I didn't know the first thing about love. I had heard a great deal about it though. I had heard Love Is A Many Splendored Thing, Love Means You Never Have To Say You"re Sorry and Can't Buy Me Love. None of which helped in the least. Prior to that day, the closest I had ever come to love was thinking to myself, "You'll do." It seemed only natural my concept of love was that it existed in only two places. On the last five pages of a romance novel and several inches below the navel.

Suddenly there it was standing in front of me. Love. A delirious numbing sensation overtook my senses. I became light headed and dizzy. My stomach did a cartwheel. It was as though the entire world was caught in a frenzy of motion but I was standing still. Much to my own surprise, I could vaguely recall having felt this way before. It was the same feeling I had lying on the back seat of my father's Oldsmobile with my head inside a bucket. I blinked hard to get the image out of my head.

"Excuse me. I'd like to purchase a bottle of poppers," he repeated.

My brain was numb. Not a single cognitive thought existed. At that particular moment, I'd have sworn my entire body had likewise ceased to exist had it not been for the overwhelming urge to throw up.

He was beautiful. Perfect in every physical sense. His sandy blonde hair brushed against his eyelashes. As he spoke, I watched the light dance inside the crystal blue water of his eyes as though they were fine jewels beneath glass. I stumbled and fell into them over and over again until I was exhausted by the thirst for more. He had the mouth of an angel with full, pale rose colored lips like I had never seen before. They appeared to have been crafted of rich, soft velvet. I think that's what caught my immediate attention. His lips. They looked like they could suck vinyl upholstery through a straw.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"No. I mean, yes. I'm fine," I mumbled. I wanted to say more but my tongue suddenly turned into fly paper and had adhered to the roof of my mouth. I tore the sales receipt from the cash register. "Seventy-two dollars and Fifty-three cents."

"For a bottle of poppers?"

I made three more attempts before finally managing to ring up the correct price. Seconds later, he picked up the bottle, placed it into the top pocket of his jean jacket and headed out the front door of the bookstore. As quickly as love had entered, it had disappeared from sight. A warm breeze blew through the open doorway and carried the heavy layer of fog out of my head. Suddenly I was conscious again. For the first time in my life I could relate to those people who get slapped on the head by a southern minister. One minute they're in a wheelchair and the next thing you know, they can sprint a 10K run in less than four minutes. It was a miracle. "That's what love is," I told myself. "It's a friggin miracle!"

Unfortunately, my euphoria only lasted a few short moments and I came to the conclusion that love was less of a miracle and more akin to a brain seizure. Only this would explain why, instead of simply asking his name, I stood motionless without the whereabouts to so much as drool down the front of my shirt. I was in complete agreement with Plato. "Love is a grave mental disease."

An hour later, I was still at work and repeatedly chastising myself for being such an idiot between the sales of various paraphernalia. Sure, I now knew love was real, alive and breathing and wearing a jean jacket with a bottle of poppers in the pocket. I just didn't have the slightest clue where or how to find it again. The phone rang four times before I gathered the common sense to pick up the receiver.

"ABCX," I sighed.

"Hi. I don"t know if you remember me," the voice on the other end said, "but I was in there earlier and I bought a bottle of poppers."

Love returned and slapped me between the eyes. Even over the telephone it was undeniable. It coursed through my system as though I'd just attempted to have sex with a light socket. "Remember you?" I repeated. Hell, I had just spent the last hour trying to calculate his height, weight, inseam and shoe size. "Of course I remember you," I assured him. That was about the extent of what I had the opportunity to say before my brain converted into recycled plastic.

"Well, it apparently had a leak because the bottle is half empty. Would it be all right if I brought it back and exchanged it for a new one?"

At this point, he could have said he wanted to trade the bottle for a mobile home in Florida. I would have complied.

A short while later, he returned to the shop. Our little business transaction was concluded in less than a minute and before I could say, "I want to have your baby", he was gone again.

I had surpassed the ranks of the simple minded. Lobotomy patients had higher I.Q. ratings. There were single celled amoebas with superior social skills. I was certain that somewhere within my ancestry there lurked an illicit relationship with an artichoke.

Lance finally came back from his vacation and in return for my undaunted service I was given the next few days off. Brenda was on semester break, so we spent much of our time together shopping, boy watching, shopping for boys, watching boys shop and dining out. Having already done most of these, we were famished and decided to stop at The Mexican Cantina for a quick meal.

As we waited to be seated, I happened to notice they now had two waiters. It was comforting to know I had helped to open the doors of equal opportunity even on a relatively small and insignificant scale. I was busy patting myself on the back as one of the waiters turned around to face us.

My body went limp. My legs buckled below me and I felt the hard surface of the floor as it hit my kneecaps. I threw my arms around Brenda"s waist as if she were the last life preserver aboard the Titanic.

"What the hell's the matter with you?" she admonished while attempting to slap me down like some ill-mannered puppy.

I gazed into Brenda's eyes. "It's him."

"That's very nice. Now get off the floor and let go of me."

"I'll faint."

Brenda smacked the top of my head. "I don"t care if you make fart noises with your armpit! Stand up!"

I latched a hand to her shoulder and hoisted myself up. "Now what's your main pain, Jane?" she asked with disgust.

"Over there!" I motioned with my eyes. "See that blonde haired waiter. That's the guy who came into the bookstore."

"Oh my gosh!" Brenda began to frantically wave her hand through the air. "Grant!"

"Grant?" I repeated. That was all I needed to hear. His name had the sound of a thousand violin strings being lightly caressed by The Celestial Kingdom Orchestra. The fireworks of love exploded all around me. The scent of refried bean burritos and tacos magically dissipated beneath the sweet aroma of jasmine, lavender and myrrh.

The perception of reality was somewhat different. I was in the throngs of an infantile frenzy. "Introduce me! Introduce me! Introduce me!" I pleaded while tugging at her shirt sleeve. It was a sick and vulgar display but I was without shame.

"Gawd!" Brenda replied. "Why don"t you just run over there and hump him on the a table."

I was mortified by her total lack of compassion. "I'll have you know this is a very sensitive moment for me!"

Brenda gave a patronizing rub on my back. "Of course it is."

The hostess picked up two menus and stepped forward. "Table for two?"

"Yes, " I offered, abruptly shoving my elbow into Brenda"s left side.

"Ouch! Ah, we'd like to be seated in Grant"s section if that's possible."

"Of course. This way please," she said, leading us down the aisle.

As we neared our table, we passed Grant who was busy taking an order. He glanced up from his pad and gave a quick smile of acknowledgment. "Hi. I'll be with you in just a moment."

I was so enchanted by this brief courtesy that I walked head first into the partition. Barely conscious and half blinded by the blurry of stars in front of me, I felt my way towards the chair and quietly sat down.

"That was graceful," Brenda giggled. "Would you like me to call the paramedics?"

"No," I said, rubbing the welt on my forehead. "I like pain. It"s good for me. It serves as a reminder that I'm not dead yet."

Sympathy was never one of Brenda's strong suits. She flipped open her menu and smacked her lips together. "I'm starved. How about you?"

I forced the front of her menu closed. "Let's not talk about me. Let's talk about you. Like, how do you know Grant?"

Brenda opened her menu with a frown and gave me a look of concern. "You're going to interrogate me now, aren't you? It"s going to be like dining with the Spanish Inquisition."

"Certainly not. This is just casual dinner conversation. Did you have something you wanted to discuss?"

"Not right this second, but,.."

"Fine then. How do you know Grant?"

Brenda surrendered. "All right. He used to attend some classes at MSU."

"He doesn"t anymore?"

"How the hell should I know? What do I look like, Rona Barrett?"

"When did you last see him on campus?"

"Several months ago. Actually, I didn"t see him, I just heard about him."

"What did you hear? Is he gay?"

Brenda held up a hand with her thumb and index finger almost touching. "I'm this close to weaving your lips together with my salad fork."

Our conversation suddenly ground to a screeching halt as Grant placed a bowl of tortilla chips and salsa on the table. "Brenda! How have you been?" I sat silently as Brenda and Grant became wrapped up in their own chit chat session. I was left in the dust like fresh road kill on a country road. I could have stripped down to my jockey shorts, gabbed a sombrero off the wall and danced on the table and still gone unnoticed. Somewhere along the way I had put together an aphorism of my own. If at first you don"t succeed, cheat. I kicked Brenda under the table, which immediately prompted her to squeeze in a brief introduction between Grant and I. "We've sort of met," I added.

Grant pulled an order pad from his back pocket. "We have?"

"At the bookstore. You bought a bottle of poppers and returned them," I said in hopes of jogging his memory.

"Oh. Are you two ready to order?"

I couldn"t tell if this was just an act or he was truly so disinterested that he didn't even remember me. This was not the start to a great romance. I could only imagine one thing worse.

Grant picked up our menus and headed towards the kitchen. My head fell and hit the table with a loud thud. "He's straight," I whimpered.

"Could be, I really don't know," Brenda sighed. "He's not someone I would suggest you get involved with anyway. He's a little,...unstable. As I was saying, the last time I heard anything about Grant, he was trying to commit suicide by jumping out of a third story dorm room window."

"So what. We all have our bad days."

"Did you hear what I just said? He was leaping from a very tall building."

Now, to any other rational adult, this would have been a bit of information to be acknowledged. At the very least, a Proceed With Caution beacon should have lit up inside my brain. But I was not rational. The only noticeable light behind my infatuated eyes was a flashing neon sign which read, Vacancy.

"So, do you think he's gay?"

"I don't see where that matters!"

"Of course it matters. Heterosexual men don"t like to date other guys."

Brenda grabbed a tortilla chip and dipped it into the salsa. "Jeezus! I feel like I'm talking about interior decorating to wallpaper."

"I think he's gay. He's too gorgeous to be straight. Besides, if you know him, he most definitely is."

Brenda became defensive. "And just what is that suppose to mean?"

"You know. You have this thing; this gift. You attract more gay men than Fire Island."

"Well, thank you. It's so nice to be compared to a narrow strip of land surrounded by salt water."

It wasn"t until we had left the restaurant that I realized how idiotic I had been. "Shit!" I suddenly blurted.

"Now what?"

"I forgot to get his telephone number!" I glared at Brenda. "How could you let me be so stupid?"

"It's such a natural occurrence that I hated to interrupt the flow."

Grant remained a primary obsession over the next several days, during which I was reduced to a mere shell of a man. I was constantly stopping to sniff flowers, read love sonnets and listening to Barry Manilow recordings. Love was in the air and the smell of it was making everyone around me sick to their stomach.

I knew two things. Love was somewhere in the city and it's name was Grant Lawrence. After two weeks of this behavior, I was finally struck with the mind shattering concept of looking his name up in the telephone book. There he was in black and white print. I frantically put my fingers to the phone and dialed away my blues.

Grant and I struggled with several minutes of strained and pointless small talk before I mustered up the courage to reach for the brass ring.

"Would you care to go out on a date sometime?"

This is the question which haunts all men, straight and gay alike. It is the line which separates ecstasy from anguish, victory from defeat, and the stupid from the abnormal. Our weaknesses, vulnerabilities and insecurities rush to the surface in a tidal wave of doubt. I had never asked anyone on a date before and I must admit it was a horrible, horrible experience. My palms began to sweat. My ears rang. My stomach was up in my throat doing the Bolshevik tango. I lost a year off my life before Grant even picked up the phone.

"I don"t think so," Grant replied. "If we go out on a date, we'll probably end up having sex and I'm not so certain that's such a good idea."

Well, it sounded like one hell of an idea to me. I knew what he needed to hear. He was obviously in need of some reassurance that my intentions were honorable. He needed to understand that I was of the strictest moral fiber and not out to satisfy some cheap and meaningless longing in my loins. I was a goddamn Boy Scout for christsake.

"Look, Grant, just because we go out does not necessarily mandate that we sleep together. I didn't call just to lure you close enough to rip all of your clothes off and have wild, passionate sex."

So I lied. Big deal. A lover and a liar often share the same bed. As Robert Mitchum so poignantly stated, "Half the people in America are faking it." Besides, if there was one thing I learned from being a Boy Scout it was that even Thanksgiving is all about the dressing.
Our date was set for the following Friday.

I counted down the days, hours and minutes as if I were five years old and waiting for Santa to slide down the chimney. As the big day drew closer, I half expected Grant to call and say he was having second thoughts and was afraid he wouldn't be able to keep our date. It certainly would have alleviated a great deal of pressure if he had. By Friday, I was a nervous wreck.
I showered, shaved, primped and fussed with my hair until my scalp turned pink, cleaned my toenails, picked and flossed my teeth, sprayed cologne on every pulse point on my body and threw up three times.

All this fuss and bother certainly made me reassess my view of masturbation. With masturbation one didn"t even so much as need to put on clean underwear.
First dates are, in a manner of speaking, similar to cooking Flambe' del Fuego. You never know if you've made a mistake until you bite into it. This is where alcoholic beverages come in handy. Given enough to drink, a person can easily mistake an Alpo Beef Chunk date for a dinner at the Ritz. Even if the date is a complete disaster from start to finish, you can continue drinking until the other person becomes incredibly fascinating or you pass out. Grant showed up with two bottles of wine.

I don't recall whether Grant and I were having a lousy date or simply preparing ourselves for the main course. Whichever was the case, we finished off the two bottles of wine in less time than it takes Sinead O'Connor to style her hair.

I have to admit, Grant was not the only one to have prepared for our first evening together. I had also purchased two relatively large bottles of White Zinfandel. By the end of the third bottle, we were beginning to build up quite a momentum and the date was becoming increasingly intimate. Considering we no longer made sense to one another, this was one of the few options remaining. Several glasses into the fourth liter, we became convinced the floor was tilted, the furniture was moving and Roola Lenska was a drag queen.

We were drunk. Plowed, gassed, bombed, canned, pickled and schnockered. We were also out of wine.

I was down to one functioning brain cell by now, yet regardless how intoxicated I became, I couldn't grasp why this god in human flesh was spending time with me. I couldn't shake the feeling that I was a duck with a clipped wing and he was this beautiful swan gliding effortlessly across a glassy pond. Yet, there was something profoundly sad about him as though someone had tied a large cow bell around his neck and carrying the added weight around for so many years had obviously become increasingly tiresome. I suppose the strange truth about cowbells is that, in a sense, we all have one. They awkwardly gong and clank and bang at inopportune moments throughout our lives. Some are very small ones. Others are so large and cumbersome, one can barely been seen behind it let alone move about with any degree of
freedom. The lucky ones carry theirs on the inside, but some people are much less fortunate. Some people can only wear them on the outside.

The next thing I knew, it was three-thirty in the morning and Grant was talking about a friend of his, whom he was certain had a bottle of wine stored in the trunk of his car. For all I cared, Grant could have told me there was a jigger of Ripple at the bottom of Lake Erie and I would have agreed to go snorkeling for it.

It was as though Samantha Stevens had twitched her nose. Grant and I were instantly en route to his friend's parked automobile. Grant stated three important facts; A) this was a very good friend of his, B) his friend never locked the trunk of his car, and C) he would explain the missing bottle of wine to him the next day.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

The trunk was locked. Grant wanted that bottle of wine. I had fallen out of the open car door and was lying in the gutter with my head propped against the curb.

Grant helped me to my feet. "I'm going to wake him up."

I surveyed the ground. "Have you seen my other shoe?"

"What time is it?" Grant slurred.

"Almost four o"clock."

"Shit. He'll kill me if I wake him up this early."

"Oh well, it was a nice idea while it lasted," I said while staggering back to the car. Grant grabbed my hand and wheeled me to the back of his car. "I have a better idea," he said while unlocking the trunk. The street light illuminated the barren interior as Grant lifted the lid.
I leaned forward and peered inside. "How did my shoe get in there?"

Grant slapped my hand. "Not your shoe. This," he exclaimed, holding up a crow bar.
And with the crowbar in hand, Grant waltzed to his friend's parked car and commenced to pry the trunk open. It didn"t strike me as being odd behavior at the time. I just assumed Grant had a very understanding friend who didn't give a shit about his car.

We returned home with our trophy and drained it dry by 5:30 A.M. I can only surmise that we then went to Grant's apartment because I woke up in his bed at noon.

I rolled over and lightly ran my fingers through his tousled hair. It was a scene right out of The Way We Were, when Barbra Streisand finally snares Robert Redford between the sheets. Grant shifted in close to me and placed a warm kiss on my neck. A brief smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. And as I lay there, watching the early afternoon sun filter through his bedroom window, I felt a thousand emotions stir in the flash of an instant. I think that's when I knew a day would arrive when those beautiful, misty watercolor memories would become too painful to remember.

Continued........