CHAPTER II

The Musician/Scholar

Despite the bizarre nature of my home environment two things helped me to survive: music and education. At age six I discovered the accordion and began to study music. I was a natural talent and I began to practice compulsively, night and day, every moment I was not at school. I had no idea I was using my music to escape my family. Be that as it may, the many long hours of practice over the years produced an exceptionally fine accordionist, and later pipe organist. It is revealing that I always chose instruments played by a solo player, where both performance and practice were done alone. I provided myself a built-in excuse to be an isolated loner. When I was playing music I earned the respect and esteem and admiration of others, something I desperately wanted. Music made me a somebody instead of a hick son of a crazy fundamentalist preacher. Through music I could enter into a different reality far removed from the insipid one I had been given by the God who thought that all I deserved was punishment.

One significant side benefit to the musician rôle was that it provided me a ready excuse to get out of the house at least once or twice each year to visit my older sister, Betty, in Los Angeles. Since she was a musician and had both a lovely piano and a professional quality organ, it was natural that I would gravitate towards her. It was not until much later that I was to realize that I was using her just like I was using my music and my studies—as a tool to mood alter my pain and escape my reality. Not only could I visit Betty for weeks at a time, she always had liquor available—something that was never allowed at home. By the time I was a teenager, my sister discovered that when I came to visit her bottle of vodka which would last her for weeks would be empty within a few days of my arrival. I had discovered yet another way to mood alter my pain—an easily-available analgesic and anæsthetic—booze.  The other survival tool I discovered was the image of an intellectual scholar, a rôle which presented itself naturally, since I was a very gifted, bright child. The ease with which I achieved intellectual superiority over my fellow students reinforced my isolation and near-total social estrangement, as well as a growing sense of uniqueness. I tried to convince myself that I didn’t want any friends. But in truth I wanted friends desperately. But I was the brilliant egg-head who always got straight A’s and played music. The other children either ignored me or hated me. Even a casual friendship was a rarity.  Another issue was my gross obesity. My nicknames included fatty, blob and others too painful to record. The only respite from my pain both at home and at school was my fantasy of being a genius musician. I knew I would be all right if I could become the image of my fantasy, and I lived for that image. Practice time began well before dawn and lasted until time for school; it began again the moment I got home from school and lasted until bed time. Needless to say, I became a very accomplished musician as a child.

The library was my weekend salvation for many years. The librarians all knew the little boy who dutifully showed up every Saturday morning with an armload of books—all of the books they would allow me to check out. My tastes were quite catholic, ranging from ancient history to magic and illusion; from archaeology to fiction. Books were an escape to a land of fantasy. In the summer I augmented my excursions to the library by signing up for summer school. I was usually the only one in the class voluntarily. Not only did summer school get me out of my home, but it allowed me to dispose of required courses so I could take more music classes during the regular year. The images of the hyper-achiever, intellectual genius, child prodigy musician were the survival tools which enabled me to survive life in the insane asylum of an incestuous, drug addicted religion freak and an MS-ridden, hyper-controlling invalid.  While "The Scholar" was a way to survive the asylum, it was a major and growing obstacle to any ability at peer group socialization skills. My teachers all loved me and gave me special privileges; the students hated me and ostracized me. While it was a rarity for me to ever receive a grade less than "A," it was equally rare for me to have a friend of my own age. While other kids were out learning the skills necessary to work, play and love in the "real world" (whatever that is) of competition and relatedness, I was busy building a fantasy world in isolation. Now please understand, dear reader, that these observations are being written over thirty years, many shrinks, hundreds of gallons of booze, a rehab and fifteen years of sobriety after the fact. As a little boy I had no idea that I lived in an insane asylum; that my family was not "normal" (whatever that is); that I should have sought outside help from a teacher or a school counselor. They all thought I was just fine. After all, I got straight "A"s, didn’t I? How could I be in trouble? While "Life With Father" was more like "One Flew Over the Cuckoos’ Nest," there wasn’t even a "Nurse Ratched;" the inmates ran the asylum. Furthermore, as a dependent little boy, I had to believe that mom and dad were okay and that they would be there for me. There was no one else. My hyper-intellectual, creative genius persona was my ticket out of the "Cuckoos’ Nest—out of reality and into "Fantasy Island", a place which would be my home for thirty years, until sobriety would bring me back from "Fantasy Island," my own private, terrifying Lord of the Flies, to discover for the first time the real world.During this same period of time, when I did have to interact with daddy (mom was still bed-ridden most of the time), I did learn some very important things about relationships with men, particularly men who love me and whom I love. First, don’t trust. My own violation destroyed any ability to trust—particularly men. Today’s confidence becomes tomorrow’s ammunition. Admission of any weakness becomes the target for humiliating, shameful exposure. Never, ever admit to anything. Second, I learned never to allow anyone, particularly men, to get too close—close enough to know what is going on inside of me. That’s too dangerous, far too risky. And that, dear reader, is one hell of a predicament for a young man who, at the age of nineteen was to awaken to the realization that he was sexually attracted to men—that he was gay.  The twin rôles of musician and scholar were to dominate my self image for all of my twenties and at least half of the decade of my thirties. Not only did they provide an escape from my family when I was still living at home, but they also provided me a way to generate a sense of accomplishment—a sense of self worth. Since my teenage years began, I had fallen heir to the job of being mom and dad’s caretaker. As they degenerated, both physically and mentally, someone had to hold things together, and Betty, Bob and Kenneth wanted nothing to do with either mom or dad. The only way I could get any attention at all was through the applause of a concert audience. After high school I continued my undergraduate education as a music student at the local four-year state college, moving out in my freshman year into an apartment I shared with a tenor voice student who also sang with me in the university concert choir. While I had physically moved out of my parents’ home, I had only moved across town, still close enough to be the local caretaker child. After living with my friend, Michael, for about a month, I made a discovery that frightened me like nothing I had ever known—we had fallen in love.When the reality finally hit that I was gay, all I could think of was all the hell fire sermons dad had preached. I was one of those grotesquely perverted freaks. Had I chosen it? I didn’t think so. But the feelings were undeniably real. I wanted to stop them, but I couldn’t do it. I finally, in desperation and confused pain and guilt, called dad and told him the truth, asking, pleading for help and support. He called me a sick pervert. Invariably, at the times when I needed support the most I was degraded the worst. We did not speak for at least a year. The only other family member I spoke to was my sister, Betty. She at least listened, but could only suggest psychotherapy to "fix" my "problem."One night that first semester I made yet another discovery which was to change the course of my life—I discovered wine and pot. While the relief from pain was magical from marijuana, wine won hands down. My first drink turned out to be my first drunk and my first blackout. I later learned that I was a "primary alcoholic". That is, I had little or no developmental state in the formation of my addiction. I was thoroughly hooked from day one and used alcohol addictively from the very beginning. There was no lengthy period of "social drinking" for me. I drank from then on for the understood purpose of getting drunk and either blacking out or passing out.  Alcohol became the end objective of all my activities, the great reward. It made the pain go away while it magically erased the sinful guilt of my emerging sexual identity. After Michael and I broke up in painful, agonizing misery, alcohol removed my inhibitions and helped me to discover bath houses and anonymous, faceless, nameless sex. Three, four, five or even six partners in a single night was common. The only problem was drinking enough to feel good without passing out. I learned to walk that line very well. The anonymity of the sex was its attraction. I was incapable of any real, trusting relationship, and all I wanted was the fleeting sensation of merging with another body in physical, sexual release of foreplay and orgasm. I knew no names--and didn't want to know any. The bars were popular, but not for me. Bars were for people looking for lovers, but the baths were for people like me. I preferred to drink alone unless I wanted sex.

By the end of my freshman year I discovered that I was very good as a jazz musician. Before long I was playing five nights each week--Tuesday through Saturday, ten o'clock at night until two o'clock in the morning. In order to manage to get to my morning classes I discovered whites--Benzedrine. I went to sleep with booze and woke up with three or four Bennies and half a pot of coffee. By the end of my sophomore year, I was so burned out from sheer exhaustion that I had to take a year off from school, ostensibly to rest, in reality to party.

Amazingly, through the entirety of my undergraduate schooling, off and on as it was, I continued to grow as a concert artist pipe organist. By the time I had completed my undergraduate program I had already begun to study with a Stanford University professor of pipe organ, and within three years after I had left the state university I was under concert management and touring as a pipe organ recitalist, playing in churches, cathedrals and schools as well as local and community concert series engagements. During this period, as I adjusted to life out of a suit case, I discovered three things: room service, expense accounts, and solitary drinking in hotel rooms. Solitary drinking became more and more my preferred way to get drunk. Quickly, however, I discovered that I could not play a recital performance without abstaining for one-to-two days from alcohol. The discipline was painful, but I did it. However, as a concession to my friend, my bottle, I had a special tuxedo jacket tailored with an inside pocket designed to fit a flask. Before the last of the applause had died down, I was in the sacristy room, out of view of the public, taking a badly-needed drink from my pocket flask. After two-and-one-half years of this routine, I was so sick and so exhausted that I quit the profession entirely, went back home to the Bay Area, and decided to retrain in the computer industry.

Before continuing the story, let me backtrack and share some thoughts about religion and faith. When I reached college age I had long refused to go to church or to have anything to do with religion. God was on daddy's side, and I wanted nothing to do with either of them. The thought of church repulsed me. God was condemning, condescending, and represented an unapproachable, all-perfect image--which may sound a trifling bit like my description of my condescending, condemning, hell-fire-and-brimstone preacher of a father. I was a failure and an embarrassment to my father; likewise to God. I was a freak to daddy; likewise to God. I couldn't stand either one.

However, if one is a classical pipe organist, and if one wants to work, one is very likely going to wind up with a post in a church somewhere, someday. In a concession to the inevitable, I took a job as organist and choirmaster first in a Lutheran church and then in an Episcopal church. Knowing nothing about this form of worship, I was immediately struck with its artistic beauty. It had all the beauty of the old Roman Catholic mass, but it was (or so I thought) protestant--this was a distinct advantage, as I had grown up thinking Catholics were next to Satan himself. Furthermore, as a gay man, I felt completely at home in the Episcopal environment. After all, being gay was almost a prerequisite if one was a male pipe organist in the Episcopal church. It was almost expected. Even those who did not like the idea at least tolerated it with polite though feigned ignorance. I got to parade around in fancy dresses with total impunity. Meeting with gay men no longer required that I patronize gay establishments on the wrong side of the tracks. All I had to do was go to church on Sunday. Furthermore, they had parish parties with booze flowing! I was in my glory. So, I became baptized and confirmed Episcopalian.

It was at this time that I met G. Jerome Stickney, a member of my parish, and the most loving, grand-fatherly man I had ever known. I wound up being a regular guest at G. Jerome's lovely Victorian home. Being a very socially educated man and coming from old, east coast money, G. Jerome taught me much about graciousness and elegance. We drank together, made jokes about being alcoholics together, and became fast friends, though non-sexual. I think that part of my ability to be close to him was our age difference. I was not concerned about sex coming into the picture despite the fact that G. Jerome was gay, since he was much older than me. I was his social protégé and he was the grandfather I had never known. I loved him to the extent that I was capable at that time. It is worth noting that already by this time I knew and admitted I was alcoholic. I just did not admit that I was powerless over alcohol--or anything else either. Curiously, at this same time my thoughts about God began to soften. I began to question the ideas with which I was brainwashed as a child. God became not so frightening, not so condemning. I almost let myself believe that it might be possible that I would not burn in hell forever for being gay. G. Jerome was a healing man in my young adult life. He died of cancer in the space of less than six months from his diagnosis. To this day I wonder if it really was cancer. Those were the early days of the AIDS crisis, and I still wonder if G. Jerome did not do as many did in those days, and invent an acceptable diagnosis in place of the unacceptable one.