WHAT’S YOUR QUEER LOVE SONG OR STORY?
I Left My Heart in San Francisco: How I Came Out with a Bang
San Francisco will always hold a place in my heart
I had officially been out a few months even though I had been creeping out of the closet for years. I would have a few encounters, but I was still in the closet with my employers.
A friend and I decided to take a 2-week vacation in San Francisco in 1965. I lived in Texas and had been to a few gay bars, but the wide-open, 24/7 gay scene in the city was like a dream. The Castro not only had gay bars, it also had gay restaurants and gay baths.
It became a sexual encounter every day, and it was my first experience with a gay orgy. I really haven’t cared for group sex since, but that time was exciting. I don’t want to get too graphic, but I enjoyed it.
Tony Bennett would forever be associated with that trip. I made several more trips to San Francisco, but that was the only one strictly focused on sex. I seemed to always go in September and enjoyed the beautiful sunny days. I even ventured over to Sausalito and Berkeley. The freeway to nowhere came down, and a grand esplanade replaced it. Tall buildings replaced most of the “meat market” of Market Street. The former grimy home to the hustles was replaced with towers of business offices.
That reminded me that I had been offered a job with Dow-Jones on the first trip. I turned it down because I didn’t think I could cope with the sexual fantasies and temptations. Marijuana was replaced with hard drugs, and then came HIV and AIDS.
My companion on the first trip had moved to San Francisco and was an early victim of AIDS. I often wondered if that might also have become my fate. He was only the first of several close friends who became victims of the disease, and nirvana became a living hell. Another friend moved there from Texas and became one of the victims. San Francisco vied with New York for the most victims, but Houston and Dallas also had their stories. Dallas lost most of the members of the Turtle Creek Chorale. My first true love had married and had five children before he later succumbed to the disease.
The memories are bittersweet. Wild, crazy days, romantic trysts, fantastic scenery, world-class artistic organizations all blended into a hazy blend of recollections, some of which are only half true.
San Francisco competes with Paris to vie which would be my favorite city. I have spent only a limited time in either city, but the romantic pull still tugs at my heart. Alas, I wasted most of my live in the wilds of Texas. All big cities have plenty of money, glamour, and ostentations. But the flat prairies lack the scenic attractions of my favorite cities. Dallas has Highland Park, and Houston has River Oaks, but they are only products of too much money.
In some small way, San Francisco will always hold a place in my heart.
This story is a response to the Prism & Pen writing prompt, ‘Boys Do Fall in Love’ is Mine: What’s YOUR Queer Love Song or Story?
