On the Road

My Gremlin looked much like this, though without the racing stripes.

I took to the road in August of 1974. I had broken up with my first boyfriend in January and had spent the summer living with my new boyfriend, Stephen. It had become an intolerable situation. I believe I still loved him but we were together virtually 24 hours a day and I was suffocating. I'm sure he was too. We had dated in the spring and then he had moved from Charlottesville to join me as the term ended. He needed a job, so I hired him at the country club where I was the maitre d'. Since he was also new to Richmond he had no friends; all his new friends were mine. In other words our lives were totally entwined at a far-too-early stage. As I say, we were suffocating.

When I was leaving he asked me how I felt about him. I honestly did not know. Yes, I loved him, but I hated the situation so much that I couldn't sort out my feelings. I jumped into my AMC Gremlin and hit the road, visiting Toronto, Detroit, Montreal, Rochester, Provincetown and New York before coming back to Richmond. It was glorious.

Toronto was a new city to me and was nearly as exciting as New York. Yonge Street was bustling with activity and the gay scene was vibrant and varied. I met Ed, the only weightlifter I have ever been to bed with. He was not massively overbuilt, just gorgeously beefy, and a really nice guy. But he was leaving town the next day so I only saw him once. Next I met Juha, a charming Swede with whom I saw the city for two days. Then it was off to Detroit to visit one of my oldest friends, TMcD, my own Little Prince. I don't remember much of that visit except that we had a great time and that Detroit had not yet collapsed.

The highpoint of the trip turned out to be Montreal. I had never been, knew no one and couldn't afford a hotel, so I hoped to meet someone who would offer me shelter. I was at a gay bar growing increasingly more frustrated by the fact that everyone I tried to talk to spoke French, a language totally alien to me at the time. In those days it took all the courage I could muster to approach a stranger; after hesitating for 20 minutes imagine my disappointment when all I could do was shrug my shoulders and mutter "sorry" after he said "Je ne parle pas anglais." After a couple hours of this I spotted a young man by himself; he was attractive, not drop-dead handsome. More importantly though he was mouthing the words to a song playing on the jukebox, "The Night Chicago Died" by Paper Lace. It's a forgettable, even regrettable, pop song, but it saved me from being homeless that night.

I introduced myself to John Campbell and we started talking. He told me later that we was not particularly attracted to me at first but came to like me as we kept talking. I took that as a compliment. He invited me home. It was Friday night.

Saturday and Sunday we hardly left his house. We talked, ate, had sex, talked some more, ate some more, watched TV and talked. Mostly we talked. Seriously. It was one of those encounters where you feel you've met your soul mate. When Monday morning rolled around he went to work; I had planned to leave Montreal then but agreed to stay one more day; we would meet at 5 after he got off work. He wanted me to call him at noon and tell him what I was up to. When I made that call he said "stay where you are; I can't stand it; I'm coming to get you." I almost cried it was so sweet. We got together for one last afternoon and night and when I finally did leave the next day we both cried.

John and I wrote letters for a few years but eventually lost touch. I'll never forget him though.

The rest of the trip was to Rochester to visit family, to Provincetown to check out the crazy gay scene there -- I hated it -- and to New York to see movies and visit another friend. I came back to Richmond to move into a new apartment, go back to school, and bask in the glory, and heartache, of a month spent on the road.