A Secret Life_ The Lies and Scandals of President Grover Cleveland - Charles Lachman [15]
“Boas used to say he preferred to have his patrons take one drink and then take a walk,” said John C. Level, who owned a livery stable that served as a local hub for political gossip.
There came a time when Cleveland tried to cut back on his drinking and pub crawling, and when he found himself missing the hand-rolled cigars available at his favorite German beer garden, he had the owner send a box of them to his room. Cleveland lit one up. As always, he positioned it on the left side of his mouth—the chewing side. He inhaled deeply, then let the smoke linger in his lungs. But something was strangely bland about the cigar. Nothing seemed different about the tobacco—it still had that premium woodsy aroma, but it just didn’t taste the same. He lit another, and another, and eventually, after he had gone through the entire box, the problem finally dawned on him. Everything about the cigar was the same; it was the ambiance of the beer garden that was missing. Cleveland went back to drinking. There were times, he later had to admit, when he got so wasted he was forced to “lose a day.”
After the Civil War, when Grover Cleveland was in his late twenties, something of a social revolution began to take hold. It was the dawning of the Age of the Bachelor. Young men were moving to boomtowns like Buffalo and finding solidarity and companionship with other unmarried young men. In some cities, bachelors constituted as much as 50 percent of the male population between twenty-five and thirty-five years old. At that time, toward the end of the 1860s, the trend was a shocking departure from the social order, and bachelors like Grover Cleveland came to be regarded as outcasts. Far from being seen as the male counterpart of the lonely spinster, an object of pity, almost every portrayal of bachelors in popular culture was negative. They were pariahs, indifferent to the bonds of holy matrimony, dangerous, and possibly even degenerate.
During this period of Cleveland’s life, there is no record of his having pursued women or ever having a serious relationship. One must reach back to Valentine’s Day 1856, when he was nineteen, for evidence of a budding romance. On that day, in the morning mail, he received a charming little card of embossed lace from a lady admirer. It was apparently unexpected, but common courtesy required Cleveland to reciprocate, so he had to scramble to send her his valentine before the end of the day. It was a hectic day for him because he had sent a flirty little verse to another young lady that began, “How doth the little busy B,” but at least he was certain that one of his two cards would “hit the mark.” Yet, whatever interest he might have had in women and the rituals of courtship, it seemed to have faded as time went on. The physical presence of women seemed to make him uneasy, possibly because he had little tolerance for small talk and was lacking in the social graces. There was also misogyny in his way of thinking, as is later revealed. As to the inevitable question of Cleveland’s sexuality, there is no evidence that he was a suppressed homosexual. There is, nevertheless, little doubt that he preferred the company of men.
Every year, the premier society ball of the season was held at the Genesee Hotel for the Charity Organization Society of Buffalo. Against his better judgment, Cleveland allowed his friends to twist his arm to attend; it may well have marked the “end as well as the beginning” of his high-society social life.
The night of the ball, Cleveland seemed to be in fine spirits. Many of the eligible young bachelors in attendance had taken dance lessons at the Cobleigh Dancing Academy in the polka and other popular formal dances, like the lancer. If you didn’t know the moves, the best advice was to steer clear of the floor.
Cleveland, who had never had a dance lesson in his life, found his friend the lawyer George Sicard and said jovially, “Let’s dance the step-over.”
“Who’ll be your pard?” Sicard asked uncertainly.
Proceeding with confidence, Cleveland stepped forward and found a willing young lady to be