During the last half of elementary school I had a classmate named Neil Schaffer. He was a tall, dark, lean boy with heavy shoulders, a long face and thick, black hair. He wore slacks and short-sleeved dress shirts, tucked in, unusual for an elementary school child on a dank tropical island. He kept his arms close to his sides. He seemed to the rest of us to be more serious, older. In the 4th grade he had a crush on me. I backed off in alarm, even though my preference was for emotional attachments too intense to be requited by the rest of my young suitors.

Although his display of feelings bewildered me, their existence did not. Neil didn’t seem to be bothered by the disparity in our intentions. We remained friends through grade school. I developed a sense of my physical self next to him.

At the juncture between elementary and junior high, his district was assigned to George Washington. I attended Tumon.

When I first met Frank, I felt as though my curiosity about Neil would be satisfied. This long, sturdy man, with a warm smile, a curious eye, and a mastery of arm movements that takes everything into his world, this is the man into whom I have imagined Neil has grown. His looseness is conservatively suited and tied and coifed and socialized, without a hint of entrapment. His prepubescent seriousness and grace become him, now, and have been buffed with confidence. He tells me about his family and their outings as would a man who experiences great joy in the society he has built. He admires people who are adventurous in thought and action. I was immediately comfortable with him.

He is different than the men I usually find attractive. He talks more. He challenges, rather than argues. He expects to learn things from people. He can be unabashedly intellectual.

The physical harmony between us surprises me. The chord it strikes in my solar plexus tells me he understands his sexuality much as I understand mine. Under certain circumstances we would be compatible.

Text & Graphics © 1999 by Gail Rae Hudson

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