The Tomcat Chronicles

Erotic Adventures of a Gay Liberation Pioneer

Jack Nichols

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781560234876
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136573279
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

An uncensored road trip through gay American life in the early sixties!

Jack Nichols is now known as a founding father of the gay and lesbian liberation movement, editor of GAY (the first gay weekly newspaper), co-founder of the Mattachine Societies of Washington, DC, and Florida, and a warrior who broke ground for gay equality. In his early twenties, however, he was dedicated to romance, ardor, and wanderlust-living the life of a gypsy and making love with abandon.


"MORE EXCITING THAN THE WILDEST FICTION. . . . Jack takes his reader on the road with him (Jack often hitchhiking in only T-shirt and jeans) where he encounters, beds down (and sometimes hustles) dozens of attractive 'numbers' who come his way."- Donn Teal, Author of The Gay Militants: 1971 & 1994

"This might be called Jack Nichols' version of Kerouac's beat classic On the Road. With a variety of companions, and with little money in his pocket, in the early 60s, he drove, hitchhiked, rode buses, and even walked for a couple of long stretches from Washington, DC, to New York and then through West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois. He recalls in considerable detail a variety of individuals with whom he had erotic encounters. The title The Tomcat Chronicles is fully descriptive."
- Vern L. Bullough, PhD, RN, Editor of Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context

"Jack Nichols, the gay liberation pioneer, has been a lifelong friend who helped to illuminate my concept of homophobia. Oscar Wilde believed one's life should be a work of art. Jack's life, which has always combined courage, social awareness and sexual passion, is certainly such a work."
- George Weinberg, PhD, Author of Society and the Healthy Homosexual and 13 other books (the psychotherapist credited with coining the term homophobia)

"THE VIVID DETAIL AND GRACEFUL PROSE THAT CHARACTERIZE THE WRITING OF JACK NICHOLS open a window into a time long before gay men appeared weekly on tv or before anti-sodomy laws had been banned."
- Rodger Streitmatter, PhD, Author of Unspeakable: The Rise of the Gay and Lesbian Press in America

"The Tomcat Chronicles is a gay pioneer's version of City of Night."
- James T. Sears, PhD, Author of Rebels, Rubyfruit, and Rhinestones: Queering Space in the Stonewall South; Editor of the Journal of Gay & Lesbian Issues in Education (from the Foreword)

Chapter 1

I was to have a two-week vacation on the beach, a short recess from city jitters and the philandering lover I’d left behind. I stayed in a relative’s beachfront home, reducing vacation expenses, but I had to be home each evening for supper at six. Late-night barhopping was out of the question. I consoled myself with the prospects of a good tan.

My first day wandering at the ocean’s edge found me nearly alone. Tourist season was still two months away. I thought about my lover, Tom, at home in the capital city, working himself to the bone and loving every minute of it. Tom seemed to live for two things: his job and those he called his tricks. I’d lived with him four years, since I was nineteen. Tom was five years older than I and, it seemed, had grown tired of monogamy. I felt abandoned but was determined not to let it get me down. I’d be certain to meet someone who’d appreciate me. Such a someone might be difficult to find, but not impossible. In times such as these I’d developed special ways of picking up my own spirits: choosing songs with lyrics that bolstered self-confidence and singing them aloud to myself as I did now, walking ankle deep through the waves:

Men cluster to me like moths around a flame

And if their wings burn, I know I’m not to blame

At twenty-three I didn’t really feel quite as confident as this Dietrich lyric, but repeating the words seemed to help. I’d seen old movies with Marlene at the helm, and I’d always admired her independent stance. She knew what she was doing, where she was standing, and she looked as though she’d be tough to fool. I’d known too many city men who were easy to fool, men who, if they’d gone on stage might have stumbled backward into an electric fan, unaware of how they stood or where. I liked Dietrich because it seemed unlikely she’d back into a fan by mistake.

City men, I thought, are often too tense. They want each other to think they have identical fashionable ways. They’re predictable. If only I could meet a handsome young man who stood out somehow from the crowd, an independent, a guy who found what he liked best in his own head.

I walked toward the boardwalk where a few tanning bodies sprawled on the sand. Climbing the wooden stairs, I stood in front of a cotton candy booth and surveyed the beach. As I did, I noticed one handsome youth, dark-haired and tanned, looking back at me.

“Whoa!” I said to myself.

I sat on the edge of the walk, looked elsewhere, and pretended only a mild interest. When I looked again the youth was still focused on me, smiling. It was a come-on smile, I was sure of that; a smile that said, “Why don’t you join me on my blanket?” There seemed little else to do. I rose and descended the wooden stairs, trying to think of something clever to say, but able, as I arrived at his blanket, to mutter nothing more than “Hi!”

“Hi!” answered the dark-haired young man. “Have a seat.”

I kneeled, facing this new acquaintance.

“I’m Jack,” I said.

“I’m Warren,” said the youth.

He raised one knee, allowing me to see directly into his crotch. It was disconcerting. I wasn’t accustomed to this kind of deliberate ploy, but I felt a simultaneous surge of excitement and embarrassment. The youth had olive skin, dark brown eyes, and a mysterious drawl that I couldn’t place.

“What brings you to the beach?” I asked him.

“My tan,” answered Warren slyly. “I’m workin’ on my tan.”

“You got a good one already.”

“Not good enough,” he said. “I can get much darker than this.”

“I’ve got a ways to go myself,” I told him. “I just got here on vacation.”

“Yeah? How long’s your vacation gonna be?”

“Two weeks.”

Warren smiled slyly again and nodded, almost as though he was planning the next two weeks to his own advantage. He put his knee down and sat up, looking directly into my eyes. I still wasn’t sure if this young hunk was gay. Maybe he was hustling, or maybe he was just overly friendly. It was conceivable that a lonely straight guy might be trying to add spice to an otherwise uneventful afternoon.

The April sun was bright, the air fresh and cool. Warren rose suddenly and ran across the sand, diving into the surf, disappearing under a wave. He resurfaced and returned to the blanket, dripping salt water, his white trunks clinging revealingly. He was aware somehow that he was inflaming my libido. I knew I was being deliberately titillated, that this handsome youth knew exactly what he was doing to excite me, that he was wooing me without saying a word. I liked being led like this. It was new in my experience. Not a word about being gay had passed our lips, and yet Eros was breathing heavily on us both.

We were each quite different in appearance. I was tall, while he was only five-foot-seven. I felt protective toward him. I discovered as we talked that Warren was nineteen, and when I asked about his origins, the boy answered proudly, “I’m a hillbilly.”

I’d never known a genuine hillbilly before, but if Warren was one, the word took on new meaning. In my mind’s eye I imagined being with him in some mountain bar at dusk, playing Patsy Cline songs on the juke, walking with our beers in hand to the screen door and peering across the valley at twinkling lights, small hillbilly cabins dotting surrounding hills.

“Wanna take a walk?” asked Warren suddenly.

“Sure,” I replied.

Leaving his blanket behind, we headed south toward Ponte Vedra, a lonely stretch of beach where we’d enjoy privacy. Warren chatted happily about home in the hills, about his sister, and about friends he’d left up in what he called “them hollers.”

Ponte Vedra was indeed a lonely spot. Next to a clump of golden sea oats, Warren chose where we sat in the sand. With each movement, it seemed, he was making himself more and more inviting. I thought that maybe he wanted to be swept into my arms and kissed full on the lips, wet with salty ocean spray.

Warren liked two things about me: I was tall, and I had what he thought was class. Maybe, even, I was rich. If I wasn’t rich that’d be okay, though, ’cause damn well everybody knew that it was appearances that count. He could tell from the way I spoke that my rearin’ had been posh. Warren was the sort who hoped for gifts from admirers, but he knew the secrets of subtle hinting and never asked for things outright. He just dropped—please excuse this old-fashioned term—hairpins.

Warren knew a few facts about tall men. Because he was only five-foot-seven, they felt protective toward him. He played the part of Little Boy Lost, which usually put him on the receiving end, collecting offerings from giants who towered over him with concern, who hoped to rescue him as soon as they’d found him. He knew another fact, too: tall men liked Little Boy Lost to be the incarnation of Innocence. Such benefactors weren’t likely to shower attention on a Voice of Experience. Too much experience frightened them. Helpless innocence, on the other hand, seemed to put them in control, made them teachers, or more likely, directors. But before long, Warren knew, such men could be persuaded to step willingly out of their drivers’ seats, leaving the reins in his hands. Such, he’d discovered, can be the power of Little Boy Lost.

“Wanna take a swim with me?” To me, Warren’s expression seemed full of promises.

“Sure I do!”

I rose, brushing sand from my leg and following my new friend to the shore. Together we waded waist deep, and then Warren dove out of sight. When he resurfaced, I marveled at how far he’d traveled toward the horizon. I’d have to follow him into the deep if the promises in his eyes were to be kept.

I was a strong swimmer. I’d taken lessons when I was nine. Still, as the waves slapped against my face I thought how much harder it was swimming in the ocean than in pools. When I arrived where Warren swam, I was surprised at the boy’s easy manner, smiling as he tread water, not at all out of breath.

“This is over your head,” I cautioned.

“Over yours, too,” laughed Warren, “but you’ll save me if I sink, won’t you?”

“I’ll sure as hell try,” I promised, trying to sound macho. Something told me that he could tell I was trying.

“I don’t weigh too much,” he said.

“How much?”

“Hold me up and see!” Warren floated on his back.

It’s his way of coming on to me, I thought, of getting close. I tread around the floating form. Warren’s eyes were now closed, but he was smiling.

Damn, I thought, if he isn’t a tease! I thought this just as I realized that no promises could be fulfilled in deep water. I had to use my hands to stay afloat. As soon as Warren was upright again I shouted, “Come on, I’ll race you back!”

“Naw, you’ll beat me.”

“Okay, but let’s just get back to the beach.”

“You’re on!” said Warren, deciding after all to race, swimming rapidly toward the shore. I thought it best to let him win, remaining a few strokes behind, observing.

The dark-haired youth emerged from the water and returned to the clump of sea oats, collapsing breathless on the sand. I fell forward next to him. We searched each other’s eyes, and I studied those lips I hoped to meet with mine. There was sand on Warren’s cheek which I removed ever so gently with the back of my finger.

It seemed somehow a moment to lay claim, just as gently, to that mouth’s invitation, wet with salt spray, beckoning, I was sure, eager, certainly. I bent close, feeling his breath, knowing there’d be no turning away. As my lips met his, Little Boy Lost put his arms around my shoulders and held me tightly. Perhaps it happened, the kiss, in only a few seconds, but on me it left lasting elements, like the salt spray, tender innocence, like the cloudless April skies. It was a kiss I’d never forget.

“Yer a good kisser,” said Warren matter-of-factly after he’d studied my grateful face.

“You do pretty well yourself.”

“S’pose y’ed like to do it again?”

I touched him lightly on the cheek, taking in his hillbilly grin. He had a tiny nose, a chipped tooth right in front. His eyes were large, brown, almost black. His face was elastic, but with an unconcerned ease that knew nothing of city jitters, though he could punctuate his statements with wild expressions. When he squinted, he appeared to be looking into my soul. Warren the Facemaker, with mountain magic beneath his outward show.

Around Warren’s neck I began to place an idealized wreath at a time, perhaps, when he deserved only a boutonniere. I romanticized him, imagining he had a host of noble qualities which, alas, was not always the case—not that he wasn’t a decent sort, but just that he wasn’t a young god. As I studied his contours, I saw all I needed to turn the five-foot-seven hillbilly into a little deity. A hillbilly is close to nature, I told myself, ergo, a natural man. A hillbilly is close to animals, making him instinctive. A hillbilly inhabits the woods. Didn’t the god Pan as well?

I saw in Warren virtues Warren had never heard about. Adding more, I leaned forward and kissed my hillbilly again. The young man’s body shivered with excitement beneath me, little realizing how perfect it seemed, how noble. “This big guy is sorta hunky,” Warren seemed to be saying.

It was late in the afternoon, exactly 5 p.m. In an hour I had to be at my relatives’ supper table. Warren peered at his watch, an expensive trinket given to him by an admirer. We’d have to head north on the beach so I could return to eat on schedule. I longed to see him again, but I worried that he might just disappear.

“Will I see you tomorrow?”

“Meet me up by the boardwalk again,” said the youth.

It was noon the next day when I sauntered a mile down the beach to the boardwalk. At first I didn’t see him, but I found him away from his blanket sipping a Pepsi by the penny arcade. Loudspeakers gave out a song about a rose growing through a sidewalk crack in Spanish Harlem. He told me as I sat down that it was his favorite hit of the day. The rose, like Warren himself, was small.

It is a little one

It’s never seen the sun.

At the time I tried hard to appreciate the song, but it wouldn’t immediately work its spell on me. I was one who often later utilized whatever factors circumstance had provided me to cast romantic spells on even my most mundane memories. Not until I found myself alone and missing Warren would this song I’d ignored on the spot come stealing into my mind.

“How come yer so late?” he asked, giving me a funny little frown. “Had lunch with the folks,” I replied, glad he seemed impatient to see me. “Have you eaten?”

“Ate one of them hot dogs over there,” he said, pointing past the penny arcade. We stood and walked inside. A hundred noisy games beckoned, and Warren led me past a long row until we arrived at a photo machine, four for a quarter.

“We’ll come back here—and take some pictures together,” he decided, asking at the same time, “Wanna?”

“Sure,” I laughed.

I’d always liked these twenty-five-cent photo machines, feeling instinctively drawn to them whenever they popped into view. I used pictures the way I used song lyrics, to mark the paths along which I walked, trying, as did a few others I k...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Mountain Lovin’ Boy
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• About the Author