By Randy Shilts The President's Nerfiew

Throughout the hall jackets and sweat¬ Thefornialargestatevisitingprisonhallsystem'sat the Vac-Cali¬ ers conceal hand movements that only aville facility, some seventy miles north briefly relieve those doing penance to of San Francisco, hums with the noise society. In the midst of all this, one pale of wives, girlfriends, and children who wiry young man tries desperately to have come to visit those serving time in explain. maximum security. Hand-lettered signs "I'm not that unusual," he says ear¬ proclaim "Sitting On Laps Is Prohibit¬ nestly, his sharp green eyes searching ed." Nevertheless, an elderly woman for comprehension. "You've seen me presses her face into the lap of the hag¬ before. I'm any hustler you've seen gard, gray-haired man sitting before standing on a corner. I'm any junky her in a molded plastic chair, his eyes you've seen on the street. I'm anybody fixed on the ceiling as if in prayer, his you've sat next to in a gay bar. I'm any hips cautiously moving up and down. prisoner you've ever known.

JUNE 1979 29 _THE PRESIDENT'S NEPHEW "I'm anybody's nephew—it doesn't ows that flickered across his bedroom mean much that I'm also the President's wall at night. "But I was more afraid of nephew." He pauses briefly, contem¬ my stepfather than the monsters." Willie plating the parallel structure he has ex¬ taps his fingers more rapidly and rocks back and forth in his molded temporaneously constructed. "I am this country—this room is America." plastic chair. He tells of the nights he A handful of dissident prisoners stuffed pillows under his bedspread and founded the Symhionese Liberation slept on the floor beneath his bed, in order to evade his cantankerous Army in this room some years hack. To¬ guard¬ ian. "I believed day, however, the most subversive activ¬ my step-dad was going to kill me. I ities are sexual, restricted to what trem¬ just didn't know when." He became ulous lips and hidden hands can perform. hyperactive and was treated, he But Willie Carter Spann—the son of says, with regular doses of the then-pop¬ President Carter's sister, Gloria Carter ular ritalin. Spann—has long since become oblivious The rest of Spann's childhood reads to the "sacraments" performed around like the archetypal biography of a delin- him in this chapel of laws and lust. quent-turned-criminal. He became the Plains Willie is trying to explain the crime tough guy. This came in handy and kinship that have gained him the when Uncle Jimmy, then a school-board status member, of the First Family's pmowa non proposed that blacks be given a new school. Cousins grata. This, of course, fs no easy title to Jack and Chip, the capture when the competition includes "nigger-lover's" sons, needed a pro¬ the likes of Uncle Billy. Still, Willie Governor Carter corresponded tective escort—which was often as close to school as Willie came. seems bemused that the media, from with Spann in jail. Hustler to "The whole idea of doing good in People to Good Morning President Carter does not. America, scrambles for interviews with school was to reflect good on my par¬ him. ents," says Spann. "I didn't want to re¬ "I'm just a petty thief who happens Americus, Georgia. His father was an flect good on anybody." to be related to the President," he says. Air Force test pilot, who took Gloria Spann got as far as the eighth grade. "We were all nobodies until Uncle Jim¬ and Willie to live with him in Texas. But ("My seventh grade teacher liked me my got elected, but I think I'm the only Gloria, "an adventurous young lady," too much to flunk me," says Spann.) one who will admit I was a nobody." soon grew restless, deserted her hus¬ His parents sent him off to military For all this verite, Willie does not band, and trundled infant Willie back to academy, where pre-teen alcoholism want to be misunderstood. He worries the Carter family home in Plains. earned him a quick dismissal. he might sound stupid, although he easi¬ While Gloria cavorted with gentle¬ When he was fourteen, Spann's par¬ ly alludes to a panoply of authors rang¬ men callers, Miz Lillian and her husband ents had him declared "incorrigible" ing from Dickens to Hunter S. Thomp¬ became mom and dad for Willie. Billy and sent to jail. "It was a lot more fun son. Other reporters have jumped at the Carter (ten years Willie's senior) and than home," says Spann. "I didn't have chance to interview a Carter who talks Gloria became his brother and sister. to worry about my father coming and freely about crime, homosexuality, drug Willie still recalls the hours teenage beating me up." Released at eighteen, addiction, and off-color family remem¬ Billy spent at his bedroom window with Spann joined the Air Force; three brances. "The media has raped me a a pistol, shooting tin cans off the fam¬ months later he went AWOL, stole a couple of times," Spann says cautiously. ily's white picket fence. Only fierce motorcycle, and destroyed the officers' "Doing an interview is like going into sibling rivalry with Billy marred these putting green, an escapade that resulted an interrogation without your Miranda happy early years. in a year in the stockade. rights." Willie's childhood happiness faded Spann returned to Plains and worked But more than anything Willie is rapidly. The turning point came when a in Uncle Jimmy's peanut warehouse. lonely, eager to escape the five-by-seven- strange man in a 1946 Pontiac drove up But an argument with Billy Carter foot monotony of solitary confinement. to the grand family house in Plains to ("that fat, slobbering, over-the-hill He waves off the $1,000 interview fee take Gloria and Willie away to a poor drunk") soon brought this respite to a he has charged publications such as the dirt farm in the country. dramatic end. Sheriff's deputies caught National Enquirer, welcoming the chance Spann taps his fingers on the formica Spann speeding toward Billy's gas sta¬ to explain his troubled life to someone tabletop as he begins this part of his tion with a revolver; Spann was sent who might understand. Willie's life, he story. He talks of spiders in the out¬ briefly to a mental hospital; from there insists, is something of a social parable- house, of the endless cuisinary configu¬ Spann hitchhiked to Los Angeles, read even if it took avuncular fame to make rations of peanuts made necessary by a City of Night, and became a hustler. people listen. tight budget: boiled peanuts, baked pea¬ "All you had to do was come and get nuts, raw peanuts, peanut butter. Worse, paid," recalls Spann. "It was an ego trip. I there were beatings. I was out here, didn't have any family, "Every time my step-dad saw me, he and needed, I mean really needed, to be saw my mom's first husband," Spann re¬ wanted." Likeand UnclemotherJimmy,Gloria, WilliamUncle Billy,Car¬ calls, "so he beat me." Willie began see¬ Certainly homosexuality was not an ter Spann was born in the Wise Clinic of ing the outlines of monsters in the shad¬ outrageous course to follow for a youth

30 CHRISTOPHER STREET who had spent years in prison before he was even old enough to buy a beer. "You get love where you find it," says If you like the Island, Spann. "In prison, there's only one way you find it." Still, Spann managed to maintain both heterosexual and gay af¬ you'll love the Village: fairs during his early twenties, even when he helped run a "puppy farm" of fourteen- to seventeen-year-old hustlers. ROXBURY He RUN got the pick of the litter, but he also had girlfriends and even a wife (the im¬ mature boys "didn't offer any chance of a relationship"). VILLAGE. A burgeoning interest in drugs forced Spann to look for additional income; he received the invitation to his uncle's 1970 gubernatorial inauguration in jail, while serving time for burglary. Al¬ though Carter sometimes corresponded with Spann, sending him the latest tapes by the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and Jimi Hendrix, little else remained of the long-frayed family ties. Once released, Spann took up with another girlfriend ("When I have a nice lady," he maintains, "my bisexual life goes all to hell"), but his preoccupation with drugs soon had him back in prison for parole violation.

80- percent mortgages available to financially qualified buyers. Design supervised by architect Earl Burns Combs, AIA conductor's watch. He keeps Willie is wound up tighter than a Now you can enjoy your summer freedoms all year long—in a mountaintop an eye on my cup, cardboard coffee of¬ townhouse community of your own, in the heart of the New York State ski belt fering to buy a refill the moment it's Escape to a woodland townhouse with an oversize scenic deck Entertain be¬ empty. He anxiously grabs any chance neath beamed cathedral ceilings. Light a fire in the native stone fireplace and stretch out in front of a riased hearth. to walk across the visiting hall to the Steps away is the Village's 75-foot heated pool, with sundeck, diving boards, vending machine. The longest uninter¬ racing lanes. Professional courts for sudden-death volleyball. Or to perfect your rupted hike he can take in his cell con¬ tennis under the resident pro. sists of precisely S'/a steps. But the Bridle paths to ride along Woodland trails for jogging. Meadows for sunning, chance to talk face to face with some¬ mountaintops for picnicking. Unspoiled places to fish, boat and hike, to ice- skate, and ski. And of course, the Village disco—where you'll dance, dance, one represents an even more precious dance till the spectacular dawn. opportunity, and as soon as Willie counts All this, only a short drive from the arts and crafts of Woodstock The glori¬ out every nickel of change he launches ous sounds of Tanglewood The temptations of auctions and antique shops. The into the story of his most recent crimi¬ unhurried pleasures of country dining. nal activities. When you come, at exit 19 of the N Y State Thruway go west on Rt. 28 to "It's all sort of blurred," says Spann, Arkville, go right to Rt. 30 and right again to Kelley Corners, at Kelley Corners go right and watch for the entrance to Roxbury Run on your left. pointing to the peacock tattoos cover¬ ing the needle marks that once dotted Mailing Address: Roxbury Run Village, 17 Bon Aire Circle, Suffern, N Y 10901. Tel.914-357-6408 his arm. He tried to get jobs from a Please send me complete information on the Village, gay referral service, only to have the including mortgage financing and homeowners' total- counselor make a pass at him. "Be¬ care exterior-maintenance package sides," he adds, eehoing a common NAME complaint of ex-offenders, "what do STREET, APT NO you say when they ask you where you've worked the last ten years? CITY STATE ZIP The penitentiary?" I have to see all this for myself. Phone me at (AREA CODE) The cards were stacked against any (NUMBER) reformation from the start. Lacking enough money for a Castro Street flat, I'm easiest to reach at a m. or p m. Spann moved into San Francisco's sleazy This advertisement is not an offering in the Roxbury Run Village Association, Inc., Tenderloin district-the only neighbor¬ Which may be made only by formal prospectus. CS.2 hood he and many other ex-offenders can afford. "I remember the first day I

JUNE 1979 31 _THE PRESIDENT'S NEPHEW

was there," says Spann. "1 went to the Spann and his partner. The tension and store for two packs of cigarettes. I came the drug use mounted; Spann's partner back with one pack of cigarettes and became increasingly trigger-happy. "1 two balloons of beroin." think the only reason he pulled rob¬ Somewhere in the subsequent blur, beries was to shoot somebody," says Spann got married and found a "crime Spann, "so he could be a big man." A partner," a local bood with a fondness robbery at the Grubstake (a gay burger for young boys; the pair soon set to joint near Polk Street) became a near- capering. Willie preferred burglary; homicide when Spann's partner almost his partner, with a bevy of teenage shot a deaf-and-dumb dishwasher who boys to support, leaned more towards wouldn't heed calls to empty the cash armed robbery. Spann learned the register. Spann's partner finally shot a art of brown-bagging. His first target, beer gaffer at a gay bar in the Tender¬ the Mint, was one of the city's oldest loin, wounding him critically. gay bars. While Uncle Jimmy's name made Spann taps bis fingers again as the national headlines, Willie's grasp on real¬ scenario unfolds. "I was real nervous at ity faded. "One day it hit me," he says. first," he recalls. "Then I saw this eight- "What am I doing knocking over wi¬ een-year-old kid making a fool of him¬ dows to get a bag of heroin when my self and all of these lechers figuring out uncle is running for President? That's who was going to take him home. I Spann on Uncle Billy Carter: when the thread broke." The police knew him. He was me." "That fat, slobbering, eventually caught Spann's partner, who Just after last call, Spann got the bar¬ over-the-hill drunk." promptly implicated Spann in nine tender's attention and quickly thrust a robberies. But even the trial seemed pistol between his eyes. Spann's brown like a dream to Willie, though he now bag was soon filled with bills. "I couldn't months. I was so stoned I didn't care maintains he's glad he got caught when believe how easy it was," he says. "But I much which." he did. knew that I'd either end up in the The Tavern Guild (San Francisco's "I hate gay bars," he says. "That's morgue or back in jail after a few gay bar network) put out a reward for why I robbed them. People paying nine¬ ty cents a beer for friendship. It's good they caught me, because once I robbed all tbe gay bars, I was going to rob every pawnshop, every bail bondsman. All the people who were preying off society." Spann spent three months in jail before the dreamlike haze lifted. By then. Uncle Jimmy was well on his way to being elected President of the United States, forcing Spann to grap¬ ple with being the "family fuck-up" in one of the world's most prominent families.

Spann darts from our table to the coffee machine. Black prostitutes, who have come from Oakland to visit their unlucky pimps, stare at him as he paces to the machine—as if something in Wil¬ lie's gait might reveal a trace of his line¬ age. Spann is articulate and far more aware than most in the room; but one striking similarity ties him to the other prisoners. He doesn't smile. Willie re¬ turns with another cup of coffee and precise change. He's tired, but he can't waste any time on small talk. He's got too many important things to say. "I am this nation," he repeats calmly. "I've seen every part of American life from the Carter family to junkies. You've seen me before." Visiting time ends promptly at 3:30 p.m. The guards usher the visitors out

32 CHRISTOPHER STREET while Willie and the other prisoners— family eccentric with a penchant for all sexual outlaws now—shuffle back Hondas. Ruth found God and is pulling through the bullet-proof iron doors that in hefty crowds on the evangelist cir¬ lead to the cells. His uncle is the most cuit. ("Some women use vibrators," Willie muses. "She uses God. I powerful man in the world, but Willie guess it's is just another prisoner, walking back all right—everybody has to come some¬ to a tiny cell to be alone. how.") Only Uncle Billy has bared the dark side of the Carter family psyche. II Miz Lillian alone, on whom Spann can¬ not lavish enough praise, writes to the ^u^Tillie can pinpoint his last day of young prisoner—a monthly correspond¬ T T freedom exactly: March 25, ence that often includes Polaroids of 1976. "When I got to county jail," her globe-trotting adventures. To the remembers Spann, "somebody said, rest of the Carter clan, Willie is just a 'Do you know your uncle is going throwaway. to be the next President of the United "Every time I turn on the TV and States?' 'Sure,' I said, 'Jimmy Carter see my mom or Aunt Ruth in the Bay doesn't do anything unless he's going Area, promoting a book or something, to win.' " it really hurts," says Willie, his green If Spann's filial ties have provided eyes growing vacant. "I think of all the On Aunt Ruth Carter the major conversation piece for his Stapleton: opportunities I've missed." "Some women use However loose his current prison term, they have also First-Family ties, been responsible for his most profound vibrators. they still represent the greatest in¬ fluence on Willie's life. psychological trials. Columnists react¬ She uses God." Spann's notori¬ ed gleefully when Chip Carter made ety makes him a likely target for thugs a brief appearance outside the Mint— trying to carve a reputation, so prison authorities the very bar Chip's cousin had robbed honored Shriner. The mother who had keep him in a small, isolated cell off the —to court the gay vote for his father. him locked up at fourteen has gained prison mainline. Charles When Willie emerged as a minor cam¬ the public-relations glow of a madcap Manson, mass-murderer Juan Corona, paign issue, candidate Carter solemnly told of how the young man had been "in constant trouble all his adult life."

Since then neither Carter nor the White House has had anything more to say about or to Willie. To be sure, the most embarrassing aspect of Spann's notoriety stems from his willingness to discuss homo¬ sexuality; although Spann considers himself, at best, to be bisexual, with decided heterosexual preferences. He shifts easily from talk of his male lover at San Quentin to the girlfriends who routinely visit him (he seems partic¬ ularly satisfied with a blossoming romance with an intelligent young businesswoman from San Francisco). For all his hetero proclivities, how¬ ever, Spann has a hard time under¬ standing why his frank discussion of prison love should be so sensational¬ ized by the press. "The sexual trip happens because you're close to some¬ body," he says. "It's just love. You're showing love for another person." Un¬ burdened by gay political rhetoric, Spann seems almost naive. After all, he asserts, love is love. He neither Fr'enth, for after, I know a quiet place in theVillage." Table d'hote. plays down his homosexuality nor Chef/owner, Antoine Danton. Host, Mariano Parra. At 328 West 12th Street, corner of Greenwich Street, New York City. Reservations recommended, plays up his heterosexuality. 212-924-3413. (AE, DC) Something of a lost little boy emerges wben he contemplates his family. The stepfather who once beat him is now an

JUNE 1979 33 THE PRESIDENT'S NEPHEW and the famous Kemperer killer, who a makeshift chapel, its molded plastic variously ate or stuffed members of his chairs stacked neatly in a corner. The family, have also been lodged in this wedding guests have their bags searched; celebrity wing. Spann's closest neighbor the ushers wear pistols and handcuffs. and best jailhouse friend is Norman St. The best man is a one-time member of Martin, one of Detroit's Purple Gang. the Purple Gang. Charles Manson has Guards consider their ward some¬ sent regrets that he cannot attend. Eight thing of a curiosity, an exotic animal guests—all that prison authorities would caged in their personal zoo. When news allow, not including three reporters of Uncle Jimmy's commutation of from nearby small-town weeklies—have Patricia Hearst's sentence spread, about been thoroughly screened weeks before fifteen of Vacaville's finest congregated the service. around Willie's cell. "He's your uncle," For bride jane Frey the romance they laughed. "Why doesn't he help had started inadvertently, when she you? Maybe if you bought a newspaper helped negotiate a magazine deal for you could get out." Spann last year. A mutual acquaintance The media provides some of Spann's prodded Frey to correspond with only friendly interactions. "I admit I get Spann, which in turn led to her first off on it," says never Spann. "I had any¬ "Miz Lillian alone, on whom personal visit in October, Spann's body take my picture before all this." Spann cannot proposal in February, and finally to Still, they usually ask all the wrong this lavish April morning when Frey found never on the im¬ enough praise, questions; they focus herself driving towards Vacaville wear¬ writes to the portant issues he can address, like the young prisoner. " ing a Forties-style blue-and-white jersey black how he and tens of comedy of dress and singing, "Get me to the thousands like him get caught in an marry the businesswoman who has been church—I mean, prison on time." endless cycle of recidivism. visiting him for several months. Certainly Frey was no flighty dream¬ During our second interview, er out Spann to fulfill a gun-moll fantasy insists that he'll escape "the system" Ill with the President's nephew. A graduate once he is paroled in December. But of the Sorbonne, the mature forty- he's vague. A few days later, 1 pick up one-year-old insurance broker cuts an the paper to see that The bride media-sawy Willie It's not yourstepstypicalgingerlyweddingthroughscene. assertive and articulate figure. Her has saved the details for San Francisco's the metal detector in the prisoners' visit¬ work with Harlem gangs and San leading gossip columnist: Spann will ing hall, which has been converted into Quentin convicts has given her experi¬ ence with those who have fought not only society's laws, but a system of justice that can create as many problems as it may solve. Frey thinks Willie is changing. "I remember when 1 first met him," she says. "He never smiled. Now, he's finally starting to grin—not the cold prisoner's grin, but a real smile." This is getting corny. Is she upset about Willie's sexual background? "It doesn't bother me that he's done everything," says Frey matter- of-factly, leaning back as the van speeds towards Vacaville. "Besides, lots of people have done everything but don't admit it."

Once past the photographers and se¬ curity checks at the prison gate, the wedding party files into the visiting hall. Willie hugs Jane and beams. "I'm never going to have to go to the Tenderloin again," he says, to no one in particular. Quickly, he changes into a white, loose- sleeved Indian shirt he has borrowed from a photographer, tucking it into his neatly ironed prison denims. Reverend Bill Hausler arrives from a nearby church in his blue double- knit polyester jacket and white tie.

34 CHRISTOPHER STREET He's clearly nervous at the sight of reporters, but has counseled the couple THE DIRECTORS and decided that they're very much in love—which, he concludes curtly, "is the only thing I care about." BERGMAN Armed guards watch smilingly from the sidelines as the couple exchanges Someone whipped you as a child, very hard. simple vows. Afterward, Spann pulls Someone scarred you, and kept scarring you. Reverend Hausler into a traditional Now your portraits drip a refined red, and your women are constantly in group wedding photo. "1 want my labor. I hate to see them any more—poor, poor women. I hate to see family to know this was respectable," the glass in their vaginas, the complexions puffy with tragedy, and he jokes. Willie smiles almost preter- the bellies bursting. naturally as he goes through the rounds I don't like glass in my insides any more than they did. And I don't care of handshakes and kisses. "I've never how often you've laughed, and whether or not you have an equal sensitivity known there could be love like this," for joy. You have hurt me too deeply, taken me to a desk where the nuns he enthuses. "This is the first time held me down and broke my hands with rulers. You've beaten me like your in my life that I've ever had a group parents. of people be glad about something It is only when I want blood, blood, that I come to see you. good that was happening to me." He gathers everyone around him. "My family is here," he says trium¬ COCTEAU phantly. "I just looked into a friend's eyes here and I could tell he cared Death was full of answers. You saw her driving a Rolls Royce, for me. I can say that I love him too. saw her black, saw her as a procuress. She got all the best lines, It doesn't matter that he's a man. and made the final sacrifice. How strange to not be able to make our Jane has put so much love in my heart own sacrifices, but have death make them. I suppose it will be that that I love everyone here." way, in the end, she with her severe black hair, tuning us in on her The small-town reporters look at short-wave, and planning the final script. 1 suppose she will be each other curiously. They came to impossibly beautiful, and probably very interesting. I, for one, want her cover a prison wedding, not a dis¬ to divert me from the things around me. How sad it would be in sertation on the androgynous qualities my last moments to be preoccupied with reality. of love. Still, the very sincerity of Spann's discourse belies its apparent And after all, why shouldn't she have her way? We belong to death. And those who own us, naivete. The guests move closer as he have the right to torture us. develops his theme. "All my life," he says, trying so hard to explain, "I've only gotten attention when I BUNUEL fucked up. I never knew it could be like this." I corner Senor Bunuel, and ask him many questions. Soon the guards explain that they I ask him why Mexico City is falling into the sea. I ask him have an upcoming noon meal to mon¬ why the Mexicans' bowels rumble when they make love. itor. They begin ushering the guests I ask him why parrots fly in pairs out of the jungles, instead of back towards the gates. Willie tries flying singly. I ask him to sum up. His parole is set for Christ¬ why Rockefeller, or was it Tmman, destroyed Diego Rivera's mas Eve. With a wife and comfortable beautiful mosaic with a sickle. I ask him apartment awaiting him, he figures "I've why his women pull on little boys' penises to say hello. I ask him finally got a reason to stay out." As the why Genevieve read to me from her prayer book at dusk. And how did she last guests file through the electronic get across the border in the first place? And I ask Senor Bunuel gates, Spann stands alone—smiling—in why my happiest years were spent nestled the silence of the vast, cathedral-like against the border of his great country; why I have been unable to visiting hall.B recapture that happiness since. Why I always feel as if I were leaving, with plastic rattling on Contributing editor Randy Shilts cov¬ the car windows, and dope stashed in my hubcap. ered Willie Carter Spann's wedding for And Senor Bunuel laughs. the Washington Post. An urban affairs He hits the tip of his silver cane twice on the ground. reporter for San Francisco's KQED-TV, Then the women, with their black braids, come and lift me up Shilts's work has also appeared in the and put me in one of their white ovens. And they sprinkle me with many Village Voice, New West, National Pub¬ herbs and spices, saying, "When you come from our ovens into a new lic Radio, and the San Francisco Chron¬ life, icle and Examiner. The history of Willie you will be sweet. Then you will not ask so many questions." Carter Spann presented herein is based —Mark Hensley entirely on information provided by Spann. The White House did not re¬ spond to Shilts's request for a comment.

JUNE 1979 35 Portfolio Gwyn Metz:

Gwyn Metz is fascinated with the play of light and the effect it has upon how subjects are perceived. As a photographer she works to capture this fascination on film. Metz studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York and at the University of New Mexico. Her work has been exhibited in New York, Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and Tempe, Arizona, and has appeared in numerous publications here and abroad. She is involved now in creating a series of light abstractions directly on film in the darkroom, which correspond to her abstract-realist photographs taken directly from life. Metz also has an intense interest in landscapes and people. The following portfolio illustrates how she uses the simplicity of an image to delve beneath the facades of her subjects and reveal more elusive aspects of their personalities.—The Editor

All photographs copyright®Gwen Metz

36 CHRISTOPHER STREET