The Ghost of Nate

I'm living once again in the county where I grew up, a rural area where not much has changed during the three decades I was gone. My personal stories, what I often call ghosts, are all over the place waiting to be revisited.

I have a fairly good memory, if I had to I could recall most of the important details of my youth. But I rarely think about my youth as I'm not all that fond of my life or me before age 20. 

I'm fortunate to have the ability to not think about the parts of the past I'd rather forget. But it's harder to mentally look the other way when I'm actually at the scene of a particular memory.

I drove past the scene of a memory I'm mostly fine with early today; a long dormant gravel pit that hasn't noticeably changed in the 40 years I've been aware of it. The only reason I even noticed the gravel pit is that it was the last place I'd fooled around with or even saw Nate, my high school friends-with-benefits.

It was the summer of 1989 and I was back in the area to visit my folks for a few days. I was horny one day and called Nate to see if he was up for getting together to fool around. I didn't actually ask him like that, we were never up front on the phone. We made small talk then suggested we get together. 

Nate was up for getting together and a while later he showed up in his pickup. We headed down the nearest gravel road knowing from past experience we could find someplace far away from the nearest farm house and out of sight of passing cars.

Once in the privacy of Nate's pickup we began talking about sex and what we'd been up to. I hadn't fooled around with anyone for four or five years, Nate or Matty probably being the last guy I'd been with. Nate, on the other hand, was still regular hitting the local university's cruise spots and heading to the nearest city for more casual encounters in parks and restrooms. 

I was, as I'd always been, amazed at Nate's brazenness and ability to hook up with strangers. At that time the most daring thing I would do was to possibly attempt to sneak a glance at a guy at a urinal. I couldn't fathom showing off my dick to the guy the way Nate would of it seemed the guy might be into it.

At the gravel pit we whizzed and left our junk hanging out. I fooled around with Nate's cock and balls. I would have gone down on him except I knew his dick had been all over the place and I wasn't interested in catching anything. We jerked off then Nate dropped me off at my folks and I never saw or heard from him again. Our 12 year long friendship had solely been based on our mutual interest in fooling around with guys. We had no other common interests other than country music and pizza.

I find our gravel pit hook up that day mainly interesting for the aspect of you never know what rural guys are getting up to. But a bit of our conversation on the way to the gravel pit still bugs me whenever that ghost walks through my mind. 

After a few exchanges of Nate's encounters and my description of nice cocks I'd seen here and there Nate asked me "Do you think we're gay?"

The question sort of jolted me because other than some conversations we had when we were 12 Nate and I never really discussed our sexual orientation. We knew we both liked fooling around with guys but we never talked about guys romantically. We liked girls romantically though we never talked about them sexually or looked at straight porn mags unless it was a Penthouse or Hustler with a photo shoot of a guy and gal getting it on. 

We'd both identified as bisexual since we'd learned the term in the 8th grade, though it wasn't really an identity so much as a way of explaining that we liked guys and girls. And that explanation was just to ourselves. In 1979 14 year old boys didn't usually go around telling people they were bisexual. 

In 1989 when Nate asked me "Do you think we're gay?” I still had no interest in guys romantically and figured I'd one day have some sort of romantically entangled life with a gal. I figured Nate's view of life was the same as mine.

I can't recall exactly what I said but I basically restated the facts as we'd always seen them. When compared to what 

little I knew of gay culture there was nothing gay about us.

I don't recall how Nate replied to my answer, it wasn't anything to further the discussion of our sexuality.

Though I never heard from Nate after that day I knew he eventually married and that the marriage ended badly. I never asked about the details of the gossip I heard. I didn't want to as it seemed the sort of sad thing that happens to rural guys who like fooling around with other guys and also because I didn't want to remind anyone that Nate and I had been friends through middle school and high school.

When Nate's ghost walks through my memories what haunts me is his question, "Do you think we're gay?" I wonder if I had given him a better answer if his life would have turned out differently.

In 1989 I was probably incapable of giving any answer than the one I gave. Probably. Back then I had never asked myself "Am I gay?" That was mostly because it didn't occur to me that I might be gay, I figured sex and sexual attraction were separate from romantic attraction.

But I also never asked myself the question because I didn't want to risk the answer being "Yes."

I was still fairly conservatively Christian in 1989. Like every closeted conservative Christian guy I was good at not asking myself if my looking at gay porn mags and fantasizing about guys and fooling around with friends was a sin. I was also good at being certain I wasn't gay which would have been a major problem to address.

Had I ever asked myself "Am I gay?" I might have given Nate a better answer when he asked "Do you think we're gay?" It still wouldn't have been an astounding answer but even a "Well, it's possible" might have been helpful to Nate, a guy who was possibly for the first time ever in his life wondering if he might be gay.

But even if Nate had been able to address his identity I doubt it would have changed things much. It was 1989 and having a  gay son was still a major tragedy for most families, doubly so for rural folks (and that hasn't changed all that much). Nate's family were ranchers and Nate was the only one of three boys interested in ranching. The other two had moved to cities out of state.

If Nate were gay it's possible his family would have accepted it in a "we'll never talk about it" way but it's more likely Nate would have had to do what most rural gay guys did and head for the city which would have meant leaving a life he genuinely loved and an end to a generations long ranch.

As for me, I eventually got around to asking myself "Am I gay?" By the time I could ask myself the question it was more with excitement than dread, there was a possibility I was going to sort of discover myself. As it turned out the answer was a slightly complicated "No." But I had the rush of the excitement of revelation a short time later when I for the first time really noticed the term "queer."