Central Park and Other Cruising Spots

In my late teens, I discovered Louisville’s Central Park. Unlike New York’s vast park, with the same name, Louisville’s was very small, although the two had the same architect, Frederick Law Olmsted. While not in the same class as the trestles cruising area, it was very active at night. [See my story about the trestles posted to Demon on January 7,2019]. The middle of the park was its highest point, with a colonnade. From here one could see almost the entire park. Guys would wait for contacts there and do their business out in the open without fear.

This spot, too, had its regulars. One was a middle-aged queen who called himself Aida Brown (I eat or brown). He was really witty. He said, “Guys ask me how I can breath with a big cock down my throat. I tell them I breath thru my shit chute.” Another of his witty sayings was, “Before I became a queen, I was a princess.” I met a guy there whose job was to read electric meters. I nicknamed him the meter reader peter eater.

Word got around that teenage boys were robbing the gays. I decided to come to the defense of my fellow cruisers and teach the bastards a lesson. For several years during my late teens and early twenties, I always carried a switchblade knife to protect myself should I face a difficult situation. I had to visit the park several different nights to accomplish my task, but eventually I saw two kids approaching the center of the park. When they got close enough I could tell they were menacing. I was ready for them. I yelled out, “OK, you mother fuckers, come one step closer and I’ll cut the two of you to shreds.” They could see my knife and they turned and fled the park. I’ll bet they thought twice before going after their next victim.

Louisville’s main public library sat on a public square that was a pickup area at night for hustlers who were bottom feeders. I avoided the place, but walked by one night on the way from downtown to my apartment in the Old Louisville neighborhood. A rather good-looking boy approached me. As usual, I succumbed. We went to a dark alley somewhere and he let me do it. Then he tried to rob me. Always being a fast runner, a trait I inherited from my dad, I soon outdistanced him. That night I didn’t have my knife with me. I vowed to get even with the SOB.

I met him again a few nights later. I took him into the alley, showed my knife, and said, “You tried to rob me, I’m gonna kill you.” I didn’t know that he had a group of accomplices lurking nearby. He yelled for them to help him. Out of nowhere, four or five guys appeared. I knew I didn’t have a chance. I fled down the street, but after a couple of blocks I realized that they were catching up to me. I darted into a hotel and told the lady at the front desk that a bunch of guys tried to rob me. I didn’t think they would enter the hotel, but they did. They heard me tell her that and my would-be robber said, “No, he tried to rob us.” The lady asked, “Son, what is this all about?” It was his mother! I could see she didn’t believe him. She probably already knew he was a troublemaker. She said “You guys get out of here!” Then she turned to me and said, “I’m getting off work shortly, I’ll drive you home.” This was just one of the many coincidences that happened throughout my life. I avoided the library square afterwards.

Some contact of mine recommended the YMCA as a good make-out spot. The YMCA often didn’t have young guys,  definitely not Christian, but boy did they associate. The second floor housed a dormitory where many Ft. Knox soldiers would sleep during weekends off the base. I would go into the Y and sneak up to that floor. In those, days they didn’t maintain the type of vigilance they do today. In the bathroom, I would plant myself in a toilet stall with a full view of the shower. When a guy came to bathe, I had a front-row seat. If I liked what I saw, when he came out clad in only a towel, I opened the door to my booth and offered to show him the deck of pornographic playing cards I usually carried with me. Strangely enough, most didn’t register much surprise. If they got hard, I offered them a blow job. My success rate was pretty good.

Once I picked up a guy and took him to my Market Street apartment. He wasn’t particularly exciting, but returned a few days later with his brother. The brother was a different story. He was handsome and had the most beautiful cock I had ever seen. It was totally proportional in terms of length and girth, and sizeable. It was ramrod straight and rock hard. He became a regular until I left Louisville. I still think about him to this day when I hear the revised 1945 ending of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite (not to be confused with the original version of 1910).

After finishing undergraduate work, my I made hitchhiking trips from Louisville to Lexington to take private lessons in symbolic logic, from the head of the philosophy department at the University of Kentucky. I would occasionally stay there several nights to avoid making the twice-a-week trek. I put up in a flea bag hotel with the minimum of amenities. The first room I rented there was a windowless cubbyhole, reminding me of my similar room in Louisville, with a communal bathroom in the hall. Shortly after I checked in, an interesting guy went in to take a bath. There was no shower, only a bathtub. I followed shortly, porno cards in hand. There he sat in the bathtub, without a curtain, revealing nature’s gifts. I decided that I could eat his frankfurter with relish. Faster than a rifle shot, I began my usual pitch. I think he cut his bath short, dried quickly and we were off to his room, adjoining mine. His shot was almost as fast as mine, and I was soon out of there. I couldn’t sleep. It was the middle of a hot Kentucky summer and my room was so stifling it seemed like it was 110 degrees.

The next night, I rented a room with a window. It probably cost $2 more. Exhausted, I “retired” early, but left the door to my bedroom cracked partly to get better air circulation. That way I could listen to the comings and goings on the entire floor. Soon, a prospect passed my door and went into the room next to mine. Liking what I saw, I contrived some cockamamie story and knocked on his door, porno cards in hand. I made an almost immediate cocksucking proposal, and he acquiesced quickly. When I left his room, he said, “Hey, thanks guy, I enjoyed that. That was the last thing that I expected would happen to me here.”