DECEMBER 1976

HIGH GEAR

Page 13

ENTRAPPED!

By ISHMAEL CRAVEN I can write about it now, at least the moments I remember in the maelstrom of actions and feelings that eddied about the one moment when I was placed under arrest. A flash of terror was replaced by a sense of resignation. That one moment profoundly changed my life, in important ways limiting it, but, I hope, in more important ways broadening it by forcing me to examine it.

To the extent that I was cruising for sex, I was guilty. In the fact that I knew nowhere else to seek it but public places such as the Metropolitan Park where I was apprehended, I was guilty and I was stupid. In not imagining as a possibility sex with some personal commitment to another person beyond the brief moment of passion, I was destined to constant frustration and the resulting unhappiness.

I was labeled a pervert, but the greatest perversion was my acceptance of society's definition of what I needed to fulfill my life as something that needs to be hidden, that needs to be performed as a body, as a non-person.

accused of approaching him. 1 saw him by the men's room in the park when I drove into the parking area and followed him into it. When he had not approached me directly after a few minutes, I left and drove away. It is in the fact that I changed my mind and drove back to where he was waiting. that I can be called guilty.

Naturally cautious with strangers, I again did not approach him but waited at the urinal, my back toward him, in no sense aroused. When he came around to observe me, to look down at my genitals, I asked if there were something. that was interesting to him..

That question resulted in his pulling his plastic identification card from the pocket of his shirt. My first reaction was pained disbelief. I said, "Why do you I want to do this to me?"

driving on the wet, siushy roadway. I proceeded to where I had been headed when the sight of the man waiting in the park ihad distracted me.

The state of numbness remained with me until a few days before my scheduled date in' court. It enabled me to go about my routine of work and daily living without giving evidence of the unbearable anxiety I was feeling at another level. Finally, on the Saturday before my scheduled court appearance on Monday night, I faced the reality that I couldn't cope with my situation alone.

I called the only person I had met cruising the parks who was in any sense a friend. His emotional support then confirmed our friendship, which continues today. He directed me to a minister, not of my faith, who had shown sympathy for gays.

He directed me, after taking my driver's license, to follow him The minister responded to my in my car to the park office phone call with great concern. where he photographed me with He urged me to come to talk to a Polaroid camera, and, I think, I him at once. I told him of my remember correctly, finger-anxiety about my job and printed me. He issued me a form embarrassment for my family. like a traffic ticket that directed His response was that I must be me to appear in a suburban concerned first with myself and court about three weeks later. how I felt about myself. Under his questioning, I articulated for the first time the hatred of myself as a gay person and the disgust I felt for my secret life. He asked me if there were any qualities in myself that I felt

An irony is that I was not especially attracted to the As I left the park office that person who arrested me. The mid-February afternoon, it began greatest attraction was his to snow. 1 was SO numb seeming obvious availability. emotionally from the experience Only in the most arguable I had just undergone that I technical sense can I be thought only about the danger of

positive toward. Gradually, he helped me focus on an image of myself that I have not lost as a full, worthwhile human being with many dimensions beyond being homosexual. He urged that I accept myself as gay and that I prove to myself that being gay was only part of a complete person that people could love by telling my brother, my closest relative, about my situation. He offered to try to get me legal assistance.

The next day, after many false starts, the words rising to my lips and then falling back into my throat choking me, I told my brother. We have been friends without being close. His reaching out to touch me proved what 1 had feared impossible, that he could and did accept me. He said that he had always known me as his brother and that now he knew one more fact about me. It was the most emotional moment of our relationship.

was

He insisted that I make use of his attorney and arranged for my conferring with the lawyer by phone. The attorney advised that there was no chance of my getting off free since it was a matter of my word against the policeman's. It turned out that he was right. I paid a fine of $150. The attorney's parting words to me were that I should find a prostitute when I felt urgent sexual desire. I realized that I could never explain to him how ridiculous he was.

One result of my conviction, which I have so far managed to

UNTITLED

By John Nosek

Moot point-Life is Never fertilized in time where Rhetoric sprouts upon the unkept bed Shedding the spite Sixties consciousness pervaded

The sisters tramp-shot flies Delirious delectable derelict Life style is what I want with One finite breath plunged Into an upstream traveler's aid

bureau Dresser dragged over the seventies Which yielded to the id Super-egoly of carousels Twisted and spurned But not broken. Pieces of Kiszka Skinless and exposed to Point Mr. Poindexter Past the coaster of my drink Never thinking it was eighties on rye From wheat in an Arabian seed That started all this Madness in EthiopiaBronowski's claim to fame On a hand lifting Homosapien sexuals into my groin

Which manifest Life the moot point

keep secret from my employers A SHAMEFUL

and most people who know me,

is that I am branded a pervert. I

discovered that about two years SCORE

later when I was sitting in a park talking to someone. A park policeman asked for our identification and, when he called the park office information came back that I am a known pervert. I have not returned to the park since, but I did support the park levy this past election. I am also aware that on many job applications there is a question concerning arrests and convictions; I don't know whether a misdemeanor counts in the same way as a felony, but I do feel somewhat trapped in my present job. I may some day have to face the decision of whether or not to lie. I hate to lie.

By Jerry Juszczyk

Perversions fill my mind with rape,

As the Gladiator spits out your luscious fate. Look up there boys; It's here for all to see, The odors in his eyes, The make-up, hip disguise. Hanging from there necks on the limbs up high, Castrated eyes wallow in the sweat-nihled jive.

You bastards, the punk crys

out!

Save your skin, my lecherous loins;

Prick my ass and your mouth shall flip,

Then plax the plastic mask of facts,

As you drain the flax-knocked St.ame

science,

The positive result of this exIperience has been a new view of myself as a gay man. I now know what possibilities exist for a much fuller and more meaningful life as a gay person. For the first time in my life I have of men who in their congay friends with whom to share my feelings and I can envision myself in a close relationship with another gay man. When I have accomplished that, I will have fulfilled the benefits to compensate for the bitter lesson I learned about the law.

The experience confirmed many of my fears about how the world at large would treat me as a gay, but I have matured partly as a result of this experience and reject society's attitude. I insist on being accepted as the whole person I think I have become.

Suffered so in vain.

Life to those who defy my laws. Strip them naked, sell their pains.

I scrape the scum, The filth from your flattened, scarlet brain.

Note that madness is a breathful doze.

A step away, ever-ebbing Sanity flows. No More! Vengeance is forlorn. Your time has come, And Death awaits you, Round the door.