Memories out of nowhere...

I'm feeling an incredible sadness, right now, which is bringing up old thoughts and memories from all over my life. And I'm reminded of how little I've done with myself. How completely useless I feel. We're going through an awful time, at the moment, and I'm remember other periods that I've had to deal with chaos and uncertainty...and sometimes didn't do so well in handling them.

Fortunately, I can still bring up moments that helped me through. That gave me a form of support. Even going back to when I was careening through the understanding that I was gay and had no one I could tell it to. Felt I could be put in jail at any moment, because...as one San Antonio cop put it...it was illegal to be gay in Texas in the 70s.

Hell, it was illegal for married couples to have sex in any way but the missionary position. If a cop looked in a window and saw a wife seated atop her husband, having sex, he could arrest them for sodomy. And pornography was WAY under the radar.

However, there was a porn store down on Houston Street, near the Texas Theatre, that I could slip into even though I was underage. The owner's attitude was, he didn't give a shit what anybody was up to. So when I'd buy some book or magazine and nervously tell him it's for research, he'd smile and nod, and take my money without condemnation. I felt both terrified, in there, and safe enough to start exploring.

Al Parker and Dick Fisk became my first gay porn crushes. God, how I loved seeing them together in photo mags. Sketched out graphic stories about them. I could go into my world and dream about them, when life became too much to handle. And while Dick was lovely, I wanted so much to be like Al...

But it wasn't possible. He's way prettier than I ever was. So much more assured. Exactly right in every part of his body, while I was skinny (5'9" and 140 lbs), had been brutally treated, and probably had ADHD. I was a mess. Still am, to an extent.

It hurt when Dick died in a car wreck in 1983. He was three years younger than me, while Al and I were the same age, just a month apart...5 weeks...when he died from AIDs.

After years of dealing with and losing friends and acquaintances to that vile disease, I was numb. Their deaths would hurt and I'd grieve, but not much more.

For Al I wept.

I'd never met him. He knew nothing of me. I didn't care he'd been a gay porn star. He meant dreams...simple dreams of a simple life that could never happen.

And never has.