Intensive Care

Parisian Press
1972

Like John Jackson's From Steve, With Love, also published in 1972, Intensive Care is has all the marks of a serious novel that wound up in the hands of a sex-book publisher because no mainstream imprint was interested in a gay-themed book by an unknown writer.

The victim of a brutal sex crime, 20-year-old college student Tim Laird has been transferred from UCLA Medical Center to an upscale psychiatric facility at the request of his wealthy, self-centered parents. Tim can’t – or more to the point, won’t -- immerse himself in therapeutic rituals: He’s tortured by dreams that force him to relive his ordeal every single night, so why would he want to suffer through it every day as well? He swears he wasn’t trying to kill himself by overdosing on painkillers – he was just in shock and pain after surviving the traumatic assault and took more pills than he should have. And besides, Tim knows the real reason he’s been committed is that his shallow family saw an opportunity to put him in the hands of Dr. Greer, a psychiatrist who specializes in “curing” homosexuals.

Most of the staff toes the Greer party line, but there are exceptions, like “psychiatric technician” (whatever that means) Carl Greene, who’s assigned to look after Tim’s day-to-day physical needs. After spending some time with his young charge, Carl -- who's gay and sees sexual orientation as just one part of the unique confluence of desires, experiences, perceptions and influences that make up every individual's unique personality -- is convinced that there’s nothing wrong with Tim except that something horrible happened to him and he needs time to recover. Tim also has an unexpected ally in middle-aged staffer Mrs. Ryan, who administers the usual battery of psychiatric tests and comes to the same conclusion as Carl.

Tim wants nothing to do with Dr. Greer; he shows for his scheduled sessions but reveals nothing about what he thinks or feels. Carl is another matter: he gets permission to take him out on day trips, and each gradually opens up to the other. Carl shares his lingering grief over the death of Robbie, an ex-boyfriend who died in a car crash shortly after they broke up, and Tim finally tells the story of his ordeal at the hands of Al and Steve, whom he met in a bar. Whatever the inexperienced Tim expected, it wasn't to be tortured mercilessly in an isolated house where no one could hear him scream; escaping took the last ounce of strength Tim had. Sharing their darkest secrets allows Carl and Tim to look forward, and they begin making plans to move in together. All they have to do is hang on until Tim turns 21 and can check himself out.

But they underestimate Dr. Greer, who hates being thwarted: Two weeks before Tim's 21st birthday he forces Carl to take his unused vacation times and sets about breaking Tim. Greer torments, harries and goads the vulnerable boy into attacking him, after which Tim collapses into the refuge of a catatonic state. And that’s when Mrs. Ryan shows what she’s made of: She calls Carl, who in turn gets the usually apathetic Mrs. Laird on the phone and persuades her to start throwing her money around and and have Tim transferred to another hospital immediately. Revealing a strength of character no one imagined she had, Mrs. Laird not only does as Carl asks but gives his relationship with Tim her tacit approval. When Tim emerges from the cocoon of sleep, Carl is at his bedside, ready to take him away.

As I said at the outset, Intensive Care -- like a number of other “erotic” gay pulps of the 1960s and ‘70s -- isn’t really a stroke book. It’s a standard-issue coming-of-age novel whose main characters happen to be gay, and author Jackson (which I assume to be pseudonym) cleverly places a narrative damper on the hot guy-guy action by making Tim the damaged victim of sexual violence and Carl a mature man who realizes that a nurse – sorry, psychiatric technician -- should know better than to rush such a patient into potentially traumatic intimacies.

None of which is to say Carl and Tim don’t wind up doing all manner of things that go way beyond the parameters of patient-caretaker behavior, just that Jackson doesn’t dwell them. The average smutty-book buyer was probably disappointed by Intensive Care’s low lust-stoking factor, but four decades later it holds up surprising well. Parisian Press, a queer-pulp powerhouse, published at least two other novels by Jackson -- It’s Show Biz and From Steve, With Love -- in 1972; both share Intensive Care's better-than-it-needs-to-be qualities.

Tailpipe Trucker

Surree Limited, Inc/69 HIS
1975


From the crude cover art to the "tell it like it is" title, George Davies' Tailpipe Trucker (published under the nom de plume) looks like a run-of-the-mill one-hander that trades on the appeal of ultra-macho men getting down and dirty together. So it's a quite a surprise to realize,a couple of chapters in, that it's actually a feature-length treatise on freewheeling sexual etiquette whose good horndog/bad horndog conceit will ring a familiar bell to those of us who  grew up with the moral lessons imparted Goofus and Gallant's adventures in the sanctimonious pages of Highlights Magazine.

Okay, that's an exaggeration. But swarthy Trag and golden-blond Bobby-Leroy "Curly" Calhoun,  long-haul truckers making their first run together, do have that "opposites instruct" vibe going. Trag has set himself up as Curly's instructor in the finer points of doing all things "trucker style," especially sex on the road, and Curly, an easy-going southerner with a sleepy drawl, at first seems content to defer his deeply contradictory lessons. Trag's macho self-image is closely bound up with his conviction that having sex with other men doesn't make him queer, as long as they're hitchhikers, truck-stop trawlers, hustlers or "fruitflies" who cruise highways in search of horny truckers and he abuses them verbally, physically or both. Neither does having an apparently encyclopedic knowledge of the roadside restrooms, hotels and truck stops were such "goddamn fairies" congregate, nor does driving bare-assed and jerking off in front of Curly when an overwhelming wave of lust rolls in somewhere between the last no-tell motel and the next finger-lickin' good latrine.

In fact, it appears that in Trag's estimation the only thing that does make you queer is treating your sexual partners with even a modicum of civility or entering into any kind of friendship with another man that goes beyond getting stinking drunk, roughing up fairies and chastely sleeping off long nights of debauchery in the same anonymous hotel bed... chastely except, of course, if one of the "just friends" is asleep and the other takes a little midnight advantage...

Trag thinks he knows Curly better than Curly knows himself and never misses an opportunity to say so, which is pretty much par for his deluded course, since he's under the impression that Curly is just like him only less so by virtue of being an unsophisticated hick. But Curly -- let's call him Bobby-Leroy from now on, because that's what he prefers -- is nothing of the sort: He figured out he was queer around the same time he realized his "little pecker" (which by all accounts is no such thing) was good for something other than pissing, and he's just fine with that. He's also a southern boy whose mama taught him that just because you grew up slopping pigs doesn't mean you have to wallow with them.

So Bobby-Leroy has some manners and puts them to use in situations that would probably make his mama faint dead away. He introduces himself proper-like to lot lizards and lunch ladies alike, washes up before getting down and dirty and doesn't hold with that "wham, bam, thank you Sam" stuff -- if someone shows you a good time, well, it's just plain rude not to reciprocate. Bobby-Leroy has Trag's self-hating number from the get-go, but keeps his counsel while slyly testing Trag in ways that reveal the parameters of his homosexual panic.

Near the end of the run, Trag takes a couple of days off to loll around a middle-of-nowhere hotel, while Bobby-Leroy does a little solo run to nearby Harper's Junction and picks up 18-year-old Mike Nelson, a fresh, unspoiled and lusty kid who's about to graduate from high school and has a real thing for truckers. It's love at first sight -- or first night, anyway -- and when Bobby-Leroy gets back to the hotel in Middleton (which is what the middle of nowhere is called) he finds that Trag has left him a surprise: A little hustler named Fred, gagged and bound to the bed for Bobby-Leroy's pleasure.

After untying Fred, who's no older than Mike and almost as sweet, Bobby-Leroy joins him in a friendly shower, gets the lowdown on how badly Trag worked Fred over and decides it's time for Trag's wake-up call. He advises young Fred to recruit some like-minded friends and throw an impromptu party on Trag's ass, which Fred does with no small measure of enthusiasm. And by the time it's over, that the mean mother-trucker has to face the fact that he is and and always has been queer as folk.

And there you have it: All's well that ends well. Bobby-Leroy -- who finally puts his foot down and makes it clear that he does not want to be called Curly -- gets Trag to admit young Fred has gotten under his skin, then hauls off and picks up newly-minted graduate Mike, with whom he hopes to enjoy many long, bare-assed hauls.

Without coming off like some sanctimonious defense of same-sex monogamy, Tailpipe Trucker manages to squeeze quite the array of messages between the sweaty sheets: Self-hating homos are a drag; that big butch daddy cruising roadside rest facilities might be as neurotic as the fancy fey boys keeping big-city shrinks in swimming pools and second cars; fidelity to someone special can be as hot and heavy as casual carnality; and a sleepy southern accent doesn't always indicate inbred idiocy or Deliverance-style perkiness.

The Number on the John Wall

The Number on the John Wall
Parisian Press, 1972

“The number on the john wall was mine. It was written in pencil. Underneath it were the words Call for exciting sex. Will do what you want. I had signed it by my first name, Jim.”

So begins quite possibly the most politically incorrect novel ever written two decades before the term “political correctness” existed. Jim Hinzer's The Number on the John Wall (Parisian Press, 1972) chronicles two very educational days in the life of blond, blue-eyed college student Jim, whose boyfriend Larry has just walked out on him.

Jim is devastated: He and Larry have been together for three years, since they were both 17, and Jim has only himself to blame. He drove Larry away by being a petty, jealous jerk. Miserable and at loose ends, Jim drags himself to Ed’s Coffee Shop, where he and Larry used to hang out. He never really noticed the graffiti in the men's room before, but with his "beautiful Larry" gone, the tangle of sex-oriented boasts, entreaties and come-ons leaps out at him. What the hell, Jim figures -- this is already the worst day of his life, so he might as well live dangerously. All Jim wants is distraction. What he gets is a crash course in the ways of gifted and talented youth, a cross-section of whom happen to attend a specialized school around the corner from Ed’s. Jim isn't sexually naive or inexperienced, but the kids who respond to his hastily scrawled come-on really blow his mind.

Jim’s first taker is lean, sinewy, 12-year-old Roy, a polite, white-blond cutie with dark-blue eyes and a big dick who declares himself “basically heterosexual” somewhere between the time Jim finishes sucking him off and when he asks for a friendly goodbye kiss. “I can’t do that,” says Roy firmly. “I’d have to reevaluate my entire behavioral pattern.” To say Jim is flummoxed by this “strange, pretty, gentlemanly boy” who leaves with a formal farewell and then gallops off down the street like the half-grown kid he is would be an understatement.

And there’s more -- much more -- to come, starting with giggling nine-year-olds Craig and Arthur, best friends curious as to whether “a man’s mouth is more satisfactory” than that of a girl, like Craig’s little sweetheart. Jim is suitably taken aback by the precocious demands of these alarmingly young, disconcertingly articulate boys who giggle about his “enormous phallus” and marvel that “its dimensions are considerably greater than [those of Craig’s] stepfather.” Hmmmm, therein lies an ugly train of thought that Hinzer sidesteps to focus on Jim’s discovery that they’re more virile then he ever imagined cute little boys could be.

A time out: This should be utterly appalling. The Number on the John Wall is the book you keep stashed so far out of sight that it might as well be on Mars, and a pseudonym was never more thoroughly warranted. And yet it’s kind of a shame, because Hinzer, whoever he was, managed to strike a tone that suggests Jim is less a reprehensible sexual predator than a good-natured kid who’s emotionally younger than he looks and doesn’t have a mean bone in his body – that's seriously accomplished writing. It helps that Hinzer gives Jim boundaries: He’s willing to blow the “pretty little cherubs” – after all, one is already being serviced regularly and the other is understandably eager to catch up -- but nothing more. And he really is curious about these precocious little prodigies, their weird little kinks and the strangely detached way they talk and think about themselves. After all, when the 12-year-old Jim discovered he could blow himself, he didn’t start gathering information and making charts: He just made himself very popular at parties. The Name on the John Wall is obscene without being particularly salacious, its dirty details described in the earnest manner of a high school science report.

And now, back to Jim. As he ushers out Craig and Arthur, giggling impishly as they speculate about which of their classmates will call next, 16-year-old Mike shows up at the door. Tall, handsome and in the market for a good straightforward fuck, he’s just what Jim needs to banish buzz-kill thoughts about his lost love. In fact, Mike is actually looking like potential boyfriend material until he makes it clear that he’s the good time that’s been had by all and doesn’t plan to change. He hangs around just long enough to tell Jim his next date, Kip, is the school’s “black beauty” and that if someone named Ingo calls, he should take a pass: That Ingo is just “too kooky.”

Genial Cote d’Ivoirian Kipling Keats Longfellow turns out to be another solid fuck, spiced up by blue-black skin and a posh anglo-African accent; after they’re done, Jim is ready to call it night. Which is, of course, when “Star” calls: The 14-year-old redhead just wants a shoot off, but the by the time Ace calls Jim has had enough and postpones their rendez-vous until the next day.

The blond, all-American looking 12-year-old Ace shows up promptly at 10AM, carrying a bag of rotten oranges with which he wants to be pelted. He also brings his own drop cloth, which he politely tacks up in the kitchen as Jim marvels. After Ace, Jim is expecting Frank, who turns out to be a graceful, gentle Native-American who pulls up in a silver Thunderbird and just wants to be licked from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. Perfectly pleasant, though it turns out that “Frank” isn’t one of the gifted children at all – he’s just a handsome construction worker who’s been working on the new supermarket going up on Chestnut Street. A little lesson in not making assumptions, except that it worked out just fine so it’s not much of a lesson at all. The real Frank, a slim black-haired, brown-eyed and well-endowed 17-year-old turns up shortly after, wanting to be fucked to the Battle Hymn of the Republic. A little odd, but after the oranges Jim is starting to feel unshockable, which may be why Jim ignores Mike’s advice about Ingo and makes a date with him for later.

While Jim’s waiting, along comes Jimmy: He’s “nine years and three months” old, talks in a breathy baby voice and wants to play ”daddy,” which at first appears to involve nothing more than Jim (the fact that they share the same name goes unremarked, but it's a little creepy) pretending to be a horsie and letting Jimmy ride him around the room. It’s when Jimmy asks for “daddy's milk” that the game comes into focus. The exhausted Jim takes the path of least resistance (which isn't to say it's not exciting), but it's clear that he's not sorry to see Jimmy go. Jimmy's breezy parting remark about his promise not to tell mommy why she's not getting any daddy's milk packs a nasty wallop.

Ingo comes along soon after, and turns out to be an existentially bored Eastern European who’s done everything and is inured to it all... except the oranges, which Jim repurposes to thrilling effect. And then Jim is alone again with his unhappy thoughts: All that distraction, and he can still think of nothing but his beautiful Larry. So he picks up the phone and calls Binkie, an old friend… and what do you know? Larry is there, pining for Jim Awwww.

The Name on the John Wall appears to be Hinzer’s only credit, which may mean nothing more than that he worked under multiple pseudonyms. Or maybe it genuinely is a one-off; either way, it’s a true oddity, a singularly unerotic catalogue of perversity wrapped in a fairy-tale ending, at least for Jim and Larry.