Landscape With Traveler (12 page)

 

62

It's

One

of

Those

Funny

Nights

It's one of those funny nights when I hate the thought of going to sleep—I feel too good to cut it off (being awake, that is). And for no reason that I can figure out, though I don't try to analyze it, and just enjoy it. It's one of those nights, too, that seem only to exist in New York—sultry, humid, everyone covered with a film of sweaty skin oil and city grime, all stuck together so that a shower is more attractive than a lover or anything else.

I came home in one of the wildest late-night subway trains I've been in in a great long time, with people pressed against me from all sides, sweating and cursing, literally dripping on each other and slimy arms sliding against even slimier ones. Sounds horrible, but I really enjoyed it, being part of that great solid chunk of people, and I was smiling a little, I guess, and the people around me all calmed down and started smiling, too, and relaxed into the rubbing and jolting.

 

63

Answering

Mail

I'm so poor about answering mail. When I'm up to it I always try to write back as soon as I can so I'll get another letter back. I've always envied a friend of mine in Rome, an Italian count, who had a wonderful system of writing letters. He'd put all mail on his desk unopened until he had time to sit down and read it
and
answer it. He'd open one letter at a time and reply immediately before opening another one. I've tried his method from time to time, but I seldom make time for it—even with the few letters I get—and always have to give it up. Besides, I'm too impatient—and he didn't have to go out and earn his living.

 

64

The

Antique

and

Flower

Show

I went to the Antique and Flower Show at the Coliseum the other night with a friend who was looking for some silver, and I was just looking. However, while I was looking at the silver with her, my eye was offended by the gleam of brass, and it turned out to be a shell casing, about seven or eight inches tall and a couple of inches in diameter (reminded me of an old husband!!), and I picked it up to see what the decoration was.

It was a very crude engraving (“graving” may be better to say) of a number (III) and an insignia, military, of some sort, and some initials—I.D. or J.D.—plus the legend “
1
.
4
.
1943
, Russland,” and on the bottom the Nazi eagle and swastika Curious piece, and cheap, so I bought it like an idiot.

Fascinating that it should finally turn up in New York after all it travels. And where is my wandering I.D. or J.D. tonight?

 

65

Things

I

Love

Things I love:

Men.

Silence.

Books (not only for their contents, but also as physical objects).

Body smells.

Boys' choirs.

Beignets.

Artichokes.

Figs.

Boxwood.

Amber.

Carnelian.

Ivory.

Useful gold and silver objects.

Callas's recordings.

Flowers in vases.

Bamboo.

Pottery.

Some TV commercials.

Musical instruments.

Fountain pens.

 

66

Things

to

Which

I

Am

Indifferent

Things to which I am indifferent:

Natural scenery (except sunrises and an occasional sunset).

Death.

Jazz.

“Liberation” movements.

Movements.

Untidy apartments.

House plants.

Pets.

 

67

Things

I

Hate

Things I hate:

Lies.

Circumcision.

“Perfect” binding.

Plastic.

TV programs re gays.

 

68

If

We

Disliked

Anyone

If we disliked anyone for what they don't understand, then we'd have to dislike
everyone.
I keep preaching my doctrine of “To Understand Is to Love”—without, however, pretending that the understanding part is in any way easy.

On the other hand, I'm afraid certain others' (far too many others these days) sense of “community,” I suppose one has to call it, is rather misguided. I just read a silly interview with Isherwood in a magazine for homosexuals that is full of talk about his gay “brothers and sisters” (namely me, I suppose, inter alia). That kind of thing is always off-putting to me.

On Sixth Avenue a black guy grabbed my arm on the street, saying, “Hey, brother . . .” and before he could go on and ask me for a quarter (or five dollars, or whatever they're asking for these days), I jerked away and nonplused him by saying, “I am not your brother, not even your third cousin, and I don't want to speak to you or hear anything whatsoever that you have to say.” Or some such piss-elegant faggy remark. But whatever my manner, it was an exact telling of my feelings. That is, after all, how words lose their meanings. What are people to call their
real
brothers, now that we are
all
“brothers”? Phooey, and a pox on it all anyway. (And understanding be damned!) The other night the same thing happened, and I thought of a better one. “Hey, brother . . .” “You are mistaken, sir. I am an only child.”

Shenstone: “I think, moderately speaking, that the Vulgar are generally in the wrong.”

 

69

Why

Am

I

Writing

All

This
?

Why am I writing all this? What value, if any, it has is hard to say. The main one would probably be in the sense of that much-misused word “communication” (how I hate the word!) between myself and the world at large. I mean in trying to weight (and weigh) the things I say properly, or at least properly in relation to my own image of myself. The very fact of writing a word instead of saying it gives it undue importance.

 

70

I

Was

Very

Happy

I was very happy, as well as surprised, to have had a little
tête-à-tête
(or rather
corps-à-corps)
a few days ago. It was quite a pleasant experience, it feels good to hold someone and explore a beautiful body. More important, though, were my ultimate reactions. Of course, I couldn't help thinking of what it would be like to have a person around all the time again, and I realized that I wouldn't want it. Maybe I've had too big a taste of total freedom (translation: have become too selfish), but whatever it is, I don't believe I'd want to exchange my present life for one of conjugal bliss.
Pourquoi
me
réveiller.
. . .

All that sounds a lot more consciously calculating than I really am on the subject, and I'd probably just give in and tell him sure, come on and move in if he wanted to. Maybe not. But it's not very likely to happen, anyway.

À propos
sex, I saw a rather astounding movie the other night, a wee ditty called
LA Plays Itself,
or some such. A friend of mine had seen it and told me, “Well, Miss Francis, you just won't believe it!” (tantamount to a dare). So I went. And my friend was nearly right. It's a gay sex flick which purports to contrast the sick sex of the city with the pure pastoral lovemaking of naked youths in the mountains. The former involved a rather prolonged S&M scene, culminating (a pun) in what I'm told is called “fist-fucking.” Now, in
my
day, fist-fucking was simply fucking one's fist. That was, apparently, a rather na
ï
ve era. A most attractive young man was spread-eagled on his belly on a bed and a very muscular other man proceeded to stick his arm, up to the elbow, up the other's ass—all in glorious technicolor close-ups. I have made inquiries and am told that oh, yes, it's not at all uncommon. Well, such an old-fashioned fairy I am.

 

71

Sex

For

Sex's

Sake

I must say I have no understanding of sex for sex's sake. I don't mean to put it down, it's just beyond me. But then, so many things are—especially things sexual. I'm afraid I'd appear hopelessly backward if I went to an orgy these days, what with all the recent fads for pierced nipples and foreskins, fist-fucking, and all the various current delights. Gracious me, they'd all think I was normal! Years ago on Fire Island, someone remarked: “Anal intercourse is the only perversion. Cock-sucking is merely a social gesture.”

 

72

Listening

to

the

Mahler

Ninth

Sitting listening to the Mahler Ninth, enjoying the night and the solitude. Earlier this evening I was visiting a friend who is in the hospital, and as I was leaving I stopped to listen to Christmas carols being sung, very beautifully, by a bunch of high-school kids, who were going around to all the floors to sing for the patients, who all came out of their rooms to stand and listen.

It was a bit sad and strange to hear those strong voices and look through the group of singers at an old man whose head kept bobbing up and down (from his sickness), very serious and lost-looking, with tears running down his cheeks as he listened, probably remembering lots of other Christmases before any of us were born, wondering if maybe this would be his last.

An elevator came, and I didn't want to start crying, too, so I got into it. When we got to the first floor a fellow on the elevator held the doors open and told someone he knew—a girl he was flirting with—to come on and ride down to the ground floor, and an old harridan who was in a hurry said, “Who are you to tell someone to get on? We're in a hurry to get down.” So the girl got on and said, “I'm going down, too, and who are you to start talking like that? It's Christmas, you old fart!” And everybody laughed. It felt good to get out into the cold air!

 

73

I

Have

Finally

Graduated

I have finally graduated from recorder exercises with one sharp and one flat to those with two sharps and two flats (is that not fascinating?). Untold vistas will open when I've come to all the sharps and all the flats, and when I learn to play them all fast.

Slowly I put my metronome up a notch and run little sixteen-bar races with it (it generally wins). I have my lesson every Saturday morning and practice faithfully every night, and it is all coming along just as it's supposed to do. Telemann is all right once you give him a chance! A ballet mistress (British) I used to study with, used to say with a leer, à propos “pinching in” the buttocks: “I know it's hard, darling, but you'll love it once it's in you!” She also loved, when we left the barre to go to the center, to place us in three ranks, saying: “Short ladies in front, please. (scurry, scurry) Tall ladies next. (scurry) And the bearded ladies in the back!”

 

74

Desert

Island

Music

Desert island music:

 

Mozart, of course.

If others were permitted, then Handel, Machaut, possibly Mahler. Though perhaps, if one had to choose, I'd rather have some simple instrument, just a recorder, or a keyless flute.

 

75

My

New

Alto

My new renaissance alto has arrived, and I am at present busily breaking it in for a half hour a day. My shakuhachic virtuosity is not progressing. “Festina lente,” said the Emperor. I
be
lieve!!!

Last Sunday was a “big recorder concert” at my house. Our group class of four was “forced” into it by Andy, our teacher (“One has always to have some focus to work toward,” etc.), and we played four duets—each one of us with the teacher—and four quartets—with each other. The whole thing was just darling, we all looked so cute and there was wine and cheese and soda and cookies and all. Everyone was nervous (though I wasn't), and at last it was over, and now we don't have to think about it anymore. I hate such things, have since I was a kid, but went along with it with good grace. Buddha himself couldn't have done it with more patience and forbearance.

Now, on to better things. I have no plans. Have I ever?

Enough.

 

About

the

Author

Barry Gifford is the author of more than forty published works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, which have been translated into twenty-eight languages. His most recent books are
Sailor and Lula: The Complete Novels
,
Sad Stories of the Death of Kings
,
Imagining Paradise: New and Selected Poems
, and
The Roy Stories
. Gifford lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. More at www.barrygifford.com.