The Golden Boy

Robert Hatch

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781317765165
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Diseases & Allergies

This is the first autobiography to be published by The Haworth Press. This is the first autobiography to be published by Harrington Park Press. The place is New York City. The time is the decade before the plague of AIDS. Thousands of gay men were living a free-wheeling lifestyle of club hopping, "score" hunting, sex without fear, and upward mobility. To none did The Big Apple offer greater rewards than to those young men who had the envied "male model" look. Author James Melson belonged to this exclusive clique: he was tall, blond, muscular, and very "straight looking." He was a model at 19, and by 25, was a highly successful Wall Street banker. His good looks offered him immediate entry into exclusive clubs and onto the sexual fast track with actors, male models, and other members of the "Clique." The author brings you behind the scenes into the lifestyle of the handsome "Clique"--providing details of the vigorous and entertaining excitement of the times. He exposes--for one of the few times in print--the lesser-known attitudes of the "Clique" and their disdain for "ugly faggots, " their obsession with strictly the chic and glamorous, and the fast lane life of partying and sex. For 200 pages, the reader is brought back to the era that for many older readers is just a memory, and for younger readers a time they never knew--when to be a "Golden Boy" was to be a prince, and sex was only fun and games. The Golden Boy autobiography ends when the author is diagnosed with AIDS, abandoned by a lover and friends, and left to look back on his life with a growing perspective. The role of "good looks" and people with AIDS is rarely talked about, particularly by gay survivors whose lesser appeal was once perhaps a curse but then ultimately their saving grace. This is not just another AIDS autobiography but a document dealing indirectly with this fact of life. The autobiography is introduced by Larry Mass, MD, an internationally recognized social historian/physician who examines the "Culture of Narcissism" in that era. Arnie Kantrowitz then presents an astonishingly frank and perhaps shocking Epilogue which will have many readers wanting to re-read the book.

Chapter 1
Childhood in Sundown Town

I was born in America. I will live an American. I shall die an American.

— Daniel Webster

Dubuque, Iowa, also known as Sundown Town, is a redneck, rough-shootin’ meat packing town on the Mississippi River at the juncture of Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin. The population is roughly 60,000, of whom 80 percent are Catholic. (However, Dubuque was long devoid of racial diversity: It was well known that if a black man hit town looking for a job, he would be approached by police “suggesting” he be gone by sundown.)

On September 7, 1957, Greta Elizabeth Melson, age forty, gave birth to James Kenneth, myself; a beautiful, tow-headed, ten-pound baby boy—the product, I maintain, of a frisky New Year's Eve romp. My parents claimed I was “planned,” and not a “mistake.” BULLSHIT! In any event, given my mother’s age it’s safe to say I made it just before menopause.

My mother was horn in Alborg, Denmark. In 1922, at age five, she emigrated to the U.S. with her mother Torah, sister Irsa and brother Finn. Torah decided to emigrate after my grandfather, a concert violinist, had an affair with a young protege. There was a divorce, and after news of the whole business got around, my grandmother could no longer hold her head up in public.

At the time, an immigrant to the U.S. had to have a relative who was a U.S. resident sign on his or her behalf, as a sponsor. Torah's brother Eklund, who worked for the Danish government in Saint Croix, Virgin Islands—a territory of the U.S.—was to meet her as she got off the boat at New York’s Ellis Island. He was nowhere to be found. A wire arrived saying he had been taken ill with tuberculosis and could not make the trip from St. Croix. My grandmother was mortified—what would she do stuck in New York with three children? She had sworn she would never return to Denmark as long as she lived. One of her few U.S. acquaintances, an old flame named Henry with whom she had corresponded over the years, worked in Detroit for the Ford Motor Company. She called him and explained her predicament. Still single, and still madly in love with Torah after some ten years, he immediately traveled to New York. They were married, immigration was granted, and my grandmother settled down with Henry Erik Jensen in Detroit. Predicament solved!

When the Depression hit, Henry was laid off from his job indefinitely. Spending her teens deprived of material comforts we take for granted today, my mother acquired a shrewdness with money which she retains even today, despite the extremely comfortable bounty supplied by my father. (After all, one never knew when disaster might once again hit and all would be lost.) For instance, during a recent visit home I opened a kitchen cabinet and was buried by an avalanche of soda cans which she saves for redemption at five cents apiece. She scolds me for calling information for phone numbers instead of using the book.

My father Kenneth (Kenny) was bora in Osage, Iowa, also to Danish immigrants. His father owned and operated the local grocery store until he lost it in the Depression. An alcoholic, my grandfather died from cirrhosis of the liver prior to my birth. My grandmother Christine, who recently died at age ninety-eight, had always been a crotchety old thing, which explains my father’s general coldness, toughness and lack of sensitivity. She wouldn’t give the time of day to her grandchildren, either. As a child, when we would visit, I would hide out in the nooks and crannies of her Osage attic apartment, coming out only for her homemade apple pie: that was absolute heaven. But I thought she was a bona fide reincarnation of the Wicked Witch of the West, reminiscent in looks, voice and demeanor of Margaret Hamilton in The Wizard of Oz. Children were to be seen and not heard. “Spare the rod and spoil the child" was her credo. "A good whacking is healthy from time to time . . . makes men out of boys.” Torah, on the other hand, used to bounce me on her lap, singing Danish children’s songs. Aside from lack of parental love, Kenny grew up fighting tooth and claw with his five athletic brothers for the number one spot in everything. The end result of this upbringing was a hard-driving, hard-drinking, charismatic success; the consummate man's man.

Dad’s life consisted of dawn-till-dusk meat hawking. Dusk brought major martinis — extra dry, extra olive—with the boys at one of Dubuque’s innumerable bars and taps. My father loved to identify himself as one of “them”—the workers. Although totally devoid of pretense in the conventional sense, he would, with each drink, soar into a loathsome, braggadocious monologue about his self-made success, and then was usually driven home by a less inebriated companion to unload his finale on my mother and me. He combined the self-confidence of Kirk Douglas with the humor of a lower-brow Johnny Carson. His taste in food was strictly meat and potatoes: Sauces, he considered emasculating; casseroles, women’s bridge club fare. Eating out was either at Bucky’s Steak and Rib Joint, or not at all.

My mother’s life, on the other hand, was filled with bridge clubs, charity work and crafts. She was one of the “ladies who lunch,” or as close as you could get in Dubuque. Evenings were usually spent separately, with father ensconced in his den in front of the TV, watching war movies, football, cop dramas, anything violent. This was undoubtedly the result of his jocky upbringing. No one would cross a Melson. Mother remained in the kitchen either knitting or doing crossword puzzles while watching Englebert Humperdink and Tom Jones on TV.

My brother Eric was my idol as a child. Fifteen years my senior, he could be both generously loving and horribly mean to me. For my birthday he once built me a train set, with mountains, houses and factories. He made snowslides at the side of our house for me and my little aluminum flying saucer; and one Christmas morning I got a beagle puppy tied with red ribbon, which Eric had coaxed my mother into buying and which I named Toto. Thanks to him, Santa had finally brought me a puppy of my very own. His cruelty, on the other hand, manifested itself in various ways: blowing up my sandbox with a cherry bomb while I was in it; grabbing my fat belly with one hand and lifting me up mid-air (he called this the “Texas claw”); approaching me with hands clenching, releasing, clenching, releasing, sending me running screaming bloody murder to my mother.

One year when he was playing baseball with friends, I begged him to allow me to join in. They were all age sixteen and up. I was five or six. They finally relented and said, “Okay, Jimmy, you can play,” and told me to lie down on the dirt. Not knowing anything about the game, I lay down and eagerly awaited their next instruction. The pitch was made, the ball was hit and the batter ran to first base and came sliding into me at second. I was the second base.

Regardless, I loved him; he was my father figure, as my father was too busy with his work and drinking with pals to deal with another child. I remember him telling my mother once, “Greta, you raise the kid till he’s thirteen and then I’ll take over and give him the balls and guts to handle life.” Little did he know that for a child, emotionally, it doesn’t work that way. Children do not switch on love and respect like a circuit breaker after being ignored for thirteen years.

I was six years old when I discovered my fascination for Ken dolls. Soon after, the G.I. Joe dolls came out. The smooth, muscular plastic body made my little legs tremble, made me crazy with desire. I begged my parents for one for my seventh birthday. Although at that age I had no idea what sexuality even was, I definitely appreciated a fine human form.

My father’s back went out on him during that period and my mother bought him a hand vibrator. Thanks to my neighbor playmate, I soon discovered a different use for the item. When either of our parents were out, we would call each other, get together and satiate our prepubescent sexual hungers. A game we used to play with a third friend was “gorilla.” One of us would play the gorilla, the other two, zoo visitors. The gorilla would escape from his cage and the visitors would pretend to faint. The gorilla would then bring out the vibrator and have his way with us. Then we would regain consciousness, not remembering a thing; a good time, with an easy way out of our guilt. Thanks to moms and dads, all three of us knew that playing with peepees was bad. Still, that was no deterrent. The forbidden activities continued until the day white stuff came out. I thought I had contracted some deadly disease as God’s punishment for my sexual misbehavior. My parents had seen no need to tell me the facts of life. Pregnancy was not an issue for boys. Let the girls worry about it: if they missed their periods, they were whores. The boys responsible were studs. Girls would usually disappear from school into Hillcrest Home for Unwed Mothers. Due to the 80 percent Catholic composition of Dubuque, abortion was unheard of as an alternative.

Despite my raging (if bizarre) sexual activities, my childhood grew increasingly painful. My earliest painful memory is from my first grade class's weekly show-and-tell. When my week came, I really wanted to impress everyone. I’d spent the preceding days combing my mother’s dresser for Danish mementos to use as props for telling the story of my Danish heritage. Thursday morning I carried in a shoebox full of miniature Danish flags, a violin pick of my grandfather’s, an old pipe, and a tiny statuette of Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid.

As “curtain time” approached, my stomach started to rumble. I could feel it coming. I raised my hand for permission to go to the bathroom, but couldn’t get Mrs. Martin’s attention. What was I going to do? I couldn’t hold it. Finally ... blasto, diarrhea for days. I sat stonefaced, searching for some way out of the mess but there was no escape. Mrs. Martin turned from the board to call me up to the front for my presentation. I shook my had no. “Come up here, Jimmy, and bring what you have.” I told her I forgot. Unfortunately, the box was on the floor next to my desk, clearly in view. “Your box is on the floor, now get up here immediately.”

“I can't.”

With that Mrs. Martin marched down the row of seats to my desk, grabbed hold of my ear and pulled me out of my desk and up to the front as diarrhea slid down my legs and onto the floor. The class looked on. There was a moment of total silence; then hysterical laughter followed by a united chorus of “Jimmy pooped his pants, Jimmy pooped his pants.” I was sent to the nurse’s office to change into a nurse’s gown and wait for my mother to pick me up. I was humiliated beyond any hope of recovery.

I always had a love for sweets. Beginning at age eight, I ballooned into quite a mass of flesh. At thirteen, I was five feet tall and weighed one hundred eighty-five pounds. My mother was unfortunately a pre-Dr. Spock type: “Eat everything on your plate, Jimmy, or no dessert.” I would, of course—and then stuff myself with one or two butterscotch sundaes. Then on to my father’s Oreo cookies, etc., etc., etc. Needless to say, the extra poundage did not help foster my social life. From age ten on, dealing with girls was impossible. I tried flirting, but was constantly shunned due to my appearance. With boys it was worse. Sports were of paramount importance in my hometown. I was extremely uncoordinated, so instead of practice, I would usually walk the long road to home (and TV) alone — until I met Bobby. He was even fatter than I and much shorter. His cheeks were so enormous they looked as if they would explode at any minute, and his thick-lensed horn-rimmed glasses made his squinty eyes look like eight balls. Soon Bobby was walking (or waddling) me home; we became soulmates, and above all, foodmates.

Two places would tempt us en route: First, the Milk House —a country-type store with a large glass-enclosed bakery display case full of glazed donuts. I would fight with Bobby over first choice, always dictated by the amount of tooth-rotting sugary glaze. Armed with donuts, Bobby and I would continue on our food odyssey. Next stop was White’s grocery store for cakes and cookies. After all, boy does not live on donuts alone. Soon home, we would check out the refrigerator and beg our mothers for something to eat; well, we were starved from the long walk home! This daily pig-out was really disgusting. I usually stole my donut money from Mom’s purse the night before. At the time, school lunches were forty cents each. Extra items were available at extra charge. My mother would give me forty cents every morning, but I usually had much more from my previous night’s thievery. Lunch was my favorite meal of the day, especially if they had the highly coveted, spectacularly delicious apple crisp. I made sure I had lots of extra change on those days.

Nevertheless, I was extremely depressed most of the time, as I sank further and further into fat. My 36 to 38 inch-waist pants were constantly splitting. My extracurricular activities and hobbies were limited to the constant search for confectionary bliss.

Gym class on Tuesdays and Thursdays became a horror story. Two ex-Marine-type coaches with hair shaved close to their heads played favoritism with the athletes while I was the constant target of humiliations that would scar me for life. One time we were being tested for our skills on the trampoline. There were two trampolines in the gym, one brand new, the other simply prehistoric, with frayed, worn elastic bands and an unresponsive spring. Most of the kids would go on the new trampoline; I, on the old. All the kids would come over to watch my fat jiggle while I bounced. The poop man was now Jello Jimmy. When it was my turn to be tested, I prepared to do some dramatic move such as a seat drop: I gave it my all in the jump, and my feet and legs went right through the criss-crossing elastic bands of the tramp. It was as if I had trapped myself in a giant diaper—as though to add the coup de grace to my previous disgrace. My chaffed and scraped legs dangled, unable to touch the floor. The coaches told a couple of the kids to get up on the tramp to weigh it down and stretch the elastic bands, so someone could get underneath and push my legs back up through the holes. Instead the kids started jumping and laughing, while I sat stuck in my “diaper” bouncing helplessly as a paddleball. Finally, the coaches called in the janitors to cut the bands. When they did, I thudded to the floor like a tub of lard. More hysterical laughter and name calling from the other kids.

Compounding the stigma of my weight was the fact that I was the last in my class to go through puberty. In the locker room, while the other kids proudly exposed their growing members and sprouting bushes in vainglorious style, my minuscule acorn-like peepee was a source of pain and insecurity. My fat, pink rear end became the target of every towel-snapper. “It’s the eunuch! The fat poopy eunuch!” I just couldn’t take it. Showers were mandatory; I would try my best to sneak out showerless, but the coaches would usually catch me and send me back, snapping towels at me themselves. (Et tu, Brute!)

For two long years this was my nightmare. Finally, at thirteen, my day of reckoning came. My parents went to the Orient for a month-long vacation, and enlisted a couple of college students to watch the house and cook for me. “Cooking for me” turned out in short order (so to speak) to mean fixing a peanut butter or bologna sandwich on Wonder bread—or at any rate, something so unappefizing that I would usually pass it on to my little dog Toto. They would go out someplace for dinner and spend the grocery money my parents had provided on themselves. I had forty cents a day for my lunch, but without my mother’s purse, how was I to supply my apple crisp and donut supplements?

I remember studying myself naked in my mother’s full-length dressing room mirror one night, and bursting into tears. Between what there was to see—my sallow, white skin, the disgusting rolls of fat — and what there was to eat, the truth was clear and inescapable: it was diet time.

During the remainder of my parents absence I literally starved myself. I simply went to the other extreme. I ate only celery and carrot sticks. I was determined to become thin and hopefully well-liked and admired. I lost twenty-five pounds in those few weeks. At the same time, puberty finally kicked in, and my metabolism shifted from first gear into overdrive. The fat melted off. The less I fed my stomach, the more I fed my yearning for a beautiful, athletic body like those of the jocks at school who had tortured me daily. My rear end would no longer be used for target practice. I would show them.

I went along to the airport to pick up my parents on their return. My mother got off the plane and walked right by me, not recognizing me at all. When I called out to her and she finally realized it was me, tears welled up in both our eyes simultaneously. She was so proud of me, and for the first time in my life I was proud of myself. No longer was I the fat boy of the class and never would I be again. I was consumed with the willpower I never knew I had.

Aside from my gorilla episodes, my earliest experience with a true-to-life homosexual was at my parents’ country club, which was my stomping ground in my youth. Between the pool and baby pool were lounge chairs and umbrellas where middle-aged women would tan, gossip, count each other’s cellulite pockets, and sip their refreshments—usually something pink and innocent-looking, but loaded with booze. As the afternoon went on, they would slowly get plowed in preparation for their husband’s complaints about a dirty house, the evening’s dinner and the lack of clean underwear. One of the regulars was Dolores Dixon, a pudgy widow with overly frosted hair, pale pink lipstick and dark glasses—the then-fashion-able Liz Taylor look. Dolores usually parked herself on one of the chaises with Blake Gallagher. Blake was an heir to Dubuque’s Gallagher Furniture Company fortune. His primary purpose in life seemed to be to challenge George Hamilton for the gold medal in the suntan Olympics. Rail thin and flawlessly coiffed and sprayed by Duane’s Villa de Coiffure, Blake would lounge with Dolores at pool’s edge for hours on end, deciphering whose husband was sleeping with whose wife and who was seeing a shrink. His suntan oil was spread so think, the glare could penetrate the darkest of Ray-Bans. One day, as my fellow junior high schooler and aspiring gossip Peggy Hauser and I watched this couple only yards away in peak chatter, Peggy suggested I use the pool phone to have Blake paged. Although I knew Peggy to be a troublemaker from birth, the temptation was irresistible. With minimal coaxing from her Pippi Longstockingish grin, I proceeded to the phone and dialed the club number. I heard a pompous “Dubuque Golf and Country Club.” “I’d like to page Blake Gallagher at the pool, please.”

"Certainly, sir, please hold.'

I hung up and scurried back to our perch to wait. Within seconds, “Blake Gallagher, line five-eight, line five-eight” sounded over the loudspeaker.

Blake jerked upright, gasping, “God, Dolores, it’s him!” and swivelled daintily to the phone. He pushed button after button, getting nothing but the dial tone. Peggy and I were fit to explode with laughter as Blake poured out obscenities. On the verge of tears, he retreated to Dolores for consolation.

Despite our ridiculing poor, obvious Blake and his glamorous poolside pose as swinging single and ladies’ ...