Full Circle: Loving. Living. Life. After The Down Low.

By JL King

Full Circle: Loving. Living. Life After The Down Low covers the span of ten years since JL King’s first blockbuster release, On the Down Low. In his new book, he will explore the impact his controversial New York Times bestselling book has had on relationships, as well as the type of challenges he has encountered on a personal and professional level.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brown Girls Publishing
• Release date: Sep 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781625174307

JL King

JL King is a national bestselling author, philanthropist, publisher, and producer. One of the most sought-after experts on men living on the down low, he established the Lillie Mae King Foundation to provide financial support to African American families impacted by HIV and AIDS. JL burst onto the scene in 2003 with his controversial book, On the Down Low, which secured him an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show. JL is also the founder of BOOK COVER Magazine, an online magazine (www.bookcovermagazine.com) where his goal is to bring books and authors to people who read. He has two adult children and lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

Book preview

couch.

Chapter 1

Where Do I Begin?

Many believe that my story began in 2004 when I was introduced to the world on The Oprah Winfrey Show. But my journey began way before then. Really, you could say that it began when I was nine years old and I had my very first sexual experience with my cousin. Or when I was in junior high school and my mother found a note in my book bag that I’d written to a fellow male student telling him that I loved him. Or maybe it began on the day my wife found me in bed with another man.

You could say that my journey began at any of those moments. But I say, that my journey toward the realization and acceptance of who I was began in 2001. It was in 2001 when I was fired from my job at the Columbus, Ohio Urban League. I’d been a Director, heading up the program to help ex offenders fill out applications, write resumes, and interview for jobs as they assimilated back into society. It was a great position that allowed me to really make a difference in people’s lives, but I was working there when my life truly changed.

I’d been hired into that position back in 1998 by the president of the Urban League. When he hired me, that job had come right on time. I had been at such a low point in my life. I was unemployed, broke, living out of my car, and I didn’t see any kind of brightness in my future. My life was so bad that suicidal thoughts plagued me day and night. I was at my end, so why not end it all? God didn’t love me; that was clear by the way my life was going. And even though I’d been raised in the church and had loved God all of my life, I began to question whether God was even real. How could He be when I was suffering so much? I was done with faith and with God.

I felt like I was in the desert and in fact, that’s what I began to call this period of my life – my 40 days and 40 nights. I was alone, hungry, thirsting, completely without any friends and there was no family that I could go to. I was totally fucked up. That is the only way I can describe me and that time. Lost.

But, even though my faith wavered, even though I thought about taking my life, God showed up when I was ready to give up. And He came to me in the form of a job.

I had stopped at the cleaners one day to pick up a suit that I had dropped off so that I could at least have something to wear as I looked for a job. After I gave the lady my ticket, I glanced over my shoulder. I was checking out my car, praying that the repo man wouldn’t get it while I was in here. I had a 1998 Buick Park Avenue, and that was more than just a car. That was my shelter.

But I couldn’t focus on the car because just as I turned around, the door opened and in walked a man – Sam Gresham.

We had been friends just a few years before when I was working in corporate America, sitting on corporate boards, including the Urban League, and working with the city of Columbus to raise money for different programs. I was considered a rising star. Everyone knew my name, wanted my number and called on me when they needed to make something happen.

Sam Gresham was one of the people in Columbus who thought of me as a mover and shaker. We were social equals…back then. But so much had happened in my life and one quick glance at his tailored suit and his spit-shined shoes let me know that we weren’t equals any more.

Quickly, I turned my head and lowered it at the same time, trying to hide my face. I was so embarrassed and didn’t want him to see me. What would I say? What would he say? I wanted to run right out of there, but I needed my suit. So I made myself as small as I could and kept my head down. If I was lucky, he wouldn’t see the little man trying to hide in the corner.

But then, I heard, Jim? Jim King?

I was busted. Even though I tried to pretend that I didn’t hear him, I couldn’t ignore him. So, I turned around.

Hey, Sam, I said with as much strength and enthusiasm as I could.

It is you, he said, like he was glad to see me.

I figured that he was. I would’ve been glad to see him, too, if I wasn’t in my desert.

Jim, where have you been? I haven’t seen you in a couple of years.

He was right about that. I had disappeared. He didn’t know where I’d been and he didn’t know my story.

So, what are you doing in town? he asked, still doing all of the talking.

I’m just here… That was all I said and it seemed like it was enough for him.

Well, what are you doing now? Where are you working?

Of course, I wasn’t going to tell him that I was homeless, hoping that somehow my life was going to turn around. I just got through with a contract where I was teaching at state prisons, I said, telling him about my last position. I left out the part about how I’d been fired for making sexual advances to my clients. That was the reason I was homeless now.

I’d had a fat contract with the state to provide GED classes and pre-release employment training to inmates. So I was inside the prison constantly and in the middle of thousands of men.

That was not a good place for me to be. Not with the sexual appetite I had for men. And those inmates could read me. They knew who I was by the way my eyes lingered on them just a little too long, or the way I fidgeted when one of them sat in my office, shirtless. They could tell that I was turned on and that I was fighting my own desires toward men.

So, the inmates fed on that. That’s what prisoners do. They seek out staff members who can be exploited. They find their weaknesses and go after that because once a prisoner knows your weakness, they can use it to their advantage. My weakness was front and center – I was a man who loved men. It wasn’t difficult for the inmates to see and the inmates came after me. I was set up, but it was my fault.

Sam interrupted my reflection back in time when he asked, Really? So you’re finished with that contract?

I nodded.

This is great, he said. I just received a two-year grant with the Urban League to work with inmates. You and I need to talk, he said. He reached into his pocket, and then gave me his business card. When can you get by to see me?

I wanted to tell him that we could talk now, but I didn’t want to appear as desperate as I was. So, I told him that I’d go down to the Urban League the next day. Then, I walked out of the cleaners, not stopping at my car. I didn’t want him to see me get into the car that had everything that I owned piled high in the back. So, I went around the corner and waited for him to leave before I got into my car.

The next day, Sam interviewed and then hired me to work with prisoners upon their release. The job was for very little money, but it was a job! I still had to live in my car because even with this job I couldn’t afford an apartment, not to mention, I wasn’t sure I’d even be able to get an apartment since my credit was shot. But at least with this job, I was on my way to having some stability back in my life. I was so grateful to be given another chance. This was my second or maybe even my third chance at getting it right, and I really wanted to do it this time.

The job was wonderful for the three years that I held the position. I ended up getting fired for the same reason that I’d been fired from my last one – because I made a sexual advance to one of my clients/students.

It was a vicious, ugly pattern with me. I was still trying to hide my sexuality and it always got the best of me, especially when I was around a lot of good looking black men.

I should have learned my lesson. After being fired twice, you would think that I would stay away from certain employment positions or just stop trying to hide who I was. But I didn’t learn. I continued to hide, I continued to make advances, and I continued to get fired. Opportunity after opportunity, after opportunity. Lessons I should have learned, but I didn’t; because I was hardheaded.

That was a trait that had followed me all my life. From the time I was a child, my hard headedness haunted me. And it cost me. But not before it hurt so many people. And for that, I will always be sorry.

But to understand me, to understand how I arrived at this place where I’d hurt so many people, you’ll have to know who I was and where it all began.

Chapter 2

The Beginning of it All

I was born on December 4 in Springfield, Ohio to Louis and Lillie King. My parents had migrated from the south; Mom grew up in Cartersville, Georgia, about two hours north of Atlanta and my dad was from a small country town in Alabama called Browns, right outside of Salem, Alabama.

My dad, like so many other black men, journeyed to the North because of the better employment opportunities. So a few years after my parents were married, they ended up in Springfield, Ohio, where my father began what would be a long career working for the government.

My mother worked as a domestic for white families because she wanted to, not because she had to. What my mother wanted most was to have children. By that time, her only sister had three and my mother and father had none. It wasn’t because they hadn’t tried, though. Before I was born, my mother gave birth to five stillborn babies. So when I came along, their first living child, I was a true miracle and the greatest gift for Louis and Lillie.

As you can imagine, my mother was very protective of me. She wouldn’t even allow anyone to hold me for the first few months of my life. No one could get too close to her baby, James Louis King. I was named after my father’s dad, James, and my middle name was my father’s. Three years after me, my brother, Ronald L. King was born.

My parents worked hard to provide a wonderful life for me and my brother. While my father continued working for the government, my mother left the domestic work behind and worked as an elevator operator at the Sears in downtown Springfield.

They were hardworking, God-fearing people who were greatly respected in our community. They raised us in the church, where my father was a deacon and my mother was in the choir. Outside of church, they did their best to give their sons all kinds of opportunities. I took piano lessons, was in the Boy Scouts, and participated in every other after-school program my parents could think of. There was hardly anything that I wanted that I didn’t receive. I’ve been called spoiled, and that was very true. I was a spoiled Mama’s boy until the day that my mother died.

Even though my parents were outgoing, I wasn’t. I was quite shy, a chubby kid who didn’t have many friends because I preferred to hang out with my mother more than anyone else. I loved being in the kitchen helping her cook. And when she went shopping, I was all over it. That was my favorite thing to do with my mother. I loved to dress, so my mom and I would spend hours in the stores.

That was how I became so close to my mother, but I could never find that kind of closeness with my father. I knew that he loved me, and I knew that I could have gone to him if I needed anything physically, but emotionally, it didn’t feel like my dad was there for me. Like I said, he loved me, but he was old-school. His job was to take care of the family. That was it – he was the provider. It was my mother’s job to give the children anything else they needed.

So, while my dad was my dad, my mom was my girl! I could go to her, I could talk to her about anything.

The one thing I didn’t talk about to anybody was school. I wasn’t a good student, really, I was quite bad. (And I hated English so it’s ironic that I became a writer!) I wasn’t a jock, I didn’t play sports at all; that was my brother’s turf and that was where my brother and my dad bonded. I wasn’t popular because you had to have friends to be popular, and like I said, I didn’t have many. I had tons of cousins, though, ten to be exact, and so I hung out with them.

My cousins and my brother and I were like siblings. I was especially close to my male cousins. There were five of them and TJ and I were about the same age. I was closest to him, closer than I was even to my own brother; TJ and I did everything together.

One night when TJ was spending the night with us, I laid in my bed thinking about him. We had been outside playing all day, doing nothing really, just hanging out. But we’d really had a good time.

As I laid there, I thought about how I really loved TJ. Of course, I loved everyone else, but the love I had for TJ felt different. Very different.

Then, my thoughts of my cousin wandered. To this day, I can’t tell you where the thought came from or why it manifested at that moment. It was as if the thought just dropped into my head and once it was there, I couldn’t let it go.

I couldn’t stop thinking about my cousin’s penis and I wanted to see it. The longer I laid there, the longer that thought stayed with me. I had to see it!

We had never played any games like that before, had never exposed ourselves to each other. Truly, I’m telling you, I don’t know where that urge came from. But it was so strong that I got up and tiptoed across the room to where he was sleeping in my brother’s bed. I stood there for a moment, and watched him. TJ was fast asleep.

My heart pounded as I leaned over and slowly, as easily as I could, I slipped down his underwear until I could see his penis. For a moment, I stood there, just staring at it in the dark. And then…I bent over and put his penis in my mouth. I didn’t do it for very long; not only was I afraid that TJ might wake up, but I was really scared of my mother. My parents’ room was across the hall and both bedroom doors were open. I knew I would be in big trouble if she caught me.

So after a couple of seconds, I jumped right back into my bed, excited on so many levels. I got to see my cousin’s penis! I got to taste it! And, I got away with it!

That was probably what turned me on the most. The risk. The idea that I could have been caught, but I wasn’t.

I probably laid in that bed for more than an hour before I fell asleep. The next morning, I was a little afraid of what my cousin would say, but TJ never said a word. It was as if he didn’t know what had happened. I wasn’t sure if he knew or not, but I never said a word.

I guess that was the beginning of my desire for men, and my keeping secrets. It started when I was just nine years old.

After that, I can say that I was always attracted to the male physique. It was more curiosity than anything else because for many years, I never did anything beyond those few seconds with my cousin.

Though in junior high school, I did have sort of a male encounter. Another student in my class, a white boy, started sending me notes. We exchanged notes back and forth; he told me how much he liked me, I told him that I loved him. That was as far as it went. Just notes that we sent each other and nothing else. But one day, I left