This is the second in a series of four stories from a 2002 drive up the Alaskan Highway. See Gay Bashed, part 1 for an introduction.

I may have hitch hiked in my twenties, but my travels have taken on the comforts of an automobile and hotel rooms. Over the years I’ve crisscrossed many amazing places in this vast association of States, but the Alaskan Highway and a good dose of the Northern Lights remained. So I took off the month of March, 2002, and headed north. I was 56 years old, had a new Saturn and a trunk full of things to keep me warm.

Communities with hotels are few and far between in the far north country, especially before the summer travel season. On the 520 mile drive from Fort Nelson, British Columbia, to the Yukon boarder there was a herd of buffalo on the road. Although small, that herd far outnumbered the three vehicles I saw that day. So I was glad to pull into Watson Lake before dark. 

Barely over the Yukon border, Watson Lake is a lumber community with several hotels and an equal number of bars. Its claim to fame is the Sign Post Forest, a small roadside park crammed with sign posts supporting handwritten arrows with distances to about every habitation in the world.

Settled into a pleasant hotel and full of dinner, I walked across the large parking lot of a bar. It was early Friday evening so there were plenty of empty bar stools for bellying up. At the far end of the counter was a stud of a lumberjack, in his late 20s with strong arms and a quick smile and plenty of spunk to keep everyone laughing. I knew I’d kick myself all night if I didn’t get over there and be a jolly good fellow in return.

My hero of the timberlands, fresh from hauling logs, was drinking with his dad to get the weekend started. The beer flowed and the bullshit flew and everyone was glad to give me pointers on the roads and the attractions and their travel stories. But buying beer in a bar is pricey for an all night stint so this handsome young man and his dad went home to drink. I stayed and revved jolly up to party.

Hours later the handsome young man was back, sitting at a table with his dad since the stools were all taken. I was engaged in chat at the bar and stayed put until I needed to take a leak.

It was a tiny two-holer of a bathroom, the toilet and the urinal practically overlapping. I was just finishing up when who should stumble in?

Well, there are guys in the world who could have been cool and stuck around to check this guy out. But I’m too shy for that and I wouldn’t want to make a guy uncomfortable. So I zipped up and began heading for the door.

“Hey, hey — you’re back!” I acknowledged while rinsing my hands.

“Oh, yea. Just went home to drink some cheep beer. Had to come back and chase some women.”

“Hum. Well.” I made a decision. “I really love to suck dick.”

And that was that. I was headed out the door when I started to say it and out the door I went. The devil made me do it. I knew better.

I finished my beer and several more before deciding to check out another bar. I got up. Put on my scarf and coat and hat. Walked through the bar and out the door and half way across the parking lot. And there it happened. Some sounds behind me. Awareness I was being hit. I put up my arms to protect my head and began yelling, “Hey — Hey — Hey.” I knew I needed to stay on my feet. I kept walking. And it was over. I didn’t hear anyone behind me. I turned and the strong, young lumberjack was in the doorway of the building, “And don’t come back.”

I decided I’d probably had enough to drink and should just go to my room. The night clerk observed I was bleeding from my head. I said I didn’t know why the guy had hit me, but that wasn’t what I meant to say. What I meant to say was I didn’t know why the guy had blind sided me. I was disappointed in him for having hit a guy from behind.

But that was a lie, too. I knew he had physically blind sided me because I had verbally blind sided him.