Are you familiar with the term "killer fruit"? It's a certain kind of queer who has Freon refrigerating his bloodstream. Diaghilev, for example. J. Edgar Hoover. Hadrian. Not to compare him with those pedestal personages, but the fellow I'm thinking of is Turner Boatwright—Boaty, as his courtiers called him.
Mr. Boatwright was the fiction editor of a women's fashion magazine that published «quality» writers. He came to my attention, or rather I came to his, when one day he spoke to our writing class. I was sitting in the front row, and I could tell, by the way his chilly crotch-watching eyes kept gravitating toward me, what was spinning around in his pretty curly-grey head. Okay, but I decided he wasn't going to get any bargain. After class, the students gathered around to meet him. Not me; I left without waiting to be introduced. A month passed, during which I polished the two stories of mine I considered best: "Suntan," which was about beachboy whores in Miami Beach, and "Massage," which concerned the humiliations of a dentist's widow grovelingly in love with a teen-age masseur.
Manuscripts in hand, I went to call on Mr. Boatwright—without out an appointment; I simply went to the offices of the magazine and asked the receptionist to tell Mr. Boatwright that one of Miss Foley's students was there to see him. I was certain he would know which one. But when I was eventually escorted into his office, he pretended not to remember me. I wasn't fooled.
The office was not unbusinesslike; it seemed a Victorian parlor. Mr. Boatwright was seated in a cane rocking chair beside a table draped with fringed shawls that served as a desk; another rocker was placed on the opposite side of the table. The editor, with a sleepy gesture meant to disguise cobra alertness, motioned me toward it (his own chair, as I later discovered, contained a little pillow with an embroidered inscription: MOTHER). Although it was a sizzling spring day, the window curtains, heavy velvet and of a hue I believe is called puce, were drawn; the only light came from a pair of student lamps, one with dark red shades, the other with green. An interesting place, Mr. Boatwright's lair; clearly the management gave him great leeway.
"Well, Mr. Jones?"
I explained my errand, said I had been impressed by his lecture at Columbia, by the sincerity of his desire to assist young authors, and announced that I had brought two short stories that I wished to submit for his consideration.
He said, his voice scary with cute sarcasm: "And why did you choose to submit them in person? The customary method is by mail."
I smiled, and my smile is an ingratiating proposition; indeed, it is usually construed as one. "I was afraid you would never read them. An unknown writer without an agent? I shouldn't think too many such stories ever reach you."
"They do if they have merit. My assistant, Miss Shaw, is an exceedingly able and perceptive reader. How old are you?"
"I'll be twenty in August."
"And you think you're a genius?"
"I don't know." Which was untrue; I was certain I was. "That's why I'm here. I'd like your opinion."
"I'll say this: you're ambitious. Or is it just plain push? What are you, a yid?"
My reply was no particular credit to me; though I am relatively without self-pity (well, I wonder), I've never been above exploiting my background to achieve sympathetic advantage. "Possibly. I was raised in an orphanage. I never knew my parents."
Nevertheless, the gentleman had knee-punched me with aching accuracy. He had my number; I was no longer so sure I had his. At the time I was immune to the mechanical vices-seldom smoked, never drank. But now, without permission, I selected a cigarette from a nearby tortoise-shell box; as I lighted it, all the matches in the matchbook exploded. A tiny bonfire erupted in my hand. I jumped up, wringing my hand and whimpering.
My host merely and coolly pointed at the fallen, still-flaming matches. He said: "Careful. Stamp that out. You'll damage the carpet." Then: "Come here. Give me your hand."
His lips parted. Slowly his mouth absorbed my index finger, the one most scorched. He plunged the finger into the depths of his mouth, almost withdrew, plunged again-like a huntsman drawing dangerous liquid from a snakebite. Stopping, he asked: "There. Is that better?"
The seesaw had upended; a transference of power had occurred, or so I was foolish enough to believe.
"Much; thank you."
"Very well," he said, rising to bolt the office door. "Now we shall continue the treatment."
No, it wasn't as easy as that. Boaty was a hard fellow; if necessary, he would have paid for his pleasures, but he never would have published one of my stories. Of the original two I gave him, he said: "They're not good. Ordinarily, I'd never encourage anyone with a talent as limited as yours. That is the cruelest thing anyone can do-to encourage someone to believe he has gifts he actually doesn't possess. However, you do have a certain w,)rd sense. Feeling for characterization. Perhaps something can be made of it. If you're willing to risk it, take the chance of ruining your life, I'll help you. But I don't recommend it."
I wish I had listened to him. I wish that then and there I had moved to the country. But it was too late, for I had already started my journey to the Earth's interior.
Am running out of paper. I think I'll take a shower. And afterward I may move to the sixth floor.
I have moved to the sixth floor.
However, my window is flat against the next-door building; even if I did step over the sill, I'd only bump my head. We're having a September heat wave, and my room is so small, so hot, that I have to leave my door open day and night, which is unfortunate because, as in most Young Men's Christian Associations, the corridors murmur with the slippered footfalls of libidinous Christians; if you leave your door open, it's frequently understood as an invitation. Not from me, no sir.
The other day, when I started this account, I had no notion whether or not I'd continue it. However, I've just come from a drugstore, where I purchased a box of Blackwing pencils, a pencil sharpener, and a half-dozen thick copybooks. Anyway, I've nothing better to do. Except took for a job. Only, I don't know what kind of work to look for-unless I went back to massage. I'm not fit for much anymore. And, to be honest, I keep thinking that maybe, if I change most of the names, I could publish this as a novel. Hell, I've nothing to lose; of course, a couple of people might try to kill me, but I'd consider that a favor.
After I'd submitted more than twenty stories, Boaty did buy one. He edited it to the bone and half rewrote it himself, but at least I was in print. "Many Thoughts of Morton," by P. B. Jones. It was about a nun in love with a Negro gardener named Morton (the same gardener who had been in love with me). It attracted attention, and was reprinted in that year's Best American Short Stories; more importantly, it was noticed by a distinguished friend of Boaty's, Miss Alice Lee Langman.
Boaty owned a roomy old brownstone town house; it was far east in the upper Eighties. The interior was an exaggerated replica of his office, a crimson Victorian horsehair mélange: beaded curtains and stuffed owls frowning under glass bells. This brand of camp, now démodé, was amusingly uncommon in those days, and Boaty's parlor was one of Manhattan's most populated social centers.
I met Jean Cocteau there-a walking laser light with a sprig of muguet in his buttonhole; he asked if I was tattooed, and when I said no, his overly intelligent eyes glazed and glided elsewhere.
Both Dietrich and Garbo occasionally came to Boaty's, the latter always escorted by Cecil Beaton, whom I'd met when he photographed me for Boaty's magazine (an overheard exchange between these two: Beaton, "The most distressing fact of growing older is that I find my private parts are shrinking." Garbo, after a mournful pause, "Ali, if only I could say the same").
In truth, one encountered an exceptional share of the celebrated at Boaty's, performers as various as Martha Graham and Gypsy Rose Lee, sequined sorts interspersed with an array of painters (Tchelitchew, Cadmus, Rivers, Warhol, Rauschenberg), composers (Bernstein, Copland, Britten, Barber, Blitzstein, Diamond, Menotti) and, most plentifully, writers (Auden, Isherwood, Wescott, Mailer, Williams, Styron, Porter, and, on several occasions, when he was in New York, the Lolita-minded Faulkner, usually grave and courtly under the double weight of uncertain gentility and a Jack Daniel's hangover). Also, Alice Lee Langman, whom Boaty considered America's first lady of letters.