“The Bible says, ‘Repent. You are all sinners.’”
“Takes one to know one!” we’d shout.
“God will judge you.”
“Who says there’s a God?” I’d scream, and my friends and the crowd would crack up. Later in life, I realized it wasn’t a bad idea that I rejected God as a bearded old man in the sky, dressed in robes, looking down at all of us to judge our every move and dictating who goes to heaven or hell. Besides heckling the preachers, my gang and I loved the thrill of the penny arcade, skee-ball, shooting games, the peep shows, and naughty bookstores. At fourteen or fifteen, we thought we were manly men.
I had discovered Times Square as a pre-teen. First, I went there with my friend Monk, who was six years older. He had a route servicing vending machines in Queens and Manhattan, so we walked into some odd establishments. It was about that time I discovered Hubert’s Flea Circus, a freak show in the basement of a penny arcade. It was ten cents to enter the place. There was a contortionist, a sword swallower, a tattooed lady, a six-hundred-pound woman, and Strongman Sailor Jim White, who could bend steel bars behind his neck.
Later, I ventured there on my own, fascinated by the action, the strangers and prostitutes. I always loved unusual types of people. I could learn from them. When I realized the excitement that was there, I organized expeditions with my followers—only the guys I picked. We’d ride the subway into the heart of Manhattan and dash in and out of any adult store or show that let us in, along with spending endless hours in the Sam Goody record store. I remember admiring a purple shirt, blue suede shoes, and orange pants in a 42nd Street store window. To me that kind of flash was what life was about. I wasn’t even thinking “pimp.” I don’t think I knew what a pimp was. I was fourteen and wanted to grow up fast, looking teenage cool.
Of course we weren’t manly men. We were just attempting to live out our fantasy. But fantasies have a way of vanishing, and I found myself heading toward the University of Denver, bringing all my old ways with me for what became an extremely unique and nontraditional education. The mile-high altitude of Denver agreed with me, two thousand miles away from all responsibilities.
My father made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. He promised that if I went to college and didn’t flunk out my freshman year, he’d buy me a new car. I applied to a lot of colleges, but only two accepted me. I chose the University of Denver—far away from everything I knew—because I could truly branch out on my own. Actually, I left Kew Gardens, at least in part, because my girlfriend of three years, Legs Levine, wanted to get married. She was sixteen and I was seventeen.
I joined a fraternity and carefully balanced my studies to find the point where I could get Cs and stay in school. Thereafter, college was every bit the adventure I craved—yes, wine, women and song, gambling and poker. Of all those things, school was mostly poker—my major was “poker finance.” I grew up a generation before the more popular drugs became available, but there was still plenty of sex and rock and roll.
I tell you all this because I want to be completely honest about the miracle Merlin Stone performed in my life. Modern women, feminists, those who are aware of or worship the Goddess, would definitely have hated me through most of my youth. I was groomed on the prevailing notion that boys and men were “entitled.” We could run where we wished and do what we wanted. My father did. His idea of raising me was to show up on Sunday to take the family out for dinner. Or he would hang around a day or so, when I was little, and teach me to ride a bike. When I got older, he’d take me to the track on Saturdays.
He was cool, handsome, and self-assured, and a fancy dresser—suit and tie. He was not so much mean to my mother as commanding. She did what he said. Why would I want anything other than that for myself and from women?
Are you getting a proper picture? I was trying to live up to the image of the typical, hot-to-trot American male. There wasn’t a good-looking skirt I didn’t admire or chase. There was no reason to regard a woman as anything other than someone I could have a good time with. I should mention that I grew up admiring the heroes of World War II and Korea. Audie Murphy was my idol—the most famous and arguably the most-decorated soldier of WWII. So it made sense to me that I would join the army after I graduated college. That meant six months in Fort Dix, New Jersey, training as an infantry man and machine gunner. In that venerable man’s world, I used all my skills to avoid danger.
When I left Fort Dix, I still had to complete five and a half more years of reserve service based at the armory in Flushing, Queens, New York. I settled into something similar to the role of a Sergeant Bilko, eventually attaining the rank of E5, Sarge status. As a handsome young uniformed man, I saw women as entertainment, nothing to get serious about.
I don’t want to paint myself as a total user. I was capable of love. I had at least a few romances. Still, marriage was never part of my equation—and especially not children, who I thought would be an anchor. Worse, they might be little Lennies. If a relationship got too serious on her part, I would escape like Houdini.
In the thirty-five years before I met Merlin, I managed to avoid any genuine commitments. I was surviving by using my wits. Because my army reserve duties were in Queens, I returned to my native Kew Gardens, where I tried working for my father in his shoe manufacturing business, but that didn’t work out. To his credit, he had bought me that car—a 1960 Chevrolet Impala convertible—that my best friend called a “chick magnet.” But I wasn’t going to hack it working for my father, because he actually expected me to work. His teaching philosophy was “sink or swim,” so I sank. Besides, my life was changing quickly. All my buddies had already left the neighborhood, drugs were exploding into the picture, and I wasn’t the leader of the pack anymore.
I was living in Kew Gardens in what was called a “stewardess building,” where we all lived three or four in an apartment—an express bus commute to both Kennedy and LaGuardia airports. It was a party building, and I began to use another of my early skills to my advantage. I had saved up some of the money my father sent me for college and the money I won at poker over the years. I began with a couple thousand dollars—a pretty good grubstake in 1962. Gambling went back to my earlier years. I was a penny pitcher, a baseball card flipper, and a winning poker player as a teenager when I gambled with my peers. Now I was playing poker with pilots.
I always enjoyed a good game—a gamble, a wager, a shot at easy money. And I had a knack for it, so I could make some decent simoleons from an early age. I played a skilled percentage game, always learning from the best, and was able to find action whenever and wherever I wanted. When I moved to New York City, I found that people craved a good poker game, and I became a regular at the clubs and private games. I moved into Manhattan in February 1968. Shortly after, I met a gentleman named Harry, who introduced me to the Mayfair Club and the poker scene. The Mayfair wasn’t known for poker back then, but mostly backgammon, gin rummy, bridge, and even chess and Scrabble. Over the years, we changed that. Eventually, the best poker players in the city played at the Mayfair. I was making my living.
Years of drinking, smoking, and staying out all night finally caught up with my dad. He had a stroke in 1969, and his business was liquidated. He was only fifty-five and dramatically in decline. He wound up in the Miami Heart Institute, where they rehabilitated him. When he was able to move back to his New York apartment, in the classy old Manhattan area of Gramercy Park, a tall, statuesque Swedish woman moved in with him.
My mother, from whom he was formally separated by then, was all the more hurt, still believing it was her role to care for him. When he died, from a second stroke in 1973, my mother was by his side—not for love, but out of a sense of duty. My mother had been going to Miami Beach for several years already, adding geographical distance to the separation my father had imposed. It was late September in 1976 when I went to visit my mother. Of course, it could have been to escape the dreary northern weather, but this
was atypically early for me to journey south.
I don’t want to be too mystical as I tell my story. In fact, my intention has been to depict things in a way that would make me most undesirable to those who are likely to read this. I am not exaggerating, but rather trying to set the scene for the miracle that I believe came about in my meeting and loving Merlin Stone. The extent that she transformed me, redirected my life, raised my consciousness, and allowed me to be a participant and in some small way a facilitator in her world-changing work is a part of Merlin’s mystique. My real purpose here is to see her legacy live and grow forever.
By the time my father died, at the age of fifty-nine, I had graduated college, completed military service, and landed on my feet. Mom always told me of her regrets that my father wasn’t a real family man, so she must have been somewhat relieved after he passed away. Mom was the beneficiary of his life insurance. She was able to collect survivor benefits, and at last, she was free to do more of what she liked. She was no longer accountable to him.
I traveled south to see my mother and stayed with her in what is now funky-fashionable South Miami Beach. I put on my rock-and-roll T-shirt, hippie bellbottoms, and high-top Converse sneakers to just hang out. Sometimes I’d just get up early, find a bench, and watch the sunrise. It was on such a morning that I noticed a woman sitting cross-legged on the sand.
That, as I told you, was the first moment I met and spoke with Merlin Stone.
“What were you doing in London?” I asked her.
“Researching and writing, but I’m here now because my mother needed me.”
“She’s sick?” I inquired.
“Actually, it was my father. He had Alzheimer’s for years and it got so bad my mother couldn’t do it all herself, so I came to help.”
“That was very noble of you. How’s it going with him?”
“He passed away two months ago. I really adored him. He encouraged me when I was young. He believed in me. I sang to him and comforted him at the end.”
“That was good. When my father died, he and my mother were separated.”
“Sorry to hear that,” she said. “Love is different than marriage. My mother is trying to cope on her own now. They were actually a loving couple after all those years.”
“I’m here visiting my mother now. I’m staying in her place at the Triton, 29th and Collins,” I informed her.
“Our mothers live in the same building. I live across the street in the Glades Hotel.”
High school Lenny, 1958.
Hip Lenny, 1973.
“Our mothers probably know each other.” I made small talk mostly about the weather—what else? I told her I was a poker player, hoping to impress her. She identified herself only as working the switchboard at the Glades.
We sat on a nearby bench and talked for a couple of hours until, finally, I asked, “Would you like to join me for dinner and a movie tonight?”
“A date?” she countered. “A real date?” And to my delight, she responded, “Yes. See you tonight,” and she gave me instructions on how to find her.
What a treasure, I thought. This beautiful, intelligent woman is staying right across the street. With luck, it might lead to a relationship. Did I ever mistake how the situation would play out? How completely blind was I? Of course, I didn’t recognize what a life-changing moment it was.
When I showed up at the hotel where she lived in what amounted to a storage room located next to the switchboard, I was dressed in my usual dungaree bellbottoms, T-shirt, and Converse sneakers, but she was gorgeous. She didn’t have to do anything—no makeup; her skin was smooth and very white. She wore no eye shadow or eyebrow pencil, but her brown eyes were so alive. She did have on some light pink lipstick, no rouge or face powder. She was always that way, so natural. She looked perfect, dressed in that same jean jacket with a feminist symbol, and an “Earth is our Home” button. She was the opposite of a prima donna or princess—a real woman.
Before I went out with Merlin that night, I returned to my mother’s apartment and told her and my Uncle Al, who lived nearby, about this woman. “Mom, I met a really interesting woman, and we are going to a movie and dinner tonight.”
“Why don’t you invite her here? I can cook you dinner.”
“You don’t have to cook.”
“It’s no bother. I like to cook. And this way I can meet her.”
“Ma, I just met her. I don’t even know much about her yet.”
“Where does she live?”
“Across the street, and her mother lives here in the building.”
“I’m going to Key Largo tomorrow,” my Uncle Al piped in. “Ask your new friend if she wants to take a ride with us.”
When we went to dinner, I asked Merlin, “Do you want to go to Key Largo tomorrow with me and my Uncle Al and his girlfriend?”
“Let’s see how our date goes,” she said.
After Chinese food, we went to see Dog Day Afternoon, the Al Pacino movie about two men who hold up a bank to get the money to help their friend have a sex change operation. She liked the movie enough that we watched it several more times during our life together—to remind ourselves of that first joyous evening. From the first time we saw it, she was always very empathetic toward a man feeling trapped in his body, wishing he were a woman.
I was still thinking like a male chauvinist pig. “Let’s have a drink,” I suggested, hoping she would get a bit tipsy. I’d loosen her up a bit. Men!
Merlin didn’t drink, nor did I, and for thirty-four-plus years thereafter, we simply weren’t drinkers. Merlin didn’t need alcohol to loosen up. She was sexually liberated.
“What time tomorrow?” she asked me before I reluctantly left in the wee hours, happy to know we would see each other again that very same morning.
I was instantly aware that something special had happened. She was so strong and enthusiastic; I was spellbound. She was gentle and wise in the ways of love. I felt we were kindred spirits—soulmates.
I guess I’d never known what love was or could be—its infinite possibilities for friendship, tenderness, partnership, with so much more delight, humor, and the desire to be only with each other day and night. I could see that this woman was not just another “love ’em and leave ’em” for me. I was at the start of my learning curve, but I already understood there would be a lot for me to comprehend. What an ardent student I became. The transformation had indeed begun.
Merlin had been doing a lot of odd jobs. Money wasn’t important to her, but she had to stay afloat. Working in the hotel was a way for her to absorb knowledge from the elders. She spent a lot of time in the lobby chatting with the old women, gleaning what she could from their stories and philosophies of life. The next day, I had to stand patiently waiting in the lobby while she conversed before we set off on our second date.
The trip with Uncle Al was a pleasant junket. He drove and Merlin and I sat in the back seat holding hands. The conversation was breezy. We were getting to know each other, playing the game “Who do you know and what do you like?”
“The Beatles? The Stones?”
“Me too,” she said. “I like folk music.”
“Bob Dylan is my favorite writer,” I told her.
“I love the voices of Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, and Judy Collins.”
“Me too.”
“Do you like sports?”
“The last time I played sports was volleyball in summer camp as a teenager.”
“How about poker?”
“I don’t gamble, but I like to try new things.”
“So do I.” Was I forcing the situation? Trying too hard to find commonalities?
“I’m a writer,” she told me.
“Really? What do you write?”
“I wrote a book about ancient religion.”
“What about ancient religion?” I asked, n
ot particularly interested.
“It’s called The Paradise Papers. It’s about the greatest con game ever perpetuated on women.”
“What was that?”
“Adam and Eve.”
I had no idea what she was talking about. How could I know the book was the initial version of When God Was a Woman, the book that would influence the ways in which women think about themselves, men, one another, their religion, and the world? The beginning of our relationship came just as Merlin was working toward gender equality and a greater respect for humanity and the planet.
Meanwhile, we had one last day together before I was to return home. We spent it viewing art at the Bass Museum. We walked hand in hand around the area and exchanged ideas and personal points of view, learning more about each other. Even then, she didn’t reveal that she was an artist—a gifted sculptress who had already built giant mixed-media and welded sculptures on commission from such companies as Union Carbide and the City of Buffalo. Who knew she had already been a professor at two universities, a pioneering feminist? She didn’t tell me. She revealed herself only as she wanted me to know. As long as I knew her, she could still conjure up amazing surprises.
She was going to Boston to see her sister, Myrna, who had stored things for her. Then, Merlin was going to move to San Francisco to be close to her grown daughters.
“Merlin, on the way to Boston, come see me in New York.” I was in love with her already. “You can share my place and space.”
“I’ll stop on the way,” she said. “I’m curious to see how you live.” And there she was, just three days later, ringing my bell at 184 6th Avenue in New York City.
She stayed two nights before she left for Boston.
Merlin Stone Remembered Page 5
