Life with Vince was challenging, to say the least, but I always felt loved and cared for, and I learned so much about love and caring and intimacy with him. Having been the son of an alcoholic and the younger brother of a rage-oholic, I grew up believing that when a man loves you he beats you, and my first three partners had reinforced that belief. With Vince I learned that a man can be kind, gentle, devoted, and never violent. Also I learned how to trust. For years I had lamented my inability to trust, but I learned that the onus was not necessarily on me. In order to learn to trust, one must be with someone who is trustworthy.
Nonetheless, there was a whole other side to our relationship. As I have heard, we sometimes marry one of our parents, and with Vince being a Gemini “The Twins” I guess I married both; one of his personalities my beloved mother, the other my father, albeit a sober version. That’s the one that was causing the problems. After terminating couple’s counseling and then moving my business out of our home, I had pretty much decided to hang tight through the visit with his sister Cheryl and her family, and then probably call it quits with Vince.
That didn’t happen. Thanks to the time we had with his family, my perspective changed a lot. Not only did the family dynamic draw me in, but observing Vince with his sister and especially his nephew, Nick, I saw a side of him that I had not seen before, and it was overwhelmingly endearing. Being that I then had my business space on Divisadero, which gave me more “space” in more ways than one, I decided to stick it out for a while and see how things went. Up and down, that’s how they went.
Our relationship was volatile, to put it mildly, and when we would get into a heated argument, he would get angry and start yelling, and I’d leave. At one time he told me that when I left it fueled his abandonment issues, and I told him that in my experience, when someone got angry with me and started yelling, it was always a precursor to having my head smashed into a wall … so when the yelling starts, I leave. He said, “I don’t get angry and yell, I get excited and talk loud.” “Okay then, when someone gets excited and talks loud, I leave.” But after that I stopped leaving, or maybe didn’t leave as often.
One evening Vince and Phil and I were going to see the “Rocky Horror Picture Show” at The Strand on Market Street. They had both seen it a few times, but this was to be my first and (as it turned out) last viewing of that cult classic. Before the movie we went to eat at the nearby Carl’s Jr (which would also be a first and last for me). We were the only people in the place, and after placing our order the cashier said, “Have a seat and we’ll bring your food when it’s ready.”
So we did. It seemed to be taking an unusually long time for us to get our food, especially considering that we were still the only customers, but ultimately we saw a waiter with a tray heading in our direction. He arrived with what was clearly our order, and asked to see our receipt. I told him that the cashier never gave us a receipt, and he said, “Well, I can’t give you your order until you show me the receipt.” The snotty little queen! Mind you, almost forty minutes now and we are still the only customers!
In a low volume, calm and level, but doubtless menacing voice, I said, “That is our order, and if you think that you are not leaving it at this table, you are sadly mistaken.” That’s all I said. No yelling. No screaming. No foul language. No insults. The waiter snapped, “Well, you don’t have to be such a BITCH!!!“ As he dropped the tray on the table and flounced away. In the meantime, Vince had jumped up from his seat and started castigating me, swearing and screaming. In response to me not raising my voice and not using any foul language (not even “damn“), simply making a very reasonable statement, he was screaming at the top of his lungs, and calling me every nasty thing he could think of.
We ate, but Phil was so upset that he couldn’t finish. That was unusual, when he went out with us he always had a hearty appetite, because he was eternally broke and we always picked up the tab. On the way to The Strand after that, Phil decided that he was just going to go home, he was much too traumatized to enjoy the movie. Boo-boo-boo-bloody-hoo! Give me a break. In our ten plus years together Vince never hit me, was never physically violent or threatening in any way, but he certainly made up for it with the yelling and screaming and, as witnessed, lambasting me for no reason at all. No matter what the conflict, no matter with whom, I was always the bad guy.
Our first serious argument centered around Phil (come to think of it, Phil was the catalyst for most of our arguments). We were planning a little vacation, a car trip up the coast to Oregon. I was thinking of it as a romantic getaway, just the two of us. As soon as Phil got wind of it he wanted to tag along, and then started planning the agenda, visiting his friends here and there, etc. Vince, of course, was all for it. So at the lovely B&B that we had reserved for two nights in Mendocino, a cozy room with a view and a fireplace … what were we going to do? Order a cot for Phil, or pay for a separate room for him? Ditto the romantic dinners. Even if we only ate at McDonalds, we’d still have to pay for Phil.
Vince and I got into such a heated argument about this that I went off the deep end. Having been so conditioned to getting a beating in similar situations, it was hard wired, almost an imperative. I ended up on the floor in hysterics, smashing my head into a door frame … as hard as I could, just bashing my head. Vince was horrified and wrapped his arms around me to stop me. Then he just held me, cradling me and soothing me, until I came back from where ever I had gone. We made the trip all right, just the two of us, but the whole time the trauma hung over our heads like a cloud. There was no joy. Thanks to Phil that nice romantic sojourn had been ruined, one of many plans ruined by Phil.
Vince could get real wound up and very crazy at times, and more than once we had an argument, during which I never said a word. He would have his say, and then he would tell me what my response was going to be. He would then refute “my” response, and then tell me what my rebuttal would be, and so on. It was insane. Once I sat there for almost ten minutes, watching myself having an argument with Vince, while I was silent the whole time.
One more anecdote and I’ll move on. Vince’s studies at Golden Gate University had inspired me to take a course, so I signed up for Marketing 101. When Halloween came around I had a class that evening, so I didn’t go the concert at the Warfield on Market Street with Vince and Phil. The plan was to meet at the Stud afterwards, so that‘s where I went. And where I waited and waited and waited.
Early on in our relationship Vince had told me that one night leaving the Stud he had been approached my two young fellows, who happened to be Asian, who pulled knives on him, and handcuffed his hands behind his back while they led him down the street. It probably would have been all over for Vince, had it not been for good timing and a stroke of luck.
Before he and his captors got too far away, a group of people were leaving Hamburger Mary’s (across the street from the Stud), and one of those fellows spotted one of the knifes, as the light from a street lamp reflected off of it. They started yelling and running towards Vince, and the thugs ran away. The saviors brought Vince back to Hamburger Mary’s, from whence the police were called, and Vince got to sit there at the bar, handcuffed, waiting for the police to arrive … everyone looking at him as though he were a criminal.
Back to Halloween. With that story in the back of my mind, when he didn’t show up at the Stud as arranged, all sorts of horror scenarios played out in my head. The walk from the Warfield to the Stud went through some of the most dangers parts of the city. After confirming that the concert was over, I drove around like crazy, up and down every street and alley, trying to imagine what route he may have taken; all to no avail. After checking back at the Stud one final time, I went home.
That’s where I found Vince safely tucked in bed, sound asleep … not for long. “YOU FUCKING SON-OF-A-BITCH!!!” He told me that after the concert it took them so long to get a taxi, that when they did they just went directly home. What about me? Oh, he figured that I’d get sick of waiting after a while, and come home too. Not good enough. No question about it, I could trust Vince. I could trust him not to cheat on me, but I could also trust him to be inconsiderate of me and our plans. If something better or more convenient came along, I could trust him to leave me hanging. After that Halloween incident I didn’t speak to him for over a week.
At the Pacific Heights Health Club I had met a fellow name John Terry, who was from Texas. He was a writer of romance novels for Silhouette or Harlequin or one of those, under the pen name Prudence Morgan. We became friends, and when I opened the shop he said he‘d be happy to work for me part time, and so he did. All I needed next was an installer. Since moving to San Francisco I had kept in touch with Doug Black, the fellow that I had met in Denver. His former housemate had moved to San Francisco shortly after my arrival there, and when Doug heard that I was looking for an installer, he called and asked if he could have the job. He wanted to move to San Francisco too. Well, sure. My business was growing.
John Terry was a recovering alcoholic. At his invitation I attended a couple of AA meetings with him. They were very interesting, although at that point I had pretty much gotten a handle on my drinking issues. I never felt the desire or need to drink, and for the most part preferred Coke or Pepsi to alcohol. I always had a cabinet full of liquor and plenty of beer at home, but rarely if ever touched it. It was only in social situations that I drank, but to qualify “desire” and “need” … I never felt the desire or need to drink until I had had a couple.
Once I had a third drink I was well on my way down that slippery slope. Once I came to understand that, at the beginning of a social venue I’d have a drink, and then switch to a soft drink for the remainder. Sometimes I’d have a second drink near the end of the event. From then on though I pretty much avoided drinking as much as possible, this was not always easy. It’s funny that “drinkers” are not happy unless everyone is drinking, and can get quite offended when someone doesn’t. Once in my early teens at the beach house, John Harris had come to stay for a week, and on the weekend his parents came to pick him up. We had a cookout, and my father would not let it rest that Mr Harris didn’t want a drink, “You’re not a panty-waist are you?“ he asked, much to my complete mortification.
Despite not being an alcoholic, at those meetings I discovered Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACA), so I started attending ACA meetings and did so for a number of years. It was extremely interesting hearing others share, many sounded like they were telling my story. One thing that amazed me though, was that some ACAs did not know at the time that their parent or parents, or whomever, were alcoholic. There was never any question in my mind that my father was. After so many years of psychotherapy, it was interesting to look at my issues, my difficulties in life, through the lens of ACA. It explained so much.
The shocker was not that I was angry with my father, I had pretty much reconciled that. I was pissed with my mother! For eighteen years, from the time I was a little child, it was my mother who kept telling me, “Don’t get angry about that.” “Don’t let that bother you.“ “Don’t let him upset you.” “Don’t be disappointed.” Roughly translated: stuff your legitimate anger, stuff your legitimate feelings, stuff your legitimate disappointment, stuff it all. Keep it all inside, never let it show. Deal with it all later, after thirty years of pain, at $100+ an hour with a psychiatrist. As much as I adored her, it was my mother who did that to me, but it wasn’t entirely her fault. She was, unknowingly, a co-dependent, and was just trying to protect me with the same tools that she used; the tools that clearly didn’t work for her.
Time to change the subject. My Vanagon’s sojourn at the VW dealer in Pleasanton brought an end to its overheating problems, but trouble developed in the suspension. Someone told me it was chronic. One afternoon I went to the nearby Buick dealer, and bought a new gray Skyhawk station wagon, or was it Skylark? (What ever happened to the station wagons?) My father had Buicks all of his life, so I figured it was a safe bet. I called Vince later and told him that when I came to pick him up at the hospital, that I would be in this Buick, not the VW. Why? Because I just traded the VW on the Buick. He was actually rather putout that I had made this big decision without consulting him. Well, shucks!
With plans to use the Buick for sales, I went shopping for a secondhand van for Doug to use on the installations. Found a decent looking used full-size Ford utility van at S&C Ford at a good price, and drove it home. Talk about getting fleeced. The purchase was as is and “as is” meant undisclosed transmission problems. One day in the paper I spotted a “lost-leader” advertised at a Chevrolet dealer all the way down the peninsula in Mountain View; a brand new Astro utility mini-van for $7800. They had just the one at that price, but I got it and traded the Ford at a loss.
When Mrs Harris passed on in 1972, Mr Harris moved to what was to have been their retirement home in Hiram, Maine, where they owned eight acres of land and, at the time, just a large one room cottage that he had built. He kept things rustic for quite some time, a bachelor cabin in the woods, but then fell in love again with Marjory whom he met at church. They made plans to marry, and Mr Harris started adding on to the cottage to create a home for his new bride. It was during that period that I did not hear from him for over a year, he was so busy building and courting.
Sadly Marjory passed away during the spring of 1984, and a year later her daughter moved to Denver. Mr Harris offered to drive her car across country, accompanied by his eleven-year-old step-grandson to keep him company. Once in Denver he took a flight to San Francisco to visit with me. We had a great time and covered a lot of ground. Gold Country, Yosemite, Mono Lake, Wine Country, and that was just phase one.
One Sunday back in San Francisco, the plan was to go and park near the terminus of the California Street Cable Car line, and then take the Cable Car downtown. Well, there was absolutely no parking anywhere near there or anywhere else within walking distance. As it happened, we ended up parking so far away (more than half way back to my apartment) that we had to take a bus to the California Line.
The California Line is the least touristy of the three, consequently the easiest to get and get a space on, but this day it was jam packed as well. When we got to the other end of the line at Market Street, the streets were lined with people, and then I realized what was going on. We had landed right at the very beginning of the Gay Freedom Day Parade! I tried to lead Mr Harris in the direction of The Embarcadero and the bay, but he said, “Oh! I love a parade!” and made a beeline for the intersection, just as the lead contingent rounded the corner on to Market Street … Dikes On Bikes!
Mr & Mrs Harris had known of John’s and my “orientation” for years, of course, at least ever since the “incident of the notorious letters” two decades previous. Yet despite them being so close with Bobby and me, and me never hiding anything about my life or relationships, we never really talked directly about it. From that day forward Mr Harris and I conversed at a different level. It was also about this time that he suggested that I start calling him Tom, which I did, when with him, but he and Grace will always be Mr & Mrs Harris to me, an expression of the utmost respect and love.
The day after the parade we headed south along the coast: Santa Cruz, Monterey and the Aquarium, Big Sur, and, of course, San Simeon and Hearst Castle. As the day of his departure grew nearer, we started planning for him to visit again, and he did during the fall of 1986. That time our travels included Death Valley, Sequoia National Park, and Kings Canyon National Park. It was always very informative traveling with Mr Harris, as he was a science and math teacher, with a wealth of information on many subjects, especially about the natural wonderlands that we were exploring. On the way back to San Francisco through the San Joaquin Valley, we started planning for the following year, but Mr Harris passed on in June of 1987.
Early in 1986 I was awoken one night by Daffy’s coughing. Vince got up and checked out her heart with his stethoscope, and said that he thought he heard “rails” which was a sign of congestive heart failure, but he couldn’t be sure because rails sounded like hair rubbing together, and Daffy had plenty of hair. So we took her to the emergency animal hospital, and the vet said that she had bronchitis. Her gave her a shot, some pills, and sent us home.
The next morning I was concerned for Daffy, but she seemed a little better, so I went off to an appointment or two, but got home as quickly as I could. When I walked into the apartment I knew something was wrong, she didn’t come running to the door. I rushed to the kitchen and there she was lying in her bed, her head lolled over the side. Despite all that I had been through in life that was pretty close to the absolute worst. I was devastated, and completely inconsolable.
Vince was in class at the time, so I called John Terry, but it was a few minutes before he could get me to calm down enough for him to know who I was and what I was saying. He got to the house as soon as he could, and stayed with me until it was time to pick up Vince. I managed to keep it together long enough to get to the university, but as soon as Vince got in the van I broke down again. He called Pets’ Rest in Colma and they came to get Daffy. The next morning we went to see her in her little coffin, and put her favorite toy, a big squeaky green caterpillar, by her side. Then she was buried. Her stone had her name and dates, and said, “This man’s best friend.” She had been with me for eleven and a half years, and truly was my best friend. She had been with me through some of the worst, and I grieved for her deeply and painfully for a very long time.
At some point I had gone to a timeshare presentation, and was given my choice of one of four gifts for having attended. I don’t remember what the others were, but I picked the six days, five nights in Acapulco. After losing Daffy it seemed like a good time to get away. At the airport in Acapulco it was a circus of confusion, but somehow we ended up in an open-air bus-like contraption, not sure where we were going, but by some miracle we landed at our timeshare hotel, La Tortuga (“The Turtle”), right across the street from the main beach, El Coronado.
Once settled and regrouped we ventured out to have a look around, and before we walked two blocks we were so loaded down with stuff—blankets, big ceramic banks, a lifetime supply of Chiclets—we had to go back to our hotel to unload. Off once again we encountered two unsavory fellows, I called them the Frito Banditos, who had mote (“pot”) for sale. Vince said, “Let’s.” So we followed them to the beach to try it out before buying. A few hits and we got wasted, it was probably the infamous Acapulco Gold, so we decided to buy a half. One guy held the baggie in two hands, twisted it to tear it in half, and gave us one half.
On the way back to the hotel we were accosted by a fellow selling timeshares. I ignored him but Vince got sucked in, too polite to be rude. Vince had already told him which hotel we were in, and when he asked his name, Vince said, “Lance Edward …” glancing quickly at me he saw daggers in my eyes “… son; Edwardson.” Later, “You asshole!” “Well, I didn’t want to give him my name.“ Vince said. “Yeah, so you gave him mine! You couldn’t just make up a name? You idiot!“
Back at the Tortuga we chilled for a while, and then before going out to dinner we decided to smoke a joint. Two. Three. Apparently the good pot that we had sampled was on one side of the baggie, and this impotent skunk-weed on the other. We got skunked with the skunk-weed. The most we could get out of it a little short-lived buzz.
Being that our studio was a promotional premium, it wasn‘t the best unit in the place. It was only on the third level, overlooking a dead-end alley and a big disco on other side. That night and every night the disco music was blaring until two in the morning, and the last song which they would invariably play two or three times before closing was always, “Guantanamera!” I swore that when we got home I was going to buy that record … just so I could break it. But the disco wasn’t all.
During the wee hours of the morning I was awoken by dogs barking in the alley. I stepped out on the balcony and discovered that there were a bunch of trash pickers and two dogs, going through the dumpsters. I went back into the kitchen, filled a pitcher and a bowl with water, went back out on the patio, and got each dog right on the head. The trash pickers looked up in shock.
That first full day we spent on the beach, the El Coronado across the street. The beach was lovely, but it was really quite gross to swim. There were so many dirty plastic bags in the water that they kept clinging to my arms and legs and body … and this was only the mid-80s. The beach had a rather large ‘gay’ presence. There were a lot of middle-aged ‘gay’ gringos, and even more young Mexican “boys” hovering around them. (Author’s note: At my age, “boys” pretty much refers to any young man under 30 – well, 40 – not underage.)
After kicking back in a beach chair, I pulled my just purchased straw hat down over my eyes, and never took my eyes off of the “boys” in their bikinis. I thought it was a pretty good ruse, and Vince was sleeping most of the time anyhow, but after about an hour he said, “I know you’re watching those boys through your hat. They’re probably all hustlers.” “GREAT!” I exclaimed. “Honey,” he said, “that’s not going to do you any fucking good!”
The next day I rented a car, and we were off for the silver mining town of Taxco, about half way to Mexico City. This was on the very top of Vince’s must do list. We rolled a few skunk weed joints to take with us, and smoked a couple as soon as we hit the road. About 40 miles out of the city, on the two lane road (the main “highway” and smuggling route between Acapulco and Mexico City) the traffic was stopped in both directions, and we couldn’t understand what the problem was.
There was a long line of cars, trucks and busses, and as we crept forward slowly, I finally saw a road block and soldiers with Uzis! It looked as though they were searching the cars, and then we saw them herd the people off of a bus, take them into the woods to search them, while other soldiers searched the bus. About two or three cars from the check point, I noticed a sign (at that time I was still only armed with a few words from my high school Spanish), and kept repeating two words that had a familiar ring to them … “Narcotico trafico?!” … “Narcotico trafico?!” … “Narcotico trafico?!” … NARCOTICO TRAFICO!!!
Vince was so afraid that he was catatonic, so in a panic I grabbed the remaining joints and tried to eat them, one at a time. But I was so frightened that my mouth was as dry as a bone, and this was the days before I always had a water bottle with me, especially when traveling. It was a struggle but I ultimately swallowed them, yet had no luck with the two roaches. So I masticated them as much as I could, and then just sort of mashed them under the floor mat, with the other dirt and what not. It would have been a real bitch to get busted, and end up in a Mexican jail of all places … for skunk-weed!
When it was our turn to get searched we were waved right on through, and right at that very moment … the clutch went on the car. It was stuck in second gear. Somehow I managed to get us going in a very lurching way, but we had to abort our trip and turn back. So I did a U-turn, the car jerking up to the stop in the other direction. Needless to say, this very strange “gringo” behavior made the soldiers very suspicions, and then we and the car were thoroughly searched. They even made a big suspicious deal out of Vince’s tiny little tube of Blistex.
We must have been there a half hour, and when they finally let us go we lurched and lunged, shuddered and shook, juddered and jolted our way back to Acapulco in second gear. Fortunately there were few stops, and most of those were thankfully downhill, so that when the traffic moved again I could roll to a jump start. Once within the city limits though, it was an uphill climb over the hills lining the Pacific. At one stop there was a slight incline, and Vince had to jump out and push the car to get us going, then he jumped in … providing immense entertainment for all of the locals, who had stopped what they were doing to stare at the “gringos locos!” At the first phone booth I saw I pulled over, called the rental company to tell them where their car was, and then we took a taxi back to La Tortuga! And smoked more skunk-weed!
The next day we rented another car, this time an automatic. I figured most of the cars were rented by gringos, who were not accustomed to a standard transmission, so probably all of the sticks-shifts were messed up. After studying the map again, I failed to heed the caution that driving times are usually much longer than what one would think from the distances, so we left for Taxco in the morning and I figured we’d be there by noon. We rolled into town late that afternoon.
Being that we had also been cautioned not to chance the Mexican roads after dark, we should have just stayed the night and really enjoyed this ancient hilltop town, but we just gave it a cursory look and headed back. True to the warnings, it was a rather hair-raising drive. On the way there we noticed that there was a lot of cattle grazing along the road, and periodically a lot of dusty little clusters of buildings. Going back in the dark those clusters were illuminated and actually looked like villages, which of course they were, and many of the cattle were now dead on the side of the road, sometimes in it. So much for driving in the dark, at least we didn’t hit one.
Back home my elder niece, Jayna, telephoned to tell me that she and Tommy Bussett had set a date, May 10, 1986. Naturally I was going. Since my brother died I had always expected to give her away, everyone else expected it too, but that dream was shattered when she told me that she had asked her mother and her drip of a stepfather to share that honor. Naturally I had expected Vince to join me on this trip back east, but he said no. His father’s 70th birthday would be in July, and he wanted to go back for that. Even then it still did not dawn on me that he didn’t want to go with me in May, because he never could have avoided a visit to Schenectady a second time, and he was still not “out” to his family.
In addition to John Terry, I had struck up another friendship at the Pacific Heights Health Club, with a fellow named Bill Stenger. After a lot of chats at the club, one day he asked me if I’d like to go to the movies some night. I said, sure, I’ll ask my ‘lover’ what night would be good for him. That put the brakes on any tête-à-tête for the time being, but Bill and I continued our friendship. I was very attracted to him, he looked like Matt Dillon, and I was very exhilarated when I was with him; so exhilarated that we came very very close to having an affair.
Early one evening when I was leaving his place, we engaged in the usual perfunctory hug, but it became much more than that. We remained clothed and vertical, standing by his door, but the potential for more had never presented itself more clearly, and then we broke apart. That was the turning point; if we didn’t do it then it wasn’t going to happen. So our platonic friendship continued, and when John Terry decided he had had enough of WWD‘s little shop on Divisadero Street, Bill Stenger said he’d be happy to help out for a while.
About a year after I moved out of Clipper Street, I received a call from the building manager, Sean Small, saying that his boss, Peter Pulaski, had bought one of the Spreckels mansions—supposedly the one that Spreckels had built for his daughter Emma—and was restoring it. He wanted to know if I would be interested in doing the draperies. Well, sure. Peter was a real tough man to do business with though, and when we got down to signing the contract, he lambasted me because, he said, the terms and conditions only protected me. Where did it say that I guaranteed his satisfaction?
Well, I told him, I cannot guarantee your satisfaction. I have been in business long enough to know that some people can never be satisfied. What the contract does guarantee is that the work will be done with the fabric you selected, according to the written specifications, and in compliance with industry standards. Then I had a bit of a hissy fit, threw everything into my briefcase and proceeded to leave, telling him that he obviously didn’t trust me, and that I was not willing to do business with anyone in an atmosphere of distrust. It took them about a half hour of apologizing and cajoling to get me to agree to do the job. Insult my integrity will you!
Sometime after the work was completed, I received an invitation to the open house. The guest list included all of the people who had worked on the mansion, and a host of others. This portended to be quite the event. For people coming from out of the city, valet parking and shuttle service was available at each of the bridges, as well as I-280 coming in from the peninsula. Bill Stenger and I went, and what a strange experience it was.
When people arrived they were led downstairs to the ground level “ballroom” where drinks and hors d’oeuvres were served. About every half hour a group of five or six guest was assembled, based on their arrival time, and then taken on a tour of the house. Mind you, this was a nice big house, but it was not The White House or one of the Newport Mansions. The “tour” terminated in the dining room, where coffee and desert was served, and then the group was invited to leave.
One morning a few months later, while driving to the shop, I heard on the news that a man wearing a fake beard had delivered a bouquet of flowers to a secretary in the federal office building. The bouquet contained a bomb, which subsequently exploded. When I arrived at the shop Bill told me that I had a message to call Agent So-&-So of the FBI. My first thought was, Oh shit! Which of the shady dealings in my past had finally caught up with me?
When I spoke with the agent, he said that they had found my business card in the apartment of Sean Small, and wanted to know what I knew about Sean and Peter Pulaski. I shared a few of the anecdotes about how strange Sean was, the deal with Peter and the draperies for the mansion, and how weird the two of them were. And I told them about the bizarre open house. That was it. When I got off of the phone I left for an appointment, and on the radio heard that there was an APB out for Sean Small.
After my appointment, on the news once again, I heard that Sean Small had been apprehended at a cabin on Clear Lake that was owned by Peter Pulaski. At Peter’s behest, Sean had disguised himself with a full beard and dark glasses, and delivered the bouquet bomb to Peter’s wife, the aforementioned secretary. Although it did not accomplish the goal of killing her, it did send her and the adjacent secretary to hospital. It was a federal office building, making it a federal offense. Sean became known as the “bouquet bomber” and, according to media reports; he was also Peter’s boy-toy; probably good practice for him, as he was sentenced to eleven years at Leavenworth. Peter was subsequently indicted for a number of federal offences, but I never did hear the outcome of his trial.
Who knew that being a professional draper could be so adventurous, fortunately not all of my famous clients were criminally insane. There was 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 nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and received the United Nations Peace Messenger award.
The list also included the widow of Benny Bufano, San Francisco’s famous sculptor and outspoken radical, who cut off his trigger finger and sent it to Woodrow Wilson as a protest against World War I. Bammy award winning American husband and wife jazz duo Tuck & Patty Andress. (The Bammys are the San Francisco Bay Area’s answer to the Grammys. I attended the year that June Lockhart hosted.) Writer, director, and Academy Award winning Best Special Effects Makeup Artist (for 1986‘s “The Fly“), Chris Walas (I touched his Oscar). And Diane Feinstein at her vacation home on Stinson Beach, then the mayor of San Francisco, now a respected senior Senator from California. The list goes on. Actually … it doesn’t. That’s all of them. Well, all of those that I remember and/or whose celebrity was known to me.
Speaking of celebrities and artists, most of what I bought at the church art auction in 1983 was good, and found perfect places at #3848 … but the big bosomed nude, boy on toilet, and the cowboy bar poster just never fit in. The gallery had a five year exchange policy, and when we heard that they were having an auction at the MCC in Sacramento we made the trip. We turned in the three pictures, got a credit of $275, and looked at what was going on the block within that range.
We selected a pair of paintings of World War One fighter planes in flight. Not a theme that held interest for either of us, but they were interesting and the price and colours were right. As the auction progressed, however, they put up a signed Dali serigraph (one of his less bizarre paintings, a horse jumping over a red thistle), and Vince had to have it. We won the bidding at $775 and figured we were done for the night, and then the fellow puts up the two airplane paintings. We didn’t bid. No one else did either. “Come on, you wanted these!” he pleaded. “Yeah, before I went overboard with Dali.” “I’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse.” “I doubt it.” Despite the starting bid having been listed at $300 for the pair, he offered them at $125. He was right, I couldn’t refuse.
Owning a “Dali” left me feeling as though I had truly arrived. The first artist that I had ever paid attention to was Winslow Homer, and then I discovered Andrew Wyeth. Surprisingly enough, the modest Walnut Hill Park museum in New Britain, Connecticut, had a notable collection of Wyeth paintings. When John McClure’s girlfriend Rita was showing me around Washington DC the summer of 1964, at the National Gallery I discovered Dali (the early years). His gargantuan “The Last Supper” absolutely mesmerized me; I had never seen anything like it. At times I have seen paintings that are so realistic that they look like a photograph, but this painting was so realistic it looked real. It seemed as though I could lift a wine glass from the table and have a drink.
Probably the greatest news I 1986 was—Raise the flag, light the lights!—Phil’s decision to move back to Atlanta. In order to have a little nest egg for the trip, he gave up his studio six weeks before his departure to save the rent. His plan was to stay two weeks with each of three different friends. Unfortunately we were the first on the list, the wrong position … he stayed with us for the entire six weeks. It was absolute hell.
We had a well-stocked liquor cabinet (mainly because we never drank), which was empty by the time Phil left. One day I returned home early in the afternoon, to discover Phil having a party. Now one friend or two probably wouldn’t have been a problem, although it would have been pushing it … but a dozen?! Needless to say I went ballistic. Really. That’s just not done, especially without asking first. He was a guest! For the most part I managed to tough it out for those seemingly endless six weeks, comforted by the fact that soon Phil would be 3000 miles away! When he finally left that little voice in my head went silent for the first time in three years, the one that had been chanting, “Kill Phil! Kill Phil!”
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