fiction and musings from a gay black dude with delusions above his station
“Who. . .who are. . .” he stuttered. The man behind the desk looked up. “Who do you think I am?” he said gruffly, before turning his attention back to the papers he shuffled on his desk. “Well, I mean, you can’t be who I think you are,” Mr. Little said. “Why is that?” the…
When he opened his eyes, a bright light hit him, though despite its brilliance, it did not make him flinch. He felt warmth from it, but it did not make him perspire. He turned around and saw behind him unfocussed blobs, like muted watercolor brush strokes. Their shapes looked familiar, like houses and buildings and…
(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. …
Anderson Cooper came out. Jim Parsons came out. Ricky Martin came out. Neil Patrick Harris and George Takei are out all over the place. Each one of these celebrity outings has weakened the walls of the closet that much more. In his eloquent coming out statement, Mr. Cooper explains that he always wanted to keep…
One weekend, my parents were out of town and Righteous was at some religious camp for good little boys. So Kurt spent the night. The Sci-Fi channel was running a “Prisoner” marathon that weekend, the show about an ex-spy who gets kidnapped and sent away to the Village after resigning from his job. We got…
(Editor’s Note: This story is an expansion of “The Burrito Kiss” which was published on the gar spot previously. The story is set c. 1992.) Saturday nights meant church service and that usually meant glares and taunts from Righteous, my older brother Jerome. Hurry up. Comb that mess on your head. Wear something appropriate. Don’t be…
Rick called on Lionel’s cell just as he was packing up his briefcase. It had been a long ass day filled with too many meetings about too much stuff that they had been dealing with for too long and he wanted to bolt from the office. So naturally, the phone rang. He hadn’t even had…
Sonja didn’t tell her everything. She didn’t tell her about her father’s cackling. But she did tell her about the origin of the pink ribbon. She did mention Rick’s name. And she did tell her that Mickey met his late partner because he couldn’t get over the pink ribbon on Mickey’s horn as he played….
“Sonja! Oh my God, girl, how are you? How’s it blowing?” “It’s blowing,” she replied with a smile that Leticia could hear over the phone. “It’s good to hear from you, Sonja.” As Mickey rounded out the ballad he cooed from his tenor sax, Sonja opened her eyes. She reclined on his too comfortable…
