Naptown 24 - A Blizzard in Iowa - 1. Introduction

A Blizzard in Iowa

A Naptown Tale by Altimexis

As my eyes fluttered open, I couldn’t help it that a huge grin split my face when I spied the sleeping form of my boyfriend. Even after a month, he still looked like a perfect angel to me.

In the tumultuous days that followed my return from Washington, I never thought I’d find happiness. My life had been wrecked - totally wrecked. I’d gone to Washington a young gay man in hiding, my beautiful girlfriend at my side. I’d known from the moment I first met her that she was trouble, but she was from a good family and, as my parents had made clear, her family’s political connections could take me far. ’Course we had some pretty powerful connections of our own, not the least of which was Rohm Emanuel, a longtime family friend and the President’s chief of staff. It was Rohm who got me my summer internship at the White House. Yeah, I thought that internship was going to be my ticket to the future. Boy, was I wrong.

I knew Sherrie had a problem with drugs even before we became lovers, but at least in Chicago, with her having her own place, I could keep her cocaine habit at arm’s length. When she moved into my apartment at the Watergate, there was no way to keep her behavior under control. The first time she OD’ed, I got lucky. I had a group of high school boys with me that I was mentoring. David Reynolds and Jeremy Kimball were in a special program interning at the White House, and their friends, Trevor Austin and Kurt DeWitt, were paging in the Senate. I hated to see them get dragged into the mess, but David’s quick thinking likely saved me from a drug conviction - he made sure I got rid of Sherrie’s stash before the police arrived – and Jeremy likely saved her life by securing her airway and performing basic first aid.

It was just as well they weren’t around the second time she OD’ed, as she was already brain dead by the time I found her. Sadly, she remains in a persistent vegetative state to this day. She can’t breathe on her own, nor eat, nor speak, nor even control her most basic bodily functions. Of course her parents blame me for everything - never mind that I never touched cocaine myself - well, not since I first met their daughter at the University of Chicago and became involved in the party scene with her, and even then, it was only occasional use - it was her habit.

If it hadn’t been for meeting those four boys - David, Jeremy, Trevor and Kurt - my life truly might have been over, but those boys taught me a lot about myself. Even though they were younger than I, they were much more comfortable with who they were. Being gay, David and Jeremy had been an out couple for two years. Surprisingly, David had been elected his class president two years in a row, the second time by acclamation. David was unlike any other gay person I’d ever met - all four of them were, but David was truly unique. He has a sparkling personality, a quick wit, and amazing skills as a debater - the quintessential politician. He will be president someday, in spite of his sexual orientation. I witnessed him go head-to-head with Obama, and it wasn’t even close, even by Obama’s admission.

His boyfriend, Jeremy, is no slouch, either. Jeremy is probably more knowledgeable, even if a bit on the shy side, but I saw him step to the forefront when the need arose and he can really throw verbal punches with the best of them, too. Both David and Jeremy are quite athletic, and tall. Trevor’s a real computer geek, but with surprisingly good social skills, and Kurt’s a gay evangelical Christian. I never knew there was such a thing before I met Kurt, but he has a photographic memory and knows the Bible and a host of other religious texts like the back of his hand. On top of that, he was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for his bravery in saving some kids when he was only fourteen, and for going on to counsel kids about rape and abuse after he became a victim himself.

Yeah, those boys are something. Anyway, they taught me how to be comfortable being myself - in my own gay skin. It was also David’s suggestion that there’s more than one way to achieve political power. There’s the direct way, and an indirect way.

I was always focused on the direct way - attending Pre-Law at the University of Chicago with an eye toward continuing my Law studies there or at Harvard or Yale, then clerking in the Supreme Court or maybe working as a public defender or assistant D.A. in a major city, and then working my way up the chain of political office from assemblyman to governor or senator and eventually to president. I thought that was the way it had to be done.

David showed me there’s another way - a scholarly way. Instead of approaching politics directly, I could become a legal scholar, advancing through the halls of academia at the finest law schools in America. Instead of being a governor or a senator, I would teach the people who would become our nation’s top political leaders - people who would one day be in a position to make appointments to the bench. As long as I published valuable, scholarly opinions in the top legal journals, the chances were good that I could one day be recognized for a top judicial appointment, perhaps even to the Supreme Court, perhaps even by President David Reynolds.

Yes, the direct approach might have been closed to me for the time being, but the indirect approach to political power was definitely wide open, and it was at least as promising as the one I’d been pursuing. Not only that, being a legal scholar, there was absolutely no reason I couldn’t be myself and marry the man of my dreams - the man who was lying right next to me now.

Meeting Brian was a real turning point in my life - it was hard to believe it happened just three weeks ago. I’d been sitting in a coffee shop reading my Econ text when this boy I hardly knew asked if he could sit with me. I recognized him from class, but our class sizes were so humongous that there was no way I could have gotten to know him there. The moment our eyes locked, I knew he was the man I was going to marry. His face was the face of an angel - slightly round, but certainly not fat by any means. He has the most beautiful dark blond, curly hair, amazing deep blue eyes and he wears these round bronze-rimmed glasses that complement his face perfectly. He has a killer smile with dazzling, straight white teeth.

So there I was, still in the closet but ready to come out, and this amazingly beautiful guy asked to sit at my table. When we introduced ourselves and he mentioned that his name was Brian Philips, the same name as that of a well-known kid who had killed himself, he told me not to freak out - that the only thing he had in common with that other kid, besides the name, was that he’s gay. Whoa! So I decided the time and place to come out was then and there, and I told him he was the man I was going to marry. We haven’t spent a day apart ever since.

Talk about love at first sight - he felt the same way about me that I felt about him! We talked until the early morning hours, until they had to throw us out of that coffee shop because the place was closing! I don’t think either of us wanted to part, but we were both too nervous to invite the other to spend the night, so I finally summoned all the courage I had and invited Brian back to my apartment.

Little did I realize what a hornet’s nest I would open up with that invitation, as Brian lived with his ’rents in Oak Park. They knew he was gay and in principle knew he’d want to date other guys, but spending the night with some boy they didn’t know was a big deal, and they’d certainly want to get to know their son’s suitor. What a fiasco that turned out to be, however, now I remember it fondly. . . .

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