Gay handcuffs

The Atavist, our sister publication, publishes one deeply reported, elegantly designed story each month. He wore glasses and a pressed shirt; he seemed normal.

The man asked Shrader to drink some alcohol with him, and Shrader obliged.

After the court adjourned, I would go over, take the guy by the arm and tell him I was sorry but it was my duty to place him in irons. Most guys don’t join the Navy to be pseudo-cops: they want to be at sea, not some dreary shore station. The publication noted with frustration that police had “little understanding” of homophobic crimes.

“At first I thought he was 30 to 35 and very dirty. Kirkland, an Atlanta cop, worked security a few nights a week at the Gallus. The weight of any such item can be found on its detail page. If the hands are cuffed behind the back with the palms facing out, it is extremely difficult for the prisoner to remove the cuffs, even if he knows how they work and has the key in hand.

One sailor, whom I’ll call Jackson, had been sentenced to “six-six-and-a-kick” (six months imprisonment at hard labor, forfeiture of two-thirds of his pay for six months and a bad conduct discharge) for repeated instances of unauthorized absence and barracks theft. 149, “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”

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In May 1991, Michael Jordan visited Atlanta, Georgia, to revel in the city’s social scene.

“He really cared,” Hunnewell said. Had the man slipped him something? Several chasers and brig guards were staring at the H&R manacles still imprisoning Jackson’s arms behind him, and were trying to figure out where the keyhole was. I suggested to our CPO that we should have some belly chains, so a few sets of those were requisitioned.

Most guys swallowed hard and just seemed humiliated. It was “fuck the Navy” this and “fuck the Navy” that, combined with quite a few “go fuck your-self’s” that convinced me the lad needed a bit of informal reinforcement of the court’s sentence. Jordan downed about half the bottle, at which point the man left the car for a few minutes to get something to mix the alcohol with.

“I think what you told us will be helpful in the longrun and should be expressed more often in police work,” one participant wrote in an evaluation of the training, “but I still think gays are disgusting and a disgrace to our country.” George Napper, Atlanta’s public safety commissioner, refused to make a statement condemning crimes against the gay community because it might be construed as favoritism.

After healing for two years, Shrader went back to hustling, scars and all.

Jordan’s assault would bring the truth to light: Not only did the Handcuff Man exist, but there were people in Atlanta who knew his name, including members of the police force. I don’t remember there being a firm rule about cuffing in back, and it was relatively infrequently done (except by me).

My general interest in handcuffs led me to start collecting them while I was still on active duty in the Navy.

I told my young partner that he could take Jackson to the brig on his own since he had been well secured in irons, and only one escort was technically required for a shackled prisoner. She asked her sources about the dangers of their lifestyle and learned that “the greatest fear on the street right now is invoked by the specter of ‘The Handcuff Man,’ a man who reportedly picks up hustlers, offers them a pint of vodka spiked with sleeping pills and then handcuffs and beats them.”

The following year, in April 1985, a thin man rolled down his car window on Ponce de Leon Avenue and asked Max Shrader if he wanted to make some money.

Judging from a few wayward bulges, a number of them really got off on being chained in public.

I always talked a lot as I was chaining the guys up, real official-like stuff I just made up, telling them just what I was doing, asking for a wrist or what have you, asking if the shackles weren’t so tight as to cut off circulation or something.