Liberation (29 page)

 

February 17.
At the gym today I weighed just under 148. Saw Evelyn Hooker, who gave me two of the files from her archives of case histories. After I've read them, we're to meet and talk. I feel more doubtful than ever about doing the book with her and I tried to prepare her for this, this morning. I'm determined not to take on another job in which I'm just a ghost writer—unless, of course, it's for the Vedanta Society!

Rather miraculously this morning, despite the British postal strike, the missing Chekhov volume,
The Schoolmistress
, from the Constance Garnett edition, arrived, sent by Heywood Hill.
⁷⁹

Don has hung two of his paintings, which I call the “white” ones, in my workroom. One of them is certainly among the best things he has ever done—the white woman with the pink-face man looking over her shoulder within a blue frame which seems to be partly made of spider's webs.
⁸⁰

 

February 18.
Yesterday Don went over to the house on the opposite hill from which we hear the terrible dog barking—the house he once visited in the middle of the night, without being able to rouse anyone. This time a man was there; Don describes him as a middle-aged hippie. He wasn't at all apologetic, but Don feels some impression was made on him.

This morning I ran a whole class of painters with their easels off the top of our ramp and the top of the steps down to Don's studio. I feel ashamed of my ill humor and yet, why the fuck do they think they can encamp themselves there without even coming down to the house and asking permission?

We are pushing ahead with “Frankenstein,” rather grimly. Probably we'll enjoy it more later.

John Lehmann called yesterday. He wants to stay here, early next month, when he gives a lecture. Don is furious.

 

February 19.
At the gym I weighed only a fraction over 147. (These gym weights are always with my gym clothes on but without shoes; the terribly high weights of this time last year in London were naked on the bathroom scale.) I believe my piles bled, because I found some blood on the bench where I was sitting after being in the hot room and under the shower; a bit worried about this.

A gruesome party last night given by Rachel Roberts and her lover Darren Ramirez. Darren is a very sweet-natured boy, slender and well built and pretty in a Mexican El Greco way. He designs clothes and often wears something striking; last night it was a marvellous shirt with a pattern like the markings on a tropical butterfly. The shirt was open nearly to the waist, showing his long slim body with curly black hair on it, which was quite sexy but embarrassingly faggy. I'm sure everybody in Rachel's circle dismisses him as a queer who is simply after her money—but life isn't that simple. Marti Stevens is sure that he is devoted to her, and has helped her stop drinking. Darrin and his mother fixed a first-rate Mexican meal. I wish they had fixed the guest list too. Some time ago, Rachel tried to invite me to meet the British Consul, Andrew Franklin, and I refused. Well, he was there and he is a stunning bore of the old school—he reminded me a bit of Sylvain [Mangeot] and even of Basil Fry. We talked about Berlin and China and the Manson case,
⁸¹
and he knew a great deal—about the first two subjects at any rate—and made his knowledge absolutely intolerable. Tony Shaffer, the one who wrote
Sleuth
,
⁸²
was there too and was also a bore, though much more sympathetic.

Have just talked to Rachel on the phone. This morning, her divorce proceedings went through, at the court in Santa Monica. Told her how much I like Darrin, which pleased her.

(Marti surprised me yesterday by telling me she had a short affair with Brook Williams; that was how she got to know Emlyn and Molly. She was at the party too, looking ghastly. I feel sure the scald she got at the time of the earthquake is festering and starting to poison her.)

When telling me about the court proceedings, Rachel kept saying how ridiculous and obsolete and meaningless marriage and divorce are, nowadays; and yet, a moment later, she remarked that one item in the divorce settlement hadn't been clear to her and she had asked the judge to explain it—namely, how was the money for her support going to be paid in the event of Rex's death! The answer, it seems, was satisfactory.

 

February 20.
Terrific wind began as soon as it got dark and grew stronger and stronger; a man on T.V. said it was blowing in gusts of seventy-five miles an hour. The door to the cellar won't shut properly and kept slamming. The wind makes both of us nervous. But this time I noticed that I didn't mind it quite as much as usual, although it was shaking the house, because it seemed an anticlimax after the earthquake. This morning there is still a lot of wind and it is clear and brilliant; the light is almost Australian.

Gore was on “The Merv Griffin Show,” almost unbelievably fatter than when we saw him, less than three weeks ago. (Of course I don't know when this show was taped.) Griffin tried to get him to talk about Merle Miller, the writer who has just declared himself to be homosexual;
⁸³
but Gore was cagey, perhaps because he is now halfway into politics again, getting together this third party with Dr. Spock[,] and Ralph Nader for their presidential candidate. Last night, Don decided that
he
was overweight, 143; so we had nothing but soup for supper—only, the way he fixes it, it is a meal, anyhow.

Jess and Glade Bachardy came down early and Jess proceeded to fix the hum on our T.V. within a few minutes; we've had it for months.

 

February 21.
I went to see Swami yesterday afternoon, having been put off from doing this because Swami was feeling tired and his pulse was missing beats and he had slight asthma (which the doctor said was due to his heart condition). I arrived early at Vedanta Place, so I asked Ananda for the key to the shrine gate and went in and sat right up close in front of the shrine. I don't know when I did this last; it is quite different, and not nearly so satisfactory from my point of view, to sit at the side as I do at the Vivekananda breakfast pujas. And then of course it makes all the difference, being alone in there. When I am alone I get the sense of confrontation, the “setting face to face” which is so wonderful and which I try to recapture when I'm meditating here at home. Well, it began working almost at once and almost without effort; I just reminded myself that it was before this shrine that Swami had his visions and that Sister used to see “the light” and that Krishna has chanted day after day. I felt the Presence and exposed myself to it, making no demand whatever, except to include Don in the exposure; it was like a radiation treatment and I knew that it was getting to me, all I had to do was stay there. And then, just when I was really open to it, in came someone and sat just behind me to the side and began whispering “Chris” and I turned and it was Ananda to say apologetically that Swami was ready to see me.

So I reminded myself that Swami is a human shrine and therefore really much more worth visiting, and that he contains his relics too, his memories of Maharaj and the others. I found him looking not only beautiful but surprisingly well. He described his treatment as he always does, in great detail, and then told me the doctor had asked him, “Are you depressed?” and that he'd answered, “Oh
no,
I'm
never
depressed.” (The smile with which Swami told me this was so marvellous, not in the very least superior but gently amused, as much as to say how ridiculous to ask someone if he is depressed, when that person has seen Maharaj!)

Last night we had Camilla Clay and Linda Crawford and Gavin and Mark to supper, and barbecued a butterflied leg of lamb. I had feared that the high wind we had earlier would make this dangerous but it dropped to a calm which was so dead that I had to use the bellows to get the charcoal going. Indoors, we had a cheerful fire fed by bits of my old bookcases. Camilla is on the wagon but Linda got fairly drunk. Both Gavin and Mark are dieting. Mark wants to lose twenty pounds, Gavin just a few. I asked Gavin what weight he wanted to get back down to and he surprised me by saying 158. Gavin and Mark had been to Las Vegas to see Elvis and had both liked him, but Gavin had been disgusted by Las Vegas itself. During the evening there were two earthquake jolts which I, who was in the kitchen and standing up, didn't even feel; but the others felt them and this morning we hear that the bigger of the two was 4.3. Everyone is still quake conscious and inclined to be jittery and there is much talk of the “big one” that is coming.

 

February 22.
I have now finished another volume of Chekhov, the fourth, and two Richard Brautigan books,
Trout Fishing
and a volume of poems called
The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster
. I still love reading Chekhov as much as ever and am starting on the next volume right away. Brautigan amuses me much of the time, when I'm not being repelled by his whimsey. This kind of writing is sweaty, though; I am so aware of the author knocking himself out keeping me amused.

This morning I also finished the second of the two files I borrowed from Evelyn Hooker. What a plodding old donkey psychology is! Evelyn's questions are full of phrases like, “His own processes of sexual arousal are on the ascending incline,” “I don't have a very clear picture of how much mutual stimulation is going on,” “The primary stimulation is on the head of the penis. Would that be true?” “While I have asked you many questions about sexual preferences and gratifications, I have not really asked you questions couched in his terms of the basic mechanics of sex.” I really can't imagine myself working with Evelyn on this sort of thing; it would be like having to write a book in a foreign language. But I mustn't prejudge the issue. I must wait until we have had a talk and I have found out just exactly what it is she wants me to contribute.

Just a shade over 148 pounds at the gym.

 

February 23.
Yesterday afternoon, Hunt Stromberg's secretary called, asking if we had any work for her to send on to him in Texas—this is the first jog he has given us. So we have been hurrying to get a faircopy of our opening finished, as far as the attempted suicide of the Creature and Frankenstein's return to Elizabeth. That ought to be ready tomorrow.

A series of tornadoes in Mississippi and Louisiana has killed more people and done more damage than our earthquake. Hope this doesn't make the San Andreas Fault feel competitive!

Chris Wood came by this morning, with the first two folders of my book, to collect the third. He has had flu and looks terribly stricken and skinny, though sunburnt. His back is getting so rounded that he almost has a hump. He told us proudly that he hadn't gone to bed or seen a doctor and that he had thought he was dying. He was on his way to see Gerald but thought perhaps he ought not to go in, in case he was still infectious. It would certainly be ironic, beautiful almost, if Chris were to be the one who gave poor Gerald his release. We joked about this—you say such things to Chris without embarrassment—and yet I suppose if it really happened he'd feel guilty.

An item in the London
Sunday Times
says David Hockney is going to Japan later this year, so maybe we'll get a visit from him here.

 

February 24.
Weight at gym, 148. Today we finished and sent off a new draft of the first section of “Frankenstein” to Hunt in Texas.

Last night we saw two rather dreary films with Gavin and Mark,
Babes on Broadway
(with [Mickey] Rooney at his sweatiest) and
The Harvey Girls
, which really is a deeply shocking story about the triumph of respectable girls over whores; the only sympathetic character was Angela Lansbury and she didn't have a proper part. And then the terrible extravagance of eating out, at Frascati's on the Strip—seventeen dollars for the two of us. It is wrong not to be stingy in these cases. Mark Andrews wore a scarlet sweatsuit; it's curious to think that, ten years ago or less, he would never have been allowed into any restaurant in the area, dressed like that! Again, he hogged the conversation, which didn't matter except that it was so late and we were exhausted.

Gavin was shown the paintings by Don which are now in my room. He liked one of the “white” ones (the one I like less) and the big head. We weren't sure how much—but he repeated that he liked them as we were saying goodnight; which, as Don said, was tactful at least.

 

February 28.
I had made one of my compulsionistic resolves to keep this diary every single day throughout February. Well, I haven't.

There's not really much to record. I got a copy of a pamphlet written about me by an associate professor of English at Columbia University named Carolyn G. Heilbrun. It's only forty-six pages but at least it's
a book
, and it's in a quite distinguished-looking series called Columbia Essays on Modern Writers. I can't judge how “good” it is. Shall be interested to know what other people think of it. No news of Alan Wilde's book on me yet.

On the 25th we had Leslie and Michael Laughlin and Jack Larson to supper. It was blowing a gale and the whole house shook. I had to barbecue outside the front door and even with that much shelter it was quite dangerous. Jack made the evening by announcing, as soon as he arrived, that Jean Dickson (I think it was)
⁸⁴
had prophesied there was to be a ghastly earthquake complete with tidal wave right here between 8:00 and 10:00 p.m. this very evening! Jack said he had been told this by phone by Jim who was in New York and said the whole city was talking about it—and gloating no doubt. Anyhow, both Leslie and Michael got a bit nervous and the gale added to our state of tension. It was a relief when 10 o'clock passed. Both Leslie and Michael, Michael particularly, praised the new paintings which Don has hung in my workroom. Michael liked the same “white” one that Gavin liked and thought it much the best of all Don's “movie star” paintings.