Bee Sting; Heart Ache

A St. Louis story of the 1970s

OK, so there was the bee sting, and the swollen foot, blown up like a red balloon, an elephantiasis appendage, which, God willing, might possibly shrink back to normal in a day or two – though knowing friends told me such a swelling could lead to blood poisoning, anaphylaxis, death, and I should really go (should really have gone immediately) to the emergency room for a shot of something. But I was young, so death? How could I give it credence, let it rule me, when there were important things, like men and sex and making hay while the sun shined, to banish it, at least from front-of-mind, on splendid Summer days?

So, yes, there was the sting and the swelling and the life-threatening foot, but that hadn’t ballooned till the next morning. On the day itself, aside from the fiery burn of pain as the creature I’d stepped on stung – aside from that, the day had been beautiful, almost perfect, and then I could not have predicted the agony to come.

It was a gorgeous Sunday morning in June, my birthday month. We drove out of Saint Louis, over the Eads Bridge, through the desolation of the east side towns, into the farm lands of that part of Southern Illinois, a fertile stretch, enhanced forever by the flooding, then receding, Mississippi River – a forever that had seen the rise of the Cahokia Mounds, and their decline; the coming of the French and Spanish, and their retreat with the onslaught of Americans; the tilling of the fertile soil, and the green spring fields we drove through that day on our way to a lake that he said was heavenly.

I took his word for it, even though I hadn’t known him long – hardly a month by then – but long enough to associate so many epic personal journeys with him – some short, only as far as bed; others longer, as this one into unfamiliar country, promising splendor on a Summer Sunday.

Even though we were far into the 1970s already, and thoroughly immersed in the Castro-clone aesthetic, he had a lingering hippiness about him, perhaps because he’d come out of South Saint Louis – not even really fully come out of it, since he still lived there. So far he’d resisted (or even not realized) the with-it gayness of the Central West End (the with-it gay neighborhood of Saint Louis at the time), never mind the more with-it cruising grounds of San Francisco or New York. He had long chestnut hair, down to his shoulders, and a long drooping mustache – not quite Yosemite Sam, but not far from it. He had lively dark eyes, and a wide smile (with dimples) and a slightly receding chin, mostly masked by the mustache. We’d met on a Saturday night in Bob Martin’s Bar, just off the dance floor, with the flashes from the disco ball flickering across our faces in silent movie staccato. We’d felt an immediate simpatico – something that went beyond the sex appeal, though for sure it didn’t preclude it.

That night we went to bed – in my with-it top-floor apartment in the Hawthorne, in the with-it Central West End. Though I sometimes made a stab at macho (I’d been to New York and San Francisco, and knew how to act it), especially with first-time tricks, while we were still scoping out our sexual dynamic, with him I gave it up immediately. We knew from the first moves who would be bottom, who would be top, how the magnificent scene of the night would play out – not the details; those were to be an exquisite discovery – but the plot points on which the variations of delight would turn.

That was the first night. There were many more. Always at my apartment. Not because it was such a with-it venue, but, as he casually revealed – once it became clear to both of us that there were to be nights, maybe lots of nights, in addition to that first one – because at his place, in South Saint Louis, there were a wife and child, and only one bedroom – already full.

Say what!? Even the sophistication of San Francisco and New York had not prepared me for  that. Even at 25 (alright, maybe a little beyond), I wasn’t vastly experienced in the baffling variations of the boy-meets-boy theme which had become central to my being as soon as I’d discovered that it was a possibility.  I knew all too well the boy-loses-boy variation. I’d had a few (quite a few) tear-soaked experiences with that. I knew boy-longs-for-boy-from-afar, boy-doesn’t-fancy-this-boy-at-all, and many others. But boy-meets-boy-who-has-a-wife-and-child was a new one for  me.

Naive as I  was, never mind the big city gay sophistication, I had an inkling as soon as he made the revelation, that this would not turn out well for someone – and I suspected that the someone would be me. But on splendid Summer Sundays, on journeys with him into new territories, after Saturday night journeys to bed (and beyond), common sense stood no chance. I would go with him wherever he led, let the future go where it might (where it likely would).

And so we drove through the green fields, and beyond the Mounds and found the lake. There were already cars parked along the highway, and blankets spread on the grass, and families beginning their spring Sunday outings of paddling and picnics. We spread our blanket and set out our basket and slipped off our jeans, which we’d slipped over our swim suits as we dressed. He knew there would be no place to change there, from prior visits – prior journeys with others.

I felt a bit conspicuous in my taut red Speedo. Mostly it was a trunks crowd. He wore trunks. They hung loosely from his pelvis, not contouring the treasures below – the basket I knew from glorious experience to be fully there; the butt I loved to look at, run my palm over, dream about. The trunks didn’t hide the line of hair just below his naval, or obscure his not-muscled, but lean stomach, or the dimples on his back, just above where the buns began. I lay on the blanket, in my too-tiny suit, looking at him as he folded his jeans into a pillow, and almost couldn’t keep myself from slipping my hand up under the baggy leg of his trunks.

The sun was already hot, and the surface of the lake glistened. He said we should get in – it would be so cool: it was a filled up quarry, deep, and the water stayed cool far into the Summer. We stood up and headed across the grass toward the sandy shore. It was then that the bee stung. It was like fire stuck into the bottom of my foot. It took my breath away that so much pain could shoot through me so quickly. I’d felt pain before – stubbed toes, a broken nose – but this pain had the added agony of barbed stinger and venom. I gasped, and limped a few steps further, and then collapsed onto the grass, grasping my foot with the sole up, so that I could see what could possibly be the cause of so much pain. The red was only a raised spot then, and, after a bit, the pain subsided into a dull throb – nothing I couldn’t stand, and I was determined not to let it dull the beautiful day.

Indeed, the water was cool, and that helped, as did the icy beer we drank before, with and after our sandwiches. We stayed there late into the afternoon, cooling off often in the water, and drinking beer, even after it began to be less icy. By 4 we were as red all over (at least the exposed parts) as my reddening foot (just beginning to swell, but still throbbing), and it was time to drive back to Saint Louis.

All afternoon I had managed, somehow, to keep from sliding my hand into his trunks. That changed, of course, when we got back to my apartment. By the time he left, toward midnight, to drive back to South Saint Louis, we were exhausted from so much sun and so much sex – and my foot had swollen larger (not as large by half as it would be by morning), but the beer helped mute the pain. I was so exhausted, in fact, and perhaps so befuddled by bee poison that I almost didn’t mind when he had to go – because of an early morning (no mention of wife and child). Almost.

Then the lonely hours began. The hours of thinking about him while trying not to; the hours of thinking about him with his wife and child, who I’d never met, would never meet; the hours of pretending that I didn’t care, pretending that I understood, pretending that it didn’t hurt that he left me for them. Of course I did understand at some level: they were family and I was trick, even though love had been hinted at, if never spoken – so far.

By morning, with the beer faded, and the foot at full inflation, I knew I had trouble. How nice it would have been if he’d been there beside me to help with support, even if he couldn’t take away the pain and swelling. But he wasn’t there. No ignoring that, even as throbbing vanquished every other feeling (except for a little fear and a little loneliness).

I couldn’t wear a shoe, of course, not on my monstrous foot – not with the pain. At least it was sandal season, so I supposed I’d somehow manage to get where I needed to go, get there alone. The irony wasn’t lost on me, when I thought of my place in the four-way relationship we were all in, that I didn’t have a leg – or now literally, a foot – to stand on.

It wasn’t as though I could take any delight from the thought that he might leave wife and child for me. What an awful thing that would be, and how hardly likely to leave me unscathed, even if I never had to face them and their pain directly. I’d know the pain was there, and it would pain me, at least a little bit, knowing it. But I also knew that my own pain was there – in the heart, not just the foot – and that it was likely to go on, get worse, as long as I continued dreaming that there might somehow be a “we” in our story – and that pained me more than just a bit.

If I’d had more courage, I’d have broken with him – vowed to, anyway. But heart-courage deserted me when I needed it, even as the splendor of Summer Sundays turned into Monday morning  pain.

Knowing how to end stories is where the art comes in. We can all begin them; that’s easy. But making sense of them at the end, how hard that is. I was not good at that end-sense. Of course I didn’t end it with him, not for many nights to come. And even then, I wasn’t the one who did it.

One Sunday night in September, as he buttoned his shirt, getting himself together for the trip south (the trip home), he said he wouldn’t be coming back. He didn’t say why, and I didn’t ask. Why didn’t matter. It wouldn’t ease the heart pain, just as the shot of something that Monday morning hadn’t eased the foot pain. The swelling had gone down eventually, and that pain had diminished on it’s own. Now it was only a memory (though a terrible one, it’s true). I supposed (I hoped) the heart pain would diminish too, in time.

I remembered the drive to the lake, the hot sun, the line of hair going down from his naval to his trunks, and I was grateful to have the memories, even though I remembered the fierce bee pain too.  Something about “no pain, no gain” from a sadistic high school coach came back to me. I’d felt the pain then, though I wondered if there’d been real gain. Now I felt the pain again, as I watched him leave – watched the hippy chestnut hair, the slim waist, the butt I loved to touch, go through the door. I’d remember the smile, the glistening water of the lake, the joy of slipping my hand up into the trunks. And I’d remember that first-night simpatico, and all the glorious journeys after. Perhaps that would be enough, eventually, to make it all worth the sting. I trusted it would. Eventually.