…”This is a story of the heart and exploration and a deeper need
you have to bond and embrace and support and believe”…
In January 2007, I was in a bar in Chicago where a breathtaking
26 – 28 year old of some Arabic background walked directly into my
body and entwined himself without a word.
The fit was as a well-worn boot or many years old jeans.
After some time, I said you must tell me your name to him.
And he responded, “You are Butch, I am Saleh”.
We moved to the bar and started a long conversation about him.
From Yemen, working in a gas station 12 hour days – 7 day weeks
from a family of 12 children – a wife in Yemen – no children – does
not want to return –
his preference is a man and better a mature muscular man.
I fit his fantasy need at first visually and I refused to have sex.
We exchanged telephone #s.
He called me first.
We met again two more times and only talked.
Finally we bonded and I satisfied him thrice.
In April, I invited him to my hotel “Whitehall”,
and I introduced him to all from doorman to concierge.
He had never seen Chicago from a rooftop.
I was in the Katherine Hepburn suite with its own private deck –
kitchen – elevator service.
He slept deep and quiet with his medusa thick curls all about his face.
He has perfect teeth and delicate hands that are greased from the gas station.
We were wearing the exact same design – make and size of shoe – mine new
his worn and scuffed.
We have seen each other now 8 months.
He calls at intervals erratic in bundles and then not for a set of weeks.
He wants a commitment I can not make as now I am trying to sort out my
own future fates.
Tomorrow I will travel to Chicago for Lawyers
(a fortune of debt I will never be able to pay)
and Doctor and Hospital on Wednesday to further explore
the nature of my diabetic condition and what to do now
and try to have some control over the future.
Saleh and I will meet and he will for the first time meet 2 of my
friends if he will come and visit me there.
I have refused to go to a bar or bath or other such place and only
fulfill a carnal emotion.
He said I was the first to treat him with respect.
I retorted that if he only saw himself as a “piece of ass” that was
how he would be treated by most men in US or Yemen.
I see him as a poetic message of complex rushing narrative.
and I also have seen my impetuous youth in his moods.
Just to talk I am satiated by his rapid rhythms.
To look into his burning ginger eyes,
I awaken and become a mentor of his inner spirit turmoil
and a quiet place inside me surfaces.
I have no explanation –
it just is –
and it is a most strange form of loving
and yet it is complete.
Now September 2019, and our friendship endures.
Saleh has moved me twice form Illinois to Texas, and he took care of me in my home in Texas for a month after my heart attack in February of 2014. When he learned that I was placed in a nursing home in fall 2018, he drove three days from Chicago to find me and get me out and take me home. There he nursed me for 9 days until I said in recognition that I was in my home. Next he drove me to Chicago to see doctors there and he drove me to the airport for my travel back to Texas. He is a rare friend for over 12 years. A blessing sent from the Yemen Gods.
Entries – August 25, 2007 and September 15, 2019
