The Gay way to Death in the Rose garden

You had to know San Francisco during the war years, for it was a free, open city with hundreds of thousands of teaming figures from all walks of life; from every state in the union, and from ever so many foreign nations descending upon this seaport city of deportation to the Pacific war zones.

Young, fresh pink colored cheek boys hardly out of grade school, tall strong blacks from the Deep South rushing to the west coast to work in Henry J. Kaiser’s shipyards where they built a new liberty ship every couple of days.
Smartly skirted Wacks and Waves of nurses of every description, Red Cross ladies and Salvation Army volunteers serving the canteens and recreational areas of the city which was bursting its seems to accommodate all the arrivals and departures which went on twenty four hours a day, seven days a week…San Francisco had not seen this much action since someone above Placerville called out, Gold, Gold in all the mountains…

The rush was on once again’..Uncle Sam and the red, white and blue smiled down from all the war time posters which were plastered all about the city…Uncle Sam Needs You…She. The enemy is listening….Join up now….Every wall had a different poster to fit the need and call…This was wartime in San Francisco…..

Hollywood’s Robert Taylor was  standing at the lower bar of the Mark Hopkins Hotel awaiting to departure within a few days…George Vanderbilt was on leave from Treasure Islands Naval Base and sleeping at The Palace Hotel. He could afford the luxury away from the islands cramped quarters….Sally’s girls were working on different shifts to accommodate many of the foreign and American Officer’s passing through the city…the bars were filled with fresh young things who left the family farms to work in the accommodation business about the sinful seaport city that did not go to bed till early in the morning..The City Father’s and mostly the military orders were to close the town down until after 12 A.M. as the shipyards had to be staffed, the military back in the barracks..It was one hellava party during those war years that the citizens and visitors will never forget…”Rosie-the-riveter” worked on all the ship parts, and her sisters worked the bars and streets from Broadway to the tenderloin, to Market street, and every hotel bar and lobby…Money changed hands so fast that the paper bills started to wear thin’….Fillmore street without its Jewish haberdasher’s, kosher shops, and second-hand stores became the home and playground that the Negro Zoot-Zooteers, who took over this area after all the Japanese-American citizens were kidnapped and driven out of town to re-location centers, some called them America’s Concentration or detention camps..It was a nasty and bad time for the Japanese-Americans who deserved better, but hysteria ruled the day….Jazz, Swing and Bee bob came into the Fillmore with a vengeance, and not many of the Negro brothers and sisters who were rolling in green from ship yards knew how to save, invest, or plan for the future years ahead when the war would be over and they’d be on the bottom of the totem police once
again..Money came and went with the champagne and booze and broads….This was San Francisco during the war years and everything was on the go’…..

A new and seldom used vernacular was “Do you belong to the club? This was the “secret password” for a slowly and cautiously emerging phenomenon, The Gay Code’….One of homosexual persuasion could not ask a stranger,” Are you Homosexual? Are you one of the lavender boys? Are you a pansy? A Fairy? Noel Coward connotation of “GAY” at that time simply was used in the straight world for what it implied, gay. Jovial, or happy… It was the gay-way at Treasure Island that Sally Rand and her burly-queue nude  cowgirls had the men lined up for blocks, while Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers danced to the Continental tunes in Hollywood’s 30’s and 40’s…Broadway was the gay white way, and the homosexual communities had yet to kidnap, or capture, or own the name “GAY”….America was a straight world, and don’t you forget it…Men were men and women were glad of it  many said…The “Lavender Hill Mobs” had not come out into the open as yet…Our password of recognition, are you a member of the club?...

One of the all powerful newspaper chains was controlled by a homophobic editor who worked with the cops, especially his friends on the Vice Detail who often tried to shake down as many young men in a night as they could handle...Blackmail, extortion, kick-backs, it was all in the days take…Beatings with rubber hoses, fists, and belts was common=place at the dark and dank dungeon Hall of Justice off Kearny streets back alley..Many a head was cracked, broken, and blood ran freely from one poor guy caught by entrapment to another…This was the secret, dark, and ugly side of San Francisco in the 30’s and 40’s & 50’s  with people caught or suspected of being homosexual…..

We never got beyond our first names as we’d often meet at the men’s bar of the “Oak Room” in the St. Francis Hotel... Well dressed. Handsome...Tall, well tailored in a traditional Brooks Bros. Business Suit, I’d stop by once or twice a month. Order my usual brandy after fist placing my English Cigarette tin on the bar, State Express, 555’s...Open the yellow tin top, push back the gold leaf wrapping within the square tin box, and await a curious drinker sitting nearby…It was always a sure opener for conversation, a trick, or ploy I learned when traveling with the young Maharaja from India in 1947 as his Companion-Secretary..In fact, I enjoyed the cigarette, which was grown in Virginia, shipped and packaged in England, and sent back in a handsome tin box with a likewise handsome price…It was my cocktail introduction gimmick, which never failed to attract someone into light conversation and introduction….

I would usually have a couple of drinks, smoke two cigarettes, make conversation and then excuse myself and go to the 11^th floor of the hotel for a massage and steam bath..It was a “straight” steam bath, but most often a guest staying at the hotel would invite a stranger of the evening to is room...This was the safe way to play house’…….

If I were in town for the evening, I’d make the rounds of the bar scene by starting at Eugene Fritz’s “Zebra Room, atop Nob Hill at his Huntington Hotel…George the organist/pianist had a large following of Tre’s Gay elegant gay men customers which more or less took over the room at certain nights, while a second stop most certainly be the lower bar of the Mark Hopkins, leaving the top of the Mark to the tourists..It was San Franciscan’s who adopted the  lower bar, from which a good portion of the “elite-socially gay of the city…It was a skip and a jump down the Powell Hill and over to Stockton Street to the upstairs bar  called “Jim Dolan’s, which rocked with the younger patrons who liked their music and action loud…”The Cuff Link” set of young gay men frequented the 211 Club, an all  white painted night club beneath street level across from the new N. B. C. TV Studios on Taylor Street..White baby grand piano with “Maggie” playing all the Broadway tunes for the handsome young men whose reflections were cast across the all white room from well-placed mirrors...The mood was soft and smooth…..

If you were daring, you might try the raunchy Oak Room Bar on Market street which  was for the older, rough trade, while a few doors up the street,” The Pirates Den, a straight bar where Sally, the darling Jewish pianist tickled the best Broadway tunes in town…It was a straight bar, but Sally loved the “gay kids” and gave warning signs when danger was about….The “Anchor Bar” on the Embarcadero was equal to the “Ensign Bar” down the street, catering the water front types, plus those who craved excitement. The beautiful blonde bombshell Hollywood actress would take the train from L.A. to S.F. on weekends and haunt the water front bars to find  the real rough all male trade…If you were on the town for the evening you just had to dash down to Montgomery street and fight your way through the “Black Cat” Bar Club to hear ‘Jose’ the Operatic Diva in drag… She held court as a real prima-Dona, gathering such visitors as Kerouc, Ginsberg, Actor Steve Cochran, etc..Celebrites of every  description would be cheering and singing  until the lights in the bar would flash on and off, giving warning that the cops,” Gallagher & Murphy” of the Vice Detail were making an entrance. When they went out the door without an arrest, the cheers went up from all the guests…

While America’s first all Male Drag show called Finocchio’s on Broadway was a red carpet mob scene of tourists by the bus load departing in front of its doors to see and hear, and in some cases not believe The Sophie Tucker impersonator, Walter Hart and Lily Pons high falsetto singer Nicky Gallucci were really men, the fabulous Laverne Cummings (Paul Cumming)  knock everyone’s socks off when he hit the spotlight with his own long blonde tresses cascading about his hour glass figure and singing the latest tunes as only a woman could. His cleavage, fabulous gowns, and an eye teasing had most of the female audience sinking beneath their tables while their male dates drooled in miss-belief and high erection’….

Alex wasn’t bragging about the date he was waiting for, but I could see he was really wanting to tell me about his date that was due to arrive shortly…I listened as he described the forthcoming date with a fellow he met one night in the bar…When he finished I  said, “aren’t  you afraid he might be an under-cover cop or even worse…I doubt that I would ever take a stranger to my house, knowing he lived out in the avenues in a family owned house which was left to him by his departed parents ..It’s a bit risky I remember saying to him with some misgivings…. No, the guy looks real solid…A businessman, married, and likes a little extra on the side on the side I guess?This will be our third meeting, do who knows what may come of it he replied with a smile on his face…

Take care I remember saying as I turned from the bar and headed out onto Powell street, after saying good-might to George the bartender, a fellow Greek who worked at the hotel for thirty years or more..He knew the score, but kept a polite silence on what he heard, saw, and guessed was taking place across his bar...He was a gentleman of the old school’…WHAM. It hit me smack in the face as I recognized the large allow passing me at the door of the bar and striding right towards where Alex was sitting...Yep...As I looked back into the bar from the Powell street window, they were already shaking hands and into conversation..The guys an” Under-Cover” cop I remember saying to Alex and myself has fallen right into his trap...I can’t go back and warn him, and George will not take calls at the bar...So what do I do?

It was a few months later when I was giving a wedding breakfast for a dear friend of mine who finally married the man of her dreams, a Police Captain…We were all three sheets to the wind from champagne when her new husband of a few days blurted out about the Cop who struck it rich with one of the Queer boys..Yeah, the guy had him over at his Sunset home after a bit of heavy drinking, and he fell asleep in the guys living room…He woke up with the guy unzipping his fly and he clobbered the fellow with a glass ashtray... The guy never got up of the floor. Wham, one blow, and he was dead dead.

He liked the guy...He didn’t mean to kill him, but he wasn’t going to ruin his marriage, his life on the force and his future...This guy was way out of line, so what could he do but cover it up…

Yeah, he buried him in the fellows rose garden...Kept quiet...Made a few arrangements, and came off with the house in his name...The guy had nobody to leave the house to so everything went well and in order, and he came away with the house.

What a streak of luck…. I asked what avenue was the fellow’s home on after he told me, I knew it was Alex.

No wonder I never saw him again at the St. Francis Oak Room Bar...That was our last drink together, and the poor guys buried under his own rose bushes out in the avenues and the Cop got away with murder, plus  a home….The Detective buried him deep…….
                                                                                                                                          by Cassandra.