They entered the building and explained to the woman at the desk they were here for the meeting of the Mattachine Society. Noting her expression, how she didn’t break her mask of professionalism, merely indicated the way to the basement, they went downstairs and hoped for a moment together this might be the beginning of a new chapter in the story of their lives.
Bev and Kay greeted them. Curt then introduced Frederick to several of his other friends. Frederick was struck by the fact, which should never have come as a surprise, that Curt’s friends in the Society were all of his own generation. They formed a bloc, and they sat together. Curt, however, feeling he shouldn’t segregate himself from the older men, if only for tonight, stayed by Frederick’s side.
Upon taking their seats, Frederick recognized the man to his right as the proprietor of the antique shop on Fourth Avenue—he passed the shop regularly on his way to and from the 14th Street subway. The man introduced himself as Harold Wolsky. Though Frederick wasn’t sure he liked the idea of seeing anyone he recognized here, they quickly fell into an easy, familiar exchange, finding much in common on the subject of work. Frederick mentioned his contribution to the soon-to-be-published book on New York Landmarks.
“There must be a law to protect old buildings in New York,” Harold said with quiet conviction, and he went on to explain his belief in a fundamental psychic need for some assurance of permanence and continuity. “I believe that a living, historic city gives us a sense of security and well-being that only comes from something that’s been around longer than we have.”
“You seem to have given this a lot of thought.”
“To me it’s common sense. The past speaks to me. I hear voices from the past. I believe the past is very much alive.” Frederick noticed how often he began his sentences with the words “I believe.” “Historic preservation goes beyond buildings. That’s why I got into the antiques business. To me it involves saving smaller things, objects, documents, even non-tangible things like family stories. I was always attracted to old things and old people. I was very close to my grandmother. I loved listening to her stories. I felt more at home in her company than in the company of my peers.” Frederick was almost embarrassed to admit to himself, much less to Harold, the same was true of him. “I kept meticulous photo albums and scrap books. In high school, I became the family photographer. I saw myself as the family documentarian, and I’d take pictures at reunions, weddings, funerals. I came from a large family in St. Louis. We’re very close. Or, we were close until they found out about my tendencies, you know, that I’m ‘enchanted.’ One of my neighbors found some magazines in the trash I’d thrown out, and—I was stupid, I should have put them in a wrapper or burned them, I guess—and he came to me and said, ‘St. Louis is not and never can be enchanted.’” Harold laughed with exasperation. “This was 1923, I was twenty years old.”
Frederick was uncomfortable with the turn to sexual matters in the conversation and didn’t like to be reminded of Mrs. Bradshaw’s recent threat. He had been content to reminisce with Harold about childhood, about their shared love of beautiful objects.
“Well, I’ve always loved walking among ruins,” he began, and felt the illogic of his words given where Harold ended up. “As a child, I drew elevations and floor plans of houses and made-up houses. I was always building things, apartment towers, villages, stage sets.” But in deference to Harold’s confession about being, as it really seemed to Frederick, hounded out of St. Louis because of his deviant nature and feeling suddenly and genuinely sorry for him, he added, “…and doll houses.”
“Oh, you should come to the store sometime and see the doll houses I have. Some Victorians. They’re really splendid.”
“I’d like to,” Frederick said, not without sincerity.
“Looks like you made a new friend,” Curt whispered in his ear.
“I know him from the neighborhood.”
“Mmm,” Curt said, seeming to encourage the possibility of intimacy between them.
The guest speaker was a psychoanalyst named Richard Robertiello. A longtime member of New York Mattachine, whom Curt identified with scare quotes only as “Jim” (“I know he doesn’t use his real name, he’s a total queen,” he whispered), gave the introduction: “I want to welcome Dr. Robertiello. A native of New York City where he practices psychiatry and psychoanalysis, he is married and has two children, a girl of seventeen and a boy of twelve. His BA was acquired at Harvard and his MD at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. In addition to his private practice, he is chief psychiatrist of the Long Island Consultation Center. He is best known as the author of Voyage From Lesbos: The Psychoanalysis of a Female Homosexual, the first complete report of the psychoanalysis of a lesbian ever published. His mentor, Dr. William Silverberg…” (“Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse” Curt muttered—but Frederick found himself intrigued by the guest speaker’s credentials) “…in his introduction to the book, praised Dr. Robertiello’s ‘sensitivity to what his patient was experiencing; his alertness to clues as to her unconscious assumptions; his willingness to persevere as she now advanced towards self-understanding and change, now retreated from it…” (“I’m dead. Wake me up in the next life.”) “…and, above all, his unfailing good will throughout all these vicissitudes.’ But let me not say more about him. You’ll see for yourself. Dr. Robertiello.”
“Thank you, thank you, Jim, for that generous introduction—too generous, I should say. I am very happy to be here, and I commend all of you for your bravery. Coming to this meeting must not have been easy, but you are showing great courage and responsibility in making the effort. And I really just want to help you in any way I can. Now, I consider myself a friend to the homosexual, but I am the kind of friend that gives hard-headed advice, not the kind that tells you what you want to hear just to make you feel good. And the first thing I must say as your friend is that homosexuality is an emotional disturbance, a character defense, in which the patient does not recognize he is sick. His is a crippled psychology, a second-rate substitute for reality, a flight from life. Now, as your friend I say you deserve better in your life. Homosexuality deserves no encouragement, no glamorization, no rationalization, no fake status as a minority group, no sophistic argumentation about ‘differences in taste.’ Homosexuality is—and I say this with the authority of the best scientific research behind me—a sickness. But what I’ve really come here to say to you tonight is that you deserve fairness, compassion, understanding, and, when possible, treatment.”
Quiet murmurs from the audience had been intermittent from his opening remarks, and now the murmur was rising and continuous. Frederick didn’t entirely disagree with the doctor’s “diagnosis” of homosexuality, but hearing it talked about publicly put him on edge—as it did others, apparently, in the room.
“I know there is considerable controversy about curing homosexuality, and tonight I don’t want to talk about aversion therapy or any of the other therapies we’ve suggested for turning the patient towards an embrace of normal feelings. Tonight I want to talk about Alcoholics Anonymous.” A woman in the audience gasped. “You see, I view homosexuality, much like alcoholism, as an addiction, an illness susceptible to, if not a cure, then to being well managed, and the way of managing I want to tell you about follows the approach taken by AA.”
Now an eruption of widespread discontent came from the audience. Frederick was miffed. It started to look like Dr. Robertiello wasn’t going to be given much chance to elaborate his theory, which, quite frankly, Frederick found intriguing.
“The alcoholic is disturbed, but he is not expelled from the society of man. Even the psychopath and the criminally insane can benefit from compassionate treatment, from efforts to get them back into the mainstream of life. I am glad to be living in a more tolerant society when—”
A man stood up, disregarding Jim’s attempts to use Robert’s Rules of Order to control the group. “If homosexuals are sick, it’s because of people like yo
u!”
A woman in a black cap shouted, “I don’t see the NAACP and CORE worrying about which chromosome produces black skin, or the possibility of bleaching the Negro!” There was a surge of applause. “I don’t see the Anti-Defamation League trying to eradicate anti-Semitism by converting Jews to Christians. Why we are who we are is totally irrelevant.”
“Please don’t misunderstand me. When I speak about the pathology of the homosexual, I do not mean to blame the individual. But I believe that the entire homophile movement is going to stand or fall on this question of whether homosexuality is a sickness. There is no avoiding it.”
Jim had lost control of the group. They shouted their objections and counter-objections, and soon they aimed their remarks exclusively at each other, Robertiello himself becoming irrelevant to the debate. Frederick shrank from the proceedings while Curt followed each successive volley of the discussion as if eagerly waiting his turn to enter the ring.
“Why do we persist in having people like this address us?” the woman in the black cap spoke again. “There are reputable doctors and therapists who have different views. Evelyn Hooker, Wardell Pomeroy, George Rundquist, Donal Macnamara.” Applause followed each name as she said it. “Let’s have one of them give a talk.”
Jim asked, “But doesn’t a professional psychologist have every right to disapprove of homosexual practice?”
“His so-called professionalism is part of the problem,” she cried, “not the solution. Why are we so afraid to speak about homosexuality from our perspective? We invite these quacks to our meetings, and they come here and they compare us to rapists and child molesters and exhibitionists and psychopaths, and they tell us we’re neurotic and need to get cured. A deviant sexuality does not necessarily mean pathology.”
“That’s right,” one of the younger members said. “I’m sick of this genteel, debating-society approach where we present all sides of the question impartially. Our opponents will do a fully adequate job of presenting their views and will not return us the favor of presenting ours. We gain nothing by presenting their views and only provide the enemy with ammunition to be used against us.”
Frederick felt offended by this talk of enemies and opponents, ammunition and fighting back. He sat frozen as the arguments escalated and people raised their voices, not really listening to each other, as it seemed to him, nor reflecting seriously on anything anyone said. One grandstanding speech seemed to inspire the next.
“Only recognized experts,” Robertiello said, “can effectively influence public opinion. You won’t be given a hearing if you pooh-pooh the acknowledged authorities.”
A round man wearing a red bow tie shouted, “Acknowledged authorities! Don’t make me laugh.” (Frederick thought his tie made him look like an overgrown schoolboy.) “The literature of the mental health profession is brimming with poor research and non-representative samplings. Unless someone shows me valid evidence to the contrary, I say that homosexuality is not a pathology in any sense but merely a preference no different in kind from heterosexuality.”
“You mean to tell me that homosexuals are not sick?” Jim said. “What about lesbians who wear pants and keep their hair short? What about bar-hoppers, stereotypical behavior, heterosexual marriages of convenience? We lack credibility. We need allies like Dr. Robertiello.”
“I take the stand,” the man in the bow tie said, “that not only is homosexuality not immoral, but that homosexual acts engaged in by consenting adults are right, good, and desirable, both for the individual participants and for the society in which we live!”
This produced cries of foul and yeas from all directions. The meeting was in total disarray with people speaking over each other, laughter, and multiple, separate conversations going on simultaneously.
Now Bev, the youngest in the group, stood up and spoke. A hush attended her speech: “I’m an activist. I’ve read nearly seventy-five books in the New York Mattachine library, and I’m fed up with readings and discussions on the subject of homosexuality. We have to move away from the respectability of debate and into the arena of social activism. We should be taking an unequivocal stand on the medical establishment’s sickness theory. We should be out there picketing on behalf of homosexuals’ rights. Any homosexual who would come to you for treatment, Dr. Robertiello, would have to be a psychopath!” The audience cheered. Frederick, however, sat motionless. There was logic to what she was saying, he thought, but it was a cold logic that ignored the complexities of the way people actually lived. Who was he kidding to think he could sail through this meeting unscathed?—for that matter, to think his relationship with a young person like Curt could ever really work? “Our movement has three options. Social service, information and education, and civil rights-direct action. It’s time that social service and education take a back seat to civil rights-direct action. The prejudiced mind is not penetrated by information and is not educable. We have to take action, that’s all there is to it!”
Curt leapt to his feet and embraced Bev. The moderator’s only option now was to put a semblance of civility on the close of the meeting. He thanked Robertiello, having to raise his voice above the din, and said something about healthy debate and questions that won’t be answered overnight, but already people were milling about, engaged in conversations, some no longer having anything to do with homosexuality, the medical profession, or the movement.
Frederick began to gather his things, and as he did so Harold slipped his card into his hand. “Come say hello at the shop sometime. I assure you this has never happened before at a Mattachine meeting, not like this.” He laughed and touched Frederick’s arm. “Good night.”
Frederick said goodnight and hoped Curt, too, would be ready to leave. But he was huddled with his friends, including Bev and Kay, absorbed in a fast and focused exchange. Frederick longed to be anywhere but here. Most of all, he felt Bev and the other younger members hadn’t considered one important thing. To march, picket, and protest for the civil rights of homosexuals, as Negroes had been doing for their people, meant the exposure of one’s homosexuality to the harsh light of public scrutiny. His generation had always placed a high premium on the separation between one’s public and private life. What Bev and Curt and the more liberal members of the Society were now saying was the antithesis of that. Frederick was, he reminded himself, a fundamentally private person. His professionalism and its tangible results, he believed, should be the sole basis on which history judged his contribution to society. Not what he did in his bedroom. Whether his sexual tendencies were to be labeled sick or not—and all right, maybe there were two sides to the issue—but publicizing those tendencies? (He thought of the AGBANY demonstration in front of Penn Station.) Picketing—protesting—advocating on behalf of one’s homosexual tendencies in public? That was unthinkable.
He looked at Curt, mixing among his young friends. From now on, he thought, to avoid Harold’s shop I’ll walk up Broadway instead of Fourth Avenue when I take the subway at 14th Street. He wished he hadn’t given him his real name.
CHAPTER TEN
A few days after the Mattachine Society meeting, Frederick’s father telephoned when Frederick happened to be out, and Curt picked up. He said Frederick wasn’t in and would give him the message, but then forgot. A week later, a letter arrived with some news of home. Clare was getting ever more forgetful, and then something happened Fritz had been dreading: “Your mother entered the room and said, ‘Where is my husband?’ I said, ‘Clare, I’m your husband. I’m right here. It’s me, Fritz.’ She looked at me as if she wasn’t sure who I was. She replied, ‘But where is the man of the house?’ In a minute she came to her senses and was reassured I was who I said I was. I’ve not been able to get this out of my mind.” The postscript seemed to carry the letter’s true import: “A young man answered the telephone when I called last week. Didn’t say who he was. Said he’d give you the message. Don’t know if you ever received it.” Frederick replied, acknowledging the news of his mother but has
tening to lay to rest what he feared were his father’s growing suspicions. “The young man you spoke with is Curt Watson, the son of my friend Sandy, just moved here from Chicago. He’s camping out in my living room while he gets on his feet. Looking for a job and an apartment in New York City isn’t easy for a Midwestern kid fresh out of college with few contacts.”
More disturbing, because closer to home, were those instances where someone from the building came into the apartment and found Curt there and, no doubt, jumped to all kinds of awful conclusions. There was a leak in the bedroom. Curt had heard the sound of running water coming from somewhere in the ceiling, and then they noticed drops of water accumulating on the ceiling right over the bed. One of the building handymen, Dimitri, came to assess the situation. Frederick told Curt to just wait in the living room while he sorted things out in the bedroom with Dimitri. Curt immediately understood that Frederick was trying to downplay the obvious fact that the bedroom—but not just the bedroom, the bed itself—was shared by two men. Frederick tidied up the room and put away Curt’s things to make it look like only one person slept there, going so far as to leave a single pillow on the bed, even though, in all the years he lived alone, the bed was piled with numerous pillows. Curt thought him ridiculous and told him so. Not now, Frederick whispered as Dimitri poked around at the ceiling in the bedroom. Curt barged in and insisted on telling his side of the story, how he was woken in the middle of the night on—he turned to Frederick—when was it? Wednesday, I believe (he said), almost going out of his way to make Dimitri understand they shared the bed.
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