Sean was a Vet, some time in Nam, some action. He wore it on his shoulders but I couldn’t get anything out of him even if I tried. And I knew better, having had a father who rode the first waves at Iwo Jima and Okinawa that flooded him with black, brooding silence and scotch.
Then there was the fact that he was gay, not such a big deal in 1975 San Francisco but still very much of one in the military, honorably discharged or not. His sweet personality and open innocence kept trying to burst through the wall of what he had become and that was what caught me. That and his Black Irish curls and permanent five o’clock shadow framing his ivory white face and crowning an eruption of dense midnight body hair that boiled from a collar tight around the trunk of his neck, a simmering, shifting image teasing me with sparkling green eyes dancing their way into mine and taking me for one hell of a spin.
We first met at Buzby's one evening, the small, almost intimate disco on Polk Street. After a brief, leering exchange, he suggested we step out to the back parking and smoke a joint. We did and soon got very involved with each other, to such a point, in fact that the doorman, after he got a good, long, satiating look came over and informed us that the management of Buzby's would appreciate it if we desisted. We ended up at a cheap hotel room on Post Street, loud and drunk to hear shouts through the wall as soon as we walked in. We decided to take a shower in the bathroom shared by the room next door. The shower was not built in and had sheet metal walls that silently bent out when we leaned against them and banged back into shape when we stepped away. After about five minutes of passionate banging, the opposite bathroom door flew open and the next door occupant ripped open the shower curtain to deliver his ultimatum with such a hideous look on his face that we had no choice but to comply. In a supposed gay hotel, "fucking faggots!" hardly seemed a fitting parting comment. We slipped back into the bedroom and lightened our spirits with wild sex.
