My dad was fifty-five when he passed in 1985.  That was way too young, and it was way too selfish of him.  He denied us the joy of seeing him grow old, and he never got to see his grandchildren grow up.  I have an older brother and sister.  I’m the youngest of three, and I was twenty-five when my dad transitioned to a higher plane.  My brother and sister were both married when Dad died, and they had young children.  I was single and gay. 

Dad was very sick at the end, and nobody asked me to do so, but I took over his caregiving.  So many of my gay friends took care of their sick parents at the end, that I always said that the luckiest of all parents were those who had a gay child.  I never understood why so many of them kicked their gay children out of the house.

I stayed with him for seven months, ministering to all his needs.  I tried to make him as comfortable as possible, but he was in such pain, it was a practically impossible task.  Most of the time he was so drugged up, I doubt he knew who he was, where he was, and worst of all, who I was.

His disease was a great surprise to us, his children.  We conjectured for hours how he might have contracted pneumocystis pneumonia, a pneumonia associated with AIDS.  Dad had AIDS and we were shocked.  He didn’t take drugs, and he had not had any blood transfusions, so there was only one conclusion.  We had no proof, and certainly we had no hint that his behavior was anything but heterosexual.  Nonetheless, we had to accept the fact; he was infected with the disease, and we had to stop second guessing how he might have contracted it.

The mystery was cleared up eventually, and then I had a new enigma.  Should I tell my brother and sister, or should I keep Dad’s secret?  The answer was simple.  The truth was just that; it was Dad’s secret, and I vowed to honor his wishes.

Not only was I his caregiver at the end, but I spent another couple of months disposing of his worldly goods.  Dad left me his condo, but I chose to sell it.  To do that, I had to clean it out and clean it up.  In the process, I found his diary.  It was in plain sight, lying in his desk drawer.  I hesitated for a nano-second, wondering if I should read it, thinking it would be an invasion of his privacy.  But my curiosity got the best of me, and I opened his journal.

The first thing I did was to glance at the earliest and last entries.  The first entry was in 1945, on his fifteenth birthday.  The last was dated a few months after he became ill.  I settled into an easy chair, and began to read.  It took me five hours to read the whole journal.  Dad did not have the best handwriting, and there were sections I struggled with.  I couldn’t possibly reproduce the whole journal for you, but I will record the few entries which solved the big mystery.

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Jan.5, 1945:  My folks made me a birthday party yesterday.  I feel guilty about that.  After all, the war is still waging in Europe and Asia.  I will say this, however; it was very low key.  I only invited four of my best friends.  Three of them went home soon after the party was over, but Tony, my very best friend, stayed over.  We were going to have a sleepover like when we were kids.  I know we are a little old for sleepovers, but we are like brothers, and I see nothing wrong in it.

In bed, we both wore jockey shorts.  Tony told me that he was horny, and he started to jerk off.  I joined him, and then we decided to do each other.  I had never held another guy’s dick in my hands before.  I loved the feel of it.  When it was over, and we both came, Tony asked me if I’d like to do it again sometime.  I told him as often as he would like.

May 8, 1945:  The German’s have surrendered.  Besides that great news, Tony and I have been going at it steadily since my birthday.  It feels so good.

Aug.15, 1945:  The Japs have surrendered.  Hallelujah!  Even if I get drafted, there’s no war to worry about now.  Last night Tony and I tried something new.  Instead of jerking each other off, we sucked each other until we both had an orgasm.  It just gets better and better.  I swallowed Tony’s spunk, but he spit mine out.  Who cares?

Jan.1, 1946:  Tony and I got a wee bit drunk at Tom’s New Year’s Eve party last night.  He slept over, and we tried something daring.  We fucked each other.  It was the best sex ever. I can’t wait to do it again.  My folks told me that I was too old for a birthday party, and they weren’t going to make one for me this year.  Instead, Tony and I agreed to hang out at the new mall, which just opened up.

Jan.4, 1946:  Tony and I were enjoying a hot dog at the mall on my sixteenth birthday.  I asked him if he wanted to sleep over, and play.  He looked shy, and told me that he was seeing a girl, and he didn’t think it was appropriate anymore.  I’ll just have to take care of myself in bed tonight, and the foreseeable future.  I’m not aware of any other guys who would want to have sex with me.

Jan.4, 1948:  The government is offering eighteen year olds a one year enlistment, but you have to give back four years in the active reserve or six years in the inactive reserve.  I’m going to enlist in the navy.  I don’t want to be living in a tent on some field.  I’ll sign up for the six year program.

Feb.2, 1948: I leave for boot camp tomorrow at Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Illinois.  This is the last journal entry I’ll make until I am discharged.  I don’t want the information in this journal to get out.  God knows what would happen to me in the service if anybody found out that I would rather have sex with a guy than a girl.

Feb.15, 1949: I got my discharge, and I am applying to NYU for the fall semester.  Things have been hectic, but I have finally found some time to write down my adventures of the past year.  Let me say that I had one wonderful encounter with another sailor.  It was real grown up sex, and it was glorious.  Other than that one time, I remained a virgin.  I didn’t even have sex with a woman.

I went through boot camp for three months, and then I was assigned to hospital corpsman school, also in Great Lakes.  That’s where I had my one glorious adventure.  I just wish we had been sober.  I would have enjoyed it more.  I spent the next six months assigned to The Philadelphia Naval Hospital.  I had one good friend there, who was dishonorably discharged, when he was caught having sex with an officer.  Had he come on to me, I most certainly would have yielded.  I’m lucky; I got out clean.

June 25, 1950:  We have gotten ourselves into yet another skirmish in some distant Asian land called Korea.  My reserve unit will most certainly get activated.  If so, I will have to retire my journal again, until after my discharge.

Sept. 1, 1952:  I was indeed reactivated a few days after I made my last journal entry.  I was immediately assigned to the Marine Corps, and shipped off to Korea.  I, who joined the navy so I wouldn’t have to live in a tent on some dirty field, was living in one after all.  To add insult to injury, our camp was shelled constantly every day.  It was everything I had hoped to avoid.  My unit was called up for two years.  I was discharged on July1.  Not only was I sent back to civilian life, but I was discharged from the reserves as well.  The government felt that I had more than fulfilled my duty.

Tony and his fiancée made me a welcome home party, where I met a girl, Roseanne.  She was very attractive, and when we danced, she pulled me tight and rubbed against me.  I kept trying to pull back, but after a while, I gave in.  I pushed into her, and I got a hard-on.  I couldn’t believe a girl had aroused me.  When she felt my hard cock pushing against her body, she sighed and said, “Thank God.  I thought there was something wrong with you.”  I’ve been dating her for a few weeks now, and she is giving me a severe case of blue balls.  She gets me all worked up, but has let me know that she won’t have sex until after she is married.

Finally, I couldn’t take it any longer.  Yesterday, I went to Greenwich Village.  I told my folks that I wanted to speak to admissions at NYU about my remaining two years of college.  I did that, but afterwards, I went to a bar I had heard about.  An older man approached me, and propositioned me.  I said yes, and went home with him.  I won’t repeat in detail what we did, but we kissed (a lot), rimmed, sucked, edged, fucked, and you name it.  I was never so happy in my life.  I went home vowing never to see Roseanne again, and knowing I would.  I am just too ashamed of being a fairy.

Jan.1, 1953:  Last night I went to a New Year’s Eve party.  I asked Roseanne to marry me, and she accepted.  She let me dry hump her while we were dancing, and I came in my pants.  What a freaking mess.  We set the date for June 3 of this year.

Mar. 16, 1953:  I know I’m getting married soon, and all that, but I can’t resist the urge to have sex with a man.  Last night I called Cary.  He’s the guy who picked me up at that bar in The Village.  I went to his apartment, and he made me one happy fella.  He said that I did the same to him.  We didn’t just have sex, we kissed (a lot) and I went home.  I know I should feel guilty but I don’t.

June 4, 1953:  I got married yesterday, and much to my delight, I was able to get it up for the occasion.  I guess that comes from infrequent sex.

May 1, 1954:  My first wedding anniversary is coming up, but I can’t resist anymore.  I called Cary and he agreed to see me last night.  I told Roseanne that I had to work late.  I had a ball with Cary.  We discovered that we both love ass-fucking the best.  We went back and forth, delaying our orgasms as long as possible.  When I felt his spunk shooting up my ass, it was like a religious experience.  He has agreed to see me every Wednesday evening.  I’ll tell Roseanne that I’m in a poker game with some of the guys at the office.  She won’t care.  We hardly have sex anyway.  I am really grateful that she isn’t too keen on sex.  The house and our new baby keep her busy, and sap her energy.

Aug. 2, 1972:  Cary has been bugging me for years to leave Roseanne and move in with him.  But I have three young kids ranging in age from twelve to eighteen years old.  I asked Cary to be patient with me until the last one leaves the nest.  He said that he wasn’t getting any younger, and he couldn’t wait that long.  He dumped me after all those years.  Now I’ll have to hit the bars again on my Wednesday nights out.

Aug. 9, 1972:  I went to a bar in Greenwich Village last night.  I was hit on almost immediately by a handsome guy in his mid-thirties.  Why not?  Everyone tells me that I am very attractive.  I went home with him.  He didn’t want to get fucked, but he had no trouble fucking me, and that was just fine with me.

Dec. 20, 1972:  Less than five months after Cary dumped me, Roseanne did the same.  She said that she was getting tired of living like a nun.  She wants a divorce so she can marry some guy she met.  I had actually deluded myself into believing she didn’t care for sex.  That was pure wishful thinking.  She politely invited me to leave the house, and get an apartment of my own.  I said that I would miss the kids too much, and she told me that I could see them as much as I want to.  No court orders would be necessary.  Well, I am certainly not going to miss Roseanne.  Now I can go to the bars and the baths whenever I want to.  I’m going to look for a two bedroom condo near work and near The Village.  The second bedroom will be for the kids should any care to honor me with an overnight stay.

June 14, 1973:  It’s been almost six months since I’ve been on my own, and I love it.  In the past six months, I have sucked more cocks than I can count, and been corn holed by more pricks than I can remember.  Why the fuck did I get married in the first place?  The kids don’t seem to want to spend any time with me, except my younger son.  He prefers to be with me rather than his mother, and I love having him around when he sleeps over.

Sept. 22, 1981:  My youngest kid turned twenty-one yesterday.  I took him out for his birthday, and he slept over.  During dinner, he came out to me, and admitted that he was gay.  I wanted to tell him about me, but I didn’t have the courage.  He was just happy that I was behind him all the way, and that I couldn’t love him more.  On the bright side, even though I am fifty-one years old, I have no trouble scoring at the baths and the bars, but I know I’ll have to slow down eventually.

Jan. 1, 1982:  I went to a New Year’s Eve party last night.  Everybody there was gay of course.  The main topic of conversation was about some cancer-like disease which was spreading mostly among gay men.  Some experts have suggested that using condoms might help prevent the disease.  I swear.  I’ll never use those things.  Where’s the fun in that?

November 20, 1984:  Well, it’s official.  I have been diagnosed with the HIV virus.  I must say that I have taken my death sentence very well.  My ex-wife is happily married.  My two older children are married with children of their own.  My youngest is still sowing wild oats as a gay man.  I pray that he is using protection and being cautious.  I have no regrets.  I have enjoyed life, and none of my kids, and none of my straight friends, suspect a thing about me.  I go to the grave free of all burdens.

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There are only three more entries in Dad’s journal, written shortly before his death on June 3, 1985.  Ironically, he died on his wedding day.  The entries are mostly the ramblings of a dying man in the midst of dementia.  I promised myself that I will never tell my brother and sister that Dad was gay.  They are having a hard enough time accepting the truth about me.  I wrapped the journal in old newspapers, and threw it out with the garbage.

So here it is 2017.  I am pushing fifty-seven, so can sixty be far behind?  I am married now to my wonderful husband, Greg.  I have wanted to tell Greg a hundred times that my dad was gay, but I always chicken out, even though I trust him to keep the secret.  I’m sorry now that I destroyed the diary.  Rather than tell him, he could have read it himself, plus dozens of other little secrets Dad confided to his diary.

Posted: 12/30/16