Guest Post: My 1st alternative boyfriend
Robin Whetstone returns with a story that'll take your mind off the pandemic
If you’re self-isolating, then you probably need something to read. And if you’re not self-isolating, this could be the last thing you ever read. Robin Whetstone is back with another great story.
This is a picture of my first alternative boyfriend. I will call him Jay, because that was his name. I was 15 when I met him on August 15, 1986. It was a Friday.
I know precisely when I started dating him because I stopped dating him exactly one week later. We broke up forever right before Henry Rollins took the stage at Einstein-A-Go-Go, a legendary club in Jacksonville Beach.
Even though we’d not gone out anywhere or even spoken to each other during the seven days of our courtship, the breakup still stung. I was so excited to finally have a boyfriend who understood me – the real me that most guys my age thought was weird, and ugly.
But not Jay. He also loved that Nemesis song by Shriekback, and not only could but actually would cut quite a step when the DJ put on Love and Rockets’ Ball of Confusion. At last, I had an actual boy to dance with instead of the cloud of shuffling girls I was usually a part of. And that was what we did the first night we met; the first and last time we saw each other before our relationship shattered. We danced.
But that wasn’t all. Jay wore eyeliner, and skirts, and shirts buttoned all the way up to the top button. I was absolutely sure that this indicated an artistic, creative bent, and probably also familiarity with or at least sympathy for the fringe dwellers of the world. This was someone who would not ask “why?” when I announced I wanted to break into an abandoned building, see if I could find some homeless people who would agree to be photographed, or fall asleep listening toPsychocandy. He’d be right next to me, holding the crowbar, lens cap, and record player. This was perfect. I was 15, and I was so excited about my first alternative boyfriend.
There was only one problem.
“Robin,” said my friend Christine when I told her the news the next week, “Jay cannot be your boyfriend. Jay is gay.”
“That’s so racist, Christine.” I said. “You think just because he’s wearing a skirt, and make-up, that makes him gay? Way to stereotype, there.”
It was true; I was right. This was 1986.
And then there was our very own beloved DJ and notorious local hottie, Jay Totty, who looked so great in a skirt in 1986 that he even made the front page of our newspaper’s lifestyle section.
Everyone agreed, Christine. Even the Florida Times Union. Wearing a skirt or eyeliner definitely did not mean you were gay.
“No but,” said Christine, “I know Jay. He’s gay. He’s definitely gay. I know because he told me. And I’ve only ever seen him date guys. Look, I know he’s gay, he knows he’s gay; you are the only person who doesn’t know he’s gay.”
I looked at our mutual friend Billy, who was standing there in the heat with his Salvation Army suit coat and amethyst brooch. “Could this be true?”
“Oh yes, it’s true. It’s not a secret. He’s very open about it.”
“Well, huh,” I said.
A few days later, on Friday, it was time to meet up with Jay again for our second date. This was going to be an absolutely fantastic night, I told myself, not only because I was going to see Jay, my love, but also because Henry Rollins was going to read his poetry. I’d never heard him read anything before – he had just started doing it. But I’d seen him leading Black Flag the year before, and if that show was any indication, this would be something to see. This would be a night to remember.
Christine’s news about Jay bothered me not at all as I Aqua-Netted my bangs and pulled on my silk pajama pants.
“Hey,” I told myself, “I am a tolerant, accepting, worldly person. So what if my boyfriend only likes boys? This was a problem, certainly, but one that could still be overcome. It’s not like Christine revealed that she’d caught him listening to Huey Lewis and the News, or something. Now that would have been it. But this?”
This is what I told myself as I pinned my beanie to my hair and waited for Jackie to pick me up in her shiny red Hyundai. But deep down, I knew this was not true.
The fact is, Jay could have been a desk caddy, a serial killer, or an avocado, and that would have been just fine with me. Because what mattered was that, whatever else he was, he was someone who liked me. Me, you see. Like many other unfortunate people, I was years out of my adolescence before I understood that “well, he likes me,” is not actually the most important attribute on the list when it comes to potential partners. Back then, with my braces and my funny way of dancing and the awful memories of being fat in middle school still defining who I was, just liking me was enough. And Jay did like me.
I showed up at Einstein’s that Friday, August 22, 1986, insides a-flutter. Jay was there already, wearing a different skirt this time. And guess what? He’d brought me flowers. A big bouquet of gladiolus and lilies. No one had ever waited just for me to arrive anywhere before. No one had ever bought me flowers and hugged me and kissed me on the cheek. And in 15 minutes, I’d be sitting with my gay boyfriend and my flowers and we’d be listening to Henry Rollins together. This wasn’t absolutely perfect, sure, but it was still pretty good. The only thing was, where was Jay?
I walked outside with my flowers, outside the clove-scented air of Einstein’s and into the syrupy heat of Florida in August. The low-slung buildings around me were closed for the night; the streets, deserted. I walked a few blocks, aimlessly, looking for Jay, I guess, but also trying to think now that I was away from the lights and the music. I believed that what Christine had said was true, but that wasn’t what was bothering me. What was bothering me was what this obviously meant about Jay. He’s going to talk to me for a whole night about music and movies and concerts and art-type things and all the things he likes, but he’s going to leave out that piece of information? What else is he not telling me, then? What kind of boyfriend is my first alternative boyfriend, exactly, I belatedly began to wonder.
My thoughts were interrupted by a snuffling sound coming from a recessed doorway up ahead. I got even with the entryway and there, in the alcove, leaning up against the locked glass shop doors, was Jay. He was deeply involved in kissing someone, I noticed. He was facing me but his eyes were closed, his head turned to the side. I stood there for a minute, and then I guess Jay sensed something, because he opened his eyes and saw me. This broke the kiss, and the person he was sharing it with turned around and saw me, too. It was a boy, of course, a boy wearing eyeliner and hairspray, just like Jay, just like me.
“Aw, man,” I said, setting down the flowers and turning back in the direction of Einstein’s. I was snuffling, pitiful, not so much because of what I had seen, but because of what I feared it meant about me. I wasn’t mad at Jay; he was obviously gay, and so he should just go be gay and try to be happy doing it. But jeez, why did he have to pick me? Why me?
You know that Smiths’ song that goes “how can you stay with a fat girl who says ‘Ahhh, would you like to marry me, and if you like you can buy the ring?’” As I took my seat on the floor at the front of Einstein’s stage, I realized that even though I thought I had lost all the weight, I was still the fat girl. I was the girl who was so – what? Weird? Stupid? Needy? – that I’d never have a straightforward, healthy relationship with anyone. Didn’t this pretty much prove it?
I sat at the very front of the stage as Henry Rollins launched into Family Man, and cried into my hands. I cried through Art to Choke Hearts and Pissing in the Gene Pool. I cried through it all, I tell you, his whole first set. (These are actual pictures from that very night, by the amazing Jim Leatherman.)
When the set was over, I was still crying. I felt a hand on my shoulder and, sure that it was Jay, looked up, ready to tell him off. But it wasn’t. It was Henry Rollins.
He was squatting down next to me, right at eye-level, and he held a slip of paper in the hand that was not on my shoulder. He shoved the slip of paper at me and shook his head sympathetically.
“Hey,” he said, patting me. “I don’t know what he did to you, but here’s my phone number. If he does it again call me and I will come cut his penis off.” He patted me one more time for good measure, stood up, and strolled off to the bar. I was confused. My gay boyfriend and I had just broken up, and that was bad, but then Henry Rollins had just given me his phone number. And that was good. I stared at the slip of paper, my week-long relationship with Jay forgotten. “Maybe I’m not the fat girl who says ‘Ahhh,’” I thought. “Maybe there will be other alternative boyfriends sometime in my future. I’m only 15, who can really say?”
I shrugged and shoved the note in my pocket, then stood up and danced.
What I’m reading
My friend S.J., a pediatrician and humanitarian aid worker, wrote the hell out of this first-person account of being a Pakistani immigrant raising a white-passing daughter.
Been making a lot of new recipes to keep myself sane these days (book projects are ill-suited to sanity), and have made gravlax, sheet-pan chicken thighs with shallots and grapes, and this fish with herbs and lime, which I liked but S.N.V. did not. Chicken vesuvio? Huge hit.
Advertisers can block their ads running next to stories with certain words. Tops on that list is, and has been, Trump. No one wants their products associated with the President. Number two, with a bullet? Coronavirus.
The latest productivity hack? Getting unfocused and doing nothing.
Here’s the data behind the common sense assumption that sexism explains what happened to Elizabeth Warren.
I don’t know where I discovered Eugene Wei’s excellent newsletter, Remains of the Day, but I love this edition about why finance bros and tech bros were smarter about CORVID-19 than the politicians.
Also, I wrote a thing for work about how taking the spectators out of sports is a metaphor for how we are uploading a lot of society to the cloud because of the pandemic.
Last word: Want more effective protests? Let women lead them. -J.S.
What I’m watching
Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity, was a novel about what we now call toxic masculinity but back then just seemed relatable. The eponymous film version, starring John Cusak, cemented the Gen X music fan boy in our minds, that arbiter of taste who really just wants to know why women won’t love him.
Now comes Hulu and Zoë Kravitz with less a reboot than a remix. In the movie, Lisa Bonet played the alt-singer songwriter who provided balm for Cusak’s ego. In this new version, Kravitz plays the protagonist who dallies with a younger man, a rising star who polishes her apple but also provides an occasion for gaining a better perspective. There are other grace notes, especially the use of "I Believe (When I Fall in Love It Will Be Forever)” by Stevie Wonder — it was a musical bridge for Cusak to reunite with his lady but something more aligned with progress and maturity here — and yes, reader, they talk mix tapes. I confess the damage that Nick Hornby did to my brain, letting me think that a mix tape was a way to impress someone with my wit and taste. The matter of tapes mixed is handled less showily in Kravitz’s record shop, reminding us that, yes, of course you start with a banger, but giving a mix tape to someone used to be the text you would send to someone, only to live in a riot of anxiety in anticipation of their response. There are other virtues of Kravitz’s version, but Questlove, who was the musical supervisor for the Hulu reboot, deserves a storytelling credit here.
A special note on the cast, which features only one straight white dude as an amiable sad sack. If you like stories that center women of color, you would like this. Kravitz is marvelous — contained, hurt, and charismatic. And shoutout to Parker Posey.
Did not expect to like this, especially after seeing this trailer which does not accurately reflect the experience that watching 10 episodes was. It’s hard to imagine anyone who reads this newsletter won’t like the new take on High Fidelity. -J.S.
What I’m listening to
The soundtrack to Hulu’s High Fidelity has some good finds, but my favorite might have been Boytoy, a scrappy indie band. Here they are playing “Juarez” at Hotel Vegas at SXSW two years ago. You know, the before times.
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