First Time Drumming

I told you how I smoked kif the first time. I liked it so much, that I asked for more and I got some.
One night at Cafe Tokanten I met a young mason, Benny Andersen, and we had a couple of beers and talked. I invited him to come home and smoke with me. I had a guitar in my room, and we started drumming on it, sitting both on my bed in the dark. We went on and on, weaving our rhythms together for hours until a sleepless neighbor begged us to stop. I had never drummed before, and it was a revelation of unity and music; also it was the first time I had really connected with a working class person, and he belied the class conscious stereotyped picture I had formed of a worker; he had the same fresh intelligence I had admired in the Africans. But again, he was not gay! It was difficult to find a person that could satisfy both sides of my nature; I seemed to always fall for straight guys, and I was too shy to even find out if maybe --? So at these times I slipped back into the closet, and reverted to the platonic love that I was so familiar with.