The Single, Gay Life

Divorces are messy affairs, especially when you can't reveal the real reason. When a straight man leaves a marriage for another woman, everybody understands, even though they don't approve on moral grounds. But, when a heretofore closeted man leaves because he is gay, most people simply shut him off from further contact. On balance, my divorce was reasonably amicable.

For one thing I made sure that Karen was well off. I agreed to pay her $900.00 a month as alimony and child support. At the beginning of every year, I would give her 12 checks each in the amount of $900.00, one for each month of the ensuing year. Thus, there would be no problems with back alimony or child support, and there were none. I also gave her the house and both cars. I promised, and in fact did, pay off all our mutual debts except for the home mortgage. I promised, and did, pay all costs of the kid's prep school and college educations. Few are the women divorced from straight men who receive such a ''sweet heart'' deal.

I had to tell the kids about the divorce, but they were too young to tell them the real story -- Jamie was only six; Steve and Stu just eight. The year was 1976. I don't recall what I told them, probably just that their mom and I were getting a divorce. I remember one poignant scene. I was loading up my Datsun with my clothes when little Stu came running up to me, tears in his eyes, to say, ''Where are you going Dad?'' I don't recall what I said in response, but the scene haunted me for years. I assumed for years that my departure would have a traumatic effect on the child. Many years later when he was grown, I asked Stu about it. By this time he had no memory of the incident, not the slightest recollection that it had happened. Funny how some things can seem so traumatic when they occur but in fact have no impact at all.

After separating, I moved into a one room studio on East 85Th Street. It was tiny, only about 200 sq. feet, but only $200 a month. At first I had only a cot, but I went to a thrift store and bought a sleeper sofa, a Dining Room table, and a coffee table. I then had the wood floor sanded and re-stained. I bought a faux oriental area rug to apply over this wood floor, and then I applied polyurethane to the brick walls to make them shine. I painted the bathroom with what must have been the forty fifth layer of paint and hired a handsome carpenter, Ken Lebarre, to make two bookcases with cabinets underneath to be used as my dresser. I hired Ken because he was so handsome, but his work was good. Ten years later, I still had, and was using the book-cases.

The only problem with the apartment was that a Fire House was located down East 85th Street. When there was alarm, the engines came up East 85th, and at a red light on the corner of 85th and Lexington, they would hit their sirens, waking me up along with the dead. The first time that it happened the combination of the siren sounds and the truck's red lights which filled my apartment with their illumination caused me to think war had been declared.

I spent my nights at Uncle Charlie's North cruising, but I was very lonely. I missed the kids. Karen initially refused to let me bring them into the City. She claimed that it was too dangerous. I gave her time, though, and soon they were allowed to come to see me. I believe it was because she realized sons need to see their Dads, and I am eternally grateful to her for this. 1976 was a crossroads for me to say the least, and had I went down the road without my children there would have been no turning back.

The first weekend that they visited, I took them on a Saturday to see Star Wars at the Loews on East 86th Street. On Sunday, we did the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, and all those tourist things that kids love. I was happy, enjoying my role as a Father again. It was on this trip that I took the picture of Jamie in the red-hat; it was cold, but the picture was taken at the Statue of Liberty, not at the Empire State Building.

Sometime in the summer of '76, I met a man named Bruce at Uncle Charlies. Bruce was a quality Gay. A young doctor at Sloan Kettering, he was about my height, blond with blue eyes. He was from North Carolina. We dated for most of the rest of the year. For a time, I thought that he was the 'Right Man' for me, but eventually we grew apart on amicable terms.

On Labor Day weekend, I went to Fire Island Pines. To those not aware, Fire Island is often referred to as "The Gay Hamptons." There I met Don who was a municipal employee in some sort of accounting department. He was much shorter than me but well built. We soon began to date. Don loved me dearly, but the feelings weren't reciprocal. The sex was good, but Don just wasn't my intellectual equal.

One day, Don mentioned to me a friend of his who lived in his apartment building. He said that the guy was named Bert, and that he was an architect. I had a strange feeling. In retrospective, I know now that the feeling was that of manifest destiny. In the fall of '76 Don had inherited some money so he used it to buy a condo in the central Village. He held a 'going away' party on September the 29th. I was invited, but I had had a hectic day at work and didn't feel like going to the party or fooling around with Don on that evening. I came home and threw on some old clothes fully intending to have a drink and drift off into unconsciousness. After being home, though, I remembered that I had promised to bring two bags of ice. The stench of work had worn off by now, so I decided to go. Never has two bags of ice had such dramatic consequences.

I arrived early and went to work in the kitchen by helping Don prepare Swedish Meatballs. Then there came a knock at the door and a divine apparition entered, at least to me. Don introduced him as Bert. I shook his hand like I was being introduced to Adonis himself. His entrance to the apartment was like Elizabeth Taylor's entrance to Rome in Cleopatra. All that I could think was, "Why in the hell did I wear these damn old clothes?"

Not since the night that I met Henry in my Phi Tau fraternity days had I met a man like this, a veritable God-like figure. He was wearing black jeans, and a black t-shirt with his college's name, Syracuse, printed in Orange about the right nipple. He was slim with jet black curly hair combed back from the forehead over the rest of his head, very Italian and chic in style. His face was thin and angular. He was of Northern Italian and British extraction.

At the party, I spent most of the time talking or dancing with Bert. From our conversation I could tell that he was very intelligent and well read. He had a cute ass, made prominent by his tight jeans. About halfway through the party, the pile of the guest's fall and early winter coats that had been placed on Don's double bed began to assume mountainous proportions. Bert offered to take some up to this apartment on the fifth floor. Don agreed. I quickly ''volunteered'' to help. You can surmise what happened. Don was out, and I began to have the most important relationship with a man of my life.

Bert proved to be a loving and caring man. He was like a younger brother to me. He was bright and a good conversationalist. As I saw it my role was to support, protect and defend him. The defense part was occasionally physical. One time on Fire Island, we were walking on the boardwalk when a Long Island teenager called Bert a fag. I punched the kid in the stomach, sending him flying off the boardwalk into the sand and brambles below. Another time, we were in Penn Station waiting in a line for a taxi home. A checker cab pulled up, but as Bert reached for the rear door handle, some guy pushed him aside and made a derogatory remark of which I do not remember. As the guy got into the cab, I grabbed him by the collar and sent him flying into the gutter. There were some women in the line -- real feminist types -- who cried out at me ''You Animal!'' What they didn't understand was that this was precisely the image that I wanted to create. If you can't respect me and my lover, then you will learn to fear me.

Call me barbaric if you will, but like all children of the 40's, I was taught that aggression can never be appeased but must be met with quick and overwhelming force --- whether that aggression is the Confederacy firing on Fort Sumter or Hitler' occupation of the Rhineland in 1935. After all, if the French hadn't have been so cowardly (Hitler had given orders that German forces were to retreat at the first signs of allied resistance), 6 million Jews might have been saved.

Bert had spectacular talent as an interior designer. He could make a seemingly modest apartment come to life and make those that lived in it look like celebrities. After our encounter in his apartment, I got his home and work phone numbers. We began to date. I could tell from the events at the party that Bert was not superficial. My clothes didn't matter to him; he liked me for what I was. He once described my face as "having character."

His face was like a figure in a beautiful Botticelli painting. Bert grew up in Northport, Long Island with his mother, Linda, his sister, Christine, and his Father, Bert, Sr. Bert, Jr. was 27 when I met him; I was 34. Bert' s family all knew that he was gay, but only his sister was understanding and accepting. He didn't get along well with his Mother; she just didn't like his lifestyle. He was Roman Catholic, but certainly not a practicing one, as was his family. They were practicing, though, hence some of the division. He would later convert to Episcopalian on his death bed so that he could be buried with me.

Bert's favorite hobby was photography. One of our first dates was a walking and picture taking tour of the cast Iron buildings in Soho and Lower Manhattan. Bert indulged my craving for history; those majestic old buildings were more photographic sites than history to him. Bert's other hobby was drawing. Somewhere there are several drawings of me in my 'Bert Memorabilia' file case. One of my favorites was of me lounging by a stream. Bert called it ''The River God'.' It, like so many of my other things, lies buried somewhere in Stuart's basement.

Bert also had a witty sense of humor. No matter what the incident, Bert had a funny quip to make it immortal. Then in November,1976, a disaster occurred. I had spent Thanksgiving weekend in New Jersey with the kids. We went to the Morris County Museum and Jockey Hollow. Many people don't know it, but Morristown played a major role in the American Revolution. It was Washington's headquarters after his retreat from Manhattan. He stayed in a colonial mansion, while the troops lived in wooden and canvas huts in Jockey Hollow.

When I got back into the City, all the lights in my apartment building were out. Then as I opened the lobby door, the acrid smell of smoke from an electrical fire overwhelmed me. My apartment was literally soaked with the water resulting from the Fire Department extinguishing the blaze. With no place to go, I spent the night in my health club. Bert, when he heard of the fire was quick to invite me to stay with him. As my whole building had been affected by the fire, my landlord offered me, and the other tenants, the option of cancelling the lease or staying. I choose to cancel.

My clothes and books littered Bert's apartment in boxes covered with sheets. I remember, with amusement, Bert quipping that, ''Your wool suits smell like smoked hams!" He was also amused that when one day Don stopped by Bert's apartment, and apparently didn't notice the boxes covered with sheets, but, then, Don was anything but observant.

Bert was also a great cook. He learned the skill by watching his Mother at home. He was the only person that I have ever met who could cook fish and have it come out like meat, not a gelatinous mass. His best dish was Fettuccine Alfredo. I used to say that, ''On Mount Olympus they don't serve ambrosia to the Gods; they serve Bert's Fettuccine Alfredo.''

Bert's apartment was smaller than mine had been, but living in such cramped quarters cemented our growing relationship. He helped me find another apartment. We did it the way that it was done in those days on the Upper West side: You simply walked the streets, looking for ''For Rent'' signs. We found a nice one bedroom with bath and kitchenette plus a back yard at 54 West 84th Street. It was ideal for me as Bert lived on West 87Th Street. My two next door neighbors with whom I shared the back yard were gay, Gordon and Dan.

The kids loved the apartment, especially the back yard. They were fascinated by its presence here in the city of skyscrapers. I explained to them that the building had once been a private residence in Victorian times, that my living and bed rooms had been the downstairs kitchen and that the backyard had been a playground for the family's children. My kids were enthralled at this living look of domestic life when Victoria sat on the throne of the British Empire.

I976 marked the first Christmas with the kids after I adopted the single, gay lifestyle. Bert and I bought a small tree. I drove the kids in for Christmas Eve. I think that it was the first time that they met Bert. He and a college friend, Barbara, and another girl whose name I forget, came over to the apartment. Jamie was so shy that he hid behind me! That year, I bought Bert recordings of all of Beethoven's symphonies from Rizzolli's, a crystal sugar bowl from Tiffany's, and a cashmere sweater from Bloomingdale's. Bert loved Christmas. That Christmas he bought the kids brass ornaments with their first first names engraved on each ornament. Although never to have children himself, Bert enjoyed giving especially to children that liked so much to receive as all children do.

In the Spring of '77, we fixed up the back yard by turning it into a patio. It was the very first of many projects that Bert and I undertook. As usual, he supplied the design while I provided the labor. I planted ivy around the square space of the yard. Bert then installed four crate flats in the inner square. We purchased a table and several outdoor chairs.

Fast forward to 1978. By this time Bert was living with me on West 84th Street. One day, Bert noticed an advertisement in the Village Voice for a group called the Gay Fathers. He encouraged me to call. There are gay groups for almost everything imaginable -- gay doctors, dentists and lawyers; gay accountants and businessmen, gay Jews and rabbis, gay Roman Catholics and Episcopals, and on and on. Perhaps because gays have spent so much of their lives in isolation that they have a natural tendency to reach out and help their brothers and sisters. And help they did. The Gay Men's Health Crisis and Act-Up, for example, probably did more to stem AIDS in the Gay community than the army of fat, overpaid federal bureaucrats at the National Institutes of Health, the Center for Disease Control and, certainly, the Food and Drug Administration.

I made the call to the number listed in the Ad and poke with a fellow named Bob who was to become my nearest and dearest best friend. He said that the group met once a week for informal discussion of issues concerning gay fathers -- divorce, custody, coming out to the kids. The only qualifications for membership were being gay and having full custody or visitation rights with your kids. The group also held social functions for members and their lovers and outings with the kids. The next meeting was in Bob's apartment. The group sounded interesting, so I joined. Actually what I said to Bob was that I was interested and would come to the next meeting, but I inquired if I could bring Bert. My old bugaboo, a lack of self-confidence, was still showing. Bob discouraged me. He said that although lovers were encouraged to attend social functions and kid's outings, the meetings were for Gay Fathers only. Not wanting to be politically incorrect, I accepted Bob's advice, and said that I would attend the next meeting alone.

History of the Group
Much of this is based on my personal knowledge as an active member of Gay Fathers from 1978 to 1986, and on bits and snip its picked up from conversations with members over those years.

The Gay Fathers developed from a group of Upper Westside gay men who had apparently met in bars. Meeting in bars was not conducive to informal discussion, so they decided to meet in individual apartments apparently beginning around 1975. By the time that I started attending meetings, the group had about nine members:

• Bob was a Dentist. He had originally had two sons, but one died at 5 from leukemia. His other son Billy became Jamie's best friend in the group. Bob had a lover named Fred.
• Gene S was a Professor of Art History first at Columbia and then Brooklyn College. He had two daughters, Bianca and Nichole, and a lover named Terry
• Joel was a lawyer. Joel had two sons, John and Daniel, and a lover named Richard.
• Paul was a businessman engaged in the sale of party goods and supplies. He had two daughters whose names I don't recall and a lover named Marc.
• Henry was a lawyer and had two daughters, Helen and Alicia. In later years, Henry had a lover named Jim.
• Albie was a computer programmer and had two sons, Bert and another whose name I forget. Albie was the Corresponding Secretary of the group, a position that I subsequently inherited. He had no lover
• Al, whose occupation I don't remember, had a son Paulie. He had no lover
• Mike, whose occupation I don't remember, had a son, Danny, who became Stuart's best friend in the group. Mike had no lover
• Steve, who was a therapist in private practice, had a son, Todd, and a lover named Edgy.
  

REWIND TO 1978: At my first meeting, most members were there. Bob had a lovely and ample apartment with a large living room, a separate den, a master bedroom and a full bath. There was another newcomer at the meeting -- a burly Jewish guy named Gene. Most of the evening was occupied with Gene's war stories of his not-so-amicable divorce. He had come out and announced his intention to seek a divorce simultaneously to his wife, Miriam, and his two sons, Andrew and Peter. Miriam apparently referred to him as the Fat Fag in front of his boys. One day, when he was leaving the garage in his Pontiac Grand Prix with the boys, Miriam objected by throwing herself over the hood of the car. The police were called and allegedly had to physically remove Miriam from the hood. I can still imagine her clinging to the hood ornament, kicking and screaming as Great Neck's finest hauled her back to the driveway. As another of these perhaps one-sided stories, Gene, who had been a boyhood friend of Bob's, once went shopping with him and bought a natty new fedora. One night while wearing it Gene ran into Miriam who, in a fit of rage, tore the hat off his head and threw it into a muddy gutter. Thank Heavens I was not subjected to such indignities.

The history continued during my membership as the group took on a distinctly social character. The social events involved Annual events, Special Events, and Kid's outings. The annual events consisted of The Gay Father's Halloween Party and The kid's Christmas Party. The Halloween Party started as a kid's party in 1978, although some of the Fathers also came in costume. The party was such a success that The Gay Fathers decided to make the 1979 party for Fathers and lovers. Fathers without lovers could bring a date. Costumes were mandatory. The party was held at Gene S's spacious and chic apartment at 104Th Street and West End Avenue. The party was another success. Bert and I came as Alladin and Genie, costunes duplicated by Gene and Terry. Bob and Fred came as a Leather couple, even though Bob and Fred were not into Leather. Joel and his date cane as Batman and Robin, Henry as a witch, and Paul and Marc in drag. These later two were the hit of the party.

The next year the party was held at Bob and Fred's. Bob came as a female nurse, the immortal ''Nurse Boxer.'' Fred came as a surgeon, all dressed in scrubs. Bert came as Marlene Deitrich. I came as Gary Cooper, dressed in a French Foreigh Legion costume, complete with kepi cap. I remember as Bert and I were standing and talking to ''Nurse Boxer'' when suddenly Bob said, ''I think that I'm having my period. We both replied, ''That's impossible, Bob!'' But Nurse Boxer insisted that something was running down her leg underneath her panty hose. Nurse Boxer retreated to the Master Bedroom to investigate. There it was determined that what was running down her leg was her keys and key chain that she had put in her panty hose for safekeeping.

The party was such a triumph that it became an annual event. In future years it was consistently held at Paul and Marc's. Every year, it drew more and more drag costumes. The guest list grew and grew until the party was well known in the Gay Community as the place to be on Halloween.

The kid's Christmas Party started in 1979. It was held at Steve's multi-room apartment. The lovers attended to the food and amusement of the kids. It too was a great success, and became an annual event. Many of my fondest memories of the group center on the Christmas party. Somewhere there are pictures, especially a picture of Stu playing pool with Billy and Danny, two of the boys mentioned above.

Special events included Theater Parties. One of the Fathers knew someone who could get blocks of off Broadway tickets. The theaters gave these out to fill up the house. We saw Bebt and The Entertaining Mr. Soan with Maxwell Caulfield along with many other plays. Perhaps our most prominant special event was the Gay Father's Symposium held in 1981. It took, place at the Judson Memorial Methodist Church. Open to the public, it featured panels discussing matters of concern to gay fathers. There was a lover's panel, a kid's panel, a divorce panel headed by an attorney, and so on. The keynote speaker was a prominent psychiatrist, Gerald E. Dabbs. We drew almost 250 people in attendance.

After the Symposiun, our group grew larger and larger. Because the members apartments were not large enough to accommodate the crowd, a spin-off group, Gay Fathers 2, was formed mainly for the Village crowd.

Marriage and Coming Out

Karen and I picked August 13,1966 as the big date. Then there was the problem of where. We both agreed on Pensacola, and since I had to told her that I was Episcopalian she suggested Christ's Church. It was a beautiful Byzantine structure at the end of Palafox Street in downtown Pensacola. The structure was majestic and inspiring so I agreed albeit somewhat reluctantly.

The problem was that I wasn't yet an Episcopalian. I had started to attend Episcopal services as a student at William & Mary, but I had never bothered to be confirmed. Episcopal Church law commands that to be lawfully married at least one member of the couple must be a confirmed Episcopalian. Karen, a lifelong Southern Baptist , didn't qualify, nor did I. There was one thing that I certainly knew about the Episcopal Church: it had inherited the Roman Catholic trait of keeping meticulous records of its members. I was caught, and I had to confess to Karen my lie.

Surprisingly, she didn't seem to care. Indeed, she decided to convert so we could be married at Christ's Church. We were married there in a high Episcopal wedding on August 13th. A reception followed at the Pensacola Garden Club. That afternoon, we left in my '63 Le Mans for our Honeymoon in New Orleans the first night of which we spent in Mobile, Alabama.

By September we had moved into Married Student Housing at the College of Law. We lived in a ground floor one bedroom apartment. John and Sharon, the couple that had introduced us, lived on the second floor. Later that fall Karen became pregnant. We were both over-joyed as we both desperately wanted children, but the celebration was short-lived. In the second month Karen miscarried. A second miscarriage followed in about five months. A specialist diagnosed Karen as having only a minimal chance of carrying a child full term. The news was devastating, but we loved each other, and decided to carry on.

This mutual decision and Karen's decision to convert illustrates the depth of our love for each other. For a Southern Baptist to convert to Episcopal is a great leap. To the Southern Baptist, the Episcopals are little more than Roman Catholics in disguise. Many Southern Baptists, along with many evangelic Protestant denominations, seem to hold little admiration for their Catholic ancestors as the memories of the 14th Century are still to be fresh. Karen's decision to convert shows that she indeed loved me. Likewise my decision to accept that she might never bear me any children illustrates the depth of my love for her.

The one and cardinal flaw on my part was the ethical question. I was entering marriage with a lie far greater than the religious issue. I know that I should have told her that I was Gay. While her response might have been is problematic, it would have freed her from the pain that was to come.

In January of 1967, I was offered, and I accepted, a position with a prestigious, old-line law firm in Jacksonville, Florida: Milan, Ramsey, Martin & Ade. Karen and I moved to a 2 bedroom apartment on the south-west side of town. Now earning a decent salary, in the Summer of 1967 we bought a modest 2 bedroom, 1 and 1/2 bath home in the Westfield Section in the southeast part of town. Westfield was known as the place for up-and-comers. It was surrounded by the exclusive Ortega Forrest Section.

One of the other associates in the firm, Vincent, or Vin, handled private placement adoptions. After discussing the matter with Karen and getting her consent, I approached Vin and told him that we were interested in adopting. Vin told me that he had a client, who was expecting "any day now," but he added one caveat. "If you and Karen are ready for the responsibility." I asked him what he meant to which he replied with a smile, and said, "She's expecting twins." After discussing it with Karen, we decided that we were ready to take the plunge, but Karen ask me to inquire, first, if there was any way to determine the sex of the twins. The next day, I inquired of Vin. He answered quickly, "Yes there is. It's two boys both born early this morning." The date was January 20, 1968.

That evening, we saw the twins for the first time. They had been born premature and were in incubators. The first born was slightly larger than the second and weighed 7 lbs. 2oz.. The second born weigh-ed only 6 lbs, 3 oz.. It was touch-and-go with the second born, but fortunately he steadily gained weigh and grew into a happy and healthy baby. That night because Vin had assured us that approval of the adoption was a certainty, we discussed names. Karen wanted to name the first born Steven, after Steven Cord, a character on her favorite TV program -- Peyton Place. I agreed provided that I had control over the spelling and middle names. For the first born I choose a middle name associated with our family since the days when England was first occupied by the Norman French. That name was: Chandler. For a spelling of the first name I choose the old English style: Stephen. Thus, the child was named: Stephen Chandler.

The name for the second born presented a problem. We both agreed that because they were twins the name should start with an S, but what should be the name? We both agreed that 'Samuel' was inappropriate -- too Jewish. Likewise, 'Sean' was too Irish. Then I remembered my old "favorite" from high school, Stuart G. We both liked Stuart [I insisted on that spelling]. For a middle name, I choose another old Norman first name: Pleydell. There had been several Pleydells living near Swindon and Wilts, [Kent], in the 12 and 13 hundreds. Thus, the child was named: Stuart Pleydell.

In the summer we were visited by my parents. They brought along my elderly Aunts Dallas and Agnes. Dallas was my Mom's Sister and, thus, my Aunt. Agnes was my Grandmother's Sister and, thus, my Great Aunt. Being born in 1895, Agnes was my link to the past. Almost all that I know of the family in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and all of the photos, came from Agnes. She was a jolly old codger with a great sense of humor. The only sad thing that I ever heard her say was, with respect to the twins, "Too bad, I will not be around to see them when they are grown." Somewhere there's a picture of Agnes on our lawn in Westfield holding the twins in her arms. God knows I wish they could have known her. She was to die in the early 1990s having lived longer than anyone else I know in our family line.

During the period between 1966 and 1970, I led a heterosexual lifestyle. I was a regular Family Guy with two cute fraternal twins and a good looking wife. "Could I pull it off?" I wondered. Life was full of the joys and funny stories that come with having kids. One morning, I woke up very early. The twins were sleeping in bassinets in our bedroom. When I walked over to Stuart's bassinet, I looked in the predawn morning half-light and saw a dark fluid around the child. My immediate thought was that it was blood. I screamed "KAREN GET UP!!" She did so and had the common sense to turn on the light. That's when I discovered that the fluid was diarrhea. Young Fathers are the worse fools.

Then in 1970 Karen got pregnant again. We kept our fingers crossed remembering the doctor's diagnosis. During that year we sold the house and moved into a rental home on Martingale Lane in Westfield. This move was occasioned because the cost of the twins' doctors and hospitalization, along with the cost of furniture for our first home, was proving too much to deal with on my salary. Vin didn't charge for his services, but we were required to assume responsibility for the twins' mother's hospitalization and the twins doctor bills when under care in Riverside Hospital. Then I received an offer of a promotion. I was asked to move to Atlanta to work directly for the General Solicitor, the second highest man in the Southern Bell Legal Department. Vin and I had earlier taken jobs with Southern Bell's Legal Department. I was worried about the effect of a move on Karen's pregnancy, but after discussing it with her we agreed that this was an offer that I could not refuse.

We moved into another rental home on Allison Drive, adjacent to the exclusive 2 acre lot Buck-head Section in Atlanta. In September Karen delivered our 'Miracle Baby', James Patterson Goddard, born September 28,1970. We would soon nickname him 'Jamie.' By calling Jamie a 'miracle baby' I don't mean to denigrate Steve and Stu. In fact, Stu and Steve were just as much a miracle. Starting out as premature babies essentially unable to sustain themselves without an incubator, their survival was a demonstration that both were destined to play major rolls in our lives, and that they were destined for some form of greatness.

Stu also had his share of close calls and miraculous escapes. One day he was playing by the bay window that overlooked the driveway from our recreation den on Martingale Lane. The driveway was two parallel strips of concrete separated by a median strip of grass. My attention was diverted for a minute; when I looked back Stuart was gone. I ran over to the window and looked. All that I could see was the window screen obviously pushed out of the window and laying in the grass in the median strip. I ran outside to find Stuart casually laying in the median strip on his back in the prone position, basking in the sunshine. The fall had only been about 6 feet, so he wasn't seriously hurt.

While living at Allison Drive we purchased our first real car -- a Pontiac Grand Safari Station Wagon with power everything. I also purchased a small white Datsun for the commute to work. Shortly thereafter, we purchased our first real home in Atlanta. I know that the reader must think that I'm kidding with all this English stuff, but I am not. The subdivision that we moved into was called Canterbury Heights. Our home was at 1262 Chaucer Lane, as God is my witness. We fixed up Chaucer Lane, installing central heating and air conditioning, wall-papering the kitchen, laying new wall-to-wall carpet in the den, and replacing the bathroom fixtures. Being the athletic machine that I was, I got a hernia removing the old toilet. We also purchased a cherry Queen Anne Dining table with eight matching dining chairs, the seats upholstered in gold.

Although we were to have a much grander home in the future, Chaucer Lane always had a special place in my heart. I remember cutting the grass while Steve and Stu raced their Big Wheels down the driveway to the barrier that I had erected as their signal to turn to the grass, avoiding entering the street. Chaucer Lane had 3 bedrooms, one for Steve and Stu and a smaller one for Jamie. Steve and Stu had identical cribs. Steve was a rocker and would rock himself to sleep for years to come. I obsessively concentrated on the lawn. We had never had one when I was a kid and I was determined that Steve, Stu and Jamie would not have the embarrassment that I had endured living in the only house on the street without a well manicured lawn. So the lawn needed to be meticulous. I guess this is how keeping up with the Jones' starts.

Despite having all the surroundings of a heterosexual existence, the bug was still in me. On a business trip to New York in 1970, I stayed at the Hilton on 6th Avenue. I ventured into Times Square where I met a young man named Fred. I took him back to the hotel for sex. The next morning, I was filled with guilt and shame. I honestly expected to be greeted by New York detectives when I checked out, but to my relief I was not. This was adultery, plain and simple, but I sensed some sort of relief that here I was 2000 miles from my home. I soon began to realize, or rationalize, that there was no way anyone would know, except me of course, and it only causes pain when someone finds out. The ability to keep it a secret would be unfortunate actually as it would encourage me to be more cavalier in the future.

Then I attended a surprise birthday party for one of our neighbors, Bryan as I recall. I was distinctly interested in him, but never managed to be with him. At the party, all the men were to one side of the room and the women on the other. We were discussing places to eat when one guy mentioned The Prince George's Inn. Laughing out loud someone exclaimed "There's nothing but Fags at that place!" I would note that comment with interest.

The next time Karen and the kids went to Pensacola for a visit, I had dinner at The Prince George's Inn. I met the piano player, a cute blond Irish man named Allan. After closing, I took him to his apartment for sex. Oddly enough, it was located directly on my way home. These adventures didn't make me more comfortable with being Gay, but rather they re-enforced once again how easy it is to be gay and get away with it in straight society.

Allan was the first Gay person that I met and could call a friend. I would stop by his apartment for an after-dinner drink and conversation and, maybe a 'quicky,' after late nights at the office. I had now moved from having one-night stand affairs to the more perpetual kind that often develop into intimate feelings. This was a far more dangerous type of affair, one that would be much harder to walk away from and to hide. I did not see that, though, perhaps because I did not want to recognize the fact that I was coming out of the closet now in a very dangerous way.

The reader should note that in this chronicle, I am not using phony names. The people that I mention, or have mentioned, actually existed. They are identified by their real names. I am not concerned about "outing" them. In retrospective from the 21st Century, and given my knowledge of the plague that was to devastate the Gay Community in the last quarter of the 20th Century, I am reasonably certain, but with a heavy heart, that they are probably dead. As a lawyer, I am familiar with the legal maxim that "You can't libel the dead," and that "Truth is an absolute defense."

Then I discovered my first Gay Bar. It was called the Armory, probably an old building used to store munitions during the occupation after the Civil War. It was an old fashioned Gay place with windows painted black so you couldn't see in and no signs outside. The entry was a plain red door off the parking lot. Inside, a Mafioso door keeper checked your I.D. to keep the clientele exclusive and perhaps safe. Inside was a thrilling world with disco music blaring, good looking men everywhere staring at each other in the hope of some eye contact. The art is called "cruising." One night, I met a fellow name Tom. Since he lived at a great distance, I just took him home to Chaucer Lane for sex. Karen and the kids were out-of-town so once again I was taking my adulterous lifestyle one step closer to the edge.

One of my sons has described my divorce as being "out-of-context." And so it was. To the outsider, and to my children, we were the perfect happy family. My wife and I never fought, except, infrequently, usually over my drinking. We never separated. There were simply no signs of trouble, or clouds on the horizon. The divorce came like a sudden thunder clap on a hot, sultry afternoon - at least to those looking inwards.

The first trigger for the divorce occurred in 1973 when I received a promotion. I was asked to move to headquarters in New York City to be the attorney in charge of legal issues concerning radio-telephone and cellular services. While I was looking for a house, the company put me up in a hotel, the Shelbourne-Murray Hill. It was adjacent to a whole host of Gay establishments. -- the Uncle Charlies' South and North bars, the Uncle Charlies' and Kountry Kitchen restaurants, and the Barefoot Boy disco. All of these were associated with an especially creepy old Queen, Lou Katz, who eventually went to jail for murdering his male prostitute "Lover."

After much searching, I found a home for us in a small community town in New Jersey. It was a three bedroom, two baths, double car garage. The home is more fully described in Chapter 1 of this chronicle. We moved in in September 1973.

Looking back, the cause of the divorce was threefold. First, I was frustrated with my job, and with the system that put me in it. I have already written about my job. The fault that I found with the system was that after all those years working and studying, to say nothing about becoming Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review, the best that the system could do for me was a position as a drone in the Legal Department of a monopoly. So why not get another job? I tried, interviewing with several Atlanta firms, but the answer was always the same, "No thanks." Underpinning this "No" was the thought I am sure that "He's just a corporate lawyer, and can't possibly hold up under the stress of private practice." There was another unstated reason. My salary was quite high, the equivalent to a partner's draw. In private practice, what a partner receives as compensation, i.e., his draw, depends wholly on the income that he generates for the firm from his clients, i.e. his attribution. If I could have brought along with me to those firms clients like Southern Bell or AT&T, the job offers would have poured in, but the privilege of being able to do so was reserved to ex-General Counsels and ex-general Attorneys, not to mere attorneys like me not withstanding my high sounding but largely empty title. In short, in private practice it's not what you know but the client that you bring with you that counts. Unfortunately, I had none.

The second cause of the divorce was the 'malaise' -- to use Jimmy Carter's infamous word -- that effected the country in the 1970's. We had lost in Vietnam, our military was a bunch of pot-heads and junkies, and we were being pushed around like the skinny kid in the school yard surrounded by a pack of bullies. Yet we had more power in our ICBMs and 600 ship navy to devastate any tinhorn dictator or Mullah who vomited messages of hate to his ignorant and backward followers. Where's Teddy Roosevelt when you need him. Instead, we had Jimmy Carter who smiled and mouthed platitudes while the Russians and crazy Rag Heads wiped their boots in his face.

The third cause of the divorce was the allure of the Gay world. In the early 70's, it was chic to be Gay. Post-Stonewall, the threat of police raids had disappeared. Gays were setting the fashion trends. It seemed an exciting world to join compared with the monotony of Corporate America. It was starting to seem safe to be Gay.

The immediate cause of the divorce, however, had little to do with these ''Big Picture issue. I had been dating a kid from the nearby community of Whippany, Richard Palumbo. He wrote me an effusive letter, which Karen found and confronted me. The terms of endearment in the letter were so strong that mere denial wouldn't work. I was tired and maybe a bit hung over, but I had had it with lying about myself. So I went ahead and confessed to being Gay. I was out, this time for good.