Mark Burch is an educated psychologist and pharmacist. He is middle-aged and openly gay with a preference for married bisexuals. A long-time left-wing political activist, he is also the founder of the Florida Bay County Branch of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). For the past three years he has been a member of an international couchsurfing network, housing travelers from all over the world. He is a self-taught artist, primarily interested in motifs of the male body and the horrors and injustices of war. He is known as the Godfather of Panama City, Florida, where he lives and works. And he believes that the things you do not understand are the things you should value the most.



Drive-by break-up

We have arranged to meet Mark downtown. The sun is shining from a clear sky, and even though it is only March, it still feels like a hot summer's day would back in Denmark. We are cruising down the main street in our white Chevrolet Cobalt when a guy on the sidewalk waves us over. He is casually dressed, and looks more skinny than most American men we have met so far. An air of distraction surrounds him as he holds up his hands above his head, and continually steps back and forth between the sidewalk and the street.

Right behind him a young couple is arguing their heads off. As we pull over, they walk off in separate directions, screaming abuse at each other. "And don't you even dare call me!" the guy finishes off his tirade. By the looks of it, that is not going to be a big problem for him. She does not even look back before rounding the corner, and perhaps disappearing out of his life forever. Mark lets down his hands, and slumps his shoulder. "Story of my life," he says, and welcomes us with a big fat grin.


A European hideout

You can almost sense the relief as Mark enters the Trigo coffee shop - or café as the local crowd prefers to brand it. It is a smallish place with round wooden tables and red brick walls. The counter is neat and clean, and holds a glass display with carefully arranged dishes. "It's the only European place in town," he sighs, and immediately introduces us to the girl behind the counter. Darcia is originally from Slovakia, but migrated to the States some seven or eight years ago. She has alabaster skin and beautiful black hair. Her American accent is flawless.

We have a million things we want to ask Mark about, but he quickly changes the focus of the conversation to ourselves. "Copenhagen is my number one city," he says, and immediately begins asking questions about the workings of the welfare state, about the idealistic hippie community project Christiania, about the widespread use of bicycles and the special traffic lights reserved for them, and about everything else that comes to his mind. He talks fast, and gestures restlessly. Every time the door opens, he raises a hand to greet whoever comes in. We cannot tell if he is well liked or not, but for sure he is well known.

Breakfasting on croissants and café lattes in Trigo the day after we meet Mark, a local girl comes to our table to ask if we are web designers. It is a fair question since we are both typing away at our computers, using every possible second of internet time to write emails and update our website. She works as a graphic designer, and needs somebody to help her out with the more technical side of setting up web pages. When we tell her that unfortunately we cannot help her out on that one, she decides to stay and share her story with us anyway.

She mentions Mark Burch out of the blue, and calls him the Godfather of Gay. As if we were supposed to know who he is even though we are just traveling through. Apparently, she used to be involved with some guy that Mark was involved with, too. They broke up rather a long time ago, but she does not seem to have gotten over it just yet. When we mention that not only do we know Mark, we actually couchsurf at his place, she shuts up like a clam.

"I wonder what stories he might be telling you about me," she muses, and then runs out of the door to go shopping with a friend. When told about the incident, Mark just replies that going after men that are already in a relationship can get pretty messy at times. But as he would like to tell some women whining over lost boyfriends: "Get over it! Your hole isn't all that special. For Christ's sake, I get rejected every Sunday morning!"

Back at Trigo with Mark, we finally get down to ask him some questions of our own. Does he really think that the US is all that bad? "Well, not quite as bad as they say it is in Europe," he replies, "but almost." He holds out his right hand with his thumb and forefinger apart just a fraction by way of demonstration. This is the reason he decided to start up a local branch of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a non-profit, non-political organization that fights for the constitutional rights of the individual without regards to race, color, religion, or creed. They are up to 250 members now. A number that Mark considers high for the area.


Mark and his mob

As we move into the late afternoon sun outside Trigo, we are joined by a friend of Mark's. Josh is only half his age, but already shares a lot of his political sentiments. He is a member of the local ACLU branch, and quickly makes it the subject of our conversation. He tells us how he feels under constant attack by his surroundings. "They're trying to legislate morality," he says, and lights up another cigarette.

When Mark joins the discussion it becomes clear just how strongly he believes in the freedom of the individual. The air is sweet, the streets are clean, and the coffee is just right - but still something seems amiss. "We've lost a lot of ground over the last few years," Mark says. "They really pulled one over on us." He suddenly sounds exhausted.

"It's fucking bullshit!" Josh takes over, adding new energy to the discussion. "They panicked and stopped thinking. That's what they did!” He tells us how the government must have had the Patriot Act sitting on their shelves for years, just waiting for the right moment to pull it out. Mark nods his way through Josh's heated speech, the old warrior within slowly awakens. "Eight prison guards and a nurse killed a fourteen year old black boy by beating him to death," he says, eyes ablaze with righteous anger. "And you know what the county coroner did? He went right ahead and concluded that the boy died from sickle cell! Can y’all believe that?”

Mark’s commitment to the ACLU runs deep. As one of the founding fathers in the Panama City area, he feels that the presence of the organization in Florida is especially valuable. "People told me that I might get killed if I involved myself with the ACLU around here," he tells us without as much as a quiver of fear. His innermost beliefs regard the sanctity of the individual, and nobody should try to persuade him otherwise.

The ACLU fights for freedom of speech, assembly, and religion. They also champion the separation of church and state - something which has brought them many enemies on the far right. On the gay and lesbian issue, they take the stand that homosexuals should have equal rights to those of heterosexuals. Mark assures us that this is not even remotely the case at present.

The ACLU is not an organization trying to force anybody anywhere. It is willing to fight for the basic rights of everybody, not matter who they are. Whether twenty neo-nazis want to march through a Jewish community, or one million women want to march for the right to abortion - the ACLU will be there. However, what they do not do, is fight on other people's terms. They always fight on their own.

"A few years back in Mississippi," Mark elaborates on this last point, "the Ku Klux Klan was being denied the right to march. And since the ACLU will back the freedom of speech and right to assembly of anybody, we decided to go in. Y'all see what I'm getting at here?" Mark gives us a close look to make sure that we understand exactly what was at stake back then. "Well, the funny part was that not only did we send down a team of first class lawyers - we sent down a team of first class black lawyers!"

Mark give out a short laughs in his usual surprised sort of way, then takes another sip of his coffee. Only, it is empty. For a moment he considers going back into Trigo to get a refill. Caught halfway between his car and the café, he opts for the car. "We'll just brew up some more when we get home," he says, and opens the back door to let us all in. "By the way," he adds as an afterthought, "y’all got something like the ACLU back in Denmark?"

The word ombudsman comes to mind. Then we go blank.

Breakout!

Mark was not always like this. One evening he comes home late after doing a 12-hour shift at a local pharmacy. He wears canvas trouser and a long-sleeved shirt in neutral colors. Nothing like the casual and somewhat flamboyant clothes he usually wears. His hair is combed back to make sure that nobody will notice the youthful tattoo behind his left ear. It reads 666. To scare off the Christians if they come too close for comfort. Just the other day, a Jesus freak came to his house to preach about love and life everlasting. Mark showed off his tattoo, and told the guy that Jesus could go suck his dick. "Keeps them from coming back," he says with a smile.

Mark grew up in Alabama, and went to university in the city of Birmingham which is the largest in the state. He studied psychology and pharmacy, and did the usual round of jobs when he graduated. Just like everybody else. He might have been left-wing, he might have been politically active, and he might even have been gay, but still he conformed to the life-style of his peers. He moved to Florida, and he got himself a nice German car and a house right on the beach in Panama City.

But then something happened. He got a job working as a pharmacist - or a legal drug dealer, if you prefer the irony - in a high-security prison. Suddenly he found himself having day to day contact with rapists, murderers, and child abusers.

"I saw some things in there that I will never forget," he says, and unbuttons the neck button of his shirt. His speech begins to slow down like a car from out of town hitting the Panama City 25 mph speed limit. Either he has not had his usual eight cups of coffee today, or we are getting somewhere under his skin. "I don't like to use the word, but I guess it was a kind of tranformative experience for me. I only worked there for eight months, but when I was done ... I just couldn't let it go. I realized that however strongly I had felt about social issues before, something completely unprecedented had happened to me in that prison. I was all rage, foaming at the mouth. So I decided to take a year off. To sort of reprioritize my life, I guess you might say. I've never worked full time since. It just doesn't seem like the right choice for me. Not anymore, anyway."

Mark was lucky. He owned a house by the Mexican Gulf just about the time when the big condominiums started to move in. Now they are all over, but even back then they paid good money for the right location with the right view. Enough, anyway, for him to go part-time on his job, and still be able to travel the world whenever US policy and mentality get the better of him. Now he gets to ride his bike whenever he feels like it, to engage himself in the ACLU and their uncompromising fight against injustice, and to paint his portraits of burdened and imprisoned male bodies trying to break free from unknown forces - and sometimes even succeeding.

Mark insists that his is neither a story of personal salvation nor of inner transformation. He is not exactly fond of terms that have a religious ring to them. To him, the only miraculous thing about religion is that people should actually choose to believe in it. Just like they should choose to believe in the President. Two postcards on his fridge seem to sum up his views pretty good. One shows George W. Bush in audience with the late Pope John Paul II. The Pope rests his tired head in his hands, and a caption reads: "Oh my God, he's even dumber than I thought." The second shows Jesus descending from Heaven with a halo above his head and a shepherd's staff in his hand. Here the caption reads: "Jesus is coming - everybody look busy!"


Secret identities

Though Mark claims that his journey through life has not been a redemptive one, a quick tour of his house goes a long way to put things in a different perspective. Staying in one afternoon while Mark is out riding his bike, we get to have a closer look at the myriad of art pieces and souvenirs that abound just about everywhere. Even the kitchen and the bathrooms are full of them. Every single wall in the house is hung with paintings signed in his nom de plume Marcus. Most of them portray naked or semi-naked young men posed in one of three ways - bent down and chained, contemplative and somewhat distraught, or alive and bursting with energy, almost on the verge of explosion.

Although Mark is the one holding a master's degree in psychology, we cannot help but notice the obvious resemblance between his paintings and the stories and views he shares with us. Like characters out of his private mythology, we recognize the strong and youthful crippled in his freedom, the manly and proud displaying his raw physicality, the ageless and contemplative pondering his choices and actions. Inner truth be told, it seems that the river of life runs a whole lot deeper in Mark than fast talk and casual relationships will ever disclose. Whatever his original sense of injustice in society, it does not stem from outer experience alone.

Carefully climbing the stairs to the guest room, afraid of brushing against the paintings on either side of us, we discuss what the whole thing might mean. Suddenly we become aware that his paintings do not as much seem to be moving towards something as they seem to be moving away from something. The high-brow interpretation would probably be that they are not about conforming to any specific goal, but rather about breaking free from the ones that society set for you. But for fear of getting too far afield, we return our discussion to what we already know about Mark.

In his opinion, people are free to do whatever they want as long as they do not force others to do it as well. In fact, any attempt to force Mark into something against his will stands a 95 percent chance of being met with a counteroffer to "suck my cock" or "go fuck yourself”. And he would undoubtedly fight for the right of anybody else to say the same stuff to him should he try to force them into anything.

Which, of course, he does by forcing them not to force. A paradox which might be a further part of the explanation of the tension between chains and freedom in his art. The idea that righteousness can never escape the yoke of self-righteousness. An abstraction, however, that Mark himself never mentions.


Lying low in Seaside

The last night of our stay Mark takes us out on a tour of the Mexican Gulf to help cheer up one of his friends who just recently broke up with his girlfriend. The friend turns out to be Josh, the young guy we met a few days back outside Trigo. He does not come across as being particularly heartbroken, and we decide not to bring up the subject of his girlfriend ourselves. Besides, we could also do with a bit of quietude and easy relaxation after all our long and serious talks with Mark. However, we are soon to discover that lying low is not always an option when hanging out with the Godfather.

Mark drives us all the way out to Seaside where the rich and famous get to spend their holidays. The place is absolutely beautiful with all its pristine beaches and architectural masterpieces. Mark probably meant for it to brighten up Josh's darkened mind, but it works out quite the opposite. Not in the sense that Josh gets all low-down with the love blues, but in the sense that his righteous anger against the soaring inequality of modern day America flares up madly. Soon we are all walking around Seaside in our low-key out-of-place street wear, throwing sarcastic comments at every turn of the carefully laid out walkways.

Surprisingly, Mark is the one holding back the most. He takes the brunt off Josh's outrage, and tries to get him to enjoy the serenity of the place instead. It is as if he is trying to protect Josh from himself. Clearly, Mark recognizes the anger and frustration that he himself must have felt growing up as a gay left-wing activist in predominantly Republican Alabama. We remember how he told us about being politically radicalized by his prison experience, and we wonder if he feels something similar is happening to Josh. He is not trying to curb anybody's sense of injustice, he has just found a better venue for expressing it - namely the ACLU. Josh has already become a member, and it seems that Mark is willing to take on the role of being a mentor to him. Anyway, Josh keeps up his sarcastic cheer throughout the trip, and even comments on the fact that he smokes with an "if it kills you faster, I'm all for it".

We end up in a bar by the beach crowded with teenage spring breakers looking to get laid by being too drunk to stand. At least, that is how they appear to us just then. A few beers quickly level our heads, and soon it seems as if Seaside never really happened, or even existed. Mark shares a few of his tricks on how to pick up guys in bookstores, and Josh tells us that what he really wants to do is just get away for a while. So we invite him to come visit us back in Denmark, believing that the change of scenery he craves is probably something a bit further out than Seaside.


Biting the bullet

Cassandra's is the kind of place where you now you will end up all greased out, and there is nothing you can do to prevent it. It is a classical American diner located just across the street from the European Trigo café. Mark alternates between the two places on a daily basis to avoid burning any bridges. We can tell he knows the waitress well when she sits down at our table to take orders. She puts one arm around Mark, and scribbles notes on her pad with the other. We decide to go for sausage and cheese omelets, and the usual plates of bacon and eggs. As this is the last meal we share with Mark before we leave, we might as well clog up our arteries a bit.

Mark has traveled more extensively in Europe than both of us together, and we want to know what it is that keeps him coming back. "Going to London feels a bit like going home," he says, "but I prefer France even though everybody hates the French." It has only been a few weeks since he returned from his last trip to Paris. He hung out with an American friend, and tells us how the guy had a terrible time trying to out-snob the French.

"It's like trying to out-rude a New Yorker," Mark explains. "No matter what you say or do to them, they will always find a way to come back at you even more rude." So Mark decided to take the opposite approach. He would blatantly mispronounce whatever there was to mispronounce, and strike up conversations with any odd street arab that everybody else was trying to avoid. He had a great time doing it, and now he even plans to write a redneck's guide to Paris. Not quite the uncompromising anti-American Mark that we have come to know in the last few days.

"Five times I've actually tried moving away from here," he says, forking a formless piece of fry that could be anything between potato and sausage. "But I always end up coming back. I guess it's something in my redneck Alabama past that keeps me tied to this place. As much as it sickens me, I just can't do without it. But for sure, I'd never miss a chance to go overseas and see y'all."

Back out in the street, we are on the sidewalk opposite from where we met up with Mark. He gives us both a big hug before we even get a chance to say goodbye. Then we get into our separate cars, and drives away. The deal is done. Whatever we exchanged, we exchanged it good. Nobody is going to feel cheated when they open the memory box back home. This is the way of the Godfather. No horse heads bloodying the sheets, no skeletons hanging around in closets. Just the low humming of engines in the calm of the Florida sun.