HAPPY CAMPERS

“Always leave the campsite cleaner than you found it.” Boy Scout Rule

In January of 1979, I moved into a studio apartment after an ugly break-up with my partner, Geoffrey. The moment I saw the small jewel box of windows perched on top of an old Victorian, it felt like the right place to be.

My new landlord, Brock Black, occupied the two floors below. When we met at his place, he extended a bejeweled hand and I noticed that he looked older than his fifty-six years. His sparse, gray-white beard looked unintentional, like he had missed a few days of shaving. I saw hints of sadness in his frozen smile and suddenly remembered hearing that his lover of thirty years had recently left him for a man in his twenties.

Stooped and frail, he led me into his apartment to sign the lease.

“These old gams can’t make it up those stairs anymore, so you don’t need to worry about me snooping around your apartment, Dear Boy.”  

At the age of twenty-seven, I still projected a youthful image with a lanky frame, a thick head of black-brown hair and a younger-than-my-years face. But closing in on thirty, I was keenly aware that many friends enjoyed long-term relationships and successful careers. I, on the other hand, had just been dumped and toiled as a salesman at a dead-end job in a women’s clothing shop.

I followed close behind as Brock shuffled into a disheveled living room. A sliding glass door covered with velvet floor-to-ceiling drapes concealed an abandoned backyard garden. It was a room that had not seen daylight, or a dust rag, in a long, long time. A black-and-white TV sat unplugged on top of a cardboard box in the corner. A chaotic array of bed pillows, blankets and comforters splayed across the sofa made it clear that the room also served as Brock’s bedroom.

 “Don’t you miss your bed?” I couldn’t help asking.

“Not a bit!” he replied. “I like camping out on the sofa. It’s close to the kitchen and I can easily get to the powder room.”

He slowly lowered himself onto the couch and pulled a coffee-stained blanket onto his lap.

 “Would you mind awfully carrying that little es-cree-twar (escritoire) over here for moi?” he asked, pointing at a small writing table across the room.

When I shot back “Avec grand plaisir!” in my best, junior-year-in-Paris French, Brock perked up a bit.

“Oooooh la la! Whatever you said, it sounded abs-so-loot-lee deee-voon!”

I picked up the antique desk the size of a TV tray and placed it in front of him.

“Mare-see bow-coo, (merci beaucoup)” he chirped in an accent that would inspire gooseflesh in any French person.

After rummaging through a shallow drawer, he found a gold Cross pen and a standard lease. While I filled out the form and wrote a deposit check on the edge of the table, Brock waved toward a metal baker’s rack next to the sofa. Its shelves were stuffed with flats of potted African violets under fluorescent grow lights.

“These are my children. They need to be fed and pruned every day,” he explained, pinching off a blackened leaf and tossing it on top of a full wastebasket.

“I am never lonesome with my babies close by,” he mused out loud.

He took my check, handed me a carbon copy of the agreement and pointed to an upholstered chair beside his perch.

“Why don’t you sit and visit with your Notorious Landlady for a while?”

Before answering, I perused Brock’s blue-gray eyes for a moment. I was looking for lust, but found only warmth.

“Okay,” I replied lifting a stack of People magazines from the seat cushion and tossing them to the floor before plopping onto the shopworn chair.

“I hope you’ll be comfortable in your new home,” he continued. “I’m told it’s still in good shape though I haven’t been up there in eons.”

“I already love the place, you’ve taken such good care of it,” I flattered.

“Good! If you need anything, just let me know and I’ll send someone up,” he said stuffing the contract into the drawer and handing me a set of keys.

“I have zero interest in tramping up that Matterhorn, my Maria von Trapp days are over!”

As we chatted for the next two hours, I was surprised to find that I enjoyed Brock’s company. When I moved in the next day, the staircase taxed my younger legs as I dragged my meager personal effects and a heavy load of hatred for Geoffrey up the steep incline.

Although I loved my new place, I had a hard time being alone, especially at night. Once I finished dinner, I didn’t know what to do with myself after years of watching TV with Geoffrey while enjoying a few glasses of wine.

I refused to drink alone in my new apartment. I knew it was a sign of alcoholism after watching my lonely mother drink herself into a stupor on many nights. When my own loneliness crept in, I walked a few blocks to the Lion Pub to have a few beers. At closing time, I  staggered home and passed out.

I was horny in my youth, but lately I had become emotionally horny, so I sometimes used sex to stave off my dread of the hours after midnight. Whether alone or with a stranger, I awoke every morning with a wicked hangover, feeling even lonelier.

When I bumped into Brock in front of the house one afternoon, I was wary when he invited me down for coffee, but accepted because I had nothing better to do. Before long, we fell into a pattern of weekly chats. Although I had a throbbing head and a foul mood after a night at The Lion, my spirits soon lightened after just a few minutes in Brock’s presence. Over time we established a routine where I helped him with the odd chore as he prepared coffee and regaled me with stories of San Francisco in the Fifties and Sixties.

“You should have seen this town before the Clones and the Dykes took over. It was so sophisticated! Cashmere sweaters and piss-elegant dinner parties galore!” he proclaimed from the kitchen. “The flannel shirts and squawking politics today! It’s all soooo dreary.”

“But what about gay liberation?” I called back from the den where I was tightening a wobbly leg on the upholstered chair. “Don’t you think …”?

”Oh honey, sex was everywhere in those days!” he interrupted. “You young things didn’t invent screwing.”

 “Well, I just think it’s good to have it all out in the open,” I replied sheepishly, ever mindful that Brock, however likeable, was still my landlord.

“We didn’t make such a fuss over such things! We just lived our lives,” he crowed over the generational chasm between us.

Rather than press my point, I returned to my project as Brock shambled into the den with a tray of coffee, china cups and a matching plate of cookies.

Over the next few weeks, I came to admire how Brock’s way with words fostered resilience. Rather than dwelling on his health woes and love loss, he deployed his keen sense of humor to keep them at bay. When the pain in his knees flared up, he winced then brushed it off with a campy quip.

“Oh the trials and tribulations of an Aging Actress!”

I had long understood how camp humor helped older gays endure decades of living in the closet. The queer men of Brock’s generation fell into two categories: Bitter Old Queens or Campy Old Aunties. BOQs wallowed in their misery and spewed it over others with their sharp tongues. COAs like Brock were gentler souls who transformed their misfortunes into witty remarks by tossing them into a crucible of cleverness.

Though considered an outmoded defense mechanism by some in the LGBTQ+ community today, camp humor remains a skill that queer men use to bond with their brethren. No one did it better than my old “landlady” Brock Black.

Over the next few months Brock started having trouble with his breathing. Rather than greeting me at the door when I came down for coffee, he just left it ajar. Waltzing in like family, I raised my voice an octave.

“Yoo-hoo! Mother Superior! Wherefore art thou?”

“Right here in my little grotto, Mary Magdalene, come join me for just a tiny bit of confession over a mocha java!” he rasped back in a matronly voice.

I found him reclining on the couch in a threadbare robe, dingy pajama bottoms and scuffed slippers. A glass coffee press full of hot brown water sat atop the writing table in front him. Rather than being embarrassed by his new fragility, he played it up.

“Be a dear and shove that plunger down for me. I just haven’t the energy for coffee grounds today,” he half-whispered, fluttering the back of his hand to his forehead in a silent-movie swoon.

It was a shtick that we had perfected over time. He was ever the Aging Actress to my wayward Prodigal Daughter.

After preparing the coffee, I took my usual seat and soon noticed a stack of porn magazines on the floor next to Brock’s couch. Like his declining health, he had no shame about the hard-core material, its proximity was a mere matter of convenience.

When he caught me gazing at his collection, he exclaimed:

“I don’t know what I’d do without my Magazine Husbands! Would you mind awfully searching for a photo album in that heap of joy?”

I riffled through the pile of beefcake covers until I unearthed a cracked leather binder stuffed with pictures. As I handed it to Brock, I wondered if its yellowing snapshots of world travels with his ex-lover might depress him, but the images of happier, healthier times cheered him up. He pored over each picture and turned each page with a big smile.

“I’ve really had such a lovely life,” he purred without a hint of irony.

Our regular visits filled a long-vacant paternal space in my life. Unlike my scary, humorless father, Brock’s kindhearted presence and sense of the ridiculous was a balm for my troubled soul. When he announced in mid-October that he was going into the hospital for several weeks, he didn’t say why and I didn’t pry.

“I need you to be a Dutiful Daughter and take care of my babies while I’m gone,” he said in a serious tone.

I thought of the rubber plant drooping in a dark, neglected corner of my upstairs apartment. Glancing at the plastic pails of green liquid and turkey basters near the metal racks, I panicked.

“You know I have a black thumb, Mother! I could murder your babies in their cribs!”

“Oh, it’s easy as pie,” he replied. “Just give them a little formula now and then.”

He paused and looked directly into my worried eyes.

“There’s really nothing to it. Besides I’ve left copious notes.” He tilted his head towards the racks, but the bits of torn, yellow legal paper scotch-taped to the shelves did not reassure me.

 “You’ll do just fine. I trust you, Darling Daughter.”

Despite having a hard time deciphering Brock’s shaky handwriting, I managed to keep his violets alive for weeks. After squirting plant food into scores of the plastic pots, I sometimes settled my nerves by indulging in a squirting session of my own with Brock’s “Magazine Husbands.”

 Brock’s absence coincided with the worst period of my drinking that produced a profound personality change in me. Seemingly overnight, I changed from an easy-going fellow into a paper-thin-skinned malcontent who was unable to control his temper, especially at work.

My boss put up with a lot because she was also a friend, but I nevertheless convinced myself that she was exploiting me. Whenever she asked me to do something, I erupted into a mushroom cloud of sarcasm and irritability. When I started mouthing off at customers, she cut back my hours to three days per week.

Having a lot more time on my hands and no weekly coffee klatches to look forward to, I grew bored and agitated most afternoons and soon drifted into daytime drinking. It was another behavior I had sworn never to do after eighteen years in my  alcoholic home, but all of my apprehensions seemed to evaporate as I walked down to the Lion Pub in the light of day. With each step toward the bar, the same mantra echoed over and over again in my head.

What’s wrong with having a little fun? I’m not hurting anyone!  

Upon entering, I ordered a beer and took my usual stool in a dusky area across from the Pac Man console. I didn’t care that the crowd was sparse and mostly older, because I wasn’t looking for sex. I just wanted to be around people, but I soon discovered that the presence of others did not relieve my angst. Drinking three beers an hour made it worse.

Where alcohol had once made me more outgoing, it now drew me deeper into myself. If someone approached me and tried to strike up a conversation, I grew sullen. If he persisted, I snapped my rat-tail tongue in his face until he scuttled away. Drunk or sober, I always had trouble showing interest in men, now I was an expert at keeping them away.

 When I weaved home after closing time, I barely pulled out my sofa bed before collapsing fully clothed onto the sheets. When I awoke to crashing head, I downed four aspirins and a liter of Coke, my homemade remedy for a hangover that had lately stopped working.

Getting high was not fun anymore, it had become a necessity to stave off a persistent dread at the center of my life. Though it numbed the ache for a while, it always came back stronger. As the pain of living grew inside of me with each passing day, I leaned more heavily on alcohol and things continued to slide downhill.

My take on reality became unmoored. Unattached to anything or anyone, I had lost touch with my humanity. If it ever occurred to me to question my drinking, I slipped into the ever-waiting arms of denial. Taking a page from Brock’s book, I made light of it all and repeated to myself the words I had once seen on a tee-shirt.

I don’t have a drinking problem. I drink, I get drunk … no problem!

On November 1, 1979 I had finally had enough of the endless loop-the-loop of drunkenness and hangovers, so I reached out to a friend who was in AA. There had been nothing particularly remarkable about the previous Halloween night, my drinking had simply become sickening in its predictability.

She took me to my first meeting that night and I have been sober ever since.

Though shaky in my new life without booze, my life soon took a turn for the better. When I told my boss that I was in AA, she hugged me and re-instated my full-time status.

Brock returned home soon after and we resumed our get-togethers. We camped and laughed together over coffee as my rattled nerves began to level off. His brand of self-deprecating humor dovetailed nicely with what I heard in meetings about the dangers of taking myself too seriously.

I was also hearing a lot about resentments. When I started to indulge in my old animosity toward Geoffrey, Brock listened until I finished, then stiffened his spine and looked me in the eye. If he did not feel sorry for himself after weeks in the hospital, he was not about to brook any whining from me. He never scolded, he just leavened the situation with his campy wisdom.

“Oh, Sweetie, take off those bitter boots! They’re so unflattering on the young … and downright tragic on old dowagers like moi.”

He put his hand to his chest, clutching an imaginary string of pearls.

 “And don’t let that cad get the better of you! Just rise above it. You’re too good for him! Cease and desist this breast-beating on your little A-cups.”

Then came the final punch line.

“And let’s face it, Doll-Face … you are no Susan Hayward! You simply haven’t the acting chops to pull off such a melodramatic scene!”

He winked and raised the fine-china cup to his pursed lips, pinkie aloft.

Over the next two years, I experienced growth spurts in my work life and my sobriety. I left the small shop and took a job in a department store where my new boss in the display department taught me new skills that served me well in my career. I got a sponsor in AA whose guidance through the Twelve Steps put me on a path toward forgiveness for Geoffrey (still a few years away). I worked regular hours and spent my nights in meetings, but on weekends I always made time for a “Mother-Daughter chat” with Brock.

In 1982, two sober friends asked me to share a large apartment on Dolores Street. After several years of living alone, I jumped at the chance to lower my rent and live with other men in recovery. When I told Brock, he just shrugged at the inevitability of it all.

“Time for Naughty Daughter to leave the nest,” was all he said.

After I packed the U-Haul, I let myself into Brock’s apartment to say goodbye.

When he shakily rose from the dusty sofa, I went to him and pressed the keys into his palm.

“Goodbye, Mother o’ Mine. Thanks for everything.”

He suddenly listed to the right, so I tightened my grip.

“I’ll keep in touch,” I added, trying to smooth over the awkward moment.

“Yes, Dear Heart, of course you will,” he replied with a wistful look.

When he took me in his arms for a short embrace, I could sense his eyes rolling upward.

“Oh dear me, this scene has everything but the train pulling out of the station blowing steam in our faces!”

Then he gave me a buss on the cheek, a gentle push toward the door and I was gone.

 I never saw Brock again. Over the next few years, I didn’t call to check on his health. To be fair, he never called me either. It’s not that we didn’t care about each other. San Francisco was in the death grip of AIDS by then, so we were both afraid of what we might find out.

We were friends for a season. In our own silly way, we loved and supported each other through the aftershocks of terrible break-ups: my first, his last. When our friendship ended, we left each other on the opposite sides of life. I pursued my recovery and a retail career while Brock nursed his ailments and tended to his violets.

Shortly after we parted, I realized that Brock had followed the Boy Scout rule. He left my heart cleaner than he found it.