Christmas day wasn't so cold in Philadelphia as it was windy. I was having brunch with friends at their house in Society Hill and decided to walk from my apartment at 17th St. and Locust. The wind chill factor made doing that more miserable than I expected. By the time I reached Broad St., I'd had enough and ducked underground into the subway system to warm up.
Philadelphia's capable but limited subway system ran under Broad and Market streets and crossed at City Hall. Shortly before noon, as I walked through the dimly lit pedestrian promenade under Broad St., Don McLane's "American Pie" began echoing from speakers that had long since seen better days. As I walked along, softly singing, "Bye-bye, Miss American Pie..." I noticed a boy or young man approaching, the only other person in the blocks-long promenade.
When we got to within a few feet of each other, the attractive guy I'd watched approach, who looked a little shorter and younger than me and was wearing a Navy Pea Coat, mustered what passed for a smile and a half-hearted "Merry Christmas."
My gaydar went off. I instantly determined that the boy or young man, he couldn't have been more than eighteen to twenty, was either new in the city or a visitor, alone, probably gay or at least bi, and was miserable. That wouldn't do at all, I decided, not on Christmas.
I thought, but didn't say, Hello, Mr. American Pie! Instead, I said, "Hi! Merry Christmas to you too! You look miserable."
His name was Bill. He was twenty, from New Haven, Connecticut, and a cadet at a Merchant Marine school in Baltimore. Bill had to serve a year at sea, getting hands-on experience as a marine engineer as part of his education. He was doing that when we met.
I never got to brunch. Bill didn't have a destination that day, so I gave him one. He spent the rest of Christmas Day and much of the next day at my apartment, most of it in my bed.
Bill was gay, but recently so. Having sex with him was almost like being a teenager again, tender, explorative and wonderful. But we were guys, so it was passionate and guttural, too, wildly so when I fucked him. And I fucked him several times during that day and a half. When I meet a guy who loves having his brains fucked out, I give him what he wants.
Bill's ship, a tanker named Brownsville, sailed between Perth Amboy, Bayonne, and a couple other south Jersey ports, and Philadelphia in the northeast, and New Orleans and Pascagoula, MS, and back again, over and over. Over the rest of that wonderful winter, when Brownsville was in port for a few days in or near Philadelphia, Bill stayed at my place for a night or two at most. We weren't boyfriends, but we were whatever we were.
Bill was at sea on New Year's. He called after midnight, and we talked briefly. His ship had no privacy, especially with a line of guys waiting to make New Year's calls on its bridge radio phone.
That winter was particularly stormy. On a trip during near-constant storms along the Atlantic coast, while the Brownsville was loaded with molasses, the ship failed to arrive at Bayonne on schedule. I didn't know that and stayed up late, waiting for Bill to call. When I didn't hear from him by 9 a.m., I called the dock in Bayonne and learned that Brownsville had not arrived or been heard from.
That was the moment I realized how much Bill meant to me.
