Next Week: “Tonight, I Want to Be Gay”
Check back later next week for a link to my story “Tonight, I Want to be Gay,” which goes live as a free read at Lyd on Friday, August 29th. It is a piece of flash fiction, but the short form really helped me isolate the story’s single effect, and it’s one of my favorites.
Log Line: A local guy happens upon a college boy, who feels a little queer after a few beers, and the two cross paths in this story that explores the gay line running through the town/gown relations in a major American college town.
Blurb: Colleges boast of their ability to train young men, but there are some lessons that can only be learned through experience. For these, a young man finds he must take to the streets to learn what his professors cannot teach him. This is when gown meets town, and when you live in a college town, you often find yourself playing tutor in a college student’s extracurricular activities. Sometimes it’s just an experiment or is it really something more?
Excerpt: In the shadows of Yale University, there is whole other place called New Haven. This is where I live and work, but sometimes, it’s hard to escape the fact you live in a college town, and sometimes, you really don’t want to.
One night while on my way to the York Street Café, a young guy caught my eye. He walked slowly as if breaking in a new pair of shoes, and I figured this Yalie had recently been shopping at J. Press. Descending the stairs and watching a girl watch her boyfriend watch me from the window of the trendy Bangkok Garden Thai restaurant that overlooks the bar’s entrance, I heard someone whisper: “Tonight, I want to be gay.”
Turning around and walking back up the stairs, I said, “Well, it’s the least I can do.”
Without making eye contact, the floppy haired Yalie spun around and walked directly in front of me, pausing just long enough to whisper: “Tonight, I want to be gay.”
“Then we should go drinking and dancing,” I called after him as his beer breath wafted around me.
Without breaking his stride, he looked over his shoulder and said: “Meet me at the corner of Park and Crown.”
A few minutes later, I pulled up to the intersection of Park and Crown Streets, and I did not have to wait long before my curious student ran out from the shadows, jumped in my truck, and ordered: “I don’t want to be seen with you—just drive away.”
Accelerating rapidly, the truck jerked forward as I replied, “I can do that.”
I pulled onto the highway as he placed his hand on my knee: “Tonight, I want to see what gay guys—like you—do.”
