1972 4 of 8
DIARY 3073
THURSDAY, JUNE 1. Stay at John's, getting out the stamps to do the last of the Hungarian ones with the new hinges, and he leaves and I leave at 10:30 to get down quickly to unemployment, which is again over fast, though there are three people ahead of me in line this time, and up to my place to read the New York Magazine and the articles I wanted to read in the old one, and have breakfast very late, and when I'm finished reading and looking through the June Scientific American (and now I'm still in May's, so I'm behind again), and fix up some little things around the apartment, and then it's time for a soup-sandwich lunch and a shower and up to Mattachine at 2:45 to pick up the ticket that Don Goodwin left for me and get down to the New York State Theater for a center seat in the second row of the First Ring for the rehearsal for the Stravinsky Festival (see next page). Lots leave at 4, and finally at 5 we're told "the rehearsal's over" and I wander up to Mattachine again, finding Alan Henderson in, and he sort of takes over for the evening (see following page). I leave just after 9:30 (forgetting to turn on the Sanyo-phone) and walk back to my place, and John's feeling VERY depressed, and while I eat my tuna he tells me about all the "mistakes" he's made at DTW, all the people who SAID they'd give publicity and public notices about the performances, and all the people who actually DIDN'T, and he says he doesn't like this kind of work, doesn't feel that he's being used to best advantage, doesn't have any respect for the people who control the amount of space DTW would get from the media, and finds the contrast with the intelligence and interest he found in Dallas and Wichita too much to bear. He has some wine with me, but it doesn't help his depression, and he doesn't want to smoke, so we listlessly move around the apartment until 11, when we go to bed without sex of any kind, since he says he's tired, so I lay on my back until I think he's asleep, then move into the living room for parts of "Flesh and Fury" with a cute mute Tony Curtis, waiting for the 1 am showing of "Lost World of Sinbad" with Toshiro Mifune and the remembered photographed-in-Life sequence with the huge bird-kite, and lots of sea sequences and flying witches, and John joins me to moan until 2:30, bed at 3.
DIARY 3076
FRIDAY, JUNE 2. John's up at 8 but I feel absolutely awful from getting to bed at 3 am, and lay around until just before he leaves at 8:30. Then type one page but I can't get interested in keeping up to date, and let that slide by and phone for the schedule for the Thalia for the last movie that I want to see there of their current series, and don't do anything before lunch and I get there to see "Tales of Hoffman" for the dozenth time and "An Evening with the Royal Ballet," in which they do "Les Sylphides," "Le Corsair" without any of the striking teamwork, David Blair does the last act of the old "Sleeping Beauty" with Fonteyn, and it started with a foggy "La Valse" with no one, and ended with a repeat "encore" of the film of "Le Corsair." Really rather stupid. I sit in the last row through perversity, and some skinny old faggot sits next to me and I just can't resist reaching over to him, and he doesn't want his cock taken out, wants me to come with him to the john, but I don't want to, so he's back and I take him out and play with him and he presses up against me and tries to get close to me, but I placidly watch the film while getting as fierce with my hands as I can, and hardly looking down at him when he comes, I see drops of come spread over my forked hand, and he groans and tries to get away from my grasp, getting out his handkerchief and giving it to me so that I can wipe the come off my hands. Leave and get home feeling absolutely dead with fatigue, so I shut the blinds and try to sleep, but decide I won't be able to doze off without grass, so I get a horribly clogged pipe, clean it, and smoke some, to doze off, I guess, being wakened by the alarm at 8, and up feeling even worse than I did before going to bed. Hack apart a steak and have dinner, and then BMT down to 14th Street for the Tsi-Dun at Schmid's at 9:30 at 145 E. 15th Street, and it's pretty poor (see next pages), but we manage to stay there until 12, Arnie and John coming back to Brooklyn with me in the back seat, and John said he thought it was great, and I'd vowed not to give my opinion, but I thought it was lousy, thankfully the last of the season. Collapse into bed at 1 am, ready for a deep sleep.
DIARY 3079
SATURDAY, JUNE 3. Up fairly late, doing nothing because John said he came twice during the party last night, and finished up with stamps while he went out shopping and cut up the stuff for the salad. I read the Voice and showered and hastened to dress when the doorbell went at 12:15, and it was Ellie Camp, not sure whether it started at 12 or 12:30, with more shirts, which John had to model for her, and she talked about Greece and her husband's studies and graduation ceremonies at Fordham, and her unconventionality and other's straightness, and then Jack Moore came in, the cute one who remained silent for most of the afternoon, then Deborah Camin, tall and long-haired and elfin-faced with a perky archaic smile with closed lips, and then Mr. and Mrs. Retti, he tall and outgoing, she short and stubby and shyly smiling, and we chatted about India while John showed of his souvenirs and we drank loads of punch, except for Mrs. Retti, who started on her first glass of orange juice, and Mrs. Camp proclaimed John a true Greek for his salad, and the meat pies seemed to stretch, and the punch went around again, and we strolled out in the balmy afternoon to wander the Heights until we got to the Promenade at 3, captivated by a lovely tanned blond boy with a floppy dangle inhabiting one half his crotch. "Roadstop, Trucker's Only" was hot and runny and blowing, and John was sure that the New Yorker types who wandered past scorning the activities were plants, but I was sure they were for real. It went on for somewhat less than an hour, thankfully, since it was really very, very hot, and back to John's for more punch, and then he took a nap while I read for a bit, and then we went into Chinatown for a line in front of Bo-Bo's, and into Macao for a flop of a meal after a short wait, then to the closed Eulenspeigel dance, and John talked with the organizer, and we wandered back to the car to debate where to go, and John cinched it for his place when he said he wanted to go to the beach tomorrow, but his stuff was at home, so I said I could work on stamps all day. Back and he suggests smoking on the Promenade, and I wander up and down and see what looks like a cute guy from a distance, but when he follows us out to the street, he's wrinkled and potty, and I say "I'm going to get the Times," because John's talking to him, but I get back to find John home alone, and we're to bed at 11.
DIARY 3080
SUNDAY, JUNE 4. Wake to hear the weather report that it's going to rain this afternoon, and we sit around until 11:30 and John says he wants to go SOMEWHERE, and I suggest and suggest and we end up driving up to Rye Playland in a little under an hour for 75¢ in tolls and $1.25 for parking, and look around and he has his tuna when I wander out on what I take to be a point and find a steamer with loud music docking, PR's and blacks playing ball, picnic areas in forbidden areas, muddy old parking grounds, and houses way in the back with Amusement Park surplus stacked under the trees in colorful disarray. Back after 1 and everything's open, so we buy $3.30 worth of tickets for $3.15 and go on the Topsy-Turvy, which makes John sick to his stomach, so we sit on the sidelines for about an hour watching sexy teenagers go by, then we ride through the Flying Witch, get down to the Wild Mouse, back to the good Flying Dragon roller coaster, then around to the Flying Scooters, and John goes into a walk-through funhouse and has to get another ticket for the final fling on the Ferris Wheel. It was pretty good, though noisy and hot, and we leave at 4:30 to drive back in about 45 minutes, going by way of my place where I drop off my stamp stuff and pick up my steak, and to John's to relax in a tub and talk for ages, and then have dinner and get to "The Last Picture Show" at the Heights Cinema, and the seats are cozy and the crowd is nice and quiet, and the movie is a perfect evocation of my childhood, being about high school seniors in 1951, when I was a sophomore, and the songs and styles were instantly recognizable, except that I was sorry they showed plenty of tits and a few cunts, but we never did get to see anyone's cock, and the Bottoms brothers were cute, as was another Bridges, and the supporting actor and actress seems truly to deserve their Oscars, one of the few who did. Back to John's for his first session of "20 minutes for you, 20 minutes for me" of whatever tactile pressures each want to perform on the other, and I find many things to think about from it (see next page), and I look forward with pleasure to ensuing stretches of time spent in this way. Bed at 1 without coming.
DIARY 3082
MONDAY, JUNE 5. Home about 9:30 and the first thing I'm drawn to do is stamps, thinking but dismissing the fact that I'm again falling behind on my diary, but thinking I'll catch up this afternoon. Have breakfast off to the side when I get hungry, and have lunch the same way when it takes longer than I thought it would, and I search the Stamp Finder and find the locations of the last three stamps I'd not been able to locate (and that gray "other value" of the Turkish official stamp is still missing, and I was TRULY frustrated trying to find it at John's on Saturday), assuming that the green one with the squiggles was some uncataloged variety of Official Semi-Postal Revenue Tax Air-Mail Signet stamp from Egypt, and that the Timbre Movil was some type of Italian stamp, since they used the word Movil on some other types. Then get out all the blank pages, and start hinging in the blank pages, working steadily with the bulky countries of Hungary and Romania and Mongolia, and thinking ahead to getting out the sheet from Columbia sent by Mom on my birthday, finding it doesn't need an extra page, and still have a few spare pages left over to fill out the US and UN sections, finally finishing the whole set by about 3:30. Also, while I was doing that, I left the refrigerator defrost, finding it much easier to just let it SIT than fussing with lots of hot water, but the milk's gone sour, though I drink it anyway over the next few days before getting a new supply. Finally finish all the ABC stuff and find that they slightly cheated me, and then John comes in about 4, finding me just finishing with the stamps, and sort out Bill's stamps while he's showering and drinking around the apartment, and he finds I don't have steak, so he goes out and gets a pound and a half of round, which I correctly predict is going to be awful, and we talk for a bit and he does the laundry AND the steaks, and we leave at 7:30 for the Ritha Devi program at the Cubiculo, which impresses both of us so greatly that we decide to go the following evening (see next pages), and we're back at 11 in the cool evening air, but John's been nodding, so we just get to bed without any feeling or sex at all, just showering again.
DIARY 3085
TUESDAY, JUNE 6. Decide I really have to get out the letter to Bill, so while John has breakfast and lounges around here, I get the letter started, but then decide I should put his stamps away before I finish the letter to him, so I go through them all, but in the middle get a phone call from Roger, saying that he's leaving town this evening, and wants to come over to pack his bicycle and get his grass, so he has to come over, and I say I have things to do, so he says he won't come until at least 12:30, so that gives me a chance to finish the stamps. Do so by 12:30 and he's still not here, so I finish the letter to Bill and write one to the ABC Company, and he's STILL not here by 2, so I sit down to eat lunch, and in he comes at 2:30, having a cheese and mustard sandwich, picking up the grass and saying he's going to smoke, and so we do, and I put on the marvelously inept choice of Enesco Rhapsodies on the player, but go back into Polish childhood during it, and then he wants to know where bicycle shops are, and he's out to buy a crate for packing his bike in, and we smoke some more and have some more wine, and then he leaves about 4, saying he won't be back in time for the dance performance, and I don't feel like doing ANYTHING else, so I listen to some more music and masturbate with a great deal of pleasure, with a prolonged orgasm which feels just great, and then it's time to have dinner and get out to the Ritha Devi performance (see previous page), meeting Deborah Jowett and Tom Clifton and Wendy in John's photograph and lots of the Indian clan in New York, including the Ritti's, who seem not to be talking very much to us. Drive to John's about 11:30, and he still wants to do his playing, so he gets out his cream-whipper and takes to me gently, and after 25 minutes I take turns with him, and he's wearing his cockring, so I batter his balls back and forth, leaving the belts hanging in the closet for another time, and at the end of 25 minutes get out the Baby Magic and lather him up and make him come with great effort, and he said it was quite an enjoyable evening, and I liked it too, though I was hard while playing with him and wanted to come, but delayed it without any trouble until the next morning.
DIARY 3086
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 7. Wake and John takes me on his knees to do me with Baby Magic, and it feels great but I walk around all day with a clammy tacky feeling in my crotch, and when I shit a runny mess because of drinking all the sour milk, my asshole is sore and bloody, and it feels like I ripped something when I soap it up while taking a shower. Hope it gets better. Home about 10, getting the mail and only a letter from Mom, wanting to come visit over July 4, so I shoot her back a quick response saying we're going to the Mount Washington trek, but she's welcome to come, and even bring Grandma on her first flight. Finish the letter to Bill, send an order off for a Sheckley paperback, send out some bills, and everything's really getting to be in ORDER! Soon I'll be able to start on the trip diary, then I can look for a job, then move, etc. Put the stamps in to soak while I was having breakfast, and then they dried while I was doing the letters. Then I sorted them out and put them all away by 3:30, having a very late lunch, knowing I'll have to eat lots at Marchi's this evening, which I gave to John because it was the only one I could remember when he demanded our place of meeting this evening at 7:30 for dinner. Get back to typing, and it goes terribly slowly, so I stretch it out with fixing up the apartment and showering and going out to buy soap and other things from the store, but finally I get the ten pages finished that I determined to do in order to get back into the habit of typing. Now I just have to do ten pages tomorrow to catch up to date, clean up the apartment, and then I can start on the trip diary. Just then, just stretch it out, just work it out, just relax, it's going to be OK. Then Ellie calls from Newark: her father died and she wants to see me Sunday or Monday: lots of fantasy about her supporting John and me making the film of "Acid House" or taking her on lavish tours around the world. Then subway to meet John on the pretty block of 31st Street, and we're required to wear jackets, though he takes his off. The folder describes the meal very well, and it was beautifully done, but at $28.15 it's the MOST expensive restaurant we've been to yet! To my place and smoke, but he snoozes off, goes to bed, I'm listening through earphones and masturbate fairly unsatisfactorily, licking it off my thumb, bed at 12:20.
DIARY 3090
THURSDAY, JUNE 8. John, thank goodness, doesn't want sex in the morning, but I'm still itchy when he leaves, so I get out the pornography and jerk off in blissful slowness, and then put it all away, have breakfast, and determine to get to washing the windows today, since it's a clear, cloud-flecked day with a cool breeze blowing, and I want to get them finished before the sun rounds the corner of 57th Street. Get the bedroom windows done, including breaking off all the loose trim, dusting the sills well, and sweeping off the ledge OUTside, and the inside of the kitchen windows, but it's time to get down to unemployment, which takes only a second to actually DO and an hour's subway ride to do it, and get a new cord for my shaver, which seems to actually work. Back at noon and tackle the other windows as the sun starts coming in and makes it hot, but I get them all through with a grand feeling of accomplishment. Now all I have to do is dust and vacuum the floors and scrub the bathtub and the apartment will be presentable to people coming in on Sunday, and lengthily to Mom, if she visits over the Fourth of July when I'm not here. Eat lunch and read New York magazine and by then it's four, so I sit down to typing with a vengeance, hoping to rap out ten pages to keep my typing form up so that I can do the trip diary over the weekend, but though I zip away on all nine pages, particularly the wasted last page, I simply can't finish by 5:15, so I stop at 5 and shower and shave and subway up to Mattachine at 5:50, since I'm so late, taking care to make a list of the people I have to call and a pile of the things I have to take along. Call Avi and he's been robbed, so I visit him between 9-9:30, then get back to close the Mattachine office (see next page) and subway to John's at 10, but there are no lights on and he's not there, so I immediately call my place, fearing he's gone there, but there's no answer. I eat tuna and look at his new sex magazine "Something for Everybody" and shower and brush my teeth, calling my place every half hour, and get into bed just before midnight and he enters just AFTER midnight, reminding me of his Music Convention party, and we drop off to sleep.
DIARY 3101
FRIDAY, JUNE 9. [It's almost a shame to type a page AFTER "The Last Page"]. We wake about 8, touch, neck, get hard, and we start playing with each other very leisurely, then harder and harder, and the Baby Magic comes out and we do each other very well indeed, and John says he's ruined for the day by 9 am! I take the spare keys, thinking maybe to get Arnie involved in watering John's plants on Sunday, say goodbye and wish him good luck in Bloomington, and get into the lobby at 9:40 to see the mailman just distributing the mail. Upstairs and type 11 pages which finishes off the ICWU sheets, gets me to page T600 at 12:30, and I can actually start on the trip diary! Get the laundry together and take it down, using the time between to get checks cashed, mail letters, and pick up the laundry, read the nothing mail while putting the clothes into the dryer, then up to get ready for typing, take the clothes out at 2 pm, eat lunch, and settle down to type 10 pages of the trip diary, going slowly but surely, get feeling very sore in the eyes and tired, probably mostly from talking to Alan Henderson on the phone, getting the rules for "New" Canasta, and typing up about three drafts and four copies of the final version of the rules, which makes my head swim and my eyes ache. Then it's 8 pm and I decide to exercise, getting through the second level without any trouble, though there's the faintest feel of a herniated soreness when I bend down to look at the sausage under the broiler. Shower and wash my socks and eat dinner, and then I just don't feel like typing more, and I've called Henry Messer and Dick Smith and tried John Hood and left word with Nick Philolius and looked out my wonderfully clean windows at the cloudy afternoon, and sweated in the heat and humidity of the 75° day, and didn't feel like reading, so I thought to go to bed at 10:30, but knowing I wouldn't sleep I smoked, and then lay down to grab my cock and begin to feel horny, and get into a rather far-out stoned session by myself (see next page), and when I come to life it's 1 am, time to watch "The Battling Bellhop," and Edward G. Robinson, Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart take a back seat to the cute title-character, played smilingly by Wayne Morris. Whatever HAPPENED to Wayne Morris? Bed at 3:15!
DIARY 3103
SATURDAY, JUNE 10. Phone rings at 8:10, and it's an operator asking for 236-2748, and I can shut off the alarm because I'm awake for the 8:30 am showing (which film is later shown at a more reasonable time on Tuesday of the following week) of "The Moon Is Our Home" and I'm not quite sure why the reviewer so much liked Margaret Sullivan and Henry Fonda as "stars" hiding from their "public" who fall in love with each other. Then it's 10 and I adjourn to the typewriter to type two diary pages, and then get into the swing of the trip diary and do 22 pages before the afternoon is over, interrupting it to wash dishes after lunch, and I only have 15 days left to catch up with! Then it's 4:30 and I get out the Christmas carols that I started for Marty on impulse, and decide they're good enough to finish, so I type copies and write him a brief note, and when I look at the clock it's 7:15! Too late to exercise, so I shower and shave and call Avi, who then calls me at 7:30, and we agree to meet at John's at 8:30. I wolf down dinner while dressing and getting things together to get up to John's in the breezy evening, looking out the window at the smoke from what John later says are docks burning in New Jersey, and hope to see the sunset at John's, but just miss it. Adair and Ivan and John exclaim over the rules, and we're about to start a practice game when Avi enters at 8:45, talking about his day, and we're starting the "New" Canasta with Adair coaching Ivan, and the rules catch on fairly quickly, and John and I are ahead for the first three hands, but then they pull even on the fourth, and during the fifth they get ALL the wild cards, open at 180 with a black canasta, and get over 11,000 points to our 6,000. Avi's making everyone at the table disgusted with his signals across the board, open discussions of questions Ivan will ask him, and comments that I get very angry with. Game's over at 12:45 and Avi wants me to ride home with him in a cab, but I escape to the subway station, marveling at the 4-car train at 1:15, and get home with the Times at 1:30, and work the crossword puzzle and read the entertainment section before I decide it's getting silly, and get to bed at 2:40 am.
DIARY 3105
SUNDAY, JUNE 11. Dialed my number so that the phone wouldn't wake me any earlier than I wanted wakening, and got out of bed about 10. Know I'm going to have a subway-y morning, so take 4 tokens after breakfast and leave for the D train for Brooklyn to check on Schwamm and "Acid House" at 10:40, get on the train at 10:50, off at 11:30, find no help at the address, so I've decided to write a letter to the Superintendent at 1A at 11:40, back onto the D at 11:50, off D at Atlantic Avenue at 12:03, onto 2 at 12:08, off 2 at John's at 12:15, water all his plants (forgetting mailbox key) at 12:40 and search for the bongo drums (they must be in the back court of the same block) until 12:50, when I leave the Promenade from my glance at the clear views of all the horizons on these BEAUTIFUL series of spring days in New York: BRIGHT blue sky, THICK clouds chiaroscuring from bright white to thick palpable gray, perfectly clean air, cool breezes, fine breathing, get onto 2 for Mattachine at 1, 1:25 off 2 at 72nd Street, so I have time to stop into the Famous Restaurant for lunch of mushroom loaf, creamed spinach, and vegetable liver knish (very hard and bready), for only $1.90 for a very filling meal, while FINISHING the "Walden" section of the Thoreau book, then to Mattachine for the staff meeting with Sergio at 2 (see next page), leave at 3:30, walk home and finish the Times puzzle and read most of the paper by 6, crossing off the "Acid House" trip and leaving a list with THREE items: Nick, exercise, and trip diary, all of which I AM working on, and then type a diary page, 4 trip diary pages, and get out at 8 for the space-films at Millennium. It's jammed so I sit in the first row on a pillow about 6 feet from the screen, and the stop-motion and 3-D/4-D films are fun, chat during the intermission to a manic Bob Bucher, who gets my address and tells me that Chuck's living at 141 Prince Street, around the corner from him, and that Sylvia's been fired from MMA, and sit through the spectacular booster and moon shots, and decide I HAVE to see them again stoned, so start on John Casarino, not home, Bill O'Banion and Joan and Pat and movies and here for sex in a wild evening (see following pages).
DIARY 3109
MONDAY, JUNE 12. See previous page for the early morning up to the time I do the five diary pages. Then start in again on the trip diary, pausing for lunch about 2, and finishing 20 pages by 4, when I go to the supermarket to stock up on groceries, return to not feel like continuing the typing, so I scour the tub and start vacuuming the rugs, except that Alan calls to see how the game went last night, and he clears up the last few points about the rules, but I can't finish the vacuuming by 7:30, when "Peter Grimes," sung by Peter Pears and conducted by Benjamin Britten, starts on Channel 13. The diction is terribly poor for a TV production, and the chorus is so "intense," to use the aim of everyone concerned with this definitive production of it, that you can't understand anything they sing about. But the staging is such that the chorus always looks like it "belongs" and the casting is quite good, though the story about the "independent" man reviled by his neighbors (who are doing much more terrible things than HE does behind his back: one is addicted to laudanum, the mayor frequents the Boar's girls, and they all backbite and are uncharitable to their neighbors) seems so tacky---things just AREN'T so black and white in the world: the bad-doers have so much BETTER excuses and are so much MORE convinced that they're in the right. Make sausages during the last part of it, and watch Sonny and Cher for an entertaining half hour before tuning in to "Man of Aran" at 10:30-12, and I'd forgotten how hard their life was, how menacing the shark looked through the waters, and how marvelous the surf was on the cliffs, spraying up almost a hundred feet around the tiny human figures, certainly one of the great sights of the world. Then finish vacuuming and pulling bits of putty out of the rug, and put all the trip souvenirs that I've loaded onto the bed for sweeping onto the floor, and I'll have to finish the trip diary TODAY so that I can get rid of all that junk. Finally get to bed at 12:45, setting the alarm for 8:30 so that I can shower and wash my hair before watching the TV movie, and, though I fear I won't, I fall asleep fairly quickly without John.
DIARY 33110
TUESDAY, JUNE 13. Alarm rings at 8:20 and I lay a bit, not feeling like getting up, then shower and wash my hair and watch "No Highway in the Sky," good with Jimmy Stewart as a "the-tail's-gonna-fall-off" scientist flying with Marlene Dietrich as an actress and Glynis Johns as the stewardess who later marries him. Ellie doesn't call before then, only at 11:45, and says she'll get here about 1. Marty calls and says he liked "Christ Is Born" and [must remember what Ellie said about "AND," which I agree with]. Into the bedroom to start typing, one page for diary, followed eventually by 17 pages of the trip diary, taking me up to page 2495, leaving me only 5 more pages to type to be FINISHED with it! Ellie comes in at 2, looking and sounding much like Elaine. We have lunch between her telephone calls, while she constantly refers to how busy she is in her few days in the city. Paul Cummings comes over later, interrupting whatever conversation we could have had. She takes lots of copies of my stuff along with her, and [one CAN carry this too far] she ends by saying that I should read a few books on screenwriting, then decide for myself whether I want to turn "Acid House" into a shooting script, or turn the trip journal into a shooting script. I think she's DOWNgrading my work by saying it's "Three dimensional" and begging for film treatment: that implies to ME that there are no HIDDEN depths, that everything could be visualized, which would be impossible with the great works of literature. She leaves in a flurry of phone calls at 5 for coffee at the corner with two friends, and plans to meet her husband later at the station. John calls at 6:30, when we decide to eat in Atlantic House, and I subway out there, we caress and talk about our times apart, then walk in the pleasant weather to Atlantic Avenue, where John buys Concha y Toros for $1.59, and we have shashlik and chicken Gozmanda, both good, and cheesecake for dessert. Back to his place to smoke and play for half an hour, but when he bring in the radio to go along with sex, I can't keep it hard after he comes mightily, and though I whack away for something like a half hour, I finally have to give up in frustration. Asleep about 12:30.
DIARY 3111
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 14. Wake and cuddle, and then John starts with some enthusiasm to do me and I come, and then I finish him off too, but I didn't remember that part of it when I was talking to him this evening after drinking much wine (to prevent it from turning into vinegar). Home at 9:50 but the mail isn't out yet, so I'm up to have breakfast, type a diary page, and finish the LAST five summary pages of the trip diary to take me up to page 2500, and then do the first block of 200 sheets of the "T" pages I'd done since returning from the trip: typing on the REAL page number. Pause to have lunch, mail request to the Rolling Stones and one last entry to the Drop-a-Case contest, get lots of mail, and finish the May issue of Scientific American, with hopes of finishing June before July comes to replace it. Then return to the rest of the page renumberings, and get to work on the many pages of table of contents which the renumbering makes possible for the first time, and nearly finished with that when John comes in at 5:30. He reads while I finish typing, and then I put ALL the stuff from the trip into the closet, and then make out a temporary DO list on a scrap of paper to get all the things hanging around down on paper, and to my chagrin it ends up having 23 items on it without REALLY trying to make a large list. John cooks the steaks while I wash a bit, and we chat over the wine and get out to Chaplin's "The Great Dictator" at 7:30 (see next page). Back to talk about it, and I shave and shower and then try Eddie's grass, and we both decide that it's stronger than Bob's, so if I'm going to give anything to Marty, it's some of Bob Malchie's grass. Lay on the sofa massaging John's back, though I really don't feel like doing it, and put on some music and drink wine, and he's drinking beer, and then we settle down into a 69 position, and I'm up for a bit, then down, but he doesn't seem to mind, I don't think, and I continue working over him until he comes with a great groan, and lays exhausted for a bit before going into the bedroom to wipe off. He's still up when I flop into bed at 12:10, and I fall asleep after checking, after he's in bed, that he's turned off the hi-fi set.
DIARY 3114
THURSDAY, JUNE 15. I start looking into the most lengthy item on the new "To do" list, which starts OUT with 24 items on it, to show how "improper" the list I just "finished" was, just after John leaves: putting the stamps from the envelopes that Bill sent into the album. Get into it just as I have to leave for unemployment, and get back at noon to work on them some more after deciding to finish the 20 pages remaining to be read from Thoreau's "Walden," which I've had on my bookshelf-to-be-read for upwards of a year, and typing three pages to keep the diary up to date. Pause at 1-2:30 to watch "Daughter of Shanghai" with Buster Crabbe as a mustached heavy (with only a tiny part), and Cecil Cunningham playing the woman who was the leader of the yellow-slavers, which opened the movie with the best sequence: the bottom of the plane dropping 6 Chinese into the Bay when a military plane started signaling them to land. Anna May Wong was unbelievably bad, and the sets of the "Islands off the coast of Central America" were so wild that I had a reality trip just looking at them. Had only a cup of yogurt and two muffins for lunch, since I was eating only what I felt like, and then worked on stamps more (they took a lot more time than I'd planned) and showered and had a tin of tuna before leaving for Mattachine at 5:50. Get there (see next page) and leave just after 9:30, still working on envelopes of mailing the Mattachine Times, and wait a long time for the subway down to John Casarino's, transferring to the EE at 42nd Street was a mistake. Get into his apartment at 10:30, surprised to hear speaking voices from there, and everyone's John, particularly the third, cutest, one with a droopy-ended mustache and clothing so ample I couldn't get any idea of his body. Henry finally arrived and we still waited for another entrant when the pipes started going around at 11. Three pipes and about four joints later I sank into a state of oblivion (see following page), and got only out of it just before 1, when John and I left for his car, and we drove to his place after 1 to take a quick shower to get rid of the stickiness of the evening, and fell asleep without fully discussing the fun.
DIARY 3117
FRIDAY, JUNE 16. Up for sex in the morning, and I shower to clean off, and get home about 9:30, too early for the mail, and watch "Double or Nothing," a REAL nothing which ends with a huge set-change from one enormous space to another as a rich-man finagled system to lose Bing Crosby a million dollars' inheritance by not doubling his money in a month is thwarted by the nightclub with its one-shot "Sing Band" moving "next door" out of the area leased only for storage. Then get back to the stamps, deciding not to soak them off the envelopes at all, since most of the ones that are so rare that I don't have them are quite a bit more picturesque on envelopes and greeting cards, so I decide to leave them there, merely content to total up the number of stamps and finally find that there are 179, worth $26.30, that I don't have in the album, as opposed to 679, worth $40.71, that I DO have in the album. Have lunch during the switch, and then get involved with putting away all the stuff from the trip, sorting out all the books into various sizes and types, and cleaning out the liquor cabinet to free up the bottom shelf for the archives from the trip, and end up putting the stuff that won't fit anywhere into a single box and putting that into the hall closet along with the box of stamps. John calls in the afternoon and says that the guy across the hall has announced that he's moving July 1, and that the top rent is $160, then asks that the rents be combined and split, which would bring me back up to $180, including my share of the garage rent, but that's still a substantial savings each month. He doesn't want me to decide, but wants me to make up a list of pros and cons, so I do (see next page), but it certainly looks like I'll be MAKING that move, and delight at the thought of a new closet to put everything into, as well as a whole room that John promises me for storage. But there are negative points, too. Don't have time for dinner before subwaying up to the Theater of Riverside Church for an evening of box-officing with Dance Theater Workshop (see following page), and it's over late at 11, home at 11:30, and have tuna fish while John reads River #2 and we're into bed late, about 12:30.
DIARY 3120
SATURDAY, JUNE 17. John does me when we wake, and I work on him and he comes off finally, then we both shower and he sits around reading and doing nothing, and I get out all the stuff from the "Tour" drawer and start dividing it into Less than a Day, About a Day, Two Days Plus an Overnight, Three-Four Days, About a Week, A Month (which has only the Adirondacks), Two-Three Weeks (which includes Florida, the Carolina Islands, and Northern Quebec), and About a Month (which has a trip to Alaska overland and a trip to Mexico overland, with a top of 9000 miles for Alaska, so the Mexico might just as well be extended down through Central America to Panama for about 10,000 miles, too). John goes out to buy special trousers for his shirts (including the new velvet that he paid $50 for, so with the $20 tailoring charge that's a $70 shirt he's wearing!) at Alexander's and Bloomingdales, but he can't find what he wants, so we have our cans of fish and sit and chat about what to do, but he's not interested in driving anywhere, so he's down to the Village to look for his trousers and I type six pages to come up to date, and fuss around a bit before turning on TV at 5 pm for "Napoleon" [reading through the Mattachine Times and the GAA Newsletter for information and errors], made in France by Sacha Guitry and starring everyone in the world in a cameo part, including Orson Welles, Yves Montand, Sacha Guitry, Jean Marais, Maria Schell, Michele Morgan, Viviane Romance, and about a dozen other legendary names with no way to identify who's who. Pretty bad, all in all. Then watch a National Parks program about Kiluaea and St. Johns and various others, "All in the Family" with Sammy Davis, then "The Mary Tyler Moore" show, which isn't so hot, which takes me to the 9 pm start of "L'Aventura" which is reasonably engrossing so that it's only reluctantly that I shut it off at 10:10 to shower and wash my hair and shave for John's guest, and he enters at 11:10, and we're over to Yangtze River to talk about our trip to India and my trips to other places, and John's friend is VERY good looking I think, so we're back to chat, smoke, listen to music, and then John moves in for the kiss, and I join in quickly (see next page). Bed at 3:15 am!
DIARY 3122
SUNDAY, JUNE 18. Wake and lay about waiting for John to wake, and when we get out of bed it's 11:30, which is surely some new record for John. Up to read the Times, and he makes his coffee and has juice, but I'm not eating because I have no cereal, and then decide to save my appetite for the Street Fair. John leaves for DTW early, and I'm down in the elevator before I decide I MUST shave and get my Mattachine pin, so I'm up and Don Goodwin calls, saying he's waiting for Sergio, and I subway down in the rain to find the Firehouse full of people jammed into the sweltering interior throwing darts at balloons, pitching nickels for pins (I win three for a dollar), throw darts for a glass of sangria, eat a meatball hero, beer, burnt chocolate cake, packet of nuts and fruit, and see Fred Courtney thinking to buy silver spoons for his mother. Watch the videotapes of Bette Midler, and she's pretty good, then down to buy banana bread from Liberation House for $2, getting change of a $10 by buying the $7.95 "Gay Mystique" for Norman Pittenger for $6, saying hello to Dominick, Don, Sergio and Jim, the only ones from Mattachine there until 5, meeting Renee Cafiero, watching the Lesbian wheel of chance, not taking any of the many raffle tickets for things, and looking longingly at the few cute people, though most of the denizens are terribly scruffy and unpleasant, particularly the females. Out at 5 in the still-raining day, and to John's to begin reading the "Gay Mystique" about halfway through when John comes in with my thawed steak, and he talks about the performance, and we eat about 8:30 and he doesn't want to go out, only wants to smoke, and we cuddle and slide onto the floor for great up-stroking sexplay, but the music lulls me into a reverie and I go down. He follows me down, and we listen until he dozes off, and even I get hung up on a particularly good record and drift off into semi-sleep, and when we get up to get into bed, it's after 1 am. Felt very pleasant just lying there on the floor together, and neither of us seemed to have any pressures to really have an orgasm, and it was agreeable to drift off into a dreamy fog, touching each other, and then go to bed together to sleep.
DIARY 3123
MONDAY, JUNE 19. Wake at 8 and play around not enough to get hard, and I'm out into the living room to finish "The Gay Mystique" by Peter Fisher (see next pages), which is a rather depressing book in its complete honesty. Out of John's at 10:30 after taking two telephone messages, subway home on the slow mid-morning system, though it's crowded when the trains finally DO come. Home to get a call from Don Goodwin to work with the Gestetner repairs, work on the New York Times puzzles for much of the morning, and I still haven't gotten milk and cereal, so I can't eat breakfast, merely having a few toasted slices of banana bread, and I'm kicking myself for not exercising, not doing anything, merely wasting time (see following page), but the only thing that gets me going (not even having tuna fish for lunch) is the thought that the double feature I want to see at the Embassy has its last showing tomorrow, which is voting day, so I won't be able to go, so I have to go today! Call at 4 pm and find a show starting at 4:05, so I dress and subway uptown at 4:15, getting in just a minute after "Get Carter" starts, but it takes a while to realize it's his BROTHER that's been killed by a RIVAL mob (he's a killer himself, which is never FULLY clear), and I come to the simile of watching a jar full of spiders battling: I really am not clear who's who, but it doesn't matter because everyone's so awful, and the only suspense is "How's Carter going to GET it," because it would be simply AWFUL if HE'S not killed after his romp of blood, drowning, stabbing, throwing off buildings into passing cars, and injecting. Devouring 50¢ for 10 tiny chocolate-covered peanut butter cups, the popcorn coinslot is taped shut, and 30¢ for peanuts. "The Boy Friend" IS pretty awful in its extremesm but Tommy Tune as the lanky tap dancer, and Christopher Gable (except as Acteon in camping of his own devising) is VERY pretty to look at despite his phony smile and crooked teeth, and Twiggy IS pretty good in the film, with Justin de Villeveuve as Associate Producer. Out at 8, again convinced that the Embassy has the coughingest, talkingest crowd in town, and home to have Roger call (finally exercise!) and come up at 8:45 to smoke, John's in at 9, we all smoke, I don't have dinner, Roger plays the guitar pleasantly for us, I turn on "L'Avventura" again at 11:30, John's to bed, Roger undoes his bed at 1, I shower and brush my teeth and join John at 1:30.
DIARY 3127
TUESDAY, JUNE 20. We have sex in the morning, and then he leaves and I determine to clean up my desk, so I type seven pages to catch up to date, then write the new order to the United Nations Postal Administration, write to Pittenger along with the book I bought for him, to Schwamm's superintendent, for $12+ of merchandise from the head-oriented Record Club of America, and to two writers and editors and indexers organizations that Ellie put me onto. Then out to vote at 5:30, but find to my disgust that the post office on 59th closes at 5:30, and that's another time I've been taken out of my way for that stupid place, so after I vote (which is quick because the old Swedish woman who controlled the books before had died in the past year, they said) I take the book back to my apartment and subway up to the Board of Director's meeting. Tell Don that I have to leave at 7:30, and actually leave at 7:15 when nothing much happens at the meeting, except for endless discussions on political meetings and money matters, but membership seems to be building up. Henry later reports to me that Irwin Strauss refused to resign from the Board to let his place be taken by someone more active, saying "Why don't you TELL me what you want me to do?" which annoys everyone, particularly Henry. Then I take a bus across 79th Street after dashing up there, and bus across to arrive early at the Reddy's, so I stand outside and watch the cruising on York, and then John and Ellie Camp arrive, she holding her slit skirt around her, and she says she didn't wear her black but her WHITE underwear, so that it really shouldn't show. The group in the apartment was mostly Indian until the foreign-service couple arrived, and then we started talking with Ritha Devi for long periods of time, and talked with the guy who blew my mind afterward by talking about Ashiva and Abrahma and Avishnu, the negative counterparts of the trilogy, and I doubted whether he was telling the truth, but it had an enormous charm. The food was tasty and I went back for more chicken, avoiding the hot sauces, and the drinks flowed heavily so we were all very cheerful, leaving about 12 to drive Ritha and her "boyfriend" home, then Ellie, then us.
DIARY 3128
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12. [Almost two weeks behind diary schedule, almost impossible to remember what happened on these long-ago days: one of the worst "down" spells in months.] Wake and get back to my place, and there's been a storm brewing through the evening, and the rain's pouring down and the radio's full of news about flooded highways. Call Henry and he says he's willing to go, but that maybe I should call out to the police station and make sure they're expecting us. Phone out there and some lieutenant answers, who's in charge of the class with Sergeant Siee, and he says he's waiting for us, so I call Henry back and he says he's at the Polyclinic Hospital and can meet me downstairs at 11:30, so I get ready and go, and he even gets to the corner before me. We discuss what to talk about, and to fill him in on the Suffolk County-Hauppauge affair I read him the two lengthy articles from the Village Voice, but he says we have to remember that these are only TRAINEES, so they have nothing to do with the actual incidents, and I tell him that I'd stayed up way late last night, and got up early this morning, going through elaborate fantastic ideas (such as writing on the blackboard "Dogshit icecream" in order to put across the idea it's not the NAME which is the ruling factor---but, to coin a phrase, TRY it, you'll LIKE it.) about what to tell them. He needs gas, so we get off the Long Island freeway and drive toward Oyster Bay to stop into a gas station and find a coffee shop which makes decent pastrami sandwiches and floats, and he likes his chicken sandwich and tells me about his allergy to milk, which he likes, which gives him diarrhea and a rash. I inquire about his background, also, and he says he's one of the 70 neurosurgeons in New York, working for the Polyclinic, St. Vincent's, and Harlem Hospital strictly on a reference basis ("They don't come to me personally and say 'Doctor, I want you to operate on my brain'"), and he thinks he may have run into SOME trouble because of his frankness of admitting he was gay. Get there just before 2, and get ready for an incredible session (see next page). Out at 4:30, drive back to the office, I'm home at 6, and read much of "Future Shock" before John arrives from some dance performance at 10, and we talk and bed.
DIARY 3130
THURSDAY, JUNE 22. John leaves and I finish "Future Shock" before having breakfast, and then down to get the mail and "Store of Infinity" by Sheckley is in the mail, so I sit down and read all 150 pages of THAT by lunch time, and that takes care of the major portion of the day. John reminds me that Saturday is Kei Takei's dinner for us, and we don't have any guests yet, and I try calling Sergio and Kenneth, but their busy signal leads me to call Glenn and Charles, and they're going away for the weekend, but Glenn is anxious to accept, and says he'll have to talk it over with Charles, and when I call them later at Mattachine, talk with Charles and it's OK with them, and they're anxious to see us, and I'm anxious to hear about the weekend place they go off to all the time, with the mint growing in the driveway. And it's another item off my do-list. But the other items aren't getting finished: the possibility of moving in the near future makes everything up in the air, and I just don't feel like sitting down and doing ANYTHING except reading. So I jerk off during the day, and stare out the window, storing up impressions of my view for the times in the new apartment when I won't have anything to look at without going down to the Promenade, frowning at the noises coming from the removal of the parking lot across the street, and find in some election handout that they're about to build a skyscraper in that space, along with trying to tear down the Parc Vendome. I'll certainly be glad to get away from the noise, but I'm so desperate to keep from HOPING and then being DISAPPOINTED about the move that I'm almost paralyzed mentally. Get down to Mattachine a bit early, and find that Henry had come during the day and left two big loads of boxes for packing the rest of the books, which are only about half-packed (see next page). Get to John's and STILL try to make arrangements to see the apartment across the hall, but he's hardly ever there, and he's told John he STILL expects me to give him $100 for the move, and I say to pretend he didn't tell me that, so that I won't have to know. Smoke and have sex, probably, but it's impossible to tell at this late date, so I can't say anything more about it.
DIARY 3132
FRIDAY, JUNE 23. Wake early and out of bed about 8 and subway direct to 72nd Street about 8:30 and get over to the Daitch and find a rather snotty manager who says that he needs all the boxes for deliveries. Next door to the liquor store and find a nice stack of cartons, so I empty the insides from 8 of them, fill them with 8 more, and tie the corners together to take all 16 over in one trip, made messy by the constant rain. Back for another stack of almost 16, and figure that should be enough for just about everything. Put the radio on and listen to the numerous phone rings until the machine answers, and start on the books and number boxes for non-fiction through about 22, then start on the special boxes and start filling the cartons left with file material and stuff from the storerooms, and start emptying out the desks, but still there's a stack of stuff left to pack, so I leave a note for Paul and Jim in the evening to bring back all the boxes they can from the liquor shop when they finish binding the Times (hint, hint). Leave about 2, starved because I haven't had any meal yet at all, and get home for lunch and exercise, yet, and then feel active enough to set the refrigerator on defrost (which is getting worse: last defrost was June 5, less than three weeks ago, and the previous one was May 12, less than four weeks previous---and it looks at THIS point it'll have to be done by July 7, which will make 2 weeks, but a screw's gone from the handle, and I HOPE I'm moved before the end of July!) and telephone places for the Egri and Trapnell books. Can't find Trapnell anywhere, so down to the post office to mail out the book to Pittenger, having to take out all the staples and bind it with rope: how STUPID. Then over to the Drama Brookshop, great, and browse around and find the fabulous "Dances of India" for only $6, with the Egri book, and back to finish defrosting and page through the book, finding it great, and then shower in time for John to come in, and we're down to the Oori House, John worried we won't make schedules, at 6:30, for a good dinner and FABULOUS drinks, then walk to St. Paul's for a small audience for Guidotti's Madrigal Singers, who start well but finish mediocre, and he's dizzy with anxiety throughout. He won't come over, we won't go to his place, so home and bed.
DIARY 3133
SATURDAY, JUNE 24. Get out just before 9, arrive at Mattachine at 9:10, and Sergio's in at 9:15, and the truck outside is OURS. The four blacks come in and immediately say it's going to cost not $300 but $500, which I think is real robbery, but we pay it. Sergio's packed up lots more stuff, but there's still lots of stuff hanging around, and while they cart off the boxes of books and the furniture, most of which is staying, he's over to get more boxes and I root through things to fill up wastebaskets with, and soon we're filling shopping bags with junk, and by 11:30 the truck's full and we're down to the new office to move the stuff in. Dick's still working on the bookshelves, and the new place looks great with its yellow walls and white-globe ceiling fixtures and the huge air conditioners, which means I won't KNOW the agony of suffering through a summer's heat in the Mattachine offices, which is pleasant. All the stuff's moved in in about an hour, and then we're uptown to the doctor's office at 1, get THAT stuff out quick, and then down to Dr. Sudarski's office, but he's not supposed to be in until 2, so I walk toward Madison to get Serge and me something to eat, but he's walking up the street with a friend, and we're moving HIS stuff out. He says I'M perfectly welcome to HIS place out at the Island, and I don't bother to tell him about John at THIS point. Then down to the Village and I sit in Sergio's car and watch the twenty-year-olds play stickball, and a huge oak table comes down with two desks and a coat rack, and then we're all back to the office to move THAT stuff in, and I'm starved at 3 ($500 for 6 hours moving work isn't BAD), so I stomp across for some pizza, taking some back for Sergio, while Dick and Don eat in a restaurant. Back to talk with Barnes and ogle his great gay-lib cake, and I'm about to leave at 5 when Don suggests we cut it, so Mark's taking pictures and the cake's great, and the coffee in the 30-cup urn good, and Barnes even brought in two bottles of booze, and answers the phone, so he's quite valuable. Subway exhausted to my place to change and shower, calling Kei to make SURE she knows about it, and then to John's for the Japanese dinner (see next page). Bed at 1.
DIARY 3135
SUNDAY, JUNE 25. Up to fairly active sex, then each showers, and delighted to see that the rain, which started just after we moved, was slacking up again, and we were blessed with clearing skies JUST when Mattachine needed them. John drives to my place about 10 and I stop for the Times, and we read it and he decides to stay in because of his cold, so I'm into a raincoat and down to the offices at 1:45, to see the crowd forming on Christopher Street, and no Mattachine banner in sight. Into the office and it's fairly full of people, one of whom is Dr. Spock, though I don't notice him until John mentions it from the Village Voice. They've managed to move lots of stuff into the inner office and set up a sitting area, and the last pieces of cake are going, so I have one for lunch. Then volunteer to be one of the five holding up the Mattachine Banner, and we're out down Christopher for the march itself (see next page). It starts off rather promptly at 2:125, and at 4:30 we've reached an impasse at 55th Street, so I break ranks, giving my banner end to Dick Smith, and walk up to see the breakthrough across 58th Street, and then to my place to find that John saw me across from Radio City, and we're into the car about 5 and up toward the G. Washington Bridge, across a very slow Cross-Bronx Expressway, but things clear up on the Thruway and we zip into Darien just about 7 pm. Get directions to the place twice, then sort of feel our way through the exclusive area and get to the LaRue's a bit early, so I can get up and shower and change into nicer clothes, and down to the kitchen to the bouncy Mary Rasmussen, who's just found she has Hodgson's [Hodgkin's?] Disease, but we talk about our trip, about food, delight over the mushroom soup and mushrooms fried for an appetizer, and love the white wine sloshed into the cantaloupe (and Jan loves my "seamless" compliment about the taste of the two fruity savors), and have liquors and into the kitchen to dry and listen to Mary talk about the battle to save the zoning laws in her little town, and we're invited up to see the place without hesitation. It's 12:30 and we're feeling very tired, since we have to get up early the next morning, so into the bedroom and sleep in our separate beds.
DIARY 3137
MONDAY, JUNE 26. Mrs. LaRue wakes us at 7, and we're washed and down at 7:30 for coffee and rolls and find that the next ferry over to Port Jefferson is at 8:30, so Jan jumps into his car and leads us to the thruway entrance, perfect host that he is. We get there with about five minutes to spare, vaguely remembering the way, and pull out just as a car that DOESN'T make it screeches to a stop on the gangplank and the driver shrugs his shoulders in resignation. Across in the early-morning fog, read for a bit, and get into the quiet harbor at 9:45, make our way to Sound Beach, stop in a new supermarket to buy groceries for the three-day stay, and then to the house, which is replete with Woolworth-type furniture, and John takes the car to Gunther's for many needed repairs. We re-make the bedroom by putting the double mattress on the floor, and I get the large divan down from the attic and put it outside to read in the variable sunlight. We walk down to the beach and a crew is working on a sand barricade with a roaring pump, and when John goes down to get what little sun there is, I stay on the lounge and read "Greening of America" which I then recommend that HE read. It gets darker fairly early because of all the clouds, and we find charcoal and lighter fluid in the garage, so we decide to have hamburgers out on the terrace, but the rains come in so hard that we finally have to bring the table inside and eat there. Both burgers are done through, to his distress, and then we settle down for a smoke. Walk down to the shore in an increasing state of highness, since John didn't think the first pipeful was enough and we smoked a second, and this was the finely divided stuff way down in the bottom of the bottle, the most potent, and the street seemed marvelously shadowed and mysterious as we moved down it, and by the time we cross the road I'm hearing the trees literally SING to me, and at the water's edge I have wonderful intellectualizations of my high state (see next page). Back to the house and start necking on the sofa, and we start playing with each other and get out the Baby Magic and have quite a pair of orgasms, and then I'm devouring peanut butter sandwiches on rye bread out of sheer pot-hunger.
DIARY 3139
TUESDAY, JUNE 27. Wake early and have great sex again, then up for breakfast of cereal and muffins, and since it's sunnier out today I decide to go down to the beach with John. Down about 11, the tide is further out, and we go easterly enough to be out of the sound of the pump which is still being manned for the retaining wall. The stones on the beach are almost more lavish in color and smoothness than before, and I find that the tide is just coming in. John stretches out on his blanket while I sit on a rock and watch the tide coming in, the words of the song "Then the tide rushes in, and washes my troubles away. And I really can't be sure, which side of the bed I should lay---I should lay---ay---AY-----ayyyy!" Little by little, carrying its cargo of plump green and rust iodine-smelling seaweeds, the waves dash the stones to turn them darker with wet so they can gleam in the sunlight. Jets pass over so high they can't be seen, and a few trainers zoom very low, almost shattering the wave-sounds with their shrill shriek. As it nears noon the beach begins to fill, two girls lay themselves out right near John, the truck leaves for lunch at the highest tide, and I move off my imperiled rock to watch the last highest waves lap at the tire tracks in the sand. By then I feel that I've had enough sun, so I'm over to climb out on the rocks of the jetty to see who's at the beach, and there are only tight-stomached youths of 12 or 13, hardly worth looking at, though they have just purchased a wicked air gun which can puncture a Pepsi can with a sharp thunk. Back to the blanket to get the book, wander back up to the house to eat lunch, and finish "The Art of Dramatic Writing" by Egri, and I don't feel that it's very helpful to me: too traditional and stodgy, much like Ellie: that's two books she's recommended that seem behind the times, and later when I get her comments back from my pieces I more or less decide SHE'S not the one who'll help ME. I exercise in agony, John's up, I shower while he cooks dinner, and then we smoke again and again walk to the beach, colors this time (see next page), and then back just at darkness to eat some more and have sex again, and fall into bed exhausted from doing nothing.
DIARY 3141
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 28. Up to cuddle, but we're too drained from previous sessions to have sex again. Maybe I do him and he leaves me go. He's down to the beach again, but I don't feel like going down at all, so I read "Cosmic Consciousness" on the porch out of the sun, looking at the spiders and ants and flies, listening to the cries of the jays, watching the chipmunks hiding in their cinderblock tunnels, listening to the forlorn wails of a moaning child being screamed at by his mother. The mail car comes to break the street silence, kids wander back and forth to the beach, the drip from the eaves has finally stopped, and I have lunch of a muffin around food which Jerri had left behind. Coming back from the beach yesterday there were boxes to indicate others had been there, but they didn't return, and John and I fixed up the place the way we found it, he went back to get the car while I packed, and we left about 2:30, driving down 112 to 495 and the busy Long Island Expressway, John frowning because he'd forgotten his sunglasses. Traffic builds up and we get to his place about 5, and he waters his plants and changes clothes, we talk to Mrs. Johnson, and then we drive into the Village to a place that Ellie Camp recommended to him for the rum cake, so we eat at the Peacock, and the food isn't bad, but the best part of all are the people wandering past on the street in tight trousers, shirts off, shorts, and varying degrees of sensuality. The shop across the street attracts many odd types, and we finish eating and leave about 7:30. John goes up to buy vegetables for the dinner he's giving tomorrow night for the directors of DTW, and I stand and watch the black and white passing parade, and then we're into the car and back to my place, and upstairs to find my lower door locked AGAIN: Roger fixed it so it couldn't be locked with the BUTTON, but the KEY still does it! Down to the Super, who's dining with guests, so he gives ME the combination to the lock, and I work and work on it, he's down to finish the job and gives me TWO crates from India, the figurines and the wooden panel, and up to a sweating John in the hall to let ourselves in, unpack the crates, admire the pieces, and leave the apartment strewn, get to bed at 11.
DIARY 3142
THURSDAY, JUNE 29. John leaves and I do absolutely nothing until 10 except read the Sunday Times, and then watch "Maid of Salem" with a good commentary about injustice and intolerance which should be shown to ANY gay "witch-burners" and the phone rings a number of times: Sergio asking me to help Tom Barbour at Mattachine, Henry asking something about the letter to Suffolk County and if I know Don's telephone number at work, and something else. Out at 11:30 and John had forgotten the vegetables, so I had to take a local down and throw him the stuff from the stopped AA at 23rd Street, with the result that I got to Barclay Street at exactly 12:01, and the lines were closed, so I read my book and stood against the wall and in line until 12:45, and then subwayed up to Mattachine to find a sweating Tom Barbour doing a great job with boxes he brought from home to pack up and put all the papers and junk outside. Salvation Army was supposed to have come, but it didn't by 3, so I went out for a pastrami sandwich, then waited while HE went out for lunch, and by 4:30 John Hood was supposed to drive up to pick up the last of the stuff, and since Tom lived down there, I took him at his word and went home to shower and leave off the shopping bag full of stuff that I took (envelopes, carbon paper, etc) that they were willing to throw out. Shower and down to Mattachine at 6:10 (see next page), and out at 9:40 and subway to John's, banging the door something fierce, being let in, and I go across the hall to have a long bargaining session with Ray Daugherty (see following page), and then back about 11 to eat the good boeuf bourguignon that John made, wine, and by the time I'm finished everyone's left but Art and Jeff (and I'd talked to Mrs. Johnson, who was to call me about the rent today, and it'll be $168, and she seems to think it'll be OK if I move in), and Jeff's talking to John and Art's talking to me about Bob's possible move to the west coast, Art's re-evaluation of himself and his budding relationship with the cute teacher from New Jersey, and we talk about the apartment and he says I have to come over with John and get stoned and look at the comix, and maybe buy some Israel and DDR stamps from HIM. Bed at 1:45.
DIARY 3145
FRIDAY, JUNE 30. Up for shooting sex, which is great, because I wanted it last night and didn't get it, and I subway home to finish reading "Cosmic Consciousness" and try to get down to typing, but all I can get out is one page, and then I just fall into a blue funk. Work the crossword puzzle from last Sunday's Times, simply because I want to, and the space under the TV is loaded with papers that I haven't read, so I sift through them all, putting out a huge stack to be picked up, leaving only the want-ad sections (but there are three of them, the regular, the News for teaching positions, and the Business section for managerial positions). Still don't feel like doing anything, and decide to go to a movie, so I'm up to the Embassy to see "Perfect Friday" which New York raves about, but it's a cheap little thing about David Warner as a thrice-disguised husband-inspector-getaway man, Ursula Andress as his quadruple-timing wife who takes off with the cash and her Swiss lover, and that's all there is to it. "Garden of the Finzi-Continis" is photographed through gauze looking through green leaves at the sun for most of the time, and Dominique Sanda is sometimes perfect and sometimes very coarse looking, Lino Capellichio is fairly cute, but the guy who plays Malnate, dark, short, beautifully-chested, "long of nose and black of pelt and [I'd love to SEE] what's below the belt?" Sadly, there are no credits at the end, so it's impossible to tell who it was. Home and start to eat dinner, and John comes in about 9:30, saying that the John Cage anniversary concert was totally ruined for him by photographers, and he likes my idea of having a "concert" which is really a happening, where a pair of photographers take INCREASING liberties, and observe at what POINT the audience loses its infinite patience with photographers and starts to tell them to stay PUT. I've put most of the stuff away from the trip and from the packages, and the apartment is in almost presentable shape, except that my desk is again loaded with lots of things to do, and I keep reminding myself to send the unemployment check off to Roger, and I STILL haven't done it! We smoke and have sex and crawl into bed: I may have exercised again: it's so HARD!
DIARY 3146
SATURDAY, JULY 1. [Finally into THIS month!] [So now the calendar page is OFFICIALLY off the pad and into the closet.] Up fairly late and John dallies over coffee and leaves about 10, and I'm into the want ads, which takes an enormous amount of time, and my eyes eventually become tired from skimming the columns, and my neck is sore from twisting to see the items on the page. I get a set of about 25 clippings from the last three weeks of the Times, very aware that another set is coming in tonight. Breakfast and lunch break up the monotony of reading the ads, and then I telephone one place about touring across the United States with foreign groups, but the groups have gone, and he suggests that I have dinner with him on Monday at the Port Arthur, calling on Monday to verify, but what I do is cancel out, saying that "something else has come up": It just isn't worth getting into it. I look again with dismay at the list of things I have to do, but again just don't feel like getting into it. John has nothing to do, thinking of a sex show until I remind him of the double feature just down the block, so we have dinner separately and then meet at the Festival theater at 8:15, where I say I've left my student card at home, and we see "Copacabana," which would be better in color, which is the typical "night-club owner loves secretary" thing, with an awful Andy Williams causing the audience to go into spasms of laughter at his nelliness, and Groucho does some lovely things: stealing peanuts for dinner from a monkey, his "double" doing a western number about "Go West, Young Man" with a hilarious dubbed falsetto, and being interrogated about the "murder" of Mamselle Fifi, the double of Carmen Miranda's (never notices the blood clot in her left eye) Latin singer on stilt-shoes, with an AWFUL male dancer and simpy "Copa girls." "A Night in Casablanca" is inspired lunacy, particularly a greatly extended "packing" scene with clothes and suitcases and closets, the "Bee Twist" charade, and a mind-boggling plane scene chased by trucks, crashing into the Kasbah. John's to the Eagle while I read the Times, all but the ads again, and he gets back at 1:15 and we talk about the evening and fall into an air-cooled bed with a single kiss.
DIARY 3147
SUNDAY, JULY 2. Alarm rings at 6:30 and we drag ourselves out of bed on the sunny morning, into the car and onto the LIE at 7, and get to Jones Beach to find that Parking Lot 9 is closed, so we're into 6 and walk to the base of the dunes and spread out the blanket. I content myself with sitting with my shirt on for a bit, and then John goes off into the dunes and I'm down to the shore to watch the tide coming in over the tracked sand. There are two strikingly-built beauties with a young kid, a large-hanging older fellow in an American-flag bathing suit, a long-haired guy in orange, but no one looks at me with any interest. Back to the blanket to lay in the sun until 12:15, then decide to take a walk, burning the balls of my big toes into huge blisters, seeing no one I care for, finding that lot 9 has been damaged by the storm and is impassable at the edge, onward to the construction, still closed to the public, and I walk across and see some cruising in the dunes, but again there's nothing presentable, and I'm walking back in pain when I see this guy bathing naked, stop to watch, and see him jerking himself off until someone comes closer, and I found it very exciting though the guy was somewhat unattractive. Back to the construction and there's a policeman sitting there forbidding crossing: I ignore him, he shouts "Don't come over here," and I come right ahead, absolutely not looking at him. "I'll throw your ass in jail if you come back this way," and I tell the guy "I crossed over" who asks if it's permissible. Back to John at 2:30, he's still cruising, and we leave at 3; he's had one and "given" one, "naturally" not with the same person. Drive back in the enormous heat, seeing it's 92° even at 4, and flop into his cold tub with a vodka tonic. Read the Voice while he cooks dinner, rest for a bit, eat, and then smoke and get out to the Promenade for a very pleasant evening and some striking new images of life (see next page) though I'm a bit concerned that smoking is turning into a series of sex things, or thought things, and I'll be wanting something stronger to really get "outside" myself. Back at 9:30, have vanilla ice cream and maple syrup for a real treat, then into bed without a single kiss at all.
DIARY 3149
MONDAY, JULY 3. Up to prolonged sex which makes last night seem like a dream, and the subway's fairly empty for the day between holidays. Have breakfast, finish the crossword puzzle, and fix up the apartment before 12, then get to the ads, which I finish by 1, at which time I watch "A Foreign Affair" with a Germanic Marlene Dietrich singing about "The Black Market" and Jean Arthur as a pig-tailed Congresswoman who finally gets Captain John Lund after Marlene's "arrested." Out in the middle to cash two unemployment checks to get some cash, since my wallet was stolen at the beach yesterday, which had only my old registration card and $5 in it, but the wallet itself is a sad loss. Waited until I got home to make SURE I'd taken it, and it's not here, not in the car, so it MUST have been taken. Then at 3 I get started on typing and for some reason it goes very easily, typing 11 pages in all, and reluctant to stop to try calling Len Ebreo, who's nowhere to be found, worrying about the 7 pm lecture on Wednesday, and call Azak and talk to him about his apartment and my apartment, call John Connolly and he asks me to be a fourth for Scrabble, but when I call back he's GOT a fourth, and then I finally get through to Avi, who agrees to come over to play Monopoly with me and John, so I leave everything stacked on the desk (oh, yes, and Madolyn came over from 3:15-4:15 while I washed dishes and read more of "Magic Mountain" for typing on my machine, and it DOES take both sizes balls!), and shower and make dinner, and John comes in beforehand and sits reading in the bedroom, and Avi comes in just as I finish, and I suggest we play in the air-conditioned bedroom, but they say no, though we move in later. I win the first game and probably the second, though John insists HE won the second on money value by the time we stop to watch the TV showing of "Two Daughters" on 13. John had jumped into the tub and was sitting "nükèd" to use Avi's malapropism, and then AVI jumped in and was sitting around, accusing John of putting Windowpane in his rum and Coke, he was so high. The one daughter of the girl heart-breakingly helping the postmaster John watched, but went to bed before the lovely story (Tagore) of the tomboy who's married and finally makes up to her scholarly husband finished at 12:30. Shower and bed.
DIARY 3151
TUESDAY, JULY 4. Up at 8 for hard-grinding sex until 9, then John leaves and I get right down to typing, doing 12 pages to catch up with the diary completely at last, including putting the pages into the book and bringing the table of contents up to date. Then I follow up by clearing off the desktop of junk, and tackling the correspondence: writing Bill and Elaine, sending Argentine stamps to Schaffer, and write over $80 in checks to a number of places, and finally send off Roger's unemployment check, a total of nine envelopes to be mailed. Feeling great about doing everything, and even make a first attempt at a letter to Life about not mentioning homosexuality as one of the major "victimless crimes." Lunch and keep on watering plants (the one on the left takes OVER a plateful each day), phone for reservations at Rabelais, and in the early morning got in touch with Len Ebreo for the talk tomorrow, which he can't make until 8. Try calling Marty and Arnie, but they're not there. Then shower for the second time today (first getting the come and Baby Magic off after sex), and subway in a car crowded with black baby carriages from Harlem up to 86th and CPW and walk through the OLD neighborhood to the fringes of the new projects at 90th, and John and I sit down for dinner on the terrace, watching the clouds change from white to red to pink to purple, watching the kids setting off firecrackers and tiny sky-whistlers, annoyed by the laugh of the black who sits with a bunch of kids at a table behind us. Leave "Magic Mountain" on the floor of the terrace when we leave at 9:30, driving to John's past the last flurry of some fireworks from New Jersey. I stop and chat with Mrs. Johnson, making sure she KNOWS Ray's asked me for money, insuring that I'll get the apartment when he moves out and no one else, and she says that I CAN'T have the air conditioner, which John says is an invention, but I'll just settle for a fan anyway. Then up and smoke about 10:30, and out onto the Promenade which is cool even with a sweater on, so I sit and shiver and fantasize for awhile (see next page), and then tell him I'm going back, getting into bed and falling asleep about 11:45, not even hearing him when he gets in.
DIARY 3154
WEDNESDAY, JULY 5. Wake and lay together too dazed, tired, and anti-stoned to move very much. When John gets up to shower I get up and dress and leave before he's quite dry, and he agrees to meet me at Mattachine for the talk. No activity from Ray's apartment, and I get home and type three pages to catch up to date, lovely, and read lots of the June Scientific American while eating breakfast, in preparation for, as it turns out, getting the JULY issue today. Then work on the letter to Life Magazine about homosexuality as a "victimless crime" and include the fact that Don Goodwin called to say that Michael Maye had been acquitted of all charges against him. Roger calls to say he will be over in the afternoon, so I go out in the rain to get groceries, keeping levels of supplies low in case I move, stop in the liquor store to find they HAVE John's Medoc Chateau Talbot for 1966 (not 1964, which they said would be twice as expensive) for $9.50 a bottle, or $100 a case. Pick up the dry cleaning, put everything away, write to Drake (as insurance) for address labels for the new address, and telephone to Marty and John Kim, thereby attempting to take MANY items off the list of things to do, and each additional item crossed off is a GREAT feeling. Begin to look at the Mattachine letter to the New York Times for revision to send it to Porcelain, and Roger rings the bell at 1:45. He hasn't had lunch (surprise!), so I make soup and he makes sandwiches and we get stoned on my grass, and sit around (me naked, he not bothering to get undressed) smiling out the window, nodding with the music, saying how good the grass was and answering Ray "nothing" when he calls to ask "what's up" with apartment. Then he wants to play a game, and we think through Monopoly or Scrabble as too difficult in our state, and settle for Monopoly. Marty calls to say he WON'T be over at 5:15, which saves me from dressing, and Roger leaves at 6, so I shower and get ready to go out to Mattachine at 6:30, after Sergio called to make sure it was still on. Get there to only a few people (see next page), but by the end there are about 15 of us, and I think it's a success. Leave with Len at 9:30, drive to John's where I have tuna dinner, he works on transplanting while I read the Voice, called Rabelais and "Magic Mountain" isn't there, and an article on Bangladesh, and we're in bed at 12.
DIARY 3156
THURSDAY, JULY 6. Wake at 8 and cuddle perfunctorily, then out of bed when he's into the shower at 8, onto the subway and home before 9. Type two diary pages, work on the Mattachine article for Sidney, eat breakfast, and subway down to unemployment, stopping off at Abbey Bookshop to see the "once in 30 years" sale of $1 books, and everything's completely disorganized, about the most boring set of books in the world. Leave about noon without anything and get back home to finish the letter to Sidney, asking about "Acid House" and telling him sketchily about Ellie Kurtz, then call Henry Messer to finish the letter to Siee about two more people on the panel, and so delighted to get many items off the Do-list that I start working on the diary index, which came to my mind a few days ago, and it takes lots of time because there are so many labeled pages. Get partway through and I have to leave to Mattachine after showering and washing my head, and there is getting to be more and MORE hair down the drain when I wash it: guess I have to do it more often so it doesn't get so dirty. Late getting out and Jack's walking back and forth in front of the door when I arrive at 6:08, and we're inside to the busiest evening since I've been there (see next page). Out at 9:40, angry with Vincent for taking so much time to get rid of someone on the phone, and to the subway to find a #1 coming just into the station, and get to Chambers to find an express with its doors closed, but miraculously they re-open and I get on, all the while reading "Our Gang" by Phillip Roth, which I though was about Jewish families, but it's about Trick E. Dixon and his wife Pitter, from Prissier California, and it's quite wild reading. Bought it this morning to have SOMETHING to read on the subway, and I'm almost finished with it now. Felt for my wallet on leaving the office and flabbergasted to find it not THERE. Develop a strange sense of "out-of-touchness" with the world, partly because of the wild fantasy in the satire on Nixon, partly from smoking, partly from the business of the night. To John's to eat and read, he getting in at 10:30 from his visit to Man's Country for $1.50, with Arnie; we chat and get to bed at 11.
DIARY 3158
FRIDAY, JULY 7. Again wake before 8 and lay tranquilly touching John until he gets up at 8:15, and I dash for the subway, getting in before 9 to find that I HAD left my wallet here, which is an enormous relief. Finish reading "Our Gang" just because I want to see how it ends, then have breakfast and type two pages. Complete the Diary Index and type and proofread it, one of the hardest pages of typing ever, but it fits nicely onto one page, with room for expansion through about the next year. Then Arnie calls just before 1 and we talk until after 2, and there are lots of other phone calls: from Ray who now wants to sell me his shower curtain rod, the bathroom cabinet and mirrors, and various traverse rods and the bathroom floor for $40, and I end up saying "Take what you want, leave what you want, I don't care," but he insists, even saying he'll give me the keys, so I agree to meet him Sunday morning at 10 am to see what he wants to sell me. Then Mrs. Johnson calls and says I SHOULD have said I wasn't interested anymore, and then Saturday morning John and I decide that ANY future conversation with him should be over SIGNING THE PAPERS for the apartment. Don Goodwin calls with a Mattachine call, which doesn't go through. Lunch and get to work on six job letters: one for a ghost writer on India, one for PL/1 teacher, one for hourly prog/anal work, one for magazine writer-researcher, and two for technical writers---all quite late, but it gets me into the swing of things. John arrives at 5 and has a drink, so we agree to see "Cabaret" tonight at 6:15, and he wants to smoke, so I take a few puffs and wait in the lobby but see the end, which is not impressive, and sit through the whole thing: he likes it a lot for its "multi-level" construction, but I don't think it's that great, and liked Helmut Griem better than Michael York, who was sort of a pig. Back here for chops and steak until 9:30, and then want to walk, stoned in the park, but we get out to the street and it starts sprinkling, so we're up to the roof to look down over the lights on the streets, and we start feeling each other up, I'm so stoned I'm getting dizzy, so I suggest we go downstairs, and have a VERY zonked stoned-session (see next page).
DIARY 3160
SATURDAY, JULY 8. Remark about the complete stonedness of last night, and he leaves, I write two diary pages, eat breakfast, write a letter to Rita to catch up with correspondence again, and then there's nothing to do but scour the tub, do the dishes, dust and vacuum the rugs, defrost the fridge, and start working on five articles for the next issue of the Mattachine Times, getting the apartment into absolutely perfect shape to wait out the suspense for the move. Then at 5:30 start on marathon TV watching, starting with "Five Came Back" which was a bit of a cop-out since they all didn't DIE, there just wasn't enough weight-lifting capacity in the reconstructed plane that crashed in the jungle to get everyone out, so that some had to say behind and be eaten by the Jivaros. Then National Geographic put on a grueling hour about the Portuguese dorymen who go out fishing for six months of the year, and apparently don't even have time for SEX, since they sleep only 4 hours a night next to each other, and then watch a funny "All in the Family" about a cousin Maude who's Beatrice Arthur and a CAMP. Watch the end of "The Evil Brain from Outer Space" with a Japanese Mr. Cosmos in skin-tight tights and jowls, and eat dinner while watching "Topaz" by Hitchcock, which is pretty bad except for the beautiful Karin Dor as a Cuban rebel shot by the Che type, and lots of spy-vs-spy antics which are very smoothly done, but hardly a great show. That's over at 11:45, and then I shower and go out for the Times, which I read fairly completely before watching "Fever Mounts in El Pao," which is something by Luis Bunuel, and it has a rather stolid Gerard Philippe acting as a peon-climbing-the-ladder, who starts out idealistic and ends up just as bad as the leader that he helps kill in the first place, to get his wife, acted rather icily by Maria Felix. That's over at 3, and John still isn't home, but I'm not willing to wait up any more for him, and don't bother to start the double-crostic since it looks rather difficult, but I did the regular crossword rather easily during the dull moments, and there were a lot of them, of the TV show. So I have to wait till morning to hear John's adventures at the Eulenspeigel Dance he went to tonight.
DIARY 3161
SUNDAY, JULY 9. Wake at 8 and John says he got in about 3:30 after licking some boots, meeting a guy he wants to see again on Thursday, fondling Fernando's body and cock ring, and speaking shortly to Bob Milne. Up to read more of the Times, and he decides he really wants to work rather than battling the crowd at the beach, and I figure to spend a quiet day around the apartment when, five minutes after John leaves, Mrs. Johnson calls to say I should come to her place to pay Ray $40 and he'll sign off on the lease and I can have the apartment! Decide IF I'm going to move to have the bike at John's, so I ride over after getting more air in the tires, and get there at 12, talk for a bit, he signs the lease, witnessed by me, and I give him $40. Then she takes me upstairs and I find he's ripped up the linoleum from the bathroom floor, hasn't taken down the ceiling, left boxes of junk that we have to cart downstairs, and the place is crummy. Ask John over to get spices that he wants from the kitchen, but he's too tired to work at his book work, so he helps me pull nails and hundreds of staples from the walls and doors, clean out the closets, make a pile of clothes to be taken to Mattachine, ransack the top hiding space and desk for goodies, decide to keep the desk, even though he took the handles (and most of the doorknobs) from it, and we start sweeping, sending up clouds of dust, and take down the tiny bookcase which is gone immediately, and tear down the over-radiator one in the living room and take down the lamps which he deliberately wrecked so that I couldn't use them. Start tearing the false-brick contact paper from the kitchen, but just get too tired, and the blister on my finger from pulling out staples has begun to hurt, and it's 5 pm and I'm tired and hungry. John has hamburger, so I have a drink and shower and get out to buy a souvlaki sandwich, and he cooks me soup and Ellie's apple pie, and then we smoke and get out to the moon-sun-lit Promenade. It's warm at the start, but it gets cooler. I sit on benches and count cuties that walk by, but they don't look at me, and it's darker and colder and no one's tumbled that I like, so I'm back at 10, and we get into bed without even kissing, and sleep.
DIARY 3163
MONDAY, JULY 10. I call Mrs. Johnson about 9:30 to try to make the appointment with the lawyer this morning, but she has a dental appointment so it has to be at 4 pm. I subway home with nothing to read, staring at the people, and at 10:15 the mailman's just finishing the delivery, and Roger's name is now official, just as I'm ready to leave. Sad to see there's no mail for me at ALL. Up and type three pages, look through NY Times ads for about an hour, then pack two shopping bags with fragile souvenirs and breakable glass knick-knacks which would be hardest to move, but still don't want to commit myself to the thought of moving: the rent may be upped to a ridiculous degree, they may want me to pay rent from July 1, all sorts of things could go wrong. Moon about the house waiting for time to pass, not even interested in working on the Mattachine articles, and get out at 2:45 to get there at 3:45, but subways connect perfectly and I get there at 3:15. John's on the phone, I put the bags under the highboy, and down at 3:45 to Mrs. Johnson's and we walk down Montague disagreeing on just about everything: the black woman, white man combination, free love, long hair, shorts, etc. Get to lawyer's office and he's amazed that I'm retired, "But I have to be sure you can pay the rent," then he warns me that the rent will probably go up "maybe 5%, maybe 10%" since it's no longer rent-controlled, at the end of the year's lease, and points out the special clause that I have to do all the painting and repairs on the place, except that Mrs. Johnson ALREADY fixed the two broken windows (for $27.85), and will put knobs and locks back into all the closet doors. Back through the twilight of a partial eclipse, a cut from the sun brightly visible, and John's at the store getting dinner, and I read the Village Voice and "White Magic" and he serves steaks and champagne to celebrate my signing, and then he talks to John Casarino and decides he wants to see Kathy Posin at Circle in the Square, and I decide I have to smoke to enjoy her, so I take it into the car, and thus commences an evening (see next page) of stoned enjoyment and mystification at the dance, afterwards at John's, terminating only when I woke, headachy, at 1 to leave for John's in John's car, into bed without even washing anything.
DIARY 3165
TUESDAY, JULY 11. No sex, but back home to LOTS of mail, including an early New York, an on-time Life, a LIFE response card to my letter, and two letters from Bill, sent two days apart. Glance through those and then start in on the telephone: talk to Norma, Marty, John Hood, Henry Messer, Madolyn Cervantes, and Dick Smith about knowing anybody to take my apartment, and about painters and rug cleaners. Call a few painters and send them to John's tomorrow, call Joe and he mentions Chris and says I can come down with measurements for shelving cheap, and call a number of rug places and finally find one, amongst all the ones charging in the 70's of $$, which charges $49.92 for both, with no pick-up charges. They'll pick it up tomorrow! So I get out to the liquor store across the street for one box, to the supermarket for no boxes, and to the liquor store on Broadway for 8, and back to pack the records and books, then down for another load and John's waiting for me downstairs at 4:30, and we're back for 9 more, and get my record from Record Club, and up to pack a bit more while John listens to the convention, and I convince him that he can take two restaurants in a row, since I want to try one on 47th and don't feel like going down to the Village to his. Out at 7 to Broodje, which is pleasant and inexpensive and good-tasting, and then walk down to 42nd to enable me to find a FABULOUS $6.50 "art" book with GREAT drawings, which I can't afford, since I owe John $5 and have only $4 in my wallet and he won't give me more. He goes off on his own and I shop some more, then stand on the awful corner watching the increasingly tacky 42nd Street world pass by. He goes up 8th by bus, but I walk, seeing more blacks, PR's, prostitutes and pimps than I'd ever seen before, and maybe I should be glad to be leaving. Back up and he's watching TV with the sound off and listening to WBAI, and I continue packing bottles and books and other stuff, watching the action for a bit, and he's smoking TWO pipes through the evening and makes popcorn, and we get into bed at 12:15, him stoned, giving me no answer to my question "Will this be the last time we sleep here?" though we'll probably be here LOTS more times.
DIARY 3167
WEDNESDAY, JULY 12. Up in the morning with a perfunctory cuddle, John leaves and I return to the task of making the rugs removable. Asked John to help me, but he said he had to get back to work. Begin at the windows in the living room, moving the bookcases out from the wall to roll up the rug and the pad, and then swing the half-full bookcases over the humps back into their places. Despair about moving the sofas, so I move them against the far wall and move the bookcases along the wall over the growing hump one by one. The vacuum cleaner is out going over each section of the dusty rug as it appears from under never-moved furniture, so that the carpet, as rolled, is merely dirty and not cruddy. Can't send a carpet out for cleaning before cleaning it myself! Down for NO mail and talk to Avery about her friend the programmer and growing grass. Finally move the last bookcase into the hallway, thinking to move it over the hump after it's all rolled up, and that leaves only the two sofas to be moved in the living room. Then into the bedroom and move much of the stuff onto the bare floor, so that I can hardly get to the tuner set back on a stray bookcase, with the last connected speaker facing the encyclopedias. Move everything from its place in the bedroom so that the areas underneath can be vacuumed, but there remain six large items on the rug (bed, desk, three chests and the worst of all, the file cabinet). So there are eight pieces left to be moved, and it's getting close to 2, when they said they'd come. Call there and he said he'd come tonight. Eat lunch and am just putting the finishing touches on the room when the buzzer sounds peremptorily from downstairs, they refuse to answer my "Who is it?" and they blast through with the carpet moving as described on the previous page. Call John afterwards, and then push things back into order, connecting a second speaker, Charles Mountain calls for a long time about the Democratic Platform response to the gay plank, and get things into shape good enough to retire to the bedroom to type four pages to bring me up to date, even INCLUDING the carpet moving, and I shower and leave for John's at 5, carrying a shopping bag with stuff from under the kitchen sink (forgetting the bedroom ceiling fixture) and the Wollensack, and get to John's at 6, have dinner, and take care of details in the apartment (see next page) before taking a short unstoned stroll on the Promenade and getting to bed at 11, after lying and listening to the convention for about half an hour.
DIARY 3169
THURSDAY, JULY 13. Wake at 6:45 to bright light shining in with the dashing rain, and lay till 8, getting a headache lying there bemoaning my fate, and carp at John about the light (and the noise through the open-windowed screen), taking two aspirin, which help. Settle down with "Treatise on White Magic" since I have no books to read except the too-heavy "Leaves of Grass," and type the (next page) in memory of reading it. Leave at 10:45 for unemployment, again no line, and then wander in rain up to Joe at Door Store, where I decide I'll be getting white Formica, if anything, and get a catalog and tell Chris "I've found someone." Not raining so hard when I get out at 12:30, after telling Joe we'd go to lunch someday, my not connecting it to HIM with the 30% (or more) discount he'll give me for the shelving I'll buy. Uptown to wait in a long line at the bank to cash two checks and transfer more money from savings to wallet and checking, then to the supermarket for the last lot of groceries so that I can eat, and then home to open the last can of Spam and have corn and cucumbers and cake, which taste very good, but I don't feel like doing anything AFTER I eat. Sit dejectedly on the sofa looking at the ravaged apartment, depressed because the painting isn't settled yet, because there's no mail response to my applications for jobs, because I'll not be settled in the new place until the last week of July, because I don't feel like I have the energy to DO anything. In sheer boredom get the pornography out of the closet and come quickly and pleasurably, wondering if there's something wrong between John and me, possibly a kind of stage fright over actually coming so close to LIVING together, since we have a LONG painful talk about getting the furniture IN before deciding where to put all the books in the morning, first of a long series. Then at 2:40 I'm reminded of the Beth-Israel Out-Patient Department I'm supposed to see today, so I get stuff together, subway down, and arrive at 3:15 to a great place (see following page), out at 3:45 to Brentano's to buy another "Magic Mountain," a new Hesse book, and an Arthur Machen book; there's no one at Mattachine, so I walk to Henry's, he's not home. Walk down street and there he IS, so I get keys for Mattachine (see subsequent page), which I leave at 9:50, get to John's for smoking his new crop, fondle for an hour, doze off, then turn the music off at 1 to fall asleep without even kissing.
DIARY 3173
FRIDAY, JULY 14. Having nothing ready for the trip to the island, I trip home with only a goodbye kiss from John at 9, reading "Strange News from Another Star" for almost an hour to finish it, putting Hesse even further ahead in "number of books read." Then have breakfast and catch up with the diary, doing six pages, and then Norma calls to say that friends of hers, the Prahs, are looking for an apartment, and they come in at 11 and stay until about 11:45, which means that I only have time to shower and grab a tuna-fish lunch before packing my suitcase for the weekend (having already gone out to buy the white vinegar and cukes for the salad this evening) with the cukes taking the majority of the room, along with the powdered sugar I have left and the parer. Don't have time to extract things from the critiques, write a letter to Bill, or call for movers like I wanted to, and get to Henry's just at 1:15, but have to wait for him to get there and Carl to fill the tank of the Cadillac. Pack the trunk and into the steaming car for a long drive without the air conditioner being able to cool the roof over the back seat, where I'm sitting in the middle, and make notes about what points I want to bring up, but when we get there at 3, find that they have it all organized their OWN way (see next page). Leave at 8, weary, and drive down to Sayville and unpack the trunk while Carl parks the car, and get the humpiest lawyer in the world pointed out to us, and he's staying at John Hood's place! Pay the $1.50 to get onto the ferry, and it's a cool, spray-dashed crossing into the mist which obscures either shore from the opposite side, and we're into the bustling marina and off the boat to get the conveyance for the walk along the elevated boardwalks of the Pines, going almost to the end of Fire Island Boulevard before turning off on Fisherman's Walk, and down to the Bay to a large house with many awful people already there: Howard, large and Joe Easter-like in his ugliness; Bill, or "Gramps" red-faced and gray-haired; Mark, a cute 21-year-old "protégé" of Henry's; John, a sharp-faced bald fellow; and Miguel, old, Cuban, and ugly. John cooks his Szekely goulash, my salad's postponed in favor of a tossed salad, and we get to see some of the films, but John's up to bed at 12, and I follow at 12:30, cursing for no sex in this sexiest place.
DIARY 3175
SATURDAY, JULY 15. Can't sleep because of the music from downstairs, and then it seems that I look at my watch each hour from 1 to 4, and then John gets up in the dawning at 4:20 and leaves, and I doze a bit before finally crawling out of bed at 9 am, finally getting over my lethargy enough to at least MOVE. Walk out without breakfast to see the area, going east along the boardwalk until the end, then follow it to the left to look out over the jellyfish in the bay, noticing a few persons loitering around some of the nearby inlets, and then follow the jeep tracks to the ocean at the south, watching the gray falling waves for periods of time between cruising pretty passersby, some of whom even please me by smiling at me and nodding "Good morning." Walk further east until I get to Bancroft Beach, or suchlike, for the town of Islip, which Henry later tells me used to be Talisman, which was torn down when the seashore was constructed to minimize change to the sandbar which is Fire Island. Up onto the walkway to look over all the boats, and the sun's getting very hot, so I'm down and make my way back, intending to walk all the way to the community on the OTHER side of the Pines, but in the middle I run into Bob Rosinek playing in the surf with Alicia, who doesn't like me, and we talk about his current job in printing, where he's Business Manager, and his possible future job in biofeedback, where he's curing headaches by sending blood to his palms, trying to break through his steady solid alpha to his un-get-at-able theta, and finding about "relaxing his frontalis" and increasing his body weight by raising his body temperature, etc. By then I'm hot and red, so I walk back along the boardwalk, thinking, writing notes in "The Three Imposters" (see next page) when I tire of reading "The Magic Mountain." To store with Henry which REALLY burns my shoulders, and lunch of charcoalled frank and beer. Don and Henry constantly pester me, but I read and drink, and John's back and we watch the sunset together on the patio, then inside to another tossed salad and awful clams on noodles, which are fine, great broiled chicken, carrots, and homemade strawberry ice cream for dessert. More movies, including a fantastic duo slow-motion come, and AGAIN I'm up into bed with John at 1 am, VERY tired from the day, and depressed.
DIARY 3178
SUNDAY, JULY 16. Don't even hear John leave at 4:30 again, but lay in bed, going through dreams which I've forgotten, until 9:30, and then I remember the series of calls last night that John Hood's priest-lover Jeffrey was going to say mass at 9:45 this morning, so I dressed quickly and walked to John Hood's house, getting in late at 10, but finding John still naked, so he woke up the rest of the people, prodded Jeffrey who was shaving, and I had a cool orange and talked to Mike on the way to Cherry Grove, about how much he didn't like Brooklyn Heights. To Whippoorwill Cottage right across from the Belvedere, and I sit in the shade while the even dozen of us participate in the service, which is stiff and awkward and non-cooperative until the communion, which I think is always nice. Everyone has something to do but me, so I walk back with Mel, who's a rather nice doll, but he's so busy with the house that I decide not to see him this afternoon, and maybe try to get to him some other time. Back to the house about noon, and have some ice cream and watermelon and finish the puzzles, and then settle down to finish reading Machen's "The Three Imposters," absolutely awful, though it does have a certain STYLE that lifts it about MERE junk, and then Bill and Don and Dick and I play Hearts, that Dick invariably wins, and he starts making out Jumble games for me. Bill loses one, I lose the other, and the Irish guy from next door comes over, invited by John, and I'm feeling ever more irritable by the whole weekend, but the flank steaks for dinner are overdone and tasty, I finally do my cucumbers, all 9 of them, and they're all eaten and liked, too. Then to the last ferry at 9:30, sitting on the listing top, and we drive the long way into town in hot traffic until midnight, playing Twenty Questions while John sleeps between being tromped on by Big Brother, and then we're out at 34th Street and subway uptown in the enormous heat, and I'm relieved to find I CAN get into my apartment, and we turn the air conditioner on full blast, but still the mattress feels like a furnace slowly grilling us, and John and I only kiss before falling off to sleep, and I can finally stop brooding about the disastrous weekend.
DIARY 3179
MONDAY, JULY 17. No sex and John leaves early, and I call at 9 (to find the gal not in yet) to get an appointment at 10 tomorrow with Mr. Gopal Raju of India Abroad for the freelance writing that I got back in the mail, the first response! Don't feel like doing ANYTHING today, so I figure I can at least do the shopping and errands I want to today, so I make a tiny list and get out to get the MMA schedule to find they're showing BOTH "Wings" AND "The Last Command," and the latter only once, on Wednesday of next week, when I was going to be moving! Change addresses while I'm there, then walk in the crowded, smelling humid streets down to 42nd to buy the $6.50 Gay Art book that I wanted, and across to pick up the Sunday Times (which was the real reason I went out, since all the papers downstairs were bound up in black plastic sacks, very discouraging) at 207 West 43rd Street, where they're always available, a nice point, and then up 8th Avenue to pick up a change of address card, and they don't HAVE any for people. Up to my place about 1:30 and read through the book, coming twice during it, sweating in the heat of the room, not even cooled enough from the air conditioner in the bedroom. Eat lunch about 2:30, then start going through all the sections and ads in the Times, cutting out six that sound good, and being interrupted by a door buzz from the super, who say's I didn't tell him I was moving, and I said that WALENTIS didn't tell him I was moving, and then a couple who seem to be interested in it come up to look at it, while I show them around with only bell bottoms on, and they remark about how hot it is. Then John calls (after Paul calls to say he'll be in on Wednesday noon) to sound like he misses me, and THAT makes me up-tight too, since I've come twice, so I have dinner of tuna fish and get to his place with a suitcase filled with lamp fixtures and pornography, and we argue about my seeing the movie on Wednesday, but decide to move on Thursday, the painter will come Saturday, and we're out on the Promenade with beer, then back to smoke, and I play and play and play with him while he glances through the book, and then we have grinding, almost bleeding sex, I doing him until he shouts, me doing myself strongly, and we fall sweatingly asleep at 11:15: but I'm still worried about a THOUSAND things.
DIARY 3180
TUESDAY, JULY 18. Awake at 6:45, as seems to be usual with the light streaming into the room, and cuddle a bit until John decides to get out of bed at 8, and read a bit of the Voice before leaving at 9:35, deciding too late that that's too late, and out of the subway at 42nd at 10, and get to the office at 10:10, and have a hectic interview until 10:50 (see next page) with Mr. Raju. Stop in at the library after I have scrambled eggs (when I order pastrami) on a roll at Zum-Zum, with birch beer for $1.05 with tip. Do some of the basic research on the idea of the Indians in Physics book, and leave at 12:30 up to my place by subway to get Life and New York, which I read on the bed directly under the air conditioner, and I don't feel like doing ANYTHING, not even sending out the resumes which I don't seem to have enough of for all the letters I want sent, and I agonize for about five minutes before checking the movie list at the MMA and seeing that it's DeMille's 1916 "Joan the Woman," so I take off to see that at 1:50, getting into the theater just as the lights go down, and it's pretty bad, with Geraldine Ferrar too old, stilted, and hammy for Joan, but some of the battle scenes were so dusty and confused that they conveyed an air of realism more striking than the later well-planned efforts in the same direction: so many people falling, so many horses rearing or galloping off at the wrong time: just like real life. Home at 4:30, sweating profusely, and type one page to find that there's a Mattachine Board of Directors meeting tonight, so I phone John and say I'll be there at 8, not 7, for his dinner, and shave and shower and take off for another boring meeting (see following page), leaving at 7:30 to get to John's, drink and chat until 9, when he calls his DC friend's host, who obviously FORGOT about the invitation yesterday to dinner, so we smoke greatly and nod over a dinner of striped bass, underdone peas and potatoes, and a dessert of silver-paper covered chocolate mousse, served up on John's cock when I insisted on HIM for dessert, but we stroke and groan and agonize and sweat but neither of us comes, and we finish up with sex play at 11:15 again, and wash the chocolate off our bodies and fall asleep: the drugged overheated sleep of the hot humid summer, relieved only by fans, on again after a power failure.
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