Jimmie the Busboy
In the summer of 1970, my friend Patrick Flaherty had helped me get a busboy job at Wiggins Tavern in Northampton, Massachusetts. All it required was a haircut and a strong back. Busboys carried large silver colored metal trays to deliver the patrons food or carry away the dead dishes. The drill was to lift the tray over your shoulder and beat feet. The faster you moved the happier the waitresses. Happy waitresses split their tips with the busboys. On a good night, a busboy could earn $50.00 for five hours work. The best deal was being assigned to a banquet. That could bring in up to $150.00 apiece. The place really was expensive. The hotel staff was unionized and had a shop steward who made up the schedule each week. The shop steward only worked large dinner parties and banquets. It was an unspoken rule that busboys had to slip him a percentage if they worked a banquet. The shop steward had to slip a percentage to the hotel manager.
Jimmy the Busboy started work in September of 1970. He was young, only seventeen. However, he hustled tables with the best of us. Jimmy was skinny and sometimes it seemed like the serving trays weighed more than he did. Somehow, he managed. The waitresses loved him. Unlike the other busboys, Jimmy was able to engage the patrons. Jimmy started to work banquets almost immediately. The shop steward wasn’t pleased with Jimmy. Jimmy didn’t slip him his percentage. Jimmy was a friend of the hotel manager. He was protected. The shop steward grumbled that both Jimmy and the hotel manager were “light in the shoes.”
One evening toward the end of September, I was assigned to a banquet at the last minute. The shop steward had had a winning pony and the celebration had gotten the best of him. He couldn’t make it so I was assigned by the hotel manager to fill in. It was forty people with filet mignon. I also had to help in the main dining area. I would be working with two waitresses and Jimmy. I had worked with both of the waitresses before and we got along well. This would be the first time I had worked with Jimmy. I was going to have a payday!
The waitresses and Jimmy were already hard at work setting up the tables. By the time I got there most of the setup was completed. Unlike the main dining room, you got to have breaks when you worked banquets. The waitresses loaded up the trays and the busboys hauled and served. Once the patrons were served, you could sit back and relax while they ate. My favorite hiding spot was behind the dishwashing machine.
After serving the main course, I sat down behind the dishwasher and lit a cigarette. I was just getting settled when Jimmy walked up to me. I started to get up figuring that there was some more work but Jimmy signaled me back down with his hand. Jimmy smiled and said, “I’ve been wanting to tell you something. Well, not you especially, but I have to talk to someone. I’m gay.”
“I’m pretty happy too, I think we’ll make some good money tonight,” I responded.
“No, that’s not what I mean. I am gay, I am homosexual, and I live with the hotel manager.”
This was startling and I must have looked startled because Jimmy smiled patiently and said, “Don’t worry; I know you’re not gay. But I also know that you’re not straight. Your hair and your politics get you into trouble just like me.”
Jimmy then told me about the Stonewall riots. We both laughed as he described how the police had been forced back by the angry mob. Jimmy was a radical, just like me.
Then Jimmy did something that haunts me to this day. He told me about being taunted at school. He told me about life with his alcoholic parents. He told me how he loved his little sister and how one night before her birthday he was in his room sewing a new dress for her favorite doll. A special surprise he was making for her birthday. How his mother came in and seeing what he was doing, called for his father in a drunken rage. How his father came in and removed his thick black leather belt. How his father whipped Jimmy with the belt while his mother screamed “Beat the sin out of him!”
Jimmy’s face was tormented. He had tears in his eyes. I was speechless. Then Jimmy took off his starched white busboy jacket and lifting his shirt, he turned his back to me. I saw the scars. That wasn’t the first time his parents had beaten him. However, it was the last. Jimmy ran away that very night. He was fourteen. Jimmy smiled as he tucked his shirt back in.
“I needed to tell you that.” Jimmy had talked and I had silently listened. I was struggling to find some way to respond when the waitresses found us. It was time to go back to work.
A couple of days after Jimmy had spoken to me; both Patrick Flaherty and I were fired. Well, we weren’t actually fired; our names were still on the work schedule. The shop steward just didn’t schedule us for any work. It might have been our hair, or our politics, or the peace symbols we sometimes wore. The shop steward had had enough of us. We didn’t really mind. The fall semester was in full swing. It was time to play school.
The Student Union building at UMass was the place to meet before and after class. It was a two-story building with huge windows. Even on the darkest winter days, it seemed filled with light. The ground floor was the lobby area. There were always information booths set up and manned by the students. During those days, anyone could set up an information booth. Students for a Democratic Society, the Black Panthers, Young Democrats, Young Republicans, Environmentalists, War Moratorium Activists, all had booths at one time or another. It was always interesting to walk through the lobby on the way to the stairway leading to the basement cafeteria, the Hatchet and Pipe known affectionately as The Hatch.
On November 30th, right after the Thanksgiving break, I entered the lobby and was immediately blinded. It was a very cold November day and my glasses fogged up when they hit the warm Student Union air. As I cleaned my glasses, I could hear a commotion off to my right. With my glasses back on I could see a crowd of around thirty or so students surrounding an information booth. I couldn’t make out what they were saying. However, some of the voices sounded angry. Thinking that perhaps someone like ROTC had foolishly set up a booth I started to make my way towards the crowd. As I got closer I could make out “queer”, “fag’, “pervert” being hissed and shouted.
As I wormed my way to the front of the crowd, I was shocked to see Jimmy the Busboy sitting at a card table with a hand-lettered sign “Gay Liberation Front”. Beside Jimmy was a vacant chair. Jimmy had made up little pamphlets describing the Stonewall Incident. He was sitting and smiling patiently as the crowd vilified him. When he saw me, his smile widened and he waved with the fingers of his right hand.
With no real thought to what I was doing, I sat down in the vacant chair. I soon came to my senses and immediately thought “this is not going to go well at all!” Jimmy continued to smile patiently. I started to feel sweat on my back. I saw the familiar face of a young woman who often sat with the hippies and the radicals at the back of the cafeteria, the Back of the Hatch. Her eyes widened when she recognized me and she immediately pushed back through the crowd to escape. In a few minutes (which felt like hours), the crowd started to part. I saw my friends, Dead Kitty, pushing their way towards me. Little Mikey, Floater, Babyface, Pooz, Sidecar, Mad John, and several other Back of the Hatchers made their way to Jimmy’s GLF card table. My friends looked at Jimmy, looked at his Gay Liberation Front sign, looked at me and silently turned towards the crowd. Linking arms, they waded into the crowd, pushing it back, clearing a space. Then, still silent, they turned back to the table and sat down. This had a calming effect on the crowd. Some walked away, but even more joined my friends on the floor.
Jimmy told the group about Stonewall. Jimmy told the group about persecution and injustice. Jimmy told the group ‘I’M OUT of the CLOSET and I’M NOT GOING BACK. The crowd applauded, some even cheered “Right On!” Jimmy the Busboy had delivered a message. Someone from Dead Kitty was sitting with Jimmy all that first day, we took turns. I hadn’t told my friends about Jimmy. I hadn’t told my friends about the story Jimmy had told me back in September. However, they were able to recognize a revolutionary when they saw one. Floater was so impressed with Jimmy’s courage that he gave him one of our patches. Jimmy had a skull and thistle.
The next day, when I entered the Student Union lobby, I saw Jimmy the Busboy at his card table. This time he was not alone. A young woman was sitting with him. Jimmy introduced me, “Amy, this is Spook.” Amy smiled and reaching to shake my hand said “Hi, I’m Amy. I’m out of the closet and I’m not going back” Jimmy’s message had been heard.
Each day I saw new faces at the card table. Some I recognized some I did not. Students, instructors, associate professors, full professors, and even administrators took a turn sitting at the Gay Liberation table. Right up to the Christmas and semester break, Jimmy’s message spread.
When the second semester started, I was in my usual spot sitting in the Back of the Hatch with my Dead Kitty friends as we tried to figure out what classes we should take. Jimmy came up to us shaking with excitement. “We have an office!”
Students and faculty had pressured the Student Union Activities Committee and the Gay Liberation Front was now a recognized student activity. This meant a small budget for mimeographing and office space. We all climbed the two flights of stairs to the office area. Sure enough, wedged into a tiny office shared with the Chess and Astronomy clubs was a small desk with the letters GLF painted in pink. Jimmy frowned and then smiled. “I swore I’d never go back in the closet.”
Little Mikey chuckled and said in his best Irish accent, “Boyo, I wouldn’t be worrying about the closets. Ye be comin’ outta the woodwork now!”
In the late spring, Jimmy came down to the Back of the Hatch to say goodbye. He had a small knapsack and told us of his plans to hitchhike to Boston and stay there for a while. We said our goodbyes and Jimmy headed for the door. Floater called out “What part of Boston you headed to?” “Cambridge” Jimmy answered. “What part of Cambridge?” Floater asked. Jimmy smiled and slipped on his jacket. “Harvard” he replied as he stepped through the door.
Little Mikey looked at us and asked, “Did you see his right shoulder?” We had. He was wearing the skull and thistle. Little Mikey started to laugh. He laughed so hard tears rolled down his cheeks. “Harvard Yard ain’t EVER going to be the same!” We all started laughing. Loud boisterous laughing that caught people’s attention.
When asked what was so funny all we could reply was “Harvard.”
