Authors Note: This story comes from my youth. In 1977, I was seventeen, an isolated gay boy in a straight man’s world, and painfully lonely. My only human connections came from older men I met at a popular cruising site in a nearby park; men who wanted something, just never anything personal.

It was a year of despair that ended one night. This was a difficult story to write. It’s deeply personal, stirring up old emotions and the memory of that haunting loneliness. Back then, there was nobody to tell me it would get better. There were no words of encouragement, only isolation. It is easy for me to understand why so many young queer people take their own lives.

But it does get better. The life I couldn’t imagine for myself in 1977 was just up the road; a long, happy road full of love and adventure.

Note: This story includes references to illegal drug use. At that time, cocaine was ubiquitous and even trendy in club life. Marijuana was then, as it is now, a cheap and easy high. My intent is not to glamorize these substances, but to accurately portray the environment and all the influences I was navigating at the time.

Magic Man 1977
by PlacidGuy

The park was asleep as I drove through it toward the vast, empty parking lot. His headlights followed me, twin beams cutting through darkness. My pulse quickened; the high from earlier had faded to just the sour taste of grass, a memory on my tongue. I pulled in near the trailhead and stepped into night air filled only with Lake Michigan’s whisper and the sound of his tires on gravel. My ancient Chevy looked pitiful beside his Porsche 911, even in the dark. But I didn’t give a damn about that. I hadn’t come here to show off.

I snatched my boombox and a handful of homemade mix tapes. I abandoned my old worn Pro-Keds in the car, tucking the keys inside one for safekeeping. He emerged from his vehicle, backpack slung over one shoulder and crossed the distance between us. When his fingers found the nape of my neck and his mouth covered mine, I melted, here was proof that someone, finally, saw me. Wanted me.

The dune climb was familiar territory by daylight but transformed under the 1 AM sky. I led us toward a particular spot just beyond the crest, a natural depression in the sand sheltered by tall grass. Our feet sank and slipped as we ascended, neither of us clear-headed, but driven by something more powerful than sobriety. Cresting the ridge, we faced Lake Michigan’s vast darkness, an invisible presence betrayed only by moonlight dancing on scattered ripples where waves broke the surface.

We found our spot in the hollow. I peeled off my t-shirt and jeans while he spread a blanket across the sand. The warm night air caressed my bare skin as I watched his silhouette undress. His body emerged ghostlike in the darkness, lean and confident, everything I wasn’t. My reflection in his eyes puzzled me; what could this sophisticated man possibly want with a gangly seventeen-year-old whose only notable feature was hair long enough to tie back with a leather cord? He knelt on the blanket, extracting a small flashlight from his bag, followed by a leather satchel that yielded a mirror and a bag of white powder. I switched on my boombox, letting Heart’s newest album fill our private sanctuary. With practiced precision, he divided the cocaine into two lines, inhaled his through a silver straw, then passed it to me. I accepted both the straw and everything it represented.

His lips found mine before the cocaine took hold. The world narrowed to sensation: his teeth grazing my neck, palms sliding up my ribs, hot breath against my skin as the high began its ascent. I was suspended somewhere between earth and sky when I felt the cold shock of lubricant and the careful pressure of his fingers. When he finally entered me, my legs draped over his shoulders, I surrendered completely. Nothing compared to this fullness, this perfect invasion that set every nerve alight. Through it all, “Dreamboat Annie” played softly, the melody becoming the rhythm our bodies created together.

Warm wind caress her
Her lover it seems
Oh, Annie, dreamboat Annie
Ship of dreams

Adrift on unfamiliar tides, I surrendered to sensations I’d never known before. The music shifted to “Crazy on You” as he claimed me completely, his rhythm intensifying with the song. He lifted my head, his mouth finding mine in desperate, almost bruising kisses while he moved against me with growing urgency. The cocaine crested again through my bloodstream, and I lost myself in a silent prayer: don’t let this end. As the music’s tempo climbed, so did we, matching its wild ascent. When the guitar solo erupted, my skin prickled with electricity. Derosier tore up the drums, every beat spoke to me, pounded into my head. Every point where our bodies connected became a circuit of pure feeling. My fingers, wrapped around cock, could barely maintain a grip.

Our release came in unison. The moment of climax swept through us both, his body emptying inside me, mine spilling across my own skin. A wave of pleasure unlike anything I’d known before or would know after crashed over me, stealing my breath. His weight settled against me, and I wrapped my arms around him, time stretching into eternity. As the final notes of “Soul of the Sea” faded, I reached out and silenced the music. We remained there on that blanket beneath countless stars, the gentle rhythm of distant waves our only companion. In that moment, we existed outside of everything, untethered, boundless, alone in our universe. Eventually, sleep claimed me.

Gull cries pierced my consciousness as dawn’s first light crept over the horizon. The blanket beneath me felt cold where his body had been. I reached out, finding only empty space. No backpack. No Magic Man. Just me and the rising sun.

I gathered my scattered clothes, pulling them over sand-crusted skin. Something caught my eye beneath the edge of my stereo, five crisp twenty-dollar bills folded together with a small baggie of white powder tucked inside. The sight hit me like a slap. Payment. For services rendered. My fingers trembled as I pocketed both, then collected my Panasonic and the blanket with mechanical movements. The eastern sky was brightening; soon families would flood these dunes with coolers and beach towels. At home, my stepfather’s truck would be in the driveway, his rage building with each hour of my unexplained absence.

I drove back along the same winding road, throat tight, eyes burning. The money in my pocket felt like a brand against my skin, but beneath that shame flickered something I couldn’t extinguish, the memory of those hours when someone had made me feel extraordinary. I also knew my years of cruising were done, I couldn’t do this anymore.

I was a willow last night in a dream
I bent down over a clear running stream
Sang you the song that I heard up above
And you kept me alive with your sweet flowing love

Fifty years later, when those opening guitar notes drift from a radio, I’m no longer in my car or kitchen, I’m back on that blanket, sand against my skin, the Magic Man’s hands on my body. Wanted and pleasured.

Crazy
Yeah, crazy on you
Let me go crazy, crazy on you, oh

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