A Friend of Mr. W.

Many more older gay men crossed my path after I settled in San Francisco. Although they had come of age when homosexuals were considered mentally ill criminals and the word “queer” had not yet lost its sting, most of them had lived more open and happy lives within the gay enclaves that sprung up on the coasts after World War II (more on this later).

In spite of ongoing persecution, they were survivors of the first order. Still many of them were perplexed by the young, strident Gay Liberation activists who had helped get homosexuality removed as a diagnosis of mental illness from the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) in 1973.

“Why all the fuss?” they asked. “We’ve managed quite well for years without all the hoop-la, thank you very much.”

Despite generational differences, old and young gay men mixed pretty well in those days (and still do). One who stands out was Gage, a gentle (and rather silly) man who nonetheless left huge footprints in my life. Besides encouraging me to pursue what became a thirty-year retail career in visual marketing, he served as a lasting example of an elder statesman in 12-Step recovery.

Whenever I’m too cranky to return a recovery phone call or extend my hand to a newcomer, all I have to do is remember Gage … and I get over myself.

[Note to Readers: This story is longer than the previous entries, hopefully it will help pass the time at home. Also, as an FYI, any UNDERLINED text in PURPLE print (see “DSM” above) is a link that will take you to the details of more obscure references. Just click on the purple word and it will take you to another page without losing your place in the narrative.]

I crept out of Geoffrey’s bedroom in my boxer shorts and ratty tee shirt, collecting my Levi 501s from the floor along the way. I staggered down the hallway to the kitchen and almost fell on my face after my foot caught on the zipper as I was sliding into my jeans. When I grabbed the countertop to catch myself, the wall clock came into focus. It was eight o’clock, time to head over to the corner grocery store on Church Street to buy donuts. I fired up the pre-filled Mr. Coffee, slipped into my clogs and strode out of the front door as the Noe Valley sun singed my eyes.

As I was leaving the convenience store, I noticed a flash of color in a shop window across the street. As I approached the stucco building, I got a better look at the storefront display. It was chockablock with colorful boxes of every size. I moved closer to the glass and saw a jumble of empty periwinkle satin and crimson moiré boxes with yards and yards of matching grosgrain ribbon cascading down their sides.

Just then, an older gentleman cracked open the front door.

“I see you’re admiring my boxes,” he said.  “Why don’t you come in and take a closer look?”

He looked harmless enough, certainly no match for my young legs if I needed to bolt. Although I didn’t sense any sexual vibe in his invitation, I hesitated for a few moments. I also worked in a small boutique and I hated it when pain-in-the-ass customers arrived too early.

“Are you sure it’s no trouble, you aren’t open yet.”

“No trouble at all, dear boy.”

He pulled the door wide open, stepped to the side and swept his arm towards the interior like a doorman at the St. Francis.

Knowing that Geoffrey was good for another hour of sleep, I stepped inside.

The shop reeked of smoke and an undertone of hobby glue that I had huffed in college. After closing the door, the man turned and bowed slightly at the waist.

“Lovely to meet you. My name is Gage.”

He was short, about five feet seven inches. His skin was sallow, his face deeply lined from smoking. When he spoke I noticed that the top ridges of his lower teeth were tainted with orange stains. His light brown hair was overtaken with gray and thinning at the brow. The lenses of his heavy, horn-rimmed glasses were thick as paperweights and magnified his kind, watery-blue eyes.

His threadbare tweed blazer with skinny, out-of-date lapels was worn over a blue-striped, button-down shirt with a mauve bow tie. His rumpled, gray flannel pants had frayed cuffs that hovered just above scuffed oxford shoes matted with glue, threads and dust.

After introducing myself, my eyes began to take in the wonderland of artisanal oddities that inhabited Gage’s store. Besides the boxes, he offered a menagerie of fanciful animals fashioned from swatches of fake fur. They were small urban beasts: stuffed cats, dogs and squirrels whose wide, glass eyes stared down from a tall étagère near the door.

He walked me over to a rabbit sitting in a handmade, upholstered chair atop a Formica table. It was dressed in a purple blazer over a patterned sweater vest and knee-pants. Colorful, striped socks and purple spats complemented the ensemble.

“I’d like you to meet Mr. Warren,” Gage said.

Shooting a look at the other animals on the shelves, he stage-whispered:

“I know that I shouldn’t be partial, but he’s my favorite.”

I looked blankly at the stuffed bunny. His brown eyes seemed less feral than the animals on the shelves.

“We live together, as a matter of fact,” he continued.

This is getting a little weird, I thought.

“We’ve been roommates for many years now.”

Definitely weird. I let my eyes drift over to the front door.

“I built him a little cottage in the extra bedroom,” he added, as if to reassure me that nothing improper was going on between them.

“In all of our time together, we’ve never had one argument! Can you believe it?”

I watched him gaze fondly at the rabbit. It seemed a little crazy, but not scary-crazy.

Okay, he’s eccentric. I can handle eccentric.

“Care to join us in a cup of mocha-java,” he asked.

“I’d be most delighted,” I replied, echoing his piss-elegant manners. I decided to relax into his reality.

He scooped up Mr. Warren, chair and all, and headed for a small gas stove at the back of the store.

As we passed stacks of colored boxes, I grew curious. I was pretty sure that there wasn’t much of a market for empty boxes, no matter how pretty.

“Your boxes are so beautiful. Who buys them?” I asked.

“Oh, I don’t get much street trade,” he answered, not at all put off by my intrusive question. “Most of my orders are custom pieces for downtown stores and the occasional grande dame on Nob Hill.”

He positioned the rabbit next to an overflowing ashtray on top of the worktable, making sure to gently rotate the the chair so that it was looking right at me.

“Mr. Warren abhors a mess, so our little store-cum-workshop keeps our apartment from becoming a disaster area,” he continued.

He grasped the Chemex pot by its wooden hand-grip, carefully lifted it off the burner and filled two white, Cost-Plus mugs. He handed me one and peered over the top of his glasses.

“Besides, we meet some very interesting people,”

I offered him a donut from the greasy brown bag but he waved it away.

“Thanks awfully, but Mr. Warren and I have to watch our waistlines,” he said pinching the small pooch that protruded above his belt. 

I jammed a bear-claw into my mouth, took a sip of surprisingly good coffee and looked around the back of the store.

The worktable was heaped with fur remnants and cotton batting. Nearby, an ancient, industrial sewing machine sat on a table with foot pedals. An adjacent drafting table was littered with a jumble of hand-drawn designs, tracing paper, colored pencils and fabric swatches.

“I used to work at Gump’s in the display department,” he said in answer to my unasked question.

“Oh, really, I do all the displays in a small women’s clothing shop in the Presidio.”

His eyebrows arched.

“Ah, a kindred spirit!”

He lowered himself onto a high three-legged stool and pulled out another from under the worktable. He brushed off some threads and patted the seat with his nicotine-stained fingers.

“Sit down and tell us all about your work.”

I set the bag down next to Mr. Warren and plopped onto the stool.

“There’s nothing much to tell, really. I do a couple of mannequins and the interior wall displays …”

“Nothing much!” he interrupted. “Why that’s a real art! In all my years in retail, I’ve never mastered fashion. I only did hard goods at Gumps.”

“That’s nice of you to say, but I think anyone could ...”

He raised his hand, palm forward like a crossing guard.

“Now that’s where you’re wrong, dear boy. What you do takes real talent!”

“It doesn’t feel like all that much,” I protested.

“That’s what all talented people say,” he replied with a wink.

“Oh, I don’t know, it all seems kind of frivolous.”

He turned toward Mr. Warren and stayed quiet for a few long seconds before returning his attention to me.

“Mr. Warren, wants you to know how desperately this world needs frivolity!”

I turned instinctively toward the rabbit.

“Mr. Warren says you’ve definitely got what it takes … and he’s never wrong about these things. He’s got a sixth sense, you know,” he said tapping his head with his index finger. “Just stick with it!”

He pulled a pack of Camels from his coat pocket and offered me one.

I didn’t usually smoke filterless cigarettes but I had been jonesing for nicotine since I woke up. When I reached for the Camel, I knocked over my mug.

I jumped out of my stool and searched for something to soak up the mess. Gage picked a fabric swatch off a nearby pile and daubed the tabletop.

“Sorry, I’m nursing a pretty bad hangover.”

Gage shot Mr. Warren a knowing glance.

“Not to worry, dear boy, just a little spill,” he said tossing the wet cloth into a nearby garbage pail.

He rose, returned to the coffee pot and came back with a fresh cup.

I sat back down as he settled back onto his stool and blew into his coffee cup.

“Isn’t this nice, three artistes sharing coffee and cigarettes together,” he purred.

We chatted for over an hour before I realized that Geoffrey was waiting for his donut. I grabbed the paper bag and thanked Gage for the coffee and conversation as he led me to the door.

When I left the shop, I stopped myself short on the curb just as the J Church streetcar roared past. Gage stood in the doorway until I had crossed the street.

I broke into a sprint. When I got home, Geoffrey was bent over the newspaper on the kitchen counter.

“Where have you been?” he asked without looking up.

When I told him about my tête-à-tête with Gage and Mr. Warren, he scrunched up his face with derision.

“Watch out for that old queen, he just wants to get in your pants!"

As a rule, I didn’t contradict Geoffrey, but I couldn’t help myself.

“I don’t think so. He’s just a nice old guy. I kinda like him,” I muttered.

“Oh, Boo, don’t be so naïve,” he chided. He lifted the bag from my hand and returned his attention to the newspaper.

I went into the back bedroom, flopped onto the unmade bed and and closed my eyes as the distance between us filled up with our habitual silence.

Geoffrey’s words didn’t deter me from dropping by Gage’s shop every Sunday morning, I just made sure I was home before he got up. Over the next few months, when Gage showed me his latest box or bizarre critter, he always asked the same question.

“Do you think it’s too much?”

When I offered my first impression, Gage pondered it like I was a fellow professional.

My morning trysts with Gage and Mr. Warren came to an abrupt end in early 1978 when Geoffrey and I moved to a new apartment in Pacific Heights. Before the end of summer, I had descended to the inner rings of alcohol and drug addiction. After many harsh words and mutual betrayals, we broke up. I moved out, hit bottom and joined AA in the fall of 1979. I was twenty-eight years old.

There was a clubhouse in the heart of Chinatown where sober people congregated from all over the Bay Area. From early morning until midnight, it provided a safe haven for newcomers, oldtimers and everyone in between.

Ironically, it was located in an old nightclub. Its huge, scratched-up dance floor was littered with mismatched tables and chairs. Massive coffee urns rested atop an old shopworn bar where club members sat on stools consuming rivers of tepid coffee from Styrofoam cups. The air inside was gauzy with cigarette smoke and conjured up the atmosphere of a Roaring Twenties speakeasy.

Like its patrons, the joint had seen better days. Its interior had been stripped down to bare, pock-marked walls festooned with thumbtacked posters that read: “Easy Does It,” “One Day at A Time” and “Live and Let Live” in Old English typeface. Only a few weeks into recovery, I stared at the placards like an immigrant on Ellis Island. I could see the words, but I couldn’t yet grasp their meaning.

Ground-in cigarette ash blackened the floors and the room’s perimeter was lined with shabby sofas and torn, overstuffed chairs. The seedy ambiance was a fitting backdrop for the wet drunks, used-up hippies, angry punk-rockers, shaky society matrons and gruff factory workers who commingled over the bilge that passed for coffee.

My first sober holiday weekend stretched out endlessly from Thursday through Sunday. Determined to white-knuckle my way through the weekend, I had made it through Thanksgiving Day alone in my apartment with a turkey meatloaf. By Saturday night I was so desperate from loneliness and cravings that I dragged myself to an AA meeting. Afterwards, I tagged along with a group of older members who were headed to Chinatown for a dance at the clubhouse. It was a fundraiser for a gay and lesbian recovery roundup called Living Sober that was held every July Fourth holiday in the city.

Once inside, I helped re-create the dance floor by pushing the tables and chairs to the periphery of the room. A drag queen in a tarnished, glittery gown hoisted a turntable and two stereo speakers onto a training table in the corner. When she spun her first record, loud disco music vibrated the hall and a few gray-haired men and women milled around the dim room. I went up to the bar, dumped a handful of sugar cubes into my cup and stared at the sad spectacle before me.

Well, it’s come to this, partying with a bunch of tired old queens and dykes.

Just as I was settling into my private pity-party, a gaggle of young, gym-toned guys burst into the hall and swept onto the empty dance floor.

The sight of them sparked a sudden attack of shyness that pushed me further into the shadowy sidelines. I sat down on the arm of a dilapidated sofa and grew sullen as the pulsating dance hall filled up with revelers of all ages.

I told myself it was just a bunch of forced fun but the truth was that, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t join in because I was frozen in place. The mere thought of taking my first dance steps without drugs or booze terrified me. I didn’t want to look like a total spaz, so I opted for being a sour-faced spectator glued to a tattered couch.

I was about to head for the exit when two silhouettes wafted in my direction across the smoky room. As they emerged from the haze, it took me a second to recognize Shelby, an older AA member in bad Liz Taylor drag (the Seventies-fat-version). When he and his companion stopped directly in front of me, his black wig was akimbo and his rhinestone bracelet dug deep into his flesh where his skinny friend held on for dear life.

I looked at the gaunt man next to Shelby. He slowly leaned his skeletal face with big glasses toward mine.

It was Gage.

“Remember me?” he half-whispered.

I managed to hide my shock at his appearance.

“Of course, I do!” I yelled over the noise.

“How’s Mr. Warren?” I quickly added.

Gage’s sunken eyes twinkled and his dry lips managed a weak, sepia-toothed smile.

“Oh, he’s very well … I left him at home ... he detests crowds, you know.”

He took long breaths between sentences and his voice was so weak that I had to strain to hear him over Donna Summer’s screeching.

“I know exactly how he feels,” I shouted back.

Gage nodded and took another labored breath. He extended his quivering, bony hand toward me to steady himself. When it landed on my shoulder, it felt as light as a parakeet. He put his mouth right up to my ear.

“I need to go … but I just had to come over … and tell you something.”

I waited while he took another deep breath.

“I see so much spirituality shining through your eyes.”

His words rendered me speechless. Lots of men had come up to me in smoke-filled bars, but on one had ever said anything about my spirit.

“I remember all of our talks,” he rasped into my ear, filling the awkward silence.

“So do I,” I shouted back.

“I’m so glad you’re here ... I hope you stick with it ... It makes all the difference in the world.”

“I’ll try,” I hollered.

He smiled before removing his hand from my shoulder.

“Well, that’s all anyone can ask.”

He shifted his meager weight back onto Shelby’s arm and looked once more into my eyes. Then he nodded and they slowly shuffled back into the crowd.

When I saw Shelby at a meeting the next week, he told me that Gage had stage-four lung cancer.

He died in January of 1980 and I forced myself to go to his memorial service in little church off of Van Ness. All of the pews and the balcony were packed, so I stood in the back of the chapel as scores of men and women stepped up to the pulpit to tell tearful tales about how Gage had helped them stay sober.

As I listened, I thought back to our mornings together with Mr. Warren. I remembered how I always showed up unwashed, bedraggled and griping about a hangover … and I wondered if Gage knew all along that I had a drinking problem.

If he had suspected anything, he was wise to keep it to himself. In those days, if he had even hinted at my getting sober, I would have run for the hills and my recovery might have been delayed for years, maybe forever.

Several months after Gage’s memorial service, someone in the clubhouse threw a lit cigarette into a wastebasket and it burned to the ground.

When I was young, I believed that special places would last forever, the men I loved would never leave and friendships would never change. As it turns out, it’s the simple things that really last. Things like shuffling in great pain across a smoky room to deliver a handful of kind words to someone who really needed them.

[In these strange days of the second epidemic in my lifetime, it helps to remember that even though we can’t get too close physically, one thing remains true and never changes: our words can still mean so much.]