These ones, born “out,” went genially overlooked thanks to good behavior. They hailed from decent families; they told welcome if unrepeatable jokes to generations of mayors’ wives. They were clever from surviving. And—if their humor was weekend-excessive—their lives stayed weekday-useful to Falls, North Carolina. The Boys accepted who they’d been assigned to be.

True, they might flaunt their sexuality’s effervescent side effects, but they had the sense to do the sex deed (if do it they must, and you guessed they probably must) well out of state. Sure, they got teased, and daily. Did they even hear the rednecks’ sidewalk chorus—“Sister Man,” “Miss Sump Pump,” “Nellie Belle,” “Velveeta”? Yes. But otherwise no one bothered these vamping mutant versions of Falls’s “good old boys.”

“The Boys are inseparable,” ran one tired local joke, “except with a crowbar.”

An artistic aunt of mine spoke fondly of these three best pals; she bought the floral arrangements of one, marveled at the Sunday Wurlitzer crescendi of another, and—from a third—received (under the counter) steamy best-sellers concerning tobacco-growing, oversexed hillbillies.

“Judging The Boys against our town’s gray businessmen, why, there’s just no contest, is there? It’d be like comparing, oh, a cuckoo clock, say, with some wall-mounted round thing, just any ole modernish GE school clock. You can get the time from both, but the cuckoo one’ll give you real fun every fifteen minutes. Never scared of a little drama. Whereas the other is just putting in his time … just up there.”

The married fellows that our cops caught were simply trying to outwit their molten (uncontainable) secret. Failing that, many hoped just to outlive it. Couldn’t you slowly lose the central urge toward men, the way your waistline painlessly eventually dispersed?

Your wife, your kids sat inches away; and who would know that, while this service-station attendant shot white foam across your car window, as this punk (whose cap read “Fill ’er Up, Mister?”) toyed with your long floppy windshield wiper, who’d ever need know that you studied such drenching—not to catch a smudge on green glass—but to observe, through it, the beautiful brown ligaments in a perfect, working, young, male, arm.

Desperation for actual sex with living men led some of our brightest locals (ones with law degrees, ones passionate for clever Civil War battle strategy) direct into the crudest traps.

And the very nanosecond queer news got out, these guys fell forever.

II. A Man’s Man

I so admired Dan R——. He golfed with Dad. They often partied. He must’ve sold insurance or real estate (I never saw Dan actually working).

Father’s friends arrived at our house, en route to golf. Our home stood in sight of the club’s first hole. Foursomes gathered on our porch, drank there, paced, awaiting today’s tardy partner.