US BY GREYHOUND TRIP 1963 5 of 10
FRIDAY, APRIL 5. I felt like loafing in the morning and he showered and dressed and asked a favor of me, that I do the dishes. He left at 7:30 and I got up at 8 and nosed a bit and fixed his doorknob and listened to the radio and wrote and read the paper and danced to the Bolero (how many ways can I find of wasting time?) and finally it WAS late, so I washed socks and made and ate breakfast (three boiled eggs that exploded one by one, as the temperature increased, and I had a half-boiled, half-fried plate of icky eggs New Yorker, too well done), and DID wash the dishes and made the bed and by that time it was noon. Down the hill and waited in the hot sun for the bus, rode to downtown, walked across for another wait for the 91 to Hollywood Blvd., and took a very long 33 ride. [Healy Debugging in LA? Exterminating company.] [Maybe there's not much possibility of LOVE at first sight (only infatuation) but what about love at FIRST SEX?] [Sign on the frame of a building "Open Door Bible Church" sign with open windows and walls.] [Western (LA) firms are elemental: "Western Air" for conditioning; "Rain for Rent" for irrigation pipes.] ["Oh, I'm sorry, very sorry," she said, "truly contrite," but the girl she stepped on merely glared up at her in silence.] [The plain girl dropped one of her bags, and those young male bodies bent to retrieve it. She solemnly took it, said thanks lowly, then the novelty of it hit her, and a grin flattered her broad lips, and in embarrassment she stared over her head at the bus advertisements.] ["GAS dryers work four times faster than 120 volt plug-in dryers." Anything illegal about saying the word electric?] ["Lush life" is the name of the song Carl sings.] ["My God, it's way up there on sticks." I never noticed it before. I felt so PROUD for Walt.] The streets were too commercial to be interesting, though some of the dance studios probably had some fetching pictures outside. AND the streets (and even the bus) were filled with people simply ACHING to be discovered. The too-pretty girl with NO personality in tight jeans was far surpassed by her homelier, livelier sister. The boys walked the street, alternately tough, sweetly innocent, sophisticated, poor, and mostly young. To Grauman's Chinese and look at footprints---HOW did they get Barrymore's profile? In to be pleased at the ornate empty theater, but saddened by having no one at the popcorn machine. But after the shorts they DID get someone at the popcorn and I had some delicious rancid-buttered corn for 30. Fantasia was good, but I'm beginning to be curious how it was BEFORE they stretched it out. Maybe the "Night on Bald Mountain" devil wouldn't be so DAMNably attractive, but maybe the ellipses would be circles, and the fairies would be even slimmer and Aubrey Beardsley-like. Busses came quickly but even THEN I was late and Walt made me aware of disappointment: "I rushed home from work, tired, disgusted, wanting to see you, and you weren't HERE." And we kissed. Drove about 25 miles to the Little Vienna, again mostly talkless driving, since he says he must concentrate on freeway driving, and he tells of the waitress, Melanie, who has the hots for him (and the next night it's MAYNARD who has the hots for him---could this fellow have a superiority complex that I was the first to break?) and we talk of people around us, a mother and two "brothers," and we play "whose son is whose," and an aging phony with a bright young chap whom we decide is being kept. Have a cocktail before and I have the crazy impossible idea that somehow we ended up with BOTH beer and wine on the table, but I guess my "before" drink WAS beer. Meal over, we travel the 25 miles back home and adjourn to the balcony for a nightcap. The evening is mild and the lights are bright and we begin on the balcony and rapidly adjourn to the bedroom. More of the lovely same.
SATURDAY, APRIL 6. Up at 8, as I recall, and I write much of the morning while he checks on the guest list for the evening's party, after asking if I'm sure I'd not rather he'd called it off. He sweeps while I do dishes, and I dust while he does windows. I do my bath while he does his, and at noon we're set for the party. Before breakfast he drives me down to the cleaners where I dropped off three shirts and a trousers, wearing one of his shirts. Again we're off to the car and drive far and away again while he shops at some discount house he's a member of. The final bill is for a case of imported German beer, two cartons of mix, eight large bottles of mix, eight glasses, a shirt for him, and popcorn for me. Return to put things away and I write more, and down to get laundry which they've done two items of, and shower and polish and get to Roger Young's first and fume for a bit until other nine come, with Bill Peck, who points at me and chortles, "It IS you," and I hasten to fill him in on LA, San Luis Obispo, Palo Alto, San Jose, Oakland, Merced, Yosemite, and Fresno before returning to LA, lest he get WRONGER ideas than they are. Maynard is mistress of the party, and if the waitress doesn't know it at this point, she never will. Don Meadows offers to light Carl---THERE it is, this OBSESSION of mine to talk of CARL. Is THAT why I liked Walt, because he reminds me of Carl, which he certainly does---they're the same age, same crewcut, same general build. And I THAT involved with Carl? Of course the LAST person I wrote and talked about and to so much was Carl, but this goes beyond. WHY?---to light Walt's cigarette, and I wonder why until he DOES it, with a wondrous confident air, with one swift flourish, he holds the match still and strikes the cover, and the match flares in surprise and the audience blinks with surprised amazement. After that everyone got lights from Don. Larry was the beauty of the evening. Dark Mexican skin, fabulous large black eyes, and a glorious winning, outgoing, flattering, friendly personality to go with it that made him dazzling. Bill was his typical quiet self until "My sweater, yes, three nuns went blind knitting it." The others were more or less blobs, Schwinkert at the end of the table surprising only when dancing, Ellis was Western and obtuse, Hill was cute and flabby, and the others struck no sparks. We roared through dinner and then took Don up while he ohed femininely at the view, and finally the others arrived, slowly but surely. George and Gil came in while Walt was in the john, and the two old ladies stood from foot to foot until Walt came out. Bill and Dirk came in almost unnoticed, and I didn't even talk to Bill all evening. Art and John (?) came in and John was a doll and Art attracted my attention quickly by being propositioned for a nude photo session through Maynard. Bill went out and got someone from the opera, who he immediately cornered, and the other four blobs at the table remained blobs. Maynard was the bartender, and he performed his duties with elan. Walt made my first vodka and mix, and Maynard made the second, which seemed half vodka, and then the evening took on a stewed look. I felt I knew no one, and tried to join in various conversations, but was either too serious (WHEN did he lose his freedom in Free Fall?) or too silent ( ). They started dancing a bit, but still Walt wandered through the crowd fearing the party hadn't gotten started. Larry helped by talking to lonely individuals, but then (as it turned out later) Maynard and Walt decided to put on the cha-cha tape---it that didn't work, nothing would. It got couples on the floor, and then the catalyst: Maynard took off his shirt! He feigned the heat of the dance as the reason, and after a bit the undershirt came off too. Everyone at first stood back and grinned and watched, but eventually they joined in. Later in the evening, when Walt had had quite enough, Larry got him into the center of the floor and tried to teach the cha-cha, with not too bad results. I would have liked to be the host, because later John and then Art lined up for the chance to dance with Walt. His eyes glazed slightly and he mopped his brow and then opened his shirt and flapped its tails behind him. The shirt was certainly getting a strange introduction to being worn. Somehow when he stopped seriously fretting about the fun others were having and settled down to some inebriated enjoyment himself, the party livened. I stood behind the bar for awhile, listening, then moved to the terrace. Larry and John spoke to me out there, and I moved inside against the wall across from the bar. Everyone had to pass by here, and all talked to me at one time or another except Bill. Mostly about New York, some about the trip, others about the party. Every so often Walt would sweep past and ask if I was having a good time. When I'd assure him yes, he apologized for not spending more time with me. Don lit more matches and Maynard told some jokes and the dancing continued. Bill and his find adjourned to the balcony. Naturally the two cutest, Larry and John, gravitated toward each other and made Ellis ill. Maynard followed me out to the balcony once and began speaking French with me, and I was high enough to respond freely, in good accent, and with spirit. Later he trapped me and demanded his bartender's kiss. I said no, but he said yes, grabbed me around the waist. I had folded my arms across my chest, but he pushed them up and commanded that I put them around him. I refused and folded them across his shoulders, looking like, I imagine, Saint Joan or someone. His face was bloated and lumpy close-up, and his lips were huge and wet. He kissed softly, with no attempt for depth, and I simply stood passively as he pecked and pulled himself away from me. "Mai tu es beau," he began, but soon lapsed into some embarrassing poetry about blue sky and azure sea and soft breezes and beauty and love, and I felt thoroughly stupid. He kissed twice more and I remained standing stiffly, and then he asked me out to the balcony. "No." But he grabbed me through the elbow and opened the door and dragged me out. He then insisted he had had nothing to drink and asked to be excused for embarrassing me. I could see how Walt might be angry to have Maynard have the hots for him. Don Meadows by this time found a perfect partner in Ed Schweinhart. Both danced with consummate grace and agility. Ed having perfected a motion during the twist which looked like nothing more than he was screwing a screw into the floor with his great toe. They danced together much, and were overshadowed only by the smiling faces and nimble muscled legs of John and Larry as they did their share to insure the immortality of good old jitterbugging. They swung in and out, meeting hands and faces, spinning and returning smiling to center. They grinned as they meshed, and their pleasure spun off them as they whirled. They went out to the balcony then, and things got fairly quiet. Looking around, it was 2 am, and some of the guests, organists at church the next am, had already left. Don came over to the sofa to sit near me and made old-maid-like attempts to feel me, but I covered myself and sat smiling, hardly Mona Lisa-like. He chatted and I complemented him on his dancing and he called Cal, certainly 40ish, a "good kid" which led me to credit his age, which some put in the 50s, though he looked 30-35. Walt seemed taken up with Art, dancing closely, and though I discarded the thought of jealousy, still there WAS the thought to be discarded. When the evening toned down at 2:30, and the booze ran out and coffee was being served, a handful, Maynard in the vanguard, seemed determined to keep it going. Art was alone on the sofa, and I on the barstool at the end detached myself from the party mentality and stared out at the city. Art cut across my vision once, then again. He went back to the sofa and I followed him shortly. We exchanged condolences at seeming to be "out of it." It was about this time that, unknown and unseen, John and Larry locked themselves into the bathroom. We sat quietly and I asked if he accepted the offer for the photos and though he seemed surprised that I heard the proposition through the only slightly open door, he said yes, he'd accepted. I said fine and something obscure about "spreading it around." We seemed to find nothing to say, and I frankly found him repulsive up close, though his legs in thin tight cords looked full and attractive. I walked out to the balcony, hoping the absurd hope that he or Walt would come out. The door slid open, then slowly shut, and the balcony lowered ever so slightly as someone crossed in back of me and leaned against the balcony at my side. "I'm at the end of my rope," Art said, very close to me, and I swung on the pivot of my elbows to look at him, his face was only a few inches away. So I decided "ANH!" And leaned closer. He closed the gap and we touched lips. The touch remained, and we kissed again, then I pulled him up straight and began traveling along his arms and back. He pressed his lips in on mine rather hard, and I tried tongue-kissing him back, but he (probably to protect his unsightly wide-spread teeth) only tightened his lips against his teeth and opened his mouth. It was like kissing someone who was toothless. I decided his face or kiss was not important and began feeling his chest and then down to his glorious legs. He was getting hard and so was I, but his was fouled up in his briefs and doubled tightly. I, encouraged by his excitement and audible sighs, unzipped him and straightened him out to a pleasant length. We rubbed back and forth and the brush of cord against cord whale could probably have been heard in the bathroom. We started feeling each other properly, and I was debating taking him out when he said "Someone's coming" and he adjusted himself and zipped up. I turned around, not much the worse for wear, and Hill came out on the porch. Back inside and Maynard was camping it up on the bar stool. He called Art over and I selected a chair on the side to wait out the party's lingering finale. A crashing one it had. There was a crash and a thud and Maynard was sitting on the floor laughing between "Oh my God"'s. Art was speechless on his lap, and the shadowy hulk of a violated barstool tottered to the floor. Walt picked it up and looked at it in the insufficient light and said "It can be fixed --- I think." His voice dwindled because it obviously couldn't. That effectively ended the party and everyone began gathering up and trying to get John and Larry out of the bathroom. I tried knocking on the door, but when I stopped I could hear heavy sighing, so I guessed they weren't about to be broken up. Walt came past and looked dejected, saying his parties had never ended like that before. We kissed and again he apologized for not being with me. I accepted. Then from inside came a glassy crash and Maynard sat, head in hand, shaking slightly; he'd knocked over the elegantly tall lavender vase on the rack on which he was sitting, and its shards glistened on the tan rug. He simply couldn't excuse himself. John and Larry left the bathroom, smoothing themselves off, and all left. Walt said he'd certainly had fun, and that he'd drunk a lot, but the dancing had taken so much out of him that he was practically sober again. He abjectly apologized for ignoring me through the party, and I said he was being silly. It was close to 3:30, and I said we should clean things up, but he said no, we'd do it tomorrow. I coaxed a bit but he refused seriously, so I believed him. We went to bed and cuddled a bit, but it was late and we were both tired so I said "good night" and turned over. I can't remember a second that I wasn't sleeping after that.
SUNDAY, APRIL 7. We woke about 11:30 and laughed about the night before, and cuddled a bit, but I said we must get up "this morning" so we were up at 11:55. He swept as I washed the two dozen glasses and the dozen ash trays, then we had breakfast and I joked about a smudge on the window and suggested we get out the rags as we had the day before. Vetoed. I wrote more and he dozed on the floor until about 3. Then he asked if I wanted to see the ocean and I said yes. No use beating about the bush. I'd already finished up six days before the present and was feeling triumphant and cramped. Into the car, after dressing for the dinner that night with Dirk and Bill, and he asked casually if I liked oysters. When I turned green he phoned Bill and asked if it would be OK if I brought a steak? OK. I was sorry, but ---. Into the car and drive again, with dark clouds on the horizon seeming to bear out the weatherman's prediction of 70% chance of showers this evening. We drove through newly opened expressway, stopped for gas in a little community which once housed Liberace, and Walt showed me the house which blocked the view of the piano-shaped pool. Got gas with one of Walt's dozen credit cards, and continued the drive through burnt-out canyons. He even got relaxed enough with me to talk of things while driving and he spoke of people dumping things into their pools to save them from the forest fires in the canyons. We reached the ocean below Santa Monica and drove up the coast a bit. "What are those down there, birds?" "They might be surfers." And they were. We pulled on sweaters and a jacket to guard against the sunless wind and got to the cliff to watch the near-nude nuts in the stolid icy water. The waves were small and few, but that seemed OK because the surfers were young in experience, though not necessarily in years. They were hardly sexy in cold-protecting flab and flappy bathing trunks. We watched a bit and moved on down Beverly Hills Boulevard, where I made the appropriate comments about the palaces we passed. Passed UCLA and I drew a silence when I spoke of staying there before. Why don't I shut up? EVERYONE wants to be the first for ANYTHING. We stopped for a steak and then climbed another hill to George's. McTavish greeted us and we talked and then George went to change. I was glad I waited before remarking about the magnifying helmet, because it developed George was almost blind. Remarked about his 8'x 8' window and left for Bill's. George directed the way well enough, once he was told what the streets were that we passed. Climbed an impossible hill and there, on the top, was their house, with an immense corner window over three hills and two valleys. That crowd knows how to live. Dirk remained his invective self, and immediately tore into George about the party. He was later characterized as taking the first opinion that entered his mind, accepting it as his own, and fighting for it to the finish whether he believed in it or not. Possibly, I figured, he simply wanted attention---well, he sure got it. He condemned "Carnival" and was sure he wouldn't like "Camelot." And so it went. Bill, though he spoke not much, impressed me greatly, and I was amazed I hadn't talked to him the previous evening. They spoke of their plans to build a second house below, and of their garden, which they hoped to further that week, since they were on vacation. I later found, to my complete amazement, that Bill put up with Dirk (and was taming him), because it was Dirk who was paying all the bills while Bill went to school. Wow. Maybe this explained why Dirk sat and gabbed while Bill did all the cooking and serving---though there certainly must have been a like and a flair since my steak was done to perfection, and smothered in their browned mushrooms. The salad of aspic and onion and celery, maybe, turned out to be made of rhubarb. The asparagus remarkably tasted NOT like asparagus, a definite benefit, and I'll take the word of everyone else that the oysters were superb. We had coffee and drinks and much later they carted out the enormous strawberry shortcake with strawberries on the side. I could have joyfully stayed in this setting for a year, as they discussed their friends, spoke of their trips, talked of homes and gardens and sharing lives and ate excellent food with a spectacular (though not so good as Walt's---NONE were as good as Walt's, not even Mulholland Drive) view at my feet. Three kooky guests came in later, particularly one they introduced as 216, which happened to be his weight. He talked in falsetto and used that to underline his dry wit and quiet caustic comment. The party went on to pleasant hilarity and cartoons from Canada were amazing, and then Walt announced, to my wonder, that it was 10:45. Delightful evenings go SO fast. In the car Walt made a second remark to George that I'd be at John and Art's the next night to watch the Academy Awards on TV. I'd been flattered by his asking earlier, and thought I MIGHT stay, since then I'd be sure of seeing them and not having to get a room with TV, and sitting in Las Vegas, as it would be, watching TV. I had thought I might stay, but said no when Walt asked, and gasped when he assured everyone I'd be there. I was almost sorry I didn't say I'll stay on HIS account. He gave me a twinge when he said HE really didn't want to see them (I could see him willing that on me), but, he added, of course we'd go. Back to the apartment and I say I would stay the extra day, without saying why, really, and we sexed and slept.
MONDAY, APRIL 8. Wake with him and out of bed at 8:30 to walk miles to get shirts clean [The stupid cat and mouse of trying to get two shirts through a same-day laundry. Walk down (by an accidentally discovered shortcut) to "Our" cleaners and find he's just taken a load down, and that "Oh, the 10 in, 5 out service is only cleaning." He refers me to the shop, four blocks down to Brooklyn, and "about a mile and a half to Echandia." Take off walking and try a few places along the way, "Yes, one day service, but not on MONDAY." "Yes, one day service, you'll get it tomorrow." "No, not at all." Cross San Bernadino Freeway and reach cleaners and they'll have it by 2:30. Fine. Get back and sit in laundry and sew button on jacket and write this. Woman waiting for clothes with me reads black book "Santa Biblia."] and back to apartment to read paper and eat breakfast and write and get call at 3, in time to collect laundry and pant way back up hill. Either the hill is very steep, or I'm losing my climbing ability. He says he'll try to be home at 5, and I'm determined to please him by being READY for him when he gets in. I wash dishes and fix bed and shave and shower and am JUST getting into my clean khakis when he walks in. He IS pleased to see me, and I'm glad to see him too. I told him how unexpectedly happy he'd made me on his phone call: when he said he hoped hamburg was OK, because he'd put some out to thaw. Thus all my flurry about "I really should get something and cook it for him, but I'm too self-conscious" were immediately relieved. Une douche froid. He said I shouldn't kiss him because he stank from office, but REALLY I didn't mind. I liked him very much then. He cooked and I drank one last vodka martini while he showered, and just as we were sitting down, with onions and lettuce and tomatoes and mayonnaise and salt and hamburgs, the bell went and Maynard and Larry came in. We ate quickly, finished almost together because I started one faster than he, and we four were off. George was sick and Walt said "As soon as that's over, we leave. I want some time alone with you this evening." Agreed. We got there just as show started, I was served wine and wheat bread rolled around cottage cheese. They started slowly, and had many surprises, but the winners were there. Someday I must see "Miracle Worker" to see Anne Bancroft top Hepburn and Davis. The crowd at the party was a surprise---almost more girls than fellows. Maynard got hit for a bit of a loss (and after he brought Walt two lavender vases as replacement for the one, and a case of Liebfraumilch for the chair, but then Walt gave Maynard the magnificent lavender phallic unbroken vase stopper) when Walt gave him "Oh, no, not again" look (certainly patent) when he suggested a screen test to a red-faced nice-bodied, pampered-hair, crooked-smiled (cameras could fix that) fellow who was more INTERESTING than attractive. We left somewhat after nine, Walt was so conscious of form and politeness. He had to give his thanks to the hosts (and Art wryly asked where I was last evening; I told him and said he should have called during the day---well, we shook hands warmly) and we left about 9:15. [The lights from Chavez Ravine were a tribute to fifteen million American's devotion to watching ten men on a green field. Two lights, a mile apart on a distant mountain, were the eyes of a titanic cat perched behind the summit. The water tower was high on the horizon, and I wished that seven hundred thousand people simultaneously flushed, so that the tank would descend out of sight, and new unseen buildings replace it on the skyline.] Horrors, Maynard and Larry seemed determined to stretch the evening at Walt's. I couldn't care less, so adjourned to the balcony for the last time. Got prepared for writing when Larry surprised by coming out to say goodbye. They left. I looked with amazement at Walt and he said, "I didn't offer them anything to drink" quietly. We fell into each other's arms. Then the talk started [My God, how does someone handle Walt Swan? When he started out tender, it was fine, but then the tenderness continued and increased and deepened and lengthened until I began to worry for both of us. He'd kiss intensely for moments, then lie back and gasp and groan and insist he'd never felt so wonderful. Now Walt is ordinarily very taciturn, and I should have known at this point that things were getting too intense. Maybe I did know it and led him on ever so slightly. Why do I have to think so much? Why is my lovemaking a conscious mental choice: NOW I'll do this, I won't do that until he stops the other. The feelings don't direct the chain of reflection, the intellect does, yet seems to do so so skillfully the other person fails to notice --- takes it for unbridled passion, and falls deeper and deeper into what they more often than not end up calling love. I simply follow them along, possibly leading them along --- becoming tender, tough, scratching, lying peacefully. This constant change, to my mind, is exciting --- maybe these people have never encountered this --- and interpret skill and variety as deep emotion rather than rather detached calculations. I like to see the other person excited, but I myself don't like the steady surface kissing or the steady depth kissing, I vary the pressures and the depths. But do it mentally, not emotionally. The other person's emotions are thus sheared and tensed and relaxed, and they accept these twists of psychosomatic urges as new, unique, thus they must be love. I suppose I have only myself to blame, if such as blame can be attached to artificially producing those emotions with which my partners are apt to gasp and speak of love. Walt, however, did it a bit differently, did it in a way that somehow reminds me of me. "I like being with you, not only in bed, but also by you in the apartment. Through the day I look forward to seeing you when I come home from work. Tomorrow night will be a terrible time for me, Bob, because I'll miss you very much. I'll be very lonely, I wish I could ask you to stay. Isn't it ironic that I'd be in Los Angeles and you'd live in New York. I've never felt this way about anyone. No one's ever stayed here five days in a row. I've never been with anyone so much of the time. I've never gone to bed with the same person five nights in a row. I've always felt embarrassed in the morning, they could never stay beyond 10, I'd have to get rid of them. With you, Bob, I feel completely at ease, completely relaxed. I could be with you all the time. I guess, Bob, what I'm trying to say is that I love you." His voice didn't change, his face was passive. "I never felt I could love a man before. I don't like being a homosexual, but I'm not a heterosexual either. I'd like to think of myself as a middle of the roader. I've dipped my wick in tallow more often than" --- and the phrase left him. "I was ashamed of myself for wanting men, yet I still wanted them, so I didn't fight it; I went to bed with men and enjoyed it. But I never thought I'd fall in love with any man. I've fallen in love with you, Bob. I don't know what it is --- I don't know why I feel this way. I love to look at you, and touch you, and have you touch me. I love to be with you, but I don't know why. If you think this can happen with anyone, you're crazy. I didn't think I ever could, but I've fallen in love, Bob, with you." What could I say? I continued to think and tried to tell him, but every time I'd come toward him to talk, he'd think I was moving in for an embrace, and he'd grasp and kiss and moan aloud. "I wish I could stop thinking. All I can think of to say are the bitchy things." Then, in longer version, I told him the old story --- I loved twice, or thought I did, but I said I did and the others began to avoid me. I was hurt by this. Later the others said they loved me, but I couldn't say the same. Then they started demanding, I wouldn't accede, they got hurt. I hurt so many I got into the habit of warning them about me. I was scabbed, I was hardened to them. But still they came and were hurt. Everyone I've met seemed to WANT to be hurt. I said I was looking very hard for someone who had one trait in common with me, that of not wanting to be hurt. Maybe it was because everyone felt guilty about being gay, and figured they had to be punished, and since no avenging angel came down, they felt they had to hurt themselves, to punish themselves for their guilt. I was an optimist: I believed that things would turn out happily rather than sadly, and thus I couldn't see why others were so bent on hurting themselves. I didn't, that I knew, want to hurt myself. Maybe it was ("Pillow service to Los Wages, 35") because he KNEW I would have to leave soon, maybe THIS was his way of hurting himself. ("I love you, ---, Yes, I love you, but please don't hurt me. PLEASE don't hurt me.") the reason he insisted he fell in love with me. I tried two gambits: that he was trying to hurt himself, or that he was trying to save himself from embarrassment. He's said before that he didn't like nelly people, because he didn't like to be with people he wouldn't want to meet strangers with. I said maybe he was trying to protect himself, since I would leave town, and there was no danger that I, though safe MYSELF, as most of his friends were, wouldn't be seen on the streets WITH someone. He scoffed angrily at that and accused me of thinking I knew him too well. "You don't know anything about me." And what do you know about ME? I began to tell him he was lucky --- the first week or two of any relationship was unpredictable. Either it would last a time or two, then die out, or else it might be pleasant and passionate for a week or two, and then I'd start chaffing at the bit. I'd begin to avoid being with the person EVERY SECOND of the time, I'd maybe begin cruising others, or avoiding encounters in order to do what I'd want. If the other person was so far gone as to avow love, then the avoidance routine would set in. I'd fear getting too involved and I'd avoid any occasion on which he could avow love. I contemplated all of this as we lay on the floor, he lying helpless in his feelings, I angry and thinking away. How could he call this love? If anything he was entranced by my style and techniques. The odd angles were pleasant, and why is there something exciting about rubbing the other's erection with an elbow or forearm or knee? The first night he'd asked me if I wanted to fuck him, and I said no, and he spoke aloud his relief. Seems the first time he'd been fucked, his insides were torn and he had a $500 doctor bill. He said he's never ask me, and I remarked to him that I hadn't even volunteered. I didn't even use half the exciting techniques with Carl, for fear I might drive him out of his mind. I tried, once, the exciting "spread arms wide, now run YOUR hands out his arms to his hands, lock them, one atop the other, then spread the feet apart so that the knees and ankles can interlock as if there were no bones at all at the joints, only long lengths of sinew and skin and muscle, and kiss there, almost cross nailed to cross, corpus to corpus." He gasped and quickly clasped me before I could go the extra step of rubbing the arms and legs and bodies together, slightly off parallel, and seeing what new fits and angles and rubs and sensations are newly possible. I tried the deep kiss a few times, and he seems not to have learned that a gaping emptiness is NOT particularly to be desired. You have the feeling you just hurled a firebrand into a bottomless pit to judge the width and depth, and the brand succeeds in finding no bounds, but only limitless space. Most unenlightening and unaesthetic. As I developed with Bill, as deeply as he wants to probe, just so deeply I go, yet never completely out of his reach. As he goes deeper, I am there too, with him, giving him my senses to satisfy his senses, rather than a yawning void. We didn't go into the "sound" stage, where long drawn out chirps, oozy smacks, harsh pops, slobbery slurps echo through the room, mixed with the delight that four lips can produce --- such a symphony of sounds. Walt was non-oral below the neck, so there was little nipple-nibbling or navel-nuzzling. All attempts at tickling were kept to a minimum. I bit, I think, once, and twice his fingernails raked the small of my back --- to be quickly followed by his nonsensical apologies. I didn't try the neck-rubbing, or the hard and soft back-scratching followed by the excruciating "single-nail soft line" the length of the arm or leg or body, or BETTER, the length of the three. We steered fairly clear of ears, and brow-kissed only a bit. He seemed to avoid lip-chewing. And then the whole of the exchanges were not touched: the kiss which touches only after teases of saliva-foam; the kiss which detects water at the bottom, and it is then lapped up like some given gift. There was no exchange of breaths as the exhale of one became the inhale of another, or, more technical, the one inhaled through his MOUTH via the other's NOSE. All this sound so pathetically clinical on sheets of paper, but on the sheets of linen they're quite a different matter. So Walt thought he loved me and I think he loved the technique, the tenderness, the ability of be "near" even AFTER the orgasm. He mistook sensual excess "Boy, you really turn me on," for love, which should somehow TRANSCEND the sensual. A good thing we parted, were parting, I thought, since he seemed brought to the brink so soon. Any other experiments in technique would only be further proof, to him, of his love. So, in effect, I'd already exhausted and drained him --- he'd given the ultimate compliment --- that of falling in love with me. Now that I had drained him, it was only left that I discard him. This is what caused all the pain with Julian, Jean-Jacques, Bill, Shiela --- the GETTING RID OF. The attaining was fun, another notch on the rifle (valid?), but the getting rid of, since I LIKE sex, was hard, because I was willing to have SEX, but all they wanted was love, and interpreted sex as such (situation a BIT different with Shiela). But in Walt's case, I would leave --- perfect. Maybe a few letters (as of four months later where were none at all, humph), certainly a few regrets on both our parts; but from here on it could only be a RISK on his part. Certainly no "risk" for me --- I risk falling in love ONLY when the other person doesn't say it first. Only risk for him, in getting hurt by the lengthening of the fireworks and farewells. So GREAT, leave. But it COULD be touching, as him refusing to touch me when he prepared hamburgers: "I'll throw you down on the bed now and to hell with supper." Again as he refused as I left (no goodbye kiss, only his touch on the knee in the car). And melodramatic lapse into teary-eyes as the "If ever I would leave you, it wouldn't be in springtime" came across the air and I left the room and fussed. "What happened to you." "I had to pack." But, always on STAGE! ANYWAY, finally we got off the floor and into bed and something nice and new was added on HIS part, Vaseline, and what a nice sticky mess THAT made, and how GOOD it felt. Afterward he came out with a hot washcloth and I felt the pleasure-pain of something warm on all but the sore he'd rubbed in on night one, when it burned hotly.] and we cut off and got into bed. Walt asked a couple times his traditional "Are you OK?" and finally asked if I wanted Vaseline. I said "Yes," and he got it, and we twisted and squirmed and he said please don't hold him, since he could come anytime. I thrashed about and came fairly easily, for me, considering that he was sitting on one of my legs. He asked "Do you want me to come now?" I said, "Oh, yes!" He went into no contortions, but remained rock-solid, and then exploded. Semen splashed my upper left arm (from about my right knee), and the rest shot directly UP onto his shoulder. The quality and quantity was surprising, and we both went "Whew." He added, "You sure turned me ON." He went for a towel and we wiped and kissed and slept.
TUESDAY, APRIL 9. Though we'd gotten to sleep at 11:30, he was up at 5 and I at 6. We lay apart, sadly, and at 6:30 he got up and I did too. We showered and he made breakfast, but couldn't finish. "Every time I stay awhile somewhere, it feels that I'd started all over again, a new vacation. I get the jitters." I smiled not convincingly and I think he was not convinced. He'd tried all through with "stay a few more days," "go up to Portland and come down here again," "come back again soon." I make a terrible mistake by saying, "Gee, you just saved me $16. The only Death Valley tours are Tuesday and Friday, and I'll get there Wednesday." I'd meant to be funny, honestly. "Wait till Friday. Oh, you don't want to miss that. That'll be the high point of your trip. You'll have to stay here a few more days." "No," I shouted, "I didn't mean that." "You don't want to be coaxed?" "No." Emphatic and a bit hysterical---was I feeling trapped? "Oh," and he creeps away like a struck faithful dog. I pack and he gives me a set of brushes and a Squibb electric toothbrush. I thank him and take them, but tell him to SEND me the 100-day Squibb vitamins. We speak little, and when we leave, it is in a produced flurry of lateness; it's only 7:20. Walt pats my knee and says he'll miss me particularly when he gets home from work that night, and he'll KNOW I'm not there. I say nothing. "Take good care of yourself." I tell him to write to General Delivery, Chicago, and all too soon it's goodbye and I'm out of car on hot sidewalk and he's driving away and I plunk down on the bench and the sun makes my eyes water and I'm glad I couldn't finish my eggs because my stomach feels very small and cramped. Feel pretty miserable on the bus, though some cute kids momentarily distract my attention from Walt and myself. Got to the station in plenty of time and turn in three coupons (to a glare-eyed ticket taker who freezes with his glance as I demonstrate to tear off a ticket and routes me through Las Vegas to Albuquerque) to get one three-stop ticket, then go to stand on line and get on bus to Vegas. The sky clouds over and it looks again as if it may rain. The drive into San Bernardino takes hours, and it's amazing that most of it is through the city of LA itself. The San Bernardino Freeway affords my last chance to see Walt's apartment on the hill, and it passes in a series of views, each one more improbable, until the hill on which it's built interposes, and it's gone. The weather and the countryside and myself are morose, and still the stomach sits, hard and unrelenting. East of San Bernardino the land gets dry and brown. As the earth dries, the clouds disappear, but the landscape itself is morose. Scrubby rocky land, on the southern fringes of the great Central California Desert, make me glad I didn't take the Death Valley tour. If this is the moist part of the desert, parched and dusty and windblown, this sample is enough. The road here is similar to the Grapevine, a series of immense climbs and falls, the ride hardly interesting since all the kinks and turns and thrills have been ironed from the asphalt strip. There are few billboards, and few destinations, and the tiny towns between, and the signs proclaiming the distances to them, are greatly welcome. The morning burns into late afternoon and finally the Vegas hotels, the downtown more than the strip, begins to advertise. Finally the two men stop shouting at each other across the aisle their private tips and places and games. Small hotels give way to the Strip proper, and things get huge and glow in the golden dust-sky. The bus makes an impossible U-turn and pulls up in front of the Stardust, the only stop on the Strip, and coincidentally the one Walt said I should use. The option for great good luck was not accepted [Las Vegas was a real crazy bit. My hand, as I write, is poorly coordinated, probably due to the "slot machine" syndrome, by which means the thumb trembles from pushing the nickels into the hole, and the fingers tremble from pulling the handle. In all, counting winnings, I probably plunked $15 in nickels, or 300 plunks, so my arm is properly out of whack. Out of the bus on the strip in front of a truly huge Stardust. Fumble through to find the lobby, stand in the wrong line, find the registration line, get up to the window to have the bellhop tell me to put my luggage down. Idiotically I obey, and get back to find five people in front of me. Up to the desk to ask for a single for 6, and he bobbles as he thinks I meant for six people. No. $6. No, he hasn't any rooms at ALL, and if he does, they would be for $10 or $12. I should check back in 45 minutes, at 4, to see if there's anything available. I ask for lockers and a bellboy checks my suitcase. I give him nothing. Buy $1 worth of nickels, trying the scheme "try five, if they lose, move on, if they win, deposit only the remains, modulo five." In this way it takes me about half an hour to lose the twenty coins, getting a maximum of 18 coins as a win. Discover there are many new-fangled machines I don't like, with stars and special bars and watermelons and dice and sputniks. Lousy. Roulette isn't running. I decide to sightsee and walk down the strip toward Las Vegas. The place is very Miami Beach-like, but many of the places are in the process of enlarging or rebuilding, and they have the room, and the customers, to expand. The list of shows sounds fairly representative---the Lido Show at the Stardust, Vince Edwards at the Riviera, South Pacific at the Thunderbird, Guys and Dolls with Betty Grable and Dan Dailey somewhere, and Don Cornell in the lounge and Vaughan Meador and Dinah Washington and Harry James and Vive les Girls, all remarkably typical. Of course, what else IS there to do? Walk to the part of the ways, and it looks like LV is a Y, and I take the left branch, which is Main. Walk from the 2000 block to zero down a typical mud-sidewalk sort of place. Shops and motels and garages and apartments and hotels and signs, and booming, nicely staffed, mattress firms. Check in at Greyhound and find there's a night tour of the Thunderbird for $9.90. Maybe. Down to Fremont Street, and this is "Downtown," and the condensed glitter and casino clutter far outshines the strip. Sally Rand "Appearing in Four World's Fairs" is STILL doing her original fan dance. I gawk at the places, filled with the CHUNG, whirr, Click, click, click, CLANK, CHUNG of the slots. Pass these places and get to a malt and club for $1.50 and decide then that I'll see NO shows, since I've already seen their counterparts in Miami Beach, the Latin Quarter, and at the Follies, not to mention the PROGRAM from the current Stardust "Voila." I'll catch the 11:30 out to Albuquerque. My mind changes a few times between: maybe I'll catch the midnight Lido show and stay awake all night and get the 7:45 am, but, at the end, when the Lido show exits at 9:40, having probably started at 8:10, I hardly feel like a 1-hour show. Anyway, I decide I'll see LV downtown at night, and go into the Golden Nugget for $1 in nickels. Try a second scheme: play till I WIN on one, then go to another. That $1 goes VERY fast. Look in my purse and I have a dime, a quarter, and a half. I decide to put each in the first of their kind that I see. I do so and lose the dime and quarter. I hesitate before the half one, but then say, oh well, and get a cherry and two halves back, right in front of two fresh tourists who are thrice amazed, one that I played so large, two that I won, three that I pocketed my winnings and left. Out to the Mint, of which I have the nicest memory. About the third one I try I get one Beech-Nut bar, then two, I tense, and three. The phallus on top lights up, buzzers buzz, and I look sheepishly around to see what happens next. I look at woman in change booth, but she's not perturbed. A little girl at my arm says, "Play it off." "What?" "Put another nickel in and play it off." I deposited the nickel and come up with an orange, a lemon, and a plum. She gives me two rolls of nickels. Clever people. I play one roll off, and a waitress, just after my jackpot, asks if I want a drink on the house. "Like what?" "Beer, or liquor." "Seven and seven?" "OK." And I feel guilty robbing the Mint. But the crowds around me are certainly putting it back. Try roulette at the New Frontier, but the dollar goes quickly. They sell chips. I ask about denominations --- nickels, dimes, quarters, halves. I'm amazed and say dimes, and they give me twenty for $1. I puzzle about this a bit and put two on the 1st 12. He says "Every play on the border, not on numbers, must be at least a quarter." So I put on five. Played slowly, and at one point had about $5. Then one fell odd swoop busted me. I played a quarter, half, then dollar, dollar, and still the odd twelve eluded me. Now I know why they didn't bother keeping track of WHAT denomination I was playing, I'd never get to the point where I'd want to cash in chips. Tried a few more odd places and was left was one roll of nickels. The lighting effects were truly dazzling. The Gold Nugget with gold flashing, the New Frontier, with the talking, winking, waving cowboy, the Mint with the huge sweeping cascade of lights, and the others, more static, perhaps, like the Las Vegas and the California slab, steady light, but for four or five blocks the street was simply alive with brilliant light and sound. Out a quieter Fremont to Las Vegas Blvd and walk out. This walk is much more commercial, but the main stock in trade is weddings, typically for $15, always by minister or JP, mostly with recordings and corsages and dressing rooms, and many with motels nearby for the wedding night. All, of course, conveniently open all night. The White Chapel, the Chapel of the White Stars, the Dream Chapel, etc, etc, etc, possibly two dozen on this one street, all tiny and white and falsely pious, with the white neon tubing outlining the church towers. One place advertised for $5, but it may have been a mistake. Out again to the crotch in the Y, and an immense perfectly full moon pulls itself loose from obscuring clouds and promises a beautiful night. The lights on the strip seem less intense, because the places aren't so close, yet each display is probably bigger than any downtown. Some of the hotels advertise casinos and entertainment, but some surprisingly seem to have only the hotel --- almost as amazing as a Miami Beach hotel having no Jews. Up to the Stardust and pass no busses that I can ask when the last one is of. Ask one lady sitting on the bench if she knows, but from the solemn silent head shake I got the idea she was saying, "I'm not WAITING for a bus, sonny, and run along so someone older can come along and pick li'l old me UP." I didn't even say thanks for her head shake. Some hotel, I guess, with much property, possibly the Sahara, has built what looks like a cross between an airlines terminal control tower and the Seattle space needle. It'll be spectacular when finished. Back to the Stardust about 8. Try another dollar or so from roll on slots, and stand as part of the crowd at the periphery of the lounge to watch the Albertino Brothers and the Marvelites, fairly decent entertainment. I want to do two things, get rid of my nickels and cash a travelers check. I get rid of my nickels in an obvious way, thus completing my slot machine arm-twitch. At this point I'm out of money, have lost about $5. Decide to get $5 for roulette and play very carefully, till it doubles, then stop. Questioned on the signature on the check, but I use slot excuse and he gives me two tens. Ask cashier for change and she gives a five and five silver dollars. Over to roulette tables and start playing with halves. Wait till that third on wheel I'm betting has not appeared twice AFTER the other two HAVE appeared. This means I sit a lot, but the odds should be better. I get about $7, then lose steadily down to $2. Then fluctuate back and forth and fuss with croupier about one $1 bet. He scooped it up without paying. He gave me the three, but shoved me out of the chair because I didn't play every time. The last turn was terrible, and EACH time on the 3rd 12, maybe I should have learned. It didn't come up maybe 15 times steady until I was cleaned out, and then I waited and it didn't even appear the time after THAT. The time next, a fellow strolled up with a handful of $5 chips and proceeded to bet $40 on one turn, surrounding 4 and 5. Five hit, and he got a return of 24 chips for his original 8. Not bad. At this point I left, amazed with one person's good luck, and appalled by how many had been cleaned out of from $20-40 while I sat there nursing my $5. So, in all, my eight hours (3-11 pm) in Las Vegas cost about $10 --- not TOO bad, but it really sincerely SHOULD have been less. What kind of people stay in Las Vegas? Do they gamble EVERY night? By the number of little old ladies, like bingo players, it seems some have nothing to do BUT this, yet how much can they afford to lose? I sat in front of vocal fellow from Los Angeles who appears to go about twice a month, but always downtown, where rents are cheaper and possibly he feels his luck is better, since he's been going now for so many years; it's like horse racing. Obviously from the magnificent surroundings, the fancy people in attendance, the luxuriousness of the trappings of the traps, the management is making money, hand over slot, yet people gamble. Maybe there IS something to their WANTING to lose, maybe to hurt themselves (here we go again). I did it more for the experience, just to be able to say I "DID" Las Vegas --- I DID do it --- won a jackpot, lost money, spent hours at gambling in many places. In a way, this is the same as seeing a fancy show in New York City --- it's expensive, you wouldn't ordinarily do it, but once, on a fling, it's great fun and it'll give you something to brag about --- if only your foolishness --- when you get back to your starting point. How the people who LIVE here rationalize it is not known. Certainly many of the people who live here never enter the casinos --- as NYCers never see the Statue of Liberty. They're used to them without having EXPERIENCED them and that's good enough for them. I'm just as glad I saw what I did --- better to spend it on gambling rather than a comparable sum on a hotel room, or a repeat of a show I'd seen many times before. The taxi from the Stardust (I didn't even tip the porter who retrieved my bag for me) was an unexpected $2, but better than lugging the bag any distance. The wait from 10 to 11:30 went quickly as I wrote the Las Vegas episode and I wiped the sweat out of my eyes and prepared for a terribly chopped up evening as we're scheduled to be IN Kingman from 2:30 am to 3:30. Even if I'm perfectly lucky (and I won't be) I won't get much sleep this night. But the chores and energies of the day have somewhat erased Walt from by thoughts, and for this I'm grateful. Yet I have a long delirious night before me and I may not be so pleased tomorrow.] Sightsee in Vegas and catch the bus to Kingman [Onto the Kingman bus determined to see as much of Hoover Dam as possible, considering that it's two hours distance and the moon is going behind clouds. But it turns out that there's a gain of an hour AT the dam; and that the dam is very well lit through the night, AND that the bus driver announced the approach and describes the dam as we pass. The night view is most impressionistic with huge power lines strung on towers tilted at incredible angles into the canyon, in some cases straight out from the rock face. The dim light and the speeding bus only emphasize the crazy angles. It's almost impossible to see the canyon floor, but slopes of crumpled rock show the result of human, rather than natural, activity. Even beyond the dam, with its swift curving descent from the west, the road is fantastic, being alternately built up across arroyos previously used for drainage, and sliced through mountain ridges separating these valleys. The headlights cut through the gloom and pick out humped masses of light and shadow, and the absence of surrounding light makes the contrast even more marked. The moon beams down, cutting a diaper of light across my khakis, and the rolling bus seems to be going much too fast down the ungraded curves. With the Greyhound only recently going over the cliff, killing eight, I have visions of this bus screaming off the road when the brakes fail to halt the leviathan's rush down the hill. Into Kingman and the squalid restaurant, with the infernal child squalling for (and getting) his life saver, the Russian trio speaking their tongue quietly, and my middle-aged, disheveled, anxious, foreign-accented neighbor asking if I was going to the Grand Canyon, and I say no abruptly and turned back to my writing.], and Hoover Dam. Wait for the transfer bus at Kingman and an almost full bus pulls up in front of the restaurant.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10. Neglect to get to the front of the line, and when the driver comes out for tickets, it's obvious he hasn't room. "Anyone going to Atlanta? No answer. "Anyone going to St. Louis." About after five tries, when he says, "Where ARE you people going?" it turns out there's a local along later (who knows HOW MUCH later?) which will take those bound for Arizona points. I pipe up that I'm going to Albuquerque and the Russian trio does too, and he collects our tickets and I sigh and get on, trundling the pillow along. I wake a poor sleeping girl and she sleepily moves over and I plunk alongside. Bus fills and takes off in stuffy air. I sleep but little, what with the fool of an old man across the way coughing, rolling his own, and taking meticulous puffs from the discolored, flattened, too-short cigarette. I feel not like talking, and don't, but feel sort of sorry for girl, who DOES. We exchange a dozen words as we pass from Arizona into New Mexico [Sign, looming large on the highway, for the Teepee, and the first letter had been skillfully altered to a P.] [A white pink horse with black leg markings, looking strangely like a horse with high silk hose.] [New federal highway does NOT circle Painted Desert --- in fact some earth mounds seem to PREVENT seeing. Could the government be AGAINST seeing them without paying a price???] [Who said borders make no geographical difference? Right AT the Arizona-New Mexico border the red buttes of the painted desert gave way to the yellow buttes of New Mexico.] [Beautiful trio of rocks just east of Galley, NM; a Pyramid, Cathedral towers, and of all things, the Dakota Apartments in red sandstone on a pink desert.] [New Mexico is a land of instant change. Doze for a second and the valleys have risen to a plain, a new set of peaks has grown, or the angle of an old set has so changed it that it looks completely different.] [Stupefying landscape east of Grants NM, a large area of fire-black rocks, tumbled, pushed into the air, split, dropped into pits. Even with the sagebrush growing grayly on the black --- it's the very image of a stupendous frozen earthquake.] [NM has more visible Indians than anywhere: on highways, in pueblos and hill houses, in cities. La Placito, with Sapactilleria and tostada choice. Albuquerque seemed almost a bore compared with the great time in Los Angeles. Possibly it was the lack of companionship --- dinner at La Placito was throat-chokingly lonely. The old town was interesting, but by definition it must be nostalgic. I went back not 250 years, as I should have, but two days, back to Walt. I could afford to be snobbish in the john, ignoring people, mentally saying, "You just don't KNOW how nice I've had it, how contented I was during the past week --- I couldn't possibly want YOU after that." But the last day in LA lacked sleep, and the trip to Las Vegas, with the stop at Kingman, allowed little sleep, so after the haircut and walk by dusty back roads, past houses which looked hundreds of years old, with no acute corners and all contours smooth from what looked like dozens of coats of plaster or mud; the roofs, the window frames, the corners, convex and free-form. Adobe walls were either melting away, showing rounded edges, rain-shaped, or being broken away, showing gaping holes and crumbled borders. Some houses appeared blasted, and were closed with "Danger, keep out" signs. Children screamed and ran in the dust, putting on eye patches from muddy tape they'd found in the street. One girl, in a dress which set her apart from her overalled friends, told her baby sister not to do it, and I acclaimed her maturity; but then as I passed, she grimaced fiercely up at me, and the effect neutralized.] [Ghost images glided past, reflected on the side window from the front window, and arresting because the front window was more lightly tinted than the side, so the reflection seemed more bright and real than the actual countryside. Just east of Albuquerque the road seemed desolate, and Indiany, pueblo and natural rock houses abounded, and small settlements clustered squalidly together. But further east trees appeared, and the harshness of the bare rock declined. Spring appeared still to be "just coming in" with trees bare, some just hazed at the tips, others new-fresh grass. Across the way the novice film director tried to impress the "tossed-hair" cute hustler type with his clippings and small snips from his film, but the hustler was more interested in the girls in the cabin beneath his feet, and the movie director was caught casting occasional glances at me. The clippings were from a Kansas City (folded, so no state) paper, but an envelope was to Santa Barbara, Cal. No doubt as to his itinerary.] [The fellow had different, but who is to say good or bad, ideas about fingernail care. They were cut to the quick, and there was no cuticle, thus the nail stood starkly somewhere below the tip of his fingers. There was a black line around each, but it was hard to say whether it was dirt of just the shadow at the harsh line of demarcation between flesh and bone. He got out a finger clipper and appeared to be clipping not the nails, but the flesh around the nails. It looked painful and I winced as he flexed his jaw at each click. Then he took to the nails, where he somehow found some to click off. Then he got the probe and gouged into the side of the finger, then reamed the fingernail tip. That looked even more painful as he seemed not to flinch at exerting great pressure, even with the bus jouncing over the road. Then he got the file and gently filed the face of the nail, blew it off, then went to the next.] [Then the plains began to stretch out, bounded on the distant north by Italian-renaissance-blue snow-covered mountains and on the nearer south by less extreme bluffs. The countryside rolled on, with cows and sheep grazing, and the fields were green for probably a very short time of the year.] Debated about missing Albuquerque, also, since I'd "seen" New Mexico with Carlsbad. But as I unpack on rest stop to check book, Oklahoma City has NOTHING and Albuquerque has Eid, a museum, and an old town. So I decide to skip Oklahoma City and see Albuquerque. Get out the map at another rest stop, and into Albuquerque about 3. Debate about calling Eid, but I do, after rummaging in suitcase a third time for tie. He's in the computer room at the public schools and he seems hazy about Bill Peck, and distant. I ask about museum and he says it's in Santa Fe. Ask him about schedule and he says he's very busy, works two shifts, time for nothing. A distinct brush-off. I thank him and hang up---scratch two. Grab suitcase and walk to Y, check in and unpack and down to look at paper. No movies, but fellow who turns out to be desk clerk looks around and says "Do you play chess?" "Yes, I do, but how well do you play, I don't like to get clobbered." "Oh, I'm just learning, but I'm full of confidence because I've beaten everyone I've played. I get the feeling I'm unbeatable." "OK, let's play." He scrambled for board and takes black until I give him choice and he gets white. I HATE to make the first move. The beginning is terribly symmetrical, but he goes too far and I end up a bishop ahead in trading. From then on it's downhill; he still figuring to win, maybe trying to frighten with "You'll NEVER guess what I'm planning." I shoot him down when I castle, get in a nice fork, and see mate. He falls into it, and that's it. He hardly speaks to me after that. I saw barbershop and get haircut from a suspected latent redhead with a gold band. He talked too nicely, brought up his children too quickly, laid his hands too long and too caressingly on my neck and shoulders, and was a little too slow about his business. Back to room and fiddled with folders and decided to leave at 8 am the next morning, and the only thing for tonight was to see the Old Town and take a shower to wash my hair. Walked to Old Town and had dinner of almost-raw-in-middle-good-on-outside fried chicken, and still felt glum about Walt, but the feeling was leaving slowly. Good. Walked back along Central, past strange barbershops with Mexican combos sitting inside playing and singing. Also went inside St. Philip Neri, but chose bad time since the statues were covered for Holy Week. The floors creaked obscenely and I left quickly. Thought for only a second to cruise, but tourists joined their groups and moved on. Back to the Y through the downtown section, very quiet, and again I wished I'd taken along the names of the bars, but I was tired and though I looked down the side streets I saw nothing of interest. Showered and washed hair and had perfectly hideous time with scrubbed-red-acne-faced short old fellow who always came up with a cheerful "Hi" when he saw me, and as a matter of coincidence (sure) came in to take a shower just after I padded past his door in shower clogs. I snubbed him angrily, feeling very self-righteous. He WAS ugly. Back to room and throw everything off bed onto floor, close the blinds against the neon on the corner room of Central and First, and went to bed about 10, leaving a call for 7:15.
THURSDAY, APRIL 11. Up before the bell and to the john, never hearing the ring. Check out and walk familiar streets to station. Still a bit sleepy and unthinking, so cute kid fiddling with the plastic-coverer for 25 absorbed my attention, with the New York Madison-Avenue type short-haired long-bodied blond admonished his butch friend not to waste his money. Looked like interesting trip. Got ready for my (I think) to then longest ride of 26 hours between Albuquerque and St. Louis. Left around 8:15 am and out into New Mexico. During the rest stops I had nothing to do so I noted the acts of the Director and the Hustler [The movie director greatly irritated the fellow sitting behind him by throwing his arms over his seat back, and his hands almost rested in his cruiser's lap. It would have been an interesting contact for the gruff old fellow behind to simply get an erection and ease it into his hand. Whatta situation.] and the landscape [TUCUMCARI] [TUMACACORI I'm on Route 66.] [Pity the poor women who live in Lesbia, N.M.] [NM has no lawns, which wouldn't be so bad if they didn't always leave ROOM for them around the house.] New Mexico crossed to Texas and things "greened up" a bit. Talk with student between Amarillo and Groom [High school sophomore between Amarillo and Groom: Worried about high school being too big and getting a football scholarship to some school he wanted so he could study engineering. Didn't like flying: his uncle was once flying by radar and cloud cleared when he was four feet above ground, flying upside down. Got onto subject of flood: "Last year at this time this whole area was one big lake," and "Tornadoes put a straw through a telephone pole and a 2x4 through a horse." I was impressed by the latter, he by the former. Scientists thought the pole warped open in the wind enough to get the straw halfway through, then slammed shut. Said he'd like to see a twister hit a grain elevator. Woman in front looked around and raised eyebrows, and he hastily added, not full, or it'd be too great a loss of money. Sure would like to see what'd happen. Everyone had a storm cellar. He was in his when the barn, 30 feet away, vanished, killing two horses and six cows, and they never DID find the chickens. One fellow was carried 3/4 mile and dropped into a puddle. One hailstone 13" in circumference, and the storm dented a trailer, then a tornado picked it up, threw a man through the door, breaking his neck, and carried it, breaking three or four ribs of the woman inside. Unpredictable. Wheat that was 2-3 inches tall now would be ready for cutting end of May, first of June, unless storm comes and wets it and hail comes and cuts it down. BIG hail doesn't damage crops much, just busts up houses and cars. This part of Texas was FLAT, so you could see it coming miles away. Could outrun a tornado on the highway if you had to, or jump into a ditch. It did funny things: carried away one house and left milk bottles and a note to the mailman, and the house left behind a table with a check still sittin' on it.] [Over the east Texas hills was a haze that was more than the haze of distance. Are even the wide-open spaces being affected by cities and smog?] [The hustler, I guess NOT one, moved back one seat, and the director got into an animated conversation with the thirtyish woman next to him. For effect?] [I say two things: 1) I'm afraid to fall in love for fear of hurting myself; 2) I don't, that I know of, want to hurt myself. Could these TWO be LINKED in that the way I actually DO hurt myself is by NOT falling in love???? Thus I DO hurt myself by NOT, as I rationalize, hurting myself??? Oh, gosh.] and across the top of Texas. Woman sits next and tries to talk, but I ignore her. [Newsy restroom in Tower Cafe in Shamrock, Texas. Signed by Charles Ingram of Akron, Ohio, with note elsewhere in one writing, "Such pussy," and below it, "Dicks are better," and other place, "Louie the Queer from Detroit, Mich, was here," with a phone number which I neglected to remember.] After dinner we get into Oklahoma and I at least can say I saw a lot of it before the sun went out. It was rolling, but neither so green as Texas nor so dry as NM---simply uncultivated. Get into Oklahoma City about 11 pm, much later because roads are all torn up and driver must detour through obviously residential streets. Woman next to me takes up with fellow across aisle, who knows trip, and they both agree that the driver's lost. It certainly looks that way as we pass, laterally, the two towers that mark the center of the city, go way past them, head toward them, then pass them laterally AGAIN, but in the opposite direction. I fidgeted and fumed, and I even got tired of looking at Suburbia, Oklahoma. Finally into town and I'm pleased when lady leaves, but driver, an hour later, announced we have to change busses. First time THIS happened. I gather stuff, and get into next completely window-seatless car. I don't want to wake woman, and Negro is awake and sprawling and I ask if I can sit there. He's silent and as I put bag up and look around in desperation, he said, "Sit here." More come on till there are no seats left, blond in back, director and hustler lost, and the strange squinting cowboy with one eye always closed (I notice later, through a chink, that it's completely milky), sits on aisle across from me and takes off shirt and shoes and displays very pleasant torso which helps pass the time. My chair, I find, doesn't go back, and I have no pillow, so I sit awake. We leave Oklahoma City by way of the only sight I had listed: the modernistic State Capitol with marble floors with oil pumps matter of factly pumping up the money. Even the better, probably because of one-way streets (or the driver lost his way again) he drove around ALL four sides of the newest building, which looked the most incongruous with the now useless derrick tower surrounding the grasshopper-like pumping mechanism. Into Tulsa at 12:15, with the bus going to be cleaned, due back at 1:15. I read my first news about Thresher, wash my face, sit up straight as antidote to a cramped back, and wait for 1:15. It passes and every other bus leaves and at 1:30 it comes back, and I carefully let everyone else who was on GET on, despite the pushing crowding mob, and the odd trio of two neatly dressed Italians and one cruddy Westerner, who seemed anxious not to let them out of his sight. I wonder if he was sponging off them somehow? Finally I got on and found a vacant window seat (first right), with a chair that leaned back. Though a student with books and a suitcase sat next to me, a pillow vendeuse made my contentment complete. I scarcely looked as we left Tulsa and rode under the bright lights to the Will Rogers Freeway. As we rolled along, I fell asleep about 2 am.
FRIDAY, APRIL 12. Up at dawn and watched the now-Missouri countryside roll by. The student was replaced by a Puerto Rican somewhere, but I managed to sleep until breakfast. It was slow (Rolla?) but I enjoyed bananas with cereal and winced at poor mother with three fussy children, and a German on 99-day plan sputtering at cute American girl. Back into late bus past rolling greenery and many signs for caverns, and finally into St. Louis, only one hour late, at 10:40. I break out my map (always ready) and catch cab to Y. It's very plush, and doesn't disappoint by saying, "Full." Hope I left that in the Southwest. It's Good Friday, but all of St. Louis is working. She tells me "All we have left is the $3.50," and I say OK and get sent up to the plush 10th floor. Some of these rooms have their own private bath, and if this doesn't defeat one of the prime purposes of the Y; maybe someone's finally thinking on the Executive Staff. Room is nicely lit, and I unpack, since I paid for two days, anyway. Sort things around until it's time to get down to the Union Station for the Gray Line tour. [Gray Line tour operator in St. Louis takes my stub with "Atta girl." Could he be so acute?] The station itself is a sight to see, the stately trains rolling in giving a touch of yesterday's luxury. Eat a quick breakfast (at 12:30) of hot dog and orange drink (inferior to Nedicks) and start off on the tour [Tour started off with four lousy ones (one of them me) at the train station and picked up four more lousy ones at Jefferson Hotel.] [Decided to skip Louisville: 2 reasons: 1) I'd forgotten I'd TOURED Kentucky as guest of Jim Arnett's relatives, and I'd only included Louisville as somewhere in Kentucky, 2) The bus took ten hours to get there, being a terrible local. I'll inquire at Greyhound about direct service St. Louis-Charleston.] [All wide streets WERE something --- fruit market on 12th Street in St. Louis, canals in New Orleans.] [St. Louis was the first metropolitan city in a long time --- many reputedly good unseen museums, a selection of shows (two on this weekend), and sightseeing areas such as Gaslight Square and the Central Parks area. Weather was pleasant, the Y was luxurious (as it should be for $3.50 a night), but the crew of VFW-looking fellows at the elevator didn't give much idea of any discernable cruising going on. Only night would tell.] [Eight joined tour at Statler, making an over-half full bus of 16.] [Really amazing to see the bored scoffs from passersby looking at sightseeing buses. I, in New York, usually SMILE at them because they don't know as much about the city as I do, and would probably fall off their seats if they DID. I'll have to retake the upper Manhattan tour and take for the first time the lower island tour. Maybe I'll learn something new, or ask about 800 Fifth Avenue.] [St. Louis has 97 suburbs! Arch will be 630' high and 630' base to base --- saw the 630' between bases and 12 feet of height. Metropolitan area population of three million. Big FRENCH quarter on South 9th. Rebuilding all old city. Anhauser-Busch covers 70 blocks.] [It seems a strange combination of aesthetics to see a blue-jeaned fellow and black-jeaned gal, with crash helmets, getting off a motorcycle, taking off their leather jackets, adjusting cameras and going toward the Jewel Box Flower Conservatory for the Easter show in the St. Louis Forest Park.] [Chime chorus, out of tune; I hope it's not a recording.] Everything is about to open (amusement park) or being built (Expansion Arch, Pulaski Houses). First stop is Anhauser-Busch for cold beer and excellent brown crisp pretzels. Driver had recommended Michelob on draft---tasted like any other beer: malty. Rather distant, crowded tour of the largest brewery in the world, and back to bus for more tour and Forest Park and the Jewel House (out to see it, and it's mediocre in its Easter finery). Stop in Shaw Garden for the Climatron, rather disappointing, though some orchids are gloriously in bloom. Make last stop at Jefferson Memorial [It may be a blessing in disguise to get to things like the Jefferson Memorial with "only 14 minutes." You race in with a feeling of not being able to see anything, but after the Lindberg medals (to go along with the aircraft plant in San Diego), the St. Louis fair, the Indians, the river, the old shop, you feel you've had just about enough, except possibly the gowns of the Queens of Love and Beauty from the Veiled Prophet Balls through the years.] to see the Lindberg trophies; that's the end of the tour. Back to the Y via the post office, and back to write quite a bit, leaving the door open and immediately being "taken up on it" by fellow across hall who leaves HIS door open [Maybe the Y won't be so bad after all. I come back from the trip and buy paper and flop into my room --- unshaven, unwashed, unfed. Naturally as I start on the crossword puzzle, I open the door to cruise, and fellow across the way, who dawdled on the way to the shower, dawdled on the way back from the shower. I sat redoing the puzzle as his robe got more and more loose, as he lit cigarettes nervously, and as he finally, in retaliation, plopped down on the bed with the paper himself. At this point I decided enough was enough, closed my door and prepared to shower. As I shaved a fellow came in to urinate, said Hi, and left. As I brushed my teeth another came in, stared, got rid of some papers and went quickly out, and as I showered I heard someone fussing, but they left, and as I dried a fellow poked in "It's so hot in here I figured someone was taking a shower." I said yeah. He ended up opining that all tenth-floor rooms have showers, HE appeared not to have a room at ALL, and he wanted to know where I was from, etc. I left when dry, got back to room to put on underwear, comb hair, open door, and write.] Sat, hungry, grimy and unshaven (the way I usually cruise), then in despair up to shower. Back to write more and read paper and work out crossword puzzle. Finally at 7, down to the coffee shop for lousy dinner and who sits across from me but the fellow across the hall (having put something on over the red shorts he was parading around in, disappointing because I thought he was nude under his bathrobe). Eat and back up to the room to read the Life I salvaged when getting off the bus, and write a bit more, and finally I'm just tired and get to bed early.
SATURDAY, APRIL 13. Up at 7 (not bad for going to bed at 10), and write a bit, and loaf and come and dress and down to Delmar bus and ride out parallel to the museum. Out to walk after spying "Freud" playing on Delmar, and walk residential streets across old track removal project into the park area. The cloudy sky brightens then, and all the peach and apple and cherry blossoms glow in the new light. The golf course comes first, and it's fairly crowded, being Saturday. I wind my way in and out of the players, hoping not to get beaned by a stray spheroid, and note that the golf course is certainly integrated, though none of the four- or six-somes are. Find that the lagoon in the center cuts off passage except for a bridge farther down, and I have to cut across a rather surprising golf hazard: the tee is on this side of the bay, the green is on the other. Wonder how many fish have been socked silly by unexpected manna from the sky? Around the cement, listening to the feminine sound of golf spikes on cement, and cross the bridge under which boats are splashing and begin the majestic ascent to the museum. The walk forms the boundary of a very long green which slopes concavely down from the museum to the ponds at the bottom. The grass is mown parallel to the water, and the light versus dark green accentuates the length and the dip in the fairway. Along the upper border the line is of cherry trees, and the dark stones of the museum, with the dirty green statue of St. Louis striding out in front, seem to float above the pink clouds---there's something nice between the contrast of the hard definite straight outlines of a rock edifice and the soft, elusive, almost perfume-like haze around a blossoming cherry. [The grass was like water, reflecting the cherry blossoms in the tree with tiny white daisies in the sward.] The parking area is full, and as I step inside, the huge sound of hundreds of children hits me. It's disappointing not to get a floor plan, but they do have wall maps, and the galleries are nicely numbered 1-50. [Prodigal Son, by Constantin Meunier (1831-1905) would be tremendous as a gay piece.] ["Wie ?ent m'yn naers van aftoren" Inscription on card of nude back, hand over face, in "Portrait of a Laughing Girl" by Gerhard Van Honthorst (1590-1656).] [By Picasso, only 20, "The Mother," showing "Pre-Blue" future.] A decent museum, but again it seems that they have only a few of each artist, and not particularly striking ones, and nothing particularly unusual, except for a special exhibit, part of the "Save the Temples of Nubia" effort, of some of the treasures from the tomb of Tutankhamen. But as one girl said in disgust, "They only sent us what they have duplicates of." The workmanship was quite incredible, and, as stated in the short movie, you can only wonder what the RICH kings were buried with, if that was a poor and hasty burial. [They want to MOVE the immense temple of Abu Simbel, made in 1300 BC, for 87 millions; it was immense to build, how will they MOVE it?] [Special Exhibit by Arthur B. Davies, American 1862-1928 --- A TERRIBLE artist.] ["Look at this, the ceremonial crock (crook) of gold and the flail."] [Pointing to rug displayed on wall: "That's a flying carpet."] [Girl with ponytail: "Gosh, did he have a ponytail too?" "No, that's a ceremonial head cloth."] ["Daddy, eat your cigarette."] [A perfect embryonic "David" (from David and Lisa) walked into the waiting room: stiff, slightly frowning face, meticulously dressed for his years, falling-over-the-face hair, eyebrows sitting directly over his eyes, and a rigidity of walk and a reluctance to smile that showed extreme similarity to the character in the movie; he even neglected to swing his arms naturally as he walked.] How great the world would be if not for desecrators: Egyptian tombs, the palace of Montezuma, the Roman Forum, European churches. Finish with the museum (again impressed by the beautiful forms and colors of Chinese vases) and write a bit before going into the good movie "This is Egypt," showing impressive ruins, some already on a flooded island. Out at 4:30 with nothing to do until 6:15. The sun is warm, but the air is cool and the wind is frigid. Sit on a bench overlooking the lake and the blossoms and write for awhile, but get too cold and walk off toward the city. Spend time watching a drunken woman [It seemed, in Forest Park, as evening came on (at 4:45) that I was rushing the season (it was windy and chilly in a suit) just as I was pushing my happiness at my trip. More and more (in the past few days, when I've been tired from traveling, which I hope explains it) I've felt compelled to think "I wouldn't have seen this otherwise," or "Isn't it lucky I'm doing this now, or I would have missed it."] [St. Louis has one of the attributes of a good city: it can furnish entertainment for those "odd moments" like the time between when I leave the park, too cold to write, and the 6:15 when "Freud" opens his doors. St. Louis furnished a thoroughly soused woman in slacks weaving down the street, to the scandal of the shop owners who gathered outside (and ANOTHER outside the theater of a man pulling up at the curb, shielding his face from the sun, sneezing about a dozen times, eyes useless, then slowly pulling away into the setting sun) and talked, hands on hips. She finally, at the second try, hit a telephone pole and bounced there, then sank to her seat and scrootched around to put her feet off the curb. She bobbed back and forth, but distance (the distance I put between her and me) covered her laughs, cries, retches, or drunken moans. She tried to get up, remained in a stooping position for a time, tossed her large black bag from side to side, and finally lurched to her feet. She dribbled down the sidewalk again, ricocheted off another lamp post, and toddled into the Toddle House. She was inside the entrance for a full twenty seconds, probably fumbling with the door, and there was another flurry of black and she was gone. I had the momentary thought of how terrible it would be for me, in some strange city, to end up in such a state. Horrifying.] and get to the theater at 6. Write more and get in, and the film "Freud" starts. Pretty good, though seemingly oversimplified since it shows mainly his discoveries, and doesn't dwell on his failures (of course not, or the movie would be as long as his life). [Even more than I feel sorry for movie-goers ALONE, I feel sorry for the mother who wants to see a film and has no alternative but to take kids who obviously don't belong, like the two six-year-old girls in "Freud."] Get popcorn by climbing over the seat and shushing the wide-eyed attendants. Get much mental shushing from the people around me, or did I produce an imaginary anti-popcorn eating complex? I almost begin to believe his assertion that psychical harm can develop from incidents occurring BEFORE the memory remembers. Horrible thought. Out after movie to an incredibly long line, which continues to be added to, though shortening because they're letting people in. They file in for over 15 minutes, and as the last couples come dashing for the closed doors, the bus comes and I thaw out from the cold weather. Pass through Gaslight Square, and it looks like good old commercial MacDougal Street. A woman poses in a doorway with a gaslight lantern as a hat. Get off at the level of the Playboy Club and walk through alleys to get there. It has an average crowd and I again wander through the living room area, trying to get a bunny's eye to be seated for the buffet. The circular free-floating area for four tables suspended away from the balcony, and down two steps, is interesting and elegant. This place appears larger with its basement bar, main floor reception area, and mezzanine cartoon corner and living room. Up large stairs to the showrooms, and the act is on in one, but they say I can sit through---there's only one entertainment charge per night, rather than one per show as I'd thought. Haviland is good, but the room is so dark (E-flat please) I can't see what I'm eating and get tasty fat and gristle along with the meat of the two small slabs of roast beef. The place has only the slightest possibilities for cruising, a table of four guys eyes me a while, and another single fellow, looking very commercial and self-selling in a sweet way, but there's no action. When my dinner's over I order a tasty sloe gin fizz and the bill for the evening, with tip, comes to $9. And to think I quibbled about the $7 minimum for a dinner show at the Stardust? Out of the Playboy wanting to go to a bar at 11, and as usual, I forgot to bring my list. However, my memory serves from a recent check that there's one near the Playboy Club, and the idea of Grand near Olive, or vice versa, forms. I walk down the street and look in at the crowded Golden Gate. That's probably it, but unaccountably I don't enter. Walk half a block past, and again turn on my heels and walk in. It IS jammed and I buy a beer (checking the price, as I've only 75 and a traveler's check) for 40 and take my post. The crowd is loud, sociable (among themselves) and faggoty. One old timer tries to make conversation, but I freeze on him. Who should detach himself from the bar but old "across the hall." "Say, aren't you staying at the Y, on the 10th floor?" I say yes. "You have the room across from me?" I feel as if I've said enough. He says another sentence, then stands nearby, and as soon as is convenient, I move on. A few could stand cruising, but they're tied up with friends and I'm certainly not going to talk to them. It's terrible being in a bar where everyone KNOWS everyone. For the habitue must satisfy not only himself when he chooses to talk to a stranger, but feels probably that he must satisfy the tastes (varied through they may be, and even not to his OWN taste) of his friends (which sometimes means he NEVER cruises). And I feel constrained from talking to people---if I select someone, he may freeze because his friends look at him and whisper "He must have been cruising him, or he wouldn't talk. Wait till we dig him tomorrow." Or, I may choose someone the crowd doesn't like, and lower my fragile reputation by putting myself out for someone of little value in the eyes of the crowd. Actual value, even actual PHYSICAL value, has nothing to do with it, it's all personality. [EEEERK, well scratch THAT record.] So I drink my lukewarm beer and look at the Madison line, fetching, with three elegant men stepping out in the same direction with thin polished shoes, slim trousers, and bending the same way with their shiny combed hair. Exceedingly elegant. I decide I'm getting nowhere and take off, figuring it easier to walk back. The walk seems downhill and I walk fast to get warm. The cars that pass with couples speed by, but the cars that pass with single fellows slow up, and I can see shoulders twisted to look my way. Two even slow down when they get even with me, and one even hopscotches ahead twice. Stupidly I only give a corner-of-the-eye glance and decide the one is too old and the other is the fellow from the Y yet again. I should have checked to make sure. Back to the Y about 1:30 and flop into bed.