Gorgeous

My generation grew up in a time devoid of any context for being gay. Long before puberty, I sensed something different inside of me, but I had no models or mentors to provide validation for this feeling.

This story is based on an early memory of seeing my first gay person when I was a boy.

GORGEOUS

The humid air inside of the 1959 Chevy sedan was made thicker with tension all the way from St. Louis to St. Petersburg. Mom was still a bit shaky after her latest stint in the mental hospital and our packed-to-the-gills car only made her more anxious. Dad was hunched over the wheel seething with hangover-hostility while Mom sat tight-lipped in the front passenger seat, her hand gripping the door handle, threatening to throw herself out.

My eleven-year-old sister Barbie and I lay on opposite sides of the backseat. We gobbled penny-candy to numb our angst and distracted our minds with comic books. Our hyper-glycemic high inevitably led to horsing around and kicking at each other until Dad yelled “knock it off back there!” as Mom tightened her grip on the door handle.

Once we made it to Florida, our spring vacation of 1960 provided a welcome respite from our family psychodrama. Having arranged to meet the Martins and their two young daughters at a motel near the beach, my parents kept a tentative truce since our rooms shared a thin wall.

On our first evening, we all walked to a nearby Howard Johnson (aka HoJos) for dinner. While the kids chewed on rubbery-as-pencil-erasers fried clams, our parents nibbled at their turkey dinners, counting the minutes until they could put us to bed and resume their cocktail-hour in the motel courtyard.

After a big pancake breakfast at HoJos the next morning, Dad and Mr. Martin hot-footed across the scorched highway on opposite sides of a large cooler stuffed with soft drinks and beer. After claiming a place on the beach, our parents lolled on canvas chairs, shaded by big, multi-colored umbrellas, while their kids ran in and out of the Atlantic waves.

I overdid my first day in the sun, so Mom slathered Noxzema cream all over my red face and body before setting off to HoJos again for dinner. The mixture of oily clams and the medicinal odor emanating from my greasy body made me nauseous, so I poked at my plate and concentrated on not sliding off the orange vinyl booth. As soon as we got back to the room, Mom gave me a couple of packages of crackers and a 7Up from the vending machine before putting me to bed.

I whined about my sunburn all the next morning until Mom reluctantly let me skip breakfast.

“Well, all right, you can stay in bed for a while, but make sure you lock the door behind me after I leave,” she relented.

Before heading off to HoJo’s, she lingered outside the door until she heard the click of the deadbolt from the inside.

As soon as I locked the door, I grabbed a brightly striped beach towel and flung it around my crimson shoulders. Then I twirled and twirled around the room, admiring how the colorful terrycloth cape poofed out around me.

I often performed this ritual behind my bedroom door at home with my favorite childhood blanket because it calmed me. But I hid my gyrations, especially from my sister who would tease me into oblivion if she ever saw my sissified dervishes.

When Mom returned to take me to the beach, she found me curled up on the sofa engrossed in my Superman comic book, the beach towel neatly folded at my side. She handed me a balled-up paper napkin containing two pieces of white toast with peanut butter and jelly and a small carton of milk before slipping into the bathroom.

I chewed on the makeshift breakfast until she emerged in her one-piece bathing suit, looking every bit the fashion model she had been before she met my father. When she took my hand and marched me through the motel courtyard, I noticed men’s heads turning as we passed and I basked in the reflected glow of her beauty.

She parked me under a big umbrella before joining the other grown-ups in adjacent beach chairs. While Barbie and the other kids squealed in the surf, I spent the day in the shade, swigging Nehi grape sodas and pretending to read my comics as I eavesdropped on the adults’ conversations.

They talked about John F. Kennedy and whispered the word “Catholic” as they wondered aloud if he’d make it to the White House. Then Mom told a familiar story about a recent visit to her friend Franny’s house in St. Louis. As she told it, they were in the middle of their watercress sandwich and jellied consomme lunch when the phone rang.

“Well, hi Jack,” Franny chirped. “I was wondering if you were going to call while you were in town.”

Franny’s family had a summer place in Hyannis Port where she had spent her childhood summers with the Kennedy kids. She gave Mom a conspiratorial wink.

“Of course, I’ve been campaigning for you! As a matter of fact, I have someone here who is just dying to talk to you, her name is Barbara.”

She held the receiver up to my mother’s ear.

“Hello, Bah-bah-rah!” said the unmistakable voice.

Mom was untying her tongue when JFK jumped back in.

“Vote for me in Novem-bah!”

“Oooooh, I will,” Mom cooed before pushing the phone back toward Franny.

Like a stand-up comic, she took a long beat and gave a sly look over her Coke bottle as she took a series of small sips.

“I’m voting for Nixon, of course!”

The grown-ups broke into a laugh that abruptly ended when Mr. Martin jumped up and pointed down the beach.

“Will you look at that!”

I jerked upright and turned towards a lone figure strolling toward us along the shoreline. As he came closer, I noticed that he had a deeply tanned, hairless, muscled body that glistened with oil. His brief, purple Speedo and platinum-blond pompadour reminded me of Gorgeous George, a famous wrestler that I had seen on TV.

As the man drew near, Mr. Martin put his hands on the hips of his baggy trunks, sucked in his beer belly and puffed out his chest.

“Why do they let those queers mince around in public?” he bellowed so that everyone could hear.

His rage startled me. I had no idea what the words “queer” or “mince” meant, but I knew they weren’t good. I glanced over at Dad who was contemplating the sand at his feet.

When Gorgeous George sauntered by, he abruptly turned his head away from us and fixed his eyes on the ocean.

Mr. Martin plopped back down on his chair and took a long pull on his beer. He shook his head, shot a knowing glance at the other adults before they returned to a more muffled conversation.

I couldn’t help but gawk at the solitary man as he shrank from sight and I had a sudden urge to run behind him. I was dying to know where he was going. A peacock passing through a beach full of seagulls, I knew he didn’t belong in my world and I wanted to get a good look at his habitat.

Rooted in the world of parents and kids, I just sat under the umbrella until he disappeared. I wanted to ask the adults about him since their whisperings made me even more curious. But the thought of Mr. Martin’s anger made me suppress the urge to ask a dozen questions.

Somehow I knew that I was like Gorgeous George. Too young to grasp the nuances of sexuality, I nonetheless had a strong sense of identification. The sight of him had made me suddenly aware of something inside of me that I couldn’t name. Still, like a chrysalis gestating deep within my still-forming self, I knew I had to protect it until the day it rose up, spread its colorful wings and unleashed its own gorgeousness onto the world.

if this thing inside of me could arouse such rage, it had a power in the realm of adults. While I still belonged to my parents, I realized that I wasn’t really like them and there was a whole world outside of my wretched family life where I might actually belong, the world of Gorgeous George.

When our vacation ended a few days later, I couldn’t stop thinking about the man on the beach. By the time we were halfway home, Dad’s bad temper had re-surfaced in full force and Mom’s hand returned to the doorknob. We arrived back in St. Louis and stepped back onto the scorched-earth battleground that was my parents’ marriage.

But I returned to this house full of secrets and danger with a secret all my own. For the first time in my young life, it made me feel a little dangerous myself … and little less alone.

GORGEOUS GEORGE