CARL AND I were cleaning up the kitchen while Matt had gone out into the garden to harvest the remaining strawberries. Matt and I had taken over the role as cooks, since Carl couldn’t cook a thing without burning it unless it happened to be on a grill. Matt had told me that he had given up trying to teach him how. Matt learned some from his mother but most of his culinary skills he learned from his grandmother.
“Carl, think it would be all right if I continued the interview with you tonight? As much as I like working with you guys here on the farm, I am still expected to get this article done,” I broached to him. I was almost feeling guilty for doing it now.
“Yeah. Sure thing, Carter. I understand you’re here to do a job and so does Matt. Having gotten to know you, I feel a lot more comfortable doin’ this. You know… before, I thought that they were gonna send someone out here to turn us into total freaks or somethin’. I don’ think… no, I know that you wouldn’t do that to us.” Carl had stopped drying the pan he was holding to look right at me. There was complete trust in his eyes and on his face. A trust I knew that I would never betray.
“Carl, you’re right. I would never do that to you and Matt, but I want you to know that I wouldn’t have done that anyway. The problem for me now is to try and be objective about you guys.” I walked over to him, put my hand behind his neck and pulled him to me for a quick kiss. “My objectivity, you might say, has been slightly compromised.” I grinned up into his face.
Carl chuckled and blushed slightly. “Yeah, I guess you can say that.” He returned my smile.
“I was thinking that perhaps you and I could pick up where we’d left off?” I queried.
“You mean just me again?” he asked, going back to drying the pan.
“Yeah, if you don’t mind that is?” I took the pan he had just finished drying to put away.
“Sure. You said that you were gonna interview us together though,” he said as he finished drying a pot.
“That’s the plan,” I answered him. “I just want to get a clear picture in my head from both of your points of view, individually first. Ya know, kinda get a history up to this point in your relationship.”
“That’s okay with me.” Carl handed me the pot he’d finished drying.
About that time, Matt came in the back door carrying a huge basket of strawberries. “There’s a boat load of salad greens and asparagus I’m going to get in. I’ll need to take it all up to Clancy’s Market tomorrow morning,” Matt commented before he went back out the door, not bothering to wait for a comment from either me or Carl.
“Guess that gives us a perfect excuse to do this.” Carl grinned at me. “Matt will be busy cleaning everything and getting it ready to go to market tomorrow.”
“Great. I’ll meet you out on the front porch. Let me get my stuff,” I said over my shoulder as I went to get my satchel.
When I returned, I saw Carl had gotten us each a couple of beers that were sitting on ice in a now familiar metal bucket. I sat down next to him, and he handed me one and smiled. I took the beer, we clinked the bottles together and each took a drink.
Pulling out my notes and digital recorder, I got set up.
Carter Roberts: “Carl, we left off when you and Matt had gone to IHOP for breakfast. Let’s pick things up from there.”
Carl Foltz: [Long pause before he started to speak.] “I think that both Matt and I had put what had happened the night before and that mornin’ in the back of our minds, for the most part, during breakfast. Things felt normal… you know, like nuttin’ had happened. It wasn’t until I was drivin’ Matt back to his Jeep that things got quiet. When we got back to the bar, we both sat there for a minute, neither of us knowin’ what to say, I guess. Finally, Matt said that he’d be home the next weekend and that we could talk then. What stands out most in my mind was him asking me to think about ‘Us’. I knew how he meant it. The way he said it and the way he looked at me left no doubt that he wanted me to think about ‘Us’ as a couple. I’ll never forget the knot that settled in my stomach.”
“That was the toughest and longest week of my life. I did a lot of thinkin’ during that time. A lot of soul searching. I won’t deny that I also did a lot of cryin’ that week as well. The conflict of what we had done, what I had done, was almost more than I could stand. At one point, the guilt I felt was suffocating me. I couldn’t breathe. Those were some of the longest days of my life, I have to admit. I hardly ate, and I drank more than I ever had, I think. That wasn’t exactly the smartest thing to do, but it at least dulled the pain I was feelin’, and trust me, I was in a lot of pain.”
“The hardest part during all that was how I remembered kissin’ Matt, or him kissin’ me. I remembered how much passion was in those kisses, the look in his eyes of him wanting me. My gut would seize up when I thought about it. First, coming from guilt and two, wanting to be able to erase the pain and want from his eyes by givin’ in to him. Yes, there was the underlyin’ want of him. I wanted my son sexually… again. That in itself was a revelation to me, one that made me sick to my stomach every time I thought about it.”
“On one hand, if I pushed him away, denied him— I know as sure as I am sitting here, talkin’ to you— it would break his heart. I don’t know of any parent that would knowin’ly do that. But on the other hand, if I gave into him, what would that do to our relationship, and how in the hell was I expected to deal with that?”
“When Friday rolled around and Matt got home, I was no closer to figurin’ out anything than I had been when I left him in the bar parking lot. When Matt came in the door, I froze. I literally froze, not knowin’ what to do, to say, or how to act. I remember saying to myself that if I moved a muscle I would throw up, I was so nervous. My biggest fear was that I was going to lose my son no matter what happened, and that scared me more than anythin’ I could imagine. Matt was my life. He was all I had. I loved that boy more than life itself.”
[Carl was weeping, tears rolling down his face. He never wiped them away. He paused for about five minutes.]
“Matt walked right up to me and said, ‘Hey, Carl’. That was when he stopped calling me Dad, for the most part. Then he hugged me and kissed me, and not like a son would kiss his father. I was shocked, still frozen, unable to move. He looked at me and kissed me again. Matt did that several times until I responded. I couldn’t stop myself. I gave in to his kisses by kissin’ him back. I couldn’t stop. I had no control of anything right then, Matt did. I was weak.”
“He took me by the hand and led me to my bedroom. There, he undressed me, kissin’ me where my clothes had been. He was so gentle and lovin’. I didn’t pull away. There have been many times since then that I wondered what would have happened… what would have been, had I found a way to stop him. You see… I couldn’t stop ’im. I was numb.”
“I know now without a doubt, that had I stopped Matt, pushed him away, denied him, I would have lost Matt in every way. I would have lost Matt as my son and now my lover, my partner. ”
[Carl stopped again for a few minutes.]
“Now, I know that Matt and me will be together for as long as I’m walkin’ this earth. He is a part of me in more than just the way a son is part of his father. He is a part of my very soul. Quite honestly, I don’t know if I could even breathe if he wasn’t here.”
[Another long pause.]
“I never wanted any of this, ya know. But—Matt is that part of me that I’d been missin’ my whole life. I just didn’t know it.”
“That Friday, Matt made love to me like no one had ever done before. Yes, it was sex, but it was much more than that. I think for the first time, I really knew what making love was all about. It went on for hours. The sun was settin’ and the light was a comin’ through the window, and it hit Matt, turning him to gold. It was at that moment, while I looked at my golden boy, that I had the greatest orgasm of my entire life. If there’s one orgasm, that one time you came so hard that you will remember it the rest of your life? That was mine.”
“Afterwards, we lay in bed together, touchin’, kissin’ each other. I remember lookin’ into his eyes and seein’ the love pourin’ right on out of them, and that love was for me.”
[Carl was choking trying to keep from sobbing. He lost that battle, put his face in his hands and sobbed for several long minutes.]
“I’m sorry, Carter. This is very hard for me.”
Carter Roberts: “Take your time, Carl, there's no hurry.”
[I turned off the recorder here for about thirty minutes. I also had to stop as I was crying too.]
Carl Foltz: “Anyway, we lay like that for quite some time. Then Matt’s stomach growled and broke the mood, with both of us laughin’. You can’t deny that boy food for too long, talk about someone gettin’ right cranky.”
“That weekend, we talked… a lot. We also cried. In between, we made love so many times that my balls started to ache. By the time he said goodbye Sunday night, I could hardly walk. I don’t think we ever left the house that weekend. Back then, I had several farm hands that could handle most anythin’ that needed takin’ care of, so that wasn’t an issue.”
“That Sunday night, when Matt left, I had two very distinct feelin’s going on at once. One was an emptiness of him leavin’. Of course, that happened to some degree every time he went back to school, but this time it was a different type of emptiness, one I still can’t describe very well. It felt, and still does to this day, like I lose a part of myself whenever he leaves. The second thing was that I felt love for myself, my total self, for the first time in my life. I can’t begin to tell you how liberating, how freein’, that feeling was and is.”
“You see… I’d always known I was gay, that I preferred men over women. Back then, it wasn’t accepted, especially where I came from. Hicksville, Nebraska was not a place to be a homosexual back then. So there I was, being loved by a man for the first time in my life and I loved him back. When I understood I was in love, it was like I’d been hit by a bolt of lightning. The big issue was that I was in love with my own son and he loved me. In a way I loved him twice; once as a son and once like a lover.”
Carter Rogers: “What about Matt’s mother?”
Carl Foltz: [Heavy sigh and a few minutes passed.] “Diane. I loved Diane. I did. But I was never in love with her. I dated Diane all through high school. That was what was expected, so I did it. It was just the way it was. I never knew that there were places to go if you were gay. If anyone was even suspected of being gay around there, their life was pure hell, and they never stayed around long either. I knew that I couldn’t and wouldn’t deal with that, so I dated Diane.”
“I know it wasn’t fair to her, and I’m sure it hurt her in ways that she never knew. That is a guilt I will never be able to come to grips with. I tried to make her happy, though, I really did.”
“Anyway, I was a football jock, just like Matt was, and at the same high school, matter of fact. It was the first game of my senior year and I was barely seventeen. After the game, which we won of course, a lot of the other guys from the team and their dates went out to eat at the local hamburger joint. After that, Diane wanted to go to this lake that was a known make out spot. Doing what I thought was expected of me, I went to go make out with my girl. Well, one thing led to another and being horned up seventeen year olds, we had sex.”
“Matt was conceived that night. Funny thing is… I was trying to figure out a way to dump Diane. I had been accepted to the University of Nebraska, and I wanted to have the freedom to do what I wanted without worrying about having a girlfriend back home. Six weeks later, Diane told me she was ‘late’. We waited and sure enough, after eight weeks, she was sure. I was devastated. I never got the chance to dump her and then she was pregnant and I knew that my dreams were gone.”
“I told my parents and I went with Diane to tell her parents, and then our parents met, and it was decided that I would marry Diane quickly and quietly. Two weeks later, Diane and I were married. Diane left town to ‘visit’ her great aunt and I stayed in high school. Everything was kept hush-hush to protect Diane's and her family’s reputations.”
“My mother was heartbroken and my father was furious. My life was hell for the next few months. That lasted until each of them held Matt for the first time. After that, I somehow was miraculously forgiven. I can’t say I blame them though. The first time I held Matt, I got so emotional I almost dropped him.”
“My mother was adamant that I still go to college, so Diane and Matt moved in with my parents and I went, coming home every weekend. It was hard, but with my parents help, we made it okay. My father made sure to work my ass hard every weekend I was home though. I think he was trying to make sure that I was too tired to make any more babies.” [Carl smiled.]
Carter Roberts: “While you were in college did you ever do anything to confront your being gay?”
Carl Foltz: “I had my first gay sexual experience my freshman year. Damn, I felt guilty cheating on Diane, but it only confirmed what I already knew, that I wanted to be sexual with men, not women. Hell, I didn’t even want it to happen, it just… did.”
Carter Roberts: “How did that make you feel?”
Carl Foltz: “Like a total heel. I had a wife and a baby at home, and I was expected to go home every weekend and play the doting father and husband. Problem with that was I wasn’t sexually attracted to Diane. I did my husbandly duty, but not as often as Diane would have wanted or expected I’m sure. I did try to do right by her, I really did, but my heart wasn’t in it and I think she started to realize that.”
Carter Roberts: “But you did graduate college, right?”
Carl Foltz: “Oh yeah, I graduated. I majored in Agriculture, like Matt did, but mine was a general degree, but I minored in Finance.”
Carter Roberts: “And after you graduated?”
Carl Foltz: “I came home to play the husband and father role. I didn’t know what else to do. Hell, Diane and Matt were still living with my parents. It wasn’t like I was going to, or be able to, kick them out. Matter of fact, we continued to live with my parents after I graduated and moved home. My mother was so attached to Matt that I think it would have killed her had we moved out.”
“I was trapped and I knew it. However, I did my duty and resigned myself that it was going to be the way my life was. My joy was in Matt. Things stayed that way until Matt’s mother died.”
Carter Roberts: “How did Diane die?”
“Carl Foltz: “Diane died from a brain aneurism. She had been out in the garden and fell over dead, or so the doctors said. My mother found her a few hours later. I had Matt with me and my dad, running the columbine. One of the farm hands that lived on the place came out and brought us back to the house. That is when I found out that Diane was dead.”
Carter Roberts: “That must have been hard on Matt. How old was he?”
Carl Foltz: “Matt was barely eight years old. It was hard on all of us, but Matt actually got over it before the rest of us, I think. I was heartbroken with guilt. It took me a long time to get over that. I just knew that I had cheated Diane out of a happy life and blamed myself, no matter how ridiculous it sounds, for her death. Matt actually took care of me for a good part of that time. He was still the only real joy in my life, even then.”
“Before I could fully get over Diane’s death, my father had a stroke and died. That was only six months after Diane died. I was very close to my father and it seemed that my world had come to an end. It’s a good thing that my mother was the strong woman she was. She was the one who finally pulled me through and made me see that I needed to get my shit together, to be a good father and take over the farm full time. Even though Matt was only eight years old, he was already way older than his years. We both did a lot of growing up that year.”
“I think my mother held that farm together more than I did for a long time. Matt was the one joy that made me and my mother happy. He was a happy kid, for the most part, and knew whenever either of us was down. He’s always had a smile that could make anyone do anything he wanted, the little booger. He still gets away with a lot because of that smile.”
“My mother died quietly in her sleep one night. Matt was seventeen, I think. That was really hard on him. The two of them were like two peas in a pod and were very close. Of course, I took it hard as well, but I’d matured enough by then to deal with it a little better. Besides, I had Matt who needed me this time. I’d relied on him enough as it was.”
Carter Roberts: “If I have my numbers right, Matt is only seventeen years younger than you?”
Carl Foltz: “That’s right. Matt’s birthday is one week before mine.”
Carter Roberts: “Was there anything significant that happened from the time your mother died until you and Matt got together at the bar that night?”
Carl Foltz: “No, not really. Matt finished high school that year and got a football scholarship to the University of Nebraska. The only other major issue was that ConAgro, a major agricultural conglomerate, was trying to sue me into submission and take over the family farm. That was kind of a rough patch, but I was able to fend them off.”
Carter Roberts: “How did you come to move from Nebraska to Indiana?”
Carl Foltz: “Right before Matt graduated, he and I decided that we needed to move and make a clean start where no one knew us. We have a few relatives back in Nebraska that were getting a little too nosy about me and Matt, I felt. We both knew that if anyone found out about our ‘special relationship’ it could mean real trouble for us.”
“The plan was for Matt to change his last name to my mother’s maiden name right before his graduation, and do it under the radar. ConAgro was rearing their ugly head again about then, so I had a meeting with them and got a pretty good deal for the farm. I actually was able to sell the house separately, but they had to move it. I guess I was a little sentimental about the old place and didn’t want to see it torn down. It now sits a few miles away and is owned by a nice family. Whenever I go back, I drive by it.”
Carter Roberts: “How did you come to settle here?”
Carl Foltz: “That was Matt’s doing. He studied Animal Husbandry in college. He always had a thing for critters. I guess a lot of it comes from his big heartedness. Anyway, he had done a lot of research on this particular breed of cattle that comes from Italy. At the time, there were only two other breeders in North America, one in Colorado and one in Wyoming. Being the brain he is, he figured that this area was the perfect climate for this breed of cow, so he hunted for property in this area until he found this place. I was able to put a down payment on it and hold it until he graduated a few months later. As soon as he was done with school, we moved here. We both own it together outright, free and clear now.”
Carter Roberts: “How did your relatives feel about your moving?”
Carl Foltz: “Matt took care of that for the most part. Everyone knew that ConAgro was on our asses for the property and that Matt wanted to work with cattle, so he made it look like perfect sense to move away. He made the whole thing seem as natural as the sun coming up. He can charm a snake outta its skin, I swear.”
Carter Roberts: “Well Carl, I think that is all the questions that I have for you at this time. Thank you. Your story is really remarkable.”
Carl Foltz: “Thank you, Carter.”
[End of individual interview with Carl Foltz]