Once Skip and I went surfing on Wednesdays and once I was back to work, and it was a few days before I'd go surfing again, the nature of my thoughts changed. The closer to Wednesday it got, the more likely I was to think about Skip. On Thursday, I was far more likely to be lost in thoughts of Free, or I might think about my life before I came to California.

I can't explain it. It's how my brain worked.

Once I was with Free, I was less likely to settle for sex without some meaningful feelings attached. I was as horny as ever, maybe more horny. The climax was a relief, but it wasn't as satisfying. The clumsiness after the deed was done with a boy I didn't know well, was more an anticlimax.

With Free, it was an eruption of feelings and fluids that connected us in a way I'd never been connected before. Before, during and after, we were in and out of each other's being. The 'after' took minutes to recover from, and often, before I was in touch with my own reality, I was beginning to soar all over again. I'd never been as high. I never felt as good as I did when I was with Free.

I could settle for less, because the sex that was attached to my love for Free wasn't like any other sexual experience I had. Sex with Free was the ultimate. You don't get higher than that. Well, I never have. Sex you have for the orgasm, is child's play when compared to sex with your lover.

I suppose that's why there is masturbation. It serves a purpose.

Skip was good at everything he did. He was always teaching me.

"I taught you all you know but not all I know," he told me.

I didn't bother to say, 'Free took me places you couldn't.'

Love was the completion of us. I wasn't whole if I wasn't with Free. That feeling of contentment never existed within me before Free. I was always restless. Of course, the secret I was keeping meant I wanted to get out of the life I was in.

I didn't belong in the place where I lived. I was never welcome there.

Once I surfed, once I caught a wave, being on it, being propelled by it, being in the wave meant you've gone beyond yourself. The focus, the experience is a bit like sex. Once you're done, you paddle out to do it all over again.

Many times the next wave is even better than the last wave.

How could it not remind me of sex? The hormones released by the thrill of it must be similar to the release of hormones during sex. It is complicated. Life is complicated, and love is essential.

It was glorious to feel love the way I felt it for Free. I didn't know if I'd ever recapture that intensity with someone else. I worried that there were limited opportunities to have such feelings. Would I ever find another love like that?

I worried I wouldn't, but I was back in the game and I wouldn't withdraw into my own world without leaving room for people I liked. Seeing skaters reminded me of how cute John was and how nice Brian always was. Brian was always with another boy, but many skaters had one or two really close friends.

It's not a good idea to come to blanket conclusions about surfers or skaters. When you think you have it all figured out, someone will prove you wrong. I assumed all the skaters were straight, but they had needs. It was this conclusion that Free defied. He was a skater and he liked boys.

I suppose that's why he lived in the woods. We didn't talk about it, because I was too young to have many thoughts about guys my age not living at home. I lived at home because I was welcome there. My parents loved me being there.

I knew that wasn't true with Free. His family wasn't that supportive. I didn't know if it had to do with him liking boys or not. I didn't know anything, and even with the boy I loved, I believed he'd tell me what he wanted me to know. I didn't tell him everything about my life, although he knew my parents and didn't need to ask about them. I never asked him why he lived in the woods.

I couldn't judge anyone else's life according to how my life was. Parents were supposed to be there for you, support you, encourage you, and love you. That's how my parents were. Having bad parents wasn't a thing I could imagine, but I imagine Free's parents were nothing like mine.

There is a lot in life that requires me to be in contact with other people. In any group there are guys you think look nice and you'd like to know better. I'd been slow on the uptake back home because of the queer deal. Fear kept me an arm's length from boys I felt close to. I felt constrained, even while skating with my buds.

Out here, I felt fewer constraints. I was older. I was maturing, but I didn't need to be as guarded about who I was. All the skaters I'd hung with knew Free and I were an item. It didn't change anything. When Free and I skated together, the same boys who always said, 'Hey," still said it. We were buds in the true meaning of the word.

Most skaters knew Free was gone. They knew where he went. Like in most groups, one guy heard what another guy had to say, and that's how things became known. Even when you're on the fringe of what's accepted, information flows between like-minded guys.

I sat on my patch of grass and boys said, "Hey," as they skated by. A few sat down to chat. I was a skater, they were skaters. My liking boys had nothing to do with being a skater, unless a skater decided he needed more. I'd been with Free, and I was no longer nearly as available as I once was.

"Hey, Z."

"Hey, Bobby. Where's Brian?"

"Babysitting his brothers. I had to get out of there," Bobby explained, skating over to the mall.

I thought Bobby and Brian were an item. I'd seen them both with other boys, but mostly they were together. They seemed closer to each other than they were to other skaters, but I could be wrong. I'd never heard anyone say they were together, even when they were mostly together.

The grass was cool today and the sun was hot. I'd left work early because all the trucks had delivered and the shelves were totally stocked.

We are able to be more open and have better experiences through our friends. No matter if I skated or surfed, there were people I gravitated toward. Because of the queer deal, I gravitated toward guys who got my attention. My attention meant my feelings, and that meant there were feelings that meant something to me at the time.

I tended to be hard on myself, especially when it came to my social life. Skating and surfing were major activities, day in and day out it was on boys' minds. We were a generation on the move, and moving together could be way more fun than moving by yourself.

I skated to and from work and my skateboard was almost always close at hand. It was important for me to skate, because it's what connected me to the people in my world. As much as I would like to deny it, my sexuality dominated my life. Because I was denied any right to feel what I felt back home, I needed to hide my identity from everyone, because of how destructive it could be to be associated with the queer deal. Once that wasn't my primary concern each day, I was free to look at more boys, which I enjoyed doing, because I no longer felt it necessary to hide my true nature. I was able to appreciate the boys I saw without the worry of being labeled in a way that could ruin me.

I did think about canned goods when I was putting up canned goods, among other things. I did think about getting up to get something to drink, once I sat for too long. I enjoyed interacting with customers without wanting them, most of them anyway.

I had a good boss. I had a good job, and I doubt I thought about having sex any more than most guys did, but we do think about sex a lot, which might mean it occupies a far greater place in our psyche than we're led to believe. Maybe it isn't how much we think about sex that's important. Maybe it's the quality of such thoughts while we're having them. Once again this could be where masturbation comes in handy. Being faster, better, stronger, maybe not faster, is directly related to how well we please our partner, unless we are our partner.

The taboo nature of sex means no matter my thoughts, someone is going to try to find fault with my thinking, because they don't want me thinking about sex.

Who was it who thought up such nonsensical rules? Why was sex a subject no one wanted to talk about? Why was the human body something you shouldn't see? How many people are in the universe? Don't we all have a body? What kind of deal was that?

Luckily skaters didn't wear much more than surfers wore, and that made for easy viewing when I saw a boy I liked. Certainly, I wanted to see more than I could see. I could see plenty. If one of those boys said, "Hey," my day was made, and yes, I was having a sexual thought or two about those boys.

I couldn't tell which boys were having sexual thoughts about me, but I knew I wasn't the only boy who did other boys. We all were having far more sexual thoughts than any of us was going to admit. It made the world go around.

I'm just saying, my life is fine. I do okay in the love department. It's nothing to write home about at present, but that's why it's frequently on my mind. I want to be better and stronger for my next lover,

Having no partner meant I spent more time thinking about getting one. I can survive without one, but survival isn't difficult if you set your mind to it. I'd love again, and until I did, I'd think about falling in love a lot.

My love for Skip gave me warmth without contentment. I was fine on the days we spent together, but when he left me, I was alone again. He'd left me enough times that I needed to get back into circulation. I'd actually thought about going off with Skip, leaving my parents' house to live with Skip.

He made it clear it wasn't happening. My thinking about it was unwise.

I was maturing and one day I would leave my parents' house to live my own life. I did think it would be with another man, but maybe not. I was limited by living with my parents. I needed to be considerate of their feelings.

Each love must be different, because no two boys are alike. While being different, each boy must be similar enough to excite a lover. They need to agree that being together is preferable to living separately. The site of your lover should always make you smile, and parting needed to come with some pain. Each love creates its own momentum and delirium. It's how I came to be crazy about Free.

By the afternoon on Thursday I was caught up, after being off Wednesday. Thursday morning, before we opened, I stocked the shelves in places where Wednesday's customers emptied them. It took an hour to have the shelves relatively full, and I took breaks each time a delivery arrived, and I made sure the deliveries were staged in a way that made stocking the shelves easier on me.

I did sit too long if there were a lot of empty places on the shelves. By two most days, I was ready for a pee break and a soda. I might get a healthier drink.

It was at such a time, while considering the food value in drinks, I thought about the food value of love. Gordo being like a too sweet treat with no value, but you can't stop eating. Free was nourishment for my heart and soul.

Working at a market meant I considered food value in things I eat.

I doubt Mr Hitchcock had any idea of the meanderings going on inside my mind while I stocked his shelves, but he knew when I sat in one spot for too long.

"Z, you've been sitting in that spot for an hour or more. You need to move around a little. It isn't good to sit for so long in one place."

I could have explained to him that I was moving, but I was ready to move.

"I lose track of time. I like staying busy," I said, as I stood and stretched.

My biggest decision of the day would be Coke or Pepsi. I'm not saying I wouldn't think about apple juice or orange juice, but I always got a Coke. I also considered the price of things, not just how nourishing a thing was. An orange juice cost twice what my Coke cost, and I liked Coke. I'm almost sure there is some logic to those thoughts, but maybe not.

The soda was without nutritional value. I'd get orange juice next time.

I heard Mr Hitchcock talking to a customer, and I walked toward the front of the market so he saw me moving around. I stopped where I could see my boss.

A woman was parking a stroller beside the cash register, and Mr Hitchcock was talking to the two or three year old child who was looking at him with amazement. Nothing like a baby to make a middle aged man act silly. It's a wonder kids grew up as normally as they did.

I wanted to get my skateboard and get out on a beautiful day. I was gone all day the day before. I couldn't take off early today. I was a working stiff.

I still had to get corn and tomatoes to put up. I hadn't done the produce.

I watched the woman who knew exactly what she was after. She went straight to the fridge, collected some entrees before going back up front. I walked back to the row of shelves I was working in. I sat the Coke on the floor beside the box I sat on while putting up cans.

Once the cans were up, I stretched my legs by walking to the back of the store. I stopped next to two wooden milk crates that were turned up on one end. Brenda and Free sat on such milk crates as she read questions that were on the GED test Free was scheduled to take. It was surprising how easily I could remember them sitting together talking about each question.

No matter where I went, there were reminders of Free. He was the most important part of my life for close to a year. I wondered where he was and what he was up to at that moment. Then it was fourteen hours later there. At three in the afternoon in El Cajon, it was five in the morning there. He'd still be in bed.

It was odd that he was on my mind so much the last few days. I hadn't been thinking that much about him in the last few months, but he was back in my brain a dozen times a day the last few days. Maybe he was thinking about me.

My mind went off on tangents like this some afternoons. Everything I did was repetition. That's when my brain was most active. I always seemed to be thinking about something.

I shook my head to get my mind back on my business. I walked to the produce bins and began pulling the older produce forward. We'd get a boat load of produce Friday to last over the weekend. On Monday, when more produce came, the bins would be empty for the most part. We stocked fresh produce that was rarely on the shelves more than two to three days.

Customers became more plentiful after four. People liked to get something on the way home from work. It was the same way Saturday. People came in to get something they forgot to get or ran out of.

Hitchcock's was easy in and easy out. You didn't stand in line and if you couldn't find what you were looking for, I'd tell you where to find it. If I wasn't busy, I'd walk the customer to where they could find the item they were after. I took off at five Thursday, because there was nothing left for me to do. I worked later on Fridays, and I was there for half a day on Saturday, because we sold a lot of stock Saturdays. The nice thing about getting off early Thursday, I sat on my patch of grass for as long as I liked. Then, I'd go home for a hot dinner.

The sun was bright, he air was fresh, the sidewalk was clear, and there wasn't much residual pollution coming out of the cars passing my spot. The streets were busy, but they'd become busier in the next hour.

Dropping down on the grass at the busiest traffic time of day meant lots of exhaust fumes and such. I needed to accept some less than optimal conditions if I intended to scout for boys. The stopping and starting from the nearby light was at its peak at five thirty, and it would begin thinning out by six.

I thought a lot about where I'd been and where I might be going. Yes, on the patch of grass my mind was just as active. What I was waiting for, I couldn't be sure, but if it came along, I'd know it when I saw it. If it didn't come today, I'd be back to look for it tomorrow.

I'd never been anywhere, until I came to California. My mind worked just as much in Massachusetts as it did out here. I can't tell you what was on my mind back there. I worried a lot about being found out. I worried about being alone.

Now, I traveled to places I'd heard about but never thought I'd see. When I turned seventeen, I was sure I'd never get out of Massachusetts. That shows you how clever I am.

I can think just as well on my patch of grass. Most frequently my thoughts were of love. I can't imagine other boys not having thoughts of love. Yes, love included sex, but love was more than sex. Free was way more than sex. Skip was about love on my part.

There was one image that came to mind more often when I sat on the patch of grass to wait for skaters. I had a chill each time my mind went to work on the skater in the storm drain. I'd stopped thinking about him for quite a while. It was probably while I was with Free. I didn't think about anyone but Free, while we were together.

I saw the boy in the storm drain a second time. I nearly got run over in the process. Maybe that's when thoughts of him came back to me. He didn't see me the second time. He never looked up, but I remembered his flaming red hair.

Thinking about boys had always been a preoccupation of mine.

As thoughts of Free became more vivid than they'd ever been, I was once again having visions of the boy in the storm drain. I didn't need to imagine much, because he had been real. I didn't dream that boy up.

I'd first seen him almost three years ago. I hardly thought we moved in the same circles, no matter who he was. I had been out and about and we'd never crossed paths on the streets of El Cajon. Maybe he lived in Santee.

The problem with memories, one isn't more solid than a fantasy. It was real once, but a memory was a pale imitation of an event.

I was as likely to end up with one of the dream boats I daydreamed about as I was to end up with the boy in the storm drain.

I wouldn't end up with anyone if I didn't try harder.

*****

I was working on my second cup of coffee when Dad came into the dining room just before he left for work.

"I can drop you at Hitchcock's if you like," Dad said.

"No, I need the exercise. I might see someone I know on the way."

"Chinese tonight. Will you be bringing anyone to dinner?"

It wasn't an unusual question for my father to ask. I'd brought home a half dozen guys on nights he brought in dinner. There was always more than we could eat, but Dad was information gathering too.

Is there anyone new in your life?

There was no one new and my routine was predictable.

"It's Tuesday," I said, over my second cup of coffee. "I'll be late. I should be home by seven. I'll be alone."

"I could swing by Hitchcock's and pick you up if you like," Dad said.

"I need the exercise. I'll skate. It's only twenty minutes."

"Costco today. You need any toothpaste, deodorant?" Mom asked.

"Deodorant? I don't smell," I told my mother.

"That's open to discussion, Zane. Need anything in your bathroom?"

"Mouthwash. Wouldn't want to offend our customers," I said. "I'm OK on everything else."

Life was a routine at my house. There were few surprises, unless I met someone I brought home. The mood at my house was upbeat, since we'd settled into El Cajon. The money issues that once plagued my parents in Massachusetts no longer came up. Dad's job out here paid him enough to pay all the bills and have money left over to spend on things they once couldn't afford.

Dad smiled more and Mom worried less. I worked full time but they wouldn't take any money from me. Since I didn't have any expensive tastes, most of my money went into my savings account. Times were good in California.

Living in California was more expensive, but not unreasonably so. You paid for the nice weather, the beautiful landscape. You paid to live in a land of ingenuity and innovation. You paid for the sun, surf, and perfect days.

It was a beautiful day when I dropped my skateboard on the sidewalk and headed for Hitchcock's. My mother blew her horn when she passed me on the way to Grossmont, where she taught. I breathed in the pleasant fresh air. It would be nice tonight while I skated home. I stayed late to get the stock up on Tuesdays, and I would be home a little before it started getting dark.

I didn't work back in Massachusetts, except I delivered papers in the afternoon. I gave my paper route up to one of my buds. The afternoons were the best part of the day there, but there were months when it didn't get much warmer than freezing in the afternoon. If you kept moving, you could survive.

I picked up my board and went into the market. Hitchcock's was half the size of the big chains. We had limited storage space, which made my job more important, because I stocked the shelves as soon as a truck pulled away after making a delivery. It kept me busy. Tuesday was my biggest day. I wouldn't stock again until Thursday morning, but Wednesday wasn't a big shopping day.

If I hadn't found the job at Hitchcock's, I don't know where I'd work. I had a good job and my boss worried about me. If I kept moving, the day went swiftly. Tuesday was our biggest delivery day. I didn't leave until the shelves were stocked.

Living at home, eating there, meant I didn't spend much on food. My expenses were low and most of each paycheck went into the bank. Even when I ate at Hitchcock's, I ate free. I could pay. Mr Hitchcock wouldn't take my money.

I took $20.00 out of my check each week. I usually didn't spend it all. I'm not sure my father deducted the $20.00 from my check.

California was a different world. My parents constant worry over paying bills never came up once my father took the job in San Diego. Now, my parents both had a car. We owned our own home, and after nearly three years, my father talked about a time when mother could retire and be a stay at home mom.

I wasn't sure about that idea. That would definitely take doing Skip at the front door off the to do list.

Tuesday, I had no trouble being focused. My wandering mind could travel hither and yon, while I filled shelves at Hitchcock's Market.

"See you Thursday, Mr Hitchcock," I said, going out the door about seven.

"Night, Z. Don't forget to lock that door," he said from his office door.

Tuesday nights were nice. I was looking forward to Wednesday. I did love surfing. I loved Skip. Looking for the boy he loved, not so much.

I stopped at the patch of grass twice this week. I should stop more often. It was boring sitting there. I was out of the habit, or the habit was out of me. If I failed to see a skater in ten minutes or so, I was on my way home.

I needed to sit for longer if I wanted a nice boy to come sit beside me. That kind of skater wasn't exactly coming out of the woodwork.

My parents held dinner until I got home Tuesdays. I was about an hour later than usual. If they waited, we all got a nice hot meal while it was fresh and most flavorful. No matter the situation, my parents thought of me first.

Wednesday was my favorite day. Being with Skip was awesome.

What I needed Wednesday was to surf and be with Skip.

Next week I'd stop at the grassy patch every day after work.