Free Party of One by Dave Holmes

loneliness that I can only call
hornliness.
The campus’s situation on the side of a massive hill in central Massachusetts forced everyone walking class-to-class and party-to-party to tackle inclines and stairs, which meant that there were alarmingly shapely thighs and calves as far as the eye could see, but none for me to touch. There was literally not one openly gay student or faculty member. It was like being starving and penniless outside a Krispy Kreme that’s just lit its HOT DOUGHNUTS NOW sign. Excruciating.
    Luckily for me, there was some rock-solid yearning music in 1991. The bands coming out of Boston sounded the way a sweater feels. They were autumn in aural form. I had The Lemonheads, The Blake Babies, Juliana Hatfield, and Buffalo Tom on a constant loop in my head and my Volkswagen Jetta.
    On the other hand, there was also an entire Suzanne Vega album called
99.9F°
that was largely a concept album about AIDS, and I had a scorching case of HIV-infection paranoia. I’d occasionally been brave enough to drive myself down to Boston and explore the gay bars, where I met a handful of guys from other, more diverse schools. I hooked up with a couple of them over the course of a few months—just innocent, over-the-jeans kind of stuff—but I was so skittish and so poorly informed that I became convinced I was HIV-positive, and the fear drowned out the thrill. There was nowhere on campus to get tested because Holy Cross was a Catholic school, and I couldn’t even conceive of the level of panic I’d face waiting to get a result at the free clinic, and then what if someone drove past while I walked in? Then they’d know, then
everyone
would know. Staying terrified at all times and pretending everything was great felt like the wiser option. My full AIDS action plan was to steer clear of that Suzanne Vega album.
    I wanted to be out of the closet for one reason and one reason only: to find a boyfriend. I wanted to send up a flare, a signal that said “I’m here and I’m gay and everything’s fine,” and if anyone saw it and came to find me, the fact that everything was not at all fine wouldn’t even matter anymore, because we’d have each other.
    I was too afraid to do it. But I had to do something.
    The only thing I could think of was to write an anonymous letter to the school newspaper,
The Crusader.
I could tell my story. I could reveal that I was here, an actual homosexual, walking among the rest of the student body. And I could withhold my actual name. And then I could listen closely for everyone’s reactions. I could force a conversation.
    So I wrote the letter.
    I agonized over the wording. I was determined not to sound sad or terrified, although I was. I avoided anything that might make it sound like I had anything approaching sexual feelings, as though I were not an anthropomorphic cartoon boner at every minute of every day. I was very careful not to sound like a human being with needs; it was too risky. I dropped the letter into the campus mailbox and I waited.
    And they published it, word for word. It was right there when the paper came out Friday morning, dead center in the op-ed section. I have typed it out and included it here in full, and it is all I can do not to type in little interjections from the present day. Things like “I KNOW,” and “SOMEONE PLEASE HELP THIS BOY,” and “SOMEONE PLEASE SLAP THIS BOY.”
To the editor:
    This may very well be the first letter this publication has ever received which has been inspired by a correction. Recently, a correction ran which stated that the recent forum on Gay and Lesbian rights was not the first time homosexuality was addressed on campus, that indeed two years ago a forum on sexuality was held, and that homosexuality was discussed there. The more I thought about that fact, the more absurd it seemed. Homosexuality has been discussed openly twice in 148 years at this school. There’s something wrong with that. I love Holy Cross, normally I