The Journals of Spalding Gray
Page 12
The thought that my heart is with my mother makes me embarrassed and afraid. Also one reason for therapy is to get to the point where I can take responsibility for how I acted toward Liz. To cop to the fact that my behavior was real. That I did what I did for whatever reason. Renée says that my conflict comes between not being able to choose between a world of fantasy and a world of reality. She is right. She also says my world of fantasy is destructive because I have mainly destructive fantasy, i.e.: the corruption of innocence. I want to corrupt the child (in me, outside of me, in Liz, in her). The only time these fantasies became creative are in The WORK whatever that work may be.
APRIL 23, 1981
Thursday
I met Renée at the Dove. Beautiful pub on Thames. She talked about staying in the city for the summer and I said I would not. I shocked myself saying that. What did that mean? I was as much as deserting her and yet I know I wanted to do what I wanted to do. It was all coming back to the reason I left Liz, that willfulness and after a hard day it came up at dinner again and we almost split up. I said that I have never been able to dump all my emotions into a relationship (? perhaps early on with Liz I did?) and that she had the wrong man if she wanted to be a future oriented couple. I felt quite clear but also quite DRUNK.
APRIL 24, 1981
Friday
We both woke horny at six o’clock. I did it with my earplugs in. A way I like very much but after all that happened and was said last night—sex again. This false break-up only seems to increase the appetite. We ate breakfast and were off in a cab to Victoria Station. Renée asked me if all I said was true and pointed out that it was up to me as well to leave if I felt I was hurting her. She cried. She smiled. We said goodbye at the doorway of the train and I was off for a wonderful trip to Dover.
APRIL 25, 1981
Saturday
I got back to the hotel and saw the fun passports of Ken, Jim, Willem and Liz. What a strange way to see them first. Not knowing who was coming and to have such a pleasant surprise. I said something about Liz looking angry and then we all came together in my room (over Irish whiskey) for fast stories and gossip. It was strange to see Liz again. I realized that much of my missing her was in my memory of our past together. The PRESENT has changed and Willem is very much there (here) for her in a different way than I ever was.
JUNE 5, 1981
[Gray’s fortieth birthday; back in New York]
Friday
Renée let me have a birthday fuck. I knew she wasn’t into it but she let me do it to her. Like all those times with Liz when I would try to force it. It gets like a diet or athletics. A kind of escape.
JUNE 11, 1981
Thursday
Renée is not sure if I am the right one for her. She does not want to get too close. Get hurt. She knows that she wants to have a career and children. Maybe I am not the right one. I lay still and listened. She took off about 2:30 and I went into a semi-relaxed sleep. Relaxed for the first time in a long time. I was very nervous about seeing Pavel [for Gray’s first session]. Started to cry when I saw Central Park. Long good session 9:15 to 11:00. I shall TRY it.
JUNE 27, 1981
Saturday
Renée said that she felt I had a real attraction to WASP women but could not deal with them on any sexual level. I also talked about going to bed with Bill in Athens and Renée got real scared that I might in fact be gay but I still don’t think I am. At least I’ve never met a man I thought I could love in any whole way. It was a beautiful day, sunny day, so we spent a good part of it on the roof and then went for a drive. I discovered what that sound was on the tires and fixed it. It was nice. I felt like a real man just doing the work of changing the tires. It felt very good to do that simple task and I was reminded how good it felt to be out in the real world.
JULY 1, 1981
Wednesday
Pavel wants to know why I have to put myself down so and can’t just go ahead and make good work and be a seducer without worrying about it. Says that the actor who plays Christ does not have to drive the nail through his hand.
AUGUST 16, 1981
[At his brother Channing’s house in Providence, Rhode Island]
Sunday
Woke on futon Jap bed Chan’s floor. Anxiety about my death. How I would die forever, no meaning. To escape that thought I began to count how many beds I’d slept in since March first. Over 40. Was amazed. Thought of a piece. 45 BEDS. Names on cards like “Personal History.” I got excited. It felt right. I’ll do it I thought.
AUGUST 18, 1981
Tuesday
Ron [Vawter] called to tell me that Liz’s father had died at 10:30 last night. After I hung up the phone I sat down and cried. Lonely out of it feeling. I thought I had more feeling for Frank [LeCompte’s father] than for my own father then realized how feelings came out during and after death. Somewhere deep in me I know that the real project would be to get my feeling going in the present. This could be a greater task than making a work of art even. But writing and acting could be in the present as well. I spent some time on the roof working on “47 Beds.” Late dinner alone and met Renée at New Morning [a bookstore in SoHo]. She was upset. “47 Beds” would be a HUMILIATION for her.
47 Beds became Gray’s next monologue; it opened at the Performing Garage in November 1981. In it, he told the story of his one-night stand with a man in Greece while he was seeing Shafransky. “The next thing I knew I was in bed with him and so surprised because he was warm, his skin was soft like a woman’s, his body had contours,” Gray decribed it in his monologue. “At first I put my arms around him, but I couldn’t deal with that at all and I just went right down on him. I kept thinking over and over: I am a homosexual, I am a homosexual, I am a homosexual…. Then this mad raving passion burst like a bubble, and I found that I was choking on what felt like a disconnected piece of rubber hose.” Shafransky may also have found the monologue a “humiliation” because Gray spoke of looking for “romantic love” among the women on the nude beaches in Greece.
AUGUST 20, 1981
Thursday
Up at 7:15 with a hangover and made love to Renée but could not get real hard and my cock felt numb because I kept thinking about Frank’s death, old age and the coming funeral. I fucked her like a (god) dog and when I came, I felt it deep in my spine but my head did not empty out. I then realized that when sex was good with her it was very good because it was like emptying out my whole body and head as well. Kate, Ken, Ron and I drove out for the funeral. The wind blew the oak trees. We went to the grave sight. After reading from the bible the service ended. Some of us stuck around to see the coffin slam shut in the concrete marble.
SEPTEMBER 4, 1981
Friday
Renée told me the heavy news. Her gynecologist told her that she should have a baby within the next three years because she might have to have a hysterectomy. When she told me this I felt a rush of excitement then I felt exhausted and had to lie down. She was not all that upset. She was glad to know the truth. She needs to get her life together. She wants everything (her friend Kit has cancer of the cervix and needs to be operated on). Renée is giving me the best years of her life. Do I want a baby? It would be fun for a while but the thought of it going on forever makes me exhausted. We tried to have sex together but I was almost impotent looking over at the sad light on my grandmother’s furniture. The real hard world. Am I weak that I cannot cope with reality?
SEPTEMBER 5, 1981
Saturday
I called Ken to ask for a walk. We met in Washington Sq. The Park was a mad place with six kinds of music, all happening real loud. Ken and I went through the old issues. I told him about Renée needing to have a child within the next three years. He said take it easy, you have time to make up your mind. I talked about leaving the city and how I was thinking of applying to Berkeley for the child psychology program but I have this feeling I could not go back to school for five years and write all those papers when I’m trying to write a whole other style.
Renée said if you are really interested why not go to school here? Renée and I had a nice wok dinner at the loft and I played tapes of what I wrote today. I agree with her that the writing is too dramatic and way over done. The images need to be cut down and simplified. I am so impatient that I can’t wait and want to work all the time. It’s hard for me to stay away from my desk when I am in the loft. I keep going back and changing stuff. I want to somehow make the pages live. I keep trying to breathe life into the page and it comes out like a dead thing. We went to bed early.
SEPTEMBER 12, 1981
Saturday
But I don’t function well under pressure and the new one is that if I am to stay with Renée I need to give her a child. So, now I wake up thinking about that instead of death. Renée was so distracted from a new job offer that she could not come so she blew me and I came with the fantasy that I was a German WWII army officer and she was a 12 year old Jew. She asked me how I could still have sex if I was so upset about a baby? Well babies don’t come from swallowing sperm and what a fantasy. When Renée came over at 6:30 I was still writing. We made love, showered, sat around and talked while I drink two martinis and told Renée of my idea for making a book about men who have had children.
SEPTEMBER 30, 1981
Wednesday
I was tired and unfocused with Pavel. We talked about my fear of strong women, about the ten-year-old in me, about having babies and growing up, about “Why Renée?” out of all women in the world. About how love is commitment. He asked me if I was building a house on a hill in the Catskills would I look over at another hill? Yes, always.
OCTOBER 5, 1981
Monday
Rushed to class at N.Y.U. [Gray had begun teaching a class in the Experimental Theatre Wing of New York University.] Had them walk around the block twice and report what they saw. Slowly it dawned on me that they saw what I saw and that we are all alike and that I’ve had some investment in being special and now I have to face the fear and realization that I am basically like all the rest; a lost confused human being and that my years working with Liz kept me feeling special. This feeling was even more enforced when they read their autobiographies because some of them were well done and made me realize that everyone had a life and could put it down on paper as well as I could. This left me quite depressed and on the way back to the loft I ran into Liz and walked with her. She told me she is quite sure she is pregnant and is going to have the baby. This colored the rest of my day and made me scattered and depressed.
OCTOBER 14, 1981
Wednesday
Everything is a rush and a blur. I feel descended upon. My knee hurts, my elbow hurts. I know now that I will—that I am growing old. What kind of subconscious fantasy did I have all those years holding on to the protected idea that I would stay young forever? Was it the group, was it Liz or perhaps just me in the way that I used Liz. In the way that I used the group. And it’s an old story now and I have to face it. My constant fear of death. My wanting to hold things still so I can look at them forever. Not to be a part of this body that is growing old but somewhere in me seeking eternal life. The obsession with film being the immortalizing of an image. Going to Pavel and him blowing my mind telling me that he was a swinger and went to orgies with his wife. Somewhere along the line I did equate sex with death and still do and when he asks me to associate about why I can only feel and come by seeing my cock go in and out, I can’t think of anything to say except that it makes me feel powerful. Wanting to overcome death. Suicide is power over death in that you do it.
OCTOBER 21, 1981
Wednesday
It must be some kind of Indian summer because we have had a long period of warm days. So what? Skip to Pavel. His wife is young and good looking. The apartment smelled of marijuana. Penthouse and Playboy were out for reading. I was titillated by it all. We talked about my father as a passive aggressive. How he would not respond to my mother’s anger or to our anger. I told Pavel that I felt he was guiding me to settle down. He told me that was what he felt I was saying I wanted, I felt I had nothing more to say to him. I said it was all like looking for needles in a haystack. He said I knew what the needles were.
NOVEMBER 13, 1981
Friday
I feel like I cannot rest, or be at peace anymore and I often think it’s because I am not with Liz. I think I’m also nervous about my reading and “47 Beds” which Renée is all upset about because her friends keep coming on her and asking her what she thinks of me doing this and she gets very defensive and I got angry with her asking her why she felt she had to defend herself or me. It made me want to go ahead with the piece all the more but I do feel more nervous than usual about expressing myself.
NOVEMBER 27, 1981
Friday
I had a good size house for 47 Beds and I was able to really go with it. I pulled out all the stops and DID IT!
DECEMBER 1, 1981
Tuesday
I’m not sure what set it off but I finished the scotch, had two beers and then had wine with dinner then had two beers at Renée’s so was far gone by the time I hit the bed. Renée says it’s a dependency and that I ought to look at it as a project to try to stop drinking for a while to see what is coming up. When I stopped drinking with Liz I had the affair with Sarah. Also, I had that anxiety panic insomnia where I woke up near dawn and could not get back to sleep again. It is so hard for me just to do something for myself like stopping the drinking that does not feed directly into my work. It seems that I need an audience all the time. That’s a lot of why I can’t get down to the writing. I have a great fear of getting well and normal lest I disappear. Become a grey washout. But I’ve got to give it a try.
DECEMBER 2, 1981
Wednesday
At therapy, I asked Pavel why he never had children. He told me the story of how he was shot in the groin and was given up for dead for two days until the Russian troops found him. Perhaps he was one out of five that lived from a death march of 20,000. As he told it I could see it like a vivid film in my head. Who needs movies with such stories? How he was wandering in the woods, escaped from his group and was herded into another group only to be shot. All chance and luck. A ¼-inch difference and the bullet would have hit an artery. I felt I had little to say after that and that I felt in competition with his experience. He asked me if I thought suffering ennobled and I said yes. It’s a silly idea he said. He was already set before he went through all this.
DECEMBER 9, 1981
Wednesday
The only review [of 47 Beds] that came out was John Howell’s in The SoHo [Weekly News] and that was good. I get so angry with The Voice that I called Erika [Munk, a theater critic at The Village Voice] and she said it was short and would be coming out next week. I don’t know what happened toThe Times. Spent much of the day over at the Garage. At last we had a run through of Joan’s piece at 4:00. It was rather ragged but I can’t think about it and I do know in spite of what Renée says that good art can’t be made without a certain amount of tension and bad feelings. It just happens that way. It was strange and interesting being in her piece. At times I was in it and at times not because I knew Liz was outside watching it and that often took me out. I did not have the blessings of the MOTHER but I was on all the time and was able to improvise through with a broken prop. Cab to Pavel and as fast as I told my problems to him, I felt like my life was a stupid soap opera and I had to get through that. Problems with Renée. She wants time off.
DECEMBER 12, 1981
Saturday
The Times review came out and it was good. [Mel Gussow described Gray as a “sit-down monologuist with the comic sensibility of a stand-up comedian.”] It’s strange because all this personal success makes me feel more lonely and isolated. I’m getting large audiences but I miss the group warm ups and got back a little to that warming up with Joan. After my show I saw Willem and Liz came downstairs and Liz did not even look in to say hello. She looked to be in one of her angry fits which made me afraid and paran
oid. What is she angry about now I wondered. Renée and I went back to my place and I read the Times review over and over. Yes I do exist.
DECEMBER 31, 1981
Thursday
Up at Renée’s. Breakfast with her and Arthur [Shafransky’s brother] then off for a not very productive day, still feel the sluggish Holidays upon me. Did a lot of agonizing about the house. Had a few drinks and at last called Barbara [the real estate agent Gray worked with to find a house in upstate New York—she is mentioned in the beginning of his later monologue Terrors of Pleasure, about the crumbling house he eventually bought in the Catskills region of New York]. She said if I wanted to offer $30,000 in cash that I would have to send a three hundred dollar deposit. We took a cab down to Camilla’s* New Year’s party. She was in good spirits and seems to have her life together. A big crowd. Nice food and lots of Champagne. A nice blue fish pâté. Liz and Renée talked some which I was happy to see. Liz looked quite elegant and Willem paid a lot of attention to her which was nice to see. Ken was not in a good mood. Renée and I walked home in the rain to my place.
JANUARY 26, 1982
Woke early from many dreams perhaps set off by the smell of Renée’s bed. All the sweat, piss and come odors that have built up. I get horny just thinking about it but there were dreams of being by the sea and Renée and I had a child that looked like me and I thought for a moment I had lost the child to the sea and was running as fast as I could to find him alright and smiling. Also that I was given a big dinner in honor of me and Ping Chong [avant-garde theater director] and Yvonne Rainer. I was served a foreskin cake.