We continued to walk away from Coronado. There was a stiff breeze. Seagulls hung still in the air, riding the air while standing still. We passed other couples walking back toward Coronado.

"That was a long time ago. I finished school because of Skippy and his parents. I don't know why Skippy liked me so much. I don't think I looked very good. I wore his clothes. I ate his parents' food. I survived in a better place. It didn't change who I was. It made my last couple of years doable to finish high school. I saw what a family was like, but it was temporary. Skippy and I were having sex before I moved into his house. We were teenage boys. Horny all the time. I thought, if I had a brother, he'd be like Skippy. That's how my mind worked. Hell, I might have ten brothers. I had no family life. My parents were often gone, and then it was me and mom, and she was often gone. She left me alone for days."

"Skip let me wear his clothes. I was a little bigger than him. His clothes were a little snug, but they were good clothes. My mother shopped at Goodwill, and only when she had to buy me something so they wouldn't toss me out of school for looking like a hobo. Skippy's house was a vacation, but I couldn't keep mooching off his parents. They let me stay because Skippy wanted me to stay. Once I'd finished high school, it was time for me to take my act on the road."

"I left El Cajon because it was a constant reminder of who I was, where I came from. I met a woman who fancied me while I was hitchhiking."

"Kim," I said. "She taught you to dance and dropped you at Rainbow."

"Yes, she did, but it took ten months to get to Rainbow. I was her kept boy. I had to service her, and believe me when I say, it was hard work. I had to pretend I liked it. I didn't. That's how my life has gone. I pretended a lot. I pretended I was with Kim. I pretended I was Romeo. I pretended I was a headliner at a Hollywood club, but I was a kid who came from nothing, and I wasn't really going anywhere. That's how I got hooked on drugs. That's who I was, until T came into Rainbow one night. T's straight but he wanted me, and since I was whatever people wanted me to be, I went with him, but I got way more than I bargained for. In T's confusion he decided he needed to save my life and give me a future I could live without needing to do drugs to make it through the night, and that's when Mama Rosa entered the picture."

"I need to go back. I want to go back. I need to see Mama Rosa. I'd like to see Juliet, and dear sweet Alan. He did my hair. When I left, it was go with T or he'd leave and never come back. I knew it was my chance to get clean, and I desperately wanted to get clean. Being addicted is a hellish existence.

"Kim," I said. "She was a dancer. She taught you to dance."

"I told you about her. Whatever I told you, it's far more complicated. I decided I was gay when I was about sixteen. I'd had the feelings forever. I liked other little boys when I was young. I was screwed up. That added a wrinkle. You'd be surprised how little it meant to me. I'm gay, so what? Anyway, Kim saw me as her stallion. I always had an erection and it was necessary to use it on her if I wanted her attention. At first, we were in bed all the time. She was a moaner. It sounded like I was the greatest lover in the world. It worked for a while."

"You mean you aren't?" I asked. "I thought you were."

Chet kissed me, and then, he kissed me again. People went around us.

"I want you to know these things. What I did before I met you. I've never told anyone about all the stuff I did. You need to know how I got where I am. Then, I'll tell you why I want you to know."

I was fascinated by how Chet got to be where I found him. Certainly I had curiosity about how he got from El Cajon to Hollywood and back. How he got to be where he was now. My life was nothing to write home about. I was there. I came here with my parents, and I found him.

"At first, I was her stallion. That's all. She kept me, fed me, dressed me, and took me to a spa with her. That's where my skin was first attended to. I had pimples. I was eighteen. I had pimples that got attention. I had an erection that got attention, and then, we got to the bottom line. Kim was a dancer. She wanted me to dance with her. I knew nothing about dance, other than the dance I did on my skateboard, and I was one of the best skateboarders in El Cajon, because I was fearless. I didn't care. My life meant nothing to me and I could fly. Kim taught me to fly without my skateboard. I wasn't on a skateboard from the time I left Skippy's, until just before the day we first saw each other. I danced for you. I put all the dancing I knew together with my skateboard and I put on a show."

"I never forgot that show. I never forgot the red head in the storm drain. I wanted to know you so bad. You mesmerized me that day, and I never gave up the idea that I'd meet you one day."

"Not much to meet. I was a showoff and nothing more. I'd just done my rehab and left Mama Rosa's to go to El Cajon to work for T. I wasn't aware of what I could do on a board until I did it. I danced with my board," he said.

"You know where I was before you saw me in the storm drain now. I can't judge my life. I was a survivor. Chet the survivor. When I was hungry and not knowing when I'd eat again, I made up my mind, I'm going to survive. I'm going to grow up, and I'll never go hungry again, because I'll take care of myself."

"And you did it, Chet," I said, stopping to get my lips on his.

People walked around us. I didn't care who knew I loved Chet. I wanted everyone to know I loved Chet.

"I had a lot of help from my friends," he said, kicking at the sand. "I owe a lot of people who helped me keep standing."

"Tevo picked you up and took you to our apartment from Mama Rosa's?"

"Tevo picked me up. I was to work for him at Tevo's. I'd live in that apartment. I worked and stayed to myself mostly. I needed that time to decompress. I didn't need anyone, until I went to buy some things T likes. I met a boy I would fall in love with. My life is an accident, Z. Lock, stock, and barrel, from the beginning until now, but you are the best thing that has ever happened to me in nearly twenty-one fucked up years. I love you. I know you love me, and nothing that came before compares to it."

"And ..."

"You read me like a book. I want to go back. I want you to go with me."

"Do you really want to go back?" I asked.

"I need to go back. I need to know I can walk away."

"What does T think?"

"I'm telling you first. I haven't told T."

As we drove back over the Coronado Bay Bridge, I would see forever out toward the Pacific Ocean and the horizon. It was beautiful.

I'd never been as frightened as I was on the way back from Coronado.

What if he got to Hollywood and he decided he wanted to stay? What if someone offered him drugs? What if he decided that being a headliner was really what he wanted after all? On that bridge, I could see forever, but I couldn't see how going back to Hollywood would turn out.

There was an intermission as we drove back to El Cajon. My mind was twisted in circles. I had the complete picture up until Chet went to work at Over the Rainbow as a dancer who would dance with the owner of Rainbow's daughter. They danced as Romeo and Juliet, which put the spotlight on Juliet, Dorothy.

A lot of people would give their right arm to be Chet, but Chet didn't stand on a steady foundation that allowed him to have control of what he decided to do. He left El Cajon looking for himself. He found Kim, who saw him as a stud first and a dancer afterward.

To hold on to what Kim offered him, he had to perform for her. He'd always needed to perform no matter where he went. Kim represented something Chet knew nothing about. Kim was famous and she was wealthy enough to live well. For a poor boy, that would be something that attracted him to her lifestyle.

Chet was willing to stay with Kim, but she had other ideas. Chet was good, but not good enough to hold on to what he had once Kim tired of him. He couldn't hate her for setting him up to be Romeo, but he knew he was being dumped when she left him off at Over the Rainbow.

I didn't know what he felt about what Kim did, but Chet sounded happy to become Romeo. He belonged somewhere when he was at Over the Rainbow. It wouldn't be as easy to remain Romeo. For the first time Chet had a place that belonged to him and him alone. While Juliet stood in the spotlight, he stood beside her. I figured they had to get along to be able to pull off being Romeo and Juliet.

The audience had to buy into their love. With folks hanging around wanting to party, I could see how his life as Romeo turned to drugs. What kind of life as a poor hungry boy in El Cajon prepared him for the glitz and glitter of Hollywood? He partied and danced, and everything he did connected to both of those things.

I would go with Chet, no matter where he went. I did not like the idea of returning to the scene of the crime. What if he got there and realized he missed his life as a Romeo? I wanted to find something in his words that would give me an argument that made him think twice about going back

Chet seemed to feel like there was something important that he left undone. We didn't go into that angle. While he seemed to doubt anyone would remember him, he owed an explanation to people he knew. He'd cleaned up his act and gotten back on the straight and narrow, and he was in love for the first time. He was in love with me, and he thought I could shield him from harm, but I didn't know if I could be strong enough to shield him.

What if there was another Romeo? Would there be a pissing contest to see which one was the better Romeo? How would he handle facing his replacement? What might that stir up inside of him? Kim trained him to be Romeo. He taught Juliet how to be Juliet to Chet's Romeo. That wouldn't be easy to duplicate. What if Chet decided he needed to prove he was the real Romeo?

I didn't know how Tevo might feel about him returning to Hollywood. I have a feeling that Tevo would feel similarly to how I felt. It was too dangerous. It was the atmosphere at Rainbow that put him in jeopardy in the first place.

I knew what happened up until the time Kim dropped Chet at Rainbow. There was more and I knew the outline he'd given me without the details. It was at Rainbow where he got into trouble. Dorothy sounded fairly stable and if Chet covered for her so she could be with her boyfriend, she probably appreciated him.

We were in bed later that night, and we'd gone a couple of rounds. I still couldn't get enough of Chet, no matter how difficult his past was to hear about. It became his practice to talk about it in between rounds.

Chet was about as affectionate as he'd been. We were relaxed and comfortable with each other. No matter what he told me, he could see it hadn't changed my feelings toward him. Maybe I became even more protective of him.

I was comfortable with him before my parents approved of Chet. I was a worrier, and I worried my parents would not like someone I took home to meet them.

After we had their approval, my feelings solidified. I'd have been in a pickle if they hadn't approved of Chet, but they did. With nothing more to worry about, I became more relaxed with Chet. I couldn't be more in love with him, but I loved him better. I loved him often. It seemed like the thing to do.

"Was Dorothy a diva, Chet? I could see where she might have been."

I'd saved that little tidbit for a break in the love making, when I wanted to know more about the woman he danced with. I was in search of a good reason for him not to go back up there.

"Not even. Dorothy couldn't have seen what was coming. She'd danced with some good dancers. She knew I came from Kim's shop. Kim choreographed our dance moves. Dorothy learned her part. I learned my part, and when we got together that first time at Rainbow, when that spotlight hit us, we flew. She was Juliet. I was Romeo, as choreographed by Kim."

"What did you feel about it? Did you feel the chemistry?"

"At first, I was going through the motions. I wasn't a professional dancer. Dorothy was trained to be a professional dancer. It was the audience reaction to us that told me we were doing something special. They called us back twice that first night to take more bows. It wasn't something I understood, but Dorothy did."

"What did you say?" I asked.

"We're a hit. She told me that we were a hit. I took her word for it, but it was like that every night. We did two shows on the weekends. Her father was pulling down the money. A couple of hundred people twice a day, it adds up. He was sorry he hadn't built a bigger club, and Rainbow was huge," he told me.

"We smoldered with intensity once we'd danced together for a few weeks. We were Romeo and Juliet. That intensity didn't exist outside of the spotlight. Something about it, the man behind it, presented us in an unearthly way. We literally flew. Because I didn't really identify with fame or adoration, I didn't catch on right away. I was still Chet after the show. I was naive and inexperienced. Nothing could have prepared me for being well known, even if it was only with a small circle of folks who came to Rainbow. I was never anything special before."

"I can't understand that. You're pretty damn special to me," I said, and the kisses came as my reward for being so observant.

"We weren't good the way you and I are good," he said.

His lips spoke volumes. It was always as good as it gets when Chet turned his lips on me. We couldn't stop making love, even when he took a time out to tell me more. He finally had someone to tell his story to, and in between rounds he talked, and he talked some more.

"Dorothy told me that she thought she'd need to carry me, until I got the hang of dancing at Rainbow. Kim apparently warned her that I had no experience with professional dance. I'd danced with Kim, and now I danced with Dorothy. After that first night, she told me that she didn't need to carry me, and on nights when she wasn't a hundred percent, I carried her. That was rare. We were Romeo & Juliet once the spot hit us in the middle of Rainbow's dance floor."

I wondered if he'd run this by Tevo yet? There was no date set to take this trip. I suspected Tevo still didn't know, because I was sure Tevo would have something to say about it. Tevo would know reasons why his plan wasn't a good idea. I worried but Tevo had more experience with this kind of thing.

He survived Hollywood once. How likely was he to survive it a second time?

If I told Tevo, I'd be a traitor to Chet, because it wasn't my place to inform Tevo. No, I didn't have a right to speak with Tevo about Chet's plan. I had no exit ramp. I had to go all the way with whatever Chet decided on. What I knew was, I wouldn't come home without Chet.

I really knew little about life beyond the boundaries my parents fashioned for me. My life was predictable. The only fly in the boundaries issue … I was queer. I never gave my parents any headaches. They didn't know I was queer. Had they known, boundaries might have been adjusted for it. I wasn't doing anything about liking boys, which gave my parents a pass.

The dark world that lived beyond my parents' lives was as foreign to me as it was to them. My mother was a teacher. She did her best to keep her students under control. Most kids were no problem. She couldn't give a lot of time to disruptive kids, because she had a classroom full of kids who wanted to learn.

My father worked in the real world. He dealt with people in financial difficulty at the bank. Most such problems were the result of people digging themselves into a hole. My father could advise customers to stop digging, but mostly they were looking for a loan to pay off the bills that had gotten out of control. People who wouldn't or couldn't stop digging didn't get a loan.

Luckily, Chet's past came out slowly. At first it was an outline. I'd met Tevo, where his story turned back on itself. I met Tevo, through Chet. I was connected to Chet, and his story started in El Cajon with Skippy. I went with Skip. Once I met Chet, his reconnection to where this story began was assured.

In a strange way, Chet's life and my life were connected in a way neither of us suspected the day he performed for me in the storm drain. I was almost two years from meeting Skip, three years from meeting Chet, and getting him back in touch with Skippy. What an odd chain of events had connected the three of us.

It was a perfect circle. Where it began. Where he met me, joined the final stages and Tevo's entry into Chet's life, which brought him back to El Cajon.

"Tevo?" I asked in the form of a question. "How'd he break the spell?"

"Spell. Good word spell. Tevo couldn't get enough of me until he could. He saw something in me that reminded him of himself. The night he broke the spell, he sat at the next table over. He watched me. He didn't come over. He didn't say anything. He watched. He waited until Romeo & Juliet were done for the night. That's when he came over to talk. He had it in mind to get me out of there, and he did. How'd he break the spell? I suppose I'd had enough and I was looking for a way out. I was on a dead end road, and Tevo offered me a way out."

"When we got to Mama Rosa's, she looked at me before looking at T.

"This him, T? Who is he dressed like that.? Mama Rosa asked him."

"'Romeo. He's a dancer. He's in trouble. I need you to help him Mama. I need you to do for him what you did for me.' T said."

"I'll never forget what she said. She told him, 'He's pretty far gone, T. I'll do what I can, but he might not make it. We're going to see how tough he is.""

"You made it," I said. "You're plenty tough, Chet."

"I want you to know I'm no prize. I've tried it all and I managed to survive, but you need to know that I'm no saint. I'm human with plenty of flaws."

"Few of us are saints," I said. "Few of us can be as good as we'd like to be."

The story, his journey, wasn't something he completely understood. It started before he turned nineteen. He was twenty-five and three years beyond addiction and the cure. I didn't know if three years away was long enough to be able to face your desire and walk away from where the drugs are. That worried me.

I was sure that there were aspects of the journey he'd passed over, rather than to give me too much detail all at once. I heard it all the way to the end. The most fascinating part, my relationship with Skip, and his relationship with him. Tevo brought him back home, and we were destined to meet from the first day I saw him right after moving to California. Our meeting was years away, but the memory of him never completely left me.

While Chet had been on a journey of self-destruction, I was on a journey of discovering how to be a gay man. I thought I'd been in love before. I loved Free as well as I knew how. I had a lot to learn. Had I been older, I could have gotten a home for Free and me. He wouldn't have needed to join the Navy to have a home, but I had a hunch, it worked out better this way. Free and I were way too young to be planning the next fifty years or so. We had nothing to go on, and Chet was waiting in the wings, shortly after Free made his final port of call with me.

Chet was walking dynamite, and I decided I wouldn't get blown up. I knew way more about myself these days. I understood my love for Chet was no passing fancy. He was old enough to know what he had and where he wanted to go. He wanted to go there with me, and as long as that was true, I'd be going with him.

I love Skip. Skip loves Chet. Chet loves me. I love Chet.

By admitting his weakness concerning drugs and alcohol, he showed me his strength. The risk he took could have sent me running for the hills. Chet wanted to be honest, so I knew how he nearly self-destructed. By admitting his weakness to me, he showed me his strength of character. No, I didn't like the story he told, but I loved the ending, and I loved Chet.

Chet intended to shoot for the stars. Now that he told me what his life was like, he wanted to go back to face his demons, so he'd know his victory wasn't temporary. He beat addiction and he'd never go back. I understood his logic, and I had to go with him. Maybe that would be enough.

"Does Tevo know your plan yet? You've got to run this past T," I asked, I was depending on T to have objections.

"No, I've told you. I'll tell T. I'm just not ready to tell him yet."

"Tevo is remarkable. There has to be limits to how far he'll let you go."

"Because you're going with me, I think he might give me his blessing."

"Why would me going change his mind about you going?" I asked.

"He knows if you raise hell and order me to take you home, I'll take you."

"That's reassuring. You better be sure you're ready for this," I said.

"If I take you home, I'll be home, and I'm likely to stay home."

"Why not avoid all the hypothetical and stay home in the first place?"

"I need to know I've licked it. I need to go back to leave on my own terms."

"I'll go, and if you look like you're going to glance sideways at someone who can get you drugs, I'm going to drag you out of there. You hear me, Buster?"

"I'm depending on you to do that. I won't fight you, Z. You know that."

"That's reassuring too, but why risk it?"

"I love you. I'll do anything you ask me to," he pledged. "You know why I needed to tell you my story and you've heard most of it?"

"You don't want me finding stuff out that could upset me. I aspire to be good. I'm not as good as I can be. We wouldn't be human if we didn't take a fall now and then. We all take falls. You fell a bit further than most of us fall, but you got higher than most of us get. I feel closer to you. I know you better."

Chet leaned to kiss me. We held hands. I was sure I'd hear more. We'd gone as far as we could for this session. I thought I knew Chet pretty well. While he struggled to get some of it out, I realized how close I felt to my lover.

"I didn't intend to lay it all on you at once. It seemed like I needed to talk about it with someone. If I'm going back, I should talk about what I'm going back to. It seems like a long time ago. Telling you gives it a perspective I didn't have before," Chet said. "You seem fine. It didn't shock you too much, did it?"

"Gives me food for thought. Knowing what you went through makes me feel closer to you, Chet. You're here now. You made it out alive. I don't understand a need to go back to a life that nearly killed you, but I'll go with you," I said.