Mind of an Outlaw: Selected Essays

by Norman Mailer

  Instead, Crockett came back with the seventy-fifth anniversary edition of The Advocate, a little work of love Crockett had gotten together by himself over the last year—in truth, a prodigious push of Pegasusmanship—collecting poems, pieces, and comment from the fine ranks of Wallace Stevens, Horace Gregory, Djuna Barnes, Marianne Moore, Robert Hillyer, Frederic Prokosch, Mark Schorer, John Malcolm Brinnin, Richard Eberhart, Bowden Broadwater, and William Carlos Williams, plus a poem by John Crockett, “The Sulky Races at Cherry Park.” It was a mammoth virtuoso literary crypto-CIA affair back in March of ’42, and none of us on The Advocate had had the first clue as to what Crockett was cooking. As for the issue with our stories—Crockett promised to get to that next. The expression on his young but sour face told us what he thought of our stories. Crockett, incidentally, while not as well-featured as John Dean, had a great resemblance to him—I remember his tortoiseshell glasses, high forehead, and thin pale hair.

  Pete Barton had been agitated for weeks at the long wait on our first issue. Painfully aware of his father’s weight in the world, he was invariably overscrupulous never to push his own. He had suspended himself into a state of forbearance worthy of a Zen warrior considering the immense agitation the late appearance of the magazine had caused. When the anniversary issue appeared (to rich critical reception in the Boston papers, worse luck!), Barton finally demonstrated his father’s blood. He called an emergency meeting where he calumniated himself for his derelictions of attention, took the full blame for the financial disaster of the issue (it had cost something like three times as much as more modest issues; our debt on the consequence had doubled overnight), and—Billy Budd to the last, absent even to intimations of a further notion to evil—stated that he would not ask for Crockett’s resignation if he could expect his cooperation on future projects.

  Crockett replied with a nod of his head and a profound turning of our collective head. Having heard, he said, that Somerset Maugham would be in the Boston area during April, he had sent an invitation to Maugham to come to a party that The Advocate would be happy to throw in his honor, and Maugham had accepted. Maugham had accepted.

  This piece of news ran around the ring of Cambridge like a particle in a cyclotron. Nothing in four years at Harvard, not Dunkirk, Pearl Harbor, or the blitz, not even beating Yale and Princeton in the same season for the first time in years, could have lit Harvard up more. Not to be invited to that party was equal to signifying that one had mismanaged one’s life.

  The literary grandees of the faculty sent their early acceptance: F. O. Matthiessen, Theodore Spencer, and Robert Hillyer in the van; the officers of The Lampoon sucked around; housemasters’ wives asked how things were going at The Advocate. On the night of the party, four hundred souls in four hundred bodies as large as Patrick Moynihan’s and as delicate as Joan Didion’s came to the small rooms on the third floor and packed themselves in so completely that you ended by bringing your drink to your lips around the wrist of the strange forearm in front of your face. The noise of cocktail gabble anticipated the oncoming shapings of time—one would not hear the sound again until the first jet planes fired up their engines at an airport. Drinks were passed overhead. If you did not reach at the right time, another hand plucked the drink. It did not matter. More was on its way. Glasses bounced like corks over white choppy Harvard hands. From time to time, word would pass like wind through grass that Maugham had just entered the building, Maugham was having trouble getting up the stairs, Maugham was through the door. Maugham was in the other room. We formed phalanxes to move into the other room; we did not budge. A phalanx cannot budge a volume that is impacted. The lovely smile of resignation was on the lips of faculty wives: it is the establishment smile that says, “Life is like that—the nearest pleasures are not to be tasted.” After a half hour of such smiling into the face of a stranger as one brought one’s arm around her neck to get at one’s drink, the wind came through the grass again. Maugham, we heard, was at the door. Maugham was slowly going down the stair. Somerset Maugham was gone.

  Hands passed drinks above the impacted mass. Eyes flashed in that hard gemlike smile of pride retained when opportunity is lost. In another half hour, there was a lessening of pressure on one’s chest, and bodies began to separate. After a while, one could walk from room to room. What was the point? Maugham was gone.

  It was only on the next day, after the claims of liars had been checked against the quiet evidence of reliable witnesses who had found themselves analogously empretzeled in every room and on the stairs, that the news came back. By every sound measure of verification, Somerset Maugham had never been in the Advocate building that night. Crockett, now confronted, confessed. Out of his unflappable funds of phlegm, he allowed that he had known for weeks Somerset Maugham was not coming—the great author had been kind enough to send a telegram in answer to the invitation. “Certainly not,” it said.

  It was too late to ask Crockett to resign. Due to the war and an accelerated graduation, our term as Advocate officers was up; the new president and Pegasus were in. Because of the party, we left with a debt that had just doubled again. The Advocate has never been solvent since.

  A postscript: Pete Barton became a Navy officer and commanded a ship, came home, worked as quietly for Time as if he had been a Lampoon man, and died before he was forty. The only time I saw John Crockett again was about ten years ago in New York on a reunion at the Harvard Club. He was now in the State Department and had been stationed for years in Yugoslavia. He told delicious stories about idiotic conversations with Madame Tito at banquets in Zagreb. He looked to be as wicked as ever. Our cause was being well served in Yugoslavia. It occurs to me that the mag across the street never knew what a talent it missed when The Advocate got Crockett. Rest in peace, Pete Barton.

  1980s

  Before the Literary Bar

  (1980)

  PROSECUTOR: Your Honor, our first and only witness will be the defendant, Norman Mailer.

  THE COURT: He has waived his rights?

  PROSECUTOR: Yes, Your Honor.

  THE COURT: All right, let’s put him on.

  [The defendant is sworn]

  Mr. Mailer, I will remind you of the charge. It is criminal literary negligence. On this charge, the court may find against you for censure in the first or second degree, or for reprimand. You may also be exonerated.

  MAILER: I am aware of the charge, Your Honor.

  PROSECUTOR: Mr. Mailer, I am holding in my hand a work entitled Of Women and Their Elegance, which has your name on the cover as author. Would you describe it?

  MAILER: It is a book of photographs by Milton Greene, with a text of fifty thousand words by myself.

  PROSECUTOR: Fifty thousand words is the length of the average novel?

  MAILER: Maybe half to two-thirds the length.

  PROSECUTOR: Would you say this work presents itself as an autobiography by Marilyn Monroe?

  MAILER: Originally, I wished to title it Of Women and Their Elegance, by Marilyn Monroe as told to Norman Mailer, but it was decided the title could prove misleading to the public, who might think the interview had actually taken place. I suppose it would be better to describe the text as a false autobiography. Or an imaginary memoir, since the story, but for a few recollections, only covers a period of three or four years in her life.

  PROSECUTOR: It is made up.

  MAILER: More or less made up.

  PROSECUTOR: Could you be more specific?

  MAILER: Much of the book is based on fact. I would say some of it is made up.

  PROSECUTOR: Are you prepared to offer examples of fact and fiction as they occur in your pages?

  MAILER: I can try.

  PROSECUTOR: Let me read a passage to the court, written in the first person, which purports to be Marilyn Monroe’s voice. The Amy she refers to is one Amy Greene, Milton Greene’s wife. I will enter it as Exhibit A. It is taken from page 24 of Mr. Mailer’s book.

  THE COURT: All right, go ahead.

 
[The prosecution reads Exhibit A, page 24]

  I went out shopping with Amy. She took me to Saks and Bonwit Teller’s, and people lined up to look at me as soon as I got spotted. Women were ripping open the curtain in the dressing room, which was enough to do Amy in, if she hadn’t been made of the toughest stuff. First, she discovered I wear no panties, and to make it worse, a bit of my natural odor came off with the removal of the skirt. Nothing drives people crazier than a woman with an aroma that doesn’t come out of a bottle. Maybe I should use deodorant, but I do like a little sniff of myself. It’s a way of staying in touch.

  Anyway, Amy turned her head at the sight of my pubic hair, which is, alas, disconcertingly dark, and then the curtains flew open, and shoppers gawked, three big mouths and big noses, and a tall, skinny salesman came over to shut the curtains and croaked, “Miss Monroe!” and disappeared forever. I had to laugh. I knew I’d changed his life. I think, sometimes, that’s why I do it.

  PROSECUTOR: Now, Mr. Mailer.

  MAILER: Yessir.

  PROSECUTOR: Did this scene occur?

  MAILER: Yes. Mrs. Greene told me that hordes of shoppers did indeed gawk at Marilyn.

  PROSECUTOR: And ripped open the curtain to the dressing room?

  MAILER: It is my recollection that Mrs. Greene told me something of the sort.

  PROSECUTOR: In a tape-recorded interview?

  MAILER: [Pauses] Perhaps, in casual conversation. I am old friends with Mr. and Mrs. Greene, and we have had many unrecorded conversations about Marilyn Monroe as well.

  PROSECUTOR: And you drew your impressions of Miss Monroe from these conversations, recorded and unrecorded?

  MAILER: Some of my impressions.

  PROSECUTOR: So Mrs. Greene told you that Miss Monroe was wearing no panties on this occasion?

  MAILER: I don’t recollect that Mrs. Greene told me that.

  PROSECUTOR: Then how did you arrive at such a conclusion?

  MAILER: On the basis of many conversations with many people who knew Marilyn Monroe, it seems to be established that Miss Monroe did not like to wear panties.

  PROSECUTOR: So you took the liberty of deciding she was wearing none that day?

  MAILER: It seemed a fair assumption. You try to be fair.

  PROSECUTOR: You weren’t just trying to sell copies?

  DEFENSE: Objection. The witness is being manhandled.

  THE COURT: Overruled. I want to hear the answer.

  MAILER: I wasn’t trying just to sell copies, although I didn’t think the description would hurt sales—I’ll give you that much. What I was trying to do, however …

  PROSECUTOR: We’re not interested in what you’re trying to do, Mr. Mailer, but in what you did.

  THE COURT: Let him give it.

  MAILER: I was trying to get across Miss Monroe’s sense of fun. She may not literally have been wearing no panties on that day, but it was in her nature to have been wearing none. I think she could certainly have been engaged in such a scene and have enjoyed it. So I chose to write it that way. It seemed right to me. That is what I must go by.

  PROSECUTOR: I will continue with Exhibit A, page 24 to page 26.

  [Reads]

  After two days of such shopping, Amy said, “That’s it, kiddo. From now on, we stay in the St. Regis and have everything brought up.” I began to see how it worked. Some designers came by, friends of Amy’s; I could tell by the way she said the name of one that it was another case of Laurence Olivier, Milton Greene, Joe DiMaggio, Arthur Miller, or Elia Kazan. First in category. So I said, “Oh, yes, Norman Norell, greatest dress designer in the world.” And he had a couple of the second-greatests with him—George Nardiello, John Moore. They were the nicest men. It was not only that they were well groomed and slim and fit into their clothes like a beautiful hand has gone inside a beautiful glove, but they were so happy inside their suits. It was like the person within themselves also had a good suit which was their own skin. Moreover, they liked me. I could tell. Oh. I felt open as a sponge. I knew they were going to help me. Norell said, “Marilyn, everyone has a problem. I have a friend who’s very ugly and she’s the princess of fashion in New York. She takes that ugliness and makes it dramatic.” Yet, he said, after she was done with her dress and coiffeur, she looked like a samurai warrior. You couldn’t take your eyes off her. Besides, she was smart enough to wear jewelry that clanked and gonged with every move she made. You could have been in a Chinese temple. “Her little beauty tricks, if tried on anyone else, would have been a disaster,” Norman Norell said and gave me my first lesson in style. “It’s not enough to find the problem,” he said, “and avoid it. Elegance is magic. The problem, presto, has to become the solution.”

  Sure enough, Norman Norell got around to informing me very kindly that my neck was too short, only he didn’t put it that way. My neck, I was told, wasn’t that long. I wouldn’t be happy in a Vogue collar. Ruffles were death. “Let me,” he said, “show you a shawl collar.” I got it instantly. A nice, thin dinner-jacket set of lapels and a long V-neck. Society cleavage. I felt as if I had spent my life until that point being sort of very fluffy à la Hollywood. Now I could see the way Amy saw me with my head sitting on my shoulders like an armchair in the middle of a saggy floor.

  PROSECUTOR: Mr. Mailer, would you say your account of conversations between Miss Monroe and Mr. Norell is factual?

  MAILER: Miss Monroe met Norman Norell, he designed dresses for her, he had many conversations with her. I attempted to capture the flavor of those conversations as they might have occurred. They are imaginary conversations, but, hopefully, not too far away in mood from what was said.

  PROSECUTOR: Not too far away in mood. But not in fact. In fact, they have no relation to what was said.

  MAILER: Most conversations are lost. We reconstruct the past by our recollection of the mood fully as much as by our grasp of fact. When facts are skimpy, one hopes to do well at sensing the mood.

  PROSECUTOR: I will continue Exhibit A, pages 26 and 27.

  [Reads]

  Of course, this new interest in clothes had all started on the trip to Palm Springs, when I told Milton I wanted to be immensely respected and he told me, “First step: Don’t act like a slob.” He held up a finger. “Be a woman.”

  “You say, ‘Don’t look like a slob.’ ”

  “That dress you’re wearing,” said Milton. “It’s a shmatte.”

  “A what …? No, don’t tell me.” I once saw a guy in a delicatessen spearing kosher pickles out of a barrel. That was what Yiddish sounded like to me. One more pickle on the prong.

  “You want to be the greatest actress in the world,” said Milton, “but you’re exhibiting neither class nor taste. They call you a dumb blonde, and they are getting away with it. You have to carry yourself different. Don’t walk around like you’re nothing. Never forget you have something fantastic on the screen.”

  That was now prominent in my thoughts after meeting Norman Norell. I felt as if I was getting out from the carpet I had been living under all my life. I was beginning to see that class was not beyond me, nor was I beneath it.

  PROSECUTOR: Would you say Miss Monroe’s conversation with Milton Greene is also based on skimpy facts?

  MAILER: Less skimpy. I take it from Mr. Greene’s recollection. Of course, his conversations with Miss Monroe were held more than twenty-five years ago. In my case, I am not trying to delineate a boundary line between fact and fiction here. In this book, I want to explore the elusive nature of a most talented woman and artist.

  PROSECUTOR: Let me now conclude Exhibit A with the rest of page 27.

  It was the scene in The Seven Year Itch where I stand over a subway grating and my skirts blow up. Now I guess the studio had given me a white shmatte that night and tight white panties, and my hair had a hundred marcelled waves, and I certainly had no neck and lots of back and shoulders, where I was pleasantly plump, to say the least, but I paid no attention. I threw caution to the winds, which is one cliché I could die saying and
hold it in my arms, I can’t help it, give me a ton of caution to throw to the winds. There were two thousand people on the street, watching, and they had a million whistles. All the while Joe D. was on the outskirts of the crowd dying because he knew the secret of acting. Maybe it was because he was a ballplayer, but he knew it didn’t have to be false when you acted that you were in love; sometimes it was real, and when that happened, it could be more real than anything else. So I guess he knew—no secrets between husband and wife; that’s what the ceremony is for—guess he knew I was feeling a little moist every time my skirt blew up. Immortality would be immortalized if I ever took those white panties off. It’s true, I wanted to throw myself to the crowd.

  PROSECUTOR: Mr. Mailer, did your researches bring you to ask various friends of Miss Monroe’s if, on this occasion when her skirts were flying, she wanted, and I quote from your text, “to throw myself to the crowd”?

  MAILER: No, I asked no one.

  PROSECUTOR: To your knowledge, she told no friends of such a feeling?

  MAILER: No.

  PROSECUTOR: Never mentioned it to you?

  MAILER: I never met her.

  DEFENSE: Would the court instruct my client that he need only answer the prosecutor’s questions. He does not have to add supplementary information.

  THE COURT: Mr. Mailer is now twice instructed.

  PROSECUTOR: Norman Mailer, you never met Marilyn Monroe?