Gay People
DIARY 5323
JIM C.
Again Jim C. amazes and baffles. Is this fellow possibly telling the truth? Can such an incredible series of events possibly happen to one man? He gets married to this wildly improbable character, a woman who would give her husband's lover a gold cross to wear around his neck. A gold cross that the lover often remarked about, desired to possess. And so the woman puts on a maternity dress, announces the youth's birthday, calls the relationships between the two that of father and son, and becomes the mother.
And more, she is an accomplished pianist, with clippings to prove her concerts here and abroad. Her father, the leading banker in town, loves the daughter too much, indulging her whims. Then the daughter takes to dope, and flies into a rage at the least little thing, hoping to make the week-old husband angry. And then the will of her grandfather, which leaves a legacy to her only if she is married. And the legacy turns out to be disappointingly small, and for some reason the new husband finds himself with an upset stomach. He can't eat for four days, and when his mother enters the picture, and wants to give him some buttermilk from the container in the refrigerator, the wife says, "No, that one's old, open the new." And then, when she thinks no one is watching, she pours the half-empty one into the sink. And of course the husband knew that she had bought both cartons on the same day.
And poor Sabu, his ocelot. Trained and living and growing, tied to prevent him from climbing the tree in the back yard, found handing from his chain one afternoon, from the tree. When rigor mortis was long in setting in, the investigation. The animal had been doped, and just about that time the wife complained that her husband was queer, because he wouldn't go to bed with her often. Which the husband admits, since his loving wife was in a doped stupor every evening. She consults her psychiatrist, who, far from telling her of her own troubles, says that her husband must be latently homosexual, and since the younger boy likes him so much, he must have tendencies in the same direction. Then an investigation, by the Navy, of the youth's career, to no avail. And another pervert is sacrificed to the Navy department, and goes berserk under the accusation. The young fellow also gets notice that he's getting a general discharge, and now he's worried about what he's going to tell his father. Whereupon the now estranged husband assures him that everything will be all right, especially when the older vouches for the actions of the younger, and explains his strange discharge away. So the older Jim goes back to his boss, tells all, and is encouraged to get back to his job with the bus lines. So now he has an apartment in New Jersey, and spends every weekend in New York on expenses, and calls me up, because he wants to see me, and talks about how "We'll talk and drink all night. I'll tell you stories that I couldn't go into over the telephone." When he does things, he certainly doesn't do them halfway. And when asked what the younger Jim will do, a great vagueness comes over the phone, and he says he'll probably go back home for a while, and then the subject is dropped. The quick rise and precipitate fall of a marriage, in which the husband, wife, father, and "son" were truly sick. the wife finally took off to New York, after which her father found her in Washington, D.C., Jim's former home, where she told the naval authorities about young Jim, and in the course of events also told Jim's parents (the older) about him. His father scoffed, and his mother's reaction was unrecorded. She came back to the house, her family's house, into which Jim had moved (with the pleased note that the father had paid for most of the rugs and painting which had gone into making the house their home. He remarked that since she got only $100 from her grandfather's will, the deal lost money for her), only late in the evening, since she said she was "afraid" of Jim, and with cause, as Jim ruefully admitted. She packed some things together, and left the house. After a few days, it was decided enough was enough, and Jim moved out into his boss's house for a while, and then got an apartment for himself. And more tomorrow.
Remarkable World of James E. C.: Called. He's out of a job. His latest, because his boss insisted on opening up too many offices and the overhead was so high the company went bankrupt. So Jim cornered a pile of funds from "accounts due" and paid off "his kids," who hadn't been paid in six weeks and were ready to be turned out on the streets, and quit yesterday. Last week he spent in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, so he didn't get my call. He's getting married!! Daughter of a banker who handled his accounts, realized his position, and offered his home to live in until Jim could find a job. She's very nice, wants to get married June 18, when her folks' anniversary is, yet he wants to wait a while. He knew her before he got the new job (about 2 months ago) and dated her since, but doesn't want to "rush things." She's a "country mile" better than Nita, who was OLDER than Jim, and younger than him, too. Jim, of course, was flabbergasted at the news. Turns out he just wanted a father and a place of love and affection to come home to. He'd been ignored by his family (that's why he joined the Navy) ("they didn't come to his baptism in church, they just let him alone during important moments like that, and he's just searching for a father"). She knows about this (clandestine relation) and likes him and they hit if off nicely. Jim always wanted a little gold cross like Jim has, and Jim didn't remember his birthday, so the girl donned a maternity dress and gave a birthday party, and said that Jim had not only a father, but also a mother. She "brought him out" and gave him a solid gold little cross, and Jim broke down and carried on so. They have even made plans what HIS room in their house will look like!! Conversation ended on "if life doesn't begin at 40, it sure speeds up." Their family is readymade---a natural son as old as the lover who'll be "adopted" by the weird couple. Father paid cash for a '59 Chevrolet, and will give them a down payment on a house for a wedding present. As a sequel to this, written after a phone conversation between DC and APG, the wife (they GOT married) had lied about her success in the concert world by forging newspaper clippings of rave reviews. One day he couldn't find his pet ocelot, and going to the back yard found it hanging, stiff, from a tree. The vet said, however, that it had been poisoned. About this time Jim was feeling poorly, and after some mix-up with some milk quarts, he took a sample of milk to the doctors, to find it poisoned. He left her, and moved back into Washington to start life anew. Whew.
DIARY 5567
CARL S.
I'm not used to people like you, Carl. I've always had them running after me. I cold so easily keep a level head. I could scoff at their "immature eagerness" to have sex, and be close, and be WITH. I didn't know how vulnerable I was to someone like you. You appeal to me in so many ways. You seem to be able to SATISFY me in so many ways. You did, but only for a few days, and then you withdrew your satisfaction. I was left with a void, a gaping void that resounded to my inner cries of despair. You seemed not to care, to be uninterested. It's good this doesn't happen to me often. I couldn't take a series of such disappointments. For the first time I feel the desperation of the lover who is not loved. And the funny thing is, there was really never anything between us. There WAS no night of unlimited sensuousness, there WAS no exchange of vows, or even tendernesses. Yet I fell. Maybe I have been afraid of love and loving in the past, and now I see why. I can be unplumbed hell. Can I bare my thoughts to you? I certainly should not. You could only be offended, perhaps disgusted. Would you feel obligated to me? Would you detest me? Or, worst of all, would it leave you unconcerned? Do I not tell you? Do I become more attentive, yet be ill at ease for fear of offending you, for fear of disclosing my emotions? Do I ignore you, refuse you company, yet be miserable after refusing you the slightest whim. But how can I gain your respect or your affection, if it is possible for me to gain them, if I avoid you? Again, at the worst, you could accept it with nonchalance, and continue your life unhindered, while I gasp for your presence. Do I grab what happiness I can from just being WITH you, without HAVING you? But the pain of being near, WANTING you, and knowing you are cold toward me, would that pain become overwhelming? What anguish of mind. For such small losses from such a petty relationship. Love, your power is appalling. Your grasp immutable, your lure irresistible. The emotions wrack the body, and for such a PETTY relationship!! How POOR are we humans to be torn so easily! How THIN our reason, to be broken by so little! WHAT, CAN, I, DO?! (Collapses, wrung and limp, onto bed.) (This last sums the unfilled urges of mankind.) (Thus finishes what I had written one afternoon in class, after being told by Carl that he wouldn't be able to be in Los Angeles alone for all the three weeks after Christmas, but that his parents might be coming out for a while. On the basis of this I decided that it might not be worth flying out to Los Angeles for my vacation. I was a bit broken up, but in the writing, somehow the emotion got away from me. Now it is certain that I started it in seriousness, but somehow it got melodramatic. It ended with a stage direction, as if I'd been writing the entire monologue for a play. The question is this: when did my emotion end and my writing facility come in? Were the thoughts all mine, possibly, and this was a deep, unheard cry from my own depths? Was the whole thing only an over-sentimentalized tear-jerker, generated from my love of odd-ball writing? Where could the line be drawn? How difficult to see where the life ends and the playacting begins. How difficult I try to make MYSELF out to be. Probably I'm a bore.)
DIARY 5570
6/22, 12/8/1960
END OF JEAN-JACQUES
This was the end of it. It's now 1:20 am, Wednesday, June the 22, 1960. Jean-Jacques and I had gone to a show, discussed the show, very nicely on the bus coming back from the movies. And finally, as way backs have it, we came to the corner of 78th and Second. We stood for a second, and he asked if I wanted to come up. And I said no. And then I said, unless you're willing to be sensible. You know that happened, I said, the last time I was there, we got maybe three hours sleep that night. This certainly wasn't sensible. And he said, well, it was up to me. So we went, and he offered me orange juice, and we drank orange juice. It fell on my empty stomach rather painfully; I had a nauseous feeling, as if I were ready to vomit. And we undressed. And got into bed. He joked about his sunburn. I joked about the warmth of his body. And he turned the light off. We lay there, three-quarters touching, for a couple of moments. And then he asked, Do you think everything is going well with us? And I said no. I know that it isn't. There was the customary pause. And I asked, and what do you think. And he said no. It was a lot of little things I suppose. I hoped it wasn't caused completely by last Saturday night when I left him at the show, to go to another show. He said no, it was a lot of things. He said he'd seen it for the past three weeks. I said it was funny, because I felt it, I knew that I was---. And then, I asked him a question, that took a long time to come out. I asked him if he had ever been in love with me. He thought for a second, and said it was a very difficult question. And then he said, no, he didn't think so. He said he liked me; he liked to be with me, but he said there was a lot to go into love, and he spoke about sexual coition, if I wanted to call it that. And he said that we didn't agree there, and he said he didn't think there could be love without agreement. And then I launched into my tirade, and I found it very difficult, but I said that, I THOUGHT he loved me. And I was afraid that he might love me. Because I knew that I was cruel, and unkind, and selfish, with someone who loved me. I said it made me feel uncomfortable. I said that it made me think that the other person was vulnerable, that he could be easily hurt, and even though I wouldn't consciously try to hurt him, unconsciously it just happened, that I would hurt someone who loved me. Habitually I said I warned people about this. I said that I was either afraid of love, or unwilling to accept the fact that anyone could love me, or cold or intellectual, and I squeezed him a bit, when I said intellectual. I said (and I warned) I'd been called selfish, and many other names, and I said that I was afraid that this was going to happen. I thought that he loved me, and I told him so, and I said that I was glad that he hadn't, because it made it a bit easier. I hope he was telling the truth when he said that he hadn't loved me. I think---that he was telling the truth. And so we stopped for a while, and he said, and what is the conclusion? And I said, well, this was what I was trying to get out of him when I asked him what he wanted to do. I said that I liked the times when we sat and listened to music on the sofa, sitting together, lying together, one sitting, one lying on the other's lap, just talking. I mentioned the two days of the weekend we spent together in bed three hours after each of us had been satisfied, just talking, joking. He said he like this too, but then he said what conclusion did I reach. And I said well, let me ask him that: what conclusion did HE reach? And directly he said, I think we should stop seeing each other. You're too much for me; and I'm not enough for you. And all I can see is more unhappiness for me, and more discomfort for you. And I felt as if a hand had silently, motionlessly, scooped out everything in me. I didn't love him, I liked him, I had affection for him, and I was very close to tears. And I said that it was very strange, but I wanted to say the same thing, but after I heard him say it, I was glad that it was HE who said it, rather than me. So we lay for a while, and I said, I think I'd better go, but I didn't move. He said, no, there's no reason for that. You can go to sleep now, I don't have anything else to say. ---Or, no, he said, I won't say anything else. And so we lay, apart, trying to go to sleep. Thoughts racing through my mind. And I told him some of the thoughts before he said we shouldn't see each other. I had told him that I thought that possibly I should be cruel to him, so that he could say in anger, that we shouldn't see each other again. I also brought to mind the very pleasant time when, at Jim's, I asked if he wanted to go, and he said yes; and I said I was pleased to stay, and he said that he would stay. Again I asked him if he wanted to go, and he, not looking at me, said, I don't care, I just want to be with you. And he said he knew this was touching. I said I'd been touched by this as I'd very seldom been touched before by anything. And he said that he liked that same evening when I told him I thought fifteen thousand times more of him that I thought of anyone else there. And this at a time when I was consciously trying to make out with one of the guests. Possibly all this maudlin sentimentality came about because I have an empty stomach. I haven't eaten anything since lunch, came home, finished "The Trial," went out to the movies without eating anything. And work has been uncomfortable and I'm nervous, and I haven't had quite enough sleep, so all this, put together, made me feel very restless in bed there at Jean-Jacques' and I said, are you awake? And he said yes, and I said, well, I think I'd better go, thinking of how uncomfortable it would be in the morning, so I got out of the bed as he turned the light on, and put my clothes on. He stared at the floor at my feet. Then as I put my shoes and socks on, he got out of bed and walked me to the door, turned the lights on to see me out. I turned to him; he lowered his head. And said, well goodbye. And I said, goodbye. And he said, it's like losing you twice, as a lover, and as a friend. And I walked up the stairs and out the door. And that was the end. It's now 1:33 am, Wednesday, June 22. And I'm going to bed, alone.
This is what was lurking on my tape on this night of December 8, 1960. What an awful thing to have hanging around. This took not too long to record, but had many long dreary pauses during its course, and it fairly dripped with tired blood, both in the voice, and in the veins. Earlier on this tape I had tried to tape a telephone conversation with Jim, but that didn't work either, since the voice on the other end of the telephone has not enough volume to be recorded audibly. And a monologue is awfully difficult to get anything out of, especially since it had been created as a dialogue. This shows some of the lengths to which I'm willing to go to get the touch of the natural about my typed conversations. But mostly the efforts fail: either the subject knows the recording is being made, and clams up, avoiding saying anything of interest, as my trade did, or it just doesn't work out, as Jim didn't. I guess the only thing to rely on is memory, woefully inaccurate as it is. As a side issue, it's remarkable how much the ordinary individual forgets about spelling when he gets out of school. While he's learning, there's no question about little words that cause trouble when the school rooms are a few years behind. It simply shows what the lack of practice in writing can do, and what the new style of reading for sense, rather than for the words, will do to the spelling. Even through high school, I imagine, the emphasis in reading is on the word itself, but then suddenly in college there aren't any more spelling tests, and the quantity of reading material increases until the "speed reader" enters the picture, and doesn't read for words, but for ideas. But ideas have no fixed spellings, as words have, and when the emphasis is removed from words in reading, the interest in gone from spelling, and then it's no wonder when the spelling talent simply deteriorates. I would assume that a continuous typist would have a much better spelling vocabulary than the non-typist. Unless, analogously, the typist gets to the point where he types thoughts word by word, rather than letter by letter. And then it's up to the proofreader, or transcriber, to make sense out of all the typographical errors. But in this easy, modern new world the emphasis is even being taken off writing. The modern author speaks into a dictaphone, and then sends the reel of tape off to a secretary somewhere who types up the nice finished manuscript, and the author can sit back until the royalty checks start coming in, and then it's back to the tape again, for a few days, and more of this sort of "easy work" that the US seems to specialize in now.
JJ has even accused me of being too much of an American in my way of keeping lovers. He would call them lovers, I would term them more exactly as tricks who stayed around more than once or twice. He says that I demand to have insurance in my affairs of the heart: if one person doesn't want to make love to me when I want to be made love to, I have two or three other people on the string who I can call and get loving from. In a way this might even be pride on his part which hurts him so much about hearing that I go to bed with others, even when I have the chance to go to bed with him. He is then put into the position of being just one of the boys, and he doesn't like this. I don't really think I can judge what my ideas would be in similar cases, since I've never felt about anybody like JJ felt about me. It's true that I like Carl and Bill quite a lot, but I was almost happy when I heard they could strike up with others. But, in the back, there was still my distinct feeling of triumph when Carl said he wasn't interested in Dick anymore, because he bored him, and he couldn't keep him interested. Yes, I was happy to hear this, but I suppose I could rationalize into thinking this was more of a pat on my personality, rather than on my body---I guess it WAS that, since Carl has certainly shown decreasing interest in going to bed with me. But then I'm no prize specimen. He keeps feeling my chest and arms, and of the things to feel, these are the worst part of me. Sometimes it amazes me to think that Manuel can go to bed with me repeatedly, though I suspect it's almost in the nature of a welcome change, because I can't quite picture him going to bed with many other people with as UNmuscular a body as I have. It's certain he doesn't enjoy my personality, since he's never given me a chance to show it. I enter the room, we say a few words, he offers me some juice, his arms reach out toward me, my arms wander to him, and we kiss just a bit, but never seem to get unstuck again. The kiss simply gets longer and deeper, and the hands go wandering, and the rate of breathing increases, and the rate of blood inflow to certain parts of the body becomes greater than the outflow, and suddenly the clothes are all coming off, he's lying flat on his back on the bed, and the next minute it's the delicious, warm, angular, soft touch of a body from top to bottom, and nothing diverts our attention, except possibly to put back the bed clothes under us, until I'm ready to leave. This now is the perfect example of what forced writing might turn out, but I hope not too much of the time. I'm simply trying to get to the end of this page, which is the end of a section of 10 pages, without starting a whole new subject. To do this, I just have to ramble, putting words onto paper in a somewhat worse than train-of-thought way, since this is train-of-thought ABOUT train-of-thought, and something more unreadable for the general public I can hardly think of, but such is the extent of the compulsion which I am able to generate in myself, so that I CAN type on about nothing, just to bend to this idea.
DIARY 5580
BEGINNING OF BILL
Fragment: Ah, what the wonders of love (?) can do. Traipse into the Colony, and see muscle men who appeal to me with their bodies, and I yearn for their bodies, yet I know that very, very seldom will I find a combination such as Bill, and I'm happy in the thought that I know HIM, have him to fall back on. And maybe this, too, is just the rationalization, the thought that since I KNOW these lovely people wouldn't touch me with a ten foot pole (what have I to offer them?). Face, I have none, and pocked-marked at that; body I have very little of---20 lbs underweight, this matters much; money and clothes and haberdashery I have none of. In the lines of brains, who looks at brains in a bar, and then mine are shallow in most and deep in just such a little. So I KNOW I'll never appeal to these beautiful people and I rationalize that I don't care, since I have Bill. Bill has a body, a very nice body, even though he doesn't doctor it up with fancy clothes. He has quite a little upstairs, and such things as ideals, morals, aims, needs, aspirations. Though you can't go to bed with these immaterials, they maybe don't matter, but they're to caress to, to walk in the park to, and to sit in different chairs and talk about. Could I do this with many of the others I'd cast desirous glances at---I doubt it---and no rationalization. Most important of all, sans doubt, is that he LIKES me, and likes me quite a lot, if what he voices about my hair, my body, my "technique," my "cleanness" are true, and I certainly think they are. How many people I'd seen would, COULD, even LIKE me so much that I'm tempted to use the word love, which is quite taboo? But Bill does. Thus springs my latest gem of wisdom: these people are looking for SEX, pure and simple. I'm NOT looking for sex, since it isn't enough, and most everyone'll admit to that. I'm looking for affection, AND, joy of joys, I've found it, at least for a little while; for a short time I can lie close to someone and be content to be with him and feel that he's content to do the same sort of thing. Sort of thing being in the physical realm. How many have I known (James Dean-like being most notable) that I may have known better had I fewer inhibitions about getting a foreign object up my rectum, or getting an unpleasant taste in my mouth. And along comes Bill, who admires my "cleanness" and is glad to get away from the "oral and anal" group. What could I find like this? VERY few, since they're MEANT to describe a certain person. So I leave the places half-happy, half-moody, having rationalized my way out of present frustration but, I shudder, may they only be leading to new, greater frustrations?
DIARY 5621
Jan, 1965
PHONE WITH BILL
"Me'an Bill"
---So how was your week?
---Oh, awfully busy, Raymond came up last night, and I went to the dentist last night, and she took out a huge filling and replaced it, so I couldn't have my Irish-style oatmeal, because I couldn't chew it.
---Heaves knows that's the only oatmeal you have to CHEW.
---Right. You can't just mash it with your tongue.
---Ordinary oatmeal you usually let it slither down your throat, but this, you'd choke to death.
---And Wednesday night I went to the advanced yoga class, and ruined myself again. It's strenuous.
---Good.
---And Tuesday---Tuesday?---Monday I came home and found the place in a state of total demolition because the painters had come, and Mrs. Schmeltzer had thought they were coming on Monday just to talk about the colors, but it turned out they were coming to paint. Of course, I would have taken all the stuff out of my room had I known, but I didn't know, so they had assumed the responsibility, along with Mrs. Schmeltzer, of taking all my things out, and the place was a complete mess; anyway, and I guess Tuesday, we were still getting straightened up from that, and not---oh, Howard came over Tuesday; so, it's been a full week. I'm going over tonight to Charlie's to put a rug down on his floor, or actually I'm going to help him move furniture so that the rug can be put down; he's quite capable of just putting a rug on a bare floor. So, that's it. I still haven't completed any of my midterm exams; I got three sets a week ago, or actually last Monday, and another set two weeks ago, and I haven't finished any of them, and the school's beginning to get rather provoked with me, so this weekend I had BETTER get those things done, but I'm going out tonight to lay the rug, and then I'm going over to Howard's tomorrow night, and Raymond is coming up Sunday, so, I don't KNOW.
---And we have a date on Wednesday, of course, remember?
---YEAH.
---You DO remember?
---Well, I knew it was SOME Wednesday, I didn't know when.
---This one.
---What I'm probably going to do is go to the yoga class, and then go up there afterward.
---What time?
---I should just about make it, if the play's at 8:30. And I also have another appointment with the dentist on Thursday of next week.
---You're not seeing mine, by any chance?
---Yeah, that's why I asked you what her name was. (Jabber) And what has your week been like?
---Whew, I haven't accomplished anything truly worthwhile for months, it seems. Like yesterday I went to the ballet; the day before that---that would be the Met; the day before that, something else, the day before that, sort of loafing; day before that---gets back into the weekend, when Paul was here; that was very busy. There was a party Saturday night that lasted till three; Paul stayed there, but Eddie wanted to go to the party---I just wanted to go to sleep Saturday night, and I said "Paul, I'm really not interested in going to dinner with you; I think I'll just stay home and relax." There had been something Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and I felt a little tuckered.
---Getting old.
---Particularly since Friday I went to---where did I go Friday?---ahh---I went somewhere Friday, oh, Friday was "Rienzi." So Thursday I went to see "Luther" and it was pretty raw, wasn't it?
---Um, earthy.
---There was this girl, Joan from Ohio, she was there with her roommate, and so we were talking between the inter---during the intermission---and at the second intermission, she said "You watch something, you watch Albert Finney's movements" and after all this talk about constipation and that was all we needed, so we burst into laughter, and she said "Ohmigoodness, what did I say?" So we met afterwards and raved about his movements; everyone looked at us. Then we went for a drink, and then I met Paul---no, I was supposed to have met Paul, but I went down and he wasn't there, and so I got home then about two, and that was Thursday, and then Friday I went to Rienzi, that was the day it rained so hard that the Central park pool was overflowed, so I looked around there a bit, then went to La Pont; Paul was there, so I thought "OK, let's see what it's like," and I just kind of got interested in the people; well, what's going to happen to him; and gee do I have a chance with him; and who's this; and what's this gonna be; so I stayed till 4:30.
---Oh, good grief. Out of your mind.
---First time I'd done that in a long time.
---Anything come of it?
---No, nothing.
---Have you seen Eddie recently?
---Got home at 4:30, so Saturday I was tired, Saturday we went up to the Cloisters, and that was very pleasant, because the day was nice---no, that was THURSDAY we went up to the Cloisters, because that was the religious day: went up to the Cloisters, came back by way of St. John the Divine, which he'd never seen before, and then went to "Luther." So, by then I felt like I had flying buttresses, or something.
---Sure.
---On my EARS. Then Saturday, what the heck did I do Saturday, OH, during the day I went to see the Charlie Chaplin thing, City Lights? and then went to the Museum of Modern Art, which is closed now for five months, and saw "Pygmalion" the original movie with screenplay by GBS. And very good, indeed.
---I think I saw it, did it have Leslie Howard in it?
---Yeah.
---Yeah, he was Professor 'iggins.
---Yeah, and the woman was kind of homely looking all the way through. I thought gee what a homely flower girl, I wonder what they're going to do with her, and she made the homeliest looking countess I ever saw.
---Yeah, I don't know when I saw that, but I saw it sometime.
---So that took care of Saturday afternoon, then Saturday evening I just felt tired; they were going out to dinner at 8:30 to a restaurant I didn't want to go to.
---Who's they?
---Paul knew---met some people Thursday night---people from Boston, so he was with them. They wanted me to come along, but I really didn't want to, I didn't like the people. Paul likes them OLDer. Fifty (Ugh). It's kind of a pity. Well, Paul never makes the first move when he's here; but I've found from experience that whenever I make the first move he's perfectly willing, and he made a great point on Friday of saying "I really like someone to say what they want, rather than pussy-footing around." And I thought, well, all right, if this is a hint, thank you.
---So you told him.
---Told him what?
---What you wanted to do.
---No, I didn't. I didn't want to do anything, so I didn't say a word.
---Oh, I see.
---I just said OK.
---I always suspected people who prefer older gentlemen want to have the other guy do all the work, for the most part.
---Oh, Paul's not that way, he's certainly active; in fact, that's one of the reasons I don't like him, he's overactive; he's a little too frantic somehow: you know, always movement, always something happening; kind of wears you out.
---He's not the lie-down-arm-in-arm-and-rest type.
---No, he's the "Well-let's-do this, then let's try this, then now this (sigh). Take a picture quick and slow it down so we can see what's happening next. So Saturday they said they were going to have a party back in the hotel room; they called me and said please do come; if you want to bring a friend, bring a friend. I thought no; they said the party was starting 10:30 or 11; I said fine, I'll call you if I intend to come. So this was about 7:30, and about 8 Paul took off, and I was sitting very quietly, preparing to make something to eat and Eddie calls, and I said well, I thought you were busy. He said well, not tonight. I said I had just turned down an invitation to a party. He said why did you turn it down, why didn't you ask me? So I said would you like to go? He said YES he'd like very much to go, so I said ALL right, we'll go. And I said what do you want to do first and we decided on Ballet Forklorico, this was at five after eight, and he wanted to take a shower, and I said don't, you'll never make it; you can take a shower here afterwards; but I swear he took a shower, he got to the theater at five minutes to nine; and of course it was too late, and anyway the place was sold out; so I said all right, now's our chance to see Fantasia. So we came up here to see Fantasia.
---On TV?
---No, a movie. Tower East---spread up into wide-screen which is a little unfortunate. But just as enjoyable. I kind of wanted to sit through a section again, but he said no, he was ready to leave; so then we went down to the party. It was one of these sit down let's everyone talk parties; Eddie didn't picture that at all, because the only party he'd been to before was dancing and a lot of fun and a few girls and a big crowd and drinks---and we sat around drinking Pink Pussy Cats. These people from Boston!
---Sounds a little affected.
---Yeah.
---They had it in this huge---it must have been a two-gallon pitcher.
---How many people were there?
---One, two three, four five, six, seven. And the conversation was pleasant enough; it was about old movies and old Broadway plays and people and show business; so I contributed my part, but Eddie just sat quietly, and there was another fellow just sitting quietly, and then this fellow came in who had something down his trousers about three inches long, an exotic Puerto Rican type, named Tristam; so he held the floor for a couple hours.
---Probably his name is really Jose or Juan.
---So we got out of there about two-thirty, and came back her, and (simper) took a shower together. And that was kinda fun.
---And then you hopped into bed.
---And then hopped into bed. And Sunday afternoon I got the only case of blue balls I ever had. That never happened to me before.
---Didn't you---
---Eddie was in the process of doing me when Paul came back from the hotel.
---Oh?
---So, after tussling all night, he came at night, so it was my turn in the morning, more or less, and I was literally seconds away, so there was all kind of pressure built up, and by about two hours later I was HURTING.
---Sure.
---So I thought, Well, Eddie left, he had to go to church at 1, so at this point I said, Paul, I have to go in and brush my teeth, so I went in and (snicker) relieved the pressure. Felt kind of silly, but it had to be done. Then Sunday I was guest at the Dance Educators of America, down at the Waldorf Astoria. I watched them do the Sugar Shack, South Street, various cha-cha-chas, a couple of tangos and a couple of Lindys, and it was very interesting. This little old lady comes running up and says "Who are you, who are you?" Paul said, well, he's a guest. But there aren't guests allowed. Paul said they were last time. She said you didn't read your application, guests are supposed to pay $10; well, HE paid. I opened my mouth a couple times, and she asked Paul where HE was from, and he said Washington, and I thought AHA, and I said, Gee, you mean I came all this way for nothing---namely from 70th Street, but of course she didn't know. She said Oh, my goodness, and drew us off into a corner and said don't tell anyone, and she handed me a little ribbon with guest on, and I said thank you very much, so I went in.
---From Washington.
---No, no, no, I just said I came all that way for nothing?
---Half-truths, Bob.
---Now, it wasn't nothing wrong with it.
---I wasn't nothing wrong, right.
---It was kind of funny, because most people were older, and it's rather strange to see these fifty-year-old ladies doing the cha-cha-cha? That was until five or so, by then Paul was going off to his bus, and I came back, and---Eddie came over again?
---My word! You must be feeling uncomfortable.
---No, not really.
---All right.
---Oh, sure, because Sunday we DID go to the Ballet Folklorico; I stopped by and got tickets on the way from taking Paul to the bus, and we went. And I said well, are you coming over? No, we walked out and he said, where are we going? And I said, oh, let's walk this way. So we walked EAST. I said, are you staying over, he said, I really hadn't intended to. I said, but we both want you to, don't we? And he said OK. And so he did. And that was nice. And we got to sleep about two. And went to work on Monday. Monday night I kind of loafed, and Tuesday I went to see "La Boheme," and Wednesday I stayed home, and Thursday I went to the ballet.
---Went to an advanced yoga class. Doctor Mishra, who wrote the book. He came in, sat on a grass mat on a table, and all the lights were turned out, and we meditated for about twenty minutes.
---You're kidding?
---No, not at all.
---Were there any---catch phrases being thrown out just to give you something to meditate on?
---Well, no, he was singing, part of the time. First way down low, and then way up high, and finally, after about twenty minutes the lights were turned on, and he asked if there were any questions.
---(Haha) and then he left, everyone applauded.
---Right. he said in a letter I got from him that it was mostly a question and answer period, and that's exactly what it was, so I asked a couple of questions, and he devoted the evening to talking about matters tangential to what I had asked about. They passed the plate, but I didn't have anything, so it was free.
---More talk.
---I teach four classes, but one is two periods. It's rather unusual. It's part of their "Higher Horizons" program. Usually, teachers teach five classes---
---YOU'RE part of their Higher Horizons?
---Yeah; I represent a vision (whew). A visionary experience.
---Well, you're a sight!---ha, a nightmare.
---I bought one of those telephone pickup coils last Saturday.
---How does it work?
---I don't know, I'll have to wait till we finish. I recorded a conversation with Raymond, and played it back for him last night; he was terribly embarrassed. Last night he gave me the worst hickey I have ever had. I didn't believe him, but I looked into the mirror, and here was this great big purple blotch on my neck.
---Out of sight, I hope.
---No, so I gave him one right back. So he left me HIS blem-stick and I gave him a dollar to buy another one for himself.
---I feel sorry for Eddie; he was telling me some of the things that were going on in his place, and I don't blame him for feeling nervous. He lives with this guy and his sister, and his sister's getting married, and I figured, fine, when the sister gets married, he won't have to make excuses to anybody, because the guy is gay, too. Then he said her mother is coming to the wedding, and of course she'll stay with US. The rest of the family will probably come up, too, and live in their apartment. The father is very sick, so this poor boy Eddie is living with has to support the family, so they can only have one apartment; so that means mama and papa and three kids will live in one apartment. Eddie just doesn't know what he's going to do.
---I think Raymond enjoys coming here because it's quiet and it's private. (clunk, clik)
---Run out of tape?
---Yes, dammit.
---Well, I didn't. (and he played back)
DIARY 5636
January 1965
BILL ON DARTMOUTH
(This ALSO follows the day after page 5635): Well, it's tomorrow, the 9th, and Bill convulsed me over the telephone telling me about his Dartmouth key. He had a key that would essentially open every door on Dartmouth campus. He was working on the newspaper the time the comic quarterly was being published. The editor suggested they steal the copies and hide them; Bill let them into the office, they carted out all the printed copies of the magazine, and hid them on top of the elevator shaft in the library. In the super attic, as Bill called it, of the library. And then proceeded to leave clues all over the campus, one of them under the blotter of the President's desk; no one figured how they got there, the school detective was going out of his mind. The school detective's name was Wormwood; he knew everything that was going on: if one day they cleared out the contents of a classmate's room, and took it into the hills, Wormwood knew exactly where to go to get the furniture back. But Wormwood was certainly baffled about Bill's key. Bill said he knew the president had a private study at the top of the tower of one of the buildings, and so Bill was up there, sitting at his chair, looking at his doodles, and he heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Panic! Nothing to do but go out the window, and that was 300 feet to the ground, but the steps passed by and went somewhere else in the tower. He also told about how, one night, he slipped out of his room, and went down to the gym and unlocked the locker of Johannsen, on whom he and Dick H. had had a crush before, and took his tennis shorts, and while he was there, stopped by the doctor's office in the gym and looked at his medical records, as Bill put it, I just liked to know what people were saying about me, that's all. But then he took the tennis shorts home, and catastrophe, his mother WASHED them, and they were never the same, because all that glorious dirt was gone. And he and Dick H. used to go down to the janitor's room, take a table down and play cards, no one knew how they got in, but they knew someone had been there. He tried to find a lock of the type they used at Columbia, but he couldn't; he said it would be interesting to have his own library key, as he had had his own library key at Dartmouth, his own key to the faculty elevator. He said he didn't THINK the key would open the treasure room which contained papers of the founder of the university. And this evening I had another criterion for growing up: when a person is maturing, he finds out that he doesn't have to love or hate people, but he can merely tolerate them, or be amused by them, or slightly try to avoid them, but it takes a great deal of maturity to realize that people can be neutral about you. You aren't such an overwhelming person that people either love you or hate you; it's possible for people to merely accept you, talk with you, know you, like you, dislike you, and not love and hate. WHAT A BLOW to the ego, that your impression on people could be so light that an equally strong reaction is not necessarily forthcoming. How sad it is to grow into maturity.
DIARY 5640
January 1965
THANKSGIVING AT C.'S
What an absolutely lovely Thanksgiving, except for a few misgivings. Get to John C.'s about 2, and introduced to John B., a round-cheeked fellow with beautiful tight green pants that show to perfection his thick legs and rounded ass. But unfortunately, he's a boob. Bob P. is there, the puppeteer, and still as chipper and winsome and as attractive as ever, with his strange illnesses, and forgotten polio, his athletic being, and his thin, suffered, face. George comes in then, the same George, the same corduroy trousers, different sweater, I think. John and Adair greet me at the door in tee shirts and wrinkled trousers, but soon get dressed into non-wrinkled trousers and short shirts. They take my jacket and tie. We talk and have drinks, iced tea, and look through binoculars at the beautiful world from the 19th floor. Clouds scud across the sky, and as lights come on we can see the red lights of Christmas on 666. The new Penney building has blocked the view of the tree atop the Time-Life building. The meal is absolutely superb: a huge 15-pound turkey, stuffed with a stuffing which seemed to contain no bread at all, but only mushrooms and nuts and all sorts of goodies. The sweet bowl contained candied yams, apples and raisins, all in a sweet broth; Spanish wild rice, two kinds of cranberry sauce, fresh and canned, lovely hot rolls with butter, wine with the meal, and afterwards, with much groaning, a salad and a marvelous fruitcake with hardly any cake, just like the dressing had hardly any bread, and pumpkin pie and mince pie. Watched TV, I saw the Munsters and Bewitched for the first time, and we played Monopoly, I beat George, who was said to have been unbeaten, and TV again to watch the 40-foot gash in the front of the liner Shalom. And at 11:35 I left, crushed in the idea that I hadn't been invited to stay, and wishing I could have either John or Bob.
DIARY 5653
October 1961
$10 THEFT
We had talked for quite a while. He insisted that he wasn't a hustler, and I was baring my soul to him about what I was doing and what I wasn't doing. I told him I worked for IBM, and he said that he was in the navy before, and that he wasn't a hustler. He had done this many times before: going out and selling himself for money. I asked him what he did for money, he said: all kinds of disgusting things. He said he knew I was a homosexual, and he said he wasn't a hustler. I asked him what he did for money, and he refused to tell me. He drank bourbon until it ran out, and then he started drinking wine. As he drank the wine he got drowsier and drowsier, and then he started accusing the wine. He said: the wine did this to me, the fuckin' wine did it, the fuckin' wine messed me up. I said that the money really didn't matter to me, and I tried to make myself out as someone who was discouraged and disheveled, and I said it was what he thought of me as a person. He said I knew what he thought of me, but he thought I would just give him the ten dollars. And so finally I gave him the ten dollars, and I said: that really doesn't mean anything to me, and he started staggering around and started falling asleep on the sofa. He said: "Where should I sleep, here or in there?" He said he wasn't going to sleep with me, and I said, well, at least get up and let me fix you a bed, and I rubbed his hand over the couch and asked "Do you want to sleep on this?" He said he didn't care. He said I wasn't going to kiss him or he'd sock me. I took both his wrists and said "Look here, either you're getting out, or you're going to sleep on a decent bed." He said, "Give me my coat." I brought the coat into the living room, and I threw it down on a chair. He didn't make any move to go. He said I was a fuckin' queer, and he didn't like me at all; he hated queers. I asked "If you hate queers, what do you think of me?" He said, "You're OK." He asked me three or four times during the evening if I wanted him to go, and every time I said no. He went into the bathroom, but the bathroom light had gone out, and I rigged up a desk lamp on the side of the wall, and he said "that was the only time I ever urinated and felt like I got sunstroke," because the lamp was hanging right over the toilet, and shining right in his face. At the end I tried to say I gave him ten dollars, now I could get the use of him. He said, no I'm not going in there. Even though he was drunk he certainly had a lot of rationality about him. He pulled himself back and started putting his coat on. I said here, do you want your ten dollars, and he stuck his fist into my top shirt pocket, and I felt triumphant that I'd gotten my ten dollars back. And suddenly he said, well I'm going, and he pulled his coat on and started walking out the door, and he said, goodnight, and I didn't say anything. He paused at the door, and said goodnight, and I finally said goodnight, and he smiled at me and started stumbling down the steps one by one, one by one, until he tumbled down the last few and out the door. As I recorded this I reached into my top shirt pocket and felt that the ten dollars was NOT THERE. He'd actually taken it. He managed to leave me with the feeling that he was quite a nice guy because he'd returned the ten dollars, and here I'd found that the ten dollars was actually gone. He had asked if I'd ever gone to bed with girls, and I said yes, but I didn't like them because they were soft, and he said "he didn't know why, but he was mystified by girls, but he thought they were tremendous; there was nothing quite as good as a piece of ass," and I asked him if he'd ever had a tremendous piece of ass. He had to admit that he hadn't. Whereas I could admit that I HAD had a tremendous piece of male. I said maybe this was the reason I liked men rather than women, since I could understand women, yet I couldn't understand hustlers like him, because I never knew what was coming next. I said any number of times through the evening that he had the easy part and I had the hard part. All he had to do was one of two things, either sit or get out, while I had to do one of three things, either sit, get him to bed, or have him get out, and I said I didn't want to do the third thing because I liked him very much, and I didn't want to do the first thing because then we could sit there forever. I didn't exactly know how to bring about the second thing. He kept on drinking the wine, and put his feet on the table, and asked "do you mind if I do this?" I said, "Yes, why don't you take your shoes off?" He said "Do you have a shoe horn? I said no, I don't think I could find it. He said "I'll just put my feet up here anyway." He put the radio on and fiddled around with it for quite a while until he found some hillbilly music, and finally he found some music that he liked and put it on very loud, and I got up and put it down to a moderate volume and went back to the sofa and sat down. He started talking about the eleven-dollar sweater he had, and the slacks: he'd forgotten how much they cost. I talked about the trick that I had had, who had given me the coat, and the sport coat and the cigarette case.
DIARY 5680
June 1962
WEEKEND WITH LAIRD
This is Friday, April 20, and I thought I wouldn't have a chance to get anything in tonight, but, due to circumstances, I do have time, so here goes. This was quite a weekend: Laird came up, so last night was busy going into the Cafe Rafio, and seeing all the people on the guitars, watching the poor fellow who wanted desperately to be supported by someone thrusting out his crotch into the faces of the young lovers. Trying to sing with a perfectly awful voice. Trying to play the guitar, which he couldn't do at all. The girl in the very tight pants sitting on her stool, looking out over the audience trying to make jokes. The lousy guitarist who said he'd stick his knife into anyone who didn't give him anything: I didn't give him anything. If he wasn't around, the place would be better. Today we went to Radio City Music Hall and saw the show. After the Cafe Rafio we went to the Cherry Lane, and again they were dancing, but this time even more elaborately than before. Groups of people out on the floor with their arms around each other, cheek to cheek, or head over shoulder, doing the slow grind. What a step. They stand together, and the music sways, they step and slide, lurch apart, and close together, and they hold it, hips grinding inward. Finally, when the music stops, they're too excited to part company for fear they may have things sticking out in front of them. When they finish, they're too embarrassed to separate. They stand there helplessly waiting for the next music to come on. When the rhythm of the twist calms them down enough, they separate to begin their hip-swishing at a distance. The least likely twisters were the straight people there, the girl was doing it very badly, and the boy in the tight black trousers and the loose brown sweater falling from his bulging chest muscles was doing a very awkward version of the twist, yet simply his straightness and his handsomeness caused the patrons of the place to pause and look at his odd dancing. Awkward, yet somehow still animal and graceful and beautiful to watch. Laird, again, met many people that he knew there, and he introduced me around, but if I tried to avoid, it was impossible to avoid the interruptions of the hello, how are you's. He would talk, and I would go my way and stand alone and look at the people. Then 5 people got out, two and three to a row, and when the music started, they went into an act; it was something they'd rehearsed, because the two in the front dipped and curved and slipped their hands down their sides as if they'd done it on a stage previously. They clapped they clicked and they slapped their thighs, and they strutted around the floor and cavorted and shouted, and back again in the dip. A turn and a twist, ever together. That done, they twisted again, like they did last summer. They manipulated their bodies fantastically, twisting their shoulders, and then trembling in triple time, with an aghast expression on their faces. This went on, and I was asked to dance, and I said no, by this Negro, and everyone looking, looking and admiring. The next night was the St. John Passion, and after the performance we went backstage, and met Zoltan, who proceeded to introduce us to everyone else who was waiting to ascend the cramped stairs. Bobbie White was there, knowing everyone Zoltan didn't. Introductions went between people from Philadelphia and Laird, and the two Sarah Lawrence girls. Pamela D. and her roommate, Judy D.. I took to Judy, just to appear oddly straight. We went to the party, and there was the gambit with the cigarette. Someone came over to me, "Do you have a cigarette?" And I said "No." Palmer said no, and Laird said just a minute, and searched for a match, and a passerby said, "Want a match?" and Laird said no, Zoltan did, so Laird gave it to Zoltan, and Zoltan turned around and offered it to the girl, who was already lighting it. The match ended in Zoltan's pocket. Albert F. talking about his harpsichords, Magda and the other one. The girl and I talking of clavichords and putting wet glasses down on what looked like a table, but Zoltan comes up and said it's a clavichord. And Zoltan saying he wished he could request performances all for himself, as he could before the Germans lost his family's fortunes for him. He had just come into his inheritance, it was 1943 and he couldn't ship it out of the country, he couldn't do anything else with it, and in a few years the Germans had it all. He said he hadn't heard something in a long time, so he requested the performers to come to his house, and paid them all the regular concert fee and they played for him. We stayed at the party and talked back and forth, and everyone stared with eagerness at two tall boys. Finally I said I had to leave and so I walked back home and a few minutes later Laird came in: he'd taken the subway up while I'd walked, he got here about five minutes after me. We talked for a bit and got to bed and the phone rang. I said it must be Zoltan, and he said it must be. He answered the phone with, "Hello, this is University 1-7108." Oh, is this Robere? Fancy hearing your voice, where are you? At St. Mark's?? What are you doing there now? Quiet? Well, yes, I suspect it would be quiet. You know what night it is, don't you? It's Good Friday! Yes, it MIGHT be quiet. Well, what are you doing there? Well, are you enjoying it? Oh, I see. Isn't there anyone there yet? Oh. Well, maybe there WILL be someone there shortly. Oh, I see. In a room, oh, that's nice, you can sleep. Is it noisy? Oh. I couldn't sleep a WINK when I was there before. Pause. You want me to come down? You mean you really---I won't be spoiling your evening for you? You just have one evening off a week. You really want me to come down? Oh, that's absurd. Finally, hanging up the phone, Laird comes in and announces his departure for Our Lady of the Vapors. We get out the subway maps to find the best way to get there, he dresses, and takes off to see "such a sweetie." Gives me the perfect chance to finish recording this, to finish off the day. And what a few days it's been.
DIARY 5696
October 1963
ROBBERY BAIT
Robert: Sitting on bench at 11:45 Friday, August 2, 1963. No one coming north so I get up and walk south. Under street light passes bright-eyed Puerto Rican in black and white striped shirt and nice trousers. He looks and I look. I look around and he's looking around, so I turn and stand near wall and watch figures moving south into the headlights coming up CPW. I look and look, can't decide if he stopped or continued, but intervening figures move away and I see him leaning against wall, looking back. As I walk south, older man comes up to him, they talk. They look at me, older man moves to curb, I wait till he moves away, but he gets into NJ blue Pontiac and starts to drive away. I wait for light to change for him to move on for me to move in, and another short fellow, built, with white bulges in his t-shirt, talks for a few minutes, then moves off. I follow him north, he sees me coming, sits down on crowded bench. I walk up very close and stand by wall. He's bent forward, and he glances to the left-rear. I look at him. He looks back again and smiles cutely. I nod. He gets up and stands beside me. "You have a lotta friends." "Wha you said?" "You have many friends." "Wha?" "You talked to three people in two minutes." "Oh, I shook hands with my friend, who else?" "The fellow who got into the car." "Oh, him I don't know." Short pause. "He wanted me to go for a ride." "See, I said you were popular," and smiled broadly; he smiled in delight back. "Yeah." Pause. "Wha you doon?" "Just walking." "Been to a play?" "No, Philharmonic Hall." "Oh." "Just about to go home." "Where you live?" "East Side." "I live here, wanna come up?" "Where" "76th and Columbus." "OK." We start off. Are people looking? I don't know. "My name's Bob." "My name's Robert," it sounds like. He holds hand out to shake; I release pressure first. We cross and talk of the weather, cooler now than it has been, he says he left fan on beside his bed, was watching TV, and just came out on street. He rubbed his bare slim arm against my suit pocket. "Oh, you gonna make me hot?" It may have been a question or a statement. "What you like to do?" And that start fizzled out. We walked into a cruddy place with PR's coming out, down four steps, he unlocked the outside door and walked to right to Supt office, turned left up stairs. Climbed four flights quickly. Opened door to two seven-foot sunflowers. I said I wasn't used to sunflowers taller than I was. "You speak Spanish?" "No." Nice picture on wall---spotty painting of vase of flowers. "That's nice." "A friend of mine did it, they painter---that the word?---was friend---the fellow who did it was French." "A friend of yours?" "Oh," and he smiled and shrugged his shoulders and took his trousers off. I paused a second and started undressing too. He had holes in his socks. I said, "Don't worry, they're in mine, too, we need to be married." "I was married for two years, one year to a Jewish boy." and the rest was a mumble. He had pimple-scarred face, but since bones and skin and hair were nice, and eyes, it was OK. No necking, but got hot when I bit his breasts. WHERE was accomplice? Where was bell rung? In hall or downstairs? If I'd made a fuss in hall, would six of them jumped, knives out, from the adjoining rooms, that all opened into the hall with the one bathroom, water running? You gotta nice body, you exercise?" "No, not at all." Remark about red shorts. "That a bathing suit?" "No, I got two pair, one red and one blue." He had pleasant soft body, highly tanned, appendix scar, tight black pubic hair, and he slapped himself back and forth---"You make me hot?" I dropped coat over chair, pants over coat, moved after him into the bedroom. Windows up, curtains apart, he pulls fan from window and fans himself. Climbs into bed, slaps himself against his legs again, saying "Suck me, oh, suck me." For about fifteen minutes I work over him---he rubs his eyes and tosses about and strains, grabs my head in legs and rubs my arm, but hardly stays hard. He touches me not. I pant and puff and suck and suck, trying for 69, but he won't. I say, "You try too hard, you should relax." He says he came once already, jerked himself off. He doesn't feel like coming. "You wanna me come?" I get pronouns confused in his thick tongue and answer affirmatively as often as possible, with some "after awhiles." Buzzer sounds. "Who's that?" "The bell." "Will they come up?" He pauses. "No, that's my brother---what time it is?" "About 12:30." He gets out of bed and looks at my watch: 12:20. Pause. "We're goin to the beach tomorrow, so he came here to sleep. He's blind, he doesn't know about me." We're hurrying to dress. I make sure I have tie and pin and program and jacket. I swear he says, "I'll go down with you." I'm out in hall, down one flight. Feel wallet, it's FOLDED edge up, as I never put it in. Unbutton it, pull it out, I lost $17. No one is at the door. None at 1. Pass police car in park at 12:45, home at 1, write this, bed at 1:30. Did they duplicate keys? I checked for gun, none, but put chair against door that night.
DIARY 5713
April 24, 1965
TWO DAYS
Incredible two days: Saturday, April 24, 1965: call at 8 am, Guy L. from Vermont, friend of Paul's. To EFLA from 9:30-5:30, a great day in itself, discovering good Charles Restaurant. To Waldorf and look at BEAUTIFUL legs and gowns (on fellow and women, respectively), and wait 5:?45-7:45. Guy appears, and Interpreter. "Free free" in room and he pounces on me. Sex. Dinner at Paul Revere, talk to Jim Crane, and cute waiter. To party via Bowery and walking up dark steps. Strip. Photos and drunk and dancing and time change and home at 3:45. Up at 12, phone and meet Guy at Met at 1. Dine and see ALL painting and to Frick with shared cab and walk through park. Meet Karl and Bob and talk and to Karl's for amazing evening of talk, about POW camps and "Eyes in bowl" and Jewish pogroms and all dead from company by Arabs and scar so deep you can see it on X-rays of his teeth. Russian's "Tobacco? No? Have some of mine." And sex and bad luck of his wife and two kids and mother and mother's sister, more sex talk and Guy leaves and Karl and I talk about Laird and love and us and sex, and he puts on ludicrous colored lights and I leave, tired, at 12:45. And Karl calls at 1 to say again he's glad I stayed and he hopes to see me soon.
DIARY 84
12/3/68
WEEKEND AT KEVIN'S
Then I exercise and shave and wash, and it's time to get across to Kevin's at 1, and I'm so late leaving at 12:40 that I catch a cab across the impossible crosstown traffic, getting there at 1:10, but of course Peter and Allan haven't arrived yet, so I'm off for a quart of vodka for a housewarming gift, and Peter finally arrives somewhat after 1:30, making Kevin furious. The drive up is long and lively, since Peter and Allan are messing around in the back seat, and Kevin seems much looser and more friendly in the front seat. About 4 pm we stop for lunch, where my sandwich takes so long in coming that we have it wrapped and take off with me eating in the luxurious front seat of Kevin's company's Oldsmobile station wagon, starting off with all of 35 miles on the speedometer. Up to Chatham for grocery shopping, and he seems terribly disturbed when I pay for the $16.06 in groceries before he does. By the time we drive up Hayes Road in East Nassau it's dark at 5 pm, but the sunset was nice, with the dark clouds hovering around the tops of the lighted hills in the late autumn starkness of the landscape. We get the tour around the house, and immediately preparations for dinner start with the broiling of the steaks and the paring of the carrots, and eating starts at 7 and stops at 8, and we're out, except for Peter, to enjoy the coldness of the night. Back to do the dishes and unpack, and somehow the time passes to 11 pm, and it's time for bed. Kevin and I have separated bunks in the guest room, but after a time manage to get to sleep. About 2 am I'm awake and he's awake, and once I say "Kevin" in a hoarse whisper, but he doesn't answer. Something's wrong, and I feel I must make some sort of move, so later I say "Kevin, are you awake?" and he says "Yes." "Do you usually have trouble sleeping?" "No, do you?" "No, that's why I think something is wrong." No answer from his bed. He's lying there, knowing I'm awake, and I'm lying there, knowing he's awake, and both of us seem quite far from sleep of any kind. Finally I sit up on the side of the bed and say, "Either I should move out downstairs, or we should do something---it's this sleeping
p. 85 missing
they were similarly entwined. But neither of us happened to live up to the fantasies of the other at that time. The bacon was put too soon in the oven to keep warm, and was burnt to a crisp, and Peter's scrambled eggs were too mushy, but still the breakfast tasted great, and the coolness of the air even inside the house was refreshing and appetizing. There were various places to check, so the day was spent driving through the hills, closer and farther from Massachusetts and Vermont, going into "Prized Trash," and places of like name, looking at everything, shopping, shopping, shopping, and then into Albany, where we took the tour of the center of town and the federal district, then to a "wholesale" only bitch of a woman who quoted prices ad lib from unmarked tags, then to eat some cheeseburgers for a quarter, while watching the lovely blue jeans of the locals, and shopping at a shopping center where I picked up "Yellow Submarine" and "Dimension of Miracles" to pass what promised to be a long evening, and "Etch-a-Sketch," which I fell in love with and saw no reason not to buy. Back to the house, again at dark, it's really a pity there wasn't more time to see the countryside, especially one so beautiful as it was this afternoon: the sun shining under a thick coat of clouds to light up the gray-treed hills in an orange-pink glory quite out of keeping with the barrenness of autumn. We drove from peak to peak, chasing the setting sun, and each time it would reappear between 4 and 4:30, it was a bonus thrown in by a benevolent deity interesting in saying "See, I CAN produce a beautiful day, even if it IS cold and windy and not very comfortable outside your warm car and coats." Back at the cottage, Kevin skewered two chickens while I made appropriate groaning sounds, and dinner was on. Afterwards, we persuaded Peter to join us in our post-prandial stroll, and I got so caught up in the fresh air, particularly the brilliant star low on the horizon which must have been Venus, except that it flashed with unaccustomed brilliance from fire-red to icy blue, which led me to think it might be some earth satellite of definite volume---but then I recall the almost disk-like brightness of the star from my apartment, and decided that Venus must be particularly close for it to dwarf the after burners of the jets landing at Newark Airport. I got so caught up that I decided to follow the dead end road the other way from the highway, and walked down to the clearing, where I enjoyed the clarity of the sky, peeped toward the house on the left, convincing myself that the fork of the road turned into their driveway, and if I followed that, I would find myself on their back lawn, not a very hospitable place to me. So I went off to the right, past the chicken apartment building over three floors high, and past the red diamond sign that commanded "STOP, Road Ends." The overhanging trees made the road appear to go through a dark tunnel, and there was the distinct feeling of making a transition from the mundane into the extraordinary. Up the hill, following the road which sounded crunchy under my feet because of the running water frozen into the ruts, and now that the sky was hidden by the trees, I could only look at their contorted shapes in the moonlight, trying to invest them with the same wonder they have for every child in the world: infested with goblins and wood sprites. Still the road climbed higher, and I finally reached a new yellow sign which said "Absolutely no trespassing, Private Property." I paused there, looking down the road to a vague house-shape and light-form, then passed it, crossing the sturdy wooden bridge over a creek which was strangely much larger than the brook at the base of the hill, and got close enough to see a few cars parked outside what looked like a trailer, with two candles flickering in its front window. In back of the trailer stood a dark shape somewhat like an outhouse, and to the left was a dark house with another car parked. The fear of dogs barking suddenly in the darkness made me walk slower, and I visualized an obscene orgy taking place just beyond my range of vision, enticing me forward, yet making my trespass even more criminal. Again I paused, went forward some little bit more, then retreated to the warmth of the house, feeling stings in my cheeks from the brisk cold air. Peter and Allan were lounging on the red velvet sofa, and Kevin was futilely trying to read some of his book on the Sahara. (to DIARY 65)
DIARY 163
1/3/69
TALK WITH PAUL
"Intelligent people must find it difficult to meditate." "That's true, in fact, the most intelligent you are, the more you've read, the harder it is to free your mind from thought." This was one of the things that came up in the pot session with Cyndy: "The mind goes from thought to thought so fast, it's hard for the voice to follow it in words, but the words are really useless." "But some people have such a command of a golden flow of words." "But according to some philosophies---Lao Tze says, for example 'He who knows, does not speak; he who speaks, does not know,' and that doesn't say very much for someone who's talking all the time, no matter how skillful the talk is." "But people have to communicate their ideas." "That's true, but I have sort of the 'writer's facility' and I agree with Somerset Maugham when he laments 'I wish I could watch a sunset without putting it into words.' That's one of the things that Krishnamurti says, too, that if you say 'I am happy,' at that moment you are NOT happy, because you're thinking ABOUT the happiness, you're not FEELING the happiness. When you walk down the street saying 'I'm happy, I'm happy, I'm happy,' you're flickering in and out of the thought state, and out and into the happiness state. It's like the Kierkegaard 'Either/Or'---it just can't be 'Both/And.' EITHER you're actually happy, OR you're merely reporting the fact that, for some moment back then, you DID feel happy." There was a lull, and I continued, with a squeeze, "And believe me, I wasn't THINKING much a few minutes ago," and we laughed. Paul went on "I don't see how anyone can be happy in the world today, with all that's going on." "It's up to the PEOPLE to be happy." "How can you be happy if you're in Vietnam?" "I think of what would be a lovely solution to the war in Vietnam: everyone would refuse to fire a rifle, throw a hand grenade, trigger a mortar. The war would just STOP. They could say to the generals 'Here, if you want to kill someone, kill them. I'm tired of killing.' They could say to the president of DuPont 'If you want to use your napalm, come over here and do it yourself, I'm not doing it for you anymore!'" "But the issues are so complex!" "The issues aren't fighting the war, people are. If the people stop killing each other, maybe there'd be time to think about the issues." "But it's still so complicated, living is so complicated." "No, it really isn't. That's another thing that's so clear under LSD, and it's always been a beautiful fantasy to load it into the drinking water there. Under LSD, you EXPERIENCE the fact that everyone is the same person, that you ARE everyone in the world, and if you kill anyone, you're just killing yourself." "But what about self defense?" "Words about theories are so tenuous, it depends on what the action is. I might describe what I now think I might do, but when it comes to cases, I have no way to knowing how I'll react." "Would you kill anyone in self defense?" "If it were absolutely clear that that person intended to kill me, I'd do anything I could to kill him first. But that's awfully risky, imagine the guilt if someone jumps at you with a knife, and you kill them, and with their dying words they say 'I didn't mean to hurt you, I just wanted your money.' But you've killed them, and you have to live with yourself." "What about someone like Eichmann?" "It used to be I didn't know what to think about that, but I'm clearer on that now. It's like the soldiers in Vietnam: THEY kill, the generals don't kill, even though they give the orders. It brings up what I've heard described as Hannah Ahrendt's problem: would you kill one person if it would save the lives of, say, five hundred other people, including your family and lover. But it would have to be YOU who would kill that one person, and YOU have to live with yourself until you die. YOU wouldn't be killing those 500 people, but the stupid bastards who obeyed the orders to shoot to kill them would be responsible." "But what can you do if you're living in a totalitarian state which you don't like?" "Leave it!" "But what about the Jews in Poland?" "The ones who were intelligent enough to dislike what was going on were intelligent enough to leave. New York is full of Jewish memories. Avi is in love with his Jewishness, and he brings out these stories from his friends, and he passes them on to me: there are families who picked themselves up and became migrant farm workers, but migrating in only one direction: West. They'd move across their country until they came to the border, then they'd wait, or slip across, or move across when they needed workers across the border. Then they'd leave that farm and go westward again, until finally, some of them after three years, they reached safety." "But what if you can't leave?" "If you have the intelligence to WANT to leave, you'll find the way. People are leaving now by jumping off cars, by escaping from airports, by running away from ballet companies and circuses, by riding under railroad cars, by forging papers. If you want to do something, you find a way." "But there's not that much freedom for everyone." "There certainly is, that's the big thing for everyone to discover, everyone controls their own life. No one else does. You work for a boss, and you have a certain relationship there. There isn't any impersonal 'they' who is looking over you." "But there's such a complicated hierarchy of authority." "There's only you and the other guy. As Krishnamurti says, there is no such thing as society, there's only the relationship between you and me. If we trust each other, and love, and have faith in each other, then society will be good; but if we mistrust each other, and are suspicious of each other's motives, and hold back our feelings, those same faulty thoughts will rule our relationship, and every relationship, and society will be bad." "But it's not good or bad, everything is partly one way, partly another." "There's only one criterion to use: either you're happy or you're not. You can't be partly happy. If you're happy, fine. If you're not happy, you have to CHANGE whatever you're doing, and become happy." "But how do you know what to change?" "Take me, for instance. I liked working at IBM, the people were nice, there was good recognition, good salary, good working conditions, I could come and go as I wished, but I wasn't HAPPY. All the points were good, but I wasn't happy. So I thought about it for two months, and decided to quit. Now I'm happy---not working is a BALL." "Could you ever leave New York, now that you can work anywhere?" "I've thought about that, too, I don't like the smells, the soot, the pollution, but I'm still happy here. The moment I become unhappy, I'll think seriously about leaving. It's the same way about this country. There's a LOT of things I don't like about it: the stupid war in Vietnam, the ridiculous monetary system, the pollution, the electoral college, political personages in general, the race problem, the lousy newspapers, the propaganda---BUT, I'm happy here, and the moment I'm not happy, I'll go somewhere else." "I wish I had that kind of freedom." "You do, and everyone else does, they just don't recognize it. That's another thing that's wrong with our society: it brings you up to think that you're dependent on it. Nonsense, it's dependent on you, and if all the 'you's' decide to leave, there just isn't going to be anything that anyone could call a society." "Isn't that awfully selfish?" "You have to be selfish. Loving anyone else more than you love yourself isn't possible, it's like saying 'I love you two cups of water worth,' but you only have one cup of water for yourself. You can't give away more than you have, and even then you have to have something left for yourself, or you'd commit suicide from lack of self-love." "You'd even kill a friend rather than yourself?" "Sure. If you're stranded somewhere, and your arm is gangrenous, and you can see the black rot spreading upward, and you know that if that reaches your heart, you die. Sure your arm is part of you, and you love it MORE than you love a friend. But if it's the arm or you, that arm's going to go, even if you have to chew it off with your own teeth. It reminds me of something Ernie, Eddie's friend, said when he got back from Vietnam: 'I want to see the war continue, because I had a lot of good friends, and they were killed, and I want to see those bastards killed in turn.' That's just not right, because killing 'those bastards' will be killing someone ELSE'S lover, and the cycle just repeats." "Yeah, that's right" "All the Eastern religions give such power to the individual, they run up against the Western religions which believe in self-sacrifice and humility. Shit! You're all you got, and your parents and children and lovers can't change what YOU are, only YOU can do that. After all, YOU have got to live with you all your life." "But it's confusing when these ideologies clash." Ideologies don't clash, people do, (to DIARY 106)
continuation missing
DIARY 189
1/21/69
ARNO
Imaginary conversation between Arno and me:
Bob, why do you always come to me to open yourself up?
Really, Arno, do you think I come ONLY to you?
Then why do you come to me at ALL?
Maybe I want to show you, by example, the only way I know, that it IS possible to open yourself to SOMEONE.
I never open myself to anyone?
You never seem to open yourself to me, Don is under the impression that you don't open yourself to him, you've said that you have problems being open with Bob C.---rather that he has problems being open with you, but that's usually a two-way affair, Bill said you were an anal personality, which by definition won't open itself up---
These are only your opinions---
Of course they're my opinions, I can't think according to anyone else's opinions.
But you don't know me, Bob.
Do YOU know yourself, Arno? Tell me that.
This conversation is getting foolish.
There you go, you've just painted yourself all over with another clear sheet of plastic: I can see there's something going on inside, but you've just voluntarily made it a little more inaccessible. (Arno remains silent, staring at me impassively.) You're the same way in sex, Arno: you don't have sex with your sister, Bob! The one time we had sex, you didn't even appear to like French kissing, and you certainly didn't like cock sucking, you simply rubbed yourself off on my stomach, not even deigning to come into my mouth or my ass or even my hand. You're impenetrable in more ways than one, Arno---no one can get into you, at least not Don, and you won't get into anyone. Partly that's your profession, I'm sure, the professional shoulder, eternally strong, eternally bony. But there's no orifice in a shoulder, and you've confused boniness with strength and rigidity. Even a shoulder sometimes shakes with tears, but you've confused the issue. I don't think you ever cry.
I do, Bob, I do. I do cry, but I choose to cry alone.
So you're only crying to yourself, for yourself---
I can't cry for you, so why should I cry TO you?
Humanity is to be shared; emotions which aren't shared aren't worth calling human.
Bob, listen to what you're saying; that's nonsense.
My words may be nonsense, but the feelings behind them aren't. I remember Karen getting angry at Ralph, screaming at him for hours and hours, but she couldn't get to the bottom of the anger. I think she couldn't get to the bottom of her anger because she had no feedback from anybody else, she couldn't see the EFFECT of the anger on herself, so she had no idea when to stop. My grandmother could cry eternally for her husband and her son, but when she'd cry WITH someone, the crying was more real, more appreciated, she felt more that she had gotten the emotion somehow out into the OPEN: that's it, you have to get the emotions into the open, and keeping them to yourself crying to yourself, is the same as not crying at all. This jazz about repression of emotions might just apply to EXPRESSING emotions in front of SOMEONE ELSE. The step between your conscious and your unconscious is a small one---when you bring the tears from inside out, you accomplish a little. But the step between your consciousness and someone ELSE'S consciousness is a larger step, and then you can bridge THAT gap, it's a REAL accomplishment.
I don't feel that what you're saying has any psychological significance.
There's another plastic layer you're putting on yourself. YOU'RE PUTTING ON---YOU'RE PUTTING YOURSELF ON when you don't think you have to share sorrow. Because I can't quote line and verse from Freud or Alder or Jung, you're not impressed. And because of your distance from me, right now, you can't see the gut feeling I have that what I'm saying is TRUE.
Let's talk about something else. I'm tired of this.
You're tired, are you? You feel like CLOSING your eyes? Even the eyes respond to this openness: when you're attracted to something, your PUPILS open wider, when you're repelled from something, your pupils CLOSE. This isn't willful, it's involuntary, but it certainly backs up the desirability of OPENNESS. You can't be repelled by everyone through your life, you'll only end being repelled by yourself.
I think I know myself better than you give me credit for.
All I can go by is what I SEE. You may IMAGINE you know yourself, but I can't see the results of your imagination, only you can. Isn't this one of the purposes of a group therapy session, so that EVERYONE can pool their vision of you? If EVERYONE has the same idea of you, and you have a different idea, isn't this an indication that you may be looking at YOURSELF through distorted lenses?
The group therapy session is a controlled session---
And you, Arno, are a controlled PERSON. I know what that feels like, because I was in your shoes when Jean-Jacques was talking to me about his love for me. I talked very easily about it, contorting my face as I see you contorting yours, but I was dead inside to his feelings, as you're dead inside to mine. Isn't that one of the basic facts of humanity, Arno? YOU may be WRONG!?
YOU may be wrong, too, Bob.
But then I and Don and Bob and probably a dozen other people you can think of, if you wanted to, who have told you the same things, are ALL wrong?
That may be, that may be.
The strong person. The unshakable shoulder. Playing the role of confessor and teacher, but never accepting the role of feeling, the role of sadness, the role of uncertainty.
I've been uncertain.
Yes, in the same way you've cried. You've hoarded it, not shared it. You may as well not have felt the emotion: E-MOTION---FROM-Motion---your feelings have never moved OUT FROM you, so how can you even call them E-Motions?
You're being very clever, Bob, I'll give you credit for that---
You'll give me credit for cleverness, but not for truth.
No, I don't feel that you've been saying what corresponds to the truth.
Oh, you're so careful how you speak, you're so careful how you feel, That clear sheet of plastic that encases you, sealing your eyes from an appreciation of beauty, sealing your mouth and your ass for sex, sealing our tongue from speaking what you feel. You feel, but the feelings bounce around inside your plastic shell, they don't come OUT, and you have no EMOTIONS.
You're playing with words, Bob.
You said that to me in the LSD session, and I'll reply as you replied: they're YOUR words I'm playing with.
Then you're liable to the same accusation you're making to me.
At times everyone is---I feel I'm doing it less and less, but I feel you're doing the same as you've always done it: not at all.
There's nothing to be gained from talking.
Not if you don't unplug your ears and listen, listen to the words and bounce THEM around inside until they hit feelings, bounce them around in turn until they can come through the shell---not by talking, but by EMOTING, MOVING THE FEELINGS OUT PAST THAT SHELL OF YOURS. Then there IS something to be gained from my talking: YOU may EMOTE.
I think you'd be happy if I started crying right here in front of you.
Can't you hear what you're saying? I'm not talking about MY happiness: I think YOU'D be happier, potentially, if YOU started crying in front of ANYONE. Can't you hear the sneer in your voice? You're saying: You want me, as strong as I am, to cry in front of you, as stupid and weak as you are. You're saying: you want me to debase myself.
Goodbye, Bob, I have a lot of things to do; I have to move along.
DIARY 195
1/23/69
THE $10 EXPERIMENT IN TRUST
A clear eyed Negro of middle 20's, nicely dressed, with a trace of a tear in the furrow between his cheek and nose, stopped me just between Broadway and 8th Avenue: Excuse me, sir. I looked at him. I have to get to Grand Central, that's on Lexington and 42nd? The last train to Poughkeepsie is at 12:40. You know Vassar College, the girl's school? Yes. I live eight blocks from there, I work for IBM in Poughkeepsie. The thought of questioning him about IBM races through my mind, but he continues talking: Bless you for letting me even talk to you. I tried to talk to them others, but they all think you're drunk. I went to Traveler's Aid---see this---and he shows me a handful of change---I was robbed of $83, and I have to get home. It's $1.85 for the bus and $3.50 for the train. What do you want? It's $1.85 for the bus and $3.50 for the train. No one would even listen to me, without identification. I got $43 at home, I just got paid. What do you want? It's $1.85 for the bus and $3.50 for the train, and I'll send it back to you by a $10 mail order. Do you want $3 or $4? I have to take a cab from the station, and that'll be a couple bucks. Oh, you want $10? I'm not a homosexual, but I could kiss you, sir. The tear rolled further down the furrow between his nose and cheek. You'll get it back as soon as I can send it, you're a gentleman for listening to me, everyone else thought I just wanted to get drunk. His brown eyes were clear and pleading. He pulled out a red box of cigarettes and opened it, pulling out a pen. What's your name. Bob---you're a real gentleman, Bob, Zol, yes, nar, ner, zak, lak, and I let it go. 309 West 57th St.---oh, that's right here. New York. I'll send it to you, you'll get it Thursday. Thank you so much. He removed his hand from his pocket and said Dwight someone, and shook my hand, saying he'd get it right back to me. I walked away, feeling amazed at his performance that made me trust him, knowing that if he paid me back, I'd be tempted to treat someone else the same way, but if I didn't get it back, I'd have an eternal excuse for never helping anyone like that again. As I rode up in the elevator, I saw that it was 12:45, and wondered about his 12:40 deadline, HOPING he meant he MISSED the last bus, and HAD to take the train.