In 1981, I dated an older boy named Doug, whom I met at Royals Stadium, where we both worked as ushers (to be precise, because I was a “lady,” I was called an “usherette”). I was 16 and Doug was 19.
When I first met Doug, I thought he was Black. People often mistook Doug for Black or Puerto Rican. He had mocha skin and a big black 70s afro.
Out of all the ushers, he was probably the most popular with the usherettes. This is because before and after games he’d roller skate around the tunnel where the stadium employees and baseball players entered the stadium. He was damn foxy on those roller skates, doing his fancy little tricks, skating backwards, spinning, criss-crossing, and soaring past us like hurricane winds. Suffice it to say, I was one of many of the usherettes who flirted with Doug.
After I started flirting with him, I did a little digging and discovered his sister and I went to school together. His sister, who was considered one of the coolest girls in school, looked very much like her brother, only she had white skin and her hair wasn’t as black or as kinky. She didn’t talk about her brother much, but once he and I started dating, she was friendlier to me in the hallways at school.
Doug looked like Juan Epstein on Welcome Back, Kotter and this, more than the roller skating, is why I was attracted to him. I had had a huge crush on Juan Epstein, who reminded me of Harpo Marx, whom I also had a huge crush on.
Doug was often mistaken for a Black guy, and I suspect there was Black ancestor somewhere in his DNA, but where we lived, in Raytown, Missouri, it was better to cling to the story your “blood” was pure white. Doug’s sister pretended she didn’t have a brother, and Doug’s parents treated him like dog shit, and because Doug was a generally nice guy, I suspect familial snubbing was because Doug looked Black. My family was much kinder to Doug than Doug’s family was, so he ended up hanging around my house a lot. Even when I wasn’t there. Even after we broke up.
I probably would have dated Doug longer than I did if Doug had been as cool with my androgyny as I was with his blackness. But he wasn’t.
At the end of baseball season, we went on a date to one of those school parking lot fall carnivals. Doug and I had just finished blowing our money on a ring toss game, where Doug won me a little stuffed toy skunk. We were walking away from the game, the carnie was already yelling at his next marks, and we were laughing about how the skunk wasn’t worth what we paid to win it, when a group of youngish men surrounded us, blocked us, stopped us in our tracks.
“Faggots!” one of the men spat.
It was a moonless dark night, the game aisle we were in was lit with patches of carnival light from the booths. The gang of men happened to stop us in the one strong puddle of light coming from a light pole. Because we were essentially in a spotlight, I wasn’t too scared. There were people in every direction, people shooting water at balloons, people throwing balls at milk bottles, people slamming hammers on the strongman machine. We were safe-ish.
One of the men, his nose red with cold and booze, leaned into my face and snarled, “Fucking cock sucking gay boy.”
Doug turned to look at me, and at first, I thought Doug was going to protect me. I was vulnerable standing in the spot of light, zipped up tight in my hoodie, bundled against the chilly autumn air, the drunk dude leaning into my face. I wanted Doug to protect me.
Doug wasn’t planning on protecting me, though. He was sizing me up. He glared at my short hair, my make-up-less face, my lack of jewelry, my hoodie hat up over my ears, my boy jeans, my high tops.
Doug looked up from my feet and looked me in the eyes. It was a hard look. His brown eyes were black. He was angry. At me! — not the men who were tormenting us. Doug lunged at me, practically ripping my hoodie as he yanked my zipper down. He flung my hoodie wide open, causing me to drop the toy skunk on the dirty asphalt. He exposed me, pointed to my unharnessed nipples beneath my Conan the Barbarian t-shirt and exclaimed, “She’s a woman! She’s a girl! I ain’t no fucking faggot!”
I was mortified. Dizzy.
The men looked at each other, back at me, and one said, “Nice tits.” Then they walked away, leaving us standing there in a singular spot of light, in an aisle of carnival games.
Now it was my turn to be angry. “Why the fuck did you rip my hoodie open like that?” I zipped myself back up.
Doug picked the toy skunk up and brushed it off. “You look too much like a dude,” he said as he handed me my pitiful prize. “I can’t walk around holding your hand in public when you look that. It ain’t safe.” He started walking away from me.
I stood frozen in the light. “Why do you care what other people think?” I screamed at his back.
He stopped. Turned and calmly asked, “Are you coming?” It was a practical question.
“For now,” I said as I followed behind him, dragging my feet while finding my emotional footing.
How could I be with someone who was ashamed of me? Ashamed of himself? In that moment, I followed him because I needed him to guide me safely through the lecherous carnies and drunk and drugged troublemakers back to the safety of his car and to my home, where he’d probably sleep on my parents’ couch again. But I had decided that our relationship was going to end.
After I broke up with him – which is a dramatic story full of Doug’s threats of self-harm and weeping and neighbors coming out on their porches to witness the commotion as Doug jumped full bodied on the hood of my car and yelled, “You can’t leave me!” as I tried to drive away – my parents let him move in with us. Doug moved his dog, Wiley, in with us, too. It was unsettling to have my unhinged ex-boyfriend sleeping in our living room, his dog in our backyard.
I packed a bag and went to my secret girlfriend’s house.
Yes, after I broke up with Doug, one of my good friends became my secret girlfriend. I didn’t want her to be a secret girlfriend; I wanted her to simply be my girlfriend. But she wasn’t having it. Now, I realize she was ashamed. Now, I realize I have a pattern of being with people who are ashamed of who they are, but back then, I was still a child; I didn’t yet understand how relationship choices tend to follow patterns, or how our choices reflect what we think of ourselves.
I stayed at my secret girlfriend’s house for three days. I stayed until her parents asked point blank when our little pajama party was going to end.
I called my parents and bluffed. I informed them I wasn’t coming home until Doug left. My parents liked Doug, but they loved me, so, after confirming I was sure, “You’re sure you don’t want Doug as a boyfriend?” they asked him to move out. They let him keep Wiley in our fenced yard, though, which meant Doug wasn’t completely out of my life until about a month later when Doug’s parents let him move back in with them.
Doug’s parents were always kicking him out and letting him move back in. It seemed to be a “Desiree’s Baby” type situation. Doug’s parents were uncomfortable with having Doug’s blackness so close to them. Just as Doug was uncomfortable with my queerness being so close to him that night at the carnival.
By hiding our essential selves, we were all playing a rigged game, and our pitiful prizes were worth much less than what we paid for them. And we paid a lot. We paid in broken relationships and we paid in our dignity. We paid with our silence and our shame.
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