The Masturbater

The Masturbator
Morris Park
Philadelphia, PA
Spring 1966

We are playing in the park as we often do on the weekends.  Rosalie, Kathy and I are in the creek, trying to push each other in the water when we hear a voice call out to us.  We stop what we are doing and look around.

“Over here”, he calls and we look in his direction.

It is a man in the tunnel, standing completely naked and he is masturbating.  “Come here and take a look”, he calls out in a very friendly tone.

We are horrified and spontaneity run off as fast as we can.  We scatter.  I run across a busy street but don’t even think to look as I am too afraid and I just want to get away.  After a few minutes and enough distance to feel safe, I look for the others.  They too are wondering around and looking for me.

“Did you see that?”

“Was he completely naked?”

“Where did he come from?’

“Was he playing with himself?”

“Do you think he is going to come after us?”

“Did you ever see him before?”

“Do you think he knows us?”

“How long was he standing there?”

“Where did he go?”

“What should we do?’

We rapidly throw one question after another at each other and none of us have answers.  We are shaken and don’t know what to do.  As 11 year olds, this has never happened to us. 

Just then, we see a park ranger on a horse so we call to him.  He gets off the horse and wants to know what’s wrong.  We tell him and he takes this information calmly.  He takes out a pad of paper and says, “Let’s see, how tall was he?”  We don’t know so he asks, “About my height?”  “Yes” we answer in unison.  “How much do you think he weighed?”   We have no idea so again the ranger offers, “Do you think he weighed about what I weigh?”  We agreed on that too.  The ranger tells us he had just come from the opposite direction but didn’t see anyone but he would search the area.

Then he tells us to go home which we do.  Once home, I don’t mention it to my mother.  I am afraid to even talk about it.

But two weeks later, my mother approaches me and asks what happened in the park.  Kathy had told her mother and her mother told my mother and now my mother wants to hear it from me.  I am afraid but I tell her.  She tells me that I am to tell her if things like this even happen to me again and I assure her I will.  Our discussion ends.  But for several hours, I sit in my room, filled with fear. I am afraid she will tell my father when he comes home from work and together they will be angry with me for doing something to provoke this despicable human being who violated and chipped away at my innocence and plunged me into a new world of defensiveness and second guessing.

Save the Ovaries

The doctor found something on my sister’s uterus so a hysterectomy is schedule.  We sit at the table and plan for the long recovery.  My sister, a nurse, is calm in the delivery of all her concerns.

“I’m optimistic that they are going to be able to save my ovaries”, she tells us.  “And if not both, I would be ok with just one”.

“Why?” her husband wants to know.

“Well, the recovery will be so much easier because the surgery isn’t as extensive and the long-term effects will be simpler”.  She starts with her medical talk about ovaries and estrogen and hormones and mood swings and hot flashes. 

Bill interrupts her mid-sentence.  “Wait, wait”, he flashes his hand in front of her face to silence her.  “Just tell me one thing; it isn’t going to get worse around here, is it.  That’s all I need to know.”

Billy Brings a Gun to the Dance

Billy Brings A Gun To The Dance
Stroudsburg High School
September 1992

It is the first Friday night football game of the season.  We won and emotions are soaring with excitement.  To follow up this victory, a dance is beginning in the high school cafeteria.  It’s the first big social event of the new year and everyone is out on the dance floor.  The music is loud and pulsating.  My eardrums are humming in annoyance.  Kids are reconnecting with each other.  Even though the evening now has a slight chill, most people are still dressed in shorts and flip flops, refusing to surrender to the slight hint of fall.

There must be over 300 kids in the cafeteria.  I think most of them are here now.  Some have already made their obligatory entrance and are now coolly leaving.  They have better things to do than to hang at their high school on a Friday night.

Bill comes in about a half hour after the doors open.  Unlike the others, he is wearing heavy, ditty corduroy pants. He had on work boots.  And his flannel shirt has a rip on the shoulder.  His hair is greasy and unkempt.

“Sorry I’m late “ he offers, as if there is an expectation of punctuality. “I had to take care of a few things at home”.  He is alone of course because Billy is just so strange that no one hangs with him. He is one of the invisibles.  No one includes him in conversation. He sits alone at lunch and associating with him is cause for embarrassment.

“I’m glad you could make it Bill,” I tell him, “that will be five bucks to get in.”

“Okay.”  He ruffles through his multiple pockets and drops items on the table: a comb, keys, rubber bands, matches, gum and then finally a wallet.  He produces four dollars and then begins to search again through his pockets.

“I was just so busy getting ready to get here, I must have forgotten all of my money.  I remember saying to myself, ‘don’t’ forget your keys, your comb and your gun’. I forget to remember to bring all my money”, he chuckles with this statement.

At first I thought he said gum but when he patted his right pocket, something hard hit his hand.

“Billy, did you say ‘gun or gum’?” I ask.

He looks directly at me.  I must have flinched a little as I asked because the expression on his face changed to a little bit of worry.

“Gun, I said gun, why? Aren’t we allowed to bring our guns to the dance?”  By the time he finished the question, my face gave him the answer and now he begins to panic.  The music is loud and thumping in the background.  Kids are coming and going and I have a kid with a gun.  I am trying not to panic.

“It’s not a good idea”, I tell him with as much calmness as I can muster. “Lets go into the faculty room right now, just you and me and let’s leave it there for safe keeping so no one takes it from you at the dance.”

“Oh, ok, good idea”, he replies.  He seems relieved that I am looking out for him.  As we walk towards the room, I signal a security guard to join us.  The three of us enter the room and I turn to the guard and calmly tell him that Billy is going to place a gun on the table.  The guard looks at me in complete bewilderment.  Billy puts the gun down and I ask him to step away from the table.  The guard snatches the gun and checks to see if it is loaded.

“Will I be able to get my gun back at the end of the dance”, he asks in a meek, childlike trusting voice.

“No”, the guard answers loudly and definitely, “No, you can’t have your gun back, you can’t bring a gun to school.”

Billy now looks at me with an expression of hurt and betrayal, “Am I going to get in trouble for this?” he wants to know.

“Well, we are going to have to call your dad. Lets go over to my office” I tell him.

“Oh brother, I wish never came to this dance.  He is going to be so mad at me.  He is going to be so mad.  He is going to be so mad.  You don’t know how mad my dad gets”.

The three of us walk to my office.  The security office calls his supervisor and asks for back up.  I call the dad and he comes over immediately and somewhere in this short course of time, the township police now show up as well.  There are now seven of us in my office.

Billy is seated when his dad arrives.  The father charges in and doesn’t say hello to anyone.  He makes his way right to Billy and pokes his finger on Billy’s forehead. “How many times do I have to tell you, ‘think, think, think.’  Is that too much to ask of you?  Think before you act.  What were thinking when you decided to bring that gun in here?  Think,” he yells and then steps away and nods at all of us in the room.

Kids are staring in my windows so I draw the blinds.  All of the sudden, Billy reaches in to a breast pocket and has hold of something hard.

“Billy, what do you have there?” I bark.  I now panic because it didn’t occur to any of us to search him for any more weapons.  Now this kid is curled up and trying to survive in all of this adult panic.

He leans in to something and announces, “CIA, CIA, come in. This is Billy.  I have some bad vibes going on right now in here.”  He is talking into a walkie-talkie.  No one responses and one of the police officers grabs it from him.  “It’s fake, it’s just a kid’s toy.”

“We are going to take him right now” a cop tells the dad.

“You hear that Billy, they are taking you to the jailhouse.  Think.  Think.  You have to think before you act.”

Billy is handcuffed and he cries a little bit.  He apologies to me and tells me that he understands why I had to call the police, “and there are no hard feelings”, he shouts as they put him in the police car.  They take off and I never see Billy again.

I go back into my office and sit down.  I pick up the fake walkie-talkie and think: right now I wish I had a walkie-talkie that linked me to the CIA because I felt some bad vibes too.

Coldfoot, Alaska

Coldfoot, Alaska
June 2007

We board a small plane to take us to the Artic Circle at 10 PM.  It was still broad daylight on this June evening.  Twenty minutes later, we landed in Cold Foot, Alaska. Population- too few to bother to count. The town is nothing more than a modular hotel and a beat up old bar joint and a few weather beaten houses.  We all have a beer at the bar in an effort to help out the local economy.  Then we board a jalopy of a school bus and head up the hill to a cluster of houses.  I don’t remember the name of the town and it might not even have a name.  But 13 people live in this area, 11 of them are related to each other.  We meet Kevin, the mayor.  His mother is the minister and his wife, the schoolteacher.  He brother flies a plane and fetches the mail for all the locals.

Kevin is a farmer, a professional photographer, a tour guide and president of the local historical society. He is charming and witty and handsome.  He loves his little town and greet us graciously even though it is now 11 at night.  He shows us around the farms, the chapel/school room, the junkyard and the town hall.  We look at his ample collection of antlers and animal hides. He talks about a rugged way of life that is not suitable for the faint hearted. 

“Winters are brutal here”, he tells us honestly.   “It gets down to the -50s at its coldest point.  That’s tough,” even he admits.  But it is worth it for the summers. 

“Look at all of this beautiful sunshine”, he says as he swats a killer fly, biting his arm.  Blood is drawn but he just wipes it away and continues espouses the beauties of Alaska. 

He shows us his photos of the northern light and these beautiful shots could lure anyone to come here in January. He takes us to the town hall and opens up the 100-year-old registry and tells tales of great men long gone.  And while he speaks I marvel at him not because he is such a handsome renaissance man.  But because, in the midst of his conversation, he sadly but quickly tells us the story of how he talked his wife into leaving the comforts of Anchorage and moving to this god-forsaken place.  She does and after three children, she dies suddenly.  Then two years later, he meets a woman from Fairbanks and sure enough he is able to get her to move up here as well.  How could any man be so smooth as to convince two women to live here?  He is one good salesman.

Prom 2000- A Boost to the LGBT Community

Prom 2000
A Boost to the LGBT Community
May 2000

Prom season was approaching and as the new principal in the high school, I asked the senor class advisor for some insight into hot topics surrounding the prom.

“Every year, we get requests for students to come solo but we don’t allow it.  This is a couples only event”, he tells me inequitably.

“Why?” I want to know.

“Well, because we want to teach them how to behave in public on a date.  We have to teach them that. And if they don’t have a date, then we can’t teach them anything.”

“But what about the kids who are not ready to date yet?”

“They are 17 and 18, they should be ready by now.  They will just have to step it up and ask someone. It’s no big deal. They need to find a date just like everyone else” he states without thought or feeling.

At the time, my niece had just attended her prom.  She had just broken up with her boyfriend and wasn’t dating anyone and she didn’t want to ask just anyone.  She didn’t want to get stuck all night with someone she really didn’t know.  So she and a few of her friends went solo and had a great time.  I mentioned this to the class advisor and he responded, “But this is how we have always done it here at Springfield.”

I left him and went around and talked to a few of the seniors and sure enough, there were a few kids who wanted to go but didn’t want to bring dates.  So they resigned themselves to the fact that they were sadly left out.

A few days later, I went back to the class advisor and told him I had thought about our conversation and decided that kids could come to the prom without a date if they wanted.  We would establish a singles’ table and we would welcome every student to our prom. He was annoyed but complied and we had a full table of singles.

Two weeks after the prom, a boy stops in my office, late in the afternoon, after everyone was long gone for the day. He wants to show me his official prom photos.  He trembles a little bit and tells me, “I can never thank you enough.  It was my dream come true.  I had a great time at the prom.  I want to show you my pictures. I’m so proud of them.”

He hands me a stack of photos.  He is standing in front of the photographer’s backdrop, wearing his black tuxedo with a purple shirt and tie.  And so is the boy standing next to him.  They are holding hands and gazing lovingly at each other, in their matching colors. They came as a couple.

“I didn’t know how John and I were going to get to go to the prom together but when you announced the singles table, I thought, that’s it.  Now we can go to the prom.  We had a great time”.

He takes the stack of photos back and gingerly puts them in a folder. He dramatically clasps the folder next to his heart and then puts it in his backpack.  As he is leaving, he turns to me and says, “I’m so proud of our school.  Thank you so much.”

He marvels at the tolerance of the administration while I marvel at the tolerance of the student body.  I hadn’t thought that the solo table would open up options for the gay kids.  But more that that, I can’t believe that the football players didn’t beat this kid up.  I was proud of our school,