Chicago

Phill Branch 

I saw his personal ad in the back of Frontiers magazine. Frontiers was my gateway to a world I didn't quite have a grip. It was one of those magazines you see in the gay ghettos piled up in front of small boutiques and adult novelty shops; an unholy invitation. Shirtless white boys with perfect abs and perfect teeth mocked you from the cover pages. Still carrying the burden of being black and being “that way,” it took me a while to actually pick one up.

  No one knew about me.

  I don’t count the men I met at adult theaters or the football player from Grambling I met one random night in college or my adviser who seduced me with the assistance of an International Male catalogue. They didn’t count because no one else knew. I could always walk away.

The night I finally picked up a Frontiers magazine I was bored, unhappy, and horny —  a cocktail for disaster. He lived in Norwalk. I didn’t even know where in the hell that was. I’d only been in Los Angeles a couple of months. I hadn't been any further west than the Beverly Center, south of Venice, or east of La Brea. 

I’d moved out here to be the next Spike Lee, but somehow I ended up answering phones at Levine/Schneider Public Relations instead. 

I was alone and didn’t want to be. I was poor and didn’t want to be that either.  I was gay...and didn’t know how to be. On top of all of that, I was going to miss Christmas back home in New Jersey. I think missing Christmas bothered me most of all.

I love Christmas. My family wasn't especially religious. For us, Christmas was all about the gifts and spending time with family. As kids, my brother and I got everything we wanted. We’d open gifts, then hop into a cab over to my grandmother’s house where we'd open more gifts. It was always a magical time. Well, except for the one Christmas my dad left to get a tree and didn’t come back until after Christmas.

My first Christmas in L.A. was magical too…in a black magic sort of way. I thought I wanted to kill myself, but I took a passive aggressive approach to ending it all. I didn’t have insurance, so there were no prescription pills. I was late with rent and considered jumping from my tenth floor Park La Brea apartment window, but that was too dramatic, even for me. At some point during my downward spiral I realized that I didn't want to kill myself. I really just wanted to punish myself for not having the life I was supposed to have.

I'd imagined I'd be engaged to my high school sweetheart, Dana. We had it all planned out. We were going to have three kids, two girls and a boy – Ebony, Essence, and Elijah. I don't know why we went with names that began with "E." I'm sure there was some reason that seemed profound in our teenage minds. Instead of engagements and kids, however, I found myself trying to face a life that was completely unrecognizable.

That first Christmas in L.A. was unlike anything I'd experienced – no snow, no yule log, no presents. People were wearing shorts for God’s sake. What kind of Christmas is that?

  Since I decided against suicide, I went to the movies instead.  I remember wearing a turtleneck and brown corduroy pants. I thought maybe it would make me feel like I was home if I dressed in winter clothes, despite the warm temperatures outside.

  I ended up seeing Dumb and Dumber. That choice didn’t make things much better.  On the way home, feeling completely lost, I picked up Frontiers.

When I got back to my apartment, I locked myself in the bedroom. I didn't want one of my roommates to see what I was reading. I sat on the floor of my bare room and flipped to the back of the magazine. I’ve always gone to the back of the magazine first. It’s a habit I developed reading Jet magazine. Jet printed a list of the top twenty songs and albums in the back of the magazine. I’ve always liked lists. I would read the “Top Twenty” lists first and then work my way back to the beginning.  

Frontiers had ads for everything under the sun. I’d seen personal ads in mainstream newspapers before: "man seeks woman for walks on the beach and romantic dinners."  Frontiers was no walk on the beach.

"Hot guy in WeHo, with hot mouth looking to take big meat all day and night…anonymous only."  

I was disgusted by the vulgar ads and seemingly classless nature of the people who posted them, but I kept reading and then I found "him."

He was tall, swimmers build and liked The Simpsons. He was a “blk,” “btm,” into “ff,” “ws,” and “k.” I didn’t know what any of that meant, but I figured it couldn't be so bad.

I called him. 

“Come over,” he said. He lived in Norwalk.

“It’s ten o’clock,” I said.

“I’ll pay for a cab and I won’t try anything; don’t want to be all alone on Christmas.”

I didn't either.

I showered, got dressed, and left a note with his address and phone number on my bed, under my pillow.  Even in my reckless abandon of meeting my faceless, nameless Norwalk date, I tried to be responsible. “If I am missing, I am in Norwalk at this address.”

  I sprayed on some cologne and went downstairs into the waiting cab. Fearing getting murdered by an anonymous man in a town I was unfamiliar with is how I began my dating life. I knew it was dangerous, but part of me felt like I deserved whatever might happen. This was my lot, for being "this way."

I may have well been driving across the country. I’d never been on any of these freeways – the 5, the 110.  It wasn’t until I realized that I’d been riding for about a half hour that I begin to think the driver may have gone too far. 

I began making a list in my head. People who will miss me if something happens: Mom, Qadir, Nana, Dina, Shekira, Brian, Rudy, Larryce.

The list went on. It went from a being a list of people who love me to being the list of people who'd come to my funeral. I wondered who would take the trip to New Jersey for the services. I wondered if people would be disappointed by how I had died and if they'd not show up. I started to wonder if my roommates would find the note. What if no one found my body?

I wanted to tell the cab driver to turn around, but the meter was already up to fifty dollars and I didn’t have fifty cents. I had to go the distance if not for anything but the cab fare.  I was already in too deep. 

After about forty minutes I arrived in this foreign land of Norwalk and a tall, cute, lanky, black man met me at the curb. The cab driver asked for $85. 

The stranger paid the cab driver, looked at me, and said, “You better be worth it.” Without any other prompt, he turned around and started walking toward his open apartment door.

It had to have been only seconds, but it felt like an hour as I watched him walk across the street. My legs were cement. I didn't move from the side of the cab. A piece of me, the piece that still kinda liked me, mustered up enough strength to lean into the cab driver's window and say,  “Please come back at six." 

The cab driver, an older Russian man, stared at me for a beat and gave me a slight nod before he drove off.  As his car pulled away, I felt shipwrecked. All I had was a pager. No one would think to even look for me in Norwalk. They certainly wouldn’t be looking for me at some man’s house. For the first time in my life, I felt completely isolated.

“C’mon now,” Chicago yells. I call him Chicago because that’s where he said he was from. I don’t remember his real name. I’m sure he told me. Actually, maybe he didn’t.  I’m not even sure if I used my real name.

  I walked into his townhouse, and he locked the door behind us. I can still remember the sound of the deadbolt closing. I saw him, from the corner of me eye, take the key out of the deadbolt. I pretended not to notice. I didn’t want to be impolite.

We sat on the couch at opposite ends. His stare was piercing. This was a game and he'd already won. I could feel myself shaking, so I know he could see it. He was older, probably not by much, but enough to have been down this road before. 

"What’s Love Got to Do with It?" played in the background. It felt appropriate. As I pretended to watch TV, he watched me. In the moment, I suddenly realized that I'd skipped a few steps.  I had never been on a real date with a man before, but there I was sitting in Norwalk with Chicago, in a dead-bolted apartment.

“Do you like videos?” he asked. 

“Of course I do." 

I thought he was going to turn to BET. I was so naïve, that's what “video” meant to me. I expected to see SWV.  Chicago turned on some porn and pulled out his dick. It was all moving too fast.

"Do you have any eggnog?" slipped out of my mouth. It's Christmas. I wanted eggnog. I wanted my family. I wanted presents. Really, what I wanted the most was the key to the front door. 

*Please continue reading the remainder of this essay and the other works in the book.*