Black Beauty

by

Leo MacAlbert

THE SOUTH

We came from The South.

The family came north when I was five.

I've never gone back there.

We moved to Englewood.

ENGLEWOOD

My mother died. She left and me.

my

sister

She's the one I've always been close to. I don't remember my mother much. My sister really brought me up. She's old. Then I brought the other kids up.

My father married again. A woman with kids.

And then the two of them, my father and the woman, my stepmother, had more kids.

There were thirteen kids in the house.

My father built a little house in the back. It was really for the younger kids but I used to go there. There and the attic. I kept my books. I read. I remember reading Forever Amber

I was a cute kid and had a good singing voice. I used to take girls out on dates, but I wasn't really interested.

I was always out for men, but I didn't know it, not for a long time.

14

The kids at school were always looking for sissies. Punks they used to call them. But they didn't call me that. I was strong from helping around the house. I used to wrestle with the boys, really to feel them close up, but I didn't know it then. One of the boys caught me, said I was a sissy But I beat him up and he stopped talking like that.

FIRST TIME

First time I made out was when I was eighteen, in New York City, the balcony of a movie theatre on 42nd Street. I didn't know anything about the balconies then, I was so innocent. But one night, why I don't know, I don't smoke, I drifted up to the balcony It was really wild then, all the kids lined up at the back, standing up groping each other

He must have This guy groped me. been 22, 23 at the time, took me home but I was scared.

Next time I came to his place he had another kid, a kid I knew, gay boy, there, and told me "Look, I'm not going to make a play for you.' And he didn't.

""

But next time when I was there I made a play for him.

Then he took me inside and he