I had to rebuild every relationship. Returning to Framesby was tough but also promising. Old schoolmates and the same old sinners in the choir embraced me in a warm welcome back.
There were some new bright-eyed teachers and Miss Juanita du Plessis was our new beautiful blonde choir mistress.
The school hadn’t changed. The classrooms were the same, and the teachers still managed to make me sleepy through lessons ranging from algebra to poetry. As usual I kept myself awake reading secretly during classes. Everything felt familiar yet foreign. Was it not I who had changed?
In one year, I saw over 100 movies, and most were not deemed fit for fifty-year-olds nor teens. Musically, I was introduced to aspects of classical music I did not know and the difference it made when hearing it on a great sound system. I yearned to discover more magnificent composers and to hear their music played on state-of-the-art sound systems. Appreciating their genius requires years of listening and enthusiastic mentors.
I lived several lives in alternative universes compared to my classmates. Film Fun, banned movies, fearless flamboyance, learning to speak Gayle and invisibility, beamed me into another world. Questioning everything became second nature. I may as well have left Framesby for decades before returning because I had undergone a quantum leap in almost every respect—physically, intellectually, musically and emotionally. My new fearlessness came from knowledge of so much and embracing the unknown.
Choosing discretion therefore had nothing to do with fear and henceforth I offered no apologies. I fully felt “I am what I am” but failed to express it so well, as Gloria Gaynor did three years later, when she sang it with such contagious passion and heartfelt emotion in 1983. “I am what I am” will always be an enduring Gay Pride anthem.
As a sixteen-year-old choirboy at Framesby, there were several boys who were candid enough but struggling to squeeze their fluid identity into the right closet. I continued with martial arts, water sports, choral singing and fiddling with motorcycle engines. I blended in anywhere better as I learned more skills. I felt at home in any setting that I loved, from Mozart to Zen. Fitting anywhere is a strength. Like most teens I craved company and adopted chameleon traits for the required role with schoolmates. Having stable friendships at this age is important and requires some blending in. I went through a growth spurt and towered over my classmates and teachers, just like Louis did the year before and suddenly it made sense that height could make you feel uncomfortable. Yet stronger and more intimidating.
I looked forward to returning to choral singing, where I now just had to pass the voice test as my squeaky voice evolved into baritone. Juanita du Plessis our new choir conductor said, “Rubin, why had you not been here a year ago as you have the most incredible voice for solo never mind choral.” I beamed and said, “That is an incredible compliment, Miss Juanita. I hope I’ll match my fellow choristers.” “Just protect your voice as I be annoyed with you if you get sick or get the flu or encounter any other misfortune.” She knew how to make my heart sing. My choir mates were delighted to have me back and I had a hero’s welcome in the choir. She became a soulmate far more than a teacher and our age gap was small. As an excellent mentor she taught all of us incredible insights into music which elevated us to becoming the best school choir in the country. Juanita had incredible turquoise eyes. Her glowing, piercing eyes missed nothing. When she was ecstatically happy after us winning yet another competition her eyes lit up in a luminescent turquoise. When she was happy it would be a darker shade of blue eyes. We all knew when she got angry as her pixie ears flushed pink while she had to maintain composure being televised, no matter how mad she got at us. Sometimes we were lucky and got away with making her mad if we had a standing ovation. Then all would be forgiven. We had to be highly disciplined and be ultra responsive to her silent communication that relied on eye contact and hand movements. It was a musical language which we all had to understand. People who annoyed her sufficiently would be on thin ice and soon she would release her scary superpower, Nurse Diesel, who would evict you from the choir in a flash.
I learned how to use my new X-ray vision like Clark Kent and spotted other aliens much easier, whether masked or not. For the first time I felt confident enough to make the first move, which in all cases were appreciated as nobody wanted to take this risk. Inevitably such boys would maintain close contact with me as their trusted trainee mentor as they were still hesitant to reach out to others. Juanita was aware of her sensual powers over most of the older boys. Generous compliments were lapped up and Labrador loyalty followed from her few handpicked American pit bull terriers who moved heaven and earth for her. Stage presence and a stage singing voice ensured elite membership of a tiny group of “Chosen Ones”. As a Chosen One, I noticed that she placed us into slightly elevated positions ensuring perfect eye contact.
These competitions were recorded and televised from all over Europe where we won a trip to, after becoming the South African champions. Soon we became accustomed to filming, stage lighting, instant silence on command and working as a team with the stage director, film directors and Juanita. She disarmed the grumpiest directors with a seductive smile and honey. She knew all the sexual undercurrents in the choir, as it’s impossible for fifty teenage choral singers not to desire someone special. Juanita pretended not to notice. Absolute discretion always made her our Mother Confessor.
She noticed my attraction to Nico, the “Grey”, that stood behind me and she never changed our position, though most people changed spots. I used to lean back slightly, and Nico would lean slightly forward for us to make body contact. Nobody saw, but Juanita did. Cautiously she ensured that we never shared a room during our weeks of traveling. She need not have worried as Nico was still in his “shade of grey” period where he got stuck long after we lost contact after school. What a waste. What a dish.
One sunny afternoon my English teacher wanted to evaluate our linguistic skills in the red tongue. Mr Bestbier did not have much confidence in our linguistic skills, so decided to tackle a simple topic. He thought we all liked the popular pop songs of our time, which would then be a fun experience for him and the class.
When my turn came up, I shared my passion for classical music, which he felt did not fit into the genre of popular music like pop music. I explained in their time their music was popular and probably the pop music of their time. Mr. Bestbier simply emphasized that favourite music excludes philosophical dissertation. Having recently acquired a Pink Floyd, The Wall LP, I asked whether whether unquestioning teaching was education or merely obedience. At this stage Mr. Bestbier reminded me of the angry Roman generals in Asterix and Obelix once again facing another defeat from the Gauls with Getafix’s magic potion. After that I was persona non grata, proving Mervyn’s belief in the Power of Gossip. Teachers, gossip a lot. My grades took a knock, and I tried diplomacy and groveling as the safer option when dealing with authoritarians. Charm was rare trait shared by few teachers at both schools. It appeared that I was eliminated from most future debates. Oy vey Mervyn, I thought pensively, your amusing guidance just bit me in the bum! A frosty future relationship continued for a short while, but Mr. Bestbier did not harbor grudges for long, and he became one of my favourite teachers.
My entire closet had nothing that fitted properly anymore, so I literally burst out of the closet almost overnight to the delight of my voyeuristic Film Fun customers. They thought it was hilarious that I was now wearing clothing a size too small like theirs. Bending over, picking up a film projector from the floor required caution as my trousers were about to burst open in full view of customers holding their breath in great anticipation. My school uniforms had not reached bursting point yet, so I ended up wearing my grey school trousers and white shirts almost every afternoon that I worked. By day I moved between classrooms and choir practice. By afternoon I stepped into Film Fun. Somewhere between those two worlds, Eduard quietly entered my life. Mervyn did not want to lose me due to the school change and offered me an increase to continue at Film Fun. “Besides”, he said “you now know the movies almost as well as well as I do and the customers, mostly seem pleased with your recommendations”. Some feigned horror to Mervyn about the fact that I was so well versed in some very explicit banned gay movies. They would triumphantly exclaim to Mervyn how it proved I was as bent as they were, because no straight boy would be so casual or well informed on the themes of especially the risqué sensual gay movies. Curiosity killed the cat and this enigma was good for business, so Mervyn played happily on his Jewish piano. He shrieked with laughter when I joked about naming his cash register as he had never heard the term or pretended not to know.
I was ecstatic about my continued Film Fun employment which helped tremendously with my transitional difficulties at Framesby by being my bridge where my two opposite worlds connected. Allowances were made for additional travel time, and Mervyn offered me longer shifts over weekends including using me as a barman at Dance O Rama, Port Elizabeth’s only gay club at the time. I became a bit too bold for my age due to learning how to handle sharp tongued nightclubbers. They were excellent instructors, so I became a match sooner than they anticipated. Keeping these polar worlds apart was complex and I did not wish to annoy teachers or any other people from my conservative universe. Swift, witty retorts I learned well during my Film Fun apprenticeship and from fanged customers in tight-fitting white trousers would not go down well at my school or anybody else from the white picket fence neighborhood. As I grew older and bolder it became harder to hide in the back at Film Fun as customers would call me or insist that I assist them, which annoyed Mervyn. Typically, they would say, “Let that, not so nora, Beulah number out of his cage as this Auntie wants his undivided attention and help with carrying the movies to my car”. My straight youthfulness defense that Mervyn used no longer worked as effectively. Their narrative, a popular one, claims that boys know their sexual identity from way before puberty. Navigating raging hormones complicates matters and sexual exploration for teens is not unusual, but I stayed as far away from customers as possible. I kept carrying movies to cars, earning generous tips, so I rather focused on improving my skills to keep the tips rolling in.
Being back home was great and I loved my two opposite worlds. Slowly my new closet grew cautiously as my mother was convinced that I would keep growing forever. She need not have worried as I still fit into my slightly tight matric blazer. Since my earliest childhood I always had one or two close friends, but my Film Fun work kept me away from establishing new friendships. I made good friends in the choir, but it lacked that spark that I shared with Leon.
Eduard was a cute new boy, who started at Framesby in standard nine just like I did. We were both fanatical petrol heads that happened to be good at many things, but he excelled at accounting where I sucked. He became my accounting tutor and I taught him a lot more about motorcycles. As newbies we became inseparable in no time even though he knew little about classical or choral music, debate or philosophical quandaries. He was very inquisitive about my life at Pearson and was also intrigued with Louis who got his Zündapp almost on the same day as I did. Eduard was very curious about the things Louis did, and I wanted to know more about our friendship. He was amazed to hear that bullying hardly existed at Pearson, but I told him that it was a completely different type of school to Framesby that won at just about anything. Highly competitive was an understatement and our teachers were extremely strict. Our symbiotic friendship grew and I also became his protector as he was often the target of school bullies. Some of our school bullies failed standards and were often older than us, as well as bigger and stronger.
I was an odd choir boy with a well-established reputation for facing bullies fearlessly. They usually backed down to my relief as some seemed to work out quite a lot. Mervyn would have applauded! Eduard did not have a motorcycle but was keen to learn to drive on my beloved Zundapp. There was no way that I would just let him drive on his own so I first let him sit behind me so that I could get him used to feeling a bike in motion while being cognisant of the controls. The easiest way to fall on a wet lawn is when you brake with the front brakes on a corner like Kevin once did with the sacred Vespa.
The first time Eduard got onto the bike behind me it was as though there was an electric current that sparked when Eduard held me around the waist for stability. “Hold on properly,” I shouted over the crackle of the Zündapp’s little two-stroke engine. There was a brief hesitation before Eduard’s hands settled around my waist. It should have felt completely ordinary. Every passenger does that on a motorcycle.
Neither of us spoke as we rode across the grass. When we stopped a few minutes later, he climbed off more slowly than necessary. We exchanged a quick smile, neither willing to ask the obvious question. Instead, I pointed at the clutch and began explaining gear changes as though nothing unusual had happened.
Looking back, I realise that both of us already knew something had changed.
Something rare and special happened and we both felt it. Having done judo for years since I was seven, I was used to male contact which is often sensual but rarely electrifying. Once I had demonstrated the basics of riding a motorcycle, we changed positions and I had to trust him not to fall. Sitting behind Eduard and holding him around the waist we both felt the pleasant tension of that moment. Eduard and I inhabited a friendship that refused to fit comfortably into any of the categories available to two schoolboys. It was built on affection, curiosity and a silence that neither of us knew how to break. Looking back, I suspect we both understood more than we ever dared admit. Eduard’s parents bought him a red Honda Bobcat MB 5. They were recently launched and became very popular due to reliability and performance. It was also the most recently launched 50cc which still shrouded it in mystery. Simply irresistible for schoolboys. We started spending a lot of our weekends at Rover’s go-cart track which was perfect for 50cc’s driven by boys under 75kg. It had sharp bends and hairpin bends which placed a lot of strain on the suspension, especially if the rider was too heavy. The Zündapp performed extremely well even with my bigger size than most of my competitors. Eduard was determined to beat me and asked me to help him with basic mechanics. With my limited closet and his strict mother, we both wore blue overalls with underwear only. Work consisted of simple things like polishing the ports and making sure that there was no grime on any of the vital parts like the chain or suspension. Sharing the smell of two-stroke oil, working shoulder to shoulder and finding excuses for our hands to linger a little longer became part of every weekend. We simply carried on talking about carburettors as though nothing had happened. The garage became our sanctuary. We spent hours polishing chrome, adjusting cables and tuning carburettors. We were forever brushing shoulders or reaching for the same spanner. Neither of us apologised. We simply carried on talking about engines as though nothing unusual had happened. Looking back, I realise we spent those afternoons pretending to learn about motorcycles. What we were really learning was trust.
This is an excerpt from the memoirs of Rubin vane Niekerk – editor of the Gay Pages
