1979
Describe your image
Describe your image
Describe your image
Describe your image
Friday April 27
San Francisco
California
Dear Deidre
I’ve no excuse to offer for my untoward (whatever that may mean) silence since my return, save for a serious preoccupation with lethargy and a less serious bout with the German measles. These latter have been happily put to rout by that old California panacea, massive doses of Vitamin C. The aching muscles, clammy hands, intermittent fever and chills, and red spots from head to toe only lasted a few days; during this time I was encouraged to ingest 1000 milligrams of ascorbic acid an hour in the noble cause of metabolic defense. Well here I am alive to tell the tale, spotless, once more able to touch my toes slowly each morning 30 times, sit-up 75 times (no kidding), push-up 40 times and only just reach my feet 20 times in that horrid yoga position where you’re sitting down with your legs in a V in front of you. I’m still feigning weakness a little to avoid running the eight miles I’ve gotten back into the habit of completing every other day. Gianni has gone off to do it doggedly on his own today.
Gianni is at his parents still, I’m here with Gao. We’re looking, so far unsuccessfully, for an apt. and jobs. I’m back at the theater but not for many hours per week and therefore for not much money. I’m making about $60 a week for the next to nothing I do and this is buying food – few expenses have I outside of this while with Gao.
Received your Mycenean shot and was again floored by your wit (honest honest)…am off to locate employment now, oh god,
love George
Thursday June 28
Hello Deidre Hello
Here I am surrounded by the sweet delights of an establishment around the corner from where I lay my head at night called “Just Desserts.” A neat example of confusing usage of the English language n’est-ce pas? I’ve only recently begun to repatronize this place since shortly after my return (christ was that back in April?). I foolishly – and casually – agreed to a deal with Gianni whereby he gave up smoking if I gave up all white sugar and caffeine.
It wasn’t a great trial by any stretch, for me I mean; he is as compulsive about tobacco as anything else, however it was a nuisance. Apart from genuinely missing tea I found I was deterred from frequenting any cafés to relax in. If I did go in I could only order exorbitantly priced juices (in this city they prey upon the West Coast craze for health) or beer and wine which would render me foggy without exception and deliver me a throbbing headache when aggravated by a hot sun.
The whole deal seemed sillier and sillier to me especially when viewed in the light of the fact that the presence or absence of caffeine and white sugar in my diet effected no visual change in my metabolism. This was the whole point, you see, to use as a guinea pig or more accurately an Eliza Doolittle, who is disciplined into ingesting yogurt and Perrier which naturally leads to bodily purification and thus NIRVANA. An updated application of the old and well-loved adage, cleanliness is next to godliness. Doubtless the Greeks had this in mind when they strove for mental and physical perfection.
ALSO, I never wanted to give up these alleged vices and was content to suffer the alleged consequences whereas Gianni desperately wanted to quit smoking because it had such an immediate and debilitating affect on him. I was being used as incentive and if I were a very giving and noble person I would have sacrificed my meager wants for the sake of his health and gone on providing the truly moral support the structure of the ‘deal’ entailed. But nobility, as well you know, is not my middle name, and my mean and selfish nature was repelled at being used (even if for good ends) and sought ways to justify the cessation of the deal.
This opportunity was delivered to me in the form of an ingratiating, fairly repulsive friend of Gianni’s, named Jerry. Jerry is a creature of independent income and invariably has a store of drugs on hand and, as invariably, when Gianni returns home from Jerry’s he is stoned.
Now to me, this seemed a bit contradictory. Here he is railing at my consumption of sugar and coffee (which is not inordinate if you don’t count that gluttonous morning in Aswan when I couldn’t get enough of those small Turkishes at 5 piastres a shot) which as I have said have no visible effects on me anyway, while he indulges in these drugs that have a VERY, VERY visible affect and a chronic one to boot. Who, I ask you, is jeopardizing whose health?
Granted this opportunity by who knows what benevolent deity responsible for the ensurance of one’s right to self-determination, I struck Gianni a deadly blow and have since waltzed into Just Desserts with growing frequency and ever less guiltily.
And so I sit over coffee – I have gotten into the habit of honey – and croissants, by page two all gone now, feeling nostalgia for Paris. The weather has been cool, dull and gray recently, typically summer, and this has plunged me into a more pleasantly melancholic and reminiscent mood.
They’re playing free-form jazz in here now which I’ve just tuned into and am put off by so I’m not going to have another cup of coffee but will exit through their northerly-exposed front doors and walk up and over Nob Hill then down into the low-lying Broadway strip, there to give a cursory clean to the Phoenix theater which pays me $72 a week for what amounts to nine hours of light work. The show at the On Broadway closed so I’m bartending full-time at the Phoenix – 2 ½ hours a night. Combine this with the money the production pays me to clean and I clear about $220 a week.
I have written nothing to anyone. I have felt so distant from the task, and the spiritual emotional physical thrill of a nicely turned block of prose seems an unutterably remote thing. When you enclosed your phone number I was tempted to call and sidestep the effort of writing. A base consideration. But trying to juggle between times I’m home, times I think you’re likely to be home, the three hour time difference and cheap rates, I have even managed to procrastinate telephoning. Sorry. I hope you’re not rotting too quickly waiting to hear from me, it’s not that I’m not composing lucid and powerful paragraphs every hour in the shower, walking down Polk St., pouring Chablis, lolling on the roof, jogging to the Pacific etc.
Gianni and I are in our own place now. He has allotted us THREE telephones to this, a one bedroom space. All the latest gimmickery – touch-tone, lights up at night, sleek design, modular units – and in white plastic to match his porcelain.
We have had many run-ins over the rigorous and immovable guiding principles of his design. It’s good design, our aesthetic senses are in accord; it’s the autocratic nature of what must be that irks me. These issues have become the field on which the battle of whether to live together or not rages.
Again I’m not sure I want to live together. I’m sure I care. I’m also sure I’m not in love. I feel I could cope quite well on my own and don’t feel the necessity to live together to continue the relationship. He does, and for reasons I can sympathize with. I’m certain you can too as I recall you saying how next to impossible you felt it was to endure what amounts to a step backwards in a relationship. He feels by not living together the problems we enjoy would not be solved but averted and with the aversion would come distance. I secretly agree, however am experiencing the same impressions of entrapment, suffocation, resentment and despair I do when I am required to align my life so closely with that of another. The roots of this, as we’ve discussed, go deep and I haven’t tried to puzzle them out. Debate persists whether it is better to view this as a problem (as I cannot help but usually view it) that must be faced and not escaped from, or whether it is an immutable part of my nature, or at least a tenacious part of me, that should be less combated and more obeyed. If the former is the case then I should stay in the relationship, if the latter I should heed actively what my inmost yearnings dictate.
In short I am in a quandary. Recently I’m much, much more in favor of living on my own. This is separate from liking or disliking Gianni. It is not a personal issue. It was not a personal issue when I felt the same need to escape from you on the trip. Of course there are things I find objectionable in you as well as Gianni (which you and I have had occasion to touch upon) however they were no more than the fields at hand upon which that same battle was played. It’s the same battle I suppose because it’s my battle. I know I need people, people’s friendship, love, acceptance etc. etc. but balk at being touched very deeply. When someone asks for more than I have given, offering as much in return, I am scared of the inescapable reciprocal obligation which takes on the guise of an external force controlling me, something I have no power over. For me, it’s a hellish monster.
I don’t know if I can successfully live with someone. It got to a point with you on the trip where I wasn’t sure I could provide the kind of friendship you require or if I even wanted to. With Gianni it is the same. I know I’m not capable of presenting him with the secure lover-relationship he desires and I’m still not sure I would want to with anyone. Re you. The trip was an education about us and me, for me. I needed the break from it. I still care for you a lot and want you to come out to visit. To no other endeavor have I devoted as many years of effort as I have on you and I. Not always smooth sailing but the length of the cruise and curiosity entice me on. In a quandary though I be.
love George
P.S. On rereading the ending seemed rather abrupt. My apologies. I was just so pleased to have found myself completing a task that I leapt at the chance without a thought for the customary trail off. ALSO, Gianni and I are going to live apart. That change is necessary now. The relationship (or whatever form things take) stands – no enmity.
Wednesday July11
in anticipation of…
Monday July 16th, 1979 which we all know is BASTILLE DAY (wink). So sorry I won’t be there to take you out to Winston’s for this year’s BASTILLE DAY (wink) and does this mean that if I happen to be in your company on the anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination that I get nought to unwrap? If this is the case I don’t want to chance it so I’m sending along a little cadeaux (does the ‘x’ make it plural? I suppose the package will have to agree then) which doubtless will take weeks to arrive.
Just finished a run on the ocean, about 7 miles plus, which takes an hour. I haven’t been running at all regularly but was thoroughly unexhausted.
We are definitely moving out. Gianni is still not exactly resigned to the fact of our imminent not-living-together but is much more understanding. He doesn’t see unmitigated black now. Despite this move, which I feel is ‘right’ and definitely in alignment with what I know to be best, I’m still not sure what I want.
For the moment I am financially secure and have begun to save. And buy. A sports jacket, very fashionable, and new boots because I just barely salvaged the ones that trod the Middle East. These are mundane details but they seemed unnerving and heady expenditures when I purchased them. Damn poverty and want.
The pleasure their purchase brought was but ephemeral which is no surprise and I still feel ready to adopt the rigorous life of an ascetic. In my close to the body cut, all wool, no vent jacket, and chicly pointed boots I will most likely be tagged an aesthetic ascetic.
HAVE NOT WRITTEN A DAMN THING. Last thing I wrote was the letter to you. Pretty sad isn’t it? God I hate myself, my laziness. Haven’t contacted anyone.
I’m not unhappy. San Francisco is conducive to neutrality. In the automotive sense of the word. My engine isn’t quite shut off you see but I’m certainly not moving, not even backing up. I am idling.
It’s too easy to idle here. The city is idleness; pleasant if you require a break from the breakneck frenzy of a New York say (or even Paris and London) but I feel no motivation to do anything particularly except live and do this smilingly. Pleasant, as I said, but not enough.
I’m off to the Phoenix to pour drinks for miserly patrons who tip shitty. Motherfuckers. Then I’m going to get laid.
A very HAPPY BIRTH BASTILLE DAY (wink) to you,
my dearest, dearest Deidre,
love George
Sunday September 16
4:00 p.m.
San Francisco
Caffé Roma
Don’t be Depressed my Darling Deidre,
Doubtless you can’t understand what I am possibly misapprehending about your emotional framework with that opening since I suspect your sorry existence has proceeded apace for the last month and probably lifted you out of your blue funk into more exalted realms.
I am presuming that such a vision was inaccurate from the beginning and if it was close to the mark that it is no longer applicable. I’m trying to picture a more happy-go-fortunate you, dining out pre-premiere with Robert, lunching with Trish, wondering whatever became of Kathy, longing for Paris, wondering whatever became of me (you sweetheart), asking yourself if a city can really claim to be civilized sans 5,000 cafés and pain au chocolat…but if you aren’t experiencing these and a raft of other similar joys, if you really are still immersed in semi-darkness, then…crescendo…COME TO BLISSFUL CALIFORNIA.
What do you mean by blissful you suspiciously query? Well it’s sunny; and ignorant. Let me caution you to come looking for refuge from more frenzied climes, not intellectual rigor. Many are the souls who have succumbed to this ubiquitous sun-soaked catatonia, surrounded by an uncaring populace whose indifference they themselves prefer to see as the ultimate in laissez-faire.
I’m writing this between the Sunday matinee and evening performances at the Phoenix. I’ve finished an entire cheese pizza and am on my second double cappuccino with still an hour to go. This strikes me as blissful, and though nice when you’re here I realize it’s not enough to come for. But come anyway.
For all our frictions there are many rewards and, casting a smiling eye over the Middle East, I am gratified at how enhanced my impressions and observations were and are because of your company. For too long I have sat out here half-blinded by the dental work of grinning EST graduates; I am mired amidst Californians who can’t observe or won’t. Gianni counters my accusations with enormous defenses because it has gotten to the point of bitter personal attacks and reprisals over any subject we discuss but particularly California of which he is a native. I could use a fresh outsider’s perspective on this situation, particularly yours since I’ve already primed you in the direction of my bias and I believe in you enough to tell me I’m right. I mean let’s not sully our friendship with a disagreement which, after all, in the face of eternity is trivial.
You see how pervasive the attitude out here is. I’ve just espoused an “I’m OK You’re OK” philosophy where in exchange for letting me think and act as I will, you get the same go ahead from me. It would be hard to argue that this isn’t the ultimate in laissez-faire, but I’m convinced it belies a grim callousness. At various times quite separate from my California experience this has been the attitude I have coveted; when feeling trapped by whatever, I tend in this direction. However I don’t like the indifference it excuses and I see Simone and Sartre sitting in judgment accusing me of mauvaise foi.
I was recently forwarded a card from Ahmed who wrote it in July. He apologizes for his tardiness, “so please accept my sorry for being late in writing, although I cannot forget our happy days in Aswan.” Apparently he’d received our note from Athens (in Arabic ‘Calemara’ – sounds like an Italian seafood dish) but was immersed in the gruesome intricacies of obstetrics and gynecology to such a degree that he couldn’t wrest time to reply immediately. He only heard through us about the note we left him in Aswan at the hotel; he never received it himself, because the man running the place doesn’t know his ass from a hole
in the ground. Ahmed was not shocked by my colloquialism, in fact he contributes his own version: “but we say in Arabic, ‘he can’t compare between the letter A and the maize.’” Obviously this is defeated by the translation. I’m not sure if the dolt in question cannot compare between the letter A and corn or the letter A and a labyrinth, but either way it’s lost on me. I think it’s probably the latter since the former would assume a working knowledge of American Indian agriculture. I’m going to take a further look at my Introduction to Arabic to see if any clues emerge. I also thought I’d include a few token words in the native lingo to reciprocate Ahmed’s effort.
Forever yours,
George