Tag: Louis

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Keeping the Peace by Louis

When I was 6 years old, in 1950, living with my parents, grandmother and 4 brothers in College Point, NY, I experienced real fear for the first time. My parents’ home was a 2-family antique, we lived downstairs, an Irish woman, Pat, lived upstairs with her boyfriend and daughter, Gail. Unbeknownst to my parents, Pat was married to a sailor who was Gail’s father, but the sailor father had been away in Korea for a long time. Gail was 6 years old, like myself. We were playmates.

Morally outraged father showed up on the scene and assaulted Bill, Pat’s boyfriend, inflicting serious injuries on him for which he had to be hospitalized, Little Gail came running downstairs. My mother took her to the nearby house of a friend. My father called the police. The police showed, arranged to have Bill and Pat taken to the hospital. A little later another police officer took charge of 6 year old Gail. Of course I was downstairs terrified hearing all the noise in the upstairs apartment. Furniture was being tossed about. My father reassured me it would all soon be over. After the police were through, the four actors in this drama had all disappeared. The apartment was silent and empty for a couple of months. Our new tenants were an Irish mother, Dolores, who came from the Bronx and her daughter, Edna. They created some of their own interesting stories.

From what my mother later told me, once recovered from her beating, Pat moved into an apartment over a bar but had to wait for about two months until her daughter was released to her custody. Then Dad came to her front door (at that other apartment) and banged and banged and eventually broke the lock and assaulted Pat once more. Pat obtained an Order of Protection (although they might have used a different term way back then). When the police again arrested Dad, he agreed to counseling from a Catholic priest. The priest was also in contact with Pat. Dad “repented”, for a while, but after about six weeks, he returned to his wife’s apartment in the middle of the night and again tried to terrorize her.

Pat was practical. She went downstairs and requested the assistance of the two bar bouncers. Dad was released from prison, and showed up twice more but was rebuffed, pommeled and humiliated by the two bouncers who were glad to assist Pat and Gail, to protect mother and daughter. Finally unwanted visits from the morally outraged husband ceased. So in this story the two heroic peacekeepers were the bar bouncers.

Moral: repenting to please a priest is one thing, but sometimes force or “gentle persuasion” is a better deterrent. This whole episode made me think about the mores of heterosexuals. The whole notion of imposing one’s will on someone else or on another group of people, using fisticuffs, is totally foreign to me and to my family. I suppose that, according to heterosexual rules, Pat was a sinner, but sinners are supposed to be forgiven not pommeled by a bully. Or am I being too civilized?

I remember Bill the other sinner. He used to bounce me on his knee and tousle my hair. I liked the way he smelled. He had good posture and was handsome. I guess I had an idea of who I really was at the tender age of 6. Of course, I did not know the terms used, “gay,” “homosexual” and the long list of derogatory names.

Yes Bill reappeared in Pat’s life after she divorced Gail’s Dad, but left after about a year. I heard from another well-informed College Point neighbor that eventually, except for daughter Gail, they all died. Did all their suffering have any lasting meaning? Guess not.

In College Point, there were a large number of wife-beaters. Naturally, I was horrified by hearing their stories and so embraced women’s liberation as a needed political movement to give women more options than to be a punching bag for an abusive husband.

Denver, 2013

About the Author

I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City, Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA’s. I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.

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Remembering J W by Louis

When I was in my early 20’s, I was 25 pounds lighter, and I had hair on the top of my head. I was good-looking in an ordinary sort of way. I met a 22 year old man let us call him JW. JW found me appealing, for a while. JW was a model for a sports magazine. He was beyond beautiful. His feet, his toes, his hands, his ears, the shoulders, even his elbows were exquisite. He used to curl his eyelashes. In other words, though I had hot torrid sex with JW, I did not really enjoy it because, when I visited him, blood would rush to my face and I would be completely overwhelmed. He was a natural phenomenon. He was too hot to handle. He was not my peer.

After two months, he told me he was going to marry a young woman from Connecticut, become a computer technician for IBM. He did disappear.

About 18 years later, I was working as a caseworker for the New York City Human Resources Administration. My job was to interview clients with possible mental problems, especially those who were not paying their rent or other bills, to determine if an (expensive) psychiatrist should visit and evaluate him or her. After having interviewed the client/patient, if the psychiatrist recommended that the client was mentally unable to handle his or her money, HRA would go to court and have the client’s benefit checks transferred to HRA that would then pay the client’s bills, as legally authorized.

By way of coincidence, I was assigned a client, JW. I actually interviewed the red hot lover of my youth, now a plump but still good-looking middle-aged man. Of course, the Greek god was gone. For a few seconds, I said to myself, wow, now he is my peer, maybe we could pick up where we left off.

As caseworker, I had a list of about 20 questions I would pose to the client. When I did so with JW, I realized that he could not remember what he had said 5 minutes previously. His medical history indicated he suffered from severe short-term memory loss due to alcohol abuse (vodka). I gave up the idea of asking about his past life in Connecticut, etc. I do not know for a fact, but I presume that eventually a psychiatrist evaluated him as mentally incompetent and that NYC HRA is paying his bills. 

©
20 May 2013

About the Author

I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City, Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA’s. I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.
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An Unfortunate Suicide by Louis

When I was in the 8th grade, I was a smart kid but not a genius. I liked to read books, and my older brother was teaching me French and Latin. I felt a little superior to the Alice and Jerry text books we were given to learn to read. I met this “fellow” from Special Ed which then meant classes for students with high IQ’s. Richard was one of these students. I was reading Ulysses by James Joyce, and, though one year younger than myself, Richard was reading Oscar Wilde, in particular, “Lady Windermere’s Fan.” He even recited some witty passages from this play to my mother who befriended him and enjoyed his scintillating conversation.

A couple of years passed, and Richard told me he did not feel like he was a guy, that he was seeing a doctor in Younkers, New York and that he was taking hormones to increase his/her breast size. Richard renamed himself Romaine. Another six months or so passed, and he had the sex-change operation. He/She recovered from the operation. Romaine was somewhat effeminate but was more unisex, about half-and-half.

A few months passed, and he/she said he wanted his penis back. One day a policeman came to our house in College Point, spoke to my mother, telling her Romaine had killed himself by jumping off of a building. Of course, my mother was horrified. Some of Romani’s female relatives came to visit my mother to mourn. His stodgy father had long since disowned him.

I think there is a sex-change program in Lexington, Kentucky, that requires the patient candidates to live like a woman for a year before they get the operation. That is probably a better regimen.

© 13 March 2013

About the Author


I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City, Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA’s. I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.




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Thinking of the Kennedys on St. Patrick’s Day by Louis

     It must have been in
the late 1990’s, when I was working as a caseworker for the NYC Human Resources
Administration, I was sent to Headquarters at 330 Church Street in way downtown
New York, that is to say Manhattan. Back then I could easily see the Twin
Towers of the World Trade Center.  I had
a Citibank checking account, and there was an ATM about 2 blocks around the
corner from where I would go about 3 times a week to get lunch money. One
afternoon I went, and I noticed an extremely handsome Irish-looking fellow. It
took a few seconds, but I realized that the other young man was John F.
Kennedy, Jr. Like any “peasant,” JFK Jr. went to the ATM and did his routine to
withdraw what I presume was a small sum of money to get through his day.
     Occasionally, he was
accompanied by a tall pretty woman who dressed like a hippy. Back then all I
had to do was watch the news and I learned that she was Carolyn née Bessette
Kennedy. As the months passed, I saw both of them frequently. I learned why
they were using that particular ATM. It was located in SoHo which at that time
was undergoing gentrification, and John and Carolyn had purchased an expensive
condo in one of the tall apartment buildings nearby. The two of them were
actually my “neighbors” for the duration of my assignment downtown. I never got
up the nerve to say “hello” or “hi there,” but occasionally I would roll my
eyes at another person waiting to use the ATM to indicate there was someone
famous in front of us.
     Eventually, my assignment
ended, and I no longer got to ogle the handsome Kennedy couple. Then about a
year later I heard he and Carolyn had died in an airplane crash, actually, July
16, 1999, Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. The news of this
accident really saddened me.
     Some speak of the
“curse of the Kennedys.” It could be a curse, I guess, or is something going
on behind the scenes that the public is not aware of?
3/17/13

About the Author

I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City, Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA’s. I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.