Denton, Texas 1965: I met Jon W. at the Hob Nob. He was a gay guy with a haircut like the Beatles, but before the Beatles record came out, so to speak.

At the time, I didn’t really know what “gay” meant. In high school, my friend Bobby M. once spoke of “queers.” I asked Bobby what that meant, and he said they were very mean guys who wanted to hurt you, specifically by blowing air … well, this being a family-oriented autoblography, let’s just say that Bobby’s theory was wide of the mark.

So I met Jon and some of his friends, and they were kind of interesting, but I found it awkward. And embarassing.

For example, one day, sitting in a booth with friends, in the booth behind me were Jon and his friends. Jon was wearing a cologne, quite pleasant actually, but I couldn’t just say something like that, oh no.

Some comment was made, and he asked me if I liked the scent. I was embarassed, and gruffly replied, “You smell pretty.”

This was meant to be somewhat rude, so my friends wouldn’t think I was maybe light in the loafers, you know. But Jon never blinked an eyelash.

“That’s because I think pretty thoughts,” he said.

So mortifying.

But later I was happy I knew him, because he was giving up his cool apartment, and he helped me to take it over. Across from the English Building was Voertmann’s, the bookstore. Beside Voertmann’s, a narrow alley ran to the parking lot behind the store. On the building next door, a beauty parlor filled the first floor, and two clunking metal stairs led to apartments above.

The apartment in front was huge; and down a catwalk at the back of the building, my new apartment was tiny.

It was great. First, it was dirt-cheap, always an attractive feature. It was one room, with a bath and tub, and two closets: one for clothes, and one with a tiny refrigerator where I built shelving for food and a crockpot to make soup and chili. Presto! Instant kitchen.

Going around the room, I’d added a console television, a cabinet on the wall with a collection of teas — very cosmopolitan for a boy from Henrietta — and a set of black shelves built like a pole light. On these I stacked white dishes and bowls.

Beside the door, a huge speaker cabinet covered in blue burlap atop of which a black formica counter-top supported an enormous copper pot with a brass faucet for water. Then my record turntable, suspended by a chain, and a free-form wooden thing suspended from the ceiling, through which passed a pottery lamp above my bed.

A home-made sofa beneath a wall panel of colored cloth, and some rattan, four lithographs matted in dark colors, from my ex-roommate Hardy. A drop-down drafting table suspended from the wall, and my conga drum in the corner, both stained teal blue, completed the scene.

Red and blue bulbs in a pole lamp shone upon a fake brick section of wall, and gay Jon had painted the walls and the hardwood floors white, so a bit of blue sisal carpet cheered things up. A hi-fi and foldaway cardtable beneath my bed provided an evening’s entertainment or a dinner party. I was all set.

It happened that my friend Lefevre was visiting in town, and because I was extremely proud of these several weeks work, mostly done over a Christmas vacation, I got my ex-roommate Pat to bring Jerry over to see my new place.

As it happened, they were very late, and I worked nights at the Holiday Inn, so I left the lights low and the door unlocked. They came and saw the place and left, and later I was so proud of my handiwork when Jerry told me, “I had no idea your tastes were so fine.”

Of course, this glow of approval was dimmed a little the next day when Pat dropped by. He came in, looked around.

“Nice decorating,” he said. “… Early Homosexual?”

Parker and Geary, San Francisco, 1985: Jill was my inamorata when I lived in Dallas, selling answering service equipment for StarTel. She’d been shocked when I said I wasn’t divorced yet, just certain that I was just playing her.

Standing there in her house, I dialed Network Answering Service and got Lori on the line. “Hi, Lori,” I said, “I’ve been seeing this woman named Jill, and she thinks that since we don’t have a divorce, maybe we’ll be getting back together. This worries her. Would you reassure her?”

Jill was making desparate No, No! gestures, but I forced the phone into her hand and moved it up to her ear.

“Hello?” she said.

I couldn’t hear what Lori said, but as Jill listened, the worry lines faded from her face. The women finished their talk. And that was that.

Probably because of this reassurance, Jill came with me on my next visit to San Francisco. And that’s where we saw it.

Our office at Network Answering Service is on the upper floor of a flat on the corner of Parker Street and Geary Boulevard. Geary Boulevard is quite large, and from our windows, I’ve seen the Pope in his gold-plated Mercedes Pope-Mobile,I’ve waved to Queen Elizabeth, and then shot the bird at President Reagan, coming close to being shot myself by the secret servicemen riding outside the limosine.

Directly across from our office was Wherehouse Records, with Mel’s Diner to the right, and the Post Office on the next block. I used to hide the secret key to our office in a magnetic holder just inside the air-conditioning vents on the Wherehouse Records store. Don’t look for it now, though. It’s probably gone.

Jill had wanted to see our office, so we’d parked up the street on Parker. She parked the car, and I chided her for parking in the middle of two parking places.

“But that’s just courteous,” she said. “So the other cars can get out easily.”

“Not in San Francisco,” I said. “Where parking spots are hard to find, using two is rude.”

“Oh,” she said, and moved the car.

After visiting the office where she met Lori and the two of them made nice for a while, we returned to the car, and drove slowly up toward the intersection of Geary. When we got there, we stopped behind a light-colored Chevrolet at the red light. The cars on Geary were flying past; it’s always a long wait at that light.

As we waited, the guy driving the Chevy ahead of us opened his car door and leaned out. He seemed to be trying to look under his own car, and he twisted this way and that way, and this looked particularly stupid, and we started laughing.

At about that time, his grip on the wheel must have slipped, for he tumbled out his door onto his head, and, trying to scramble back into the car, slipped and fell again. The Chevy, still in gear, moved slowly forward and he missed the door.

The Chevy now rode over the man’s legs, and cruised slowly through the red light and across the four lanes of flying traffic on Geary. Horns, brakes, skids, and yelling ensued, while the Chevy, with the door open, cruised majestically across the boulevard toward Wherehouse Records, where it climbed the curb, heading toward the plate glass windows, but first hit the metal fireplug, popping its top and sending a geyser of water several stories tall to arch and fall upon the Geary intersection.

Cars skidded and swerved and traffic came to a halt.

Oddly, there were no accidents. Except, of course, for the man who had run over himself with his own car. Jill and I jumped from our car and ran over to the man, who was trying to get to his feet. His adrenaline was probably pumping pretty good, so I wouldn’t let him get up, but made him sit on the curb.

My operators stuck their heads from the windows above me, and I sent them to call an ambulance for our unfortunate friend. Cops appeared, and Jill and I faded.

Ah, chaos! The natural state for a human! There’s nothing like it in the universe. Or is there?

Saint Louis, Missouri, Winter 1967: Working two jobs let me save money for my visit to England. I worked days on the Rock Island Railroad in my jeans and brogans. Then, wearing a suit, worked as night manager at the Hilton Inn.

Light snow flurries spun around the Volkswagen as I zoomed up the freeway toward home in the dark early morning. The four-lane had little traffic, and soon I’d be home — an unheated trailer off the end of the jet runway of St. Louis International. I was tired.

Just past the crest of a hill, I drifted to the left, then started to enter the leftmost lane. That’s when it happened.

From behind, over the hill at high speed came flying a dark sportscar. There was hardly time to see.

Quickly I steered back to the right, opening up the left lane, but the sportscar went into the metal guardrail, skidding past me down the center median, with a loud scraping of metal, a shower of sparks flying into the air.

The sportscar stopped. The other cars and I flew past, too quick to see clearly. I slowed, pulling to the right. How to get back?

Already a quarter mile down the road, I looked for an exit, thinking to find a phone, or drive back around. Upon the overpass, I stopped my car and stood in the chill air, looking back up the road. Almost a mile away, I could already see flashing lights.

Nothing more to be done. I drove home. Nothing more to be done.

I was afraid. Was the wreck my fault? Was the sportscar totalled? Was the driver hurt? Dead? What made him plunge into the guardrail? What had happened?

I’ll never know. Nothing to be done. Best to forget it, I thought.

But you don’t forget. Still riding through time, remains an image of the small car flying past, a shower of sparks, and then gone.

Night before last, the hail pinging on the window above my bed called me to come and look from the back door. The tiny hailstones heaped upon the back deck, then blew away, leaving slippery ice in the morning, to the consternation of the dogs.

In my late-afternoon errands, the overcast sky drifted high above with stories of clouds in shapes and shadows, and the mountain gray with a thin dash of snow, just from the night.

Tonight, goblins will come. Young Ron and Katie across the street have a hierarchy of carved pumpkins, a lighted cornstalk path through scattered hay and huge purple spiderwebs to their door. Looks like a gremlin-grabber to me.

Adrienne and I, newly among the living, cannot rise to carve our pumpkins, so Adrienne has dressed one in a cowboy hat and the other in a bandanna, with twinkly lights. We plan to put the goodies outside in a bowl, with a sign saying “Take only two. Boo!”

Us? We’re going to hide, deep inside the darkened house, and watch a really silly movie.