...So God Created Adam
by Timothy David Rey
According to the New Catholic Encyclopedia, Adam is the first name given to the first human being. He is not merely the first man, but the prototype of all mankind.
Oh Adam!
Oh God! Who am I kidding? This isn't the story of the first man in the Bible and I'm not even Catholic! But it is a story just the same. Not of gardens and apples and serpents, but of steamy college locker rooms and mid-night trysts. Uncertainty. Longing. Not being gay then coming to terms with it all in one summer. My first and last summer with Adam.
It was 1992, a sultry, sticky summer in Bloomington, Indiana. I had decided to stay on to finish up my studies, post graduation, on a campus that had all but emptied of its thousands of students. The raucous place, for three months, would transform to quiet and still.
I had not come out and for some untold reason feared the experience. Could everything I had bottled up inside me these 22 years be preparing to overflow in the real world? I had tried to tell myself that each time I thought of another man—returned his gaze, coveted him—must be the last. I simply couldn't go into the world as a Black gay male. Was it even done? Could it be survived? And if so, would I survive it? The long and the short of it...it pained me. But there was to be a saving grace.
The derivation of the Hebrew word of Adam is uncertain but may derive from "adama" meaning ground. God formed Adam out of the dirt.
Picture a sweaty, smoldering, locker room. The college variety. It's summer and boys go to the gym to lift weights, take a swim, play a game of hoops. The din of the place is metallic. Empty. I stand at the sink, in a long line of sins. A towel wrapped around my waist and then he passes. His reflection. His look: a squat white boy with spiky black hair and penetrating black eyes and curvaceous smile.
He passes again, and I follow his look again, back and forth, and finally...
"Here's my phone number. Call me," he says as he thrusts small piece of paper in my palm. I look down at it, but don't want to take it. I look up at him and lie.
"I can't. I ummmm, have roommates and we can't get together."
"You have roommates?" He replies blankly, not believing. He pauses. "Well, I don't." and I look down at the paper with his number scrawled on it and as he walks away, I consider throwing it in the locker room trash can...but I don't.
Both Greek and Latin fathers affirmed a privileged state of Adam: Head of the Human Race. But the enumeration and analysis of his gifts have been arrived at slowly.
It was not long after our locker room exchange that I found myself in Adam's arms, curled up at the seat of his couch wondering on my "Great Gay Future."
He, on the other hand, was done with wondering, and at the ripe old age of 23 had come out to his friends and family with his red-Audi-driving-self and now was prepared to be my savior.
"I don't see why you are resisting this so much," he would chide.
"I'm not resisting being gay, it's just that..."
"Yes you are," he'd come back, "You are!"
And I was. Between the hot co-ed sex, our bodies molding together, licking every surface, exploring places I never knew existed, I wanted him to love me, to fall in love with me, for as my guide and mentor, I had fallen so hard for him. I wanted his security, his OK-ness with the whole gay thing, less than his love. I wanted to be him, to skip coming out and just arrive. Completely. Wholly. Saved. And so, like any well-meaning coming out queen must learn to do, I could only arrive at one conclusion to win him over....I stalked him.
Well, I was not to be overlooked. I called his machine, just to hear his manly voice. I hung out at the library on campus where his black boy-toy worked, just to see if Adam would show. I looked over my shoulder constantly to see if his red Audi was anywhere in sight and if it did appear, my heart leapt out of my body. I was obsessed. Paparazzi without a camera. A fan without a cause. But that didn't matter. I needed him then. Rebuking his warning of "But you are not ready—not ready for me and what a true relationship brings."
Now some scholars find Adam's behavior in the Garden of Eden disruptive, robbing the cosmos and the earth of its fruitfulness. Other authors, however, exalt Adam above all creatures, calling him a wise man, king, angel.
And Adam said: "There's a group of us going gay bar hopping in Indianapolis this weekend, and I think you should come with us. Ever been to a gay bar before?"
I shook my head "no."
"Good. You'll have fun. We'll pick you up around 8 pm. Dress...casual."
My first night of gay bars was a blur. Filled with predictions, expectations drag queens, loud talk, and half-naked boys flailing themselves on the dance floor in a heightened state of ecstasy. Upon my return, I passed out on my bead back at school from mere exhaustion, only to wake the next morning to an out of body experience.
I saw myself from above wearing the same white Calvin Klein T-Shirt and white jeans as the night before. Thinking over and over to myself as I began to undress: "O my God! I'm gay! I'm going to be gay. This is going to be a part of my life forever. And there may be trials the likes of which I may not heartily embrace, but this is me. Now and forever."
It is important to note, St. Paul tells us, "That the Christian must strip off the old Adam and his deeds and put on the new Adam, so that he may be renewed into that perfect knowledge himself."
And on that very bed, not moving, I lay. And there I thought. And there I cried. And I didn't move as I realized the profound revelation of which Adam had been such a part.
The summer ended and so did he.
The repercussions, of course, go on and on.
I only saw Adam once after college. Here, in Chicago. He pulled up in that same red Audi, on the corner of Broadway and Grace. I remember, the car still gleaming, but him looking older...and how it stopped raining when I stopped to say hello.
Was Adam a paragon of creation or a cave man? Were there many Adams, or just one? Did he really know the nature of all created things or was his knowledge primitive?
We all have an Adam. I had mine—God bless him—and now, so do you.
Timothy David Rey is a writer and actor who currently lives in Chicago, where he has performed original solo work at venues such as Café Voltaire, Homolatte, and the Bailiwick Repertory Theatre. His work has appeared in numerous periodicals including After Hours and Black Child, and he is the recipient of the Most Outstanding Author award from Indiana University's Department of English. Timothy has served as The Annenberg Foundation's Director of Arts Integration programs and has taught in various poetry performance programs including Young Chicago Authors and Words 37.
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