fiction and musings from a gay black dude with delusions above his station
When I wake up in my own bed, I think sometimes of the morning I woke up in a totally different environment, the tropical paradise known as the Island. I half expected Rover to bounce by, though at the time I was far from amused. I remember how I first looked at Rick with both…
(Editor’s note: Because this story takes place on Thanksgiving Day, I thought it appropriate to repeat it today. A safe and happy Thanksgiving to all from the gar spot.) Originally published January 30, 2012. Grease splattering, water boiling, pots and pans clanking, bodies moving and shuffling, and layered above it all were the voices of the…
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree. It was stately and it was a dome. Rick and I rode the tram around to the other side of the island, a longer ride than I would have expected. But around one final bluff there it appeared, a translucent, geodesic dome at least six stories…
I stayed up until sunrise. I hadn’t intended to. It just sort of happened. The first part of the night, I spent playing video game. I kept a bunch on my laptop, chiefly for conferences. Whenever I got bored, which happened frequently at conferences, I started playing with the volume turned down while whoever yammered…
For the first ten minutes I sat there listening to all of these colleagues, folks I hadn’t seen for ages, go on about my great achievement. And I first I was pissed off. How did they know about my work? How would they know so much about Lambda when I hadn’t published anything, not even…
“When I woke up in a different room than I remembered falling asleep in, I knew it was going to be one of those days.” That’s a line I normally associate with the morning after I had a few too many. But that wasn’t the case, not this time. I went to bed in my…
Intermediaries arranged a meeting. They selected a neutral location, the house of a mutual friend, which granted privacy and gave neither side an advantage. Lorraine’s mother thought it a waste of time. “Can’t mend a cracked teapot,” she intoned several times. Lorraine had to maintain hope, however, because her very existence hung in the balance. …
(Ed. note: Loosely based on a true story.) Mrs. Cobb stood in the classroom doorway during recess watching her flock. Two of her colleagues stood by an adjacent classroom talking, their voices deliberately hushed. Mrs. Cobb paid no attention to them, nor did she take their two-way chatter as a slight. She focused her attention…
In an era decades before cellphones and Twitter, word spread instantly throughout campus: Clayton was to get a butt whipping. Mrs. Hamilton, though, was not naïve. She kept Clayton after class on a trumped up pretext. When the room had emptied, she walked slowly towards him. “You know they’re waiting for you, Clayton,” she said. …
(Editor’s Note: The ‘growing up gay’ tag is usually applied to essays. This story is strictly fictional.) For a 12 year old, Clayton Simmons maintained the most peculiar habits. By a calculus all his own, he computed the precise number of movements and amount of time necessary to complete his morning rituals so that he…
