“Aug. 19th, 10:30 p.m.: Bill joins Lindsey and me and we begin a long and joyful conversation, rich in topics, that rolls until the closing of the ‘Med’ at midnight, rolls down the street to the ‘Au Coquelet’ open till two, where I have wine and they coffee. Then it rolls with us all the way home, till 2:30. Bill and I talked in glowing spirits, fugue-like harmonies of our youthful, sincere love of learning and the clash with smaller minded, degree oriented students. We got on the subject of Jean Renoir’s film ‘Grand Illusions’. He was surprised, learning of my relationship with Alain Renoir, a love of literature that bridged age and formality and even his university duties, (as we’d talk for hours in his office). We were discussing the essence of power as self-control and the wider the consciousness the bigger and better and longer lasting the thing controlled, thus our ‘god’ schemes…epic and tragedy as the clashing of this noble drive with lesser tyrants, always a tale of education…I quoted Johnson’s impressive dictum: “It advances us in the dignity of a thinking being”, to Bill’s great delight. Hardly ever are such intellectual feasts so visibly enjoyed. No human being could have witnessed our conversation without being awestruck.
“What lofty Himalayas of thought have we climbed. I glow for hours and days after them. A serenity of satisfaction, a warm blanket upon my soul. My voice is softened, Thomas a Kempis-like. Boethius-like I am illuminated. I play Bach sonatas now 3 a.m. to match my mood.
Back at Emerson St. alone, I eat two Quaaludes and write up this rapturous talk till the scribble becomes illegible. In my next entry a week later I add a sad epilogue to this night, bumping my head, sobbing in Lindsey’s arms, ‘talking mindlessly’ as she described it, till I pass out, a ‘drama king’ to her ‘queen’.
“Sat. Aug. 31st, 4 a.m.: Last Saturday I partied again, after an all-nighter on Thursday. I’ve really been pushing my luck lately and feel a mounting desperation.
“Jim and Louie and I went to a posh, a very posh, all night S.F. dance club, limo’s and rich kids. Earlier Louie and I did carpentry work on Jim’s new photo lab from 7 to 10 p.m. I felt a little burnt by the time we got to the S.F. party. But I saw there many strange lights and costumes and beautiful young women, high and happy. It was half and half men to women and more than half, I’d say, high on powders. I sat back a little, majestically and watched the dancing, felt moments of rejuvenation but talked to no one except J. and L. We had guest-list status as Louie was delivering a little something to one tall, blond, Swedish bartendress’. Ate breakfast there 3 a.m. Drove in Jim’s car through West Oakland on way home- strange sights- deserted military warehouses and yards and stockpiles of things. Ate a lude, slept 4:30 to 7:30, ate another and slept 7:45 to 11:30. Did errands, helped Lindsey from one Motel to another.
“Went to Mike H’s party at six, leaving Lindsey still busy though supposed to come later. She calls at nine to say ‘no’, not sociable, which was fine with me because I met Maggie, stood about with her in the backyard — she was fairly drunk — with not much to say at first. Then to John’s room upstairs doing many lines, Martin and Andy dropping by. Then downstairs where Maggie and Mike are the only one’s in the group I know. After one and a half hours I convince Maggie to come upstairs and do lines, where another party is collected, Jim and John and a redhead punkette whom I talked to earlier in the yard as the kids broke the pinata”.
It started out as a kid’s party and young couples, most leaving early, devolving from there.
She (Robin, soon to be Louie’s girlfriend) seemed a very interested listener. We did several rounds of lines, John playing with a video camera pointed at us sitting around his coffee table, talking, I argue with Maggie a little, she rambling more and more as we start drinking tequila and Sprite, then straight, besides the beers and wine, the punkette also conversing, Maggie at one point in a matronly way to her, then I in a fatherly sounding way with advice and experience. We do more lines till I run out.
Jim and the punkette leave. Mag. and I talk more. Martin and Andy return with more lines, another half-hour of animated conversation. Then we all stumble downstairs around 10:30 where to our surprise everyone else is gone except Mike H. sick in bed and trying to sleep.
“I’m kneeling at his record collection to play something. Maggie leans down beside me rubbing against my side, for some ten minutes. John is gone to get more beers. Mart. and Andy are talking away. I get excited when I find a great and rare Rory Gallagher song: “a million miles away” play it and dance with Maggie. Then she pulls me into the kitchen, tries and fails to sit on a stool, suggests we go to her place, as I offer to get some Quaaludes from my car. We stumble there, a block away, do more lines and a ‘lude’ apiece, have champagne and a fine conversation, necking and listening to music on the couch. Then to the bedroom, more talk and playing, she throws water from a glass on me, very far gone, after a second lude. We shower and I carry her back to bed as she’s passing out in the tub — can’t stand up — which was an amazing feat for me as I was stumbling and equally sedated.
“Sleep — love — sleep, long conversation 8 a.m. after she calls in sick for work. Then a whole wonderful day together. We have lunch of ‘Crab Louie’s at a harbor restaurant in Oakland with hours of serious conversation about each other and our friends. She enjoys this. Then with her five year old daughter, Oona to the park, Tilden Park up on the hill, loafing around, watching her swing, continuing the conversation. The park was empty on a Monday. Then to her place we split a bottle of wine at the bottom of the fire escape steps and a tiny lawn between the apartment buildings in a sliver of sunlight, just big enough for the three of us. We take Oona back to Mike’s house, have dinner at another fine restaurant, plan on getting a little cocaine at her friend’s but cannot (I could have easily, but didn’t tell her as I didn’t want any). Then to her place, early to bed and more fine love. Tuesday we’re up at 7:30. She’s off to work and I back to my life…I call her Tuesday eve for a date Thursday but she doesn’t want it, which dampens my spirits but I’ll try next week for a weekend date…”
Which never happened. This was my only tryst with Mag., Dale’s best friend and probably best for me too as she was a vibrant intellectual but also a heavy drinker with a dark side and a cruel streak, a man-eater, or at least a dominatrix.
I sometimes wonder if she refused that second date out of kindness to me, knowing her dark side (we did have a beautiful, childlike time together), or out of her nasty, Irish, domineering disposition towards all men. This was a question much too complex to unriddle, but something to ponder.
