The Boy Named Angel

When I was in grade school, I had a regular boyfriend, but I liked lots of  other boys: Craig, who sat next to me in class; Joel, who also liked looking at boys with muscles; Robbie, a hookup at the bookmobile one summer: and David Angel.

Not the David Angell who produced Cheers and Frasier.  A slim, shy boy, puppy-dog cute, with dark hair and dark blue eyes and nice hands.  We played occasionally, but never became friends, I think because there were so many bigger, bolder guys around.  It was one of those relationships that might have gone somewhere, but didn't.

I have three good memories of David:

1. One day at recess we all decided to take nicknames.  David wanted "Muscles."
"But you don't have any muscles!" I protested.
"Sure I do. I'm real strong!  Feel."
He flexed a small, hard bicep.  I cupped it with my hand.
"You're right.  It's really big."  Flushed with an warmth that I didn't understand, I moved quickly away.

2. In the spring of sixth grade, shortly after we went to "A Little Bit O'Heaven," Joel invited some of us over for a sleepover.  His small twin bed was only big enough for two; everyone else had to make do with sleeping bags.  We spent the evening wondering who would be the Fifth Boy, the boy invited to share Joel's bed.

At bedtime, Joel said "Everybody else here has been in my bed before, so it's David's turn."

My heart sank.  I wanted to be the one!

"That's ok -- I like the floor," David said.  "Why don't you let Boomer?"

Joel glared at him, and my boyfriend Bill glared at me, but neither of them could say anything as I took my place beside Joel.

3. In junior high, we had gym class together, and I got one of my first sausage sightings of David in the shower.

And three bad memories:

1. We were playing once when a middle-aged woman, presumably his mother, appeared.  "Your father won't let me back in the house," she told David.  "There's food cooking -- I need you to turn the stove off, so it won't burn."  Weird and creepy.

2. David never invited anyone over to his house to play or watch cartoons.  We were intimately familiar with every other house in the neighborhood, but not his. So one day Bill and I knocked on the door, ostensibly to invite him to go to Schneider's and look at comic books, but really to get a glimpse inside.

He came to the door, pale and nervous.  "Are you nuts?" he whispered.  "You can't be here!  My Dad sleeps during the day!"

"We were just..."

"Get out!" he whispered.  "Get lost!"

3. One day in junior high gym class, David was stripping down, and I saw a large red-and-purple bruise on his chest.

"Wow, how did you get that?" I asked.

"What, this?"  He quickly covered it up.  "That's nothing.  We were just playing around.  It happens to everybody."

"Who was playing around?"

"Um...my cousin and me.  Just playing around, no big deal."

I couldn't imagine what kind of playing around might cause a bruise like that.

Ok, I get it now: these are obvious signs of domestic and child abuse.  But what kid in the 1970s would think of that?

And one mixed memory:

During our senior year in high school, Bill told me that  David went crazy.  All of a sudden he forgot to how speak English, and he only knew a few words of Spanish, so he started yelling "Te amo!  Te amo!  Te amo!"

We went to visit him at the East Moline State Mental Hospital.  We were directed to a big, airy room where patients in bathrobes were playing pingpong and foosball.  At the far end, several sat on chairs watching One Life to Live.  

David was sitting on a white couch, in a t-shirt and pajama bottoms, laughing over a paperback edition of Tom Sawyer.  I hadn't seen him, except in passing, since junior high gym class -- my first thought was "He's gotten really muscular!"  He had a hard, smooth chest and thick biceps. He still had a shy, wounded puppy-dog expression.

But he didn't act shy or wounded!

"Hi, guys!"  he exclaimed.  "Rapley let you out early, huh?"

Bill and I glanced at each other.  Mrs. Rapley was our fifth grade teacher.

David laughed.  "I'm just joking with you.  I know what year it is.  Let's have a hug."

He stood and gave us each a bear hug, and sat us down on either side of him.

"So, what's new with you guys?  You still an item?"

"An item?" Bill repeated.  "What...what do you mean?"

"An item -- you know, like giving each other flowers and chocolates and carving your names into trees with little hearts!"

My face burned.  "David, you know that we're both boys, right?"

"Come on, Boomer, you know the soul doesn't have a gender.  We're infinite beings trapped in one-dimensional bodies, so what does it matter if you have the same plumbing?  Get married already, march down that aisle.  God knows you were meant for each other!"

"What are you talking about?" Bill asked in a curt, angry tone.

"David is confused," I told him.  "He doesn't mean to imply anything."

"Hey, just because I'm crazy doesn't mean I can't see what's right in front of my eyes!  Now you gonna kiss, or what?"

"Um..actually, we broke up awhile ago."  I figured that was the only way to end the uncomfortable conversation.

"Yeah.  We're still friends, of course, but we're dating other...um...guys now."

"That's too bad.  You make such a cute couple! Maybe you'll find each other again later on, in your next life."

We chatted for awhile longer, about other things, and then left.  In the parking lot, Bill said "Wow, David is worse than I thought!"

"Completely delusional!  Where'd he ever get the idea that we were...you know?"

"Next he'll be claiming that we're little green men from Mars!"

Two months later, I finally discovered what David had known all along.

The adults are lying -- only real is real.
We stop the fight right now -- we got to be what we feel.

I recently tracked down David again, thanks to Facebook.  He moved to Missouri to stay with his aunt and uncle, graduated from high school a year late, studied biology in college, and worked in a zoo.  Later he moved to Denver and became a dog trainer.  He still suffers from anxiety and depression, but he is taking medication.  He is heterosexual but has never married.  

No post mentions an abusive parent.

Cruising at the Bookmobile

Other kids spent the summer waiting anxiously for the ice cream truck.  I spent the summer waiting anxiously for the bookmobile.

Back in the days before the internet, there were hundreds of bookmobiles, vans carrying an assortment of books for those underprivileged readers who couldn't get to the public library.  Such as kids.

 You could check out up to 3 books at a time, and keep them for two weeks. If you read 10 during the summer, you got a prize.

I don't remember any of the prizes, but I remember the books.  Some of my top childhood favorites came from the bookmobile, like  My Village Books of Sonia and Tim Gidal,  The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, Tom Sawyer, and the boys' adventure books of Robert Louis Stevenson.

The bookmobile pulled into the parking lot of Denkmann Elementary School every Tuesday morning at about 10:00 am. Other neighborhood bookworms had to wait on the blacktop.  I could hear it coming from inside the house, and then run over.

But soon I discovered a reason to wait with the others: the bookmobile was a good place for cruising.

I met a lot of cute guys while cruising at the bookmobile. Like Greg, the Boy Vampire who gave me my first kiss.  Joel, the curly-haired soccer player who came with me to A Little Bit O'Heaven.

And Robbie, a dark-haired boy wearing a red muscle shirt.

I was only about 10 years old, but I already knew the rules of gay cruising:

1. Select a venue with mostly guys.  Check.  The early birds were usually boys; girls came later.

2. Cruise early. Check. The bookmobile came in the morning.

3. Cruise with a buddy.  No, I went by myself.


4. Do not drink while cruising.  Check. I hadn't had any soda or candy all day, in case a cute boy invited me to Dewey's Candy Store.

5. Gather information. Check.  Robbie was waiting to check out a book on caves, because he was going to Mammoth Caves in Kentucky with his parents later that summer.  He was a Cute Young Thing, a year younger than me.  He liked Star Trek, and his favorite subject was math.

6. Don't discuss sizes or acts.  Nope.  I definitely asked about his size: "You have really big muscles.  How strong are you?"

7. Word the invitation carefully.  If you invite him to do something specific in the future, it's a romance. Something vague in the future, it's a friendship.  Something vague right now, it's a hookup.

After we checked out our books, I asked, "Wanna play?"

Hookup.


8. Invite him to your place.  Check.

9. Take your own cars.  Well, we were walking.

10. Make sure someone knows where you are. Check. My Mom was upstairs.

11. Clean your house in advance.  Mom always had the house clean.

12. Hide your valuables.  I was a kid.  I didn't have any valuables.

13. Bring condoms.  Um...I was a kid.  We sat on my bed to look at our books, then we played space explorers in the back yard. I did get to feel his biceps.

14. Don't kick him out afterwards.  Check. Robbie stayed for lunch.  Mom made us hot dogs and potato chips.

15. Don't pretend you want a relationship.  Check. I didn't give him my phone number.

I saw him at the bookmobile a few times after that.  We talked politely, but I didn't ask him over again.

Not a friendship.  Not a relationship.  Just play.

Donnie's Gay Sex Party with Jack Wild and Sid Kroft

Jack Wild (1952-2006) was the teen star of the Saturday morning life action show H.R. Pufnstuf, about a boy trapped in a distant magical land with a friendly dragon and a cranky old witch.  Gay subtexts abounded, and Jack, short, slim, androgynous, and cherubic-cute, became every gay boy's fantasy boyfriend.

After Pufnstuf, Jack's star quickly faded.  His later years were plagued by poverty, depression, alcoholism, diabetes, and finally cancer.  He was apparently heterosexual, with two long-term marriages and no gay hookup or dating stories, until this one, which is really about Sid Krofft:

Born Sydas Yodas in Greece in 1929, Sid became interested in puppeteering at an early age, and by 1948, he was touring with a  one-man puppet show, "The Unusual World of Sid Krofft," across Europe and the United States.  In 1957, while opening for Judy Garland, Sid found that he needed another puppeteer, so he enlisted his younger brother Moshopopulos or Marty (born 1937).

Soon they were busily working their puppeteering magic in film and on tv.  Given an opportunity to develop a Saturday morning children's series, they decided to make antagonists of H.R. Pufnstuf, a "friendly dragon" they introduced at the 1968 World's Fair, and the zany witch Witchiepoo from their stage play.  The two forces, good against evil, would be fighting over control of a lost boy and his...um...magic flute (Sid was a big fan of magic flutes).

Watching a rough cut of the movie version of Oliver! (1968), Sid decided that Jack Wild, the Cockney child actor playing The Artful Dodger, would be perfect as the young boy.  But how to get him to move to America for an extended commitment?

"I'll be his guardian in America," Sid offered.

"Not a chance!" Marty exclaimed.  "Your pad is not a suitable place for a young boy."  Although Sid was 39 years old, he had fully embraced the youth counterculture.  His four-bedroom "pad" in West Hollywood had psychedelic posters, strobe lights, and lava lamps, and it was constantly crowded with long-haired, tie-dyed Cute Young Things of both sexes.

Marty didn't ask which, if any, Sid was shacking up with.  He loved his brother, of course, and he had a live-and-let live attitude toward sexual oddities, but...he didn't need the details.

"I'll be his guardian," Marty offered.  "I have a wife and young children.  It will be a stable family environment."

Marty lived to regret that decision.

The 16-year old arrived in Hollywood in the summer of 1969, moved in with Marty, and proceeded to raise hell.

Jack was cheerful, energetic, and very cute, but a handful.  He came and went as he pleased; on the night of his 17th birthday, he skipped his party and stayed out all night!  He never followed house rules.  Marty had young children in the house, and he didn't like Jack bringing his hippie friends in to drink and smoke pot.

Hollywood, December 1969

Donnie was a 19-year old UCLA student, working as a gopher for the Kroffts: he got coffee, delivered scripts, and acted as best friend/handler to Jack Wild.

Today Jack would probably be fired for multiple instances of  sexual harassment.  He put the moves on everybody, male and female, young and old -- he even kept "accidentally" groping the H.R. Pufnstuf puppet, with a mortified Roberto Gamonet inside.

"You and me, yeah?" Jack said once, putting his arm around Donnie's waist and "accidentally" hitting his butt.  "Two mates, a little snogging.  Nothing wrong with that."

"You're only 17.  I'm in college. Besides, I'm not queer" Donnie said.  He was gay but not out, and he didn't want to get outed by tricking with the unpredictable star.

Jack flew back to England for Christmas, but returned on the 28th -- Donnie had to pick him up at the airport.  The next day, he dropped in to Sid's house to get his approval on something or other, and the Cute Young Thing who answered the door directed him to the master bedroom.

It was well after noon,so Don assumed that Sid was working in bed.  He thought nothing of it -- he knocked once and went in.




The room was semi-dark, light coming from a flashing strobe light.  All the sheets and blankets were torn off the bed, leaving a bare mattress.  Sid was lying on his back, between two Cute Young Things. One was going down on him -- Donnie could see only the back of his head.  The other was beating off while Sid cuddled him -- Jack Wild, the star of the show.

"What the hell!" Donnie exclaimed.

Jack looked up, grinned, and held out his penis. "Welcome back party, right?  Room for one more."

Donnie was a little worried that if he didn't demonstrate he was "cool" by participating, Jack would get him fired.  But to be honest, he was majorly turned on. Ever since the proposition, he had been fantasizing about the young star and his equipment -- a very hard 6-incher.  So after a moment of thought, he walked forward, knelt, and went down on Jack.

"That's it," Jack said.  "Do it like that, mate.  You're good, man...bloody good, you know that?"

After a few minutes, Jack pushed his head away.  "Too much for me, man.  Do Sid, while I watch."

Donnie wasn't attracted to old guys, and Sid had a very thick 8", bigger than he had ever been with before.  So after licking the head for a few moments, he tore off his shirt and pants and went down on the Cute Young Thing -- thin, short brown hair, a couple of tattoes, ruddy uncut 7".

Sid had his arm around Jack and was beating him off.  Donnie thought it odd that they weren't kissing; to give them an example, he raised up, pushed the Cute Young Thing down on the bed, and kissed him.  Soon they were doing the Princeton rub.

"Oi, a coupla lover-birds," Jack said.  "But you forgot the job I gave you.  Sid needs some attention, right?"

 Donnie reluctantly left the Cute Young Thing and went down on Sid.  The 8" gagged him; he started to cough. He resorted to sucking just the head while masturbating the shaft.  After a few minutes, Sid unexpectedly spurted down his throat.

Donnie ran down to the bathroom to spit out his load and wash his mouth out, and returned for his clothes.  Jack had finished and was wiping off with a sheet. The Cute Young Thing, still aroused, was smoking a joint.

"Give me a ride to Spiro's, that's the bloke," Jack said.  "And maybe there'll be some naughty bits waiting for you later."

But Donnie didn't hook up with Jack again, or with Sid.  He was too worried about being arrested -- gay sex was illegal in California until 1976 -- or losing his job -- or being outed as "queer" to his family.  And a couple of months later, after finishing the last episode and cobbling together the H.R. Pufnstuf feature film, Jack Wild was back in England.

Donnie stayed with the Kroffts during his last two years at  UCLA, through the Bugaloos and Lidsville, and he sometimes dropped in to say "hello" when they were working on Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, and Land of the Lost.  He noticed with some amusement that all of their tv series starred cute gay or bi boys.

Was Donnie Telling the Truth?

This story is actually from a friend of my friend David in San Francisco, who dated Donnie during the 1980s.  So it's third hand, and fifty years after the fact.

Sid Krofft has never been linked with any romantic partner, male or female.  He's probably gay: in 2006 he opened a nightclub on the corner of Santa Monica and Larrabee, the heart of West Hollywood (where the Different Light Bookstore used to be), featuring muscular go-go boys in cages.  

But an orgy with the 17-year old star of his tv show, basically his employee, is another matter.  Jack Wild's autobiography says nothing about any same-sex activity.

Could it have been someone else, transformed into Jack Wild through years of retelling?  Or did Jack's wild past involve sex with the boss?

See also: Pufnstuf