"Yeah, so I pitched for a few guys...so what?!,,,,"

With those deathless words, Jackie Riccardi burned his way into my synapses forevermore. I was 15 and he was about the same age. He had peach fuzz on his chin and rosy cheeks that looked almost comical in their wholesomeness but he possessed the voice of a hard-bitten streetwise, Bronx punk that sounded like someone who'd been gargling lye for longer than he'd been alive. I'm not exaggerating. If you closed your eyes and listend to this kid he sounded like a 45 year chainsmoking whiskey pounder. This was, no doubt, the result of his ingestion of Marlboro Reds, end to end, throughout the day. We were a couple of kids among a couple dozen that were in a drug rehab called Daytop Village on 83rd street between Columbus and Amsterdam.

My parents had given me a simple ultimatum: either get cleaned up or find another place to live. Being that I was 14 years old, I didn't really cotton to the prospect of finding a place on my own so I acceded and began attending. It was a day-care program in which attendance was required from 8:30 am to 5:30 pm daily, 10-3 on Saturdays and Sundays off. The truly hardcore (i.e. junkies of long standing) were sent to the program's upstate facilities in Millbrook, New York (there was another upstate one but I can't recall the location). The program in the city had quite a colorful crew, both staff and attendees. I recall a 15 year old gay hustler and a 42nd street prostitute named Yvonne who I later saw decked out like a garish vision of old New York, tottering across Broadway and 45th Street, complete with purple hot pants and a feather boa. Apparently she didn't get cured.
Just to show how different New York was then (I know people talk about this ad nauseam but it was truly a different world): on the first day that I was due at the program I lit up a big roach as I walked down Broadway at about 8 am. As I rounded the corner of 83rd street heading east and sucking mightily on the roach, lips pursed in an almost comic evocation of a potsmoker, a cop walked past me. We looked right at each other. He did nothing and continued on his way. Contrast that with today's New York when pissing discreetly behind a bush in Central Park can get you hauled in and you might get some idea of the stark difference between yesterday and today.

So back to Jackie Riccardi. Jackie had a serious tough guy persona. Although he was rosy cheeked and only 15, he did his best to impart a real "fuck you and your dead ancestors" kind of vibe. He was a hard-boiled little fuck from the Bronx and he wanted you to know it. So, when the counselors (reformed addicts themselves) and the inmates (not really, since we all went home every evening) gathered twice weekly for Encounter Groups, we were all encouraged to let loose all the frustration and hostility that we had hoarded over the course of dealing with one another civilly the rest of the time. In this one particular group, a couple of the counselors began hammering Jackie, telling him that his tough guy "I'll kick your ass" pose was a front and that it had to be a cover for something softer, something...gayer. They kept at him for over 15 minutes, "c'mon Jackie, you never made it with a guy? Who you kiddin'? Kah Maaaaahn man! Fess up!" etc etc. It was fascinating to watch because, while he denied it, he didn't get all upset or start hollering. He just was like, "Me? Get the fuck out of here." So imagine my surprise when, after relentless hectoring, he blurts out—to finally get them off his back—"All right! Okay! Yeah, so I pitched for a couple o' guys. So what?! That don't make me queer!" I was unacquainted with the whole "pitch" versus "catch" parlance but I caught on fast.
Here it was, in all its ancient glory—the notion that the penetrator, the actor (rather than the acted upon) remains sexually undefined by his act while the buggeree (or cocksucker) is an irredeemable fag. I came across this same idea just the other day while re-reading Thompson's "Hell's Angels" in which a touch, macho Angel recounts how a guy blew him in a bar and how he would have no problem getting sucked off for cash anytime there was someone willing to pay. But him gay? Naah.