Mirrors of Narcissus (8 page)

We were all silent for a time after this; then a bookish-looking boy said:

“My literature classes are never this fun. Why don’t they teach us about writers like this in school, instead of making us read boring classics?”

“There’s nothing boring about the classics. And anyway, quite a few of them were written by gay men. Didn’t your teachers ever make you read
Moby-Dick
?”

“Of course. It’s probably the greatest American novel. But are you saying Herman Melville was gay?”

“Oh yes. I recommend you read a book of his called
Pierre
. You’ll find it quite revealing.”

At this point the boy standing to my right made his first contribution. “It gives a whole other aspect to a writer’s work, to know he’s gay. I mean, none of the teachers in high school, or in college for that matter, really gets into that aspect of it. But it seems to me that a writer’s sexual orientation would have a tremendous lot to do with how he perceives the world.”

“Exactly,” smiled Golden, obviously pleased. “When I was young, such things were hushed up. In the case of heterosexual writers and poets, there was no problem telling about their passionate love affairs with women, even with other men’s wives. In fact, it somehow added spice to their legends. But in the case of gay writers, whose romances were just as passionate, love affairs were hushed up or re-labeled. Perhaps he had ‘a very close friendship,’ or ‘a lifelong devotion to a friend.’ Or he was ‘a confirmed bachelor not known to have had any passionate attachments.’ In fact, these loves were often secret out of necessity, due to society’s attitudes at the time. However, later scholars often continued the deception, covering up what they felt was a shameful secret which would only besmirch their subject’s honor. It’s only recently that scholars feel free to tell about a gay writer’s sexual life. Take Walt Whitman, for instance.”

“What? The Good Gray Poet?”

“None other. In many of his poems he’s quite open about his love for men and the beauty of their bodies. And the physical nature of this love is not left in doubt.” He raised his head slightly as he recited:

“But just possibly with you on a high hill, first watching lest any person for miles around approach unawares

“Or possibly with you sailing at sea, or on the beach of the sea or some quiet island

“Here to put your lips upon mine I permit you

“With the comrade’s long-dwelling kiss or the new husband’s kiss

“For I am the new husband and I am the comrade.”

He looked around at all of us, and his eyes met mine, and briefly held. I felt my heart beat faster. I had made no contribution to the discussion, though I felt on the verge of doing so several times. I was a little afraid that he would discover I wasn’t registered in his class, not even auditing it. Or perhaps I had the irrational fear that he would recognize my voice from the time I’d called him anonymously from the phone booth outside the library. Or maybe it was just that I didn’t want to reveal how fascinated I was by all this talk about gay writers.

He was still talking about Whitman. “Maybe he was able to ‘get away with it’ for such a long time because his love seemed to reach out beyond men and embrace everything: women, children, animals, the sky, the sea, the rolling plains, the mountains, the stars. I guess people thought his love of the male body was just a part of that vast cosmic love. He lived in a time which was more naive—perhaps more pure. For example, he would kiss his men friends on the mouth in greeting. This was thought to be a sign of his affectionate nature, his warm-lovingness—that he made no distinctions between men and women. Arm in arm with his comrades and all that. But in fact, his primary sexual orientation was gay. Though he was born in Brooklyn, he built up an image of himself as a ‘roughhewn son of the frontier,’ and wore workmen’s clothes, didn’t shave, and was bluff and hearty in manner. He loved working class men above all. He would cruise them on the streetcar, downtown, or by the docks. Strictly speaking, he was not gay in the sense we mean today, but if you read some of his poems, you can see that he accepted his homosexuality and was proud of it in an open, honest way. His collection of poems,
Leaves of Grass
, is his masterpiece, and he often said his favorite part of that work was the section called ‘Calamus.’ This was where some of his most sexual poems were gathered. The calamus—or flag iris, as it is sometimes called—was his favorite flower. Look.”

He went to the blackboard and, picking up a piece of chalk, sketched a flower. Its petals were flat and pointed, but a long, cylindrical stamen jutted up from its middle in the unmistakable shape of an erect penis.

“What does that remind you of?”

We laughed nervously.

He smiled at our discomfort briefly before erasing the picture he’d drawn. “I guess you can see why he’d have a special fondness for this flower.”

He glanced at his watch and began putting his notes away into his briefcase. Then he looked up.

“Say, if any of you are interested, I’m planning to start an independent study group on gay studies. There are no credits involved, though eventually, I’d like to introduce it into the school’s curriculum. We’ll probably meet at my house and I’ll give a little talk, and afterwards we’ll have a discussion session, over dinner or wine.”

He looked right at me.

“Don’t feel intimidated. You don’t have to be gay to attend. Straight people, both men and women, are welcome.”

He smiled and, snapping his briefcase shut, gave us a little wave before walking away. I felt as if in that brief moment, he had seen deep into my heart, and that the invitation was meant for me alone.

2

On the way back to the dorm, I kept wondering why Golden had singled me out for the invitation. When coupled with my experience with the boy in the restroom, it was beginning to seem that there might be something about me which sent out a secret signal to other gays.

Was I being paranoid? I looked around at the other students walking about on campus, seemingly without any cares in the world. I’d never again seen that boy who’d fondled me in the restroom, though I was still on the lookout for him. The truth was, I was afraid of running into him. After seeing the heedlessness he’d exhibited, I knew there was a good chance he already had some sort of reputation in the school.

There had been an unmistakable air of desperation about his act, as if he were an incurable addict giving in to a sinful craving. But no matter how desperate he might be, surely he wouldn’t be completely indiscriminate about whom he chose to approach. After all, he was taking the risk of getting beaten up by any boy who wasn’t sympathetic. To be safe, he would have to be certain that the proposed partner was, if not a gay, at least a potential one, or someone who would keep his mouth shut.

I had fit the bill perfectly. And even though it had been he who had instigated the encounter, I had, after my initial hesitation, actively participated. Even now, I often relived the experience in my mind, centering in on the little details I had missed while it was happening. I embroidered new fantasies upon what had happened. It now seemed much more erotic than it had actually been. Would it ever happen again? If so, where? When?

It was getting harder to deny that I was secretly hoping for another such encounter. In fact, in the past week or two, I’d begun visiting the men’s rooms throughout the campus, dropping in even when I didn’t feel the need. I had studied the campus map in order to learn where they were all located, and tried to visit each one on the chance that I might meet a similar experience.

I noticed a lot of gay graffiti in many of the toilet stalls—crude drawings of exaggeratedly enlarged penises, or of two boys embracing in the sixty-nine position. These graffiti were like code words inviting the initiated to complete a vast, complicated but invisible puzzle. They were evidence of lonely, frustrated boys full of pent-up lusts, masturbating for quick thrills as I had done many a time.

There was one toilet stall in the recreation building which even had an explicit invitation on the wall:
Like boys? Meet me here Friday nite at 11:30. Knock 3 times.
I wondered what would happen if I “accidentally” passed through one evening just to see if anything actually happened there at that time. But I feared some queer-hating jock who’d read the message might be waiting to ambush someone. It might even be a false message, a bait to lure some poor guy to a beating.

But the graffiti were secret hints of the extent of the invisible gay population in school. Like an archeologist seeking clues to the existence of a long-lost civilization, I tracked down these tantalizing tidbits, no matter how unlikely the spot. And when I found anything at all, I was reassured by the evidence that there were so many others like me out there.

When I got back to the dorm, I noticed my door was open. For a wild moment I thought Jonesy had come back, though he was officially expelled from school. He’d just dropped out of our lives, seemingly forever. For me, the discovery that he was a thief had added mysterious depths to his character that I would now never be able to explore. When Professor Golden was talking about the French writer Jean Genet, I’d been thinking about my former roommate.

There was a new boy standing at Jonesy’s desk putting his books in order. An open suitcase lay on the bed. The bed looked neater than I’d ever seen it; through the open window the afternoon sun shone on it in a refreshingly new way. Somehow I’d always thought of Jonesy’s side of the room as being dark.

“Hi,” I said.

He turned around and in the instant our eyes met, I felt as if I’d known him from a long, long time ago, in some far-off land.

He came toward me a little shyly, extending his hand. Though he seemed a quiet type, his eyes looked straight into mine as he firmly grasped my hand and shook it.

“My name’s Scott.”

He was about my height—six feet tall—with curly black hair and light blue eyes. The eyes were what held my attention. They were large and soulful, and hinted of artistic sensibilities. As if to confirm this, his skin was very fair, a shade too delicate for a boy, though it didn’t make him seem effeminate in any way. He was of medium build and carried himself lightly, as long-distance runners do. He was very attractive.

“My name’s Guy Willard.” I sat down on his bed. “Do you need any help moving in?”

“No thanks. I’ve already unpacked everything I need.”

“When did you get in?”

“Just an hour ago. With a suitcase and a box of books; I travel light.” He smiled, looking around the room as if he still couldn’t believe he were here.

“So what do you think of your new room?” I asked.

“It’s great. You should have seen the place I was living in till now. One of those rundown apartments down by Parkside Theater. The location wasn’t so bad, but the rent was just a little too high for what I was getting.”

“I’ll bet. The landlords will charge exorbitant rates if they know you’re a student. You should have reported him to the rent council. They have pretty good organizations here for renters.”

“I know. But I didn’t want to get into any hassles. Besides, I was looking for a way to get out of there as soon as I could.”

“How did you end up here?”

“I put my name on the waiting list for dorms at the housing office, though they told me I didn’t have much hope of getting one. It’s so hard to get a dorm these days. But last night I got a call from them, and here I am. Lucky me.”

“Yeah…” I felt a happy glow within me, a premonition of wonderful times in store for both of us. “Have you met any of the other guys?”

“Not yet.”

“Come on, I’ll introduce you to them.”

As I led him down the hall toward the lounge, I noticed he had a unique walk; the long strides he took made his head bob a little, and he tread very carefully—as if a careless misstep would send him bounding helplessly up into the sky.

In the lounge, we found only Kruk and Billy watching a cop show on TV. They nodded their greetings as I introduced them to Scott, and he went over to shake their hands. As I sat down on the sofa, I noticed Scott head straight to the bookshelves.

“See anything you like?” I asked, after he’d scanned the books a while.

“Couple of good ones here.”

“If there’s anything you wanna read, go ahead and take it. If you don’t, the bookshelves will likely overflow. People just dump all their old books there.”

“Where are you from, Scott?” said Kruk.

“Well, I grew up overseas,” he said. “My dad is in the Air Force, so I never really had a hometown like you guys. I’ve lived in California, Germany, Montana, Turkey, and other places, but none of them is home for me.”

“How long did you live in those places?” I asked.

“Only three years each. That’s the usual tour of duty at any overseas post. After that your dad gets transferred to another base. Military families get reassigned to other posts on a regular basis, so you’re constantly moving around. Because of that, all my friendships were necessarily brief. If you make a friend, he’s likely to move before the school year ends. Nothings lasts….”

“You don’t seem so military to me,” said Kruk.

“I’m not. I hate the military. My dad likes it well enough—he seems to thrive on order and routine. But not me. The sameness of it all—same uniforms, same thinking—all make me want to rebel.”

“But think of all those exotic places you’ve been,” I said. “I wish I could have grown up overseas like that. What was it like?”

“Not as exciting as you probably think,” he said. “In the foreign countries, all I really saw was the insides of military bases, and they all look the same.”

“Say, I’m hungry,” I said. “How about if we all go down to the student union cafeteria and grab a bite to eat?”

“Sure,” said Scott.

The other two said they’d already eaten.

“Well, it looks like just me and you, Scott.”

“Let me just drop these books off in the room and I’ll be right back.” He grabbed a couple of books from the shelves and left.

“What do you think of our new dorm-mate?” I asked the others.

“He looks really straight,” said Kruk. “A big change from Jonesy.”

“That’s for sure,” said Billy. “He doesn’t seem like he’ll be as much fun as Jonesy was, though.”

“At least he’s not a thief,” I said.

Scott came back and we headed out.

“I like those guys,” he said as we went down the stairs. “When I lived in the apartment, I really didn’t get to know the other residents. But here, on my very first day in the dorm, I already feel like I’m part of the group. All you guys seem to have good relationships with one another. I hope you can accept me as one of you.”

“Oh, don’t worry. You’ll fit right in. There’s some weird ones among them, but basically I think they’re all right.”

“Is there very much partying going on?”

“Partying is not the word for it. Some Sunday mornings, it looks like a hurricane’s been through the lounge.” For some reason I found myself making life in the dorm sound so much funner than it actually was. “You don’t seem the type to go in for parties, though.”

“You’re right. To tell you the truth, I’ve been a little lonely ever since coming to this school. It can be a little intimidating here if you don’t have any friends.”

“I know what you mean.”

Our school was known to be highly competitive, and coming straight from high school, I’d experienced something of a culture shock. Though I’d been in the upper ten percent academically in my high school, I hadn’t been prepared for the high level of instruction given here. With its distinguished academic reputation, it had attracted the top students from all over the state, as well as from out of state. And there were many foreign students here as well, on government scholarships. The professors came from all over the world, and some of them had won Nobel Prizes. For kids just out of high school like Scott and me, it was like stepping into another world. I’d been amazed at the high intellectual level of some of my classmates, and for a long time had been afraid to open my mouth in class. Scott apparently felt the same way. Like me, he had come here expecting to carry on in the same way as high school. Used to getting straight A’s, we had to learn to be content with B’s, even C’s.

“It’s tough,” I agreed. “I’ve never studied so hard in my life, or worked so hard for my grades.”

“Yeah, me, too. But it’s worth it.”

“What’s your major, Scott?”

At this question, he seemed a little embarrassed. “Well,” he began, “One of the reasons I chose this school was because it’s one of the few which has a creative writing program.”

“So you want to be a writer.”

“I guess so. I’ve always liked to write. Ever since fifth grade, I was the one whose essays and stories the teacher read out loud to the class. My classmates probably thought I was weird because I liked to read books and write, but I was never interested in the things they liked: football, cars, school dances, et cetera. Oh, I wasn’t a pariah or anything like that, but I always did feel I was the different one, the one who didn’t fit in with the others.”

I looked at him, wondering if he was flashing a tiny secret message at me.

“What’s your major, Guy?” he asked.

“I haven’t decided yet. And I’m not exactly in a hurry to file for one, either. At this point, I still don’t know what I want to do with my life. My father keeps dropping hints about the usefulness of getting a business degree or an engineering degree. I know he wants what’s best for me and all that, but I just have no desire to follow his advice. And I feel a little guilty about it because he’s paying for most of my education here. Oh, I’ll pay him back, of course. But I hate the idea of being in debt to him.”

“I see.”

“The studies which might lead to a good job once I’m out of here don’t interest me in the least. There’s so much I want to learn about the world. That’s why I came to college—to learn things. I didn’t come here to enter some job training program.”

“I know what you mean. What’s your father’s job?”

“He’s an engineer for this company that makes instruments for airplane navigation. I think they’re also involved somehow in the space program. I don’t know.”

“Wow. Sounds real high-tech.”

“Yeah. I think I was a disappointment to him because I never cared for repairing car motors, or taking watches apart and putting them back together, that sort of thing. I happen to be completely unmechanical.”

“I’m not very mechanically inclined, either. In a way, your dad seems a lot like mine. I haven’t even told my dad yet that I’m majoring in creative writing. He would probably have a fit if he knew.”

“But you’re gonna have to tell him someday.”

“I know. And I don’t look forward to it, either.”

“I can understand that.”