Some Unpornographic Backstory

Spotted Dicks – Part II

I couldn’t exactly watch gay porn when my mom and dad were home, so I started printing out pictures and hiding them upstairs in my room. These were painfully low-res images of dudes self-gratifying or engaging in partnered activities, many of which appeared to be shot in someone’s living room in the Czech Republic.

For the most part, these guys were stocky, blonde, and uncircumcised — a highly targeted group I believed to be engineered by God to make my privates tingle. To make the experience more intimate, I’d give each guy a name and a very unpornographic backstory. There was Hans who made jewelry out of scrap copper wire. Derek, a former game show model. Tripp, a shy insurance salesmen. Luigi, a mobster’s son. And then there was Hamilton, who had pecs like two skillets and blue eyes that saw past my acne and red hair. I imaged that Hamilton worked nights at a steel mill and used the money earned from porn to chip away at the mounting hospital bills from his little brother’s leukemia treatment. He was kind to animals and brought his own canvas bags to the Latvian Whole Foods Market. Plus, his dick was like plop.

With anywhere between four and twelve of these gentlemen spread out on the floor of my room, I’d prop myself up on one elbow and get to work with my free hand. When I was finished, I’d fold each picture eight ways before cramming them into a tin X-Men lunchbox I kept behind the bottom drawer of my dresser. No one came into my room anyway, but I just wanted to be cautious. And just short of a Harry Potter concealing charm, my private stash was pretty well-hidden.

In the summer of 2002, I attended a weeklong wrestling camp at Appalachian State University, returning home to find my bedroom slightly modified. TV shows like Trading Spaces, Surprise By Design, and While You Were Out were really big at the time and I’m guessing my parents thought they could pull off a covert redesign without the aid of a professional team or a budget. So they tried and they failed. They opted for a Japanese motif — complete with globular paper lanterns and a Buddha statue with the barcode from World Market still on the bottom. Gone were the bunk beds, replaced with a black futon, and on the walls hung gesture drawings from my freshman art class in cheap plastic frames. My bedroom was now devoid of natural light because my father, who I’d never even seen hold a hammer, built a “privacy screen” out of muslin and plywood and retrofitted it into my window frame. I tried to ask my parents questions like Why does my room look like a prison cell in sushi jail? and Do you guys dislike me? But all that came out was “Hey, this is pretty cool.”

They looked proud of themselves so I gave them each a hug and mentally made plans to move things bit-by-bit to the trashcan in my backpack, beginning the next day. My dad turned and left, leaving my mom and me alone. I threw my suitcase onto my bed and told her I was exhausted. She said, “Okay. Also, I found that lunchbox under your dresser and looked at all the pictures in it. I almost threw up in the toilet.” And without even waiting for me to look up, she left the room.

A few weeks later, I checked to see if she’d taken the lunchbox, which she didn’t. But I never had the courage to open the latch and look inside it. All because I couldn’t ever see those Czech guys — mostly Hamilton — the same way again.

"But I miss you!"
The actual Hamilton circa 2002