My Boyfriend Bill Grows Up

Remember my first boyfriend, Bill, from Denkmann Elementary School?  We were inseparable for three years, walking to and from school, watching Captain Ernie's Cartoon Showboat, reading comic books, inviting cute boys over for sleepovers.

We had our own gang -- me, Bill, Joel, and Greg -- who liked looking at men with muscles.

We stayed friends in junior high, but we drifted apart into other interests and social circles.

The last time I was at his house was for a Halloween party in tenth grade, probably October 31st, 1975.  I spent most of the evening talking to his big brother Mike, who used to call me "Bud" and drive us places.

The last time I saw Bill was during our senior year in high school, when we visited David Angel in the mental hospital.  He thought we were a couple.  We laughed it off as ridiculous.

The years passed: Augustana College, Indiana University,  Texas, West Hollywood, San Francisco.
I didn't hear anything from or about Bill, though I often spoke of him as my first boyfriend.

The years passed: Long Island University, Florida, Ohio, Upstate New York.  I started a blog about my childhood memories, and recorded all of my Bill stories.

I tried to look him up, but none of the high school or college friends that I was still in contact with remembered him, and he had a common name, impossible to google.

Before I knew it, I was 54 years old.  Nearly 40 years had passed since the day Bill and I visited David Angel.

Then out of nowhere I got a friend request from him on Facebook.

Was he gay?  Were my memories real, or a misinterpretation of a straight boy's friendship?



We exchanged life histories in that stilted, obituary style that you use when reconnecting with someone after many years.  He studied culinary arts at Black Hawk College, then worked as a chef at Jumer's Castle Lodge, across the river in Bettendorf.  During the 1990s, he opened a restaurant near the resort of Wisconsin Dells.  It went bankrupt after the stock market downturn of 2004, and he moved to Reno, Nevada, where me now manages all of the restaurants in the Circus Circus Casino.

"But I've dabbled in other businesses, too," he continued.  "In 1999 I became co-owner of a strip club in Moline, out by the airport."

My heart sank.  A strip club?  Straight!

"I insisted that we were equal opportunity," Bill continued.  "We had male strippers on Tuesday nights."

"I've been there!" I exclaimed.  "Christmastime 1999 or 2000.  On male stripper night.  I saw my old Sunday school teacher's sons, Mickey and Dom!"

Bill was nonchalant.  "Sure, I remember them!" Bill said.  "College boy act.  Very good, very professional, and they had the goods.  I always auditioned the strippers personally, to make sure they were up to speed."

"Men and women both?"