June 2: “Bill Caskey’s birthday party at Jay’s.”
This is the first mention of Caskey in the day-to-day diary, but Christopher must certainly have met him weeks or even months earlier. This was another case in which Denny had played Satan—daring Christopher to start an affair with someone. When Caskey and his friend Hayden Lewis first showed up in the Canyon, Denny had told Christopher that Caskey had been the boyfriend of “a rich old man” (Len Hanna) and that he had been so disgusted by this affair that he had made a vow never again to go to bed with anyone older than himself. No doubt Denny had told Christopher this in such a way as to challenge Christopher’s middle-aged vanity. Anyhow, Christopher had met Caskey and had found him attractive, but hadn’t done much about it. They had talked at parties and gone for walks together on the beach; that was all.
Meanwhile, Jay Laval had done something about Caskey. They had been to bed together—which meant that Caskey had broken his vow—and now Jay was giving Caskey a party for his (twenty-fourth) birthday. This party made the affair official, from Jay’s point of view; he was very possessive and unwisely apt to display his new conquests to his friends. No doubt it was the party which aroused Denny’s spirit of mischief; he must have egged Christopher on to make a pass at Caskey. That afternoon, Christopher was going shopping and he asked Caskey to come along for the ride. They went into a clothing store and Christopher bought Caskey a shirt, as a birthday present. At the party, Jay drank a lot and fell asleep, as he often did. Christopher returned from the party to Denny’s apartment and told Denny that Caskey had promised to follow him as soon as he could get away. Denny bet Christopher that Caskey wouldn’t show up—but he probably wasn’t either surprised or displeased when they heard the sound of Caskey’s sneakers bounding up the staircase. Christopher, of course, was grinning with gratified vanity from ear to ear.
Caskey and Christopher spent the night together and found themselves sexually compatible; Christopher came in Caskey’s mouth, which he was very seldom able to do with anyone. But this didn’t lead to instant infatuation—for, according to the day-to-day diary, they didn’t see each other again for a week. Jay was very cross and hurt, when he discovered what had happened. He accused Caskey of ingratitude, feeling that the guest of honor at a birthday party ought to stay in his host’s bed—even if the host has passed out. As for Christopher, Jay said that his behavior was “hardly what I should have expected, after all his talk about Ramakrishna.” But Jay didn’t bear grudges; he was basically very good-natured. There was a peace meeting, apologies were made, drinks were drunk, Jay soon found another boy and he, Caskey and Christopher became good friends again.
The next day, June 3, was a Sunday, so Steve was able to come down to Denny’s. Steve and Christopher drove to Lake Sherwood. When they got back, Denny was giving a party. I am nearly certain that this was the occasion on which a pretty blond naval officer named Willy Tompkins[41] and an army lieutenant were persuaded by the other guests to take off their clothes and have sex on the couch, with everybody watching. This excited [one of the guests] so much that he wanted to do the same with Christopher, but Christopher was embarrassed and wouldn’t. (Willy Tompkins and the lieutenant later retired to Jay’s apartment and made love in private.)
On June 4, Christopher went back to work at Warner’s—almost certainly on Up at the Villa, with Wolfgang Reinhardt.42
This must also have been the day on which Christopher first discovered, or at least suspected, that he had caught the clap. On June 5, he went to a Dr. Zeiler to be examined and on the 6th he spent the day at Dr. Zeiler’s office, being given shots of penicillin. The shots cured him right away—he only saw Dr. Zeiler once more, on the 11th, for a checkup. This was Christopher’s second dose of clap and its cure was a happy contrast to the first—those burning douches of potassium permanganate which the Brussels doctor squirted up Christopher’s smarting urethra, day after day, in December 1938. The very atmosphere in the offices of the two doctors was quite different. The Brussels doctor was breezy but brutal and his office had a certain grimness, appropriate to those days, when even gonorrhea was a serious business and syphilis was sometimes incurable. Whereas Dr. Zeiler’s office seemed bright with the dawn of the Penicillin Era, the doctor gave the injections as casually as if they were flu shots and his nurse, when they had finished, smiled archly at Christopher and said, “That’ll teach you to be a good boy, won’t it?” No, not good, Christopher thought, but careful. Here was yet another situation in which he felt ashamed of himself and, at the same time, contemptuous of his shame. It was shaming to return from a V.D. clinic to a monastery, but only shaming when he imagined Swami somehow finding out. Once again, he told himself that he must abandon his false position by leaving the center at the first possible opportunity.
It wasn’t Steve’s fault that he had infected Christopher; Steve was quite unaware that he had the clap, it was in his rectum, so there was no burning and no discharge. When they first went to bed together, Steve wanted Christopher to fuck him but added that this probably wouldn’t work, someone else had tried to and hadn’t been able to get inside. Christopher tried and succeeded. It always excited him to fuck a virgin and he felt pleasantly superior to the “someone else.” But the joke was on Christopher, because the “someone else” had had clap and he had at least gotten in far enough to give it to Steve.
Steve was very apologetic. He expressed fears that Christopher would now stop wanting to see him. No doubt Christopher was anxious to assure him that this wasn’t true—they met four times in the next seven days—but the clap really did draw them closer together, for a short while at least; they had something in common, a shared experience. (Christopher couldn’t resist telling Collier about it, however. Collier was delighted. He rolled on the floor, laughing. Thereafter, when Christopher came into his office in the morning, Collier would ask, “Well, my boy, what have you to report—of grave or gay?”) Steve was treated by a different doctor—a woman, I think—and quickly cured.
On June 7, Christopher went to a party at Rex Evans’s apartment; among the guests were Maugham, George Cukor and Ethel Barrymore.
It seems to me that this must have been at the beginning of the time when Willie was staying with George Cukor and working on a script of The Razor’s Edge.43 It was quite possibly at this party that Christopher witnessed a truly classic display of unabashed ass licking. Someone—I’m nearly sure it was Charlie Brackett—was talking to Maugham about a film they had watched together, a short while before. This someone said: “Mr. Maugham, I don’t know whether you remember—I certainly shall never forget it—as we were coming out of that theater, you made one of the most penetrating, one of the most profound criticisms I have ever heard in my life—you said, It’s not dramatic!” Willie didn’t reply, but he looked at the speaker with his old old black eyes—and the look said all that was necessary.
This was the first time that Christopher had seen Willie since January 1941, when Willie visited Los Angeles with Gerald Haxton. Christopher had lately been told by Bill Caskey that he had been having an affair with Haxton in those days, and that Haxton had invited him to come out to California with him and Willie. Caskey had refused, for some reason, although he had liked Haxton very much. And now Haxton was dead; he had died in 1944. The day-to-day diary doesn’t record that Caskey ever went with Christopher to see Willie during his visit. Perhaps Caskey felt Willie wouldn’t want to see him, because of the association with Haxton.
June 9: “Saw The Letter in projection room. Helped Steve move his things to Rose Garden Apartments.”
This was the Bette Davis film version of the Maugham play, with its punishment-murder of Mrs. Crosbie tacked onto the story as a concession to the censorship code. Maybe Christopher and Willie saw it together. Anyhow Willie did see the film about this time and, on being asked how he had liked it, made the famous answer, “I liked all the p-parts I wrote.”
The Rose Garden Apartments was where Christopher and Vernon Old had stay
ed for about a month in 1939—their first Hollywood home. Perhaps Christopher had recommended it to Steve for this reason. But the room Steve got was dark and depressing, down in the basement, with walls so thin that you could hear whatever was said next door. Sex making was embarrassing and therefore apt to become defiantly noisy or to break up in self-conscious giggles.
June 18: “Supper at Players with Swami and Maugham.” This was probably the first of Maugham’s conferences with Swami about his screenplay for The Razor’s Edge. There were other meetings later at which Cukor was present. Maugham and Cukor wanted Swami to tell them exactly what Shri Ganesha would have taught Larry. So Swami wrote it out for them, as concisely as he could. And Maugham put it into his screenplay—presumably.44
The Players Restaurant on the Sunset Strip was in those days almost a club, as the Brown Derby had once been. Christopher went there quite often—particularly with van Druten, who used to refer to it as “our place.” He also often saw Keith Winter there, very drunk and inclined to be weepy about his life and sorrows. (Not long after this, Keith had a breakdown and then stopped drinking.)
Steve had started going to dramatic classes at Ouspenskaya’s school—this is first referred to on June 12. As far as I remember, the classes consisted largely of learning to sway like corn in the wind and to break like sea waves. I don’t think Steve persevered in this for long.
At this time, Christopher was interested in consulting clairvoyants. His motive was partly a wish to know what was going to happen to him, but it was also, and to a much greater degree, scientific curiosity. He was, he said to himself, at a point in his life at which the future seemed altogether obscure—all he knew was that he would soon leave the Vedanta Center, and he had no idea what would happen next. Therefore his was an ideal test case for the powers of precognition which a clairvoyant is supposed to have.
I forget who the people were that Christopher consulted—the unfamiliar names which occur in the day-to-day diary at this time give no definite clue. All I remember is one curious episode: A clairvoyant (who otherwise told Christopher nothing memorable) said, “Quite soon, in a few hours, a close friend of yours will get into serious trouble, he will be arrested—but don’t worry, everything will come out all right.” That same evening, Steve was walking along the street when he was stopped by the shore patrol and asked to identify himself This happened all the time, for there were a lot of servicemen going around AWOL in civilian clothes. Steve had been in the navy (in an office in Utah or Nebraska) and had received an honorable discharge. He was supposed to carry this discharge with him at all times, but he had left it at home that evening, which was an offense. So he was under arrest for a while, until the discharge had been produced. He was then cautioned and set free. Christopher knew nothing of this until Steve called and told him, next day.
The day-to-day diary records two more Swami—Maugham meetings; on June 29, Willie came to supper at the Vedanta Center and on July 6 Swami and Christopher went to supper at George Cukor’s with Ethel Barrymore and Katharine Hepburn also present. I can recall nothing of these. But I do remember, with impressionistic vividness, another, daytime occasion when Christopher was summoned to Cukor’s house because Maugham wanted to speak to him. I have a picture of Christopher making his way through a succession of rooms like Chinese boxes, each one smaller than the last and all crammed with paintings and souvenirs and treasures, into the innermost sanctuary, where Willie sits writing and looks up from his work to say, “I think, C-Christopher, you’d b-better warn your friend Denham that his apartment is b-being watched by the p-police.” (What I do not remember is, how Willie had heard this bit of information. It seems to me that Denny had been reported to the police because of his association with minors, including probably Jeff and Curly. But nothing serious came of it. Denny was very impressed and pleased that Willie had taken the trouble to warn him.)45
On July 26, Christopher had lunch with Miss Dicky Bonaparte, the immigration counsellor who had helped him get his quota visa and take out his first citizenship papers in 1939. This must mean that they were discussing the steps he must take to get his citizenship; he was now eligible for it. At that time, no conscientious objector could become a citizen because no exceptions or reservations were allowed in taking the loyalty oath; you had to swear to defend the country, no matter what your age and sex were. Christopher had been advised that he should apply for citizenship, however—because soon the regulations might be altered and because, if he didn’t apply, his application might be refused later. So he applied, and went downtown to talk to someone in the immigration bureau. This official was not merely understanding but really friendly; it happened that he had liked some of Christopher’s books. He even urged Christopher to take the oath anyway, “After all, it’s just a form of words.” Christopher was charmed by such civilized cynicism, but he wasn’t about to commit himself to a public lie which might be used against him sometime in the future by a less friendly bureaucrat. So, with an air of modest nobility, he refused.
All through July, Christopher had continued to see Steve. The day-to-day diary mentions only one meeting with Caskey—they had spent the night on the beach, July 21. But at the beginning of August, a change is evident. Christopher sees Steve on the 1st and has supper with him on the 3rd. On the 4th, Denny is away in Mexico and Christopher stays at his apartment with Caskey. After that, Christopher and Caskey begin seeing each other regularly and there are no more meetings with Steve—except for a supper with Steve and his mother, probably a duty date, on August 22.
My memories of this switchover are very dim; perhaps incidents and conversations have been censored by Christopher’s feelings of guilt. Christopher’s guilt, if any, is uninteresting. The only important question is, did Steve mind being dropped? I think he probably did, much more than he showed; but I don’t believe he let it upset him for long. He was very self-reliant. It seems to me that Steve once said, “If I had a lot of money and could invite you out, everything would be different.” This (if he did indeed say it) was touching but quite untrue. Christopher never minded paying, as long as he was sure his guest wasn’t a gold digger—and never for one moment did he suspect Steve of that. Caskey didn’t have any money, either.
Caskey or no Caskey, Christopher would have left Steve before long—because Steve didn’t fit into the rest of his life. Steve embarrassed him in every way, not only when they were in company but even when they were alone together. When Steve told Christopher that he thought him much better looking than Gary Cooper, Christopher was amused, of course, but he also felt depressed by the absurdity of the comparison. This was the wrong myth, the wrong kind of playacting; he couldn’t go along with it. Even while they were screwing, Christopher often felt it was like a scene out of True Confessions.[46] And, when other people were there, Christopher always was aware of being on the defensive. He was watching to see how they would react to Steve. Would they decide, like Denny, that Steve was “a department-store queen”? If Christopher had reached any real intimacy with Steve, he would have been ready to defy everybody. But he hadn’t and therefore he wasn’t. He wasn’t prepared to quarrel with his friends if they looked down on Steve, so he avoided taking the risk; he didn’t introduce Steve to the Beesleys or to Peggy Kiskadden or to Salka Viertel or to John van Druten.
All this sounds as if Steve swished, lisped, wriggled, wore makeup, elaborate hairdos and flaming costumes. But he didn’t. He was quiet, pleasant, unsulky, well behaved. It wasn’t that he was, socially speaking, too much, he wasn’t enough. Christopher was a sexual snob—like most other people—and he needed a lover who could impress his friends.
Bill Caskey, on the other hand, was socially presentable—indeed, to a remarkable degree, if you considered how wildly he could misbehave in public, when he chose. “Earthy,” outspoken, crude, vulgar, violent as he could sometimes be, he was also able to project a southern upper-class charm to go with his Kentucky accent. Red-eyed, drunk and unshaven, he looked every inch a Eugene
O’Neill Irish lowlife character; washed and shaved and sober, dressed in a Brooks Brothers shirt and suit, he was fit for the nicest homes. Caskey really was a social amphibian, and Christopher was hugely impressed and attracted by this quality in him; he was—as he was later to prove—equally at home talking to the famous, or to little old ladies, or to fellow prisoners in jail, or to shipmates on an oil tanker; and, unless he was in the mood to pick a fight, nearly everybody liked him.
He was small—smaller than Christopher—very sturdily built, with square shoulders and the slightly bowed legs of a horseman. His brown hair was curly and he wore it very short to conceal this as much as possible. (“A crop-headed rascal” was Collier’s description of him.) His grey-blue eyes looked sleepy and his voice had a lazy sound. His over large but well-shaped head and his thick lips both had that Negroid quality which is so often apparent in the white Southerner. His body was sexily covered with a close fuzz of curly hair; there was even quite a lot on his back. He had very bad teeth (which he had the knack of hiding even when he smiled), a biggish cock and only one testicle.
Although Caskey was still so young, he wasn’t in the least boyish. He had an impressive air of having “been around”—as indeed he had. He was quite without shyness, even in the presence of the old and the wise; it was this freedom from shyness which made him able to treat them so unaffectedly, and to charm them. (Both Stravinsky and Forster were delighted with him; Stravinsky said of him, “He’s my type.”) He had a domestic quality which made Christopher feel cozy and looked after, in the periods between their blazing home-wrecking rows. From this aspect, Christopher often reacted to him as if to a woman of his own age; he used to say that Caskey and he were like a sophisticated French married couple, the kind who address each other as “dear friend.” He also saw Caskey as a kind of nanny.
Caskey had been in the navy for a while, but not overseas. He had avoided military service as long as he could and had got into some fairly serious trouble with the draft by failing to register or report. His lover, Len Hanna, an elderly and very wealthy man, had used his expensive lawyer to straighten things out. But the navy—in Florida or New Orleans or both—had turned out to be a bore, with lots of office work, which could only be relieved by parties and sex. Caskey had slept around a great deal, and then came one of those big homosexual witch-hunts; a few boys were caught and they named names. Caskey was implicated and so was his friend Hayden Lewis. (Hayden was a civilian employed by the navy in some clerical job. He and Caskey shared an apartment during several months of Caskey’s service—they were what used to be called “sisters,” not lovers.) As Hayden was a civilian, he was merely fired. Caskey got a “blue discharge,” neither honorable nor dishonorable. When he met Len Hanna again, he realized that he didn’t want to live with Hanna anymore, so he and Hayden decided to come to California.