I Remember

I remember when, in high school if you wore green and yellow on Thursday it meant that you were queer.

I remember when, in high school I used to stuff a sock in my underwear.

I remember “queers can't whistle.”

I remember the skinny guy who gets sand kicked in his face in body-building ads.

I remember how much I used to stutter.

I remember how little your dick is getting out of a wet bathing suit.

I remember daydreams of a doctor who (on the sly) was experimenting with a drug that would turn you into a real stud. All very “hush-hush.” (As it was illegal.) There was a slight chance that something might go wrong and that I'd end up with a really giant cock, but I was willing to take that chance.

I remember my first sexual experience in a subway. Some guy (I was afraid to look at him) got a hardon and was rubbing it back and forth against my arm. I got very excited and when my stop came I hurried out and home where I tried to do an oil painting using my dick as a brush.

I remember when I had a job cleaning out an old man's apartment who had died. Among his belongings was a very old photograph of a naked young boy pinned to an old pair of young boy's underwear. For many years he was the choir director at church. He had no family or relatives.

I remember how many other magazines I had to buy in order to buy one physique magazine.

I remember jerking off to sexual fantasies of Troy Donahue with a dark tan in a white bathing suit down by the ocean. (From a movie with Sandra Dee)

I remember sexual fantasies of seducing young country boys. (But old enough) Pale and blond and eager.

I remember the way John Kerr was always flexing his jaw muscles in “South Pacific.”

I remember that Rock Hudson and Charlie Chaplin and Lyndon Johnson have “giant cocks.”

I remember magazine pictures of very handsome male models with perfect faces and, with an almost physical pang, wondering what it would be to look like that. (Heaven)

I remember those sexy little ads in the back of Esquire magazine of skimpy bathing suits and underwear with enormous baskets.

I remember the first time I met Frank O'Hara. He was walking down Second Avenue. It was a cool early Spring evening but he was wearing only a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. And blue jeans. And moccasins. I remember that he seemed very sissy to me. Very theatrical. Decadent. I remember that I liked him instantly.

I remember Frank O'Hara's walk. Light and sassy. With a slight bounce and a slight twist. It was a beautiful walk. Confident. “I don't care.” And sometimes “I know you are looking.”

I remember seeing Frank O'Hara write a poem once. We were watching a western on TV and he got up as tho to fix a drink or answer the telephone but instead he went over to the typewriter, leaned over it a bit, and typed for 4 or 5 minutes standing up. Then he pulled the piece of paper out of the typewriter and handed it to me and then lay back down to watch more TV. (The TV was in the bedroom) I don't remember the poem except that it had some cowboy dialect in it.

I remember not liking myself for not picking up boys I probably could pick up because of the possibility of being rejected.

I remember deciding at a certain point that I would cut through all the bull shit and just go up to boys I liked and say “Do you want to go home with me?” and so I tried it. But it didn't work. Except once, and he was drunk. The next morning he left a card behind with a picture of Jesus on it signed “with love, Jesus” on the back. He said he was a friend of Allen Ginsberg.

I remember tight white pants. Certain ways of standing. Blond heads of hair. And spotted bleached blue jeans.

I remember pretty faces that don't move.

I remember (recently) getting blown while trying to carry on a normal conversation on the telephone, which, I must admit, was a big turn-on somehow.

I remember fantasizing about being a super-stud and being able to shoot enormous loads. And (would you believe it?) (yes, you'll believe it) I still do.
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