“Wow he sure stripped you naked with that look!” my friend Kristie announced as we headed toward the entrance of the retiree friendly restaurant her parents had chosen for dinner.
“What do ya mean? Who?” I shot back, rapidly darting my eyes to assess the man who had just left me visually naked.
“Over there—in the black tank top,” she said, motioning to the side of the building, now devoid of any life forms.
Damn…missed another one! I thought.
“Well, go on! Go for it. I dare you! Look around the corner and see if he’s looking. I’ll bet you anything he’s still there. Go on!
Don’t be a pussy! Throw down!” Kristie coached encouragingly.
Sure enough, when I peered around the corner, there—holding a bag from the restaurant where we were headed, stood a smiling and sexy man staring in my direction and acting as if I might consider becoming part of his take-out. He cocked his head, and like a mime, I followed. He smiled and raised an eyebrow. Again I mimicked his moves. With far too much time since my last interlude, his inviting demeanor was enough to make me consider forfeiting dinner to devour him instead.
And while the possibilities were busy rubbing nerve into my nerve endings, the unthinkable happened! Just over his shoulder, headed in my direction, were my friend Kristie’s retired parents! Immediate deflation of groinal area. Historically horrible at the impromptu pickup, I wasn’t helped by her approaching parents. Unprepared for the infusion, I regressed into something resembling a fumbling seventh-grader, and abruptly sought refuge back behind the restaurant’s brick façade.
“Well?”, Kristie interrogated.
“I’ll tell you later…not now!” I hissed back.
“Your mom and dad are coming!”
While I feverishly worked to readjust myself— changing from lusting homo into well-behaved gentleman—her parents turned the corner to join us.
“What was that all about?” her mother cheerfully inquired.
“Oh, he was diggin’ on Jim,” Kristie shot back, while I stood there swathed in awkwardness.
“Man,” she persisted, “It’s a good thing you had some clothes on, cuz he had you undressed faster than I could say appetizer!”
While she and her parents giggled, my discomfort swiftly morphed into mortification. I wanted to kick her or stuff a pair of socks into her mouth, but that would have only exaggerated my embarrassment.
“Well, he certainly seemed like a nice man!” her mother added, sensing my uneasiness. In between bites of dinner and decisions about a movie, my mind kept wandering back to hook-up man. “Why had I been so embarrassed?”
I wondered. After all, my preference for men was hardly a secret. And certainly my existence was anything but closeted. (Especially since I was wearing flam-boyantly colored plaid pants) I was completely accepted, even embraced by my friend’s very liberal parents.
So what was it? Then I wondered: Does sex fall into a dark, undiscussed place called the generation gap? Is overt sexual behavior something that becomes taboo when time takes us into retirement? Later that weekend, on a relaxed Sunday morning, as I sat beside my friend’s father at Koffi, a popular Palm Springs gathering spot, another situation “arose. ”While I made feeble attempts at writing and he diligently labored over the Sunday crossword puzzle, I was getting cruised by a very handsome man. In between our ogling, Kristie’s father would interrupt to quiz me for help.
“What’s a four-letter word for the co-star of Blow?” he requested.
“Depp” The man cruising me stared more attentively when he heard the word blow.
“Actress….Blair?”
“Linda” Naturally I got all the Hollywood references, but in conjunction—while I attempted some faux father-son bonding time—all around me, hunky gay men chatted, as their dogs ran and played, sniffed and panted, licked and scratched. And to make matters worse, it felt as if I was wearing a pair of schizophrenic headphones. In one ear was my friend’s quizzical, 70-year-old dad, while in the other, two men were fervently flirting.
Innuendo crept in one ear, while inquiries from Will Shortz pushed into the other. All the while, I had one eye on my computer and the other on the handsome man cruising me.
Left ear: “Writes without a pen or a pencil?”
“Type?”
“Nope. It’s six letters.”
Right ear: “The Faultline in L.A?…if you’re not there by 3, you could stand in line for hours…I think they’re having some leather event this weekend…
“Oh really…I usually go on Friday nights.”
Left ear: “A crème-filled pastry?”
“A donut, an éclair?
Right ear: “I keep on waiting for the Eagle to happen”
There it was again: sex and the senior citizen. Sunday morning with daddy had become a lesson in restraint! And not the kind that the two, extremely muscled and tattooed men to my right were chatting about. Their manly banter only heightened my animal desire for the handsome man cruising me. Then, without warning, he shot a frustrated look at my friend’s (oblivious) dad and left.
Once again I’d lost out on sex because of the senior citizen.
Glancing over at her aging father, I wondered, "Do they think he’s my sugar daddy?”
A little while later, I noticed another affectionate (gay) couple—a May-December liaison—and it made me wonder how their relationship worked? Judging from their cooing, they obviously had sex, and most probably discussed it as well. So why is it that the gap between generations—parents and children, straight and gay, young and old, seemed (to me) like such a wide and unexplored gap?
And as I thought about the whole “gray matter” of things, I began to realize how little time I spent among the elderly—especially the gay elderly. Then I discovered something horrible: that (unintentionally) I avoided the gray because of the gay!
“Four-letter word for spicy food?” my friend’s father quizzed.
“Me! No, I’m kidding….Thai?”
While I continued to help with the crossword puzzle, I thought about a word that would define a mature gay man. Because the elderly weren’t men I saw as sexual, they had failed my eyesight due to my own fears of becoming sexually obsolete. But because of the freedom brought about by our elderly (gay) forefathers, had I also lost sight of the men who would play a part in the education of my sexuality as a senior? And then I wondered, is it the younger generation of homos that has problems with our hearing and eyesight? As gay men, when we’ve passed (what seems to be considered) our “prime,” does old become a bad word? Along with age, (usually) comes a wealth of knowledge and experience, but to the subsequent generations, because the older gays lose the ability to be seen as sexual, do they also lose their value?
In between attempting to solve the puzzles of the crossword, as I built a wonderful bond with my friend’s dad, suddenly I got my sight back. When he’d finished the crossword puzzle in record time and beat me home on his bike, the definitions of old flooded my head. Vital. Smart. Sexy. The list went on and on, and suddenly I saw seniors as something that was not only gray, but mattered!
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