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US BY GREYHOUND TRIP 1963  3 of 10

 

SATURDAY, MARCH 16. Tell Dave I'm tired in the morning, and lounge till 8:20, then put heater on in bathroom, locate his nude males, and jerk into bliss. Look at sketch books and Muybridge photos and then thumb through his cock books, and I'm hard again and come again, with all the double-folds looking seductively up at me. Do it a third time and am exhausted. Put music on player and read his complete Peanuts collection through. He calls and I phone Jim and he says he'll be over at 1. I fix apartment up and put cock books away and shower and get ready and read some of "Twenty-one Variations on a Theme." "Momma" is particularly good. Jim's over and we go to Bob's Big Boy for lunch, and there we meet Ella (?) who's had much trouble with car. He takes her home and we shop for his bathroom supplies, then out to the Sonora Desert Museum. It's far out, but we seem to have not much trouble finding things to talk about, and the Museum is pleasant, even though the vampire bat cage, with its light gun, is literally gory, the red blood and the black droppings making an extreme setting. They cling together in a bundle and swing gently as the light goes on and off. The animals are all active, and I hit my first walk-through bird cage. The underground exhibits are cleverly done, complete with ants and bats and rats and snakes, but the roots look fairly phony. Ennui sets in and we speed through the lengthy, talky water conservation programs. He pays for lunch and I pay for Sonora, so we come out about even. He takes me to Dave's and we go to the steak place for dinner, have trouble getting to the waitress for the check, and get to the Wyeth watercolor and casein opening. Again it's typical New York with elegant old ladies and even more elegant young men, a few scrub-faced couples, and Dave cruises around saying hello, sometimes very obtrusively, and they answer unenthusiastically. He flutters around to people and I like some of the watercolors, and am amazed at his use of the white of the paper in snow and surf. Dave introduces me to many people: painters, framers, museum officials, former help, and we leave at end of show. He drives me to the "top of the this," and the "that-view room," and we look at plush surroundings and lights below, again very much New York. I'm again tired, and to bed while he watches TV.

SUNDAY, MARCH 17. Up and wash and without breakfast to pick up Marge, pleasant smiling blond, tall and neat, and Leslie, a midget with a good sense of humor (she NEEDS it). I get jolt as they open door and I look WAY down on her. Out along highway and look at clouds gathering. Stop for breakfast and I have my first New Orleans Po-Boy ham and roast beef, and I get the beans, which turn out to be the awful hard skinned hot Mexican chili beans and I steal French fries from others. See San Ivere (Xavier) from the road, looking like a white dove in the desert, and down to Tumacacori where we take turns reading the tour guides through the vandal ravaged ruins. The place looked colorful, and the graveyard was dry and rocky, but the place could summon no sense of the past in me. It could have been built yesterday. Again to the car and through the gate into Mexico and continued until we saw the Nogales bullring from the highway. After managing to park fairly close, we stood in the long, slow-moving line for tickets while the brass band blared out, grimy men sold serapes and sombreros and trinkets and banderillas; and exaggeratedly sad-eyed urchins, thin but sly-looking, sold Chicklets. We bought the cheapest seats for $3.50, and the crowd outside was cute, but was nothing compared to the amphitheater of tight-trousered, large-thighed, straight-hipped, crew-cut, clear-faced, wet-lipped, big-eyed senors who sat on the cold concrete steps. The first bull, an unfortunate, sympathy-getting creature who had broken its horn, drooling shiny saliva, and the clotted masses falling from its horn looked unnecessarily cruel. The crowd gradually fell into the rhythms of the "oles" and learned to boo the picadors. The cheer from the knowledgeable was to "be a brave bull." A bull who took ages to charge, or who wouldn't turn swiftly enough to permit the matador to show off his paso doble, was hissed roundly. The first bull was a poor kill; the matador only pinked him with his sword, after he had failed the first time. Others with wicked short knives had to come in close and jab a few times while the head tossed about and the blood ran down the sides. The second bull leapt the fence --- an amazing sight it was to see this over half-ton beast leap into the air, scrape over the barrier, and crash into the wall opposite, then twist awkwardly around, where it appeared only a matter of luck that he didn't get his neck broken. I insisted that the fellow in the brown suit was good during the first fight, but was pooh-poohed because he hadn't a brilliant suit of lights. Then the fellow next to me said he was Perez, and I was justified. Both headlining fighters had retired, but had returned to fight for charity. The wind was cold, and the clouds only occasionally allowed the crowd to applaud the sun peeping through. Once drops of rain fell, and those who paid more for the shady side ran under the awning. The fanfare blew for each change of action, and struck up a quick snappy tune when the matador had executed a good series of passes. Our blankets over the knees felt good, and the Mexicans reinforced their body heat with goat skins filled with gin or wine, one of which was thrown into the ring after the two good fights. The third bull went over the fence TWICE, and the players scampered around the barricades inside the alley until the doors could be opened and the bull channeled into the ring. The kills were sloppy and stomach-tightening, though Aruzza --- died in auto accident May 20, 1966, only 3 years from now, at 46 ---who got one ear, slipped in the sword easily about three-quarters of the way, and the bull spun four or five times before collapsing. There were unexpected traits --- the bulls were not fought long; they were played by the novices, weakened only slightly by the picadors, who must often lose horses, which were wildly jounced around by the bulls who seemed to thrust and charge, stand and meditate for a moment, then thrust again. One bull thrust five or six times, and the picador had no strength left to drive him off; when he did, the pick was left dangling ungracefully in his back. After five or six passes, however, the sword was called for, and the kill attempted. Only the last kill was swift and authentic, when the orange handle almost vanished into the short hair on the back, going in as easily as a pin into a cushion. The matador threw an ear at the woman in the old-fashioned yellow bonnet with ties and duster, which got red blood on it as she caught the ear to her. A bit of gore was added when the hawkers proudly moved through the crowd selling the rusty-looking "Perez banderillas." The day was windy, and buckets of water hardly kept the capes from whipping around. The one or two close passes were certainly breathtaking, and the blood on the suit indicated the closeness. Arruza capped the afternoon in his elegant black suit by literally leading the third bull by his horns through his final passes. Kneeling, the cape held down, he reached out to the bull's head DIRECTLY in front of him and gently steered the bull to the left; the bull went, and the gambit was repeated with great success, until he simply stood before it in triumph as the crowd cheered. How strikingly similar to ballet, where you can sit and watch for hours for the simple workmanship, the elements, the forms, and then a great person produces a great moment, and that moment is worth the price of admission and the patience of waiting for the moment, and brings the desire to see more in the hopes of getting, again, this moment of elevating greatness. After the fight the pillows sailed through the air. The cocks, which I would have loved to see rampant, left the arena. We drove directly back, after seeing the T-bird shaken to its springs by the three laughing drunk young men who rocked it to pester the fellow inside, who had managed to pull the catch out of the frame without unlocking the door, and who refused to open the handle. The fellows alternately laughed, rocked, and disdainfully washed their hands of the project, their stomachs weak from laughing. Left off the gals and went to the smoked-rib house, where the butter in the potatoes, the good salad, the pear and cottage cheese, the warm buttered rolls, and the lush ribs all vied for attention. I ate quickly and handily, the perfect meal. Back to the apartment to sort the luggage out and plan the rest of the trip and get to bed about 11.

MONDAY, MARCH 18. Up and forget the second portion of the dessert Dave made last night and get to the shop where I send socks and underwear and a shirt to the laundry, where the Swiss keepers are pleasant. Write at his desk and ogle cute purchasers and talk with the help, and at 10 Dave drives me downtown, suitcase loaded, and I check mail, walk to station and get on bus at 12 with Bill Jones of Bakersfield. He talks about Fragstaff and traveling and his first pair of jeans and 11 in his pocket and we pass Casa Grande, looking small from the highway, Into Phoenix at 2:30. Walk two blocks to Y, which has no singles, but only a double for $4. He says, "It's still the cheapest room in town." I hadn't intended not to take it, so I did, and checked that all the museums were closed on Monday. Decide Phoenix has not much, and since they have NO singles until the first of April, I decide to leave town fast. Leave at 4:30 to walk up Central [Simply marvelous configuration of events in Phoenix: Nothing "on" that evening, so I decide on Backstage Club, Playboy Club, Captain's Table, and the Y. Walk up Central from the Y, and see the advertisement for the "Islesworth Mona Lisa" and pass the sign, thinking it a hoax or a sketch, but then back and go in, only to see a sign for $1, and look in to see a gilt frame against red velvet, and wander away from the empty police coat on the chair in front of the table containing the strongbox and the sign. Look at the other paintings and the sign that they could be leased, purchased, or time-purchased. Most of the paintings are terrible, but I look at them and pass trio around desk. Lady gets up to leave and I decide I've had enough. Show closes at 5, and I got IN at 4:50. Almost out the door and decide, "What the heck," and back to desk, "Is that serious?" The woman asks, "The Mona Lisa?" The man asks, "The $1 charge?" I look at the latter and say "Yes." I said, "Well, the coat was there" --- and she said, "It's HIS coat." I stare and say "OH," and he asks "Are you a student?" I look straight at him and say "Yes." "Well, go on in." "Thank you," and I do.] and see second Mona Lisa, lousy background, but an appropriately young face. Good painting which I lucked my way into. Walk to 2500 block and discover I've left Playboy key. Catch bus back to Y, get key and hitchhike back up. Fellow who had once been George Maharis' roommate in New York, and had known George Chakiris, drove me to the Backstage Club, after stopping at his pleasant place and picking up a dirty hairy dog. I sat outside at table for only minutes before I thought to check sign in front: Closed Monday. Curse a bit, but out on road again (I HAD had fun getting there) to thumb for about 10 minutes, and college kid in Cadillac swooped down. We talked, and he went out of his way to take me directly to the door of the Playboy Club. The girl seemed loathe to let me in, and asked three times if I was the key holder. Watched the sun set over the pleasant view, and drank my drink slowly (whisky sour with cherry and a piece of pineapple) and looked at Bunny Corner and rankled that their insurance wouldn't allow people on the balcony. Used the men's room to take off my sweater and straighten my tie. Check my sweater, and back to the quiet bar. The tables filled up a bit, and finally a quiet blond sat a few chairs down and talked of San Francisco. "When is the SF club to open?" And we talked of this and that and programming (he's Personnel in Bank of America's computing), and my trip, and he suggested we eat dinner together. Show started at 8 as we got in, and it was typical --- a comic pop "folk" singer, a cute "personality" girl singer, and an aging, dirty comedian. The food was precisely that of Playboy Clubs everywhere, even to the Lowenbrau, and we left feeling typical. He made some half-remarks, and though the wedding ring put me off, I confided that I was going to the Captain's Table. "Why were you at the Playboy Club if you want to get to the Captain's Table?" "I'm a member," and the silence was strange because both of us were, I guess, having an odd kind of fun. We drove much, first up the avenue, then up the street, then checked a phone book, up the street again, and back to the avenue, when we found it, too, closed on Monday. Aimlessly back to town, and I said I was in the Y, but he volunteered nothing. Said I'd check address of downtown bar, he said I'd probably find it dull, but took me there anyway. He stopped in front, he said he wasn't coming in, proffered his hand and said, "Good luck." I shook it, said thanks, and left Dennis Elder, odd fellow. Bar was awful, trade-like characters alternating with old men and straight business types. Drank drink and left, bed early.

TUESDAY, MARCH 19. Up and wash and pay for ticket for Gray Line Grand Canyon tour, and fidget while bus arrives at 9:15. Chinese couple and little girl take up three seats, but I manage to ricochet back and forth as the scenes differ from left to right. Stop at morning coffee and I'm amazed at Rockhound's prices: 75 to $50. Doesn't seem worth it. To bus and ascend into Saguaro country and then out of it as altitude rises and Oak Creek Canyon, with its red rock, gray wall chapel, the carousel, the courthouse, and the splashes of color [The scene from Sedona was a painter's pallet. A bright light luminous blue was the backwash: the sky. Against it, outlines glimmering to the eye because of the intense contrast, were splashes of new chartreuse weeping willow leaves, undusted, unbrowned, fetus-fresh. And the intense orange-brown-red of the sandstone of Oak Creek Canyon. Next to these, to show contrast, were yellow ochre slopes, creamed in snow and peppered with green creosote bushes. The red and yellow, painterly, faded to a common orangish base rock, and the blue awning of the house below was an artificial non-sky blue. The green trees vs. red earth, chartreuse vs. red, and red vs. blue sky, white rocks, even.] [Cartoon series: "And what can I walk around and see from HERE?"] [Trait: fingernails whiten under pressure of folded hands of tense young man.] [Two cars, a black and a blue, wrapped like lovers together at the bottom of a hill; a rusty blue car adding one more blue tone; a 7-Up truck rescuing a 7-Up truck off the road; a green smear on a rail where a sports car leapt over.] [Above 7500 feet the white Arizona Aster complemented the fresh soft snow.] [Multi-branched ponderosas, fallen, looking like fallen flailing centipedes.] [Before Canyon, on Kaibab Plateau, a red, yellow and green mountain looked as if the mountains were of flesh, tree-covered, and the trees scraped off to the flesh, which bled, reddening the area below the wound.] make a beautiful setting for lunch with the long-lashed driver. Drive through snow and see wrecks and get out at camera stops to admire the view and feel the cool breezes. Higher until the ground is covered with snow, then down to the plateau for the Grand Canyon realty rook, then to the canyon. The approach is poor, first the village, then the rail station, then the lodge, then the cabins, but I step away from my cabin and there's the canyon. Snow down the slopes, and mud, so back to get out beret and scarf and gloves, bundle up good. I slop down through mud, mule manure and snow. Sun sets slowly as I descend, but when I reach a certain point, it's obvious that the trail (which I certainly don't intend to follow to bottom at 5 pm) never leaves a fairly enclosed wide side canyon. Get to a point where I sign my name, and have a good view of the canyon, and stop. Watch a kid, amazed, come down, but later I see him walking back up, helloing down to someone coming up from below. Four Spaniards, exhausted, file up, and pass, then I've seen a better vantage point and decide to go up, too, so I pass them and get to top and run along rim looking for the point. The sun lowers and I run, gasping, and run, to get to the point before it sets. The point seems to recede as I tired, but get there in good time to catch my breath and begin to feel the sweat dry. [Where is my shadow, miles away? Colors don't change, but dimensions do. Valleys lit from mysterious canon rift. Hills particularized by shadows setting them off from what looked like part of them. Shadows distant from near objects, and the indefinite albedo from farthest horizon. Crows float overhead: "What way should I turn?" Snow and cold. Valleys black and fog forms, filling clefts. Some mountains will never resolve, since they and I and sun form one line. I stand, surmounted only by trees, on a pinnacle of chasm. Rocks, like boats, are left afloat out of sea of shadow. Profiles turned, like a triple-headed sleeping giant, with fantastic upturned knees. Plains, when sun sets obliquely, show contours unseen before. Cars pass, and I exhort them to continue. Cold creeps up as the shadows do --- writing with gloves on and iron railing is cold, ink is non-fluid. Cries of Hopi dance as I run to vantage point. Yellow glows as sun nears setting, and valleys grow obscure and gray. It becomes difficult to trace exaggerated shadows and their rocky sources. St. Franciscus glows snowtopped in the distance as El Tovar recedes into the gloom, the ink level rising slantwise in the canyon. Tips of peaks catch sun, then sink. Strata by strata, the sun crawls up the wall. Cars stop and I curse tourist banality. Gray rises up in east as sun sinks in west, and finally the farthest peak has a shadow, and the atomization of the range is done. Sun is green-yellow through ponderosa thicket. Yellow fades, but red intensifies. Colors DO change. Faces rotate, turn farther into sleep. First Bright Angel, THEN El Tovar. It's now 6:30, show started at 6. Isolated castles remain on Shadow-Rhine. Shadow hits far horizon and mountain is split. Faces get chins, the noses submerged. Crows caw no longer. No cars pass. No voices. Wind rustles hair in ears. Castles countable now, and the yellow rim grows skinnier. Castles only two strata high. Street lights come on around hotels. Far range goes before yellow rim, though that follows fast behind. As second last strata sinks, and general light fades, the last strata looks even more convincingly like penthouses and Morro Castle Valley peaks go, as do the water towers in the town, and it's a toss-up, as all fades, whether the north rim, or the central high butte, is the last to go. Cold increases, nose drips, hands numb, feet cold, start to shiver, eyes water, writing becomes ever more lousy, wind gets colder, smoke seems to rise up from the east and snuff the light, and even St. Franciscus is pink only momentarily as gray tints rise, and the sunset is a mere gold ribbon in the west; sunset is over and I start back at 6:45.] Walk back quickly, feeling cold, and get to lodge to find long line for restaurant. Watch tail of Judy Garland show and get into restaurant (fairly good, and filled with talkative people) in time to get down to the Kolb brother's house, perched INSIDE the rim, to see a fantastic series of slides and films of their trips into the canyon, climaxed by a plea that their film and home NOT be destroyed after they die. Later I hear that the narrator's daughter is a drunk, and that the house HAD been sold for $50,000. Makes a good story, but you might feel sorry for poor fellow who explored and built up his own business (around an Act of God) and then had the government come in and box him off slowly and completely. Pity. Nothing ELSE to do at night, but the sky is clear, and the stars infinite in number. I walk again out on point and get to the chapel area. The stars twinkle at the horizon, fade out at the zenith, and the ones between seem the brightest. It seems I can find the northern cross and the archer and the twins and the dippers, and the sky is simply glorious. The stars are devoid of color, and are only an odd green-white. The lights from the lodge might hurt, too, since they're strong enough to illuminate down one wall of the hundreds in the canyon. Back to bed about 10:30.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20. Up early, but the room is freezing so I lay long until a sexy trouser slamming the car door gets me to my feet and I put radiator on. Fuss around room and clean shoes and write Mom and dress and pack and out by 10:15. Suddenly decide to walk the East Rim to Yavapai and again I find myself hurrying along too fast for comfort. The panoramas get increasingly grand, and the canyon opens enough to view the green waters of the Colorado and gives me an idea of the true depth of the canyon. Watch more than the canyon and race along to the point, peer through binoculars in the observation room, glance at the models, and out again to race the one and one-half miles back to the hotel area. Grab luggage and put it on bus and into soda fountain to muscle in on a hotdog and a glass of milk: the latter drink there, the former eat on the bus. The trip back is unexciting, particularly at Prescott [One wonders who is more uncomfortable, the sightseer or the one who shows the sights in what must be adjudged a lousy local museum. Both have their own kind of experience: the shower has seen endless strings of people file through, many led by the nose by a tour guide. She gets no questions to indicate any thoughts passing behind the eyes glazed with the sights of Grand Canyon, above the feet muddy and tired from the trails. She volunteers information, yet it sounds canned. When groups overlap, she makes an effort to change what she says, yet the same words come out. The see-ers have experience at boring museum after boring museum. Despite the section of the country, they always manage to look the same with only minor differences. One may have Confederate bonds, another, strings of Indian shells, another, Revolutionary war slugs. But they all have the fading family portrait, the fans and the gloves and the slippers "donated by friends of the museum," who undoubtedly would feel guilty about throwing something out that "Grandma gave me," and who are relieved to donate it, confident that people will look at it; yet each item, possibly interesting in itself, gets lost in the flood of other items, just as many beautiful pebbles fade from sight in the huge collections on beaches. It takes an exceptional person to separate the uranium needle from the chaff-stack. The old sights of the towns, the lithographs and the tintypes, long fading, with the old-fashioned faces only caricatures of the people. The endless line of toys, many broken. The dolls with dirty heads. Old dresses and piles of kitchen utensils. Fragments of wallpaper and rock and jewelry, all dusty. Toys yellowed. Cases cluttered, some shelves a mere melange of detritus, from a thousand people's lives for a hundred years.] Back into Phoenix after eating monstrous salad with driver and two girls in Scottsdale. Put bag into locker and catch bus to Backstage. The menu (for pre-theater dinner) is small, so I have a whisky sour, the delicious appetizer paté, a skimpy salad on which I take "Fresh black pepper, sir?" only because she carries the huge mill with such gleeful triumph. Have chicken (I think), it seemed in three large pieces, which I can hardly finish, so I have no dessert, yet meal is still $6.50, and I leave her a $1 tip. Out again to hitchhike back, and get picked up by young thin fellow who works a block from Greyhound ["Ever been propositioned?" "Yeah, lotsa times." Pause. "Meet all kindsa people while traveling." "Ever take anyone up on it?" Pause. "Yeah." "You got 45 minutes before your bus leaves?" "That's not much time." "I gotta place right around the corner from the bus station, if the cleaning lady isn't in." Pause. "Well, 45 minutes isn't very long." The car passes the bus station. "Here's the station" and goes on one block further, then turns right. Right again, looks around, then left into a chained driveway. "Watch out for that chain." "Oh, we're not going in there." Pause. "Bus station's right there behind you." Retrace, turns left, parks across from 321 Central (?). I get out, he locks car, we race to cross before oncoming cars. "I hope you know the schedule." "We've got time." "No, the people." "Oh, there won't be anyone here." He takes out key and unlocks door, opens and holds it for me. I go in, he after, takes five steps before he returns to lock door.] He checks to see that there's no one there, and says "come in here, there's a sofa." We sit down and smile and talk, then his hands come over and mine go over, and we get them out and push them around a bit. My trousers and shorts come down, and he swivels off sofa onto his knees in front of me. I simply lay back, tense my knees and enjoy it. He's quiet but wet, efficient but neat, and I come fairly quickly, making a minimum of fuss. He gets up and looks in drawers, and says "no tissues." I stand up, soft and wet, stupidly rubbing my fingers together as he exits, unlocks a drawer, pulls one out, flips out three or four tissues, then comes back in---so HE has the next office. I wipe and he says, "Still have time" and I laugh and say "Bon voyage." Fix myself up and leave, and he wishes me a pleasant trip. I travel around corner, claim bag, climb on bus, [Phoenix bus station has everything: cute tanned, hairless-legged college kids in shorts, large-buttocked, tight-trousered Negroes, the town toughs in dirty shirts open three buttons and baggy jeans, the glassed, booked intellectual with too-tight slacks, classically handsome, tall dark bell-bottomed sailors, large-armed trade with piles of slick black hair, creamy-faced cowboys with black picture hats, tight cream jeans which stretch to fit over boot tops, crotch-watching, crotch-stuffed kids waiting for the repairmen to straighten out the pinballs, bright crewcut baggaged transients, many of whom I hope are on my bus, and only one or two of the wall-holding-up older men, and even these look good in Phoenix. Wow.] Fantastic combination of sun-pink face, blond flat-curls under the black felt hat in front, and long sideburns, tending to brown toward the chin, with a good sharp nose, blue eyes, and thin lips with scabbed sores above them. His swaggery paunch was covered by a tailored butterscotch corduroy shirt with silver diamond-shaped buttons, and he wore the regulation wide tan embossed belt with huge silver buckle, which was hardly necessary to hold up the light blue denim jeans which dropped neat and tight from his waist to the tops of his brown suede boots, wrinkled at the toe as required. And the bus, full of lookers, pulled away, unfortunately, promptly at 8:50. Goodbye Arizona. Hello California.] and watch the countryside between Phoenix and Yuma, though I can't see much---looks like lower Arizona. [Cocktails --- all drinks 50 5 to 7 // Family rates.] [A john with climbing preventer on top edges.] [A series of matchbox-like buildings with a sign "Hospital" at end.] [Three cowboys around a table, boots up, hats back, chairs tipped, talking cows (?) in an all-night LAUNDROMAT.] [The smell was me and re-me.] [Sounds in the night --- snores, baby sucking on bottles, john door rattling, two sailors talking it up --- remember the guy who sneezed, the blond skinny guy, the teacher who this, the petty officer who that, the clerk who the other; the click of the lighter and smell of butane, the low singing of the Negro in back, the sucking on teeth and rattle of potato chip bag. Bus wind.] [How ODD a face.] [DRAWING] [Remember walking through Canadian Soldiers?] [Water in Gila Bend and Yuma tasted as if the glass had been used for Alka-Seltzer a moment before.] Past Yuma there are huge cuts through sand, but then I'm asleep (in the car full of beauty, all of whom sleep alone) alone, and wake about 5, just 30 miles from San Diego.

THURSDAY, MARCH 21. Watch typical city entrance, except that we seem to pass on the rim of a hill ABOVE a great part of the city, as seems typical of California cities. Into bus station and sit for two hours: 6-8 [How's that for forcing my hand to the written page: call the Y at 6 am and find that if I get a room there, I'll have to be out by noon, and that I'll have to wait until 8. They have no waiting room, so I sit in bus station and begin this. A short interruption for a comical seduction scene. Girl (Mex) and boy (US sailor in civvies) are deep in conversation, the boy nodding yes, the girl shaking her head no. Every so often he gets up and tries to lead her off, but she sits back. Twice he grabs her bag, but she grabs back. Everyone, of course, is watching. The fellow next to her yawns and pushed his face into his hands. The guy across the way strolls over for cigarettes and strolls back, looking at them. The Mex and "Wyoming" sit across from me and laugh and talk about them. Sailor walks over and hands a key, but still her head shakes no. I guess he doesn't offer enough money --- or wants it free. He's by far the nicest in the area, and his neatly combed hair crowns his glorious face. He strokes her shoulder and fingers her hair, at which she pulls gruffly away. Finally the Mex gets up, goes over and gives her a Hershey bar, laughing the while. But all is to no avail. Finally he vanishes, and she sits glumly, vaguely cross-eyed, and in a few moments she too is gone. She is replaced in half an hour by a bushel-haired blond in black tights and yellow sweater and strap sandals --- more accurately, Tarzan-Jane moccasins. A fellow with a cackle for a laugh talks with her, and Mex and Wyo go over to make it three, as Wyo succinctly puts it, always a fascinating time, early morning in a Greyhound terminal. Doll from Georgetown wanders past as morning crew livens station before 8 am. Mex girl and stacked boy (obviously selling) and Wyoming are STILL around. I guess this is simply their way of life?] Walk suitcase eight blocks to Y. [The shirt I put on the next AM, Friday, I'm still wearing as I write this the following Thursday AM --- six lousy days.] Check in and find no hangers and take off to get tickets to tour, Rubinstein, and San Diego Symphony with Browning. Take San Diego morning tour at 10 am and get a tremendous background on the flowers, of which there are infinite varieties, of the city, and stop at Ramona's [So, after four weeks, I've touched the other ocean, but waters are not necessary as indicators, again the streets are covered with sailors.] [Man walking in Balboa Park --- listening to radio, smoking cigar --- all he needs now is to look through a stereoscope and he needn't even be in the park.]
[Quaff ye the waters of Ramona's Well
Good luck they bring and secrets tell
Blest were they by sandaled friar
So drink and wish for thy desire.]
[The Lohans will collect all the relics of Buddha and build over them a magnificent pagoda. Then in a state of ecstasy they will vanish into a remainderless Nirvana.] [INCREDIBLE filth, nicely painted, by Vernon Fimple (LA) called "Rape of Pumpkin Butte" for $3500.] [Jacob Vrel---Dutch 1650-1670, example of Vermeer gone wrong.] [Pleasant Rembrandt --- Young Man with a Cock's Feather in his Cap.] [Marvelous (as are all) Bosch --- Christ Taken Captive (Phallic firebrand.)] [Portrait of Madame Tallein --- by David --- badly in need of cleaning --- she's lost her glow.] [Theseus and the Monitor --- Antoine Barye --- YUM.] birthplace, where everyone lives to 96 or 116 years, and I buy goldstone tie pin for me, and bracelet for Rita. See where Lubach's is, and back to room to find that water has been turned back on, and I shower and walk, by devious ways since the freeways have chopped off all access routes, into Balboa Park. Park is pleasant and I tour Museum of Man (large casts of Mayan and Aztec monoliths and fabulous collections of weapons). Then to Hall of Champions to ogle phabulous photos, then to the Botanical Gardens, tame. All the museums close at 4:30, and I catch bus back to town, through it, and walk along bay to Lubach's. Stop in bar for drink. Watch sunset and see where Pointillists or divisionists get their clots of colors as the waters are simply a background of gray on which have been painted blue, sky, and pink, intense. There simply is no flow of colors, but an incredible alternation of these two in the neutral background. Went into Lubach's and had previously [Dinners seem to get worse and more expensive as I go west. Hearts of palm salad is entertaining, rather between artichoke and very good asparagus. Turtle soup is like escargot, nothing but pepper. The tenderloin was medium rare, not medium well, and came during the salad. So the bill was $7.90, with the lousy lemon pie and milk, and the total was $1.10 tip plus 75 for daiquiri and 25 for barman, thus $10 dropped in Lubach's in San Diego, hardly worth it. I sit and wait for Rubinstein (I'm 40 minutes early) and fatigued from lack of sleep last night, and one drink and large meal --- I feel simply too lethargic to write. Listlessly watch people file in, and put this away. Woe is me.] described dinner. To the auditorium and write nothing, noting only the incredible variations of people walking down a ramp, from the extreme inverse-pigeon-toe state to the float-fall method used by college boys who seem to refuse to admit they're walking down a ramp. The concert was good, Rubinstein businesslike and efficient. The applause was great enough for two encores, and no more. Out and to bed.

FRIDAY, MARCH 22. Up about 8:30 and mess around, take clothes to cleaners and fuss that they must be back Saturday (that was Thursday), then take bus to zoo. Talk through the beautiful, spread-out, wooded, quiet, cool, animal-noise filled place and am quite enamored of the huge bird house and the eight-story rain forest exhibit. Walk quickly toward the end through the larger mammals, since they allot SO much room and the pens are so widely spread---even in the cat country three cages could be interpolated into the spaces left between cages, and the fans of the peacocks wee everywhere. [Squabbling gaggles of spider monkeys, carrying their young on their backs, above the tails, while the golden marmoset father carried the twin rat-babies clutched around his middle. The capuchins stopped babbling as I came up, and they raced over for food. The cool cloudy weather must have been aphrodisiac for the peacocks, since dozens of tail coverts flew into the air with raucous cries and dry-stick rattling of the coverts, the Taj-dome shaped tail pale brown behind, holding up the fan. I'll probably never be able to walk through a forest glade without envying the bird walk. Thrusting head into trees to hear mourning of doves, see the peacocks with raised tail, and look at the golden pheasants and the snowy egret in the same cage. How do snake scales KNOW what color they're to be? The same tight ring pattern repeats through the body, but in cases PARTS of the scale are different colors (longitudinally or vertically) to form the pattern. How do they KNOW? Queen Palm is Arecastrum Romanzoffianum? Galapagos turtles look long-livedly miserable. Scarred and raw behind their neck from the shell, chafed on the legs, foaming at the mouth and in the corners of the eyes, breathing heavily through bullet-hole noses, chomping grass too short to eat, and moving on formless stumps a huge carapace, slow, ungainly, with lizard skin. The peacocks were so horny, in fact, they displayed for the turtles and iguanas. Gibbons neat to watch because of white faces, hands and feet, but siamangs seem to outdo them in arm length and agility. Orangutan, with its reddish hair, looks simply like an old man in a bulky knit sweater. Strange figure the crested tinamous have. A half-fruit tree, growing half-bananas, half-apples, and half-oranges contained hopping bright birds, one blue with a green cap and red-wax legs. Another beauty, plump blue-green with a black head whose coal dripped to the tip of his beak on top, but the bottom 3/4 of beak was bright yellow, and tiny red eye in the sun. A black bird, iridescent green below, amazed in flight, wing-ends BRIGHT red. Their food looked good, freshly set out in silver trays in sections --- raisins and apple pieces and tomatoes and beans and what looked like meatballs and cornballs and halved grapes and a bread mash and hard-boiled egg yolks and bananas. Apples were cut in many sizes --- diced and cubed and quartered. All colors --- fairy black-winged bluebird, red-winged blackbird, black-tipped white bird, cardinals in black and red; fans of tails with white and black and brown; yellow-collared black mynahs, red-eyed bluebirds scratching a half-grape. Doves with iridescent greens and purples, a wax bird with red-dipped wing, yellow-dipped tail and black mark flew in. Yellow bird with black wings and lateral white and black band on tail soared across roof. A black and white checkerboard of a bird flew past. A black and yellow streak almost flew into my face, shot past. Quiet brown grouse walked under bushes. Red waxbill and black and white head on gray bird. (Java rice finch). An astounding sized great and crowned pigeon landed before me. No luck with vending machines. Animal food was empty, ice cream returned nickel, kept dime; orange drink had no cup.] [In San Diego the idea of increasing age is reinforced by the numbers of married couples who have children who are incredibly young, hardly looking out of high school --- and they have kids old enough to walk. Amazing. Cassowary wings one inch long. Rhino horns are agglutinated HAIR, up to 53 inches long.] The Chinese navy invaded the place, and I spent the day feeding vending machines to feed my face. Take the bus tour through toward end of day, then watch monkeys as sun falls and I walk out to wait for bus, my shadow lengthening between the benches filled with those waiting for the bus. Ride into town at 5:30 and change for the El Cortez. Pass the Brass Rail and my doubt about where to eat vanishes. Walk up the hill to the Travelator Lodge and the neon-outlined glass box is just settling to ground level. Lady gets on ahead of me and we talk from first to last moments, about her trips every day from her job to her apartment in El Cortez, me about my trip. The talk continues up the six flights to the wall of the roof, which opens to a walled narrow terrace past roofs simply decorated with triangles of large pebbles, into the lobby, through it quickly, looking only a second at the elaborate map and ignore all the desks nearby, through a door again to the base of the arc of moving rubber across the street to the El Cortez proper. The buildings are brighter than the sky, but not much more, and the weird gloaming feeling of depth increased greatly. Got off the ramp, down the steps, across the patio, thanks to the doorman, then across the tile to wish her goodnight, glance at Center City model, much too small scale, then to door for a pleasant operator and the shuddery solitary climb high above the city on a vertical go-cart, and you can mentally hear the scream of metal as the supports pull away from the building and the fragile glass cage is dropped like a too-heavy blossom on the macadam driveway below. But she talks pleasantly (facing inward) and the glory of the view is stronger than the fear of catastrophe. The stop is the worst, slightly shuddering, halting long before the door opens, and the sensation of the steady rise causes the stomach to rise in belated sympathy, giving the distinct impression that the car was suddenly, unscheduledly, descending. My heart rose, but the smile of the operator, the opening of the door, and I was out in the bar. Again the San Diego sunset (though I was not so close as in Lubach's when I saw the dark fish-sub nose into the harbor, quietly, giving the iceberg impression of much beneath water) and I wandered about looking at everything, and up the two flights, to the very top of the building, to find that there were only men's and women's rooms, without windows. Down and walk back through myriad passages and down to the Brass Rail, for another whisky sour, sweeter this time, and a perfectly acceptable chopped steak sandwich and salad, all for $4, including tip. Walked across to the Russ Auditorium and got a decent seat in the middle of the balcony. Play the letter game and fidget through the Kraft percussion piece, and get drawn into the Russian Easter Overture [It seems that the Russian Easter Overture is one of the "lambasting" musics which, contrary to most, is easy to listen to.] [Serenade from the Haydn Quartet in F is the Ernie Kovac's Theme.] [Printed Song Title: "Now Your Gone."] [Have you seen Roger Vadim's uncut masterpiece?] by the seven in the kitchen. The piano of John Browning was workmanlike. Out and down to the Brass Rail and sit myself at the end of the bar with a seven and seven. There are a few attractive fellows cruising but they merely sit where they are and intermittently bestow a smile on me, but offer no addresses. Periodically through the evening the john would be entered, and twice it was obvious that something was going on, because three and even five would go in, after some personable person, on going in, would not return for about ten minutes. Then halves of partnerships would go in, leaving the other half to smile benignly around the bar, and when the other came back, to whisper back and forth with amused smiles and raised eyebrows, with an occasional deprecating look at someone who was just returning to their seat. I counted people for awhile, avoiding the glances of a surly older sailor down the bar, and when the count in the john went down to zero, made my own move. Managed to get started before the sailor entered (of course he would), and got quickly out of there. Three came in, a tall blond, bearded suave formal gentleman, very much the Van Cliburn type, a young slender fellow, and an old aunty. I looked over at the trio and the tall blond and I held for what must have been as long as ten seconds, until I finally looked away as gentle smiles suffused over their faces. As I would look back at the three, one of them would be looking at me, and I felt impatience with the old one for being there, and the blond for not doing anything. They sat drinking queenlily double martinis, and at one point the platinum blond, black decolletaged waitress asked for six onions, which she lay neatly, though wetly, on a napkin for them. A handsome fellow came and sat on my right, but though he looked at me and I at him, there were no acknowledgements exchanged, except when the person on his right asked for the time, and he asked me. Eventually the person on his right (very disagreeable) talked with him, and they left together. This happened about five times---I'd look at someone nice, they'd be picked up by certainly inferior creatures sitting near them. Time wore on and I counted the number of attractive people as they dissolved. Stony faces became the order when, from around the piano, was raised a voice in tremulous song---getting much too loud and dramatic in such a small place, and there always lurked the fear that they would not quite make the next high note, and indeed some flatted terribly. The bartender was fun, his large forehead wrinkling expressively when the wrong (straight) people came in, and he showed them into booths. The beer bottles rattled down their bent-tube chutes onto the felt tables in the basement, and he tried without visible success to make out with the tired, tower-haired waitress, who tried to help him out with his job: "Water first, then Seven-up, then club, then the gin, then---that's how any waiter with training would do it." Which got a nasty reply from HIM. Didn't even know what time the bar closed, and eventually ordered a second drink, playing with the tickets on which sat the quarter and dime in change. I'd gotten there about 10:45, and at 1:45 was relived to hear that they closed ((Book 6)) at 2. Finally just about all the good ones left and at about 1:58 I left, rather disgusted, and walked back to the Y. Almost there I was surprised to see the tall blond and the other drive past in a Plymouth---what a Mickey Mouse. They looked at me, and I more or less glared at them as they went past. I was obviously crossing to the Y, and they turned left on the system of one-way streets. I slowed down, then stopped, counting light changes: there, they've stopped at corner one; they've made the corner and have stopped at corner two, they miss one light; then I turned around and the Plymouth was quietly parked 15 feet behind me. Oh my God. I turned and looked steadily at them, then went up to the car. They talked quietly and I indicated the window was to be rolled down. "Hello," and I said, "Oh, the window IS down." Silence. "Is San Diego always as awful as this?" They laughed and said I'd seen the worst of it at the Brass Rail. We talked of nothing, and they suggested we go somewhere for coffee. "Will the coffee shop be as bad as the bar?" They finally offered an apartment, and I got in, in the middle. We drove a good distance and parked outside a small neat house in some suburb. There was talk of a roommate, and we quietly walked in and Dave closed the door; we went into the kitchen and the door opened and the roommate came in, bright-eyed, mussed-haired, wrinkled pajamas and all. "Anytime David closes the door, I say, 'Boy, you'd better get up and see what this is.'" We had coffee and they made me hot chocolate and we talked about "Winfield" and my trip and their friends and they flattered me with guesses of 21-22 years of age. After a perfectly common evening of talk, with Carmina Burana ranting in the background, Dave drove John home and I clobbered my head on a guy wire getting out of the car. The other was in bed, I washed briefly and Dave more extensively. It was about 4 am.

SATURDAY, MARCH 23. We undressed to underwear and climbed into the creaking squeaking bed. He rolled over and was solid and lanky and very nicely active. We tussled and both got excited, then the shirts came off and we tussled more and came to new hardness limits. Then the shorts came off and there was the gentle respectful feeling down the body, besides the crotch, up the leg, then the attention to the testicles, then finally pleasant squeezes of the hard stiff cock. We suck a few times each, then back to kissing and head laying on chest to feel about each other. Finally the game became apparent: he was the sadistic type who loved to get the partner to the limit of feeling, then suspend him there without release. I enjoy the game myself, and appreciated when he said "Tell me when you're ready, I can come off at any time now." So he was there, and got increasingly there as he refused to let me suck him at all, and finally refused to let me touch him at all. We were both sweating and enjoying it just fine. We tussled and I started trying to come, but then he would stop. "Poor Bob, I know how much you want to. This must be torture." Finally the game was too much, and I started reaching down to give myself the coup de grace. He held me back despite my warnings that it would be better if I came soon. I thrashed about on the pillow, he lay quietly, only gently touching, and then finally he asks, "Want to come?" I say yes, so he moves around to 69, and comes after six or seven puffs, but I've missed it, gone up the wrong path, and his touch is wrong, too heavy on the head, too light on the shaft, and he's bent the whole apparatus uncomfortably downward. I begin to sweat and go down, and he's limp from coming. Finally I gasp, "Let me," and I grab me and pump away, almost limp. Desperation set in and he sits dazedly by---from the feeling of "almost there" to this wild thrashing of self-consciousness is a woefully small step. Finally the feeling comes and I grunt with relief and breathe heavily, giving him the clue. I'm about down, but shoot off into his mouth and he takes, again, again, and I flail my body and legs. Then I'm through, and he sucks now from sadism. I say stop and of course he hangs on, pushing me away. Two more sucks and I grab his head away with a dry gasp and begin my trembles. His hands stray back and my hands fumble with him. Spasms set in and he smiles and I laugh and spit out some phrases like "Gee whiz, I warned you I wanted to come." He pets and croons and finally I stop jerking and we fall asleep as light invades the room. It's about 6 am. Get to sleep for awhile and up at 10:30. Take a shower and eat crazy breakfast of split wieners on a bun and chicken rice soup. Bill spends literally an hour fixing his hair and face and no sooner does he eat than the phone rings and a friend of his is in town and he dashes out to pick him up. I put only a shirt on at the insistence of Jim to look at my "nice hairy legs" and we come to a brief caress as he brightly looks up at me and says, "Gee, you're thin." He's very much like Marty as he pulls out obscure, but lovely, music and explains why it's so good. I read through some of Russell, and he's on phone most of the time and I just read, relax and listen to music. Time passes, Bill calls at 4 and says he'll be back in one hour, and about 7 I remember I haven't picked up my laundry and I'll have to stay in town until at least Monday to pick up the shirt and trousers I left. Of such failings are my plans made. Bill returns, gives me addresses, and introduces me to Bob, a sailor, who immediately falls asleep on chair as I thumb through old Posts. They're off to see "Freaks" and I invite myself along, partly to get away from the witty Jim and his incessant talk of making money with novels, stories, and "Winfield." He refuses to give me his pen names. We get off to Freaks via a locker shop where Bob keeps his civilian clothes while he's aboard ship, and we get to Freaks to find it's been changed to Viridiana. We go down block to a rerun of "Les Liaisons Dangereuses," put out under the name "Strange Loves," and "No Exit." ["There was a silence, the silence of saying yes," from No Exit.] [I work in the Monterey VD Ward. Surf and Syph Club?] [I get these Jewish raisins --- nothing like circumcised raisins --- you don't have to have Beulah peel you a grape.] [Guacamole was avocado mix on thin cheese flat in Phoenix.] I go back to Y to change clothes and get something to eat, then back to middle of "Loves." We all laugh through it, and Natalie is a real riot. She laughs real well, her big bright blue eyes set in her orange freckled face and topped by frizzy yellow hair. She jokingly puts John's hand on my knees and says, "You two have fun now," and we laugh, and play along with her when she comes back by my saying, hardly sotto voce, "We better stop now, she's back." People around are scandalized, including mother and darling son, who smiles at our cracks. The whole crowd is great fun, and all try to make me feel at home by laughing at my least sally. Bill is the strangest, remaining silent until he comes up with a hilarious quiet bon mot. At 12:30 we're to Joan's to get cups and make lewd remarks, then all to Natalie's and her salty onion rolls, her lavish portion of lasagna, her female cat in heat, and her immature Persian male, her color TV, and the policeman who comes up three times to knock on the door to tell us to keep quiet, despite the throaty male scream that echoes down the alleys or the roar of sports cars dragging on the street outside. She's violently angry, but we all leave, to her chagrin, after I volunteer to have David phone me and stay with me for his first visit to NYC after he gets back from Europe. We say goodbye and Bill and Bob drop me at the Y at 2:30, saying I'm to call him about noon, since they're going to Mexico. I get up to room and get immediately to bed, again delighting that I've found a great group, and regretting that I'm hangerless for four days.

SUNDAY, MARCH 24. Up and wash and write a bit, leaving door open "for air." An airy fairy comes in, brown as a wahine with a red towel for loincloth, greased for action. "What time is it?" I tell him. "It's nice on the roof." "Yes, it looks like a good day, I'm glad my friends are coming and we're going to Mexico on such a nice day.' "Oh." And a few seconds later he leaves. I phone and he says at 1 pm, and does really get there at 1:30, which isn't bad for anyone so fanatically unpunctual. Bob again goes to his locker, and we take the ferry from near Harbor Bar to Coronado, and Bob meets three graces from off his ship, one from Bronx, one from Brooklyn, one from Wyoming. Get off at Coronado Hotel and look at expanse of expense, and marvel at beautifully large and glassed dining and public rooms, the swimming pool, and acres of beach with no one on it. Back into car and down to Jack's to look at some free pornography sent out from a palace overlooking Venice by some distinguished count, and it's really not much. The four of us hop into car and take off into Mexico, and Bob talks about the "Blue Fox" where sailors are allowed to eat pussy; I say I want to see that, too, and do want to. Crossing the border is typically easy, and we get to the house where Bill is to help with tax. We other three walk around public square, and see them fishing garlands from fountains, and that was the birthday of some national hero. Things are dusty and rather grimy, and the grease on the people selling the tasteless Mexican food is almost the same as the grease on their food. Pass the cathedral being built, and we go in to see more cooking in the vestibule, and scaffolding going to the white plaster walls above, with chipped plaster decorations resting at the bases of the pillars they were meant to decorate. I certainly hope it all looks better for being covered with gilt paint. Down into the present church below, which has many people praying before the vigil-lit grottoes to various saints unknown in North America. Some of the stations have cards filled with little tin pins of arms and legs and hearts and bodies, attesting to cases affected after prayers had been said to that saint. The crowds there now looked fanatic enough to cause their own miracles---the grim-faced women wrapped in wrinkles and black shawls. Left at the behest of Jack, who didn't like the place, and bought a kilo of tacos, heavier than a loaf of bread, for 14. Ate some, but it was doughy and tasteless, but the smack smack smack of the hands of the taco-makers was a pleasantly snappy rhythm. Back to the car to find it'd take even longer, so we get in car for very nervous Bob's driving, aided not at all by Jack's sarcasm, to La Plaza. The road was flat and good, cut through huge raw clefts in the seacoast hills, but the valleys were lined on two sides by incredible wooden and tin hovels, with the outhouses perched above them. Seems almost as bad as having them below, or the footpath running between the rows. Kids played on the sides of the roads, and the green field on the other side of the border, marked only by a fence and a guard house, seemed desirable. The beach was noncommercial save for two loud restaurants set behind the first dunes. We chose the first and entered to find many people, a half Mexican, a quarter obviously from the San Diego ships, a quarter otherwise, of which we were part. I ordered chicken and Jack embarrassed by speaking very good Spanish. Bob was determined to dance, and when the combo was announced, he looked as excited as the veriest faggot cruising. He asked girl after girl, but they all refused him, as he refused to ask in Spanish. Finally he said, "If this one doesn't, we're going home." I prayed for her to dance, since the sun was setting on gold-milk splendor just out the window. She at first shook her head no, but then they were up and twisting. Bob dances obscenely, self-centeredly, and with a strange combination of the masculine and feminine. Though his body and face were rugged and angular, his torso weaved in a sensuous too-graceful style and the soft, inward, abstract look on his face was strongly feminine. He scarcely looked at his partner; she looked up at him with a frowning, worried look. Fellows sitting around ignored him, or looked at him with smiles on their faces as he wriggled through the dance. He shimmied a bit, and got a female orgasm look on his face, and I felt ashamed to look at him. I finished my chicken, quite good, and we got up and left, dreaming of the beautiful, clean-featured, placid Mexican male faces we'd seen, topped by their incredibly shiny, yet clean-looking and sexy hair. Drove back to "La Estrella Hotel," and I went for Bill---was hardly the proper choice, since two girls looked at me and said, "Who do you want to see," in Spanish, and I didn't understand them. I smiled---the eternal response -- and got to Bill, then back to the car. Drove and parked on the main drag, and took off for Jai-Lai. Bob started moaning he didn't have enough money for the 55 general admission ticket, and he would meet us outside, but when I turned around, he was handing his ticket to the usher. The Fronton was large, and we sat at the top. I glanced at the odds board, saw odds between 2:1 and 7:1, and noticed there were two in the middle at 4:1. These were 2 and 6, my age, so I laughingly announced: "I'll bet on 2 and 6." Of course they won, and I was out $20.20. The rest of the game was colored by that. It seemed about as exciting as tennis, people cheering only when a series of returns had the players dashing all over the court. The novelty wore off quickly, I won no more, and we left after four quick games. Bob seemed determined to look into every show in town, but there were only strippers. One place advertises the twist, and Bob wanted to dance and was shocked to find they demanded he buy them a drink first. The band obediently struck up a twist, but he left. We wandered through souvenir-hunters paradise, and I stopped at some wooden chess sets: the price started at $6, went down to $4, then he said he'd found an error and it was $3. "I'll even get a new one down that hasn't been opened." As I shook my head and moved to the door, he came down to $2.50, and I moved away and was warned by Jack: "If they get you one that hasn't been opened, you OPEN it and count the pieces." The thought was amazing! "That's why I'm not a businessman," I said, "I'd never think of something like that." We walked through more of what looked like bargain prices, but I of course couldn't shop---probably for the best. Out on the street for more joints, then, down the side street, shone the Blue Fox. We took a seat on the balcony, and a rather cute gal come out and did a sloppy little dance in a BB nightie. The foul-mouthed MC afterwards got the mike and said, "Now, who wants to eat it? Everybody eats it? Sailor, you eat it? Everybody clap hands, and we'll bring JoJo back so you can eat it? You like JoJo, let's clap hands." And big happy sailor hands would come together, and JoJo would be back. However, the lights were now dim, and she soon had her black brassier off under her pink shortie. She walked around the stage in the dim light, and pulled the shortie up to expose her bare breasts. She walked around some more, arms free from the elbows, above holding up the shortie, and below the waist she began pulling down her briefs. It came down all the way until the little triangle of black appeared between her legs. The MC continued his chant with the microphone, and she walked from table to table around the stage enclosed by a 9-inch high metal railing. Finally one sailor leaned forward and grabbed her around the legs and put his face into her front. Only for a moment he was there, and she was strutting stiff-legged around the stage. This went on until it appeared certain that everyone had eaten his fill, then she pulled her shorts up and left the stage. The lights came up again, and the MC was there again, and the process was repeated. The next girl was more bouncy and did a few bumps and grinds with her bare cunt flying, and even allowed that first young sailor to kiss one of her breasts. She ran into trouble at the corner table with two Negro men and a woman, because as she slipped her panties down before their table, one of the men lit a cigarette lighter. For a moment the pink surrounding the triangle flared into view, then her arms were crossed over her crotch. This happened two or three times. When the lights went on around the room, the tables displayed a rather incredibly good-looking audience. The men, except for very few cases, were great young hunks, crew-cut and tight-trousered, sitting unconcernedly with the legs spread. So massive were all the folds of their trousers across their laps it was impossible to tell if any were erect. Few left their tables, the few that did weren't showing anything. The dimmers when the pussy was eaten prevented, from the balcony anyway, seeing if the boys who ate were hard. This continued for four girls, all of them young and rather pleasant-looking, who looked as if they enjoyed their job. Some singled out one, and would muss his hair, take his glasses off and push his head into her middle. Some talked with the questionable types flocked around the stairs to their second floor dressing rooms. Girls-no-longer went around to take ones on the aisles, proffering their wares. Eventually even Bob tired of this sport, and we left, disappointing all the girls who had hovered around our table. I would have loved to take pictures of the ones around the tables. I caressed a tight female ass as I left. Nothing. We left about 10, and Jack and Bob sat in the back seat and I could hear clothing rustle and see movements out of the corner of my eye. They got out at Jacks, but Bill didn't want to go in, nor did I. The drive back was very long, and I debated whether I was being taken back to the Y or to their house. I didn't much care. Was tired. Decided first one way, then the other as the trip lengthened, but ended up getting out at the Y, thanking Bill, and getting up to the room, wishing I might be able find the guy who'd come through before, but the halls were quiet and empty, and all in all I had a very poor impression of the Y. Every time I passed the one on Broadway, it was fronted with bodies---the time to get "it" is when you're in the service and traveling, that's for sure. Pity they segregate the Armed Services Y from the regular one. Quite a strain on the "adults." Packed things up for the morning and went to bed early.

MONDAY, MARCH 25. Picked up laundry and checked out just before 11. Down to bus station and right on bus to LA [Have no idea how these things happen --- have an idea this is the second time: Looked at the San Diego to LA schedule and saw that expresses left at 10 am and noon. I'm too late to get the 10, so I pack and eat breakfast and leisurely get to bus station at 10:55, an hour to wait. But there's a line at the LA express door, and two minutes later the express for LA is called and I'm sitting in LA express by 11 am. Mysterious.]. [Surrealistic General Dynamics building on 101 near La Jolla.] [Sign: Let's Eat -- Robin Hood --- Restaurant.] [California --- Pacific Coast living certainly appears idyllic: good weather, ocean-watching, pleasant surroundings, beautiful people, quiet, solitude, peace, tranquility --- but of course the question can be asked "Is this good?" With no idea of time passing (no seasons, for weather or clothing or theater or trees) with no pressure to push, would much get done? Instead of ocean contemplating, to study self and nature, would it turn into ocean STARING, amounting to a mania, producing nothing? With a string of more or less attractive fellows for sex, with planless, futureless, landmarkless living, nothing could be done, and after one or five or twenty years, you could look back and ask, "Have I been happy?" and answer "Yes," but ask "What GOOD have I done?" and be able to answer nothing. People need pushing or they become moment-to-moment automatons. People need pressure lest they become placid, flabby, tranquil, and sated with nothingness. This wouldn't be boredom, necessarily, nor even unpleasant, physically and mentally and emotionally. But, because it is effortless, it would be resultless, fruitless, worthless. By any laws of conservation, nothing can be gained without greater or lesser effort, and the changeless life of California would produce nothing. One could still produce in a job, one could still read, but the pressures would be such that it would be done more slowly, less effectively. Man needs change and pressure to grow and develop.] [Californians all appear to be amiably content. Their faces show no frowns, their bodies belie no disease, their personalities betray no hidden tensions. Eternal spring, and the living is effortless. Nothing changes because nothing need change. Nothing develops because there is no pressure to grow. People are not unhappy, are not bored, but when they die, they're dead, and dozens have replaced them with the same lack of drive, the same lack of life. And without life IN life, there is no end product in living EXCEPT living. (How's THAT for clarity?)] [Bird flying. Hum mentally "And watch a hawk, making lazy circles in the sky." Just then Oklahoma license passes.] [Think of John Collins in play, and Collins Street passes.] [Think of Ellis and enter Downey, California.] ["Give it to me, and I'll get it." "Oh, no." "Just sit right there and give me the quarter and I'll go get it." "Thank you." The thought passed through my mind that she may have run off with the quarter, but as I finished writing this, she came back with change AND admonished me to keep my suitcase closer to me. "Someone will just pick it up and walk away with it --- they do that here." Again I thanked her, smiled, and moved my bag up to the door of the telephone booth.] Into LA bus station about 2 and have many phone calls. Finally decide that LA is terrible [Absurd phone troubles in LA. No phone listing for Ellis, and I call number, told he's at White Memorial (after calling first number, getting recording, and having to call operator). Call Information for number, then call White. Route through clinic and hospital and office and other places, and page to which he doesn't respond, go around circles again, get operator and information and she tries to find TO-9 number, but can't so I get more change (for $5) and dial TO-9 again and find it's Rancho Los Amigos, and that he deals with arthritis or teaching and that he lives at the hospital. He takes my name, and says NO one knows where he'll be; I redial White, they try arthritis, get employment, transfer to arthritis, ask to page, I said they did, he WAS there, but gone now, then to teaching and someone says he'll be there 3-3:30. I take number down and say I'll call back at 3:15. Then try Dietlin and first number is OLD number and second one doesn't answer. Call Gluck on Creston, but little old lady says her daughter's FRIEND'S name is Judy, but no one else. Call information and get number, call Judy and talk to her and Cathy and tell them about Marty, and Judy has tryout tonight and Kathy tells me to call AAA for San Simeon information. Do so and she'll call me back; she does and it's open all the time. Call White back at 3:15 and he's not there. "Try 4." I try his home extension, no answer, but it still costs 15. Walk to PO, no general delivery mail, and mail Bill package for 64. Make sure it's NOT a pound next time. Call for Gene Simmond's phone number, but decide to wait till later to call (as with Bill Peck's names and with Dietlin) again. At 4, I'm back in PO to try Ellis again, and finally get him. He has no place to offer me as he moves into new home in about two weeks. Maybe I can oblige him. Walk back, read paper, and try Larry Johnson at home (dorm?) but not there, and try film department, and not THERE. No answer on Dietlin and Swan and Simmonds. If none of THESE work out I'll probably catch the midnight bus up to San Luis Obispo and see San Simeon and try to get these people when I pass through in a week or two. Amazing what the use of a car and a place to stay (Carl's) can do. NOW it seems that LA is pretty lousy. At 6 I again try Swan and Dietlin and Simmonds, but no answers.] [Oh, how the trade (and one hopes it IS trade, it would be heartbreaking to think it was real cruising) fascinates in LA station. Beautiful skinned Mexican in red sweater, short sleeved, and simply NEAT trousers making eyes at obvious faggot in john and fixing his lovely front perfectly by smoothing down his red shirt over his front and carefully zipping up. How AWFUL if there's been a chance of sex. I really should stop this travel by night and early morning, because all the beauties look particularly bedable then.] [What terrible sights it leaves one open to see: the young high school kid, crewcut and innocent, with a simply sensational drape of long cut cock and underlying testicles; the girl walking by, breastless, in white stockings, holding her boots in her hands, with a hairdo that would make Audrey Hepburn's look like Veronica Lake's by comparison; and then the small thin man in a very large tan suit, with one arm gone, a cane in the other hand, and around one whole leg a huge creaking brace fastened on the outside to accentuate the thinness of the leg and the overage of the suit. He passed by the row of soldiers waiting for the San Diego local, looking ahead, and the sailors looked vaguely away until he got level with them, then they turned to stare him up and down.] [The inside of the stopped bus (in Santa Barbara) was an immensely magnified sound. A half-dozen rhythms and tenors of breathing --- a wheat-rustle swiftness, in out; a dry in, pause, out, slower. A trickle from some stomach and the sound of rubbed shoe leather. Sound of shifting buttocks in seat, or the swift suck of nasal mucus. The lady behind with a catarrh tickle in her throat, or cough, a smack of lips and the hot dry lip sound of a suck on a cigarette followed by the smoke poured through pursed lips. A tiny tinkle of ice in a glass of drunk liquid, and the gurgle of an air-contaminated swallow. The rustle of candy paper and an explosive repeated cough from the smoke. A gasp and a groan, and a breath rhythm changed from shallow to deep, more relaxed rhythm. A burp and half-laugh from the lady behind and a swallow and half-articulate sigh, as if the vocal cords vibrated in sympathy with exhaled breath. As the driver came through and counted, there was a definite sleep-grunt from the fellow in front of me, maybe taking revenge on me in his sleep for knocking him on the top of the head as I left to wash my face and get a 26 glass of orange juice and a glass of water, after which I was still thirsty and during which I felt a strange soreness on my inside lower right jaw, down near the tongue root. A lousy 3:30 am in Santa Barbara.] and catch bus out at midnight to San Luis Obispo. Bus ride is lousy ["That sunuvabitch got himself a choice spot --- Captain caught me. Chewin tobacco? No, goddam snow. Just like smokin'."] [Some fellows have truly unbelievable displays. Even young ones, though usually fulfilling the qualification of being ugly, having a protuberance a full inch, and sometimes a fraction more out from the level of the belt and thigh. Stuffing? But then there are other displays which could very hardly be stuffing, unless they wore double sets of long underwear, of immense full, long thighs, by those riding motorcycles. That too is exciting, particularly when two ride together with complementary jean colors.] [His taut bent body looked carved with economy from a bow's shaft, and had the poise, grace and assurance to be the bowsprit of a ship or of a sports car. He stood in the doorway, beaming, and the flash from his teeth and the flush in his cheek and the glint of his black hair shone all the way to the bus.] [Hills were covered with the green chenille bedspreads of growing groves.] [A gloomy gray-green glow floated over (glowered over) the hills.], and get into San Luis at 6 am.

TUESDAY, MARCH 26. Wander rested into the bus station and scan announcements for hotels. See one three blocks away, but then just walk out of door and down two blocks to the Anderson. Ask the fellow behind the counter for information about San Simeon, and he says it's simply out route 1. He has a map of the city and shows where I'm to go. I get room for $4 and go up to shave and put clean clothes on and down to wrangle a large piece of paper out of the clerk, on which, if things get rough, I can pen "San Simeon" for hitchhiking. Walk to Route 1, decide it's too busy, and walk north to the edge of town and begin thumbing. First car passes, second one stops---he's going to Cuyugas, beyond Morro Bay, and he's an ambulance driver and nurse, etc., and we hit 105 on the way to Cuyugas. It's only 7 am. Again in Cuyugas the second car picks me up, and it's two guys at Sandia Air Force Base, who take me to the entrance. No cars along now for a while and I walk in cool clear air and watch the cows running toward the bell, look at the clear mountains and greenery, and love the fresh smell overall. Many pass, and finally guy stops who's going up to work on a motel. He recommends highly I get the pictorial guide for $1. All are interested in my trip, and they boost my spirits. Get off at motel, and third car that passes picks me up, though I'm only 2 miles and can walk. This is a ranger, and he drives me right to the door, where the 8 am bus is just pulling out. Over to snack bar and get a donut and hot chocolate, then another donut. Buy a booklet and look out over the ocean and the 8:30 bus drives out with me on it. Wind up the hill, the Big House always visible from a slightly different angle, slightly nearer; obviously Orson Welles SHOULD have been influenced by it for the opening of Citizen Kane, despite the fact it wasn't open as a museum then. Would Welles ever have visited as a guest? I doubt it. Pass, rather incredibly, zebra, deer, and aurochs all on the peaceful hillsides. Immense numbers of transplanted trees, shaped vistas, and the mile-long espaliered arbor. The fruits are out, and the road is dotted with orange, yellow, green, and red-orange spheres. The sea recedes beneath, and still the castle rises above, finally partly hidden by the smaller guest houses. Out of bus finally and onto huge unfinished terrace, bronze copies resting beside patched places in the tile where the bases of fountains would have stood. Through the guest house, details everywhere. Most of the statues are rather unfortunate copies, but in some of them the unfortunate smoothness and lack of detail are pleasant, as with females and the Resting Athlete. But the dynamic males lack the hard solid squareness so necessary to statuary virility. The gardens are freshly turned, and the redbud and some fruit trees are bright with color. The views from the slopes are manufactured magnificently, and the cypress and pines and eucalyptus are massively grouped. Finally into the big house, and gape and gawk and look at unfortunate furniture coverings. Everything is on such a grand scale, with 60' ceilings, I can hardly picture anyone living there. Interesting to see the planned but never made ballroom in back, a huge room. The movie room is worst, done in late American Pantages. Pity they don't allow anyone above the ground floor. The outdoor swimming pool is blue simply from depth, and the indoor one is of even depth and great clarity, resulting in an odd optical illusion that wherever you walk, the bottom appears deepest there and slopes up to very shallow water at the ends. As you move, the bottom slips concavely away, and it's of equal depth five steps over, where it appeared less deep before. The indoor pool recedes into columned walks, and the alabaster shades glow with even light. Back to the bus and wind down the hill, asking if anyone's going back to San Luis Obispo, and fellow volunteers who's going back to LA. We talk down to Morro Bay and get out at the rock to use his binoculars for the lichen-covered rocks and the birds floating up and down on the waves. He gives me his address and I get out, back to hotel and inquire for a reduction of the $4 rate, but it isn't possible. The girl clerk says I'm marked "paid," but I certainly can't remember paying, and stupidly say so. She's about to let me go, but checks the cash receipt list and finds I'm not there---could the certainly accommodating morning clerk have done that on the odd chance I would try to check out early? But I end up paying $4 for a place to shave. Pack bag and down to station for lunch of drippy cheeseburger and malt, and onto north-bound bus to San Jose. The hills are exceedingly green and the ride very pleasant through the clear greenness of the very air. [Thousands of rows of laden orange trees, separated by ranks of wind-breaking eucalyptus, stretched beside the road south of LA. Miles of cherry orchards, gathered white and pink, broken by homes and a few evergreens, between Salinas and Gilroy.] ["I feel cruddy." "You look fine." "Thanks," he said, wryly smiling, "but I still feel cruddy."] [Passed the "Public Retiring room, Women" on Stanford Campus.] Stop in Salinas and write two quick cards to Mom and Helen about Salinas, and call Bernie---stupidly station to station. We talk a bit and ask for schedule, and it's good I called, since his day is over at 4:45. Back on bus and into San Jose and wait for Bernie. He drives up in his Saab and takes me to Ming's for dinner. Meal is good and I even find a few prawns that don't have that terrible iodine taste. Meal is filling and I tell him of some (expurgated) of the strange things that happen to me, and behold in the fortune cookie comes "Versatility is one of your main characteristics." Perfection, and if he only knew how versatile I WAS. Pick up a newspaper and see that there're some Russian dances being performed at Palo Alto High School, and we take off there. All the upper peninsula begins to seem like one big city, and the impression will strengthen. We leave after the intermission at 9:30 and I indicate he might look for the "beatnik section" at the foot of First Street that Bob spoke so highly of, surrounding Hambones which was called a college crowd gathering place, so I feel safe pointing it out to Bernie; we drive along street and find no indication---but it's early yet and it may perk up later. Out to Bernie's apt and he persuades a snack of cookies and milk before bed, and I take a shower and gratefully tumble onto the short sofa. Sleep is not bad, and I wake when Bernie does.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27. Go with him as he gets into the office late. Talk a bit with Augie Bakenhus, and Bernie shows me through production plants with the automatic wirers clumping away like an odd eccentric sewing machine. Impressed by the triple gimbaled star [Hydro Gyro --- Robert B. Howard: Sculptor. Inscription: "Dreamingly conceived out of geometry a symbol of our time --- asymmetrically balanced, star on star on star, each in its own orbit, each influencing the other, all put into strange varied motion by the forces studied by man --- who cannot determine if he creates, invents, discovers, or is guided into what he thinks he knows and believes."] [Tour of city goes up to Point Loma and Cabrillo Lighthouse for good view and onto Pleasure Islands and Shelter Islands and past cemeteries and Naval Schools.], and the rain doesn't stop us from wandering more buildings. Back to his office and he talks about his problems, and I call Carl, getting him the third try, and Bernie's phone bill goes up. We chat till noon and Carl blows in as bright and sales-like as can be. We're over to the cafeteria and eat, and Carl drinks his milkshake without a spoon to "satisfy his repressed oral desires," and Bernie gapes as Carl grins and swallows. We walk back to Bernie's section, and Carl greets more people than Bernie does. Then we're out to the lot to transfer my suitcase from Bernie's Saab to Carl's Karmann Ghia, and we're off to look at the three SBC buildings going up in Palo Alto, and Carl drives me circuitously through campus and finally drops me at his place, really very nice (but see otherwheres on Carl's choices of his "homes"). Essentially, a seven-room, two bath house on a good-sized lot. I try piano and play music and read a bit, and Carl gets in about 5:30. We get over to eat at some school place that incorporates the Tucson type of many restaurants around a central area, and wind up with essentially Chinese food: fried rice and ribs again, and a milkshake, on which I seem to be subsisting recently. We ogle people walking past, and Carl hasn't changed at all. We then drive into town to see "To Kill a Mockingbird," which Carl suggested earlier to my great delight. The movie is very good and since both of us had read the book previously, we had a lot to talk about during it. Carl was a bit distracted by a straw-jeaned figure a seat down from him, and I noticed him stretching his foot overly in that direction, but he seemed to get most of the movie anyhow. Out afterwards to a nearby beer house (after Carl insisted Palo Alto was dry) and see the nearest to a gay bar there, and from my viewpoint, that nearness wasn't more than a step from the real thing, with a few solos cruising, three obvious ones vaguely swishing, and girls who seemed to "fit" talking gaily with the boys. We have a beer and leave. We take showers in respective bathrooms, and I finish late and wake him out of a doze so he jumps. I crawl in and he moves over to me, and we kiss lightly. Nuzzle and pet, strictly above the waist, but he gets vaguely hard and I'm ready to go, but he seems distant. His kissing was always shallow, and my whiskers act as deterrents. We cuddle a bit, and stroke hair and faces, but eventually he shrugs and says he must work tomorrow. I turn (he talks of problem of selling computer to Stanford) on side and half-bend, and he folds himself in behind me. He drifts off to sleep, but I can't, and move away, waking him up. We drift off and I wake later, and we nuzzle absently again, and I rub his back, and we drift off.

THURSDAY, MARCH 28. I wake early and lay there, drawing blankets off him for me, then he wakes and we kiss and cuddle some more. I stroke back and he rolls over and I work for about ten minutes, till I'm tired. Then I lay beside him and we move together and he rolls on back, and I go down to chest to go lower, but he softly but firmly holds me back. We doze a bit and alarm goes off with terrible clatter, and we cuddle some more and he's off to shower, saying I must get out of the room before the maid comes. He showers and shaves and I loaf, then out of bed to much-needed shower again, and fix up my room a bit, and the maid pops in just as I've made a mess of the hall trying to restart the laundry. Find cleaner's hanger paper and call their number, but they say they can't get it delivered on time. She volunteers to drive me in, but that seems poor form, and I gather clothes and sight for Hoover Tower. Have bit of paper on which I copy streets onto which I turn to find my way back. Leave laundry off and find it might be back Saturday. Into Hoover Tower and get map of Stanford and look all the way out to Oakland over the close fields and over the rolling hills, dotted with rather unromantic radio telescopes. Map simplifies things greatly and I peep briefly into Art Gallery, wander into the inner quad to the Memorial Church (take a path quite at random and it leads onto to a men's room, which I didn't go into---maybe I should have---fate), and find my way to the bookstore to find them out of Phenomenon of Man (EVERY bookstore seems to be out of it), and buy Potting Shed and Martian Chronicles for Carl, and Freud's Study of Da Vinci for myself. Look through books and buy a new spiral and follow map back, pausing only to give directions to three crotches from Washington looking for the Phi Psi house. Get to the corner and there's Carl driving up, beaming from eye to eye because he's gotten his letter for the computer signed. The day is beautiful, with deep-piled black and gray clouds. The letter will be typed and ready for him to get at 3 (it's 11:30 now), so he says we'll go out and look for a house for him, since his has been sold and he must move in June. We drive through beautiful hills and up into closely wooded areas for completely hidden cottages and he inquires at a realty store and gets sent to a house (containing monkeys) and cottage off the highway. Out of the cottage walks Prince Charming, Peter Pan, and Mr. Clean rolled into one with Mr. Touchdown, USA. Carl gets flustered even talking with such beauty, and I can only stare as the beautiful eyes look Carl up and down. I grin stupidly as I fall away from him and back to the car, and we laugh about the irony of the woman's being a "Private Dick." Carl hits one facet on the head when he terms him "consciously sexy." YEAH. We're off to the medical center for a bit of business and I read all of Franny and much of Zooey. Second better than first, obviously because hero of second is 25 and "almost too handsome:" who like me wouldn't like it better. To Education center and Carl comes out with letter and we're off to Oakland. He drops it off as I again wait in car, and we're across Bay Bridge to SF, where I again gasp at roller coasters. Carl suggests the Olympic Club, and I say I'd like swimming, and there we are. The two athletic statues I admired so much in Rome are there in the doorway, draped, and I'm happy to see they're used. Inside while Carl cashes a check, and downstairs to the change room, then the shower room, where I wash hair, and to the pool. It's a good size, and middling cold, so I jump in and shiver for only a moment. Float and dog-kick just to enjoy the water, then crawl 3/4 down the pool and dog paddle to edge. Hang onto side, regaining breath and finding it a problem to breathe deeply with the chest underwater. Swim back and forth a few more times and wish the pool had more to offer, since the swimming briefs certainly did the part well, covering but not at all distracting attention from. I debated what to do next, since I was just plain tired, so I stood for a time, then Carl came sweating in, looking exhausted, and I swam down to edge of pool and climbed out, tired. Into shower and washed hair again, then into steam room and put Vicks on from a dispenser before I knew what it was. The smell cleared the sinuses and almost the brain pan, and the liquid burned on the skin in the steam. Carl flopped weakly around a bit, then to the cooling rooms---all with rather well-knit men around, to the king of them all: tall and taut, in the shower where I washed hair AGAIN. It should have been clean by then. Into dressing room and Carl made a great deal of fuss about my straw-haired boyish look. I scoffed at him, yet of course I ate it up and mentally begged for more. I combed it into a vague compromise, but put nothing on it. Felt rather stupid, but Carl seemed genuine, though we played with the idea he was pulling my leg and making a fool of me---in any case, to an extent he was making a fool of me. Went into bar and I was shocked when he ordered two Volleyball Specials and bartender pulled out two huge glasses. Cubes and orange juice filled half with a flourish, and I was pleased and relieved to see the rest filled with club soda. Tasty, filling, and certainly thirst quenching. We stood about the bar a bit, looking butch, yet sizing everyone up (probably a contradiction). Out to the car refreshed and starved. He drove to Fisherman's Wharf, and checked a bar, but quickly went back to car, stopping in a faggot's furniture alley, cheap imports from everywhere, sold at Cost Plus import duty. All faggot furniture was "Early Cost Plus." We stopped on Broadway and looked into a couple places and stopped at a sort of chophouse for a quite mediocre dinner, interrupted (pleasantly for me, not so for Carl) by a 300-lb Judy Garland with a good voice and southern overtures. Left and paraded some more places on Broadway, passing famous spots, and finally to car to drive back to Palo Alto. Stop at someone's "Cracked Pot" for a lousy clientele and a beer, and out again to home at 11:30. Fussed around a bit again in bed, but I was getting tired of this pussy-play and let him go to sleep quickly. He was still aglow from getting his letter signed, and it was a beautiful day.