Have now scrambled somehow through the “Paul” outline (on tape) as far as where he leaves for the forestry camp. The ending itself is still uncertain. But I do feel there’s something—
January 24. I still have a sore mouth after the removal of the cyst on the 21st. Dr. Katz correctly said that the surgery itself would be brief and painless—it lasted about eight minutes and I felt nothing while it was going on. But the whole experience was unpleasant because of the scuffle and fuss of getting a parking space, filling out medical forms, having to undress completely and put on a robe, slippers and cap, lie on a trolley keeping up a line of bright chatter with swarms of cute Asian nurses and being strenuously “nice”—as was expected of me by those (quite a few) who knew “who I am”—and it took two and a half long hours!
Kitty has been adorable about it all. And yesterday, after so many career disappointments, he had a reward: Bob Miller phoned to say that a Swedish art dealer, who had seen Don’s New York show and was greatly enthusiastic, returned and told Bob he wants to buy twenty-five Bachardy paintings! Admittedly, he’ll get them at a cut price. But this is a first European beachhead. And the dealer will be obliged to make propaganda in the art world to secure his investment.
Not only this, but Kitty has also been invited to compete for the art prizes offered annually by the Academy-Institute. He’ll be able to exhibit some of the pictures he has at the Robert Miller Gallery. I don’t know who it was who suggested his inclusion. Maybe faithful old Glenway.
The other day, when we were feeling very loving, I asked: “What’ll Kitty do when Dobbin has to depart?” Kitty answered, without hesitation, “Give him a great send-off.”
February 12. I must try to write more often in this book. Because this is an extremely interesting phase in my life—one might call it the pre-terminal phase, meaning that the event of death is more or less recognized and accepted although health remains still pretty good, with regular bowel movements, full nights of untroubled sleep, adequate amounts of energy available.
The terminal phase would be, of course, the phase in which one’s principal occupation is dying—that is to say, a phase in which death becomes a constant threat and, to some degree, a desired release. . . . What was I beginning to say in this paragraph? I forget—because, in the midst of writing it, I was interrupted by a call from tiresome but admirable Jim White to tell me that Harry Brown is in hospital having tests for his emphysema. This led to Jim’s enthusing over Exhumations, which he is teaching from, at USC, and to a declaration that he was going to try to get the book republished in paperback. Bless his heart. His buzzing often drives Don and me to distraction but he is a tireless ally.
I started writing in this book this morning as part of a drive to get myself out of a bog of inaction-inertia and start work again—on the “Paul” screenplay outline and also on my next autobiography. This is first and foremost a question of “art for my sake.”
Later— Just back from seeing Dr. Katz. He examined my mouth. All is well. But he made the extraordinarily discouraging admission that this could happen again at any time. We are continually biting the insides of our mouths and are therefore continually in danger of having a bite cause a lump. Once caused, such a lump should be examined by a doctor; and, if the doctor feels that there is any possibility of the presence of cancer, he should intervene surgically. In theory, it is therefore possible that a patient might undergo such surgery several times every year. . . . On the plus side of this depressing calculation, I must put the fact that Dr. Katz’s fee was relatively small, fifty dollars. Of course, I’m taking it for granted that that’s with medicare allowed for and deducted.*
February 24 [Tuesday]. Yesterday we returned from a weekend in San Francisco, staying with Bill Brown, so I could appear at a fundraiser for Gay Rights Advocates on Sunday evening, the 22nd. The crowd would have looked adequate if it hadn’t been in a depressing old barn, the Nourse Auditorium—there was nobody at all in the gallery. Still they were very sweet, quick to pick up on laughs and appreciate points I made. (My chief “message” to them was that we must attack the opposition on religious rather than political grounds—tell our enemies that their “religion” is rotten, blasphemous, anti-Christian and philosophically fucked up.)
Armistead Maupin introduced me, going much too heavy on the praise, exalting me, in fact, to the position of America’s Old Mr. Queer. But he is basically a friend I feel—not one of those flattering foes. As for Darling, he looked absolutely dazzling and brilliantly held up his side of our partnership during the get-together at the Hayes Street Grill which followed.
I read from our October book, and, I must say, I do now feel that it has real merits as read-aloud material—having tried it out several times. It even scored one powerful delayed take (or whatever such an effect should be called). I was reading the passage (October 25) on my physical likes and dislikes and came to the paragraph beginning: “Beautiful boys with long hair are beautiful boys with long hair—it doesn’t bother me. And sometimes it gives them the magic, ferociously disheveled aspect of young barbarians, riding out of the primeval forest to rape us,” (at this point there was laughter and applause, which lasted until I said to myself, that’s killed the end of the sentence for sure—nevertheless, when it was over, I had to continue), “we hope.” I was quite wrong—they hadn’t forgotten what I’d been saying, and now the applause was a major explosion.
All in all, this San Francisco visit was among our pleasantest. Paul wasn’t there, and it was easier being with Bill alone. Don, who has never really liked Paul, complains that he’s a downer. Bill is much livelier, more socially flexible. He also arranged for us to meet Robert Johnson, who is the director/curator of the department of drawings and prints at the Achenbach Foundation and a rare portrait-art enthusiast, greatly impressed by Don’s work. So something might come out of that. . . . The two beautiful cats at Bill and Paul’s house were more beautiful than ever, posing with insolent aristocratic grace on the beds, or imperiously entering our room as a shortcut to jumping out the window to attend to some business in the garden—they are constantly making the rounds, and, if anyone objects to their intrusions, they couldn’t care less.
March 12. This is such a strange period in my life. In some respects one of the very happiest, because of Darling’s so frequently demonstrated love—the basket is a paradise of loving snugness, and, throughout the day, we exchange dozens of looks and words and kisses and hugs. And yet, at the same time, there is a sense of constant menace—terminal old age with all its aches, and warning symptoms. I am continually being made aware of my bad knee and of something wrong with my hip, and of the cataract dimming my left eye. (Yet even this isn’t constant—I am writing this sentence with only my left eye open.) Somebody* said that one is only completely sane (that may not be the right word) when one knows one is going to die. I am pretty well convinced of this but of course I hope for more years—maybe even a dozen— plus adequate health; which is asking a lot. It is also asking a lot of Darling, who has to face up to this, at best, grim experience of watching me fade away while his own most valuable years are squandered. Oh, what is the use of writing all this down?
My only salvation lies in Swami and the mantra he gave me, and in purposeful activity—getting this screenplay outline finished for the “Paul” film, and then starting my next autobiographical book (which more and more appears to me as a collection of interrelated but quite separate pieces about different aspects of my life in the U.S., from 1939 onward—including life with the L.A. German-Jewish refugee colony, life as a screenwriter, life at the Haverford Friends’ refugee hostel, life with the Huxleys and their circle, memories of journeys taken, glimpses of California as a haunted wilderness, memories of Gerald Heard and Chris Wood).
We have just had visits from Stephen Spender (here from February 26 to March 2) and Speed Lamkin (from March 2 to March 7). I enjoyed seeing both of them, but of course it was a severe energy demand. Stephen’s demand is related to hi
s bigness—he is there like a huge crate which has just been delivered; its very presence makes you feel something must be done about it. Speed’s only (only!) demand was that I should read the novel he has just finished—it took me two whole days, and made me see double. Oh yes, it’s really quite good—he knows everything about everybody, and his talent is for endlessly sustained gossip. Only, I found the beginning and end of it dismayingly sentimental.
It must be added that both Speed and Stephen behaved well. Stephen was delighted by everything we did to entertain him, and we have just received thank-you letters from him. (Stephen writes to me: “Our walk on the beach was a real recovery of past time. I felt we were near the pier at Sellin.35 I continue to think that your relation with Don is one of the Seven Wonders of the World.”)
Speed seems to have grown taller. There is something rigid in his face, carved into a grin. He is maniacally self-obsessed and quite a bore, but he is generous with his money and, in his own crude way, very polite. I still feel fond of him. This morning, I had to call and tell him what I think about the sentimentality of his novel’s ending. He took this very well—that’s to say, very practically, accepting the criticism and at once planning how he could rewrite the chapter.36
April 1. I find that I need to make another pep-talk entry—that is, to pull myself together by reviewing the situation. The situation is, on the minus side, more of same—hernia pains, bad right leg, resulting sloth and failure to get the “Paul” film treatment finished; on the plus side, Don, who sustains everything by making his love continually evident, and by setting me the example of his own untiring art work—not to mention all he does to keep the household going. He seems to me to be at a peak of his art. His show at Pierce College37—only twenty pieces, drawings or paintings, in a small room, opened on the 23rd. I think it is one of his best. As I looked at it, my eyes kept spilling tears of joy and pride. The boldness of his paint strokes, their decision and their energy (e.g. the head of Jim Teel), the richness and magic strangeness of color in the skins of the faces ( Jerry Stille,38 Kiki Kiser); the seeming delicacy and immense strength of the drawings: As I told Jim White, who came with us, the full-length drawing of him has such vital togetherness that it might as well be of a rattlesnake, his clothes belong to him and express his vitality like a skin.
One can say with heartfelt gratitude and no shit that Reagan’s escape from death two days ago was a mercy for all of us. If he’d been killed, Haig and the other extremists would have used it as an excuse for a campaign of fascistic “vengeance.”39
The triumph of Ordinary People, at the Academy Awards yesterday, depresses me—not only because the film was bad but because I feel that its title—far from expressing the irony it no doubt intended—meant, to those who voted for it, just that. “Ordinary” equals wholesome, and it was for wholesome that my fellow academy members—a preponderantly reactionary bone-stupid bunch—voted.
April 12. The day before yesterday, I was hit by the stunning news that my federal income tax this year will be $26,548—last year it was $8,491! This it seems is because my three time deposits, totalling $225,000, have been earning such a lot of interest. If I withdraw any of these deposits prematurely I shall have to pay a penalty. If I scrape together the money which is available, it will hardly be enough, and then we shall have nearly nothing to live on, because Don has his money even more extensively tied up in time deposits. The only glimmer of hope is that the rest of Richard’s legacy—which could be as much as $30,000—might arrive; but that is very very unlikely.*
April 17. Crucifixion Day. Very depressed—not on account of Christ, who, God knows, can take care of himself. Am full of aches, from my hernia and resultant pains up and down my right leg.
And yet there is much to rejoice about.
Don is being adorable and loving—as indeed he usually is, but nowadays it really counts.
Yesterday I at last finished a very rough outline of the “Paul” film (begun February 13). It is forty pages long, so fairly detailed and substantial, except at the very end.
On April 15, I spoke at Pomona College, twice, which was tough, because a Japanese dinner with saki made a reflex-slowing interruption between talk one and talk two. Just the same, I managed to keep the flag aloft.
Amazing how your warmest supporters are the ones who do the most—consciously or unconsciously—to make you look ridiculous; in this case by billing me as, “Among the century’s most insightful observers of the human condition,” “One of the most controversial figures in contemporary literature,” and (thanks to Gore) “The best prose writer in English.”40 (Following this bombardment of bouquets came a last and least, so anticlimactic that it sounded like a put-down: “He also is widely regarded as an exciting and witty speaker”!) Never mind, Dobbin came home with a thousand-dollar check, which helped delay the Animals’ ruin. We have now paid our federal and state taxes but have postponed paying the first installments of the estimated.41
A nice lunch with Alan Stern and Michelle Rappaport yesterday. We feel, as of now, that we couldn’t have more sympathetic and intelligent producers. But of course we haven’t got down to work with them yet.
Work, work—that’s the cure, even if temporary, for so many ills.
Now I have no excuse not to find time for at least some kind of stab at my next autobiographical book, more about this soon.
April 19. An Easter of rainy skies, hernia belly pains and slight sickness, mixed melancholy and happiness.
Darling is being adorable but he is under great pressure because old Drub is becoming increasingly senile, slipshod, self-indulgently invalid, unwilling to leave the house or see people. Our relationship is largely a nursery world of sleeping together, cuddled like children.
I feel I might die quite suddenly—the vital supports are beginning to give way. As far as Don is concerned, this would be for the best. I am not writing this pathetically, only practically.
A few nights ago, I dreamt about Swami. I haven’t done this in a long while. It was definitely an “appearance”—that’s to say, he didn’t merely play a role in a dream about other people and happenings. His presence was the whole dream. What I dreamed was just being with him—in his room at Vedanta Place, I suppose—and being moved by the faith and joy with which he spoke about God. You could call it a vision or just a vivid memory, since I experienced the same thing many times in his presence when he was still alive.
Loss of hair. Loss of taste and consequent loss of weight—down to 147 and ½—no big deal, this.
Cuisine note: the oddly disgusting taste of coffee drunk from an incompletely cleaned mug in which powdered Aka Miso (red soybean paste soup) has been prepared.
Thoughts about the next autobiographical book. Yes, it seems almost certain that it should be made up of separate chapters—I mean chapters which might be published separately in magazines— an economic consideration. You sell the material twice over.
But, at the same time, I rather wish the book could have the riverlike flow of George Moore’s memories, or Yeats’s, with their artful-simple air of going nowhere.
Of course, a lot depends on how much of the available time span—1939 to the present day—is to be used; does it or doesn’t it demand two volumes?
April 24. Yesterday I suddenly found myself being sent by Elsie Giorgi to a surgeon called Fred Marx, who told me that I ought to have a hernia operation right away, because otherwise the gut might burst and there’d be a mess. Don is dead against this, and I don’t want it of course. Actually the hernia itself is no big deal but I get real electric shock pains in the upper legs. Last night, when I got into bed, the pain was miserable, until I’d blocked it with a couple of Anacin tablets.
Is Dobbin going to collapse? Having these pains makes me remember what cruel pain I often had when I was young. Probably the rheumatic fever pains were the worst, when I was ten.
April 25. A bad dip. I feel pretty sure that I’ll end up having to have the hernia operation, in spite of
everything. Don is terribly rattled, as he nearly always is when I’m sick. He wants us to drop the “Paul” project. I feel that, if I do, it’ll be a serious psychological defeat. And what’s the alternative? Beginning the new autobiographical book would be just as much of a sweat.
Also, we need money, and “Paul” is the only dependable way of earning any, right now.
April 26. Last night, I dreamt that a gang was trying to steal the money out of my time deposits. I was at a party at an embassy— whose, where, I don’t know—and I kept seeing people who looked exactly like me. Whenever I saw one of them I experienced a thrill of terror, I don’t know why. But, each time, the likeness faded after a few moments. Don came in and I pointed some of these people out to him.
Yesterday I started wearing a truss—of a kind which Peter Gowland recommended when he came here to supper with Alice and Old Jo on the 23rd. Well, it’s another “first,” like being gagged, on October 18. Maybe I have several more such experiences ahead of me!
April 28. Am still waiting around for a decision on what’s to be done with old Dub’s carcass. I must say, I would like to avoid an operation—not so much for itself as for the misery of being in hospital several days, woken in the midst of sleep and stabbed with needles. For the moment, I’m letting things slide—trying to take adequate walks every day, as the Gowlands and Old Jo recommend. But walks are such a bore. I realize, now I’m old, that the greatest part of my physical exercise used to be fucking, which was largely wrestling and which kept me in very good shape.
I know instinctively that one way back to health would be to get another project going. I really do want to turn out a draft of the “Paul” film. At present, the difficulties seem to be all at the beginning—establishing who Chris is, why he is in Los Angeles, etc.