Life in Peacedale was relatively peaceful. For the first few months we lived with Ray & Mal on Foddering Farm Road (ADDRESS #8). Bobby was running the far from profitable antique shop—truly not much more than a hobby that had gotten out of control—while I went to inquire about a job at the new Sears store, one of the anchors of Warwick’s trendsetting Midland Mall, my first shopping mall experience. As would prove true for the rest of my life, never having to look farther than the first place I applied, I was immediately hired as a sales associate in the drapery and window coverings department, thus heralding the beginning of my “decorating career” … although I always had a flare.
Once we were at 18 Sweet Fern Lane (ADDRESS #9) money was tight, and one day while walking home from the shop, Bobby found a twenty dollar bill on the sidewalk in front of the library. Twenty dollars was a lot in those days (my gross pay was $54 a week), yet righteous Bobby proceeded to the library to find its owner. The library was closed. So he went grocery shopping, and bought pork chops as a special treat.
At the time we had not yet bought a gas range, and we were cooking on an electric hot plate. As usual the fuse blew, and Bobby went down to the cellar to change it (we ultimately learned that to use the hot plate, we had to unplug the fridge, turn off all the lights, and cook by candlelight). When he returned to the kitchen the pork chops were missing. Our vanished dinner was eventually found stashed behind the refrigerator. That thieving cat had struck again!
Jimmy, Bobby’s friend from the mental hospital (forgot to mention that before we met, Bobby had done two six month stints in one) had moved to New York City and partnered with Jody, a gorgeous hunk of obvious Latin descent. They had opened a shop in Manhattan called Pillow Talk, and filled it full of pillows that they had made, which never sold. On a visit one weekend we agreed to bail them out, and bought their stock.
We brought all of the pillows to Peacedale, and rented the small space next to our antique shop. After cleaning it up and painting, I did a fabulous billowing tent-like ceiling with a fabric that had big black question marks on a white background. Next ordered a supply of paper dresses and papier machie jewelry, and set up the Anything Goes Boutique. Our grand opening ad asked … “Is Peacedale ready for it? Anything Goes!” Peacedale’s answer was a resounding … NO! In 1967 I doubt that anyone in Peacedale even knew what a boutique was. Our enterprises floundered.
To say the least, geographically Peacedale was on the extreme outer fringes of Rhode Island’s ‘gay’ scene, such as it was, yet we managed to make new friends without much trouble. One prolific contact was a patron of our antique shop, Doctor Thomas Gale, a geriatrics physician who had his offices in one of the huge weathered shingle “cottages” left over from Narragansett Pier’s heyday as a playground for the rich and famous … the ones not quite rich and famous enough to settle in Newport.
Although his practice only occupied the first of the building’s three floors, he didn’t live above, but in the upper level of the splendidly converted carriage house in back, complete with fireplaces and vaulted beamed ceilings. That was the location of many a wild weekend party, some starting Friday evening and lasting through Sunday, as the booze and drugs flowed freely.
After leaving Boston in 1965 I had stayed in touch with Nelson, and would visit on occasion, never missing a party of which there were plenty. Before one such affair Nelson had discovered pot, and the weed was available in ample supply … with a classy touch, of course, sterling silver cigarette boxes full of joints. I had not touched the stuff since high school in Newington, about four years earlier, and Nelson’s offering was one hell of a lot more potent than my previous indulgences. In a word, I got wasted. To this day most of what I remember of that party is having a ravenous interlude with a tuna/macaroni salad shaped like a big fish. I had the munchies!
Thanks to the intro at Nelson’s, as well as my father’s penchant for sedating me with barbiturates from an early age, the parties at Doctor Gale’s did not come as a shock. It was there that I met Lionel “Buddy” Pelletier, who was destined to become my paramour, for a time, ultimately my confidant, my mentor, and one of the closest and dearest friends of my life … until he was stabbed through the heart with a steak knife, when confronting an intruder in his kitchen in the mid-eighties. He was truly a wonderful man, a few years my senior, who introduced me to many wild and wonderful things in life—from the bacchanalian ‘gay’ bathhouses in New York City to the soulful ballads of Edith Piaf (interpreting the French for me as he played her albums).
About the middle of 1967 my beloved Grandmother Streeter passed on and, thinking that he would inherit my mother’s share of Grandma’s estate, my father told me that I could rent the first floor of the Norwood house from him, which had been our home until we moved next door when I was five. As it turned out, however, much to Dad’s chagrin, all of my mother’s posthumously inherited estate went to her issue, my brother and me, and nothing went to my father.
We inherited half of our grandmother’s home (my mother’s share), the other half going to an aunt (don‘t get me started on her!), as well as our great grand auntie Lou’s entire three tenement in East Providence. That property had been bequeathed entirely to my mother, Lou’s favorite, while establishing a life-lease for my grandmother, which gave her the rental income for as long as she lived. This came as quite a shock to the aforementioned aunt—who thought she was getting half of that as well—and she was infuriated. I’m smirking.
So rather than renting the first floor flat at 190 Pawtuxet Avenue (ADDRESS #10) in Norwood from my disillusioned father, I used my twenty-five percent as a down payment, got a mortgage for the balance, bought out my brother and aunt, and became the owner of my own home at the tender age of twenty-one. As I pulled into the driveway after the closing, I looked up at my new domain and thought to myself, I’m going to live here for the rest of my life. HA! What a hoot! Fifteen addresses to go … so far!
Previously the house had been renovated and extended, creating a five room flat on the first floor, and a four room flat on the second. When I arrived a lot more renovating, and a lot of mistakes, ensued. First, the second floor apartment was completely refurbished, and then I hastily and poorly enclosed the classic Victorian-ish front porch (the interior of which I planned to finish, but never did until a few months before I moved out years later).
Next I had white aluminum combination storm windows installed (not a bad idea), and then had the whole house covered in white aluminum siding. Ugh! What was I thinking? In my own defense, it was a standard for the time. Much to my father’s disapproval, I also had the perfectly good red shingle roof re-roofed in a white newfangled diamond shaped shingle, supposedly the wave of the future, which I have yet to see anywhere else in the world except on that house.
On to the first floor interior: Of the five rooms there was the kitchen, a small dining room, a living room, two bedrooms and one bath. First, I cut seven feet out of the wall between the living room and the front bedroom, creating a double living room and, in the process, turning a two bedroom flat into a one bedroom ... not too bright. I wanted a spacious and elegant parlor, and I got it. Both rooms were painted medium gold, think wheat, and the floors carpeted in a deep olive drab cut pile.
The larger room had beautiful bay windows that by then looked out into the unfinished enclosed porch, and they were fully draped ceiling to floor in a lovely burgundy velour with a regal pattern printed in deep olive drab, off-white sheers underneath. The camel back sofa with claw and ball legs (which I had bought at the Salvation Army for three dollars in 1965) was reupholstered in a gold antique velvet, an intricately carved throne chair was covered in a gold and green antique cut velvet, and two smaller chairs in a burgundy plush velvet, with gold fringe. Various antique tables, pictures, wall-hangings, lamps, and tchotchkes, etc., completed the ensemble.
The three windows in the smaller of the double living room, as well as the front door which was never used (opening onto the porch), were covered with gold antique satin draperies with green fringe, and tied back exposing off-white sheers underneath. The treatment over the door was installed on a system that I invented, allowing it to be swung open when need be. That room was furnished with a fancy, carved wood, medallion-back Victorian loveseat covered in blue and green cut velvet, a small trestle chair in a different velvet, a channel-back chair in deep green, all accompanied by a lovely mahogany console stereo that I had bought from Ray and Mal, as well as a myriad of accessories. The two rooms were absolutely gorgeous, and I rarely used them … I was simply obsessed.
Except for the back bedroom, which had natural fir floors, the rest of the house—including bath and kitchen—was carpeted in a light gold “indoor/outdoor” carpet, another misguided trend of the time. My father took on the project of renovating the kitchen for me, using a faux barn-board Masonite paneling. He did a great job but it was very dark and ever so faux! With the double parlor pretty much off-limits, Bobby and I lived in the kitchen, dining room cum den, and the back bedroom. Sadly, except for my museum masterpiece in front, I was never happy with the house. It seemed as though I was always trying to make an old house look new, a futile task, especially once I had blown through the rest of the money from my inheritance. Velvet is not cheap.
While my father was building my kitchen, I came home one day and found the house wide open, but he was nowhere to be seen … off on a bender. He had a key to the solid back door of my flat, but not to the outer door which had a window. When he was going to be there I would leave the outer door unlocked. So that night when I went to bed, I locked the outer door. Sometime after the bar closed he returned, and started pounding on the door. I told him to go home and sober up.
In the meantime I bolted my back door with its internal deadbolt, and stood guard … telling Booby that if the window in the outer door breaks, call the cops. No sooner had the words gotten out of my mouth. Dad was at the back door then, turning his key in the lock and not understanding why he couldn’t get in. The whole time that he is trying to open the door with his key, he’s telling me, Son, I have a key to this door, but I don’t want to use it. Be a good boy now, and open the door for your father. Fat chance!
The police arrived at the front, we talked and they went around back to handle my father. When I opened the door for the police, Dad claimed it was his house (couldn’t let go of that one). I told them I wanted him out, but he kept stalling. Gathering up every last nail that was “his” and at one point he picked up his bench saw and attacked me with it. At that point the cops got on each side of him, and walked him out the door as his feet scurried to resist, but didn’t quite reach the ground.
Twenty years later and once again the police were escorting him out of that house, drunk and disorderly; wasn’t that special. It brought back a lot of memories, none that I wanted back. I didn’t press charges, but had thought they would at least hold him until he sobered up. So I was shocked an hour or so later when he returned, and started driving back and forth in front of the house … toot, toot, toot … toot, toot, toot!
Bobby and I still visited Jimmy and Jody in New York on occasion, and bailed them out a couple more times with loans, one helping them get out of their cramped Manhattan studio and into a spacious high-rise apartment in Union City, New Jersey ... where from the walls of glass one could look out upon the spectacular panoramic view of New York City from their 22nd floor. Next they bought a Scottie female and mated her, in hopes of making some money. We had agreed to take one of the female pups, deducting from the loan, but when we went to get her they talked us into taking a male pup as well.
Hyden and Jason were deathly afraid of our Siamese cat, with good reason, and they were relentless chewers. Consequently, they were confined to the kitchen or back yard kennel when we weren‘t at home. One day when I returned I found my antique gate leg table lying on its side in the kitchen, they had each taken a leg and chewed through. Soon the kitchen carpet—not a good idea to begin with—had to be replaced with vinyl flooring. What was not soaked with their piss had been chewed to threads, including the padding underneath.
Much of it probably had a lot to do with the unhappy home situation, as by this time my relationship with Bobby was headed for the toilet. Thanks to one of the friends we had met through Lionel, just before the holidays in 1967 Bobby landed a job as assistant manager of the new Hallmark card shop at the Midland Mall. That was convenient, as I was just a few stores away at Sears. Early 1968, however, I moved to a small decorating firm in North Providence, Bob Frances Decorators (another case of responding to only one ad and getting hired) which is where I really learned the business. That move left Bobby in need of transportation, so I bought him a car … which succeeded in exacerbating our troubles.
During this time John had finished serving his jail term, returned to Rhode Island and moved back in with his parents, who lived only a few blocks from #190. Our friendship reconvened. The upstairs flat at my house had been rented to friends of his, David and Wayne ... Wayne a short ex-Marine with a butch complex, David a lanky long-haired blond fem who thought he was the incarnation of Diana Ross in white. The friendships intertwined and John usually had an entourage of younger ‘queens’ that he would drag by the house on a regular basis. With something almost always going on either upstairs or down, or both, #190 became known as a major party destination.
My route to and from Bob Frances Decorators in North Providence brought me by Roger Williams Park in Providence, only a couple of miles from home, and wouldn’t you know there were a couple of notorious ‘gay’ cruising spots there. One locale consisted of two secluded wooded peninsulas jutting out into the lake that I had frequented regularly as a boy on my bicycle. Yet it wasn’t until then in my early twenties, that I understood the meaning behind a few of the curious encounters that I had had as a kid, none of which had ever come to fruition thanks to my naivety. Good thing … if they had I might have pitched a tent.
In any event, when I had the time on my way home I’d swing by the park to see what was going on, and I must confess that I did end up doing some shagging on a fairly regular basis, but nothing of any consequence until I met Richard Bowmen. Our eyes met while passing on the road, at which point he did an immediate U-turn and began to follow me. I pulled over, he pulled up behind me, walked up to my car, hopped in, and that was the beginning of a lengthy clandestine love affair.
One night at a bar in Providence another fellow named Richard caught my eye ... Richard Lambert was a few years older than me, not a teenager. Although I was with Bobby and other friends at the time, I did manage a discreet little chat, during which he gave me his phone number verbally, and I committed it to memory. A good memory is an essential skill for a philanderer. This proved to be the beginning of another ongoing affair.
Richard Lambert was an artist and lived all the way in Woonsocket, the northern end of Rhode Island (a small state though, during the gas shortages of the seventies Rhode Island Tourism advertised it as “a tank long and a half a tank wide”). Richard invited me out to dinner one evening, but the location was kept a secret, although he did tell me that it was a bit formal so I should wear a sport coat. When I picked him up he loaded some boxes into the back of my station wagon, told me that they were copies of the art magazine of which he was the editor, and that he had to drop them off somewhere after dinner.
It was late afternoon as we headed back to Providence, then he directed me farther on until we got to Roger Williams Park, where he told me to enter. We drove around until we reached the Temple of Music, a beautiful marble edifice (like a mini Lincoln memorial) bucolically situated on sloping lawns rolling down to the shore of the lake. That was our dining venue, the boxes were our dinner, and the sport coat was in case it got chilly.
He set up the boom box (they weren’t called that then) and put on some classical music as he set our “table” … the marble steps. First the linen tablecloth with matching linen napkins, then the bone china, the sterling and crystal, all illuminated by candles in sterling holders, as well as velvet pillows for our butts. The five course meal was delicious although, except for fried chicken, I don’t remember the menu, but I do remember that for desert he pulled out a chafing dish and made bananas flambé. How romantic was that?
Two days before Thanksgiving, I found that I was unable to pee. I figured a few beers might help … a very bad idea. Because of the rush to get everyone’s draperies installed before the holiday, I kept on working and by the eve I could barely walk. Wayne drove me down to Narragansett to see Doctor Gale. Despite having always had a deathly fear of being catheterized, by the time Tom told me that that’s what he had to do, I was ready and I helped. Those the days before disposables, with his autoclave broken he emptied out the coffee pot and used that to sterilize the tube. Wayne turned green, as he discretely put his cup of coffee aside and didn’t touch it again.
My condition bewildered the medical community in Rhode Island, and a few days later I took a bus to Boston for what I thought was to be an examination at the New England Medical Center/Tufts Diagnostic Clinic, but much to my surprise I was summarily admitted. First to neurology and then moved to urology, where I stayed for over two weeks, much of the time sporting a catheter. When that was first inserted I swore that I would not move until it was removed, but after a while I thought of how my mother had dealt with her masectomoy. After her surgery, when people commented that she seemed to have lost some weight while in hospital, she’d hold her right breast in her hand, heft it a couple of times, then say, “Maybe about ten pounds.“ With that remarkable spirit as my inspiration, I got out of bed and started walking around, with the bag on the pole in tow.
In a way the hospital stay wasn’t all bad … I was young, good-looking, ‘gay’ (like many of the staff), and my private room became the hangout of choice for anyone on a break. And there was always someone who wanted to give me a massage or bath. Bobby came up one afternoon, and I managed to get permission to go out for dinner and a movie that evening, “Romeo and Juliet“—judging by some people’s reactions, apparently that was a very unusual thing to do. The medical problem was never identified, yet ultimately resolved with surgery (twenty some years later I learned the cause, unknown in the sixties, which then could have been resolved with a few pills) and I returned home two days before Christmas. Bobby and I put on festive faces for the holiday, but that proved to be our last together.
On one of my many trips to Provincetown (P-Town) I stayed at Captain Jack’s Wharf, a quaint lodging venue created from a collection of old fishing shanties on a pier on the bay. There I became friendly with the owner, who spent winters at her home in Providence. When she needed new draperies she thought of me, as she did again sometime later regarding new draperies for her father’s motel in Truro, the last town on the Cape before P-Town.
I made an overnight trip to take measurements and submit a proposal, and enjoyed free lodging at the motel which afforded me a night of indulgence in P-Town. Despite being way off-season, it wasn’t difficult to find some diversions. When the draperies where ready I told Bob “Frances” (actually “Gianfrancesco“) that it would take me four days to install everything, but with Lionel’s help we finished in less than two days. After which we continued to avail ourselves of the free lodging, while we made the best of all that free time in P-Town.
In the meantime, my affair with Richard Lambert was on the rocks. In truth, he was a bigger whore than I, which I couldn’t handle. It isn’t easy to protest your lover’s indiscretions, when you already have a live-in at home (albeit in name only) and another on the side. Nonetheless, Richard Bowman and I continued hot and heavy, frequently getting together at my house when Bobby was working late at the mall, or off on one of his own unexplained absences. To be on the safe side though, I made sure that Richard knew Bobby’s car, so that he would never stop by when Bobby was home.
That went well for a while, but when I returned home after completing the drapery job on Cape Cod, Bobby said those famous last words, “We need to talk.” Apparently while I was away he had picked up a young fellow at the park and brought him home. And funny ... this fellow knew where the bathroom was, knew where the bedroom was, and knew the dogs and the cat by name.
That little shit! He also knew Bobby’s car, and he also knew exactly what he was doing. I didn’t. Perhaps he planned to get rid of Bobby with hopes that he could take his place, but it didn‘t work that way. He was history. As for Bobby, despite my protests—after all, we were both guilty parties—this was his excuse to do what he had wanted to do for a while ... end things. And so he did, but we agreed to try and remain friends and live together as roommates. Not a good idea.
Those last couple of years together the tension had been growing between us, and when in conflict he would frequently act out violently. Naturally I was the one on the receiving end, but I took it in stride. From my father and brother I had learned that when a man loves you he beats you, so this didn’t come as a surprise to me. It was … well ... expected. Discussing it with Marion one evening at dinner, she dismissed it all as a result of me being a good talker, and Bobby not being able to compete, so naturally he beat me. Twisting it around so that it was really my own fault that I was getting beat up. Yes. Right.
Many years later, when I became aware of battered spouse syndrome, I realized that not only my mother, but I too was a victim of it, in more than one relationship. I thought of Marion’s comments and could only shake my head. If that was the kind of advice that she, my mother’s best friend, was giving my mother when she was going through her struggles, no wonder she ignored the lump on her breast for over two years, and figured that dying of Cancer was the best way out of the situation with my father. One doesn’t get more battered than dead.
Just as they were throughout my childhood, the Woolhouses were the best neighbors that anyone could ever hope for. It would be many years later, living across the street from the Gordons on Granada Avenue in San Francisco, before I had neighbors who could compare. Mr Woolhouse was a typical crusty New Englander, a hard shell hiding a heart of gold, and he had a spectacular garden in the field of the old farm in back of our houses. For all my years living at #190 as an adult, just about every day during the growing season, when I got home from work I’d find fresh grown gifts along the top of my back fence … corn, squash, tomatoes, zucchini, you name it. Like manna from heaven.
Despite not being a woodsman or an arborist, or having any idea what I was doing, I took it upon myself to chop down a big tree at the very back of my yard, and went about it with no thought whatsoever as to where it might land … until it started falling in the direction of Mr Woolhouse’s garden. I jumped over the fence, chopped it up into small sections, and removed it as quickly as I could—then tried to prop up the squashed plants, but there was little hope. When I saw Mr Woolhouse I apologized profusely, but he took it in his stride, while commenting in his low-key manner, “It looks as though you won’t be getting so many vegetables this year.”
Although I always thought that Mrs Woolhouse was a practical nurse, I recently found out that she wasn’t. Nonetheless, I’d always turned to her for practical medical advice. At this time she was working at the pharmacy down the street, and one day during my hippy period, as I approached the door to the pharmacy an elderly lady was about to enter, so I held the door for her.
Once inside she turned to say thank you and was shocked to see a young fellow with a ponytail, long beard, dressed in tattered jeans and tie-dyed T-shirt. “Even with your long hair,” she said, “you hold the door for an old lady.” I responded, “The length of my hair has nothing to do with the way my mother raised me.“ Mrs Woolhouse had observed the whole episode, and gave that lady a good scolding about having known me all my life, and what a nice “boy” I was.
Mr Woolhouse was a contractor, he had built their lovely Cape, and he was always generous with his time, help and advice, as well as his tools. He had a pickup truck, on the top rack of which he kept a couple of ladders, and he never hesitated to loan me one when I needed it. One day he wasn’t home, so I took the liberty of borrowing his extension ladder nonetheless, and when I had finished with it I put it back on the truck where I had found it, but I forgot one thing. Later Mr Woolhouse requested that in the future, when I return the ladder, that I tie it down like I found it … that way it won’t land in the street when he is driving. Oops! First the tree, then his ladder. He sure had patience with me.
Mrs Woolhouse and I would often have nice chats over the fence between our back yards, and many was the time that she would call and tell me to meet her there, and she would have cookies, a casserole, or something else for me that she claimed to have made or bought too much of. During my first summer at Mossberg Pressed Steel, when they closed for the first two weeks of July I wasn’t eligible for vacation pay, and could only collect unemployment for one week.
When I saw Mrs Woolhouse at the pharmacy I told her of my dilemma, carrying on that I might have to file for welfare and what not. Then later that afternoon she gave me a meet-me-at-the-fence call, where she presented me with two big bags full of groceries. She said it was just a few things she had cleared out of her cupboards to make room, but I was pretty sure that she had made a trip to the market. I was quite embarrassed because I really wasn’t in such dire straits at all, I was mostly just being a drama queen, and remember saying something like, Alms for the poor. Yet the memory of her generosity and love is priceless, I will never forget it.
While David and Wayne were living in the upstairs apartment, one day they had some rather loud and exaggerated sex play going on, with David screaming at the top of his lungs, “No don’t!” and “Please stop!” and what not. Well, dear Mr Woolhouse heard this from next-door, and went running to save the damsel in distress. Up the stairs he went like a flash, where he burst through the door and found David and Wayne ... well, they weren’t fighting and David wasn’t getting anything he didn’t want; an embarrassing situation for all.
Consequently, as Bobby and I tried unsuccessfully to make a go of converting our lover/partner relationship to friendship/roommate status, one day he said something untoward to me, and I countered with some crack about the “muscle beach numbers” he was hanging around with. The next thing I knew I was being thrown around the room, and ultimately he had me by the neck and was banging my face into an antique oak bench. He stopped when the blood started. Later I went over to see Mrs Woolhouse, to find out if I needed stitches. She thought I did. She asked if I had been getting beat up, and I said yes. Then she said that Mr Woolhouse had heard the ruckus, but was afraid to go over, silently alluding to the previous embarrassment with David and Wayne.
Needless to say, that was the end of Bobby and me together in any format. So I found him a beautiful apartment in a new building, with a private balcony and a fantastic view of Narragansett Bay (in a way I wished that I was the one moving). After paying for his move-in and a few months’ rent, I gave him all of the furniture from the smaller of the two living rooms, and bought him whatever else he needed. We made some arrangement for him to pay me back for the car, and that was that.
Back home I moved the Victorian bed into the empty room, set that up with other furnishings which, using the adjacent elegant living room as a sitting room, created a rather elaborate master bedroom suite. Next I threw a mattress on the floor in the back bedroom, covered it with a black faux fur, threw in a bean bag chair, a red shag rug, and all of the “Anything Goes“ pillows. After adding some trippy lighting and hanging beads on the door, I had created what Ray and Mal always called my “marijuana den!” They didn’t know the half of it. Life went on.
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