Month: June 2014

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One Monday Afternoon by Will Stanton

Ned and I were not that young but felt as though we were going on just sixteen. We were glad that we were old enough to drive, but I don’t think that either of us was ready to be any older. We each felt so repressed in our families that we really had not grown up; we felt more comfortable somehow as just mid-teens, to belatedly begin to explore the world and ourselves at a time when many already had several years of experience growing. I got to know him more briefly than I would have liked.

Unlike many young, more fortunate gays these days, we had little understanding of ourselves, no sense of orientation. Even had we understood ourselves, we felt in our time that we would have had to hide our orientation from the world, let alone our families. That repression wounded our sense of self-esteem and hindered our courage to explore and to take new risks like many other teenagers. So, Ned and I were alike in many ways and naturally gravitated toward each other when we met.

With me, Ned was very open and honest. One day, he sat down with me and explained very simply that he wished to be my special friend, a long-term partner. This was all new to me, and I was confused. I was not quite sure what to do. After all, every lesson that I had learned growing up told me that normal was straight, normal was eventually getting married, normal was having kids. Having another guy as your special friend was not normal. I thought carefully about it and, at least, committed to our being very good friends; but I was not sure beyond that.

We began to spend time together. We often went to the countryside to take long hikes together. We explored remote roads, driving into the countryside on sunny days or cool June evenings. We would drive out to the lake, stopping along the way to buy popsicles. Like young kids, we had our favorites, cherry and grape. Then we would walk out onto the beach, spread out our blankets, and lie in the sun, talking with each other and watching the swimmers. When the sun became too hot, we also would swim out into the lake to cool off.

Ned was romantic. It also became clear that he truly loved me. One of the most wonderful things that I remember was during one of our hikes in the hills. We paused on a high bluff and quietly stood there, looking at the valley below. I felt him gently press his chest against my back and slip his arms around my chest in a loving hug. Then he rested his head on my shoulder. We stood there for some time, content, and in peace. That simple gesture meant so much. The memory, that sense, has remained with me ever since.

In town, I would find love notes on my car windshield. He also seemed to be extraordinarily in-tune with me. If I was quietly thinking about something and then suddenly changed what I was thinking about, he would say, “What?” This happened several times. I don’t know how. He also surprised me because he claimed to have a way with inanimate objects, too. When his old car refused to start, he would stand in front of the car, giving it a stern look, and give the car a good talking-to. Then, he would get back into the car and start it. I was amused by that, but don’t ask me what got the car going.

Ned and I spent as much time together as we could. Some straight friends quickly began to see us as a pair and invited us both to their picnic. Sometimes, he would come to my house when my parents were not around, we would lie in each other’s arms, listening to the rain outside the windows. Just the closeness seemed to be enough.

Then there came that one Monday afternoon when I informed him that I would be leaving town during the summer months to work in a place too far away to drive back very often. He burst into tears, truly distraught. He said that he was afraid that he would lose me forever. He said that he could not stand being without me.

Then, I made the worst mistake that I could have made. I thought that I was being reasonable and helpful, but it did not turn out that way. I suggested to him that, in the meantime, he needed to find more friends. I did not specify what kind of friends he should associate with. It never occurred to me that I needed to say so. That has haunted me ever since.

Shortly after that, I had a long-distance phone call from Ned. One evening, lonely, and in tiny apartment in a far-away town, I was thinking of a girl that I knew back home and what it might be like to get to know her better. Maybe that was the right thing for me to do; maybe that would work. Then my phone rang; it was Ned. Despite his being at a noisy party far away, something had alerted him. Without my saying anything at all about where I was at that moment or what I was thinking, he immediately stated, “I suddenly got the feeling that you were very lonely and that I better call you. I know that you were thinking about that girl. She is not the right person for you; I don’t think that she can give you the love that you need.” How did he know? How can that be just coincidence? He really was especially sensitive and in-tune with me.

By the time I came back, I found that things had changed. The substitute friends that Ned made were heavily into drugs, and Ned followed suit. When I finally returned and saw Ned again, he was not the same person. Every bit of that remarkable sensitivity was gone, completely. He could no longer sense or do what he once could do. His whole personality had changed. He used to be bright and cheerful; he had an innocent sense of humor. All that was gone, too. Instead, he was slow and dull, seemingly uninterested in the people around him, uninterested in life. It seemed that there was no love left in him. It did not occur to him to repay the two hundred dollars that I had lent him. He no longer was Ned. He was someone else. I was shocked and dismayed.

Over the years, I occasionally have thought back to that fateful Monday afternoon and my saying to him to find other friends. He found some guys to hang out with, but they were no true friends to him. They destroyed the Ned that I knew and cared for.

© 10 February 2013



About the Author

  

I have had a life-long fascination with people and their life stories. I also realize that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual ones. Since I joined this Story Time group, I have derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group. I do put some thought and effort into my stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.

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The Accident by Ricky

When I first thought about this topic, I could not think of anything to write about. Then four-days ago, the memory floodgates opened and many memories of accidents came to mind.

Some involved me, like my mother’s pregnancy with me (I actually attended her wedding in utero), or when I cut the back of my hand on broken glass while playing in a junk car, or when I stepped on a rusty nail, or when I lobbed a small rock at a Robin and it hit and killed it, or when I was hiking and slipped breaking my ankle. Growing up, I had my fair share of accidental injuries to my body. But like always, I am not going to write about those as being not worthy. Besides, I just did write a little about those accidents.

I have written before how my parents’ divorce ended up causing my subconscious mind to shut off nearly all of my negative emotions. So, while I was working as a Deputy Sheriff in Pima County, Arizona, the loss of those feelings or rather those feelings being walled off, actually helped me do my job without emotional interference.

One midnight shift, a highway patrolman contacted me to help him find an address and to go with him to deliver a traffic death notification. It was not a pleasant experience and although I did feel sad for the lady whose husband had been killed, it did not consciously affect me.

On another midnight shift in the late fall, I responded to a rollover accident along a road next to an irrigation ditch. In this case, two high school boys were in the car and the tracks in the dirt and gravel roadway indicated that the driver either was showing off and lost control or he just lost control. The car rolled and both boys were thrown from the car as they were not wearing seatbelts. More accurately, the driver was thrown clear, but the passenger only got half-way out before the rolling car shut the door on his middle and killed him. Both boys had left a party where drinking was occurring. The driver was the drinker and lived. The passenger did not drink and died, which is an all too common result. One family lost a child needlessly and the driver has to live with the knowledge that he killed a school-mate.

On one summer afternoon, a car with six-migrant farm workers stopped by the local convenience store and purchased three or four six-packs of beer. Less than two miles from the store, there was another rollover accident, again with no seatbelts and one man was thrown out and the car ended on its side but right on top of the man’s head. Evidence at the scene, indicated that at least one or two six-packs had already been consumed. No one called in that accident; I was driving by and saw the car on its side so I stopped. All of the five remaining men in the car had disappeared into the migrant worker camps and were never found or, I suspect, never even looked for. Once again I felt sad for the family left behind in Mexico, but did not mourn. I do wish the driver had been identified and caught. I don’t blame him for running away because in Mexico the punishment is much more severe than in the US (at that time period anyway) and I’m sure he thought punishment in the US was probably the same or worse.

The following accident I wish I had not remembered. I remember it quite vividly and even the date, if not the exact year. It was winter, Christmas day to be exact. A member of the Air Force, an Airman First Class I believe, had been driving all night from southern California. His destination, Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson. People who stopped to impart information (or just to gawk) reported that he was passing them ‟like they were standing still.” Apparently, he fell asleep at the wheel and left the right side of eastbound Interstate-10 at the worst possible point and “T-boned” a concrete abutment for cattle to cross under the roadway. He, his wife, and three-month old baby all died. Two families lost a child AND a grandchild. I’m fairly confident in saying that Christmas day will never be the same for those families. This accident did affect me. I did feel sad, but I ended up with a strong dislike for the US Air Force personnel system.

The airman had orders to report to Davis-Monthan by noon on Christmas day. If not for the accident he would have made it. NO ONE would have been there to process him into his unit. He and his family would have been given temporary quarters until the next duty day. I dislike the Air Force personnel system, not only for what it did to me, but also because it doesn’t care about the people the system is designed to serve. Rather the system serves the Air Force, not the men and women who make up the organization. In my opinion, there is no reason for anyone to transfer or report to a new assignment through the period beginning one week before and ending one week after Thanksgiving and the period beginning 15 December through 15 January. These are major holiday periods for families and human nature (which the military does not understand or care about) results in military personnel wanting to stay with their extended families until the ‟last minute.”

Over my adult life, many people, including some in our Telling Your Story group, have noticed I have some idiosyncrasies. I don’t apologize for any of them. I just want everyone to recognize the events I have related in this and my other postings, helped shape me into the character whom you perceive today.

© 22 July 2013  

About the Author

  

I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach. Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I began living with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced.

When united with my mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966. After three tours of duty with the Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11 terrorist attack.

I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010. I find writing these memories to be therapeutic.

My story blog is, TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com.

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Forbidden Fruit by Ray S

For some of us bornagains or unbornagains we can attribute the source of today’s subject to what could be construed (depending on your point of view or philosophy) a Judeo/Christian’s earliest known erotica. The Adam and Eve fall from grace and all the ensuing details that have for eons been left up to the imagination of the true believers. Let’s not go there now. 

But that must have been some apple! At the risk of being labeled “chauvinist pig” by some of our fairer sex, I have to say “let’s hear it for the ladies.” They’ve always had the know how and upper hand when it comes to a really good siren song leading to the ecstasy of the flavor of that forbidden fruit.
Right then and there in that Garden of Eden (which has many lactations worldwide) the whole world of human relations got its snaky start. And like other humans’ addictions the apple tree is still bearing fruit as well as little bundles of joy. Even in the beginning it seems those prophets of old had to find a way to lay a trip on people kind. The idea must have been to promote “evil” so someone else could have sinners to forgive and redeem for practicing what comes naturally. Today the sages call it LIBIDO–it’s that damn snake again figuring ways to establish never ending power trips. There is always someone more powerful, more intelligent, more superior in all ways, lording it over the rest of us fruit eaters.
But, getting back to what has been condemned “forbidden” seems that right back there in little old Edenville the more forbidden, the more delicious the fruits became! And, of course, more desirous. Once that bite caressed the tongue, the acquired taste of the apple or fruit of your choice never wanes.
Seems like what this world needs is more delicious fruits and abounding trees of love for one another. Teach that snake to emphasize nice and naughty and cut way back on hate, guilt, pestilence and avarice.
One has to try so very hard to remember and practice that “LOVE MAKES THE WORLD GO ROUND.”

© 21 April 2014

About the Author

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Gay Alien by Phillip Hoyle

I fell in love with an alien, an illegal alien, a gay illegal alien, a Mexican gay illegal alien. I fell hard into a new experience. I had never loved a Mexican man: that task had always been left to my daughter. I had never loved a Mexican gay man, so I had a lot to learn about how Mexican culture tends to evaluate gay men and how people there often choose to deny the existence of such men especially within their families. I had never loved an illegal alien and in this relationship came face-to-face with the issues the whole country is now trying to solve. I had never loved an alien—well now I’m lying, but that’s another story. The big story was this: I had never fallen in love so conventionally, so thoroughly, so openly, so obsessively, so delightedly, so…, so…; the words flee at the prospect of being employed, as if they know the impossibility and my ineptness. Some nine years later I can hardly understand what happened to me, let alone describe it, but I fell in love with a Mexican gay illegal alien, his name Rafael. 

My alien had an accent as well as a small, expressive, high-pitched, scratchy voice. He almost squeaked at times, a sound that surprisingly didn’t irritate but, rather, attracted me. It was so cute just like he was so cute. His English was passable in that he could communicate well enough to have a sales job in an electronics shop. His often fresh approach to the language endeared him to me. I liked having to listen carefully, to fret out meanings, to solve the communications like a crossword puzzle. 
My illegal alien saved me from too much information. I wondered if he was afraid that I might not like him for being in America illegally or at some angry moment I might call the INS on him. Later I realized he may have been protecting me from knowing anything that would make me an accomplice to his illegality. I had no idea he was already in trouble with the law over some other matters as well as his immigration status, and quite frankly, I didn’t care all that much. 
My gay illegal alien touched something deep within me even when I didn’t know if he was gay or not. When I met him, he wore a wide gold wedding band. Still, the connection from our first three meetings was so compelling to me that I determined if he weren’t gay, lived here with his wife and kids, or was supporting them in another country, I would befriend him and relate to him as the best friend he’d ever have. I didn’t care if he was not gay although I did realize my developing attraction to him then might call for great restraint. But I’d lived almost all of my fifty-plus years as a straight man, a closeted bisexual male, who made friends easily and took loyalty seriously. I wanted to be his friend—at least that.
My Mexican illegal alien looked more alien than most Mexicans. Pakistani and Indian customers where he worked spoke to him in Urdu or Hindi assuming he was one of them. For me his exotic looks of indeterminate origin added to his attraction, that plus his dark eyes that snapped with delight when we were together and his warm smile that stretched across his face whenever he looked at me. He registered as much enthusiasm upon seeing me as I felt upon seeing him. 
One spring day I was on my way to do volunteer work and left home a few minutes early so I could stop by an office supply to flirt with another man who seemed interested. The sun was shining so intensely I was ready to cross the street to where some large trees promised shade. Just as I was deciding, I looked down the side of the street I was on and saw, about a block away, a black-haired man pulling a two-wheel grocery cart. I thought I was the youngest man in my neighborhood to pull one of those things in public and so had to see who was challenging my place. I continued toward the man who as it turned out was quite a lot younger. He was Rafael who with his cart was bringing home food from a Mexican grocery. I was astounded at my good fortune since I had missed seeing him for several weeks. I shook his hand. This time as we talked, I impulsively touched him several times more knowing if he wasn’t gay, I’d probably never see him again. Finally I gave him my card with my phone number asking him to call me and offering to take him for breakfast or coffee. I finally had to hurry off to my volunteer work and forgot all about the other guy. 
Then the big wait began, one that showed me new things about myself. He didn’t call. I walked the neighborhood at night hoping to see him get off the bus. Still he didn’t call. I walked the neighborhood in daylight watching out for his black hair. Three weeks passed. I looked up and down streets, made a grid search of the area. Surely I would find him; he rode the same bus as I. But where was he? 
A good friend who knew me well was amazed that I was both so focused and so relaxed about it all. We laughed together at the signs of obsession that Rafael had produced in me. It seemed so unlike me. I had fallen in love—whatever that was. I had sung love songs to entertain but had never entertained the idea that they would apply to me. I wasn’t falling in love with love, that old make-believe; I was falling in love with Rafael. The most beautiful sound I’d ever heard was his name. I got him under my skin; I’d grown accustomed to his face; I just had to get that man. 
Six weeks and I still hadn’t heard from my obsession. I was ready to start singing the blues. I woke up this morning and the blues was standing by my bed. I wanted Rafael to stand there. Where was that man? Seven weeks and finally I received a message on my answering machine. The high-pitched, scratchy voice that I had fantasized hearing again said he was well and wanted to get together. I could think of nothing I would like better, so I called the number he left and told his answering machine my kids were in town. We were going to the BuskerFest downtown but would serve spaghetti in the evening. I wanted him to come for dinner. I left my address. “Call me when you get home from work,” I instructed.
That Saturday night he called me. He came over and met my son and one grandson. We ate. Then the two of us went out for desert and wine. I got home in time to catch a couple hours of sleep before fixing breakfast for my brood. From that day my South-of-the-Border gay illegal alien and I slept together every night until he entered the hospital.
The blues did catch up with me in our shared apartment, on the bus to Denver Health, in the AIDS clinic, in the examination room, in the imaging clinic, in the emergency room, in the intensive care unit, in the bedroom the night Rafael established home hospice, and finally at the Hospice of St. John. There, the blue tones were heard in the love shared around his bed, in the Rosary prayed there, in the tears of his Mexican parents, in the stories his Mexican sister shared about this brother she loved and admired, and in his Mexican brother’s eyes as he pondered Rafael’s death.
The blues clothed me in those last days, accompanied me to the park where we left some of my beloved’s ashes, stood with me as I waved goodbye to his mourning family. The blues walked with me to my studio, now again my home, slept beside me in my bed, and supported me for days, for weeks, for months. The blues still hang around some days to give voice to the loss of my Mexican gay illegal alien Rafael whom I loved and whom I still miss obsessively.

© Denver, 2011

About
the Author 


Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot

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A Meal to Remember – Giving Thanks by Nicholas

It was our first Thanksgiving together in our first flat together in San Francisco. We loved the place up the hill from Parnassus Avenue above Cole Valley. The street was Woodland, named so, we presumed, because it ended in a small forest of eucalyptus that ran up Mt. Sutro in the heart of the city. The rent was a bit steep even then but we fell in love with the redwood shingle house of which we occupied the first floor. We were right at the usual fog line so we could watch the fog roll in from the ocean at the front and see the sun at the back.

Our flat was elegant. Old wood trim, arched front window with beveled glass, neat little kitchen with lots of counter space that was a deep, lustrous purple. I loved those deep purple countertops. That was the first kitchen that I loved to cook in.
Being our first Thanksgiving in our own place, we decided to entertain at home with friends coming over instead of joining Jamie’s family in Menlo Park, an hour south. It was kind of a statement of independence from the family and a statement that holidays were ours. So, we invited a bunch of friends and began planning dinner for eight on Thanksgiving Day. We asked each person or couple to contribute something like an appetizer, a salad, a side dish, dessert, wine. We ordered the turkey and would roast it and make stuffing.
We got a 12 pound bird and studied up on what to do with it. What’s to cooking a turkey, we thought. You throw it in the oven early in the morning, check it now and then, and, voila, dinner was ready. Truth is, this wasn’t the very first turkey I had cooked. A previous boyfriend and I had cooked a turkey one holiday so I thought I knew what I was doing. I should have learned more from that turkey, I mean, the boyfriend. 
With the bird in the oven in plenty of time, we thought we were in fine shape to get other things done. Jamie decided to call his mom just to wish her a happy holiday and remind her of what a wonderful time we were having. Mom, being mom, couldn’t leave things alone and had to start asking questions about what was, to her, our cooking experiment. Had we washed the turkey, had we wrapped it in foil or a roasting bag, had we made stuffing, had we gotten the giblets and other parts out of both ends.
Wait a minute, I said, both ends? Turkeys have two ends? I know they do in nature but in the supermarket? I had pulled some extra body parts out of one end, where was this other end and what was supposed to come out of it? Humbled and desperate, we dashed to the oven and yanked the damned bird out of the heat. The cavity was empty, as it was supposed to be. We pried open the other end, having discovered that indeed there was an opening there too. That’s when we realized we were in trouble. The back side, or maybe it was the front, was still frozen solid. I neglected to mention that we had gotten a frozen turkey and had given it what we thought was a proper 2-3 day thawing, but the damn thing was still ice inside.
We threw it back into the oven, cranked up the temp and hoped it would cook. Guests were due to arrive soon. Turkeys are slow birds, especially in the oven. Hours seemed to go by and it was only warm. 
Since we’d planned a leisurely meal, we told people to come over early so we could nosh. We did just that. Guests and their dishes arrived to great cheer and our anxious announcement that dinner might be a little later than planned. We did not elaborate.
We opened the wine. We ate the appetizers. We ate the salad. We opened more wine. The turkey was gradually getting warmer, even starting to cook.
Then the second disaster of our elegant holiday feast arrived. The friend assigned to bring a nice dessert showed up late, though that was no problem compared to the one in the oven. “What did you bring for dessert,” we asked. He proudly pulled out a five-pound bag of apples, just apples, like from a tree. He said it would be a healthy dessert. I said, let me show you where the flour, butter and sugar are and you can bake a pie, like now. Or, I gave him a choice, I could put one of his apples in his mouth and throw him into the oven so we could have two turkeys. He opted instead to go out and buy something.
We were just about ready for dessert by then anyway since we had consumed the entire meal including sweet potatoes and vegetables when at long last the fucking turkey was ready to eat.
We did have our lovely Thanksgiving dinner though the order was slightly reversed with the main course last. I’ve never again purchased a frozen turkey but have successfully cooked fresh, never frozen birds to the delight of hungry guests. I do not recommend buying frozen turkeys.

©
March 2014

About the Author

Nicholas grew up in Cleveland, then grew up in San Francisco, and is now growing up in Denver. He retired from work with non-profits in 2009 and now bicycles, gardens, cooks, does yoga, writes stories, and loves to go out for coffee.

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My Favorite Place by Michael King

My favorite place is being
in my imagination where I can fantasize. I imagine how a painting will make a
statement and then let the fantasy work itself out on canvas. Usually the
fantasy is better than the painting however after a few years I often realize
that the painting does express that concept. In this process the painting seems
to paint itself. This is true of writing also. I will have an idea that I wish
to express and the story writes itself.
In my imagination a meal
will begin and as I put things together in the kitchen the food on the plate
will be a facsimile of the idea with the colors and flavors being nearly as
beautiful as I had visualized. With a little practice I can figure out timing,
visual impact and blending of flavors so that the meal actually duplicates my
fantasy.
I enjoy imagining the decorating
of a room, making a sculpture, planning a trip and wishing for things and then
later enjoying the outcome of my previous fantasies. I had a list of the
qualities I hoped for in a companion. One day he walks into a coffee shop, we
take one look at each other and have been together ever since. My world is in a
large part the joy of having been somewhat creative, very individual and personal
and filled with appreciation.
As I look back on my life
everything I ever wanted I have gotten. Not always when and exactly like I
expected but often I achieved or received what I had visualized. Some desires
that came to pass were fairly disastrous and it took time to recover. Others
came too late to be of any real satisfaction.
I don’t just lie around
fantasizing all the time. I take a little time to bring about results. I also
explore what and how I want to be doing, what experiences I would like to have
happen and what I want to do or get to make my environment enjoyable including
activities and social events. But when I’m not doing something to fulfill my
wishful thinking, I’m laying around focusing on my imaginary world where wishes
are discovered, arranged, rearranged and visualized with smells, sounds,
feelings and emotions and being prepared for manifestation. My favorite place is
in my imagination.
© 6 July 2013

About the Author

I go by the drag name, Queen Anne Tique. My real name is Michael King. I am a gay activist who finally came out of the closet at age 70. I live with my lover, Merlyn, in downtown Denver, Colorado. I was married twice, have 3 daughters, 5 grandchildren and a great grandson. Besides volunteering at the GLBT Center and doing the SAGE activities,” Telling your Story”,” Men’s Coffee” and the “Open Art Studio”. I am active in Prime Timers and Front Rangers. I now get to do many of the activities that I had hoped to do when I retired; traveling, writing, painting, doing sculpture, cooking and drag.

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Summary of Sycamore Row by Louis

Prompt: April 14, Great Performance

My version of going to the theater is reading novels that will probably become movies. One of these is John Grisham’s latest novel, Sycamore Row (2013). John Grisham is the creator of the new literary genre, the “legal thriller.” I will start outlining the plot of this novel by giving away the surprise ending, because, by doing this, I am putting the events of the novel in chronological order. The plot’s easier to understand that way.

In 1930 Cleon Hubbard, a white Mississippi landowner, arranges the lynching of his black neighbor, Sylvester Rinds. Sylvester has 80 acres of land and his family lives on the farm, including brothers and sisters, and nephews and nieces. Cleon Hubbard also has 80 acres. After Sylvester Rinds is murdered, Cleon goes to his wife, Esther Rinds, shotgun in hand, and forces her to sign over the 80 acres to him. He annexes the Rinds property through violence.

Cleon Hubbard has two sons, Harry Seth and Ancil F. Hubbard. Seth was 12 years old and his brother Ancil F. was 7 years old, and, crouching in the nearby bushes, the two boys witnessed both of these events. Seth and Ancil enjoyed playing with the Rinds kids, especially 7 year old Toby Rinds. Father Cleon Hubbard, with a sort of posse, chased all the Rinds family off of the land. Needless to say, Seth and Ancil hated their father. When Seth was 18 years old, he left and joined the Navy and wanted to escape Mississippi, which he despised with a passion.

The lynching took place from a sycamore tree that was in a straight row of sycamores, which explains the novel’s title. Seth Hubbard grew up and inherited a good deal of money and property that his father bequeathed him when he, Cleon, died. But in the divorce settlement, his second wife, Sybil, got most of his property, leaving Seth virtually penniless. Seth still had a house near Clanton, Mississippi, where most of the plot of the novel takes place. He mortgaged this house and went first to Palmyra, MI and bought a lumber yard and prayed for a hurricane so that there would be a good demand for lumber. The hurricane came, and elderly Seth Hubbard was making money again. He then went to Alabama and bought more lumber yards, then to Georgia same thing. He bought large tracts of land in South Carolina. 10 years of this risk-taking, and Seth wound up with a fortune of $24 million.

On the negative side, he had lung cancer though he could not stop smoking cigarettes. He was in constant pain, the cancer from his lung metastasized to his ribs and spinal column. He knew his death was not far off. So he went to a law firm in Jackson, MI, and drew up a will, leaving most of his wealth to his two children, Ramona Dafoe and Herschel Hubbard. A year passed, and he changed his mind. Then Seth Hubbard hung himself from a sycamore tree on his property. 

Three years previously he hired a black maid, Lettie Lang. Either at the time he hired her or later he realized that Lettie Lang was actually the granddaughter of Sylvester Rinds. Lettie Lang’s maiden name was Tayber, but she wasn’t a Tayber, she had been adopted by Clyde and Cypress Tayber after her real mother, Lois Rinds, had to disappear, thanks to Seth’s white father, Cleon Hubbard. 


To compensate for the heinous crime of his father, Seth Hubbard left the bulk of his fortune to her, Lettie Lang, actually a Rinds. Seth also left 5% of his fortune to his church, the Irish Road Christian Church and 5% to his long lost brother, Ancil F’ Hubbard. Seth did this in a holographic, i.e. a handwritten will, that he sent to Jake Brigance, Esq. of Clanton, Mississippi. He wrote this second will which stipulated he was renouncing all the provisions of the previous will of a year earlier that he had drawn up with the Rush Law Firm of Jackson, MI. In the second holographic hand-written will, he stipulates specifically that he is disinheriting both of his children who, he felt, did not love or respect him.

With the permission of the Judge, Reuben Atlee, who presided over the trial gave him permission to spend some of the fortune to hire an expensive company that specialized in locating missing persons. They finally located Ancil Hubbard in Juneau, Alaska, where he was working as a bartender under an alias, Lonny Clark. Jake Brigance had an associate lawyer, Lucien Wilbanks, although technically, because of past improprieties, he had been disbarred. Lucien Wilbanks was an alcoholic. Nevertheless, JB sent LW to Juneau, Alaska, to locate and speak with Ancil F. Hubbard, alias Lonny Clark. Lonny Clark was in the hospitalized since he had suffered brain injury in a brawl in the bar where he worked. LW went to the hospital, and at first pseudo-Lonny Clark denied ever hearing the name, Ancil F. Hubbard, once LW told him Ancil Hubbard might inherit a million dollars from his deceased brother, Ancil Hubbard admitted he was Ancil Hubbard. LW went to a local lawyer in Juneau, Alaska, and arranged to videotape Ancil Hubbard’s deposition or testimony.

Once understanding that they were going to be disinherited, Ramona Hubbard Dafoe and Herschel Hubbard, Seth’s two children, hired Wade Lanier, Esq. to challenge the holographic will, claiming that their father Harry Seth Hubbard did not have “testamentary capacity” to make a new will. Remember, the two children inherited most everything in the will of a year earlier. Once Jake Brigance “probated” the more recent holographic will, the Clanton, Mississippi, knew there was going to be a long, probably drawn-out battle over who gets Seth Hubbard’s millions. And a battle there was. Wade Lanier was a very good lawyer, and he had his investigator turn up another holographic will, written up by one of Lettie Lang’s previous employers, that she LL had failed to mention in her initial deposition, in which an elderly white woman, Irene Pickering, the previous employer, left her $50 thousand. Irene Pickering’s son managed (apparently unfairly) to have this holographic will annulled, and Lettie Lang got nothing out of it. Nevertheless, Wade Lanier planned to argue that Lettie Lang had a history of exerting undue influence on her elderly dying employers.

Though unstated, Wade Lanier planned to argue that Lettie Lang became Seth Hubbard’s illicit girl friend in order to access his millions. Wade Lanier’s investigator found a beautiful black woman , Julina Kidd, in southern Georgia who stated she had filed a sexual harassment case against Seth Hubbard a few years earlier. The case was settled out of court, but there was a record of her allegations, which would tend to establish that Seth Hubbard had a propensity to take sexual advantage of his female employees.

Things seemed to be going Wade Lanier’s way. Lettie Lang’s credibility was questioned. Did she exert undue influence over the very elderly and sickly Seth Hubbard to get herself named in last will and testament? It sort of looked that way.

Then Ancil Hubbard’s video testimony arrived and was shown to the jury on a VCR. Ancil Hubbard explained the lynching he and his brother had witnessed when they were children. Though Seth Hubbard did not say so in his second holographic will, it became clear that SH knew that Lettie Lang was the granddaughter of Sylvester Rinds and he was compensating for his father’s crime, the lynching of Sylvester Rinds and Cleon’s grossly illegal seizure of SR’s 80 acres. Of course, the jury decided Seth Hubbard did know what he was doing at the time he wrote the later second holographic will.

In the epilogue to the story, Lettie Tayber Rinds Lang divorced her husband, Simeon Lang but stated that she did not want the whole fortune, she just wanted her own house, the 80 acres, so that she did not have to be a maid any more.

She also did not want Seth Hubbard’s two children, as unsympathetic as they were, to be completely disinherited. So she agreed that Ramona Hubbard Dafoe and Herschel Hubbard receive a few million each for themselves and their children, i.e. Seth Hubbard’s grandchildren. The bulk of the money, however, would be put into a scholarship trust for needy black students who wanted to go to college. Judge Reuben Atlee presides over the final disposition of this case.

The End

Three other novels that John Grisham wrote that were made into films were A Time to Kill, The Pelican Brief and The Firm. They are all very high quality.

© 8 April 2014



About
the Author

I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City, Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA’s. I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.

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Don’t Touch Me There by Lewis

[Note: The following anecdote is not based upon actual events.]

He looked straight down at me, expectantly, and asked, “May I touch you here?”

“Be my guest”, I replied.

Then, again, “May I touch you there?”

“Naturally,” I responded.

It was only sex, without commitment or depth of feeling beyond the corporeal. It was fun, entertaining, spontaneous, and more than a little frightening. After all, he was only the third man I had “been with” in my nearly seven decades of existence. 

I am not enamored with the concept of “casual sex”, unless it is self-inflicted” or, to put it a little more aptly, self-administered. I hold nothing against those with a less risk-adverse attitude toward sex. Perhaps, I, for reasons meritorious or otherwise, have greater expectations as to the payoff that should come from bestowing upon someone the most precious and personal gift I can give–save for one–that being my heart.
For the moment, my heart resides in the rose garden in Cheesman Park, where lie the ashes of my late husband, Laurin. My heart is occupied, for the moment, with reminiscences of his mind, his body, his heart, his loving touch. So, I invite others to offer me a handshake, a hug, a kiss on the cheek. But, for now, please don’t touch my heart.

©
21 April 2013

About
the Author

I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and had two children while working as an engineer for the Ford Motor Company. I was married to a wonderful woman for 26 happy years and suddenly realized that life was passing me by. I figured that I should make a change, as our offspring were basically on their own and I wasn’t getting any younger. Luckily, a very attractive and personable man just happened to be crossing my path at that time, so the change-over was both fortuitous and smooth.

Soon after, I retired and we moved to Denver, my husband’s home town. He passed away after 13 blissful years together in October of 2012. I am left to find a new path to fulfillment. One possibility is through writing. Thank goodness, the SAGE Creative Writing Group was there to light the way.

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Meals to Remember by Gillian

Much as I like to eat, I am not any kind of gourmet. I have very simple tastes and don’t care so very much what I eat, so it comes as no surprise that I can come up with only two meals that I remember because of the actual food. Memories of any kind can be wonderful or awful, so let’s get the awful one out of the way.

I have talked before about my time in Russia. Right after it became Russia and the old U.S.S.R . broke up, I spent a few weeks on a volunteer job in Leningrad, at that moment returning to it’s old self as St. Petersburg. I stayed in a private apartment with a lovely woman named Ludmilla, and her silent soldier husband and equally silent soldiers-to-be teenage sons. The last Sunday before I was due to leave, there was a “family dinner,” the first since I had been there, to celebrate my stay with them. Ludmilla’s widowed father, who lived some miles away in one of the many little towns that dot the Russian landscape, was coming in on the train specially to meet me, and bringing rabbits he had trapped in the woods for what Betsy would term a “taste treat sensation.”
Oh whoopee. I sighed to myself, mentally squaring my shoulders, could do this. Not with the delight expected of me, and that I must try to fake, but I could do it. In England during my youth we all ate a lot of rabbit, usually scattered around in little pieces in a big stew, liberally augmented by vegetables. I was well versed in ways of wrapping the bits of meat in some vegetable matter while in my mouth, then swallowing quickly without actually chewing the meat or allowing it anywhere near my taste buds. Of course that was fifty years ago, but I was sure I retained the knack.
So, Ludmilla of course refusing my offer of help, we huddled around the only table, a small wooden one in the kitchen corner; three silent men and me, with, thankfully, a charming and garrulous Grandpa. He and I managed quite an informative conversation in spite of no common language; possibly the free flow of vodka had something to do with it. Anyway it came to a sudden end as Ludmilla approached flourishing an old pewter plate which she placed, with as much ceremony as can be mustered in a small, crowded, steamy, kitchen, not in the center of the table but directly in front of me. Ludmilla and her dad beamed at me with pride and anticipation. Even the silent ones nodded gravely in agreement.
The small head still contained accusing, though by now, lusterless, sad brown eyes. The top of the head had been cut off, exposing the brain. Beside the gruesome, pitiful, object, a tiny glass spoon rested. Everyone in the kitchen watched, silently. They had sacrificed their favorite treat for me. I knew what was expected of me. My stomach heaved. Oh please oh please don’t let me throw up. I took a long drink of water and considered doing the same with vodka but knew that would only exacerbate my digestive woes. Ludmilla, bustling housewife too busy to stand and stare, placed a huge stew-pot on the table, accompanied by an exquisitely carved trencher piled high with chunks of thick black bread. Oh, thank you God, I can do this. I put a big piece of bread beside the beleaguered bunny, picked up the spoon, raised my head, and beamed at everyone.

“Thank you; all of you. Spaciba. Balshoye spaciba.”

I sounded so sincere, I almost believed it.

I toasted each of them individually. Surely, a little vodka would help.

And after all, rabbit brains are very tiny.

OK, enough of that. On to the good memory. Betsy and I were hiking in Scotland, I suppose ten or fifteen years ago. We ended up in a delightful little town, the name of which I knew until recently when it leaked from my brain along with a lot of other stuff. We decided, not for the first time, just to get fish and chips to go for dinner. We knew there had to be a “chippie” in a place of this size, and found it with little trouble. These chip shops which are scattered throughout Britain are not a chain, they are owned by individuals, and therefore, although they all look and smell much the same and serve essentially the same things, the end product varies.
We scuttled off with our haddock and fries still scalding hot. It was cool and drizzling a little and the heat felt good as it seeped through the paper wrapping; no longer simply newspaper as in my youth, but with hygienic wax paper now inserted between the paper and the food. At least that was how that particular shop served it though sadly some have now gone to those awful indestructible styrofoam boxes. 
We found a bench in a lovely little park beside the river and beneath a big tree to keep us dry, and unwrapped our precious bundles. Why, I have no idea, but those were the best fish and chips I have had in my entire life, before or since. Betsy thought so too. We raved to each other over them. We chattered happily about how far we had walked that day. Could we possibly….? We deserved it, didn’t we….? We practically ran back for a second order.
As I inferred at the beginning, I have had many many wonderful meals worth remembering, but I love the memories for where I was and the people who shared them. Mostly I have only a very vague memory, or none at all, or what I actually ate. Collectively, my meals most worthy of recall are those Betsy and I have had while camping, and the content of them is rarely memorable. We eat very basic food and much of it gets repeated day after day, especially as we often camp for days in some spot miles from any food source. There is something so special about eating outdoors, often by a stream or river, listening to the birds twitter and sing, while gazing into the campfire with the love of your life beside you. 
How could you possibly remember what food you ate?
© March 2014

About the
Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.

  
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In Memory of Mickey — The Wildest of the Wild Ones by Donaciano Martinez

Mickey passed away on April 18, 2014, at age 68, due to complications related to a heart condition that worsened over the past several years. Born in Denver, Mickey had been a lifelong resident of Denver. There was cremation and the memorial service was held in May at the home of a family member, who noted that a church was ruled out because the family “never accepted” Mickey’s lifestyle.

I have met several wild people throughout my long life, but Mickey always was the wildest of the wild ones. Although Mickey could not read and write and was legally considered disabled due to partial paralysis in an arm and leg, she had more street sense of anyone I have ever known.

Mickey and I instantly clicked when we first met in Denver in early 1976. Although the term “transgender” was not used in those years, Mickey clearly fit the transgender identity because she always presented herself (through attire and behaviors) as a woman. In some of our many long talks, she told me that she self-identified as female ever since she was an early teenager in the late 1950s and she never had any interest in going through surgery to become a woman.

The Swingers Club

Mickey was a very extrovert person with a delightful sense of humor. We had many good laughs and fun times together. She always jokingly called me “Girleena Garcia” and I always jokingly called her “Cochina” (naughty lady). Early on, she told me that she and her “sister” ran a swingers club in order to supplement the low income Mickey had for many years through the Social Security disability program. Telling me that her so-called “sister” consisted only of a poster-size framed photo prominently displayed on the living room wall, Mickey boasted that the image of her “sister” had brought in big bucks to the swingers club. Through her straight male acquaintance who produced straight porno magazines, Mickey always got free ads to promote the swingers club that was supposed to be located in the upscale Green Mountain residential area west of Denver. Once men responded to the ads by calling Mickey’s telephone number, Mickey claimed to be the “sister” whose photo was in the ads. Eager to meet the “sister” and other women who were part of the so-called swingers club, numerous men paid their “membership fee” by putting cash inside an envelope and depositing it through the mail slot of the home that Mickey rented. When men subsequently called Mickey to inquire about the swingers club meetings that never materialized, Mickey politely told them that “all the girls left town” to become dancers in Las Vegas. Just like that, poof, men’s expectations were dashed along with the cash they had paid.

Upon learning about the imaginary swingers club, I told Mickey to be extremely careful as her club could be targeted by undercover police. Her reply was that police never could do anything to her because she was “not a street hustler.” I reiterated my plea upon telling her that undercover police did not limit their operations to street hustlers. My warnings were most prophetic when Mickey got arrested in 1977 by an undercover police officer, who had targeted Mickey’s swingers club around the same time that a different undercover officer shot and killed a street-hustling drag queen in an alley. The charges were dropped against Mickey when court testimony revealed the Denver Police Department (DPD) had erased portions of the audio tape that captured an undercover police officer’s phone conversation in which Mickey agreed to accept a stolen TV as payment for membership in the swingers club.

The Biggest Haul of All = $1100 Cash

Despite Mickey’s 1977 court case, the 1977 police killing of a street-hustling drag queen, and the second police killing of a street-hustling drag queen one year later in 1978, Mickey moved full steam ahead with the swingers-club scam that brought hundreds of dollars hand-delivered to her doorstep without having to set one foot on the streets of Denver.

In 1979, Mickey was arrested on several felony charges after a DPD undercover officer dropped off $1100 (eleven $100 bills) in an envelope through the mail slot at Mickey’s home. When DPD officers subsequently raided Mickey’s home, they tore the place apart and terrorized her pet monkey upon looking for the marked $100 bills. Facing a lengthy prison sentence if convicted, Mickey was very worried about her future. In open court, DPD audio tapes were played with Mickey’s voice describing in great detail how she would do the nasty with the undercover police officer. Because the police never found the evidence after leaving her rented home in shambles, Mickey was set free after a trial that was publicized in the Denver media. [Mickey told people in later years that she had hidden the $100 bills by tightly rolling them up inside empty lipstick tubes on top of her fancy makeup table, but the police never looked inside the lipstick tubes despite ransacking the drawers of her makeup table.]

After the close call with the 1979 court case, Mickey decided to keep a low profile for a while by abandoning the phony swingers club that always carried with it a big risk because of the large sums of money that were delivered for something that did not exist.

Advent of Telephone-Fantasy Service

In 1980, Mickey started a telephone fantasy service out of her home. She said a lawyer had advised her that the new service was legitimate as long as she only talked nasty and did not accept any cash for her telephone service. Just as she had done for several years with the swingers club, she advertised only in straight porno magazines and all of her clientele were straight men. After a client paid the club membership via money order to Mickey’s P.O. box, a total of ten 30-minute phone calls were allowed. Mickey talked nasty on the phone while the men became aroused and played with their whoppers. The phone fantasy line was among the growing list of “kinky” things that increasing numbers of straight men liked to do. From the perspective of married men, the phone fantasy was a “safe” activity that allowed the men to express whatever they wanted to Mickey. Many similar phone-fantasy services began to crop up all over the country in those years.

Very candid about her phone-fantasy service, Mickey frequently had this to say: “Honey, these straight guys always think they’re talking to a young, blonde and slender woman, but they’re only talking to an older and overweight lady who wants only one thing out of them – their pocketbook.”


Expanding to In-Person Encounters

Mickey had several in-person clients with whom she made contact through her phone-fantasy service. She always prided herself on the fact that she was “not a street hustler” and operated only out of her home. Learning from the 1979 court case, she stayed away from the exchange of cash for doing the nasty. Instead, she always had her clients “pick up a few things” on their way over to Mickey’s place. The requested items generally entailed groceries that she needed. A big fan of top-of-the-line expensive oil-based perfumes for women, she also had clients stop off at expensive department stores to buy her a few perfume bottles on their way to Mickey’s place. Her wish list later expanded to appliances to adorn her kitchen. Almost always, the men obliged and brought whatever she requested. If they showed up empty-handed without the items she requested, she politely asked them to leave.

In 1986 Mickey began having a relationship with a straight man, who was going through a divorce and who had custody of his one-year-old son. Having been raised on a farm in Montana, the well-mannered and handsome guy was naive about life in the city. He had quite an eye-opening introduction to city life when he met Mickey. She took very good care of the baby boy, who always referred to Mickey as “Mom.” The baby’s father worked long hours at menial jobs to support his baby and Mickey, who stopped the phone-fantasy service throughout the four-year stormy relationship that ended when the baby’s biological mother re-entered the picture and was awarded permanent custody of her son.

Hundreds – and I do mean hundreds – of straight men knew where Mickey lived, but that never was a source of concern to Mickey. The public would have been shocked to learn that one of her longtime in-person clients was a very handsome and married conservative politician who had been elected to the Colorado State Legislature.

A Cart Full of Groceries

Although almost all of Mickey’s clients met at her place, there was one occasion in which she and a married man arranged to meet in the parking lot of King Soopers (a/k/a Queen Soopers) at 9th and Downing in the heart of Homo Heights in Denver. Just as she had done with other clients on hundreds of occasions, she asked her married client to “pick up a few things” at King Soopers. Mickey asked me to accompany her in order to lift the grocery bags as they were too heavy for her to lift due to the paralysis in her arm. I was aghast to see the man (who was extremely handsome and very polite) with a grocery cart full of numerous bags of groceries that the man bought for Mickey, who went through each and every bag to make sure all of her requested items (easily a total of $100 or more) were in the bags. Their pre-arranged plan was to leave the King Soopers parking lot and go to a nearby Ramada motel room (Colfax and Marion) paid for in advance by the man. With Mickey and me in her car and the man following behind us in his car, we got to an intersection at which the traffic light turned red just as I drove through the intersection. Although Mickey and I could have easily just kept going since the man was waiting for the red light to change, she insisted that I pull over and wait for the man because he came through with all of the groceries she ordered. After they did the nasty at the motel room, the guy left and Mickey returned to her car that I was driving. Once we got back to her house, I made numerous trips carrying the bags of groceries from the car to the kitchen.


In the Path of a Crazed Bull Elephant In Heat
When I once sought input from my longtime activist friend Betty about Mickey’s very wild lifestyle, Betty wrote:

“Mickey’s line of work is akin to sauntering along in the path of a crazed bull elephant in heat. I admire Mickey’s courage, ingenuity, audacity and her sheer strength of will not to allow anyone to intimidate or threaten her, but I worry about her constantly. Listening to the boys’ fantasies must get horribly old and terribly fast. In comparison to Mickey, the extremely slight exposure I get – at work, in stores, restaurants, streets, wherever – turns my nerves to live electric wires. The boys’ fantasies and their proclivity to violence are as close as a kid glove on a hand. Whether directives from the Pentagon or calls to Mickey’s phone line, the boys’ understanding and masculinity, as defined by them, come across the same. My motto is: gamble safely and only dangerously when it is an absolute necessity. I fully recognize the necessity for Mickey’s gamble every time she answers the telephone or the doorbell, but my blood turns to ice every time I hear a newscast or catch a headline in a newspaper. I also know Mickey is cognizant of the explosive possibilities of every encounter – not just her clientele, but the moralists, the cops, and the staked-out territory she might tread on.”

Fortunately, throughout her many years of life on the wild side, Mickey never was put in harm’s way by what Betty appropriately called the “crazed bull elephant in heat.”

A Book about Mickey’s Wild Life

Mickey periodically asked me to seriously consider writing a book about her wild life. Due to being busy in other aspects of my life, I never had time to follow up on her suggestion. Although the many episodes of her life would have been more than enough material for a book, we always thought that people would find the tales so outrageous and hard to believe she really went through it all. When I once sought input from my longtime activist friend Betty about the prospect of a book, Betty wrote:

“There is a market for the book. A number of people (who started out reading it because it was banned from California to Italy) would learn the truth about the use and abuse of power and by whom. The sensitive and the intelligent, intrigued by natural curiosity, would be educated. Mickey could retire from hustling.”

Although the book never will be pursued by me, this memorial piece should serve as a synopsis of the life of Mickey as the wildest of the wild ones.

© 30 April 2014

About the Author

Since 1964 Donaciano Martinez has been an activist in peace and social justice movements in Colorado. His family was part of a big migration of Mexican Americans from northern New Mexico to Colorado Springs in the 1940s. He lived in Colorado Springs until 1975 and then moved to Denver, where he still resides. He was among 20 people arrested and jailed in Colorado Springs during a 1972 protest in support of the United Farm Workers union that was co-founded by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta. For his many years of activism, Martinez received the 1998 Equality Award, 1999 Founders Award, 2000 Paul Hunter Award, 2001 Community Activist Award, 2005 Movement Veterans Award, 2006 Champion of Health Award, 2008 Cesar Chavez Award, 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award, and the 2013 Pendleton Award. La Gente Unida, a nonprofit co-founded by Martinez, received the 2002 Civil Rights Award. The year 2014 marks the 50-year anniversary of his volunteer work in numerous nonprofit situations.