Between 1982 and 1984, I was studying for my M.A. in English at Indiana University. I did not do well. I couldn't focus on any one topic, or any one department -- I rushed around in the 3,000+ courses taught every semester, grabbing onto things like Mandarin Chinese and Russian Folklore, and ignoring my actual English classes
Besides, who had time to study? I had just discovered bar pickups. My friend Viju and I were out at Bullwinkel's, or a a gay bar in Indianapolis, two or three times a week, and we never came home alone.
Sometimes I brought a guy home, had sex with him, then went back to the bar to pick up someone else.
Meanwhile my classes faltered, and I squeaked by with B's and an occasional C+. But who cared? I was going to become a book editor, not a literature scholar.
In the spring of 1984, I sent out resumes:130 publishing companies, 48 newspapers, 34 television stations, and 16 translation agencies. No openings, no openings, no openings, no openings.
Classes ended. I received my M.A.. No job. I spent ten days visiting India with Viju, then a week in Rock Island, then returned to Bloomington.
I couldn't afford our apartment any more, so I got a room in Eigenmann Hall, and went back to my old job in the snack bar.
It was fun when I was a student. But as my life's work?. I imagined myself at age 50, still living in that coffin-sized room with the bathroom down the hall, still selling burgers and fries to undergrads.
All of my friends had graduated and moved away. And any new friends I made would graduate and move away, again and again, an every-changing blur of faces and cocks for the rest of my life.
That summer was an endless cold, dark night.
The lunatic in the White House (not as bad as the Orange Goblin, but still a lunatic) almost ended the world by "joking" that the U.S. had launched nuclear missiles at the Soviet Union.
The AIDS crisis was making national news for the first time, and dubbed "a gay disease." Fundamentalist churches latched onto it to decry the "clinically insane, disease-ridden homosexuals" coming for your children.
All four of the factories in Rock Island closed, doubling the unemployment rate. My father and brother were both laid off. I couldn't even fall back on a factory job.
The movies I saw (by myself) are now hailed as classics, but I found them depressing:
Ghostbusters, Gremlins, The Karate Kid, The Neverending Story, Revenge of the Nerds, Bachelor Party, Conan the Destroyer
Laura Branigan's "Self Control" was playing on the radio:
I live among the creatures of the night.I haven't got the will to try and fight.I must believe in something, so I guess I'll just believe that this night will never go.
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Then came my fairy godfather, aka Ben, who worked in the bank downtown. He was my teller when I withdrew some money (this was before ATMs), and two nights later I saw him at Bullwinkle's.
About ten years older than me, a chunky redhead with a long face, a smooth chest, and no biceps to speak of. Not at all my type.
And bisexual -- he mentioned watching
Family Ties, not for the hot teen idol Michael J. Fox, but for Meredith Baxter Birney, who played his mother!
I couldn't help imagining Ben screwing the lady. His butt bouncing up and down, squeezing her breasts, kissing her. Gross! Complete turn-off.
But I was depressed, and I would have gone home with Boy George just to avoid going back to my coffin-sized room in Eigenmann Hall.
Ben had a house in Unionville, about 10 miles of dark, scary country roads from campus. An old-fashioned wood-and-plaster living room, a four-poster bed with black sheets, a drawer-ful of porn magazines, both gay and straight. Very cold for July.
[Sex scene is censored]
Afterwards, it was too early to sleep, and I didn't want leave, so we sat up and turned on
Saturday Night Live. I told Ben about my master's degree, my dismal job prospects, and my future at the Eigenmann Hall snack bar. He said that he was working on a Ph.D. in sociology --- very slowly. This was his seventh year in the program, and he wasn't nearly ready to start his dissertation. The job at the bank took up most of his time. But he still planned to finish, and get a job as a college professor.
"I love being in front of a class -- it's an amazing rush. Hey, why don't you go to work at a college? They always need teachers."
"Yuck!" I exclaimed. "I taught during my first year. Ssurly students who didn't read their assignments, didn't know even the basics about...well, anything, and made homophobic comments."
"It beats making hamburgers, I bet. Besides, just think of the beefcake!"
"But it's July. Won't they have all the teachers they need for the fall?"
"Let's find out." Ben walked naked into the next room and came back with
The Chronicle of Higher Education. 5 English teaching jobs available in the fall that required just a M.A.
A month later, I was heading for Hell-fer-Sartain, Texas, an English instructor. It would be horrible, but later, I would teach as an adjunct, then get my Ph.D. (not in English), and spend the next twenty years standing in the front of classrooms.
It definitely beats making hamburgers
The full story, with nude photos and explicit sexual situations, is on
Tales of West Hollywood.
It lasted for only 17 episodes (plus an eight-episode spin-off starring Daniel Clark), but it is still remembered and discussed by fans. One of the first of the teen-paranormal series of the 1990s, it drew on Twin Peaks (1990-1991) to depict a small town with an overarching mystery to be solved, with minor mysteries along the way. 
