Last night we had Nigel Davenport, Billy Dee Williams and Andrew Ray to supper, with Hope Lange. This was a great success. Hope got quite drunk. Nigel, who is very intelligent, took Vedanta for the Western World90 off with him. I gave Billy Dee a copy of The World in the Evening. When he’d had too many drinks he got on the Negro question and was a little tiresome.91 Andrew got nicer and nicer. He is a great boxing fan. You feel in him the sort of mad towheaded recklessness which I associate with RAF pilots. A very strange boy. He couldn’t be anything but English.
Don now has a truly admirable set of drawings of all five of the cast. I am very proud of him. And one day last week he made seventy dollars!92 His maximum so far.
Department of sweetness and shit: this beginning of a letter from Walter Starcke in Tokyo. “I had always heard how hard the Japanese were to know, but when I arrived and found such givingness, such affection, and such ease, the rug was really pulled out from under me and I felt adrift in a way I had not expected—not with treasures just outside of reach, but rather choaked (sic) with treasure closer than touch.”
September 21. This morning, I went downtown to settle my speeding ticket. It was just a formality, after all, aside from the tiresome drive; a nice judge in a small room all by himself fined me fifteen dollars and that was that. He told me that the Sawtelle hospital grounds have to be strictly patrolled even at night because crazy patients hide in the bushes ready to throw themselves in front of cars. Hence also the strict speeding regulation.
At the Pickwick Bookshop later I ran into Wilbur Flam93 and we had quite a long talk. Admittedly, his marriage is chiefly kept going by his and Bertha’s94 interest in their children—how wonderful it is when they first walk, talk, etc. He hinted at nostalgia and restlessness,95 but said nevertheless that he and Bertha never bore each other. We agreed to meet again and discuss all of these problems more fully. Oh God—how glad I am that I’m me and not him!
Lunch at Vedanta Place with Swami, and a Hindu publisher whose name I already forget, and Mr. Watumull, the Honolulu clothing manufacturer. The publisher had silver hair and a black coat and was a bit like an ugly Nehru. He talked and talked; telling one interesting thing—that Warren Hastings,96 in giving permission for the publication of the first translation of the Gita into English, said (in effect), “This book will continue to have an influence upon the English for many years after they have all left India.” Mr. Watumull was more likeable, however; he reminded me of Morgan [Forster].
This afternoon, I have been trying to analyze the psychology of Chris in the four episodes of my novel. The results are quite fairly encouraging. It does add up to something, and make a pattern. I don’t want it to make too much of one. But I think there’s more work to be done on “Paul” from this point of view.
Tomorrow, Santa Barbara. It really is quite an adventure; and I’m tense and excited at the prospect of it. The last few days, my pain, elusively in the intestines, has recurred. Will try to ignore it.
September 28 [Wednesday]. Damn it, my work is on the skids again! Since Santa Barbara, I’ve just futzed around and really done nothing to my novel, and tomorrow off I go up there again. Well, I’ve got to pull myself together, starting Saturday.
Tomorrow will be my first lecture up there and of course I’ve got a certain amount of stage fright about it. But I do believe I have the materials for a good and amusing lecture. As for last week, it was quite pleasant, though I don’t feel that I did more than scratch the shell of shyness-aggression which some of my seminar students were wearing. However, there was a pleasant drunken evening with Douwe Stuurman and the Warshaws. I really like Howard. And when I asked him if I might show him some of the work of a young artist I knew, he answered, “Was that the same one who drew Vera Stravinsky?” I started defensively, “Yes, but—” meaning to tell him how terrible the reproduction was. But Howard said he thought it was excellent and very interesting.97 Then, the next morning, a boy named Frank Wiley98 came who wanted to get into my seminar and he showed me part of a novel he’s written. It’s all about the Santa Barbara campus and exclusively (so far) a homosexual love-story! But, oh, so rambling and long-winded!
Now—since yesterday, really—there has been a dramatic develop ment: Don is almost certainly going to New York to super vise the framing of his drawings of the Taste of Honey cast; they are to be exhibited in the foyer or outside the theater and he is to get $250 for them if the play is a hit! I don’t want to go; much as I shall miss Don and much as I should like to see Olivier in Becket.99 I cannot rush around as I’m involved in all this work. I must try to stay very calm. And, also—though Don is scared at the prospect—I know it will be wonderful for him to have this triumph, however big or small it turns out to be, alone.
Yesterday afternoon, at Tom Wright’s, we met John Rechy, who wrote “The Fabulous Wedding of Miss Destiny.” I liked him. He lives downtown, in the midst of his “world,” and dresses exactly like a Pershing Square hustler; shirt open to the navel with sleeves rolled to the armpits, skintight jeans, a Christopher medal. He is rather charming. Not at all aggressive or sulky.
Early this morning, a dream.
Hard to describe its setting. There were a lot of people—Don not among them—in a small town or village; I can’t be more precise about the architecture. What we were all doing there, I don’t know. The action started when one of us, a man, went mad—not noisy but deadly berserk. He had a tommy gun and he was going to kill as many of us as he could. He protected himself from us by forcing a group of women to stand around him as a screen, so he couldn’t be shot at. The women were wearing print dresses rather like pioneer women of the covered wagon period.
For a while we all scattered and were scared, awaiting the attack of the madman. At least, I was scared; but it didn’t occur to me to run away altogether. Maybe it was somehow not possible. I kept on the outskirts of the crowd, moving around, with others, to various places where we could take cover when the shooting started, but always deciding that each place was unsuitable because it had no proper exit or way of quick escape.
It had seemed that the crowd was quite disorganized; but suddenly I realized that a part of it had gotten together and formed a clear plan of resistance. And just as I realized this, some gates opened in the wall of a building on the other side of the square, and the madman came out, protected by his screen of women. But the opposing force went to meet him, and they also were surrounded and screened by women. Only, I now saw that the “women” were men dressed in women’s clothes and that they carried guns. The two groups advanced upon each other and mingled; there was no struggle of course, because everybody except the madman was on the same side.
A terribly tense pause. Then a shot. The madman had been shot. He was dead. And everybody was congratulating the woman who had done it. She was a real woman; not dressed like the others but wearing a black evening gown. She was handsome and blonde, and I knew she was a lesbian. She accepted congratulations with a harsh laugh and said something, probably ironic, about being “an old member of the shooting club.” I was hostile to her. I was the only person in the crowd who disapproved of the shooting of the madman. She understood this and made some cutting remark about my being “a silly little man.”
The dead madman was lying there. His head looked more like a big square block of ice which is starting to melt. The features were already becoming indistinct. I wanted to pray for him. I knelt to do this, feeling somewhat embarrassed because there were people all around and I thought they would think I was showing off. As a matter of fact, I don’t think they were paying much attention to me. As I knelt, the floor collapsed under me—it was a house floor, although we were out of doors; but I only sank through about a foot onto another floor which was firm. So I went ahead and said my prayer, asking Ramakrishna to protect the madman. And then I woke up.
This was a nightmare, in that I was badly scared. The curious thing was, however, that I didn’t wake up in the midst of my fear, as one usually does, but q
uite a while after it had passed.
Have just been talking to Charles Laughton on the phone. Terry [ Jenkins] is arriving back here next Wednesday, and on Saturday he and Charles will fly to Japan! I am still anxious about Charles, for he seems still very shaky and depressed by his illness. He says the doctor told him that his relapse was far more serious than the operation itself. And he is so desperate to get well.
October 2. No work done. Largely because of hangovers but also outside interruptions. More about these in a moment.
Don is in New York. He phoned this morning from Julie [Harris]’s, where he’s staying. He still hasn’t been able to see the producer and get the exhibition of his drawings outside the theater definitely agreed on. But he has met Cecil Beaton, who loves his drawings and is going to recommend him to Harper’s Bazaar. So he’s delighted and feels the trip was worthwhile even if the other thing falls through.
Yesterday I had a phone call from Charles Laughton next door, to say he has had two violent attacks in which he tried to kill himself. They were both in the Curson Road house, and somehow connected with Elsa.100 (She thinks he is trying to ruin the beginning of her tour! And she claims that she is shattered. Really, the fuss these vain old hams make! What a temperament I could have thrown over my first lecture at Santa Barbara last Thursday! As a matter of fact it was a truly smashing success.) So I told Charles I felt the attacks were disguised mystical experiences. (“Oh, how wonderfully tactful of you!” Don exclaimed, when I told him this morning.) And I certainly did please and reassure Charles, who now says that he was trying to reach infinity. Anyhow, to protect him from doing himself violence, he has two male nurses and Bill Phipps, who actually sleeps with him in the same bed. Now Charles feels fine and lolls around the house, whispering so as not to be overheard by the male nurses, whom he is already trying to get rid of. And now he has a new worry: he thinks Elsa may be preparing to have him certified. I assured him that this would be impossible under the circumstances. But I suspect Bill Phipps is an alarmist [. . .]. He has told Charles that Elsa said she wished he was dead as he had nothing left to live for. Even if she did say this, there was no mortal need to repeat it.
Then, also yesterday, a boy named Erik Kaln101 came to see me. He had been at Tom Wright’s the other day, with a good-looking boy named Bill Small.102 After Don and I had left, this Bill Small got very drunk, kissed everybody in the room, then became violent in the car as they were driving away and yelled and wanted to kill himself. Since, he has been perfectly all right and has written an incredibly gooey article for the [paper] on which he works [. . .]. Erik Kaln is Bill’s roommate, and he had called me saying he wanted advice on how to handle Bill, with whom he’s going to Europe in a short while. But actually he talked almost entirely about himself and how he was suffering—until I told him he was a monster and was manipulating the whole situation. This he took well and we got along splendidly and laughed a lot. He is a blond Jewboy of twenty-two, with a bottle nose and rather wonderful green eyes.
Tomorrow Jill Macklem is coming with her husband, and later John Rechy, so that day will be shot, too. Well, hell—these are all people who had to be seen sometime. Presumably Charles will get out of my hair as soon as Terry arrives.
October 3. More about Santa Barbara. It was very funny to see how sincerely relieved and somewhat surprised Chancellor Gould was that my lecture was such a hit. Later, I got drunk at the house of a nice man named Geo Dangerfield and fell over a barbecue bowl outside on the beach in the dark and hurt my shin. Frances Warshaw put Mercurochrome (?) on it and it won’t wash off.
With Bart Johnson103 to see Elsa Lanchester last night, in Royce Hall.104 The trouble is, she isn’t quite first-rate. She fusses too much with her hands and she is scared of the audience; and she’s often dirty in the wrong way. The advertising says that she has “a world.” She doesn’t. There is no magic in any of this. Maybe because it’s so unspontaneous. Charles says that she has to learn every word she says on the stage—all the asides, everything—by heart. “She couldn’t even say, ‘Hello, Santa Barbara,’” says Charles, “because if she learnt that line, she’d have to say it in Stockton and Miami as well—all over the country.” Wicked old Charles was half pleased that I didn’t really like the show. At the same time, he was delighted because it appears to have been a smash hit. Or rather, Elsa thinks it was a smash hit.
Bart Johnson, nicey-nice in a suit, was terrified of Charles, who ignored him. We ate warmed-up stew and the gravy was burnt and shreds of meat got into our teeth.
A rather ridiculous fuss with Glade Bachardy about the Examiner.105 While I was at Santa Barbara, just before Don left, Glade entered some contest which necessitated her getting a new subscriber to the Examiner. So she gave my name. It was Don’s fault, of course—he should have known how strongly I’d object. The idea of having this paper around is obscene to me; and I hate the little boys who throw it all over the garden. So I called her today and told her I wouldn’t take it. And she immediately got tearful, like a child who has been told it mustn’t do something. So then I have had all the bother of having to call the local distribution office and tell them to send the paper elsewhere. I refuse to feel the least guilty about this. Why should one pander eternally to the swinish reactionary attitudes of women like Glade and my mother? They have to be told that the paper is utter filth and that decent people won’t have it around. And, on top of that I shall have to pay for the subscription.
October 10. And now I’ve missed some really important days— notably Don’s triumphant return from New York—and it’s too late to describe them properly. Actually, this was relatively speaking the greatest triumph Don will ever have in his life, perhaps—because it was the first and because it’s doubtful if the praise of any two people will ever again mean quite as much to him as Beaton’s and Bouché’s106 did. Now he’s about to return to New York again—on a much more dubious enterprise; designing posters for Tennessee [Williams]’s Period of Adjustment and the play Julie will be in, The Little Moon of Alban.107 Don doesn’t really know how to do this, and maybe it will be a flop; but we agree that it’s still better for him to go and make the attempt than not. The worst of it is, yesterday and today he has had a really cruel attack of tonsillitis. This evening he says it’s getting better, and I only hope this isn’t grim autosuggestion which will lose its power once he’s on the plane. Well—let’s hope for the best—
I, too, have a tiresome ailment. The fall I had over the barbecue bowl at Geo Dangerfield’s house caused a hemorrhage under the skin of my ankle, and it has remained very sensitive all this time. Today Jack Lewis x-rayed it. He still isn’t sure that the bone may not have been cracked. And, if it is cracked, I shall have to wear a cast. And that will mean I can’t drive myself to Santa Barbara—unless I can borrow a car with an automatic gearshift. Right now, Lewis has put an elastic bandage on me, which feels quite good, but I don’t notice any improvement.
Charles Laughton and Terry left today for Japan. Terry seems as placid as ever, though I think I detected a very faint uneasiness about Japanese food.
I have managed to do a little, a very little work on “Waldemar.” I feel oppressed by the various lectures and talks which are ahead of me. The week after this one will be particularly tough: my lecture on “The Nerve of the Novel,” which is probably the most difficult of the whole lot. A possible appearance on local T.V.; God knows what I’ll say. And then, next day, a luncheon speech on “Writing—A Profession or a Way of Life?”108 Here I hope to get in some spiteful digs at the Books of the Month and suggest that “the crowd is the real beast.”
October 12. What rat-racing! As soon as Don recovered from his bad throat, he went into an emotional spin caused by his anxiety about the work to be done for Tennessee. And then he was mad at me for “aggressively” helping him when he didn’t ask to be helped. And then he had a quarrel with Glade about this fucking Herald-Express109 problem and said terrible things to her. Hasn’t told me what they were, yet. As f
or the Herald, I arranged for it to be delivered to Jim Charlton at his office, and then called him and told him what I’d done. So that’s taken care of.
Nevertheless, today, I have finished the opening and very difficult section of “Waldemar” which announces all the themes.
Don has now more or less decided to leave on Friday morning and go straight to Wilmington, Delaware, where Period of Adjustment is opening. This is much later than Tennessee wanted, but no doubt they will fix up something.
Lewis says that, now the X-ray photos are dry, he still can’t see any signs of a fracture. But he still threatens me with a cast if the swelling doesn’t go down soon.
Charles Laughton seems to have told Dorothy Miller quite a lot about his problems with Elsa. He is such a baby.
At last the sun is setting right into the ocean again, beyond Point Dume. Yesterday evening I was watching it and I distinctly saw the green flash,110 very bright and localized, like the explosion of a bomb. This is the second time I’ve ever seen it. The first was with Caskey when we were living in South Laguna in 1951, and that time our experience was slightly suspect, because we were both drinking very strong martinis.
October 17. Don is in the East and won’t be back at the earliest till the end of the week. He seems to have had a very reassuring talk with Tennessee, whom he now feels is really fond of him. (But Don will need to be reassured about this later, as he always does.) Tennessee had also said that he regards his friendship with me as one of the greatest friendships of his life.
There is a hot wind and the colors are sharp; this is glorious weather. But the wind is giving me shooting nerve pains in my buttocks and thighs. I have been worrying somewhat about my very heavy schedule this week at Santa Barbara, but now I’ve more or less figured out what I shall talk about in my two lectures; and the T.V. show will have to take care of itself.111
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