1985
So Atlanta is about 90 minutes from Athens, home of the University of Georgia and some of the most interesting
people you ever could meet . . . anywhere. I used to go there quite a bit, especially in the late 70s when my friend Jorma lived there.
Jorma was an amazing woman. I met her in college where she was known as ‘The Beast.’ I guess the name referred to her wild looks, bad teeth, perpetual chapped lips and near constant cynical mood. Most of my friends avoided her and I don’t think anyone reached out to her . . . until I came along. I found her fascinating. Brilliant, alienated, very real and matter of fact, artistic and just crazy enough to keep it all interesting. We became fast friends.
What united us at first was love of the band Procol Harum. I adored the church rock feel of Mathew Fisher’s Hammond B-3 organ. And the lyrics were almost as tripped out as I. But Gary Brooker’s voice: that’s what really had me. It had Jorma too, I guess, because she’d been with the band for a period of time and had been Gary’s lover. I stop short of saying she was a groupie . . . but draw your own conclusions.
We talked endlessly, listened to music, moaned about our fucked up lives, and eventually, screwed. It was the start of an affair that lasted, on and off for 10 years. Listen: I’m gay, sure; but some of the very best sex I’ve ever had was with Jorma. She taught me how to eat her to completion, how to play with her clitoris with my fingers while I fucked her with my cock. She had thunderous orgasms, sometimes even farting when she let go. I considered that the ultimate compliment.
She had no hang ups about her body — which was hardly Hollywood — and we made love everywhere, often outside under the stars. I remember one evening in a collard green field outside of Athens. We were interrupted by the approaching lights of the farmer’s pick-up truck and made a wild dash for the car.
Jorma got married, then divorced, then moved up to Athens and built a house on 10 acres out in the country in a place called Devils Pond. I have no idea how she was able to pull off the financing, but it was a testament to her gumption and smarts: Jorma had no visible job or other means of tapping a flow of cash. Somehow she’d built this amazing A-frame on a special government program and now lived there on next to nothing.
Many Friday’s I’d stop at a mini-market in Snellville or Loganville and buy a quart of beer to drink as I drove up to see her. I’d arrive to the smell of some herbal vegitarian dish or another and we’d eat, drink and screw through the night. Days were spent talking, going into town, being artistic and domestic. It was during this period that I started to understand how really funky and fun Athens was.
Jorma and I went our separate ways when I met Beth and moved her into my house. Turns out, she considered me something more than a mere fuck-buddy — which is what I assumed I was. I was shocked at the intensity of her reaction and the obvious pain my announcement casued her. She drove her ancient Volkswagen Microbus away from my Decatur house and has literally not been heard from since.
I returned to Athens in the early 80s with my childhood pal, Carson. I was married and working and doing a seminar there one evening. Carson was in town from Alaska and went with me. We planned to hang out in town and party through the night.
My seminar was over by 8 and I was quickly back at the hotel and changed, ready to go. We hopped from bar to bar drinking and listening to live music. It was everywhere. This was the era of
REM, Guadalcanal Diary, the B-52s and others from Athens and it seemed that the town was the creative center of the universe. I remember stumbling into a place well after midnight, down near the railroad tracks: an old depot? I’m not sure. We were pretty toasted, but the people in this place were much further gone. They stood and danced or flopped on the floor all over the place — which was dark and dirty. Some old pieces of furniture, a small table and a couple of chairs lay in a smashed heap on the floor.
There on the ‘stage’ was a three piece band (guitar, drums and bass) playing the longest and most fun version of Hang on Sloopy I’d ever heard. The damned thing was how really great they sounded. Carson and I had played music together for years and had gone our separate ways in a drug drenched fog. I became a businessman but he continued to support himself as a solo bar act in Alaska. I think we both were a little overcome with the thought of what might have been that night.
Now, not meerly toasty, now completely drunk, we drifted back to the hotel where we continued to drink and wrestled with each other on the bed. It’s probably the most sexual moment Carson and I have ever shared. And, truthfully, it wasn’t sexual at all. But there was a reason us two straight white boys were so terribly drunk and were now grabbing and tusseling with each other, shirtless, on a bed in Athens Georgia.
It snowed that night after we passed out; fairly heavily actually. We had to kill the morning hours over flapjacks before we could make an attempt for home. The roads were very slick all the way back. Once in metro Atlanta, though, the roads were clear and Carson wasted no time in loading up the pickup truck he had borrowed from his father for the visit. Then he was gone and we have not spoken of our Athens Adventure since.
I have been back to Athens a number of times since and it somehow manages to retain its charm. Young, hip and vibrant, you would never label it ‘back woods’ or ‘country.’
I heard Jorma sold the house at Devils Pond, got married and moved to Watkinsville to raise vegetalbes; but I’ve never located her. The boys from REM have bought dozens of rental properties through one of my real estate frineds in town. Guadalcanal Diary, as good as they were, never broke into the big time and eventually disbanded. Now there’s talk of a high speed train between Athens and Atlanta to make it accessible to commuters.
I hope it never happens. Athens is a world unto itself. And that clarity of identity, outside the standards of the workaday world, would surely suffer if progress turned the little town into another Dunwoody. Time will tell.
Now, years later, whenever I hear Hang on Sloopy, I picture a scruffy 3 piece band in an old railroad depot and think, ‘that’s hot.’