A few nights ago, I settled down to watch an episode of South Park. This installment on the DVR was called "Butters' Very Own Episode."

It begins with Butters at home with his mother and father, and they're making family plans for the parents' upcoming wedding anniversary. Mom already has her husband's gift, and Dad takes his leave to shop for her present. At Mom's request, "Inspector Butters" follows to see what he buys so that she can know how her present for him competes.

Butters follows his dad, not to the mall or Walmart, but to the gay porn theater called "The Studcat" where Fisting Firemen 9 is playing and then to "the gym," to the White Swallow Bath House, where, according to Butters in his innocent report to his mom, Dad "wrestled with all kinds o' guys. He wasn't too good, though. This one black guy had him pinned down for fifteen minutes straight." Butters doesn't know what all this means: "The only thing I can't figure out is why dad told you he was goin' shoppin' for your present when he was goin' out to see the movies and wrestlin'."

His mom faints. In her next appearance, her hair and face are a mess and she's obsessively painting the house. And when Dad says he still hasn't found an anniversary present and must go out shopping again, Mom says to Butters, "I don't think Daddy's shopping. I think Daddy's going out wrestling again."

Butters follows once more, on his own this time, to tell his dad that a great anniversary present for Mom might be a new paint brush. He goes in the White Swallow Bath House this time and finds his dad masturbating (inspired by something not shown) in a private room.

Caught, Dad later explains to Mom, "It just . . . it started as some curiosity on the Internet. I would chat with some other married guys in the chat rooms and . . . Well the things they would talk about, Linda, I, I don't know why I found it exciting. I just did, and it, and it grew from there and it spun out of control, and--eh, ugh, DAMN YOU, INTERNET!"

The show is about white lies (big ones) and deception and the catastrophic events that can follow their discovery.

This gives me pause . . . to say the least.

Butters Episode

Script

What follows is an email written to the good friend who holds me in this powerful bear hug. We wrestled on Wednesday, 12 December, and what I write here is in response to that match.

Now, as for Wednesday, I've been thinking about it a lot, and I've come to this sad realization: I'm not a wrestler. Not a real wrestler anyway. I play. I pretend. I don't wrestle. I'm not aggressive or competitive enough to enjoy the kind of wrestling we've done in our two sessions. Don't get me wrong--I like wrestling you. But that's because I like you, not so much because I like the wrestling. Our sessions are great exercise (like you, I'm sore), but like exercise sessions, I find them physically rewarding and beneficial in the results while not all that enjoyable in the process.

So, I must admit to myself that my interest in wrestling has more to do with the erotic than I have wanted to believe. I came to this realization after puzzling over why our--your--pushing the limits didn't have the same effect it did in my match with T***. First, wrestling with you is much more intense; while the wrestling is friendly, it's never easy. The hair-pulling is a good example. T*** had his hands in my hair, and he pretended to use it to slam my head into the pillow turnbuckle or pull me back into a head scissors. Some pulling naturally came along with this play, but when all was said and done only a few stray strands were loosed in the combing. When you and I were in that standing position near the end of our session and you pulled my hair, I thought my scalp was going to pull free. And when I combed out after the shower, a great clump of hair choked up the comb. Who knows how much went down the drain before that!?!

Second, the notion of multiple submissions to a single hold. Again, near the end of our session, why didn't your not letting me up immediately after tapout or "I give" play out the same way it did with T***? I must admit that it's because I didn't enjoy the holds you had me in. T*** wouldn't let me out of my favorite holds. And with him, I was actually able to get him in some of my favorite holds and keep him under control after tapout. You said that you thought your chin bruise might have come from some vicious head scissors. Well, there were no vicious head scissors holds in our match; there was not a single head scissors at all this time except for the ones we posed for the camera. Again, this points to my being nothing more than a pretend wrestler. A selfish one at that. If I don't get my favorite holds, I don't enjoy the wrestling as much (or at all)--I hate that realization.

I don't want to dampen your enthusiasm for wrestling--that "smile." More importantly, I don't want to dampen our growing friendship. But I'm going to have to try to change my understanding of myself as a wrestler--or change my reasons for wrestling--if I'm going to continue to wrestle you. I don't want to get together and dread the wrestling just to get to the good conversation or the breaking bread together. I want the wrestling to continue to be good and enjoyable part of the friendship developing between us. Maybe we can find common ground, alternating approaches or styles with each fall. But as you say, you have no "easy" button, so I don't really think that would work.

I'm saddened and confused here, and I don't know what to do. I still want to think of myself as a real wrestler, as somebody who is into wrestling. And as somebody who is fun to wrestle. But the evidence points to my not being either of the first two, and because of that, I don't see how I can be the other.

It's now 5:00 in the morning, and I'm going back to bed. I think the need to write this note woke me up for the past couple of nights. I'm both glad and sorry to have written it.

This picture is of me working a friend over with my head scissors as we wrestle in a Motel 6. Today, however, I wrestle in another man's home. I'm trying to remember how often I've done that, and I'm thinking that it might be just one other time--an interesting situation, which I'll blog about when I get the time to continue going through my matches over the years.

Wrestling in a motel is always uncomfortable for me at some level. Usually the space isn't very good. I'm always conscious of the noise my opponent is making. (I'm a quiet wrestler.) And of course, two wrestlers meeting for a motel match seems so much akin to illicit lovers meeting for sex.

The man whose home I'll enter in a few hours is a good friend. We've been corresponding for several months now, and we've shared a great deal with each other. We've met to wrestle once--a Motel 6 match, which was fun but not an easy wrestling experience given the space we were in. So I'll go into his place and wrestle him there. He'll have the furniture moved to the walls to clear a space in the middle of the floor. He'll probably have a Christmas tree set up. We're likely to be harrassed by his dog. But most of the uncomfortable connotations of motel matches will be avoided, and both of us are looking forward to that. Although I'm worried about his daughter dropping by, I'm glad to know that his wife, who will be at work, is aware of what we're doing.

We'll wrestle for awhile to work up a sweat and to take off the edge of anticipation. Then we'll stop and, if I can get away from the house with the camera, take a few pictures, action shots that he needs for his Globalfight profile. Then we'll wrestle till we can't wrestle any more. After a shower and a bite to eat, we'll hug and part ways till the next time.

Such a wrestler as my friend is I would like to see every day instead of once every several weeks. We email often, but it would be so enriching for both of us to be able to be in each other's presence on a daily basis--to stop and talk by the water fountain, to take lunches together on the spur of the moment, to shake hands when that need for physical contact with another human being builds to a critical level.

But I don't have a friend like that in my life--except my wife and son, which is a different thing. And because I don't have this friend close, I live with an ever-present edge of tension that is only rarely relieved. This tension doesn't disrupt my life, but it ebbs and flows like the tide, sometimes just a faraway echo in my mind and body and sometimes an overpowering obsession. I've learned to live with it . . . because I must.

Life has been busy of late, and I haven't had much time to think about wrestling. I've been wrestling life in other ways. But this Wednesday, I'll travel an hour and a half (or so) to the house of a friend, and we'll wrestle around the Christmas tree. I'm looking forward to it. This friend and I have wrestled once before, and it was a hard-fought match of several falls in a space that was too little for two big men like us. We're over 500 pounds of man when tangled up together in some hold. I'm looking forward to it.

I've been please that a handful of fellows have stumbled across this blog and commented about it. Other than one comment from a person who found it to be not what he was expecting--I think he intended to post an advertisment for something, but I didn't go back and look--comments have been positive. Men have written that they can relate to my experiences, and I think that's really rewarding. I keep waiting for the man or woman who comments that I'm obviously some sick freak, but he or she hasn't arrived yet--or at least hasn't left a comment yet.

Thanks to everybody who reads these musings and struggles, especially those who leave a note behind.

I guess my life is normal-normal-normal-normal-weird-normal normal. What I mean is that I do normal stuff day by day and night by night, and then there's the wrestling. Take today for example. I spent most of it on a work-related project. When that was finished, I went to the office and emailed what I was working on. That was a little before 4:00.

By 5:00 I was in this man's room at the Comfort Inn—no, he wasn't wearing the mask, just his speedos. The room wasn't large, but the bed was and so we wrestled on it. Seeing as how we didn't have a lot of time, I stripped down and put on my trunks, and we got down to wrestling fairly quickly. It was a pleasant give-and-take light submission style, with basic pro holds—head scissors, headlock, bear hug, body scissors. I didn't keep track of how many submissions each of us squeezed out of the other, and I don't know if he did. After a long stretch of playful but intense falls in which submissions didn't necessarily guarantee release, so we had a nice continuity until we had a good sweat worked up. Then we stretched out on the bed together and talked—always one of my favorite things to do with my "opponents." When we had about 15 minutes before I had to leave, we wrestled that out. During the second series of falls, he got a little playful with me, getting me in holds like a head scissors (my favorite) and working me up toward and erection. I might have let him work it all the way to ejaculation—I had that kind of experience with boyhood friends—but I stopped him. Gently, of course.

By 6: 45 I was eating supper with my son and by 7:10 I dropped him off at a birthday party. Then I went to the grocery store and bought a pint of Ben & Jerry's "Chubby Hubby." (Already eaten.) And now I'm sitting and watching some TV and writing my blog.

I have that pleasant soreness that comes after some fun wrestling. My neck's a little sore after being cranked by a good head scissors and a good full nelson. And my left arm is sore—my friend was fond of, and good at, the chicken-wing hammerlock. He worked it on me almost every time he got me in a head scissors.

So, now another wrestling match is over, and I'm happy and comfortable.

This is me caught in the head scissors of a good friend from just outside Washington, DC.

I just had a birthday, one of those -9 birthdays. The day was quiet and more-or-less comfortable--no fireworks and no meltdowns. So, it was just fine.

I was thinking about friends during the day. A couple of them contacted me electronically to wish me well. But both of them are from out of town, and only on rare occasions are they physically with me. Those friends actually present in my life are colleagues at work and siblings at church. While a couple of these friendships are rich, none are that soul-deep friendship that I long for.

I wonder sometimes if it isn't this wrestling obsession that prevents local friendships from developing into the true friendships that are so sought after. I imagine a friendship in which I can tell my friend everything about me, but I can't do that--not yet, at least--with any of the people who are with me or somehow in contact with me on a daily or weekly basis. And so I walk around with this secret hidden, desiring to share it with somebody but unable to do so. I hold back a part of me, and I wonder if they sense it. Perhaps one or two of them would be close friends but feel some mystery in me that they can't quite ignore or accept.

A few of my online friends, wrestlers like me who feel, I think, a similar longing for friendship, are truly good friends. But our physical absence one from another is the stumbling block we face. We share our secret interest, our secret desire, but we're unable to shake hands or hug or to break bread or go to a movie together. And so these friendships necessarily fall short of what I want--and probably short of what they want as well.

I've said this before: maybe the kind of friendship I long for isn't possible in an adult life filled with family and work and bills to pay. I don't want to believe that. I don't believe that. But at this point, I have no proof to suggest otherwise, only theories and intuitions.

And so I wrestle with growing older, with the absence of friendship (or with the presence of friendship that isn't all that I believe it can be), with my interest in wrestling and all the baggage that entails. And I hold onto the hope that someday some barrier will be removed--be that barrier an internal wall that prevents a friend from knowing me fully or an external geography that separates--and suddenly friendship, rich and rewarding, will be mine and my friend's.

I'm getting better and getting more and more in the mood for wrestling. Missing October's matches was tough, but I might be able to pick up a couple of those in February when I go to Louisville. I hope to wrestle my nearly local friend before that!

A Joke . . . Or Not

A man died and went to heaven. As he stood in front of St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, he saw a huge wall of clocks behind him.

He asked, "What are all those clocks?"

St. Peter answered, "Those are Lie-Clocks. Everyone on Earth has a Lie-Clock.

Every time you lie the hands on your clock will move."

"Oh," said the man, "whose clock is that?"

"That's Mother Teresa's. The hands have never moved, indicating that she never told a lie."

"Incredible," said the man. "And whose clock is that one?"

St. Peter responded, "That's Abraham Lincoln's clock. The hands have moved twice, telling us that Abe told only two lies in his entire life."

"Where's President Bush's clock?" asked the man.

"Bush's clock is in Jesus' office. He's using it as a ceiling fan."

A funny thing, this. A thing more frighteningly true than our nation will admit. I think our lies, our national sins, from the current president downward in the socio-political structure and backward through time, must raise a mighty wind in Heaven.

I have to wonder about my fan. How much of what I do is real and how much a performance? I wrestle with life more and more as I grow older, perhaps in an effort to remain alive in all the senses of that word. But any false steps, false smiles, set the hands on my clock to whirling. How many things in life do I claim to feel the correct way about and yet don't really feel that way? Do I really care for the poor and ignorant? Do I really care about those caught up in violence and addiction? I hope I do. I want to believe that I do, but that's not the same as actually doing.

These are aggressive questions and to wrestle with them is to keep open the possibility that I am "actually doing," that I am actively living and caring.

Just some thoughts brought on, perhaps, by a gray day outside my office window.

Well, the end of October turned out to be a difficult and disappointing time. I was so looking forward to wrestling on the 29th in Indianapolis and the 30th in St. Louis, but then on the 24th, I came down with the flu. As much as I tried to get better to make the matches I had scheduled, it didn't work out. I made my trip as planned, but I had to cancel the wrestling I'd set up. I was disappointed; my "opponents" were disappointed, although they showed me great support and understanding.

Not only was I sick, but I lost the desire to wrestle. This happens to me now and then. I just don't feel like wrestling, and so I don't want to wrestle. Makes sense, right? The same happens when I get busy at work and life like I have been lately. I don't think about wrestling, and as a result, the facts that I've actually wrestled and actually liked wrestling seem foreign to me.

This morning, a little of the old desire began to creep back into my mind and body. More than likely, I'll be ready to hit the mats again soon.

I think life is like this too. When we're sick--it's not that we don't want to live (generally). We lose a sense of how enjoyable life is when we're burned up with fever or weak and aching or shaken hard by coughs. Living takes a back seat to surviving. And then we get too busy, and life takes a back seat to workworkwork and runrunrun. We're wrestling with life and losing. I guess that's the thing. We have to keep wrestling to keep our heads clear, to keep our bodies in shape.

It's all about the contact. We have to make contact with life and each other, whether we're wrestling or just living. So, regardless of sickness and overwork, stay in touch. Keep a good hold on your opponent, friend or foe, and always be thinking about your next move toward winning or at least enjoying yourself.

Indianapolis & St. Louis

In a few days, I'm driving to Denver. Along the way, I'm going through Indianapolis, where I'll wrestle my good friends Larry and Ed, although not at the same time. This should be a great stop along the way, and I'm looking forward to it.

Larry and I first wrestled in Atlanta in November 2001. Since then we've wrestled once in Nashville and twice in Indianapolis, and we've always had a good time. I'm especially looking forward to this upcoming time. Larry has recently been recovering from some physical difficulties, but being now well along on his road to recovery, he's excited about the wrestling he's able to do. And when Larry's excited and able, he's great fun to wrestle--actually he's great fun to wrestle even when he's not as able as he'd like to be.

I've wrestled Ed only once, and we had a great time. But we were cut short because of his dog's being terribly ill. We expect to be clear of complications this time. Ed is a powerful wrestler, and favorite hold is the head scissors, which is my favorite also. I expect my head and jaws to be sore after this match, which will likely go well into the night.

The next morning I leave Indianapolis to continue on my way, but I'll be stopping in St. Louis for a lunchtime match with a new friend named Mike. We're looking forward to a good wrestling lunch and then lunch afterward.

Then it's on to Denver, where I hope to hook up with Matt, a man I've talked to off and on for years. We had a match scheduled a couple of years ago, but I had to cancel. Hopefully I can make it up to him.

"Get a Room"

One recent morning I stood in a field with a small group of male friends, some younger and some older, and a pretty young woman I had only just met. (The reason we were there is neither important nor interesting.) Somehow the conversation got 'round to a recent mass arrest of men meeting in local public parks for homosexual activities. These men were apparently coupling in the men's restroom or in places in the woods like one called "The Man Cave."

Aside: Although I saw nothing of this on television or in the newspaper, my friends in the field expressed concern that of the 40 men, two were particularly focused on--a pastor from a nearby town and a teacher in the local city school system. Certainly these two--and those married among the 40--play best in the media, fair or not. Too bad for them. They shouldn't have been doing what they were doing; at least they shouldn't have been doing what they were doing where they were doing it. But I feel sorry for them and their families. One man, sadly, has already committed suicide.

My friends in the field seemed relatively unconcerned about these acts themselves. If these men want to do "whatever they do," the suggestion was that they confine themselves to private space. In other words, "get a room."

I stood there listening, knowing that in a couple of hours I would be meeting a man in a motel room. We weren't planning to have properly private sex but to wrestle. I wondered how my friends in the field would receive and interpret this news if they know what I knew.

Anyway, the hours passed, and that afternoon in a little motel room off the interstate, wrestle we did. M had wanted to wrestle all his life--47 years--but never had. I've wrestled several times in the last 11 years, but I'm not really that good at it. M was strong and aggressive and enthusiastic, as might be expected from a 260-pound man who works out at least five times a week and is excited about wrestling. I don't know how many falls we wrestled over the three hours we were together, but I know for certain that I won only three of them--one with a reverse chinlock, one with a body scissors and one with a head scissors. I'm guessing M won 10 or more falls, and I was happy for him.

We did a lot of talking. We're interested in lots of the same things, and our conversation--strange only because we were both sitting there mostly naked in our black briefs, sweating (then drying)--was rich and deep. We have the potential to become great friends, I think.

I left there and drove home--tired and a little achy and sure that I would be crazy sore the next morning. But when I got out of bed, I thought, 'Hey, this ain't so bad!' I had a little pain in my neck and pecs and shoulders, but other than that I seemed fine. Then I got in the shower! As I began to lather up and scrub down with a wash cloth, I realized that I hurt all over. Everywhere I pressed to scrub turned out to be another painful place, especially my areas around my neck and across my chest. My temples hurt. Even my left ear hurt. Much of this was probably pain brought on by M's crushing headlocks, a hold with which he won almost all of his falls. I just couldn't stay out of it. I started to laugh there in the shower, thinking, 'Oh yeah, yesterday didn't hurt me at all!'

That's life! The wrestling life!

What follows is an excerpt from an email I wrote to a new wrestling friend--

If we found the opportunity and gathered the nerve to wrestle on the mats where I work out, I'm sure we would dress in more than just the briefs there as well: t-shirts and shorts? full sweats? or maybe singlets? Again, I despair of this ever happening. I doubt we could pass ourselves off as wrestling coaches or even former high school or college wrestlers, not without a good bit of work beforehand. I'm right there with you, Mark: "Why is this such a freaking stigmatic sport?!? Why can't guys our age and size just drop down in the gym and go at it without being judged and questioned?" Again, no valid reason exists to differentiate a friendly wrestling match from a pick-up game of basketball.

Last year, I was riding a bike down the Virginia Creeper Trail, and when I was stopped in Taylor's Valley for one of their wonderful hamburgers and their fabulous chocolate cake, I overheard a conversation some of the locals were having in front of the cafe. They were talking about wrestling at the factory or garage or someplace where they worked. They talked about these two guys in particular who seemed to be the featured match during every lunch break. They laughed at one's dirty tactics such as pulling his opponents shirt up over his head and trapping his arms, leaving him open of a working over.

That brought up another idea. Is wrestling more stigmatized in the white collar world than in the blue? Does the proverbial white collar demand that its wearer remain cool and remote from something as earthy as wrestling? What about education? Does that remove us from that cultural zone in which me might freely enjoy a good wrestle without fearing condemnation or ridicule? I think of being in country stores or even some suburban stores--convenience stores, I mean--and seeing men, mostly young but some older, come in only their jeans and shoes. I laugh to myself, trying to picture me standing in line with my bottle of water or my honey bun and wearing no shirt. But these guys have no problem with it. Not that I want to go into a store without a shirt, but I seem to see some connection between the mindset that could allow a man to do that and the mindset (and culture) that would allow a man to wrestle without social consequence.

A couple of final notes and I'll stop: Also connected to these ideas are the current cultural stigmatizing of the overweight and the untanned. Have you seen the Subway commercials that show people ordering non-Subway meals like this: "Uh, I'll have an order of spare tire and a side of big butt"? These obviously slam the eating habits of the overweight, but they also further ingrain the prejudice against big bodies. Well, to connect this to what I said above, one recent commercial has a guy asking for an order of "Don't take your shirt off." So, big men get the message that they shouldn't take their shirts off in public, not unless it's at the swimming pool. The guys in line at the convenience store haven't gotten that message. As for the untanned, a group of which I definitely am part, I wonder if I could more easily think about being shirtless in public if my big belly and love-handles were tanned to a socially acceptable level. I doubt I could be the fish-belly white big man on the wrestling mat any more readily than I could be the same standing in line at the Circle K.

Wrestling in the Spirit

I always thought of myself as a spiritual person. I could feel that so strong in nature and with friends (although, sadly, not so often in church) and when I was playing or listening to music. Part of this feeling of spirituality was a decent prayer life. I was consistent and serious in my prayers, and I tried to keep them alive by not praying by rote or habit.

But more than a decade of education that took much of my non-physical energy (and much physical energy as well) wore away my sense of spirituality. I don't know if it did so by not leaving enough energy to focus on the spiritual or by leading me into spirit-numbing doubt. Possibly it did both. And my prayer life suffered as my connection to my spiritual being weakened. I found myself slipping into prayer as mindless repetition performed as a duty. Such prayer was so ineffective that I woke and worked and played and slept without any conscious prayer at all.

I'm beginning to recover my spirituality to some degree, but my prayer life has yet to be much affected by this recovery. But something happened this morning that might, if I can hold on to it, reawaken me to the efficacy of prayer.

I was up early and in my favorite local park walking and running before sunrise. About halfway through my workout, the sun cleared the mountains to the east. I had a little less than two laps to go when I noticed a young man on the park's grassy knoll. He wore a dark red short-sleeved shirt and blue jeans that had not faded. His brown hair was down over his ears and a fashion that struck me as very 1970. He stood with his shoes in his hand and stared at the sunrise. He moved forward toward the edge of the hill and stared at the sunrise. He crouched on his calves and stared at the sunrise. All the while moving forward until he was at the point where the knoll turns downward and falls away in a hill toward a small pond and the lower parking lot. Here he sat down. He sat there with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.

I'm not good at intruding on people's solitude. Even though I felt this young man was in some kind of distress, I didn't make any special effort to come nearer to him, letting myself fade downward along the paths to the parking lot. I got in my car, started the engine and swung around toward the exit.

But I stopped at a point where I could see this young man through the trees, see him where he sat there facing the sunrise. I could think of all sorts of things that might be troubling him--a death in the family, a great decision to be made, the loss of a girlfriend or boy friend. It could be anything.

And then I started to pray, and I tried to do so in earnest, with an open spirit that would allow my prayer to go outward instead of just circling around inside my skull or remaining squeezed inside my heart. I prayed for this young man's comfort, for God or an angel to be close to him, close enough that he could feel the presence.

Just then, as I was praying, a woman walking her dog--she could've been in her 20s or her 40s--left the path and approached the young man dog first. The young man reached out and appeared to put his hand on the dog's head, and the woman stood there a leash apart from the the two of them. She seemed to be talking to the young man, but I was too far away to say for sure.

I thought this was good. A dog to break through to a troubled heart. I wondered if the young man and woman knew each other. I wondered if they were strangers. I thought her much braver than I, especially if she didn't know him. I thought her smart to lead with the dog.

I thought her an answer to prayer. And maybe an answer--or the beginning of one--to my prayer problems.

Next Wrestling Events

After a summer without wrestling (my last match was in May), I've made a couple of good new contacts. One fellow is from St. Louis, and we've been communicating on and off for a couple of months now. I'm hoping to meet him in his town toward the end of October. More on that later.

I've met another online wrestler just in the last few days, and we've already struck up an interesting acquaintance. And we have a match scheduled--Friday, 5 October--in his town, about an hour-and-a-half drive from me. Our interests in wrestling are similar, but we have one big difference: although I haven't wrestled all that much, I've been wrestling for over 10 years now; he's a novice, as far as the physical act goes, but if he's anything like I was, he's experienced in his mind. I'm going to try and keep aware of his newness, helping him into this great experience.

Next: More of Antaeus

Despite the facts that I have this strange obsession with wrestling and that this seems--from time to time, at least--to suggest my having a different sexuality than any that would be strictly or loosely called "normal," I'm a relatively regular 48-year-old man. I have family--immediate and extended. I have an extensive but not a fancy education. I have a career I love and in which I struggle to go through the normal steps of progressing "up the ladder." I generally like people, and they seem, generally, to like me.

This week I'm losing a friend. Actually, I think I lost him a long time ago, but this week he's moving away. Having lost him before really losing him doesn't mean, however, that we've not been friendly. We have. It's just that the depth of friendship we might have had never developed, and when it didn't, it stopped growing and progressing altogether. So, we've been friends but more of the acquaintance side of this reality than on the intimate side.

Sure, I always wanted to wrestle him. He's thick and strong--at least 275 pounds, I'd say--and his coloring is such that he'd look beautiful in a pair of red wrestling trunks. And it's true that I've met few men in my life that I just feel like pouncing on and holding (wrestling or otherwise). I've always suspected that he would be interested in me this way too, if certain restrictions and taboos were done away with.

That aside, I always thought that we were kindred in a lot of other ways. We have similar educational experiences in our fields. We have philosophical and spiritual similarities. We have families.

Not long after we met, we spent a year having lunch together almost every Wednesday. These lunches ran long, as we ate (something we both love to do) and talked about this and that and everything else. (We even talked about wrestling on more than one occasion.) I had him on my calendar for infinity, and I thought he had me on his.

But then the lunches stopped. He couldn't make it one week. He couldn't make it the next week. Gradually I came to the realization that he couldn't--wouldn't--have lunch with me again. I took him off my calendar and told him, jokingly, that I was doing so. He said, jokingly, that he didn't want to "break up." But the lunches never resumed on a regular basis, and now, although we've seen each other at least once a week, it's been well over a year since we at lunch together and really talked.

He and his wife blame his background. As a child, he lived in a situation in which he moved ever three or four years and never formed deep friendships. Maybe that's the case. And yet he can talk a good game of friendship and make a good sermon about loving and caring for one another. So, I've never trusted this explanation.

But without accepting that that is the case, how am I to explain why "[w]e keep the wall between us as we go"? I have wanted to blame his wife, to believe that she was jealous of our friendship. Even though she and I have a friendship of our own, I don't completely discount the possibility of her being behind all this. I have wanted not to believe that he simply went far enough with me to discover that he didn't really like me or that he didn't really want to spend any more time with me. But without an explanation as to why everything stopped--more or less--what else am I to believe?

So, he's loading the truck today. I offered my help, but he never responded. Maybe he has professional help, maybe not. I'll see him one last time tomorrow, and then I expect that to be it unless, as he's not moving that far away, we meet by chance at some place or other. He says we'll keep in touch, say a lot of good places for lunch are along the way between where I live and where he's going. Past experience and my need to protect myself emotionally won't allow me to believe him.

I try to rationalize all this by telling myself that married adults, men who have wives and children, can't have the kinds of friendships we did when we were young or when we were not so young but still unmarried. Maybe that's the case. But it seems to me that I see friendships like this might have been--friendships between men in full-blown adulthood--among others with whom I'm acquainted. So that rationalization provides little comfort. And so ultimately, I think, the failure of this friendship to become what it might have been lies with the two of us as individuals. Maybe both didn't want it to an equal degree. Maybe neither was capable to an equal degree. We've come to lump-in-the-throat time--for the past we've had, for the past we didn't have, for the future we might have had, for the future we won't have.

Who was it who said--is it somewhere in Lewis Carroll?--something to the effect that it's a poor memory that works only backwards?

So, goodbye. Goodbye, friend.

Last night went well--not exactly according to plan but close enough. The city and its environs were slowed down by rain, so B was a little after 6:00 arriving. I'd already dragged furniture here and there around the motel room to clear a space by the window. I pulled the middle cover off the bed and spread it out for a mat. When Bill got there, we chatted for a few minutes, then changed and started wrestling. He's a great big man--6'2" & 275 or so, I'm guessing--and lots of fun to wrestle. I got caught in some good head and body scissors holds, and I caught him in a couple as well. I'm sure he's a much better wrestler than I, but he made sure that we stayed about even. I thank him for that.

In between falls, we talked a lot about a lot of things, from gay line-dancing to local food to accents to teaching. I enjoyed myself, and I think he did too.

A, the other wrestler for the evening's event, got caught in horrible traffic and was also late. When he got there, the three of us talked for almost an hour before any more wrestling took place. We talked politics and the local road system, among other things. B & A are entertaining together, and much of the time I just sat and listened and laughed.

A and I wrestled three falls. Like B, he worked at my pace and experience level and even let me win one submission from him. A is tough and fun to wrestle, and I think that if I were able to get with him on a regular basis, I'd be a much better wrestler very soon.

My falls with A were followed by a couple of falls between B & A. These two guys know each other and are obviously comfortable together. I enjoyed watching them wrestle, although it wasn't all that I expected. Because they know each other so well, they each know what the other likes. A lot of the action I couldn't see and didn't really need to see. I could tell what was going on, and while it held a certain level of excitement of them, it didn't do that much for me. So my longstanding fantasy of watching two other men wrestle right in front of me didn't turn out just like I'd hoped. But, then again, it isn't all about me, is it?

All in all, I had a great evening with these two new friends. They made me laugh, and they wrestled me in just the right way to allow me to feel like I could wrestle a little bit too. And they provided me with some much needed company in the middle of a lonely trip.

I'm traveling again, and that usually means that I'm wrestling again. Two fellows are coming by this evening. They're friends, and we're all getting together in my hotel room for some grappling. One will arrive at 6:00, the other at 7:00.

I've never had three together before. I'm looking forward to wrestling both of these guys--not at one time, I hope. I'm also thinking that I might have another fantasy fulfilled here, that of sitting close up and watching two big men--neither of which is me--wrestling.

About 6:00 this evening, I met up with an old friend made through wrestling, and we went back to his place. There we talked awhile before we changed into our wrestling trunks and put on boots--both of us in black trunks and black boots. Then, with our gear on, we watched some wrestling on video.

It was getting on toward 8:00 before we finally hit the mat. We wrestled around for fifteen minutes or so--pro style with some good solid holds but no pain. C---- knows I like head scissors, so he made sure that he put me in a couple and that I got him in a couple. He felt good, and I enjoyed the contact.

Then we just lay on the mat and talked about what it's like to be gay (C----) and straight (me) and grown men into wrestling.

Then we were both starving, so rather than do any more wrestling (having grown cold and stiff while talking) we headed out to eat. Over our meal we talked about books and writing and work. We're just normal guys and friends.

Not too long ago, I received a comment from somebody who stumbled across this blog and thought its title meant I would be trying to analyze my life--and nothing actually to do with wrestling. Obviously that was the wrong impression but an understandable mistake, as we often use wrestling as a metaphor for any struggles we have in our lives.

I'm going to keep writing about my wrestling here, but I'm also going to go more into my life. Here in this seemingly anonymous space I can write about the things that I can't write about in my other blog--wrestling (of course), but personal struggles with relationships, work, faith and so on.

As for the immediate "wrestling life," however, I'm on the road and meeting an old friend on the mat tomorrow evening. I'll write about it here when it's over.

UPDATE: Although this doesn't work on the blog, it makes a mesmerizing desktop background.

This is an experiment. It's a little video I picked up from a google search of images using "headscissors" as the search term. Unfortunately it didn't work. The guy in the white and black leggings takes the guy in the black trunks and pull his back into a head scissors. It's a good little video, and I'm sorry it didn't work.

After the three matches in August of 1996, something gave way in me, leaving behind a hollowness that echoed feelings of both relief and shame. In the end, I couldn't say that I enjoyed any of the matches. Either they didn't live up to expectations or they darkened my spirit by disappointing sexual desires I wasn't ready to think about yet. I stopped hanging out so much in the AOL wrestling chat rooms, which saved me a good bit of money, and I got busy with other things, easily not thinking much about wrestling and the men who wrestle.

But by March 1997, I began to feel that old itch again, that old stirring, and it was stronger than it had ever been in my life now that I'd actually wrestled a little bit. I had a business trip planned to Ohio, and I got busy looking for a match. Unfortunately, this was in those days before the online wrestling directories, and I had no knowledge of any paper directories that migth be circulating. At any rate, I left on my trip with nothing planned and only an old laptop to suggest any hope of something's being arranged while I was out on the road.

I stayed in this little motel in this little Ohio downtown. I was to be there only a night or two, as I recall, so after supper I signed into AOL and started looking for somebody local. In the "Wrestling M2M" chatroom, I met a friend with whom I'd done a little cyber wrestling. He claimed to be able to pop open burlap feed sacks with his scissors, so I liked talking to him. I think he was in Louisiana as I we talked that night, but the amazing thing was that he knew the town where I was and, even more amazing, knew a wrestler there that he might be able to put me in touch with. I don't remember now if he just gave me K's email address or if he called K and gave him my email. Long story short, I was soon on the telephone with K, telling him where I was and arranging to wrestle him in my motel room.

K showed up at my door--a big guy, maybe 5'11" and 270 pounds, with dark hair and a goatee. He went into the bathroom and came out as the kind of wrestler I'd always wanted to get my hands on--hairy chest and back, big belly, thick legs. We were both dressed out in no-fly briefs, and when we got down on the mat we looked like a couple of real old school wrestlers. I was lucky that he came, because he wasn't feeling very well, but as I say, he looked great.

We took it easy, swapping holds. To my great joy, he's a head scissors fan too. He put me in some great scissors and made me submit several times. I put him in some good scissors too, but, tough jobber that he is, I could never get him to submit. He always eventually broke out of my scissors and then was on me, working toward another head scissors. One of my clearest memories of that match is of me on my back, several times, looking up at his big belly and basket as he loomed over me on hands and knees, working my head into position between his powerful thighs. When he had me just where he wanted me, he would roll down to his left side, trap my left arm beneath his belly and start working that scissors.

It was a great hour or so. And I was glad to have the memory of his great head scissors when I eventually came down with his cold.

I wrestled him again some months, maybe a year or so, later, but that's a story to be taken up in its turn.

Bill Hughes

On Tuesday I received from my friend Larry a message telling me that the great Bill "Ironcross" Hughes is dead. (The Ironcross was his signature hold.) I never met Bill in person, but he and I corresponded off and on for the last few years. I always enjoyed hearing from him and learning about the old days when he was a professional wrestler. The story goes, as I recall, that he grew up in the UK and became a pro at a young age. After traveling all over the world, he settled in southern California. There he opened a gym and kept wrestling, teaching younger men, such as Larry, the game.

Bill and I had been out of touch for a little while when I sent him a New Year's greeting and the link to this blog. The response I received was so very Billish:

[m***]- FIRST, hAPPY nEW yEAR MATE! SECOND- MANY MANY THANKS for the blog you post- as good, clear and honest as any i have read. maybe as you know from my web site, i am a former pro rasler from Europe, now live in Long beach California. i am from Wales, UK, my dad and uncles pro rasler, old style, and my earliest me,mories are watching rasling, and i swear at age 5 i got hard! at 14 i went to London to learn the *trade* ar Bert Assirati*s rasling *academy*- happiest 18 months of me life. turned pro at 16 and rasled Europe, Australia, Japan, India, Canada and the States. you put the fascination as good as i could- loe it as much as i ever did, and like you my gave holds are also the head sciussors, the figurte 4 head scissors especially ( i remember when i w asa kid in Wales seeing my uncle Billy rasle this bigger beefy stud, big meaty thighs,. and Billy went a long tome before he was exausted, and then the stud had his way with him,. and Billy wouldnt quit- and the crowd loved it! he also had this great head scissors,m and loved etting Billys head in therte, his face against his sweaty crotch, and grinding it in- and Billy finally qui, but the stud decked him again, pinned his arms above his head, mountged his face and dry fucked his face, the ef *trying* to get him off and the crowd going apeshit!!! still locked in my memory! today i am rasling a German rasler, former pro like me- Nazi, brutal stud, we have rasled *grudge* matches, for stakes, for over 14 years now! always about two houirs of hot rasling, then an hour after the winner is decided for some hot man to man action. you*d love it! love to see more of you mate- and i have some great pics, not in my web site which is for fans and kiddies !- love to send toyiou mate, and sure love to hear more from ya!!!! BILL

Jacob wrestleth with an angel

Genesis 32: 24-28

24 And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. 25 And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. 26 And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. 27 And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. 28 And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.

Here in the doldrums of winter, I'm doing a lot of thinking. I was recently wondering about the various shapes the proverbial male midlife crisis takes. Most of the time we hear about a man buying a red sportscar or having an affair, quitting his job or taking up skydiving.

My midlife crisis--I'm 48--seems to be taking the shape of reframing my sexual identity. I don't intend to say that I'm a closet homosexual. I don't even intend to say that I'm bi-curious. Identity is more fluid than that. We create and recreate ourselves--our masks--as we come into different life situations. In the same way, our sexual identity, as an article I posted earlier on this blog suggests, is also more fluid than that.

Although wrestling has brought me several homoerotic experiences. These come unbidden, given the very nature of wrestling. But as of yet, I've had no consciously sexual experience with another man. But this enters my mind more and more these days.

I wonder if I would be having these ideas if it weren't for wrestling. A friend of mine once told me that it was through wrestling that he learned he was gay. He was dating a woman who had brothers. He got close to the brothers and realized that he enjoyed wrestling with them much more than he enjoyed fondling their sister. What a stunning realization that must have been! But then again, maybe not. At some level that couldn't have come as a surprise.

So I wrestle with myself and my identity. And I look for men who in some way resemble the image of that man I want to hit the mats with, wrestling every one of them I can get my hands on.

Here's what I had planned for my friend D yesterday. Unfortunately, life got in the way, and I had to leave his town before he was available and head home.

Another time, D, okay? And soon, I hope.

This evening I'm getting together with the first man I ever wrestled. (That experience is described in a post on 12/19/2006.) I happened to be coming to his town on business and got in touch with him. We talked on the telephone for a good while yesterday afternoon, and I think both of us are looking forward to it. We're eleven years older now, which will probably play into this new experience. He said that he'd had only one other wrestling experience in the time between January 1996 and now. I've had maybe 30, although I haven't stopped to count them.

We'll get together this afternoon after his workday, and we'll probably just swap hold, very low intensity. I expect there to be bear hugs and head scissors all over the room for an hour or so, and then I'll hit the road for home.

Here's a picture from a match I had this past summer. That's me working over my red-masked friend with a figure-four head scissors. We got several good shots out of this wrestling session. And a couple of good little videos too. I was watching one of our falls on video a couple of days ago, and I could not but be amazed at the how far I've been able to explore this wrestling fantasy I've always had. From working over my pillow when I was 12 or younger, I've finally gotten a few real heads caught in my favorite of holds. (I wish I'd had my black mask for this match. It was on order, but it was too late in coming.)

I need to get back to my wrestling history, picking up at 1997. I'll try to do that soon.

The Pilgrims had lots of interesting personal names that suggested characteristics and actions: Hope, Patience, Increase and so on. I was reading a book on history and learned that William Brewster, one of the leaders of the Pilgrims that settled Plymouth, had two sons: Love Brewster and Wrestling Brewster. I'd be interested in knowing more about what that latter name meant to him.

Returning to the summer of 1996, I have one more story to tell. I've mentioned Luke a time or two in this blog. He and I had been in touch for a long time through the wrestling rooms on AOL. We'd chatted for hours and hours, and we'd done a lot of cyberwrestling. Finally in August we were set up a face-to-face meeting and a wrestling match. We were both excited, but for me, at least, the long-anticipated event turned out to be something less than what I had hoped.

My match with J--the attitude of it mostly--had rung my bell a little bit. Again, it was the best actualy wrestling I'd done to that point (all of three matches), but it was the worst personal experience to that point as well. I'm not a competitive man; nor do I ever even fantasize about being mean and tough, much less act that way in real life. So the attitude J brought to the mat (and into my house) had put a damper on the joy I was feeling to be at long last exploring my lifelong wrestling interest.

Add to this the fact that my family had been away from me on vacation, and I was missing them. Add to this the fact that I drove several hours to make the evening match Luke and I had planned.

Other factors played a part as well. As our match drew closer, I learned that the man I'd known as Luke was actually R. And while he had the same size and interests as Luke, R looked different from Luke. The imagination is a powerful thing, and the anonymous venue of cyberspace can allow a good imagination to run wild. Over a period of time, I'd developed such a strong mental image of Luke--based, of course, on his own description of himself--that I found it nearly impossible to shift gears and accept R as the same person.

I'd told myself ever since starting this online exploration of wrestling that it was all about the wrestling and not about the men. My disappointment that R didn't match the fantasy image I had of Luke threw me into a state of confusion. I wasn't supposed to be considering looks, much less be disappointed by them. And although I couldn't really face it at the time, I knew somewhere in the back of my mind that some level of physical attaction existed both as part of and apart from the wrestling. Had I allowed myself to think about it, this could have suggested to me that I was bisexual or even homosexual. I wasn't ready for such suggestions.

These things and the sheer level of anticipation--almost always prelude to a letdown--combined to sabotage our meeting.

We began at Applebees and then went back to my motel. I'd already moved some furniture around, so we started in wrestling. I'm the head scissors guy, and he loves the bear hug. We traded these holds and had a generally good time wrestling. Ultimately our talks between falls lasted longer than the falls themselves, but maybe this was good, as I was getting to know R and letting Luke go somewhat.

We met again the next day for lunch. I was already checked out of the motel, so Rick suggested that we go back to his place and wrestle some. I'm sorry to say that I made up some lame excuse about some work-related emergency that required me to leave town and head home. We had a good lunch and a good conversation, and then I hit the road to drive several hours for another overnight stay and then met my family at their vacation spot the next day.

R wasn't the only person I disappointed that trip. After a couple of days with my family, I was supposed to meet AB, J and another guy in a motel not far from my home. We had a tag-team match planned. But I couldn't do it. I drove home from the vacation spot, spent a couple of hours at the house and then headed out to make the planned match. But about 1/3 of the way there, I stopped on the side of the road and sat there thinking--or, perhaps, not thinking. Telling myself I was too tired from all the traveling to go the rest of the way, wrestle and drive back home, I turned the car around and headed back.

In an IM chat with J that evening or the next day, I learned that AB was angry that I didn't show. I can't blame him. And I'm sorry to say that I haven't heard from him since. I let my online relationship with J fade as quickly as I could, for obvious reasons.

That's enough wrestling, I thought, and that seemed to be the end of it. I'd lived the fantasy a little bit, and I thought I could leave it at that. But seven months later, I found myself on the road and at it again.

My relationship with R changed a good bit after my trip to meet him--from what my relationship with Luke had been, I mean. R and I kept in touch, although neither as constantly nor as intimately as Luke and I. About a year and a half after our match in his city, we met in a little town in between our two homes and had ourselves a fine afternoon of wrestling. And I hope that one day we'll get that opportunity again.

But I still look for Luke in every wrestler I meet.

Working over a big man with a head scissors. This guy is so much fun to wrestle. He's got great size and skill, but he's gentle and instructive. I've learned a lot from him. He's also courageous, fighting ill ness and injury to keep coming back to the mat. This shot is from our fourth match, and I can hardly wait for the fifth.




More on my wrestling history--including matches with this fellow--coming soon.

Today at the gym I saw a co-worker--the guy from another department, whom I've mentioned before--working out on the weights. I'd just started my walk in another part of the gym when I saw him and decided by the end of the first lap to go down to the weights and begin my workout there. Actually, that's what I'd planned to do and then forgot as soon as I walked in the front door of the place.

Anyway, I finished a lap, grabbed my glasses from the locker where I'd stored my stuff and went back downstairs to the weight area. I got off a "Hello," but that was about it. I was still doing reps when he left the area and went somewhere else.

Oh well, I thought and finished with the weights. When I started back toward the stairs leading up to the track, I looked and there he was walking a lap himself. I went on up, and put my glasses back in the locker and got out my mp3 player.

Just at that moment he came by and spoke. I joined him for a rather slow walk through several laps. We talked about this and that--work, doctors, weight, exercise. I was just about to introduce the idea of wrestling as an exercise idea for two big fellows who need more of a cardio workout than the walking gives when he was finished with his laps.

Darn, I thought. I almost got the suggestion out. I put my headphones on, picked up the pace and walked a couple of miles. Then I ran about a half mile, an activity that isn't friendly to my old knees.

Maybe another time, he and I can pick up our conversation where we left off. I have no idea if he would be interested at all in wrestling, but I know that to lose the weight, he's going to have to get that heart rate up more than his walking is doing. Seems to me that a couple of wrestling sessions a week--even if these began with only three or four falls in a fifteen-minute session--would do us both a lot of good.

Artwork by drumbear@aol.com

On a rainy Sunday afternoon a few days after my match with B, I met J at Applebee's. He and I had been talking online for some period of time. I was a little hesitant about him, but I was excited about the possibility of a third wrestling experience. I went against my better judgment and made the meeting at Applebee's, took him home and wrestled him.

I'd done better than with B as far as hosting the match went. I'd straigtened up a room in the basement and laid out some padding that gave us lots of room to wrestle in.

I didn't like J all that much. He was the youngest guy I'd met, although after more than 10 years, I don't remember how young. In his 20s, I think. At around 210 or so, he was the lightest guy I'd wrestled too. He seemed like a rich kid, kind of spoiled and cocky. If I could have disappeared from Applebee's and avoided spending any more time with him than I had to, I probably would have. But here we were, meeting as we planned, and I took him to the house.

We stripped down--he to gym shorts, I to my no-fly colored briefs--and we hit the mat.

I quickly learned another thing about him that I didn't like. He had a trashy mouth, full of insults and bad language that just came out in a stream--and mostly for no reason.

Now, I know that a lot of guys like trash talk when wrestling, whether it's foul or playful. I let 'em talk, if they must, but it doesn't do a thing for me. I like a little bit of verbal challenge, like "Come on, now, give it up" or simply "You give?" But on the whole I wrestle quietly and prefer that my opponent do the same. I like to hear heavy breathing and grunting. I've wrestled some verbal guys that I dearly love, but I always hope some happy medium between his desire for talk and my desire for quiet will be found without either of us having to say anything about it.

Returning to J, I must say, however, that the wrestling we did was more real and exciting than anything I'd done to that point. We went at it pretty hard, wrestling several submission falls--he won most of them--over the course of an hour or so. Again, memory fails me to some extent, but I remember working him into this one hold to which he submitted. We began the fall on our knees, and when he dove low at my waist, I pitched forward and put my weight on his back, his head at my crotch, my chest weighing down on his lower back. As he tried to press upward, I opened my legs and caught his head between my thighs and locked on a head scissors. Then I wrapped my arms around his waist and cinched in a bear hug. Both holds were tight. He struggled for a while but ultimately could do nothing but submit.

Again, this wrestling was the best I'd done in my limited experience, but the trash talk and the whole spirit he brought to the match had wounded me in a way. The worst result of this was that the following week when I traveled to meet my longtime friend Luke--a wrestling experience I'd been anticipating for a long time--I wasn't excited about it. J's bad attitude put a damper on my enthusiasm, and because of that my meeting with Luke, while satifying on a personal level, suffered on a wrestling level. Strange as it might sound, I got through the match with Luke--which wasn't how I wanted our match to turn out--and then didn't look for any wrestling for a good while after that.

In the latter part of summer 1996, I began to make plans for my second, third and fourth wrestling experiences. Seven months had passed since my first experience with D. I'd continued an online friendship with Luke--a lot of chat along with a good bit of cyberwrestling with him. Through various online experiences, I was beginning to define what I was into and not into and learning to spot the real folks and the fakes on AOL.

About this time I met B, my first "local" contact, who lived in a town just a short drive from me. We arranged to meet at Applebee's one afternoon when my family was out of town for a few days. As we ate lunch together, he unfolded the kind of story that I'd suspected was out there.

B was in his 50s at the time, but he looked younger. He stood around 5'11" and weighed maybe in the 220s or 230s. Just right! He'd been working out with weights for some time and had a powerful body. He was into wrestling, but his interests tended to be toward finishing holds such as the figure-4 leglock. He was also training in one of the martial arts to get more knowledge of working over pressure points and such. If I'm remembering rightly, he won some kind of tournament in Atlanta within a year or two after we met.

B had been married to a woman not too long before this, and he and she had a couple of children together. And during that life he'd been a preacher. His pulpit had been in a Baptist church or in some other Southern evangelical denomination. And from that pulpit, he said, he had preached many a sermon against homosexuality. But as it often seems to happen in relation to such homophobic behavior, he discovered or accepted--through wrestling or some other means--that he was, in fact, a homosexual.

When I knew B during that brief period in 1996, he'd left his family (or they'd left him), but I'm not sure how much time had passed since this event. He did, I think, have some kind of relationship with his children--or was trying to reestablish one. And he was experiencing a relationship with another man, although I don't remember if it was his first or how committed it was at that time.

After he told me the story over lunch, we went back to my house to wrestle a bit. I'd fixed up a place near the downstairs hearth, but it wasn't much good. The space wasn't big, and the stones of the hearth were dangerous. I went upstairs to change into the colored no-fly briefs I used for wrestling, and B stayed downstairs to change. I remember coming down the stairs and seeing him waiting there in his trunks. He looked great. Only, he had on his tennis shoes, which I didn't understand but didn't question. We got a feel for each other, traded some holds, tried out some holds we'd always imagined trying (head scissors for me, of course) and generally rolled around a bit. Not a terribly satisfying wrestling experience, but the story beforehand had made the time worthwhile.

For a while I saw a lot of B in the online wrestling news. I think he participated in a couple of the big gay wrestling events that take place in Florida and Oklahoma and Pennsylvania. I downloaded a couple of pictures of him and still have them on a disk somewhere. But I haven't seen anything of him in a long time now. As far as I can tell, he's not on either of the wrestling directories I'm most familiar with. None of my friends mention him when they talk about those with whom they've been chatting or wrestling. Ten years is a long time, and much can happen to a person.

Most of the time, I'm certain that I'm not a homosexual. Most of the time, I'm also certain that I'm not overwhelmingly heterosexual either. I'm something other than either, and my otherness seems in a constant state of fluidity . . . and a constant state of secrecy as far as my family is concerned. Whenever I'm trying to work out the logistics for a match or I nearly get caught with some compromising materials on my computer screen, I think of B. I wonder where he is, of course, but I also wonder at the courage it must have taken the homophobic family man and preacher either to reveal to all that he was homosexual or to live through whatever catastrophic event outed him.