Wherein I risked looking like a gigolo (and would love a chance to risk it again)

My grandmother was a big part of my early life, in many ways my rescuer. Following up on my prior entry, here’s a tale of another important lesson I almost didn’t learn.

* * *

ONE FINE DAY in Reno in 1975 as I sat in my German immigrant grandmother’s kitchen looking through the paper, I noted that the jazz–rock band Blood Sweat & Tears (BS&T) was to perform at a dinner show at a Lake Tahoe casino–resort. Before I could think better of it, I overheard myself say, “David Clayton–Thomas is back with them. I always said I’d go see them if they came to town. Oh well.”

“Well,” my grandmother said, “let’s go. I will pay.”

​Uh oh.

Here’s the thing. Everyone in our family knew not to go out to dinner with Gram. She  was wonderful and generous with her grandchildren, but in restaurants she was a snob and a complainer. Her family had servants when she was a child in Germany. Decades in America hadn’t broken her of treating servers like servants, which in her mind meant treating them with outright disdain. She was especially unkind to female servers. To her, respectable women didn’t work outside the home.

No restaurant could please her. If you made the mistake of saying your meal was good, she would spit out so other diners and the help could hear, “My dinner tastes like shoe leather.”

Moreover, a lot of people about my age would be at the show. Call me small, but this 21–year–old wasn’t eager to walk in with a 72–year–old woman clutching his arm.

But I had wished aloud, and Gram had heard. If I declined, she would know why, and it would hurt.

A split second was all I needed to decide. “Gee,” I managed, “that would be great.”

On the appointed night, we drove up the mountain to Lake Tahoe. As the host showed us to our seats, did everyone stare and assume I was a gigolo*, or did I only imagine it? No matter. It felt the same.

To my relief, Gram was not discourteous to the help. Nor was she impatient with being seated at a crowded table with other couples. Nor did she complain about the food. The night was young, but so far so good.

The meal was served and the show began. BS&T and David Clayton–Thomas delivered a stunning performance. I still thrill at the memory of the tuba solo Dave Bargeron belted out. 

Toward the end of the song “Hi De Ho,” Clayton–Thomas called out for the audience to sing along. Only one audience member did. It happened to be an audience member with a German accent, and she didn’t hold back on the volume. I sank a bit lower in my seat.

I loved the show. Unfortunately, the lights came back up after it was over. Once again I felt everyone staring at me. They most likely weren’t, but it was what I imagined. I slinked out of the place with Gram on my arm, loaded her into the car, and we headed down the mountain.

Once in the car, she began not to complain, but to exult. It was the first time in years she had forgotten all of her troubles. It was the first time in years anyone had taken her anywhere. (True enough.) It was the most fun she could recall having ever had. She’d had a wonderful time. All the way down the mountain, she brimmed with happiness. And gratitude. To me. Me. You know, the guy who—thank goodness she hadn’t been able tell—had been embarrassed to be seen with her.

I found myself thinking, That wasn’t so bad. I could do it again.

Three months later, it came time for me to leave Reno. Gram died about six months later.

________________

​*Decades later I would understand that there’s nothing wrong with being a gigolo or any other kind of non–coerced sex–worker. See Chapter 10, “Should It Be Legal?” in my book Behind the Mormon Curtain: Selling sex in America’s holy city.