Peter

I walked into the office where dennis was at his Desk. “When is Peter coming back?” I asked. “Oh I think he’s due in sometime next week, but listen nothing is going to change. Instead of 2 it will be three and of course you still keep the bedroom me and peter will share the convertible bed in the living room.” “He’s a terrific person and I know you’ll like him a lot.” “I hope so,” I said under my breath.” Something new to worry about. What if we don’t get along? “ So early in the week after I got home from work, I met Peter. He seemed somewhat dazed by the changes that had taken place in the short time that he had been in Puerto Rico, and I liked him right off the bat. He was a little overweight and dressed in a conservative manner, but that was to change in a very short time. He was also handsome with a wonderful smile and a great laugh, Ten years older than I was; it was Peter who had originally found the apartment for him and Dennis to move into. He had aspirations to be a actor-singer or playwright and immediately he started to talk about loosing weight, getting pictures made taking classes and just getting back into the swing of things. He was much more open with his homosexuality than Dennis and would be a good role model for me as I struggled with my own mixed up sexuality. I was still dating girls, but there was always something there in the background, which I knew I would have to deal with someday. It wasn’t that Peter pushed me out of the closet, but he certainly allowed me to open the door slightly. After all this was 1967 and gay men were still being harassed and arrested. It’s hard to realize now how repressive it was for gay men and lesbians even in 1967, but of course all that was about to change and blow up in society’s smug face along with everything else. “Let’s have a dinner party so I can see all my old friends” Peter said to Dennis. Oh goodie I was excited to meet more interesting new people. Evenings on 19^th street were becoming social events practically every night of the week. Both Dennis and Peter had many friends and would mix and match them with interesting results. The only friend of mine who I would invite to the apartment was Howard, and happily both Dennis and Peter liked him. I used to love to stay up late talking with Dennis and Peter in our tiny kitchen sometimes munching on Dennis’s wonderful hamburgers that were like small meatloaves. He would serve them on toasted white bread with ketchup and pickles and I can still taste them. Peter was generally very positive and up most of the time where as Dennis was morose and depressed about his life. I much preferred Peter’s outlook and we started to become close. We were like two kids, especially when stoned and we would giggle and carry on sometimes to the annoyance of Dennis who would sit in one of the leather recliners doing his needlework. “It helps relax me” he would say. Whatever. Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band” had been released in June and we were still ga ga over it. We would play it over and over, sometimes with headphones, because our downstairs neighbors were complaining about the music it seemed all the time. But God the music oh that music. It seemed like every day a new great album by some group was released. One of my favorites was the Stone’s “Their Satanic Majesties Request” Love’s “Forever Changes”. Occasionally I would play some music that I loved and that Dennis and Peter had not known about such as Donald Byrd’s “A New Perspective” with the haunting “Christo Redentor.” Of course I would have to sometimes sit through the classical albums and opera singers that Peter and Dennis loved, but Elizabeth Schwarzkopf was losing ground fast to Grace Slick. Like all of us, Peter’s appearance was changing rapidly. He lost weight, grew a small goatee to cover “his weak chin.” And stopped wearing his “straight clothes.” Of course like everyone else who was coming into my life at that time, I developed a big crush on him. He was also very enthusiastic about my work and said that he would introduce me to his friend Bob who he said was an excellent painter. Crush number 25. He also introduced me to his friends Kathy and Dick who were lovers and actors. Crush 26 and 27. Although not a beauty, when she was on stage Peter said she became a real stunner. Oh top of that her wit and charm was tremendous and I immediately adored her to bits. Dick was bisexual and had been lovers for years with Bob the painter and even though their lives had changed they were still close friends. Sadly Dick would be killed years later on in a motorcycle accident in upstate New York where he and Kathy had moved. There was also an interracial couple, Carol & Sal. Carol was an extraordinarily beautiful African American young woman and Sal was a good-looking very outgoing Italian man who was also bisexual. Crush 28 & 29. One night Kathy came over alone and she and Peter had an intense funny stoned argument about what was better to fuck ass or pussy. “Well Kathy, since I was once married and have had sex with both men and women I go with ass.” “This is so fucking amazing” I thought as I just sat there stoned turning red with my mouth wide open and a cigarette dangling out of my mouth.. When my new friends would visit I would show them my drawings and they would ooh and ahh a lot, very encouraging but I was still working in the ad world and hating it. I had started to work on a new portfolio, which was very radical in its look. I bought small black sketchbook and started to fill it up with ads, collages, my own photographs and drawings. I wanted to shake things up, and I did. I would love it when I would leave it off at some ad agency and a few days later I would get a call that this art director or that creative director wanted to meet me. “This is just wonderful, but I don’t know how we could use you.” “You should go home and paint, become an artist. The advertising world will ruin you.” So finally I took their advice and made the decision to become an artist. It was soon late fall and I had my first really grown up Thanksgiving when friends of Dennis’s from the publishing world invited the three of us to their place for dinner, and it was the first time that I had eaten a real ham. The taste floored me. It seemed strange to me that I was only 2 months since I moved to Manhattan, but so many changes had taken place in such a small amount of time. Dennis and Peter were doing free lance proof reading and editing for non fiction books and one that they were proofing was Andrew Sarris’s seminal book on auteurs in American movies “The American Cinema, Directors And Directions, 1929-1968”. Dennis asked me if I would be interested in alphabetizing the names for the index of the book, of course for money, and I jumped at it. The next book I worked on was a history of China, and alphabetizing all those Chinese names was a bitch, but I was grateful for the extra cash. How did I make ends meet? Well I was about to get fired from my very last job in advertising so I would have unemployed insurance and I would do odd jobs here and there wherever I could find them. One day I went to this quirky village employment agency that was located down a flight of stairs in a basement store on west 10^th street. “How would you like to make an easy $15.00” the manager asked. “Sure what do I have to do.” Get dressed up with a tie and jacket and go to the Warwick Hotel, you will be accompying a woman to the theatre and later dinner, of course everything will be picked up by her.” Great I was now becoming a nineteen-year-old male whore. but hell dinner and the theatre would be great as long as I didn’t have to do anything else. I got to the hotel and was sent up to the room where my “date” awaited me. A middle age not unattractive woman let me into the room and asked me to sit down. She went into the bedroom to put the finishing touches on her face I guess and continued to yak at me, making uncomfortable small talk as she got ready to go. “What are we going to see I asked? “I have tickets for Marlene Dietrich”. “Wow” I said to the room. “And then we’ll have a nice dinner afterwards at Sardi’s. “Wow” I said again to the room. I was alone and opposite me was a very large wall to wall floor length mirror, so I started to check myself out, cute I thought except for the damn pimple on my nose that seemed to come out on my way over. Suddenly the mirror started to move to one side and out stepped Allen Funt of Candid Camera. “You were terrific,” he said, and we might use this on one of our shows. If we do we’ll be in touch. “Does this mean I’m not going to see Marlene Dietrich and have dinner at Sardi’s “ I asked as I was shown to the door. “God was that surreal” When I got home I was kind of excited and burst into the apartment, stepping carefully over Lisa’s poop. “You’ll never guess what just happened.” Peter chuckled as I told the story. “That’s funny, puppy.” He said. Dennis with absolute distain on his face looked at me like I had just joined the Republican Party and went back to his indexing. TO BE CONTINUED.

Images used in this post: Me doing some beefcake, me and peter, My 1 time modeling job, I'm wearing the pea coat, stationary that I designed for myself.