The day after moving in I meet the two fellows who lived next-door, both ‘gay’—as were many of the other residents—and both pleasant enough, but neither set my heart to pitter-patter which was a good thing. A couple of days after that, I had quite a shock when I walked into my living room in the morning. Although I didn’t think that they knew me well enough to play a practical joke, apparently they did, because it must have been them who hung white sheets over my picture window and sliding door. Closer inspection, however, revealed that it was not sheets at all, just the famous San Francisco fog; so pervasive and semi-opaque that it had the same effect as sheets.
A few days later I had another shock. On those rare days that the weather was warm, I would open the sides of the picture window but not the slider, because I didn’t want Daffy out on the balcony. This day when I walked into my living room, a giant furry creature was stepping in through the window. Fair to say I was quite taken back, even when I realized that it was an Afghanistan Wolfhound. Apparently I was meeting another neighbor. The dog was friendly enough, although Daffy thought it was a horse and went into her vicious attack mode, and I picked up a couple of window screens to put an end to the visits.
Once settled I gave my Chicago/Evanston friend Bob a call, and he said that he would be in San Francisco on business, so I invited him to stay at my place if he was okay sleeping on the sofa. His firm had set him up at a hotel, but we had some good times together out on the town. He also had a “good time” with one of the fellows next-door, and the blossoming romance was so intense that Bob stayed a few extra days.
Not long after getting settled I got a letter from what’s-his-name in Omaha, Nebraska, telling me that he had decided to move to San Francisco, and that he planned on staying with me. Apparently he read more into that one-night-stand than I did. So I wrote him a letter and told him that his decision to relocate was quite a surprise, but I was excited for him and by all means he would be more than welcome to stay with me … for a few days (the operative word being “few”); adding that that would give him time to find other accommodations, maybe even at the YMCA. Funny, I never heard from him again.
At the time I was, for the first time in my life, enjoying my status as a single man, and like many a ‘gay’ man during his early days discovering San Francisco … I felt like the proverbial kid in a candy store! It was a veritable Candyland! For me it was like a rebirth in so many ways. Despite thinking myself over-the-hill at thirty-six, I was apparently the only one who thought so. After so many years living at least twenty or thirty miles from a ‘gay’ bar, now I was five minutes away from a dozen, fifteen minutes away from a dozen or two more. Which is how I found out that it wasn’t distance that kept me an infrequent patron of drinking establishments, I just didn’t care from them all that much.
That revelation made San Francisco an even more attractive venue because, unlike my previous locales where bars were the only option, this ‘gay’ Mecca had so much more to offer. Quite quickly I found my way to the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), started attending one of the weekly services, and became involved in the church community to a degree, despite having always been more of a loner than a joiner. Fifteen years later, when I read the book Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present, I was surprised to discover how many of the history making ‘gay’ men I had “known” … the minister of the MCC being one of them.
At the time the latest rage was EMS (Electro Muscular Stimulation). A number of EMS clinics sprung up, all touting claims that fifteen minutes hooked up to the pads was the equivalent of doing 1500 sit-ups. Sounded too good to be true, but I had to check it out, so I signed up for a series of “treatments” at a place in The Castro. After five or six sessions, while combing my hair one morning, when I raised my right arm I saw something in the mirror that I had never seen before … a bicep!!! I checked my left arm, it had one too!
Seriously, this was a shock. After years of being brainwashed that I was a sissy and a fag and the ever popular fairy, and never having had any interest in athletics or sports, even in my wildest imaginings I never thought that I would have any capacity for physical development. In addition to not being interested, I never thought it could happen. But there was the proof reflecting back at me in the mirror, I had biceps! Two of them! So I continued with the EMS but also joined a gym in The Castro, figuring I might as well have a go at it in the more traditional way. Although that gym never worked for me, and it would be a year or more later before I found one that did.
On my 37th birthday Brian took me out for dinner at a very popular Mexican restaurant South of Market, where they made fantastic margaritas, so by the time we started bar hopping I was already pretty well toasted. We’d go to one or two bars, then drive to a different area and hit a couple more, and so on. By the time I was ready to call it a night, Brian had connected with a fellow, so we split up and I headed back to my Datsun.
Only one problem, where was it? We had hopped around so much that evening that I wasn’t at all clear on where we had parked, and after wandering around for a while I was so lost that I couldn’t even find my way back to the bar where I had left Brian. Fortunately, at least, I remembered my address, so I took a taxi home and Brian and I went out the next afternoon to fetch my truck.
In addition to the MCC, and occasional visits to one pub or another, I was still a member of GOA (Great Outdoor Adventures) which I had hooked up with that August at the Russian River. In his ongoing effort to enhance the program, Arya had expanded his enterprise indoors and added great dining adventures. Every other week he would arrange a gathering of twelve or so members at one restaurant or another.
Wouldn’t you know, at the very first one I met David Reardon, a cutie pie of the first order, a flight attendant and antiques dealer. David and I dated for a while, and I was seriously warm for his form, but he always kept me at arm’s length (i.e., no shagging), which was pretty much driving me crazy … despite the fact that I was dating others as well, and my libido was being well taken care of. To make matters worse, his roommate cum best friend didn’t like me, and took special pleasure in mentioning David’s other men in front of me. That was downright mean.
At the time I was also dating Tom Shaw, a mailman and pianist that I had met at Badlands in The Castro one night. I know that Tom was very taken with me, but sadly the feeling wasn’t mutual. He was a very nice man, but no sparks. For Thanksgiving he invited me to join him at his friends’ place up in Vacaville, about two hours from the city near Sacramento, and I happily accepted. The home of Tom’s friends was really quite impressive, and in the back they had a lovely garden and patio, complete with hot tub.
Dinner was exceptional, and afterward we adjourned to the tub. Rub-a-dub-dub, eight naked men in a tub. My foot was getting attention from a couple of different quarters, not exactly sure who, but I was on good behavior because I never would have done anything to hurt Tom’s feelings, even though there were a couple of fellows there whom I found interesting. So I just luxuriated in the tub, gazing up at the starry sky, thinking, Well, how cool is this? It’s Thanksgiving, and I’m in California soaking in a hot tub! Never did that in Rhode Island.
On December 23rd I had an appointment in Marin County, and the weather was very nasty. When I was leaving the jobsite, the client said he didn’t want to alarm me, but his barometer was reading hurricane, and the last time it had been that low, many years before, the Golden Gate Bridge had been closed. Alarm me? I panicked. I had no idea how to get back to San Francisco if not by that bridge.
By good fortune the bridge was not closed, but it was a scary crossing, because the huge thick-as-an-arm cables from which it is suspended, were sway back and forth a good two feet. I made it okay, but a half hour later they closed the bridge. In the meantime I had been driving along Park Presidio Boulevard, where I had another fright. The extremely tall trees that lined it were swaying in the wind, sometimes dipping at almost 90° over the road.
That evening I picked up my elder niece, Jayna, at the airport, she was visiting for three weeks. I had really been looking forward to her arrival. I bought a small living Christmas tree, some lights and decorations which, added to a few of the more meaningfully decorations that I had brought from Rhode Island, had the place looking quite festive. We went to see “The Nutcracker” that evening, and Christmas day I have absolutely no clue what we did. New Year’s though we went to a party at the home of a friend of David, and I got plastered. Jayna had to drive home. Coming to terms with drinking was in the future
During her first week Jayna had already gotten the grand tour of San Francisco, so on the 2nd of January we left the city heading south. Visited Monterey and the Aquarium, Carmel, Hearst Castle in San Simeon; then on to Saugus near Los Angeles, and a visit with my father’s cousin Doris at her triple-wide. True to my childhood memory of her, she never shut up. Nonetheless, she was fun. Fun!? She was an absolute hoot!
She took us into the living room to show us her prized possession, a huge painting on black velvet of an ancient Greco-Roman city (at least it wasn’t Elvis). The whole time I was facing Doris and Jayna was standing behind her, doing the finger in the mouth gesture meaning—I’m going to barf. Quite thrilled with her masterpiece, Doris proclaimed that the streets of heaven are paved with gold, and she just wanted to get a head start. Jayna was still doing the pseudo-barfing thing, when Doris hit the switch while gleefully proclaiming, “It even lights up!” So it did. I was almost wetting my pants trying to squelch the laughter. Note to self … kill Jayna!
After the holidays and Jayna’s visit it was back to work, and it was rewarding to see that in less than three months I had drummed up quite a lot of business. Being the new-kid-on-the-block though, I was getting the lower end of those dealing in window coverings, including a lot of so-called designers who didn’t really know the difference between draperies and curtains, or that “drape” is a verb not a noun.
There were some upscale accounts as well, and I was keeping busy, which was the important thing; and doing a lot of on-the-job training, as the interior design trade in the bay area easily surpassed anything that I had ever encountered in Rhode Island. On my first visit to the Design Center, the Galleria and Showplace Square, I was stymied … I had never seen anything like it, or even imagined that such a places had existed.
One workroom that I had connected with early on was a new venture started by a ‘gay‘ couple, and they told me that when I applied for my resale license that I should underestimate my expected annual receipts. When they had applied for theirs, they had delusions of grandeur, great expectations, and submitted a very high estimate of income, on which they had to pay a very high deposit to cover the expected sales tax. Good advice.
Through them I worked on an exquisite condo on Nob Hill, that was being prepared for a “Metropolitan Home” photo shoot. Another project for them was a Russian Hill penthouse. It was the home of Pat Montandon, millionairess, television personality, author, premier San Francisco socialite, as well as founder and executive director of the internationally renowned Children as the Teachers of Peace, for which she was nominate for the Nobel Peace Prize and received the United Nations Peace Messenger award. Her penthouse was being prepped for a photo shoot for the department store Emporium. By this time I felt that I had seriously arrived.
Naturally I made time in my busy schedule for a social life and Candyland forays, and was finding that it was much easier to be single in San Francisco than in any other place I had ever lived. Truly, if I had wanted to, I could have been shagging twenty-four hours a day. But the operative word in “social life” was “social” and that was a big part of my enjoyment. Tom Shaw, the pianist, had been phased out, but David Reardon and I were still dating, not to be confused with shagging (damn it!), and then he terminated our Valentine’s Day dinner date by terminating our relationship. The thing that confused me the most is that he was the one crying about it … not me.
The Metropolitan Community Church continued to be an important part of my life, I was involved in a few activities there, and ultimately joined a pre-baptismal discussion group. Being brought up more-or-less as a Baptist, we were not to be baptized until age thirteen. When my brother had reached that age my parents gave him the choice, and he was baptized. For him though it was just another part of the church as a social venue, and he was a social animal. Three years later when it was time for me to make the choice, I left the church. But at MCC I had found a church community that I felt a part of, a Christian doctrine that was embracing me rather than shunning me, and I wanted to solidify my place in that congregation.
San Francisco has three major ‘gay’ centers, and no doubt The Castro is the flagship. The second was Polk Gulch (a tad seedier and a haven for hustlers), and lastly SOMA (South of Market) where the “leather” community prevailed. For the most part I patronized The Castro. There was, however, a cozy little place on Divisadero Street at Sacramento Street called the Lion’s Pub—a lone ‘gay’ outpost on the Pacific Heights side of the border with Presidio Heights, two of San Francisco’s most prestigious neighborhoods.
On Saturday night, March 5th I figured the Lion’s Pub would be a nice change of pace, and paid a visit. It was fairly crowded, yet after being there a while I hadn’t sighted anyone who actually set my heart a flutter, so I switched to my usual Plan B … selecting the best of the lot. Similar to the philosophy of that song from the fifties by Doris Day, “If I’m not with the man I love, I’ll love the man I’m with.“
There was a cute enough fellow sitting on a stool at the corner of the bar, wearing a brown leather bomber jacket and sporting a moustache and goatee. It was quite clear that he was checking me out, and before long I was following his motorcycle (extra points for a motorcycle) back to his apartment on Gough Street, 2½ blocks south of Lafayette Park, and three west of Polk Gulch.
The next morning, having already perused the Sunday paper (in ever peculiar San Francisco, Sunday’s paper is available Saturday), my plan for the day was a trip to Emporium to buy a lamp that was on sale, for the trunk cum end table in my living room. Vince accepted my invitation to tag along, and first we went to the Emporium at the Stonestown Mall. They didn’t have the color I wanted, so we headed for Fashion Island (a whole new venue for me) and found the lamp at the Emporium there. We must have had lunch together, maybe dinner, I don’t recall, and at some point exchanged phone numbers, parted company, and I never gave him another thought …
… until he called four days later on Thursday. He invited me to a movie or something, and we made a date for the weekend. Clearly a lot of the detail is missing here, because at the time I wasn’t particularly interested. He was a nice enough fellow, but I was pretty much just going with the flow. Over the course of the next few weeks Vince and I dated a few times, and regularity evolved. It was a big change for me because Vince always wanted us to hang out at his place, while none of my former mates ever really had their own place.
Vince’s one bedroom apartment was nice enough, the building had that dusty elegance of the 1940’s Spanish Revival, but there was no parking, on street parking was at a premium, I hated leaving Daffy home alone, and his place wasn’t actually furnished. He would not buy anything that was not top quality, so he had good stuff just not much of it. There was a nice antique table with two chairs in the small dining area, a humongous antique armoire in the entrance foyer. In the living room there was an excellent stereo system, along with a solid brass Stiffle touchier, and a twin size mattress and box spring on the floor. The bedroom had a queen size bed. That was it. The stuff at my place wasn’t particularly expensive (I had already been though years of expensive decorating), but it was tasteful and my apartment was fully furnished and comfortable.
Easter Sunday, April 3rd of that year 1983, Vince came to the church to attend my baptism. Although they usually did a sprinkling of water, the option of full emersion was available, and despite my sketchy history with the Baptist church, for me being baptized meant getting dunked, not sprinkled. The minister (whom I had only shagged that one time months earlier) agreed to my request, and they dusted off the baptistery. As it happened, I was the last person to be baptized in that baptistery, and shortly thereafter it was removed and the space converted to a vending machine alcove. And the guy who got fully “dunked” became church legend.
A couple of weeks later Vince joined me for church services one morning, after which there was a funding raising art auction in the community hall. They were serving champagne, I was drinking it. I hadn’t had any breakfast. The first painting I bought was a lovely and very colorful DePaula, and that was the last one … that I remember. Apparently the champagne kept flowing, and I kept drinking and bidding. The next thing I remember I was waking up in my bedroom early that evening. Vince, who was sitting on the side of my bed with a smirk on his face, said. “How are you feeling?” “Okay.” “Then why don’t you come into the living room and see what you bought?”
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