A 1960s queer boy finds solace in television in Jim Elledge’s poem.
—
TV Guide
As the ’60s unfolded like a peacock’s tail, one
chubby sissy-boy with braces
and a butch cut his father gave him monthly found
heaven in the check-
out lane, a slim book, not The Book: a timetable
of stars that studded his nights,
a catalog of lust the Greeks and Romans
would have applauded. This—
let’s get this straight—was long before glam and
skin-tight black leather at rock
concerts, before crack and AIDS, at the pinnacle
of Ed Sullivan, Red Skelton,
Perry Mason, and Dennis the Menace, when “boob
tube” had nothing to do
with the T of T & A and remote control was still
a sci-fi fantasy.
What a tug he felt as dreamboats dazzled
him from their programmed
time slots on ABC, CBS, NBC. (All those Bs
and Cs—just like his grades.)
Sunday: Johnny Yuma 9:00. Monday: Sandy
Winfield 8:30. Tuesday: Doby
Gillis 8:30. Wednesday: Flint McCullough
7:30. Thursday, he cracked
his books for Friday’s predictable quizzes, but
Friday night was a double
whammy of brawn: Rowdy Yates 7:30 then
Buzz Murdock an hour later.
Saturday offered nothing like a star-studded
show: Welk, grandma’s favorite,
and then local news: a dry night. So it went, page
by page, night by night, one
week to the next, a timed daisy chain of muscle,
beautiful teeth, and perfect hair,
a heaven of fantasies brief as a breath, as a heart
beat, who, bare-chested and
sweaty, nightly distracted him against the laugh-
track of so many bullies’ hate,
the softest of soft porn—sweaty chests, tight jeans
—the Guide kept track of and
focused him from the ambushes of halls, locker
rooms, and toilets of Prather
Jr. High and kept the razor’s edge from his wrist
and the noose from his neck.
***
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