Not for sex or dating, necessarily, just to find someone to talk to. I had made a major discovery, uncovered the Big Lie, and I couldn't tell anyone about it.
No one to compare stories of the hints and signals that helped me finally realize that "it is not raining upstairs."
Or complain to about the incessant "what girl do you like?" interrogations of my family and friends.
Or just nudge on the street and say "Isn't that guy hot!"
But how to find gay people in a world with no dating apps, no internet chatrooms, no gay organizations, and everyone pretending that they had no idea that same-sex desire existed.
There was a gay bar in town, but you had to be 21 to get in. I was 17, and looked around 15.
Asking knowledgeable straight people was a problem. They would answer with a suspicious "Why do you want to know? Are you a fag?"
So I made my inquiries as homophobic as possible. "No, of course not! I just want to know if it's safe to walk down the street in this town!"
That research yielded mostly dead ends, hints and rumors, no last names, no details.
I tried to look for clues: guys who were especially feminine, or who made eye contact a little too long, or who touched your hand by "accident."
That was fruitless, too: I spent weeks hanging out with Jack Kerouac, aka Jurgen, only to discover that he was straight, living with a girl!
As far as I could tell, there were no gay people at Augustana, in Rock Island, in the state of Illinois, in the world.
Then, around Christmastime in 1978, I went to the post office in downtown Rock Island to buy some stamps, and behind the counter was a grinning Little Person.
Or maybe just a short guy. The Little People Association of America defines dwarfism as anyone 4'10" and under. He may have been an inch or two taller than that, maybe 5'0", the height of Aron Eisenberg, who played the Ferengi boy Nog on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
(Don't worry, he was over 25 years old when he bulged for this photo.)
My Little Person -- his name tag said Andy -- was in his 20s, very handsome, with a round face, cleanshaven, shaggy brown hair, and a slim, tightly muscled physique.
For a moment I couldn't think of what to say: I just stared. Then, catching myself: "I'd like a book of stamps."
"Got a lot of Christmas cards to send?"
"Yep. A lot of guys on my list."
The word guys hung in the air. Andy smiled even more broadly. "Well, how about our new Carl Sandburg stamps? He's the one that called Chicago 'the city of big shoulders,' you know."
What straight guy would think of big shoulders? Andy was gay! But how to make contact at the front of a long line of grumpy Christmas shoppers? "I know. I'm an English major at Augie [Augustana College]."
"I went there. Majored in Postal Science." He laughed at his own joke, and touched my hand as he passed over the book of stamps. When I didn't flinch, he said "Maybe I should drop by my alma mater some time, see how things are going over there."
"I'm at the Student Union most afternoons." I couldn't think of anything else to say, so I left.The next day I hung out at the Student Union all afternoon, but no Little Person.
I scrambled to find a gift to send to my Aunt Nora in Indiana, box it up, and take it to the post office at the same time the next day. Andy was there!
He noticed that I let a couple of other people go ahead of me so I could go to his window, and grinned broadly.
"I wanted to thank you for the Sandburg stamps," I said. "They'll be a big hit with my friends. Too bad they didn't show the stormy, husky, brawling Youth, half-naked and proud."
"That's our Tom of Finland collection, out next month." I had never heard of Tom of Finland, the gay erotic artist, so I didn't get the joke. He paused. "Busy day tonight. I can't wait until I get off at 6:00 pm."
At 6:00 pm I was waiting outside the back entrance to the post office, watching the day shift leave. Andy glanced at me, but didn't speak.
"Hi, Andy! I thought we could..."
WTF? He walked past quickly without looking at me, then slowed and looked back. Mystified, I followed.
Finally we came to an old Victorian house that had been chopped up into apartments. He unlocked a side door and went in, leaving it ajar.
I stood outside, wondering what to do. A few moments later, Andy stuck his head out the door, looked at me, and disappeared again.
I followed him inside and up the stairs to a small studio apartment. A daybed, a small coffee table covered with books and papers, two stalk lamps, a bookcase.
Andy carefully closed and locked the door.
The rest of the story, with nude photos, is on Tales of West Hollywood.