Fly Me To The Moon

A Saint Louis story of the 1970s

(Note: This piece is part of the series Saint Louis Blues: Gay Days and Nights in the 1970s which I am preparing for publication as an e-book. You can read others in the series at the link.)

Fly me to the moon
Let me play among the stars
Let me see what spring is like
On Jupiter and Mars
…
Fill my heart with song
Let me sing for ever more
You are all I long for
All I worship and adore

In other words: please, be true
In other words, in other words: I love you 

From the moment I saw him across the dance floor at Bob Martin’s Bar in St. Louis on a warm spring Saturday night in 1975, I was smitten by him. April 5, 10:44 PM – not that anything like obsession etched that detail into my memory. Something about his almost elfin look, coupled with a broad smile and a rakish way of pulling a next drag on his cigarette, attracted me even from a distance. His silky brown hair fell over his forehead and down to his dark eyes such that he flung it back again and again, with a quick flick of his head, or a brush of his hand – the one not holding both cigarette and beer. His ears were almost too big, his nose too small, and his Adam’s apple protruded prominently: unlikely components for a face one found irresistible.

Even before I got to hold him, I suspected that the feel of his slim body in my arms would send me into orbit. And it did.

“Fly Me to the Moon” – Sinatra’s version – made a soundtrack in my head with our first kiss. “Let [us] play among the stars.”

The stars could not have been more auspiciously aligned.

Yes, love at first sight. It happens.

In the long run it wouldn’t work out well for either of us. Not even all that long, really. AIDS didn’t cut any slack back then, though it didn’t take him till a few years after we’d already parted. He never would be old; and I would live to know the heartache of lost love again – and again. But “long run” is a concept for old men whose juices have seeped away with time. We were young, so NOW was all that mattered.

I knew that it was crazy as I was feeling it – that someday I’d regret it. Or maybe not “regret” – perhaps just find unwise. But there’d be time for regret once I got back from Jupiter and Mars. For at least a little while – those early days when we both breathed happy breaths just from being together – I would give in to love completely.

A little while? Oh, no, a long, long while at least. Why not “for ever more?”

He had no thoughts of “crazy” “unwise” “regret.” He knew the time was short (didn’t know just how short then), and that there were adventures – and men – to be had, for those brave enough to have them – brave enough to take the heart and body risk. He was brave enough, without even the need to think it. He could close his eyes and lose himself in their strong arms, lay his cheek against their chests and smell the maleness of them, open his body to them and not regret any of it.

We spent that first night together at my almost chic studio apartment on the top floor of the Hawthorne – a detail that matters because ever after I’d see him in every corner of the place I lived, not just the bed, as with so many others. That first night there was sex, of course, but it was only partly sex that took us places I’d never even dreamed were there to go to. We embraced, we kissed, we had sex, we shared our cigarette afterward, each stage the apotheosis of the act. It’s easy to scoff at such words – apotheosis – until you’ve felt them.

Whether it was rainy or clear, warm or cool, light or dark, when we were together – which was as often as we could possibly manage, given the interfering intrusions of working and living – we were mostly locked in each other’s arms (that’s a coy euphemism – but you know what it really means).

Passion – another out of fashion word to scoff at – reigned over our connection. Passion that sometimes left me breathless, even aside from sex. When we were together we felt as one: “You are all I long for/All I worship and adore.” For a while, at least.

But how can that sound anything but saccharine – until it’s over? Then it can be the fool’s love before the fall – the inevitable fall. Because the song has other lyrics: “please be true.” That didn’t have to be there, but it is. It’s the line that brings love moonshots back to earth – and so often causes them to crash.

Because for some (him) there seemed no end to the adventures and the men. And for others (me), going into orbit was a perilous flight – crazy, unwise, regrettable (eventually). The stars can’t outshine history, however well aligned; and “please be true” is history speaking loud and clear.

Love at first sight? Yes, it happens. Maybe on Jupiter and Mars it even lasts. Trouble is, most of us still live on Earth.