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\seventeenpointroman
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Dear Joshua,

It's Sunday now. I'm back from Hell. 

Since you didn't call Saturday, and I found two hang-up's on my
answering machine, I assume your long-distance card dropped dead.
FUCK! What are we going to do! I didn't realize how much I rely on
our simple phone calls for my mental stability. I miss you!!!

When you called me Wednesday? at my fathers house\dots{} I'll have to
tell you about it. It's too much detail to put into a letter. He is
very strange, I never realized how  strange. Also I think he has
changed, not sure for better or worse -- either he's simply becoming
totally a-social (very, very likely) or he's about to make a big
change (I'm doubtful).

You were {\it so} talkative when you called me then! It was great! You
sounded pretty happy. I'm glad your mother/grandmother's visit worked
out OK. (Did you get a leather jacket yet?!) I love the sound of your
voice, and it was so perfect to hear you especially then. I felt a
little bit uncomfortable talking about anything intimate; not
just-because my father was sitting three feet away, but because of the
very strange person he is. It seemed\dots{} so voyeuristic somehow,
him being there.

My father has always had very bad social habits (don't say anything!),
I mean like excessively sexual remarks in completely inappropriate
circumstances. About 80\% simply fucked up shit, 20\% closety coverup
(I now realize). A bad combination. My brothers Karl and Frankie, and
Anne, all have told him to not come around. My mother avoids him. He
has this friend Joe, who seems like a cool guy (I'm immediately
suspicious\dots()!). His description of their friendship is rather
odd; it includes some rather frank intimacy (non-sexual I gather) but
Joe has a girlfriend. I think both of them are closet bi's. Sheesh.
Dear old dad's also been leaving things out, like fooling around on
the side, for years back (hardly a big surprise, having a reasonable
idea of both parent's dysfunctional sexualities). He worked for the
U.S.~Geological Survey, which involved sailing a survey ship (large)
to various places, like Puerto Rico and Africa. He related stories of
visiting whore houses and fag-run beach-side villas both. The missing
details screamed loudly. 

Well I'm glad I went I guess. I basically went to untangle just
exactly what my relationship is, and what obligations I have to him
regarding his coming out (if any) and all that sort of thing. Answer:
not many. It's all his own responsibility and his own mess. I will
feel far more comfortable in the future not taking part in his
craziness. I won't feel guilty if I have to cut him off, I guess is
the worst-case bottom line (which isn't likely, but now I know what
it is). Catastrophe planning!

My mother is OK. She's certainly odd too though. She and my brother
Frankie live in the house they bought. She's recorded over 5,000
dreams, and is a ``positive thinking'' addict. East Coast version of
Newage. There's worse things I guess. Frankie is odd (surprise),
hasn't had a girlfriend in years, though he seems to be quite hetero.
He works at a bookstore, goes to school (chemistry) and does
genealogy stuff digging dirt on our family (sheesh).

Gregg is my youngest brother. He has a serious drinking problem, but
he's starting to deal with it. He's smart as fuck, and working for
the technology company I used to 10 years ago. He's actually doing
OK, and my guess is he'll leave Cape Cod in a year or two, maybe to
San Jose or something. He'll probably visit here next year. Sensibly,
he avoids the rest of the family, generally.

I never looked up brother Karl, the white sheep of the family. He
lives on the Cape, is married to a woman who collects ``knick-knacks''
and all that. 

Anne lives in Boston, with her boyfriend of nine years, Rodney. They
have a kid. An amazingly smart and happy baby of seven months. The kid
is always happy. They love him and it's obvious. When Anne got
pregnant she stopped drinking all coffee, alcohol etc. (Still hasn't.)
Rodney is black, a wheeler-dealer type. He used to be involved in all
sorts of shady things, Anne too, prostitution, cocaine, stolen clothes
(?!), the local black and gay club scene (business end, both are quite
hetero). They weren't particularly destructive, luckily, no serious
drinking/drug problems or anything.  They've smartly parlayed it all
into ``legitimate''things and dropped the illegalities. We get along
just fine, though Rodney is slightly uncomfortable with ``fag''
things, he deals with it. They are both smart as hell and have an
openness about their relationship that's great. I don't worry about
Anne.

Apparently Eric (my brother in Atlanta, whom I get along with best,
and in many ways is the most sensible person in the family) was on
Cape Cod in August; his girlfriend of some years, Pam, was up
visiting family in the area, and they dropped by. I heard from Mum
that he was pissed off by something or other there. I'm sure! I'll
call him this week! Dirt! Dirt! Eric is cool. We both have good
bullshit detectors.

So. Like my family? (I think Dave Dictor's song ``My family's just a
little weird'' was written for them.) You just got the freshest,
in-depth dirt that anyone in the family's got, so it probably seems
completely insane. In fact, everyone (with the possible exception of
Dad) is fine to talk to, I mean, no one bites or anything. Like most
families in the U.S., you'd never know they were all so crazy. 

My mother did do a lot of good stuff though when we were kids. She
started seeing various therapist-types and doing the old self-help
trip way back. She got tired of all the old destructive shit. (If you
think {\it we're} nuts, I could tell you about {\it her} family.)
Most of us are pretty aware of the nonsense around us, and what it's
done to us. ``Family values'' sheesh.

Oh yeah, Dallas. It was OK I guess. About six of us were completely
out, ie.~wearing black T-shirts with giant pink triangles that said
``Gay/lesbian sysops in FidoNet''. Pretty unambiguous. A few closet
cases, including that oddball woman ex-cop from Louisiana I met in
Denver who kept asking about my piercings I probably told you about.

Scot and Erika from Santa Fe called today. (They arrived in San Fran
the day I left for Dallas!) We talked about nothing for an hour, and
Erika told me about a place we just gotta visit on a road trip. A
place called {\tt The ALE'INN}. In the middle of the Nevada desert,
150 miles north of Las Vegas, on Route 375, a motel and cafe. It is
full of alien-visitor/conspiracy stuff -- books, pictures, etc. Erika
ordered an ALIEN-BURGER. They're quite serious about it all. It had
the usual rednecks in it, but the alien obsession overrides it all.
We gotta go. They say to not miss it!

Everything is OK here. About as good as it gets without you here. I
miss you every day. I jerk off thinking of you, just your voice, or
seeing you in the room, or tying me down, cumming in my mouth, holding
on to you while you sleep. Just walking with you to the store.
Anything! Everything!! I miss your smell and your pee. I want to do
everything and nothing with you!

Call me collect, and I'll call you back. I will see if I can find a
``satellite number'' (ie.~telephone credit card number) and mail it to
you. I hope you don't mind this rambling letter. It's not very sexy.
I've been working all day and I'm kinda drained. My friend Neal is
gonna drop by to talk about some damn thing or other, I forget. Too
much computer junk today.


UGH! Diet and I saw a movie last night -- SNEAKERS. Skip it! What
garbage! We wouldn't even admit to seeing it when Greta asked. We
denied we even went out. It is REALLY BAD. River Phoenix is in it. He
looked embarrassed. With good reason! It's bloody fucken awful! And
the theater was completely packed. It was one of those yupscale
things. The dim-witted yup audience LAUGHED at all the incredibly
inane jokes. They chuckled at the cheap-shot cutesy scenes (such as
when this blind guy, driving a car, crashes into a wall -- BUMP!
CUTE!) GAGG!) Such shit! The plot continuity was given as much care as
THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE. Utterly impossible sequences, but you
don't care. I should have known better than to go out on a Saturday
night!

Well what a stoopid letter. I want to talk to you! I want to touch
you! I hate this long-distance shit! I hope you get that \$\$\$ soon.
Have you tried calling them with a story yet? My whole body and soul
aches for you constantly. I love you!!!


\bye