This is the 4th and final set of chapters in this series. The Alexandria Quartet it is not, but the lives of these four boys/men intertwine over time, the common thread is being gay,in the same geographic area and time, the financial circumstances are very different.
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This is Ian's story, Part 1
I am writing this from rehab. My therapist, Peter, thinks it will help me go straight, as in not using drugs, but not as being not gay. I am in my 8th day of a 30 day rehab, as I begin this. I am here under a court order due to my heroin habit, which, I want to kick, and get a regular life back, so I am trying everything they are recommending I do. I am on a gradual wean off of methadone, which does not get me high, but which does counteract the symptoms of withdrawal. The goal is that I am off of methadone on the 20th day. And, I have AIDS, and there is not much to be done about that, some of the symptoms can be treated, but the underlying disease is always fatal. (Note that this was written almost 40 years ago.)
My social worker is working on finding me a place to live, and a job, neither of which involve my druggie buddies for support, but it is hard to find either for a guy who was clearly guilty of theft from his employer in order to support his drug habit. The judge, Judge Otis, who I had known for a few years, did his job, but with compassion for me, and, I really wanted to justify his faith in me. So, here I am.
I lived in a nice part of a New England, medium sized city, with a green, or common, or park, depending on where you are, in the middle, one side of which was the bus stop for all the routes coming into the city, and, the host of the "Meat Rack", where gay guys hung out, waiting to be picked up for sex, for free, or for pay, or, in my case, for whichever came along. And, it was the prime spot in town for selling and buying drugs. On the other sides of the park were two churches the Catholic one, Sacred Heart, and the Protestant one, the 1st Congregational.
When I was 15, and a Sophomore in high school, my father walked in on me, and my next door neighbor, Rodney, who was a year older, naked in my bedroom, in 69 position, cocks in each other's mouths. We had done this before, several times, in my bedroom, in his basement, in the woods, and in other places when we were alone.
We began by jerking off, in front of each other, and then progressed to jerking each other off, and then to sucking cock. We were not thinking we were queer, or gay, just horny, and having someone else get you off felt better than doing it yourself. Neither of us were having any luck with girls, beyond a little kissing, and an occasional breast feel. We had not been found out, if we did it in his house or mine, we made sure there was no evidence left around, like cum soaked tissues. Life was good.
But, my father's reaction was not good. "You have 24 hours to get the fuck out of this house, faggot. No son of mine is going to be a queer. And, you Rodney, get the fuck out of here and never come back. Period."
Rodney put on his clothes and left. I put mine on, with no idea what to do next. I cried.
When my mom came home, my father had told her, and she came up to the bedroom. "I'm sorry, Ian, but your father's word is the law here, I tried to get him to change his mind, but he won't. I will see what I can do to help you, but living here, even visiting, is not an option at the moment. I will bring your supper up, you can come down for breakfast after your father leaves for work. Otherwise, you are up in your room, or out of the house. I will bring down the big duffle bag for you to put your clothes in, the other stuff I will keep here until you know where you are going to end up."
She brought up my supper, I could not do my homework, I could not even get hard, thinking that maybe if I jerked off, it would feel good, at least for a while, but no dice.
Later that evening she came back to my room, and said, "I've found you a place, temporarily, at the Sacred Heart Church. Father Dennis will take care of it."
Sacred Heart was the "County Cork", Irish, Catholic church, the building, built in the 1890's, it was ornate and large, but had a very small congregation, the Irish having "made it" and moved to the suburbs. It was more of a mission church, doing God's work, by helping the less fortunate, than a congregation of devout Catholics. Yes, there were a few, like my parents, who hung on, but not really enough to financially support the building, Father Joseph, Father Dennis, and Mrs. Donnelly.
Now, I knew Father Dennis, since we went to Mass every Sunday, the perfect family. (But not so much, anymore -- Father Dennis had given quite a few homilies about acceptance of others who differ from yourself and my father had quit and gone to the other Irish Catholic church, County Kerry based, where the priest preached that homosexuality was a sin.)
Father Dennis was known as the "Hollywood Priest", since he was so good looking, he was about 25, and a really good guy. He ran the teen-aged group, which met on Sunday nights, which I had been going to since I started high school. We did some religious studies, and some recreational events. The teenaged girls often said what a shame it was that he was a priest, since he was so good looking, and, one of them told me, that, if she were ready for sex, he would be the ideal guy to have it with.
Next door to the church was the Rectory, where the two priests, Father Dennis and Father Joseph (who was 85, and sometimes lost his place saying the Mass) lived, with Mrs. Donnelly, the housekeeper. Mrs. Donnelly was mentally disturbed in some way, she was pleasant, did the housekeeping, but could not, or would not, hold a conversation, beyond, "Hello," and if asked how she was, "Fine, thank you." She did type on the typewriter and wrote poetry of a sort, usually copying out the words of a hymn, or a prayer, and then adding her own lines, or sometimes verses, which, made sometimes made sense, of a sort.
So, the next morning, I skipped school, my mother wrote a note that basically said there was a family issue, but I would be back the next day, and drove me, and my duffle bag, downtown to Sacred Heart.
Father Dennis could not have been nicer to me. He was, as I noted, movie star quality, masculine, athletic, (we knew that since some of our recreational activities involved a swim night at the Y pool and I had seen him buck naked in the showers after the swim), kind, and was really interested in others.
He said I would be sleeping in the basement of the church in a room that, when the church was better staffed, had been the room of a Brother, austere, but warm in the winter and cool in the summer, bathroom down the hall. It was often used for a while by people who had no other place to go. There were three other similar rooms, vacant at the moment, but likely to be occupied at any time. There were rules, however: no illegal drugs, no visitors, no alcohol, keep up in school, keep the room clean, and do your share of the chores, which, he had not figured out yet. I would eat at the Rectory, Mrs. Donnelly was ready to cook twice as much, since Father Joseph ate "like a bird" and I was a "growing teenaged boy who probably ate like a horse."
I could walk to school, which I did. I saw Rodney there and told him what had happened. My father had called his father and told his father off, blaming him for Rodney being queer, and blaming Rodney for my being queer. Rodney's father was satisfied that the sex between us was both mutual and exploratory, and did not mean either of us was destined to be a full time, lifetime, homosexual, and other than a lecture about sexually transmitted diseases, life, at his house, went on as usual.
I jerked off the first night, no problem. In fact, I did it before I did my two days' worth of homework, and after I finished, as well. Father Dennis checked in on me, fortunately when I was doing my homework, not when I was jerking off, and talked for a few minutes about how I was doing. He reassured me that my mother was on my side, but was under the thumb of my father, and, that if I was gay, it was OK.
I said, quite honestly, at the time, I was only 15, that I didn't know, and thanked him and the church for letting me stay a while.
Life went on. I went to school. I went to Mass. Father Dennis and I got to be good friends. The food was OK, Mrs. Donnelly could cook, there never was take-out, like pizza, but I survived. What I did not have was cash.
The only part time job I could find was a bagger and cart hauler at the local supermarket, which, I could do, and which gave me some spending money. And, my mother would come by, and slip me some money every couple of weeks, but if my father had found out, she would suffer "the consequences" whatever they were.
Now, I knew my father had no qualms about corporal punishment. He beat my ass, off and on, since I was little. He did it by putting me over his lap, ass up, pants down enough to expose my ass cheeks, and waled on with his hand. This stopped, one day, when I had screwed up somehow when I was 12. I laid over his lap, he pulled down my pants, and as he spanked I got hard, my now adult sized hardon down between his legs. I felt him get hard, against my side, he stopped, said, "Fuck it, kid, just do not do that ever again," whatever it was, and told me to pull up my pants and get out of there. There was no mistaking my full sized hardon as I pulled up my pants, he was really embarrassed, and so was I.