The first time I picked up a book by Phil Andros, I knew I had come upon something truly unique and wonderful: a literate porn author. In various paperbacks I’d stumbled across in the 70s and early 80s, including Stud, Shuttlecock, Greek Ways, and Below the Belt, I was completely captivated by the narrator’s powerful and very sexy voice. Here was a unique creation: a cocky, well-endowed hustler who made no bones about his profession, nor the sexy escapades he encountered. Phil Andros’s autobiographical short stories never apologized for their racy subjects, or for the fact that he was insatiable. His was the voice of a virile rebel, a liberated drifter, a free spirit — and an out gay man at a time when such publications were still drenched in shame and guilt. But Phil Andros was never shrill or demanding or self-pitying. Nor was he a flaming queen. He was masculine, butch and proud. He was a kind of gay comic book super hero, a Tom of Finland drawing come to life. (Tom of Finland, in fact, had done many of the cover illustrations.)

Little did I know at the time that Phil Andros was actually a skinny, slightly indigent, old man, named Samuel Morris Steward, living alone in a run-down section of Oakland. The writing was so forceful and realistic that I had assumed he was everything he said he was on the page. But in a very true sense he was. Because Steward himself was a sexual renegade, a pioneer who pushed the boundaries of gay literature, and society, while living a life that was just as louche and homoerotic as any of his Phil Andros stories.

In time I made a point of finding out everything there was to know about Samuel M. Steward. Born in 1909 in Woodsfield, Ohio, he had gone to Ohio State University, then became a professor at Loyola, and later DePaul University in Chicago. In 1936, he published a well-received novel Angels on the Bough, about his family’s life back home during the Great Depression. Armed with letters of introduction by well-connected friends, Steward went to Paris and met Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, with whom he became lifelong friends. He visited with them often at Bilignin, their country house, and wrote a memoir of that friendship and published a collection of their letters, Dear Sammy (1977).

I began to see Steward for what he really was: A literary figure who for unknown reasons had failed to live up to his early potential. It was not until he published his explicit Phil Andros stories (basically as a lark) that he achieved any real recognition. Later in life, he published a pair of amusing mystery novels, incorporating Stein and Toklas as sleuths, including the witty Murder is Murder is Murder (1985). These are feather-light entertainments, poorly plotted and implausible, but they provide a rare and invaluable hands-on insight into the private lives of these two titanic figures, softening the lingering edges wrought by Hemingway’s homophobic attack on the couple in his bitchy, posthumous work, A Moveable Feast.

To others, Samuel M. Steward was better known as “Phil Sparrow,” one of the leading tattoo artists of his day. This was a side to the man that I had little or no interest in until I read his book Bad Boys and Tough Tattoos (1990) and realized that much of the Phil Andros character was based on Phil Sparrow and his racy hi-jinks in the back room of the tattoo parlor. The authenticity of his stories stems from the cold hard facts of life he learned catering to these restless souls who passed through his hands.

In truth there were several different Samuel M. Stewards: the frustrated professor at a small school who dreamed of loftier white towers; the literary author manqué who dreamed of greater recognition, and output; the friend and confidante to a slew of famous writers who never resented their success; the sexual renegade who kept meticulous (and dangerous) diaries of his countless erotic encounters; the artist whose “tattoodlings” were sought after by Hells Angels and provocateurs alike, including Kenneth Anger (who asked Steward to tattoo the word “Lucifer” on his chest, below).

So imagine my surprise and delight when I discovered that an old friend Justin Spring, who had written so well about Paul Cadmus (Paul Cadmus: The Male Nude, 2002), has just published a riveting new biography of Samuel M. Steward! Entitled Secret Historian (Farrar, Straus, Giroux), it delves into all aspects of the man’s career as a professor, tattoo artist, and sexual maverick. The book is a revelation. Through countless interviews, access to Steward’s private papers, and the Kinsey archives (to which Steward had been invited to contribute), Justin Spring has unlocked and exposed a world that until now was only hinted at by other writers.

Like the groundbreaking book Gay New York by George Chauncey, that shed light on a vibrant, lost gay world, Secret Historian reveals a vital underground culture, thriving throughout the early part of the 20th century. Steward was there at key moments in queer history, a kind of homosexual Zelig. But even more so than that inspired Woody Allen figure, Steward was an active participant, not just an innocent bystander. Steward was a sexual zealot, pushing the boundaries of acceptable behavior at a time when the prudish Victorian mind-set still cast its pall over the population, and the Oscar Wilde trial was not that distant a memory.

Openly consorting with like-minded colleagues, teachers, students, writer friends, traveling artists and performers, pick-ups, and tricks, Steward kept detailed diaries and lists of all his sexual “conquests” and trysts. They number into the thousands. He also took photographs, and filmed his sexual orgies. Considering that he could have been arrested and blackmailed for any of these indiscretions, it’s remarkable that these documents survived. But Steward was an incorrigible pack rat, saving every scrap that ran through his nimble fingers. He was encouraged in this endeavor by his good friend and guide, Alfred Kinsey (above), who saw in Steward an invaluable entreé into the homosexual demimonde (to which he was himself drawn) and a unique example of a sexual gourmand, for want of a better word, for whom quantity was more important than quality. Spring makes the most of these ephemeral finds, bringing to life a vivid subterranean set wildly at play in the pre-liberated ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s.

And what a life it was! Samuel Steward luckily was at the right place at the right time so often that reading his biography is like gazing into a crystal ball, or being a fly on the wall in the boudoirs of the best and brightest of the era. Here we find Steward chasing down and bedding Rudolph Valentino at the hotel he is staying in during a tour promoting one of his silent films. Later we find Steward in London, seducing Lord Alfred Douglas in hopes of creating a visceral link between the notoriously beautiful poet (then a wizened and unattractive older man) and his great hero, Oscar Wilde.

At Andre Gide’s in Paris, Steward lands the French writer’s nubile young Arab catamite. Later in an elevator at a department store, the eagle-eyed Steward has a quick but memorable tryst with Rock Hudson, then a working class boy named Roy Scherer. There are hilarious escapades with Sir Francis Rose, the troubled British artist, whom Steward penned a novel about in Parisian Lives (1984). Perhaps Justin Spring’s most surprising revelation is the extent of Steward’s amorous relations with Thornton Wilder, a closeted homosexual. After reading this book, it’s hard to think of the author of the iconic American play, Our Town, without envisioning Wilder engaging in frisky frottage in Steward’s arms.

Steward was also a magnet for other gay writers and artists, including Jean Genet, Glenway Wescott, Fritz Peters, Tennessee Williams, Jean Cocteau and James Purdy, and perhaps most meaningfully, George Platt Lynes, who shared Steward’s fascination with the beau ideals of American manhood. Barely a day seems to go by in Steward’s extensive diaries when some important figure didn’t touch his life or cross his path, or more often, end up in his bed. Steward had an ongoing affair with one of Lynes’s best-known models, and would often recommend his own “discoveries” to Lynes.

And then there is the second half of Steward’s life when he gave up teaching to pursue tattooing. Spring shows how foolhardy a venture this really was, and how risky for its time. Tattooing then was not the popular art form it is today; it was the realm of shady characters, prisoners, and outlaws. A gay man with a fetish for soldiers, sailors and rough trade opening a parlor in the roughest part of Chicago was a recipe for disaster. (Photos, below, copyright 2010 Samuel Steward estate; rights reserved.)

At times Steward found himself in harm’s way once too often, especially after he moved to Oakland and began working out of a ghetto. He was robbed often and also beaten. But Spring gives us insights into how Steward charmed his clientele, even when they were as volatile and violent as the Hells Angels, who, he documents, were known to sodomize and brutally attack their male enemies. Spring leaves no stone unturned, even interviewing legendary Hells Angels founder, Sonny Barger, below, who remembers Steward fondly.

Later Steward became active in the burgeoning gay porn scene on the West Coast, befriending J. Brian, who ran a magazine and film business. Through him, Steward got a steady supply of hustlers, and became intimate with Johnny Harden, one of the biggest porn stars of the 80s (both gay and straight). Harden later took the name Gene Carrier (an obvious double-entendre), posed for Playgirl, and resurrected himself as a Ford model, appearing in a series of prominent Gap ads, until his previous identity was revealed.

Spring keeps an academic distance from his material throughout the biography. It would have been easy for him to make sweeping assumptions about Steward’s various sex addictions, his chronic drug use (after giving up alcohol), his sado/masochistic tendencies, the obvious parallels of his hoarding, diary-keeping and punishing crushes, to today’s trendy concepts of OCD. But that would diminish the impact of what is revealed here. Yes, Steward might have been a better writer (or at least a more productive one) if he had not devoted so much of his life to pursuing sex, or if he had not medicated himself later on with endless painkillers and speed. He died in 1993.

But Spring shies away from laying blame, passing judgment, seeking causes, or reading between the lines. He merely chronicles the events as documented, and thereby gives us a three-dimensional portrait of the man, warts and all. My only quibble with this even-handed approach is that Spring seems to underplay Steward’s literary influence, undervaluing the quirky mysteries and ignoring the appeal of some lesser works when even in their weakest form they are much better than most of the lackluster junk being published today.

The subtitle of Spring’s book — “The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade” — doesn’t even mention the word “author”! Yet it is primarily as a writer that Steward will be remembered by future generations who pick up, as I did three decades ago, and still do today, his thoroughly entertaining Phil Andros tales.

[Among the things I found recently while spring cleaning is this short story I did 20 years ago. I had completely forgotten having written it! It feels unfinished and is obviously unpolished. But it can't hurt to air it out. Who knows, I might even take another stab at it.]

It was one of those distressingly hot and humid summer days when the air is as thick as mucilage and one senses, with a vague sense of unease, that a storm is in the offing. No one wanted to stir, but there were a thousand last minute arrangements to be made. It was the day of Madeline Ryan’s 80th birthday party — she had one every year on the last Saturday of August. It had become a summer ritual for the folks on Further Lane. Madeline had been celebrating her 80th birthday now for six years even though she was really 87. She’s the kind of woman who likes to lie even when she’s lying.

I was waiting for my father to arrive. He lived in Manhasset, a hundred miles away from Amagansett, where Madeline lives during the summer. Usually it takes Dad just an hour and a half to get here. But lately, he’d been having trouble driving and I was increasingly worried that he might have had an accident. At seventy-six, he was just beginning to become senile. Some of Madeline’s friends told me they thought he had Alzheimer’s, like Trip, Madeline’s husband who had died ten years before. But Dad always told me that Trip had died from alcoholism. Trip used to go to the Russian Tea Room and after several vodkas, would insist on eating his meal on the floor. Dad liked to drink too, but I’d never seen him drunk. His deterioration came from an unknown source. Sometimes when I looked at him, I would only see an old man struggling to survive. There was nothing left of the man who was my father.

I’d been spending my summers at Madeline’s place on Further Lane for the past 25 years, ever since my mother died when I was eight. Everyone in the Hamptons had heard of Mrs. Ryan. Her family were among the first settlers in the area, arriving back in the 17th century. Madeline owns more than 5,000 acres of farmland in Amagansett, East Hampton and Montauk. There are ten houses here on Further Lane. Since Trip died, she’s been renting out the three biggest ones. The rest are filled with her family and friends. She lets me stay in the small studio behind the garage. Although it doesn’t have a shower, and I have to stumble into her house every morning to bathe, it does have an astonishing view of the ocean. At night, I fall asleep, counting the waves crashing against the shore.

Madeline’s caretaker, Buzz, a man in his 80s who’d been working at the Ryans all his adult life, and who was constantly surrounded by a pack of aging beagles, had erected an enormous white and yellow striped tent in the field next to the croquet court. I had helped him lay down some planks to serve as a makeshift dance floor, and set up three dozen round folding tables. A team of waiters and busboys from a catering firm were setting out the dinner.

It was already after eight o’clock and time for the party to get underway. Guests had already begun to arrive, leaving their Mercedes, Cadillacs and Jaguars on the lawn outside the house. Madeline usually invited 300 guests to her birthday affairs. A waiter, dripping sweat, passed by carrying a tray of fluted champagne glasses. Had he been here the year before when I’d made such a scene? High from a hit of Thai stick I’d gotten from one of the band members, as well as too many bourbons, I had done a striptease in the middle of the dance floor and then jumped in the pool stark naked. I thought I was being funny, but Madeline was upset and hired a limousine the following morning to take me back to my apartment in the city. To make matters worse, one of Madeline’s sons had videotaped the entire thing and for several months afterward would show the tape to anyone who happened to drop by. I’d promised myself that this year, I wouldn’t make a spectacle of myself. And I would definitely stay away from the band.

Rory, the maid, had laid out a mountain of baby shrimp under the lattice gazebo at the center of the rose garden. I spotted Eleanor de Vere there. The daughter of a former Senator, she was winding her way through a field of folding chairs. Dressed like a disheveled Aphrodite in a long diaphanous white gown and a string of pearls, Ellie carried a plastic tumbler in one hand and her bright yellow Manolo Blahniks in the other. The plastic tumbler was a bad sign. It meant that she had come to Madeline’s party from another, and was already fairly lit.

Dropping her shoes, and hugging me with her wrists, so as not to spill her drink, Ellie kissed the air beside my cheeks and then drained her cup. She smelled of rose water and Bordeaux wine. The pancake she was using on her face didn’t cover the burst capillaries along her nose and below her eyes. She smiled, revealing a poorly realized set of dentures, stained a ruddy brown from too many cigarettes, and much too much red wine.

“Denver, dear, I see you have your clothes on!” she said. She giggled like a school girl. “I do hope you’ll perform for us again this year.”

“I’m afraid I’ve turned a new leaf,” I replied, attacking the shrimp with a large silver spoon.

“Where’s your father?”

“He’s on his way,” I said, not wanting to confide in this infamous gossip, suddenly wishing she’d go away. I ate a mouthful of shrimp and downed it with a swig of champagne. Suddenly Eleanor let out a shriek and ran behind me. Turning around, I saw her throw her arms around Bucky Sands, the designer who was renting the largest of Madeline’s houses. Behind Bucky was his pal Roger Lezniak, a former weight-lifter, now “bodyguard.” Bucky nodded in my direction, but made no effort to say hello.

I slipped past the three of them and made my way back to the bar. Several more people had shown up, including Mrs. Mary Jackson Cumberland de Almaviva Knightridge Schutz. Three of her husbands had died. The other two she divorced. She was now working on a sixth, a man one-third her age whom she’d met on a cruise along the Amalfi Coast. Mary once told me, after a few too many, that my father had once proposed to her, but she turned him down because she couldn’t stand the idea of raising someone else’s children. A heavyset woman, Mary had a wardrobe of designer tent dresses, a different color for each day of the week. Tonight she was wearing purple and gold. And underneath her clip-on earrings, Mary always wore band-aids to relieve the pressure against her lobes. She grabbed my arm the moment she saw me.

“I heard your father’s not well,” she said, her eyes entreating me to tell her all.

“Who said that?”

“Madeline. She says he was supposed to be here hours ago. He missed the croquet game.”

“He’s 76 years old, Mary. He’s a little slow, that’s all.”

“You have to do something,” she said, clenching her false teeth and squeezing my elbow. “He’s not like he used to be.”

I wanted to warn her to mind her own business, but I smiled and told her I would do everything I could to help him, and thanked her for her concern. All I could think of at that moment was getting another drink — this time a Wild Turkey. When it was my turn at the bar, I ordered a double. It was the same bartender from the year before, a local kid with a swimmer’s build and a harelip. I remembered making a play for him, but had been rebuffed. He poured the drink and handed it over, without looking at me.

I felt a hand on my shoulder as I was leaving the bar. It was Cal Reeves, another of Madeline’s hangers-on who worked at a decorator’s shop at the Plaza. Close to six feet, three inches, with a mop of blinding white hair, and an equally blinding white linen suit with a red cravat, Cal liked to pretend he was in his 50s, but I knew better. Once while taking the train back to Manhattan with him, I noticed he handed the conductor his senior citizen’s card to get a discount.

“Did you see that number working the buffet?” Cal asked, his voice hoarse from decades of chain-smoking Pall Malls. He pointed a perfectly manicured but tobacco-stained finger at a young man in a rented tux standing behind the red and white checked buffet table. I hadn’t noticed him before. He was handsome: a short trim figure, like a wrestler’s, with dark curly hair, a boyish face and a thick five o’clock shadow.

“What’s his story?”

“His name is Brian,” Cal said. “A freshman at Brown. He’s working part-time this summer with Sarah Whitfield.” Sarah was the local caterer.

I looked at Cal. His contact lenses were yellowed and too large for his bloodshot eyes. “I suddenly feel famished,” I said, hitting Cal playfully on the shoulder.

At the buffet table, I helped myself to broiled salmon, steamed vegetables and some mysterious curried rice. From the corner of my eye, I could see that Brian was watching me. I glanced up and caught his gaze. He smiled.

“Pretty damn hot,” I said, approaching his spot at the end of the table. He handed me a napkin, wrapped around a knife and fork.

“It’s supposed to rain later tonight,” he said. He had no discernible accent.

“Where are you from?” I asked.

“Buffalo. But I live in Providence now.”

“Do you go to Brown?”

He blushed momentarily. “Yes. I do. How did you know?”

“It’s obvious. What are you majoring in?” I suddenly felt like I was back at college myself, meeting new friends on the first day of classes.

“Psychology.”

“I see. Well, I better be careful around you,” I said, the booze loosening my tongue. “I don’t want my behavior to be analyzed.”

“It already has been,” he laughed. “I’ve been observing you since I first arrived.”

Now it was my turn to blush. I stared into Brian’s eyes for a second to determine whether he approved of my behavior up until then. Not finding an answer in his expression, I smiled and waved goodbye.

I found a seat at a table not far from the band area, and dug into my food. I made a mental note to get some coffee as soon as possible. The band launched into a raucous tune. A few of the younger guests scampered onto the dance floor and started spinning around, bumping and grinding to the beat. One of them, Pamela Capriano, flew towards me and landed in a chair by my side. She had a wild look in her eye; she was probably on something.

“Fucking bore, isn’t it?” she said, lighting a Marlboro that she pulled out of a pack stashed in her glittery disco purse. She didn’t wait for a response. “Madeline’s really on the rag, and her jack-ass nephew is driving me nuts. He’s always looking down my dress like he lost his car keys or something.” I didn’t laugh at her joke. She leaned towards me conspiratorially. “Wanna get high?”

“No. You know I don’t smoke pot.”

“Oh, Denver, don’t be such a stick in the mud. This is a party!” She took a long soulful drag of her cigarette and blew the smoke out of her nose. “Where’s your adorable playboy father, Mr. Whitney Tate?” I remembered the time, several years earlier, when I had stumbled upon the two of them in the shower outside the beach hut, rinsing off together, after a swim in the ocean. I had noticed then through her wet bikini top that her nipples were erect.

“I don’t know. I’m starting to get a bit concerned. He’s not usually this late.” But my last few words were drowned out by a flourish of horns from the band. They were playing “Jeremiah was a Bullfrog.”

“Oh, Denver, please dance with me!” Pamela had already jumped to her feet and stuffed her cigarette into my drink. “You always put on the best show.”

I glanced at my watch. Almost nine. “No, thanks, Pam. I’ve got to make a phone call.” Pamela scurried off in search of a dance partner. I made my way around the back of the house, into the kitchen, where I could use the phone. Halfway there, I looked over at the buffet. Brian was staring at me, a devilish smirk on his face. I took a chance and winked at him. He burst into a broad, beautiful smile.

Inside the kitchen, I greeted Rory, the maid, and her Spanish speaking assistants. They might have been her daughters, or nieces, or cousins. She’d never married, but she had had several lovers. Rory was busy carving a large lamb. I didn’t stop to chat with her. Behind the group, in the pantry, Sarah Whitfield was overseeing the preparation of a panoply of pies and cakes.

Dialing my father’s number, I felt a chill as I recalled the many times I had called from college to tell Dad that everything was okay, not to worry, that I was happy at school. He hadn’t asked me to. He never did. But I had felt back then that he must be concerned, and I wanted to alleviate any suspicion on his part that I was, in fact, having a hard time adjusting to life in the dorms.

Now the phone rang several times. Each ring seemed to pierce the silence with more urgency. Finally, after a dozen or so rings, someone picked up, but then immediately hung up. I dialed the number again. This time it was busy.

A surge of panic gripped me. Dad was one hundred miles away, supposedly alone in the house, and either he or someone else had picked up the phone. Had I dialed it correctly? I tried it again. This time there was no answer.

I didn’t know what to do. My father was not well. He may have fallen down trying to answer the call. He may be sick. He may have had a heart attack.

I opened the refrigerator and removed a Budweiser from the bottom shelf. Then I left through the back door, by the garden, and headed for Madeline’s table under the tent. Once there, I bent down beside her wheelchair. “Madeline, I think something’s happened to Dad. I’m going to drive home and see if he’s all right.”

“Are you sure you should be driving?” she said, glancing at the beer in my hand.

“I’ll have some coffee first,” I said. “Rory’s just made a fresh pot.”

“You do that,” Madeline said, her voice a tiny scratch. As I was about to leave, I saw an old man, partly bent over, shuffling across the gravel driveway. The silver-haired man’s mouth was open and he was staring directly at me. It was my father.

“You see! I knew he’d make it,” Madeline cried out, thrusting her hand to Dad who grabbed it like a life line. He collapsed in a seat next to her.

“Richard,” he said, staring at me. Lately, he’d been calling me by my eldest brother’s name. Sometimes he’d forget that Richard lives in California, and he’d think that I’m still at prep school. I was too dumbfounded to greet him. Then leaning over, I yelled over the music, “I just called the house. Someone answered the phone. I thought it was you.”

“Your uncle Stratford,” he said. Dad’s speech was slurred. Some spittle had formed at the side of his mouth. He kept his mouth open, as if something had startled him.

“Why?” I hollered.

“Thrown out. Mary– fight. Needed to stay.” He was mumbling and I could hardly make out what he was saying.

“Was he drunk?”

Dad didn’t answer. He simply smiled. His eyes glazed over with tears, not from sadness, but old age. He suddenly laughed very loudly. He didn’t seem to know where he was.

Seeing that he and Madeline were safe in each other’s company, at least for the moment, I told them that I needed to go to the bathroom and headed for the bar.

Two hours later, after dancing up a sweat with Pamela, and downing several more glasses of champagne, I noticed that Brian was carrying the last of the dinner trays into the kitchen. I cornered him and motioned for him to follow me.

“Where are we going?” he asked, touching my elbow tentatively. In the moonlight, his white shirt shone like a beacon. The sheen in his tight, starched black pants danced up and down his legs as we edged along the noisy gravel path. The late night air was thick with salt-air, and the smell of freshly mown grass. In the distance, above the sound of the crashing surf, were echoes of disco music, and sporadic laughter.

“It’s not far,” I told him. He had nice square shoulders, and his large, open eyes were framed by exquisitely long lashes.

“How old did you say you are?”

“Eighteen.”

We didn’t say anything else until I stopped in front of my studio behind the garage.

“I want to show you where I live,” I said. I reached into my pocket to pull out my key, but I dropped a lot of change on the ground. Brian knelt down to pick it up. I made sure I got the key in the door on the first try and opened it. The boy was silent. But after a pause, he stepped inside.

The moonlight that streamed through the two side windows illuminated the tiny room. Against the wall opposite the front door was a wood stove. In front of it sat an old stuffed chair that had been draped with a sheet. By its side was a lobster trap that doubled as a coffee table. Inside a conch shell hung suspended in the netting. Built into the far left wall was my bed.

Brian broke the silence. “I really should get back to the party. Miss Whitfield will kill me if she notices that I’m missing.”

I pulled him close to me and kissed him. His lips were dry and they did not respond. “You’re very beautiful,” I whispered.

Brian sighed, closed his eyes and parted his lips. I pulled him closer to me. I could feel him growing aroused. “This isn’t right,” he said, pulling away.

“I won’t hurt you,” I said quietly, letting my hand gently graze against his back. He sighed and pressed into me. Quickly I undid his trousers and pulled them down around his ankles. The boy trembled. The moon illuminated his thighs, as if they were made of stone.

I don’t know how much later it was. The door to the studio was open. It was cold. I was alone, curled up into a ball on the sheeted chair. The moon had shifted and the room was completely dark. The clock by the bed read 4:22. Parched and feeling a headache coming on, I tried to stand up, but my legs were stiff and achy. I recalled Brian’s face. His expectant eyes. My own face lost in the dark. How long had he stayed?

I moved to the small galley kitchen, and opened the cupboards. Empty.

Suddenly there was a terrific bolt of lightning and the entire room was illuminated in a blinding stark gray light. Then almost immediately a clap of thunder. The storm was directly over head. I needed a cigarette desperately. But where could I go and get one? In the main house? Certainly not now, with the rain coming down in sheets. I gazed out the window and listened intently as pebbles of rain pelted the roof above me. I thought I saw a face against the window peering in, knocking against the glass. But it was only a branch, scratching against the pane.

The branch made me think of another evening, several years before, when I was nine years old. My brother Richard and I had had a terrible fight when we’d both been left alone in the house on a Saturday afternoon. My father had gone to the city. I remember I was sitting at the bottom of the staircase, playing with Phosphero, our cat. I heard someone above me laughing, and looked up. My brother was at the top of the stairs on the third floor. He dropped something. Something silver. There was no time to move out of the way.

When the pair of scissors hit me, it felt like I’d been burned with scalding water. The sharp tips skidded off my back and the shears landed after several spins on the hall floor. I felt a pain in my shoulder, and noticed blood beading from a minor scrape. Without even thinking, I ran out the door, forgetting my coat. It was pouring rain outside, but I flew as fast as I could down the block, past the mailbox, past the stop sign, and across Revere Road to Eakins Road, then down towards the large Tudor-style grade school on the hill. There on the corner of Northern Boulevard and Woods Road, catching my breath, I thought I’d be safe. I could wait there for my father to come home.

It was the corner which my father always turned on when driving home, since it was the shortest route. I took a seat on top of a wooden fence that lined the road, under a large oak tree that served as a canopy. Nevertheless, the rain soaked me from head to toe. It was quite cold outside and I shivered in my wet clothes, without a coat. My teeth clattered like a pair of castanets.

I was too afraid to go back home, to my laughing brother, to the physical threat. But also, even at only nine years of age, I knew I didn’t belong in that house. But what escape did I have? As the hours passed, I prayed that my father would come along and fling open the car door and tell me that he’d been looking for me all afternoon.

I don’t know how many hours I waited. How many cars passed by. But the sun had gone down and the street lights came on. People in their houses sat down to supper, or watched the nightly news. I must have seen thirty cars go by that looked just like ours. But none had Dad in them. Finally, as the rain let up, I surrendered to the fact that I had nowhere else to go, but home. Maybe I could sneak in to the basement, I thought, and hide out in the furnace room until Dad got back.

I walked the long blocks back to the house. I saw a light on in the living room. And knowing that I couldn’t be seen, I sneaked up to the patio and peered in through the french doors that led into the living room. Music was playing. My father was sitting in his favorite chair, a martini on the octagon-shaped marble table to his side. He had on his reading glasses. Then I saw him put down the magazine he was reading, and smile at someone across from him. I heard the sound of a woman laughing. I moved to the right and saw a blond lady on the sofa, with her legs folded beneath her. Her high heel shoes lay on the floor. She too had a martini. She was laughing warmly.

I opened the front door, slipped inside, and raced up the stairs to my room and slammed the door shut. I threw myself on the bed and shook uncontrollably. A few minutes later, there was a knock at my door. But I didn’t answer it.

*   *   *   *   *

Sometimes when I feel like a nostalgic trip down memory lane, I’ll pull out one of my favorite children’s books: Trouble After School, written by Jerrold Beim in 1957. A true classic, it’s the tale of an intelligent but slightly shy junior high school student named Lee, who feeling neglected by his parents, falls in with the wrong crowd, in particular a good-looking young fella named Terry, in a dark leather jacket, born on the wrong side of the tracks. Lee, who up until he’d met this intriguing juvenile delinquent, was a bit of a Mama’s Boy, now begins to pull pranks in school on other students, and to cut classes so he can hang out with Terry and his cohorts in petty crime. Pretty soon, Lee starts to dress like Terry, getting his parents to buy him a shiny leather jacket just like the one Terry has. It’s a case of hero worship — or more precisely, anti-hero worship. Terry represents exotic, hidden dangers and lawlessness. He’s the tough kid we are scared of, yet fascinated by.

Lee rationalizes Terry’s bad reputation because Terry’s mother had to stoop to cleaning houses to make ends meet. It’s a quintessential 50s juvie tale of yin and yang. Black and white. Good and evil. But it’s not always clear where the lines are drawn. The point of the book seems to be that there’s the potential for good in all of us, just as there is for bad. Lee is drawn to the rugged youth who winks at him all the time because he is lonely, and Terry sees something special in Lee despite his not being part of the gang. Even a hard-bitten old schoolmarm can see that there’s something else going on between the lines. Lee, who is called a “sissy” by Terry and his gang, yearns to be more of a man. So when he is transformed, due to Terry’s masculine influence, it is a rite of passage — a Cinderella tale as old as time, as when Terry first lays eyes on Lee in his new black leather jacket:

“Well, what do you know!’ Terry’s eyes gleamed approvingly. ‘You got one!’ Terry’s hand rubbed the black leather. ‘Boy, do you look great!

It would be hard not to read more into these subtly erotic lines. While pretty tame by today’s standards, this was hot stuff back when I read it in the early 60s. I know I am not alone in thinking this. When I’ve offered the book for sale on eBay I’ve received notes from buyers basically telling me the same thing. That this book meant more to them growing up than any other they’d read in school. We can all relate to the dilemma faced by young Lee. To be the goody two-shoes or the sexy cool kid, and the yearning some of us feel to taste forbidden fruit.

What’s remarkable about this book is that it seems to encapsulate so many of the trends of 50s youth culture. It’s not unlike Rebel Without A Cause in that Lee is similar to Plato, the Sal Mineo character, who falls madly in love with James Dean. But while that film was almost lurid in its depiction of juvenile delinquents and gangs (who risk their lives for hot rods and drag-racing), Trouble After School is as gentle as a cream puff. The story develops slowly with deft strokes, until one is completely swept up by young Lee’s struggles as he gropes his way to manhood. There are moments at the end, when Lee begins to assert himself and challenges Terry to reconsider the direction his life is taking, that are surprisingly complex for a teen novel.

I’d always been intrigued by the kind of man who could write such a sensitive book. The more I delved into Jerrold Beim’s career, however, the less I seemed to know. He was an enigma, a cipher. I’d mention his name to various book collectors or children’s book specialists and no one knew a thing about him, other than the long list of books he’d been credited with writing. Some of these books are now considered classics of children’s literature.

One or two were important milestones in the fields of fighting racism and freedom of the press. His book The Swimming Hole, with a cover illustration that showed a young white boy diving into a pool of water with his best friend, a black boy, caused a scandal at the time it was released. It was boycotted by the Ku Klux Klan. So was Two is a Team, which dealt head-on with issues of integration. Flood Waters dealt with the problems of building communities next to overflowing rivers; something that was not being discussed much in those days. Jerrold Beim was one of the first to confront these gnarly topics and he did it with a unique mixture of honesty and common sense.

To my jaundiced eye, however, there was always something slightly off-kilter and mysterious just under the surface about Jerrold Beim’s books. The titles struck a compelling chord. Beach Boy; Time For Gym; A Vote For Dick; Rocky’s Road; The Big Whistle; Jay’s Big Job; Blue Jeans; The Boy on Lincoln’s Lap; Too Many Sisters; Shoeshine Boy; The Swimming Hole. While there’s nothing at all off-color about the Ole Swimmin’ Hole — in fact it’s the epitome of a kind of lost innocence, as American as apple pie and Huck Finn — it’s also the place where boys would often swim together in their birthday suits, without any girls. It’s a private place of youthful adventure, the locus of adolescent curiosity and devil-may-care tomfoolery.

A good example of what I mean is the curious little book Jerrold Beim wrote called Kid Brother which at face-value seems innocent enough. But when you open its pages you find an illustration of a tyke with his hands tied behind his back, a slightly perverse grin on his very young face.

Is one reading too much into it in hindsight fifty years later? Could there have been anything untoward about such an image when the book was published in 1952? Probably not. I’m always reading too much into things. But that’s what makes it fun, and so bizarre at times. And there can be no denying that for me and others with similar sensibilities, Beim’s books touched a nerve. He often wrote about someone on the outside looking in, eager to be part of a community, but forever feeling like the “other.” On a small scale, his books were odysseys of the soul. I couldn’t help but wonder if they were a reflection of Beim’s own experience.

While Jerrold Beim was a prolific writer, churning out dozens of popular children’s books, some with his wife Lorraine Levy Beim, he also wrote short stories for the romantic pulps including Exciting Love and Gay Love. He also wrote under a pseudonym Neils Anderson, crafting even younger juvenile tales of lessons learned and problems solved. Jerrold Beim was indefatigable, but also a complete unknown quantity. He seemed to have completely stopped writing in 1957. Several of his books were republished over the years, but nothing new came from his pen. I wondered if like Eddie from Eddie and the Cruisers, he had “pulled a Rimbaud,” vanishing into the ether after years of success and fame. What on earth happened to Jerrold Beim?

Google searches and inquiries online provided scant answers. But recently, thanks to other online resources, I’ve managed to uncover a few shards of biographical information. First, Jerrold Beim was actually born Gerald Beim. His father Aaron Beim was an Austrian immigrant who moved to Newark, New Jersey around the turn of the century. Gerald was born in 1911. After high school, he got a job in a Newark bank. He was unable to afford college. He moved to a department store where he learned about marketing and sales. He soon relocated to Syracuse, New York and found work as an advertising manager in a large department store. It was in Syracuse that he met and married Lorraine Levy, his first wife. They were wed in 1935. After spending a summer on Nantucket writing, he decided to give up other lines of work. He sold his first short story to Cosmopolitan Magazine. By this time he had adopted the pen name Jerrold Beim, for reasons that are unclear. He and his wife moved to Mexico, then returned to New York City where they adopted twin sons, Seth and Andy. They soon had a daughter of their own.

While Lorraine wrote several books on her own (including Hurry Back, seen above) she worked best with Jerrold. In 1939 they wrote The Burro With No Name, based on experiences they’d had in Mexico, as well as Sasha and the Samovar (1944), an innovative look at Russian culture for young kids. Lorraine wrote for a radio quiz show, coming up with the questions asked to contestants. The name of the quiz show was not mentioned in a piece I read about her, but I assume it was Information, Please which ran for many years on radio and later switched to television.

But a deadly blow struck the family in 1952 when during a return visit to Mexico, a car Lorraine was driving became involved in a fatal accident. She and the Beims’ young daughter were killed. Jerrold Beim was devastated. He’d lost not only his adored wife, but his business partner. In many ways, she was the brains behind the publishing phenomenon they’d become. Jerrold eventually remarried and moved to Westport, Connecticut. His 1955 book Country School was based on one of the elementary schools in that town. For reasons that are not apparent, Jerrold Beim separated from his second wife, and raised his two sons on his own. His 1954 book, With Dad Alone, is a heartfelt tribute to raising his boys as a single father.

In a bizarre twist of fate, tragedy struck the Beim family a second time when a car Jerrold Beim was driving hit a patch of ice in March 1957 and skidded off the road in Westport, crashing down an embankment. The car flipped over, pinning Beim and his son Seth in the car. They were pronounced dead on arrival at the local hospital. Only young Andrew, who was home at the time, survived. Ironically, one of the last works Jerrold Beim had published was a cautionary kid’s tale called Thin Ice.

This horrible accident explains the uncanny silence since 1957, the year he wrote Trouble After School. While Beim’s books remained in print for several more years, his name gradually disappeared from recommended reading lists. It wasn’t until the revival of interest in African-American Studies in the 90s that people began to recall the books he’d written that were so far ahead of their time. And with the dawn of eBay and the internet, Beim’s books began to generate interest among collectors and former fans who recalled the impact his unusual little books had had on them.

I’ve managed to compile nearly a complete collection of his works. Some of the charm of them has to do with their illustrations. Louis Darling and Don Sibley are two of the stand-outs, as was Tracy Sugarman, who lived near the Beims in Syracuse. I think my most favorite of his books are Kid Brother, because it reminds me of my own sibling rivalry at home growing up, and Meet Sandy Smith, about an enterprising lad who makes his way in the jungles of urban life in New York City. And then there’s the hard-to-find collectors item: The First Book of Boys’ Cooking (1957) with “neato” pictures by Dick Dodge.

But of course the book I will always cherish is Trouble After School. It remains a kind of tabula rasa that captured the essence of my own junior high school experience, although in my case, there were several Terrys that came along to spice things up a bit and to remind me that life was not all about getting good grades and earning brownie points as teacher’s pet. There’s a lot to be said for veering a bit off the path now and then, if only to awaken aspects of one’s soul that have long lain dormant.