Jeffrey and the Gigantic Gym Convict

My old pal, Jeffrey, called the other day.  Jeffrey’s more than a pal, actually.  He masqueraded as my son for several years back in the early ’90s in Long Beach (CA, not NY).  Oh, Gawd.  It’s a long story, but I am urged to push forth and present this:

Much Needed but Hardly Relevant Background Information

I moved to Long Beach from Georgia in 1990 and by 1991 was actively living the freewheeling lifestyle of a single gay man.  One evening I went to Ripples nightclub to watch one of my favorite singers, Miss Fern (Mona Caywood) do her show.  I was alone and I noticed a young man . . . a hunky young man . . . sitting by himself at a cocktail table.  Seemed every time I glanced back at him he was looking at me.  When Miss Fern finished her last number (if I remember she sang it sans wig, in her real Mona persona, and it was ‘Tell me on a Sunday’ from the musical ‘Song and Dance.’  Not a dry eye in the house)  I shuffled back and sat at his table.

He was brash, sexy, flirty and young:  a middle aged gay man’s dream, and I took him home.  We had a torrid two week affair.  By day 14 it was clear that though we loved each other in a deep spiritually connected way, we were destined to be good friends, not lovers.  That’s when we dreamed up our fake history, reproduced for you here:

I was 17 in 1968 and was fortunate to attend the original Woodstock event.  I only got to go because my brother, who owned a van, had been engaged by the promoters to drive from Atlanta to New York, posting handbills along the way.  Somehow I was able to beg a place in the truck, an experience I can hardly remember through the fog of marijuana smoke and the splash of acid that dominated the entire trip.

If you are at all familiar with Woodstock, you know that the skies burst one evening and left the entire festival in a muddy funk.  Enlightened love hippies that we were, we chose to enjoy the wet, the mud and the squaller.  All over the festival grounds, mud bogs became oozy sensual playgrounds.  I found myself naked, rolling and tumbling in one such bog and . . . came to rest beside a similarly naked girl.  We rolled atop one another and then, entwined rolled together through the bog.  Mud infused every aspect of our bodies and in the swirling Mescaline haze we inhabited, we knew we were to be one.  A stream dip and towel off later and . . . we were.  As magical as that night was, by the next day we were merely two fucked up kids from opposite ends of the country waking up all sex sticky on a stuporous morning-after.  We exchanged names and numbers and went our separate ways.

Exactly 22 years later, shortly after I’d relocated to Long Beach, there was a knock on my apartment door.  I opened it and found . . .a Greek God.  An Adonis.  The most gorgeous young man:  Jeffrey.  He was a bit nervous but was intent on talking with me.  I invited him in.  It took a little stammering, but he eventually got to the point.

‘Do you remember 1968?’ he asked.

Odd question, I thought.  ‘Well . . .sort of,’ I replied.

‘Woodstock?’ he continued.

‘Yes . . . ‘

‘A rainy night? A roll in the mud?’ he was staring right into the heart of me.

‘Um . . . ‘ I hesitated.  Who had put this boy up to this? ‘Yes. . . ‘

‘A young woman,’ he went on and I could feel my heart quicken.  ‘A young woman named Kathy?’

I was staring back into his incredible blue eyes, but my mind was back there at Woodstock in the mud with my arms around that girl.  I felt my mouth dry like an open eye in the desert.  ‘Yes,’ I answered.

The pause hung like a dark pinata between us.  He just kept looking into me and I stayed locked on his eyes. And then the bat hit the pinata and . . .

‘She is my mother . . . ‘he said. My breath caught in my throat, ‘And you . . . are my father.’

In a matter of days, Jeffrey had moved into the vacant apartment downstairs from me and we set about restoring a relationship that had only existed in our wildest dreams.  We were inseparable and people began to refer to us as Jazz and Jeff.  It was odd but easy.  Jeffrey was, at 22, already sure he was gay, and I’d just given myself permission to be gay, so we were able to share a lot:  the Gay Frontrunners running club, the bars in Long Beach and West Hollywood (the Gold Coast was a favorite), Pride in LA and Long Beach and so on.  We shared a lot of chuckles when we were out cruising.  He’d find some delicious young thing to take home but would insist the boy meet his father first.  And he take him by the hand and lead him over to the bar where I was perched and present his find to me.  I worked hard to make the young man as uncomfortable as possible, but always gave my ‘Spiritus-Sanctus’ blessing and sent the boys on their way.

We were just playing, of course.  But the funny thing was:  Jeffrey became incredibly important to me.  He really was my son.  I felt completely paternal toward him.  I watched after him and did what I could to clear the path before him.  I had an achy love for him . . . and it has not gone away in these many years.

Something happened in 1993 or 1994.  Jeffrey hit a wall.  I can’t really say what the wall was.  Maybe it was the sudden death of our friend Dennis, who quickly succumbed to AIDS after living with it for years.  Maybe it was the ump-teenth guy who took what he wanted from Jeffrey and then evaporated.  I don’t know.  But Jeffrey hit a wall.  He withdrew from everything and everyone, including me. And then he disappeared.

I had years of agonizing over my boy.  Where had he gone?  What happened to him?  Why didn’t he get in touch? And then . . . he did.

Jeff is living in Modesto, getting his Masters Degree (having taken a termination package from his last employer that put a little jingle in his pocket), and trying to reconnect with life.  I said he hit a wall.  He’d say he had a nervous breakdown.  Everything fell apart for him.  He gained 300 pounds.  He ran screaming in terror from his life.  But now, in Modesto, he is putting it back together, losing some weight, trying to reconnect with the world around him.

Which brings us up to our phone call.

Jeffrey recently joined a gym.  It’s part of his campaign to lose some of the weight he put on.  He’s working with a personal trainer, who last week mentioned to Jeffrey that he had another client who wanted to meet him.  A rendezvous was arranged and the man who showed up was (in Jeffrey’s words) a huge, gorgeous, muscle hunk of a guy with tattoos all over.  A complete convict dream date!  Jeff was intimidated.  Was this some kind of joke?  Was there a Candid Camera somewhere?  Why would this image of male perfection be interested in him?

‘Well . . . ‘the convict stammered, ‘I’ve always had a thing for chubby white boys.’

So the two agreed to have coffee tomorrow.  Jeffie was second guessing and freaking out when he called me and I’m sure he will continue to do the same until the appointed hour.  But I believe (and pray) he goes.  I want to see my boy engaged again; active; participating in life.  He’s promised to call me with the details.