[Note: The names of family and friends have been changed to protect their privacy.]

While visiting my mom in California I went through a drawer of old photos and came across a blue envelope from Jones Funeral Home in Heltonville, Indiana. They’re the undertaker-cousins I grew up hearing about. Mom used to get spooked when she was a little girl left with them from time to time. They’d bring dead bodies through the living room where she’d be sleeping on the couch. She’d have nightmares of the dead creeping into the living room to get her. When I opened the envelope I found this April 1979 photo of Troy and me together. It was taken on the evening of the day we’d visited James Dean’s grave in Fairmount, Indiana. Before our cross-country trip, Troy had told me that his dad owned a beauty shop. Troy said his dad offered to bleach our hair blond for free. This was quite daring for young men to do in 1979 (we were ahead of our time, but back then seen only — in the words of my hillbilly grandma — “as queer as queer can be”).

I remember Troy’s dad offering to give me a perm, too. Making James Dean’s quote “I’d rather people hiss than yawn” my motto, I said sure. Troy, however, wasn’t as daring at the time, so kept his hair its natural curl-less flat. But I guess Troy later decided that he liked my golden locks because, when he started doing the films, he wore his hair pretty much as his dad had done mine — his dad intending to mock me, I think. With this in mind, it seems Troy may very well have been rebelling against his father. I strongly believe that Troy’s getting into Gay erotica was a reaction to not only his parents but society’s rejection of Gays. A sort of “fuck you” to the oppressors. A rubbing it in their faces.

Before I get into our “blonds have more fun” saga, I want to make it clear that my love for Troy was more than the exciting romance of “first love” and all. My feelings for him were very similar to my feelings for my present lover, Didier, whom I’ve been with for over seventeen years now. See, I’ve got these issues. They make it hard whenever Didier goes on business travels — or anywhere — without me. It’s been sung in that old song by Paul Young: “Everytime You Go Away”. Yeah, my lover takes a piece of me with him. And today it’s only to the beach. We’re vacationing in Ibiza, Spain, as I write this part. I’ve got this pothead therapist from Gitland who says the goal is not to need anyone. Guess he’s got his bitter reasons. Lost his lover to a hot young Brazilian — but talks the talk as though he knows what love’s got to do with it. Maybe he’s right. Nothing feels right when I’m not with Didier. That’s how it was with Troy. Didier’s replaced the drugs in my veins. He’s my fix, and without him I start jonesing. Gotta feel his touch 24/7. That means every fuckin’ second. But I never try to hold him back. I want him to feel free. “If you love someone,” sings the stung Sting, “set them free.” Yet I ache inside when my love’s away. Didier knows how bad my withdrawal can be. My heart starts caving in. You’d think it was my head not getting its usual caffeine. My therapist says I’m needier than needy because I didn’t get the love I needed from Mom and Dad. I don’t blame them. It was the same for them from their parents. The emotional neglect goes back who knows how many generations. (I wonder where it began?) And however the love inside got blocked, no one’s really to blame. So I guess that’s why Didier is — as Troy was — to me like pure heroin and cocaine. He’s my biggest addiction ever. Just to be in his presence takes all this pain away — all this pain I’ve carried inside for so long. Yeah, I stopped doing drugs when I fell in love with Troy. Just as I have since I’ve been with Didier. Love’s the drug that keeps me clean. Actually, I never did completely withdraw from Troy. I’d still like to know where he is nowadays. How he’s doing and all. Let him know that he’ll always have a special place in my heart . . . that I’d like to hold him in my arms again . . . that I now know love never dies . . . that I need another fix.

And so, fingering my computer, feeling sexual about turning it on, I’m all set to do an internet search for: Troy Andrew Myers (aka Jeremy Scott). I flash on the fact that people didn’t have home computers back when Troy and I were together. The big thing then was VCR’s and watching movies on video tapes at home. A touch of adrenaline adds thrill to the hope and possibility of coming up with contact info for Troy. Nervous excitement mounts from imagining the moment I finally do make contact with him again. My flesh is vibrating with that shakiness I’d known the first time I’d ever had sex with someone. It happened in a boardwalk men’s room facing the Hollywood, Florida beach. He was nineteen. I was twelve.

My internet search leads to a Troy Myers who’s deaf. Nope. I can’t imagine even the loudest of orgasms causing anyone to go deaf. Oh, here’s another Troy Myers who’s a dancer in Broadway shows. This is possible. I did see Troy perform in some strip shows at boylesque clubs on and near Broadway. Hold it. This Troy Myers is doing legit Broadway shows. The kind where the clothes stay on and the audience actually claps instead of jerking off faster to applaud.

After finding one alien Troy Myers after another, I try a search on Jeremy Scott. Ahhh! An official website. Must be him. My heart’s bouncing against its cage. Nope. This Jeremy Scott’s a musician. Cute and young enough to do porno, though. Has a record out, too. If only Troy had taken that route instead of porno. It gets hard when it comes to porn. . . . What about this Jeremy Scott? I click on it and find this one’s a fashion designer. And so this search ends up as fruitless as the other. Wait. I have a friend who’s a total porn addict. Boy porn. I’ll email him. . . .

∞

Mooned by several nights — tanned by two unusually sunny days — later, I finally hear back from my porn-addict friend. I’d been patient, knowing he’d had his hand(s) full.

“I think your friend Jeremy Scott has died,” he wrote. “Troy ‘Jeremy Scott’ Myers is listed among the dead porno stars on the Charon’s Ferry website: http://models.badpuppy.com/archive/charon.htm. This disturbs me because I’d bought one of his pornos and had several orgasms over him before I found out. Now I feel like some kind of necrophiliac or ghoul. Sorry for the sad news.”

I immediatly go to the site. Sure enough, my Troy is listed there. He’d died in 1994. This news, this knowing, knots up into what amounts to an anchor of pain and fear that sinks and keeps sinking inside me. And now this chair I sit on becomes the seat of a time machine. My computer screen becomes its windshield. I’m transported out beyond our ozone to where it’s always night with flickers of light . . . and on into outer space’s blackest of black holes. The biggest hole I’d ever penetrated. Dimensions of time are collapsing, trapping me in the falling-in-love-with-Troy time of my life. His hole being the second male hole ever to receive my thrust.

A brown Toyota pick-up truck with a camper shell had been bought for the use of Troy’s grandmother (on his father’s side) to take Troy and his cousins, Tracy and Kimberley (the daughters of his father’s sister), back East for their summer vacation, which included visiting many of Troy’s father’s side of the family in Pennsylvania — which is where Troy’s grandmother, father, his father's brother and sister were all born. They made the most of the cross-country trip, stopping along the way to and from Pennsylvania, and enjoying all kinds of sightseeing. They had a great time of it. Then they returned to California. On October 16, 1977 — the day before Troy’s sixteenth birthday — Troy’s grandpa (on his father’s side) gave up the ghost. Troy’s grandmother kept the truck for another year, then gave it to Troy for his seventeenth birthday, as well as in honor of his graduating from high school a year early. Seventeenth birthday? Wait a minute. Wasn’t he given the truck on his eighteenth birthday? Let’s see . . . .

I’m in shock! Even after almost two years of knowing from Troy’s death certificate that he’d been born in 1961, it didn’t dawn on me that he had lied about his age. Maybe I’d been too focused on the other details — for instance, his passing away at only thrity-two in Rockford, Illinois, from complications due to A.I.D.S. But now there’s no getting around the math. What Troy had told me was supposed to be his eighteenth birthday was actually the day he’d turned seventeen! I was playing with fire without even knowing it. No one had mentioned anything about how old he’d turned that day. I’m sure he knew I wouldn’t have stuck around if I’d known he was jailbait. It’s because of his cousin, Kimberley (which is her real name that she kindly gave me permisson to use — and I’m hoping she’ll still send the picture Troy took of me at Disneyland, so I can share about that fun day!), yes, because of Kimberley telling me that Troy was given the truck on his seventeenth birthday and not his eighteenth that I have to swallow such shock. Talk about love being blind! This also means that Troy’s first porno was totally illegal. I now know for a fact that he was seventeen when William Higgins began filming him naked and having sex in The Class of ’84. I wouldn’t put it past Troy to have obtained fake ID. Or did William Higgins know that Troy was an underage minor? Maybe Higgins helped him get the ID. Of course, there may not have been any fake ID at all.

Anyhow, Troy made the most of his new/used wheels. For it was in the back of this brown Toyota camper truck that Troy first insisted I go all the way with him. We were on a break from our volunteer usher duties at South Coast Repertory, a professional regional theatre across the street from the mall where we had first laid eyes (and hands) on one another. Troy was a real go-getter. His getting his high school diploma a year earlier than his classmates totally impressed me. And now he’d volunteered for both of us to do ushering for South Coast Repertory’s second play of their 1978-1979 season, called THE CONTRACTOR by David Storey.

I think Troy was checking out the scene there with the goal of “fame, fame, fame” in mind. Since I wanted to be famous, too, I was all for the ushering job for no pay. Figured it might lead to connections that could lead to performing on their stage. But it turned out that Troy preferred performing in the camper of his truck. So, while the audience watched the first act unfold onstage, Troy introduced my erection to the pleasures of his own version of THE CONTRACTOR: his tightly contracting sphincter. I must say that Troy’s private performance of his take on THE CONTRACTOR had an intensely more powerful climax than David Storey’s did.

Butt — Troy’s nice, slender, rounded, smooth butt — raised to the level of my excitation. He told me to use my saliva to slip it in. Drooling came easy, and soon I had his hole and my pole slippery enough for the sliding. As we fucked, and gasped out loud, the shocks on his truck were taking a pounding. If the thought of what someone might think if they were to see the truck bouncing in the parking lot crossed my mind, it was soon overcome with titillating, to-the-moon sensations that made me not give a fuck about anyone or anything else but Troy’s active, rhythmic butt. We fucked till our naked bodies were slick with sweat. We fucked and fucked through most of the first act.

Close to reaching our second orgasm, Troy looked at his watch. “It’s almost time,” he said. Since sex was more a matter of holding back than trying to get off, we let our latest loads gush their geysers. Our hair wet with the perspiring glow of satisfaction, we pulled on our white ushering shirts and black ushering pants. I was about to get out when Troy pulled me toward him, kissed me even more passionately than he did during our fucking, and gazed deeply into my eyes. “No one else but me should be wearing your ring,” he said. I agreed. So, since Garrett had recently returned with his parents from Europe, I promised I’d call him and get my gold love ring with the diamond from his pinky. When I promised Troy this, I also promised myself. I wanted my first true love, my Troy, to be wearing the ring on his pinky instead. Troy was overjoyed by this, and we kissed some more before surrending to the whip of Master Time. I must admit that it was a bit nerve-wracking to step out into the night’s fresh air and possibly face onlookers, but we were lucky. We made it to the theater’s men’s room without attracting much notice. The security guard only looked up from the magazine he was reading and registered us in his mind as the ushers he’d seen earlier, then went back to reading.

After we laughingly — we couldn’t help but laugh — cleaned up in the men’s room, we went out and were setting up the bar area in the lobby when the audience, appearing somewhat blasé about what they’d sat through, crowded out of the theater. Part of our volunteer work was to serve tea and coffee at intermission. Troy was good about talking and offering coffee and tea — but not quite ready for the offering of himself — to various members of the audience. I kept quiet and, my mind replaying the truck fuck, kept filling up those Styrofoam cups with whichever hot caffeine fix asked for. In my own twisted way I felt that fucking Troy meant I was really a heterosexual in need of a real woman.

∞

The next morning, while my sister was in the bathroom putting on her make-up, I used the phone in her bedroom to call Garrett. It made me feel kind of sad, then kind of good, that Garrett took my request for the ring back so badly. He said that our relationship was just beginning. I explained how I did care for him but while he was away I fell totally in love with someone else. It was beyond my control. Beyond my control. The silence on the line brought Garrett’s handsome face to mind. I’d never seen him with tears in his eyes. I had a feeling that they were there now. The wonderful moments we’d shared together were gone without much hope of being enhanced by more. At last he kind of cleared his throat and said, “I’m going to our beach house in Malibu for a few days. I was going to invite you.” Beach house in Malibu? Okay, now I was torn between true love and true luxury. But the kiss of Troy’s lips lingered from head to head to toe. So Garrett gave me the address and directions. Told me to make myself comfortable on the shaded patio, in case he was at the beach, adding: “Maybe you’ll change your mind.” I had to insist that I’d only be there to get the ring. He insisted that we discuss this in person.

Troy raised his eyebrows when I explained the plan to him. “Uh-uh,” he said. “I’m going with you.” We left around three in the afternoon. It was about an hour’s drive. When we found the place, I knocked and rang the bell many times. Garrett didn’t answer. “He might be at the beach,” I reminded Troy. “Then he probably left the ring inside,” Troy said — trying to open the door but finding it locked. “Probably,” I said. “Guess we oughtta go round and wait on the patio till he gets back.” We found the patio and I immediately got comfortable in one of the cushioned patio chairs shaded by the patio table’s big umbrella. Wind chimes were tinkling as Troy tried to yank open the locked sliding glass door. “Sit down,” I told him. “It’s pretty nice with the breeze and all.” It was one of those perfect Southern California days with a beige haze in a blue sky and everything gleaming from the bright, platinum sun like a big knife about to rip into a ripe watermelon.

All of a sudden, Troy walked past me to the tall wooden patio gate, opened it, and stepped out. “Where are you going?” I called to him. The gate swung shut. I sat there wondering if I should go after him or what. Finally I decided to get up and see if he’s in the car. I was unlatching the gate when I heard the glass door slide open behind me. Expecting to see Garrett there all sandy and sexy with a big bulge in his swim trunks, I turned. To my surprise it was Troy! “Let’s find the ring,” he said. He had this cute, devilish grin on his face. I guess he could see my bewilderment, for he added, “At least the living room window opened.” So I peeked out the gate to see if Garrett might be coming — which he wasn’t — before taking part in what could’ve been seen as burglarizing Garrett’s parents’ private beach house.

My veins were flooded with adrenaline and thrill in their finely furnished two-story house. Troy hurried, looking all over the kitchen counters. “I’ll check upstairs,” I said. I figured he’d already searched the living room for the ring before sliding open the glass. Soon enough, I found my ring. It had been left on the sink’s counter in the master bedroom’s bathroom. I made sure the diamond was secure in the “O” of LOVE and studied the gold for any scratches. Garrett had taken good care of the ring. Then I saw Troy’s reflection in the large mirror over the bathroom sink. It reminded me of when we first met in that men’s room at South Coast Plaza. I remembered how hot it had been — our orgasms dripping down the men’s room mirror.

Ours must’ve been the most illegal wedding on earth. Troy stepped up to where I stood before Garrett’s parents’ bathroom mirror as if joining me at the altar. It was very scary, because Garrett or his parents or even the police could’ve shown up at any second — scary, yet extremely exciting and romantic. All the love in my heart poured out through my dilated pupils into his as I slid the ring onto his left pinky. In place of the usual two words, “I do,” I said the only one that could express how strong my love for him would always be: “Forever.” And, with intense feeling — so intense that it would have brought a cathedral’s crowd to tears — Troy repeated: “Forever.” But it bothered me that he’d broken eye contact when he’d said it. In fact, he’d said it to the ring.

∞

I’d begun hanging out at Troy’s parents’ apartment all the time. Often spending the night with Troy. Troy liked me to wear his clothes, and so I did. One day we went out taking photos of each other — I’ll forever more regret the fact that I destroyed all of the photos I’d taken of Troy when we broke up. At least I held onto that one he’d taken of me when we stopped on the freeway overpass overlooking South Coast Plaza. I leaned back against the railing and looked at the big cassette tape player/radio of Troy’s that I was holding. It was playing a new Bowie tape I’d bought. I was wearing one of Troy’s short-sleeved shirts. The black-and-white checkered one. Troy had just told me something weird, then took the photo. He’d said that he’d had his eyes shut while washing his hair in the shower that morning and when he’d opened them—after stretching backward, thrusting his genitalia forward, rinsing out the shampoo — he saw his mother, Julia, holding the shower curtain aside and staring at the family jewels. He said it was like she was in a trance or something. Embarrassed, he quickly covered himself. She let go of the shower curtain and walked out. It was too close to Hitchcock for comfort.

Actually that night was the first he’d asked me to stay over. We put a sheet down on the living room floor with a couple of pillows and a big blanket. The next morning, his dad, Sean, having gone to work at the beauty salon, Troy wanted me to take a shower with him. I brought in his tape player and played Bowie’s HEROES. And I made double-sure that bathroom door was locked. I’m glad I did, because we soaped up and made up for the nervous sex we dared have during the night. It was on the floor of the bedroom he shared with his little adopted brother, Bailey. Bailey was asleep in one of the twin beds. At least his breathing sounded like sleep.

But that shower with Troy reminded me of when I was nine years old and this twelve-year-old boy I knew from across the street who had me stay over in his tent one night and talked me into taking off my clothes and rubbed his naked body against mine with his little cock hard as a rock while I was bored and wanted to sleep — well that red-haired, freckle-faced boy had come over with the exciting news of how good it felt to clean your weenie really really good with soap. He said he cleaned it so good that this white stuff shot out and it felt like the best thing in the world. So good he couldn’t describe it. I asked him what the white stuff was. He didn’t seem to think it was the soap, but I was convinced that was what had happened. The soap lather had gotten up inside his weenie and then was shot out again. And so here were Troy and I cleaning our weenies extra extra good, even lending each other a hand to really work up the lather. Of course, by that time I’d long figured out that it wasn’t the soap that shot out. Still I was nervous about the possibility of Julia somehow managing to unlock the door from the outside and sneak over to the shower curtain for our “boys will be boys” show.

Aside from that moment of motherly lust on Julia’s part (and I wonder if there were other moments that Troy never mentioned), I grew very fond of her. She became like a mom to me. I even started calling her “Mom.” And she kind of adopted me into the family. Troy’s adopted brother, Bailey, and even younger adopter sister, Courtney, made me feel claimed as a brother. Troy’s dad even went along with it. I truly enjoyed those days of being a part of Troy’s family. I loved them, and still do.

∞

Troy’s ashes could be me right now. He’s ashes. Where are his ashes. I want to visit Troy’s ashes as once I did his erections. I want to honor them. I remember you. And there have been so many I’ve forgotten. So many are on your side of the stone. I don’t need to tell you. Your porno career came between us. From the ones I saw, looks like you had some fun. Did you pay for the fun? Ironic to be paid for what you end up paying for.

You had a devious sweetness. Your deviousness is what charmed me most. When we shoplifted those fur-lined satin ski jackets from that big department store in the very mall where we had met. Mine was burgundy and yours was silver-blue. Not so easy to get away with nowadays. Electronic tags and alarms going off if you try. I don’t think anyone even noticed our putting the jackets on and walking out with them.

It seems instinctual for perhaps most species to perform some kind of ritual at the beginning of intimate relations. For Troy and me it was the dare of stealing those two ski jackets. This being 1979, it was before everything had alarm sensor tags.

It happened spontaneously. We were high on our love and wanted to proclaim it to all the world. Being unable to honestly do so, I came up with the idea of stealing the ski jackets that had caught Troy’s eye. Since, after having found out at the age of fifteen because of some trouble I got into, that whatever trouble I got into would be wiped clean from my record upon turning eighteen, I used to shoplift for no only myself, but for my mom. We’d go on shoplifting sprees together. The adrenaline rush of it all made it exciting. It was the closest I’d ever felt to my mom; even though I was well aware that her focus was entirely on getting the hot goods home. But so what? I was in love for the first time in my life. Real love. A love I was willing to do anything for. I adored Troy with every fiber of my being and all the ectoplasm of my soul — or however that works.

And so this would satisfy our need for the ritual that would confirm our union. This would be our wedding ceremony. Except we’d be stealing what we’d where for after the ceremony, not buying or renting something to wear for the ceremony itself. And it seemed right to make breaking the law a part of our wedding. It was like getting back at the oppressive society that refused to recognize and take seriously and to respect our love. Why should our love be treated as a crime? But if society made us criminals for our love in the first place, we felt it only right to slap society in the face by ripping it off. And this ceremony was a lot more fun than getting dressed up only to go through hours of stuffiness and putting on a big phony show that made money for a number of people only to finally get to the point of taking off our clothes and getting real by fucking all night long. It was better than even smashing a champagne glass with the heel of a well-polished shoe. It was ritual and revenge all in one sudden swoop.

We chose the ski jackets that most appealed to us and were in our size (we wore the same size), swooped them off their hangers, put them on and walked out like we’d walked in with them on in the first place. No one was paying attention.

Troy did light up, very much as my mother had, at the idea of getting expensive things at a five-finger discount. When I think about it there’s no escaping the fact that I didn’t feel worthy of anyone’s love and felt the need to find ways to win it. This was a long time ago and so my memory isn’t exactly a computer chip. It does seem to me, however, that I most likely took Troy aside from the ski jacket he was wishing he could afford to buy for the oncoming winter (although we were in Southern California, but the satin luster and rich metallic colors of those fur lined at the neck jackets made them the eye-catchers of the mall) and, having taken him out of anyone’s hearing distance, asked him if he’d ever shoplifted before. I’m 99% positive that his eyes widened as if he’d been offered a key to the local bank’s vault and given permission to take whatever he’d wanted, as he shook his head “no” to make clear he’d never been given such a key before. Considering his young age, this being but only a few days after his eighteenth birthday (which would make it possible for him to explain the new ski jacket away as a birthday gift from me, his new and suddenly rich friend), along with the fact of his Mormon/Protestant upbringing, it was entirely possible that the only corruption his innocence had ever encountered before this point had been in regards to sexual transgression.

Yes, I’m sure that I’d introduced Troy to the concept of getting whatever he wanted by just taking it. It was a concept I’d learned from my mother who took advantage of the men in her life to get whatever she wanted, which included brand new Cadillacs, Porches, two-story houses with pools, furs, jewels, you name it. To me, having grown up with this approach to life, it seemed quite natural to steal from stores. They were overcharging everyone anyways, I reasoned (without knowing that the overcharging was to cover their losses from shoplifters).

But I could feel Troy’s love for me grow wild at the moment I got the adrenaline rushing through his veins as I told him all we had to do was nonchalantly take the price tags off the jackets we wanted, then take the jackets off their hangers, put the jackets on, then walk out of the store as if we couldn’t find anything that we’d wanted to put our cash their register for. Security really was lax in those days. And I’d shoplifted enough in that mall with Mom to know which stores were the easiest to steal from. Usually it was the expensive small stuff that security and employees kept their eyes on. Stuff that could easily be slipped into a pocket or purse. They must not have thought anyone would have the balls to just put on a jacket and walk out with it. Yet that’s exactly what Troy and I did: wedding bells and rice in the air of our love. This was our wedding day. And that night we had our honeymoon in sleeping bags on the living room floor of Troy’s parents’ apartment. Our passionate tongue-filled kissing, and body to body thrusting, led to the crustiest socks morning ever saw.

Those were days I wish I could live in forever. You know, capture the perfect moment. I can’t believe I’m alive and you’re not. You were younger than me. It’s so wrong. But you did hurt me in the end, though not as much the other way. I’m the loyal type. I would’ve stayed with you.

∞

Troy, having just turned 18, was innocent about many things in life yet enthusiastic to extinguish that innocence as soon as possible. If you see innocence as ignorance then it’s entirely understandable. On the other hand, I myself was kind of innocent in regards to Gay sex. That’s where Troy would become my teacher. But before getting into all that orgasmic discovery, I’d like to focus on the boy I saw in Troy during our days with his family. Being the only true-blood child of Julia and Sean, yet growing up with foster children they’d take in — before and after adopting Bailey and Courtney — for extra money and, out of the goodness of their hearts, extra parenting (I wonder if they’d always wanted to have more children but couldn’t after Troy) seemed to have given Troy the feeling of being the legitimate heir to the kingdom. Especially sense most of the foster children were deeply troubled and some of them physically handicapped. (Their was even an incident where an emotionally disturbed foster brother pulled a knife on Troy.) So, combined with Troy’s sense of being the chosen one, the only true-blood of the children, of having the only real claim to the parents each foster child would come to love — combined with all these special feelings I sensed that he felt he somehow wasn’t enough for his parents. There must always have been that terrible question eating away at him that begins with conscious awareness: Why? Why bring in another son and daughter when they have me? Aren’t I enough for them? Don’t they love me? Maybe I’m not their favorite after all? Maybe they can’t accept the way I am? What I really am? Yes, that fear must’ve been lurking in his heart.

Julia and Sean did treat Bailey and Courtney as their own children, showing the two that special fondness parents have for their youngest offspring. I did notice how Troy seemed not to fit in so well with their perfect family unit. It was Troy who’d pointed out to me more than once that Bailey and Courtney were adopted, stressing that he was the only real child of Julia and Sean. Still Troy showed the genuine affection of an older brother to his younger siblings. He did love Bailey and Courtney. And the whole family had this open, loving quality that embraced my heart and took me in, making me feel included. Looking back, I think they saw me as just another stray.

There were moments when Troy seemed to feel uneasy about the possibility of me taking on the role of their favorite son. After all, he’d worked hard to graduate a year early from high school. And his parents did seem proud of him for this. He had such a promising future. Even his father’s mother had bought him that Toyota truck with a camper shell. But I admit that I was trying to get all the love from his parents that mine were never capable of giving. That’s partly what motivated me to announce on yet another day of my hanging out at Troy’s parents’ apartment that I was going to read a new biography I’d just bought on the life of Edgar Allan Poe from start to finish before nightfall. Troy’s dad had gone to work. I remember watching Troy’s little brother, Bailey, who always had so much energy he couldn’t sit still. Even when lying on his stomach, watching TV, Bailey would always be flexing his butt muscles back and forth, rocking on what I often imagined to be his erect penis. I used to do stuff like that when I was his age. It brought back memories. And watching Bailey’s solid young butt doing its rhythmic rocking was much more entertaining than whatever was on TV. But I’d wonder if anyone had any idea how the movie’s plot was unfolding. But this being a Saturday, it didn’t matter. Bailey was out playing with his friends.

Troy’s girlfriend Emma came over. I believe this was the day I first met her. Troy probably had called her after an hour of definite proof that I was determined to read the whole book before nightfall. Julia, who seemed very fond of Emma, treating her like her future daughter-in-law, complemented Emma on the loose, flowery blouse she wore over her blue jeans. Julia’s behavior toward Emma made it appear to me as if Julia took my relationship with Troy as a “boys will be boys” phase we’d soon outgrow — that is, if Sean had told her about Troy and me kissing in the car — which I assumed he did.

Emma — who was taller than both Troy and me, had long auburn hair and large, beautiful pastel-blue eyes — gave Troy an out from what otherwise would’ve been one boring-as-hell day for him. I didn’t get the feeling that she exactly knew about us. Maybe Troy had told her. She wasn’t only the girl he’d been having sex with — I don’t know how many times (and he never told me whether or not she’d been the only female he’d ever penetrated) — but his main confidante. My inner voice told me immediately that they were very, very close.

Although she was a bit guarded, and somewhat curious about me, she was friendly enough. Still, I felt like an outsider with my own lover when they were together. I could tell that she, deep down, yearned for Troy and her to end up together, raising a family, and all that trap. Troy seemed to be in love with her, too, but not in the same way. They were best friends with secret longings on Emma’s part that Troy seemed somehow aware of and reassured by — maybe even holding onto the hope that, yes, someday they could have a life together that would bring them all the acceptance and respect that you get in society when you choose the hole that best suits majority taste to stick your dick into. But I wondered why she hadn’t attended his eighteenth birthday party.

And so, after looking up into Emma’s large, beautiful — though tinged with a certain sadness — eyes, and greeting her with a self-conscious smile, handshake, and my usual, “Nice to meet you,” I again had to make it clear to Troy that I didn’t want to do anything but finish off Poe’s life. Troy did seem to resent how impressed his mom was with my goal to start and finish a book in a single day. His little sister, Courtney, was also impressed. I loved Courtney. She was as sweet as candy.

Troy rolled his eyes and, turning to Emma, said, “Let’s go.” They left for the day. Most likely they went to Emma’s parent’s house and had sex in her bedroom. I don’t know. I hadn’t considered that at the time. I was too caught up with my goal and, I guess, impressing Troy’s mom. You see, my mom never showed much interest in anything I did. So it was wonderful to have a motherly mom actually think something of me.

Julia made lots of coffee for me that day and was very encouraging, but, believe me, it was tough reading an entire book in one sitting (except for drinking the coffee, pissing it out, and getting more). When I finally finished the 250-page book before dusk, Julia was very impressed. And I felt great about myself — though spaced out in some kind of reader’s trance. I especially loved it when Courtney wrote my name on her chalkboard (she had this little stand-up chalkboard for practicing her writing on). She wrote my name, crossed it out and rewrote it as: BRAIN. “For now on I’m calling you Brain!” she said, “See?” pointing to the chalkboard. I felt elated until I realized that Troy was nowhere to be found. I’d been so determined and wrapped up in my goal and the attention it was getting me that I didn’t think of Troy’s feelings. Now he was all I wanted. In fact, he’d been the main person I’d wanted to impress. I then began feeling that empty void inside and was about to go home when he showed up. He said, “You get that out of your system?” He said it like it was a disease or something. That’s when I knew Troy was more into bodies than books.

What I saw of Troy’s family life was only what they let show. I’m sure there were many things that went on behind the scenes that weren’t so ideal. There did seem to be a certain secretiveness within the family. Troy had always been secretive about the things he was up to. And, I’m sure, many of those “things” were “up” because of him. I mean, looking back, it’s pretty obvious that Troy had been a sex addict. But in 1979 sex was considered relatively harmless. Antibiotics could always save the day (and night). It was much better than being a drug addict or alcoholic.

∞

We had the freedom of youth; not yet stuck in endless invisible chains of adult responsibility — which is a fancy label for enslavement to the system. Still, I was very lost in my present life of future dreams. Troy was the one always wanting to do this and do that. I’d go along with whatever, no matter how daring. In fact, the more daring, the more adrenaline propulsed my veins.

I’d do whatever Troy wanted. I think he liked being on the pedestal I’d put him on. I’m more realistic nowadays. The passing years have helped me to grow up. But back then with Troy, he was the center of my universe. I was totally Co-dependent with him. Totally, I still believe, in love with him. So when Troy told me that his dad owned a beauty shop and we could have anything done to our hair for free, I was open to whatever he’d suggest. I even asked, “Well, what should we have done?” I was thinking he’d say get a cool shag haircut—long hair being in style and all back then.

“I’m having my hair bleached,” Troy said. He said it with such sure confidence that it seemed the coolest and most rebellious thing we could do. I didn’t know it then, but Troy was way ahead of his time. Nowadays all kinds of young dudes, straight and Gay (though many of them seem to have grown bored with such cliché labels for their sexual appetites) are bleaching their hair. But in 1979 it wouldn’t be much different than hanging a sign around our necks that said “FAGGOT” in flashing lights. Young men just did not bleach their hair back then. That was strictly female territory. And, since women were (and in many ways still are) considered by macho-murderland to be inferior to men, anything that even hinted at femininity in a male meant he was to be bashed psychologically, emotionally, and physically. Troy’s father had to have been aware of this. Remember that Sean had brutally attacked Troy soon after having seen proof of Troy’s preference for the male gender. I wonder if Sean believed that bleaching Troy’s hair blond would cause Troy some traumatic Gay bashing that would drive his true self back into the closet where the door could be shut and locked, leaving him imprisoned in living a lie.

I don’t remember exactly how it worked out that I got my hair bleached blond, too, but most likely — having been inspired by James Dean biographies and how daring he was — I was more than open to doing anything that might make people hiss instead of yawn. Anyhow, I wanted to rebel against prejudice. Prejudice was wrong, so why should I let it run my life? Plus, more important to me, Troy was doing it. And I’ll never forget his father’s mischievous grin in the mirror at certain moments during the process. It was fun though. We did it at night, after the beauty shop had closed, which left the entire place to ourselves. I was surprised when, after the bleaching job was done, Troy suggested I have my hair put in a perm. I remember he’d asked his dad if he should do it but his dad said to try it out on me, first. Still, his dad did give him a much lighter, almost platinum shade of blond. But blond fit his skin tone better than mine. People were shocked by the drastic change in hair color on me, especially because of the perm. In fact, Troy’s family thought he looked pretty good. He did. Although he later adopted the hair style I had for his porno career — under the name of Jeremy Scott. I remember we were renting a room in a house in Laguna Beach, California, when he asked me out of the blue what I thought of the name, “Jeremy.” I asked him why. He wouldn’t say. Just wanted to know if I liked it or not. I said it sounded pretty cool. As for the last name, he’d recently met a guy named “Scott” that he told me was just a friend. I had my doubts, though. This was near the end of our relationship. I felt him becoming more distant. I think this “Scott” guy was somehow involved in the porno scene. He drove the same jeep that appeared in Troy’s first film with Kip Knoll called, PACIFIC COAST HIGHWAY (now a pre-condom classic). It was around this same time that Troy insisted we make a bet with each other. “I bet you,” he said, “that I have more money than you do five years from now.” I, of course, didn’t like this idea one bit. I said, “Don’t be too sure.” Then he challenged me. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s bet that whoever has less money than the other does five years from now has to give whatever money he has to the one with the most money.” I asked him how would the one who loses live without any money left. He said the loser would then have to depend on the winner, and do whatever the winner wants. Well, I was determined to win that bet. So we shook hands on it. We weren’t, however, in touch when the five years were up, so I may never know who won. I haven’t any idea how much money he got out of being a porno star.

By the way, someone recently told me: “I don’t like or use the term porno stars. They are Gay actors and models working in erotica. Porn is low class. That shit heteros do. Until recently these erotic films were the only films to depict Gay male life. In Hollywood we were depicted as deviates, villains & perverts by the closet queens running the industry. The performers were the only openly Gay actors.” I agree with acknowledging how brave and heroic Troy and other Gay actors working in erotica were and are. But I don’t like to think in terms of high class and low class. I mean, after we die we’re no class. Also, I respect porno performers — Gay and straight. They’ve really got balls. Either that or tits. And they’re all doing their part to help free people from the oppression of sexual shame.

Anyhow, looking back, I think that the sadistic grins I saw on Sean’s face were mostly aimed at turning me into a “Goldy Locks”. He probably felt it would teach me a lesson for messing around with his son. He might’ve figured I’d get my ass kicked by some homophobes or something. It was, after all, still early in the relationship between Troy and me. Or maybe Sean unconsciously needed to make me more like the woman in the couple. The need must’ve been there for him to feel his Gay son was at least a top and not a bottom. Somehow homosexuality is slightly easier for heterosexual parents to accept in their offspring when they can pretend that their offspring plays the role appropriate to society’s view of genital function: their Gay son must play the husband’s role; their Gay daughter must play the wife’s role. It’s always the Gay partner who’s the more disgusting gender-bender — or, if it’s two guys, “bender-overer”. For some reason, many heterosexuals can’t get it through their heads that two men in a Gay relationship (unless they’ve been brainwashed by straight society) are more like straight buddies who hang out together, except there’s sex involved. And when it comes to the sex, there’s a lot of taking turns. The role playing in a Gay male couple usually has to do with all-male fantasies — cops, construction workers, jocks, and all kinds of stud roles. If a guy wants someone in a female role, he sure wouldn’t be going for another guy. That is, unless he’s got a fetish or something.

When Troy’s mom saw my hair, she had trouble holding back a laugh. But I think the bleach job somehow endeared me to her. Maybe out of pity. She must have been sure then what a lost child I was. I sort of remember her asking Sean why he did that to me. Sean said something like, “That’s what he asked for.” The truth, however, remains: I was just going along with Troy and Sean’s suggestions and/or offerings. Plus, I was kind of curious about how it would look. Anyway, Sean started warming up to me with my golden locks. It was like an initiation I’d passed. But the change made me an outcast just about everywhere else. Because of hair color and curl I was suddenly regarded as a freak. Each of my family busted a gut with laughter when they saw me. They kept asking, “Why? Why did you do that to yourself?” They were very embarrassed and concerned people would think I was “weird”. “Weird” was their way of saying “queer” or, more precisely, “homosexual” — God forbid. They were the ones most traumatized by my bleach-job-perm. People I didn’t even know sneered and, many times, called me the usual insults the majority of Gays are sick of. It was as if I were the only black person in an all white community of racists; or a Jewish person in a neo-Nazi neighborhood. Yet I was fascinated by the proof I was getting at how shallow most people are. How they do judge books by their covers. How they fail to realize that every human being has feelings just like they do. How out of touch they are with knowing that what truly matters is what’s in a person heart. Mentally retarded people aren’t respected. They are pitied. Handicapped people have to raise hell to get any respect. If you don’t fit in with the media’s presentation of normal, you’re not taken seriously. Yes, I was laughed at and laughed back. I knew they were superficial fools. And I was saddened by the fact that everyone in my family had laughed at me. They, of all people, should’ve been aware of the essential me that meant more than the hair on my head. I must admit, however, I enjoyed the attention my insanity had brought me, along with the feeling of being a courageous rebel.

Yet the new platinum blond on Troy’s head received rave reviews. He was the king and I, the court jester — although he’d told me that he did like the way I looked with my golden curls. I think he meant in regards to how they would look on him. We were doing it for fun, anyhow. And since I dared do this with him, it was his turn to dare drive out to James Dean’s grave in Fairmount, Indiana, with me. I was dying to get close to James Dean, even if only to kneel above his rotted corpse in the ground.