I remember feeling like I needed it. I remember thinking
that it was something I had to have, had to see. If nothing
else, I could blow it off and say that I was experimenting.
No-that's not right because I knew even then that I was gay.
Maybe it was the action of going to buy the Playgirl which
would finally prove to myself, really show my core that I
was in fact gay and that it wasn't just the curiosity I was
trying to make it out to be. But I do know it was the first
thing I ever did out of my own desire. Buying the magazine
was the first time I allowed myself to fantasize without
shame. My parents had nothing to do with this decision.
Buying that Playgirl that Saturday afternoon was the first
act of revolution against the omnipresent heterosexism, the
first battle I won, even if I did get a little bloody in the
fight.

We were on our summer vacation, taking a week out,
staying in Calistoga, the Dell family resort of Northern
California. They have mud baths there and hot springs and
the weather is hot and dry enough to dry a dripping towel in
two hours. My dad loved the summer heat and took us along
for the ride.

I can't remember why Graham couldn't go on this trip. It
was odd-the first trip I took without my brother. That left
my dad, my mom and I on the dive up the coast. By the time
we reached the hotel, I already missed Graham, even though
all we would have done is fight. But he would have kept me
company, entertained me. I had only myself and my books. My
parents were escaping in food, cigarettes, and booze. I also
remember I swam a lot that week, just me, alone in the
pool.

Two years before, we had been in this same resort during
the 1984 Olympics. I would have been eleven then. I was
masturbating even then and I remember being surprised when
men started entering my mind right before climax. I remember
seeing Greg Louganis and wanting him, his body, his sex. I
don't know if I could tell that he was gay like me; I just
found something sexy and mysterious about him. I tried
diving for the first time that summer.

The hotel room was familiar to me and comfortable. The
bathroom also reminded me of two years earlier and those
wonderful Summer Olympics when I first learned to love
another man's body. Those too-long stays in the bathroom and
my brother finally asking me what I did in there for so
long.

I think it was the second or third day of the trip that
I realized I needed the Playgirl. I remember thinking Now is
the perfect opportunity to do it. You're out of town. No one
you know is here. You can buy the Playgirl. You can feed
your desire.

It was then that I started badgering my parents. I want
to go to the mall, I said, the one in Santa Rosa. Alone. I
don't remember any more how I convinced them that I should
go alone, this 13 year old boy. But I was both resourceful
and paranoid which meant I could find just about any way of
covering up my actions. We planned the trip to the mall for
Saturday, the day before we were to leave for home.

The day they drove me into town, I could only think of
that magazine with the naked men. I don't understand how my
parents couldn't tell something was wrong. I stuttered when
they asked me questions and sat quietly tapping my foot in
the back seat. I remember my mom saying, "Be careful,"
though. My parents usually said, "Have fun," when they were
dropping me off somewhere; my dad stuck to that today. But
my mom changed her parting words to "Be careful." Maybe she
sensed enough to know something was wrong.

So there I was, this 13 year old gay kid with three
hours to kill in this strange city at this great mall with
50 stores. The only thing I could think about was that
damned magazine, the one with the hairy-chested fireman on
the cover, the one I'd been looking at for the past four
days as my parents and I passed by news stands.

I went straight for the B. Dalton on the first floor,
the one right by the entrance. Too many people. I waited
around, stealing glances of the hairy-chested cover model
and a headline about John Stamos. The three guys browsing at
the magazine rack wouldn't leave. I cut my losses and moved
on.

Waldenbooks, second floor, next to the Hot Dog on a
Stick. Magazine rack. Penthouse, Hustler, Playboy...no
Playgirl. Not anywhere. The store's empty, too. Need to more
on.

Back to B. Dalton. Empty now. Only the clerk and me.
He's reading something, not paying attention to me. I
reached up quickly and grabbed the magazine, thanking my
tallness. I rolled the magazine up in the tightest tube I
could, cover facing in so only the ad on the back showed. I
took the magazine to the counter for the final, most
emotionally brutal part, the part I had been envisioning all
week, the part which had kept me away from buying Playgirl
or anything like it for years.

I set the magazine on the counter in front of the clerk,
face down. The clerk-a pudgy guy three times my age-set down
his book and sighed in that I-gues-I-gotta-help-you-because-
they're-paying-me sorta way. He picked up the magazine,
turned it over, and looked for the price.

Then he saw the title.

He looked at me, looked at the title again. Looked at
me. Looked at the title. His head didn't move, only his
eyes, moving independently behind his glasses. He
frowned.

Then I said the line I had been rehearsing all week, the
line that was supposed to take away all the awkwardness, the
words which would ease the social situation and make
everything seem so normal.

"Funny what they make you buy on a scavenger hunt."

He didn't buy it. Not for a second. The frown didn't
become a smile like I had pictured. If anything, it
deepened, his dimples pressing further into his cheeks. He
looked at me again and our eyes met and neither of us moved.
We both knew the truth. Or maybe only he did.

The moment broke. He looked down to scan the magazine
into the cash register and I realized I could breath again.
I sucked in air like a drowning man. He was going to go
along with me. He was going to let me pay and get the
magazine-the one I needed so much, the one about my desire-
and he wasn't going to call the cops or (worse yet) my
parents. My "scavenger hunt" plan hadn't worked. Human
kindness prevailed.

I paid the man and thanked him. He never said a word to
me-just put the magazine into an opaque plastic bag and held
it out to me. As I grabbed the bag, I noticed he was smiling
now in a distant, politeness-only sorta smile that seemed to
scream to me, "It's your life, kid." I took the bag and
left.

I spent the remaining two hours forty-five minutes in a
stall in the upstairs men's room reading the Playgirl and-
yes-looking at the pictures of naked men. The Editor's
Letter that month was addressed to gay men, who she said
comprised ten percent of the Playgirl readership. I smiled
to myself, finally recognizing myself as part of that ten
percent.