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I moved to High Point
to be near work
I had moved to High Point to be near work. I took the Steinway piano
Papa had bought for me, and which I’d had with me at school.
I had big plants and was content. For awhile I had lived in the
High Point YMCA in a small room. The rooms and communal bathroom
were old and grungy as the building was well past its prime. So
except for waiting around hoping the young redneck who checked in
one night, showered with me in the communal shower and then came
in my room drunk and started out by getting down and licking my
boots would show up again, I was ok with moving on. My new place,
an older rent house, was nice in contrast, and I had privacy at
last. I was thinking mostly about work, but weekends Ken, Eli and
I would go to the gay bars. There wasn’t much to choose from,
(still isn’t!) but we had a good time. One Sunday night we
went to the Renaissance on Battleground in Greensboro. A black guy
was dancing and I couldn’t take my eyes off him. His moves
were incredible and his performance flawless. I longed to be able
to move like that. By this time I become familiar with a lot of
the black movement and had seen the Alvin Ailey Dance Company perform,
but this guy had moves of his own and they really turned me on.
He seemed one-of-a-kind. I got up my nerve and went to the bar and
started up a conversation with him. Rael was a student at the N.C.School
of Arts. By the end of the conversation I was totally infatuated
and took off a ring and gave it to him and said I hoped we could
spend time together. The next weekend I’m waiting for him to
come in at the bus station and we become a pair. I even took him
to work with me, figuring it was such an outlandish act nobody would
say anything and they didn’t. It was an incredible passionate
affair. The Pisces-Scorpio rollercoaster ride wore me out. High,
high highs and low, low, very low lows. I had never experienced
sex like that and I had never experienced passion and jealousy like
that. When he left for NYC some exhausting weeks later, it was a
relief. We’d call, he’d send me music, I agreed to come
visit. When I got up there he told me he had a big surprise, but
nothing more. Lots of hushed phone conversations and clever attitudes.
It turned out to be more than a surprise, it was the shock of my
life. He had arranged for us to get married!!! Reserved a big stone
gothic cathedral and everything. Jesus Christ Superstar was on Broadway
and the star was a friend of his and had agreed to sing at the wedding!
His family had already been invited! I freaked, but agreed to go
with him to talk to the priest. When the priest found out I didn’t
even know about the wedding, the conversation changed from working
out the details to questioning the decision. Rael exploded, and
Rael could explode to a degree hard to describe. After “blessing
out” the priest he ran out of the church, me running after,
pleading with him to calm down. It was raining lightly and we sat
on a bench both as if axed. His heart really was broken I guess,
but I knew there was just no way for us to go further and tried
to tell him so. I have never been good at getting out of a relationship,
and this was no exception. He hated me then, really hated me. It
was a hard intro to Scorpios. Later we would end up at the same
Connecticut College summer dance program, and he hated me, really
hated me still. He was brilliant though, and gave a performance
that stunned the audience. I felt him throwing his beauty and talent
into my face and daring me to watch. I imagined him some wild untamable
animal that would kill me given the chance. I don’t know anymore
of his story. Had I been able to live more than one life, in one
of them I would have loved to have married him. Time might have
brought us closer. We just started out too far apart. On the other
hand, I might be long since dead.
See, while I was still in college, I had had an exposure to black
people and their culture in an interesting way. A modern dance
group, The Lucas Hoving Dance Company toured the area. It was
a small group, 6 or 7, just one black dancer, Gene, two other
guys Charlie and Sean, 3 girls (names maybe remembered with effort)
and Lucas himself. Lucas was a tall lean Scandinavian in his 50’s
or 60’s (with dancers the body doesn’t tell) and at
a group lesson he complimented me. I ended up sleeping with him.
It was a mutual attraction. Then he offered me a plane ticket
back with them to NYC. Of course I went. The group was friendly
to me, there were no jealousies to deal with. I went to rehearsals
and stuff and then decided to look up Patrice. She had been totally
fun when we were together and she was performing in Broadway Tonight.
She showed me pictures of herself before and after the Jewish
nose bob. It was amazing. I thought she was super, and her heavy
Bronx accent delighted me. I might like having sex with her and
I wanted to find out. Sure, come on over, she says. So we get
in bed and start kissing. Just like I did with guys, I started
kissing her body, moving lower and lower. “You won’t
like it” she says, just as I’m about to tongue her down
there. What? So she goes on to explain that maybe it’s gonna
be a bit much to try that, what with me being so inexperienced
and all. It was a relief to have the mood broken. I realized I
was doing it as some misguided experiment, one that I already
knew the results of. We laughed and joked about it and we did
some poppers instead. It was the first time I’d tried this
recreational drug, borrowed from dentists: laughing gas- amyl
nitrate. Like I said, she was fun. Eventually she married her
Mormon plastic surgeon and moved to Ogden Utah and got judgmental
about a lot of stuff. Lucas wasn’t too happy when I got back
to his place, thinking I was out fucking around. I talked him
down, and was comfortable being back in the arms of a man. Well,
I took a bus back home, accidentally crushing the few poppers
she had given. They were in the shoulder bag I carried everywhere
and hearing them pop I at least quickly unzipped my bag and stuck
my head in it. For a few minutes it was a funny trip home. Some
months later got a letter in the mail from the American Dance
Festival. I had been given a scholarship to the summer program
in New London, Connecticut. Having not even known about it much
less applied, I was a little confused until I saw Lucas’
name on the list of instructors. Of course I went. It turns out
it was and is the best summer dance program for dance in the USA.
(And now is held in Durham, just 70 miles from my house)
The Festival was essentially to promote modern dance in America,
but offered classes in ballet and black jazz. Walter Nicks taught
black jazz, and after just one of his classes it was obvious this
is where my heart wanted to remain. Walter would have been in
his early forties I guess; again it’s hard to tell. A short
freckled gap-toothed grinning guy, who moved beautifully. It was
a dance technique fostered by Katherine Dunham based on African
and Caribbean movement. It was sexual and sensual and fun. Woody,
a muscular very black guy, kept rhythm on native type drums and
bongos, and Dennis played the most wonderful music on the piano.
It was for me a perfect combination. There was a core group of
black kids that Walter had already worked with, and they sort
of adopted me seeing how eager I was. That I was a Southern white
boy must have amused them on many levels. I was really pathetic
at keeping the rhythms and doing the steps for the longest time.
Then one evening Lavern, one of the prettiest of the black girls,
took me by the hand and said I was gonna learn. Some how she made
the difference. I got it. I wasn’t as good as they were,
but I began feeling what they felt, at least a little. Walter
was kind but serene and distant, the best dance teacher I ever
had.
Anyway, I ended up having sex with Gene the black boy in Lucas’
group, but just once. Later I heard he got on drugs and started
believing he was Jesus. I also fooled around briefly with another
blackboy, Bernard. His body was perfect too, small waist and full
thighs, his lips were beautifully full, his eyes soft, and his
dick was so huge I didn’t know what to do with it. Nobody
does, he said, sighing. But mostly I still was surrounded by girls.
Paulette, a Canadian girl, really got a crush on me. I liked her
too, but not in the same longing way. But we parted friends, and
once she stopped by to see me on her way to or from Florida. Anyway,
by the time the Festival was over, I had a tremendous appreciation
and love for black jazz, and the people who danced it. I still
do, even more so, if that’s possible. But times changed,
and the races moved back apart. While growing up it was us avoiding
them, then after a brief period of real friendship it was like
them avoiding us. For me time has pretty much run out on having
an easy sexual relationship with a black guy, something I didn’t
know how much I missed until my recent stay in Brazil
So that’s a little of the background which might make my
obsession with Rael a little more understood. After our relationship
ended, I had work to concentrate on. But I was frustrated. Mr.
Cartwright, thinking he was encouraging me, said that in 15 years
I would be on top of the game in High Point. Instead it freaked
me out (to use language popular at the time) to imagine being
stuck in the same small town all those years. My life was passing
and somehow I had to make something happen. It happened, but not
exactly as I had planned it. The three of us design whizzes were
getting bored. And we weren’t actually making all that good
a salary. Up till now the thrill of the work had balanced things
out, but now we were thinking we needed more money. I didn’t
mind asking for it either, and as I was always getting irritated
with Ken and Eli for their wishy-washy ways, I made an appointment
to discuss my salary. I ended up being the one let go. He said
he couldn’t afford more money, and besides…. Well, I
had made it an either-or proposition. Luckily this turn of events
happened in late spring, and I just had time to call up and get
accepted for another session of the Dance Festival.
I walked into Walter’s class after not seeing from or hearing
from anyone in years, and it seems like half the class shouts
TOM JONES!!!. I was so happy to be back. It was another great
summer. Rael being around put a little tension in the mix, but
a nice Italian guy, Louis made it all ok. Louis was in
the Jose Limon Dance Company, and he was intense too, but in a
quiet sweet way. I don’t remember what having sex with him
was like, in spite of the fact we must have had sex a lot. I just
remember his sweetness, kindness and seriousness. I was making
costumes for Walter’s newly formed company, and hanging out
with them during their rehearsals. I so wanted to be in it, but
I guess I just wasn’t good enough, or maybe I was too white,
or maybe Walter just wanted to keep his options open. But he said
they were going to tour Europe in the fall and that I could go
with them and do costumes and lighting. He couldn’t afford
my ticket, he said, but he thought I would have a good time. I
went back to NYC with the group for a few weeks. We gave performances
in Harlem. Then we’d all pile in a van and go get fried chicken.
One night Walter took me with him to visit Miles Davis. I remember
all the weird clothes he had closets full of, but not much else.
There was never a problem of any kind with me being the only white
boy around. Strange, huh?
I came home and sold my piano and plants, got a ticket to Luxembourg,
and started my European adventure...
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