In hindsight he could have been nothing other than an angel come to me to keep my sorry alcoholic ass from being another 1980’s New York City crime statistic and perhaps AIDS fatality. Tall, caramel color skin, slightly pockmarked face from adolescence acne. He floated into my life, and then a brief time later, disappeared. I knew better than to spend time searching for him, instinctively aware that a quest would be frustrating and fruitless.
A few months earlier I had been transferred to NYC, spent the first month living in a corporate midtown apartment until a found my own place in the tenement blocks of the upper east side, neither near Central Park nor the East River. There were two neighborhood establishments that catered to a gay clientele, the piano bar on 84th street, and for a brief time, a dive bar on 3rd Avenue. I used to get a big kick going there, having arrived from Denver, which had real “western” bars, this place would bring in bales of hay and dried corn stalks for decoration.
My daily routine at that time was simple, get off the subway, go into the liquor store, buy a quart of vodka, go home and drink half, then go to either of the two bars for a few beers hoping to pick up someone, anyone, but given my unhappy and sloppy state, that never happened. Until the day Kendall, as the angel named himself, walked in.
“Hi!” I looked up to see such a handsome guy taking me in, “can I sit here?” Indicating the bar stool next to mine.
“Sure, I mean please do,” I responded, then trying to be witty, “it’s more comfortable than that hay bale over there!” He smiled and my heart melted.
He put out his large hand, which I shook eagerly. “Zintis”, I said, “my name is Zintis, but you can call me Z if you like.”
“Zintis”, he replied, “beautiful”.
Shortly we were dancing on the tiny corner dance floor, two tall guys, late twenties, one dark and the other light. We were physical, holding hands, touching each other, making steady eye contact, laughing. I was floating and desperately hoping that he was also. The experience had a bit of sobering effect, and I was definitely regretting the earlier vodka. As far as I knew, he drank nothing, not there, not at my apartment later that night.
“Let’s go to your place”, he whispered (loudly over the music) into my ear.
“Yes, let’s, it’s only a few blocks from here.”
As we left the building, I checked my pocket for keys, not having quite recovered from the incident I barely survived about a month before. The night when I was so drunk that I had rolled around with some guy on the grass at Carl Shurz, or as most people called it, Gracie Mansion Park, another known nighttime hangout for queers. That same guy who, by then had already lifted my wallet and keys had suddenly announced that he had a place where we could go.
The cab (that he paid for with the stolen cash) took us deep into Central Harlem, where upon exiting, the guy disappeared into a shady-looking building, telling me to wait, that he’d be down shortly. I waited, and waited, and eventually discovered the theft. I took inventory, half a pack of cigarettes, lighter, some small change. For good measure I waited longer, but soon enough realized that I was going to be walking back to 88th street. The only saving grace from this experience was that I had a friend staying with me, so around 3:00 AM I roused her and she let me in.
The following day at work I got a phone call from a woman who, while putting dog doo-doo into a park trash can had found my wallet. I thanked her profusely, offered a reward, but she kept wanting to know how my wallet ended up where all the “queers hung out at night”. I tried not to get pissed, but it was difficult.
Kendall slung his arm over my shoulder, and we purposefully walked the short distance and up the stairs to my 4th floor walk-up. Then we kissed and kissed and kissed and kissed some more and got naked and were up most of the night.
At one point, he held me down, looked me directly into the eyes and gently said: “You drink too much.” Just those four words that I had heard before from well-meaning friends. This time they seemed to register somewhere deep inside.
He said that he was a messenger for some downtown company. I was a manager at a mid-town architectural firm. We shared a giddy subway ride until I disembarked at the Grand Central station. He had my business card and promised to call.
After a couple of days, he called! And invited me to have Thanksgiving dinner with him at his place. I was flying with joy. “You drink too much.” I couldn’t scrub that memory, nor did I want to. The day before the Holiday, I invited my assistant out to lunch, and we each had several drinks. That evening, at home I guzzled as much of everything alcoholic, mixing the strong stuff with beer and even wine as I was able, and then poured whatever remained into the kitchen sink. Thanksgiving morning I woke with the expected severe hangover.
The day dragged, but eventually I dressed nicely, sexily, and headed to the address he’d given, in the 100’s east side. Eventually I realized that I was heading into a housing project, but that didn’t matter. I was going to see my angel again!
The apartment was excessively tidy and really, truly didn’t look as though it belonged to a young man. “Who lives here,” I asked.
“My grandmother, she let me use it this evening.”
It sort of made sense, but also rather didn’t. We sat at a small table, and he served each of us a turkey breast, vegetables and sparkling water.
He showed me drawings that he had done, “I’m going to be a fashion designer.”
“Nice.”
As much as I was enjoying myself, a part of me already plotting how on my way home, whenever that was, I would stop at the bar where we had met and have at least one drink. “You drink too much.”
Eventually, he said: “Let’s go back to your place.”
I was thrilled and dismayed, already eagerly anticipating the lovemaking, yet knowing that I wouldn’t get that drink.
We stayed up late, talking, kissing, being naked. I was making future plans, he was probably quiet, but I didn’t notice. The next morning, he was gone, a neatly written note on the kitchen table: “Good luck, friend.”
Heartbroken as I was, I drank my coffee thinking about the fact that the day before had been the first in many years that I hadn’t had any alcohol. “You drink too much.” The challenge was there, if I could go one day, I could go two.
The office was closed that day, but I took the subway down to Grand Central anyway and went into Dick’s Sporting Goods, bought myself some 10-pound weights to start getting my body back. Later I went to Gristedes and bought healthy food. On Saturday I went jogging around the Central Park Reservoir.
I had no phone number for Kendall and instinctively knew that I wouldn’t go to the apartment in East Harlem. The angel had shown me a way out, and I still love him immensely.
The events in this story are true, and I have been sober for more than 14,000 days.