(see Hubpages series, Gay Emancipation, for more)

"Hey, Rich, I think I found a new roommate for the third bedroom. His name is James. I'm gonna have him stop by tonight to check-out the apartment. O.K.?"

"Yea, sure," I responded. "It beats splitting the rent two ways." Little did I know that I was about to meet a really great guy, with an outgoing personality, who was a lot of fun, and with whom I would ,secretely, fall in love. Little did I know that I would learn much about myself from this encounter. Like many of the follies of a young man, I would do a lot of projecting of my own desires upon him. And I would learn that there was still very much unlearned and unresolved in my personal life.

I thought I had been doing such a good job of repressing every instinct I had to be Gay. I avoided all close contact with my fellow college students of the same sex. I read, "Playboy" (not "Playgirl"). I avoided West Hollywood, although I was a not that far away, at Cal Poly, Pomona. I had a girlfriend and was a "practicing" heterosexual. She seemed to approve of my practices, and my repressed inclinations were never something she noted or asked about. Everything was going "fine" in my intentionally constructed and obstructed personal world. I just wasn't getting confronted with my issues--until James showed up.

"Hello. Are you Richard?" "Yea, come in. You must be James." That was obvious, I thought. He must think I am slow. Very slow. I liked his looks: sandy brown hair, cut short; kaki's, sandles, and a Tommy Bahama looking shirt. Great teeth, a sexy smile, and just a little bit of freckle on his tanned cheekbones. "A pure southern california guy," I thought to myself. I was a northern california transplant. I showed him the apartment, learned that he was an art major, had plenty of money--his father would pay the rent--and that he had a girlfriend named "Pam." It all seemed pretty normal to me (god, I hate that word, "normal." Who and what is "normal" anyway? Are bible-thumping evangelicals normal?) I took him to the super's to sign his lease and get a set of keys. When he left, I felt unsettled. I couldn't quite reason why I felt "disturbed" by him. I knew about my attraction, but I'd always been able to suppress it. Yet his presense had reminded me of an incident which had happened just a few days ago on the Poly campus.

I was headed across the quad, from my student job in the bookstore to my editor's job on the Poly Post, the campus newspaper. Then I remembered that a "new" TV show, Star Trek, was about to start, so I headed up to one of the dorms to join the crowd who would be watching it. As I made my way up the lawn in front of the dorm, a couple of guys, with their shirts off, were tossing a football. One guy missed the ball and it came rolling toward me. I started to lean down to capture it and this one fellow grabed me around the waist, spun me around, tackled me to the lawn and sat on me. I found myself, looking up at his tight pecs and muscled arms. "Where ya goin' freshmen?" he smiled down at me. "To see Star Trek if you will let me." He got up and offered his hand to help me up. I was embarrassed and in a state of high self-vigilance: not permitting myself to feel the rush of hormones and desire that was in my head and in my pants.I couldn't help but feel that he had been "playing" with me, not just innocently, but in a sexy kind of way. He was just so comfortable smothering my body on the lawn. And I thought his eyes were flirting with me. God, he got to me on so many levels, I was upset with myself for days afterwards.

And now James was affecting me the same way. I was getting flush around these guys and that was taboo. That was dangerous to my under-developed self-identity. Those of you who are gay know what it's like to be conflicted, to still have not resolved your sexuality or found a way to feel comfortable with yourself in a hostile culture. I am writing of the way things were in the 1970's. "No way, Jose!" This wasn't what I had "chosen." I had chosen "normal." relationships. That meant straight. But my body was defying me. Two incidents, close together, and I was upset with my-Self. Who was I ? The guy I said I was? The guy I intellectualized I "should" be? Or the guy who automatically got flush and lost it? I was beginning to understand how one's nature can be more powerful than one's idea or self-construct of what he believes he is supposed to be? This scared me, but it also made me feel alive.

James moved in and it wasn't very long before I began to hear he and Pam banging the headboard as they practicied their heterosexuality. I was doing the same with my girlfriend, in my strident efforts at "normalcy. But I was bothered by my preoccupation with James, my attraction to him, and my awareness that he seemed more genuinely happy with his practice of manhood than did I. I was wrestling with the weight of feeling I didn't belong to the world of "normal, acceptable, mainstream," people. I laugh at these terms now, but I grew up in a place where I understood the magnitude of not fiting in.

"Hey, Rich. Pam's outta' town with her folks. Let's go out! Let's do Hollyweird tonight."

"O.K." I tried to cover the uneasiness in my voice, as I contained my excitement at the opportunity of going out with James, and my intense fear that I would disgrace myself by feeling things or expressing something that I wasn't supposed to.

"God. just help me be a "regular" guy tonight and enjoy bonding with a buddy, without getting an erection." What a pitiful prayer, I told myself.

James was a year ahead of me in college and he was a lot more street savvy than me. I was a naive kid raised near yosemite national park, a country "hick," I chided myself. L.A. was a long way from my childhood. I would experience three things on this night trip to "Hollyweird" that I would remember for the rest of my life. One, was great live music, in the form of Linda Ronstadt, live at the Whiskey. Two, was smoking marijuana for the first time. And the third was being tempted to get into James' BVD's. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Hollywood was wall-to-wall, curb-to-curb people on saturday night. Hippie's, tourists, college students, and locals out for dinner and clubbing. James parked the brand new v-w beattle his father had given him and looked up and down the street.

"I think we should be able to get some pot from someone on the street. All ya' have to do is smell it and smile at the person doin' it." I was in my guarded, macho mode, maintaining my cover, so I didn't tell James I had never smelled pot or smoked it before. We soon found ourselves shelling out $35 dollars to a kid who looked stoned out of his mind. We headed back to the car and sat in the darkenss, smoking the joint. I realized how little I knew about life and how easily I followed any guy who showed any interest in being my friend. I was trying to find my way and this a part of the stumbling process. I didn't know what I was doing after that joint. James said something about it being "laced" with other chemicals and I got a little scared. So I followed James' lead as we headed back into the warm, California night air and headed into the "Whiskey A-Go Go."

I sat on a bench and James went to get us drinks. The guy at the microphone said, 'I'd like to introduce, Linda Ronstadt." And for the next two hours, I just kind of melted into the music and lost all sense of my own little world and all the issues I still had to deal with in my life. Now I knew what "trippin' " meant. I was moved along by the most powerful voice I had ever heard in a live performance. We had just walked-in off the street, and we were in the presence of someone who was to go on to become a major entertainer and the girlfriend of a guru, California governor. It was an eventful time to grow up and it was every bit as complicated as we know growing up can be for a young person.

By the time Ronstadt had finished performing to a packed house that was rockin' all the way to the rafters, I was both completely stoned and intoxicated on whiskey sours. And even though I was in no shape to drive, James was in even worse shape. I found myself holding him up as we both weaved and bobbed our way down the dark street to the v-w beetle. His body felt warm against mine and I wanted him even closer. He reached in his pocket and handed his keys to me. "You gotta drive, buddy. I'm wasted." I spent the next hour trying to focus on the road, while simultaneously trying to repress the warm sexual arousal I was getting from the close proximity of James body in the tiny V-W. The pleasure sensors of my body felt so magnified under the influence of the pot. I was turned-on by the feeling and worried that it was just more evidence of my hopeless status in society. James would hate to know he was with a "queer," I informed myself. And so my self hatred played at the back of my mind, while my erection played at the front of my body. It is a terrible thing to have been told, convinced, brain-washed that your very nature is evil. A "good" person wants to eliminate "evil." I didn't realize how my sense of conformity would later drive me to want to punish myself for being me.

When we got back to the apartment, my third roommate had left a note, indicating he had gone home for the weekend. James was still hanging onto to me as I led the way down the hallway to his bedroom. He was peeling off his shirt and I heard his shoes drop to the floor as he stumbled out of them. There was a small lamp near the bed, covered in a blue scarf. I turned it on and lost my breath for a moment as I looked at James' muscular legs and furry chest. He was down to his BVD's and his ample package looked so full and inviting. He was so drunk I don't think he noticed my attention on him. He collapsed on the bed and then I heard a groan followed by the sound of vomit coming out of his mouth. "Oh, God, Rich. Help me into the bathroom! I need to puke some more." I soon found myself holding him around the waist, in his BVD's, while he proceeded to puke into the toilet. This certainly isn't a "sexy" image by most accounts, but I was even more excited by his exposure and my proximity to it. Here I had this hard, handsome guy right in my hands and-- oh--my hands wanted to do things that were unacceptable to the way I told myself I was supposed to be. When he was finished he turned around and put his arms around me, waiting for me to direct him back to bed. I put him on the mattress and stepped back to look at him. He passed out in an instant and it occured to me that I might be able to hold his body and feel it and he would never wake up or know what I had done. I knew that crossed a boundary and was wrong. But I wanted to lay on the bed with him so badly and hold him in my arms. I acked to feel his skin and run my fingers through his hair and feel every inch of his body. But it would have been a violation of him and so all I could do was look until I started to cry.

I couldn't stand to be so tormented any longer. I couldn't bear feeling like an unwanted voyer. I left the room crying and distraught. THIS WAS IT! I HAVE TO STOP THIS! I HAVE TO STOP ME! I AM A MONSTER CRAVING A MAN. I AM AN ABOMINATION! I went through all the litany of words that every holy-roller preacher and homo-hater uses to discribe "queer" people. And then I thought--in a my drunkin' and drugged state--that I MUST STOP MY-SELF. I MUST END THIS 'ABNORMALICY!' I MUST END ME!

It was the "right thing to do," I told myself, as I headed to the kitchen and pulled out the longest butcher knife I could find in the drawer. This self-deception had gone on long enough. This covert way of living a life had gone on long enough. This guilt and shame over feeling like a sexual freak had gone on long enough. This internal torment and negative self-monologue had gone on long eough. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! I would do the "healthy, moral, honest, acceptable thing," that a good person would do. I would rid my society and "good, clean, straight boys," like James, of a person as despicable as me. I would take the butcher knife and stick it in my gut and turn it until I bled really good and then I would just die quietly in the middle of the night. They could dispose of the vile vermon that was me in the morning.

I lit a candle and some incense in the livingroom. I put the Beatle's, Yellow Submarine, on the turntable. James had dropped the baggie of pot on the floor in the hall and I rolled one more joint to go out on. I layed down on the couch with the butcher knife resting on my stomach. " This is the right thing to do," I told myself. "I am a disgrace to myself and to my family. My dad won't care. He already knows I'm a 'sissy' and he will be relieved that I'm no longer an embarrassment to him." I went on and on with a hundred reasons why this was the right night to leave this homo-hating world. The music and the pot made me feel like I was floating above the couch. I probably wouldn't even feel the knife go in and cut my guts open. The blood would be warm and I would just get lighter and lighter until I drifted away from this God awful small minded planet. No more torment. No more shame and guilt. No more hideing or pretending. I just kept getting lighter and higher above the couch, in my pot induced delusion. I said good bye to my mom and my little sister ,Jan, as I swirled upward. I knew I would miss them, but I wouldn't miss the way I felt about myself. I could finally relax. I didn't have to be guarded or defended with anybody any more. And the Beatle's were taking me on their Yellow Submarine.......

"Hey, Rich! Hey, Rich! Wake Up!! Man you must have been out-of-it! I've been shaking your shoulder and you wouldn't wake up. You had me scared there for a minute."

It was James and it was morning. And I had crashed, gone to sleep, without "doing the right thing" and riding the planet of a being as vile as me.

"OH! Sorry! Must have been the pot!" My body tightened, my mind circled, as I realized I must return to the guarded, pretending stance that I always used to deal with myself in the world. I looked around for the knife. Where was the damned knife? Had James put it away and was he as upset and freightened for me as I was for myself? I still couldn't find the knife.

"Hey, that's cool, bro.. I'm headed out to meet up with Pam. Far-out night we had last night. Catch ya' later." He picked up the bag of pot from the coffee table and headed out the door.

"Where's the knife?" I thought in a panic. James hadn't said anything. I looked under the couch on the floor. Not there. I looked on the coffe table. Not there. I went to the kitchen drawer. Not there. Had James hidden it? Did he think I was a loser? I was certain that soon the entire world would know of the psychological turmoil I delt with on a daily basis. Back to the frickin' couch. I pulled the cushions forward and there was the butcher knife underneath of center cushion. No one would ever know of my misery. I could deal with it--or not--by myself. I was alone in my psychological isolation again. At least if I was an abomination, I was a discreet abomination. But I was still alive and that meant I had to go through all of this stuff again.

Let's see.......I hadn't had shameful queer sex with James. I hadn't violated his body. I Had smoked the evil weed, Mary-jaw-wanna. I had lusted after James' body. I had driven, DWI, or was that DWS--driving while stoned? I had been confronted by my strongest desire and my strongest personal demon. And I had come dangerously close to offing myself, taking the "easy way out." "What's easy about not wanting to enjoy life?" I asked myself. "What's easy about this space I'm in in my head and heart?"

STOP!!!! DON'T START AGAIN! TAKE A BREAK!

Do you begin to see how hard it is---even for a young person with lots of energy--to reconfigure a life that has been put together by the ignorance and prejudice of the world? I MUST BE WHO THEY SAY I MUST BE. BUT I AM WHO I AM.

I believe Spirit saw me through that long and twisted night. It taught me several lessons and it strengthened my perception of my misperceptions. Because I needed to bond with a guy so badly, I had projected all kinds of heroic ideals onto James. But I had learned, and would go on to learn, that he was as flawed as I was. He would lose his girlfriend in the next few weeks, when she dumped him. And he would medicate himself on cocaine. And I would realize that I didn't want to go to that space with James and I would walk away from him and my idealization of him. Unfortuneately, I would continue to hide my sexuality for a long time to come. There were still no "gay" people in the world I survived in. There were only "queers." And the abused little boy in me still needed to be accepted. Even if it meant being accepted for being somebody I wasn't. How do you re-configure a mis-configuration? How do you right the wrongs of society's lies?

I'm still here. And I'm very "queer." And I'm very proud of the wonderful gay and lesbian and transgendered people who have persisted in a march to personal freedom and psychological well being. There is still a lot to be done. And there is a young, vibrant, empowered generation who will take gay people forward to greater equality.

If you are dealing with the kinds of issues you have read about in my story, then you must always remember that you must empower yourself with the truth of the complexity of life. Real--not imposed--Life.

YOU MUST KNOW WHO YOU ARE, NOT WHO THEY SAY YOU MUST BE. You must find the courage and wisdom to psychologically integrate your mind. And then you can say, "I AM WHO I AM."

You can no longer abuse your "Self," or be abused by the world, when your mind and your heart are integrated and grounded in the Truth of your being.

WHO ARE YOU?

"I AM WHO I AM."

AND DOES THAT MEAN THAT YOU'RE STUCK WITH A LABEL AND CAN'T CHANGE?

"I CAN CHANGE TO SUIT MY TRUTH AND MY EMPOWERMENT."

"I AM THAT I AM."

**********************************************************

(note: Hubpages is Free. But you can encourage this author's work by going to the tiny ADS at the bottom of the page and clicking on any of the sponsors that interest you. Thank you.)