Shortly after I came out to David, I decided it was time to start telling the rest of the world, and one momentous night in January of 1977, I made my way to what would be the first of many meetings of the University of Arizona's Gay Student Organization, or GSO. Nervous as hell when I walked in to that room on the third floor of the Student Union, what stuck me most was how normal everyone looked. Until that point my exposure to gay folk was what the media had fed me. I remember my mother coming in my bedroom one night and turned on the television, announcing, "I want you to see what a homosexual looks like. (Mothers know, even if they don't want to admit it.) On the television Truman Capote was being interviewed. No one in that room looked—or acted—like that. They were just regular people.
I grabbed a soda and sat down. Right before the meeting started a one older guy (and by older I mean 28—I was 18 at the time) came up to me and introduced himself. Phil Oliver was the first person (other than my grandmother, whom I had lied to at the time) who had ever asked me point blank if I was gay. "Yes," I said, stuttering. "Yes I am." He smiled and said, "Well then, welcome!"
And thus began a friendship that spanned more than a decade.
I returned to the dorm after this first meeting and was bubbling over with excitement. David was less than enthused, and as the days passed, it turned out that in spite of having a transexual uncle, David didn't take the news of suddenly having a gay roommate all that well after all. The Friday night after my first GSO meeting, David—who hadn't touched a drop of liquor in his life until that point—went out and got shit-faced drunk, returned to the dorm at 3 am, and apparently went door-to-door telling anyone who bothered to answer, "Mark is a queer!"
Thanks, buddy.
He moved out shortly thereafter, and began rooming with an Iranian student down the hall who—in his words—didn't bathe for the remainder of the semester.
It was probably after the second or third GSO meeting I attended when someone in the group suggested we reconvene downstairs in Louie's Lower Level—one of the union's many eateries.
It was then I discovered "the table."
I'd eaten at Louie's a hundred times during my first semester on campus, totally oblivious to the fact there was one particular table where all the gay boys on campus congregated. Really? It had been there all that time?
Like I said, oblivious.
It was through GSO that I met John McGuire, another freshman who ventured into that GSO meeting for the first time the same night I did. I don't think either of us was really all that attracted to each other, but we were both virgins (yes, hard to believe at this point, but it's true) eager to find out what this whole gay sex thing was about, and less than a week after David had vacated our shared room in Apache hall, I had my first play date.
It was a disaster.
John didn't kiss, and the extent of our play was some mutual masturbation.
This is what we were being condemned to hell for? That hardly seemed worthwhile.
Turns out we weren't doing it right, and very shortly thereafter I met someone who showed me how it was supposed to be done. Rick Hathaway was not a member of GSO, but he was a regular fixture at Louie's and there was more than a little flirtatious chemistry between us. One Friday night a group of us were sitting around the table and Rick turned to me and asked what my plans were for the evening. "I'll probably just go back to my room and watch television," I said. "Nonsense! Tina and I are heading over to Jekyll's. Come with us!"
Jekyll & Hyde's—billed as Tucson's "Newest and Gayest Disco" had recently opened and it was apparently the place to go. Nervousness swept over me; my first gay bar? "Um…okay," I said.
Rick gave me his address (a few blocks west of campus) and told me to come by around 9 pm. Tina would drive.
Butterflies in my stomach don't even begin to describe what I was feeling as I walked over to his house, and when we got to Jekyll's itself…what can I say? It was amazing.
I'd never been to a disco—much less a gay disco—before, so this was a totally new, alien environment. The lights, the music—OH MY GOD—the people. I met my first drag queen. Rick and I danced. I met more souls than I had during the entire previous semester. We closed the place down and then went for breakfast at the adjacent Denny's.
They dropped me off at my room around 3:30 am that morning, and it was all I could do to force myself to go to sleep. Adrenaline was coursing through my system like never before.
I loved Jekylls.