Queer Beats

by Regina Marler

  Thanks to Allen’s certainty of what Jack had told him, I finally recall the blow job—a pro forma affair, which I put a quick stop to. At what might be nicely called loose ends, we rubbed bellies for a while; later he would publish a poem dedicated to me: “Didn’t know I was a great come-onner, did you? (come-on-er).” I was not particularly touched by this belated Valentine, considering that I finally flipped him over on his stomach, not an easy job as he was as much heavier than I as was the merchant mariner in Seattle,46 whom he—only now does it strike me—physically resembled. Was I getting my own back on Jack’s back?

  Jack raised his head from the pillow to look at me over his left shoulder; off to our left the rosy neon from the window gave the room a mildly infernal glow. He stared at me for a moment—I see this part very clearly now, forehead half covered with sweaty dark curls—then he sighed as his head dropped back onto the pillow. There are other published versions of this encounter: In one, Jack says that he spent the night in the bathroom. On the floor? There was a shower but no tub. In another, he was impotent. But the potency of other males is, for me, a turn-off. What I have reported is all there was to it, except that I liked the way he smelled.

  Gore Vidal

  “Norman wanted to know what had really happened…”

  from PALIMPSEST

  For some reason Mailer and I drove back together to the city [from Vidal’s country house] on that, or another, occasion. We were talking about Kerouac’s The Subterraneans, and I said that I did not appreciate Jack’s invasion of our common privacy. Norman wanted to know what had really happened. I told him. Norman almost drove us off the Taconic Parkway. Later, he worked up a mystical case that I had deliberately removed the steel from Jack’s sphincter and that is why he took to drink and self-destruction.

  Allen Ginsberg

  “Something strange has happened…”

  from a journal entry, January 8, 1961

  Up walks several men, one I recognize & talk to—a middle-aged—perhaps Robert Lowell—but novelist—only later do I recognize Norman Mailer’s on the same boat, first class, all along—He’s wearing feminine bloomer clothers—a shirt that makes a lollypop round the hips & the breast—But his demeanor is the same manly one, only more schiza-mysterious and garbo-esque. Talking, after he leaves, with his companion, I suggest something strange has happened—They’ve already been to all ports in Mediterranean & are now returning back—have been to Algiers—I say I lived a while in Tanger—Mailer goes down to cabin, I follow. […]

  Going downstairs to Mess I sit next to Mailer who’s brought his novelist’s portfolio & is working on it—I decide to talk to him about his fantastic female dress and male body at the moment—he remains aloof & inviting & open.

  Allen Ginsberg

  “I sit naked in my room remembering…”

  from a journal entry, June 17, 1951

  Limping down the block, foot bruised yesterday in peyote euphoria on Washington Sq. with Keck & Anton.47

  A boy came out of Shelley’s, early twenties, in dungarees & striped T-shirt—carrying 2 glasses of red liquor walking in front of me.

  I sit naked in my room remembering the animal swing of his buttocks, the length and strength and paleness of his arms in the darkness as he balanced his way brushing slightly drunken against the granite of the building with his arm.

  It is midnight in the blue attic,48 summer, a thin film of sweat on my face.

  He stopped after walking the length of the building down the sidestreet into the darkness, by an iron fence which led to an iron stairway down to a cement courtyard behind the building.

  He put both glasses down, bending over—were they filled with wine—picked one up, and drank it all straight down. I walked on, staring back, he looked at me and said—

  “I got a good deal out of the bar,” or something.

  “What a way to drink!” I said incoherently, walking on. I wanted to stop and make him—thinking of the crowd of youths around the pinball machine in the bar 2 months ago, the hunchback, the handsome one, the other boys—afraid of being discovered on the block as queer, or afraid of him & afraid to stop & talk. He was quite tall and evenly formed.

  This reminds me—he not a great face [sic], just another momentary sadness of unobtainable common beauty—of the truly great strangers, the appearances of majesty I have seen on the streets here and there. A project which I have meant to sketch for several weeks.

  In Houston, 1948—I was broke, stealing Pepsi Cola bottles to cash in and buy candy bars for hunger, waiting for a ship. Outside the old Union Hall, walking down the street, a Latin animal, Cuban, Spanish, I don’t know. Electricity seemed to flow from his powerful body—black hair, curled wildly, looked impossible for him to live in society, to me—powerful malignant features—he was perhaps 22 or less—springing down the street in a tense potent walk, dungarees, powerful legs, not too tall, blue shirt opened several buttons on the chest, black hair curling sparsely on chest—he seemed made of iron, no sweat—or brown polished rock. I never in my life saw a more perfect being—expression of vigor and potency and natural rage on face—I couldn’t conceive of him speaking English. I wondered what loves he had. Who could resist him? He must have taken any weak body he needed or wanted. Love from such a face I could not imagine, nor gentleness—but love and gentleness are not needed where there was so much life. He just passed me by and I stood there amazed staring at him as he disappeared up the block & around the corner scattering the air in spiritual waves behind him. I couldn’t believe he was human. He had thick features, black eyebrows, almost square face, powerful chest, perfect freedom of walk.

  Similar to him, the Latin I saw on 57th Street and Madison and Park, whom I followed down the street for several blocks, staring at him. This youth—he seemed very young, yet dressed impeccably in an Oxford grey or black suit, shining perfect black shoes, delicate grey tie—the clothes of a diplomat or rich artist—had long black hair combed neatly, like a statue or painting of perfect grooming, back on his head with a part—yet it was still a black animal mane. His features were regular and hard, very strong even face, with great force and dignity—all this in a youth not much older than me. I tagged along behind this culturally accomplished beast intelligence in my scuffed handmedown shoes, unpressed illfitting post adolescent suit, dirt ringed shirt and cheesy tie, hair askew and book underarm, perspiring perhaps. The impression of purpose & forcefulness, dignity, and social powerfulness embodied in this beautiful animal mask, the alien master man; a U.N. diplomat or courier I thought.…

  Finally a young kid in his middle teens perhaps walking with a few boys down Market Street, Paterson, past City hall, past the bank and Schoonmakers [a Paterson, New Jersey, department store], 3 years ago or 2, when I was wandering downtown around, don’t remember why. He had neither the bestial brilliance of the Spaniard, nor suffering nor intellectuality of others, nor their age: he was rather short, and at first glance perhaps even too short (stunted by cigarettes?), dressed in dungarees, very tight: he was well built though, thick buttocks and short powerful genitals pressing out the tight workpants, and perhaps a dirty t-shirt over the wide squat chest (he was not however a dwarf, just a small powerful adolescent)—and a plain, not ugly, not nice face—yet as I first glanced at him and passed by I felt almost faint from the wave of dirty sexuality, of real knowing naive, innocent carnality; physical liberty, belly and buttock power in him. He walked down the street and I half followed I was so struck—my own body reacted to his like a magnet to a magnet disturbed and drawn, sickened in the belly by lust—the frankness of his body—he was talking to several other gangling unformed adolescents, he smoked a cigarette freely, talking perhaps describing some conquest, perhaps occupied in some showy-manly plot for a secret club or hide-out. I never saw anyone I wanted to lock my body with so strongly—except perhaps the savage Spaniard of Houston.

  Diane di Prima

  “It was a strange, nondescript kind of orgy…”

  [Di
ane di Prima was part of the East Village poetry scene from the early 1950s. Very much a bohemian, she read and wrote constantly, sacrificing physical comfort for the luxury of words. She also had many lovers, including the poet LeRoi Jones, then married to Hettie Jones and, like di Prima, mildly bisexual at that time. Together, they edited the Beat-associated mimeographed newsletter The Floating Bear and helped carry on the battle against censorship. Memoirs of a Beatnik was a written-for-hire erotic autobiography, and is rich with incidental details of hipster life.—ed.]

  I had been in sporadic correspondence with Allen Ginsberg and some of his friends ever since I read Howl (Lawrence Ferlinghetti had even written a tiny introduction for my “unpublishable” first book).49 Now Allen and his gang were in New York and I was eager to meet them. After a few phone calls back and forth they came down to Leslie’s,50 where I was staying, bringing with them a great quantity of cheap wine and some very good grass. We all proceeded to get thoroughly stoned, and Allen and Jack Kerouac, who was with him, rapped down a long, beautiful high-flown rap all about poetry and high endeavor. Jack’s belief, which Allen shared at the time, was that one should never change or rewrite anything. He felt that the initial flash of the turned-on mind was best, in life as well as in poetry, and I could see that he probably really lived that way. He seized upon my notebooks and proceeded to uncorrect the poems, rolling the original bumpy lines off his tongue, making the stops and awkwardnesses beautiful while we all got higher and higher.

  I proposed that they spend the night. Allen had eyes for Leslie and agreed readily, enlisting his lover Peter’s help in moving the couch from the front room to the back, and setting it beside the double bed. They were about the same height and made one extra-wide, only slightly bumpy, sleeping place. They dragged the whole thing into the center of the room, arranged plants around it, and burning sticks of Indian incense which they stuck into the flower pots. Benny watched, horrified.

  After kissing us all lingeringly, Peter split—to what mysterious night rituals of his own, we could only surmise. Leslie lit some candles and placed them at the bedside, turning off the overhead light. Immediately, the room seemed immense, mysterious, the beds an island, a camp in a great forest wilderness (Leslie’s rubber plants). We all undressed—Benny with some trepidation—and climbed on.

  It was a strange, nondescript kind of orgy. Allen set things going by largely and fully embracing all of us, each in turn and all at once, sliding from body to body in a great wallow of flesh. It was warm and friendly and very unsexy—like being in a bathtub with four other people. To make matters worse, I had my period, and was acutely aware of the little white string of a tampax sticking out of my cunt. I played for a while with the cocks with which I found myself surrounded, planning as soon as I could to get out of the way of the action and go to sleep.

  But Jack was straight, and finding himself in a bed with three faggots and me, he wanted some pussy and decided he was going to get it. He began to persuade me to remove the tampax by nuzzling and nudging at my breasts and neck with his handsome head. Meanwhile everyone else was urging me to join in the games. Allen embarked on a long speech on the joys of making it while menstruating: the extra lubrication, the extra excitement due to a change of hormones, animals in heat bleed slightly, etc. Finally, to the cheer of the whole gang, I pulled out the bloody talisman and flung it across the room.

  Having done his part to assure a pleasurable evening for Jack and myself, Allen fell to work on the young male bodies beside him, and was soon wrapped round, with Leslie on one side of him and Benny on the other. I heard some squeals, and felt much humping and bumping about, but in the welter of bedclothes the action was rather obscure. Jack began by gallantly going down on me to prove that he didn’t mind a little blood. He had a wildly nestling, hugging sort of approach, and he was a big man; I was taken over, and lay there with legs spead and eyes closed while he snorted and leaped like Pan. When I shut my eyes I was once more aware of the warm ocean of flesh around me, could distinguish the various love-sounds and breathings of all other creatures.

  We finally got loose of the bedclothes: Jack, with a great cry, heaved himself upwards and dumped them all on the floor, then fell heavily on top of me and entered me immediately. My momentary surprise turned to pleasure, and I squirmed down on his cock, getting it all inside of me, feeling good and full. It nudged the neck of my womb, and I felt a thrill of a different kind, a pleasure that, starting in my groin, spread outward to the edge of my skin, stirring every hair follicle on my body separately. We bucked and shifted, looking for the best position, fucked for a long time on our sides. Then Jack withdrew and flipped over on his back. I played with his half-soft cock with the traces of my blood on it, bringing it back to fullness. He indicated by gestures that he wanted me to sit on top of him. I did, guiding his cock inside me, and it touched the same place at the neck of my womb again, but this time more heavily, so that the pleasure was sharper and edged with a slight pain.

  It was a long, slow, easy fuck. I knelt with my feet tucked under me and moved up and down on Jack’s cock while his hands on my waist supported and guided my movement. I glanced at the group beside me. Leslie was lying on Allen, kissing him, and they were grinding their stomachs together. I could imagine, though I could not see, their two hard cocks between then, denting the soft skin of their bellies. Benny lay a little to one side of the two of them. He was kissing Leslie’s back and neck, and he had his own cock in his hand. Pleasure began to increase in my gut, I bent down and kissed Jack on the mouth, moving faster and faster against him. His two hands on my shoulders held me warm and tight, as we both came in the friendliness of that huge, candlelit room.

  Jack stirred after a few minutes of light rest. He leaned over the side of the bed, feeling around to find his soft leather pouch, and rolled a joint of good Mexican grass. Drew on it deeply and handed it to me. I smoked a little, and looked around to see where the others were at. Allen was lying full out on the bed, and Leslie was fucking him in the ass. I tried to hand the joint to Benny, who refused it with a shake of his head and fell, sobbing, into my arms. I handed the grass back to Jack, and tried to comfort Benny, but he would only lie there, sobbing softly. I stroked his shoulders and back and wished he would stop. It was very boring. Jack caught my eye and grinned at my chagrin. I turned my head towards him and he put the grass back in my mouth, holding it for me while I drew on it. Finally Benny stopped and said, “I have to go to the bathroom.” He tromped about with reproachful noises, finding a bathrobe, and was lost in the unfathomed halls and staircases.

  Allen and Leslie finished doing their thing, and Leslie was hungry, as he always was after fucking, and went to the kitchen and came back with bread and herring and a bag of early peaches, and he and Jack and I sat munching and smoking, while Allen scribbled in a notebook, occasionally looking up abstractedly for the grass. Jack pulled me between his legs and began to rub his limp cock against my backside and eventually got it hard again, and he exclaimed, “Look, Allen!” and leaped out of bed pulling me onto him as he stood in a deep plié and we tried to do it in Tibetan yab-yum position. It felt good, was really fine and lots of fun, but Jack was drunk and high and balance not too good, and we fell over, narrowly missing a plant, and went on fucking on the floor, my legs around his waist, while he protested that we should slow down and let him get into lotus position so we could try that one. But I simply locked my ankles around his waist, spread the cheeks of his ass with my hands, kept him busy, and we flipped over first one way and then the other on the floor.

  Allen by this time was reciting Whitman and rubbing Leslie’s cock with his feet…

  II.

  Male Muses

  (Or, Sex without Borders)

  Without Neal Cassady, there would be no On the Road, no Visions of Cody, and none of the powerful poems Ginsberg would write for him, like “The Green Automobile” or “On Neal’s Ashes.” Without Kerouac, there would be no Howl. Without Ginsberg, there would be no N
aked Lunch. Just as important as the Beats’ mutual attraction and influence was the fact that their romantic desires for each other were usually thwarted or triangulated. Ginsberg loved Carr and Kerouac, and then Cassady. Cassady loved Ginsberg, but not in the same way. Burroughs loved Ginsberg, who loved him back, but not as much. Had there been direct, requited, unhampered love between any two Beats, they would have paired off and broken the circle. Longing is a better muse than satisfaction. It was not in the first flush of love, for example, but during a troubled separation from his new lover, Peter Orlovsky, that Ginsberg entered the state of mind in which he began Howl. This is true, as well, of the routines Burroughs spun in his letters to Ginsberg from Tangier, many of which would end up in Naked Lunch. They are a lover’s appeal—a courtship display, like the fanning of plumage. Although they had their genesis in the four months in 1953 that he and Ginsberg had lived together in New York, they might never have surfaced if Ginsberg hadn’t finally rejected him, blurting out “But I don’t want your ugly old cock!”51

  Taking this hint, Burroughs left alone for Tangier and began to write the letters that a contrite Ginsberg would praise and preserve and eventually help edit into Naked Lunch. It was Kerouac and Ginsberg who had convinced Burroughs to write in the first place, and both would later type his manuscript—that womanly act of devotion—though Kerouac had to quit when it gave him nightmares. The intensity of desire that had frightened away Ginsberg—the need to “schlup,” to merge like jellied blobs of protoplasm—was still potent on the page. Kerouac’s free-flowing, jazzinspired Dr. Sax is a tribute of sorts to Burroughs and is saturated with the voice readers would later come to know in Naked Lunch. (In a typical collaborative flourish, Ginsberg gave Kerouac the novel’s Shakespearean ending.) Although productive on their own, the three were entirely tied up in each other’s writing lives throughout the 1950s. Howl may have been dedicated to Ginsberg’s friend Carl Solomon, but was in fact the fruit of Kerouac’s influence on Ginsberg. And Ginsberg served as agent for both Burroughs and Kerouac, taking on a world of trouble. His biographer, Barry Miles, argues that Ginsberg “single-handedly willed the Beat Generation into being by his unshakeable belief that his poet friends were all geniuses.”52