|
|
BEING CONTINUED: Wave
by AK Miller
2012-05-23
|
|
This article shared 1260 times since Wed May 23, 2012
|
|
Derek and Dakota spent most of the mid '80s at the Belmont Rocks. In the summer anyway. They would run from their tiny gay-ghetto studio on Buckingham with boom box in hand and flip-flop their way to the lakeshore with their tiny, neon Speedos glowing in the midmorning sun. When they reached the large, stone slabs they would be greeted by queens, beefy men and boys. Queers quacking like ducks with their feet hanging over the sides of the stones, toes nowhere near touching the water four feet below. Derek always spread his towel out on the grass while Dakota preferred the feel of the smooth rock under his skin. For years this was their daily summer ritual. Laughing, relaxing and dancing until the afternoon sun was at his hottest and they went home to nap with their sun-kissed bodies stuck against each other in their cool, small bed. They rose to go to work at Carol's Speakeasy, collecting empty glasses and restocking beer fridges for the bartenders. They never stuck around after the bar closed, but hurried home to get a disco nap in before their morning ritual began again. Things changed around 1987. Friends that they were used to seeing daily went missing. Sickness swept though their community erasing much of the laughter. Then, to completely remove what little solace the rocks provided, the police began harassing the gays and disrupting their peace. Hating gay people was becoming fashionable then and abuse had become commonplace with tickets being written for loitering, public indecency and solicitation. Derek and Dakota didn't give up on the rocks though. They still made their way to the lake daily, even when Dakota was almost too sick to walk. It took them twice the time to get there, but they made it. When Dakota died, Derek could not bring himself to go there anymore. The hard stones lined up and lurking over the unreachable water made him sad. Each stone uncovered represented another man gone. One Sunday he began walking north along the lake path and ended up at its end at Hollywood Avenue. There he saw stretches of newly cleaned beachfront occupied mostly by Latvian immigrants and small Mexican children. At the end of the beach was a giant tree shading the stairs that led down to the pier. He sat under it and decided then that the boys deserved a beach of their own. On his way home he went to the uptown Goodwill store and bought bed sheets the colors of the gay flag. The next morning he walked to Edgewater Beach, which he unofficially renamed Hollywood Beach, and hung the sheets from the braches of the tree, claiming it as the new home for the gays and a memorial for the ones not present. It didn't take long before the men started joining Derek. First up by the tree, then slowly taking over the beach completely from grass to shore. You could find Derek there every day playing his cassette tapes and flying one of what became a very large collection of Pride flags. He watched as everyone laughed, relaxed, danced and now splashed about in summertime celebration, despite of what the world was throwing at them. In 1994, when he knew that he was too weak from CMV and medicine to make it there any longer, he worried that when he was gone, this may be lost too. He feared that without anyone there to daily claim stake, the gays would again be forced from their sun-baked sanctuary. But what he had done was permanent. He had no reason to worry. |
|
|
|
This article shared 1260 times since Wed May 23, 2012
|
ARTICLES YOU MIGHT LIKE |
---|
|
| | RuPaul finds 'Hidden Meanings' in new memoir 2024-03-18 - RuPaul Andre Charles made a rare Chicago appearance for a book tour on March 12 at The Vic Theatre, 3145 N. Sheffield Ave. Presented by National Public Radio station WBEZ 91.5 FM, the talk coincided with ...
|
| | Without compromise: Holly Baggett explores lives of iconoclasts Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap 2024-03-04 - Jane Heap (1883-1964) and Margaret Anderson (1886-1973), each of them a native Midwesterner, woman of letters and iconoclast, had a profound influence on literary culture in both America and Europe in the early 20th Century. Heap ...
|
| | There she goes again: Author Alison Cochrun discusses writing journey 2024-02-27 - By Carrie Maxwell When Alison Cochrun began writing her first queer romance novel in 2019, she had no idea it would change the course of her entire life. Cochrun, who spent 11 years as a high ...
|
| | NATIONAL Women's college, banned books, military initiative, Oregon 2023-12-29 - After backlash regarding a decision to update its anti-discrimination policy and open enrollment to some transgender applicants, a Catholic women's college in Indiana will return to its previous admission policy, per The National Catholic Reporter. In ...
|
| | NATIONAL School items, Miami attack, Elliot Page, Fire Island 2023-12-22 - In Virginia, new and returning members of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and Fairfax County School Board were inauguratedwith some school board members opting to use banned books on the topics of slavery and LGBTQ+ ...
|
| | Chicago author's new guide leads lesbian fiction authors toward inspiration and publication 2023-12-07 - From a press release: Award-winning and bestselling lesbian fiction author Elizabeth Andrethe pen name for a Chicago-based interracial lesbian couplehas published her latest book, titled Self-Publishing Lesbian Fiction, Write Your ...
|
| | NATIONAL Tenn. law, banned books, rainbow complex, journalists quit 2023-12-01 - Under pressure from a lawsuit over an anti-LGBTQ+ city ordinance, officials in Murfreesboro, Tennessee removed language that banned homosexuality in public, MSNBC noted. Passed in June, Murfreesboro's "public decency" ordinance ...
|
| | BOOKS Lucas Hilderbrand reflects on gay history in 'The Bars Are Ours' 2023-11-29 - In The Bars Are Ours (via Duke University Press), Lucas Hilderbrand, a professor of film and media studies at the University of California-Irvine, takes readers on a historical journey of gay bars, showing how the venues ...
|
| | BOOKS Owen Keehnen takes readers to an 'oasis of pleasure' in 'Man's Country' 2023-11-27 - In the book Man's Country: More Than a Bathhouse, Chicago historian Owen Keehnen takes a literary microscope to the venue that the late local icon Chuck Renslow opened in 1973. Over decades, until it was demolished ...
|
| | Photographer Irene Young launches book with stellar concerts 2023-11-20 - "Something About the Women" was appropriately the closing song for two sold-out, stellar concerts at Berkeley's Freight & Salvage November 19, in celebration of the new book of the same name by Irene Young, the legendary ...
|
| | Rustin film puts a gay pioneer into the spotlight 2023-11-16 - The story of activist Bayard Rustin is one that should be told in classrooms everywhere. Instead, because Rustin was an openly same-gender-loving man, his legacy has gone relatively unnoticed outside of LGBTQ+-focused history books. Netflix hopes ...
|
| | Billy Masters: The times Streisand failed to make a splash 2023-11-13 - "Fame is a hollow trophy. No matter who you are, you can only eat one pastrami sandwich at a time."—Wise words from Barbra Streisand. You all know that Barbra Streisand's book is out. And I ...
|
| | Charles Busch dishes on life as a storyteller 2023-11-09 - Performer/writer Charles Busch, who recently penned his autobiography, Leading Lady: A Memoir of a Most Unusual Boy, said that collecting his most precious and salient memories in a book felt "inevitable." "Storytelling is such an essential ...
|
| | LGBT HISTORY PROJECT: Exploring 70 years of lesbian publications, from 1940s zines to modern glossy magazines 2023-11-02 - Since the '40s, lesbians have created a vibrant history of publications. From the exploration of daily lesbian life to literary and feminist pursuits, to the modern age of glossy magazines, for over 70 years, lesbians have ...
|
| | Banning the Banning of Books: Illinois and California lead the way 2023-10-26 - In June, at the Harold Washington Library in Chicago, Governor JB Pritzker signed legislation banning book bans in Illinois public libraries. This legislation, initiated by Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, passed the Illinois House and ...
| |
|
|