About My Life and the Kept Woman

by John Rechy

  On another floor of the library, I would regularly consult magazines and books about theatrical productions, all in preparation for the time when Barbara and I would put out into the world our thrilling translation of Blood Wedding.

  Tonight, I had noticed a man enter and pause as if to see what I was reading, or as if to talk to me. He was tall, somewhat awkward, a slender man of about twenty-three; he wore bookish glasses, and looked, to me, like a young professor. I realized that I had seen him before, here in the library. But where else—and just as recently?

  He walked on to another table and sat facing me, looking up, smiling. I looked away, again enforcing my recurring desire for separation. When I was at the library desk returning the magazines and books I had been consulting, the man lingered by the desk and then disappeared into another part of the library.

  Outside, as I walked along the tree-lined paths that led from the library to the street, heading home across the tracks to the projects, I heard footsteps quickening to catch up with me. I turned to see the man from the library. I hastily shifted my direction, to avoid signaling that I was going across the tracks to the projects, an unyielding source of battered pride. I stopped in a small plaza across from the courthouse, where a bus that traveled up the hill to the rich houses of Kern Place stopped. I pretended to be waiting for that bus.

  “Are you a frustrated actor or a frustrated writer?”

  I quickly recovered from the question. “Neither. I’m too young to be frustrated; I’m only eighteen.”

  “Some young people I know are the most frustrated,” he said smiling, a smile that was entirely warm. “And the most talented.” He added the last in a wry tone, as if bemused by the fact, and without any malice. “I thought you might be one or the other because I’ve noticed the books and magazines you’ve been reading.”

  I relaxed. “I’ve been reading up on theater because I’m translating Lorca’s Blood Wedding.”

  “Wow! That’s pretty ambitious.” He shook his head, as if greatly impressed.

  “Do you know the play?” From his presence in the library, I had inferred that he was at least educated, if not as familiar with Lorca as Barbara and I were.

  “I think, yes, I’ve read it. Are you enrolled at the local college?” he asked. His questions didn’t seem so much probing as friendly.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m in the army, at Fort Bliss. But I come into the city; I rent an apartment, to get away from the army. I was drafted,” he explained quickly as if otherwise I might infer that he was a career soldier. “You must know Spanish very well to translate Lorca.”

  “I do, yes,” was all I said. “I’m doing the translation with my friend. She’s going to play the lead when we stage it,” I improvised. “As a dance-drama.” My words, spoken aloud for the first time to someone other than Barbara, made the endeavor even more impressive to me now. “She’s very talented; she dances and acts and—”

  “—translates Lorca,” he finished. “Is she your sweetheart, or just your collaborator?”

  “Both,” I said; was she? Our relationship remained waiting for definition.

  “Are you going to play …?”

  The lover. “Maybe. We’ve talked about it. But I’m not really an actor, or a dancer.”

  “Oh, what are you?” he asked, the warm smile lingering.

  “I’m a writer,” I said, “like William Faulkner—”

  “Oh.”

  “—and in addition to translating Lorca, I’m writing about a woman I saw, once, very briefly. She was the kept woman of—” What the hell was I saying? That wasn’t true, but the image of the mysterious beautiful woman, smiling, had again swept into my mind unexpectedly.

  A bus was pulling up. Its designation indicated the rich neighborhood up the hill. I was stuck having to board it.

  Seeing me prepare to board the bus—and I would have to take the same bus back and then run home across the tracks to the projects—he asked quickly, “What is your name?”

  “John Rechy.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, in the library?” There was a note of wistfulness in his voice, a questioning of the possibility.

  I didn’t want to commit myself to seeing him tomorrow. Instead, as the bus opened its doors to let me in, and wanting to be polite, I asked quickly, “What is your name?”

  “Wilford Leach,” he said.

  Wilford Leach, Wilford Leach …

  Wilford Leach!

  In the bus, I recognized his name—and him. I had seen a photograph of him, perhaps several, in an issue, or more, of Theater Arts magazine that I had been consulting in the library. He had directed a famous production of Brecht’s Mother Courage. One of the pictures I had seen was of him receiving an award—I couldn’t remember which, and didn’t want to remember. Everything I had said to him, about translating Lorca, about staging it, about being a writer like William Faulkner, made not only my face but my whole body turn hot with mortification.

  Wilford Leach, not then as famous as he would become later as one of Broadway’s most admired and prizewinning directors, became one of my closest friends, one of my very few friends.

  I continued to meet him in the library on the nights when I was not working at the newspaper or at the print shop for my debut issue of El Burro. Each time, he was clearly pleased to see me. “I’m glad you came, Johnny.”

  I liked him, especially because he made no reference to our first awkward encounter. He was witty; he was smart. I longed for that. He was also, at times, when he became excited about artistic subjects, overly emphatic, dramatic, with a repertoire of breezy gestures—theatrical influences, nothing more.

  When the library closed, we would sit on one of the benches that lined the trellised walks outside. When it was time to separate—he going back to the base at Fort Bliss—we walked to the bus stop where I had met him. I was still stuck with the false direction away from the projects. Nightly, I took the bus to Kern Place, and then got off as soon as I thought he would have caught his own bus back to Fort Bliss. I would then head for the projects.

  Although I had made up a story about how I was writing about the kept woman—with no intention of doing so—I had already begun a novel, almost finished, called Pablo! It was set in modern Mexico. Perusing books on theater production, I had come on one, misplaced on the shelf, about Mayan legends. Fascinated, I began writing that novel during idle time at the city newspaper. I had never been to Mexico, but I imagined it, the Yucatán, the Mayan Indians.

  I was especially entranced by a Mayan story about the sun and the moon, before the creation of the world. The moon had fallen in love with the sun as they waited for their place in the constellation. Blinded by its own brightness, the sun did not see the moon. When the world was created, the moon, in anticipation, decked herself in bridal veils, gauzy clouds. The sun remained removed. Like a specter in the sky, the moon was allowed only longing moments to see the sun. Only during the short times of extended dawn did she glimpse the indifferent dazzling sun.

  I was using the mythical frame to tell the story about a Mayan woman, her husband, their beautiful daughter, and a narcissistic boy. Fleeing from the plantation of a much older man who has attempted to take over his life, keeping him in isolation, and keeping him from becoming the great dancer he longs to be, the boy wanders into the jungle, lost. A beautiful Mayan girl falls in love with him, but he does not reciprocate his impossible love. In the background there are witches demanding violence, forlorn animals possessed of human souls, the infamous Llorona of lore screaming into the night—all Mexican legends. I was reading Paul Bowles at the time.

  I told Wilford about my novel, avoiding the tone I had adopted in telling him about Barbara’s and my translation of Blood Wedding.

  “May I read it?”

  I was flattered, especially now that I knew who he was. “Yes,” I said. “I’ll bring it next time I see you.”

  That night Wilford invited me to his apartment, a long large room facin
g the library through a tall window. He had decorated the room sparsely, with two couches—one of which he used as his bed—many books and records; a canvas chair; and a table littered with papers, stage designs, and letters he was writing.

  I was sitting on the canvas chair, he on one of the couches. He had just finished playing a recording of Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, the first of many times when he would introduce me to “modern” music that my father would probably have disdained.

  “Do you live with your family?”

  The pointed question surprised me. At my age it would be likely that I would live with my family while going to the local college. I had spoken about my love for my mother, suggesting the prominence she had in my life, and had said hardly anything about my angry father except that he had once been prominent in music. Why, then, that question now. “Yes. Why?”

  “You’re a fascinating boy—”

  I bristled.

  “Young man,” he corrected. “I wonder about everything that concerns you, like your family.”

  Was he indicating that he wanted to meet my family?—suggesting it subtly, cautiously. That was not possible. I would have to expose my charade of living not up the hill but in the projects. But there was more than that. I was considering the impression he would make, not on my mother, no, but on my father, even my brothers if they happened to come by—and not my sisters Olga and Blanca, but, yes, on the neighbors, the tough types who hovered about the blocks. What would they think, seeing this tall, lanky man who walked with a swinging gait, whose hands often windmilled? I pretended to be concentrating on the haunted music.

  Silence.

  “I’d like to meet your sweetheart,” Wilford said.

  In substitution? He meant Barbara, the only girl I had mentioned to him. Had he sensed my unease at the hinted invitation to my home?

  “I’d like you to meet her.” I was glad to be able to answer without intrusive considerations. Barbara would respond to him. They would charm each other.

  One reason for asking to meet her was this, which he told me only now. He was conferring with the head of the liberal arts departments at the college about directing a series of plays there. His already substantial reputation in theater would guarantee the releasing of funds now available, as the college grew, for visiting artists. He had been highly encouraged by the head of the English Department, Dr. Sonnichsen, who was formidable in the college.

  “You’d be perfect as the bewitched boy,” he added.

  “What?”

  “The Witch Boy John in Dark of the Moon. I directed a production of it in Urbana at the University of Illinois. Maybe your sweetheart would be right to play Barbara Allen.”

  I knew about the play; I had seen an article about a production of it featured in Theater Arts magazine. I’d look it up later to see whether it was Wilford’s. The title and the brief description of the story had intrigued me. A small photograph accompanying the article had shown a lean young man, barefoot, without a shirt, crouching and facing a young woman in a girlish dress. The setting was of shadowy trees, limbs as if struggling to capture the boy and the girl, grayish clouds smearing a dark sky. What surprised me now with Wilford was that I had then imagined myself in the role, a witch boy attempting to discover whether, finally, he will remain a witch or become human. An exorcism may free him to be with the girl he loves, Barbara Allen, or it will destroy him.

  “I’m not an actor,” I said. I did not tell him about my role as the boy Jesus; I didn’t want to fall into the trap I had plunged into when I had first tried to impress him.

  “Oh, I think you are,” he smiled. “I think you are a very good actor.”

  “Guadalupe, Guadalupe, we’ve come back! We know neither you nor Johnny meant what you said that terrible day.”

  They had come back, the monstrous aunts.

  I doubt that they would have had the nerve to enter our house if I had been there, especially considering the reason they had barged in again. But I wasn’t there; my mother gave me an account of their odious visit, and I pictured it in detail.

  “Lupe, it’s better you hear this from us rather than as ugly rumors from others.”

  “So we’re here to tell you—”

  My mother thought they were going to provide new gossip about Marisa Guzman, whom, when they could dredge up something mean, they continued to associate intimately with our family because of my sister’s marriage to her brother.

  “—about your son,” the second aunt finished for the first.

  “About Johnny,” the other emphasized.

  My mother was tempted to ask them to leave, but if they had information that concerned me, she would certainly want to know what it was.

  The uglier of the two aunts lowered her head, to indicate the weight of the information she was about to convey, and the difficulty in doing so. “My son, Beto”—that was her fat son, as ugly as she—“has seen Johnny—”

  “—several times—” the other aunt said.

  “—with a strange man—”

  “—sitting in a park outside the library, late at night!”

  “The man is—”

  “—effeminate!” cried the other aunt.

  My mother stood up. “If you didn’t understand me before, that earlier day, understand me now. Leave, and don’t ever come back or I’ll shut the door in your faces.”

  My mother left the story there. I imagined the reaction of the aunts, the nasty creatures waddling out weeping, lamenting that they had intended only to help—only that! Was there no gratitude left in the world?

  When she had finished her account of the poisonous visit, I looked at my mother, without saying a word. She looked at me, smiled, waited. She had told the story in an amused tone, as if dismissing it all, making the aunts seem as ridiculous as they were. So I did not feel that I had to defend Wilford against the insinuations of the goddamned aunts.

  When I did not react to the story at all, did I see the slightest frown on my mother’s forehead? Did I imagine it?

  Always attempting to add a few dollars to what I contributed at home, I worked a few hours a week—the work also earning me units as a course in journalism—in the shop of one of the famous book designers in the country, Carl Hertzog, who ran the college printing press. He printed routine pamphlets and publications for the college. In exchange, he was allowed an office, the use of the press, and funds to publish beautiful limited editions for individuals and companies. My job was to read all the material for typographical errors, correcting spelling and punctuation.

  He asked me to read a slim, elegantly rendered volume he had been commissioned to do for a large, lavish new store in Dallas; One section contained advice to heads of departments, including this: “If a white person rushes in barefoot and dirty, don’t kick them out until you find out if they just struck oil.”

  Mr. Hertzog’s pending project was a personal “history book” for a billionaire ranch owner. Among the many corrections I made, including dozens of misspellings, was changing his various references to “negroes” to “Negroes.” The corrected galleys were returned to him for approval.

  Mr. Hertzog was out of the office, and I answered the telephone.

  “Who the hey-ell is this?” a harsh voice drawled.

  I informed the caller that Mr. Hertzog was out.

  “I said, who the hell are ya?” the voice commanded.

  “John Rechy,” I said, ready to hang up if the harsh voice continued.

  “You the wise guy changed my spelling of—?”

  I wasn’t sure whether he had pronounced “Negroes” in a deep Southern-Texas accent or whether he had said “niggers.”

  I answered, “Yes, I capitalized the word.”

  “Boy,” said the voice, “You know who this is? If ya don’t ya better find out. Now I don’t want no one givin’”—again the slurred word—“nigguhs any capital letter in my book, ya heah me, boy?”

  I said I did.

  �
�Good. Now ya leave my spellin’ the way I wrote it, heah?” Click.

  “He’s wrong,” I told Mr. Hertzog.

  “Keep it the way he wants,” Mr. Hertzog said.

  “It’s incorrect.”

  A look of impatience. “He owns half of Texas.”

  I saw Barbara only infrequently now; I had seen her a few times—and ignored her—while she sat at the student union building with the shaggy “older” man I had seen her with earlier.

  I spent with Wilford whatever spare time I had from my jobs. I had brought him a carbon copy of Pablo!—just Wnished. He had told me he was eager to read it—“straight through without interruption,” he pleased me by saying.

  My visits always included listening to music I was unfamiliar with, Stravinsky, Prokofiev—and Harry Partch, a bizarre composer he championed, who played eerie gongy sounds with large crystal jars, a composer my father, having found his voice in the sad romantics, would have derided with angry passion.

  Wilford had written to Partch about me, a fact I discovered when he told me that the esoteric composer had said he would welcome hearing from me, about myself. Complimented, and wanting to please Wilford, I did write to him, telling him what courses I was taking at school, where I worked. I sent the letter with Wilford’s return address.

  When I saw Wilford next in his apartment—unexpectedly, since I had thought I was working that day but was off—he was reading a letter that had just arrived. Glancing at the envelope on the table, I saw that it was from Partch. Wilford put the letter back in the envelope.

  “Did he say he received my letter?” I asked him.