In a recent article, World Science, an online magazine, reported that there is “growing evidence linking homosexuality to various addictions and mental illnesses.”  Whether these addictions and illnesses are a natural concomitant of homosexuality or arise because of the treatment that society gives homosexuals was left unanswered.

I have no compelling personal interest in the issues surrounding social acceptance of homosexuality.  Gay rights are neither here nor there for me.  But I have known a number of homosexuals in my life, and my own experience tends to agree with the growing evidence mentioned in the article: that there are disproportionately many neurotic behavior patterns among homosexuals.

As in the five earlier parts of this series, I will biography briefly two homosexual men that I once knew.

I met Michael, then about 25, in the summer of 1983 in front of Bowery Mission on the Bowery, one of the sleaziest streets in Greenwich Village, in New York City.  He arrived with two other men in his age group on a school bus, and headed for the mission, where free food was being provided.  I immediately suspected from their behavior that they were gay.  Later, Michael introduced himself and said right up front that he was gay. 

Michael said he was half Italian and half Jewish, and had grown up in Brooklyn.  I surmise that he had at least a high school education.  At 5’-8” and weighing about 135 pounds, Michael could in no way have been said to be handsome, but he wasn’t ugly either.  For one thing, in the year or so that I knew Michael, he always looked dirty.  Michael was a jabbermouth.  He didn’t stop talking for a minute, from the time you met him till the time you parted.  He fancied that he was a wit, and always kept up a running series of wisecracks.  He also seriously told highly implausible stories.  One of his stories was that he knew a doctor who wrote prescriptions for “speed freaks” and maintained a penny arcade next to his medical office so the “speed freaks” would have a place to hang out.  Another of his stories is that New York homosexuals have a color code.  A pink handkerchief in the pocket means one thing, a blue one means something else, and so forth.  Michael ate at missions and shelters, and slept anywhere he could.  I think he was unemployable because of his neurotically excessive talking.  He also flitted from subject to subject incoherently and senselessly, so he may have been suffering from attention deficit disorder (ADD).  Michael didn’t hesitate to steal, beg or search dumpsters, and often looked for food in garbage cans.  One he contracted ptomaine poisoning or botulism from tainted food he had taken from the trash. Michael drank and took drugs, but not to excess, because his finances were nil.  He also smoked, and begged for cigarettes incessantly.  Michael was a hustler too.  An example would be the time he told Pete, a Greenwich Village regular, that he could get “speed” if Pete would front him $20.  Later he came back empty-handed, saying that he had had to spend the money anyway, but that he’d pay Pete back as soon as he got the money.  Michael got very angry when I told him that I had already told Pete that he had just been hustled.

Patrick, Michael’s lover, also around 25, was apparently of English-Irish extraction and had a BS degree in social work.  At around 6’-0” tall and 180 pounds, Patrick was fairly well-built and handsome.  For one thing, despite the fact he was living on the streets of New York, he was always neat and clean.  He usually wore a short-sleeved white business shirt and black jeans, and you’d never have guessed that he didn’t work in an office or store in the vicinity. 

There was a homeless shelter for men on Ward Island in the East River opposite 105th Street in Manhattan.  The shelter was operated by the Volunteers of America (VOA), under contract with the city of New York.  VOA provided guards, social workers and other personnel.  Patrick had been employed there as one of the social workers until he was caught stealing 5000 subway tokens, worth $4500, from the shelter, whereupon he was dismissed.  So he was on the streets and fell in with Michael.  They were inseparable.

Once, when I had received $100, I bought cigarettes for Patrick and Michael, just as a friendly gesture, but in so doing, I inadvertently let them see the money.  That night while I was asleep, they stole the money from me.  Of course, theft from the person constitutes robbery.  On perhaps the only occasion in my life when going to the police has brought any action, when I had reported the robbery, two plainclothesmen let me lead them to the Quaker church opposite Stuyvesant Park, where I knew Patrick and Michael would be eating free supper.  The police arrested them right in the church, but held them only overnight, because, apparently, they had spent most of the money, and thus the police had no evidence of theft.  The Quaker church considered me persona non grata for causing an arrest to be made in their house of peace, but treated Patrick and Michael like victims if not heroes.

After that, Patrick and Michael conducted a mini-vendetta against me.  Michael came to me with the wild story that he had consulted a lawyer and was going to sue me, but it would be only a pro forma suit.  No damages would be sought or awarded.  However, he needed my Social Security number.  I think that he was speculating that there was an outstanding warrant for my arrest, and by reporting me he would cause my incarceration.  But he was misguided in that regard.  I gave him the number though.  If anyone had thought he could get anything out of my SS number at the time, I’d have said, “Go for it!”

Patrick, for his part, resorted to shouting obscenities at me from a distance when he saw me on the street.

With this sixth part, I have outlined activities that strike me as very irregular and unwholesome, even among street people.  One can be destitute and desperate without engaging in activities of this sort.

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