I was walking home from church. It was only about eight blocks. No big deal. I was wearing a light gray suit, a starched white shirt with barrel cuffs, and a blue bow tie with very fine and faint red stripes. I was proud of the fact that I’d tied the tie myself. My grandfather was convinced that a gentleman never wore a tie that he had not properly knotted himself, so none of the boy’s pre-tied, or clip-on ties at the department store were ever acceptable. Early on, I learned to shop at several men’s stores that my grandfather always referred to as “haberdashers.” Interestingly, I never saw this word on any of their signs, or paperwork. But that wasn’t something that was apt to slow down my grandfather much.
Another thing that a gentleman never did was to leave the house without his pocket knife. This was one of the things that Pobbin and my Daddy agreed on completely. I was very proud of the fact that I had a pocket knife long before most of my friends. Some of them had been jealous and had complained to their parents who, in turn, had complained to my Parents or Grandparents. The fortunate ones had complained to my Parents; such a complaint would have been referred to my Daddy, and he would simply have said that we lived on a ranch and such a knife was an important and useful tool. He would tell them that I kept it properly sharp, too. He didn’t mean this to be threatening in the least, but to insure the complainer that I was taking responsible care of a tool. Daddy had this great story about when he was young, the ‘green broke’ mustang he’d been riding had shied at a “lizard fart” and he’d been thrown, but had got his spur tangled in the stirrup leather. When he tried to get up, the horse shied again and dragged him a few yards through the sagebrush. He had pulled out his pocket knife and cut through the spur strap. Then he could regain his feet without spooking the horse, and he then remounted and rode safely home with only a few bruises. Since I’d never known my Daddy to lie, I believed this story implicitly, and always had my knife.
If one of these complainers was unfortunate enough to encounter Pobbin, they were treated all together differently and were not given any useful stories about the importance of a sharp pocket knife. Pobbin really did not care in the least what these people might think. He simply regarded them calmly, seemingly wondering if they could possibly be of any account; or perhaps wondering where they had learned to dress. His nose would go up, it was straight and imperial, and he would stare down it as if he were viewing something odd. He might make an observation about the weather. He might not. But the subject of the knife was closed. It had never really been opened.
Like I said, the propriety of a pocket knife was one of the few things that Pobbin and Daddy agreed on. Otherwise, as with any armed truce, there was always this tension: when I lived with my Grandparents I was basically expected to be Dutch Reformed Church—conservative; but when I was at home with my Folks, I was expected to be Episcopalian—liberal. My Father was of Scots descent and my grandfather thought this barely one notch above English. But my Father did not think that being Dutch was any kind of a big deal. So there it was: I was caught between the two most important men in my life. I loved them both and was certain that they loved me, yet between the two, there was this uncanny reluctance to communicate.
My shoes were highly polished and I was wearing navy blue socks. I had just endured Sunday school and a way too long sermon. I thought I was too old for Sunday school, and I could’ve gotten away with that if Pobbin and Granmum weren’t so active in the church. They got there early. I got the full treatment every Sunday unless I’d managed to wangle going to church with Johnny. This always involved an interview, later, as to the details of the Presbyterian sermon. Like I said, Presbyterians were only almost okay.
I turned onto my block as if I were on some kind of autopilot; I was studying the sidewalk and diligently avoiding stepping on any cracks. I no longer held to that old schoolyard notion, but it was something to do when on autopilot. I would have denied doing it if called on it; but there was no one of importance nearby, so not a big deal.
I probably looked rather solemn as I marched up the street; I was wrestling with matters of sin and betrayal. No, not the Sunday school sort of sin and damnation: no—I was worried about the Dave and Johnny and Gary sorts of betrayal. Or was it friendship. Not to mention love. A far more worrisome concern.
Nearing my house, I looked up from my preoccupation and saw Gary sitting on the front lawn. Confusion and preoccupation vanished. His hair was lightly tousled and I could see his shining smile. I could visualize his blue eyes twinkling from a two house distance. He was wearing light blue shorts. He wasn’t wearing shoes or a shirt, but he had something red draped around his neck. I wanted to run. But I didn’t. He got up as I walked onto the lawn.
“Nice suit,” he grinned.
It was a red t-shirt that he had draped around his neck. His blue shorts had razor-like creases ironed into them.
“Come on,” I said heading for the back door. “I gotta change.”
We trooped through the kitchen and into my bedroom. Gary dropped his t-shirt on the floor and flopped onto my bed lying on his back. I was not permitted posters. On one wall there was a curtained window, partly open should there be any breeze. There was a small table fan on a table in front of it to provide a breeze if there was none. On another wall, in a surprisingly ornate gilt frame, a longhaired, ferociously mustachioed, wide-brim hatted, lace collared, sword clasping Maarten Tromp prepared to sweep the deceitful English from the seas. There were two framed samplers on the other wall. Both were dated in the early Nineteenth Century and were the work of ancestresses. There was an old picture of a four masted Dutch barque between the samplers. An odd grouping, considering the subject matter, but then things in my room required approval.
Hanging from the ceiling was a balsa wood and paper doped model of a Fokker D7 that I had built. Had I wanted a Spad, or a Sopwith Camel, it would not have been approved without considerable debate. In the case of a Spad, it would have to answer the indictment of being French and therefore ‘decadent’ not to mention probably Catholic. In the case of the Sopwith there was the problem of it being English and therefore, well, you know. But Tony Fokker was Dutch. It was painted in the colors of Manfred von Richtofen. I had painted it before I learned that the Red Baron was dead before the Fokker D7 ever flew. Too bad, but I wasn’t going to paint it again. By and large, my grandfather did not approve of war, but by God: if there must be war, we Dutchmen knew how to go about it. The Red Baron, to be sure, was German, but that was almost as good as Dutch; even though they had been complete assholes in the last war and were therefore routinely snubbed.
I was hot; but I was still on a sort of autopilot. I opened my closet door. By the simple expedient of putting the toe of one oxford, to the heel of the other, I could step out of my shoes without damaging the shine or having to untie them. I slid them into their spot in the closet and removed my jacket, placing it neatly over the back of my chair. I retrieved a heavy wooden hanger from the closet. I removed my belt and slipped the buckle through the hook of the hanger. I took my pants off. I kept my back carefully to Gary and arranged for my dick to poke through the fly of my boxers; then I turned back and carefully hung my pants on the hanger while flashing Gary. I adjusted the coat to hang neatly over belt and trousers and hung the completed assembly in my closet. Gary had now propped himself up on his elbows and was watching me with a half smile; I gave him a full smile. I untied my tie and hung it on the tie rack in the closet (yes, I have way more than just one tie). I shrugged out of my shirt and undershirt; I shucked out of my socks and boxers; they all went in the hamper. I walked over and stood naked between Gary’s legs and the autopilot clicked off.
“Oh. Dave.” He murmured.
We quickly became entangled on the bed as we engaged in the elemental fact of humanity that is sex. But this wasn’t just sex. This was the real basic passionate sex that is reserved for the young who are beginning—who are discovering.
“Gary?”
“Yeah,” sighing.
“You’re beautiful and I love to be with you.”
“So’re you,” he gently murmured. “I love you too.” We began to slowly untangle from our triumphant embrace.
Gary suddenly stiffened and looked at me. “Where’re your folks? Your grandparents?” His blue eyes sparkled with belated alarm. I pulled him into another languorous kiss. I smiled his worry away. “They’ve got some church meetings to do. Then they’ll go to market. They’ll be home around four, or so.” I pondered the afternoon that stretched before us. “Can we go swimming?”
“Sure. That’ll be great. We can work on your tan.”
We cleaned each other up in the bathroom. We were neat about it as the bathroom was one of those rooms where the autopilot kicked in.
“You don’t have much hair,” he observed.
“Oh yeah,” I riposted cleverly. “Like you do!”
I remembered those mainstays of civilized deportment: proper and approval. I neatened the bed so that it was almost as good as newly made, the most anyone would think was that it had been sat on. I turned this into quite a production. Gary had put his shorts on while I was puttering. I was still naked. I then made quite a production out of pulling my cut offs slowly up and on. Leaving them open I searched for a t-shirt.
“Will ya puhleese, come on.” He came over, pulled my cut offs into position and buttoned the middle button. “Let’s go.”
As we walked to Gary’s, I wished that we could hold hands. I wondered what Admiral Tromp would have thought of me, a kinda-sorta warlike Holland-Scots boy, who wanted to hold hands with his boyfriend. It didn't really matter what the Admiral thought, though, because I knew that we couldn’t. Gary sorta-kinda patted my butt. It was more gentle caress, though, than one of those ‘sportsmanlike’ slaps. Why can men slap each other’s butts, but not hold hands?
Then I started to focus on a much more real and immediate problem. It was early Sunday afternoon, Johnny was not home yet, his Father would bring him home whenever he got around to it, and Johnny would surely be at my house first thing tomorrow after his Mother left for work. How could I bring Gary and Johnny together and all of us be friends. I liked them both an awful lot. I think I loved them both. But what is “love” anyway? How many people can you love? I wanted them both; I wanted to have sex with them both. Gary was here, and it was now. But I somehow knew I was going to have to tell him about Johnny. Then I was going to have to tell Johnny about Gary. And then, just to make things even more complicated, I was going to have to bring them together and hope that they became friends, too. It seemed like it might become something really neat; or possibly it could become a complete nightmare and I might be all alone again. What if Johnny and Gary really hit it off and didn’t want me around anymore. Talk about scary ideas. Yep. This was a really big problem.
When we got to Gary’s, Miss Jean thoroughly and skillfully interrogated us and quickly discovered the depths of depravity to which we could sink. We’d had no lunch. Taking charge, she sat us down at the kitchen table; she banged about at the stove top and began to fry hot dogs; from the refrigerator, she conjured two Seven Ups, never one of my favorite drinks. But well, I had serious problems to consider. Then a bowl covered with tin foil appeared. It was potato salad.
Large dollops of potato salad landed on our plates along with two hot dogs each. Buns appeared on the table as well as assorted condiments. Lunch had appeared just that fast.
“Ah better not hear splashin’ from that pool for ah hour at least,” she lectured. “Or the two ah ya’ll’re gonna be in BIG trouble.” I was glad that I’d rounded-up the elapsed time between food and swimming yesterday. Miss Jean possessed a conservative soul, in order for food and swimming not to equal death, sixty minutes must elapse. I took her seriously. I could see her dragging a naked Gary and me out of the pool. She was entirely capable of it. Miss Jean went off to attend to her immaculate domain.
“I know your Dad’s over by Japan,” I commented. “But when’s your Mom home?”
“She usually gets home around six, which is really eighteen hundred hours,” Gary said through potato salad. He swallowed, “unless work keeps her late which happens a lot. She’s supposed to be here on Thursday and Friday, and she mostly is, but has to work then, sometimes, too. It don’t matter cause Miss Jean lives here too; though sometimes she visits her sister in LA.”
I pondered this information for scheduling purposes, but was quickly distracted as Gary made a big production over eating a hot dog. He had pushed the bun down to one end of the hot dog so that most of the wiener was exposed; then he grabbed it with both of his hands by the bun end, and lifted it to his mouth, but instead of eating it, he licked the mustard off with a great deal more tongue action than would normally be necessary. Then he stuck the whole hot dog into his mouth, right down to the bun, and then pulled slowly out, still without taking a bite. All this time his glorious eyes were twinkling and his lips, when not otherwise engaged, were smiling. I attempted to laugh and swallow at the same time even though I know this never works. I choked and coughed and laughed and had to stop for several sips of Seven Up to restore my balance. Gary giggled, which was easy for him to do with me carrying on, while he was waving his hot dog all around like, well, you know. I tried to look like a formidable Dutchman whose lunch was being compromised; but then I started laughing because Gary was Dutch too, and it was really funny. We were both laughing.
“Ya’ll’re ‘sposed to be eatin’ an not carryin’ on, “ the house announced formidably.
“Yes’um,” I responded for the two of us. We contained ourselves, Gary reassembled his hot dog. We finished lunch and rinsed the dishes and stacked them neatly in the sink. Gary thought we should take our drinks out to the pool.
“We’re goin’ out to the pool,” Gary told the house. “But we won’t go in for a while.”
“Ya’ll won’t go in for ah hour or ah’ll skin yore behind.” The house pronounced implacably. “That go for the both of ya’ll, too.”
“Yes ‘um,” I again responded for the two of us.
We went directly to the dressing room and Gary stripped off my cut offs. “Yuh need lotion where you’re white ya know?” He grinned infectiously and lathered me with lotion. So I lathered him. Then we sort of wrestled the lotion in. We even added our own special lotion. Which is to say, we did it again.
We swam after that, then we joked around for awhile, then we did it again.
We were kinda drowsing in the glory of the moment. I glanced over and saw Gary with his eyes closed, all relaxed and lovely in his nakedness. At which point, I ruined everything by remembering the problem. The Big Problem. “Gary, are you asleep?”
“Kinda. But no, I guess.” He shaded his eyes and turned to me.
“I like you a really lot. But I gotta tell you something.” I charged ahead hoping for the best.
“Well go on cuz I like you a really lot, too.” Gary smiled and closed his eyes while he rearranged himself as he snuggled into his towel on the lounger.
But Gary didn’t give me time to start, he went on. “Usually it takes me a long time to talk to somebody; but I saw ya up in the tree and liked you just that fast.
“I stood there for a while and watched you. Then I just said ‘fuck it’ an came up an said ‘hi’ an you said ‘hi’ back and your Granny’s a neat lady.”
“Yeah.” I managed to get in, but Gary was on a roll.
“In the Navy, you move around a lot. And I like guys. An it’s hard to talk to ‘em sometimes, you know, like at school in hall and stuff.
“It took me a long time to touch your ass yesterday. I was scared you’d jump up an’ leave. Instead it was great! You have beautiful eyes.”
“So do you. Have beautiful eyes, I mean. But I gotta tell you about Johnny.”
“Johnny?”
I had his full attention now, but he was still all smiles. “Yeah. Now listen. His name is Johnny MacCrimmon and he lives just down the street from me. Like two houses, And his Mom and Dad are divorced. And he spends a lotta time at my house and I’ve known him forever. If his Dad hadn’t picked him up the other day he’d prob’ly been there when you came by. Would you’ve said ‘hi’ if there’d been two of us?”
Gary stared into space for what seemed a long moment. “Dunno,” he speculated. “I think I woulda if I liked him as fast as I liked you. But mebbe not. It’s hard ta say ya know? But I’d a come back round looking for you.” He smiled.
“Now look, here’s what I gotta tell you. I’ve known Johnny forever. We’ve been hangin’ around every summer, playin’ games and goin’ to the beach ‘n stuff. An’ Granmum likes him a lot, too.
“So we were walkin’ home from miniature golf the other day, and we both got to talking about boners and stuff and well, we did it.
“And I like you and I like him, and maybe I love you and him, and I just want us all to be friends. Don’t be mad.”
“Why on earth would I be mad. I’ll bet I’ll like him just as much as you.”
“Great!” I threw caution to the wind. “Will you come over and meet him tomorrow?”
So that was all great and everything; but now I’m walking back home and the other half of the problem with Johnny comes rushing right back. Is it love? Sure, I know, there are all different kinds of love. Or maybe we just use the word too casual like and it loses its meaning. Or something. Or is it just friendship. That seems too easy. There was a lot to worry about.
What will Johnny think about Gary?
I had spent the morning at church. But I’m not too worried about God in all this. After all, Jesus was only concerned about adultery, and you need a woman to do that. And we don’t pay much attention to the Old Testament even on the best day. After all, we eat pork: and rabbit, lobster, shrimp, and oysters on the half shell, and that’s no problem. We even eat a lot of those foods here in Anaheim, where biblical rules might be thought to be of some importance. Plus. There’s Gramercy—my other grandmother who lives with us in Nevada—she plants her garden the way she wants to, and she also plants according to the phase of the moon. And I’m pretty sure that’s not biblical.
‘Dear God,’ I wondered, ‘can we all be friends?’