(by Edward Zeusgany and Alex Anders, © copyright 1998, all rights reserved)

When Neil turned ten in April, he was permitted to ride the bus by himself. That meant he could get down town and join the Boys’ Club. As a result, during the summer of 1948, he also attended day camp, where he had a lot of fun. In the morning he played baseball. He was just old enough, the younger boys were only permitted softball. The kids who did not like these games, usually because they weren’t any good at them, had nature study.

The afternoon program rotated from day to day through a set of activities that included soccer, archery, capture the flag, and other games; or a youngster could choose crafts. There would be a different craft each week. But after baseball, and before lunch, there was swimming. Neil liked this best of all.

For lunchtime, the boys brought sandwiches and snacks in paper bags. A good deal of trading increased everyone’s satisfaction, while sometimes thwarting parental intentions. After lunch there was “rest period.” Quiet games, like checkers, were permitted. Some boys did nothing at all for a whole half hour.

Neil was one of these. He found a grassy spot, among some small birches and sumac, where the sun filtered through to dappled ground. Another boy also liked that place and there began a daily chat. Luther was the same age and height, but pale and frail, with blonde hair that curled over his brow, while Neil was dark and stocky. This was the only time they spent together. Luther was in nature study and crafts.

But they were both smart, so smart that the other boys’ talk did not hold much interest for them, so smart that they hid much of it from other children and most adults. Of course, everyone knew that they were bright, but not how bright. Gradually, they opened up with each other and enjoyed a rare communion. Neil could see what he thought was love in Luther’s eyes.

Neil could follow the curve of Luther’s thigh where his shorts bagged out. He thought that, before camp ended for the summer, he could suggest to Luther that he ask his parents to invite him for an overnight visit some fall weekend. He was sure that Luther would be pleased. He thought, perhaps, they would be put in the same bed, the large bed that he imagined Luther to sleep in. He was almost sure that Luther would allow his touch, first a loose hug, some cuddling, eventually anywhere at all. Neil had formed the idea that Luther loved him.

Did he love Luther, he wondered. Well, he liked him, spent time with him, cared for him; perhaps that is what love is like, he reflected. Anyway, Neil wanted to touch this pale boy’s body, to caress him, and, in part, because it was him. But, no, he wasn’t shaken by deep emotion.

*****

Camp ended prematurely and suddenly. Earlier, one of the campers had come down with polio. When the second boy was diagnosed, the health department had ordered the camp to close for the season, three weeks early. This time it was Luther who had it.

The next Saturday Neil’s uncle was going to take him, along with his own kids, horseback riding. Neil had never been and was looking forward to it. After lunch that day, Neil fell asleep in a big wing chair that sat in a sunny corner of his parents living room. He didn’t wake up until after three, missing the excursion, and he had a terrible headache. His mother saw that he didn’t look well, so she took his temperature and put him to bed.

The doctor came. They gave him big yellow pills made of sulfur that tasted funny. The doctor came again. It was nearly a week before he felt better. He got hungry, his bowels moved, his temperature came down.

As soon as he could he returned to the Boys’ Club. At once, he went to one of the staff and asked how Luther was. They took him to the director’s office where Mr. Goddard spoke to him. Luther had died. Neil was shocked, boys who had polio were left with a limp, or without being able to use their legs at all. At worst, one lived the rest of one’s life in an iron lung. Nobody died from it.

Luther had not been strong the way he was, Mr. Goddard explained. They had been afraid that he might have had polio too, but it appeared that he hadn’t. And no one had known that he and Luther were friends, until Luther’s parents had mentioned it. It seemed that Luther had often talked to them about Neil. Mr. Goddard thought that it was an odd friendship, they were so different. He was very smart, Neil said, and nothing more. Mr. Goddard agreed.

*****

Among Neil’s many talents, the most important was his knowing what he wanted out of life. Most people accept the expected goals without question, much less introspection, and then wonder why they are dissatisfied. The gifted chase money and fame, the less gifted aspire to a family in the suburbs, the ungifted want a TV and a refrigerator full of beer, or the like. Neil wanted a boy’s love more than anything in the world.

He had several other advantages. As he grew into late adolescence his body thickened and grew black wiry hair, he was not attractive. So he didn’t need to explain why the girls weren’t interested in him. But at eighteen, he began dating a rather unlovely girl with a good heart, who needed a husband, but wasn’t much interested in sex.. They got married and tried a few times to produce a child. When it didn’t work they both breathed a sigh of relief and quit the attempt.

As soon as he was old enough, Neil attended a Red Cross aquatic school and obtained his Water Safety Instructor’s certificate. The Boys Club was glad to hire a person they knew and liked. They already had someone directing the pool, but he was able to teach swimming part time. For the rest, he worked at whatever was most needed at the moment.

A few years later the pool director moved on and Neil took over all instruction in swimming and life saving as well as managing the free swim program. It was heaven on Earth. For one thing, except for the groups who were brought in from the suburbs for lessons, the boys swam nude.

*****

Misbehavior at the pool or anywhere in the Club was rare, because it would mean a period of banishment. So there was seldom any need to discipline a boy. And the boys liked Neil, he was quiet and kind. It became known that he was someone a boy could confide in, no matter what the difficulty. He had the capacity to listen without being judgmental and to offer sensible and practical advice. Because Neil spent many of his free hours at the Club, he was available to them.

It was known that in an emergency, if a boy was in trouble at home, he could appear at Neil’s door and be sheltered for a night. Martha, his wife, would feed him and Neil would do what he could to help, sometimes calling the boy’s father in the morning to resolve a problem. Occasionally, it was a matter of finding a lawyer who would help a kid for nothing.

Now Neil had a reputation from before he had become an employee of the Boy’s Club. It was generally known that he had had special relationships with some other boys. Since Neil was a regular guy and no one had complained, neither the kids nor the staff thought much about it. They did not consider it to be anybody else’s business. Only a few were ever dissuaded from seeking Neil’s counsel because of these rumors.

*****

Among all those boys there were always a few who wanted affection. One of these was Brad. Neil noticed at once how Brad would seek him out, how the boy would sit next to him, so close that their legs would be touching. After a few weeks of this, Neil invited the lad home for supper the next Friday. Brad jumped at the opportunity.

That night, after consuming the lasagna dinner that Martha had made, she shooed them out of her kitchen and down to Neil’s study in the basement, where she knew they wanted to be anyway, a place she refused to enter or clean. Neil had his desk there, as well as a couch and a TV.

They looked over the TV guide, sitting close as usual. Neil turned on the TV, selected the channel and returned to his place. Settling back, they put their feet up on the battered coffee table, Brad leaning against him. Neil put his hand on top of Brad’s and they finger wrestled for a while. Then their hands became quiet.

“I said that I was having supper at a friend’s and was going to stay overnight,” Brad announced. When Neil did not respond, Brad continued. “So can I? Stay overnight?”

“You’ll get in trouble when they check.”

“Nope, they didn’t ask for a phone number.”

“They’ll look it up,”

“I just said at Mike’s, they don’t know his last name. They wouldn’t check anyway.”

“Something could come up and then you’ll get in trouble for not leaving a number.” After a pause, Neil said, “Well, next time leave this number.”

Brad said OK, but he didn’t do it.

“The couch opens up into a bed.”

“Will you stay down here with me?”

“For a while.”

Neil took one of Brad’s fingers and made a gesture with it that couldn’t be mistaken. Brad giggled.

Brad had been scrawny as a younger kid, but in this, his fifteenth year, he had filled out a little. However, his veins still showed blue here and there. There was a prominent one that ran over the upper part of the boy’s bony hip. Neil traced it with a finger tip.

*****

On another occasion, Brad asked Neil how anal intercourse was performed. He liked the feel of Neil’s weight on top of him and the stiff, pudgy dick against his bottom. After hearing the whole procedure, and now knowing that fingers were usually employed first to relax the sphincter, Brad suggested that they try one finger just to see if he liked that.

Brad definitely enjoyed it when Neil applied some body lotion as a lubricant. Then the one finger felt OK, though nothing special, so they didn’t continue that day. Another time they proceeded to the second finger. Still, Brad did not find the experience satisfying or dissatisfying, and Neil did not suggest that they go further. From experience Neil knew that, if he pressed for something, he didn’t enjoy it, even if it was granted.

It wasn’t until some years later that getting screwed became Brad’s preferred sexual activity. In the mid 60’s Brad had moved to San Francisco. This turned out to be both exciting and unlucky.

*****

Neil was untouched by Stonewall and the Gay movement. He could have become more vulnerable if his circumstances had been different. People were more likely to perceive the Gay people among them than they had been, even without their coming out of the closet.

But Neil was protected by his marriage and a mountain of good will. When a boy from the Club joined the police force, or assumed some other position in society, whatever he knew or thought he knew about Neil’s sex life, appeared to drain from his mind. Perhaps, when his own son said that he was going to stay overnight at Mike’s, he might ask, “Mike who?” and get the phone number, but other than that he remained unconcerned.

So the years passed. Neil got old, went into semi-retirement. He could be found at the Club in the morning, sitting by a sunny window and reading the newspaper, or in the afternoon, listening to some kid explain national politics to him, that, or the latest music.

Sometimes he would be all alone, lost in thought, remembering the past, as old folks do. Neil figured that, by now, he was the only one left alive who still held in his heart the loving memory of a long dead, ten year old, frail boy named Luther Witham.

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