Becoming Andy Hunsinger Read online

“On the contrary,” Austin said, “it stretches the back, preventing an injury or strain running might cause.”

  After shifting position, I tried the plow pose myself, but I couldn’t bring my toes to the ground behind me. My back simply wouldn’t stretch that far.

  “It takes practice,” Travis said. “Your body’s not flexible enough right now.”

  All four of us walked to the chain link fence. Gripping the fence with both hands, we each extended a leg behind us. Then we stretched the extended legs, applying pressure by pushing our upper body weight against the fence. After a minute, we changed legs and repeated the process. The backs of my thighs burned and twitched.

  “Stretching’s key to a good run,” Biff said. “You should always feel loose when you hit the track.”

  When the three took off running, they reminded me of a team of horses, Travis in particular. He ran fluidly. He kept his arms low and his hips didn’t move from side to side. He seemed to float above the track.

  My first lap wasn’t too bad. The track’s flexible surface prevented the jarring I’d experienced while running on a basketball or tennis court, and I chugged along, occasionally glancing at my wristwatch to be sure I kept a ten-minute per mile pace. Then, halfway through my second lap, my lungs began to burn, and then my knees wobbled. My heart pounded so hard I thought it might burst from my chest. I had to walk a minute or so before I recommenced running.

  During my final two laps, I tried to concentrate on my breathing and the pace of my strides, but with difficulty. No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t gather enough air into my lungs. Toward the end, my vision blurred and my legs grew rubbery.

  When I’d finished my fourth lap, I collapsed onto the infield grass. Chest heaving, I lay on my back and stared into the night sky.

  This isn’t fun; it’s torture.

  Once my heartbeat slowed and my breathing returned to normal, I sat up, just in time to see Biff, Austin, and Travis cruise past me. Biff waved and I waved back. Biff’s sweatshirt was dark in the armpits and in the small of his back, but he didn’t look tired at all; neither did his companions. They ran at a smooth pace, with their legs striding, their arms chugging, and I shook my head in wonderment.

  How did they do it?

  Following Biff’s advice, I dragged myself to my feet, and then I walked another lap around the track while Biff and his housemates finished their run. Afterward, when we hit the drinking fountains by the bleachers, I sucked water like a camel.

  “If you’ll join us here, every day,” Biff told me on the way to the parking lot, “your cardiovascular system will adjust pretty quickly. Soon, you’ll run three miles with no problem.”

  I wasn’t so sure about that, but while I drove home, I felt more relaxed than I normally did. All the tension had drained from my body and my mind. I sat at a stoplight on Monroe Street, watching Spanish moss beards sway among limbs of a towering live oak, and I felt almost drugged, as though I’d injected morphine or some other opiate. My limbs felt like Jell-O, but in a good way, and when the traffic light turned green I had to pinch myself back into reality before I pressed my car’s accelerator.

  I shook my head in amazement.

  Maybe this is the “runner’s high” Biff spoke of.

  I motored toward my apartment, ever so slowly. I hummed a tune while thinking of how much my life had changed since I’d met Jeff in Pensacola, several months before.

  What lay in store for me in the months ahead?

  ***

  Twenty-six students from the Rap Group, including myself, signed an application for recognition of the Alliance for Gay Awareness (AGA) by the university. We elected David Pettyfield our president and, because I majored in communications, the group elected me editor of our soon-to-be-published monthly newsletter.

  Regarding our petition, the Dean of Student Affairs said he didn’t have a choice in the matter. The university’s legal counsel had advised the dean he would violate our First Amendment and Equal Protection rights if he denied our request.

  In March 1977, the dean declared AGA an accredited student organization, and then the university assigned us a cramped office space in the student union. We would enjoy access to a photocopy machine and we’d participate in campus events, just like fraternities, the Hispanic Society, and the glee club.

  A columnist for the Tallahassee Democrat declared the Dean’s decision, “an appalling lack of judgment, an endorsement of deviant lifestyles.”

  The pastor at First Baptist Church on College Avenue told a news reporter, “The FSU campus is now officially Sodom and Gomorrah. Will homosexual orgies take place in the Student Union?”

  David Pettyfield told the Democrat, “I don’t know why people are so upset. We aren’t demons; we’re just a group of students who happen to be gay.”

  The AGA office wasn’t much. We shared a room with the Physically Challenged Seminoles, a student group with members who moved about campus using walkers or wheelchairs. The university provided us a desk and chair, a file cabinet, and a telephone with local service only -- no long distance. On the day we received our office key, we threw a party, complete with Hawaiian Punch and a tray of supermarket ginger snaps. Three-dozen people showed; they brought contributions of paper clips, pens and pencils, writing tablets, and a bulletin board. The owner of a local office supply store gave us stationery and a box of envelopes. Eddie’s parents contributed a roll of postage stamps and a battered Olivetti typewriter.

  A Rap Group member named Leonard made his living arranging displays for a local department store. Leonard contributed a male mannequin we named “Bruce.” Bruce wore a hula skirt and lei, along with a sailor’s cap. Standing at the AGA’s door, he held a sign.

  “Beware: you are entering a queer zone.”

  FSU’s student government occupied a large office, just down the hall. Buttoned-down political types passed by our door while the party took place; they sneaked glances in our direction when they did so. Curious expressions appeared on their faces, as though they’d witnessed a gruesome car wreck or an execution. Their gawking made me feel a bit strange, but still I felt a sense of pride in our accomplishment. We had our own territory now -- we dwelt among the “normal” people -- and so far no one had called us names or shot spitballs at us.

  Being different wasn’t so hard, was it?

  A guy in a wheelchair -- a Physically Challenged Seminole officer -- welcomed us. While munching on a ginger snap, he gazed at Bruce and shook his head.

  “This place is really a freak show now,” he said, “but I kind of like it.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  On a Wednesday evening, I met Bucky Buchholtz in his office at Capital City, a half-hour before the club’s March board meeting. I wore a blue blazer, khaki slacks, penny loafers, a button-down shirt, and a regimental necktie. Bucky wore a tweed jacket, an open-necked golf shirt, and dress pants. He sipped from a glass of Jim Beam and ice.

  We discussed the board members I’d face.

  “Your enemies are Tom Bannister and Kelly McCrae,” Bucky said. “Bannister’s a third-generation Tallahassean, a deacon at First Baptist, and a teetotaler. He probably hasn’t screwed his wife in twenty years. I’m sure he thinks subscribing to Penthouse magazine is a mortal sin.

  “McCrae’s Irish Catholic; he hobnobs with the bishop, never misses Sunday mass. His house looks like a shrine to Notre Dame’s football program; it’s even painted green and gold, no joke. A few years back, when McCrae visited Rome, he had an audience with the Pope. The guy probably has a rosary stuck up his ass.”

  I grimaced.

  “Any chance I can change their minds?”

  Bucky shook his head. “But there are five others who may listen to you, and that includes Ben Longstreet, the board’s chairman. He’s the president of Lewis State Bank; his grandfather was a Civil War general. Most board members follow Ben’s lead on controversial matters; they trust his judgment.”

  “How come?”

  Bucky tapped a p
encil against his desk pad.

  “Several years ago, a fellow named Stan Levy submitted an application for membership at Capital City. Levy was chief of staff at Tallahassee Memorial at the time, a highly respected surgeon. Levy’s application sat on the club’s waiting list for years; the board passed it over several times because Dr. Levy was a Jew.

  “Levy grew fed up with the situation. He wrote a letter to the Tallassee Democrat, accusing Capital City of anti-Semitism, and rightfully so. The rabbi at Temple Israel organized a protest at the club’s front gates, with picket signs and all. Hundreds of Jews showed up.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Ben Longstreet had just been elected to the board -- this was long before you came to work here -- and he made a formal motion at a board meeting, seeking approval of Levy’s application. He said something like, ‘We’re acting like Ku Klux Klansmen; it’s an embarrassment.’”

  “Did Levy get admitted?”

  Bucky chuckled deep in his throat.

  “His application was accepted -- by a four-to-three vote -- but then Levy withdrew his request for membership. He told the Democrat, ‘They can keep their goy golf club. I’ll play the municipal course instead.’”

  “Are there other board members with an open mind?”

  Bucky swiveled back and forth in his desk chair. He twirled a pencil in his fingers.

  “On this issue it’s hard to say -- board members don’t talk about gay rights in the clubhouse lounge -- but Kate Bonner’s a firecracker; she’s the first woman ever elected to the Capital City board. Trust me: she won’t take shit off mossbacks like McRae and Bannister.”

  Bucky glanced at his wristwatch. Then he looked at me and raised his eyebrows.

  “Ready, Andy?”

  I drew a deep breath. “Let’s do it,” I said.

  When I rose from my chair, my knees liquefied. My heart pounded so hard, I thought it might burst from my chest. For the umpteenth time, I thrust my hand into my pants pocket to be sure I’d brought notes I’d made: points I wished make when addressing the board. I had spent three hours the night before, seated at my dining table, trying to think of what I should say.

  Should I sound angry? Apologetic? I hadn’t crafted a formal speech. I’d simply jotted down a few points I felt I should make. Would they let me speak? If so, would they listen?

  I followed Bucky through a pair of swinging oaks doors, and then we entered the board room, a space perhaps the size of a tennis court, with a raised dais at one end. Recessed can lights in the ceiling cast their glow upon seven middle-aged people: one woman, six men. They sat behind a curved oak desk, in leather swivel chairs. The men wore business suits or sports jackets. The woman wore a silk blouse and pearls; she conversed with a stout man with a slick-bald head wearing aviator eyeglasses and a turtle neck sweater under his navy blue blazer.

  Framed photographs hung on the oak-paneled walls, portraits of every Capital City board chairman since the club’s founding. Some of the guys in the older photos wore pince nez eyeglasses; they sported bow ties. All were white, and looked like they’d never missed a meal. Most weren’t smiling, as though golf at Capital City wasn’t something to be taken lightly, as though the board performed critical work in the Tallahassee community.

  A lectern stood before the dais. Perhaps twenty feet separated the two.

  Behind the lectern, two dozen upholstered chairs faced the dais, as well, and several were already occupied. I recognized Jack Orsini, head chef in the clubhouse kitchen. Jerry Justus’ dad was there, wearing the same clothes he always wore to work: a green Dickies workshirt, matching pants, and a pair of steel-toed work boots. He had removed the ball cap he normally wore; it rested in his lap. Mildred Farber, the club’s banquet hostess was present, and so was the club’s bookkeeper, Alice Makepeace, a spinster who wore her hair in a bun and never smiled or said hello when I passed her in the club’s hallways.

  Bucky and I took a seat, and then Bucky whispered in my ear. “See the guy sitting in the center chair up front?”

  I nodded.

  “That’s Ben Longstreet, the board chairman.”

  Longstreet looked like Ward Cleaver from the Leave it to Beaver television show: cleft chin, salt and pepper hair, thick eyebrows and dark eyes. His athletic build filled out his suit jacket nicely. Something told me Longstreet had never once experienced a sense of inadequacy, of not quite belonging in whatever societies he dwelt in.

  “Which one’s McCrae?” I asked.

  “The guy on the far right,” Bucky said, “in the checkered jacket.”

  McCrae’s thinning hair was as white as table sugar, combed back from his freckled forehead. His florid and jowly face seemed to suggest he’d spent too little time in church and too many hours in pubs. I tried to imagine him shaking hands with the Pope at the Vatican, but couldn’t. He looked like he belonged on a used car lot, selling junkers to rednecks.

  McCrae conversed with a tall, thin fellow in a tailored business suit who wore bifocal eyeglasses. Right away, I knew the man in the suit was Bannister. He looked like a guy who felt uncomfortable if he wasn’t clutching a Bible to his chest, the type of guy you’d see gathering collection plates on Sunday morning, while an organ groaned and a soloist belted out Nearer, My God, to Thee.

  I’d never seen McRae or Bannister on the club’s golf course in the four years I’d worked at Capital City, but I did recognize two other board members:

  Dr. Hardemann was a Tallahassee gynecologist I’d caddied for three or four times. A soft-spoken man, he owned one of the smoothest swings at Capital City -- effortless and efficient. He could drive a ball two hundred and fifty yards from the tee, but when doing so he looked like he’d hardly exerted himself. Hardemann was as thin as a greyhound, with ice-blue eyes, a widow’s peak, and acne scars on his cheeks. I’d never heard him speak a harsh or angry word -- not even when his shot went awry -- and that didn’t happened too often when I caddied for him.

  The other guy I recognized was Bert Ready. I’d never met the guy; I’d only seen him on TV ads for his Ready Appliances retail outlets. He sold refrigerators, stoves, air conditioners, clothes washer machines, and so forth, in stores from Pensacola to Jacksonville. Bert always wore iridescent business suits when appearing in his ads. He’d tout whatever merchandise was presently on sale, speaking rapid fire, like a guy pumped up on amphetamine. At the end of every ad, he’d always point a finger at viewers.

  “You won’t find a better price; not anywhere, not ever.”

  A sexy blond woman, with huge boobs and a bouffant hairdo, always appeared with Ready in his ads. Her name was Jeanette, and she’d gush over the quality of the icemaker in her Frigidaire, or she’d rave about the turkey she had roasted in her Amana microwave oven.

  “Bert’s the guy with the buy,” she always told her TV audience.

  Once, when my brother Jake and I were boys, we viewed a Ready Appliances TV ad with my mother, in our den in Pensacola. In the ad, Jeanette claimed she’d prepared an entire Thanksgiving feast exclusively on appliances she’d purchased from Ready. The food looked delicious: turkey, dressing, sweet potato casserole, fresh green beans, and even a red velvet layer cake.

  My mother looked at Jeanette and shook her head.

  “I guarantee you that woman’s never cooked a meal in her life. She probably doesn’t know how to boil water.”

  “Do you think she’s Bert’s girlfriend?” Jake asked.

  My father, also present, cleared his throat.

  “Or something like that,” he said.

  Now, in the boardroom, Bert Ready looked more like a lawyer than the pop-eyed salesman I’d seen on TV. He wore a three-piece, pin-striped suit with a white shirt and Paisley necktie. A pair of tortoise-shell reading glasses rested on his nose. He fingered his lips while he studied a document he held in one hand.

  The seventh board member, the slick-bald guy in the turtle-neck sweater, I’d never seen before.

  “That’s Karl Katzenbach
,” Bucky told me, “head of the Music Department at FSU. I’m told his wife’s the richest woman in Leon County.”

  I puckered one side of my face.

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “I’ve worked at Capital City four years. How come I’ve never seen most of these people on the golf course?”

  Bucky snickered. “They don’t play golf, Andy. They only belong to Capital City for the prestige, to establish themselves as part of Tallahassee’s elite. Most wouldn’t know a pitching wedge from a putter.”

  Ben Longstreet cleared his throat. Then he spoke in a smooth baritone.

  “Unless anyone objects, I’d like to call this meeting to order.”

  The room fell silent.

  Longstreet looked right and left. “Do all board members have a copy of tonight’s agenda?”

  Up on the dais, six chins bobbed.

  Longstreet said, “Under Robert’s Rules, a reading of our last meeting’s minutes can be waived. Do I hear a motion?”

  Bert Ready raised a hand.

  “I move we waive reading of those minutes.”

  “All in favor?” Longstreet said.

  All seven board members raised their hands, and then the meeting proceeded. Jack Orsini presented a proposed menu for the club’s annual tournament banquet, to be held in April. A budget for the meal was discussed.

  “You’ll save members six dollars a head if we go with Cornish game hens instead of beef tenderloin.”

  Bert Ready made a face. “Cornish game hens? I always feel I’m eating a parakeet when I’m served one.”

  People chuckled.

  And so it went.

  Conditions of the fairways on the club’s eighth and fifteenth holes were discussed with Mr. Justus, and with Bucky. Cost of repairs to the tractor used to gather practice balls at the club’s driving range were discussed, as well as refurbishment of the rest rooms between the ninth hole’s green and the tenth hole’s tee box.

  “The walls are unpainted cinder block, and those toilets are ancient,” Dr. Hardemann said in a voice so quiet I barely heard him. “The situation’s unsanitary, in my view.”