The College Years 1995-?

I began school at the University of Tennessee @ Knoxville in the fall of 1993. I lived at home my first semester of college because it didn’t make sense to pay for a dorm when I lived 30 minutes from campus. It just didn’t make sense at the time to live on campus when I could save money by commuting. I took the regular assortment of freshman required classes that first semester, though my mind was so not on college. I was just sort of following in the footsteps of expectations and didn’t have a real desire to be there. I don’t think I then got the seriousness of being in college and the doors it could open. College was just the next step in a ladder that had already been planned for me. No other options even came into my mind. Unfortunately, I failed every class that first semester except English; my total GPA was a .09.

The second semester I moved to Hess Hall on campus. Total immersion in the college experience was the solution to my previous semester’s screw ups. I was excited beyond belief to be moving on campus! I looked forward to the entire dorm experience, not realizing I would be assigned a pot-smoking roommate who was hot as hell. I was not out of the closet or even to myself at the time, so dealing with a hot roommate was certainly not a challenge I expected to face. To make matters worse, he used to wear mesh basketball shorts which left very little to the imagination. I cannot remember his name, though I can still see his face in my mind’s eye. I remember being hugely attracted to him but turned off by his pot smoking, as I was a goody two-shoes back then.
I spent a lot of time at Laura Mullaney’s apartment; she had moved into an apartment in the Fort area of campus, paid for by her parents. The Fort was a very densely populated area near campus, just across from the UT Strip, aka Cumberland Avenue. We thought we were so grown up, hanging out in her apartment, going to “college” places, or even just to the grocery store! Laura was my gay partner in crime. In our senior year of high school, she and I, as well as Janet (name changed) all began down a road of questioning our sexuality. We were all on the fence as far as sexuality was concerned. Janet and Laura both had had girlfriends at one time, while I never crossed the line yet, up to that point, of ever being involved with a man.

One night, Janet and I went to an event in the courtyard one of the dorms, some sort of freshman mixer, a sort of “welcome to UT” kind of event. The crowd was larger than we expected because we thought the event would end up being contrived and cheesy. We had just about given up hope of finding fun when all of the sudden we stumbled upon the most beautiful guy dancing to the beat of the techno music that was playing. Janet and I were both smitten by the man-god named Jose Gonzalez (name changed). We instantly knew that we must get to know him.
Janet and I became close to Jose. Jose lived off campus with his former wrestling coach, Don, from Catholic High School. Don was still a teacher and wrestling coach and we vaguely wondered how Jose came to love with him. Jose was more “out” into the gay scene than either Janet or myself. He was our guide, so to speak, through the gay scene in Knoxville. The cool place to be changed nightly depending on the day of the week; Sunday, Wednesdays, and Fridays were the Carousel, where “Beer Bust” (unlimited beer for a small charge) brought in huge crowds. I didn’t drink beer (and I still don’t) so my motive was to see and be seen in this loud, colorful new world I now found myself immersed in.

People at the Carousel were a coarse sort of gay, the itchy wool of gays, as opposed to 400 thread-count Egyptian sheets. Lesbians and country queers with mullets were the norm. Women’s “fashion” was limited to cut off flannel shirts and acid washed jeans. The lesbians walked like they had spent the day riding horses or as if they were auditioning to be a cowboy in an old-fashioned Western movie. The gay men at the Carousel seemed to be of the lispy variety, ones who tended to look at you in a lingering way that made you feel dirty. If I had a dollar for each time some old gay guy “accidently” rubbed up against me I would be rich. And I don’t mean that as a judgement against feminine men; I am attracted to feminine guys as much as masculine guys. I am simply making a description.

Thursdays we went to Lord Lindsey’s, aka The Closet. These were the “It” people, what is called in today’s world as “hipsters”. The pretty of the pretty, the artists, the beatniks, they all came to the Closet on Thursday nights. They had a huge movie screen that came down from the ceiling remotely where psychedelic videos would play along to the music. Dancing at the Closet felt like being in your own private music video. Oddly enough my strongest memory of the Closet was learning how to do the Macarena dance, though that song was so far outside of the kind of music that played there.

Saturdays, that was the night we always went to Trumps. In college, Trumps was THE place to go to. It was the place to see and be seen. I had such a great awakening in the years I went to Trumps. Trumps was the very first gay bar I had ever gone to.

The first time I went there I was alone and still closeted; I wasn’t sure if I was more frightened that I would run into someone I knew or if the idea of actually meeting someone; either prospect paralyzed me. I had one my dark grey/black Guess jeans, the ones that accentuated my body and made me feel hot. I wore a multi-colored polyester vest over a white t-shirt. Everyone was wearing a vest of some sort back in those days.

The very first night I went out to Trumps I met a guy named Nathan, who took me back to his apartment. Unbeknownst to me I was too naïve to know what “going back to my place” meant exactly. I literally thought we would sit and talk to each other, though I did have a very vague notion that something sexual was supposed to happen. I honestly thought we were just going to talk. This naitivity was often misunderstood when later repeated. I quickly became known as a tease because I never put out. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to put out so much as I didn’t know that sex was expected of me. I just didn’t understand sex, nor had I even discovered masturbation to this point. Sexual feelings for me did not develop until my 2nd year in college. To say I was a late bloomer sexually would be an understatement.

At Trumps, Janet, Jose and I would dance until we would just about collapse. Jose was a former wrestler, with the body of a god. His sense of rhythm was amazing and it was art for the eyes to see him dance. Watching Jose dance was the only way I ever learned to dance. I was so infatuated with him, yet so was Janet. Our three-way friendship was so awkward, because we both adored and wanted Jose, yet he wasn’t interested in either of us “that way”. I don’t even think I was sexually into Jose as I was head over heels in love or infatuated with him. In my heart, Jose was The One. Oddly enough, it was during this time Janet and I became close as well. I began to fall in love with her as well. I daydreamed about these two totally different people in two totally separate ways, but all centered on love in its many facets.

At the start of my third semester Jose and I moved in together in Hess Hall. Don, Jose’s housemate, hated that Jose moved out and he became obsessed with Jose. We would always catch Don following us, or coincidentally showing up places we would all be. Soon after we moved in together, we would always see Don parked down in front of the dorms, just sitting there. That was kind of creepy, though it angered me more than it creeped me out. So Jose was ready to move out from Don, I was ready to get away from my pot smoking roommate, so the ideal solution was to move in together.

Living with Jose was a dream come true. After our poor, awful grades of the previous semester, we both pledged to look out for each other and not let the nightlife get in the way of our grades. We promised each other we would put school first, and we did. We went out much less and our grades definitely improved. Nothing sexual or even romantic ever happened between Jose and me. He dated a guy here and there, but I was always the silent best friend in the background, silent in the feelings I felt for him. Oddly enough our friendship ended when I began dating a girl in his Spanish class – Amy Miramontes. I had met Amy when Jose had invited her along bowling with us. Jose felt it was wrong for me to date outside of my gender and outside my race (Amy was Hispanic like Jose). Jose felt like I was lying to myself by continuing to go out with girls. I had not yet at that point decided was gay, so he must have felt like I was living a lie, which to some degree I was, though I had convinced myself otherwise.

When I turned 19 I moved into my first apartment, at Greentree Village apartments off Sutherland Avenue in Knoxville. This particular apartment community housed mostly college students. Greentree Village was nestled just north of a bohemian or gay ghetto, just off of Sutherland Avenue. Sutherland Avenue was home to many international communities and artsy or hippy or outdoorsy, granola kind of people. I was living amongst the outsiders, though at the time I didn’t consider myself too far into the gay lifestyle.

My apartment was an end unit on the 2nd of two floors. My windows opened up to a forested area that was as beautiful as it was functional as a sound barrier to the surrounding suburbs. Living up against a forest was nice because it gave me a sense of coziness in an otherwise impersonal urban landscape. I can still remember the dank, humid smell of the trees when I would walk out onto my balcony in the morning. The humidity was so high being underneath the canopy of trees that my balcony was always slick with dew and a greenish moss that covered everything wooden. Being on that end unit gave me more privacy than I otherwise would have had. It was definitely a short hike to get from the parking lot to my apartment. The apartment had a huge walk through closet that connected the bedroom to the bathroom. I had never had a closet that large before and it was almost comical to see my few clothes in that huge space. Every apartment or home that I lived in later in life was compared to my first apartment at Greentree Village.

Moving into that apartment that first day was like opening up a door of hope and running through it to embrace the future. It was only me, my parents and Jose who helped me move. To this day I think of that apartment as the springboard into adulthood. I had so many emotional times in that apartment. My heart went through many different cycles of falling in love and then nursing my wounded heart when for some reason it didn’t work out. I had so little furniture, nothing on the walls, but the place was all mine.

It felt strange, sad and yet hopeful that first night I spent in my apartment. This was the first time I had my very own place and it didn’t take me long to get used to that fact. Living alone meant I didn’t have to go by any rules other than my own. It meant that I didn’t have to walk on eggshells worrying about stupid stuff. I could set the thermostat wherever I wanted it to be! I could make my own meals my own way. I could come and go as I pleased without worrying anyone or getting nagged at by anyone. . It was part impulse and part desperation that I moved out. Michael, my step dad, and I did not get along at all while I was growing up. I always felt like my brother and I were in direct competition with him for my mother’s affection. Fighting with someone, no matter how just the cause or reason, eventually wears a person down. I decided moving out would be best for everyone, and it was also the next step in becoming myself.

More importantly, it was literally right around the corner from Trumps, a factor that had no conscious planning on my part, but I am sure subconsciously I was aware of on some level.