The Closet Professor

Every now and then a picture pops up online that sends your mind wandering down the oddest memory lane. I came across this picture earlier—just a very handsome, very naked man lining up a pool shot—and for whatever reason, it sent my mind spinning backward about twenty years to the first time someone ever taught me how to play pool.

Back in grad school, I had one of those unexpected friendships that just sort of ignite out of nowhere. He was a very straight, very frat-bro guy from Illinois. We met at the annual graduate welcome party at a professor’s lake house—the kind of event that involved a keg, mismatched lawn chairs, and a lot of awkward introductions. Somehow he and I started talking, and before I knew it, we were back at his apartment drinking on his balcony until dawn.

Too bad he was so straight—genuinely, hopelessly straight—because we could have had a great deal of fun together. And yes, I’m speaking from evidence. He was the kind of guy who talked a big game about his 9.5” dick and then casually proved it, not out of flirtation, but because frat boys operate on a completely different plane of shameless bravado. It was, I must admit, an impressive sight.

We became inseparable. Friday nights were for bar-hopping, poker with other grad students, or just whatever chaos the week produced. He technically had a girlfriend back in Illinois, but that didn’t stop him from sleeping with half the women he came across. She found it hilarious that her straight-as-an-arrow frat bro boyfriend’s best friend in Mississippi was gay. She always said he’d come home to her in the end, and she was right. They eventually got married, and to my knowledge, he never strayed again once they were living in the same city. But those Mississippi years? He was a horny little bastard. Weren’t we all when we were in our twenties.

One night in 2005—my birthday, I think—we ended up at a bar we almost never went to, one of those places with an almost perfect half-and-half mix of straights and gays. I can’t remember the name, but I could still drive you to it.

That night, he decided he was going to teach me to play pool.

Now, I was terrible at pool. Abysmal. So he stepped behind me, pressed his body against mine, and guided me into the proper position—very much like the pose in the picture above, though in our version everyone kept their clothes on. For him, there was absolutely nothing sexual about it. For me…well, it was one of the more pleasant lessons I’ve ever received. And honestly, I did get better at pool after that night.

Somewhere in the mix, we ended up playing pool with two girls who I’m pretty sure were on the university’s softball team — definitely not the stereotypical “lesbian softball players” people love to joke about. One of them came back to his apartment with us and was very clearly hoping for a threesome. To my eternal regret, I figured it out a little too late, mostly because I had drunk way too much. I got sick, passed out on the couch, and fell asleep to the soundtrack of the two of them having sex. I woke up to round two the next morning before she cheerfully said goodbye to me on her way out.

Those were my “wilder days,” though in truth I was never that wild. I was still a very serious student. It was simply the first time in my life I’d had real freedom—living three hours from my family, coming out, navigating grad school, rebuilding life after Hurricane Katrina destroyed the house I’d been living in, and having to move into the dorms for a semester because my town was overrun by Katrina refugees and housing was at a premium and in short supply.

Another morning, I woke up in his bed with a female professor lying between us. Nothing had happened; none of us had hooked up. But the way she woke—going from dead asleep to standing at the foot of the bed in one swift, acrobatic motion—is a sight I’ll never forget.

A lot of people didn’t like him. He could be an intellectual snob, and he was proud of it. For some reason, he thought I was the only person in our grad program smarter than he was. That’s not true, there were other people smarter than him. But he was a loyal friend to me during a very chaotic time in my life, when a lot of people I thought were friends turned out not to be such good friends. After his two years in Mississippi, he went back to Illinois, got a master’s in library science, followed his girlfriend to Texas for a job at a major oil company—she was a biochemist, and he eventually became the oil company’s corporate librarian—something I didn’t even know existed. Last I checked, he’d gone on to law school and was working as an attorney for the same big oil company.

We eventually drifted apart, as people do. But him teaching me to play pool—pressed behind me, bending me over just right, guiding my hands—remains one of my fondest and most vivid memories.

Funny how a single picture can open a door you didn’t even realize was still there. If this sparks a memory of your own — a friend, a night out, or a moment that caught you off guard — don’t be shy. Share in the comments. I always love reading your stories, and I know other readers will enjoy them too.