Month: August 2019

Previously on Battlestar Galactica…

The Table

It was shortly after my second meeting with GSA that I was introduced to the table at Louie's Lower Level.

Louie's—located in the basement of the Student Union—was the funky laid-back alternative to the more traditional and sterile campus cafeteria upstairs and doubled as a great gathering place for students before and after class. Think lots of dark wood, Tiffany lighting, and plants in macrame slings. Kind of TGI Fridays on a budget. (It was 1977, after all.)

I'd been going there since I started at the university, but until my second GSA meeting and a group of us headed downstairs afterward to grab a bite to eat,  I'd somehow been completely oblivious to the fact that one long table off to the east side of the dining room was home base for many of the campus homosexuals.

It was there where I met my tribe that spring: John Maguire, Ric Hathaway, Chas Dooley, Don Hines, Kent Kelly, John Marion, Abe Marquez, Tina, Marco, and many others who became friends, mentors, and yes, in a couple cases, even lovers over the coming months. I shall do my best to give each their proper due since so many of them are no longer with us.

Chas Dooley

I actually met Chas before GSA or Louie's. He was a good friend of Andy's and visited him a lot when I was in the old dorm. Chas was young, black, proud, flamboyant, and simply had no fucks to give. He intimidated me when I was still in the closet; once out I came to admire and adore him. In fact, there were times over the next couple years I wanted nothing more than to jump his bones, but while the interest seemed to be mutual, the timing was always off and it never happened.

I lost track of Chas sometime between 1978 and 1980. He'd moved home to Louisiana and while we'd continued to correspond eventually a letter was returned as undeliverable and the phone number I had for him was disconnected.

It was in 1991 or so that I was walking home from the Castro to my apartment off Church Street in San Francisco and I passed a handsome black man coming my way. We made eye contact, smiled, and after we'd passed almost immediately turned around. "Chas?" "Mark?" We rushed to each other and hugged. He was late to be somewhere, so we couldn't catch up. We exchanged numbers (I guess everyone ends up in SF eventually), but not for lack of trying, we never did reconnect.

I have tried to track him down, both through normal channels as well as through the Social Security Death Index (you never know, and if he's gone I'd like closure) but there are hundreds of Charles Dooleys listed online (but none in the SSDI), so I've given up hope of ever reconnecting with him.

The First Time: John Maguire

I wasn't particularly attracted to John. We'd both become regulars at Louie's and had gotten friendly, enjoying each other's company, but while there were many tasty things on Louie's menu, lust of John definitely wasn't one of them. One Friday afternoon we were at the table talking and discovered we were both still virgins. He looked at me and asked, "Do you want to do something about that?" A thousand thoughts ran through my head in a flash, and I blurted out, "Sure!" It was one of those, "Oh fuck, why not?" moments.

We didn't go out on a proper date beforehand and there was no romance; he simply showed up at my dorm room at the appointed time and we got naked. I won't go into all the gruesome details, but let's just say the experience was far from what I think either of us had hoped for. After he left I thought, "This is what has everyone in such an uproar?" John and I were still amicable after the encounter, but something had definitely changed and neither one of us really put any further effort into our friendship developing further.

I have no idea whatever happened to John. Upon returning to school for my sophomore year, many people had disappeared from GSA and the table, John being one of them. I heard he'd moved home to New Jersey.

And again, like Chas, there are hundreds of possible John Maguires online. So…yeah, tracking him down, living or dead…not going to happen.

Next time on Battlestar Galactica…

Okay…remembering and writing about all this is fun!

Previously on Battlestar Galactica… (In case you're wondering, I'm calling it this as a throwback to my original posting of these stories on the old blog, written at peak Battlestar Galactica popularity.)

While I suppose I could have come out publicly in High School, for a variety of mid-70s reasons I chose not to. I had consciously decided that I would announce to the world once I'd moved away from home and started college. Based on my mother's earlier reactions to gay men—which was surprising considering she was an interior designer and had worked around them her entire career—I wasn't entirely convinced it would be warmly received by the family and wanted to be as far away as possible when I dropped the proverbial bomb.

My first semester at the University of Arizona was—not surprisingly—a difficult one, if only for the usual problems of any first year college student. I had never lived away from home, and while I made friends easily, in the beginning I knew no one in Tucson.

My first dormitory roommate was a Japanese-American gymnast. I don't remember his name or even what he looked like at this point other than he had a body that wouldn't quit. He was a gymnast, after all. Might've been a fantasy come true if not for the fact he was virulently homophobic and made it known almost immediately. While I was still firmly in the closet, I knew this was not going to work as my plans for coming out slowly began to coalesce in my head. After a week or so I swapped rooms with a guy down the hall I'd gotten friendly with.

My new roommate was Karl Kilgore, a tall, blond, good-looking civil engineering (?) student from southern California.

Karl and I got along famously. We shared the same world view, liked the same music, and enjoyed each other's company.

I still hadn't come out yet, but the guy in the room adjacent to ours read me from the moment I arrived on the floor. Andy was…flamboyant…out and proud. He was one of the first gay men I met who was not. taking. shit. from. anyone.

In many ways he took me under his wing for those first couple months at the university, keeping my secret to himself. I remember one day toward the holidays we were chatting and he flat out asked, "When are you going to end this charade and just come out?"

I was quite taken aback, and at the same time relieved that he knew it was time as much as I did.

Along the same time this happened, I was over at the campus planetarium one night, when a series of events were set in motion that led to my tearing the door off that closet and bursting forth into the light. I was touring the exhibits when another boy caught my eye, one David Miller.

Another freshman, David was from the hills of West Virginia and frankly, turned out to be sweet as fuck. We struck up a conversation and a friendship soon formed. Was David gay? I didn't get that sense about him at all, but I didn't get "wholly straight" either. I remember that when I told Andy I'd made a friend outside the dorm he quipped, "So…Mark's got a boyfriend."

No, that wasn't it at all, but when the opportunity presented itself for me to switch dorms and share a room with David, I jumped at it.

David accompanied me back to Phoenix for Thanksgiving that year and my family loved him.

The Christmas and New Year's holidays came and went, and upon returning to campus for the spring semester I'd resolved that this was now the time to come out.

One evening in late January, after we'd gone to bed, I said to David, "I have something to tell you."

"What is it?"

"You know that guy Adam I told you about? The one I met up with again at the library?"

(Adam was a guy from Phoenix whom I'd met and buddied up with during the Freshman Orientation weekend on campus the past August.)

"Yeah."

"I like him."

"Great! You made another friend. What's he like?"

"No, I like him, David. I really like him."

(It should be noted that nothing had ever actually happened between Adam and I at the library or anywhere else for that matter—but I was mightily infatuated with this now newly-minted frat boy I'd reconnected with.)

"What are you saying?"

"I'm gay, David."

There was an extended silence. After several minutes he said, "I have a confession too."

Was David about to tell me he was gay? I mean, that would be awesome.

"My uncle is Christine Jorgensen."

Now while I hadn't been officially out, I had done my gay history. I knew who Christine was.

"We don't talk about uncle George much anymore," he added.

Of course, this opened the conversational floodgates and for several days thereafter it seemed all was well in the world. David showed no signs of being freaked out, nor had his attitude toward me changed in any way.

HOWEVER, a little over a week later, David announced he was moving out of the room and in with—in his words several months later—"an Iranian who never bathed."

I soon learned that shortly after my coming out to him, David—who never had a drink in his life—had gone out one night and had gotten absolutely shit-faced. He returned to the dorm at 2 am and basically went door to door telling everyone on the floor, "Mark is a fag!"

Well, I was now officially out. It also explains why there was no hurry to backfill that empty bed and how I ended up with a single room for the remainder of the semester without having to pay for it. Membership has its privileges.

The question remained, "What now?"

Andy suggested going to one of the GSA (Gay Student Organization) meetings on campus. After ignoring his suggestions and the adverts in the student paper for weeks, one chilly February night I decided to head over to the student union and check out this GSA.

Nervous doesn't even begin to describe what I was feeling. Would I be accepted? Would they like me? Would I get raped by a group of sex-crazed homosexuals?

It turned out two of of three were correct and I left the meeting with my virginity intact.

When I first entered I was greeted by a guy named Phil Oliver. His first question—something no one had ever outright asked before—was "Are you gay?"

I answered in the affirmative.

The meeting was actually a bit of a bore, but I met a group of people who almost immediately became my tribe and ultimately confirmed two famous quotes from Richard Bach's book Illusions:

All the people, all the events in your life are there because you have drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you.

and

The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.

Next time on Battlestar Galactica…