The boy I pledged to love and live for is now a middle-aged man



The boy I pledged to love and live for is now a middle-aged man dealing (or has dealt) with AIDS living (or dead) in Berlin. For a brief time when I first got a computer I thought we might finally have a chance of teaming up again. I lived for years with that prospect in the back of my mind, but it’s really over now. I was trying to put stuff into the computer and thought that maybe it was a good time to finally relegate Ulf to my past. We hadn’t had much contact in years, just an occasional telephone call on my part, only hearing from him when he seemed to have been drinking and wanted to criticize me a bit more. But we did share in an odd sort of way, and in spite of everything the bond had somehow resurrected itself and endured. Yes, he said when I tentatively asked, it would be fine for me to put him into my computer. He didn’t have one, so it wasn’t for email or anything, just symbolic: me bringing him into the new millenium with me. So I started writing a few letters but then he got critical again and ended up saying our contact was too “painful” and for me to stop calling. He returned a letter unopened and that did it for me. End of story. Some months later Budd sent me a photo of him that made me realize he wasn’t the same beautiful boy any longer, and I threw it quickly in the trash not wanting it to “corrupt” the files of him stored in my head. Ulf was always smarter than me, more “realistic”, and his perceptions more validated by people and events than mine, yet his intelligence left him hard and cold and raw. Sure part of it was being Swedish, but not all Swedes are so. Anyway, I don’t want to get into subjective stuff about him, cause after all this time I still just have a big question mark when it comes to him.

But you can read the diaries and my letters. It was a love affair like in the movies. It had me by the throat and any damn love song lyric you can sing applied. It was meant to be. But his not wanting to even be my friend now has balanced out the passion. He’s history. But since you’re reading this, he keeps living in the present.

The story I always tell is about us sleeping together in his parents’ apartment. In the morning his Mom and Dad came in with coffee and sweet rolls knowing full well we had made love during the night and early morning. It was further from home than the moon. I was humbled, I was grateful, I was enraged with the morality I had been raised with and I was forever changed. Being with Ulf was sometimes a lesson in how idiotic Americans were. I learned painfully, but surely, how much needed to be changed. Now I’m somewhere in between, not patriotic anywhere. Brazil is my latest love, the antithesis to Swedish reserve and American gluttony. We’ll see where that road leads.

Ulf was my lover, my brother, my hero. Little by little it dawned on me that he was more mature than me, perhaps to his being Capricorn and Swedish. I was ten years older but not really any wiser. Softer for sure, but aren’t all Pisces? I gave him free rein and it was a wonderful ride. Our compatibility sex wise was better than anyone I had (have) ever been with. We moved as one. Everything he liked to do or have done I liked to have done and do. We talked sex openly on buses and subways, not caring at all who overheard. In the National Museum of Art he lay on the floor while I massaged his head while the public passed by staring. We practiced choreography in the subway stations and shopped together for food. We never sensed a lack of anything, even money, although we had very little, the time was ours alone and there were no problems.
There were intervals when we were apart which only heightened the times together. We trusted in fate and in ourselves and we found in each other a source of pride in being gay. Together we broke through the walls separating us from our families.

Ok, so the diaries are complete about 1973 and early 1974 because my house fire left them intact. Only them, I might add, as everything else went up in flames. The letters Mom had saved. If you’re reading them maybe it’s because they were “meant” to be saved. For a long time in my life I was thinking about destroying all traces of my past, float free, leave no footprints. I still have misgivings about burdening you with all this info. Yet, some part of me feels compelled to do it. And do it now, so I can get on with the next part of my life or die without wondering “should I.”

Moving on, summing up. Stockholm, winter 1973: after an intense period in the city complete with turmoil, routine, training, and soul searching, a Swedish batik artist invites me into her family and home, even taking me along for a months trip to Sicily. But the coup-de-grace is passing the audition to be a dancer in the “world famous” (I’d never heard about it at the time) Casino du Liban, in Beirut, Lebanon.
To add spice to the soup I fell madly in love and brought my Swedish friend on to Paris during the rehearsals. Then he followed on to Beirut where we lived together till his departure at Christmas. As it turned out I was the male star of the show, but it was not a bed of roses. But as they say, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. In 1974 I decided to stop living two lives and “come out” to my family. Ulf had already done so with his, so here's another example of the a sixteen year old Swede being way ahead of a twenty six year old American. So inspired and encouraged by him, I write home and wait to hear, but somehow relieved that now all the cards were on the table. What I didn’t expect was their letter saying that it was all unacceptable to them and perhaps I shouldn’t come back home. Nice. So I regroup very fast and write back fine, I am leaving you all forever, bestwishes, farewell. I meant it too. It was going to be a new chapter. When I reread the letters and diary it seems I was a little melodramatic maybe, but all in all I took the high road, bolstered along by two books, The Prophet by Kahil Gibran and Journey to Ixtland by Carlos Castaneda. Creating a scandal, I broke my contract with the Casino and headed back to Stockholm and the unknown.
Ulf welcomed me with open arms and we went about conquering the world. First it was Copenhagen. Bud was doing a show there, and we went down, took off our clothes and performed. The show was created by as “sick” a little mulatto as you could find. We were later to find out he was loathed by most of Copenhagen, but in his own mind he was the darling of the theater there. We tried making a go out of it, but after only two weeks sneaked out of town, missing the pastries but not much of anything else. Back in Stockholm Ulf got work and supported us. I kept taking dance classes and then got invited to Finland to take over a dance studio while the owner delivered her first baby. Igor was the Russian father, and it was a cold but good time I had there teaching jazz. Then Ulf came over too, and taught the children ballet.
When I had first arrived in Stockholm that spring, I had expected to not deal with my family for a long time, if ever, but not too long afterwards a letter came to Fagelangen and then on to me. They had come around. We were a family once more. Proof of it came when Mom&Dad said they would visit the two of us in Tampere. We had such a good time together. I was so proud of Ulf and they could see why, and once again I got the feeling everyone liked him more than me. Good feelings all around. They got to see Stockholm too, and the ferries and archipelago. But the really special part was Igor taking us by car to Leningrad, now St. Petersburg once more. Stories are about how we cheated our way into the ballet performance to mom’s horror, and the suspicion that we were being watched and recorded and wondering if Igor was really a spy. I remember especially the Hermitage and the Summer Palace and the metro, and how tourist and locals were so separated by the system.
Ulf and I go back to Stockholm during the Christmas break, but it turns sour as Ulf seems to lose interest and I’m left to wonder why.

I could cry at the drop of a hat, but Ulf never did except one cold February night. He’d been touring Sweden with the best dance company they had, and had started an affair with a hot Spanish guy with whom I might have done the same. In tears he told me he didn’t think he loved me anymore. I wasn’t hurt as much as relieved to know why he had been so introverted in the past weeks, and didn’t want to do anything stupid to jeopardize our long-term chances. During this time I was wondering what I would do next and had written to the Casino du Liban saying I would like to come back. So it was perfect timing when in March I got their letter saying the plane ticket was being sent. We parted on good terms, I wished him well and was gone. I loved being back in the sun. They welcomed me sincerely and it was like none of the former incidents ever took place. I wrote teasing notes to Ulf and in a matter of weeks he showed up. We just liked being with each other. But he wouldn’t say he loved me and it began to drive a wedge. It was my turn to get infatuated and I did, a sexy South African white guy. I’d spend time with him leaving Ulf unattended. When the whole cast got evacuated because of the Israeli invasion (forever placing my sympathies on the invaded) I gave Ulf an ultimatum: either tell me he loved me or I was going with Norman. The stubborn little goat didn’t say it of course, and I still don’t know if it was out of sincerity or spite. In bed Norman and I were pathetic. His body was even more muscular than mine was and anyone would have thought the sex would be great. It wasn’t. It was lousy. Still we decided to travel together. I wanted to go to Tunisia, somewhere I'd not been. So we catch a train out of Paris heading for the Italian port where we’d catch a boat across. First though we planned to stop in Monte Carlo where Norman’s best friend was a dancer at the Lowe’s Monte Carlo, a swanky place if ever there was one.
When Ulf and I traveled there were never any problems. But Norman complained and whined about everything. It’s not that far, really, from Paris to Monte Carlo, but by the time we got there I was having a lot of doubts about going any further. We watched the shows, and I sat and listened to the astounding list of implants and surgeries that his friend had had: cheek implants, calf implants, nose job, chin job, capped teeth, and of course he was heavily made up and wearing a wig. I left them asleep in the apartment and headed into a soft rain to find the train station intent on going on to Italy alone. The music is worth the trip. I searched out songs I had heard in bed with Ulf in Beirut, and then kept going south towards the port city. But the boat only went every 4 or 5 days and I didn’t want to hang around and wait. So I went back to Florence and stayed some days in that beautiful city of adventures and art. Eventually I ended up back in Paris at the same hotel and a few days later Norman walks in. You won’t believe his story. In spite of everything he must have wanted to be with me because when he found me gone he waited a couple of days in case I reappeared and then took a flight from Nice to Tunisia, hoping to find me there. The problem was was that a South African needed a visa to enter the country and no one had told him this in France. He spent two miserable days in the airport, not being either allowed to enter or leave until finally the embassy cleared up the matter. You might think he would have been ready to kill me at that point, but he was a sweet guy. That was probably our biggest problem: we were both sweet guys. It was a muddled up sort of thing. We shared a bottle of wine and then I left for Stockholm. Loved or not, I just wanted Ulf. He went home to NC with me for Christmas, loaded down with crystal vases and other gifts for my family. He played the flute with Kim, charmed everyone. While in NYC we saw several Broadway plays. It must have been a very black year; every show had a black cast. Hello Dolly with Pearl Bailey and Cab Calloway was the best.

On New Years Eve, about to begin 1976, we’re tired and hungry and cold in a German train station waiting hours for our connection north. We glide into Stockholm’s T-Centrallen glad to be back. The same night I head on alone for Tampere to begin a second 7-week contract at the Kabanov School of Dance. This time it was even colder and a lot lonelier, but I got to read a lot. When I returned to Stockholm Ulf had bought me a piano. It was a good time, fun jazz classes with Herman, who had us laughing constantly with his stories and expressions, doing wax batiks, building apartment furniture, swimming, and going out to the local bars.
In May a friend from Beirut now dancing at Le Lido phones to tell me they are auditioning at Le Sexy, a cabaret on the Champs-Elysees. So I take the train to Paris, audition, and come back. Ulf meanwhile is touring with the Cramer Balleten: Yugoslavia, Iceland, north of Sweden.

I am accepted for the cabaret and in August return to Paris to begin there. It’s a different life completely. I liked it a lot. Ulf had always wanted to live there and I could see why. They thought I was very handsome in France, moreso than anywhere I’ve ever been. It has something to do with their fondness for big noses I’m sure. Looking back I realize I was in my prime, and besides at that time even the French were beginning to like Americans. I had everything going for me. The diary pages elaborate on my part in the big fashion extravaganza at the famous George V and then getting cast for a movie part. But one night getting caught showering nude with the girls ended it all too soon. The cabaret director was already pissed because I was doing other things than her show. She also didn't like it at all that I would shower with the girls. This was rather odd to me, as we were all performing nude together on stage. Well, I had on the smallest little g-string, but yes the girls were totally nude, cunts totally in my face. Why Carole freaked out about us soaping up together, considering the limited time and the fact we were so covered in glitter that you needed someone to wash your back for you, I’ll never understand. She told me to stop doing it and I did when she was around. But of course she showed up unexpected to find us bubbly and laughing and fired me on the spot. Except, the other boy dancer pointed out, she couldn’t- I had a contract. For a month I fought it, against most everyone’s judgement. It seems the Mafia ran the club, and everyone said it was crazy to make trouble. Eventually they settled and paid me something like 4 months wages. But at 3 in the morning, on the long. walk down the Champs-Elysees, across Place du Concorde, thru the Tuilleries and across the Seine to my little hotel room in the Quartier Latin, I started looking over my shoulder in case i was being followed. But the men i would find following had nothing sinister in mind, and those warnings of danger only made things more sexually arousing.

Anyway, one more job was over, and since I had enough money to get by until something else opened up, the nights were unbounded. Dark parks, under the bridges, crowded smoky bars, onion soup at night and a beer and boiled egg for breakfast, paris was anything i wanted it to be. But i still loved Ulf.