1970 4 of 8
DIARY 1154
MONDAY, JUNE 1. Up at 7 and out of bed at 8, set up the working area and retyping the first two pages, then retyping the first seven pages, and getting into the first 14 pages with some sort of finality while John does his own thing. Then it's getting close to 12:30, and he wants to eat at the beach, so he re-warms the chow mien and we get down to find there's a guy and loud son and gangly dog who pass once, back again, and re-back again, then a waterskiing party decides our section of the beach is home base, then a Chinese fellow and Caucasian girl try to crash that party, and I decide they can all go to hell, and I take off my jeans and drape the bathing suit over my cock and disregard my discomfort of last night on my burned right upper thigh and meticulously lay for 15 minutes on each of four sides. John goes in swimming twice, but when I try the water, it's cool enough just STANDING by it for my taste, and let the water come up only to my ankles. Back to the house at 3:15, feeling weak in the sun and heat, and shower and John puts on suntan lotion lovingly (no, that was last night, today I didn't put on ANY, since I didn't feel that I'd gotten that much sun), and then we're back down for more work. Then at 4:15 we have more shopping, I driving to the Rocky Point PO, the A&P, the liquor shop, the Bohack, and another liquor shop near Waldbaum's, and we spend lots for groceries, John complaining about how fast his money's going. John dirties numbers of pots and pans for his quiche and salad, but they're both very good, eaten in company with birds on the garage roof, then we do dishes in the bathroom sink, he talks me out of trying to use the snake again on the kitchen sink for fear of re-stopping the bathroom appliances, and then we drive down to Bohemia via a kicky parking area where John finds out about local gay scenes, and the Central Hotel has some very pleasant people, a good jukebox, and we find it's jumping on Wednesday. Try the other side of the parking area, but "You looking for someone?" sounds testily straight, so we're home at 11:45.
DIARY 1155
TUESDAY, JUNE 2. I try stiffening myself, but come almost unfeelingly, too bad. Breakfast on the porch, and it's another perfectly sunny day again, so we put up the drapes on the sun-porch windows, using nails where support is needed, and I re-read Chapter 1 to get back into it, then start work on Chapter 2. John goes to the garage in the meantime, then comes back and works awhile, and before lunch at 1 we both do exercises, my level 4 causing some trouble, but the rest of the day is fine because I did them. Down to the beach with tuna salad sandwiches, bananas, and beer in a cottage cheese container which John weights with a rock and puts in the water. I do 20 minutes on each side to 2:30, and we start talking, John confessing with guilt feelings that he read two things in my diary: that I played footsie with Art under his dining room table without telling him, and that at Bob's first orgy I saw a body that I wished John had. He says that's been preying on his mind for a month, since he read it when Lois and I were at the Playboy Club. We talk about it, then he backs me up against the mosaic pole and starts doing me, and we go upstairs for a fabulous Baby Magic session, but I still have to bring myself off, yet the session is good. Up to shower off and talk a bit more, then down to more work, and I finish Chapter 2 to my satisfaction and begin organizing what I'll need for Chapter 3. John complains that it's 6:30, so I start the charcoal fire for the steaks, and they're done about 7:45, and with that and the corn and a salad, dinner is just lovely. Coming up from the beach we passed three characters coming down, and when the Blum-type bounced back up I said "You know better than to forget something when you go to the beach," and we begin talking, and he lives in the Stern house and invites us up. After dinner we go for the beach, John lies looking at the stars, I watch the tide coming in until 10, then we pass Stern's and get barked at by his dog, we go in and talk about Sound Beach and all his hippie friends until I think we should leave at 11:30, and we're back and into bed at 11:50, one of the later evenings, but one of the more interesting. Sleep fast.
DIARY 1156
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3. Wake for good sex, John doing me, and out of bed at 8:50. Cereal and banana breakfast on the porch, but for the first day it's cloudy and gray (after only a few tiny clouds yesterday afternoon), and we get down to work, but Chapter 3 goes very slowly, and I take a lot of time merely going through changing all the "I, me, my" to "Ken, him, his" and the other names, making very few other editing marks. Then it begins to get sunny again, and John wants a bacon and muenster sandwich, and I decide on bacon and egg, so make the bacon and my sandwich, and he makes his, and we're down to beach at 1:10, where it's very bright, we upright a few horseshoe crabs to wander in circles, and look over dead fish eviscerated by birds' beaks, and I feel rather gloomy about this, particularly since I've been almost re-living the LSD session. Lunch is good, John swims, I sun for 20 minutes on each side after a half-hour in the sun, then we walk up and down the beach to see that there's no one attractive there, and we're back about 3:10, having walked down the side to see the house falling into the water. Back to work and it goes slowly for me, and then at 5 John has to stop and starts fussing with the salad and the tuna hors d'oeuvres, and I work on, until he makes me feel so guilty I have to go down to help him, and we're drinking sherry and having appetizers when there's a low, continuous rumble from the west, like New York erupting, and we dash down to the architect's porch to watch lightning and rain sweep north across the sound, feeling each other up in the meantime. Back to an indoors supper of spaghetti and meat sauce and a huge salad and cake, and then we're down to watch the rain and lightning in the side houselight, and John suggests we smoke. Draw up the chair to the side window and he lights up his pipe, and after only one pipeful he wants to go onto the roof with the tarpaulin over his head to listen to the rain, and from then on I'm very, very high (see following pages), and we get to bed for a truly frantic baby-magic session, coming all over.
DIARY 1160
THURSDAY, JUNE 4. Wake at 6:10, I stroke him off with pleasure, up at 8:20. Today is thoroughly cloudy, not even an afternoon break as had happened yesterday, and John makes some tuna salad sandwiches which we have out on the front porch for lunch, and don't even get to the beach. Again John persuades me to exercise, and I feel better after I do: it seems my body just tends to go to pot after long sessions of inactivity and pot. Work all day trying to revise Chapter 3, and finally by the afternoon John's waxing the car to the strains of the car radio, and the dog barking across the street, finally drive me down to simply walk along the beach, looking at the couple fishing even in the cloudiness, and get back feeling somewhat better. John goes shopping between having left the car at the garage (which means we couldn't get down to the Central Hotel in Bohemia on Wednesday) and picking it up, and he gets pineapple and carves out the center and stuffs it with chicken and almonds and roasts it, and it ends tasting absolutely luscious, a fantastically good meal, and again a hugely giant salad to go along with it. We listen to Nixon's speech, and I get angry about it, and then the evening ends as we clean up the dishes and drink lots of sherry and get off to bed. I'm very happy about the way the week's going, and we're rather sorry that Marty and Jerri will be joining us tomorrow evening---this could go on for quite awhile. It's about the longest I've been away from New York City without getting fidgety for the last few days, counting the hours until returning to my apartment, but this whole week was so casual and relaxed that I never once found myself wishing I were back there, or wishing I wasn't exactly where I was. John found the perfect way to get me back to the book, and I felt confident that the momentum I'd generated, and the pleasure I felt to be working again, and the pleasure John displayed in my working, would carry me through quite a bit more of the book, though I really didn't get back to it by June 17 (when I'm typing this), which is really too bad. We probably walked down to the beach to look at the stars and the tide, then got to bed, probably with sex, yum.
DIARY 1161
FRIDAY, JUNE 5. Up for sex on our last free morning, and I get back to Chapter 3, putting everything together and finally getting down to typing the whole thing, and proofreading it to make sure I'd crossed out all the I's and me's, which was the most important bit of editing to do. Again get tired of working and get down to the beach, and this time the roommate is in the Stern house, and again he looks at me. Later in the afternoon John and I get down to the beach and we talk to Phil (is THAT his name?) on the way back, and he says there might be a party there Saturday night, and we should drop in then. Fine. I get lazy and start doing some physical work like sweeping so that the Sokols will think we were doing something besides working and having sex, and we finish up with the dishes and move tables around, and John goes over to the Grauman's to get a permanent loan on the table, so we decide we can both work on the folding one (though we never do), and then shower and get dressed and go off into Port Jefferson. Park and see some absolute lovelies walking the streets, but John doesn't want to eat at the Hotel Restaurant, and asks first the wine seller (who suggests the Schooner, which he also doesn't want), and the meat-cutter, who suggests the Secret Road Inn, or Chez Guy, for a rather good but expensive French restaurant way out here. We go, find they have glass instead of crystal for the wine, the service is rather poor, my duck is fatty and smothered with unburnt cognac, John's Grenouilles are tough and rather tasteless, the endive is overcooked, the onion soup onionless, the gazpacho uninspired, the wine so-so, and even the bellboy was not awfully cute, and for this we pay something over $20. Get to the station late to find the train late, and it gets in at 9:15, and we chat about the weekend, and the baby is put to sleep and we talk on a bit, but everyone seems very tired, so we're up to bed, very conscious that we're not alone in the house when John, tromping through the upstairs, wakes Christopher to a yowl. We all laugh about the troubles with the john, and Marty says he'll be calling the plumber tomorrow. Get to bed about midnight.
DIARY 1162
SATURDAY, JUNE 6. After, that is, getting into the car and driving around the cliff's edge trying to look directly into the lightning of the tremendous storm last night. I see quite a few blasts which etch themselves into my retina so that I see after-images for a few seconds, but John always seems to miss them. This morning is still pretty rainy, and Jerri still has to shop, so I take her and Marty in while John watches the baby, and I pay for about half, or $12, the bill. John and I walk down to the beach and meet Phil and his guests something-like-Sally and Soochi (or So-Chi) and a lovely hard-eyed guy whose name I forgot, and the potty roommate whose chest automatically swells as he takes off his shirt to display a muscle-builder's body of carved beauty. But there's no party scheduled for tonight, so we want to take Marty and Jerri out for dinner, but they say no, or let them go to a movie, but they don't feel like it. We get into the car and drive around Stony Brook and Head of the Harbor and areas around there, and the Rhododendron Road and some of the byways were very nice, but mostly we disparaged the architecture and the people who would live so poorly at so much cost. Rained most of the time, and we had hot fudge sundaes in Stony Brook, but didn't see the college, and John's eyes started smarting in their cigarette smoking. Got ribs for dinner and then Jerri wants to start reading the book, so she does, Marty burns the ribs quite black, which I love, and we eat and get back to talking about the novel. Jerri likes it all except for the fact that the "third-person" narrator ISN'T omniscient, Marty thinks the main trip is in the past, and John reads a bit of the first version and contends that my original "jotting" style is best for this kind of book, and we have a long discussion about styles and details, but I feel very flattered about all the attention I'm getting, and most of the criticisms seem to be VERY good, if I could only get off my high horse and LISTEN to them. Find to our surprise that it's 12:30, and we stagger around getting ready for bed, and Jerri is quite tired, saying she'll wash her hair that night, but she cops out and does it the next morning VERY tired.
DIARY 1163
SUNDAY, JUNE 7. Breakfast to ourselves as Jerri sleeps late and Marty still fusses with the sink. After breakfast John decides we want to see Wildwood, and we drive out on a rather nice road to the crowded park, walk down to the beach where I get a personally grilled frank to ward off hunger pangs, and we walk in the woods where John gets very frustrated and angry trying to make his points about my book, and I begin to see them and agree with them, and things calm down again. Get to the end of the trail and find we're above the Puerto-Rico like beach again, and clamber down the sand slope to find deserted beaches with psychedelically bright pebbles all along the tide lines, and clear water and bright vistas of the sand cliffs lining the sound. Walk back toward the public bathing area past people laying in the sun, fishermen with their catches of sea robins, blackfish, and flounder, and a couple of cute guys who look like they might want to hold hands. Lounge around the beach talking a bit, looking at the life guards joking around and swimming, and then back up to the car, pulling off to look at the construction site for a nuclear power plant, and we talk depressingly about the changing ecology and the end of the comfortable world. Back to the house and again I don't feel like eating or doing anything, so Marty doesn't cook until quite late, and again everything is burned in the dark, and I feel guilty about not helping. This evening we settle down to an evening of canasta (no, that happened Friday night after they got the baby to bed, before and after we looked at the storm lightning), and read the Times and John said he wanted to leave at 7:30 so we could get out by 8, and we got out by 8. Traffic was pretty bad, and after explaining the rules of "license plate poker" there wasn't much to say, Chris was cranky thanks to a bad case of prickly heat, and the trip in took exactly two hours, leaving them off at 10, returning my typewriter to my place, and then getting to John's at 11, where we could finally relax from the long day, he watered his plants, and we settled down to sherry and a toilet that worked and a bed that was sizeable.
DIARY 1164
MONDAY, JUNE 8. Subway home and look through all the mail, and that takes until about 11:30, and then I read the Theater section of the Times and decide to see what last days are for the movies I want to see, and find that I really have to see "Let It Be" and "Hercules, Samson and Ulysses" today if I want to get in both shows that I want to see before they change features on Wednesday. So I get down to the Lyric (see next page) for the feature, and then I feel hungry, so I stop for a frank and orange, and then I don't feel like going home, so I stop in a 42nd Street dirty book shop, and find that books with prices like $7.50 and $5 are going for $2.50, or 5 for $10, and for every purchase of $10 or over, you get a free $3.50 book. So I look through all the magazines to find five that I like, but I can only see four of the Young Champions and Leather-Men series, and that's all that has the adult, as opposed to the child, in the nude. There's a fabulous thing called Roman II that costs $5 that has lovely semi-erections and great models, but that's too much, and then I decide that I really don't want to invest any more in pornography unless it IS pornography, since I have enough nudes to last me years now, and I should be out DOING PEOPLE rather than looking at photographs. But I took about an hour looking at all the nice books, and no one bothered me, since I guess there's so much competition that they can't shout at you to move on, and prices are coming down, which means they have to think about getting dirtier and dirtier stuff. There's much kissing and making out, and simulation of sex, but I still figure I'll wait for the real "coming" stuff to get onto the stands. Check a couple more places up Eighth Avenue, and each place has a few more new things, but none as cheap, and finally the one right up here is about the worst place, and the guy the lousiest disposition, saying business is so bad he's been thinking of moving out, and selling Italian ice on the side. Nice combination. Back home about 5:30, and have nothing much to eat and get ready for the first class in a long time at 8 pm, but the head-stand still goes pretty well, Dick and I mirror, I'm great goldfish and train conductor, John here.
DIARY 1166
TUESDAY, JUNE 9. Fuss around the apartment until 12, when I phone for schedule from the Ziegfeld and find that it started earlier than Sunday, and I could have gone as early as 10:30. Zip out to the theater at 12:30 and convert the balcony to a "dirty movie" balcony (see next page). "The Great Ziegfeld" is just as great as I've ever remembered it, some numbers even beginning to overshadow the "Pretty Girl" number, and the funny thing is that Busby Berkeley did NOT work on this greatest of show-movies. Luise Rainer is quite good, the ever-popular Mae Busch is her maid, and the production numbers just go on and on. Next was "Ziegfeld Follies" which I'd never seen before in garish color, with all kinds of stars doing nothing in particular, but it was all very interesting, though none of the production numbers had the lavishness of the first movie, though they certainly have spent as much money on the effects, but the whole thing looks very tacked together, and even the Fanny Brice number wasn't terribly effective. "Ziegfeld Girl" is just as corny as it was when I saw it on TV, Lana Turner getting caught up in the social whirl and dying "because her heart just isn't there anymore," Judy Garland becoming a big star because she goes against her father, who later makes a comeback with Gallagher and Sheen, and Hedy Lamarr as a girl who stumbles into it, and stumbles out of it when her violinist-husband finally makes it big. Such movies! Out weary at 7:45 and dash back to have a quick meal at the corner restaurant at 56th and Broadway, and it wasn't bad at all, with good service and a good view of beauties walking by on the street. Dash home and shower and shave and then out to grab a cab down to 77 Seventh Avenue, where Peter Cott and Kenneth something like Meehan are giving the current Tsi-Dun gathering which John said he thought would be particularly good, and IT WAS PARTICULARLY GOOD. (See following pages.) We leave about midnight with the last people to leave, and Peter Rose has a VW microbus, so we all pile in and chat on the way uptown and he leaves us off at 57th, and John and I stagger into my place and smile about the absolute pleasantness of the entire evening, Peter Rose and all.
DIARY 1171
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10. Up feeling tired, can barely get John's breakfast out, and I laze in bed a bit, just relaxing, and then have to get up and eat something, and then the apartment's been in a complete mess since I haven't even unpacked yet, so I get busy and put everything away very carefully and probably make a few phone calls, and do some dusting and cleaning, and water the flowers and do such odds and ends, without touching the book one bit, and doing only a couple of pages of typing, and then I eat brunch rather late, and for the first evening in a long time there's nothing to do, and John says he wants to get to sleep early, so he comes over at 8, we watch TV "The Dream," which he walks out on in disgust at the poorness of the film, and than at 9:30 we go out for a walk in Central Park, since I want to do something except get right into bed, and he doesn't seem to want to volunteer to read any more of my book. We walk through the park and there's no traffic, and get to the fountain area to find the restaurant going full blast, but the snack bars aren't open, so I resign myself to having nothing for dinner until I can get home and cook myself a couple of eggs. It's a lovely night and we go wandering into the ramble, and a white-shirted guy with a dog is the first one that I'm attracted to, and he comes close to me, and I feel his hardening cock but he says "It's just too dangerous" and wanders off. John like the pergola area, but I can only stand on the side and watch things go past. There's much getting lost in the hill section in the far west, and I come back down and sit on the bench and simply wait for him to come out, but there's nothing going on in there, and after he stumbles into a group session in the well part, there's nothing doing in there, either. We wander back the long way, and by that time it's 11:30, and he really didn't seem in the mood to hurry along, but was very surprised when he found out what time it was. I got my eggs down, and also bought some sherry (Gallo Straight), so that he could drink what he wanted to drink, and we crawled into bed to mutually tell each other how good we felt about each other, he insisted on the fan, though, and we slept.
DIARY 1172
THURSDAY, JUNE 11. Again it's all I can do to get out of bed in the morning, and then I call Bob to talk and he asks about the Marriage Museum up on Broadway, and we agree we'll see it, but then when he gets here and decides to telephone, it's "on tour" and otherwise closed, and he talks to them a bit, says he doesn't want to see the Iris Forrest "Photographic Nudes" at a nearby gallery, and makes overtures about going to bed, and I decided he hasn't had anyone for a long time, we talk about John and he swings back to where he was (and I still am) before he encountered Avi, and I figure he's trying to get back in my good graces. We smoke and I put on "Children's Children" for the first time, and I'm really flying. He comes first by rubbing on my stomach, I do him a second time, he does me off by hand, and I do him off by hand, and he's rather exhausted as he puts his clothes back on about 4:30. I'm bemused by the way the day's passed, get dinner and showering out of the way, and it's time for class, where we do the terrible coning again, some few mirroring exercises, and things are not really as exciting as they have been, and I don't see myself continuing in the class beyond something like the end of July. Then John's been talking about the nude swimming pool, and we walk down with Al to find kids dressing under the bright lights, clamber over the fence, disrobe even while a cop car passes while kids are clambering over the same fence, and John and Al swim around but I don't feel like it since it's a coolish night, the water's cool, and I have my contacts in, and I enjoy watching a chunky Italian type with thick muscles who swims in a purple undershirt and that's all, dark public area thick and inviting in the shadows between his hairy legs. Then we're dressed and back over, and John says he's tired and refuses Al's invitation for a drink or tea or coffee at his apartment just one street away. I find myself deferring to what John wants, merely because we do so many things that I want, and I know that he defers to me in far more ways than I would even consider, and he does a lot for me ego-wise, car-wise, and food-wise, so I feel good to be able to repay him in some tiny way as saying "I do what John wants."
DIARY 1173
FRIDAY, JUNE 12. Tired and stay at John's, home to find a note from Azak saying to meet him at the Whitney at 2, instead of 3. It's all I have time for to read the mail and change clothes and shave and such, and it's time for me to walk over via the bank to get more money (and I HAD to call Warren yesterday to cash another three stocks, despite the fact that IBM was so very low and appeared to be on its way back up), stop in at the gallery to find that Iris Forrest was only there two weeks, and then up to the Whitney to sit in the lobby for half an hour watching a hunky camper lounging in the seat, nice passersby, and finally a chic Azak in new short hair. The trompe-d'oeil exhibit is interesting for the first two or three Hartnetts, but it's much the same sort of thing, and not very interesting. We chat about the painting and he tries to sound very well educated, but it seems I instruct him more than he instructs me, and it's all very much like one-upmanship. He has to leave about 3:30, and I decide to walk back across the park, despite the fact that it's just rained. The walks are nicely crowded, I see Jim (?), Avi's old friend with a "16-year-old," and I keep looking at a bright-eyed fellow on a bench, and finally end up sitting next to him in rain, and he's Bernie (?) Miles (?), a painter living with a straight roommate in Easthampton, come into town to buy supplies, looking for a place to stay, and something about him makes me mistrust him, even when he accepts my kisses with tartar-stained teeth, and his curly hair is beginning to thin, and his alligator sandals are a bit much, and he's quite gone to pot, but in addition, there's something I don't like, so I say Roger's still with me, and he promises to call the next time he visits town. He'll never do that. Home at 6 to get a call from John from his friend's, since his phone hasn't worked for a week, and there's nothing we want to do tonight, so I agree to go to his place at 10, but settle down to dinner and find that "A Ceremony of Innocence" by Ronald Ribman is on TV from 8:30-10, so I watch that about a peaceable king, then subway to John's at 10:45, and we have drinks and I talk about the day and we plan for tomorrow and bed early.
DIARY 1174
SATURDAY, JUNE 13. Alarm rings at 7, and we don't even have sex but get up and out on the road fairly early, except that John takes a long time packing everything for the both of us, and we drive out from 7:40-8:30, making it for the first time in about 50 minutes for John, and still find that much of the beach is taken by fishermen or occupants of the shelters. Decide to build our own, right on the right-of-way, and again John insists on oiling me up, and I hear people coming close, and he said there was a close audience of about 6, and more looked on from a more discreet distance. Up and down the dunes, but there's nothing worthwhile, except that Lufthansa is back, and the guy in the flowered suit next door is rather nice from the back. Into the woods and am rather turned off by a hard blond that I decide to try anyway, and a thick cock falls out of his white terry trunks, I suck it only about two dozen times and it thickens and comes while I grab at his balls and he frantically tries to pull away, partly because of the exquisite agony of the moments after orgasm, partly because someone was coming through the bushes. There's nothing more of note, so I'm back to look at the water for a bit, get back to lather up John, but no one really watches, and then I'm in and out of the bushes as nice ones come and go, Lufthansa doesn't like the woods at all, and others are so drab that I stand and watch two old ones jerking each other off with detachment, deciding that if three or four of these half-sexy fellows would get together, it might be interesting, but not even that happens, so I leave and get back to lie in the sun some more, and finally we leave a bit after three, getting quite a bit of sun, particularly on my red face. Drive to Norma's and we meet Betty and Grant and Francis and Jackie, and Jackie latches onto me much to John's displeasure, they have words about John's not liking girls, then attempt to make it up, but John walks out of Ira's gallery, Jackie joins up, John sulks, Jackie asks me on a date, John suggests I go home with Arnie and her, and I leave with John about 10, after playing some theater games. He doesn't like the threat she tenders, we talk about it, bed rather cool, late at 1.
DIARY 1175
SUNDAY, JUNE 14. Up early to talk about it again, finally I say I'm sorry for not thinking more about the way he feels, which is what he wanted to hear, since he thought I should have told her "I don't know what John may have planned for Saturday, let me ask him what he thinks about my taking you out," and he might go to a party HE didn't want to go to at a former professor's, which will be attended by his former fiancée, whom he doesn't particularly want to see, and he's had better sex with her than with anyone else, and maybe that's why he's afraid of Jackie. He confesses that he's dreadfully lonely, that he always folds in on himself when he senses that he's being used or neglected, and I say I am sincerely worried about the relationship, and things seem to go better. We're out of bed about noon, and John's too hungry to make pancakes, so we buy meat pies and I get soda and rolls and we walk into Prospect Park to eat in the sun, walk past the pedal boats and ramble area, see fields of people and dogs and kite flyers, and back to the car and the Promenade for the art exhibit, which he hates, and I deck vine leaves about my head to shelter it from the sun, and there's not too much of note strolling by, and we're rather silent through the afternoon. Buy the Times quite late, and John wants me to see Jeff's dining room by Tiffany, and we're introduced to Arthur Dalager and George, and then big George and muscled Al enter and pass poppers around and we decide to eat at the Candlelight, where George's zipper, the salad and the dressing, the steaks, the cheesecake for dessert, the draft beer, the cherries in the drinks, everything gives a chance for a shout and embarrassment to the two cute boys at the next table and the three couples down the way, not to mention the waiters and me and John, and everyone feels very good about the evening, and then John gets the pot and pipe and takes it over to Arthur's where Al is due over, the apartment is quite lush, but the pot has little effect, but the poppers have more, so the four of us tussle until Al leaves, then John sleeps while I do Arthur and we kiss gently and nicely, and I play with his very erogenous nipples, and we leave about 12, and across to sleep.
DIARY 1176
MONDAY, JUNE 15. I sit at John's until noon reading all I want of the Times, then pack all sorts of travel clippings into my kit and come home about noon, and Bob calls later to say that he's seen "Strawberry Statement" and thinks it's great, and I talk to Avi, mock-inviting him to the orgy tonight, and continue reading the entertainment section when I get home, and there's a stamp selection that I like in the mail, and that takes time to go over, and then I have to get back to cleaning up the apartment and washing the dishes because Bob's coming over for an orgy tonight at 8:30. Vacuum and exercise and shower and just get ready to eat at 8 when Bob rings, we talk about John for awhile, Brian comes in about 8:45 and it looks like we'll be it when at 9:10 the door goes and it's Big Bob and beautiful John from Australia, and we're smoking two and three and four pipefuls of pot, the soft drinks are passed around, records are loaded on, including "Mystery Tour" for Brian, and John isn't familiar with smoking, we all get high and begin dancing and moving on the floor, John and I dancing as I undress him, and I fantasize that he's nicely build and young and nice looking in his transparent shirt, but I'm really not sure. Into the bedroom and he begins scratching a bit too hard, and then they circle around me while Bob does me, and I end up handing myself off, groaning, while they all kiss and slap and probe me, and I fantasize that John's terribly rich, looking for a companion, and will sweep me off into a dream world where everything is mine and I am his, good trade for us both. I hand him off with terrible difficulty, and then Bob starts going over everyone with his tongue, I rolling on the floor, John absolutely screaming, Brian pleading to be left alone, Bob and John leave rather soon about 11:30, Bob stays around playing games with me and Brian until about 1:30, and then Brian and I sit and watch TV, having eaten popcorn again, stupid panel shows, until 2:45 when again he says he has to shut his radio off, and the apartment is a mess of empty glasses and smells to high heaven of pot, but Bob seemed more a part of the group tonight, John was fun, Brian was still shy, and I look forward to another Bob's group again.
DIARY 1177
TUESDAY, JUNE 16. Marty calls at 10 to say that July 4 weekend is OK for us if we want it at Sound Beach, and then I call John at 11 and he asks me over for a day of work. I pack up the novel and shaver and contacts and go over at noon, and we sit around talking about my coming date, and John still feels I betrayed him, and he says he's gotten to the stage where he doesn't want anyone else but me (except in an orgy situation, which is OK), and he wants me to get to the same stage, to make a COMMITMENT to the relationship. I tell him he's living too much in the past hurt and in his future fears and not enough in the present. He comments that since he's moved into first place in my sex list he's feared that I cut things off when they get too close, and I say this HAS gotten closer than others have ever gotten, but that I still like it, am still in the process of fitting myself into it, and that I'm very self-centered, which is the strength which is lending much of the stability to the relationship. He again goes for the hurt, closed-in, "Well, if you leave me, I'll survive very well" expression, and I say I KNOW where he is, but he didn't FORCE himself to get there, it just happened, and that I'm waiting for it to just happen to me, that I DO want to get there, if ONLY to see what it feels like to feel exclusive, to think of someone else ALL the time, to feel jealousy (all of which he admits to). I DO want to get there, but there's nothing he OR I can do to FORCE me there. I can only continue to make mistakes, learn from them, and advance, and I know that I AM getting better than in the past. I'm very touched by his strength of feeling for me. I get nothing done on the book, getting to read his Voice after we talk at 4 and he gets to work again, and we have an omelet brunch and nothing before class, which is great because we're all feeling each other with eyes closed, caressing, John Moses has a nice face, Rick amuses everyone by A'ing my B of a raped temple virgin, Dick moves me in three ways and I move Al, we talk about exercises, and Claude will be showing Bob's 16mm films on his projector. Finished after 11 and a very fruitful class, drive to John's and we're exhausted into bed, talking again.
DIARY 1178
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17. I'm back to Manhattan at 9, complete my want list of US by re-checking empty spaces in the album and actually adding two stamps that I can get, making 49 wanted in all, and at 10 go out to find that the Broadway Stamp shop is still closed. Hang around looking at cute passersby until 10:30, then decide to walk up 55th, where I find a Spiroman, get it home to see that I'm missing the table, Arnie calls and I tell him that I won't need the car he offered to lend me Monday for Saturday, since I'm not going on the date Saturday, and tell him about my decision, and then figure to see if the table is still in the trash. I get to the heap just as the garbage men are picking it up "What can I sell you?" he asks, offering me the whole stack, but I take just the board, which IS there. Pick up the Chinese laundry and leave off the last stick of winter trousers and the very dirty white bells to be done, and home to fuss with Spiroman, finding that the whole design is faulty in that the drawings are VERY small. Call the stamp shop at 12:30 to find it open, get there at 1 and stay till 2:30 checking through all his US seconds, comparing prices, and ending up with 18 of the desired stamps for something over $14, which is pretty good. Back and immediately put them into the album, then find what I want in addition from Clark and his list, and send away for 11, so if they all come, I'll be down to a neat 20 in the US want list. Put all the stamps away with a feeling of mixed relief and gratification, and decide I absolutely have to type to begin to catch up with the diary, and get 6 pages through before I figure I have to shower and eat and get ready for the American Ballet Theater. "Theme and Variations" is brilliantly successful, with good Kivitt and D'Antuono, and Nagy is still very pretty in "Eternal Idol," and I see that his leotards are bunched into an erection and pointing down his leg in a color-change of explicit sexuality. Antony Blum gazed at me as he came out of Smilar's, and Jerry Robbins looked my way on the balcony, so I enjoyed parading in my white shirt, tan, and tan bells, loved "Gaite Parisienne" and still hated "Les Noces." John here when I get back at 11, talk, and bed.
DIARY 1179
THURSDAY, JUNE 18. He leaves about 9, I type six more pages, down for the mail, fuss around the apartment, call Eddie who tells me that Tuesday was his birthday, and I almost talk him into vacationing in Florida but he has to be back in town to entertain his friend from Ohio for the end of August, and I get the courage to call Jackie, tell her it's no fault of John's, that it's absolutely my decision, then call Norma and talk over an hour with her about the situation, she's been robbed, and get off the phone feeling like doing nothing, and actually settle down with "Man's Rise" for a bit, do some last-minute list-making for the people list, finding when John DID get into first place, then I figure I have to get the money into my account so I can pay the rent and pay Claude, make out a list of attendance of all the classes and find that except for Dick Siegfried, I'm the one who's attended most of the classes, assuming Al WAS out the week John and I were out. Find the check will be ready, so I leave at 1:30, getting down to pick up the check, subway back by way of a street-level view of the World Trade Center, which is a little above the 70th floor, leaving it surpassed by only the Chrysler and ESB in NYC, and get up to the bank at 3 to cash the check, and get back home without buying any more books or records, a feat of no little import. Write checks and fuss through a couple more things around the apartment, still having done absolutely nothing on the book in the two weeks since Sound Beach, and then it's time to eat early and shower and get ready for class, taking things along with me since Arnie might call tomorrow at John's so we can go to Jones Beach because Arnie has the day off. There are only five guys in the class, and I'm a touching dog to Dick's bestial invective, apprehensive at John's ingratiating actions, a pornographer to Al's shy applicant, and I do a fairly spectacular knife-shaped headstand which Claude doesn't even see and says "Next is the shoulder stand." Chuck is working nights, or so he says, and Dick's moving upstate, so that leaves us with 7 students at a maximum, and the class is moved to Monday so John and I can see the ballet on Tuesday. To John's for shower and hot fudge (and CHAMPAGNE for my saying "no" to Jackie).
DIARY 1180
FRIDAY, JUNE 19. Arnie calls at 8:30 to say the day sounds nice, and he'll be calling at 11 or 12. John decides to work in, so he's working and I'm up reading through the Voice, clipping out bicycle ads, and then I skim Seaborg's "Elements of the Universe," rather elementary, "Greta Garbo and Charlie Chaplin's Early Comedies" and "Minimal Art" by Gregory Battcock, all in Dutton paperbacks, and I'm desperate for something to do at noon when Arnie calls and says he'll be home. Put on John's trunks and sit on Arnie's stoop, up to his place for a few minutes to read about his and Norma's orgy in Screw #68, talk about Betty's new exhibit at Bob's gallery courtesy Screw, and then drive out to Broad Channel, sun for a bit, walk across to Riis for a snack, then walk all the way east to Rockaway, along beach lined with lovely lifeguards who ogle my sheer blue nylon trunks and nice tan, and walk along the boardwalk, buying an ice-flo, riding the roller coaster (it was longer and less thrilling than I remember it being), and the midway is really impossibly small, though adolescents can't keep their eyes off me, and I fantasize scooping up a dozen or so of them and having a real orgy in Manhattan. Walk back through cloudy weather to the blankets, watching the tide roaring in and the surfers catching a few nice waves, and we're back to the car at 5:30 and home at 6, where John prepared me a drink, then pan fries good steaks, fresh peas, and cookies for dessert, and then we're back to my place at 8, waiting for Peter Rose at 8:30. No one wants to hear music, so I leave on a staticky radio, no one wants to smoke, so John and I share a pipe with Peter, and we quickly get into bed and John does me very rapidly, then we gang up on Peter, but there's nothing left to do, somehow, after we've nibbled and tickled and kissed him, and he's off fairly early at 11:30, and we sit around talking about the evening, drying out the sheets from Pepsi, Baby Magic, sweat, and come, and Peter leaves with the suggestion that he might bring other people with him the next time he comes. Wanted to watch a Mae West movie, but when I look at the clock, it's 1, and it's over and there's nothing to do but sleep, embraced, smiling about the evening.
DIARY 1181
SATURDAY, JUNE 20. Actually wake at 10 am, one of the latest for John, and I want to take a long time with him, but he turns the tables and takes a long time with me, and I talk about the sound of "outrage" in my voice as he plays and plays with me, forcing me to strain toward a climax, and it's such a task that I "roar" when I come, feeling that my cock is being ripped off, and he says that sex just gets better and better, and yesterday morning I took ages with him, flirting and teasing and nibbling on him, even though I was tired when I got up---but the urges are there, and when he was finished, he felt completely drained, but got to work, anyway. Up at noon and breakfast, then around the corner to price bicycles at Lincoln Square, not all that cheap, buy a chicken and orange drink, talk to Arno and his new doberman, Caesar, then into Central Park, where he wants the shade until we see the nude sunbathing on the rocks, and we look at the brown lithe body of the dark one in back stroking himself off with an imperious air, watch the pants come off "California" as he flaunts his sun-line from the highest rock, the couple near us smoke pot quite openly and seem pleasant, a huge fellow in black shorts bares a barrel chest and lovely deltoids, an older man snoozes in the sun, another loner peeps about from the lowest section, a Danish fellow looks awful in a chartreuse knit, others come and go, looking and being looked at, and it's 3:30 by the time we leave, having gotten quite a bit of sun, both nude for periods, John switching me with leaves to "keep off the flies," then we're down to my place for dinner at the Yangtze River, not bad, though the rib portion was small, then drive down to Alternate U (nap before dinner) for a crowded dance where there are supposed to be orgy rooms, but though couples neck furiously, John and I kiss and make out, and people come in and out, nothing really develops except for some cuties and a lot of very frenetic dancing to quite good music for only $1.50, and many announcements about the Gay-In next weekend. Wait for something to happen until 1:45, quite late, but nothing does and finally we're too tired to keep it up, and drive home to John's about 2, setting the alarm for 7 for Jones Beach.
DIARY 1182
SUNDAY, JUNE 21. Thank goodness it's cloudy and the weather says rain when John checks at 7, so we can sleep longer. Laze until 10, when John jumps up to make spectacular pancakes, then we plan to go bicycling, calling Art and Bob, but then it's raining, so we agree to meet them at their place and drive to Yonkers to see the Hudson Museum that John has heard about and has wanted to see. Raining lightly as they climb into the car, holding each other's legs, so their tiff is obviously over, and we're up throughways and highways to Yonkers, get lost a couple times, and into the parking lot to look over the library, the moon exhibit, stand in line for the planetarium show at 3, see it until 4, Bob getting woozy from looking up at the ceiling, and then down the street to the Philips Manor House, and a staggering collection of Peales, Wests, Sullys and others in a Presidential Portrait Gallery, and a campy vacationing tour guide, and we're out at 5 to pick up a snack and decide to eat at Art and Bob's, and they stop for ribs and other staples, up to smoke a few thin joints which make me high, but not flying, and they start passing around picture books I'd seen before and photographs by Bob that I hadn't seen before, and some lovely shots of guys holding onto their stiff cocks in varying degrees of pleasure. Smoke again before dinner, and we're all flying, things going very nicely, and there's rice and a great salad and zuppa Inglese and ice cream for dessert, and we comb Cue for movies to see, deciding on a pornography show at 7, missing the 7:30 when the ribs are put on, the 9 when we're sitting down to dinner, and the 10:30 when we adjourn to the bedroom for more drinks, another joint, and the clothes come off AFTER I ask John if he doesn't mind our having sex, and Art and I sort of pair off, John participating, but John moves away and I do Art with gusto, he comes greatly, and John and I cooperate to tickle, bite, torture, enrage, and exhaust poor jumpy willing Art, after Bob set the scene with two belts and a dog collar. I start kissing Bob as John and Art try a vague 69, and do Bob, sending him up the wall, then it's 11:45 and John wants to leave, I kiss them both goodbye, and John and I cuddle, nice evening.
DIARY 1184
MONDAY, JUNE 22. Home at 9, digging the Times out of the trash, read it, finishing at 11:30, eat breakfast, then get down to typing, actually finishing UP TO DATE on the diary by doing the last 12 pages by 1:30, then Marty calls to verify that John and I will be coming out the July 4 weekend, and then I call him back to ask if he wants any RCA records or albums at the Goody sale, the best in ages, selling $5.98 records for $2.67, and he asks for the "Luisa Miller," which I decide can be part of his birthday present on the 4th of July, and I get the Strauss "Alpine Symphony" and Mahler's 6th, get back to find the Grof notes finally sent up from Bucks County, and want to read them, but get started on the Strauss and sit and listen to it all, then put on the 6th, and listen to all that, and suddenly it's 6 pm and all I have time to do is get ready for the class, having taken the time to wash the dishes, about the only useful thing done today, while listening to the 6th again. Eat quickly and shave and take a quick shower and get out at 7:15, getting there at 7:30 to see only John and Al and Lyn exercising, and others come in late. I again get into a knife-like headstand, then decide to see if I can possibly begin to struggle to a shoulder stand, and do one with the right arm so easily, falling over into a do-it-yourself position too quickly, that I try it with the left, and can do it even then. Claude points out that I have to use my ARMS to get my feet into the air with cartwheels, and that sounds pretty good. Then we're into introductions which my foot falling asleep interrupts, then we do mirroring and "Dialogues," where everyone mirrors, then someone gets a motion and sound, passes to someone else, who picks it up, carries it for a while, transforms it into another motion and sound, and passes it to someone else, and finally everyone zaps in on one motion, and we usually go into a chord, except that here we started crawling in a circle, staring up each other's assholes, bad for the old "eye contact." Then to animals (me cat, Lyn peke, John octopus, Nedda lioness, Al bat, Rick eagle), and to characters based on the animals, I and Nedda doing hairdresser and jockey on the moon. Here and bed at 12.
DIARY 1185
TUESDAY, JUNE 23. Come poorly at 8:30, John here as I sleep to 11, then I get up for breakfast, out for the laundry and pick up the mail, which has Volume 12 of Avant-Garde, which I read completely until about 2:30, then have lunch and type the one page of diary, and get out at 4 to walk up through the park to see two awful people on the rocks with a radio broadcasting a ball game between them and not anyone else of note in the whole park, and to the Thalia to pick up the schedule at 5, walk down to ring Avi's door to find no one in, then home at 5:45 to go through the movie list and check the evenings and movies I haven't seen. Just about to get into the tub at 6:55 when I decide I have to exercise, do so, shower and wash my hair and eat dinner very quickly, barely having time to shave before running to the NY State Theater at 8:15 for an angry John waiting for the ballet performance to begin before I got there. "At Midnight" is pretty good with Bruce Marks, but the lighting is uniformly dim and the backdrops are ludicrous. "Jardin aux Lilas" is now hopelessly dated, with Carla Fracci doing a very emoted job, and "Capriccio" is still very bad except for a brilliant set of turns by Lupe Serrano. "Gala Performance" is quite a kick, with Sallie Wilson campy as the Russian ballerina, and Cynthia Gregory brilliant as the Italian. Out at 10:50 for over-ripe bananas for a lush three glasses of banana daiquiri apiece, and we cuddle and talk and listen to the first section of the Strauss "Alpine Symphony" before bed at midnight. I'd looked through the binoculars at the ballet practice on 57th, and out the back window to the fellow sunbathing, and still determined to get to the correspondence quickly so that I can get down to the novel and get some sense of accomplishment during the day. Get involved with the idea of self-indulgence, and that's what I've been doing for the past year and a half, indulging myself, and I called Gladys and Marty to get their OK for using their names on my resume, which I should send out, but not as a cop, but for supplementary income and investigating a new kind of work. Got to accomplish more through the day, in addition to indulgence.
DIARY 1186
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24. Up at 8:30 when John leaves, and read Grof's notes to 11. Just as I finish with breakfast, Bob calls and we talk about his recording sessions for WBAI on sex with Betty, about his session with himself when he discovered he had a non-sensitive portion of his cock re-sensitized by his "whirling digits," and characterizes art as a "valid extension, like an erection" of the artist, whereas pornography is "out in front, like a cock that isn't attached." Talk about the sensations and peak experiences beyond sex as a sort of way to excuse myself for not getting hard, and he suggests that John and he and I have a threesome to get acquainted. Call John in the middle to make arrangements to meet him at 4 to look at bicycles, and we finally hang up the phone at 12:40, after talking one and a half hours. Down for groceries and rum, and get back to find the Clark stamps arrived, put them into the album, have exactly 25 US stamps left to get, and type out a new WANT LIST, feeling very good about going from 100 to 25, waiting to get down to the most expensive 4 or 5. Type the page for the day, and look at other typing to be done, but by the time I have lunch, there's only time to shower and shave and get on the subway at 3:30 for John's, feeling very sexy in open shirt. Walk in heat to 14th and First, where the guy is busy and abrupt and the prices aren't so hot, about the same as Lincoln Square, but the three-year guarantee is provocative, then down to Stuyvesant, and get a large talking-to by the dealer, and the best buy seems to be a Raleigh for $61, with only a 90-day guarantee. To the subway, hotter and hotter, and John shops and I pick up Pombal and read the biking manuals, Claude rings at 5:40, chats about people in the class, his own problems, my cheerful public face, our inabilities to shake ourselves out of depressions, and John serves a large tasty Greek salad with the softest feta cheese I've ever tasted, and great meat pizza pies from Malko's, then we subway into town, meeting two friends of his, Val and someone, and "Concerto" is pleasant but not great, "Jardin aux Lilas" very dated, "Flower Festival" lousy with Fracci and Nagy, and "Gala Performance" again good. John waits for me, bed.
DIARY 1187
THURSDAY, JUNE 25. Wake tired and do nothing, but stay awake when John leaves. Can't think of anything that I FEEL like doing, so first I come with gusto, feeling guilty that I felt too tired to do so when John was here, then I take "Sex Offenders" off the shelf and finish that, then actually finish "Man's Rise," and by that time it's 1, I eat lunch, not having eaten breakfast, and decide I have to get down to correspondence, clearing up four bills first for Con Ed, Avant-Garde, note to Bucks County about the missing page, and one other, then write a note to Laird, a longer thing to Claudia, and a very long letter to Mom, which takes me up to 5 pm. Then all I have time for is exercising, showering, eating a bacon sandwich with yogurt, and then down to class. Exercise, good headstands, and even improving on cartwheels, then start out with Dialogues (everyone doing them rather precisely, even to the attitudes the people passing on the sound and motion have), ending in a rather hilarious brass band circling about, then lining up stage front as the lights go out, playing "Stars and Stripes Forever." Al and I start out with transformations, playing jacks, pulling teeth, feeding ugly stuff, apes picking lice, exercise directing, puppies, etc, and then Rick and I go into mirror-jamming, with "Hello, young man, how are you today?" which is his invention, and we are rather superficial in our execution of it. Then there's a long discussion about the next session, two not being able to make it on Monday, John and I having ballet tickets on Tuesday, and we finally settle on 2 pm Saturday to everyone's satisfaction, and then Thursday of next week, after which John and I will be off for a week. Then he starts an experimental game where Rick and Al and Nedda are the Three Little Pigs, and Etta is the Wolf, who develops for herself, "Let me show you the way through the woods to---", which becomes her "emblem." That's over at 10:15, and we break up early, subway home, and I watch "The 49th Parallel" with Leslie Howard, Raymond Massey, Anton Walbrook, Lawrence Olivier, Eric Portman, and Glynis Johns until 1 am (having watched most of "War Hunt" with Robert Redford and John Saxon from 5-6), and join sleeping John.
DIARY 1190
FRIDAY, JUNE 26. John leaves at 8:45, both coming nicely, I doze to 11:30! Eat breakfast and type two diary pages to catch up
And at least I've found the solution to "what do I do when I don't complete a page in a day, and want to indicate when I got back to the page." I sat and tried to think what I did today, and it may have involved something simple like buying groceries, picking up the laundry from the Chinese hand laundry, though there's the slight thought that I went to the park, though one of these days it was raining, again, and I went to Schneider's to pick up John's painting which had been framed. Don't really know what I did, and it makes me disgusted for not keeping up on my diary, though there's no real reason not to, except that the days go by, full, and there's no TIME, actually, in which to do it. IF I picked up John's painting, I might have also read the first part of Bertrand Russell's, "Human Knowledge," thinking that I had to have recourse to books every so often as a seeding process to get my mind working again. Very similar to the body, since I really should do exercises to keep IT going, and I have to stretch the mind to keep IT going. If I went to the park, there was almost no one of note there, and the sunning rocks were occupied by two guys and a very loud radio playing a ball game. Who they expected to attract with that is quite a puzzlement. Back to talk to Avi, and he's doing nothing tonight, so will join us at the theater, but he's got enough for himself to eat at home, so he doesn't invite me over. I eat and subway up in the rain to the Thalia for "Fifth Horseman Is Fear," which Avi and I don't care for, because of the ambiguities of the plot and the irritating quality of the soundtrack babies, piano tuning, streetcars, horns, etc. Meet Avi's cousin, Allan Pollack, who's gotten his book to a publisher already, and we're disappointed by "The Witnesses," Allan leaves, John drives Avi home after exploding at him for not liking the movie, and we go to John's, so he doesn't pick up the painting, so that's what I must have done this PM. Talk about movie a bit.
DIARY 1196
SATURDAY, JUNE 27. I'm in bed until about 11:30, and up for a breakfast of pancakes, ride John's bike around a bit, finding it difficult to switch gears with the shift placed so low, rather frightened of all the traffic, and back at 1, drive into town so John can pick up his clothing from DTW, pick up a pecan roll for brunch tomorrow, and get 50 pounds of potting soil for only $3. To class at 2, and it feels funny to do it in the afternoon, and Nedda and Etta work together for the first time in ages, I try mirroring with Claude, and it's fine when we're doing it with everyone else, but then he tried two-person transformations with me, and I think it's going well, but he insists he's just not in it, it's mechanical, and he doesn't attempt to say whether it's his fault, my fault, or a combination, but it doesn't help me to appreciate him more, though he certainly continues to be observant about what goes on in class. Everyone but John and I work on "Modern Three Pigs." Out at 5:30 and drive to the street (4th) of La Mama, pick up tickets for the sold-out performance of "Golden Bat," and get to Art/Bob's at 6 on the dot. Talk a bit and look at plants and shower and out to Hing Hing for dinner, my pork/chicken/beef dish rather tasteless, Ilias is there for innocent merriment, and we finish at 8 in time for the performance. Get seats on the floor and look with pleasure at the loin-clothed muscles of the short "emcee," but most everything is in Japanese. I like it better than the Saint Martin piece of the Sao Paulo theater, since the people are more attractive, act with more force, and are far more POSITIVE (especially the "You happy?" fugue of great fun), even though the Japanese woman in the audience laughed in embarrassment when the guy took his clothes off, and the on-stage fucking wasn't terribly convincing. The songs were chorally pleasant, and best of all was their enthusiasm, their commitment, their undeniable energy, through when John and I got hit with arms in the glasses, everyone scurried out of the way of flying feet and brandished torches, it was going a bit too far. And the floor got very hard, even with the thin mats spread on it. Stayed a bit after the final scenes at 11, then out to meet John and Bob on the street (next page).
DIARY 1205
SUNDAY, JUNE 28. John wakes for brunch-making at 10:30, and I walk out for the Times, so enamored of the beautiful day that I detour to the Promenade simply to see the view of crystal-clear Staten Island and New Jersey, not to mention Manhattan well past the Empire State Building. Read most of it before they show up at 12:15, and we have a good spinach pie and great sweetbreads and onions with the heated pecan roll. They want to see the Promenade, so we walk back down there, scoffing at the "art" along the walls, cruising the numbers passing by, and then it's 1:30 and John is itching to get to the Gay-In, and we drive up to my place at 2 to smoke and walk out into the park (next pages). Then back to my place to listen to a few records, and we're all hungry, so I decide we can all walk to Angelo's after we find that the Morning Star is closed. Jeff has made contact with his friends, and they're eating and tricking, but we're expected something after 10, so we camp it up in Angelo's, three cuties at the table behind me know one of Jeff's friends and talk about him, and two at the table in front of me pass by, and we ask them if they went to the Gay-In, and they said No, but were interested in how it went. Pay with a flourish of a competent Irish fat waitress, and then into the car to drive up to Riverside and 79th, where I see Don Dewey and his wife parking across the street, and wouldn't you know he lives on the top front of the same building. Out to the back into a spacious garden, surrounded by walls of other buildings, and there's a luxurious cat without a tail to pet, drinks to get down, a friend to talk with, and Art and I chat about miscellaneous things as everyone gets higher with booze than they got with pot. As we're leaving, we're permitted a peek into the bedroom where the trick is sleeping, and we're mortified to learn that he hasn't even had him yet: just fed him and he wanted to take a nap, and there he was, on his stomach, though John said that previously he had been "sleeping" on his stomach, with both hands over his crotch, sure he was. Let them off at their place, and it's after midnight when John and I continue across the bridge and end up at his place.
DIARY 1212
MONDAY, JUNE 29. Sleep rather late and John's working at home, so I leave at 10, getting home to climb to the roof to see what the Italian Day fete looks like in Columbus Circle, and already the crowds have started gathering around the speakers' platform in the middle of the circle. Back down to read a bit of mail and some magazines, and then by 11:30 there's so much noise from horns on the street, loudspeakers from the circle, and people shouting from outside that I'm out on the roof to watch until 12:30, when I adjourn to shave and put in contacts and have yogurt, and then back up till 2, when I go back down and take notes (see 1215-1216) until 3:45, when I'm rather tired and back into the apartment. Talk to John about dinner at Sergio's, agreeing to bring a bottle of Lancer's with me when I come to his place on 15th, and what I'd read this morning was the Times that I brought back from John's unread, and I think I went back to it this afternoon until it was time to get ready for Sergio's. Ate another meal somewhere in here, planning how to get the refrigerator empty by Thursday, when we leave for the island, and I call Marty about the record sale, and he calls back after 6 to say we'll go together tomorrow at 10. Then I buy the Lancer's across the street and subway down to Sergio's, which is awful from the outside but very nice inside with the white walls, new kitchen, simple furnishings, and plain wood floors with throw rugs. He says Kenneth is on a diet and will be here after teaching exercises to some dieting ladies, and shows us the beautiful score to "Peripatia," and we talk about notations and John talks about the book and composers of Uruguay (the other one beside Sergio). Then it's time for dinner, after wine, and the chicken and cherries is tasty, the salad good, and we talk about food for great length just as Kenneth comes in in time for some wine and the apple flan dessert of Sergio's own design. Then more talk about dancing and money and the book, and time goes very quickly, and I glance over to see Sergio looking down at his watch, and when I do, it's 11:30, and John is shocked, and we leave, subway up to my place, where we have more wine, and sleep.
DIARY 1213
TUESDAY, JUNE 30. He's out quickly, and it's all I have time to do to get dressed, leaving the cereal on the table, and get down to Goody's to meet Marty, who's already selected a number of operas from the Angels on sale, but the one he's searched for, the complete "Samson and Delilah," isn't there, as isn't the "Sea Symphony," which was the reason I went anyway. But they'd gotten in "Environment," and I picked up eight other records for a total of $28, and I'll have to go to the bank before going to the island. Cart them home and begin listening to them about noon, and in a couple minutes the phone rings from downstairs and Avi is on his way up. Dress in something quickly, and he comes up and we have frozen daiquiris, talk about our love-lives, him about David who's going with us tomorrow to Lutece for lunch, and we listen to "Environments" and "Ma Vlast," and I play him the Strauss "Alpine Symphony," and we settle down to three games of chess, he wins the first in a fool's game in three, I win the second, and he wins the third, leaving feeling triumphant, about 4. That's another way to shoot a day. Listen to the rest of the records as I move about the house trying to fix things up, getting things ready for leaving, and John comes over about 6:30, thankfully, since I thought he was coming at 6, and I wasn't even out of the shower by then. Wanted to type something, but all I had time for was a two-page "Where am I now?" showing my feelings of the day, and then to get ready for John. He's in, we have wine which I went down that very time to pick up, and the veal chops are very tough, and I just managed to save the lima beans from burning in the watered-out pot. He insists on leaving at 8, and on the street I forget my contacts, so I'm back up and into the theater at 8:15. Surprisingly, he doesn't see the point of Limon's obvious "The Traitor," here's another "The Eternal Idol," and the "Brahms' Quintet" was hampered by the music and the choreography and the lighting, but the dancing was pretty good. Then "Gaite Parisienne" takes over the stage again, and everyone can't help liking it, gasping when Gail Israel leaps to a flying split on the floor. Back to my place.
DIARY 1214
WEDNESDAY, JULY 1. Again there's no time for anything but getting the mail, reading it, and it's time to get ready, thankfully a bit ahead of schedule, but I don't get to clean my teeth, because David is early at 11:15, saying he was in the neighborhood with nothing to do. He's tall and frank-looking and cheery and quite personable, and Avi calls from downstairs at 11:40, and we're off to my bank, which takes until just noon, then walk down in the heat to Lutece, which is cooled, but not enough. We all three have the specialty of the day: the Ecauton de Vollaille, with something like Saur-Hautois sauce, but both Avi and I find bones that should have been removed. We started nicely with the ham and cheese (quiche Lorraine) tart for Avi, the artichokes and mushrooms for me, and the assorted paté for David. We get into a discussion about the right way to eat bread, and have desserts of two servings of strawberries and blueberries in cream, and David orders the chocolate mousse, which has none of the chocolate chips or gelatin bits of before, and is quite good. The bill with the rosé wine comes to $31, having gone up to $9.25 per lunch. Out just before 3, David goes to the bank, we go to the East Side Goody's, where Avi buys lots of records, I find none I want, but am told that the sale will last until the end of July. Home to listen to the records I didn't listen to yesterday and do the dishes, which have piled up beyond belief, take the key over to Arno for watering the flowers, after watering them to find what quantities they can take, and then call Eddie to get the pot, talking to him too long, get over there at 7:20, pay $17.50 for an ounce which he calls clean, then subway down to class, arriving late. We're stretching out for "a short (THIS IS TOMORROW!!!)) Art's, where I find that Bart's coming at 8:30, Bob starts cooking dinner, we all three get "square-cut" haircuts, and after he leaves at 9:30 with $24 in his pocket for an hour's work, we have spaghetti and meatballs, and it's all very tasty, and I play with the cat for a bit, John cleans my pot for me to get the seeds, and then we're into the car about 11:30 to drive to John's and get to bed, making final plans for the weekend which starts tomorrow.
DIARY 1218
THURSDAY, JULY 2. Though tired, I'm determined to leave John's at 8:30 (he needs keys) and I have so much to do at home before I leave for class tonight. Start by putting some essentials (like the mescaline tablet) on the chest so that I won't forget them, and down to find a letter from Mom about visiting me that I have to answer now, and sort out everything I have to do, making a list for the first time in a long time---and then I find that the slide projector which I took out this morning and looked at slides with rattles when I put it away, and the condenser has broken from the heat, so I've got to start a list of things I have to do when I GET BACK from the beach! Finishing the letter to Lisa takes a lot longer than I planned, ending up seven full pages, and I'm only finished at 1. Then write to Bill, Elaine, Don, Mom, Kone, and send out three bills, and then I decide I have to talk to people to tell them goodbye, not getting Norma, leaving messages for Joan and Cyndy. Joan calls right back, she's now working for "Boys in the Band," and then Eddie drops in at 4:45, wanting something to eat, and I've managed to make everything in the refrigerator come out even, so he can only eat a brownie and a glass of milk before going off for his new Mustang at 5. Then Cyndy calls and she's in such a bad state that I actually recommend she write to Hollywood Hospital about going there, or finding someplace closer in Canada, to take LSD treatments. She says she'll do that. By that time I'm late for class, and get there to find John Moses there, too, and he's nice to watch, and we try something new: letting the body become the song, and I try it, getting some touch of what it's like, but not much. We also do very fast mirroring, and Nedda and I work together rather well, feeling rather happy about it---exercises again too much. To my place at 10:45 and up to Marty's just after that, and then the long ride out to the island: there's no traffic, but John is just reluctant to drive fast, so though he's tired, we're there at 1 am, and no matter how we go, the trip takes two hours. We get what used to be their bedroom, and we put things away and make up the bed and use the working bathroom fixtures, bed at 1:15.
DIARY 1219
FRIDAY, JULY 3. Chris gives a squawk early, but we're all back to sleep, and I'm the last one downstairs at 10:30. Everyone's busy making up a grocery list. I eat some cereal just to put something in the stomach, and at 11:30 Marty and I are armed with Jerri's and John's shopping lists, respectively, and we get $34 worth of groceries, for which he donates at $20. Home and put things away, and Jerri starts working on pancakes, but is having none herself. Chris sleeps away most of the morning, which makes it fairly quiet, and when we finish breakfast, John and I take a walk along the beach just to see what it's like, and the place Pickwick, next door, has put up a roped area for swimming. No one very special on the beach, and we're back up to the house in time for Jerri to say that everyone's having drinks at Marion's. Also, this morning, John and Jerri went in to pick up Jerri's Aunt Lily at the station while Marty and I proofread his history of the Zonophone Company, and John buys table at Sears, so the day went past very quickly. Lily serves very tasty whiskey sours, runs out of ice and I go to get some, after having gone with Marty to the hardware store and for cigarettes while John's napping (which John didn't like), and when Marion shows up we're well on our way to being stewed. Joke with Marion and Lily about all kinds of things, and Jerri gets very embarrassed, and Marty's taking care of the baby over at Norma's. When we get over to Norma's, Marty's moved the baby back home, so we talk with their guests, and then everyone's inside for dinner except Jerri and I, and we have quite a conversation (see following pages). When we all get together again at 10 pm, we're into the car, having fetched Lily over to watch the baby, and out to Steak and Stein, which closes at 11, and we have a rather silent meal as everyone, except Jerri, realizes they're very hungry and fill up on salad, baked potato, steak, and lobster. Finished at 11, and Jerri's so zonked that she had to be forcibly wakened to be removed from the back of the car, and we all stagger around dazed until we manage to get upstairs and into bed just a bit past midnight, too late for an early rising.
DIARY 1224
SATURDAY, JULY 4. John roots us out of bed at 8:50, we pack, he forgets coffee, and we're tenth in line, backing against the pier, as we get there at 9:30. Into the nearby shack for breakfast of eggs and bacon and coffee, and out into the car as it starts raining. I read a bit of Laing, but when it really starts to pour, we invite Sister Marion to sit with us, and we watch the ferry come in in drenching rain at 11. I get soaked getting her bags, and we're onto the ferry at 11:15, for a foggy passing which gets us into somewhat clearer Bridgeport at 12:30. Lost in the welter of side streets and Independence Day (or American Day) parades, and finally get up to Westport to catch sight of the Famous Writers School, and drive through beautiful Connecticut countryside, home of the Establishment in fine houses amid the trees and streams of rural America. Cross into New York on route 35, stop off for a few moments across from Bear Mountain to see the cloudy view, and across the bridge where John lets me drive a bit, and try off route 211 to call Roger, but there's no answer. Into Howells as directed by the phone book and the bartender, and the woman recalls a professor that lives across the new bridge and up a dirt road. In at 4 to huge hunks of roast lamb and pork, aluminum-roast corn, strawberry jello, macaroni pudding, and other foods while others talk, play Frisbee, chase dogs or make dogs chase sticks, or play guitars. Roger introduced us to the styrofoam boat and the rope slide into the water, and we get into trunks, I use my feet as Gollum-paddles to relax in the pond, John splashes me, we ride down on the slide, then it starts raining, and I get cold, and go inside to dry off, but John stays out to wash his hair. Inside to look at cats and cat books, talk to a few people about renting the place for the winter, out to look at the gypsy-moth infested woods and rhododendrons, then back for Cole (or some African stone game) with Roger while Jerri teaches John Muller, the cherry pie is great, and finally everyone leaves, two guys come in, the teleidoscope comes out for the fire, the candle swings in the can, the Bonzo Band plays, and we smoke chemistry-towers of glass, get high, bed.
DIARY 1225
SUNDAY, JULY 5. Don't know what time to bed, don't know what time up, but after we strolled down the driveway talking for a bit, we got back to the car to find it's 10:45, and decide if we're going to see Laird at Hampton Bays, we'd better hurry and leave. Just about finish packing when Roger's up to say goodbye to us, and we drive back the winding way to the new route 84, and John actually gets his VW up to 80 for the first time. Across the Beacon-Newburgh Bridge, but get lost going from highway 84 to highway 87, and when we think we're beyond Danbury, we're actually down in New York State, in the very corner. At 1:15 decide to stop in a store that closes at 1 where we buy a chicken and fruit for lunch, stop at a cemetery to see if we can get something to drink later, and then drive down a secluded road to pull off and ramble down a slope to spread blanket and have a picnic lunch overlooking rocks and trees and a tiny, garbage-filled stream at the bottom. Relax afterwards, and get affectionate and we're both quite anxious to come, but it goes beyond a certain point since we hadn't been through sex together since Wednesday, and he comes at the moment I come, and we both pour streams of come over me. That rather takes the wind out of the sails for the day, and we dry off and pack up and decide the best thing for us to do would be to catch the 4:30 ferry from Bridgeport. Down along the highways, never sure we'd make it, onto the Connecticut Turnpike and roar into the ferry slip at 4:35, ferry still in, but we're 11th in line when they announce they can only take another six. Wait to make sure, then drive across the turnpike down to south Westport and find Cafe de la Plage, in for a bottle of rosé wine, sit on the beach, I look at crabs and tiny fish in tide streams, then around Compo Beach and look at all the nice places people have to live in, including Bluewater Hill, then at 7:15 back to the ferry, being 13th in line, and I read and John naps, and at 8:30 the ferry comes in, loads meticulously, and at 9:15 we sail out, watching the fireworks display from all sides, a rather nice trip across, eating sandwich and hot chocolate, in at 10:30, back for sherry at 11:30, and bed at 1.
DIARY 1226
MONDAY, JULY 6. Wake at 5:50, but sleep, dreaming very much and elaborately, and then John's out of bed at 10, and we start the day with breakfast, setting up our work area, and I get down to typing to catch up on my diary before starting back on the book, getting 15 pages typed between 11 and 1, and then John insists I do first his series of exercises, to "warm up" and then my series of exercises, so we'll both have something to do, and then we sit around and dry off, catching our breath, until about 1:30. Make lunch and get down to the beach, and I'm actually, though gingerly, into the water, which is cold, but not freezing, and out to eat, resting in the sun, and though the beach is crowded with holiday crowds, and there's a glorious guy in green trunks and lean body, no one walks up and down the beach, and we're there until 4, and I tan two series of 30 minutes on each side, for a total of an hour and a half, but there seems to be no effect of that sun at all. Back up to shower for the first time since before class on Thursday, wash hair, and John makes up a shopping list which I go out to get, following a cute bodybuilder from the parking lot to the west entrance to South Beach before deciding I'd followed him far enough, and get back to find to my amazement that it's 5:45. Back to typing while John prepared dinner and maybe naps a bit, and by 7:30 I've done another 10 pages for a goodly total of 25, though I'm only up to Thursday of last week and have lots left to go to catch up. Dinner starts with sherry, and there's fricassee of chicken with lovely mushrooms and carrots, great fresh string beans, pepper rice with fricassee sauce, and a salad that we agree is manageably small. Eat past sundown and get down to the beach at 9:15 to see some red still in the sky, pass picnickers and campers on the sand, watch the stars gain in clarity as the moon, with its other side visible cradled in the crescent, and Venus fall into the cloudy Western horizon together, and clouds come up from the east. Walk up the beach, enamored of the fireflies, and go up the Pickwick stairway to hear an animal (?) bumbling around, watch something (see next page), and back up at 11. More sherry and bed at 11:30.
DIARY 1232
TUESDAY, JULY 7. Up early, we both come nicely, and out of bed at 8:30. Breakfast over, I really don't feel like typing, so I sit down and read the comics from last Sunday's paper again, and at 10 mosey upstairs and finish up to date at noon with 13 pages. Then we do the exercises, John finding the running somewhat harder the second time as a result of the first time, but the only other way he feels the new ones are in his back, traditionally weak. My neck is the only thing that's sore, mainly from the pressure on the back of the neck when the legs are put on the ground above the head, lying on the back. Then fix great lunch of tuna salad, and bury the soda in the sand, but it's doesn't stay very cold. I'm into the water for the first time, since it feels almost warm in places near the surface, and I catch a long yellow thing that's not identifiable, and then a shorter red-with-white-stripes thing which is easily called a stretched-out sea horse. Again in the sun for four turns of twenty minutes, this time finishing at 3, an hour better than yesterday. Up the Pickwick steps to find that the heap in the center of the clearing is an incinerator which some animal must have been probing last night. Back here at 3:30, and I take the mescaline tablet without really thinking about it, and sit down to type out four pages of "Where am I now?" since I want to record what I was like BEFORE the mescaline, though I don't expect it to be such a life-changer as the LSD. Take notes through the first two hours, then at 5:30, things start really happening (see following pages). We get to bed after a hamburger dinner and two abortive trips to the beach at 8:45, still light out, and I have trouble falling asleep, tossing and turning and listening to the dogs and radios and babies and birds and jets and water pumps, and looking at my watch at 9:15 and at 10:15. Finally get over on my stomach on the uncomfortable mattress and concentrate on getting to sleep, and it finally works. By that time the mescaline effect is completely over with, and I'm rather relieved that it didn't last two hours after 11:30 to fulfill the "eight-hour effect" requirement. Must have gotten to sleep by 10:30, and can't remember any dreams through the night at all.
DIARY 1265
WEDNESDAY, JULY 8. Wake and cuddle and get out the Baby Magic, out of bed at 9:40. Eat and talk about the trip I took, and John says many surprising things, among them the fact that he DID take care to make my hamburgers as he thought I liked them, and that he WASN'T concerned about his caring for me. Muchly surprising! He wants to type, so I figure my feelings are very amorphous about the session, anyway, so I sit down from 10:30-noon putting notes into some sort of order, filling in the outline of the afternoon quite by random, and it should greatly simplify later editing, if any. Then we exercise and pack a lunch and get down to the beach, where the water is quite a bit colder then yesterday, but I take enormous quantities of time and finally get into the water, but only enough to get my head and body completely wet, and then out to eat and lay in the sun for 20 minutes on each side for two cycles. Back up about three, and again John wants the typewriter, so I settle into a chair with "Divided Self" and finally finish it, and John wants me to go to the store again, so I'm out, but there's no one to follow today, but the second fellow I find working in the Deli is quite a beauty. Catch up on where I was in "Understanding Media" (not far at all), and it's time for dinner, a lovely quiche, a great salad, and now that the sink's fixed, I don't have any trouble washing the dishes after John dirties almost everything in the kitchen making what appears to be a simple meal. He seems to feel under an obligation to dirty ALL the temporary plastic containers EACH day, just so I have something to wash. Don't remember exactly what we do with the evening, but it always looms before us as some sort of problem, and before we know it, what with walking to the beach, looking at the moon, watching fireflies, talking about things in general, maybe even some bit of reading, the evening's over, we're feeling tired, and it's time to get into bed. The radio never goes on unless Jerri's in the house, and I take odd times before dinner, before shopping, or even before bed, to do the toilet things like shaving and brushing my teeth and showering, since the days are so casual there's no real time set apart to do ANYTHING special.
DIARY 1266
THURSDAY, JULY 9. Up earlier this morning, something like 8:50, after great sex lasting from something like 7:30, and again he has typing to do, and I've more or less resigned myself to the fact that I'm not going to be doing anything on the book this week, in fact, it seems it's going to be difficult even keeping up with what's happening, since I suspect it's going to take 30-40 pages to type up my mescaline experience, and John's scheduled for one today. I again get back to reading, but at 11:30 it seems we get involved in elaborate metaphysical discussions about what I believe, and we're talking and talking, and I decide we'd be better on the beach, and so we throw lots of fruit and yogurt into the bag and take off for the beach, where we swim a bit, and I sit on a rock (it's warmer than yesterday, but still cold), congratulating myself that we haven't exercised, since I want John to save his energies for his trip, and anyway a day off every so often is good for the body. We talk and talk and talk on the beach about my ideas of soul and his ideas of absence of non-physical anythings, and I get into the unities of matter and energy, of matter/energy and gravitation, and of the unified field theory with time, and into geometrodynamics, and finally it's 3 and we've done 25 minutes on each side in addition to the time swimming and eating, so there's been quite a bit of sun today, almost three hours. Back home and he leaves instructions about cooking dinner, and takes a mescaline tablet about 3:35, taking a shower and moving a lounge chair out to the corner of the lot. He starts tripping at 4 (see following pages), we eat about 7:30, while the sun is still up, and then get into the bedroom for a lengthy session, surprised when Marty is dropped off at the door at about 10:50. Awkward period with John and Marty, but we go for a walk and get back to talk more with Marty and get to bed about midnight, and I'm exhausted from the task of watching John through the day. But he's still into the session, having taken much more than a dose of some fairly potent stuff, so he says that he's awake in the dark, tripping, thinking, not able to get to sleep until somewhat after 3 am, what a pity.
DIARY 1283
FRIDAY, JULY 10. Up about 9, and we all talk while Marty shuts off the power and finds that the ballast for one set of the neon tubes has burned out, and we finally have light over the sink when he exchanges the ballasts. Talk about the mescaline trips, and then when John goes up to work, we talk about Jerri's sessions with the therapist (Marty: "I don't know whether she solved her problems or not.") and Marty's sessions with another therapist ("I found I tried to impress people, so I learned something about myself, but I don't figure I have anything else to learn."), and about her drinking ("5-6 martinis for lunch, 5-6 manhattans after, and she'd bring two bottles of wine which she'd kill in an evening."). Then he wants to go to the hardware store, and all clocks have stopped, and we find it's 2:15, and they don't have it, so we go into Port Jefferson, and they don't have it, and we need to call upstate for his programming quote, so we try two places, but the lines are busy, and we're home for lunch of tuna salad sandwiches at 3:30, fairly hungry. John works more as I read and talk to Marty more, then we go down to the beach, where John and I have a long talk about how I should LOOK at myself, figure what I want to do, and stop kidding myself by saying that I'm a writer, or even working on a book. If I really want to do nothing, DO nothing, but don't use the book as a cop-out. We banter back and forth with animosities, but it's clear we both have problems to work with, and I finish up by saying he's the last since Cathy Harlin to show a REAL interest in my book, and I appreciate that, and he says he was very much afraid that he'd make me angry and the relationship would be strained. Look at the surf and the stones and the sky, talk more, then back to the house for dinner of linguini and meat sauce with Bolognese sauce, then onto the beach again to lie on the sand and cuddle and talk, then back up about 10:30, where Marty's still waiting for Jerri to come in, vaguely worried because she hasn't called, and we get to bed about 11. To sleep fairly quickly, and I wake about 2 to hear people coming in, then again to hear Jerri and who I take to be Marty talking, and again to Jerri's voice.
DIARY 1284
SATURDAY, JULY 11. But it wasn't Marty talking, since Jerri was talking to the guy who drove them in, and now they're gone, and John and I meet Ann and a puzzled Marty, and they talk about the driving that took them to the other side of the road and got them only a talking-to by a cop, and George lost his keys, and they went down to the beach to find them, but they were still not to be found anywhere. Sit and talk, and they come back in the rain, having walked somewhere to make a phone call, having found the keys, and I go back to reading "Understanding Media," and Marty growls "I hate her when she drinks," and John and I decide to get off to Bayard Cutting Arboretum, stopping in the middle to eat breakfast, not bad, and the gypsy moths haven't touched the place, we stroll through the Pinetum, watch the ducks around cypress walk, and eat lunch there at 1:30, looking at many of the dolls who wander the grounds, but no one's smoking at this point, then decide to go down to Hecksher State Park, but drive along the shore, and you can't get onto the highway from there, so drive back to East Islip and back down, and the beach and picnic grounds and roads are lined with blacks, and way out at the furthest part of the circle of road is the beach, with small waves black with licorice-strand seaweeds, yet the people swim, and we settle down in the breezy grass, and I do my 100-minute stint without my suit even though little black kids are running around close by. Sun is hot, John does a bit of sitting-up work, and we're back to the car to try driving back another way, but the Connetquot Road is impossibly bumpy, and John gets very angry, and we're back at 4 to see everyone burned from the beach, and we go down to the beach to gather beautiful stones, then back for Marty to cook franks and hamburger and we all eat outside, then (after sitting with all sorts of people on Marion's porch---and I tell John Marty told me Marion doesn't like him because he's pushy) settle down to talk about the job they're working on, and the top guy who insists he's always right and doesn't give anyone a chance to talk, wastes of money, stupidities, amusing stories, laughs, jokes, hysteria, ridiculosities, banalities, to 11.
DIARY 1285
SUNDAY, JULY 12. Up about 10, breakfast, make sifters for pebbles from the beach, go down to gather a huge bagful under the watch of an ugly-faced faggot flying a kite, then back to ask them to Smith's Point, but they have to wait for possible guests, so we're off, having a pecan-nut hot fudge sundae at Carvel on the way, and park way on the side, where a stupid cop tells us we have to use the underpass. To the right as we hit the beach, and find we join a beach-buggy trail which goes on indefinitely, and walk for an hour before we decide we won't be alone, and I'm feeling awfully grumpy, and John and I have a long talk about anger and frustration, and I make the point that if I'm annoyed at SOCIETY and take the anger out on HIM, he's going to think I'm angry with HIM, but he doesn't quite believe it. Down to look at the huge waves, and gingerly try to get in, but it's quite cold, and the enormous breakers are just where I'd like to sneak past very slowly, so I can't really get in. Caught in one or two huge combers, and get my leg rather twisted, so that I fear the waves are powerful enough to actually break a leg. Surfers just rest on their boards, enjoying the sights of the waves, and don't hit too many at all, and those poorly. Many lovely people on the beach, especially on the walk back, but also many flies, and John oils me up, and there are dozens of fly carcasses on my front by the time we get up to leave. Back home about 4, tell them about our day, they've been to the beach, too, and then we have chicken and John has made a huge salad with everything left in the refrigerator, and we actually finish it, and then I finish the Times and pack (as usual, too slowly), and can't get everything into my suitcase, so I have to have a separate bag, and it's quite crowded in the back seat with three, and we leave at 7:50, taking John's new idea of going down the road to Smith's Point until the Long Island Expressway, but takes us an hour to get to Nassau County line, the LIE is completely jammed, and we go back to the Northern State, like usual. Play 20 Questions to pass the time, and get in at 10:15, and home at 11, very tired, happy to take a shower and have some good-tasting water.
DIARY 1286
MONDAY, JULY 13. Home after good sex in the morning, and unpack everything, putting everything in its place, and Bob calls and I fill him in on the weekend, and I stopped off at the Post Office to get my mail, and Norma's written me a note, so I call her, and then call Marty, Avi and Cyndy to fill them all in on my being back, and by that time I have only got time to put on some clothes and get down to "Anne of the Thousand Days," which tells quite a bit of history, I'm not sure how clearly, has good sets and costumes, but Burton just moves through it, and Bujold doesn't really make it clear what KIND of woman Ann might have been, and "Tell Them Willie Boy Was Here," with a nicely-muscled---though the nude scene was far away and to the rear---guy who played one of the killers in "In Cold Blood," and a rather nebulous Robert Redford. The star of the movie was Susan Clark, who played the aging doctor who was in charge of the Indians. See someone who strikes me as Sergio at the end, and find he isn't, but he follows me to the aisle and asks if I want a summer job at a resort in northern New Jersey, where the food and lodging is good and free, and there's $35 a week aside from tips, and swimming and fishing and boating pleasant during the day. Talk for a bit outside the theater, and he seems interested, but I leave him, buy a bargain belt for $2.50 from a sidewalk salesman, and then get home to go to the store to buy groceries (ate pizza next to the theater for lunch), and get finished in time for John to come over about 8, and we talk a bit about the previous week, he reads more of the book, I show him my poetry and some few essays, we talk more about writing, and then I want him to listen to "Om," which I thought he was talking about on his trip when he was speaking of the "sound of infinity," and he sits on the sofa as I point out the words to him, and falls asleep! I'm angry with him, but I knew he was sleepy, because he'd said so that morning, and at 10:15 I finish putting things away and get ready for bed, and lead him into bed, and we talk for a bit because I'm thinking of leaving Claude's class, and he accuses me of running away from it because it's getting too close to me.
DIARY 1287
TUESDAY, JULY 14. We have sex and talk even more fully about my leaving Claude's class, and out of bed about 10 to have breakfast, and while John works I scour the bathtub, which needs it mightily, and then he's off after lunch which I make for him, and I dash down to join Avi for "Georgy Girl," which is acted by a Lynn Redgrave who reminds muchly of Cyndy Victor, and she's so much a part of the role I don't wonder why she hasn't appeared in other movies, and Oliver Reed is properly sexy and sincere as her distant flame, lover, father-of-the-child, and leaver, but the other girl is just an impossible bitch with no redeeming qualities. "Cactus Flower" has many excellent laugh lines, and it's engrossing enough so that you're interested in what happens to the gals, Goldie Hawn and Ingrid Bergman. The Gramercy turns into an old-lady's home, with a threesome down front with the middle one lolling her head back and snoring not-to-gently, others greeting each other while hunched over canes and each other's arms, loudly, in case their hearing aids aren't up to snuff, and behind there's a woman who resettles her plastic rain hat each time the scene changes on the screen, and another who has ague fits every so often which rattles her earrings against her cheek in tempo with some hidden musician. Then a younger woman sits next to me with a Drakes cake in a crinkly package, and Avi and I exasperatedly laugh at the enormous cacophony around us that comes from nowhere near the screen. Out and convince Avi he wants to come down to Brownies to have dinner with me, and he's finally talked into it, and we sit at the counter where the portions are the same but the prices are cheaper, and the filet of sole with a tomato and okra sauce is quite good, the Sugarless Fluff for dessert lacks something, but the salad is good, as is the soup, and there are enough cute busboys behind the counter to make the viewing pleasant. Leave at 7 and walk down Christopher to see all the wonders along the street, then back to stand at the corner of 8th and watch the world pass, and I get the feeling I DON'T want to go to Claude's classes ANY more, and get there to tell him so (see next page), and then John and I drive to his place.
DIARY 1289
WEDNESDAY, JULY 15. We talk until about 1, up about 7, so we're tired. I get home, can't decide what to do, and get some good sex mail in the Post Office which leads me to break out stuff and ejaculate three times before I have a deeply-felt orgasm, then moon about the apartment, finally getting back to typing, doing 7 pages, and then when I'm putting the stuff away, get drawn back into it, and come again, then fix up the place for John's arrival. He comes for dinner and the veal chops turn out dreadfully, and the peas I think are underdone, but he likes them, and I make a sweetened cucumber dressing which tastes pretty good, and then we sit around and talk. I tell him how disappointed I was about how he'd fallen asleep during the Moody Blues, and then said he'd also fallen asleep during "Mefistofeles," and he feels awful about it, but I agree that I KNEW he was tired, so I really couldn't get angry with him. Again we get into a discussion about anger, and I get tired of telling him that I'm not angry with him, finally even getting angry with his obtuseness, and he seems vaguely pleased that I've been able to show some sort of anger toward him. I napped during the day, so I'm not terribly sleepy, but he wants to get to bed, and I don't feel like doing anything with myself, since I'd come so many times already, so I get out the vibrator and start working on him, and he goes whole hog for the masochistic scene, seeming to love it when I grab him with the vibrator as hard as possible, and I fear actually breaking his skin with the springs around my fingers, and hold his balls tightly, and I think he'd love it if I rammed my fingers up his ass, but that just doesn't turn me on, so I don't. Finally he gets beyond the point of coming, and my hands are tired from the vibrator, so I shut it off and finish him off by hand. Then he insists on working on me, and I'm sweating up a storm, but have a very hard time coming, and it's the worst in a long time, since I'm about drained, but still he insists with the vibrator, so I reach down and finally take myself in hand, gradually ousting him until he's only able to feel the little spurt when I come, and I'm sure he's saddened, but says nothing.
DIARY 1290
THURSDAY, JULY 16. With the night to recover, sex is much better in the morning, but I still don't really feel like getting back to typing, so I search for a movie and decide on "Time Out for Love," with a poor Jean Seberg and a sexy-eyed Maurice Ronet and a lesbianic Michelline Presle. That goes to 11, and I get to typing, finally doing 17 pages through the day, and have decided to go back to Claude's class once more, since John reminded me that I hadn't said goodbye to the class, and they'd wonder where and why I'd gone. Tried Claude through the day, but he wasn't home until 7, just before I left, and he welcomed me. Watch "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea," rather poor science-fiction about the Van Allen belt catching fire, with John Fontaine as a saboteur, and some cute dolls in the cast as extras, and there's an ad for Rich-Art which intrigues me, so I call them and make an appointment with them at 12:15, then get off to class, which starts without exercises, making me happy, and we go into introductions, and I take Claude's permission to "be melodramatic, if you feel you want to" to say "here, for the last time," and there's a buzz of recognition, and I cop out of the feelings to just stroll around the place. The rest of the class is taken up examining other's introductions, and Lyn increasingly pushes herself into the forefront, and it was really a sad class, and I'm glad it's the last. Rick says he'll take me out for a drink, and Al invites us to his place, so we get sandwiches and ice cream, he mixes me a good screwdriver which loosens me up, and we sit around talking with Nedda about advertising, Rick about how much he wants to see me afterward, and I get both their phone numbers, which are just the ones I wanted. Look at the "Paradise Lost" paperback, his Matisse drawing of his great-aunt, his Cezanne prints, his "nice" (per John) bathroom, and his crowded kitchen, and nothing's going on off his back terrace. Eat pretzels and potato chips and chat until just before midnight, and everyone gets ready to go, but I've made the comment how strange it was that ALL attended, very unusual. To John's, having told John Moses Claude's and my "Messiah complexes" clashed.
DIARY 1291
FRIDAY, JULY 17. Home, type six pages, Rick calls, saying he wants to come over at 1, so I just have time to get out to the bank to write myself a check for cash, get to the Rich-Art interview for which they want $60 per year, but no commissions, and Rick's over at 1, talking about the River, which he said he wanted to see, but didn't, about his great job at Time, where he scarcely works, about my trips and passport and souvenirs, about the vacation he doesn't know where to take, about how much he'd like to go swimming with us, and I check with John for tomorrow at Jones Beach, and about his sex life: he has a closet imp, he doesn't cruise, hates group expressions, doesn't know about the orgy bars, doesn't care for Central Park, and mainly goes to bed with "old friends," and the expression in his voice and on his face shows that he doesn't care for it. He's been going to the Hudson Gym for five years, but he's got nothing at all to show for it except a pot, and he's amazed to find that I'm older than he is. Talk to Avi making plans for Shakespeare in the Park, and Joan calls to chat for the first time in ages, and then he has to leave at 3 to get to work. John says he should come to the Heights, so Rick invites us over for the evening, and I call him at Time to tell him the arrangements. Then shower and eat something and get to Avi's at 4:30, and no one else's coming, so we get chicken for three, macaroni salad, and get into the park to talk and play Geography for hours, and John gets there in the nick of time, dinner is pleasant with grapes and wine, talk with Norma and Arnie, then into the character-full play which is beginning to make sense to me, but is more a chronology than anything else, with an amusingly witchy British view of Joan of Arc. Kids behind chew pretzels, chatter back and forth, the planes are everlasting, the park-patrol helicopter even shining the light into the auditorium, flies are ever-present, smoke billows into the audience, making them choke, everyone's smoking but finally you begin to feel sorry for poor Henry VI, and it's over at 11. To Rick's for "After Dark" sexy magazines, talk, and leave at 12:30 to John's, getting to bed after 1:30.
DIARY 1292
SATURDAY, JULY 18. Up at 7:30, hardly able to move, and we're only out at 7:50, with the consequence that parking lot 9 is filled, and 6 is filling rapidly, even as early as 9 am. Coax them to walk to the farthest point anyway, as it's only a bit over 2 miles, and we do, stopping at 9 for a frank and snack for breakfast, and finally get to the gay section at 10:30. John starts in immediately by doing a cowboy in the reeds, but there's no one I'm attracted to, showing Rick around the reeds and pine groves, but on the way back there are cute numbers, and I'm attracted to someone in green and someone with rainbow trunks, but they all leave at once, and I'm back to the blanket to sulk because there's really no one pretty around. Lay for awhile, swatting the flies, and then back to the woods. Nothing. John and Rick are swimming, and about noon there are cars parking along the roadside, where it was illegal, and rumor has it that all parking lots are filled, but they're still letting them in the gate. So over the hills, looking perplexedly at the brambles and poison ivy, carrying babies and folding cribs and beach chairs and baskets of food, come little old ladies, married couples, gaggles of gangly girls, kids by the hundreds, running and screaming, and they infiltrate all the paths, making the cruising very scary, flushing faggots from the pine groves, littering the beaches and filling the waves, oblivious to the subculture they've replaced. In the other section, we're told that night, gay guys formed can-can lines, one even taking off his trunks, but the straights were only amused, thinking this was for their entertainment, though they shrieked "Get out of here, I came to suck cock, and you're not going to ruin it!" I walk for the car by 2:30, picking them up (even with a license) and get home at 4, Rick leaving, rather sad for lack of sex, I think, and we're up for great sex, I nap when John gets and poaches the swordfish, we eat a grand meal, out to the Promenade to meet all sorts of friendly people, then leave at 9:45 to get to Alcides' and Meg's, where we meet Sergio and Kenneth, talk about music, hug the cat, laugh about Kneppler (music critic and satiric paper in Buenos Aires) AND (see following pages) play go.