Happy Pride everyone!
This year, I encourage you to join me at a series of Pride events around queer Chicago.
Wed., June 26 is the Windy City Gay Idol finals at Mayne Stage in Rogers Park. 12 very talented singers this year!
Thu., June 27, I will be co-hosting our annual 30 Under 30 awards at Center On Halsted. See the Pride issue of Windy City Times for a full list of lucky recipients.
Then Sat., June 29, GayCo has chosen me as one of their "gay-lebrities" to participate in their Pride show, Married, But Still Slutty. They've asked me to read a five-minute story, after which they will create an entire improv show based on my tale. See me read the following story that night at The Playground Theatre, 3209 N. Halsted St.
Also, see me at Pride North on Sun., June 30. But back to my story ...
Josh: An Apology
This is a story about—and an apology, of sorts, to—a boy named Josh. I have no way of knowing if "Josh" was his real name; I never really met him. I only saw him once, naked on my living room floor in the summer of 2002.
The previous year, an impulsive friend of mine decided he wanted to move to Chicago in order to immerse himself in the local House music scene. Left out of his plan was actually finding a place to live, so I told him that he could flop on my couch until he found a place. You know, a couple of months. He lived with me for two years. I'll call him Roommate A.
The following summer, a mutual good friend of ours was just finishing up a semester in Barcelona and needed a place to stay for the season before he began a teaching job in The Bronx. As Roommate A had brought his own futon, which occupied about a third of the living room floor, we agreed to give the couch to Roommate B.
So there we were, three youngish gay boys, all semi-recently out of college and ready to get into all manner of youngish gay exploits. Said exploits were perfectly exemplified by what we called "the trick bowl." Any time we would make the company of another young man, we would throw his number into a disused fishbowl that we kept on top of the TV. Keep in mind that this was before the ubiquity of cell phones, so this method of organizing contacts seemed reasonable at the time. The bowl quickly filled by the end of the summer and save for the time when Roommate A arranged a date with a Tony and discovered 20 minutes in that it was Roommate B's Tony, all went well. No feelings were hurt. This was the way of the trick bowl and we all lived by its dictates.
The three of us grew very close that summer; it was all "Gurl" this and "Hooker" that. Hooker was the preferred term of endearment between us (and remains to this day). It was our inside joke.
Toward the end of the summer, very early one morning I came home very late one night to see Roommate B laying naked on the futon next to Roommate A, which was not an uncommon occurrence. The living room at that time had no A/C unit and clothes were not a priority. Roommate A was fast asleep and Roommate B, with his face down and butt up, was stirring in the late-summer swelter, letting me know that he was not asleep. So I decided to take a seat in the yellow corduroy recliner next to futon to smoke a cigarette before bed.
I took a seat, lit my smoke and said to Roommate B, "Hey, hooker," hoping for some conversation about whatever additions to the trick bowl we may have made that night. But when Roommate B turned around, it was not Roommate B. It was some random trick that Roommate A had brought home (and to whom I have, for historical purposes, decided to refer as "Josh"). He gave me a quick, shocked look and turned back around. So I did the only thing I could think to do at that moment: I wordlessly smoked the entire cigarette and then went to bed.
Later I had come to find out that during the course of the evening, Roommate A had cum in Josh's eye, causing him some discomfort, as I'm sure you all would attest.
So, Josh, if you are out there, please accept this as a formal apology for that one night when you came over to my apartment, was nearly blinded by semen and then called a hooker by a complete stranger.
kirk@windycitymediagroup.com
