Joseph in the Club

About to Come Out to my gang when I was 14 became a Horrifying and Stifling experience in a Twilight Zone Twist Ending moment.

I. First Trauma/Shock

In 1966 I was fourteen I was lonely, bisexual, emotional, always sexually aroused and still being abused by my parents. Home for the last year was my Grandfather's half a duplex in a small town in the rural Pennsylvania. I considered it a small White town stuck somewhere in the early 1900's. The White Middle and Lower class was about 96% of the town's population with no visible people of color within walking distance of my neighborhood. That designation for non-whites had not yet come into use yet if it had actually been uttered by anyone then. I was in the 8th grade in a Jr./Sr. High School that went from the 7th grade to the 12th grade. 

There was only one Black child in the school. She was in Special Ed and was physically disabled. But students in that class were called Retarded regardless of their level of disability. Anne, that's what I heard her name was, had great difficulty walking, was cross-eyed, and rarely seen in the halls as her class stayed in one room all day. But when she and her class came to lunch a certain group of teen geniuses were always in proximity and more than willing to perform for the seemingly appreciative lunch crowd.  They would mock the way she struggled to walk and then bust up laughing looking to the onlookers for peer approval. I found it disrespectful and childish and didn't participate in the 'fun.'

Until I was thirteen we lived in Newark, N.J. a very large highly integrated East Coast city with many different Cultures living together and interacting daily. I was never impressed with being white even though I often heard from peers and relatives how 'lucky' I was. Caucasians were the Minority in much of the city but I never paid attention to or cared about skin color. Kids were kids and many of my long-time and best friends had darker skin than me. Somehow we never noticed or felt compelled to see color as a determinative aspect of our love and regard for each other.   

I didn’t like the school and I didn’t fit in. It was a Jock school full of gangs like the Jock Gang, the Head Gang, the Choir Gang, the Science Gang, the Brain Gang and even the Greaser Gang. I wound up in the Outcast Gang, me and four or five other kids who didn’t fit in.

We skipped school together, hot wired cars for joyrides, smoked cigarettes, drank alcohol when we could get it, called any girls who wouldn’t talk to us W****s. We thought there were a lot of W****s in our school. We began hanging over in the next town. It was really a city and had all kinds of people including Black kids whom my friends had never met or interacted with. So when we somehow wound up at Black Joseph’s apartment with some Black teens our age my friends were in another world. More so when they learned that Joseph was openly very Gay.

Evidently Joseph invited males teens to my place with promises of snacks and alcohol. He also promised not to hit on anyone. But no one knew why he was called Black Joseph. I figured it might be because he was so dark. He was the Blackest person I ever saw. It didn’t matter to me I loved all people. Black, white, or Pink. Even more now that I knew I was Bisexual. I made out with a couple girls. Got to second base. Had a girlfriend last year. And made out with a boy my age. Got all the way home. Really I loved everyone. Any color. Every color. In all ways. People are people I always said. So I guess I was people, too. Not just a color. 

Once the Black and White boys started talking it didn’t take long to connect. My friends were really astounded to learn that the Black teens were less Black than they thought and more teen then they knew. We were all people, young people. They all found that they had more that connected them than divided them. Within hours we were all old pals. We shared the same jokes, school gripes, family and parent problems, sexist attitudes, and bullshit stories of sexual conquests which somehow brought us around to Joseph’s sexuality. 

We all knew Joseph was Gay and after the Black kids teased him about it and he went along with it my friends joined in. It was a big Gay fun house. They would make cruel jokes and Joseph would laugh at himself with them. I wasn’t sure how to take it. After each joke someone always said, ‘just kiddin’, Joseph.’ He’d say, ‘no problem, we're all just having fun.’

The third time we visited Joseph’s I was less leery about the way they treated him. I even thought that if they accepted him then they might be cool with me if I said I was Bisexual. I started to relax after that. I thought if Joseph wasn’t threatened by it I had no need to sweat it. I decided that I was going to try to tell them when we left. We had our party for hours. I even had some wine which made me silly and high. Eventually we left, hit the streets and were on our way home. I was thinking I would tell them I had something to say when I was brought up cold.

“Man is that Joseph such a f****t,” Joey said. “ I hate the sissy s**t!”

“You and me, too,” Jimmy said, “why do we go up there?”

“Free booze and laughs,” Joey told us.

“But really f**s suck,” Danny said, “no joke. Somebody should get rid of him and all the other queers.”

“Yeah,” Jimmy said, “friggin’ mess ’em up. We don’t need f**s. Kill ’em all!”

I was freaked out. I couldn’t believe what they were saying. It was all a too much. They were using Joseph for booze and a hangout and all the time they hated him. They actually thought about hurting him because of who he was attracted to. Oh my god! I was gonna tell them I liked boys. Christ, would they hurt me? Would they want to kill me? I felt very scared. Of my friends. My good friends. The Guys. Boys I trusted and care about. Boys I would defend and likely fight for. I felt like puking.

“But you know what’s even worse?” Nookie said. Up till now he hadn’t said anything, ”What’s    worse is he’s a N****r. A friggin’ black N****r.”

Everyone of them cracked up at that. They started slapping Nookie on the back and saying things like, ‘good one, Nook,’ and ‘you got it, Nook.’ I almost did puke then. I hadn’t said a word the whole time. Now I knew I had to keep my mouth shut. I didn’t know if they were kidding or serious. I was really scared. I was shaking and I could feel my legs get rubbery. Don’t talk to me please I thought. Just don’t talk to me guys. They didn’t. They just kept laughing and walking ahead of me. I didn’t know what I could do. These were the Guys. My friends. My only friends. I just prayed we would make it home without them asking for my comment. I was really confused. And just as scared. I might never tell anyone about me. If I wasn’t aware of how much my best friends hated gay people and Blacks how could I trust anyone. I couldn’t. Not for many decades.

II. Second Trauma/Realization

A week later on Saturday night my friends and I were hanging out on our favorite corner along the strip, the main thoroughfare in and out of town. Every night there was a parade of shiny, modified and stock Hot-rods racing up and down the street. The Local Heads and Out-of-towners would burn rubber, speed shift, and jostle for position in a ego-driven endeavor to flaunt their gleaming and glorious machines and hopefully impress the street-side spectators. For us it was something to do. However, our best-loved corner was less than a block from Joseph's place and my continued awareness of our proximity was causing me great anxiety. I wondered if any of the guys considered it or were even cognizant of it. After our last visit and my friends' subsequent denunciation of Joseph, his sexuality, his skin color, and his Right-to-Life not another word of the incident or visiting the man was uttered by any one of us.

About an hour after dark Nookie started rumbling about being bored with standing there again. He wanted to do something more exciting, something more 'fun.' He wanted to get a drink and he knew where to do that; at Joseph's place. I almost s**t myself. I couldn't believe he wanted to go there again after vehemently expressing his loathsome and racist feelings about the man. I was freaked out. Was it really about drinking or did he have some frightening and odious ulterior motive? Did he want to do something injurious to Joseph? Would that be more exciting? More 'fun.' The thought frightened me terribly: but going to Joseph's excited me far more. I wanted to see Joseph again exceedingly more then the guys did. Far more than just to drink alcohol. I wanted to see Joseph again because he was the first and only Adult Gay man I had ever met. And I wanted a man. Terribly. 

With little hesitation or forethought I seconded his suggestion exclaiming 'let's go guys.' I then executed a fast 180 and marched fearlessly into the dark. I didn't care if they followed me or not. I had only one fervent desire on my aroused teenage mind. I had no idea how or if I could possibly satisfy it. Hell I didn't even know what I was going to do when I got there. But then my brain wasn't really leading the way.

Joseph greeted us with wide glassy eyes, a wider smile, and warm firm hugs. He always wore too much cologne which I liked and this night was no different. When we embraced I ardently pressed my face against his neck and was reluctant to release him when he dropped his arms. He leaned back and looked at me with an expression of pleasant surprise. Seeing that everyone else had gone into the kitchen and feeling both bold and impassioned I pulled him back and hugged him a second time. He pressed his crotch into mine and I responded in kind. I slid one hand down his torso and clutched his rear. He sighed loudly. Astonishingly I realized I was acting the aggressor. I was hitting on him. Our roles had reversed. Although I had never seen him approach any of the boys he invited in I had no way of knowing if he actually did that or not. Quite often I thought of being with him; especially when I was masturbating. I frequently wished he would come on to me. I was far beyond ready; I was willing and able. As we stood pressed tightly together I thought about kissing his neck but as brave and carnal as I felt at that moment I was actually a frightened and inexperienced fourteen-year-old boy. 

"Hey Joseph," a voice said, "do you have any…oh, oh! Sorry Joseph." It was Ronnie one of the downtown teens who seemed to be a regular at Joseph's apartment. Joseph hastily pushed me away and began laughing uproariously. 

"You funny kid," he blurted out through the laughter, "but there's no need to whisper in my ear. We all friends here." His immediacy to cover for our behavior was laudable but the naked fear I saw in his eyes belied his ironic performance. He was panic-stricken. Though all his young visitors knew he was Gay he had always been very careful not to speak of or exhibit it in any way.

I could see the painful apprehension I knew he hid from others. Those who would not be or seem to be as accepting of his True Nature as the boys who visited his apartment. Those who would commiserate with the feelings my friends expressed outside of Joseph's earshot. Those who would commit the vile and repugnant acts my companions so casually articulated. I felt it in my gut. His fear was becoming my fear. That day I saw in Joseph a dread and a realization that I had only recently encountered: the threat of exposure. 

This newly revealed crippling fear of disclosure to the discrimination, hatred, and violence of others echoed the intense anxiety I experienced everyday due to years of spontaneous emotional and physical abuse as a child. During those years I was always waiting for the unheralded and unwarranted attack; for the physical manifestation of my fear; for the other shoe to drop. Eventually I became hyper-vigilant. It helped but any defense system has cracks. I learned from Joseph in a single look and a second of clarity that the vigilance I had developed as a child in order to survive my ordeal would shortly come to serve a dual purpose. It would be nearly fifty years before I understood that having been abused had left me scared and tormented and severely limited my consciousness and potential.

For the second time in one week and solely within his paradigm I discovered that for some unknown, undefinable, unproven, intangible, and irrational reason Homosexuality and it's siblings including my own bisexuality was appalling and frightening to others. For the vast majority of Americans it was considered immoral, it was evil incarnate, vehemently hated, and Socially Taboo. 

When I became aware at age eleven that I had a non-binary sexual and romantic attraction to others it occurred several months before I learned about Human Sexual Behavior.  It was intuitively and entirely normal and natural to me. The resultant consciousness of who and what I was in no way diminished my Self-worth or devalued anything at all in my Self-concept. It in fact enhanced it. It broadened my concept of male and female sentience and inter-personal relations. My Gender Binary attraction from its point of inception was far more than sexual. It was a new and Higher Consciousness. The Background on which my ever-evolving Reality exists. It was and always will be Organic, Holistic, Integral, and Sentient. It was then as it is now not what I do. It was and always will be what I am.

III. Third Trauma/Exposure

Witnessing Joseph's painful act and my sudden awareness of his motivation was like the proverbial light bulb exploding in my head. I didn't then perceive the magnitude of the experience or how it would impact my life but I knew it changed something. Something so pervasive I couldn't have imagined it at that time. As Joseph agonizingly ad-libbed for Ronnie he never once looked at the boy keeping his head turned away to avoid eye contact. He looked to me to be frozen in flight as he attempted to flee. I was unable to hear neither his laughter nor his fiction. The shocking voices of my friends were thundering in my ears: 

Joey " "F****t!" 

Danny "  "Queer!" 

Nookie " "N****r!" 

Jimmy " "Die!" 

For a moment I was reliving the shock of hearing my friends spit out these blasphemies. I was going to tell them about myself. I wanted them to know who I really was. How I was. How I felt about relationships; about girls…and boys. I thought they would accept me. But I thought wrong. Very wrong. I misjudged them. Horribly. A lesson learned. A lifetime changed. Damaged. Hidden. 

As their voices began to wane I heard another voice. It was Ronnie. He was haltingly apologizing to Joseph. I looked around just in time to see him awkwardly backing out of the room; a look of embarrassment awash over his face. When he was no longer visible I turned to see Joseph with his hands against his chest palm to palm as if he were praying. His eyes were closed and he seemed to be vibrating ever so slightly. His lips were moving by no sound was coming from his mouth. I walked slowly toward him. He didn't notice me because when I touched his arm he jerked. Without opening his eyes or removing his hands from his chest he turned away from me and quickly exited the room. I don't remember seeing him again that night.

Over the next few hours I drank Joseph's wine with the rest of the boys. They…er. we were loud and raucous and the apartment was suddenly smoky. The lights seemed to twinkle in the haze. I guess I was drinking too much because I kept bumping into furniture and people. I needed to urinate and slowly found my way to the bathroom. Inside I found Ronnie staring at himself in the mirror and running his fingers through his long hair. He sort of shimmered in the light and looked soft around the edges. I thought he looked slightly feminine. He turned to look at me and said hello as I sat on the edge of the tub. I grunted back at him.  

"Sorry about before," he said glancing quickly at the open door. "I didn't know you were in the club." 

He smiled and went back to grooming himself in the mirror.

"The club," I said, still feeling the urge to pee. "What club?"

"Oh, you're not?" he said turning to face me. He seemed surprised.

"Oh yeah," I blurted out, "yeah, the club. Yeah, I'm in." I didn't want to seem stupid.

"Yeah, I figured so," he said smiling, "I mean, you did have your hand on Joseph's a*s."

I stared at him. Had my hand on Joseph's a*s? What the hell did that mean? He did see us. He thinks I'm in the club. What friggin' club was he tal….the club! Joseph has a secret club. A Man/Boy Sex Club. Ronnie must be in it and he thinks I am too. I wish. Maybe I could be. I already opened up to Joseph. I'm sure he got the message. And this kid, Ronnie. I guess he's my age. He is kind of cute. I wondered if he was cut or not. I liked them uncut like myself.

"Hey. Maybe you and I huh," he said touching my shoulder lightly. "I guess it would be okay since you're in the club too. Let me know. I'd like to I mean. You're kinda cute if not too hip." He laughed slightly, squeezed my shoulder, and walked out of the bathroom. 

He just offered to have sex with me, I thought. S**t! How have I missed this, this club. Right under my nose Joseph was doing some of the boys. I wanted in. I wanted Joseph. I wanted a man. Boys were fun. I had been with a few, two actually, but I always wanted a man. An adult; with experience. 

Ooh, s**t. I was feeling woozy, almost dizzy. I never drank more than a few ounces of wine when I was at Joseph's. Sometimes nothing at all. I wanted to be in control of my actions. It was bad enough having anxiety almost all the time I didn't need to be careless and unthinking. Especially now with this new awareness of exposure; of the need for vigilance to protect myself from…almost everyone. My own friends, others who would hurt me because I was different, the blind followers, the Moral Defenders, those who would act out in fear born of ignorance, the fundamentalists, the Stewards of the Status Quo, the paranoid, the bullies, the Homophobes, and the Bigots.

Thinking about it hurt my brain which was hovering just outside my skull. I was at my limit and needed to lie down. Quickly. I forced myself to get to my feet and stumbled out of the bath. The wall I was leaning on was my only support so I followed it to the right, twice, and found myself in what I guessed was Joseph's bedroom. I was weakened and spinning now and the only thing I wanted was to lie down. The neatly made bed in the far corner was beckoning to me so by pushing off the wall I somehow flowed to it without taking a dive. I plopped face down on the top spread and the world slowly spun around and around as darkness fell. The last thing I thought was that the bedspread was amazingly soft and smelled of some type of strong, aromatic flower. Then, nothing. 

IV. Last Trauma/I (don't) Think We're Alone Now

I awoke on my back and fully clothed on Joseph's bed the next morning.  I don't know why I was surprised that I still had my clothes on. Just wishful thinking I figured. But wishes have a way of coming true at the most unexpected times and places. Joseph was next to me on my left and appeared to be sleeping. His right hand was inside the waistband of my pants and was ever so slowly creeping closer and closer to my semi-erect adolescent penis. It's stiffening condition was related more to an urgent need to urinate than the soft hand's proximity. I was surprised and as usual very anxious. His palm felt warm against the hairless flesh of my bare abdomen. It was somewhat surreal. He was pretending to be asleep so his hand seemed to be proceeding by it's own volition. 

I felt cold and sweaty and frightened but equally thoroughly stimulated. I willed my hard-on into his hand but it made no attempt to assist me. Gradually my pulse began to race and my body to shake. As my blood pressure increased my head began to pound rhythmically in a nearly painful way.  I was extremely excited because I had been dreaming of just such an encounter for several years. Most frequently when I would pleasure myself. Visions and fantasies flashed though my head. But my greatest desire now seemed to be breathtakingly close to fruition. 

I was mere seconds away from having a real adult, a grown man, an experienced lover with whom to share my teenage passions. This adult male, this soft-spoken and generous man, wanted to be intimate with me. He wanted to make love to me with no prior conditions and asking nothing in return but my presence and my active participation. I felt not only sexually aware but appreciated and for the first time in my short life wanted. I felt unfettered by the constraints of the world and at least momentarily rescued from the monster I exasperatingly knew as anxiety. 

Suddenly the monster in all it's magnificent horror made a startling surprise panic attack on me from all directions. Enormous intrusive Neon Signs flashed alarmingly from the apex of my psyche to the depths of my consciousness. 

"Spurious Associate Proximity Alert," the flashing distress signal warned.

What if there were other boys in the living room?  Listening at the bedroom door. What if they came in and caught them?  Everyone knew what Joseph was and it was always a big joke even with Joseph.  But no one knew of my own secret nature.  Joseph was tolerated as long as he provided libations and kept his sexual appetites and his hands to himself.  But once outside of his place Joseph was a 'f****t' and none of the others admitted to going that way.  I mean this was 1966 and these boys were 'all man.'  They could tease each other about being 'queer' but don't dare admit it if it was true and don't dare get labeled that way.  You would suddenly have no friends and possibly become a pariah within your peer group.  "I ain't no queer," they all stated.  They hated queers.  All of them would attest to the same beliefs.  Queers were sick and demented and didn't deserve to live.  

I was shocked with their expressions of hatred and violence.  I couldn't believe that I thought I knew them.  That  I was so blind to their fears and secret hatreds. Why did they have such hatred and maliciousness for Homosexuals?  Particularly since they had most likely never even met one before Joseph.  Why would they think to hurt someone because of that person's sentiment or expressions of affection?  More urgently what would they do to me if they knew I was bisexual; queer in their minds?  Would they ostracize me or worse; would they hurt me, maybe try to kill me? Would they hate me and try to shame me?  

I have long been akin to great pain and vast feelings of emptiness.  I couldn't endure being hated or feared by anyone. For any reason. Certainly not for my romantic attraction and sexual feelings for more than one gender. Something personal to me alone and that in truth could not possibly have any affect on anyone else's life, beliefs, attitudes, or affiliations. My own or anyone else's True Nature could no more affect another person than the color of my eyes or the size of my shoes. So in order to prevent discrimination and avoid exposure I hid my Nature, my Truth, and my feelings. I had to go into the dark and lonely closet of lore. I couldn't lose the few people that I thought cared about me. I knew then that I couldn't let anyone find out.  Not my boys, my parents, my school mates. Not now and possibly not ever.   

I had no way of knowing if anyone was in the apartment besides Joseph and I. The only way to know was to go look and if I did that I knew I couldn't return to the bedroom. The spell was broken. The ugly and pervasive creature that tormented me endlessly had risen and there would be no returning to the bed of what was to be my first man. The monster who would continue to haunt me for the next fifty years was back in the driver's seat. Once I left he would never let me return.

.

Against my own desires and feelings I knew what I had to do.  I sat up and pulled Joseph's hand out of my pants.  It broke my young heart.  Here I was about to consummate a long-time desire and I had to stop for fear of discovery. To prevent Joseph's and my own exposure. To keep him safe.  I had to lie to a man who was about to treat me to a loving, sexual experience that I had long yearned for.  I felt sick inside.  As if in a dream I got out of the bed.  Joseph continued to feign sleep.  I mumbled aloud something about I can't do this now and walked to the door, grabbed the knob, and exited the room.  I was almost in tears.  It felt horrible to go against my own nature in this way but fear is a powerful and controlling adversary.  I knew I would never return. Doing so would surely cause me to face that gnawing new fear again.  I would have to relive my own betrayal and admit that I acted like a coward.  No, I didn't think I could ever face Joseph again. I was going to blow my first opportunity to be with a man. I didn't know then that it would years before I would get another chance.  

I walked slowly and quietly to the living room. It was empty, devoid of any of the boys who had been my good friends. The friends I was going to reveal, expose myself to. The young White, Heterosexual, Racist and Homophobic small-town male teens who would reside in my head for  the next fifty years to keep me ever vigilant in a dangerous and frightening America. The land I was born and raised in where I and those like me were threatening to some and threatened by most of my homeland's's citizens merely for being different, an anomaly, an abomination hated and revile by our peers. Daring to live outside the mainstream in the same free nation where Frank Sinatra was lauded and praised for proudly singing out "I Did It My Way."

But, the hardest blow of all was finding the apartment empty.  Joseph and I had been completely alone. No one was there to find out. No one would have seen us. No one would have known. I felt empty, betrayed, and disgusted.  Fate had fucked me in the a*s and I didn't even get to participate or enjoy it.  Another notch on the painful and destructive sacred and consecrated belt of childhood abuse and adult discrimination. With my psychological phallus in hand I walked the dark, dreary, and lonely road home. I honestly believed I could never return.             

But three weeks later pumped up by a burgeoning rationalization that I was what I was and instead of being ashamed of it I accepted that it was something I could be proud of I returned to Joseph's apartment. When I knocked Joseph answered the door. We stared nervously at one another for a long anxious moment and then Joseph put out his hand smiling at me. I took his hand in mine and he lead me into his apartment.