Episode 4

The Chronicles of Swishy Pete

A Dream Affirmed

Langston Hughes, I can see the words fall from your mouth as they jumped off the page and smacked me right in the face. Honey, I know you must have understood the yearnings I felt all those years, not as an out writer but as an out man, especially when I read the line: "What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun…" in your poem. I have often wondered where I belonged as a gay man with a lifelong dream. As I lie in my bed reading your poems, I fell asleep and had a dream affirmed.

"Excuse me sir, are you Langston Hughes?"

"It's me Pete."

"Boo, all my dreams of the future are wrapped up in your poem, A Dream Deferred. I never thought in a million years that my life could be anything but what it is."

"Well Pete, today you have been pulled from the wreckage of your imagination."

"What do you mean Mr. Hughes?"

"Please Pete, call me Langston, baby, honey or boo, I don’t mind."

"Ok Langston, what the hell you mean?"

"All your dreams for the future Pete will be exactly what you see, so visualize big bright pictures. What's your passion?"

"I wish I could write poetry that touches the heart of people, like yours"

"Well Pete, what have you written?"

"I wrote a poem called A Group of Friends about my friends, Minnie, Delicious, and Charlotte."

"Ok, Pete lets hear it."


A Group of Friends

Though different in each way
Anyone can see we are friends

Each with a different background
Some are quiet some are not

We share a park bench
And although we will leave it, we all will return

It is our life raft

It allows us the safety to be ourselves
without drowning.

Though many people pass
Most are faceless never to be remembered.

Anyone can see our friendships are strong

It allows our smiles to shine.
It is so easy to see that we are a group of friends.


"So Langston, what do you think?"

"The purpose of poetry is defined by the poet, your poem demonstrates a distinct connection between all your friends, and I certainly relate to those words."

"How so Langston?"

"Well," Langston said, "I have a Minnie, Delicious, and Charlotte; their names are Zora Neale Hurston, Wally Thurman, and Richard Bruce Nugent. We are also a group of friends."

"I heard about a magazine called Fire," said Pete, "that you guys started it in 1926 which tackled topics, such as gay issues, not typically discussed in mainstream magazines."

"It was a flop, but I learned a valuable lesson from the process which I have carried throughout my existence."

"What lesson Langston?"

"One I hope all gay men and women will carry with them throughout their lives, gay is never démodé, never accept the contingencies of heterosexuality and never be ignored."

"Do you ever get upset when folks say you were in the closet and never wrote much about gay people?"

"No, Pete, I lived in a time when we did not have the freedoms celebrated today. We wrote between the lines."

"You must have made many sacrifices, writing as a gay man for straight people in the 1920s."

"The LGBT community will have to make many sacrifices in their lives, but will never be called on to make the sacrifices we made in those days, just as those who follow you will enjoy more freedoms."

"It’s called progress."

"Yes it is Pete, however, to answer your question, all my writings were created through the eyes of a proud gay man, and I could not have asked for more."

"I second that emotion honey and thank you Langston."

"Pleasant dreams, Pete."