Homo crackdown in parks to continue

Here comes Frank, bachelor in his 40s with a mincing stride and fluttery hands, his dramatic impediment a lisp that somehow makes itself known even in non-sibilant words. Frank, a customer at the restaurant where we became friends after I – aproned teenager, busing tables – caught his eye. As many males do, I will learn. Boys and men charm him from a distance or up close. An accountant, never married, Frank bird-watches every Sunday with a cluster of whispering spinsters.

“Of course not!” he shrieks when I finally brave the asking. In the movie theater’s lobby, heads turn. “Can’t I admire a near-perfect male specimen without being … that?” They add evidence, Frank’s near-perfect (discerning fellow) and his that (can’t say it because he is it). Evidence that by now I don’t need.

When I think of people from long ago, when they emerge from the mist by magic, it’s never on their birthday or death day, as I discover by Googling. What causes them to surface at a particular moment? My sense is that they extend from the Other Side, but how do they choose the kairos, this temporal punctum, not earlier or later?

Loren is another customer I spend off hours with. At the spectrum’s far end from Frank – in manner anyway; very male – but about the same age and likewise a stranger to matrimony. Imagine the early David Byrne, somewhat huskier, boxy suit or not. He fixes you directly with deep-set eyes below a shelf of forehead, the brows could use a trim, unspeaking for six or seven beats. He likes a super stack of Swedish pancakes, Loren does, bacon on the side. Tonight he wants to show me his job, which he has not explained very well so I’m curious.

Loren’s job is closed. He has a key. Behind us the door crashes and Loren flips a switch. The fluorescent light buzzes, making visible a far corner of the place. Machine shop, I would recognize today. The outlines of dusty tables and tools (some hung, some scattered), benches. A circular saw catches the glint. Loren will use this implement to dismember me when he’s done.

Oh, nothing happened with Loren. Or Frank. I mean nothing happened. Frank reached 83 and died as many years from this moment as the age I was when we met: 18. Hard to imagine. I had by then wed (twice) and left town. Loren? I can’t remember his last name and maybe didn’t ask, so he’s unsearchable.

The third older patron – lunch – under whose influence I fall turns out to be a weekly tabloid editor and publisher. Devout Catholic with wife and kids. Fond of cherry pie. Don’s responsible (to blame, many say) for the “scandal sheet” in our town. He appreciates my work ethic as related to dish-clearing and water-pouring. He hires me. The kid’s first crack at journalism.

I cover everything. Police beat, city council, society news, features. Among the scourges at which Don takes civic-minded aim: Gay men in public forest preserves, nabbed in the rest rooms by undercover cops for making overtures. I gather the details from police reports. Don runs the offenders’ mug shots on the front page.

I live in constant trepidation. Will it be Frank next, will it be Loren? During the dry spells of no arrests I quietly rejoice. Don, however, keeps the readers titillated until the next batch. An actual headline: HOMO CRACKDOWN IN PARKS TO CONTINUE.

In our era the tone of the homo controversy (if such is the word) has changed, the fight related to gender as it pertains to lavatories has taken on problematic subtleties, and the world in general has complexified to a degree that makes navigating unbruised near impossible even for newcomers. Maybe more for newcomers.

Frank and Loren, though! They still visit, and for that I’m grateful.