In Skater's Time

There's ordinary time.

There's daylight savings time.

Then,

There's skater's time.

---

Prologue:

In the East, where I was from, we skated on skateboards or inline skates. No matter where we were going, we had our transportation. Our wheels had come east from the West Coast. By the time I came along, and we were the generation which followed the love and peace generation, no one needed to tell us how to get around.

While it was obvious where skateboards came from—and we'd all listened to The Beach Boys from birth, even in far away Massachusetts—every red-blooded American boy’s dream was of having that Endless Summer, surfing his way to fame and fortune. Though California did seem like it was a ways away.

Being the generation that followed my parent's generation, we didn't need to go far to find music from the turbulent 60s. Up until the 60s, kids were seen and not heard, if they knew what was good for them. The 60s gave rise to a period when kids made themselves heard, and for kids, growing up in the 80s, the music was the best part, after all was said and done.

If it didn't happen, this story wouldn't be here. Because I became the first boy in my group to get to California, no one was able to tell me what I was about to encounter. My dreams, the music, not even my skater friends could prepare me for California, but the Beach Boys came the closest. My parents had been California dreaming, before I came along. They had all the Beach Boy's records.

If anyone had told me, “You'll live in California, and skate with California boys one day,” I'd have laughed at them, but that is what happened. I wasn't skating with California boys right off. At first, I only skated alone. When I saw a skater, he was always going the other way.

My dreams of basking in the warm California sun were particularly vivid, while I was shoveling two feet of snow out of the driveway. I was born and raised in a town in Massachusetts no one had heard of. During my waking hours, and sometimes in my sleep, I didn't dream of skiing or snowboarding. That would have been way too easy for a Massachusett's boy.

During particularly harsh winters in Massachusetts, I imagined living where it never snowed. Along with the sun and surf deal, came an unmistakable Beach Boys soundtrack, with revving engines, raging surf, and their unmistakable beat. I knew I'd never get to California. My skateboard wasn't that sturdy, and I felt lucky when we drove to Boston a couple of times a year to see the Red Sox play.

East Coast boys, believing in an Endless Summer along California's beaches, the Beach Boys inspired red-blooded American boys so to dream. Even our generation listened to the Beach Boys. They made one of the most appealing sounds to come out of the 60s, but once you found them, you couldn't stop with just one. At first, I was captivated by the sound my parents' music made. Then, when I learned the music came with a history lesson about the 60s, I was all in, and I wanted to know more. My parents were vague with their answers.

In the middle of the summer once I was in California, snow never came to mind. As thrilled as I was to breathe the California air and feel the California sun, my mind wasn't on how good that felt. I wanted to find the local skaters’ culture. I needed to find, and to follow, the local skaters. They'd be my first California friends. While skating over a bridge built over one of the many concrete culverts that funneled rain water away from the streets, I spotted a boy on a skateboard. He was looking into the concrete structure. These culverts looked like halfpipes in one incarnation or another.

This one was shaped even more like a halfpipe than most, and I realized that he was about to skate down the wall across the bottom, and up the other side. I could see the boys in Massachusetts, daring each other to do this, after one daring boy had decided it was the thing he needed to do most of all.

This boy seemed to be mustering the courage to take the plunge at a spot which looked almost perfect for it. I needed to gather my courage at times to do something stupid all my friends just did. Once such a challenge was offered, there was no backing out. No matter how insane, if your buds did it, you had to do it, too, or, you wouldn't have any buds, any more.

After I stopped to watch, I picked up my skateboard, placing it on the railing in front of me. I was hoping he'd notice me, and he'd see that I was a skater too, but he stayed focused on the dive he was about to make into that halfpipe. The bottom was maybe ten feet below him.

He was older than I was. Maybe he was in his early twenties. It was difficult to tell, because he was well below where I stood on the bridge, and he was looking down into the halfpipe, but he was solidly built, like a guy who'd lived a little. A few years of difference in age, shouldn't disqualify me from being a friend.

He was maybe six foot tall, a hundred and fifty pounds, and his most striking feature, auburn red hair, more red than brown, but the way it was styled, he looked like a million bucks. He wore the skater's uniform, which most skaters wore, tight black spandex shorts, and a bright orange tee-shirt.

California boys favored spandex, and any tee-shirt. You couldn't have gotten my buds, back home, in spandex on a bet. It wasn't a look I would forget, once I saw the first skater in spandex. There were things in spandex shorts that my buds weren't about to show off. We weren't that confident, but I loved the look. It would take some getting use to, seeing so much of a guy, before I knew his name. The spandex went directly on, no underwear to obscured the view.

Being in the middle of a bridge with cars flowing behind me, I thought about going into the halfpipe to talk to the boy, who was standing still, his board in his hand, but by the time I would get to him, he'd have done whatever he was going to do, and he'd be gone. I didn't want to take my eyes off him, because then, I'd miss whatever it was he had it in mind to do.

Being from Massachusetts, I was no stranger to guys with red hair, but this was the first redhead I'd seen in California, and, since red hair came in so many shades, the dark auburn hair was the most attractive to me.

I wanted to yell, “Hey, will you be my friend?” but obviously he was busy, and I wasn't that bold. Maybe, once he'd done whatever he was going to do, I'd go down and talk to him.

I was sure he was about to find his courage, drop his board, and plunge down into the bottom of all that concrete. In my mind, in a skater's mind, I'd looked long and hard, trying to summon my courage to do something I wasn't sure I could do. My buds were always looking for a challenge.

Maybe he was new at skating. It was California. Boys in California were given their first skateboard while still in the crib.

I leaned on the railing, watching the skater study this perfect course. It was smooth and well shaped. I'd seen skaters skating in the storm drains. I'd seen some sitting up under bridges of in the distance. It was probably a good place to go and not be hassled.

Then, as I waited for this guy to get his courage, he dropped his board, and in an instant, he skated straight down into the half pipe, straight up the other side, going four feet above the lip.

Reaching down with his hand, he positioned his board for the dive back into the bottom of the half pipe. He went straight up the other side, turning in mid air, and placing his board under his feet as his ballet on wheels continued. This guy was good. This guy was the best I'd ever seen, and I was mesmerized. I'd never seen anyone ride a board like he rode his, and I'd gotten a lesson in the difference between summoning courage, and a boy having a laser-like focus.

After doubling the distance between him and bridge, he began working his way back to where he started. This time the board shot up a few extra feet into the air, and the guy grabbed it, landing on his feet, right back where he started.

That's when it happened!

He turned his head until he was looking straight at me. He knew I was there all the time. He saw the amazement on my face. He smiled broadly. I smiled back. He waved my way. I waved back.

It was the kind of moment you only experience once. I, and a guy I didn't know, had made a connection. As badly as I needed a friend, any connection was good, even one that was fleeting.

He, a wonder of athleticism.

Me, amazed.

While on the way to somewhere, he'd taken time out to do what he did better than anyone I knew.

I watched him long enough to memorize his moves, the boy in the form fitting spandex. I would frequently dream about that encounter. I'd never forget the redheaded boy with the magic skateboard.

He reached down to place his board where he wanted it. He skated into the bottom of the halfpipe, and out of my life.

Who was he?

There was plenty of time. I was in no hurry. I was in California to stay. I'd keep my eyes open for the handsome redhead. If he was out there, I'd find him, and I'd know him when I saw him. If I saw him again.

Chapter 1

Being

Ask a boy riding a skateboard from my hometown in Massachusetts, “What do you think about California?” You'll immediately see a far away look on his face, followed by a smile, and a single word of adoration sighed: “California!”

In California, boys live to surf. When they aren't at the ocean, they're on a skateboard, making do, until the next time they can get to where the surf is. These were the images of California boys, Massachusetts boys had in my East Coast town. We all didn't dream of being California boys. We all didn't ride a skateboard as a means of transportation, but every boy who did, heard the music, saw the images, and dreamed of a land far beyond our reach.

I'd been to New York City twice, and we made regular trips to Maine, where my mother was from. I lived in a lower middle class neighborhood, went to the local blue collar high school, and I lived a life where wishing and dreaming were the best part, because opportunities limited us to growing up like our parents.

I loved my parents. They were good, hard working people. They did the best they could do for me. I never went hungry, and I had the clothes I needed to endure the harsh Massachusett's winter. I didn't dislike my parents, because we were on the lower end of the lower middle class, but I wanted more.

I didn't surf, because I couldn't afford a surfboard, but I would buy one, as soon as I graduated from high school and went to work. Until then, I skated everywhere I went, which was to school, to town a mile and a half away, and to wherever I needed to get, or wanted to go.

One of our favorite activities, me and my buds, was dreaming of going to California, where the surf was up and waiting for us. We knew all about it, because the Beach Boys sang about everything California. We listened, because if anyone knew what being a teenager in California was all about, it was the Beach Boys.

I was probably the only one who made it to California. At least I am sure I was the first. It was while I was making plans for yet another long lost summer, my father gave us the news at dinner one night.

“I've been offered a job in San Diego. Now, Zane, your mother and I have talked this over. We think you need to move with us. We can make plans for you to finish school here by living with people we know, but your mother and I want to keep the family together,” he said, presenting my parents' plan to me.

“We haven’t always been in a position to give you a lot of opportunities, but in California, I'll be making substantially more money. We'll buy a house near San Diego, and we think we can make sure you have the things we've never been able to buy you before,” he said, sweetening the pot.

Dad was never sure what my reaction might be to anything he said these days, because I'd become more independent in the last couple of years since entering high school. I was gone with my friends more than I was home, but my dad had said the magic word, “California,” but I didn't give in right away.

My friends would be green with envy, once I told them the news. I'd known the guys most of my life; that was the only hitch in the plan. I wouldn't know anyone in California, but how hard would it be to find other skaters?

“You're sure you want me to go along?” I asked, stringing him on.

“Positive,” he said. “As I said, your mom and I are in agreement.”

“Then I suppose I will go along with you,” I said, hiding my excitement.

Excitement might have been over stated, once I thought about leaving the only friends I'd known. We'd lived in the same apartments for as far back as my memory went. My parents were going to buy a house. It wouldn't be all that close to the Pacific, but it would be a hell of a lot closer than Massachusetts.

Had it been a move to New Jersey, I'd have stayed in Massachusetts. It's all I knew, but he'd said the magic word, and I was all in.

“California! Dude, you're going to make it to California. The best the rest of us can do is dream about the land of milk and honey, The Golden State.”

I was still miles from the ocean. It was the other ocean this time. The one on the West Coast. Surfing wasn't on my mind, once we settled into our El Cajon neighborhood. My instincts told me that I needed to find the skaters first. They'd introduce me to the things California boys did, when they weren't surfing, and I'd slowly learn the things I needed to know to be a popular California boy.

I was going to California!

* * * * *

Skateboarding isn't so much an activity as it is a way of life.

Our boards, or our in-line skates, go everywhere with us. They are as much a part of us as our feet. This is how it is for boys, as we grew into adults. We were skaters first, and everything else came after that fact. While finding other skaters sounded easy, once I dropped my skateboard and explored the new place I lived, there was a strange absence of other skaters. Where were they?

It was California that gave birth to this frame of mind, this way of life, as all of the best fads seem to begin on the West Coast, as far back as anyone remembers. Until the early 60s, no one noticed teenagers. We did best when we were seen and not heard, according to the adults of the day. A few kids stepped out of line often, with no regard for rules, but they were the exception. Most children were taught not to make waves from an early age. Their parents obviously hadn't been surfers, and the skateboard wasn't a thing yet, but our parents did grow up during the love and peace generation, which gave birth to the idea, kids should be heard, and if they weren't, they should get louder, much, much, louder.

The music and turmoil that grew our of the 60s changed everything. My generation knew that. We only needed to ask our parents, 'What was all the shouting and yelling about?” They would then tell us about the war, the idea of peace, and how those two things collided with the powers that be. For the first time, kids had made themselves heard, and the music of the day was testimony to what they were saying, and rochers rocked the conscience of American kids.

Like most of my friends, we didn't care much about a war that had ended before out parents were grown, but our parents, the blue color army that kept the trains running, passed on their music to their kids. For my parents, it was the presence of the vinyl records, evidence of their past for us to find. It was the place where we heard the sounds the 60s made.

That war, like Korea, World War II, and World War I, were as ancient to us, as the Spanish American War or the Civil War. What it told us was, our country was almost always at war with someone, for some reason or other. Couldn't we talk to them? Couldn't we tell them, we'd like to avoid war? Ask, how do we settle our differences peacefully? If we weren't interested in our parents’ war, we certainly had no thoughts about having a war of our own.

What was the point? You spend a lifetime building things, making great contributions to the human race, and then the human race spends a couple of years blowing it up, and the powers that be get to start all over again. Who benefited from war?

Why not work as hard to achieve peace? It sounded logical to us, but, it was obvious to us, our world did always run on logic.

What we learned by listening to the music of the 60s was that the musicians of the day didn't appreciate another war. Their displeasure could often be heard in their songs,

songs about hot rods, song in surfing movies. The Beach Boys grabbed hold of my parents' generation and then mine. With howling engines, a California beat, the Endless Summer began to grow in hearts and minds. Why make war, when you can make love?

On the curl of a wave, teenagers grabbed hold of their own identity, which suited them fine, and once skateboards came East, we had a mode of transportation all our own. It was part of our identity. It distinguished us from the kids are seen and not heard generation.

Most of the boys I knew back home hadn't been near much surf. We all had dreams about surfing, riding the perfect wave, driving the sweetest hot rod, and banging out the California beat on stage with the Beach Boys, while hundreds of girls swooned at our feet. My friends saw girls. I saw California boys.

As teenagers, we became visible and loud, and no one could tell us how to be. Maybe the Beach Boys' music offered us ideas to fuel our dreams.

Our parents’ generation, in school during the second half of the 60s, knew who fought the wars, and they decided to bring about the peace. It was in their music. Up until the 60s, the kids' music was whatever their parents said it was.

In the next generation, my generation, no one told us what to listen to. We found our own sounds. The roots of the 70s, were born in the 60s. The music had stopped keeping time with the history 60s rockers once rocked about. It was called Oldies Rock, when we listened back home, but something that didn't get old, the idea that the best stuff started in California and came east. This stayed part of California's allure.

We didn't know much about the 60s, or what took place back then, but we knew that whatever it was that did happen, had changed everything for kids. There was no memory of what came before the 60s, because the 50s—the decade that gave birth to the 60s—was born out of a world war, as was the new generation born to these people who had endured war who wanted a better life for their kids. They kept their noses to the grindstone, working as hard as they could to make a better life, and everyone benefited from that.

My parents, although born in the 50s, were part of that hard-working generation. It was the same generation that won World War II and made the world safe. My being born in the late 70s, my parents were hardly grown, and the war they made all the fuss about, had ended before they graduated from high school, but the memory of it couldn't fade for Gold Star Families..

As boys, skaters in the East, we were always looking west for what was coming our way. We were keenly aware of whence came the best fads . Our times weren't as influential or focused as the 60s, but being alive to experience the 80s, meant we were treated to what had become the nostalgic 60s. It's true, that the best stuff never dies, and the 60s music blew the doors off 70s music.

I first discovered my parents' music, vinyl albums high on a shelf, where a kid couldn't reach and destroy them. Once I was tall enough, but not old enough to know what the music meant, I liked listening to them. Once my parents figured out that I was taking their prized albums down, they showed me how they expected me to properly take care of the records. If I didn't put the record back in its sleeve and return it to the shelf, listening privileges would be revoked, until I was old enough to handle the records responsibly.

Chapter 2

There's History,

And Then,

There's History

By the time my history teacher told the class that the music of the 60s was part of a revolution, he had our attention. We'd all been listening to that music, because it was as good as any being made in the 80s, maybe better.

I made a point of writing down what my teacher told us, and I went home to ask my parents about the music that fueled revolution. Having heard stories about the Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, Dylan, and countless rock groups making music that was a sign of the times, I wanted my parents’ side of the story.

I became curious about my parents listening to the music that went with the revolution of the 60s. They were hardly revolutionaries. I expected to be stone-walled. My parents didn't exactly come clean about being kids. I knew the line about drugs being illegal didn't mean they didn't try them. I was hoping for a better result with the question about their music.

“Why do people say that the music of the 60s was the soundtrack for your generation?” I asked, not knowing what it meant.

“You've got to understand,” Dad said. “We weren't radicals, and we didn't do drugs, because they are bad for you, not to mention illegal. Once graduates from our school began coming home in body bags, we got involved. Kids whose lives hadn't started yet were dying. Why was that? No matter who we asked, no one had an answer that added up to the life of even one friend. which made us mad. It was the equivalent of the government telling us, 'Because we said so.’ ”

“We didn't get a satisfactory answer,” Mother said, as she dished out mashed potatoes. “The teachers of the day, kept telling us that we were in Vietnam fighting to keep America free,” which made absolutely no sense. We were free, and how did a peasant country, like Vietnam, threaten the most powerful country in the history of the world? We'd won World War II and saved the world from Adolph Hitler and his ilk.”

“The music was part of an awakening of our generation. The music became raucous and loud. The music was angry to match our mood. Some music was more thoughtful. Dylan and Simon & Garfunkel helped with this. The Beatles started off in pop music. It was cute. They were cute, and then they changed, as our generation changed. The Stones never changed. They started off raucous, and they are still raucous today. The Beatles grew up with us and learned to speak out through their music, which spoke to us.”

My parents were generic with their descriptions. I wasn't surprised they didn't confess to smoking grass and dropping acid. No parent is going to tell their kid that. They don't want us breaking laws or getting into trouble, as they probably did, but they told me enough for me to know what questions to ask in U.S. History class. My teacher was the same age as my parents. He'd been an architect, until there was a serious economic slow down in the early 80s. That's when he fell back on the teaching certificate he'd taken the time to get in college, just in case.

“My parents said that they were angered by kids from this school dying in Vietnam. My father told me they never got to live, before they died.”

Mr. Bowen, my U.S history teacher, said, “You need to investigate, how many kids died from JFK High School, but being in the economic zone we're in, boys would have been unable to avoid the draft by going to college. Folds who are better off, sent their kids to college. There are cases of writing up a diagnosis that would exclude wealthy kids from the draft. The lower economic class always fights the wars,” Mr. Bowen said. “It's true all over the world. War is fought on the backs of people who can't escape it.”

“You're saying poor people do the fighting?” I asked.

“Exactly. The ruling class, the rich, not only have economic power, but they control who gets elected to represent them. They have the money, which gives them to power to make certain their interests are protected.”

“Meaning our interests aren't protected?” I asked.

“Right after the rich get what they want, you might get what you need,” Mr. Bowen said.

“The system is stacked against us?” I asked.

“The people in office, get there because the party supports them. The parties are funded by rich people,” Mr. Bowen said. As Winston Churchill said, 'Democratic governments are the messiest kind of government there is, except for all the rest.'”

“So only the people who are willing to represent the rich get elected?” someone concluded.

“Most of the time. Money buys influence. Who has most of the money?”

“Why don't we change the system?” someone asked.

“In the 60s, we did change the system. I think one of the chants that was used as we marched past the White House was, ‘Hell no, we won't go!’ ”

“So you protested the war?” I asked. “Like my parents?”

“We were protesting much more than that, and I can be disciplined for telling you these things, because it isn't how history is written in your text books.”

“We're lied to?” someone asked.

“You aren't given the entire truth. The winners write the history,” Mr. Bowen said. “They write it in a way that reflects their goodness in all things.”

“But we won. Laws changed. We got the vote, and the draft ended.”

“Ah, yes, you are correct, but that's not how the ruling class tells the story. The people in power voted to lower the voting age to eighteen. The people in power, once they could safely say, 'The war is over,' ended the draft. They said, 'It's what we were planning to do all along. A bunch of smelly hippies and war protesters didn't have a thing to do with it.”

“Once again, they were telling the story the way they wanted it to read. The facts are. We fought a war. Nearly sixty thousand men died fighting that war for America. Those are the facts. How many Vietnamese died? We don't know. Some accounts say, 'If the America's killed all the Vietnamese they claim to have killed. There would have been nothing but Americans left in Vietnam,”

“They lied about that too?” Bobby Willow asked.

“One of the generals in charge, went by the numbers. When reporting the dead in each battle, as long as more Vietnamese died than Americans, the general was relatively satisfied. All his commanders in the field knew this. It was one of those general's aids, who said, “If we killed all the Vietnamese we report were killed, there would be no Vietnamese left in country.'”

“Why were we killing Vietnamese at all?” I asked.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Mr. Bowen said. “When politicians go to war, they don't always have a clear motive in mind.”

“So, the 60s were all about Vietnam. All about kids dying there?” I asked.

“Ah, we get to what was really going on in the 60s. Anyone ever heard of the Children's crusade, Bloody Sunday, or Freedom Summer?”

“Who of you have heard the song, Mr. Bowen began to sing, “I am woman, hear me roar! Do any of you know what the song R-E-S-P-E-C-T is about?”

“A-retha,” a girl sang back at Mr. Bowen.

“What was Aretha Franklin singing about Ms. Webb?”

“Being respected,” Ms. Webb said.

“Have any of you heard of the Stonewall Riot in New York City?”

“The gays fought the police in the Village?”

“The cops kicked their queer asses,” Junior Boggs said.

“No, the cops didn't,” Mr. Bowen said. “The best the police could do, after four days, and nights, of a standoff with the gays, was a strategic withdrawal. The riot started Friday night, and on Monday morning, NYC's finest, got in their cars and drove away. The riot was over. It has been called a police riot, and saner heads prevailed. That was 1969, and laws began to change. It was once illegal to be a homosexual,” Mr. Bowen said.

“As it should be,” Boggs said. “Faggots shouldn't have rights. Their queers.”

“Ah, the enlightenment has come to 5th period U.S. history class. Mr. Boggs, what would you do if I moved your desk to the back of the room, and made you sit facing the wall, so you wouldn't need to look at any of us?”

“I'd sue your ass, and I'd get you fired. You can't do that to me. I have rights,” Boggs bellowed loudly.

“But more importantly, we wouldn't have to look at you,” Mr. Bowen said.

The class erupted in laughter.

“You're going to be sorry you said that,” Boggs growled.

“You are right, Mr. Boggs, for once in your life, you have rights. You are the kind of person who would cry bloody murder about being denied your rights, while you'd be delighted to deny rights to gay brothers and sisters,”

“Queers don't need rights?” Boggs said.

“how about black people? Should Hispanics have rights? Lets not forget our indigenous brothers and sisters. Some people deny all these groups their rights, while guarding their own rights like a pit bull,” Mr. Bowen said. “More importantly, the 60s began with the Kennedy's becoming aware that the black people, who served them their meals, made their beds, and cleaned up after them, actually had no rights at all in certain parts of the country. Once they realized this, and it didn't come like a bolt of lightning from the sky. It came with pictures of people peacefully marching, while being attacked with clubs, fire hoses, and police dogs. In the age of television, such pictures were shown around the world. The imagery was unmistakable to politicians, and the Kennedys, reluctant at first, became aware that something had to be done about how African Americans were treated.”

“What's that got to do with Vietnam?” Carol Cook asked.

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. You see, Vietnam was part of a mosaic. It was born out of outrage, discontent with the status quo, and people who decided that they were, 'As mad as hell, and they weren't go to take it any more.'”

“That's from a movie,” Blanche Barnett said.

“Network!” Mr. Bowen said. “A reflection of the 60s. A confluence of inequality, lets not forget the rich folks making sure their little boys didn't die in Vietnam. Black people risked their lives in some places, if they dared to look a white man in the eye, in certain places. Anyone heard of Emmett Til? In 1955, while visiting an uncle in Money, Mississippi, it's said that he whistled, or flirted with, a white woman. He was your age. That night, he was beaten, murdered, and thrown into a river with an industrial fan attached to his body, to keep it from surfacing. His body worked its way free of the weight, and was found a few days later. Everyone in Money, Mississippi knew who did the deed, but it was Mississippi. No white man would ever go to jail for killing a black man. Nine years later in Mississippi, three civil rights workers were murdered, because they went there to register black people to vote, during 'Freedom Summer.'”

“They killed him for saying something to a white woman?” a voice asked.

“Like so much that happens, I don't know what he did. He was fourteen. What could any fourteen-year-old do that got him murdered,” Mr. Bowen said.

“History isn't always what it seems. The music, the times, the revolution that was the 60s, was about people having taken it for too long. Vietnam may have ignited the flame that burned through the country, but a lot of people were excluded from the American dream in the 60s. I've given you a few examples of what was going on. Vietnam was the most visible problem of the times. Every week, hundreds of metal coffin returned from Vietnam. Photographers stood at the read, ready to click the picture that would end up on the front page of a paper or a magazine, under the heading, 'More War Dead.'

“History is rarely about a single thing. When you have multicultural population, there are going to be issues that inflame one segment of the population, but maybe not another, but when there is enough turmoil, it doesn't take much to spark a wildfire, and the 60s went up in flames, and the music was the soundtrack of a generation. You can find all the facts that I've spoken of, but you need to search for them. The catalyst might be something as simple as whistle, and as complicated as an obscure report on an unclear incident, which involved the U.S.S. Maddox, being attacked by an enemy in open water.”

“A lot of the music my parents listened to, came from England. How did that happen?” Carol asked.

“I'll tell you who ignited the British invasion. We need to go back to November 1963. Does anyone know what happened that month?”

“Thanksgiving,” Simon Quick said.

“Yes, it's one thing that happened, but one of the most tragic events in American history took place that month as well. Anyone?”

“John F Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald,” Mr. Barnes said.

“The country went into a major tailspin. You've got to realize, Kennedy was the first president born in the twentieth century, to take office as the most powerful man in the world. He was Harvard educated, raised in a family known for their adventurous spirit, as well as a taste for politics. JFK was smart, charming, movie star handsome, and he had a gorgeous wife. He was one of the youngest men to ever serve as president. Kennedy was learning on the job, and it was clear that his liberal ideas were popular with the people. In an instant, all the changes. One of the most grizzled politicians to ever serve in the Senate, Lyndon Johnson became president. He took the presidents job, but he couldn't replace JFK, and Johnson was smart enough to know it, and for months the country suffered from such a total reversal of fortunes.”

“What's that got to do with music?” Mr. Price asked.

“The holidays were a bummer. No one felt like celebrating Christmas, or New Years. The entire country was in a funk. Then, shortly after 1964 started, a rock group came to Washington DC. I've seen film of them carrying their instruments into a small venue that might have seated a couple of thousand. The band sat up their instruments, and they played their first date in America. Can anyone guess who the band was?” Mr. Bowen asked.

“No. The following day they flew into New York City, and when they landed, they were greeted by thousands of waving screaming fans. One of the Beatles said, 'We thought the president must have been landing at the same time we landed,' but the president wasn't landing. The reception was for them, and no one would ever see them carrying their instruments again, or anything else for that matter. The Beatles were a smash hit in America.”

“The Beatles had officially arrived in America. There was no mention of the day before, when they decided to play at a small venue, to see what the reaction might be. The Beatles were afraid to play in front of an American audience. No British band had been successful at conquering America, but they changed all that, and the history of rock and roll would never be the same.”

“What made them so good,” someone asked. “They came to America thirty years ago, and we're still listening to their music, and they haven't recorded an album together in twenty-five years.”

“They came to America singing, 'I want to hold your hand, and Love, love me do. I do love you.' Mr. Bowen sang from the Beatles songs that chopped the American pop hit charts. “At times Beatles' songs held seven, eight, and nine top ten hits at the same time.

“Why were they so big?” someone asked.

“We all wanted to hold their hands. We all loved the Beatles. They were clean cut, attractive, charming, funny, not to mention immensely talented, but they had no idea who they were or what they had. They merely thought that the Americans had gone quite daft. It was OK, because they'd gone daft over them.”

“But why?” someone asked. “I've listened to their music. It's good, but it doesn't make me want to scream and shout.”

“They were new then. No one had ever seen anything like it. The time was ripe for change. They came to America in the middle of a changing America. They were entertaining. No one wanted to be entertained, after Kennedy died. Nothing seemed to matter. Something as basic as a leader of the country, had been eliminated in a few seconds. No one understood it, we were looking to escape it.”

“They weren't always well-mannered, charming, and funny,” I said.

“Oh, do tell?” Mr. Bowen said.

“They were from Liverpool. It wasn't a charming place. It was a rough place to grow up. When they played in Hamburg. They used to fight with the patrons. They wore leather coats and long messy haircuts. Lennon was known to come on stage giving the Nazi salute to the audience. Their audience was as nasty as they were. When the Beatles first played in Germany, they worked eight hour shifts, with very little time off. It wasn't like today's rock bands being pampered and treated like the royals.”

“Where did you pick up these little tidbits, and they're all true. The Beatles, circa their German days, were tough guys. What happened?” Mr. Bowen asked.

“Brian Epstein,” I said.

“Was he a Beatle?” Mr. Bowen asked.

“He created the Beatles, American style. When Brian Epstein saw the Beatles at the Cavern Club, in Liverpool, he was the owner of a record store. He knew the music scene, and he'd managed rock bands before. When he saw the Beatles, and in Liverpool, they'd cleaned up their act somewhat. The Nazi salute wouldn't go over well in England. They were still unpolished kids, singing rock and roll at the top of their lungs. They had become a hit in Liverpool, and Epstein saw them differently than most people did. Epstein was smitten with the 'lads.' He asked to be their manager. Toning them down, and dressing them up, they became the charming Liverpudlians who would invade America. Because Epstein was as smart as anyone about the British music scene, he packaged them accordingly.”

“So, without Brian Epstein, the Beatles were stuck playing for peanuts, while working long hours, in front of the adoring fans of Britain,” Mr. Bowen said.

“George Martin had a little to do with it. He was their producer, and it was his orchestrations and arrangements that made some of the best Beatles songs great music, and not simply rock and roll,” I said.

“Your parents told you,” Mr. Bowen said.

“Yes, and they have all the Beatles records. They grew up on the Beatles. They only recorded in the 60s. They started breaking up in '68, and they came back in late 68, maybe some of 1969, to do Abbey Road. It was the last record the Beatles ever worked on together,” I said, remembering the history I was told.

“What about Let It Be? That was released after Abbey Road. That wasn't the Beatles?” Mr. Bowen asked.

“It was the Beatles doing the songs, but that album is made up of a lot of songs that were lying around and never made it onto a record. Once the Beatles broke up, and only people at Apple knew it was over, George Martin, obligated to release one more Beatles' album, to fulfill their contract, put together the music that became, Let it Be.”

“And it was Paul McCartney who sued to deny the use of the name Beatles by the other three Beatles. This wasn't popular with the other members of the band, but McCartney hadn't been happy with Let It Be. He dissolved the Beatles to prevent any more of his songs from being misused by anyone else, including the other Beatles,” Mr. Bowen said.

“Why did they break up, if they were so good?” someone asked.

“Genius is difficult to harness. You had four guys, in the greatest rock band ever created, all going on to successful solo careers. They each wanted to develop the music they heard in their heads. Doing it together had become too restrictive. Being the Beatles took too much energy. They'd done what they did, and it was time to leave it behind. For years, for most of the 60s, the music industry waited to hear what the Beatles would come up with next. Each time there was a rumor, that the Beatles were getting ready to release another album, everyone waited to hear what they would do to top their last smash hit album. It was time to move on, and they moved on,” Mr. Bowen said.

“Something called Beatlemania was born, after they appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. Ed Sullivan was the man everyone wanted to please. Get his seal of approval, and you had it made, but you could hardly hear the Beatles singing, because the crowd screamed from the time they appeared, until they took their final bow. The Beatles had won the heart of America, young and old alike. That's when the depression over the death of JFK began to lift, and once the Beatles conquered America, other British rock groups followed them here. It was a British invasion, but this time, America sang along with them, and the rest, as us history teachers like to say, is history. A new style of rock and roll was king, and music began to morph into the phenomena it became. It became the soundtrack of the 60s. The Beatles began wanting to hold our hands, and they quickly started to sing about a revolution, and this revolution was televised for all to see.”

“Were they better than the Beach Boys?” I asked.

Mr. Bowen laughed, as all eyes were on him. He considered his answer carefully, before he spoke.

“No one's better than the Beach Boys,” he said, and the bell rang.

“Saved by the bell,” he said.

Owens jumped out of his seat, heading straight for Mr. Bowen. I wanted to watch Mr. Bowen put him in his place again, but if I was late for gym, I'd get held after class, but that was last period, and I wanted to get out of there, and drop my skateboard on the sidewalk out front, and head home to put on my parents' vinyl records, starting with the Beatles, but I was already humming the music from Pet Sounds.

*****

I liked history. I got good grades in history classes, but I didn't think that becoming the most powerful nation in the history of the world was a good deal for the people living there. Not only was most of the country’s wealth spent on perpetual war, but the politicians were all rich, even if they weren't rich when they arrived in the halls of power.

My generation also thought we'd change the world, but before I changed anything, I needed to finish school. By that time, I should have some idea what I was good at. Once the time came, I'd learn as much as I could about the vocation of my choice. Once I was ready, I'd find a place where I wanted to work.

Mr. Bowen had been cool. He could have gotten into trouble talking openly about the things he knew to be true. While the stories my parents would tell me were rated G, they were basically the same story Mr. Bowen told us, but he didn't soft peddle the truth. It was another reason why I liked history. The truth was out there, but you had to go find it, or you could just believe what you were told.

* * * * *

I dreamed of California, but I never thought I'd get here. Along with most of my friends, we dreamed big, but we didn't expect much. Most of their fathers worked in the trades, but my father, a mathematical whiz, had secured a job at a company offering computer services.

I was good at math, but I had no direction in mind for when I graduated from high school. I had considered doing what Mr. Bowen did, because he made history more exciting, telling us that to gain an appreciation for the truth, it took work.

I wasn't ready to decide anything about where I might end up, career-wise, but once I reached California, I considered my options to be wide open. I could be anything I wanted to be. It was a whole new world.

Chapter 3

Skater's Time

My father worked hard, and he took his work seriously, which is how he got the job offer in San Diego. His new employer told him, “The money you are making is not commensurate with the value you provide customers. How would you like to come to work for me in San Diego? I'll pay you what you're worth.”

My father had always gone to work in a white shirt and tie, because he had to explain the software he developed to local customers. Sometimes, big customers flew to Massachusetts to get his explanation of how to get the most out of his company’s software. My father was thorough and efficient, which made the companies that bought his software happy.

While explaining the software to a customer in San Diego, my father went the extra mile. He took the man's phone calls, night or day. He even gave him his home phone number. The software was his creation, and he wanted the customers to get the most they could out of it. After a few weeks of daily phone calls from the owner of the start-up computer company, the man told dad how happy he was with his creation.

“Come to work for me. I'll pay you what you're worth, and I need a man like you, because my company is going places. I want you to go with us.”

Speaking of an offer he couldn't refuse: Twice what he was making was what he was worth to the man who wanted his services. The pay was definitely what turned a life-long Massachusetts boy's head. “I'd move to Death Valley for a chance to make that kind of money,” Dad said, and we moved to California.

* * * * *

After we left Massachusetts in our eight-year-old Buick station wagon, packed to the rafters with odds and ends, I had a lot of time to think, wedged between the clothes hamper and the ice chest with enough food to get us to California. As always, we had to budget, and there was no money for eating out.

It seemed fitting that the seat faced out toward where we'd been. I was full of thoughts and memories of the only home I'd ever known. It was June, everything was green and in bloom. I got to see it as we left it behind, as I was leaving behind the only life I knew, and I worried I might regret going, but I wasn't ready to be on my own, and I was ready for California.

I wondered if the Beach Boys number was listed. I bet they could tell me all about California.

* * * * *

I didn't know who designed the first skateboard. Like most fads, it didn't

appear in a store window as a sleek, one size fits all, mode of transportation for the young adventurous kid. There had to be a degree of research and development, to get the proper combinations of space-age technology on the boards you bought at places like the Skate Shack.

It isn't how skateboards started. No one knew the flat boards with the hard roller skating wheels attached to it would become a fad. Then, JFK decided to send a man to the moon, and more importantly, to return him safely to the earth. Getting everyone's mind off nuclear war, Kennedy opened the door to the modern world and to the age of plastics.

I remembered the first crude boards with roller skate wheels. I didn't ride one, because it was a board with roller skate wheels on it. It was a generic board. The ride was rough and the wheels created a clatter against the cement, if you could find a sidewalk smooth enough to stay on the board.

I was told that some of the boards with roller skate wheels, had wooden contraptions that allowed the rider to hold on to it, while propelling himself along with one foot. There were some contraptions that had front wheels that turned. If you were lucky, the wheels actually steered in the direction where you wanted to go.

As guidance systems went, it was not A-OK. It was a matter of the idea getting ahead of the technology. A steering system was one consideration, once you took the roller skates off your feet. Someone had to see that the box on the front was never going to work.

I don't think those original boards were part of the fad that had become a culture of its own. I imagine a surfer, trying to figure out a way to surf while not being near the water, came up with the idea of a small surf-like board on wheels. He could surf the sidewalks of California. The idea was way ahead of the technology, and while skateboards are awesome today, it took a while to achieve.

You can see the relationship between a surfboard and a skateboard, if you look closely and use your imagination. Back home, most of us never surfed even once. The boards were simply too pricy, and the ocean was too far away to be convenient for boys on skateboards, but they knew the connection. Sometimes a substitute will do, until you can afford to go bigger.

The fad came right out of the space age. Once Kennedy found out that the Soviet Union wasn't the threat we'd all been led to believe they were, he decided a nice space race would get people's minds off imminent Armageddon. He decided we really needed a space race. Kennedy knew the U.S. would beat the Soviets to the moon without breaking a sweat, but even JFK wasn't smart enough to see the neoprene wheel coming, along with a million other advances in plastic and computer technology.

Some folks say we never did get to the moon. It was filmed on a movie-set in Hollywood, but then how did we end up with so many advances that became part of American's every day life, if there really wasn't a space race, and if there wasn't a space race, where did those synthetic wheels come from. When you used those suckers on a board, you had a hell of a smooth ride. That created the fad that came east from California, and every boy, no matter where they live, could have his own skateboard for transportation. That's how I know men did go to the moon, just as JFK said they would. Would a politician lie to us?

Even in Massachusetts, before the space raise, before synthetics wheels came along to make everything sleeker and lighter, you had to be one tough dude, if you wanted to ride on a board with roller skate wheels. You had to be very tough, but men going to the moon changed all that.

That's when they built the first Skate Shack. That's where they sold the idea of every boy surfing the sidewalks of California. That started the fad that brought the skateboard east. It confirmed the notion that the best stuff started in California and came east. Someone from California made that up, I bet.

It's surprising how much you can figure out for yourself on a five-day ride across country. We didn't stop to eat, but we did stop to pee. When dad got really tired of driving, he'd pull off on the side of the road and catch 40 winks.

Looking at where we'd been, I dozed on and off. It's when I got the idea of writing things down. I wrote down the states we went through and what they were like. I wrote down stuff I remembered about Massachusetts. I began to write about my feelings. While excited to get on the road to California, I was now facing the realization that I'd probably never see my buds again.

How did I write that down?

* * * * *

It was toward the end of June, when we made it to California. Once we left Arizona, there was a long way before we reached our new home. There was a lot of barren land in Arizona. The landscape took on a red hue that became even more red than New Mexico.

There was a lot of open spaces, once we reached California. Once we hit the mountains, we were getting closer to our destination. El Cajon wasn't far from where the mountains ended, and one community after another led the way into San Diego.

Once we reached the last mountain, which slowly took you down to where the land was close to sea level, my father stopped the Buick to stretch his legs. On our right was solid rock and cliffs, but on the left, it dropped off into a long slow decline.

“You see where the horizon meets the sky, Zane?” Dad asked, as he yawned from five days of being in motion.

“Yeah, that's quite a drop off,” I said. “Is that San Diego?”

“No, actually that's Mexico, but more precisely, where the horizon ends is the Pacific Ocean. We can't see the water, but it's there,” he said.

I didn't know how my father knew that, and I didn't ask him. I also didn't realize our house was twenty miles from the ocean. I also didn't realize how flat El Cajon would be. No matter where I went back home, you had to go up and down hills. The best El Cajon had to offer, as a rise that you could hardly notice except for the most eastern part of El Cajon, where the mountain ended at close to sea level. Our house was off a main street. It was completely flat.

It was hot starting the third week of June. It was still cool when we left Massachusetts, but not humid, which meant it didn't feel that hot. The land around our house was flat, and one row of houses gave way to the next. Every few blocks, there was another highway, which went in all directions, and I didn't know where any of those highways went.

* * * * *

In Massachusetts, we all knew that we were surfing the sidewalks, even when most of us would never find our way to California or ever surf on a wave, but we talked about going to California and surfing there.

I wasn't most of us, and I made it to California, and I had a plan. I intended to get a job, save my money, buy a surfboard, and hitchhike to the surf, if that was the only way to get there. I didn't give up the idea of finding an easier way, which was where friends came in, but I didn't know anyone. The first few days I went out, there weren't any chances to meet and talk to kids my age.

Were they all on holiday, now that school was out? Did they stay indoors until they were to meet up with friends? The sun did shine bright, and it was hot, but not hot enough to keep kids off the street, when they wanted to get away from the house.

All I could do on the streets of El Cajon and Santee was look for the guys riding boards. With my board leaning next to the front door, all I had to do back in Massachusetts was grab it on my way out to meet my buddies. Now, my board still rested by the front door, and I still grabbed it on my way out the door, but I had no friends to meet. I wasn't sure of where to go, but I wasn't giving up until I made a friend.

It was easy to spot skaters a block away, but it was surprisingly difficult to catch up with one. When I did catch one, he was on his way somewhere else. Even in passing, these boys looked good to me. They looked a lot like the boys back home, only these boys were blonder, thinner, and always on the move.

California skaters always had some place to go. For a while, I was looking for the red-headed skateboarder I'd seen from the bridge one day early on. Then, after seeing no red-headed boys, I looked for anyone on a skateboard. It didn't make any sense to be too particular about whom I met first.

Whoever I met first would open the door to the local skaters’ culture. I'd worry about what color hair they had, once I made some friends. Because I'd lived all my life in one place, I didn't expect to fit in with the locals automatically. It would take some time and effort, but if I was in California for the rest of my life, I’d have plenty of time.

I knew the skaters were out here, and I needed to be out here to find them, and, in time, I'd meet them. I was new. No one knew me. Being in places where I could meet skaters was my aim.

Like most skaters, when I dropped my skateboard on the sidewalk, I was on my way somewhere. Once I got there, if there were no skaters in the vicinity, I'd decide where to go next. One day, we'd end up in the same place at the same time, and once I knew where that spot was, I'd know where to go. I didn't have horns, and neither did they. Once we made contact, I'd be OK, even if I was the new kid.

By the second week in our new house, I was experiencing loneliness. I began thinking about the friends I'd left behind. I wonder if they thought about me. They probably pictured me skating with golden-haired skateboarders, while skating in the California sun.

The kind of emptiness I was experiencing could only be cured by the company of other boys. It was in the second week that I saw the boy with auburn hair doing his ballet on wheels in that half pipe` near Santee. I'd seen a few skaters up under the bridges that passed over the storm drains. It hadn't rained since I'd been in El Cajon. It never rained in Southern California, but I imagined, when it did rain, those concrete halfpipes channeled the water to prevent streets from flooding.

I hadn't forgotten the red-headed boy, and I looked in every halfpipe I skated over. If I didn't see him, I might see other skaters. It was the kind of thing we didn't have back home. Nothing in particular was the proper place to take a skateboard, once you left the sidewalk. While the streets would do in a pinch, they were filled with turns, drops, and rises, that were part of the landscape. If you got too frisky on the streets, you could end up a hood ornament.

Being in a new place meant being careful not to get in over my head. I didn't want to get labeled in California, any more than I wanted to be labeled back east. I'd be available to guys who played their cards right. I'd let those guys know that I could be as sexual with them as they were with me, but even that would be subject to the impression they gave me.

While the idea of getting with a boy had been working its way to the forefront of my thinking, I wasn't going to rush into anything. I was careful back home. The boys I saw were boys who saw the advantage in keeping quiet about it. Even in the land of milk and honey, I didn't imagine too many guys were going to come on to me in front of other skaters.

I could decide on how to handle that, once I got a read on the attitudes of the boys who lived where I lived. We'd need to know each other a little while, before the conversations were going to stray into the realm of possibilities. I didn't know if there was a possibility I'd be willing to help other boys out. I needed to meet a guy first. I'd need to sense how the boys swung. Was it up tight, like back home, or was it easier to be yourself out here? I didn't know diddlysquat about California boys. I'd need to find out, and I would need to take chances, but what did I have to lose?

Helping each other out was what skaters did, after all. We were birds of a feather, and we were all horny all of the time. I was gay, even if I hadn't explored that as much as I would like. Being older, and hopefully wiser, I could wait until I found boys whom I didn't think I'd run off by being honest about my sexuality.

Most good things came east from California. I had to figure at least a few skaters were as open about what they did sexually, as were the skaters back home.

It would be a delicate balance, fitting in without standing out. First, I needed to meet other skaters. They'd tell me where to go to become part of the local scene. Then, I'd see what I could see, and I'd see if being from the east disqualified me from being one of them.

I had to admit that my skater friends and I hadn't been all that friendly, when it came to new guys showing up on our turf. Now, I realized how dumb that was. There were probably some really super dudes that we snubbed. I saw things from the opposite side of the coin now. Maybe the boys out here were more enlightened than we were back home. I certainly hope so. I was more enlightened, and I'd only been here a couple of weeks.

* * * * *

Now that I was in California, and my parents didn't know how delighted I was to make the trip, I was wandering the streets of El Cajon, looking for skaters. It shouldn't be so hard to make friends. I'd never been the new guy before. I remembered how my buds and I treated new kids who moved in during the school year. I'm not proud to say that I was no nicer to new kids than my friends were. Now that the shoe was on the other foot, and I was the new guy, I wanted to go back, be nicer, and at least be friendly to new kids. No one was unkind to me in California, because everyone was too busy to notice me. I knew that was a way you treated someone you didn't know back home.

I'd just begun to explore the possibilities in my new home. I really didn't know what El Cajon had to offer. I'd decide what I wanted to try, after I took the time to look around. While loneliness wasn't my favorite thing, I didn't need to rush into finding friends. Once I was out there, looking around, I'd run into guys on their skateboard. When I got one of them to stop and talk to me, I'd ask him about the skaters’ culture, where we gathered, where the hangouts were.

Back home, there was a burger joint where we went in the evening, before we decided if we wanted to go to the arcade, a movie, or just hang out. I'd ask where the local skaters met up. Once I met one, the rest would come easy.

Once I met one skater, he'd have loads of friends, and I'd start meeting more skaters. I'd made it to the promised land. I didn't need to rush things, and if I found a boyfriend, well, that wouldn't hurt my feelings. Back home, having a boyfriend wouldn't be all that popular with the guys I knew. Besides, boyfriends took up a lot of time, and I needed to study to keep my grades up. A boyfriend would occupy all my time.

In California, I could have a boyfriend, because I didn't know anyone, and they couldn't freeze me out, once they figured out I was gay. When you have a routine, and you've had the same friends all your life, you didn't necessarily want to risk it all, by announcing that you are a little different. It was another advantage to moving to a new place, and starting over. It gave me more options.

If I found a California boyfriend, he could teach me how to surf. Not only that, he could show me around, and introduce me to other skaters, and after we were boyfriends for a while, he'd lend me his surfboard, and I'd complete a dream the Beach Boys told me about years ago. Then, I'd really be a California boy.

What wasn't there to like about that?

California had a lot to offer a New England kid. I wasn't sure what I had to offer a California boyfriend, but I'd give him a run for his money, once we met, if we met.

* * * * *

Being alone wasn't something I did well. Maybe because I'd never been alone before. I'd grown up with the guys I knew, and I realized, starting over in California would be challenging, but being in California made that challenge acceptable, except when I was feeling isolated, realizing I was without friends.

I needed action, some activity to keep from driving my parents nuts. I didn't mind skating alone, when I had somewhere to go, but once I got where I was going, there was no one to talk to or to share an experience. In El Cajon, there were a lot fewer places to go, because I didn't know the places where skaters hung out.

I suppose, when you're on the outside looking in, it seems like it takes forever to get inside. That's how it felt to me. It was summertime. School wouldn't start for two months. I knew I'd meet people then, but where were the skaters? Maybe they were all on vacation. Maybe they were all at the beach.

Once the third week started, and I was still skating alone, I decided to do something about it. Drastic times called for drastic measures.

I had to meet someone today. I wasn't going through another week alone. I thought about grabbing the first skater I saw. I'd grab him and start talking, and I wouldn't stop, until he told me where the skaters hung out in El Cajon. He'd need to be cute - of course, maybe tall, maybe a year or two older, more experienced. Maybe I needed to go back to stopping the first skater I saw.

I needed to start making friends today. I'd risk getting punched out by some hormone-driven creep. My buds and I always hung at the Circle K back home. Meeting there, we could skate to the mall, or the Burger Haven. The movies were OK, if something good was playing. We met at a designated spot to decide what to do. It was so easy.

Chapter 4

Looking Out

As the days passed, I spent enough time alone to convince me that I needed to change my approach. Politely waiting for someone to stop, once they noticed me, realizing I was new, didn't work.

I'd hit the street with my board almost every day. The skater's I'd seen hadn't been within a half mile of where I lived. I'd stopped several times as skaters overtook me on the sidewalk. They whizzed past me like roller derby skaters, breaking a jam, because I slowed down to engage them, they were gone before I could open my mouth.

I waved at skaters across the streets, which were four to six lanes wide in places where I saw them. If they saw me, they pretended they didn't, because no one returned my wave. I knew one thing about California skaters, they had gotten themselves in a big damn hurry, but this was California—they were already in the land of milk and honey. Didn't anyone take the time to enjoy it?

After a couple of weeks of being ignored, I'd have enjoyed it a lot more if someone stopped to talk to me, but I didn't think anyone would. This called for a more bold approach.

How did you stop boys overtaking you on the sidewalk?

* * * * *

He came toward me at a good clip. I made up my mind that this was the guy who would stop to talk to me. I stood in the middle of the sidewalk, making it impossible for him to get around me without going off the concrete.

As he closed in on me from a half block away, he didn't slow down. The first thing I noticed about him were his eyes. They were focused on me, and his eyes were as big as silver dollars. The second thing I noticed was his sides. This boy was wide. He was no older than I was, but he was wide, and he looked determined. This boy was on a mission. He seemed to pick up speed, as he approached the road block standing in front of him.

He wasn't going to stop. He took it in good faith, once he was on top of me, I'd move out of his way. Any person who wasn't crazy, would step aside, but I made up my mind to hold my ground. He kept on coming.

It's now or never. I flipped my board up, holding it in front of me.

He could get around me, but not on his board he couldn't. He'd need to get off his board to do it. That would put us face-to-face, and if he was crazier than I was, we'd both end up on the ground.

I was ready to duck, once I saw the whites of his eyes. He was irritated by my refusal to move. I was relieved, when his feet hit the concrete well beyond what I'd seen as the point of no return.

He bailed out, moving onto the grass, board in his hand. He certainly knew his limitations, another second and we'd both gone ass over tin cups.

“You crazy or what?” he drawled like any angry skater would.

He wasn't any taller than I was, but he was way wide, like a linebacker wide, but agile enough to avoid skating over top of me. He was the aggrieved party and had every right to be angry, but I was desperate to talk to someone.

Maybe I should have stopped someone less wide. He looked angry enough to punch me in the face. I did have my skateboard to use to fend off any punch.

“No, I'm from the East Coast. I just moved here. I'm trying to find skaters. We all hung together back east. Out here, everyone seems to be going the other way. If I'm on the street with a another skater, he doesn't want to stop. I only want to know where the skaters hang out.”

“Where back east?” he asked, changing tunes.

“Massachusetts,” I said.

“I'm from Arkansas,” he said, “Moved here last year.”

“Do you know President Clinton?” I asked.

“Clinton? No. I don't know the president,” he said suspiciously.

“Neither do I,” I assured him, as I searched for common ground.

“Cool,” he said. “Look dude, I'm in a bad way,” he said, pulling down on the front of his black spandex. “This girl I been with called, and she wants to give me a return performance. I ain't been with no one since I been with her. So you see, I need to get going, before someone else beats my action.”

He pulled down on what was a considerable bulge in his spandex shorts, but since I'd been in California, everyone seemed to be sporting a bulge of proportions the boys in Massachusetts didn't sport, because we wore baggies. It was an interesting source of apparel, especially when the wide body in front of me, kept pulling on his equipment.

“I just want to find some skaters. Find a place where they hang out,” I said.

“I'd take you with me, but I don't know if she'll do two of us,” he said, more agreeable than guys back home would be, when it came to girls.

“That's cool. Just tell me where skaters hang,” I said.

“The mall. Go toward Santee, when you hit Broadway, hook a left. The mall's down a mile on the right side of Broadway. Some skaters hang on the lawn on the far side of the mall. We move around. We hit the mall, if there's nothing to do.”

“Cool,” I said, thinking I'd made first contact.

Drastic times call for drastic measures. I'd stopped the skater, and it didn't require any broken bones, or a fist fight.

Why didn't I ask him his name?

* * * * *

Surfing is the doorway to infinity.

The perfect wave is an illusion, until you're on it.

The truths of California were simple enough. The Beach Boys could tell a Massachusetts boy most things he needed to know about being in tune with the California culture. Now that I knew where skaters went, I stood a better chance of meeting boys who had things in common with me.

Unfortunately, the road map to where you found the things the Beach Boys sang about wasn't as clear as it could be. The Beach Boys' culture, surfers, hot rods, and the land of endless summer, stimulated many a Massachusetts boy, but once one got to California and found out how huge California was, where did he start?

I had finally gotten my first break, and I intended to make the most of it.

Talking to one skater gave me hope. I'd broken the ice, and I knew, if push came to shove, I could stop another skater, but I was in my third week on the streets of California. At least I knew of one place to go where skaters went. It gave me the boost I needed. My spirits were on the rise.

My first priority after relocating was finding kids that would accept me as is. I'd know them when I saw them because they too would be on wheels. It would be a delicate balance, fitting in without standing out. I wasn't sure how to make new friends, because I had kept the same

ones since I started junior high school.

When my father took a job in San Diego, it changed everything. I left the only friends I'd known. For me, they were comfortable, easy to be around. All I had to do was show up. No one asked for more, because we'd always been friends, and all we needed to do was show up.

I needed to find a way to fit in with new people, who didn't know me, and being me might not be as easy as it once was. I knew, no matter whom I met, the kids would have been friends for forever. Letting a new kid in their group wasn't really on their minds. I needed to put it on their mind. I needed to fit in.

Acceptance was a tricky substance. You needed to be original

enough to be interesting, and not so original that people looked on you as

being different. Different could be a deal killer in a new place. I was different, but it wasn't something I was going to spread around. All the guys I ran with back home were different. But, it was the kind of difference that worked well. It wasn't the kind of difference that stood out. One boy played classical piano, and one boy was into European soccer, but when we came together, we were into skating. We all had a board, and we were always on the move.

Not everyone knew the finer details about each others life, because we were all skaters and being skaters is what brought us together,. No one told tales, because we were all OK. When we weren't on our skateboards, we went our separate ways. I might knew more about one boy than other boys did, but none of us knew everything about every skater.

What we knew was, as long as your wheels turned together, we were OK. My difference was a bit more complicated than most of the guys. I'd never shared it with any of the kids back home. Because I thought I might be gay, discussing it with my buds wasn't a smart move. I'd heard the jokes, and I knew all the slang for gay people. The idea I'd be rejected by my friends, should I come out to them, kept me quiet.

I'd been figuring for a long time, my life will take a turn, somewhere along the line, and I'd be clear about the gay deal, about how strong my feelings might be on that front. Starting over in California did present me with the opportunity to explore my feelings more completely. I wasn't going to come out as gay, but I wasn't going to deny it either. It was still a fine line, but my feelings told me that I needed to face up to what the feelings I had meant.

From what other guys said, my difference wasn't the kind of difference you wanted to talk about. I understood that, but feeling what I felt meant most of the guys felt something different. I wasn't honest about my feelings, and I wondered how honest my friends were about their feelings.

When you grow up with the same guys, you don't notice the slow changes that take place, as you are getting older. I was cautious. There was no reason for me to come out before I was absolutely, positively, sure. Except for a couple of circle jerks in junior high school, I'd remained noncommittal about my true feelings.

Some boys were way more adventurous that I was. Not only were they successful in the quest for girls, they'd give the rest of us a blow-by-blow description of the kinds of things they'd done and of the girls they did it with. These guys were the more aggressive among us, and it wasn't hard to accept that such aggressiveness extended into the sexual arena as well.

Although, I sensed, some tall tales were a little too tall to be believed, I would never say so, because such stories got most of the boys going in a way it was fun to see for someone who felt what I felt about boys.

I'd given up on the idea that I would grow out of my feelings for boys. I was well into high school, and my sexual thoughts were about boys. Nothing was changing, except my feelings were growing stronger. These feelings were more demanding, when it came to seeing guys I dreamed about being with.

Now, with no one to hang with, it was on my mind all the time. I couldn't go out without eyeballing boys, wondering what they'd be like, and I didn't know what that meant. I would have been happy if I didn't think about sex and boys all the time. I didn't know how not to think about what I thought about.

In that spirit, I kept my eyes open for any boy with red hair. I'd seen the boy with auburn hair one time, and I was still thinking about him, which merely made my plight more immediate. I couldn't get him off my mind. The only difference between him and most boys I liked, he'd been older. I was sure he was in his twenties, but he was far better looking than most boys were at sixteen and seventeen. He had matured, and he'd done it nicely. It wasn't like I knew where to find guys in their twenties. We didn't travel in the same circles. I doubted I'd be running into the red-head among the teenagers I'd like to hangout with. Maybe, if I took an interest in older boys, they'd take an interest in me, but I wasn't ruling anything out at this point.

I liked girls. They were easy to talk to, easier than guys. The problem was, I liked girls as friends, not girlfriends. I felt no romantic feelings for girls, but I got along with them better than I got along with some guys. Girls were smarter than boys, but they had to be careful not to be too smart in front of boys they liked romantically. Girls knew stuff about boys that boys never thought about, but if you became friend with girls who talked about such things, you could learn a lot about the opposite sex, which was the same sex as me in this case. Girls gave me things to think about that no boy would ever bring up.

I knew my friends, and they knew me. Doing something that might change things between us wasn't an option for me. I was comfortable, and comfortable was good. I found some of the boys I ran with interesting, but not interesting enough to blow my cover, trying to find out if they were keeping secrets that might make us a lot more compatible.

I didn't know how to stop feeling what I was feeling. I hadn't told anyone and now it seemed better not to. I didn't figure to make too many friends if that got out. I'd hope to meet someone like me. I'd been thinking that since I turned twelve. As much as I didn't like what I was feeling about other boys, I'd hoped to explore it just once if I found a guy that would.

I was in a new place. I was starting over with friends. I intended to include at least one gay friend among the boys I made friends with. I'd tell him my secret, and he'd tell me his, and it would take a lot of weight off of me. I was sure that secrets weren't a good thing to keep, if you could avoid keeping them.

I now had one place to go, where I'd been told the skaters hang. While I was in no hurry, because it was early, I decided to skate by the front of the mall, and stop on the lawn on the far side. Broadway was a main street. There was a lot of traffic near the mall, which included foot traffic on both sides. If I hung around long enough, I'd meet someone.

I skated to the far side of the mall. There was a tall, thin, blond boy with his skateboard beside him, sitting on a patch of lawn next to the mall and between there and the corner. I sat down next to the boy, before he could object. He watched me as I sat next to him.

“I'm Z,” I said, immediately offering him my hand.

He was cute, and he didn't seem in a hurry to take off, after we shook.

“I'm Gordo,” he said. “What's the Z for?”

“Zane,” I said.

“Good choice. Z is definitely an improvement. Do you write, Z?”

“You've read Zane Grey?” I asked.

“Heard of him. I don't know if I read something he wrote. I'm not a big reader,” Gordo said.

I sat close to Gordo, so if he started to bolt, I would have had a chance of introducing myself, before he could get away. He didn't bolt. Actually, Gordo was friendly, not to mention cute. The most curious thing about him, when he leaned to shake my hand, our leg touched. He made no effort to un-touch my leg. If it didn't bother him, it sure didn't bother me.

We sat with my leg against his leg. I thought I might be making too much out of a leg touch. It's just that guys didn't allow their bodies to touch back home. It was a policy not to make any unnecessary physical contact with another boy, if it could be avoided. I guess it always could be avoided, and was, and even if we sat close together, maybe a couple months out of the year, one or two boys might have worn shorts, but it was another policy not to show your legs.

Because I'd been skating since I was ten, my legs were muscular and well-shaped. I'd seen some of the guys I ran with in the showers at school. We all had muscular legs. I certainly didn't mind showing mine.

Gordo's legs were even more muscular than mine. He also wore spandex, which most all the boys here did. Even sitting down, I got a good view of where he kept his equipment. You couldn't miss it in those shorts, and he smiled at me after a few minutes of glancing at the front of his shorts.

“Dude, you can't do that here. I mean you can, and boys do, but you'll give guys the wrong idea if you look at their dicks?” Gordo said with a smile.

“We don't have shorts like that at home. I don't know anyone who would wear something that outlined their dick,” I said.

“I know the feeling,” Gordo said. “Back in Wyoming you'd get yourself socked if you got caught looking at a boy's dick. Then, he'd take you in the woods and cornhole you for good measure,” Gordo said with a laugh. “Getting caught looking at some dudes can pay off in the end.”

Gordo laughed at his joke.

“Sounds strange no matter which side of that story you're on,” I said.

“It is weird. Out here it's far more relaxed. Guys don't care, but if they know you'll do that, you need to come across when their horny. I thought you ought to know that,” he said.

“I've never done anything, so giving someone the wrong idea would be hard. I'd have to know what it was all about first,” I said, not thinking it over.

“A few of the guys go that way. You won't have any trouble finding out, but if you get a rep, don't say I didn't warn you,” Gordo reminded me.

“No, I won't. Being new, I don't know much of anything,” I said.

“Well, if you want to try something, let me know. I'd be willing to help you out if you are trying to figure things out for yourself,” he said.

“You would?” I asked.

“That's what friends are for. Not much I haven't tried on account it's the only way you learn stuff. It's the same with all of us,” Gordo said.

“I'm glad I met you first. I might have gotten off on the wrong foot with another boy. I want to make friends. Wouldn’t do to get the wrong reputation.”

“You're right there,” he said. “I'll answer your questions. I'll keep you straight, if I can.”

I wasn't sure I wanted to be kept straight, but the idea of having a boy to advise me wasn't a problem. Gordo seemed OK, as he sat next to me, watching the traffic turning off of Broadway, to turn down beside the mall.

“Got to go. There's my ride. See you later, Z,” he said, crossing the street and getting into a car that stopped near the corner. I couldn't see the driver. I thought it might be his dad, but my dad didn't even know where the mall was.

In a couple of days I'd talked to a couple of guys, and I'd found one spot where at least one skater hung out. I knew Gordo, and I knew a horny linebacker, who must stop by that patch of grass on the far side of the mall.

I felt like I'd finally made progress.

Chapter 5

Moving Forward

It was toward the end of my third week in El Cajon, and once I was ready to go out, I decided to go straight to the mall. It was still early, but back home my buds and I always had met early to decide what we were going to do with the day. There was a chance I'd run into more skaters using the mall as a place to meet.

As I skated down past the front of the mall, i noticed three boys sitting on the patch of grass just past the mall. I skated around the corner, before I skated back to sit on the curb close to the patch of grass. I leaned back on my hand, looking over my shoulder at them. They were three feet away.

Right away, I noticed one was older, maybe twenty. The other two were my age. Both of these had dark hair and eyes. Each of the three boys had a skateboard by his elbow. As I looked at them, they stared at me.

“I'm Z,” I said. “Just moved here from back east.”

The two boys my age rolled onto their stomach, pretending not to hear me. I spoke plenty loud enough to be heard. I had succeeded. I'd caught skaters who hadn't planned out their day already. I may as well have found an empty patch of grass for all the good it did me. I turned back toward the street to watch the cars. I could see the skaters out of the corner of my eye.

Things were no different here than they were back home. Any boy who did what I'd just done, while out with my buds, we'd have reacted the same way. I needed to talk to someone. I wanted to start fitting in as soon as possible. I was tired of being the lone skater.

They decided to study the side of the mall as they talked.

The third boy sat up, brushing the grass off his hands. He grabbed his board, and he looked like he was ready to skate away. He stood up to over six feet tall. He moved across the sidewalk and sat down on the curb next to me. I didn't know what to say.

“Don't mind them. They're from the “my shit don't stink” side of things. I'm John. Where are you from back east, Z?”

“Massachusetts,” I said, unable to hide my delight.

“Way north,” John said. “My mom's from Pennsylvania.”

“That's a big state. Took forever to cross it,” I said with authority.

“You drove out?” John asked.

“I did with my family,” I said. “My father got a job in San Diego.”

“My dad's military. He's stationed at North Island. We've been here for five years now, and that's a long time to be stationed in one spot. Now that I'm out of school, I plan to stay. What about you?”

“I've dreamed of being in California all my life. It's what we all talked about back home. I didn't think I'd ever get here, but you never know. My father got a job offer, and here I am. It's less than glorious, because I don't know anyone here. I met Gordo a couple of days ago. He seemed cool. Now, I met you,” I said.

I was sure I sounded like a dope to a grown man, but I wanted to say something that kept him there for a few minutes.

“Gordo!” John said. “He's a bit on the wild side. He's a nice guy and a good skater. I know most of the young skaters. By the time most guys are my age, skating is secondary. They're chasing women. Getting jobs. A few go to college. I'm not one of those. Haven't figured out which way to go yet,” he said.

“I know the feeling,” I said. “I haven't finished school, and I like some of the stuff I've learned, but nothing I like is going to become a career. A lot of guys go to college to figure out what they might be good at. That's way too expensive a trip to take if you aren't sure you'll use the subjects you're learning. I've got some time, but that's what worries me.”

“Skaters are a different breed around here. A lot of guys my age are on the street. They don't have jobs. They skate and they hang out,” John said.

“How do they survive if they don't work?” I asked.

“There's all kinds of ways to get by, Z. Guys my age have a lot to offer, and there are guys who like guys my age. It's all cool. I have a half dozen places where I do odd jobs. Places I hang out. I won't work just to make money. If I miss a meal now and again, that's cool too. No one needs to eat three times a day every day anyway,” he said.

“Who are those other two boys?” I asked.

“The big one is Ace. The thin one is Dart. They hang together. As you can tell, they aren't that friendly to outsiders. Don't expect them to walk over for an introduction. If it suits one of them, they'll talk to you, but you've got to watch Ace. I'm not too sure about him. I've known Dart for a while, and he's harmless.”

“Cool,” I said. “Thanks.”

“East Coast covers a lot of ground,” John said.

“Massachusetts,” I said, half looking at him, half not.

I tried to seem casual.

"Oh yeah, you said that. Gets cold I bet," he said.

"Yeah, winters are a bear. Where do skaters hang, dude? I'm not having much luck meeting skaters here. All my buds back east skate,” I said.

I saw no point in wasting time. I had a skater talking to me, and I asked the question that would most likely get me the result I wanted.

I might have asked him for the combination to the safe or for his girlfriend’s phone number. He considered the question carefully, leaning further back onto his elbows. He wore Spandex and my eyes couldn't help themselves. Who wear such garments. You couldn't hide anything from anyone. I checked the other two boys; one had on Spandex, and the other had regular shorts, dark blue, which went down to his knees. They were both preoccupied with something across the street.

John spoke casually. He seemed like he was OK. He didn't speak right away. He seemed like a guy that was in no hurry. He sat down to talk, and we were talking. He understood where I was coming from, but he wasn't going to solve my problems without taking time to think about my questions.

"Here, sometimes," he said slowly, getting my eyes off the bubble butt of the other boy in spandex. Then, I fought myself as they went back to the front of John's shorts. "Down at the tube we do a lot of skating once it cools down," he said, nodding toward the back of the mall to where another halfpipe ran down one side of the parking lot.

"There are a couple of parks nearby. As long as we don't get too wild, they let us skate there. It's a smooth sidewalk and some asphalt walking paths. The Burger Hut attacks a lot of skaters, when we don't eat in the food court,” he said. “They hassle us over at the theaters, but we skate there anyway. The cops are cool, if we aren't running over people or getting in the way of cars dropping people off to see a show."

John's brownish hair had blond streaks running through it. He had blue eyes. He was fairly tall. His long legs were covered in brownish-colored hair. The spandex showed off a slim body, and he smiled each time I looked at the front of his spandex shorts. He had to be thinking I was gay, but he didn't react except for a small smile. I figured John to be a pleasant guy. He was a little old for me, but what was too old? As long as he wanted to sit and talk, I was going to sit right there and talk to him.

I still wasn't able to adapt to boys in spandex. It left nothing to the imagination, and what I was imagining was x-rated. It was like I'd washed my brain, and I couldn't do a thing with it, and what I was doing with it made me blush. I tried to keep my eyes off his shorts but without much success.

Gordo was cute. He had a nice smile, but there wasn't much to our conversation. Before I could ask him where he lived, he'd jumped up to meet his friend. He'd gotten into a nice white car. It could have been his dad, or it could have been an older friend.

Gordo seemed young, although I wasn't sure he was any younger than I was. I did know he sat with his leg against mine for five minutes or more. Didn't bother him a little bit, and except for getting me aroused, it didn't bother me. He'd said suggestive things, like he might want to get together later, but there was no point to most of our conversation. I didn't think fast enough to ask him where he lived or hung out.

John was way more mature. I knew a couple of places where I could go and find skaters. I'd passed the theaters and never gave them a thought. I'd passed one park on my way to Broadway. It was a half a block down from where I was skating. Back home parks are marked with signs “No skateboards.”

The atmosphere here seemed friendlier. I hadn't seen anyone shake his fist at me for using the sidewalk or while crossing a street. I hadn't even gotten any dirty looks that I noticed. Back home, skaters were rough. They got into a lot of trouble and a lot of drinking went on. Although, except for a swig or two, so I didn't look like a wuss, I didn't like the taste of booze.

There was a war on drugs back east, and I was a conscientious objector. I didn't dare risk getting into trouble. My parents trusted me. I'd never gotten into trouble, except for the time I punched out Bobby Roth for grabbing my skateboard. All a teacher saw was me winding up and smacking him in the face. I got suspended for four days, and I had to apologize to the creep.

It taught me a valuable lesson, if you're going to punch out someone, make sure a teacher isn't watching. Like most things, it was a reaction to what he did, but teachers never seem to see the boy who starts the trouble; they see the poor kid who refuses to be pushed around strike back.

John was in no hurry to be anywhere, when Ace and Dart skated away. I'd lost interest in them, but they were my age, and sooner or later, I'd get to know them better. El Cajon looked big, because it was so spread out. There was one neighborhood after another, as you went a couple of miles away toward Santee. For skaters, it was one big city to roam in with a lot of places to go.

I wasn't going anywhere, as long as John sat there. He told me about Ralph's and a pancake house nearby. Skaters hung by the dumpster at Ralph's and under the trees at the corner of the pancake house parking lot. There was a burger joint down Broadway and a surfboard and skateboard shop near Santee.

“You know where Gordo lives,” I asked, figuring I'd give it a shot.

“Yeah, Gordo lives with me,” John said, not missing a beat.

“With you? Where do you live, John,” I asked, unsure of why I asked.

“When you skate, you go over the bridges. You can see skaters down in the concrete aqueducts.”

“Yeah, I've seen skaters in those halfpipes,” I said.

“You ever look farther along, and you see skaters sitting up under the next bridge, next to those halfpipes?” John asked.

“Yeah, I've seen that. I figured it's cooler there,” I said.

“It's out of the weather. We live under the bridges between El Cajon and Santee. Santee is a bit farther out, and there aren't as many people. We leave our stuff there. Nothing valuable. You had your sleeping bag, if you have one, and you keep most of what you own with you.”

“Wow!” I said, and it wasn't a good feeling that news gave me.

“How do you live without having some place to shower or do laundry?” I asked, my mind immediately traveling to how neat I'd been taught to be.

“I got friends. You really don't need a lot of stuff. Once you start collecting stuff, you've got to protect it, keep it safe from prying eyes, and there's always someone who will do his best to take anything of value off you. I don't have anything of value. I travel light,” John said.

I stared at him. He was clean. His sneakers were cool enough. He wasn't wearing socks. It was obvious he wasn't wearing underwear under his spandex.

“How many of you live like that?” I asked, not having any idea what I wanted him to tell me.

He grew silent for a while, leaning back on his elbows. We watched cars turn onto Broadway.

“I don't know how many. Two or three guys hang up under one bridge. Sometimes it is more, and sometimes not. We usually have it good, and we share, because you never know when you ain't got no food, when you are hungry. If you share what you got, when you got food, other guys tend to return the favor. It works fine. Like I said, it's an illusion we've got to eat three times a day. No one needs all that food, but because there is all that food, we figure we got to eat it.”

I chuckled. John smiled at me.

“Your eyes, Z. You've got to be careful with your eyes,” John said.

“I don't know what that means,” I said.

“You've been scoping out what's in my shorts, since I sat down. With me, I go every which way but loose. Not all guys do. Not all skaters do. I wouldn't want to see you get yourself into any trouble, checking out guys’ dicks,” he said.

“We don't wear spandex back home,” I said. “I've never seen guy walk around with their dicks outlined in their shorts.”

“I get that, and most guys aren't going to think anything of it. Some guys like the idea of showing off their goods, but I'm telling you that you can't just stare at their dicks. You might make out fine using that approach, but sooner or later you'll run into someone who is offended by guys who like looking at dicks.”

“I get that. I'm sorry. I can't get used to guys dicks just being right there,” I said.

“I don't mind. It makes me feel good that someone looks at me that way. I'm not like anyone I know. That's all. Be careful, Z. You won't have any trouble finding guys who are agreeable to having someone service them.”

“I don't know that much about it,” I said, willing to learn.

“You have plenty of time, Z. Don't hurry something that isn't meant to be hurried. Look around for a while. See what there is to see.”

We heard skateboards behind us. Ace and Dart had gotten up. They were skating toward the back of the mall. John followed them with his eyes.

“Come on. Let's use the grass. My ass is getting sore,” he said.

We moved to the patch of lawn. John stretched out on his stomach, placing his chin in one of his hands. He had a far away look in his eyes.

“Here abouts, skaters are free spirits. We live where we are at the moment. Guys I hang with are on their own. We don't conform to anything in particular. No one needs to live inside, eat three meals a day, or sleep in a cozy bed. That's a bill of goods we're all sold, so we work our asses off for the man, and help make the rich old farts richer. No! Give me fresh air, some odd jobs from time to time, and maybe I get in a car and make a few bucks if I feel like pampering myself,” John said, seeing his life down the sidewalk from where we sat.

“Where will you sleep tonight?” I asked.

“As beautiful as it is, I'll sleep out tonight. It's way cooler outside, after dark, than it is in a house, where you need to run the a/c, while watching the tube, and make sure everything smells outdoor sweet,” he said.

“You've got to have shelter back east, or you’d freeze your balls off. I still live at home. I came out here with my parents. I wouldn't like living under a bridge. Who'd fix dinner? I'm looking for work,” I said.

“You can have my job,” John said. “I'm not doing anything right now.”

“I want to buy a surfboard,” I said.

“You know how to surf, dude?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

“Why do you need a surfboard?” John asked.

“I want to learn. You ever been surfing?” I asked.

“Sure, when I was young. Everyone had a surfboard then. Sometimes, as you grow older, doing the things everyone does isn't the thing to do any more.”

“If I don't get a job, I'll sit around all day,” I said.

“You're looking for a life, dude. If you can't make it here, you can't make it. It's easy, as long as you don't get too intense. It's like finding skaters. You keep your eyes open. You can't miss us. You just need to approach us with care. You got to give them time to look you over. Hear your story, you know. Everyone's curious about other dudes, dude. We'll ask you what it's like back east, and we'll listen to your story.”

“You make it sound easy,” I said.

“You sound like you think it isn't easy,” John said. “Just be around, Z. You'll meet more guys than you'll know what to do with. It's time for me to make tracks. I might be back later today, but don't sit here thinking I might be back, and you're going to wait and see. Hell, I might be in Arizona tonight, and I might be sleeping under a bridge in Santee. Don't try to pin me down, and we'll be seeing each other again before you know it. Nice meeting you. See Yeah!”

I watched John skate away. He didn't look back, and I realized I'd meet a pretty smart guy. He was smart because he didn't think you had to do what you were told to do. He wanted to live life on his own terms. I liked that. I'd never be able to live that way. I was too conservative, too conventional. I'd always had jobs back home. I don't think I could live under a bridge.

* * * * *

I continued to watch John skating away from me. It wasn't noon yet, and I'd learned more in an hour from John, then I'd learned in almost three weeks in California. I'd never met anyone like John, but he was older than I was by a few years. He had something that I didn't have—experience.

I liked that he sat with me and told me things that I'd have found offensive coming from other guys, but I knew John was being up front with me. He didn't mind telling me about what he felt and what he thought about a guy my age. Except for Gordo, I hadn't talked to anyone but John. I wouldn't look for him, but when I saw him again, I hoped we could sit together and talk some more.

John left me with a million things going through my mind. I went to the food court for a soda. While I stood in line, a kid with a skateboard stood in line at the next shop, waiting to be served. I smiled and nodded at him, once he looked my way. He smiled and nodded back.

I didn't have the urge to grab him and force him to talk to me. Earlier that day, if I hadn't met John, that's just what I would have done.

I went home early, skating by the park I passed on my way to the mall. I skated around it and saw the asphalt paths. A group of women were walking very fast, and I stepped out of their way, while I was looking around.

I went straight to my bedroom. I took out the journal I'd written in on our way to California. I had a lot to write about today. Things had changed today. Meeting John was a step in the right direction. He told me things I never thought about before, and I wanted to remember it all. I began writing.

I didn't simply write about what we talked about, but I wrote about how it made me feel. I wanted to give John credit for knowing things about guys being together, and he had no objections to it, except he didn't want me to get into trouble by trying to move too fast.

John had slowed me down. He made me want to think more about what I wanted. I just didn't want to meet a guy who would let me hang around with him, I wanted to meet guys who were fun to be around, and maybe one of them would be so much fine, we'd become boyfriends. I know, it was a stretch, but sooner or later, I was going to want a boyfriend.

Chapter 6

John Explains

My mind ran rampant creating images that covered all the possibilities. It was enough to make a good boy go bad, but instead it just made things a lot more interesting. Not only that, there was a hope that came with it that told me that soon I wouldn't feel so alone. I knew that would only come

true if I was careful and didn't rush into anything.

After going to my room that night, I wanted to write about everything that I remembered form that day. To write about my thoughts and experiences would leave my innermost feelings exposed for anyone in my house to stumble onto if they decided my behavior was odd enough to warrant it.

I wasn't an unconventional kid. I had never been in trouble. I came home on time, and my parents had always known all my friends. I did fine in school. In spite of all that I knew that I had reached a crossroad, and I needed to find where I belonged. I didn't know what that meant or what I might do to get to where I needed to go. I just knew that when it came time to make a stand to be true to myself, I was ready. If that meant going against my parents, it would open up the distinct possibility that they'd feel obliged to rifle through my computer files, looking for clues and finding out my secret. This was enough to make me stop before I started.

With that in mind I knew I needed to have a way to write down what was on my mind. Then I needed to send those thoughts to a place where they would

be safe from my parents. A place where I could visit my writings and see

where it was I had been and perhaps that would make it easier for me to see

where I was heading.

I gave writing a lot of thought, before we left home. I definitely wanted to write down the impressions of the country, as we traveled through it. I wanted to be able to remember, where I saw the things I saw. Now that I was in California, I was writing down things that came to me.

I never thought my thoughts were that world-shaking, but this was California, and I was the new kid. Each night, after dinner, and before I went to bed, I took out my journal to jot down my impressions of that day. Writing was the best way for me to organize my thoughts, and see that day more clearly.

* * * * *

When I finally met Gordo, he had been on my mind, being the first guy in California to talk to me about California and the things I could look forward to. John, older, wiser—he made an effort to explain things, as he saw them and lived them.

John ran deeper and seemed more serious than Gordo, but John was a hell of a lot more mature. He’d been around the block a few more times. The fact he knew Gordo, and he didn't have anything bad to say about him, was cool. I wouldn't know when I'd see Gordo again, if I saw him again, and the same was true of John. They didn't seem to be tied to one place in a way I was tied to my house in El Cajon and to my parents.

These thoughts, and John's approach to life, brought back another lesson I learned in U.S. History class.

Mr. Bowen had told us, “The government seemed to listen, doing what the war protesters were telling them to do. It being a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, the government seemed responsive, but you've got to remember. College campuses were shut down by students. Students occupied administration buildings on dozens of campuses. The streets were filled with protesters and marchers, demanding an end to the war.”

“The war ended, so the people won,” someone said. “We won.”

“What did we win? Can anyone tell me what was won?”

“The voting age became eighteen, and the draft was ended,” Someone said. “It's what the war protests were all about, wasn't it?”

“It was. Draft age kids refused to go to war. College kids revolted, and education stopped in many schools,” Mr. Bowen said.

There was applause.

“Be careful what you wish for. The anti-war movement won nothing. The politicians realized, this has gotten out of hand. We can't send troops onto all the colleges, to keep order. You've got to remember the times. Anarchy was in the air, and young people filled the streets. In many instances, communes were set up to feed and house war protesters, all over the country. College kids weren't going to college, and war protesters weren't working, or paying taxes. There was upheaval all throughout the country.”

“But they got what they wanted. The draft ended, and you could vote at eighteen,” someone said.

“What happened once they achieved those two things?” Mr. Bowen asked.

“People went home. They'd gotten what they wanted,” someone else said.

“Ah, yes, the government said, 'This was the plan all along. We were always going to change the voting age, and we were always going to end the draft, because we're in charge and we know what's best for you.”

“The government snookered us?” Mr. Barnes said. “They gave in to get us to go home. We got what we wanted, and we went home, but nothing really changed.”

“Bingo! The war protests stopped. The draft ended after the troops came home. It didn't end, until the government got where they could be in control. The biggest fear they had, all these protesters in the streets, they're going to form communes, sustain themselves by growing their own food, and helping each other. They weren't going to work, pay taxes, or keep the military industrial complex being fed with billions on top of billions of dollars. Politicians, being politicians, wanted to stop the counterculture, before it got a foothold, and before people began to realize, they're working their asses off, and can barely pay the bills. Our country fights perpetual wars, while the rich get richer, and the working class gets screwed.”

I saw John being the kind of guy the government was worried about. He was a hippie, twenty years after the hippies went home. He could live outside in California, because it was nice most of the time. A generation of Johns would certainly make our government nervous, the way I saw it. Mr. Bowen was right.

I couldn't live like John, because I'd be brought up to value my comfort. Hell, I was uncomfortable, because I didn't have anyone to skate with. John sounded totally comfortable, not knowing where his next meal would come from. He looked pretty well fed. I wondered how he stayed so clean?

There was obviously something I didn't know. There were probably a lot of things I didn't know.

* * * * *

Regardless of what was won and lost in the 60s, kids would never against be seen and not heard. Kids spoke up for themselves, and they might go to school, listen to their teachers, and not protest the things they didn't agree with, but they were heard.

The music had to be part of it. While the revolution in the streets might have ended, the music is still part of what took place back then. The government probably was less responsive to the people, than it's ever been, but if things get too out of hand, and people get back in the streets, it might not end so easily the next time around.

I didn't know if I could live under a bridge, or give up the comfort of my bed, but if I had to do it, I could do it. I might not be as casual with it as John seemed to be, but John had the right to live his life the way he wanted. As uncomfortable as it sounded to me, I liked John. I liked what he had to say.

California was a different world, compared to back home. I had only begun to scratch the surface, and I really didn't have any friends yet, but I was going to meet more skaters, and my life was going to be better than it had ever been.

I realized what I'd seen, how I'd been treated, how my parents acted around me, made me like them. I think they call that modeling, but whatever it is, we learn by example. If you want your kids to be thoughtful and compassionate, you've got to be thoughtful and compassionate.

America was America. We'd done some very good things. I hoped to contribute to making our country even better, more responsive to the people. I wanted someone to stop gay men from dying, and I wanted for the preachers and the government to stop leading the hatred permeating government and religion.

While racial justice, women's rights, and gay rights made headlines from time to time, the opposition to it was mainstreamed. It was shouted from the TVs and newspaper board rooms. We needed to leave each other alone to be what ever each of us decides to be.

I wanted not to be ashamed of my feelings for other boys. I wanted people to be able to live their lives as they saw fit, like John saw fit. We had difficulty doing this, because people who had their rights wanted to deny them to others.

Anyone gay, like me, had to be careful. If you were too vocal, too visible, there were people who would hurt you. I didn't want to be hurt. I wanted to be heard.

I wanted everyone to live together, having the same rights. If excluding black people from having equal rights was wrong. People who had their rights, were the ones who wanted to deny rights to others. Where did they get off?

As far as I could tell, being gay was one of the worst things you could possibly be, according to people who should know better.

While thinking about what I knew and thought, I felt like things were on the way to getting better. I was in California, and I'd begun to make headway at last. Whether or not I saw Gordo or John again, I'd make friends, meet people, and adapt to the California skaters’ culture. All in all, my life was good, and the kids were all right. I was all right, and I was going to get a lot better.

* * * * *

I had made up my mind what I wanted to do. I wanted to love someone and I wanted him to love me. I'd figure it out as I went along. I was tired of being alone even when I was with my friends. I needed to plan how I would go about getting where it was I wanted to go. I decided to go to the mall at two each day. I would hang there until five when I would need to go home for dinner, and then I'd return in the evening. I was sure to meet other skaters. I would learn about the other places where they hung out.

When John was around, he always included me like I was his friend, and I liked that, but we were never alone. I couldn't ask him what I wanted to ask him. I lucked into meeting quite a few dudes over the next few days. While they were mostly preoccupied with one another, they did speak to me, and they didn't seem to mind my presence.

If I was with John, he introduced me to boys I didn't know, as he ha said he would. I didn't see Gordo, but I kept my eyes open. I began seeing boys I recognized on the street. I'd wave and they'd wave back. Sometime they stopped to talk, and I asked them what they were up to, and where they were heading. May as well make hay while the sun shines by learning where skater's hung out.

There was a big difference between the skaters in El Cajon and the skaters back home. We had tight little clicks, and outsiders need not apply. The older boys wouldn't be caught dead with a younger skater, and younger skaters froze out anyone somewhat younger than they were. Without knowing anything about a guy, you decided if he was in or out of your group.

From the day I met John, at least three years older than I was, and maybe four or five, he said he'd introduce me around, and he did. John was the guy I ended up talking to most often, and his friends, older guys, joined right in, like I was OK with them, if I was OK by John.

I met Ralph, a thirteen-year-old one day on the patch of lawn just past the mall. I gave him short shrift, which was how it was back home. I didn't want to be seen as a guy who like little boys, but in reality, Ralph was a good kid, and he was smart and funny. If I hadn't met John and seen that there were no dividing lines between boys of different ages, I thus stopped to talk to Ralph, when I saw him. Each time he saw me after that, he gave me a big smile. It made me feel good, that I'd done something different from the way we did it back home.

Was I becoming a California boy. I did live in California.

* * * * *

California was a different world. It took me two weeks to get to see Gordo a second time. When I saw him, I reminded him of our chat that day on the small patch of grass just past the mall.

He said, “Oh, yeah,” but he didn't remember me.

We went through my name being Z and my telling him the Z was for Zane, and he again asked me if I wrote. This time I could tell him I wrote every evening, but I didn't get into my journal’s revealing my inner most thoughts and impressions of a California I was getting to know.

“I’ve been with my girlfriend,” Gordo said. “I sneak into her room at night. Her mother caught us doing it in the bathtub, when she came in early from work. She may have been saying, 'Go! Go! Get out! She didn't miss my hard dick, while I was trying to get my shorts on. You ever tried to slip spandex on over a wet body? Let me tell you, it ain't no quick job, and she stared at my dick the whole time. I know she wanted a little. I'll go back for some show and tell in a few days.”

“A girl's mother. You'd screw your girlfriend’s mother, Gordo?” I asked, looking for a grain of salt to take his story with.

“Don't act so innocent. You get a chance to screw, you screw, you know.”

I didn't know, and I wasn't sure Gordo did. I knew better than to swallow anything whole hog. I detected a bit of a story teller in Gordo, but it was a reason why I'd never be able to wear spandex, because any time a guy talked sex, I got aroused by what he had to say. Maybe because I didn't know anything, everything sounded titillating to me.

I wasn't sure Gordo was straight. I didn't know about the guy in the car he got into the day I met him, but now he wanted to talk about women. I suppose it could be a good cover, or maybe he was straight. Then, I remembered how he let his leg lean against mine. I'd never had a guy do that to me before, but conduct was a lot more tightly observed back home. Guys were definitely friendlier here.

I decided to follow up on the conversation Gordo seemed to want to have.

"Bathtub?" I asked. “You do it in a bathtub?”

“Anywhere that's handy. She thinks she can't get pregnant that way. The water and all She got that in school. Gives new meaning to keep it clean," Gordo said, laughing at his joke.

"It was obvious you had big plans," I said, advancing my cause. “Spandex does give away what's on your mind, you know.”

He looked at me for a minute.

"Always," he said, still staring as my eyes moved to the spandex and back to his face. “Oh, that. Hard to hide some days. Just hard on others. I got no complaints. I'm solid in that department. She can't get enough. Still can't get her to go down on it. Nothing like a good BJ,” he said, smiling.

“Nothing,” I said, feeling a warm rush between my thighs. "That's what you wanted today?"

“Hey, that's what I want every day,” Gordo said. “Boys give better head. They know how it feels, and so they know what to do to get the most out of a hard aching dick, don't you think?” Gordo said, rolling on his stomach, letting his leg touch mine.

That was more like it. It hadn't taken him long to get off his girlfriend and to start taking a better look at me. He looked at my face, and he looked away, not moving his leg, but not indicating what was on his mind either.

"Whatever I can get,” he said with a smile. “Once it gets hard, I want to take care of it, and she's easy. If she's really hot, almost anywhere out of sight will do. We did it in the park, behind the swings, one day. There are some bushes there. She pushed down her shorts and I stood behind her. Man I could get that sucker all the way up there and she didn't mention it hurt. Good position. From behind. That way she isn't constantly talking about hurry up, someone might come. Someone did. Me,” he said, laughing, and rolling onto his back to pull at the front of his spandex.

“Why take the chance of getting caught?” I asked, worried about doing it in a park.

“Isn't she a little old?” I asked.

He rolled over onto his back and grabbed his erection through the cloth.

“Not too old for my pogo stick. She stared right at it. She wants it.”

“I guess,” I said. “Maybe she'll suck you off.”

“Girls aren't that good at it. I mean I ain't complaining, but you want a good blow job, you got to find a guy who'll blow you. He knows how it feels. He knows what to do, and he don't complain and worry you to death, once you let him do it. Not saying I'd rather be doing stuff with a dude, but for a BJ, a dude will give you a run for your money, you know.”

“I know,” I said, as if I knew all about it.

This was the conversation I wanted to have. I'd never been hotter the day I sat with Gordo on that patch of lawn, and he pressed he bare leg against mine. I was so hot, I could hardly stand it, and then he gets up and leaves. I'd thought about that day often, and we were right back in the same place again, and I was sure Gordo would say “yes,” if I offered to suck him off.

How did I do that without sounding queer?

We were ready to make the sale, and I didn't know how to close the deal. Was I going to go home empty-handed again? If I didn't speak up, Gordo would be off to his next conquest, and I'd be left empty-handed.

I mean I wanted to go off with Gordo to find out what it was like, but Gordo was a talker, and did I want it to get around that Z will do you for a favor. I would, but guys looking me up just to get me to do that for them, uh, maybe not. I wanted to do it in the worst way, and I didn’t. The time needed to be right.

“See, you know exactly what I mean,” he said. “Guys like us need to stick together, you know. We can do things for each other.”

"Sure," I said, not wanting to ask him to let me do it to him.

“I'd talked her into doing me and John one time. John wouldn't do it. I knew he was cool. He's not bashful. I watched him get blown by a guy who was staying with us under a bridge in Santee. John does like sex but not two on a girl. I'll do anything. I guess John has some limits. He's still cool in my book,” Gordo said. “He treats me like I'm a regular guy, and you and I know, there's nothing regular about me.”

Gordo continued, “You got to be careful not to let stuff like that get around. Most of these guys are cool, but some have big mouths. They tell everything they know. You can't let them know you'd go along with a deal with another dude. There's nothing wrong with it, as far as I'm concerned, but you don't want that gossip to get around,” he said.

“No. I know that. Some things are best kept to ourselves. I meant with you, it would be cool. I don't know anyone else that well. Maybe John,” I said, as Gordo pulled on the front of his shorts. He was deep in thought, and he didn't appear to me to be a deep thinker. I would shut up and let him think it was his idea, if we ended up doing something later on. On the lawn at the mall wasn't the place I wanted to get up close and familiar with a boy for the first time.

"I'll try anything once, you know," Gordo said, hand on dick, eyes on me.

“Once, or four or five times if it's good,” I said.

Gordo laughed, rolling onto his stomach to hump the cool blades of grass.

"You always ready?" I asked.

“They don't call me ‘Hot Rod’ for nothing, dude. Ready, willing and able. And I need to do something. I'm going to find Cindy girl,” he said.

"I thought her mother's always home," I said.

"We got places. The park is usually empty this time of day. I did her down in the tube one time. She's always wanting me, once she spots the telltale bulge. I think, when she sees my expanding spandex, she can feel it inside her. I mean she just can't wait. I know it isn't my winning personality.”

“What would you do if you got caught doing it in public?” I asked, thinking it sounds about as bad as anything got.

“I'd be a horny guy with a criminal sex offense to prove it. With all the rank shit people do to each other, and no one gives a damn, if I can be made a criminal for doing what everyone has been doing for a million years, I won't feel no shame over it. The shame is how people treat each other. Making sex illegal is just another simple-minded way of controlling us,” Gordo said, sounding certain.

“That may be true,” I said, “but not being arrested and having sex, sounds like a better deal to me.”

“You're so practical, Z. Why didn't I think of that. I've had more sex than the law allows, and I ain't been locked up for it yet.”

It was my turn to laugh.

“You really aren't bashful,” I said.

“Being bashful never got me laid,” he said. “If you're offering me a sure thing, when I'm only hoping I can catch up with Cindy, I can dig it. I mean I can't give you anything but a hand, but if you want to take a toot on my dick, I got no problem with that deal. A glow job in the hand is better than the possibility of pussy in the park,” he said, lifting up to give me a good look at the bulge.

“Where do we go?” I asked, suddenly aroused and ready to go.

“There's a spot over by the half pipe. Lots of bushes, and a bare spot I made that's big enough for two,” he said. “Although, I do jack-off there a lot.

"With guys I only use my hand. I don't do that other shit. I'm

not like that,” Gordo revealed.

He made it up as he went along, and I did my best not to lose

focus. The ground rules changed as fast as they were mentioned. I still felt that Gordo and I were close to doing it, and I wouldn't know what the rules were, until we'd done whatever he had it in mind to do.

He may not have been like that, but the front of his spandex said that Gordo was ready to rock and roll. I wasn't wearing spandex, but when Gordo looked at the front of my shorts, he knew where my mind was, and he smiled.

* * * * *

The night I had something to write about, I didn't know what to say. I'd gone with Gordo, and he showed me the place. He was out of his spandex before I turned around. Gordo in the all together was all together gorgeous. He had a solid body and more than enough to go around, but I already knew that.

While I did what I could to give him what he asked for, he took that time to instruct me on how many teeth I had, and how my dentist needed to file them down. I was doing the best I could do under the circumstances, and two cars did drive by while I was trying to get the hang of it.

I knew we couldn't be seen with the thick bushes between the two of us and passing cars, but I could see the other side of the halfpipe, and the idea I concluded, a skater in the halfpipe would get an eye full. It worried me but not enough to make me stop what I was doing. It was the moment of truth for me, and my truth was all wrapped up in the boy I was with.

The SDSU marching band could march down the halfpipe, and Gordo would continue instructing me on how to suck the well-endowed dick. All in all, he was patient, and I knew I bit him a could of times, trying to give him as good as I could. For my first time, it was a lot more exciting for me than for Gordo.

Practically ripping my shorts off, Gordo had another idea..

“Here, let me show you,” he said, making short work of my erection. Before he got started good, I was losing contact with just where I was. As much as I enjoyed doing Gordo, he swept me away by giving me the time of my life. I didn't know you could feel that good. I flew so high, I almost lost my mind.

With his hands moving all over me, Gordo stayed with me, until he drained me dry, and he didn't stop doing what he was doing, and in spite of the odds against it, he got me aroused again in short order. If something was worth doing once, there was no reason to rule out doing it a second time.

That had to be how Gordo felt about it. I was too busy trying not to faint to study his technique. What my first sexual experience with a California boy taught me a thing or two about Gordo. He talked a good game concerning girls, but he was as good as he needed to be, taking me on the journey of my life. I couldn't say whether I was coming or going, but it really didn't matter, as long as he kept doing what he was doing.

If Gordo did for girls, what he did for me, he would be popular indeed. He had the capacity to stay with what he was doing, until the end. Then, it became impossible to tell where the end was, because he started all over again.

When I met Gordo, I was sure that he'd be part of my first sexual experience. I figured it would be one of the most powerful experiences, but nothing I thought could come close to the total euphoria that went with it. For a time, perhaps a few seconds, or a few minutes, I was not inside my own body. I soared above the earth, feeling like a shooting star, and my slow gentle return to earth was every bit as wonderful as the takeoff.

I had no objection to doing it again, but I had some idea that the human body had some limitations, and I didn't know I could do it again right away, but again it was. As good as the first trip had been, the second took me higher, and further, without me being able to sense how high and how far. I'd never left my body before, and I was hoping to find it again, but as long as my mind was in the state it was in, that was good too.

I don't have a thing to add to my first great sexual experience. Gordo was the doorway to infinity that day. I plan to hide this journal entry where my parents will never stumble upon it.

Gordo was closer to my age than John was, although John wasn't as overpowering. He was obviously more mature, and Gordo wanted what he wanted when he wanted it. We had been sitting near where John and I sat, when John told me his secret. Gordo wasn't telling me a secret, as much as he was telling me what he wanted to have done to him, which had me far more anxious to do the deed.

He wanted it now, and I could keep waiting to get beyond the idea of having a sexual deal with a dude. However, I wasn't getting any younger, although I couldn't get hornier than Gordo had me with the mere suggestion that I attend to what for him was a major problem. John made it clear that getting together with me wasn't out of the question, but unlike Gordo, John was in no hurry.

This separated the two boys that had me thinking sexually. The boy with red hair made it an even three. Having sexual thoughts was nothing new, I'd been having those since I was twelve. The thoughts I'd had were a passing fancy: “I bet he's nice.” I hadn't been ready to investigate my feelings until now.

When Gordo had enough, his intentions were murky. "Me, I never get enough. Maybe we'll see each other later on if you want."

I wanted to start looking for rings, but this would require much more investigating before it was time to be serious about a boy. As keen as I was to let Gordo be the one to show me the ropes, I couldn't shake the feeling, Gordo is not the guy I wanted to get serious about.

"I hope so," I said. "I like you too."

I was sure glad I got that last bit out because he was gone before I thought to give him my number or ask for his. I was still on the verge of ecstasy, and thinking wasn't one of the things I was doing real well.

Just trying to figure out what we were talking about kept me on my toes. Then he wasn't saying anything, and I didn't know any more about him than before we started. Well, maybe a little more.

He skated away from me before I could say anything else. I would make it a point to find him again and then maybe I could determine what shit was. Massachusetts wasn't even in the same century with California, when it came to doing stuff together, or maybe I just didn't know how to find people like Gordo. All I know is, I'd done more with him than I'd done with anyone else.

In Massachusetts, we were way ahead in conversation, because I always knew what we were talking about, when I was talking to my friends. Especially when it came to sex stuff. Back home, everyone talked about when they did it, but no one talked about what it was like to do it. I knew the reason why.

Real men didn't talk about their feelings. Real men didn't admit to any weakness. Real men had standards. It's just that no one knew what those standards were. Having them was the important thing, after all

The night after my afternoon with Gordo, I sat at my computer thinking about my feelings for him. I didn't want to get too far out ahead of myself. I knew how guys were, and I knew I didn't know Gordo at all. Yet I knew more about him than I knew about anyone. I knew what flipped Gordo's trigger.

How far we could go together, I didn't know. I did intend to find out. I already knew he did plenty with a guy, because he'd done it with me, fifteen minutes after we got into the bushes. It would take time to figure out where we were going, if we were going anywhere together.

I didn't know, but I intended to find out, if there was a next time with Gordo. I created a file, and I created a folder, and then I created another folder. I put the file with my most intimate thoughts inside them in the first folder, than I hid it in the second folder, I marked “Rules For Gym Class.”

This was about the least likely place my parents would look, if they decided to go looking for my most intimate thoughts. I even began the document with Rule One, you must have one gym-type pair of shorts. Rule Two, you must have one gym type pair of white socks. Rule Three, you must have one gym-type pair of shoes, and Rule Four, I needed to find out how far Gordo would go.

As with most of the shit Gordo said he wouldn't do, I suspected what he did wasn't even close to anything he said he did. He was young, and there were probably reasons why he was the way he was. I would do my best to see if I could get him to talk about himself.

Having my first sexual experience of any consequence, I thought that I wouldn't be horny again right away. It proved how little I knew about my own body. The night of the event, I woke up with it and Gordo on my mind. My thoughts were definitely not for a PG audience.

By the time I left the house the next morning, I decided to look for John. He had been honest with me about doing it with guys, but he preferred girls. I was attracted to him in a different way than my attraction to Gordo. I liked John's calm exterior and honesty.

John knew Gordo, and I was sure they'd been together.

* * * * *

It took another week to learn the names of the boys that appeared most often at the back of the mall. There were two distinct groups. The first one I tried to gain access to was made up of guys my age. This was the only place where they settled long enough for me to approach them, although I'd seen most of the faces inside the mall.

When I did feel comfortable enough to say something, they usually all grew silent and looked at me until they were absolutely sure I wasn't going to say anything else. Then, they’d pick up where they'd left off, hutting me out once again. I wasn't going anywhere. I was sure I'd be friends with some of these boys. I'd give it time and wait for them to get accustomed to seeing me around.

I did recognized the technique. The guys I ran with back home froze out new boys. I can honestly say, I didn't know any better at the time. It isn't something I started, but I went along with excluding new kids from our group.

Until now, I'd never been an outsider. Now that I was, I wish I'd been nicer to new kids. I'd been a butt-head, and it was my turn to see what it was like to be ignored, precisely at the time I was desperate for friends. Kids were cruel. I'd been cruel: Nothing like the shoe being on the other foot to learn that lesson.

I'd be perfectly happy to sit down, shut up, and listen to whatever they were talking about. I wasn't likely to turn state’s evidence on anyone, or brief the Ruskies on what California teenagers talked about.

After leaving such a gathering, after pretty much being ignored, I found myself being followed by one of the younger skaters. I wonder if he might have been sent on a scouting mission to see where I went, who I talked to. I couldn't be sure, and so I went about doing what I did most days.

I spent a lot of time lying on my back at the far corner of the mall, looking into the clear blue sky over the San Diego region. Shortly after I dripped down to strike that pose, the younger boy dropped down beside me.

“Don't feel bad. They're too ignorant to give new guys a break. I know, I was the new guy last summer, when I moved here from Grand Rapids. I found them funny. They think they're the kings of their kingdom, you know. They're so narrowly focused, they don't know there's another world out there. I'm Ralph.”

That was how I met Ralph. I'd seen him around, and he'd been on the patch of lawn past the mall on Broadway with his friends one day. We hadn't been introduced, but I heard his name, and so I knew who Ralph was.

I was looking at him by this time. If the other boys gave me the cold shoulder, Ralph had provided my first honest to goodness warm welcome.

“I'm Z,” I said, noticing he was probably in middle school.

“Z? That's your name, Z?” Ralph asked.

“That's what I'm called. My actual name is Zane, but I like Z better,” I said.

“Z,” he said. “That's cool. Better than being named after a grocery store.”

I had to laugh. There were no Ralph's back east, so I didn't instantly think of the grocery store when he introduced himself.

“You were here with some other boys last week. I heard someone call you Ralph. You all took off right after I arrived.”

“Probably figuring out where we might get food,” Ralph said. “I remember seeing you. I wasn't sure where,” he said. “You're interesting. I'd have hung around to talk to you, unless we were going to eat. Then, I'd have gone to eat.”

“You don't eat at home?”

“Home isn't where my heart is. Being summer, I tend to get scarce.”

“What do your parents think about that?” I asked.

“They live in their own world. I'm merely an inconvenience they created on their way to being absent,” Ralph said, sounding far more intelligent than most kids his age.

“You know John?” I asked.

“Sure. John's cool. He knows where to get the best food,” Ralph said.

“You can't go home and eat?” I asked, trying to figure that out.

“I won't go home if it isn't absolutely necessary,” he said. “It usually isn't.”

“What about school. You're too young to be out of school,” I said.

“I'd like to drop out of school and see what anything is like, besides sitting in class all day,” Ralph said.

“You need to stick it out through high school,” I said. “That allows you to go to college later on, if you decide that's what you want,” I said, offering the advice I was given.

“Believe me, it isn't what I want. I want to get on with it. Sitting in school all day is a waste of time, once you learn English and math,” he said. “I know English and math just fine.”

I found that hard to argue with, and that's when the rule of feast or famine came into play, as Gordo skated up.

I hadn't seen him since our afternoon in the bushes, but I was immediately aroused when he skated up. It wasn't hard to see what was on his mind. It wasn't soft either.

“Sup, Z,” Gordo said, dropping down on the other side of me from Ralph. “How's it hanging, Ralph?”

“Hanging to the left. I decided to try running it down my left leg today,” he said.

“Not that much to run, junior,” Gordo said. “But it'll grow.”

“Has since the last time you saw it,” Ralph said.

“Yeah, well, you're at an age. You need to hang with boys your own age. You get more than you bargained for hanging around older guys,” Gordo said.

“Surprising what you can learn, when you add a third person to the conversation.”

“Not yet. I get pretty much what I bargain for. Guys my age are idiots. You never know what one will say or do. Old guys are predictable. The ones I know anyway.”

"Sup, Z?" Gordo said, offering me his hand. “Some of my buds are inside. I figured you would like to meet a few. They're mostly cool. They know which way the water flows.”

“I know which way I flow, and I can see you two don't need me hanging around,” Ralph said, dropping his skateboard on the sidewalk, and skating away.

“See you, Ralph. Nice meeting you,” I said.

Ralph waved without looking back. He did stop to talk to me.

“You don't like them that young,” Gordo said.

“I was in the mall, being ignored by the other skaters. He followed me out,” I explained.

“He's like a lost puppy. He never hangs with guys his own age. I mean he's a nice kid and all, but way young.”

I followed Gordo as he skated toward the food court entrance. I'd already tried and failed to get someone to talk to me in there. Obviously, having Gordo with me might enhance my chances of meeting other skaters.

"You guys know Z. He's kewl. He's from back east."

Why didn't I think of that?

The boys were gone, who had been in the same area, before Ralph followed me out of the mall. These were guys in their twenties. They were way more mature, and everyone was immediately saying, “Hi, Z.”

“Hi,” I said. “I've been trying to meet skaters for weeks. You don't know how lonely it gets being the new kid,” I said.

“Now that you know us, you don't need to meet anyone else,” a tall boy with buckwheat colored hair and freckles said. “I'm Henry Holloway. They call me Freckles. I bet you can't guess why?”

“I'm stumped,” I said happily. “Why do they call you ‘Freckles?”

“Cause I got 'em on my dick. Only when it's hard, or I'd show you,” he said, no bashfulness in his family.

“Freckles, shut up,” a taller, older guy said. “He'll show you his butt, too, if you ask him to. I'm Quick,” he said. “Because the ladies can't resist my charm.”

His smile was authentic, and I wondered if he'd asked to see Freckles' butt. That thought passed quickly, and I shook Quick's hand, because he put it in front of me.

There were more introductions, more handshakes, and off to the right, Ralph sat next to two boys who looked to be Quick's age. Gordo sat in a chair next to where I sat, and the talking began. Guys wanted to hear about the east. Not everyone talked, but the few that did were nice. A couple were funny, and a couple acted like their questions were important; they waited for me to answer.

Had Gordo told them about me. If he did, what did he say? They were almost too nice for boys I didn't know. It was a nice change, and being alone became a thing of the past. Meeting Gordo had led me to the mother lode in the local skaters’ scene. Each time I would meet one of them, and he was with someone I didn't know, I got an immediate introduction. That was the best part.

Most of the guys wore spandex. Some wore the knee length shorts that didn't give as much away. By the way Freckles filled his spandex, I was sure there a lot of freckles on his dick. He was the brunt of some jokes, but he didn't seem to mind. Everyone was friendly.

As we sat and talked, some boys began to wander off. I looked for Ralph, who had been fairly silent, but he'd gone. Before long, Gordo and I were alone at the table where we sat. “You want another soda?” I asked.

“No, what I want is to go to our spot out back. I came through for you, I was hoping you'd come through for me. I ain't even jacked-off today. I'm hard as stone and twice as horny,” he said.

“Stone gets horny?” I asked.

“When it's hard as me, it does.”

“You ask to see Freckles' butt?” I asked.

“Freckles? You want a date with Freckles?”

“No, I just wondered if he was as easy as he seemed.”

“The boy's from Nebraska. Raised on a farm. I went with him once, but I don't do boy butt. Not my style. He does a few things, but he's naive. From Nebraska, like I said,” Gordo said. "Do you want to go somewhere or not?" Gordo asked.

"I saw you in the mall two times. You ignored me totally," I said,

thinking direct was best. "We either know each other or we don't. I don't

do part-time friends, Gordo."

"Yeah, well, I introduced you around, didn't I?" He defended. "I

don't know you that well. I've got a rep. Some stuff you can't let get

around, you know. I don't know who you been with."

"I been with you is all. It's the first thing you wanted to do," I said. “Want to know how many guys I was with back east?”

“How many?” Gordo asked, like he expected something prolific.

“None. I was with no one like we were together. No one knows I'm gay,” I said.

“I'm not gay,” he objected.

“You do a good imitation of a gay boy. Look, I did enough when I was real young, to know what I liked. That was kid stuff. Once I got in high school, I didn't want to be labeled. There was no one I was willing to risk ruining my reputation over. I'm gay. I'm old enough to figure out what it is I like, and who it is I want to be with. You do your own thing, and that's cool with me. It's nothing I'd ever talk to anyone about. That is between you and me, dude,” I said.

"Really! Lucky you met me, huh? I took you where you wanted to go."

“You did. It was nice. I'm not very good at what I do, but I'll get better. It's not like I was born knowing how to suck a dick or what other guys want,” I said.

He let his knee touch my thigh. He put his forearm next to mine, so they were ever so slightly touching. He wasn't looking at me, simply making contact.

“I like you,” Gordo said, checking to see if anyone was in earshot first.

"I thought so until I saw you in the mall."

"Some times it's kewl, okay. Sometime it ain't kewl. In the mall

when I'm with the ladies, it just ain't, okay."

"Okay," I said, not wanting trouble with him.

"Want to meet someone?" Gordo said.

"Yeah," I said, thinking I wanted to meet anyone.

"He's older. I was going over there before I saw you. Since you

don't know anyone, I'll show you where he lives. In case I'm not around, you'll have a friend, you know. That's if you aren't into Freckles. Come on. You don't need to do anything."

We skated out behind the mall and went up the main drag until we reached Arapaho. I stayed just behind him and watched the way his Spandex moved on what seemed to be a rather fleshy bottom for such a thin boy. He never hesitated at corners or when the lights went against us, charging ever onward up a long hill until he zipped into a parking lot, grabbed his board and charged up some stairs ahead of us. He never looked back to see where I was, but I was close.

First, he knocked on the door, and then he banged and banged again after twenty seconds.

"Take it easy," the man said as he swung the door open. "Can't you give me a chance to get to the door?"

The guy was tall and old. Not old old but way older than us. He hadn't shaved, and he was in a white T and blue boxers that you couldn't see for the T. His legs were hairy, and he had no shoes.

"No!" Gordo said, using his elbow to dislodge the man from the door as he went uninvited into the messy living room.

The man looked at me suspiciously as I stood there, looking quite out of place. He had rather dark green eyes and dark hair. He wasn't skinny but he wasn't fat either. I guess he was like your average mid-twenties dude, but I hadn't seen any in their underwear, so I wasn't sure.

"Oh, yeah, that's Z, he's kewl," Gordo said after dropping down on the couch and pushing his feet up into the middle of the coffee table.

"I'm Pat," the man said, quickly pushing his hand out the door to shake mine. He stood to one side, seeming to be inviting me in. I waited for the words.

"Come on in before the neighbors start wondering."

He closed the door as I scurried past him and sat cautiously beside Gordo. He sat across the room in a maroon recliner. There were glasses, plates, and piles of papers stacked everywhere where things could be stacked, and when he ran out of places, he had started to stack stuff on the floor.

"I see your wife hasn't come back," Gordo said, looking at a Mad magazine he found on the floor beside the coffee table.

"I thought I told you not to bring anyone else up here, Gordo," Pat said firmly.

"Yeah, well, Z ain't no one. I told you he's kewl. He don't know no one and I was coming up here and you're good people and all. You know how it is. I couldn't get rid of him."

"Gordo!" I said. “He said he had someone he wanted me to meet. I'm from back east. Just moved here. Gordo is the first friend I’ve made in the month I've been here.”

“Maybe your luck will improve in time,” Pat said. “Gordo isn't much, but he is persistent.”

“Oh, Pat, and the last time I was here, you told me you loved me. I'm crushed. Like I'm totally crushed,” Gordo said, not sounding crushed.

“I lost my head. The nicest thing about you is your dick. I meant I love your dick, and when you pull crap like this, I'm reconsidering that idea.”

Gordo said to me, “Look, I'm trying to help you out. Just don't you say anything else until I get done smoothing things out here," just like he

had taken me aside to give me his instructions. "Anyway, he's kewl, Pat, just a little slow."

I rolled my eyes to show my disapproval, but I didn't interrupt him.

"That's what you said about that Donnie kid, and he's here more than I am," Pat objected. "I can't get rid of him. Where do you find them?"

"Yeah, he's something else, isn't he. Never gets enough, and I got other fish to fry. I figured you two would get along fine," Gordo said.

"I'd like him more if he would go home," Pat said. "Don't, I repeat, don't bring anyone else up here with you. When I met you, I wasn't looking for a date, and I don't want to date your friends. I didn't know I was getting your entire dance card when I brought you home."

"Yeah, I know," Gordo said sounding dismissive. "Z's kewl. You'll like him too. I don't think he knows much. He's a virgin, and I'm trying to help him out with that."

"I'm not either," I objected strenuously. "I never said that."

"I don't care if he's the Virgin Mary. I don't need to be fixed up with any more of your friends. You're a kid. I'm an adult. What if my wife decides to come back to me?"

"Take her a week to find you in this mess," Gordo said, looking at the stacks of stuff.

“Excuse me,” I said, and Pat turned to look at me. “You're married?”

Pat began laughing hysterically. He sounded quite mad. His belly laughter calmed down to a less insane sound, and then he chuckled and grinned.

“I'm hornier than anyone has a right to be. I mean even his friend is tolerable, because he has the same problem. He simply doesn't have a brain in his head. I met her at a bar where I play piano. We were both drunk. We fucked all weekend, and when we sobered up, we figured we ought to get married,” Pat said. “That was last year, and this is the third or fourth time she left me, but then she gets really horny, and she knows where to go, and I'm married again. Why am I explaining my unfortunate life to someone I don't even know?”

"I'm Z. I could go," I offered.

I could wait at the end of the parking lot for Gordo, but I didn't know why.

“Z, I'm Pat. You're the only sane one here. Why would I want you to leave? I should leave. Gordo should leave,” he said.

Gordo was obviously following the conversation closely.

"He goes, I go. That what you want?"

“You go. Leave him. I need some adult conversation. You don't qualify,” Pat said, speaking to Gordo. "No, that's not what I want. You're here now. What I want is for you not to bring me any more little boys. If you know a maid who works cheap I could handle that. You are fine. Why do you think I need anyone else?”

"I thought you guys couldn't get enough," Gordo said, questioning.

"That's what I always heard."

"Just what you guys do you have in mind?" Pat quizzed.

"Gay guys!"

“I'm a married man. You think because I play the piano, and I like to suck dick, that makes me gay?”

“If you're married, which would indicate that you're straight, why do you like sex with guys, which could be an indication you're gay,” I said, losing my head.

“You brought me Sigmund fucking Freud. Just what I need, a teeny-bopper who does psychoanalysis on the side,” Pat said, not sounding that out of sorts. "I'm not gay. I'm married. Do you really think about what you say

before you say it or does this stuff just pop out?"

"Sure! I mean I thought guys that blew were gay. My mistake."

"Are you gay?" Pat said in a very accusatory voice. “I'm not gay. Frankly, Sigmund, I don't know what the hell I am. Does that help?”

I took the high road, remaining silent.

"Oh gee, I thought you were old friends by the way you told him all about me. Gordo, everyone doesn't think guys your age should be hanging around with guys my age. Let's keep it down to your school and the immediate area."

"I wanted to see you. He's a nice guy. Z won't make any trouble."

"Until I met you, Gordo, I hadn't done that since I was your age.

It was your idea, not mine. You're the one that got this ball rolling."

"Oh, like you didn't like it? Pretty good for not having any practice in what, twenty years?"

"Closer to ten," Pat corrected. "I find it's like riding a bicycle. Your dick happens to be perfectly shaped for it."

"Yeah, well, all you had to do is say you didn't like it. Maybe I wouldn't have come back. Maybe I would, because you're the only guy who has ever swallowed me whole."

"I never said that. You're putting words in my mouth. Once you thrust it at me, I figured, since it's there, why not. I just hadn't done it in a while. I'm not saying it wasn't OK."

"OK? 'Gordo, I think I may fall in love with you.'” Gordo said in a falsetto voice. “ Got that tape, Pat?" Gordo asked. “I really get hard watching that tape.”

"Which tape is that?"

"You know the one. With the three babes and the dude."

"It's in the player," Pat said.

"We do have that in common. Three's the right number don't you think?"

"Fine by me," Pat said, getting up to push the play button and turn on the TV.

"Oh, dude, watch this. It's my favorite part," Gordo said to me.

I felt a little like I'd walked in to the middle of a Three Stooges show.

The guy was fat. The chicks were old, and it was disgusting. What they saw in it, I don't have a clue, but there we were watching the most intimate acts anyone could perform, except once you get it on video tape, I think it takes the intimacy out of it. Not that it bothers me, if that's what they want to do and it was obvious that's what they wanted to do.

When I looked up Gordo was on Pat's lap, and I had become invisible. They took some time making certain they were positioned correctly. Neither one of them even glanced toward the movie. I had no interest in it.

Spandex peels a lot like a wet bathing suit, when you watch from a distance anyway. I hadn't remembered how light Gordo's hair was, and there was more of it than I remembered at least from this angle. He kept one arm around Pat's neck as he fell on hard times, lifting Gordo up to make a full meal of it, and Gordo raised his hips, and he clung to the knowledge he held Pat's best interest in hand, while making it easy to eat.

Tightening his grip on Pat's neck, so he didn't get away, Pat positioned Gordo to take the full offering. Gordo raised his hips higher, making sure Pat didn't miss a morsel. They worked well together. Pat being considerate of Gordo, making sure he didn't gobble his food. Gordo, on the other hand, was happy to feed Pat, until he was full.

It was quite a nice-sized interest Gordo showed for Pat’s appetite, and they both did a good job of making a happy meal memorable. Gordo's eyes closed after watching the first two acts intently. He hugged himself tightly to Pat's neck, giving out with sounds of pleasure, until he gave him his just desserts.

The movie sucked. Pat sucked, but being there to watch the live show didn't suck at all.

I'd never seen anything like that back east, but I suspect I had come close once. I had been too young, too stupid to understand what I was seeing, before I knew men and boys both had toys they liked to share, and given the right circumstances, sharing them with one another was possible. When facing this reality, I had dismissed it as something else, which most people do.

I'd made another discovery in the apartments near Ralph’s, at the upper end of Main Street. Everywhere I went, I learned new aspects about people I had never understood, or thought about, before. The more people I met, the more differences there were in between people. They all looked similar, but you never knew what you might find behind a closed door or a new pair of eyes.

When I sat down to write about my day, this is how it came out. I suppose what I didn't know about human sexuality would fill books, but I was learning, one experience at a time.

If my parents find this entry, they’ll be calling a shrink.

Chapter 7

Where Skaters Go

There were rumors about a park back home. It was said to be a place where perverts went to practice their perversions. From time to time, a principal, or an executive in a well-known firm, would be arrested there. So it had earned its reputation by the time I was hearing about it. I was warned to stay clear of that place if I knew what was good for me, and I did. I always did what I was told to do back then. I didn't know any better, so when someone told me something, I listened. I know where the wild goose goes “Do you know about the spot in the bushes?”

I was learning where California skaters went. I'd been in California for over a month, and not one skater mentioned the surf, the ocean, or surfing. I knew by listening to the Beach Boys, all authentic California boys surf. I didn't know if I could call myself a California boy yet, but the thought crossed my mind. I'd been in California for over a month.

I wasn't sure about Gordo when I met him, and he'd shown me things I was anxious to know about. Gordo wasn't as predictable as he seemed, and going off in the bushes with him had been enough to tell me that I was on the right track. Doing it in the bushes was a bit unsettling. What if someone walked up, while we were practicing our perversion? I'd definitely be embarrassed, if not arrested.

Pat was certainly different, and Gordo was like some overheated puppy. He panted, moaned, and knelt in the chair where Pat sat, feeding him his all day sucker. What I learned was that Gordo had a fab ass. As they got deeper into the deed, Gordo was so entirely lost in his lust, I got a few views of the spot up between his legs.

This was a view of a boy I'd never had before. I didn't realize that, until I realized what I was looking at. Seeing Gordo's balls bouncing on Pat's chin, told me that Pat had absolutely swallowed the offering.

Gordo was able to feed Pat the whole thing. Up until that moment, I'd have told anyone who asked, that's impossible. Where did it all go? Remembering my own attempt at pleasing Gordo, I could see what he was trying to get me to do. I had to rethink this gay deal. I don't think I could ever swallow Gordo.

I wondered if Pat could teach me how, but Pat wasn't all that nice. He was older, but not in a mature way. He was a lot like Gordo, a little confusing, a little contradictory, as well as a little crazy. In spite of constant complaining, he seemed to be in his element now.

By the noise Gordo was making, and by the motion of his butt, he was having the time of his life. As he came to the end of the line, he gasped, moaned, and than slumped while issuing two more deliberate humps. Then, both of them became still. Gordo was hanging onto Pat's joy stick, but Pat relieved him of the duty, giving it two strokes, before issuing two long strands of cum on to his chest.

I'm not saying it wasn't interesting, but up until that moment, I'd had some tiny bit of interest in Gordo, in a romantic way. Watching him do it with an old guy, sunk that ship, right there. Gordo was too much of a handful for me. Since he'd been the only one I'd gone with, my entire sex life took a dump right there.

John had expressed some interest, in a casual way, and I hadn't forgotten that, because John was nice to me, before anyone else was. He had introduced me around to other skaters.

So far, Gordo was the only one who had spent any time with me, after we met, but I knew the names of more skaters now, and I'd get to know them as time went along. I knew how it worked, I just wanted to rush things, so I'd have someone to do things with, even when I didn't have much to do, but school would start soon, and I'd be a senior at whatever school I went to. I knew everyone in the senior class back home. I knew no one here.

As my mind switch back to the here and now, the chair that proved to be so entertaining, once Pat and Gordo got down to business, was empty. Gordo stood a foot in front of me, pulling up on the front of his spandex, right after giving his dick a pull down, to give a view of how fat it got, right after he performed.

Little things I noticed, were quite sexually stimulating, at the time, because I'd had so little sexual stimulation, but Gordo had a way of leaving me cold, when he gave Pat a shutout, before opening the door. Shouldn't there be more?

“Later, Pat. You're the best there is at sucking dick.”

I would no longer take anyone's word on anything. If I saw something I thought I'd like to do, and this wasn't, I'd do it, when the time was right, and, then, I'd decide for myself, who to do it with. Doing something so personal, with just anyone who would slobber on my dick, wasn't sexually stimulating. It was down right nauseating.

I'd been intimate with Gordo. He'd been sexual with me. He made it sound as though he was doing it for me, and he could take it or leave it, but he couldn't. Gordo took it as often as he could, and an audience was optional but not crucial to his end goal. I had learned something. I wasn't sure of how it applied.

That park back home, I started skating past it, out of curiosity more than anything. I wanted to see what the perverts’ park looked like. I also thought, or hoped, I might see something that told me it was what I'd heard it was. I imagined it would be filled with leering old men, handling their equipment, drooling over anyone who happened by.

I believed what I was told. That's the picture I was left with concerning that park. Other boys used it as a warning, “Stay away from Broad Branch Park, or some perv might eat your meat.”

As I first dared to skate on the sidewalk surrounding the park, I saw a kid my age, standing next to a bench, where a guy Pat's age sat with a book. The kid had dark hair and eyes so blue. I could tell the color, when he looked up from the conversation they were having. I knew that kid. Just recently he was always hitchhiking near the high school. Why would he come to the perverts’ park?

As I watched from the cover of a couple of trees, the guy with the book stood up, shook hands with the kid, and they walked toward the woods. The older guy was looking around, but it was early afternoon, and they were the only ones in the park, except for me. I got as close as I dared, but I couldn't see what they were doing. I did want to see. I wanted to know the truth about that park. However, truth was illusive, and while I only went to the park once, I dreamed about that pretty blue-eyed boy going into the woods with the other guy.

I still dreamed about the red-headed boy I'd watched skating in the half pipe. I dreamed about John, Gordo, and I dreamed about Gordo coming to sit between Ralph and me on the lawn at the far corner of the mall. I never dreamed about what Gordo and I did in the bushes. I wasn't sorry. I'd found stuff out, but Gordo had so many faces, I heeded his warning not to get in over my head, not then, anyway.

I still listened to what people said about half the time. The other half, seemed to be made up on the fly. I wondered, if I'd had the nerve to walk up to that blue eyed boy in the park, what he'd say, if I said, “I saw you going into the woods with some dude. What was that all about? I figured out what his answer would be. 'Oh, that was my uncle. He's a biologist. We were discussing flora.'

I typed innocuous words at the beginning and at the end of each paragraph I wrote. Should my parents one day find my journal, they might mistake it for the gym class nonsense. I was still living under their roof, but I needed to write down things that seemed important to me. Later on, I could go back and read what I

I had thoughts I didn't necessarily want anyone else to know I had, because they might sound contradictory, shallow, and a little crazy. I'd noticed there was a lot of that going around, even in California. People were definitely more open, and they said things I'd never say to a stranger, but who would I talk to about my sexual proclivities?

Tell a friend, 'I dreamed I was sucking you off last night,” and you'd be minus one friend, and he'd probably broadcast the news.

Say, 'I dreamed I was sucking a guy off last night,' to a stranger, and he might say, 'Why dream. We can go somewhere to make your dreams come true.'

I closed the file and logged off my computer. I couldn't turn off my brain. I thought back to Pat and Gordo, and the memories they'd brought back to me. I understood that I was figuring out who I was, and where I belonged in a sexual context. Something that seemed so black and white a few months ago, were now alive with possibilities. I'd kept everything to myself back home, and now I was feeling my way around my sexual identity, and opportunities were everywhere.

I never went back to Broad Branch park, because seeing a boy I knew, or at least had seen around my school, made me realize, someone who knew me from school could just as easily see me there and what I was thinking about the blue-eyed kid, they'd think about me. I found out the truth about that park. I was almost certain that was why I'd gone there, but I still wondered about it.

The truth was, a guy my age, and a man not that much older than me, were practicing their particular perversion at a time that I was told, “Just say ‘no.’” I didn't want to rush back to see more, although I wish I had seen more, while I was there. In my dreams, I did see more. I saw everything. In my dreams I saw the opposite of what I imagined the man was doing to the boy that day.

It was all too new, too rude, too straight and to the point, for me to gain any understanding of the meeting between the man and boy. At the same time as my experience with Broad Branch Park, I was running around with Tally Bowls. I'd gone by her house one time, but she was out with her mother. Her father invited me in, because I was Tally's friend, and he was a nice man.

Somehow we got to talking about him only having the one child. Most of my friends had a brother or a sister. Everyone I knew, except for Tally and me.

As I sat at the kitchen table drinking a glass of tea he fixed for me, I asked him about it.

“Do you ever wish you had a son?” I asked.

“A son,” he said. “No, my wife and I only wanted the one child. If it had been a boy, I'd have been fine with it, but I'm glad it was a girl. Boys are complicated.”

"Huh? Boys are complicated? I thought girls were complicated. Boys like sports and games, and hangin' out. That's pretty basic."

"Yeah, it is, but then, you get to what's going on behind those blank expressions on their faces. Girl's needs are fairly basic. Girls are direct and simple. Girls will pretty much spell out what's on their mind. Boys are this jumble of confusion and contradictions. They're laughing one minute, mad as a hornet the next,” he said.

“Boys are all hormones, grossness, and then, there's their confusion about what they actually want, which is nothing like what they say they want. Believe me, I know, I was a boy once, and I wouldn't want to raise one. No offense, Z, you're cool, but I have no idea what's going on behind those eyes,” he said.

It was another wild pitch. How could my friend’s father see the same world I saw and arrive at the conclusion that boys were mysteries. Boys were tough. Boys controlled their own destiny. They knew where they intended to go.

“I thought, all the hair and makeup stuff, it would be a nightmare,” I said. “They need just the right dress, just the right color. It needs to be perfect, before they'll step out of the house.”

“Tally can climb a tree faster than any boy. She's a crack shot with nerves of steel. Tally can wrap a boy around her little finger, and then let go of him before they can get to his car. Tally is smarter than I am. Her thoughts are so sophisticated, I'm convinced she is reincarnated from a scientist or a doctor.”

“Boys look at girls as if they're someone to be worshiped,” I said.

“That's the mistake boys make, because they're clueless. But you see, the hair and makeup come with all girls—most anyway. It's something you need to be aware of and adapt to. It's always the same. They can get quiet, and that's a sign they want to talk. When you think they'll never shut up, that's a sign all is going well. Boys, not a chance. You never know what's on a boy's mind.”

“I never thought of it that way,” I said, because I hadn't. It wasn't what I was told was true, and I began to wonder, how much I was told was true. The truth was elusive, to me anyway.

Boys, for the most part, were an enigma. I never met two alike. They were all different, which seemed odd, because we spend so much time trying to be the same. A boy doesn't want to stand out, be different, or attract attention to himself. We dressed alike, did the same things, but none of us was really alike.

The truth about Broad Branch Park: I hadn't felt at all afraid to go there. Once I had the idea, I went. The truth about Broad Branch Park was, I wanted to be there. I wanted to know what went on in the woods, and I wanted someone to show me how to be gay, or acknowledge some people were gay.

Being a pervert, once you admitted it to yourself, was a matter of choices. Away from that park, you didn't know who the perverts were. I'm not sorry I didn't go back, just as I wasn't sorry about Gordo; but Gordo had been a means to an end, nothing more.

I wouldn't ditch him, because he was the only one I knew who got me to the end of who I was. Because I had to keep that a secret from most people, it left me feeling like I was wrong. It was confusing, because it took me away from my life for long enough to show me I wanted more of that euphoria.

Gordo was the vehicle that took me back to Broad Branch Park. I'd gone there to find out what it was that kept me on edge about who I was. I didn't go back, but I wanted to go back. I wanted to go back and go in the woods with the kid with stunning blue eyes. I knew he and I were alike, except he did something about it, while I only imagined it. How did he get so bold?

There had to be a way to know a pervert from a regular guy, but if there was one, I didn't know how. That guy was just sitting there reading his book. He seemed like a regular guy. Then, the boy walked up, and he looked like a regular kid, until they went into the woods together.

Maybe they just wanted to talk. You believe that one, and I got some swamp property I'll sell you cheap. Has an incredible view, too. You can never have too much swamp property.

I became afraid to write these thoughts down. I became afraid not to write these thoughts down.

* * * * *

After we had left Pat's, who could have been the guy in that park with the book, I stayed close behind Gordo, waiting for some sign of what was on his mind now.

As quick as Gordo hit the parking lot, his skateboard slammed down, and he was off like a shot.

I had trouble keeping up, as he zipped out in between cars, propelling himself along the edge of the street on a downhill stretch, where he picked up speed. The traffic wasn't heavy, but I spent more time looking over my shoulder than I did watching Gordo. I was sure someone was going to run right over me.

Once I saw no more cars behind me, I looked ahead to see a transit bus forced out into the oncoming lane to avoid running over Gordo. Its horn blared, as Gordo skated around parked cars, picking up speed on a downhill run, as the bus struggled to get around him.

Gordo's suicide run didn't impress me. I wasn't going to try to keep up. I'd had just about enough of Gordo for one afternoon. I needed to slow down. I needed to slow my life down. The thought came to me—Gordo is crazy.

I know one guy in California who knows my secret, and he's looney tunes. I watched from the sidewalk a half-block away. At the first cross street, Gordo cut across the back of one car, barely clearing the car that followed the first car. Once again, horns blared. Brakes screeched. Tire rubber was added to what was already in the intersection.

Stopping cars brought traffic to a standstill. Drivers were yelling, as Gordo tipped his skateboard up onto the sidewalk and left the chaotic scene behind. I could hear the clacking of his skateboard as he stayed on the sidewalk for the next block. The sound and Gordo were soon gone.

I watched until he went out of sight, and then I was on my way to somewhere else. He probably wouldn't even remember that I was with him, When he got to where he was going, which could be anywhere. Who could know what he had on his mind?

As for me, I was happy being alive, and I was in no hurry to go anywhere, though where I'd been had me wound so tight I didn't know if I'd ever unwrap myself from the images that were forever recorded inside my brain. I didn't want such trashy behavior to turn me on, but it had.

I'd never seen anything like what I'd just seen, and I don't mean

the movie none of us watched. Neither Gordo nor Pat seemed to care much that another guy was sitting there watching what they did. Gordo was dangerous and not just with his skateboard.

I wondered if that was why he took me up there. Did he realize I wanted to do just what he got done? Was this his way of letting me know or was it just another of those random events that leads you to the next crossroad?

I wanted to think that I could never do such a thing, especially with someone watching. Pat had no idea why he was doing what he was doing, except he had to do it; and Gordo—I doubt he thought beyond the feel-good that went with having his dick swallowed by a pro.

It was then that the image of the blue-eyed dreamboat, going into the woods with the man at Broad Branch Park, came back to me. Is what I just saw Gordo doing with Pat's mouth, what the boy did to the older man's mouth?

I couldn't visualize it until now, because I didn't know anything. What I saw in the park, I could see the man's shoulders, I couldn't see the blue-eyed boy. This made it hard to visualize the blue-eyed boy having Gordo's role in whatever was going on out of my view.

Gordo and I had done it, and I was happy we did. Doing it, and watching it being done, were different angles on the same act of lust. Seeing it being done told me more than I had learned from going a round with Gordo. Watching it being done gave me a better idea of how to do it.

Which way would I be going, when all was said and done? I didn't write that thought down in my journal. It was too vague, an incomplete thought.

I couldn't wait to get to California, because I knew my destiny was here. Now, I wasn't sure that I'd end up doing the thing that seemed trashy to me, when I first watched it.

It was completely incongruous, because, Pat was married, and Gordo wasn't gay. I was gay. I didn't think I wanted to be on either end of what Pat and Gordo did, even if it did arouse me. I was sure that lots of things aroused people, but they didn't go out and do them, simply because they were aroused, did they?

I was both repulsed and attracted to the same event. Maybe I was crazy, and if I was, Gordo and I might be made for each other. If everyone was as confused as I was, how did anyone figure out what to do with whom?

* * * * *

The following week, after breakfast, I mowed two lawns and trimmed the shrubs which bordered Mrs. White's yard. I was making good money, but how long do you need to wait for the grass to grow, and shrubs you do twice a year. I needed a real job, although my mission to figure out what went where with whom, had me less than anxious to tie my days up. I was afraid I'd miss something.

I figured I'd made some progress on the being gay thing. I didn't know why there weren't books that explain the different ways people are gay. If you accept the proposition that all boys are horny all the time, all you need is to read up on what you do, once you accept that proposition, except no books did that.

I'd seen thousands of people shot, knifed, blown up, run down, and corpses galore, in every popular Hollywood production. I'd seen exactly two guys get it on together. Now, as inexperienced as I am, I've got to figure more guys do it together, than get shot, knifed, and etc., etc., but you can't turn on the TV without being exposed to the mayhem.

If someone on television says the word, 'Fuck,' stations get fined thousands of dollars. People scream bloody murder, and demand the fucker be banned from the airways for all time, to protect the innocent ears of their progeny. Hey, blow up a few hundred guys, gun down your wife, burn down the gay guy's house, who lives down the street, it's all cool. Just don't you dare say fuck. Was I crazy, or was our culture so fucked up they couldn't see their own insanity?

I once again saw Pat, stuffed full of Gordo, and the money that changed hands. That wasn't a job, and it wasn’t. Well, it probably was in the category of what you did if you were horny, but the way I saw it, Gordo should have paid Pat for taking care of the problem. For him it was at least for ten or twenty minutes. It left a sour taste in my mouth, and not because i did that to Gordo. It wasn't for me. Now if I could read about what was out there, I'd decide what was for me, or did you have to do stuff, before you knew which way your desires leaned?

Who was it that made sex so complicated?

By that time, I'd managed to skate over to Alisha Jensen's house. She'd gone with her mother to visit a sick aunt, or something like that. Alisha was cool, and she had a swimming pool in her backyard. That made her very popular with the local boys, who hung out by her pool.

I wanted to check to see if she was home yet, and when the next pool party would be held. I needed someone I didn't want to jump, to talk to, and it didn't hurt that when Alisha's parents were away, the guys skinny dipped. I'd only been there once, but there were a couple of guys that totally did it for me. Seeing boys naked was my second favorite thing.

It was maybe three in the afternoon by then, and it was quiet at the front door. I skated up to the front door, setting my board to one side, and I knocked. I heard some rustling inside, but no one answered. The curtain parted at the front window, and just as I was about to knock again, the door swung open.

“Z,” Mr. Jansen said. “What brings you by on a pleasant Saturday afternoon?”

“I was just checking to see if Alisha was home,” I said.

“No, won't be back until next week, I'm afraid,” he said.

He was dressed in blue shorts that looked more like boxer shorts. I was a little flustered when I check to see if I got a view of anything.

"Oh! I'm sorry. I…,” I said, at a loss for words.

“Try back next week, Z,” he said, ready to close the door, but someone else was there.

"Hey, we going to get this done, or what?"

He was a rough-looking kid, a little older than me. He had a pair of white socks on and white briefs. They were no ordinary briefs. They were stuffed with what could only be an erect penis that was barely contained. The boy’s chest was hairless, and it had a nice design. His arms were maybe a bit thicker than mine. He was maybe a year or two older than me, but I only caught a glance of him..

“...uh,” I said, looking the boy over.

He was feeling himself through his tighty-whities.

I couldn't move.

“Ah,” Mr. Jansen said. “My nephew's here, and he's trying on some clothes. Try back next week.”

I stood staring at the closed door. I thought about how crazy it was that I'd just seen the father of one of the only girls I knew, in what I'd call a compromising situation. I was dumbfounded. What were the rules, anyway?

The door had closed slowly. I was sure Mr. Jensen was right then seeing his life flash in front of his eyes. He didn't know if I'd say anything to his daughter. I wouldn't, but he didn't know that. I wasn't looking forward to running into Alisha's father at the next pool party. I'd be sure to keep my swimsuit on.

I wished I could tell him I understood, but I'd be lying. It was another brick in the wall of life. I never thought I came to the Golden State to get an education on people not being what they seemed. Was I simply on a trajectory that had me discovering new and inventive ways people got off.

It didn't keep me from feeling bad for Mr. Jensen. He'd always been nice to me. There had to be an easier way to get lust satisfied, and somehow, I was positive that Mr. Jensen's nephew was Puerto Rican.

* * * * *

Back home, a kid back east, when I was a sophomore in high school, committed suicide. I did my best to imagine what it would be like, being dead. I was alive, and so I kept going through the motions, because I was. If you are dead, well, you do what dead people do, I guess. For the life of me, I could figure out why anyone alive, wanted to be dead. If you were alive, you were supposed to live. I thought.

Why was a kid who was alive, would want to be dead. What happened that made him feel like not living was a better deal. I didn't know the kid. I wish I did, and then I would have helped him. I'd have been nice to him, and we'd have talked about being alive, but I didn't know him, and no one could talk to him now. Why didn't the people who knew him talk to him? Maybe, if I knew him, I wouldn't have known how to talk to him either.

I think that's called empathy. I wanted to help people who needed a friend, or someone to talk to. The problem was, how did you know who needed you?

For some reason, the experience with Pat, and then Mr. Jensen, made me think they might have thought about suicide. I don't know why I thought about the kid who committed suicide.

Other than that, it had been an uneventful week. Not much to write about, but school was just around the corner. I would put in a request to get on the work release program, because you didn't go to school but a couple of hours a day. I guess I needed a job, before I put in the request.

Chapter 8

The Open Book

The next time I saw Gordo, he was lying on the lawn, where we spent a lot of time. It was my first stop, once I got out and about and was looking for skaters. For some reason, that small section of grass at the far corner of the mall was often occupied by one or more skaters. By my third month there, I was beginning to learn most of the skaters’ names.

Gordo had a piece of grass in his mouth and was staring into the clear blue sky, when I skated up.

“What sup?” he said, while not looking at me.

“Not much. I'm surprised to see you here. I've been here two or three times, since the last time I saw you,” I said.

“I know what you're thinking, and you can stop thinking it. I'm not like that,” he said.

“You aren't? Like what?” I asked, before thinking.

“You know. What you saw me doing up at Pat's. You see, I got a crazy part of me,” he said. “That's what that was. When I get crazy like that, I go see Pat. I shouldn't have taken you up there. You shouldn't have seen that, Z.”

“Why not? I won't tell anyone what I saw you doing with Pat. It's none of my business. You tell me one thing, and then, well, you're doing stuff like that. You can see where it might make me suspicious of the things you say, Gordo.”

“Don't get to thinking I'm like that, Z."

"Like what?" I asked again, kicking myself for saying it.

"Faggy! I do what I do. I don't know why I do what I do. I saw Pat looking at my package one day, and I figured I'd tease him, you know. Give him a sniff and then laugh at him, when I walked away. Then he did what you saw him do, and the last laugh was on me. I couldn't stop, until, well, you know until what, Z.”

“Gordo, I don't think you know what you like. I've seen you in action, dude. Admittedly, I'd rather not have seen it..., on one hand, anyway. What you and I do is personal, which worries me now that I saw what I saw, but for the record, if you don't know why you do what you do, Pat's just as confused as you are. For a grown man, his life is a mess.”

“I like girls,” Gordo said. “That's what I'm saying.”

“OK. I'm not arguing that point. You seem to like a lot of things. Mostly it's about getting your dick sucked, which you say girls aren't that keen to do,” I said.

“You're thinking it,” he said.

“Gordo, I got enough trouble keeping my own self straight, and I'm gay, so you can see what a problem that can be. You've got to figure out your own stuff. You say you like girls. So, you like girls. I like girls, and I'm gay. It's OK with me, no matter what you say you are. It isn't my problem. I've got plenty of problems of my own,” I said.

“You horny?” Gordo asked. “If you wore spandex, I wouldn't need to ask.”

“Look, let's take a break. You're way too confusing, Gordo. The fact you are the only California boy I've done it with, makes that hard to say,” I said.

“See, you said it was hard. I figured you were. I can take it or leave it,” he said.

“Mostly take it, from what I've seen,” I said.

Gordo laughed.

“You know who the Beatles are?” Gordo asked.

“My parents have all their albums,” I said.

“Have you ever heard the cut, Helter Skelter?”

“Dude, my parents have all the Beatles albums. Hello. They've got all of John's albums, Paul's albums, George’s albums, and Ringo's album. Yes, I've heard Helter Skelter. I don't like it. It's the least genius thing they did, and way back when, in the 60s, everyone, including other musicians, sat around waiting for what the Fab Four might do next. Helter Skelter is something made up. It didn't exist, until the Beatles existed it. It's not very good.”

“That's me. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Each time one of those riffs run through the song, that's my brain. That's what goes on inside my head,” he said.

“Dude, you really are in trouble,” I said.

He laughed again.

“You want to know why I do what I do, because my brain is helter skelter. My life is those riffs running through that song,” he said. “Ringo has an album? He's a drummer. How does a drummer make an album. Ringo Starr's greatest drum licks?”

No. It's not bad. It's old time music,” I said, trying to explain Sentimental Journey to Gordo with little success.

“You've listened to all the Beatles music?” he asked.

“Yeah. They were at the top of the rock and roll charts for the second half of the 60s. All of the Fab Four went on to have successful solo careers in music,” I said.

“If they were all that good, why'd they break up?” Gordo asked.

“Because there are limits to how far four musical geniuses can travel together. They had to go their own ways in order to keep growing,” I explained. “They stayed together for as long as they could, and then the Beatles were over.”

“In case you're hard of hearing, Helter Skelter is what goes on inside my head. They wrote that song about me.”

“Charles Manson believed they wrote that song for him, and they locked him and his crew up for the rest of their lives,” I said.

“He's that hippie guru guy with all the chicks following him,” Gordo said.

“He was insane. He had insane ideas. He did insane things. Anything else Charles Manson was, merely accompanied his insanity.”

“How do you know this stuff?” Gordo asked.

“When I began listening to my parents' albums from when they were kids, they tried to put those times in context, so I'd understand the power in the music,” I said. “They called it the soundtrack of the 60s, and their favorite rock and rollers made some of the greatest music ever made. The beat of that music was the heartbeat of the 60s.”

“Cool,” Gordo said. “You horny, Z?”

“Your crazy, Gordo,”

Gordo laughed his crazy laugh.

“Helter Skelter,” he sang, imitating the guitar riff from that song.

Why was I attracted to him?

* * * * *

I got up the next morning, and being alone in the house, I went into my parents inner sanctum. There was a thirty-year-old stereo that my mother took to college with her. Above the stereo on shelves my father made for that purpose was the music of my parents’ teens and twenties.

On the shelf with the most prized 60s rock albums were buttons, rolled up posters, and very 60s paraphernalia. On this shelf were the Beatles albums in order of release. They were joined on that sacred shelf by Simon & Garfunkel, Dylan, and the Beach Boys, rock and roll royalty. I knew how precisely I selected a cover and then removed the record to set it carefully on the turntable.

I removed the Beatles White Album, which was actually titled The Beatles, except no one called it that. It was the White Album to the aficionado. When you look at the album, you know why Beatles' fans call it that.

I made sure to put the needle onto the record with all the care a diamond cutter took before making his first precise cut. As albums go, I wasn't as fond of the White Album, as I was of Revolver, Rubber Soul, and Pepper.

I wanted to listen to Back In The USSR first. It was the cut on that album that had the most meaning for me. My mother told me that song is how a Russian spy, leaving America describes it in terms the people in the U.S.S.R. recognize. Before Vietnam, before children were seen and heard, it was a very different America.

My parents told me about it. While my parents were growing up, it was a time of children being seen but never heard from. The music was all bobby socks and peppermints. The father worked; the mother kept house; and you were obligated to have 2.3 kids. I still don't know how that works, but I don't think it is crucial to my future.

But step out of line and not do what was expected of you, you'd find yourself in deep do-do. Our society was up tight, out of sight, and paranoid. From Saturday night until Monday morning, everything in America closed, except for churches. You couldn't buy so much as a quart of milk, until Monday morning.

When the 60s began, before the time of the Beatles, when children were seen, never heard. We lived in a state of religious dominance, which was how politicians and preachers saw freedom of religion. It didn't matter if you were religious or not. You conformed, or else. Sunday was the sabbath.

These were called “blue laws.” No matter if you were Jewish, Muslim, or irreligious, Sunday was the designated day of worship for the Christian God. Huh?

I couldn't imagine living in such a place. Everyone was forced to stop all activity, because some folks worship a Christian God in that way. I could see why my country was ripe for revolution and change.

My history teacher, the one who told us about the second half of the 60s, when the Beatles were king, never mentioned blue laws, or religious dominance over all the people. I guess, he only had so much time. He did tell us that Tom Jefferson said, “The tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots from time to time.” The 60s were such a time.

Being seventeen, my opinions may be suspect, but the 60s had everything to do with the music, and the kids being very visible and very loud. I knew the White Album, The Beatles. It represented how far we'd all come, not just how far the Beatles had come as musicians.

The America of 1968 was a far cry from where it was eight years early, when the Beatles were playing nightly in Hamburg. That was before Brian Epstein turned them into four Liverpudlians in suits. In 1960, the Beatles were raunchy Liverpool hard asses. They wore leather, and while playing for eight hours a stretch, they insulted and fought with the German patrons, who thought they were all having fun, and the Beatles, hardly more than kids, were being honed into grizzled musicians..

Genius obviously fed genius. George Harrison later wrote some of the best post-Beatles songs, the way I looked at it, but they were all geniuses in their own way. As the Beatles, they became the best known musicians in the world. Everything they touched turned to gold for nearly twenty years, until someone put five bullets into John Lennon's back. The dream had ended.

My parents' generation lived with one overriding question the peace and love generation needed answering: “When will the Fab Four reunite?” like all the greatest 60s bands had already done. On December 8, 1980, the question had been answered by a crazed killer with a gun. Paul McCartney, being caught by the press leaving his studio with watering eyes, he was asked the inevitable question reporters pull straight out of their ass.

“How do you feel, Paul?”

Paul's cryptic answer, “Kind of a drag, isn't it?”

After over ten years of separation, the Beatles would never reunite, but as the Fab Four were responsible for an incredible number of top ten hits, albums, along with a staggering compilation of unique musical compositions.

Their accomplishments would have made Bach, Brahms, and Beethoven proud. They had done it in the eight years they recorded as the Beatles, and in the ten years as solo performers. The dream ended as John Lennon a new phase in his career, after five years off.

The Beatles music will live on forever. Icons never die.

I agreed with the boy in Mr. Bowen's class, “Their music is good.”

But the Beach Boys were better, and they were all-American boys. I hadn't looked to see if their phone number was listed under, The Beach Boys, yet.

I listened to Helter Skelter ten times. I listened to the hard riffs. They were insane. I also knew the story of Charlie Manson, the cult leader who had his followers slaughter two families in the Hollywood Hills. On the wall, written in the blood of their victims, they wrote “Helter Skelter” and “Kill the Pigs.” Holding this piece of information out of the news, those words tied the murders to the same people.

“Helter Skelter” no longer belonged to the Beatles. It belonged to Charlie, and it came to represent his killer instinct. By the time I came along, Helter Skelter was once again on the Beatles' play lists.

Helter Skelter had been on my mind all night. I knew the riffs Gordo spoke about, and I could hear them in my head, while I was still in bed without going downstairs to take the White Album down.

While I liked Gordo more than I was willing to admit, I needed someone who was a little less crazy. One day he was going to go skating away from Pat's, or some other gay guys abode, and he was going to skate right into the grill of an oncoming car. You didn't get too close to a kid who admitted he was crazy.

Older guys, guys who know who they are, are easier than guys my age.

“I like girls,” Gordo said to himself, because I wasn't listening. “You want to watch me jump the half pipe?”

“You can't jump the half pipe. It's thirty feet across. You never jumped that in your life,” I said.

“Only because I just thought of it. I bet I could jump it, if I built a ramp.”

“You could break your neck too,” I said.

Why hadn't I gone to Ralph's instead of to the mall?

Gordo looked at me. I hope he didn't take my words as a challenge.

"You really are a virgin?" Gordo asked. “You know how many virgins I know? Zero is how many. We've all done it plenty.”

“I can't be a virgin. I was with you. I had some experiences when I was young, but I hadn't gone through puberty yet, so they don't count,” I said.

“See. Told you,” Gordo said. “No one is virgin. Everyone fools around.”

"Don't we all?”

“Come on,” Gordo commanded. “ We'll stop at Macky D, and I'll get us some egg MacMuffins.

“It's lunch time," I said, checking my watch.

"You don't know nothin'. You like Egg MacMuffins?"

"Sure, but it's lunch time," I explained again.

He laughed and his board collided with the asphalt, and he was off and running again. This time he looked back and timed the cars more precisely so they didn't need to slam on their brakes to miss him. I still couldn't keep up even when he skated sanely. Gordo was like a live wire.

He was always hot. He was always on. He was always going full tilt. I wondered how long it took a live wire to burn itself out. I wondered how stupid you had to be to grab hold of a live wire.

Maybe it was his craziness that was part of the attraction. Everyone wants to grab hold of a live wire once, just to see what it's like.

We sat in front of McDonald's eating MacMuffins and drinking coffee.

He had a sack full, and we couldn't eat them all. He gave the bag with two still left in it to an old homeless guy he called “Shep.” It made me wonder even more about the brash boy.

He knew a guy who took all the Egg MacMuffins off the rack at eleven. He put them in a paper bag, in case Gordo happened by, looking for them. He had to pay for the coffee, the bag came over the counter with the coffee. They weren't as hot as I like my MacMuffines, but I'm not complaining. I don't know the guy's story who handed him the bag, but I bet it was a good one.

"Want to go to the Record Hut with me?" He asked.

"Sure," I said, before thinking about the consequences.

We were off again. I stayed about a block behind. It was all downhill once we reached Grossmont. I kept up with him. Soon we were looking up at the big red sign, Record Hut sign.

He nodded with his head for me to follow, and he walked into the store like he was the second coming. He went directly to where he knew the album would be. Marching, with me in tow, to the counter, smiling real big, like the Cheshire cat's grin.

The clerk smiled back, and it was obvious he was happy to see old Gordo.

"Hey, bub, want to make me a deal on this here CD?" He said in a covert voice.

The boy was tall and willowy. His hair was so blond it shined. He had the biggest blue eyes and the worst case of acne. He leaned with his elbows on the counter and surveyed the lean boy in front of him.

"Gordo, you know I can't do that."

He used his eyes to indicate something or someone was at the back of the store. Gordo smiled and nodded that he got the message.

"Oh, you can do anything you want, Jamie. You de man."

"You're going to get me into trouble," the boy said, looking around at the door in the back. “He's going to lunch. He's just went into the back to wash up. He'll leave in about five minutes. Hang around until he's gone.”

“You know I'm here to help you make it through the day, big guy. I told you it isn't my specialty, but for you, since you're good to me,” Gordo said lasciviously.

“Go look at albums, will you?” Jamie said. “I'll close the shop, once he's gone. We can, you know.”

Jamie' eyes caught sight of me, bringing up the rear, and he was confused. I'd seen that look on a lot of faces Gordo came closest to.

"I can do you some good, you know," Gordo said, leaning one arm up against the pole by the register and letting his other hand move up over the cashier's bare forearm. They both watched the fingers slip up the sleeve of the loose fitting shirt.

"Gordo, stop now! You know what that does."

A door slammed back deep in the store, and a little red sports car sped past the side of the store. Pausing before it turned onto the main drag.

"Your lips say ‘stop,’ but your dick is saying ‘go.’ What can you do for me now that I done that for you?" Gordo sounded, absolutely evil with sex.

It rang $9.99. The price on the case was $12.99. Gordo smiled and took the sack from the smiling boy. He watched us as we exited the store.

"You're terrible," I said.

"Yeah, your lips say I'm terrible, but your shorts say I'm not all that bad," Gordo said, turning on me with a hostile look, as I checked my pants for any sign of excitement. There was none that I could tell. How did he know?

There was something exciting about how Jamie reacted to Gordo. For Gordo it was all play, but for Jamie, it was serious business. The bulge in his pants said so.

"Why do you do stuff like that?"

“Go ask Jamie how terrible I am, after I've screwed him for a half an hour or so. I don't even do that, and I do it out of the goodness in my heart, because it's all he likes. He wouldn't suck a dick on a bet,” Gordo said. “He says he's straight.”

“You do it so he gives you a CD you want,” I said.

“You don't think I shouldn't get something for making him happy? Life don't work that way,” Gordo said. “You take what you can get. Jamie can get CDs, and I can get Jamie.”

“Sex isn't something to be bought and sold,” I said.

“Man, you ever born in the wrong century. Sex is all about buying and selling. Take it where you can get it. Treat people nice; they treat you nice is all that I'm saying. Jamie's a sweet guy. When no one is there, we go in the back, and the CDs are free." Gordo said, laughing.

I'd never met anyone who looked at life the way Gordo did. I realized that he wasn't good for me, but how did I break the hold he had on me?

Chapter 9

Head On

We'd left Jamie high and dry. He watched us longingly, as Gordo headed for the door with me in tow. I knew this, because I looked back to see the expression on Jamie's face, while Gordo was getting away. His hopes of a mid-day interlude with the stud in his dreams slipped away. Jamie was every bit as straight as Pat.

"You have a stereo?" I asked as we walked our boards back up the

hill.

He started laughing. I failed to see the humor in it. It was a

simple question.

"It's for my girl. I give her the CD and she gives me…. you get

the idea. Treat people nice, they remember you at Christmas, or when they're horny and want a good time."

I did get the idea. Before I knew it we were behind the mall and there was this huge staircase in front of us. He sat on the bottom step and took the CD from the bag and read both sides.

"So you went up there to get money to buy a CD, so you can screw your girlfriend?" I asked, trying to put the pieces together.

I'd seen him with Pat, and I saw Pat hand Gordo something, after he left Pat's lap. I figured that something was money, which made the entire sequence even more bizarre. Who does that?

"My girlfriend'll screw me without me giving her anything. I like giving her stuff. Pat's cool. He likes me. You don't understand all this do you?"

"No!" I said, looking at his curvy lips. "It seems like the long way around to me. You have some kind of sexual connection to everyone you know, Gordo."

“I do, don't I! Maybe it's genetic, do you think?”

“I'm just along for the ride. I stopped thinking miles ago,” I said, but Gordo represented my only experience so far, and I wanted to put it behind me.

He wasn't handsome. He was skinny. He didn't have all that much to offer anyone, that made his craziness acceptable, but there was something about him I really liked. He had this way of making me feel alive. Alive in a way I'd never felt alive before. I thought quite often about the first day we met. I remembered how much better it was, being with someone, than I imagined it would be. I remembered who taught me that, too, and I couldn't let go.

"You like Pat?" Gordo asked, spitting in a high arch as some people came down the steps and stepped gingerly around us.

"He's fine. Not the way you mean. I don't know him."

"You didn't know me," he reminded me.

"I still don't. Why'd you buy me breakfast?"

"It was lunch time. How could I buy you breakfast?" Gordo asked.

He used my words against me, proving, once again, how much I knew..

"You know what I mean. You rich?"

He laughed easy like, and then there was this serious look that came on his face. He looked at me carefully, like he was thinking about what I had said.

"I suppose I am. What I am is free. I didn't buy you anything. I know a guy in MacDonald. He saves stuff for me instead of dumping it. No skin off his nose. If you treat people right, you're rich beyond your wildest dreams."

"You mean if you give them what you want, they give you what you want?"

"Be nice and people are nice to you. That way you got everything. Rich beyond your wildest dreams, Z. It takes no more energy to be nice, than it does to be mean. No future in being mean, you know. I guess I'm rich, in a manner of speaking. I know how to get what I want,” Gordo said. “It don't take money to get it either.”

“Except when you need to by a CD to get your girlfriend to come across.”

“I live in a culvert over near Santee. No stereo. My old man's a military drunk. Worst kind. He comes home and if I want to live, I leave. He busted my arm when he came home when I was seven; my jaw when he came home when I was nine; and kicked me down the stairs after he came home when I was eleven. I started to see a pattern, you know. I split."

"Fuck!" I said, trying to get my arms around it.

No one could get their arms around that. It was a wonder Gordo could sit up and take nourishment. If anyone had a right to be a little crazy, it was Gordo. My parents were good people. I couldn't even imagine what Gordo just told me.

Gordo had once again changed the equation. As much as his craziness was a turnoff, how could he not be crazy? I had parents who loved me beyond any reason I gave them to do that. It's the way they were, and I suppose it's the way they were treated as kids, but Gordo had no expectation of kindness, and he had to be thinking up ways to avoid his father, before he was old enough to finish being a kid, and that sucked bit time. It made me think of Helter Skelter. That was Gordo's life so far. How would he be able to survive, once his looks and his willingness to do anything no longer worked.

"I hang around for my mother when he ain't around, but he's been home a year now without leaving."

He checked me out carefully and leaned back and placed his elbows on the step behind him.

"Get the horrified look off your face. Shit happens, and I'm way better off living on the street. I'm not always waiting to see what my old man might break next. If he didn't like me when I was ten, he sure as hell has no use for me at nineteen. I'm used to being on the street. I couldn't live inside. I couldn't live like Pat. At least I don't get no bones broke less I break 'em. We take care of each other. It's where my life is at present."

"We?"

"Yeah, there's Benny, and Tim, and Zack, Gene, who goes with Peggy, Ace, Dart, and from time to time Ralph, and John, who lives with his girlfriend some. Sometimes, and Brenda on weekends when she don't want to stay home. We look out for each other."

"You really live in a culvert?"

"Z, you don't make shit like that up. I live in a culvert up under a bridge, and no I ain't no troll or goblin or whatever lives under bridges."

"I know that," I objected.

“Well, quit looking at me like I am," he said, glancing at me a couple of times before looking out at the trolley tracks. “I got every right to be as crazy as I want to be.”

"I'm sorry,” I said. “What can I do?"

It had changed everything. I knew Gordo was a lot tougher than I figured him for, and yet he had a way with people I'd never seen. He was this sweet little kid that grew up way too fast. He certainly knew his way around people. I guess you had to if you wanted to survive on the street.

"Sorry for what? You didn't kick me down the stairs. Quit getting your panties in a bunch, will eauh? I only told you ‘cause I like you. Now you're going to look at me like I'm a geek. Right?"

"I'm not," I argued. “It explains a lot, Gordo. You're the first guy I ever did it with. You think I can just walk away from that. I had a thousand guys that I might have done it with, and I never did, until I did it with you,” I said.

“I'm pretty good, huh,” he bragged.

“I'm still hanging around you, in spite of how crazy you act. You scare me. You're going to get yourself killed, Gordo,” I said.

“I scare myself, Z. I'm going along fine, and then, suddenly, I'm this runaway train. I can't stop. I know I'm crazy, but I try to act normal,” he said.

Gordo wasn't normal. How could he be normal?

"Well, now you know. I get it out right off, if I like someone.

Don't see no sense in wasting time, you know. People going to judge you wrong, I want to know it right out. I say where I am so you know. I don't lie, and I won't steal if there's any way to avoid it. Then I only takes from those what gots plenty."

“Like Pat?"

"Lord, no. Pat's my friend. He needs to give me money to make the deal complete for him. Relieves his guilt."

"Guilt because you're so young?"

"Guilt because I'm so male. This really isn't an act, is it? Are you pulling my leg?"

"I don't think so."

"I usually find something I need before I go over there. Gives credibility to when I ask him, so he doesn't need to offer it first. Which is how it worked the first few times, but then I figured out how to make it easier on both of us. We're all just trying to make it, Z. It's the self-righteous assholes that make it hard on those of us who start with nothing. I'd pull myself up by my bootstraps, you know, but I can't afford boots. You know how many times I'd have to visit Pat to be able to buy boots?"

I laughed. He laughed, because he made me laugh. I had no idea how people could be so mean to other people. I didn't know anyone who was mean to me. I knew people who ignored me, but that was a different kind of mean.

“You're a good person at heart, Gordo. Why didn't your mother do something?”

“Why do you ask so many questions? I do what comes to mind. I got certain ways of doing things, which work for me, but I don't have a reason for everything I do. I don't know why I do half the stuff I do. It seems like a good idea at the time. Other times, I'm out of control. No one has to tell me that. I know it. You apparently don't, because you're still hanging around me!”

There was crazy, and there there was CRAZY.

“Because I like you. I've never met anyone like you. Because I'm curious.”

“That makes sense,” Gordo said.

“Your girlfriend?” I asked.

"She's something else. She likes me. She don't know all this shit. I like her. I don't want her to know my father tried to drown me in the toilet. It's not a thing a girl should hear, you know,” Gordo said.

“I took you along so you'd have a place to go if you need something like that. You look like you’re wrapped a little tight, Z. You need to learn to loosen up. Pat can do that for you, and if you need something, after you give him what he wants, he'll see you get what you want. That way he isn't paying for it. He's of an age he don't want to think the only he can get what he wants is to buy it. We'll all get that old one day,” Gordo said.

“How old is he?” I asked.

“He says twenty-eight. I'm sure he's thirty. He's old. Even his old lady won't stay with him,” Gordo said. “When I go there, I make his day.”

“I'll take your word for it,” I said.

“It's not like I didn't see you watching him,” he said.

"I wasn't looking at him,” I said, feeling a bit weird saying it.

“Hard to take your eyes off me sometimes, isn't it?” Gordo asked.

“I am still caught on the idea that you were my first,” I said. “That's special.”

"Anyone showed you the tube?"

"No," I said.

"Come on," he said, grabbing his board and racing up the steps to the rear of Grossmont Mall.

I picked up my board and started up the long staircase after him.

I was winded, once I reached the top of the stairs. Gordo was waiting for me. As soon as my head appeared, I heard Gordo's board hit the surface of the parking lot. He was skating away from me by the time I was in the parking lot.

He wasn't skating at breakneck speed, and I caught up with him. We crossed the road, but the light was green, and we had the right-of-way this time. I saw where we were going, before we got there.

What they called the tube was this huge sewer pipe that had to be twelve feet high. It hadn't rained since I'd been there, but I knew how once it did rain, all the rivers and streams overflowed in nothing flat. Then, the next day it looked like it hadn't rained in about a hundred years.

It was the tube that funneled the water off the hill, where Grossmount Plaza sat. The biggest park of the parking lot sloped down toward the trolley tracks at the bottom of the stairs. At the bottom of the hill were the halfpipes I'd seen skaters using. If a storm dumped a tire or trash, where skaters skated, I'm sure they were happy to move it, if it was in their way, because ninety-nine percent of the time, the halfpipes were dry as a bone. After years of water flowing over the surface, it smoothed it out, but nothing smoothed out sidewalks.

I didn't know if the tube ever filled up, but it was at the back of the Plaza.

It and the parking lot all slanted down in that direction, so a lot of water would run off quick if it rained hard.

Inside the tube on one side was a platform that stood three feet high and was maybe three feet wide.

"Where I sleep is like this. We're up off the ground if it rains.

Our blankets and stuff will stay dry. Try it out. It's an extra firm," he said, lying down on the concrete.

I leaped up and lay down beside him. “Hard” wasn't the word for it.

It really got hard once I felt his hand on me. At first it shocked me, but he got my attention, big time. I thought about our last time, and it made me smile. This time was different. He moved beyond my reach before I thought to reach for him. I remembered what he said about guys returning the favor, only it wasn't like that this time. On purpose, I suspected.

I suppose everyone should know what it's like to get your knob polished. I never had a clue, not that I knew much about this kind of stuff. It took my breath away at first, but then I didn't care if I ever breathed again or not. I pictured Gordo sitting in the chair with Pat and I remembered what it looked like. The look on Gordo's face, the way their bodies moved, how they both became part of it. I was sure I felt just like he looked, and I understood.

He was amazing. As I learned more about Gordo, I worried a little less about the things he said. Gordo, like most boys, was full of contradictions and testosterone. Like everyone, he wanted to love, and to be loved. Lonely was no place to be. After so much madness, I wasn't lonely, if I was with Gordo. No matter what else went on, at a moment like this, it was as good as anything in my life had ever been. He may not do it, but he did it for me, and that afternoon in that huge pipe, was definitely going to make it into my journal.

When he got me about as far as I could go, I tried to get control, stop him, warn him, something, anything. Instead I did nothing. Well, I can't really say nothing because I about blew a gasket as I unloaded on him like I'd never unloaded before. It was like falling off a cliff, and rocketing into the sky at the same time. Then, my parachute allowed me to drift gently back to earth, and it took place in a split second, while lasting for hours.

What Gordo was faced with was like the heavy rains that ran off the parking lot above, before rushing down to meet the half pipes that ran below the hill. The tube was ten or twelve feet wide and way high, but the halfpipes were pretty wide, and ten feet deep. They could carry an immense amount of water, keeping it from flooding the roads and nearby communities.

I figured there had been a lot of flooding, before they came up with the idea of digging the channels to guided the water to the Pacific, a dozen miles away. The Pacific Ocean could hold all the water that ran into it, but nothing could channel the flood that Gordo inspired me to unleash. I was amazed by how my climax seemed to last forever.

I began to understand what Gordo was after at Pat's. Only for me, Gordo being down there, doing that, was ten times better than anything anyone had done for me.

The first time he did that, I was way too nervous. I worried I was too small, I might not respond the right way, or he just wouldn't like me enough to want to do it again, but I didn't know what he expected, but I got more pleasure than I knew existed in the entire universe.

"So, now you know it all," he said, carrying his board as we walked back up into the bottom of the parking lot. "Everything about me."

"It was incredible. I felt so helpless. I mean I never expected you to...." I shut up, before I said too much.

"I don't do that, so don't expect it every time we're together, Z.”

“I won't,” I said. “I didn't know anything could be that..., wonderful,” I said.

“I don't do that for just anyone, you know,” Gordo said.

“Have you ever done that to Pat?” I asked, thinking guys might return the favor, once in a while, if they weren't too straight.

“Pat? No way. I mean, if I did, he wouldn't want anything to do with me after that. For him, he is living a fantasy. He pretends he's straight, and he pretends he doesn't like sucking guys off, but the man can swallow a dick. He's not looking for happy returns. He wants the arrangement like it is,” Gordo said.

“Because he thinks he's straight?” I asked.

“He knows he's gay. He simply likes doing guys that want something from him. He does what he wants to do, and then he pays you for allowing him to do it. It's complicated, Z. People can't simply ask for what they want. It has something to do with the fear of rejection, and like that.””

“I suppose it takes time to figure out how people work,” I said.

“You'll be fine, Z. Give it a little time, and you'll figure it out,” he said.

This time, when he dropped his board on the asphalt, I knew he was off for parts unknown, and I followed at my own peril. I wasn't invited, and I watched him grow smaller, as he skated around the corner of the building. He left me with a lot to think about.

I knew, the more I was around him, the more I liked him. Knowing about his father changed everything.

Chapter 10

Clandestine Skaters

When I headed up to the mall each morning, it was with the hope of hooking up with Gordo. I was determined to give him some highlights of his own to think about, when he thought about me. I ended up looking in all the shops, and I didn't have a sighting of Gordo, or anyone else to talk to.

Lots of guys walked inside the mall with their boards in hand, but they were

usually in packs, and many had giggly girls under possessive arms. They were too busy impressing the girls to notice me, although I'd seen most of them before.

By the end of the week I figured Gordo had taken off for parts unknown. That's when I went to hang with the early arrivals behind the mall on one of the small patches of grass. These boys weren't nearly as interesting to me as they had been before Gordo showed me the ropes, but a guy can only take alone for so long, and if Gordo was hardly ever around, what good was he to me? It was time to do something else for a while. I needed to be around guys.

Once they got accustomed to seeing me, they'd be easier to engage in conversation, but I'd met enough boys, that I should run into guys I Knew. I didn't know where everyone got off to. It was the heat of the summer, and El Cajon could get into the 90s, and on some days, over a hundred. Maybe the skaters I knew were at the beach, surfing the days away.

The younger guys smoked cigarettes, cursed constantly, and drank when someone could come up with booze, which was always carried in a brown

paper bag. They talked about girls they all knew, telling the most intimate details of any sex act she was rumored to have performed in this lifetime or any other. They talked of parties and drugs and orgies where girls gave guys all they wanted.

These boys were younger than me. Most weren't much older than Ralph, but Ralph was a mature soul compared to these early teenagers, who thought that the more gross the story, the more mature they sounded. There was a sharp divide, between these skaters in their early teens and the older skaters. The two groups did not hang around each other, and now I knew why.

I suppose my friends and I went through a period of grossness, but for the life of me, I didn't remember being that obnoxious back home. However, these kids were excessively gross, and I was only a couple years older than the oldest of these.

Progress was slow and I yawned a lot. Alone was far better than becoming a joke around the people I needed to know. Ralph came and sat beside me, and he was likable enough, but when he saw some other twinks, he was off like a shot.

Alone again, not so naturally. I wanted to know Ralph's story, but I was afraid he might slap me up side my head with his reality, and I'd not know what to say or how to react. Ralph was definitely a cut above most younger teenagers that I'd known.

* * * * *

I saw Gordo twice the following week but he didn't seem too interested in seeing me. Both times he was gone before I could catch up with him. I thought, perhaps he was in a hurry to get somewhere else. It didn't make much sense. He was the one who always got the ball rolling so why did he run from me. I wasn't going to be too harsh about his slippery escapes since he was the only friend I had, and he represented my entire sex

life to date. I'd give him the benefit of the doubt and hope the next time he waited up for me. I was once more left to feel the move to California had been a mistake.

One clear bright day in the late afternoon with the young guys disappearing from the lawn, the older guys were straggling in one by one. The first two sat and talked with me for a minute, asking me if I was still hanging around, and I explained the bit about relocating recently, but the one month, two months, were now three months, and before I got to the third month, the older skaters were gone, skating off with high fives and ass slaps.

* * * * *

In a weak moment, I stopped at a grocery store with a sign in the window, “stock clerk wanted, apply inside.”

I filled out the application, and Mr. Hitchcock, of Hitchcock's Market, did the interview, staying behind the counter, because he was also the manager, the stock clerk, and the cashier, not to mention the owner of Hitchcock's Market.

“You aren't from around here,” Mr. Hitchcock said.

“No, Massachusetts,” I said. “My parents moved here. My father works in computers. He took a better job in San Diego.”

Mr. Hitchcock listened carefully to every word. He studied my face as I spoke. He wasn't convinced I was his man, but I didn't see a line trying to take some of the work off the man who was older than my father.

He waited for me to finish my answer to the first question.

“I'm from Michigan. Don't know nothing about computers. I've hired three fellows for this job in the last three months. They work fine for two, three weeks, and then they stop coming to work. All three of them just never came back. I even owe two of them money, and that won't get them to come to work,” he said, leaning on the counter with a sigh.

“If I hire you, will you at least stay for a month?” Mr. Hitchcock asked.

“I need a job, and I don't want to sit behind a desk. What does a stock clerk do?” I asked.

“Well, it isn't complicated, Zane,” he said, calling me that name.

“Please don't call me that. No one calls me that. I'm just ‘Z,’” I said firmly.

“I'll call you Moses, if you like, if you'll stay four weeks,” Mr. Hitchcock said.

“Sure thing. What you'll do is mostly stock shelves. Hence, “stock clerk.” When trucks come in, you can help get things off the truck, if you don't have anything to do, and you feel like helping. We also send things out to food banks. Giving me a hand with that would be helpful. I've gotten to the point where I'm almost afraid to ask anyone to do anything, because they stop showing up. It's not hard work. You are on your feet most of the day, but you can sit down if you like. You can't sit down and stock the top shelves, but the lower shelves are easy. I do it, and I'm twice your age.”

He was three times my age. I believed him. How heavy is a can of beans?

“Mr. Hitchcock, if I take the job, I'll show up every day I'm scheduled to work. I'll do whatever you need me to do. If I work for you, I want to be helping you get the things done that I can do. Just don't call me Zane, and I'll keep coming back.”

“Z! I've never had a clerk whose name is a letter. Maybe that's where I've been going wrong. I've always hired guys with names. I should have been looking for a guy with a letter for a name,” Mr. Hitchcock said thoughtfully.

“Well, congratulations. You've found one, when do you need me to start?” I asked.

“I don't suppose you'd be willing to work today?” He asked.

“Dressed like this?” I asked, wearing my shorts and a tank top.

“Sure. I've got an apron you should wear. Doesn't matter what's under it. The apron will keep you from ruining your clothes. You'll just ruin an apron, and I buy them by the gross. It's a slow day, and I can show you what I want you to do. You can check up and down the isles to find where things go. You learn by experience. Once you find out where to put stuff, there's nothing to is,” he said.

“I'll take your word for it,” I said, and I took an apron from him, after filling out the required forms so Uncle Sam could dip his beak into my meager salary.

“My father will be stopping around in a day or two, Mr. Hitchcock. He's cool, but he's going to tell you, 'Z is a good boy. I want you to treat him fairly. He'll do his job the way you tell him. He'll show up for work on time, and he'll stay late if you need him. I want him treated fairly, and you won't be sorry you hired him.’”

“Your father must care a lot for you,” Mr. Hitchcock said.

“Yes, he does,” I said. “I've got good parents. I'm lucky.”

“Can I ask you a question, Z?”

“Yes, sir. Shoot,” I said.

“I believe you, when you say you have good parents, but why did they name you Zane?”

“My mother's maternal grandfather was named Zane. They promised her grandmother, if they had a boy, they'd name him Zane.”

“She must be old. They could have told her they named you Zane, and then named you Dick or Tom,” Mr. Hitchcock reasoned.

I laughed. I liked him, and I reserved my opinion on adults as a rule.

* * * * *

I didn't catch site of Gordo for a while, which was better than seeing him and having him skate the other way. Having had him more completely explain his life, did make me more sympathetic to him. I would never skate the other way if he were coming toward me, but Gordo was obviously telling me something.

I spent most days at work learning about the grocery business from Mr. Hitchcock. It wasn't hard, except when the trucks came with the things we sold. I needed to stop what I was doing and help the driver unload whatever he was carrying for us. Most trucks carried a few dozen cases of products, but twice a week, we got the canned goods and dairy products, and each day we got fresh produce, which meant everything from mushrooms to avocados.

Back home, I did yard work, and I answered the called, when one of our older neighbors needed something moved, or their gutters cleared of leaves, before the rain season set in. My father bought me a riding lawn mower for our El Cajon yard, and now, the hedge cutters were electric. Life had improved.

Once I had been at Hitchcock's market for a week, I brought Mr. Hitchcock the forms my parents had already signed. My schedule at school would be worked around the hours, when I was most needed at work. The humdrum classes were eliminated from my schedule. Except for the few credits I needed to graduate, my days would mostly be about work, which was fine with me, and Mr. Hitchcock. He was smiling, and he began to hum, as he signed the paper with a flourish.

“This pretty much makes it official, Z. I think it means that you're staying.”

“It does,” I said, happily.

It was my first real job, and it wasn't difficult. At times you worked for a couple of hours with no break, but the time sped by, and stocking shelves, and putting up produce allowed me to move around, and kept me busy.

When I was there later in the day, which I was for the first few days, because Mr. Hitchcock was going over my responsibilities. At first, what I had to do seemed endless, but as each day passed, the tasks became second nature, and I moved from one job to the next, without being told.

After sticking with me for much of the time, that first week, Mr. Hitchcock backed off. He was there one minute, as I was setting boxes in the rows, where I'd unload them. Once I got the boxes where they belonged, I opened the first one, and I began stocking the shelves.

I looked around for Mr. Hitchcock. He was right here a minute ago. Where'd he get to. When I shifted on the box to look toward the front of the store, he was standing at the end of the row smiling.

“You're doing fine, Z. Don't worry about me. If you have a question, just yell. I'll be right there. You're a quick learner. Nothing else to teach you for now.”

I smiled at him. I didn't smile at adults. It just wasn't something I felt comfortable doing. I never knew what they were thinking, and rather than risk it, if they didn't say anything to me, I pretended they weren't there.

Mr. Hitchcock was a patient man. He never once raised his voice, or called me out for not doing something right. He told me to do things my own way. It was my job, and doing it the way that was easiest for me was fine. If there was something I needed to do differently, he'd tell me. The day I stopped to ask about the sign in the window at Hitchcock's,Market, was a good day for me.

My first job was a keeper, and I enjoyed almost everything I did, because it all accomplished something I could see. Nothing pleased me more than having a customer stop near where I was working, and speak to me.

“I'm looking for seasoned large lima beans. My wife was very specific about the name, and I've been looking at pork & beans, black beans, pinto beans, and for the life of me, I can't find seasoned large lima beans.”

“Oh, let me show you. Actually, lima beans are a vegetable. They are with the canned vegetables. Here you go. How many would you like?”

“Oh, thank you. I'd never have found these suckers. Vegetable, huh? I'll try to remember that,” he said, pleased with what I gave him.

Mr. Hitchcock said hello to everyone who came into the store, when he was working the check out, and he often called them by name. They'd always speak to him, and ask how he was. It wasn't really like a job. It was fun.

It was enough variety to make me feel about the exercise it gave me. It wasn't anything like skating for hours each day, but it kept my body in motion. The real challenge were deliveries. I stopped whatever I was doing, once I heard a backup alarm going off. I jumped up, opened one of the two loading dock doors, and I watched the truck easing itself back against one of the bays.

I opened the doors, and the good delivery people had my order secured at the back of the truck. By the time I unstrapped it, he was pointing at where my products stopped, and his next delivery started. Except for canned goods, it took no more than a half hour to stage everything to go into the coolers, or to where we stacked the stock that might not go onto the shelves for a few days.

Mr. Hitchcock's daughter came to work in the afternoon. She checked the customers out, once they were finished shopping. Mr. Hitchcock went to his office to place the next day’s orders, and then he was on the floor helping me put up stock.

The store was maybe half the size of a regular grocery store. There was plenty of room to store the products that went off the shelves the fastest. The busiest time of day was when people were on their way to fix dinner. They’d rush in for milk, bread and an item or two that dinner would require.

At these times, Mr. Hitchcock would go in one direction and send me in another direction and tell me where the item was, as the customer was talking to his daughter while we brought back his dinner items. By the second week, I knew where almost everything was, except I didn't know one cheese from another, so I had to read all the names to find the cheese a customer wanted, and spices. I was learning the names of spices I stocked on the shelves, but a few fresh spices, rosemary, basil, garlic, and cilantro I needed to know on sight. It wouldn't do for a customer to ask for basil and end up with cilantro, but only a few things were mysterious to me, when I went to work at Hitchcock's.

Hitchcock's was about personalized service.

“A customer can go to a big box store and be treated like he isn't there, because everyone is in a hurry, too busy to offer the kind of service we offer. If they're doing their weekly shopping, they take their time moving up and down the isles, seeing what looks and sounds good to them, but when they are in a hurry, and are late getting home to fix dinner, they can come in, say what they're after, and I can get it for them,” Mr. Hitchcock said. “If they know where the products are that they use often, it speeds up their shopping. So, we always make sure each product is in the same spot, whenever possible.”

Instinct told me, you find an empty spot and you unload the cans there, but here one couldn't just find an empty shelf and pile cans on it. Hitchcock's was organized for the customers’ convenience, so if they were in a rush when they came in, they'd leave with what they needed in a minimum of time.

It was easy seeing the logic in this. Having customers meandering around the store, wondering where in the hell the beans were this time, would just keep the isles full but with the sales at a minimum. Not the way you want to run a market.

As Yogi Berra once said, “No one goes there any more. It's too crowded.”

After I was there for a month, Mr. Hitchcock congratulated me, and he said I was one of the best stock clerks he'd ever had. He wasn't just full of hot air. The day I started my second month in his store, he gave me a quarter an hour raise.

I was part of an organization, and it felt good to be part of something. Mr. Hitchcock was a kind, hardworking man. He never got tired of talking about Hitchcock's Market, and when my father came into Hitchcock's to shop, not minding the little bit higher prices for a higher quality of food, I'd see him talking with Mr. Hitchcock down one of the aisles, where the two came together.

My father liked the man I worked for. He approved of my decision to go to work there, and I was full of Hitchcock stories at the dinner table each night.

* * * * *

I didn't do anything but skate to school in the morning, and once I'd finished my two classes a day, I skated to Hitchcock's. I'd been so busy learning to do my job, I hadn't thought of Gordo, or where the skaters were, or anything else for that matter, but at the beginning of my third week at Hitchcock's, on my way home from Santee, I hooked a right, once I reached Broadway.

It was almost six, and everyone was usually off to get fed, but I still sat on the grass, thinking, sooner or later, someone would skate by, and I'd be here waiting for them.

Three skaters arrived at the lawn, where I was sitting. They came from different directions, arriving at the same corner at the same time. They didn't notice me, because they were too busy noticing each other, but I heard names I recognized. These were guys John told me about.

"Hey Ace. How you been? Sup Dart? Freebee, you got out of jail?"

“I think so,” Freebee said. “It's hard to tell sometimes.”

They all laughed, offered high fives, and butt slaps.

Where I was from, you touched another boy's ass, you'd be eating a knuckle sandwich. What was with the guys in California feeling each other's ass?

While I hadn't seen John since he gave me the lowdown on some of the boys, I did remember the name Ace. This was the guy that was in the

middle of everything John talked about. If I got to know Ace I was sure I'd finally be in.

"Just about perfect, I am. What's up, dude?" They slapped hands, and Ace looked around but never noticed me at all. He seemed to be in careful control, as someone he didn't know watched them.

The last time I saw Ace and Dart was the day John got up from the small patch of lawn, walking to where I sat on the curb. He sat next to me. He'd given me the scoop on Ace and Dart, warning me to watch myself around them.

Ace was the biggest of the three boys. Size might have been his appeal, but I didn't think so. He was the oldest by a couple of years. His shoulders were broad, but not overly broad for his size. His waist lacked the flatness of most of the younger skaters, but he wasn't fat. Most skaters were on the thin side, because they were constantly propelling their boards. It was good exercise.

Otherwise, Ace was ordinary, and he was about to age out of the late teen and early twenties hot wheels culture. He was ordinary, except for his size. His speaking voice was loud. I'd think that alone would put off most people, but not the boys that he was with. They listened when he spoke to them.

Ace stopped his merry band of skaters right next to me, but he didn't see me. Dart and the other boy looked at the small patch of lawn with me on it. Ace saw only the two of them. He spoke only to them.

I wondered if I'd become invisible. Maybe that's why I didn't meet anyone. The few people I knew, save Gordo, might talk to me for a minute or two, and then, they were off to parts unknown. Maybe it was because I didn’t engage in high fives and butt slaps. That gave me away. I wasn't one of them.

The one they called Dart began looking around. Ace and Freebee talked over old jailhouse bunk mates. Their eyes finally came to rest on Dart, and then, me. My invisibility shield had indeed failed. Dart was looking right at me.

"Hey, haven't I seen you around? I'm Dart. You new, or what?" Dart asked.

“Yeah. Moved here from back east,” I said.

“Cool. What's that like? I mean the east?” Dart asked, dropping down on one side of me.

“It's getting chilly back there this time of year,” I said.

“I knew I didn't want to go east for some reason,” Dart said. “Sleeping on concrete in the cold would be a bitch.”

“You sleep on concrete?” I asked, recognizing Gordo's description of it.

“Hey, Dart, you found yourself a boyfriend. You ain't going to share?” Freebee asked, dropping down on the other side of me.

Bookends, just what I always wanted.

Freebee had brown hair and funny-colored eyes. In the fading light, I didn't know if they were brown or green.

He wasn't bad looking, but it was hard to look at him, under the circumstances. Of the three of them, Freebee was the best looking. Dart seemed friendly enough. Ace looked around, not quite able to see me yet. He seemed above it all, as if we all should look up to him. Sitting there, looking up was easy.

“Where, back east?” Ace asked, obviously hearing me talking to Dart.

“Massachusetts,” I said.

“Way north,” Ace said. “I guess it is getting chilly there. What in the hell does everyone do, when it gets cold. I mean, when it gets, really, really cold?”

“We tend to huddle together,” I said.

Freebee and Dart laughed.

Ace looked like I'd farted in his face.

“I bet you're good at huddling. You look like you'd be good at it,” Ace said.

“I do my best,” I said, not taking the bait. “I'm Z.”

“I'm Dart,” Dart reminded me, offering me his hand, and when he got done shaking, Freebee offered me his.

“I'm Freebee. They call me Free, on account I'd rather be free than in jail.”

“Don't tell him your price for a b j, Free. Z what?” Ace asked.

“My name is Zane. I don't like it much. I go by Z,” I said.

“Move over, Dart. Let me sit by my man Zane,” Ace said.

Dart didn't question the order. He merely scooted over to give Ace plenty of room, but he still managed to press his bare leg against my bare leg. If it was a come-on, I pretended his leg wasn't there. As interesting as the bulge in his spandex was, Ace was too much for me. I'd been warned about him, and I intended to be as cool as a cucumber around Ace.

“What's your price, Zane,” Ace asked, leaning back on his elbows, so he could see my reaction.

“Actually, I had to give that up, because my dentist said, ‘Your teeth are so sharp, you'd be able to castrate the uncircumcised.’ ”

“Ouch!” Free said. “I'll keep my dick to myself.”

“You’re already circumcised, asshole,” Ace said, no humor in his words.

Dart laughed.

Ace glared at him.

Most boys didn't want to reveal they looked at other boy's dicks, but Ace didn't care. Ace was in charge, and, if you were smart, you didn't cross him. The bulge in his spandex became less and less interesting. I didn't need it that bad, and I'd be lucky if I got out of there with all my teeth.

Ace was testing me, and neither Freebee or Dart were going to cross him. He was a big guy, and he could hurt someone if he wanted to. I would do my best to see to it, he didn’t hurt me. I'd been wanting to meet guys, and now I had.

Ace was so close to me, I could smell him. It wasn't a bad smell, but if I could smell him, he was way too close. His leg leaned even harder against mine. He reached between his legs to move the bulge up in his spandex. I didn't watch him do it, but I saw him do it. What did that mean? I didn't want to find out.

“I need a drink,” Dart said. “I came up here to get a soda.”

“That's a great idea,” Free said. “I'm thirsty.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Ace said, standing up. “You coming with us, Z?”

Ace stuck his hand out for me to take, and he pulled me to my feet. He led the way. I brought up the rear. I'd have refused and gone home to have dinner, but I wanted to play this out and see where it led. These were not the ideal guys I wanted to get to know, but I had to get to know someone.

Besides, once I took a good look at Freebee, once he was standing, he was hot. Not only was he handsome, but he had one of those willowy bodies that curved in all the right places. His wonderful build became obvious.