chuva. But no, I am just taking a break for the moment.”

“What was that thing you just said?”

“Oh, sorry. Tira o cavalinho da chuva means take your little horse out of the rain. To stop dreaming.” He took a swig of wine and brought his palm down hard on the table. “But I will not!”

Joe instinctively reached for Tiago’s hand, then withdrew it.

“I am talking much too much. I am sorry.”

“I like listening to you,” Joe said.

Tiago smiled. “You are sweet.” He looked at his watch. “I will take you to another of my favorite places, and then I must go home.”

They got in the van and drove through narrow, twisty streets up steep hills and parked near a small park where a walkway led to a spectacular view of Lisbon.

“Miradouro de Sao Tiago de Alcantara,” Tiago said, waving his arm over the view. Lisbon sparkled below. “Sao Tiago. I am named after him. Saint Tiago. He was one of the Apostles, and he came to Spain to spread the word.”

Tiago draped his arm over Joe’s shoulder.

“You see why I love my Lisboa so much?” Tiago said. “You probably feel the same way about New York, yes?”

“Almost,” Joe said. All this beauty, he thought, just because I did my job and sold a few refrigerators. Without the HC55 Merchandiser, he would not have met this sweet man and felt the warmth of his lean body, the sensation of his furry arm across his shoulder, and the pain that tinged his charm and good spirits. Joe gasped as he realized that he had never felt this way before. This was love, and this is what it felt like. Finally! His spirits soared and plummeted in a dizzying and terrifying freefall.

They got in the van and drove through a few more twisty streets and wound up in a quaint, tiny square that looked familiar.

“One of my favorite places,” Tiago said. It was Shelter.

“I know this place,” Joe said.

“Yes?” Tiago placed his hand on the small of Joe’s back. It felt like it belonged there, and going through life without it from now on was unthinkable. Once they parted, once he got back to Moonachie, he would go back to being that cavalinho, the sad little horse in the rain. How terrible love is!

Shelter was busier tonight, the music louder, and there were two bartenders, a sexy bear with gray hair and a goatee in a red tank top, and there was Duarte, the sweet boy of all those cucumbers. Both bartenders lit up at the sight of Tiago, and he hugged each of them and kissed them on the lips.

Joe was startled. Back in the states he would have been shocked that this married man kissed men at a gay bar—but this was a new world, a better world, and he was immersed in it, for now.

“Would you like the Hendrick’s and cucumber again?” Duarte asked.

“You remember?”

“That is my job!” Duarte said with a smile.

“I will have the same,” Tiago said. They sat at the

bar.

“Thank you for today,” Tiago said. “You are very relaxing to be with. You do not say much, but I feel your good heart. Your voice is very soothing.”

“Thank you,” Joe sputtered. Yes, the Ianuzzi Process!

“You are like vitamin B to me, good for the nerve endings. You can be sad, but your eyes have a cintalacao… a twinkle.”

Joe’s ears rang. No one had ever said anything like that to him before. He always felt, believed that there was a twinkle inside him, and it kept him going, hoping for the best. No one had ever noticed it before. Tears welled in his eyes, then instantly dried up. He couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Have you made plans for tomorrow?” Tiago asked.

“No.”

“I can be available if you would like.”

“Yes! I would like that very much!”

“Formidavel!” Tiago said. “There is so much more to show you. And tomorrow there will be no tears. No saudades.”

Joe had polished off his gin and munched on the cucumbers left behind. Duarte set another drink in front of him. Tiago downed his and got another too. Shelter was cozy and inviting tonight, a pleasant mix of younger and older men involved in intimate conversations. Joe sipped his drink and smiled at it all, Duarte, the rest of the patrons, all of glorious Lisbon and its surprises. He was agreeably tired and agreeably buzzed.

“There is a free table by the window,” Tiago said. He took Joe’s arm and, with his hand on the small of Joe’s back, guided him to it. They sat and smiled at each other goofily.

“We have had a busy day,” Tiago said. “I hope you are happy.”

“Very,” Joe said. “Very, very. Oh, before I forget,” he took an envelope out of his jacket pocket and handed it to Tiago. It was the two hundred euros, plus an extra one hundred.

“Obrigadinho!” Tiago said and stuffed it, unopened, in his pants.

Joe looked at the placemat on the table, a picture of a man with a big black hat, Henry the Navigator, whoever he was. That made him happy too.

“I must leave soon. I want to get home in time to kiss Pia good night,” Tiago said. “I will take you to the hotel if you like.”

“Great!” Joe said. He tried to remember who Pia was. The murmur of Portuguese men’s voices blended perfectly with the old timey disco tunes

from the sound system. Tiago shifted in his chair and put his hands on the table.

“Well, my friend,” he said.

Joe leaned forward. “I know this is crazy… but… but I love you, and I want you to come back to the US and live with me.” He took a breath and kept going. “Being with you makes me happy, and I think I can make you happy. You said that thing about Vitamin B.”

Tiago’s eyes widened, and he took a deep breath. “But you know I am married and that I have a daughter, yes?”

“Yes, I do.”

Tiago set his drink on the table and looked down at the Henry the Navigator placemat as if his answer was going to come from it.

Joe knew that this was the end of them, that he had gone too far for the first time in his life. His body vibrated with anticipation and dread.

Tiago looked up and gazed into Joe’s face. He clasped both of Joe’s hands in his. He spoke slowly.

“You are a wonderful man, and I am flattered by your offer. I am sorry to say I cannot honor it. You understand.”

“Yes.” He did understand, but everything he had ever wanted, dreamed of in his life was before him right now. The thought of going back to his lonely,

spotless condo, sitting in traffic on the Garden State Parkway, was unbearable.

Tiago released Joe’s hands and stood up. Joe braced himself for something, a scolding, a slap, or just the sight of Tiago walking out of the bar and out of his life. That’s okay, he thought. I did it. I said what I wanted to say, and it’s not for him.

Tiago came to Joe and motioned for him to stand up. He did.

He took Joe’s face in his hands and kissed him on the lips, a warm wet, gin and cucumber-flavored kiss. Their mustaches were perfectly aligned, and their combined bristles felt like they made sparks.

Tiago ran his hand through Joe’s thin hair. “Now, sit back down, my friend. Let us have one more quick drink before I go home. I hope we are still on for tomorrow, yes?”

“Yes.” Joe sat back on the rickety chair. He looked at Tiago and smiled. Tomorrow, he would really lay on the, what was it? The cintalacao, the twinkle. He could extend his stay in Lisbon or—why not move here and get a job? There were so many restaurants in this beautiful city, and he was called the best restaurant supply salesman, after all. He would learn Portuguese and, if he played his cards right, he and Tiago would be together every day. This idea made him very, very happy.

Holding Danny’s Hand at the Crown & Anchor

I don’t know why I remember the pianist most, the elderly white man wearing too much makeup, blushing like my zinfandel as his fingers conjured showtunes from the baby grand’s rosewood belly.

I put my hand on top of Danny’s and he didn’t pull it away. I was 20; nobody in Ptown asked for ID, and while drinking in bars made me feel cool, what I wanted most was to be with Danny, who at 25 seemed like a man

who could teach me everything about love and sex and being gay in what, at the time, was being called “a post 9/11 world.” But my attention kept being drawn to the pianist, elder queer,

smiling at us, and I imagined he was thinking “Ah, young love,” or if that’s too much of a cliché, “Ah, what a time to be young & gay, & gay, things not as bad as before maybe,”

and though I didn’t want the pianist (too old, too much makeup), I wanted to be him when I’m old, even if it meant embracing a certain homeliness, a homeliness I knew Danny

would accept, since Danny accepted everything and was what I’d call, not hot, but cute, “relationshipcute,” like me, not one who turns heads, but one you’re more or less okay waking up next to most mornings.

The pianist’s fingers guided the strings away from the quiet triumph of “Being Alive” to the hazy lassitude of “Summertime.” I squeezed Danny’s hand, with the confidence of a 20-year old who hadn’t been carded all weekend.

— Michael McKeown Bondhus

Cruising the Piazza

by Ed of All People

I was a terrible cruiser and didn’t know how to walk up to guys and easily start the small talk that sent the correct signals to get something going that would lead to us walking home together. I was almost always the tallest one in the room, often the thinnest, and with my high voice and pronounced Adam’s apple, I’d walk through the bars and down the streets of Manhattan in the early 70s, and eventually San Francisco, looking like a long-haired hippy version of Ichabod Crane from “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” To top it off, I’d worn braces from age twenty six to thirty one, so when I did get the courage to sidle up to someone and speak, they had to look all the way up past my pointed Adam’s apple into a mouthful of bright shiny metal.

There was this really handsome guy who I would see from time to time on Castro Street. He was always with a group of guys, all of whom wore leather jackets as they roamed confidently through the streets together, hanging on each other in front of Toad Hall or The Pendulum or The Midnight Sun, an impenetrable wall of muscle and good looks and perfect moustaches. I once saw him coming out of the Castro Theatre alone after one of the Frameline Gay Film Festival screenings. The back of his leather vest said, “Daddy’s Leather Boy,” which was really intimidating, and he gave me an invitational look that lasted just for a moment and, since I was taller than him, taller than everyone else, I knew that a successful hunt and capture would have to begin with me saying the right thing or making the right move, but before I could imagine what that might be, he disappeared into the crowd and was gone.

In 1981 my braces finally came off, I saved some money, got a passport, and travelled to Europe for the first time. I intentionally went alone so I could see and do what I wanted to see and do. My itinerary included The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Italy and France. After spending time in Florence and Rome, I saved the best for last, and gave myself five full days in Venice to purposefully get lost, over and over again.

On my last afternoon there, as I was sitting in one of the outdoor cafes that border St. Mark’s Square, sipping a perfect latte, skimming through my Frommer’s Guide for inexpensive off-the-beatentrack things to do in Paris when I finally got there, I looked up. Directly across the Piazza I saw him, the handsome daddy’s boy from San Francisco, with his perfect moustache and leather jacket, leaning up against one of the marble columns of the Doge’s Palace, as if he was simply standing outside The Village Den or Moby Dick back in the Castro. He was staring intently at me and I nervously looked away for a moment, watching the other tourists raise their heads as clouds of pigeons swirled above them. When I looked again, he hadn’t moved, was still there, just staring at me, waiting. I looked back down at the Frommer’s Guide and in that moment got extremely disappointed with myself because I knew I just didn’t have it in me to walk across those ancient stones, work my way through the throng, and find the perfect thing to say or do. We stayed like that, on opposite sides of the square, staring at each other, looking away, staring at each other, looking away, until daylight finally faded and he disappeared.

Five years later I was working as a Shanti coun-

selor on the first designated AIDS unit in the world at San Francisco General Hospital. It was during the early days, when there was so little that could be done, and patients were often admitted extremely ill, never to go home again. I’d finished morning report and had been asked to check in with the new admittance, to see if he needed anything or would like to talk.

I knocked lightly on his door, let myself into the room, and found him lying on his side, facing the window. I moved quietly to the foot of the bed so

I could see better and stopped: it was him. I wasn’t sure what to do and thought about asking another counselor to see him, but I took a deep breath instead and slowly exhaled.

He’d lost weight and had clearly been through a lot. His eyes were closed and as I turned away to let him sleep, he opened them and looked at me.

“I’m one of the counselors here,” I said.

He lifted his head and nodded. He looked so sad.

I reached over, put my hand near his, and said, finally, “Hello. My name is Ed.”

The House We Left Behind

by Callen S. Sor

“Don’t look now, but that young man with the backpack ahead seems to be looking for trouble,” my husband David warned.

“What do you mean?”

“He’s been circling the park a few times already while we’ve been sitting on this bench. And he’s been eyeing us from time to time…rather furtively. You didn’t notice him?”

“Honestly, I haven’t,” I answered. It was true that my mind was somewhere else. We were coming to the end of our whirlwind trip in Siem Reap, Cambodia. We experienced so many sights and sounds as to leave us exhausted. We had just one more item on the bucket list, which I was thinking about. It was to see the old house, where I was born. My family was forced to abandon it in a hurry by the new political regime in 1975, when I was only a few months old. While planning this trip, my mother insisted that I visit the place and take a picture or two for her. It was a two-story stone house, built in the French colonial style. My parents worked so hard in their youth to purchase it. Besides reminiscing about her pride and joy of home ownership, my mother was also reliving her regret over its loss. Before we left for our trip, she wrote down the address and a brief description for me, lest I forget.

“Here he comes…” my husband whispered.

“I wonder what he wants with us two gentlemen of a certain age,” I responded.

“We’re not that old. You must say we’re an eyecatching pair, you being a handsome native, and me, a clueless farang from a faraway world,” David said, trying to be funny in a self-effacing way to wake me up from my daydreaming.

“People here must think I’m your tour guide, although my tie to this place is a thin thread and not of my own making. We’ll see…at least he doesn’t look threatening.”

“Good afternoon,” the young man greeted us with an easy smile. He was about seventeen and lithe in build. He had clear almond-shaped eyes and lush wavy black hair. His smooth dark skin tone was what Cambodians would call sra’am, a sign of beauty and of a likely mix of Khmer and Indian heritage. He was dressed in a faded beige T-shirt and black jeans.

“Hello,” David responded with an air of confidence.

“My name is Vithu. Do you speak English?”

“Certainly…we’re from San Francisco, California,” I answered. But quickly and discreetly, David tapped his elbow to mine, a secret signal warning me that I was giving a stranger an unasked fact about ourselves. As far as David was concerned, the word “certainly” was likely good enough.

“That’s wonderful. I’m a student at a local high school, and I’m in an intermediate English class. My teacher gave us an assignment to practice English after school with willing native speakers. Do you have a moment to help me practice English?”

“Sure, we’re indeed native speakers,” David answered.

“Thank you so much,” Vithu said, as he plopped himself on the edge of a low planter pot nearby and looked up at us. “That perch doesn’t look comfortable. Why don’t you sit down on the bench with us? We can make space,” David said.

“That’s OK. I like to be face-to-face to see how

you pronounce certain words,” he answered. “I didn’t have much luck yesterday, when I had some free time. The foreigners I’d asked knew only a little English, just for traveling.” After Vithu said that, the three of us became aware that different tour groups strolling by had been speaking Korean and Mandarin.

“You’re asking the right people today,” I said.

“If you don’t ask, you don’t get,” David chimed in.

“That’s an old idiom I learned from my teacher!” Vithu responded, happy with his recall.

“Is there any topic you’d like to talk about?” David asked.

“Maybe you can tell me your names and how you decided to visit my country? And we can go from there…”

“I’m Nimith and this is my partner, David,” I said, stressing my name on the last syllable as Cambodians would say it. Again, David tapped me at the elbow, concerned that I was sharing too much about us.

“Nimith is a Khmer name! Were you born here? Do you speak Khmer?

How did you end up in California? And by ‘partner,’ what did you mean?” Vithu asked excitedly.

“Whoa, one question at a time! Your English seems more advanced than I thought,” David said.

“Oh, I’m sorry…I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m just curious about people outside of Cambodia. Yes, my teacher said I’m her best student in English in a long while, but I feel that I still need a lot of help with it,” Vithu said.

“I was born here in Siem Reap,” I continued. “My family lived through the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime, and many of my relatives were killed during that time. When the regime fought with the Vietnamese force in 1979 and lost, we saw a chance to escape the chaos. I was four years old at the time. We fled to Thailand and stayed at a refugee camp, run by the United Nations. An American family then sponsored us to live in Philadelphia, a big city in the northeast part of the United States. When I became older, I moved to California for school. This is the first time that I return to Cambodia…to become reacquainted. It’s been thirty-six years since I left,” I tried to speak slowly and clearly.

“I’m sorry about your family. I do know about the regime’s shameful history. I’m glad your family got out safely and finally settled in a welcoming place,” Vithu said. He then pulled out a pen and a notebook from his backpack to jot down a few words. He told us that he was trying to improve his vocabulary by noting new words, such as “chaos,” “sponsor,” and

“reacquaint.” I helped to spell and define them for him, but he seemed to have understood them already by context.

“We were very lucky,” I added. “But it was hard to settle in a new country without knowing the language at first. In fact, my late grandmother never learned English beyond simple greetings. For this reason, I had to speak with her in Khmer and translate for her. In a way, her difficulty with English helped to keep the Khmer language alive in me.”

“I’m so glad you can still speak our native tongue. What about you, David?” Vithu asked.

“I’m just a simple corn-fed cowboy from the Midwest,” David answered.

Again, Vithu was writing down the term “cornfed cowboy” and looking puzzled.

“He meant to say that he was born and raised on a farm in Nebraska,” I paraphrased for Vithu.

“Yep, there’re all kinds of farms as far as the eye can see,” David continued. “But I prefer hiking in the mountains and sailing in the ocean of California,” David added.

“What do people grow in the farms you mentioned?” Vithu asked.

“Corn, wheat, barley, rye, soybean, cows, pigs, chickens, and other things, too. My folks mostly grew corn. Do you know what we meant by ‘the Midwest’ and where ‘Nebraska’ is?”

“Yes, we did study the geography of the US during our English class. My teacher, Ms. Holloway, taught us that Midwesterners are well known for having the clearest American accent and no-nonsense attitude. She came from Minnesota to volunteer her teaching, and so she should know,” Vithu answered.

David chuckled and beamed with pride. “I like your teacher a lot already, although I’ve never met her. Yes, we’re over-represented in the number of national TV reporters, because of the flawless way we yap.” I wondered if Vithu had appreciated David’s mix of pride with self-deprecating sarcasm. It looked like he did not, because he quickly asked me to explain the word “yap.”

“How did you both meet?”

“As students at the University of California, Berkeley,” David answered. “We were in the same technical writing class, although we had different majors…or fields of study.” Again, Vithu was writing down the word “majors” in his notebook.

“What were your majors?” Vithu asked, daring to use a new word he had just learned.

“Mine was biochemistry and his was ocean engineering,” I volunteered.

“Those fields sound very hard. I don’t know if

I’ve the brain to understand them. I prefer studying English and world history instead.”

“Do whatever rocks your boat…to each his own… live and let live! The world is more beautiful that way,” David said philosophically, trying to teach Vithu some more idioms. “For a timeless tale about my part of the world, you should read Willa Cather’s My Ántonia. It’s a quintessential American novel.” Again, Vithu was busy jotting down David’s idioms and suggestion.

“What did you mean earlier by ‘partner’ when you referred to one another?” Vithu continued, without missing a beat.

“You sound like a persistent TV reporter,” David observed.

“Oh, thank you,” Vithu innocently took the comment as a compliment. “My goal is to become a journalist…maybe a TV reporter or an international correspondent, specializing on Cambodia for the outside world.”

“What a fitting plan! You seem to have the curiosity and personality for journalism,” David said. He then turned to me to see if I have anything to add.

“To get back to your question, Vithu, we’ve been together, living as a family, for over twenty years. And we just got married this past fall, soon after same-sex marriage was allowed by the Supreme Court of the United States on June 26, 2015,” I answered proudly. This time David did not tap me at the elbow.

“Congratulations! What a historic legal decision… I even heard about it here. The US is such a leader in basic human rights. I’m so happy for you. I never met a married same-sex couple before. My teacher will be so amazed to hear my report. She said I tend to write on offbeat topics, often ignored by my classmates.”

“Report? You didn’t tell us about writing up our chat for a report,” David said, seeming surprised.

“Don’t worry. I won’t use your real names. I’ve to write only a short summary, just to practice English,” Vithu reassured us.

“That’s fine, but it’s better to declare your intention upfront. To be clear, we don’t want any of our personal details posted on any website or social media. These are just ways for indiscreet people to show off to the world every little moment of their lives. It’s pitiful to see their insatiable desire for attention. And they don’t care if a few technocrats make money off the postings,” David pontificated.

“David is just being a careful curmudgeon, Vithu. He really treasures his privacy. There’s no harm done with your report. We know you’re only trying to

learn,” I quickly commented, in order not to scare the student from continuing with the conversation. As I expected, I had to spell “technocrats” and “curmudgeon” and define them.

“Well, you’ve learned a lot about us. What about you and your family?” David asked.

“My life is very boring. That’s why I’m often here in this park, interviewing tourists,” Vithu answered meekly.

“I don’t believe it! I noticed a sparkle in your eyes when you were asking about our partnership. You must be dating someone special,” David teased the boy, rather invasively.

“I’m afraid I’ve never been lucky with love. It seems to run in my family. My own life is like a ‘comedy of errors’ in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

“We’d love to hear it!” David encouraged.

“I really like this one classmate, but he likes a girl, who’s after me instead,” Vithu sighed. “It’s all very complicated…with no winners. So, I’d rather finish my study first before getting too distracted and heartbroken. I hope that one day I’ll meet someone special and be able to get married as you both.”

“You’re still very young and will have lots of time to find the right person. When you’re ready, don’t be afraid to take a chance. That is, live in such a way as to avoid regrets,” I advised.

“What did you mean earlier that unluckiness with love seems to run in your family?” David asked.

“I was thinking about my father’s mother and my mother,” Vithu said. “When my grandmother was young, she was abandoned by a young man, who was the love of her life. This occurred at a time when her unplanned pregnancy was starting to show. He just disappeared without any trace or explanation.

After that, she spent her whole life searching for him. She blamed herself in many ways, such as not being loving or caring enough to keep him. She wondered if he was chasing after other women. She suspected someone might have killed him over a debt. She thought that the baby, who eventually became my father, might have become a big burden on their relationship. My grandfather also left her at a tough time, because it was during the civil war between the Khmer Rouge and other military factions. Later I heard that neighbors often had talked behind her back, saying that too easily she would stare at and approach other men who resembled him. They took pity on her but thought that she had no shame. And the fact that my father and I looked like my grandfather was quite hard on her. At times she became lost in thought after looking at us. And then she would

cry…even after many years.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that. Regret is a powerful and often helpless feeling,” I said. “Did she ever find your grandfather?”

“She almost did several years ago. With my help with the internet searches on my mobile phone, we learned of his name in a historical donation registry at a Buddhist temple, Wat Manahprasāda in Phnom Penh. It appeared that many years ago my grandfather was seeking advice from a sage there. As a gesture of thanks, he made a gift to the temple in the form of a few hand-carved Buddha statues. As soon as we knew this, my grandmother and my father travelled on a motorcycle to speak with the sage. She brought with her the only photograph of my grandfather, in black and white, to show the sage to help his memory. It was a picture of my grandfather as a young man. To her sadness, the old sage’s eyes were too cloudy to see anything. It did not matter to the sage, though, because his memory was still sharp. He stated my grandfather was already old when they had met. The sage recalled all that my grandfather had shared with him about some disturbing dreams. The sage suggested to him to return to his birth village of Phūm Sdao in Battambang province to learn about his youth in hope of explaining the dreams. But my grandfather never came back to update the sage.”

“And then what happened?” I asked.

“Instead of returning home, straightaway my grandmother and father continued their trip to look for my grandfather at the small village. On their way, they became drenched in a monsoon. Their motorcycle hit a large pothole, where they fell. A truck behind them swerved to avoid them, but it still crashed into them before they could get away. They died at the scene. At least, that’s what I learned from the police report.”

“We’re so sorry, Vithu. What a tragedy!” I said.

“Yes, I’m sorry, too. That indeed was awful,” David added. “Did you ever find your grandfather at Phūm Sdao?”

“Yes, but it was too late. My mother and I learned later that he had already died some years ago in a fire at a hut on a lotus farm. So, we never had a chance to know him. Now you know what I meant when I said that some relatives were not so lucky with love.”

“Did your family ever get back the heirloom picture of your grandfather?” David wondered. Vithu asked us to spell “heirloom” for him.

“Yes, the police returned to us all the belongings they could find at the accident scene. Unfortunately, my grandfather’s one-and-only photograph dissolved in the rain.”

“What a terrible loss for your family,” I added.

“Yes, and I wasn’t smart enough to snap a picture of the original with my phone before they left to look for my grandfather. But I recently tried to sketch him from memory.”

As he said that, Vithu started scrolling through the pictures in his phone to show us a drawing of his grandfather, but the phone rang instead. It was his mother, and she wanted to know when he would be home for dinner. While the boy was speaking with her, I fished out my own mother’s note about our old house to plan a visit there the next day. She had written:

“Rue Chapentière 3, at the fourth cul-de-sac north of the Royal Independence Gardens, between the Siem Reap River to the east and Charles de Gaulle boulevard to the west. The front entry has teak double doors, carved in the style of a bas-relief of four dancing apsaras at Angkor Wat.”

The description sounded clear enough to find the house, especially when we were already sitting at the Royal Independence Gardens.

When I looked up, I saw a cloud of hundreds of sizable fruit bats, circling above giant fig trees nearby and shrieking in unison. They must be waking up and readying themselves for another night feasting on tropical fruit. While I wondered at the natural scene, Vithu announced, “My mother is inviting both of you to dinner. She always wanted to chat with someone like Nimith, who returns to see the old country. She is making stir fried ginger with eel, called cha kñei ontuong, to have with rice. And dessert is a steamed pumpkin with coconut custard, called nom sangkyá l’pov. Would you please join us?”

“Thank you for the kind invitation, Vithu. I don’t know. We’ve had a long day,” David said, looking at me, as if to say it was my turn to decide.

“Please come…it’s evening and you need to eat dinner anyway. This way, we can continue with our chat. My house is nearby. We also have grilled beef with lemongrass for a cowboy like you,” Vithu added, addressing David.

“It’d be a pleasure to join your family for dinner. It’ll be our first time visiting a local home here,” I answered.

“That is terrific. My mother will be very pleased!”

As we headed to Vithu’s home, I insisted on getting something nice for his mother or for dinner. Although he dismissed the need for a gift, culturally I knew better than to show up empty-handed to a dinner invitation. On our walk on Pokambor Avenue along the river, I was concerned about getting something appropriate. I could only see family

stores selling clothes, cell phones, and housewares. I was relieved to find a fresh flower shop. I bought half a dozen colorful lotus flowers and an elongated glass vase in the shape of a traditional Khmer racing boat. The latter was David’s idea, because being a sailor, he had a fondness for all things nautical. The bow was in the shape of the head of a mythical bird called hongsa, and the stern was its stylized curvy tail. The flowers would suspend in water perfectly in the well of the hull.

It was dusk but the streetlights were not yet lit as we arrived at Vithu’s home. It was among the first houses in a cozy alley after we turned from the main riverside road. It had two stories and an overhanging balcony on the top floor. I could see that many clothes and sheets were still hanging to dry on the balcony, luffing like mainsails in a gust. The front wall was made up of dark metal panels, including the door itself. On entering, it was obvious that Vithu’s mother worked as a tailor. Several sewing machines, rolls of fabric, spools of thread, and scissors of different sizes lined the walls. Vithu did not like it that the front of the house was so public during the day. Customers could show up anytime and would come and go as they please.

As soon as we entered the second section of the house, the savory smell of fried ginger and garlic greeted us. It was only the dining area, because the kitchen was deeper still. The sounds of sizzling ingredients and metal spatula hitting the wok repeatedly reminded me of my own mother’s kitchen at this time of day. Vithu called to his mother, but it was his maternal aunt, Kunthea, who was cooking. She said that Vithu’s mother had gone upstairs to remove the clothes and sheets from the balcony, because the only man of the house had neglected to do his job. Vithu appeared quite embarrassed and claimed that once again he was busy learning English. We vouched for him that it was true. His aunt responded that he was forgiven, only because he was still a boy.

Vithu’s mother, Vandy, was around our age. She wore her hair in a tidy bun and dressed elegantly to receive us as guests. She begged us to excuse the cramped place and its state of disrepair. Since it had become a “widow’s house,” repairs were often neglected due to her limited income. She told us that her late husband and mother-in-law had settled at the house in the early 1980’s, after their return from an unsuccessful attempt to enter a refugee camp along the west border. Many other people in a similar plight had claimed the abandoned houses throughout the city. This one had had severe damage

from a rocket hitting its roof, and so it remained unclaimed at the time. The mother and son cleaned up the place and rebuilt it over many years. After living there for about a decade, they received the title deed from the newly formed government.

During dinner, Vithu and I were busy translating for his mother, his aunt, and David. The ladies wondered what had fascinated us during the trip. We told them that we had visited the ancient ruins of Angkor Wat and other temples, the Old Market, the Night Market, Pub Street restaurants, the traditional arts and crafts workshop of Artisans D’Angkor, and many other cultural sites. We also took a boat ride on the freshwater lake of Tonle Sap.

Being Westerners, they urged us not to forget to attend the moving rendition of Bach cello suites by the memorable Dr. Beat Richner, the Swiss founder of Kantha Bopha Children’s Hospitals. We told them that we had already done so. All toasted the doctor’s kindhearted effort to uplift the health of the children in the country.

Although we were meeting for the first time, their warmth made me feel like I had found some long-lost relatives. At the end of dinner Vandy revealed that she had high hopes for her son, because he was the top student in his high school, not just in his “advanced” English class. At that moment David and I glanced at one another and then at Vithu, having caught his fib about being in an “intermediate” English class. We were not really surprised by his achievement, especially when he could converse so well and had even referred to two of Shakespeare’s plays. He apologized, stating that he had always been insecure about his ability and did not want to be judged poorly. David reassured him that a little insecurity could be useful as a motivation to better oneself. Everyone laughed when we said we would forgive him for the fib, only because he was still a boy. * * *

February 22, 2016

Dear Mother,

This notecard will likely arrive in Philadelphia after David and I have already returned to San Francisco.

I’m writing to tell you that my uneasiness about this trip has faded. No longer are my thoughts overwhelmed by the sense of heaviness of visiting a graveyard, one unmarked and forgotten, in visiting our old country. Although so many in our family died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, I came to see that their suffering and deaths were not for naught: Their lives and remains enriched this motherland,

which they once proudly called home. In a strange way, their final selfless act after death shames and vanquishes the evil deeds of their torturers. This land is still our home.

David was right to nudge me to make this trip upon marking my fortieth year on this earth. Maybe our attempt to forget this old country of ours for over three and a half decades is long enough, for a damned history no one could ever change. Maybe it is time to use the thin thread we still have to this place to weave a stronger tie. And maybe you should come also to see this place for yourself. Our motherland is alive with warm people, who in their many ways have moved on.

Love, —Nimith

PS: 1) The picture on this notecard shows the ruins of a library at Angkor Wat. My heart ached at learning that all the old palm leaf scrolls had rotted in the tropical clime a long time ago. 2) Tomorrow, our last day here, David and I will go find the house we left behind.

The next day David and I went to search for my mother’s old house.

Despite her detailed description, we were lost. We carefully counted the cul-de-sacs north of the park, but there were no Rue Chapentière, no house number 3, and no such carved teak double doors. We seemed to end up repeatedly at an alley named Reiyum, and many houses lacked numbers. I crossed the street to ask an old man, who was sitting behind the counter of his used tool shop. He had no customers at the time, and he appeared immersed in reading an old tome through his thick glasses. His carefree stoop, with his chin resting on both hands, gave me a feeling that he had been there for a long while, not only in his chair but also in the neighborhood.

“Excuse me, sir, could you please tell me where I may find Rue Chapentière?” I asked in Khmer. As I glanced down on his counter, I noticed that he was lost in “Regret,” a short story in Les Œuvres Complètes de Guy de Maupassant. Next to him in a small bookshelf, there were other faded titles such as Molière’s Le Misanthrope, Voltaire’s Candide, Sand’s Ce Que Disent les Fleurs, random volumes of Proust’s À la Recherche du Temps Perdu, and a few others. All seemed to be arranged chronologically and free of dust.

“You must be a long-lost native son to ask such a question,” the old man said, scanning me from head to toe. “During colonial times, many carpenters

settled on this street to make it easier for them to share certain tools. One of these folks was my very own grandfather. The French admired their artistry and named this cul-de-sac Rue Chapentière in their honor. But the name was changed at the end of the civil war in the early 1990’s to help erase the reminder of colonialism. The people on this alley chose the name Reiyum or ‘crying cicada,’ because there’re a few plane trees on the sidewalk that host the critters’ emergence. In the old days, you could see many houses adorned with intricately carved teak doors, handcrafted by my grandfather and others, but all of these were damaged and used as firewood during the war.” After telling me that, tears appeared to well in his eyes. He looked away in silent helplessness and then closed the book he was reading.

“What a sad story about the carvings…on top of everything else about the terrible war! Thank you for sharing with me this history,” I said, acknowledging his twinge of sorrow. “Do you know which house is number 3?”

“The one I saw you go into last night!” the old man answered, rather stunned at my persistent ignorance. To be sure, he pointed to a house across the street. “You were looking up at the balcony as if remembering a time long gone, while your companion here was talking with the boy of that house, Vithu.”

I turned around to look at the house. I had trouble recognizing it in the glaring sun. The vasiform balustrade of the balcony was no longer hidden behind hanging laundry. The front rusty metal panels were now opened, and a few customers were waiting to be served. From the corner of my eye, I realized that my husband had already taken pictures of it for my mother.

* * *

The history of the house and the street was swirling in my mind as David and I walked to the Old Market to find a few last-minute souvenirs to bring home. I only stopped thinking about it when we spotted Vithu again in the park. This time he was speaking with an old Caucasian couple, who were sitting on the same bench where we had sat. Both seemed guarded. The man had his hands in his pockets. The woman was clearly clutching her purse quite close to her chest. They probably had not warmed up to him yet, but I had no doubt that they would soon. Vithu perched again on the edge of the low planter pot by the bench and looked engaged, as he had been with us. From afar, the young man’s pose, with pen and paper in hands, and the flow of his curls appeared to show him looking up, a bit beyond their sparse gray hair, at all the possibilities within his reach.

What I carry

on my shoulder is a harp, a lyre, Irish maybe, classical, a song

in skin and ink. On my lower back a kind of map that looks like a crescent moon and a star—

the moon’s a route that comes back, almost, to where it began, three river crossings on the white sliver like notes on a thin stave,

something a faith healer prayed over and left on my great uncle’s bed when he died as a teen.

My great-grandmother kept it, then my grandmother, and then her daughter, my aunt, gave it to me. They called it the tinkers’

cloth, the Irish folk who came through every year, camped under a tree behind the house, which is somewhere on that map.

I took it before I left. Cut off now, I’ve got that history, that home carved into my skin, carry it with me where I go.

—Ed Madden

Dear Seattle

by That Boy from Kentucky

Dear Seattle,

First off, thanks for being patient. I know it was supposed to be just the two of us that April. The boy (me) getting over an intense breakup and the city (you) full of new sights to see. Though, if I’m being honest, I picked you because he said we should visit. Before we broke up. A bit of spite, I admit, that I got to you without him.

And I tried to keep it simple. I swear I did. That boat tour with the funny guide telling jokes about the local weather while the wind whipped through my hair. The sun shining bright from your sky like you had no intention of ever letting it rain. Pike Place Market’s bright red cherries and those little donuts covered in cinnamon. The spring flowers blooming at Volunteer Park Conservatory after I got on the wrong bus and ended up way out. I’m sure you had a good laugh with that one. You’re welcome. That sad boy from Kentucky lost on public transit. Keep it between us, will you? Don’t tell the other cities.

But then, there was the hotel office suite and the urge to see who lived there with you. Despite my vow to push aside all possible distractions. And maybe, I was thinking about the breakup again. I couldn’t help it and still didn’t understand what happened. You were doing your best to make me feel better, but I forgot that, briefly. A few hours later, I let that man I met on Yahoo Chat come pick me up and take me to the movies. It was in those days just before smart phones came with sex and dating apps that made things easy. His name was David, remember? The one with the shaggy brown hair.

He bought me a tub of popcorn I drenched in butter at the free self-buttering station. They didn’t have things like that where I came from. He kissed me five minutes in, and I ignored the rest of the movie.

So, I let it be just David and me. For a minute, anyway. We traded stories, sifted through each other’s iPod playlists, bonded over Tori Amos infatuations among other, more physical exchanges. No one got her the way we did. The way her voice evoked so much emotion. And I forgot, for a second, that I was only there temporarily. I forgot the sad part of the sad young Kentuckian.

You weren’t gone from me, though. I promise. You were there in places I’d never dreamed of seeing when I agreed to see David again a few nights later. I’d never heard of a gayborhood, Capitol Hill, or restaurants with martinis in every color of the queer spectrum. That trough full of ice in the bathroom to pee on. Boys with glitter-streaked eye shadow and unabashed openness. Queer bookstores and drag shows in more places than I could count. Parts of you I’d never have seen without David there to show me.

So, then it was the three of us, and I’m sure you didn’t really mind. On a tear to see everything possible my last night before a six A.M. flight. And maybe, that’s the way it was supposed to be, the fog in your air that morning, the kiss goodbye in front of the airport terminal. We promised to stay connected, David and I, to meet up to see a Tori show the next time she toured. It hasn’t happened. Not yet anyway. An email or two filled with friendly hellos before drifting back to separate, ordinary lives.

But you, Seattle, stayed just as you were. In memory, in light, in possibility. Just the two of us— (me) that boy from Kentucky and (you) the city that let him find a moment of peace.

A million thanks are not enough, but they will have to do.

Thank you for everything, That Boy from Kentucky.

Maghreb

by Jasper Lawson

Snow and suffering. The brown grass at the airport was covered in snow. We survived getting to Terminal 1 at JFK after arriving from Boston to a mild blizzard and interrupted shuttle service which led to a lot of pushing to get onto buses that replaced the automated tram. Then there was the usual Transportation Security Administration rigmarole.

The group is twelve women and four men. Extroversion is ascendant with much noise and chatter.

Despite the snow and the temporary failure of the plane’s electrical system. We were able to arrive two hours later than planned in Casablanca. We stopped to take pictures of the largest mosque in the world named for Hassan II the former king of Morocco.

Under the travelling while black file, a comment from one of the ladies to me. She was mildly ranting about not seeing the inside of the Mosque Hassan II. Visitors are only allowed on certain dates and times and now she was feeling cheated since she had paid for the promised tour. And, she said, “I think it’s just niggardly the way they treated us”. She followed with, “No offense to you, Jasper”. And I said, I’m not sure whether it is etymologically connected to black people. I need to look it up when I get back”.

brown man who speaks English, Berber, French and Arabic. The education systems, both public and private are based on the French system which results in a highly educated cohort and high unemployment.

We witnessed a demonstration to demand more employment opportunities from the government, not unlike the Occupy Movement in the United States. The police did not attack anyone. The crowd was loud, vigorous and peaceful. The youthful population is rapidly growing.

Best travel story. The storyteller swore that it really happened. A French friend was traveling in China but could not speak Chinese. She brought her little dog to a restaurant and tried to pantomime that she wanted a meal for her dog and herself. The waiter took little Fluffy away and returned about a half-hour later with a well-roasted canine-perverse enough to be true.

We are now a group of four men and twelve women—all sixty years or older. So, we get two heterosexual couples and a gay male couple. A few widows (Killed them off) and divorced women (Had enough of their men). Three definite lesbians, possibly four.

Mustapha, our tour guide is a taller, handsome

Oh, the joys of being a gay man here. Many of the men here are dark, hairy and sexy. Every day is an opportunity for new fantasies. It appears to be one of those discreet, sexually repressed societies that scorn open homosexuality, but two men sitting sideby-side at a table or walking together holding hands does not get a second look. The cafes are mostly filled with men smoking cigarettes and drinking mint tea; whereas the women are at home or at work well-covered up with jackets, scarves, floorlength caftans and long skirts. Hearing frequently declines with age. Mustapha begins his lecture at the royal tombs and starts to talk about the Black Sultan and his Abyssinian mother when someone popped up with,” Did you say the black sausage?” He broke out in a burst of laughter and continued to laugh for a while before he could go on. The group laughed with him. It became the running joke for the day as when we entered a restaurant with large, iron black scissors hanging on a door: “Are those for cutting the black sausage?”.

Tonight, I get to try Casablanca beers. Despite koranic prohibitions a variety of beers, wines and liquors are available. So far, the meals have been pretty good. We can hear the call to prayer as the meal is being served. Mustapha asked me how I was doing. I said, “I’m having a great time lots of amusement for me”. He said, “I can tell Your eyes are laughing”. He’s on my list. He told us more about his personal life.

His first child, a son, was born six months ago.

His wife did not finish her university studies. Was this because she left to get married or was not motivated to finish her degree program? He has a Batchelor’s degree in English literature. His favorite book is Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo.

1-24-2014

Volubilis. Volubilis. I expected a few ruined columns as we headed toward this city that was a Roman outpost. It was much more than that. Instead, it was a large city that is now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The local guides are well-trained and must take licensing exams before they are approved to lead tours. Mr. Abdul gave us detailed descriptions of architectural details in the bedrooms, baths, atria and vomitorium. He joked that vomitorium preceded bulimia and related eating disorders. Many of the mosaic tile floors were intact. One of the floors featured a complete depiction of the twelve labors of Hercules.

This is another melting pot country. The people’s features range from dark Sub-Saharan Berbers to pale Mediterranean. The younger men, except for the smoking, appear to be in good physical shape.

Today we hit the souk or marketplace. It was another experience in envelopment—a maze of narrow streets with not much room to move, but people seemed mindful of personal space. The habitual hustlers were constantly approaching us to buy Kleenex, jewelry, wooden boxes or clothes. A few sad-looking beggars sat outside of the mosque with out-stretched hands. A caravan of donkeys laden with large burlap bags passed by.

The government reforms are stunning in comparison to other Arab countries. The king, Mohammed VI is a powerful figure in a constitutional monarchy. The country’s motto is “God, King and Country.” Mustapha told us that recently the king disbanded all of the madrasas or Koranic schools. The king reportedly viewed the madrasas as breeding grounds for extremist views and has not integrated them into the National University and Public Education.

Mustapha then took us to a kindergarten religion class whose teacher was a young woman wearing a modest headscarf. The usual teacher would have been an Iman.

Our visit with a local family through Overseas Adventure Travel went well. The wife Nadia prepared a delicious local meal of pasta soup with meatballs and flan for dessert. The Father, Mohamed, a forty-year-old accountant rejected the

business world to follow his father’s footsteps. He and his brother now own a large farm. However, he also said that he did not want his son to be a farmer because it’s too much like gambling for a living.

He now lives in an urban apartment with his wife, fifteen year old daughter, absent this evening, and eight year old daughter. We surfed around a variety of topics. He was surprised to learn that gay marriage was legal in Massachusetts. Politically he appeared to be a moderate who supports the King and his reform efforts. He believed that the Republicans were too impatient with Obama in view of the previous eight years. He sends his son to a private school and his daughter to a public school. Secondary education is free if you pass the university entrance examination.

1-26-2014

A day of contrasts. We were on the bus for about eight hours with stops to meet people who live in the area. Our first stop was a ski resort in the Atlas Mountains. The city is the home of the Two Brother’s College, Morocco’s most selective university with an English-speaking curriculum. Graduates pursue careers in business and international relations. One of our group did some on-line research which said that the king and the government control forty-five percent of the Gross National Product.

We then moved on to visit a semi-nomadic family. We bring hospitality gifts to the families. The gifts can include things such as school supplies, basic clothes like hats or T-shirts or non-perishable food items. The family included two women, two men, a one-and-a-half-year-old boy and a sixmonth-old girl. The two women married the two brothers who are sheep herders. They all live together in a three-room wooden house with plaster walls and a straw roof. We walked down a muddy road to get there. They have a radio and a television.

The women said that they had each chosen to have one child due to economic circumstances. They will move to another temporary house near the end of February. They appear to be tenant farmers who get paid for seasonal work. I wondered what their aspirations were for their children. They only question that they asked us is: “Where are you going next?”

As we headed toward the Sahara Desert the landscape became sparse with large red rock formations. Small adobe villages resembled those in the American Southwest. A few women were wearing burkas, but most of them wore scarves and long dresses.

Top: "Martha's Vineyard: trees." Bottom: "Waiting (West Oakland Station): suitcase."

Photographs by Michael Starkman.

Hook-Up

For D

Careful, without a care in the world, we played safe and risky this summer afternoon, the used fan rotating air along our flesh as we ground into the floor and sweat of restraining lips, crafting formlessness, blossoming surrender and submissive assertion. The wristwatch on the rug caught light, let time slip between its radiating hands, and not a word uttered except the moans of yesyesyes and the panting that thought harder deeper oh god but said nothing, unencoded intuition of fingers and tongues, frustration’s let’s rest for a minute Cronwall, HOOK-UP (2) before moments-later devouring, crisp memory, clasped raw and ready for the finish line, expecting the unanticipated. With no more words than an admission of what we had wanted, sought, and missed so far, let go into the bright wind, sun-flamed like fronds outside the window, and the fan still caressing as we later lay beside each other without touching, only listening to sweat fall and the finish begin as the world rotated in caring indifference.

—Brian Cronwall

Dateline: Global Gathering Radical Faeries, Cape Town, South Africa, 2020

By: Silver Unicorn

Palimpsest: a piece of writing on which the original writing has been effaced to make room for later writing but of which traces remain; something reused or altered bearing visible traces of its earlier form.

It seems right now, looking back, that I was staying in the Palimpsest Room, for in my travels to South Africa and in meeting him, I would be scraped, reused and altered, only traces of myself remaining.

The room itself had a small desk, Nespresso machine, handful of colored capsules, mismatched china cups for two, sugar, powdered creamer, demitasse spoons, a simple luxury in a tidy, small room. An oval wood-framed mirror hung by an arc of wire above the desk, loosely threatening to pull itself off the wall and escape. A wooden chair, and a narrow, tall wooden wardrobe that was surprisingly deep. (I smiled at myself as I looked to see if there was a door in the back to slip through into some other world. There wasn’t. That would, it turned out, come through the front door.)

A simple bed, that would prove sturdy. The high, double window across from the pale sunny yellow door (was it yellow?) poured light into the room. At waist high it reached nearly to the ceiling, light and insulation from Kloof Street below bustling with traffic, exhaust, horns, passersby, the shouts and urgency of lives in Cape Town.

into the bedroom in a house-of-mirrors trick given how small the entire room was. The bathroom was separated from the bedroom by a wood-frame, white sliding door with opaque glass, that revealed shadows and form when closed, but without distinction.

The South African summer light sprayed us from the window and mixed with the glare and urgency of desire. Breathless. I realized I had cornered him between window and bed, if one were thinking in that way.

The cramped bathroom had a small sink and mounted pump soap dispenser threatening to detach and clatter to the floor with each pump. A small corner shower with pretty, ocean-blue tile, aged, uneven, and itself overwritten with caulk. The shower opening was a modern-looking flimsy sliding plastic-metal door, that I couldn’t get past without the cold clattering shock of its sting on my skin as I slipped in - ass? belly? dick? or all three in quick succession trying to avoid the other. The toilet snugged against the wall without room to linger, and from which I couldn’t see

The rough wooden floor overwrote the room below. The light shone through the floorboards, the gaps allowing dirt and dust to fall through when housekeeping swept it onto the hapless inhabitants below. I never saw any movement, or overheard its occupants fucking, arguing, or the quieted hush of conversation trying to hear me, what would become us. I wondered if I might get a splinter from the rough wood, but never did, despite not wearing shoes, loving the rough feel of the wood against my bare feet. The space felt comforting, snug, and secure rather than cramped. It was just what one (maybe two?) needed. Simple utility. It wasn’t sparse, and it wasn’t posh. Warm. Intentional. Picture frames near the door and full-length mirror, hung with writings, palimpsests, overlays of paper as if pasted over each other. A bit cute, but true to theme. To be honest, I had to look up “palimpsest.” I’d heard the word before, but thought it described a courtier, or dandy - in my mind, a young fay man in teal tights, a velvet blue vest, blousy white pirate shirt and a cap with a long feather. I was dismayed that I didn’t know it’s true meaning. When I found out, I was pleased for the practicality of reuse, washing away of something valued to be written over for another work, with traces remaining from before. Depth, newness, and an honoring of what was with what was possible. It appealed to the detective, and the snoop in me wanting to uncover lost secrets. And, surely that part of me that had kept my own secrets so well through my life (I miswrote “my life” as “my lie” just now. Fitting). It offered me a chance of redemption, that I might be

written over, created anew into something of value, something, someone, desired.

He arrived at the door (yes, I’m sure it was yellow) with a clear, quiet knock. I’d heard his hard, black dress shoes popping and creaking his weight up the loose wooden hotel stairs and on the bare wood hallway into a shared, narrow entryway at right angles with the room next to mine. Quiet. My face close to the door. Was that heat radiating from the door, or impossibly radiating from him through the door? I waited a moment before opening it. It’s black-painted vintage door handle rattled cool in my hand. I turned it and pulled the door open. My breath caught. Even if I had known then he was to erase, rather than overwrite me, changing the words and imprint in my life, I would have welcomed the inevitability of him.

He paused in the angular hallway a moment longer as we squared up what we had seen on Grindr with the two originals in place now. Who would overwrite whom? Who would become the overlay, who would be washed and scraped leaving only traces of the other, to become a new work of texture, color, beauty and timelessness?

The damp perspiration from his ebony face was the first washing away. We kissed quickly as he entered the room. I smelled his clean sweat and the city below. From his perspiration I thought his skin would be hot or warm, but it was cool, his lips full. My hand on his waist instantly felt his slim curved taut hips and flat tummy beneath his damp shirt. He slipped into the room with catlike energy and alertness, as if looking for more space for his tall frame, or perhaps an exit, just in case. He quickly crossed the small space and found himself in the corner between the bed and the window. There was nowhere to go from here! I had followed too quickly, not knowing how this would start. The South African summer light sprayed us from the window and mixed with the glare and urgency of desire. Breathless. I realized I had cornered him between window and bed, if one were thinking in that way. I didn’t want him to feel trapped. He was looking around seemingly confident, but his eyes were nervous, unsure, as though he could have leapt across the bed in a single bound for space, or the door, to create time to decide what was next. It is like that, these immediate character assessments, in minutes two strangers known up to now only by a few chat messages, would be naked in the most intimate and carnal overwritings of one another. One had to decide quickly—Safe? Compatible? Sexy? Desirable? Mistake? Good smell? Bad smell? Chemistry? Catfished? Two bottoms? Two tops? But then in a breath, it slowed. Somehow, beyond

the what-ifs, and the fear, our bodies, without even touching, found the page together. Here, now, there wasn’t any original to overwrite. We were making it up as if we’d been writing each other from time’s start.

His elegant South African accent: “I walked up from the museum. I’m a bit sweaty. It’s faster than taking a car at this time of day” he said, at once making sense of a lack of money and the cost of a taxi. “Makes sense” I said. “Would you like to shower?” “Yes!” he gasped.

I stepped back to let him pass, taking a breath, my body already opening, finding his internal rhythm, slowing myself, and said “in there” pointing to the bathroom, as if anyone needed a guide in a space where all was exposed. I said “do you want to shower together?” although I had already showered and prepped my ass before he arrived, but longing for the sensuality of a soapy shower as a way to learn his body, and break the nervous intimacy - I thrilled at the thought. He didn’t hear, or pretended not to. He took off his suitcoat near the bed, placing it neatly on the hanger I offered him, removed his worn shoes, and thread bare socks. His worn, shiny trousers also folded, and his cared for collared white shirt slipped off his thin broad shoulders, was hung. It was dreamlike, pulsing desire and his studied calm disrobing.

He slipped into the bathroom seemingly as if I weren’t there, or forgotten, or now his audience. In the bathroom, he slid the door halfway closed (strategically, I mused). I sat on the bed scant feet away in my underwear and tank-top, hard, at ease and breathless, marveling at the view of him delightfully glimpsed behind the glass and half-opened door. He pulled off his t-shirt, fiddled with the shower, a hand in to test the water. He pulled down his gray underwear quickly, the elastic overstretched and worn, and dropped them to the floor revealing his lithe body for the first time, the full length and arc of his generous cock, the strong curve of his ass, legs so long as to defy logic or proportion. A glimpse to me through the open door. Was that a smile? A knowing of what might unfold between us? With quiet confidence in his nudity and what he possessed, he slipped into the shower, the door’s rattle cold sting where I longed to kiss—ass, belly, dick. The water dripped and slapped off his skin to the tile below.

It was then I knew, we would erase and rewrite each other, again and again behind that yellow door. And we did, blissfully and brutally in the invisible, indelible, and disappearing ink of our hearts, cum, sweat, and tears.

Faeries Cover the Globe

by Hammer

Recently I received a personal note from a Pakistan Faerie on a WhatsApp platform for Faeries who have attended Global Gatherings and want to stay in touch. He lamented the new restrictive anti-LGBT laws in Iraq. They are horrible laws, punishing people just for being queer or for men acting “effeminate” in public. To read about the horrible repressive laws being passed by these authoritarian regimes in the New York Times or The Guardian is one thing, but it is an entirely different impact when Faerie friends who live in these countries send pleas of exasperation and desperation. Many of us who attended the Global Gathering in South Africa experienced this same horror when Uganda passed the backwards repressive

anti-LGBT laws last year. We had Faerie friends who could not leave their compound during the day for fear of violence. They had to sneak out in the middle of the night for food and supplies. We sent them money to help them survive. Ghana has since passed similar hate legislation.

Having attended four of the Global Faerie Gatherings since 2014, I have an immense appreciation for the global tribe the Radical Faeries have become. My Faerie community now extends from the southernmost tip of Africa to St. Petersburg, Russia; from Argentina and Columbia to Alaska; from all over the US and Europe to Taipei, Beijing, and much of Asia, Turkey, Israel, and Palestine. We continue to network extensively and build deeper global community. Many of us have closer bonds with queer folks on the opposite side of the planet than we do with our heterosexual neighbors.

Traveling and gathering the world as an authentic Radical Faerie has brought me great joy and a deep sense of fulfillment and belonging. Some-

times this travel includes far off places like Estonia or Vietnam, sometimes it is a trip to the annual Faerie gathering in Austin Texas.

In 2016, my lover and I headed to Europe in search of a site for the second Global Gathering. We had not visited Europe before and had few contacts in advance, but we networked with the Albion Faeries and the Folleterre Faeries and found fantastic warmth and hospitality all over Europe and the UK Faeries were super generous, offering to host us and share their local queer scene. We had fabulous experiences everywhere we stayed: London, Glasgow, Amsterdam, Vienna, Athens, Basil, Paris, Featherstone Castle, and Folleterre Sanctuary in France. I was overwhelmed by the friendship and deep community we encountered. Most of these folks are close friends today. I did some calculating a month after we returned home and realized that of the 102 days of our journey, we spent twenty days total at two different Faerie gatherings, eighteen days in hostels or guest houses, and sixty-four days as welcomed guests in Faeries homes. The generosity was heartening and of course made the trip more affordable and so much more fun.

On February 29th this year I attended the wedding of two Faeries who met and fell in love in South Africa. One Faerie is from South Africa

and the other from the US They tried living in South Africa three years, but for economic reasons recently migrated to the US The wedding was in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where I stayed with an old

Top: "South African Gathering Faeries" by Ed. Bottom: "Hammer, Rain, Ed, and Thabiso" by Ed.

Faerie friend from California. Although it was a gay wedding, it was a pretty traditional affair, and most of the guests were hetero family and friends. Never-the-less, the married couple were quite explicit in their wedding ceremony about the deep transformational impact the Faeries made in the course of their lives. A love affair or a wedding is certainly a happier tale than reports from countries with authoritarian regimes passing hateful repressive legislation against our brothers and sisters. But it would be inauthentic of me not to illustrate the range of experiences we encounter as we expand and deepen our international Radical Faerie community roots.

There are so many amazing examples of how Faeries are lifting each other up around the world. Here in the US, some states have passed terrible political and legal restrictions on trans and queer people. A brilliant Faerie trans realtor I work with has a special program, assisting trans people who

don’t feel safe where they live to relocate to Portland Oregon. A recent Faerie houseguest from the UK is part of a team of activists hosting an important queer activist’s retreat in east Africa, where the oppression of our people is off the charts. Two months ago the head of a Russian queer support organization called Coming Out toured three cities on the West Coast, giving talks about the nature of legal, social and political oppression inside Russia and Eastern Europe. This NGO director and his presentations were hosted and nurtured by Radical Faeries. This summer the Albion Faeries are a core part of the organizing team that creates the Queer Spirit Festival in the UK. (It happens in

August, here is the link: queerspirit.net/festival) Finally, somewhere in central French-speaking Africa, (due to the wicked levels of oppression I am not citing the country), a Faerie so moved by their

attendance at the Global Gathering in South Africa has just posted the happy celebration of their four year anniversary of opening their hair salon called, “Féerie Coiffure: Salon de Beauté, Amour Respect Perfection.”

The work of queer liberation continues to be done by encountering each other and establishing our natural affinity and bonds of friendship and love. We don’t have to create complex activist strategies for more political and legal freedom and security, (although this is also extensively being done), but we do need to be our authentic selves. There are dozens and dozens of examples of profound connections among Radical Faeries making life-altering connections around the world. My personal transformation in opting to exercise the privilege of traveling throughout the global Faerie world is as profound as my college education or any other life event. I am a happier and more fulfilled person, understand my privileges and blessings more deeply, can offer support, guidance, and perspective more effectively, and can help in the liberation movements of all queer people planet wide.

Top: "Andrea, Crossroads, Skye" by Skye. Middle: "Storm of U.K." by Storm. Bottom: "Mique Mixture" by Mix.

Northern California Summer, 1972

A locket of Jesus clasped in her hand she lay on her back in tall grass beside the country road not bothering to stand as she waited for a lift, a ride while I stood, thumb out and hopeful; a van stopped and we stepped inside. That hippie hitchhiker trusted in her God but when I need him he always seems to be hiding under a log.

—Michael Gould

A Funny Adventure in Traveling to Ancient Places

by Toby Johnson

I imagine that throughout history many or most world travelers were some sort of homosexual. People with children and families, except for the very rich, didn’t have the time or wherewithal to sail around the world or take trains across continents. And unmarried men who had the travel urge certainly would have discovered sexual opportunities with one another. And may have needed to travel to get away from home and expectations. Single women travelers, we might imagine, dressed as men for safety and led secret lives.

Travel is intertwined with spiritual quest and pilgrimage. The spiritual life is metaphorized as a journey. And many of the sights even modern tourists visit have sacred and religious histories. Travel is not only across geography, it can carry across time.

In 1993 my partner, Kip, and I traveled to Greece and visited Athens and the Acropolis, and then the

Temple of Apollo at Delphi and sat where the Oracle once prophesied from, and then Corinth and Eleusis where ancient Mystery Rites were performed, and then the Beehive Tomb of King Agamemnon in Mycenae. Modern tourists can make pilgrimages at jet and superhighway speed today.

And such modern gay/queer tourists can travel together for safety and camaraderie. LGBTQ travel has become a major industry. After our land excursions around Athens, we boarded a ship called the Stella Solaris, on a cruise chartered by the gay travel company RSVP.

The cruise started in Athens, then sailed to Istanbul, then down the coast to Kusadasi and Ephesus, then across to the Greeks Isles of Rhodes, Santorini, and Mykonos, then back to Athens.

It was good traveling with other gay men and lesbians (as we called ourselves in 1993). There was a sense of safety in number. We felt we could trust one another.

There was one scary moment when a crowd of teenage boys who were hawking souvenirs to tourists in the parking lot outside the ruins of the ancient city of Ephesus recognized that the bus that was filling up with visitors leaving the site was filling up with gay men. The boys started heckling and throwing rocks. You couldn’t help thinking of Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly Last Summer.

But this was nothing like that. The tour guides got us onto the bus fast and the driver pulled away, driving off into the rocky sand around the parking lot and taking an impromptu short cut to the exit. I think we all waved at the boys—maybe they waved back. And it was all kind of jocular. But we learned later that RSVP decided not to repeat that excursion in later cruises.

In Istanbul, the tour guide took us to the Blue Mosque, Hajia Sophia, an ancient cemetery, the Topkapi Palace, the Bazaar, and then to Lapis, an upscale carpet store, where we were taken to a private viewing room. We sat around this large room on straight back chairs, sipping on apple tea, while a bevy of young, dark and handsome Turkish carpet salesmen brought out rug after rug, throwing them to the floor with dramatic flourish and urging us to come over and look closer. Well, the carpets were very expensive. Kip and I had no need for a carpet, nor money in the budget for such an extravagance, though other guys on the cruise were shopping enthusiastically.

As the ship was departing later than evening, a message was received from Lapis, the carpet store, that that had been their best day in a season, and they were grateful to RSVP for our patronage. I hope they understood they’d made their windfall on a shipload of gay men!

Well, Kip and I tried to slip out to escape the

sales pitches, and found a staircase going down at the back of the building. We figured we could leave through the alley and then wait for the group in front. When we got to the next floor down, we were enthusiastically welcomed—that is, accosted—by yet another salesman, this one older and wiser looking and even better dressed than all the others. He declared that we must be looking for something special!

He promised he had it. He took us back into the secret rooms where they sold the really good stuff. The basis of judging the value of these carpets seemed to be the number of women who had gone blind weaving them. It started with three, then five, then nine. The knots were getting finer and finer and the silk shinier and shinier and the carpets more expensive and dear, and Kip and me more and more embarrassed and chagrined with our decision to try to slip out. What had we gotten ourselves into?

dropping the price with each offer. It had gotten down to $25 when I got so exasperated I shooed him off and swiftly walked away.

We sat around this large room on straight back chairs, sipping on apple tea, while a bevy of young, dark and handsome Turkish carpet salesmen brought out rug after rug, throwing them to the floor with dramatic flourish and urging us to come over and look closer.

He fell back a little and started in on Kip. The same routine, with the price dropping and dropping. But then a new offer got added. “I be your lady,” he announced. And sort of pointed to an alleyway we were passing. He stopped and pressed his hands against the crotch of his pants to outline what indeed looked like a very big and very thick male member. Kip brushed him aside, embarrassed but sort of excited by the suggestion, but also repulsed by the offerer. “$15,” he announced, “$15. I be your lady,” throwing the rug down and running after it.

Well, we kept saying no, and finally, the old man let us go. And then we were out on the street, relieved. The rest of the group was coming out of Lapis about that time too, so we were able to rejoin the tour which was straggling down to the bottom of the hill where the bus was waiting.

We were again accosted by a carpet salesman, but now though not a purveyor of carpets so dear and not dressed so elegantly. This little guy was selling throw rugs that he carried in a pile stacked over his shoulder. He was a short, stocky, burly fellow with a big mustache. His gimmick was that the carpets were woven in such a way that when you looked at them from one direction they were one color, but from the other direction a different color, blue this way, red that way. The little man demonstrated by throwing a rug onto the ground, then running over to pick it up, spin it around and throw it back down, now changing color.

We kept walking. He kept following. Kip and I’d gotten slightly separated by about fifteen feet. I was in front, the salesman was pursuing me. At first the rugs were expensive. Maybe a $100 for this one or that one. There was one he kept throwing out, and

Kip picked up the pace and caught up with me, “What do you think of the rug?” he asked. “Well, ok, that’s pretty cheap; it would be a good souvenir.” As the little rug salesman caught up with us, I said, “OK, I’ll take it. You said $25,” as I pulled the money out of my wallet and handed it to him. So the blue and red rug was ours for $25. And the salesman dropped back and started his spiel with the people behind us.

As we looked over our purchase, Kip reported that he’d been offered an even better bargain at $15, but then he would have had to look at the man’s penis. We decided the $10 was a worthy cost for not having to have had that experience—and in that alley back there.

We have since cut the carpet in half and used it to upholster two side chairs we bring out for extra seating at Thanksgiving. We always get to tell the story, and laugh about the rug salesman who got away. Or whom we got away from.

"The color changing rug" by Toby Johnson.

The Origin of the Faerie Movement

by Murray Edelman

I’ve been blessed by being actively involved from the beginning with the Gay Liberation movement in 1969, the Faerie Circle in 1975 and the Radical Faeries in 1979. I turned eighty last year and feel more urgency to face my writing demons and write down my stories, in part to clarify my legacy, but more importantly to communicate that our history is made by the ideas and actions of people like You and Me as we create a better life for us all.

In 1973, I drove from Chicago to San Francisco looking for a more openly gay community. I had no idea who I would meet and what it would lead to for myself and our movement.

Connecting With Arthur Evans

I first met Arthur in San Francisco in late 1973 in Buena Vista Park. He was leaving the cruising area, as I was arriving. I recognized him from pictures in the news. A mutual friend had told us we had a lot in common, so we eagerly made plans to meet later.

We had both moved to San Francisco after paying prominent roles in the beginning of the Gay Liberation movement in our home cities. We had many common experiences to share. The activism in New York was leading the way for all of us and Arthur’s role is well documented (Arthur Evans Memorial Video). While activism in Chicago was less visible nationally, it was just as challenging. I’ve been writing about it and sharing it on Tik Tok as @CircleMurray.

Arthur and I had both left promising academic careers. He was a PhD candidate in Philosophy at Columbia University during the start of his activism, and realized this his current world view was too revolutionary for them. He confirmed that decades later when he wrote the book, A Critique of Pure Reason, which challenged the underpinnings of modern philosophy from a feminist perspective. He submitted it as his dissertation and the department rejected it.

I had just completed my PhD in Human Development at the University of Chicago in 1973 and was on track to be a researcher and psychotherapist. At the same time, I realized that in just three years of gay liberation, I had done more healing of gay trauma in others being a role model, confidante, and group leader, than I ever would have in a lifetime of

Top: Arthur Evans with sign. Bottom: Lavender U catalog. 1976. Photographs courtesy author.

being a therapist using the existing clinical models that pathologized “homosexuality.” It just didn’t make sense to continue in the academic path when I had seen the potential power of our own gay movement to help and even transform people’s lives.

At the same time, the explosive energy of new people being drawn to the movement in our home cities had slowed down to a trickle after the first three years of the movement. Perhaps we had reached those that were most receptive to our message and change would take a lot more time than we first thought?

I had experienced a deep personal change in myself and now had a very critical view of society. There was no going back into the closet, but what did “going forward” look like?

Arthur and I came to San Francisco to find answers. And if liberation was going to take time, we could spend it enjoying the beauty of the city, the permissiveness that remained at the tail end of the Hippie movement, and the large and somewhat open gay community.

and gay men in their own homes or wherever they could find space. We wanted to help create community that went beyond bars and political meetings. These were the first organized meetings of gay singers, musicians, writers, athletes etc. The “Lavender U Joggers” met for a run every week and eventually changed the name to “Front Runners” when they moved to other cities.

I’m proud of how this early work continued to influence younger gays, as in this Lavender U cover photo of our men’s weekend that included a young Mark Thompson in the middle of the bottom row who later became a seminal writer in exploring gay sexuality and spirituality.

I realized that in just three years of gay liberation, I had done more healing of gay trauma in others being a role model, confidante, and group leader, than I ever would have in a lifetime of being a therapist using the existing clinical models that pathologized “homosexuality.” It just didn’t make sense to continue in the academic path when I had seen the potential power of our own gay movement to help and even transform people’s lives.

We had many more walks in the park and afternoons of tea as we shared what we had learned and the ways we were using our academic training to serve our new political vision.

My Work

I used my clinical skills and political analysis to create “Men’s Weekends: Intimacy and Sexuality.” The enlightened therapy at the time was to help homosexuals adjust; I wanted to help people grow into activists and make change. During the weekend groups we talked about our physical attractions toward each other as well as our alienation and self-hatred. It was a great place to expose and release our personal shame and guilt with the support and understanding of others in our evolving community.

To promote these groups, I helped create Lavender U, a listing of classes run by lesbians

Arthur’s Work

During this time, Arthur was studying the “old religion,” the pagans that preceded Christianity in Europe, and the ways that same-sex sexuality was integrated into their lives.

When the gay liberation movement erupted, we had no sense of our history. It was hard enough to even get books that portrayed us as human, let alone with a history. Arthur was one of the first to reach back in time and relate it to our present construct of homosexuality.

Christianity had a much tighter grip on our country and our history at that time then it does now. I remember the surprise I felt when Arthur connected the Christian holidays with the celebrations of the pagans in Europe. I have fond memories of the gleam in his eye when he told me how he had traced the “Faerie” epithet all the way back to the pagan people named “Faeries” who celebrated their free sexuality at events like Beltane. They were totally wiped out by Christianity.

Sharing of Ideas and Experiences

Having a sense of history changed the way I looked at myself, my work, and our movement. We weren’t as much on the edge of a new way of

loving, as we were recovering from what had been taken from us. We needed to remove our shame and guilt to reclaim what we were entitled to. We were both products of the existing gay culture of hooking up at baths, parks, and bars for sex. One of the draws of activism for us was to find more meaningful sexual relationships for ourselves, but the work of building a movement took over.

Arthur and I constantly updated each other on our work. We both experienced major personal changes through gay liberation and we expected that those changes could also manifest in more emotionally connected sexuality, but at that point it was just theoretical. Arthur was especially eager to hear of my experiences leading men’s groups.

On Friday night of the weekend groups, we would do exercises that encouraged touching and sensuality. As we got to know each other, the erotic energy would grow. We would be physical with each other and somewhat erotic without it turning into the objectified sexuality we were used to as gay men. I would describe some naked or near naked playfulness in the group that was new to everybody.

Arthur would get very excited as I told him

what was happening during these Intimacy and Sexuality weekends and soon, he was relating these experiences to his research and what he imagined the past was like without all the boundaries of guilt around our body and sexuality. Central to his critique was that Christianity, at its core, adhered to the Mind/Body split, which taught that the Body was the source of personal pleasure and sin, and had to be controlled, while the Mind was the path to God, under the Church’s direction, of course.

We were never sexual together, but we had some amazing orgasms of ideas. While he was incredibly supportive of my groups, he never felt drawn to participate in them being much more comfortable at the theoretical level.

Witchcraft and The Gay Counterculture

At some point, Arthur started talking about turning his research into a book. He couldn’t think of any publisher than would be supportive of his work, so he decided to self-publish which was difficult to do because he was living on welfare. I so believed in his work that I loaned him $1,500 for the first edition, without have any concerns about getting the money back. He eventually reimbursed me in installments over ten years from the profits; he was a man of his word.

Re-reading his book forty-five years later, I’m struck by how relevant his analysis of Christianity is today, especially with our new Speaker of the House saying that same sex relations are “the dark harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy that could doom even the strongest republic’?”

In early 1975, shortly before the Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture was to be published, Arthur decided to give a series of lectures on his research at what was our gay community center on Page Street with 100 men and women in attendance.

The audiences responded enthusiastically which led me to dream about starting a group to put our ideas into practice. Near the end of the series, I suggested to Arthur that we form a group. He said he had thought about that himself but didn’t know what we would do when we met.

I reminded him of my weekend groups where we sensually touched each other in exercises and more naturally as the weekend progressed, ending with some long chatting in a group hug. I said I didn’t think we would have any trouble filling the time, and if necessary, I could lead some exercises and sharing. A few days later he invited me to a

meeting in his apartment at 604 Ashbury with seven other men that had expressed excitement about his work.

The First Modern Day Faerie Circle

At the group, the question “where do we start” was answered with the suggestion to pass an amulet around; whoever held it would have the floor and others would listen. We all agreed to do that.

I shared some of the experiences in my weekend groups, others shared their needs and visions for the group. During the sharing Timo Butters announced that a name for a group had just come to him: “Faerie Circle” We all nodded in agreement. Thus, in October 1975 at 604 Ashbury we met as the first modern day Faerie Circle and conducted the first of what was to evolve into “talking circles” and then later into “Faerie Heart Circles.”

In my next contribution, I’ll describe some of our early Faerie rituals, including one at the Sutro Baths in San Francisco which inspired me to facilitate a “Different Kind of night at the Baths”

for the San Francisco community. This led me to being personally invited by Harry Hay to what he was branding as the first “Gathering of Radical Faeries” in 1979, where I brought the possibilities in sensual and sexual experimentation from the Faeries in San Francisco.

My hope is to further show that the Faerie Movement came directly from the early Gay Liberation movement and continued its revolutionary nature. From the 80’s on, the thrust of what we now call the LGBTQ movement has mostly been about acceptance. The Faeries, on the other hand, continued to reject the values of mainstream culture and to seek other forms of pleasure and connection while realizing the importance of maintaining a community that supports who we can be.

Even at today’s Faerie gatherings, I can sometimes still feel that same magical sense from the 70s of people coming out of their own psychological and spiritual closets with the support of community and envisioning new possibilities for all of us.

Arthur's lectures in 1975 . These lectures inspired our first Faerie Circle Meeting. Courtesy author.

Photographs by James Reade

Venable

Counter Clockwise:

"Robert E. Lee, Black Lives Matter!"

George Floyd's face projected onto the Robert E Lee Monument in Richmond during 2020 protests.

"Racism Is A White Problem" A white protestor carries this sign in a march in Astoria, NY 2020.

"They Drove Ole' Dixie Down" Lightning strikes as the Stonewall Jackson Monument is taken down in Richmond, VA 2020.

"Lynching of Stonewall Jackson" Purposefully composed to capture the rope around Stonewall Jackson's neck.

52 RFD 198 Summer 2024

"Rumi Missabu, backstage at Theater for a New City, 2008" by Keith Gemerek.

Rumi Missabu 1947-2024

by Keith Gemerek (Fussy lo Mein)

When I first personally met the Radical Faeries in 1991, I felt a deep familiarity in the presence of these queer beings. The concept of coming home at last felt real and it gave me a sense of relief. Soon after, I discovered texts that supported these feelings. Re-reading Walt Whitman, those words began to feel like liturgy. Mark Thompson’s Queer Spirit was a lightning bolt that woke me up to traditions and histories long repressed by the dominant hetero hegemony. Reading about Hibiscus and the sexual anarchy of the absurdist theatrics of the Cockettes and the Angels of Light was enlightening. It rang clear to this woke queer body and soul, mine, and my new collective of local Brooklyn Faeries.

In 2008 Robert Croonquist, known in Faerie circles as Covelo, brought a reunion of surviving Cockettes to New York at the Theater for a New City as a fundraiser for Faerie Camp Destiny. This was my introduction to these brilliant artists, and among them was Rumi Missabu. Rumi was a hippy queer spirit in the 1960’s who worked closely with Hibiscus, legendary founder of the Cockettes and the Angels of Light. These names tell it all. They were not of this world, but instead of spirit. Theater became the stage for retelling mythology and creating yet undiscovered meanings.

Rumi eventually left the glitter of the San Francisco hippy stage in the early 1970’s and lived in various places off the grid without ID or bank account for thirty-five years, believing that the hippy lifestyle was going to last forever. He eventually resurfaced in San Francisco and with help from friends he got his government identity back and eventually reclaimed his performative skills. He worked with the Thrillpeddlers in reprisals of original Cockette plays co-written by Scrumbly Koldewyn and Martin Worman.

Once in New York starting in 2008, Rumi began to form a new legacy with song, story, and dance. Rumi was the consummate storyteller, bewitching everyone with hilarious and almost unbelievable tales of Hibiscus, Divine, Sylvester, Iggy Pop, Tina Turner and all the Cockettes. Cockette events were not traditional show biz. They were much more

than that. They were transformative experiences. The audience blending with performers, often with psychedelics, bringing everyone out of straight, conformist reality to something original and tribal. They were parties! Mark Thompson in his book reminds us that spirituality and theater have the same origins which, no doubt, resonate with Radical Faeries.

At first while in New York, Rumi capitalized on his Cockette portfolio, literally and otherwise. He was living off selling Cockette ephemera. Photographs, original art, and costume pieces had become collector items and they sold readily as talismans from a magical age. And right from the start he began to assemble radical queer performance artists to join him in theatrical venues like a floor show of talented freaks. We ate it up because we recognized that androgenous performance still had its power to transform and move the culture along, despite the growing heteronormative mainstream gay culture. Ragtag Faerie no-talent shows were a familiar diet to me but Rumi’s gatherings on stage were bumped up a bit and equally magical. Rumi was the consummate trickster. His presence on stage could be frightening with missing teeth, 6” stiletto heels, bizarre make-up and trashcan wigs. But he was not a novice. He brought with him the full ethos of the San Francisco gay liberation culture. He showed New York audiences classic Cockette underground films like Trisha Nixon’s Wedding (directed by Milton Miron), Elevator Girls in Bondage and Tree, Your Sap Beats Gently Against Mine (both films by Michael Kalman starring Rumi and Hibiscus.)

Rumi began to leave his Cockette resume to produce his own “pantomime spectacles” which were curated stories retold by Rumi but enacted or danced by a rag tag motley crew of New York and San Francisco Faeries and friends, some with stellar reputations in the performance world. Rumi’s New York years will prove to be among his most important contributions to queer theater.

Continuing Hibiscus’s ethos of free theater, he presented his shows at the historic Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village with free food and no

admission charge. Here he pulled together a breathtaking assemblage of folk tales, international mythologies, and repressed histories to take audiences out of their dayto-day realities, inviting them to magical places. Individual actors designed their own costumes in true Cockette tradition. Rumi dug deep on the Internet to combine suitable musical scores to adorn the storylines. The actors had unspoken roles; they danced their dialogues. To call these productions beautiful does not describe the spectacle. Over these New York years, the cast members became a loyal tribe willing to play under his visionary spell.

We were grateful. Rumi was the gift.

For a deeper dive into Rumi Missabu and the Cockettes visit:

The Rumi Missabu Papers at New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

Martin Worman Papers 1960-2008 at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

Top: "Rumi Missabu in Wisdom of the Sands, 2015." Bottom: "Rumi Missabu in Brooklyn studio, 2010". Photographs by Keith Gemerek.

Third Month Abroad

This morning as the sun rips wide the mists in the valley and flings its heat across every building face, the pigeons in their pigeonholes are cooing and moaning in that loud, obscene way pigeons do.

I break open the bedroom window shocked by the blow of vivid air, by the scent of newly budding leaves, dazzled by the finches’ aerial interplay, the chitter and chirp of unseen peepers in the trees below.

All night long two cats howled. When I walk through the noon town and school has just let out, everywhere on the low edges of the city walls the fair-skinned couples sit, murmuring in the most obvious of frontal embrace.

All I want to do is press back the pouring sunlight firmly, with both hands. The bedroom fills with a confluence of pollen: crocus, violets, wild iris in the fields all purple.

With a stick I knock at the terra-cotta sill violently, “Out! Out! Away!” The pigeons scatter into the air, their amour replaced by a flustering confusion. I cannot endure their reckless, public passion. And you so far away.

—Wonderful

Electrifying Love

Sequoia Thom, M.A.

As an Air Force pilot in 1969, I was both superlonely and super-paranoid. I would drive great distances away from base to look for some fleeting connections: usually quickies in public toilets or in the back of movie theaters, where I had learned during my high school years in Brooklyn to look for other lonely men. These exchanges were mostly furtive and functional: all of us were in deep shame.

On base, I was super-guarded. Still, all these men did need to shower, and that did afford at least a quick peek at other men in their full naked glory. In those situations, guys of all persuasions almost always sneak furtive glances at one another’s endowments. It’s not a sign of attraction so much as curiosity: measuring ourselves up, as it were. From my high school years cruising toilets and public showers I had honed the skill of looking out the sides of my eyes while appearing to look straight ahead. This skill was especially needed in these supposedly straight showers. Once in a while, usually at a gym, there would be a hint of deliberate homo-erotic energy. Guys would soap themselves up enough to be a bit fluffed…all quite nonchalantly, of course. If only two were present, that body language could become a dialog: each gradually showing a hint of higher arousal while pretending not to notice the other’s equally growing enthusiasm. Only once or twice I experienced sharing full on masturbation (of course at a safe distance and without eye contact.). Sometimes on the way out while drying off there would be a wry smile or brief nod of acknowledgement. I longed for deeper, more meaningful connections, and was at a loss. Yet my intention was strong, and gradually I began some semblance of dating. My first heart-opening experience came quite unexpectedly in the depth of winter near the Arctic Circle. I was on a Temporary Duty two-week assignment at the base near Fairbanks, Alaska. It was February,

1969. The first week the daily high was minus 35F (-37.2C) and the nightly low minus 55F (-48C)... astoundingly cold. My exhalations condensed into frost on my face; inhalations caused my nostrils to almost stick together. Our nightly missions (it was almost always dark) were to circle at high altitude for up to eight hours intercepting “intelligence” from Russia. Up in front all we pilots did was drive around in circles: not very exciting… except we were often flying inside the Aurora Borealis, which was indescribably beautiful and electrifying (literally hair-raising: we often experienced Saint Elmo’s fire dancing on our windscreen and all the hair on my body stood on end). This image comes close to what I remember, except at 35,000 feet we were inside and surrounded those amazing, waving curtails of light.

All I clearly remember is two dams bursting… breaking down lifelong barriers of intense loneliness (maybe for him, too) with touch and talk and stillness and wreaths of cigarette smoke.

Back down on earth after such an astounding experience, the base seemed hopelessly boring. I took the base bus into Fairbanks to look for… what?... some sort of human contact. “Downtown” consisted of a few blocks of tired shops and was utterly deserted. What sane person would be out in such frigid weather? So I resorted to my old standby: the movies. I have no recollection of what the show was, but the small theater was packed (obviously the most exciting thing in town.) I strode up and down the aisle looking for a likely seat, and spied one in the last row next to a nice looking lad. I was much more interested in him than the film. I felt sparks between us like Saint Elmo; was it just my imagination? My heart raced. I nonchalantly and ever so gently let my knee rest against his. He didn’t pull away. Did he notice? Then his knee pressed into mine so subtly I feared it was my imagination. I got more daring and put my hands on my knees in such a way that my pinky now touched his knee…surges of electricity. After excruciatingly long seconds passed, he did the same. Our pinkies touched. I was

trying to not breathe too hard lest I alert those next to us about the ecstatic surges of energy I was feeling. I don’t recall how long we lingered in this loving and hidden pinky pas de deux. I could stand the tension no longer and got up to go to the toilet. I hoped he would follow me and we’d have the usual quick, functional exchange. I waited…and waited. He did not arrive. Bereft I walked out and found him shyly smiling in the lobby. “Hi, I’m Jim.” My heart was so in my throat I could barely stammer, “Tom” offering my hand. My memory (going back fifty+ years) is short on details. I know I felt instantly comfortable and safe. I vaguely recall a late-night greasy spoon, and talking for hours over cigarettes and bad coffee. “Would you like to come home with me? I think my roommates are out.” Sure! This was a first: we’d exchanged our real names and I was going home with him. I’d always been terrified of either getting caught or put into some sexually compromising situation. Suddenly with this younger man (I was twentyfive and he was twentytwo and a student at the University of Alaska) I felt utter trust and safety. The night is a blur of exquisitely tender passion. My heart burst open; I sensed his did as well. Alas, like Cinderella, the witching hour arrived and I had to return to my base and my job. Riding the Air Force bus the forty minutes back to the base was surreal. Alone in back, I wept not knowing why…only that my heart and soul had been seen and met and touched in ways I had never even dared to imagine. My life would never be the same.

Jim gave me his number, and we agreed to meet again. I concocted a story to tell my crew. Four of us, pilot, co-pilot (me), navigator, and boomoperator flew as a team. We had flown up from our regular base in northern Maine and were normally always together in the barracks and for meals. So I needed to explain my eagerness to spend more time

in town. They readily bought my story that I’d met a girl I had the hots for. They cheered me on. I was able to get away again a couple of days later, which was near the end of our two-week sojourn there. Jim and I knew our second meeting would be our last for the foreseeable future. We lived 4,000 miles apart at a time when phone calls to Alaska were $2.50/minute (roughly $25/min in today’s dollars) and letters took forever. We wanted to spend the whole night together, but he did not have privacy at home. We met for a meal and got better acquainted, then decided to rent a motel room. Worried that the desk clerk would spot us as two homos and turn us away, Jim made up a story that “the heater in our cabin was busted” and we needed emergency quarters for the night. No problem! We had a night to ourselves and the whole next morning: how luxurious! All I clearly remember is two dams bursting…breaking down life-long barriers of intense loneliness (maybe for him, too) with touch and talk and stillness and wreaths of cigarette smoke. We were both heavy smokers, and the fire of our love seemed to require lots of smoke as well. Love it was: a mysterious meeting of kindred souls. Or was it “merely” that intense loneliness finally, fleetingly, being abated? It was nourishing and intoxicating to be together, and also unimaginable how so soon we’d have to part for who knows how long? We spoke bravely of writing and staying in touch. We treasured each second, each touch and kiss and word. Over breakfast at another greasy spoon (did Fairbanks offer anything else?) there was a palpable pain of anticipating parting. We were both bereft. In public we dared not show any affection. I think we shook hands as I headed to the blue base bus. This time I was too sad to cry. I stifled a scream that was both a yelp of joy and wail of anguish all at once.

Back at the base my crew was sympathetic and

eager for stories, which I kept to myself. The next day we pre-flighted the plane in frigid cold. Actually it had “warmed up” to minus 20F (-29C.) which felt almost balmy. Fortunately, it was not my turn to do the flying. All I had to do was handle the radios, landing gear, and flaps on takeoff. It was a good thing: tears streamed down my face, which I tried to hide. I was returning to the lonely life on an isolated base at the very northern tip of Maine, almost in Quebec, where there was not a soul with whom I could confide this life-changing, heart-exploding experience.

I soon sent Jim a letter then eagerly awaiting a reply, which took maybe a month. It was so good to hear from him and so hard to hear he’d gone into a deep depression after I left. I quickly wrote back with an upbeat assurance that we’d find ways to connect… somewhere, somehow. His family lived in Colorado, and he did visit them. He only had a few more years at the U of A and I a few more years in the USAF: our separation would not last forever. I wanted to save his letter, the only tangible remnant of our connection. Yet I was so paranoid about it being found that I carefully cut out his name and address and then hid it under the mat in my car.

Weeks went by with no further word from him, then months. The agony of not hearing from him was made so much worse by not being able to share any of this intense ecstasy/agony with another human anywhere. I had to find the inner resources to bear this pain and uncertainty which gradually morphed into abject grief: he must have died…

some calamity…or maybe even by his own hand?… or maybe lung cancer? I struggled to comprehend.

After about six months, suddenly a letter appeared. He was deeply apologetic, saying he’d been paralyzed by our separation and his ensuing depression. He was now eager to resume our correspondence. I eagerly replied and enthusiastically agreed… and never heard another word. What became of Jim was a painful mystery.

I know he forever changed my life… in a very good way. I could no longer deny it: “I AM Gay!” All those tortured years of pretending to myself that I am straight were over. I realized I can truly love another man, and that is my path. I did not know where it would lead, yet I knew the strength of my love for Jim was my capacity to love. I’ve never doubted that since: what a gift. I pray that Jim went on to find love equal to the huge heart he shared with me.

Over fifty years later, as I look back on the alltoo-brief encounter with Jim, I realize he was a major healer for me. After a decade of heartless sex, Jim gently guided me into the experience of being whole: my genitals, heart and soul were all one… at last. Knowing that was possible, I was never again fully satisfied with quick, functional, transactional encounters. He taught me that I am capable of so much more.

Because of Jim, my own Gay Liberation had begun. Years later I learned the Stonewall Rebellion had happened that same spring in June 1969.

Keats’ Grave

Poets return to Rome as cats to stalk their own headstones. Keats snores easy in the sun, beneath an umbrella pine.

I’ve come to see, in the Non-Catholic Cemetery, Here lies one whose name is writ in water inscribed on his grave in the shade of a pyramid. It shakes me to think that my tears are the ink.

Percy Shelley’s heart (the part that didn’t burn) beats out for Keats, a field apart. (Mary kept the rest in her desk, wrapped in his poesy.)

He drowned with Keats’ book in his pocket —who’d traded locks with that Adonis. Wild jasmine ravages the walls of their graveyard. The pyramid sleeps between them like a cat.

—Sugar le Fae

"Pine Cone" by Gregory T. Wilkins (aka Equus).

Ptown Premiere

by Hart Vetter

Andreas was new to the States. America. What an adventure. He wound up staying, but that he didn’t know at twenty-three. He didn’t know about gay meccas either. Until somebody invited him to Fire Island by ferry, just for the day. Oh wild! Key West he’d visit someday for sure, but Provincetown was just a few hours by car from Yonkers.

So he found himself an affordable B&B on the Cape, one room with no view.

The very tip of the exposed Massachusetts appendage was a stimulating place to be. Fun, hot, humpy guys on the lookout. Looking was mostly what Andreas did. Then, one day before he was to leave…

“You like to get fucked?” this young man asked him with a smile. That was a stunner. Andreas gulped.

Inexplicably, he nodded. He knew that it was a lie or at least one of the great unknowns. He’d never seriously contemplated the idea.

ing all concentration when watching a skin flick after stealing into one of the shady movie houses that populated Times Square back in the late seventies. Their features of the week were actually advertised in the Wednesday tabloids in those days, not quite giving them legitimacy but still.

It was during scenes on screen when they were in the middle of sometimes endless, graphic segments of penetrating behavior that Andreas tended to close his eyes, bored, uncomfortable, embarrassed, biding his time. Guilt-ridden as to what in fuck’s name he was doing at a place like that. Thinking he should just leave, but then waiting for more tempting visuals to return, of an enticing, phallic nature, that he was longing for and found so irresistible when projected a certain way.

He had stopped for a juice in the lobby of the Crown & Anchor where the guy sat, and a bunch of other folks. Before the young man rattled him with his point blank question, all they had was this sparse exchange of smiles and hey and what’s up, how you like the Cape.

The guy wasn’t exactly his type, but friendly and cute enough.

It was Andreas’ fourth morning in Provincetown. Maybe it was a restlessness he felt that made him respond affirmatively, amid concern that he was close to the end of his stay in town and hadn’t experienced much one-on-one action in this freest of places off the coast of Mass.

Fucking wasn’t his thing, that much he knew. He remembered uncomfortable moments of los-

The blunt, friendly young guy who wanted to try on him what he couldn’t bear watching wasn’t staying nearby, so they headed to his room at the B&B. He was nervous and curious to find out what kind of a gay he could be.

This first trip to Provincetown happened in July 1977, to be precise the night of July 13th to the 14th. It was the second big New York blackout and he missed it. It made all the news but no further inconvenience at the Cape.

In the center of town, on Commercial was what they called the meat rack: a couple of benches in front of town hall. A great spot with a welcoming flair, during the day, for people-watching, seasoned crossdressers from both sides of the aisle strutting by, some flamboyant, some austere, lesbians butching it up, leather freaks and pretty boys and old queens quick with a quip who’d seen it all — a place for banter, laughs and jovial vibes. And at

"Queer Provincetown," monotype print, 16x13, by Wave.

night, around closing time of the bars an altogether different feel. Folks would hang out for some pressing last-minute shopping and pick-ups—cuties with a silk sheen of sweat from hours of dancing and the usual assortment of eager patrons, propelled by booze, up for one more adventure, specific needs all amplified with a certain urgency and standards liberated.

He knew of the concept through hearsay. The decadent assortments of a meat rack was a thing on Fire Island, too. You’d find somebody appealing lounging about or perhaps sitting on some wooden railings framing a walkway, on display in a way, like hanging on a meat rack, and you picked the specimen that spoke to you and took him to the bushes. Not really his thing. Andreas wanted to dig deeper for some romance. Now, theoretically, if he’d run into some sweet guy, approachably nervous, he would have made an exception. What typically worked for him was showing a shy smile and if the other fellow looked away, that was okay; if he smiled back, easier said than seen, it still required some nerve. But he’d probably summon the courage to say hi.

Typical meet-rack activity in Provincetown was after hours, but he strolled by the benches one late afternoon, and saw this blond Ten. Tens were a thing already before that movie. Andreas smiled and the guy smiled back and they chatted and went together to the beach, found a secluded area and played around. They kissed and fondled, undressed in that middle section and found the sweetest relief. He had an identical twin he said, also gay, what

odds were those, and in town. It was a precious little sundown vignette. They parted ways. This was day three of five. So Andreas was not leaving town without having gotten laid! He saw his blond Ten on Commercial the next day, but when he smiled and waved hi, kind of hoping for an encore, the guy stared back at him as in who-the-fuck is that. Twin brother, Andreas figured, but didn’t actually buy it for a moment. Ominously, he only saw the twin around a couple more times and of course never the two together.

Province Lands and the national seashore were beautiful, as were sunsets at Herring Cove, the dunes, the Bay, but no other fling.

Andreas packed up and moved on to a moteltype place in Newport, Rhode Island, for a couple of nights. Mansions, old money, serene scenery, all set in tones of whitish beige, altogether different from the tip of the Cape. At the local gay bar, he felt he had a certain worldly swagger in his step after the lively scene up the coast. A young man took an interest, they chatted, there was a sparkle, and they went to his apartment. Brown hair, slicked back, a little frizzy, a thin mustache, pale, some freckles, not tall, but tender and sweet. Ted Kennedy was his name, not related to the Senator and master of oratory, but a master of oral he was, no doubt. The way he went down, probing and exploring and holding back and accelerating, Andreas was going out of his mind. Thirty minutes into it and he kept focusing all on Andreas whose thirst to explore Ted stood little chance. Andreas tried to feel him up through his clothes, but was kept at bay, while he went at it

and at it. Maybe something was off, he didn’t have a dick, Andreas surmised. A eunuch, was that what they were? He was so naive. Definitely not a woman with a mustache, he felt quite masculine and warm. And he kept going and going. Eventually he wrestled his underwear from him and grabbed his post. While Andreas was going delirious. And then he came and came and came.

Back to the eager fellow in P’town who’d picked him as his fuck buddy. There they were in the little room with a full-size bed, the assertive potential top and Andreas, quite apprehensive. They smooched a little.

He was surprised Andreas didn’t have K-Y.

But, no worries, he was an expert and he’d get him all receptive, just let it happen , which seemed fine in theory but proved agony in fact.

Their steps were rushed and clinical and definitely comical, even though not at the moment. They quickly found that there might have been a will, but there definitely was no way. Andreas

felt incompetent and jittery. The pain came as an utter shock. It took the lifeblood right out. He uttered some stupid apology for not being ready to receive and was thrilled when the guy left, after what seemed like the longest twenty minutes.

When they crossed paths in town later, they exchanged waves and smiles and moved on. A more positive reaction than from the oblivious twin of the precious little sunset escape.

In later life Andreas learned that horizons broaden, tastes mature. An essential treat that he hadn’t been ready for before. It might have helped save his hide during those getting-to-know years of exploring because his practices early on turned out safer by default against a virus that the country learned was raging against a precious, promising crop of the most handsome men the world has ever known and, to this day, is a sadder place because of so many them taken out in their prime. All the richness and imaginations they would have added.

Prague

Prague’s answer to every problem is a twist to trip you up, a puzzle sufficient to make Kafka proud.

If traffic needs to flow, push pedestrians underground and let them walk up. One crosswalk is enough, so the cars can move. Walkers will adjust. Time the traffic lights for cars; people can run.

Museums are more fun if they flow randomly and lead to dead-end corners, a maze for your bewilderment.

Web sites don’t need to be accurate since the internet is rarely available.

Beautiful, cultured, and vibrant in a small-town way, but somehow the city is just not seeing straight.

—Stephen Schwei

Top: "Hidden beauties." Bottom: "Friends with the water."

Photographs by Chris Moody.

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Issue 200 / Winter 2024

FUTURE RFD

Submission Deadline: November 15, 2024

www.rfdmag.org/upload

In the last issue we asked you to reflect on fifty years of RFD for our Fall issue. Now we want you to enter the dreamscape and tell us what you’re dreaming about for the future. How should we be passing into the future? What are your hopes as we cross another threshold in the queer community. In these times of shifting ideas of community and safe space how we do we claim our queerness? How do we reconnect in such fragmentary times.

There is a phrase, “above all else, audacity,” that reflect’s Harry Hay’s sentiment and philosophy. How can we find space to envision audacity in becoming ourselves, knowing who we are and creating space to share our splendid dreams together?

So tell us what you are dreaming up for yourself, for the people around you and show us some of your dreams enacted.

As RFD turns the wheel on fifty years of sharing our visions and ideas of ourselves, delve into your heart and mind to share your audacity.

a reader-created gay quarterly celebrating queer diversity