A Night Without Stars
By Judah Leblang

I breathed in the cool fall air streaming in off Lake Michigan as my father inspected the trunk of his spanking new 1975 Lincoln Mark IV. My "stuff"--black foot-locker that had seen my two brothers to overnight camp, corduroys in shades of blue, maroon and gray, Carole King albums and the black polyester leisure suit my mother insisted I buy, all rested safely in my dorm room. The dormitory-a boxy red brick building, the worst of 1950's architecture--loomed over us. At least I could see the lake if I craned my neck as well as the crumbling edifice next door--the headquarters of the Women's Christian Temperance Union--which had been founded in Evanston a hundred years before my arrival.

I stood off to one side and watched my parents as they prepared to leave. My mother looked back at me from the front seat as my father fiddled in the trunk, dusting off his car blanket. I wondered why my father doted more on that machine more than he did on his wife and family. As he tidied up, I glanced back at my mother. Her mascara was running, dark lines streaking down her face. The colors--black squiggles against pink skin--startled me. After losing her father and brother in the past four months, I was vanishing, too. Now my father was working six days a week and fooling around on the seventh, while my brother Sam was practically living at his best friend's house. I felt my stomach tighten. Did I have the right to leave her?

My father emerged from the jaws of his mechanical lover and stuck out his hand. His eyes rested on mine, briefly, as if recalling who I was and what I wanted. I could almost hear the words "Let's get going," bubble up from his restless mind. As my father pumped my hand, his grip more powerful than he realized, he looked off to the east, back toward Interstate 80 and the road home to Cleveland.

He turned away from me and mumbled "Good luck." A man of few words, he said, "we'll talk soon," though we rarely did, even when we lived in the same house. I walked to the passenger side and knelt down to face my mother. The tears were gone; smudges barely visible as she'd 'pulled herself together' for my benefit. I hugged her across the doorframe and felt the birdlike thinness of her bones, the shallowness of her breathing. I sensed the gulf between her and my father, sitting a few feet away-his foot tapping impatiently on the accelerator.

"You take care of yourself," I whispered.

"You too, dear. Call me." And they were gone, the Lincoln purring like a cat, my father at the wheel, in control.

That night I dreamed of Carter, the auctioneer who had given me a taste of affection just two months earlier. Though we hadn't kept in touch, I thought of him often. At night my mind filled with pictures of the afternoon we spent at my grandfather's store--where we'd made love once--and imagined us together on the beach at Mentor Headlands-east of the city, where we hadn't. I felt him rolling against me on the sand, bucking and pushing against me until I was jarred awake by the squawking of my roommate's clock radio.

During the first month of fall semester, I came to know my three roommates. Mark, a tall hairy boy with the face of Apollo on a blocky awkward body, was the consummate New Yorker, a confirmed cynic who distrusted everyone. Paul, a slow-talking pot-smoking WASP from Colorado who bonded with Mark, as they shared their tales of sexual conquests and high school debauchery. And Randall, a lanky dramatic boy from Memphis, Tennessee, with a sculpted Afro and a wide, toothy smile. The extrovert of our floor, Randall quickly assembled an entourage of theatre-major friends and a few shy white boys like me. By October, I'd joined Randall's fan club and moved into the front room of our 'suite,' leaving Mark and Paul space to bond in the back.

On Wednesday nights, Randall would 'baby sit' for his cousins in Chicago. One of those nights, Mark saw Randall slip into a silver Lincoln. "Randall's got a sugar daddy-you see all those fancy clothes he's got." I wasn't sure what a sugar daddy was, but nodded dumbly when Mark explained Randall had found a rich man to take care of him. I wondered if Mark had doubts about me, if he thought I was gay, too.

During the fall, I kept a low profile, getting along with everyone, becoming close to no one. Randall, who had an eye for fashion and a brash 'I am here' wardrobe, took me under his wing. He eyed my leisure suit-the one 'dress outfit' I had, and said, "Child, you're a walking fashion disaster. Did you come in right off the farm?"

I was majoring in Deaf Education-I'd wanted to learn sign language for years-and my courses were housed in Champlain's School of Speech, along with the theatre courses of my roommates and their friends. That fall semester I had four classes; Effective Communication-a course about 'sharing from the heart' that catered to the endless self-obsession of the drama crowd; Introduction to Communication Disorders-which taught me nothing about teaching deaf kids and way too much about the "anatomy of the hearing mechanism;" Math computation-arithmetic for dummies; and Freshman Composition, which kept me from giving up on school entirely. My Freshman Comp professor, a young instructor with wire-rim glasses and unruly black hair that puffed out from his head like a Brillo pad, insisted that we call him by his first name. Justin wore a silver band on his left hand, wore bulky wool sweaters and sported a long curving scar on the right side of his face. The crescent shaped wedge began just below his eye and ended at his cheekbone. I imagined him in a knife fight, wiry body tensed, chest muscled, his thirtyish body still taut.

Our first paper was due five weeks into the semester-four to six pages, typed. An essay on Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio-an 1890's small-town Midwest far removed from the one I knew in suburban Cleveland. Justin warned us of his high standards, his college-level expectations. He knew that most of us were used to getting A's, of being academic stars in our local high schools. Champlain would be different-we'd be ranked over the dreaded curve, which meant most of us could expect C's and some would fail. If his intention was to scare us, he succeeded brilliantly-at least in my case.

I was afraid of the typewriter, and more intimidated by the idea of writing an academic paper. Once I 'hit my stride,' I typed one page per hour, using half a bottle of 'Wite-Out' in the process. Beyond my lack of typing skill, how could I compete with the easy confidence of the other boys, the all-knowing Mona Lisa looks of the girls? I hadn't even made it into the top quarter of my high school graduating class. The aqua blue Smith Corona portable sat on my narrow student desk, humming, waiting for me to pick up the tune. I felt electric current pass through my hands as a worn copy of Winesburg rested in my lap. I looked at the four questions Justin had given us and wondered which to pick. "Fine tune what you have to say-I want a main idea, supporting statements and a summary of your key points. It's time you learn what college writing is all about. And don't get too hung up on this first paper-do your best and expect the worst. You'll have four more chances to bring up your grade."

A Saturday night in late October, and my roommates were out on the town-Mark and Paul at some theatre department party, Randall in Chicago at his 'cousins.' There were no distractions; just some distant hollering down the hall as my neighbors partied themselves sick.

Anderson's short, detail-heavy stories made me edgy. The first piece, "Hands," focused on a twitchy former schoolteacher named Wing Biddlebaum. As I read it, a trap door opened in my stomach. Wing, whose real name was Adolph Myers, had been forced out of a small Pennsylvania town because he couldn't keep his hands to himself. While his affectionate caresses appeared to be innocent, "a half witted boy became enamored of the young master." "In his bed at night he [the boy] imagined unspeakable things." Other boys came forward to accuse the young teacher of touching them. Adolph fled for his life, came to live with an elderly aunt in Winesburg, and took the name Wing Biddlebaum, his former life a secret. After his aunt died, Wing lived alone, marked by the fluttering of his hands as an eccentric and a talented field hand-nothing more.

There was no evidence that Wing had shared anything more than platonic touch with his students. But I knew Wing was gay. And I too, imagined "unspeakable things," like the half-witted boy in Anderson's story. Though I'd escaped from Cleveland to the northern edge of Chicago, I wondered if I'd end alone, a solitary old man like Anderson's protagonist. Maybe my life could be different-I'd heard there were 'gay ghettos' in a few big cities-but I didn't know how to find them.

I sat in my dorm room, the assignment spread out before me, ominous like a collection notice from the phone company. The block letters of Justin's typing squirmed before my eyes as words became nonsense or changed their meaning. "Identify" became defy; "describe" became scribble; my mind ran in nervous circles, and I wrote nothing beyond my name and the title of the course. The Smith-Corona buzzed impatiently, its carriage jerking with a mild tic. I hated Anderson. His idle, boring, neurotic women reminded me of my mother-women with too much time on their hands, passive women folded up into the blankets of defeated days, sickly women who fell exhausted into illness or childbirth and never emerged, fleeing into death. I imagined myself walking into Justin's turret-style office in Searle Hall and screaming that Anderson's repressed Christian farmers had nothing to do with my life. How was I supposed to answer one of these fucking questions?

But freshman composition was a requirement, and I was cowed by Justin's warning, my self-satisfied classmates, and my cocky roommates. Maybe I would fail the first assignment-and the first semester. What if I found myself back in Cleveland, living in the confines of my parents' house, the air as heavy as Winesburg, Ohio's? I finally chose number one: Sherwood Anderson used the theme of adventure to unite a number of the stories in Winesburg, Ohio. Identify significant 'adventures' in two of the Winesburg stories, and describe how these experiences influenced the characters involved. Relate one of these adventures to a life-changing experience you have encountered and briefly describe how that experience has changed your life.

I searched through the stories and chose two of the characters who had an experience that Anderson called an 'adventure.' Words poured through my hands as I pecked at the keys in a jerky rhythm that surprised me. Channeling my frustration into that five-page paper, I pictured Randall dancing in some gay bar or lying in the arms of his handsome 'sugar daddy,' saw Mark and Paul screwing their respective girlfriends. My classmates weren't stressed about their schoolwork-they were "getting some." I was trying to find the nerve to ask Randall where to meet other gay men, but I didn't want to offend him. We'd become good friends, but he'd never offered any details about his "baby sitting" assignments in Chicago. So I sat under the skimpy light of my reading lamp and analyzed the despair of two of the women of Winesburg-Alice Hindman and Elizabeth Willard. I contrasted their ineffectual 'adventures' with my own coming of age-the weeks I'd spent taking apart my grandfather's drug store and the few special days I spent with a small town-Ohio auctioneer named Carter Childs.

The story came out in more detail than I had planned. Just as I hadn't intended to let Carter pin me on Papa's cot in the back room of the store-I didn't intend to share my secret with anyone. Yet there it was on the page. In my conclusion, I wrote:

"There are times when one reaches a crossroads in life. Alice and Elizabeth were still searching for their life's purpose well into their adult years. Alice spent years waiting for a beau who'd left Winesburg and forgotten her. Elizabeth stayed in a marriage with a man she hated. Their adventures were ineffective. They remained victims, unable to leave a stifling small town. In contrast, I came upon my 'moment of truth' two months after high school graduation, when I met an uneducated but wise man from the hills of Southern Ohio. Since we made love, I haven't felt the same. I'm not sure how the experience has changed me, but I know I'm a better person because of it. My adventure is taking me to places I couldn't have imagined. Unlike the women of Winesburg, Ohio, I'm not afraid to take a risk if I believe it will change my life."

When Randall came back from Chicago the next day, I almost showed him my paper. But as he lied-"So tired from watching those kids I can hardly speak," I changed my mind. Mark and Paul came in later that afternoon, teasing each other about who could "last longer," and comparing methods of contraception. Mark felt it was the "girl's problem," while Paul argued that a condom protected him, too-he wasn't ready to be a daddy and didn't have the cash for an abortion. Mark shrugged and said, "Man, it's not my issue," before their door closed and the discussion continued out of earshot. I buried my paper under a pile of books and waited for Tuesday morning to arrive.

I slid my paper, "Action vs. Passivity: The Women of Winesburg, Ohio" into a stack on Justin's desk. Fidgeting through class, I wondered if he would flunk me, if I'd be called into the dean's office, if my parents would be informed that their son was a homosexual, etc. He was commenting on our next book-Willa Cather's My Antonia, while I doodled in my notebook and played hangman. Justin looked especially disheveled this morning-his denim shirt untucked, jeans wrinkled, a stain over one knee. Had he spent an especially wild night with his wife or was he up feeding the young son he'd mentioned once in class? I tried to picture him without that shirt. Was he simply lean, or toned and muscular? Smooth-as I preferred, or lined with corky hair? Was it black, like the hair on his head, or lighter, like the blond/brown fur on my own chest?

Justin promised to have the papers graded and returned by the following Tuesday. The days ran together, tipping one into another like the glass bottles on my grandfather's drug store shelves. I'd always been a quiet boy, easily lost in the crowd. But now I'd stand out. I cursed myself-why did I take such a stupid risk?

I spent the next session drowning in 'what if' scenarios. After class, I finally got my paper. Rifling to the last page, I saw my grade circled at the bottom of the onion-skinned parchment-a thickly drawn 'B.' Skimming the pages quickly, l looked for comments and judgements. Paragraphs were marked with red pen; misspelled words, misplaced commas, several stray "good" and "nice details" sprinkled in for balance. A few lines were scribbled above the grade, but I waited to read them outside. I folded up my paper, grabbed my books and shoved them in my backpack. As I moved toward the door, two sorority girls began whining about their grades, almost pushing Justin toward the blackboard. He turned toward me, held up his index finger and said, "Excuse me for a second, girls." As I neared the door he caught my eye. "Steven, I'd like to talk with you about your paper. Why don't you stop by during office hours?"

The back of my neck tingled; I was sweating. "I can't make it today, but maybe on Thursday. I'll try," I said hoarsely.

I walked out into the November chill and felt the threat of snow. Pulling the rolled up paper out of my pack, I sat down under one of the old oak trees that lined Sherman Avenue. Justin had written: Steven, you've fulfilled the assignment admirably. You do need to organize your ideas and present them in a more integrated manner. However, you have analyzed the characters of Alice and Mrs. Willard in interesting ways. I appreciate your honesty and courage in writing about your experience with the auctioneer. I would like to talk with you about that experience if you're willing-this is NOT a course requirement. Good first paper! JUSTIN

I looked down at my chest and saw my heartbeat pulsing through the fabric of my sweater. I thought of my father and his massive heart attack ten years earlier and wondered if I'd carry on the family tradition. I definitely had to calm down. No way I could handle my Communication Disorders class today. I walked along the lake until my pulse slowed, then headed inland toward the Central Street El station. I wanted to get to Howard Street in Chicago--just over the border from Evanston, a dry town. I craved a few beers and time to think. What if everyone found out that I was gay?

Four beers later, I felt almost serene. I wasn't going to fail Justin's class. It appeared I could write an essay that didn't put my professor to sleep. And my secret was safe for now. Though I didn't have to meet with Justin, he had piqued my curiosity.

Hurrying back to the Howard Street El, I caught an Evanston-bound train. Soon I was climbing up to Justin's office in the attic of the Searle Literature Building. In spite of my daily runs along the lake, my heart thumped again as I knocked on his half open door. Office hours went until 4-it was 3:50, and he was alone.

"Come in, Steven. You prefer Steve, right?" I didn't think you could make it today."

"Yeah, Steve is good, and I got out of class earlyso, uh here I am."

Justin laughed briefly-almost a bark, which echoed and faded in the small room. "So I appreciate your coming in. And I don't want to pry into your personal life. I just thought I had a bit of experience to share with you-I'm not that much older than you are, and I haven't forgotten what it's like to be young."

"You seem pretty young to me, a lot younger than my other professors," I said, figuring a little flattery couldn't hurt.

"Yeah, well, I'm 30, which seems ancient when you're 18 or 19 but comes up awfully fast when after you hit 25. And I'm a lecturer and not a full professor, but thanks for the compliment."

"Sure," I said, wondering what he was hinting at.

Justin shifted and leaned across his desk, pushing a stack of papers out of the way. "Well, uh, look-you were honest and forthcoming in your paper, and when I read your essay, I choked up. Honestly, I've read maybe five papers that have impressed me in my years at Champlain, and yours was one of them."

"Well, uh, thanks. I wasn't wild about the book. I think Anderson is a bit boring, and the town is full of nuts. But he did get me thinking."

Justin grabbed a copy of Winesburg off his typewriter table and smacked it on his desk. "And that's exactly what I'm going for in this first assignment-to get you kids thinking. Your generation is used to consuming things--movies, television, games, and not thinking about life. So if Anderson made you think, then the assignment wasn't wasted. Now if I can just get your classmates on board" Justin sighed and his eyebrows knit together, a black wave cresting over the bridge of his nose.

Seeing his passion for Anderson--his concern for us, I felt something stir in my jeans. He actually cared about me, what I learned, what I thought about.

"So like I said, I appreciated your analysis of these women, and your courage Steve?"

I'd heard him say something about courage. "Hmm-oh sorry. I got distracted. You were saying?"

"Just that your honesty impressed me, and I want to meet you in that same spirit. Truth is that my department chair is a personal friend, and he knows my story. But my students don't. So can we keep this between us?"

"Sure," I said. I wanted my story to stay quiet, too.

"Right. Then let me give you the 'Cliff's Notes' version. Justin lowered himself back into his creaky chair and sighed again. You know I'm married with a kid now, right?" I nodded and he continued. "I'm married to a woman I'm very fond of. We have a beautiful two-year-old boy named Zachary, with another child on the way. We live in a sweet brick bungalow down in Rogers Park. And none of that would be possible if I hadn't changed my lifestyle five years ago."

"What do you mean changed your lifestyle?" I asked. The room felt airless; steam hissed off the radiator.

Justin turned up one side of his mouth-a half-smile. "I lived in San Francisco during graduate school. I sampled all the colors of the rainbow, you might say. I experimented with both men and women. And I had a three year relationship with a man I loved very much."

I studied him more closely, afraid to breathe. Justin's black turtleneck defined his torso, rather than hid it as his clothes usually did. I tried to picture him in San Francisco, though I'd never been west of the Mississippi, I'd read about gay life there.

"So what happened?" I leaned forward, and we faced each other across his pitted desk.

He sighed again. "What happened is that I finished grad school and needed a job. What happened is that it was 1970 and I needed to pay the rent. What happened is that universities weren't hiring known homosexuals for their faculties." Justin dropped his eyes, then looked up to face me, his eyes wide. "And so I made a choice-to let myself love a woman. Marie was an old friend, someone I'd known when she was married to another woman."

"Married?"

"She was in a long-term relationship with a woman named Valerie. When Valerie died-she had breast cancer--Marie and I began spending time together as friends. One thing led to another, and we've been a couple for four years now."

"So you left him, just like that?"

"At your age I thought everything was black and white, too. I've learned that life is full of grays."

"But if you really loved him, how could you leave?" I wondered if I'd get an 'F' on my next paper.

"I'm not telling you what to do. But I'm warning you that your life will be harder and your career will be limited if you try to love men. What are you majoring in now?"

"I'm going to be a teacher of deaf children," I said, hoping to impress him.

"That's all well and good, but schools don't hire openly gay teachers," Justin said. He was standing now, coming around to sit on the front edge of his desk, looking at me down his angular nose.

"Things can change. And besides, I'm not really attracted to women. I had a girlfriend in high school, but it didn't work out."

"Maybe you should try again. If need be, you could play both sides of the fence, if you catch my drift. Sometimes you can work out an understanding." Justin smiled a bit too broadly. I turned around and noticed that his office door was closed.

"Do you play both sides?". The words jumped from my mouth.

Justin moved toward me; I felt his warm breath, smelled garlic, sandalwood and sweat. I thought of leaving, of running down the narrow hallway, of staying safe. He stopped and examined my face. I closed my eyes and leaned back into his leather chair, barely breathing.

A few seconds ticked by, marked by the '50's style Sunbeam clock on Justin's desk. A hand grazed my face, then a breeze. I opened my eyes and found him straddling the doorframe. "No, I don't," he said, voice flat. "But sometimes I still think about it."

I nodded dumbly. As I left the building, a cold wind slapped my face. I lay down under an oak tree protected from the wind and felt Justin's hands-his long, supple fingers encase me. Soon he was touching me all over. I let my excitement rise and fall, lying there until the fall sun dipped over the edge of the lake. I floated back toward town in the fading light. As I reached the edge of campus, I saw a light coming from my seventh floor window. I hoped that Randall was still home-it was Wednesday, his "Chicago night." I ran in just as he was 'picking out' his Afro with his special comb.

"Boy, you look like you've just seen a ghost-where've you been all day?"

I was still trying to catch my breath. "That's what I want to talk to you about. Look, I want to go to Chicago with you-tonight. I'm ready to go out to one of the bars."

"You know I'm just going to the cousins.."

I cut him off. "Look, how naïve do you think I am? I don't know where you really go, but I need a ride into town. If you can't take me-I'll just take the El-but I'm gonna find a gay bar even if I have to ask someone on the street."

Randall opened his mouth, then shook his head and smiled. It was the first time I'd seen him speechless. "Jesus H. Christ. Mr. Midwest-gettin' all secretive on us. Well I suppose I can give you a ride. Now you better get yourself washed and cleaned up, cuz' I'm not gonna be seen with you looking like that!"

Fifteen minutes later I was telling Randall and his friend Darnell-a cinnamon-skinned black man with deep brown eyes, about my talk with Justin. I sat in the back of a silver plated Mark IV, cruising toward Chicago. The day pulsed through me as we headed toward the expressway-the same road my parents had followed six weeks before. I looked out the window and scanned the Chicago skyline. The John Hancock tower beckoned like a friend. I pressed my face into the breeze, drawn by the zigzag pattern of a thousand city lights reflecting on a night without stars, ready for another adventure.

©2004 Judah Leblang