A New Friend of a Different Kind

Circa 1980—San Mateo, California

I worked at the mall in San Mateo for a couple of years and experienced and saw a lot of crazy crap. It's amazing how many thieves come to the mall to "shop" like everyone else...except they don't pay for anything. They bring their kids too. Some even come with their own Macy's and Nordstrom's bags. Of course, that's to make it look like they actually bought the stuff the lifted and tucked away inside.

The big stores had their own security of course and sometimes they needed an extra hand or two, so they'd call us—mall security. Usually it was to hang around outside the store in case a shoplifter decided to run for it. Security would wait until they actually walked out of the store to make their case stronger; thats when they'd usually bolt.

One afternoon we got a call to help Emporium store security (Agents) to aprehend a shoplifter. Me and a couple of guys went on over and hung around waiting for store security to tell us what they wanted us to do. After a while an agent came outside and said they wouldn't need us as the guy got spooked and left without the merchandise. My buddies left, but I hung around to chat with the agent.

Chad (not his real name) was an attractive young guy. He was about my age, 21 or so; lean, fit, short hair, witty, and very personable. We had stepped back into the store and it just so happened we were in the mens underwear department. Awful convenient I thought.

We just chatted about stuff and in casual mention I commented about the new mens underwear that were making a scene. This was around 1978-9 and mens bikini and thong underwear had recently made their appearance. Men were buying them up like crazy. Their popularity was astounding, but you wouldn't catch one guy admitting he bought a pair—men were still supposed to wear tighty-whities or boxers.

Chad didn't feel embarrassed talking about the thongs at all. We started joking about them as a matter of fact. We were Vanna Whites troducing the latest in mens fashion wear, highlighting the finer aspects of each. We had a great time joking and cutting up.

Chad was different. We could talk to each other honestly and when it came to sexual matters he didn't shy away from discussing the topic like straight guys did. He would talk about himself which was exciting because I didn't know what other guys did in their prvate lives or what they thought. I was always an outsider for some reason and never had any close friends. Chad changed all of that. We saw each other a lot after that day.

I didn't know what was so different about him, but we clicked and I liked it. I developed a crush on him but didn't understand my feelings. There were all of these little clues about me that should have told me the reason I was different was because I was gay, but I was too naive and the clues weren't close enough together in time for me to connect the dots. I just wasn't ready I guess.

I eventually left the mall and became a police officer for Stanford University in 1982. During that time we lost contact with one another and weren't to see each other for a couple more years.