Spring in Brooklyn: 1975

SPRING IN BROOKLYN
March-May 1975
SPRING IN BROOKLYN
March-May 1975
RICHARD GRAYSON
Superstition Mountain Press

Phoenix – 2010
Copyright © 2010 by Richard Grayson.
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
Superstition Mountain Press

4303 Cactus Road
Phoenix, AZ 85032
First Edition
ISBN #: 978-0-557-28195-4
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Susan Fromberg Schaeffer
Spring in Brooklyn:
March – June 1975
Tuesday, April 1, 1975

It’s after midnight, so the first day of the
cruelest month is over, and it was quite a good
spring day. It was sunny and in the 60°s.
Before dinner I could sit out on the porch and
read the newspaper.
I saw Mrs. Ehrlich tonight at 7:15 p.m. The

first thing I noticed was that the stairs of the
Atlantic Avenue loft building had been painted
and the wooden stairs repaired. Mrs. E looked
much the same, and it was great to sit in my
swivel chair facing her once again.
I recounted much of the last six months. I told

her about my jobs at Alexander’s, at the Village
Voice, at the Flatbush public library and how I
came to have the teaching job at LIU. I spoke
of my successful breakup with Ronna and my
2 Spring in Brooklyn
adjustment to not having a girlfriend.
I never really put it into words before tonight,

but I found myself saying that I don’t really
want another girlfriend. I just don’t want to
devote the time and emotional energy required
in the kind of intense relationships I had with
Shelli and with Ronna.
Mrs. E felt that maybe that’s a sign that I’ve

grown past the adolescent stage of always
needing someone around. I’m too jealous of
my time alone now to give hours over to
another person.
Right now my writing and my reading and my

exercising are the most important things in my
life – especially my writing. I told Mrs. E about
selling my first story and said frankly that I
was the most talented person in the MFA
program.
She was pleased that I’m so sure of my ability.

It’s not immodest to be honest about one’s
capabilities. Today I wrote another six pages
of “Coping” and dashed off a slight humorous
piece called “The Virtues of Jethro.”
I await the mailman eagerly each day, but since

January there have been no more acceptance
notices; perhaps I should send more stuff out.
Richard Grayson 3
I explained my encounter with Shelli and Jerry

and their lifestyle, with Jerry having come out,
to Mrs. E. She seemed to think that my anger
towards them may indeed be gone, especially
after I told her that Shelli and Jerry were
“irrelevant” to my present life.
I mentioned how I coped with a stolen car and

how good finding it in Brownsville by myself
made me feel. All in all, I’m more of a
grownup, we agreed.
She wanted to know why I’d made the

appointment, six months after I quit therapy. I
told her there were several reasons and in part,
I wanted to show her that I could endure
without therapy.
Also, I admitted that I want her approval and

her feedback about my present life. And I just
plain missed her and was thinking about her.
I told Mrs. E of my dream about not wanting to

see her on a social level. I guess I don’t think
her as a goddess and me as a scared child
anymore; we’re almost on the same level.
The dream seemed like a primitive taboo; now

that I see myself as her equal, I recognize more
clearly the sexual undercurrent that always has
been present in our relationship. And tonight I
recognized – no, I felt – that I wanted to go to

bed with Mrs. E.
She said that if there’s ever anything specific

that I want to work on, I could call her. “It’s
good to come home for the holidays,” I said to
her. “Maybe I’ll have good things to tell you
me about me next time I see you.”
“It’s not necessary to tell me good things about

yourself,” she replied.
“No,” I said. “I know you’ll accept me just as I

am.” I felt sad to leave her but happy to know
that she’s still there if I need her as a therapist.
Perhaps that was another reason I came. After

my experiences with Bob and Roz Wouk, I
wanted to make sure that Mrs. E is still around
and hasn’t left the city.
Tonight I got a call from Steve Cooper, and we

talked for an hour. Yesterday was the session
in Small Claims Court. Elihu came with his
father and was all dressed up to make a good
impression.
But when they came before the arbitrator,

Steve was well-prepared with notes and
documents stating he was at work in his office
or in Florida at his parents’ house at the times
Richard Grayson 5
the international phone calls were made.
Elihu started off on the wrong foot with the

arbitrator, Steve said, when the man asked
both of them what they did. Steve said he was
a secretary at Columbia and Elihu stated he
was a grad student and tutored part-time at
LIU. “So Daddy pays the bills,” the arbitrator
said.
Elihu and his father lost the case and Steve was
awarded $110, not everything he wanted, but
he felt it was a moral victory. Dr. Eisenstadt
has to shell out the money and he must be
angry with Elihu. But I think Steve is right
when he said he thought Shelli and Jerry were
the ones who made the phone calls and that
Elihu was covering for them.
Wednesday, April 2, 1975

8 PM. I was just staring at this pleasant-
looking fellow in the mirror, a young man with
nice hair and glasses that keep sliding down
his nose and sprinkling of acne at the corner of
his mouth, a fellow with hazel eyes and what
was once described by a girlfriend as a
“Catholic nose” and very little chin.
I asked him why he was living as he does. His

reply was a shrug of his shoulders. But
seriously folks, as they say in the Borscht Belt
(and we know from the Borscht Belt), what the

hell am I doing with my life?
Why have I turned myself into a recluse, a

writing machine?
Why do I continue to exert myself every

morning with my RCAF exercises (I invariably
end up in a pool of sweat, gasping for air) and
in the afternoon with the Tensolator?
In hopes of finally looking like the guys with

the big muscles on the inside covers of comic
books long thrown away? Because I remember
Truman Capote once saying that writers need
physical exercise to create? Because Ronna
used to quote Oscar Wilde saying much the
same thing? Because I want to acquire
discipline?
Well, then, why do I trek out to public

libraries, the way I did today, to come back
with arms full of T.S. Eliot, Freud, Jung, Borges
and Peter DeVries? Because writers should
read? Because I want to be on the alert
constantly for new material?
And why do I fill notebook after notebooks

with scrawls of half-remembered dreams and
snatches of phone conversations with friends
and ideas for stories that will never get
Richard Grayson 7
written? Why do I write stories at all?
I finished “Coping” today, and I’m not sure it’s

any good but I went out to have the story
xeroxed, spending five dollars. Why? How
come I mail out stories to magazines I’ve never
heard of, and why am I so damn impatient
until the mailman comes each day? I never get
acceptance notices.
Deep down, I’ve begun to wonder whether

selling “Rampant Burping” to New Writers
wasn’t a fluke. After all, all they publish is
writing from college programs, and maybe the
editors just wanted to get in good with
Baumbach by publishing one of his students.
Why, why do I continue to live this weird,

second-hand, once-removed kind of existence
when I know that “there’s no market for
quality/experimental/counterculture/weird
fiction by new/unknown/obnoxiously know-it-
all writers?
That, my friends, is the $64,000 Question. And

the answer, my friends, is not blowing in any
wind but is relatively simple:
I want to do this. At least for now.
Right now I can’t stop writing, even though the

rewards are not much evidence: a good word

from people in my program or a “nice”
rejection letter from some little magazine
editor.
My eyesight is going, slowly but surely, and

typing gives me headaches, and I’m neurotic
about losing some of my precious manuscripts.
Right at this moment, I’m disgusted, but I
know that by tomorrow morning I’ll be back at
it again.
And I suppose that for this spring, at least, I’ll

continue to live this way. The teaching job will
sustain me and I can always go over to BC or
elsewhere to bullshit with Mason or Mavis or
Mikey when I need the sound and feel of
another human being.
Josh was over today. He came on his bicycle,

and he and I rode around for awhile. See, to
me, Josh isn’t a writer. I think he has talent
and could develop it, but he’s not willing to
make the sacrifice. I don’t blame him for that.
God, I sound so smug and superior, just like

the martyr Leon implied I was when he wrote
on my Safari Awards invitation, “Good for one
trip on the Dallas Motorcade ride at
Disneyland.”
Richard Grayson 9
Well, you know, Leon is in Madison, hanging

out in that home for retarded people, soon to
be joined by the bankrupt (financially, that is,
although Steve insists they’re morally bankrupt
too) Jerry and Shelli.
I do agree with Steve, though: I think Elihu’s

trying to get out of paying the phone bill,
Leon’s sneaking off in the middle of the night
to avoid paying four months’ back rent, Shelli
and Jerry’s misuse of Mastercharge – these are
not things to be proud of and they can’t be
seen as political acts “against the system.”
Kara called this morning and said she was too

busy to do anything; actually, I was relieved.
Unaccountably, I’ve been missing Avis a lot
lately.
Thursday, April 3, 1975

If, as Marianne Moore states, the cure for
loneliness is solitude, then the cure for
depression is action. And I finally took the
action of handing in a master’s thesis at
Richmond College.
The other night I dreamed that Prof. Cullen

and others were making me feel uncomfortable
for not handing in my thesis. And I’m aware,
consciously, that I’ve been nervous about the
possibility of Dr. Eisenstadt discovering that I
really don’t have my M.A. at all yet. So today I

crept into action.
I had a difficult time getting to sleep last night;

it’s been a problem lately. But I’ve been having
pleasant dreams of good times shared with
friends. One night I dreamed of attending a
joint engagement party for Avis and Mavis,
who were both getting married, and Phyllis
and Mason were seated at my table.
Last night I dreamed I went out for an evening

with Steve, Libby and Bob.
A very heavy rain was falling when I awoke

this morning. Gary called, saying he’d become
quite ill last night with a fainting spell, heart
palpitations and a queer tingling in his
extremities.
His parents revived him with smelling salts

and rushed him to the doctor, who found
everything normal – heartbeat OK, blood
pressure strong – and wrote out a prescription
for Valium.
Even Gary admits that it was probably an

anxiety attack, but he’s not sure what the cause
of the anxiety is. He’s under pressure in his
department at Columbia, but no more so than
usual.
Richard Grayson 11
Gary did have a big fight with his Aunt Estelle

at last week’s seder, but he didn’t think that
could upset him enough to cause such an
attack.
Also, Gray’s been involved in the middle of the

hassle between Joel and Aviva, Kathy’s good
friends (it was through Joel and Aviva that
Gary met Kathy).
It seems Joel is very attached to his

domineering mother, who’s already been the
cause of one broken engagement, and now the
woman has Joel wavering on his commitment
to marry Aviva this year – something Aviva
has been expecting and planning on.
Anyway, I didn’t feel it was my place to

suggest psychotherapy to Gary although I
think it would help him.
I went to Richmond College at about 2 PM

today and to my surprise, their vacation was
over and classes were in session. I just
managed to avoid Prof. Ebel, who was walking
out from a class; I was too embarrassed to see
him after a year.
But then, in the lobby I picked up a copy of the

school paper and read an article, “On Being
Human,” by Prof. Ebel. It seems that he’s
married again, to one of his students, and she’s

expecting a baby any day now. In January of
1973, Prof. Ebel, “alone and by accident,”
experienced a “primal”:
”My soul seemed to be leaving my body, and

in my panic I wanted to pull it back. Then an
inner voice, for which I will always be grateful,
whispered not to worry, that everything will
be all right. . . My head lay loosely across my
bare chest, and as I began to rock, it became the
caressing hand of the mother I never had and I
said in my life’s highest ecstasy and in my
native tongue, ‘Act, Mami, das ist so schön.’”
Then his life changed; he continually drains

himself of pain, hate and cowardice. He writes
that he no longer has any use for the unfeeling
places we call universities: “the classroom is an
all-too-perfect vehicle for the life-denying
emotions”:
“I feel more and more when I leave my home,

my wife and my desk and come to Richmond –
I feel more and more that it is a symbolic
suicide.”
Right then and there I realized Ebel was the

kind of man I could open myself up to, so I
rushed home, collected all my stories in a
binder, and returned to Richmond.
Richard Grayson 13
I met him after his 4:30 PM class – he

remembered my name – I told him I was
handing in a creative project as an M.A. thesis
in lieu of the essay; he said he’d read it and
pass it on to Profs. Cullen and Leibowitz.
So at least, coming home over the Verrazano in

the terrible wind, I felt that I made a step
forward.
Friday, April 4, 1975

8 PM. The wind is howling outside with great
intensity; it’s been like that ever since
yesterday. I’m planning an evening of TV-
watching and reading, not that I have much
choice.
I’ve regressed to the point where I won’t fall

asleep until 2 AM or so and consequently wake
up the next day until 11 AM. I don’t really
appreciate the habit, but it’s probably my
normal biorhythm pattern.
I went with Dad last evening to the airport, to

see Grandma Sylvia and Grandpa Nat come in
from Florida. I thought I spotted his Uncle
Harry as we passed the Eastern Airlines
terminal, but Dad said it couldn’t have been
him.
Yet when we got into the terminal, my long-

distance impression proved correct, for Uncle

Harry was indeed talking with Aunt Sydelle
and Uncle Monty. Uncle Harry, it seems, was
there to pick up his girlfriend and her children,
whom he had sent to Orlando for a week.
As everyone came off the Orlando flight, we

were all waiting to see what Harry’s girlfriend
looked like. She’s not pretty but she’s very
young (she looks a couple of years older than
me but must be about 30) and she towers over
Uncle Harry. So does her oldest daughter.
They all had souvenirs from Disney World; I’m

amazed that the kids weren’t embarrassed to
kiss Uncle Harry. But as I said to Dad and
Sydelle afterwards, “I guess this woman
knows a good thing when she sees it and your
uncle’s money is a good thing.”
Uncle Harry never did divorce crazy Aunt

Rhoda, the kleptomaniac, so this young
woman doesn’t have to endure the humiliation
of being married to him.
The flight from Miami landed some minutes

later, and as I saw the passengers coming off, I
walked over to where they were coming from
and in the distance saw Grandma Sylvia
walking with her cane, being supported by
Grandpa Nat.
Richard Grayson 15
I was amazed to see her looking so well, and I

rushed over and gave her a big hug. An ace
bandage on her arm was the only visible sign
of her terrible accident. I had expected her to
be in very bad shape and be carried off on a
wheelchair, but Grandma Sylvia looked tanned
and said the flight was wonderful and how
glad she was to be back in New York after the
oppressive 90° heat of Miami.
In some sense I am surprised when Grandma

Sylvia returns from Florida each spring, for
every year a part of me doesn’t expect her
back. But she’s been near death so many times
and always comes back. I’m convinced she has
some extraordinary resiliency and strength.
Grandma Sylvia joked about her bad luck as

Aunt Sydelle and I sat down with her as the
others went to look for the luggage. She said
how much like a country club the convalescent
home was and how much Grandpa Nat
enjoyed himself playing cards every day. (He
denied it, because he doesn’t want Dad to
think he could actually enjoy himself away
from The Place.)
She compared injuries with some college

lacrosse player nearby – he cracked his
shoulder – and was pleased that Robin had
stopped seeing a black man and that I was
teaching at LIU. We got her and Grandpa Nat

into Monty’s car and said goodbye; it’s good to
have my father’s parents home again.
Steve phoned last night with some great news:

he got accepted at Columbia’s School of
Architecture and got a $1500 grant to boot! I’m
really happy for him; now he can stay in New
York in his apartment and neighborhood and
get an M.S. in Urban Planning.
Last night I dreamed of talking a walk to

Bergen Beach when I came across Ronna, also
walking; she told me she’d been upset by her
boyfriend. Lately I’ve had similar dreams
about Ronna, and I guess seeing her again
reawakened my dormant affection for her.
Today I decided to try something new, so I

took the subway to Atlantic Avenue and went
on the Long Island Railroad, taking the 2:10 to
Far Rockaway. It was a nice experience: the
seats were comfortable and we passed Valley
Stream and each of the Five Towns.
I noticed the first buds of spring on trees near

the Hewlett station. I had lunch in Far Rock,
then took the Green bus to Neponsit, where I
waited in the wind at Beach 147th Street and got
the bus back to Brooklyn. I’m glad I made the
excursion, as I’ve become so dependent upon
Richard Grayson 17
my car that I forget sometimes that I can rely

on public transportation to get me places, too.
Saturday, April 5, 1975

“Act, Mami, das ist so schön.” I’ve thought a lot
about what Prof. Ebel wrote in the Richmond
Times. I even included it at the end of a piece
of writing, all full of puns, portmanteau words
and free association. (I titled it “The
Psychopathology of Everyday Life,” after
Freud’s book, which I was reading the other
night.)
It’s another night, a Saturday night, alone at

home (actually, Mom and Dad and Jonny are
here but that makes it worse) ad this time I’m
really feeling lonely and depressed.
I was going stir-crazy last night. One can read

only so much, and TV is full of junk. I’ve got to
admit to myself that I’ve been deeply
disappointed and somewhat hurt by Kara’s
casual indifference.
I’m disappointed that we couldn’t get together,

but what really bothers me was that she wasn’t
honest with me. Of all the people I know, I
thought Kara would be the most open and up
front. If she didn’t feel like seeing me, why not
just come out and say so, instead of making
plans with me and then backing out.
Even a week ago Wednesday: the only reason

she showed up Sugar Bowl was because she
couldn’t reach me in time to cancel the
appointment. (Was needing to be home to
help with the seder just an excuse, I wonder).
No, that might not be true – at least at the time
I had no reason to think so.
But when I called her last Sunday, she said to

call her on Wednesday; on Wednesday
morning she called me to say that she was
sorry but that she was busy; when I called her
this morning, she said she’d call me back but
never did. I feel foolish and angry, and
frankly, very surprised.
Perhaps I am not the great judge of character

and observer of human nature that I picture
myself to be. Of course, if Kara isn’t above-
board, then I guess we would have not had a
good relationship even if she had been madly
attracted to me.
Naturally, if she just said she wasn’t interested,

my ego would have taken a beating, but it
would have been much less painful had she
just leveled with me. I can understand her not
wanting to hurt someone, but now I am left
feeling more alone than ever, and what’s
worse, becoming cynical.
Richard Grayson 19
At least Ronna was always honest with me. I

want to cry in somebody’s arms, but there’s no
one and I feel silly (yes, even now) crying for
myself, so instead I cry at the plight of the
Vietnamese orphans and refugees as their
country finally falls to the Communists.
I’d love to adopt a Vietnamese orphan, but I’d

be doing it for the wrong reasons, and that isn’t
realistic or honest, either.
I got a silent phone call at midnight last night,

just when I was feeling my loneliest. It was
probably a crank or for Marc, but it made me
feel good to fantasize that someone is trying to
reach out to me.
I was glad when Scott called this morning to

say that he was in from D.C. this weekend, and
I told him I’d come right over. Scott’s latest
reincarnation is liberal law student; he was
dressed in a corduroy sports jacket and has a
mustache now (a beard would be too much, I
guess).
He made the law review at GW but turned it

down (because of lack of time), so he’s doing
very well academically. He’s still living at the
big house in Chevy Chase, dating rich JAPs
who go to American (“I made it with the
daughter of the doctor who cut off Betty Ford’s
tit” – I don’t think I could ever top that).
Scott’s on welfare and food stamps and is

living on his grandfather’s inheritance. He
asked about Avis and I gave him her address
in Stuttgart. Scott offered me a Rolaids, but I
told him I don’t touch the stuff anymore.
I guess studying six to ten hours a day does

that to you; thank God I never went to law
school. Miranda’s apartment was broken into;
the robbers axed down the door and stole a lot
of stuff, including all of Scott’s letters to her.
Scott went off to see Nancy the nurse, and I

went over to visit Gary. He’s had a couple of
recurrences of the hyperventilation; yesterday
he had a complete physical at the internist’s
and today he went for some blood tests.
So far the doctor has found nothing wrong

with him, so both he and Gary himself are
convinced it’s due to stress. I didn’t want to
say anything, but I just hope it’s not the
beginning of a long string of anxiety attacks.
I shudder when I remember my bouts with

anxiety attacks in high school and college.
Sunday, April 6, 1975

3 PM on a bright, blustery Sunday. A little
Richard Grayson 21
while ago I had an anxiety attack, the first one

I’d had in a long time. But I cut it short by
allowing myself to feel my feelings rather than
experience them neurotically.
It didn’t last long – only three minutes – and

there was but a hint of the old terror. Still,
when it began, I felt that long-dead but still-
familiar feeling of anxiety welling up inside
me; it came out as an onrushing wave of
nausea as I finished my lunch.
I was reading an article in the Sunday Times

Magazine about how Jews in America view the
non-Jewish population as far more anti-Semitic
than they actually are.
That may have had some tangential effect

upon me. “You’re healthier than you realize”
is how I translated that into personal terms.
And it’s true: with all my teaching, writing,
exercising, etc., I have been functioning at a
high level. And it frightened me, so I had an
anxiety attack to “prove” I’m still an emotional
cripple.
Various things may have contributed to it, too,

especially Gary’s hyperventilation attacks;
listening to his symptoms brought me back to
those painful days when I was so ill.
And when I spoke to Kara on Wednesday she

said she had been having periods of nausea
and vomiting which she thought were
psychosomatic.
Also, my seeing Mrs. Ehrlich may have

triggered a desire to be in therapy again and
have all its protection and comforts. Getting
sick again would be a way of opening the door
to therapy again.
Lastly, I’ve been wanting to write about the

hell of my past anxiety attacks but I’ve
repressed the memories of that suffering.
I also have to look at my own feelings of the

moment: I feel terribly lonely, terribly empty
and very frightened: the closer I get to
adulthood (and I am almost there), the more I
feel scared.
I’m a college instructor, a writer; this week I

took the step of handing in my thesis,
hopefully my final step in getting my Master of
Arts degree. Will all this mean that I will have
to leave home soon?
And my subtle rejection by Kara brings back

other painful memories of Shelli and Ronna.
For the first time now, I see that stomach virus
I had in November from an emotional
Richard Grayson 23
standpoint. It was then that I knew that Ronna

and I were breaking up, and the nausea and
the diarrhea were my reaction to that.
Ronna was in New Jersey with Susan that

weekend, and I had no way of getting in touch
with her; it was the symbolic death of our
relationship. Indeed, the very next weekend
we decided to break up, but by then I had
weathered the nausea and diarrhea, so the
event itself was almost anticlimactic.
So, totaling everything up, there were many

good reasons for me to have an anxiety attack
today. Hopefully, if there is a next time, I’ll be
wise enough to permit myself to understand its
cause.
I was at Alice’s for a couple of hours earlier.

She and Andreas have been going together for
four years, but I think they’re going nowhere.
Andreas seems so tight-laced: he never wants
to discuss any problems they have, telling her
that talking about it just stirs up trouble.
Andreas likes reading only Saroyan and the

Reader’s Digest and he spends so much time
working that Alice continually complains she
doesn’t see enough of him. But she’s not
willing to risk losing him, despite Andreas
encouraging her to find someone who can
better fulfill her needs.
Alice handed me back my copy of I’m OK –

You’re OK, saying she thought it was all
nonsense. Robert had told her about
transactional analysis, but Alice is closed to
these things, and in that respect, she and
Andreas agree.
She doesn’t want to be single all her life, she

wants to have children, but she goes with a
man who wants neither marriage nor children.
I could never point out this inconsistency to
her and remain Alice’s friend; that’s why she
doesn’t speak to Jean anymore. And of course
Alice is still hopeful that Kara and I can make a
go of it together.
Monday, April 7, 1975

It’s late morning. It seems spring doesn’t want
to come this year; it’s so cold outside. And my
spring vacation is already over. I have to write
that paper on Kafka and Mann, the one that
was due three weeks ago, and I must reread
Machado de Assis for tonight’s Comp Lit
course.
I have mark my class’s papers and plan what

to do in class this week. Of course I didn’t lift a
finger during my vacation. Now that it’s over,
I feel the same sense of “Where did the time
Richard Grayson 25
go?” that I used to as a kid returning to public

school.
I was explaining to Gary last night what Prof.

Galin said once: how we’re always waiting for
something. We set these goals: getting a
master’s, getting a good job, getting married,
having children, buying a home, getting
promoted – but we never enjoy the moment.
To me, that’s the saddest thing in life: it is too

short to be little, but for most people, life is
little. Sometimes you only appreciate things
after they’re no longer around. I feel that way
about my undergraduate days, the $40-a-week
allowance Dad used to give me . . . and Ronna.
I see Ronna’s good qualities in sharper focus

now. I was feeling pretty sorry for myself
yesterday until I took a ride about 6 PM, when
it was still light out.
For the first time I noticed that you can see the
Verrazano Bridge from the corner of our block.
How could I have missed that these past ten
years?
I picked up a young woman hitchhiker near
Canarsie Pier – she was nice – and then I had a
burger at the McDonald’s on Clarendon Road.
When I arrived home, Dad was back from his

menswear show. All the manufacturers are

complaining how bad business is. Even a giant
like Ivan’s family’s company is rumored to be
in trouble. (I’m very ashamed to say that that
give me some satisfaction.)
Gary called at 8 PM and he was in very bad

shape, crying and sounding downcast. It was
painful for me to hear how depressed he was.
It just came over him all day, Gary said, a
terrible feeling of depression.
He’s gone through so many changes since

Wednesday and the first hyperventilation
episode; now he feels that the physical is
giving way to the emotional, but he doesn’t
know what he’s depressed about.
We talked about his anger with his Aunt

Estelle and how it seemed insignificant but
could be a “cover” for other feelings. I felt
helpless to deal with Gary’s psychic pain, but I
began talking about my own fears, my
experience with nausea and vomiting and he
probably wouldn’t black out (which is what he
fears most) during hyperventilation just as I
never threw up during all my nausea attacks.
(Was that why I had that episode of nausea

yesterday? To prepare me for helping Gary?)
Richard Grayson 27
I tried to be a Mrs. Ehrlich, and I gave him Mrs.

E’s number. I realized what hard work it is to
be a therapist – what pain they must suffer
along with their clients.
We did have one of those breakthroughs,

though, that happen in therapy. I was telling
him about my days in public school, where I
was a well-behaved angel; I explained that the
minute I came home from school, I began
screaming and terrorizing my family.
Gary identified with that experience and said,

“Well, I guess you had to ventilate your feelings
somehow.” We were both silent for a moment
– in therapy, those moments seem divine – as
we thought about his choice of words; Gary
understood it to be significant.
We talked some more and he said he was

feeling much better, which made me happy.
And I was feeling better too, as could be seen
in my Freudian slip when I intended to joke
that I’d send him my bill for therapy services
rendered. Instead of bill, I said, “I’ll send you
my check in the mail.” I guess I really felt I got
something out of our “session,” maybe more
than Gary did.
Ronna called right after that. I had phoned her

earlier but her sister said she was out in Cold
Spring Harbor. I figured she went there with a

boyfriend, but Ronna told me she had gone
alone on the Long Island Railroad because she
wanted to try it out for the first time. I laughed
and told her how just on Friday I had taken a
ride on the LIRR. She was tired and couldn’t
speak for very long, but we had a good talk.

11 AM. I’m writing in the morning again, just
after breakfast. It’s a quiet time and it’s good
for me to try to write at different times of the
day. I don’t think this is the time most
conducive to good writing, though. It doesn’t
have the peacefulness of twilight or late night.
I have my Fiction Workshop today, and I’m

teaching at LIU tonight, and I’ve got to
prepare. I marked my class’s paragraphs, but
the whole thing is so arbitrary; I hate to give
marks.
Not because I’m afraid that they won’t like me

if I give them a bad grade, but because the
process is so subjective. Why is one paper with
good ideas but in poor style inferior or
superior to a well-crafted but deadly dull
paper?
Last night in Comp Lit, Colchie handed back

our papers (I’d put mine in his mailbox
Richard Grayson 29
earlier); he didn’t keep the grades for his

records and just wanted to know what we
were into.
Naturally Colchie loved Simon’s paper because

they’re both into structure and form. It makes
me so angry when content is ignored. I know
that’s “what’s happening” in literature (an in
all art) and in part I’m sympathetic to it, but it
appears to me that all this emphasis on form is
sometimes an excuse for no content, no ideas.
Baumbach and Spielberg are into the same bag.

Yet in the end they only end up talking to
themselves, which further reinforces the sense
that what they are doing is right.
Today in class we’ll be doing another one of

Simon’s two-page prose poems. It’s well-
crafted and moving in spots, but I can’t help
feeling that there’s less here than meets the eye.
Maybe it’s just jealousy. I write and write and

write, and then Simon turns out a couple of
paragraphs a term and Baumbach goes wild
over it. Maybe I’m the one who’s “wrong.”
But I feel I’m observing people and I’m
communicating ideas and creating situations –
why is that no longer a valid form of
expression?
Gary phoned last evening to say that he felt he

was returning to “normalcy.” He said he owed
a lot to me for getting him out of Sunday’s
depression. Gary called his aunt and thrashed
things out with her, and in the morning he felt
moderate anxiety, took a Valium and went to
school.
I didn’t want to say anything, but I think Gary

may be overly optimistic; I wonder if such
excruciating anxiety can appear just because of
“a bad week” or whatever. Gary doesn’t plan
on seeking professional help and that seems to
me just sweeping things under the carpet.
That’s a fine art, as Bergman noted in Scenes

from a Marriage, and certainly I’ve grown up in
that atmosphere. Dad has had a lump by the
side of his face for a year and yet will not see a
doctor.
I’m certain Dad has a tumor of the parotid

gland (although I guess watching Medical
Center doesn’t qualify me as a pathologist)
and it’s probably benign, but Dad prefers
being an ostrich to finding out the truth.
I sympathize with him, yet I feel revolted by

his whole attitude – just as it makes me terribly
angry when I hear Mrs. Connors tell Alice,
“What have you got to be depressed about?
Richard Grayson 31
You’re a teacher!” These shoulds and oughts

are worse tyranny than any totalitarian
government could impose.
A letter from Avis arrived yesterday, I am

happy to say. I miss her terribly. She had a
busy March, working at her mother’s helper
job. They had a pleasant Easter holiday, and
Helmut’s mother came over with chocolate
and wine-flavored eggs.
They built two boxes for Helmut’s stereo

recorder, and all seems to be working out well.
She took her two brats to a carnival the other
day; it exhausted her, but as she writes,
“Everything is a new experience, and if I think
about it that way, I don’t get too depressed.”
Teresa, Avis reports, has moved to Palo Alto to

live with Mario, who will soon be divorced.
Avis says that California and a man who she
wanted to live with were Teresa’s two dreams
for a long time.
She gave me Teresa’s address and I’ll write to

her as well as write back to Avis. But it’s so
frustrating to communicate that way, even for
a writer. I miss the verbal and visual in Avis
and other people.
She thinks Glen is having a sort of breakdown

and she inquired about Scott. Avis will be

hearing from Scott soon, I guess.

7 PM. Only now am I coming out of a blue
funk that lasted all of yesterday and most of
today. I was beginning to think I could do
nothing right.
In workshop yesterday the antagonism

between Simon and me was evident. I even
volunteered to read his story and afterwards
he objected to my reading, saying it was
terrible, and Spielberg agreed.
Before class, Josh and Simon were together and

I know they were talking about me. Earlier in
the day I was abrupt with Josh on the phone
because I was busy and I’m sure he took it
personally and told Simon, “He didn’t want to
have anything to do with me” – because that’s
how he talks about Simon to me.
I’m just annoyed at everyone in the writing

class with the exception of the women. And
my class at LIU was deadly dull last night.
Going over the grammar was so boring for

them and for me, and I fumfered and was so
unsure of myself. After class, people kept
coming up to me to complain about their
Richard Grayson 33
marks – and how could I argue with them? It’s

so subjective, I felt like a total ass.
I came home feeling down and called Gary; I

was hoping that by helping him, I’d feel better.
But Gary was doing just fine. He got a very
substantial settlement from his lawsuit over
the auto accident, over $1200, and he was out
of his depression.
I watched the Oscars (I was glad Art Carney

won for Harry and Tonto) and felt all keyed up.
I couldn’t get to sleep for the life of me; it was
so terribly frustrating.
Oh yes – before class, I called Ronna from my

office. I was hoping to see her tonight but she
said she had to tape something at the college
TV center for someone (I know it was for
Hank, so why couldn’t she say so?). She said
that Bonnie sent her an engagement
announcement, that she’s marrying that guy
Marc.
Anyway, Ronna said we could do something

on Friday night. Yesterday I bought her a
birthday card (how I used to love to remember
everyone’s birthday – and what a chore it’s
become for me now!) and Peter DeVries’
Forever Panting as a present (in paperback, of
course, since neither she nor I would like it if I
spent a lot of money).
So anyway, I lay tossing and turning all night,

finally at 6 AM feeling myself dozing off.
(What I crave is not so much sleep but dreams.)
I had wanted to catch Joseph Heller’s lecture at
noon in SUBO, but I slept through it, waking
up at 1 PM feeling cruddy: my RCAF exercises
made me nauseated, my hair was dirty, my
face full of pimples.
After a horribly late breakfast, I went to the

supermarket for Mom; I cannot stand those
places. Then I lay down, inert and immobile. I
wish it would get warm already; I miss being
out in the sun.
But I decided to force myself to go over to the

college and walk around. I know few people
now and can’t really relate to freshmen and
sophomores, even though most of them look
older than I. (I guess I’m still upset about
Kara.)
Luckily, at 5 PM, I met Libby, who had just

gotten home from Florida. She went down to
St. Augustine with Mason and his parents for
Easter. The Winnebago broke down several
times on the way home (once, at South of the
Border, where they’d gone to buy Eric things
and to get cigarettes for Stefanie). Time-
Richard Grayson 35
consuming and costly repairs delayed their

return until yesterday.
Libby and I found Mason about to get on the

Rockaway bus and persuaded him to come to
Sugar Bowl with us for a soda and french fries.
(Guys kept handing out pregnancy-test cards
to all the girls that passed; as one handed a
card to Libby, I said toughly, “What kinda girl
ya think she is?”).
Mason and Libby are both student-teaching,

with Libby doing Art with sixth graders.
Mason is particularly dedicated and offered me
suggestions on how to spice up my lessons.
But even though his kids at South Shore are
amused by grammar lessons using Mick
Jagger, I don’t think my evening students at
LIU – many of whom are older than I am –
would appreciate it.
It was good to see Libby and Mason together

again. I couldn’t believe Mason will graduate
in June. Carole gave me a wave on the way
home as I drove past her. A good supper and a
shower have helped me a lot.

3 PM. There’s a slight breeze coming from my
open window; perhaps there will be a spring
this year after all.
My moods this week have gone up and down

like a roller-coaster ride. Maybe the thing is,
like a roller coaster, I always end up in the
same place. Where am I going? I’ve had all
these reverses lately.
I think of Alice’s mother berating her: “What

have you got to be depressed about? You’re a
teacher!”
I’m a college instructor but I’m dull; I’m a

writer but I don’t get any positive feedback
(another magazine sent back “Garibaldi in
Exile” today and later on today everyone in the
class will blast my “Summoning Alice Keppel”
to smithereens); I feel very unsure of myself in
my roles as teacher and writer.
And of course Kara helped to disintegrate any

image I might have had as a person worthy of
love and attraction. I feel calm, but it’s that
kind of feeble humbleness I used to feel when I
felt, years ago, that I was worthy of nothing
and no one.
I slept too much last night; my sinuses were so

clogged, I entered a labyrinth of complicated
dreams. I don’t know where I’m heading; I’m
adrift and slightly seasick. There seems
nothing to look forward to any longer.
Richard Grayson 37
Perhaps a lot of this is because I’ve been

involved in Gary’s problems. He phoned me
this morning and said he’s decided to see a
psychiatrist at Columbia today.
I wish I were in therapy again, but I wouldn’t

be the same patient/client I was. Although
now that I think about it, one of the reasons it
took so long for me to get anywhere was that I
was always aware of the subtle tyranny of the
therapist.
I’ve been reading Games Therapists Play by

Martin Shepard, an unconventional
psychiatrist whom I find more to my liking
than anyone else in the field. Through his
books, I was better able to recognize how my
therapists played games with me.
Dr. Lippmann would write on a pad with a

scratchy pen and keep interjecting “Hmmmm”
to deny his guilt over his fees and justify what
he was charging me (I am certain that he once
fell asleep on me).
Dr. Bob Wouk would try to deny his boredom

by asking leading questions like, “What do you
suppose would happen if . . .?” and “How
would you feel if . . .?”
Dr. Roz Wouk would deny her feelings of

superiority by stating indirectly that “There’s

no difference between us” and telling me how
much she learned from her patients.
Mrs. Ehrlich would play “professional” to

deny her affection for me and she’d keep
turning the sessions over to the subject of my
sexual fantasies about her (naturally I began to
have them after she kept insisting that the girl
in my dreams was really her) because she may
have been overly concerned with her own
attractiveness.
I was helped enormously in therapy, gut it’s in

spite of, not because, of these games. And you
can’t win with them because the game is
rigged; everything is turned around to you.
They don’t tell you that the Oedipus complex

was put forth by Freud because he was
dominated and overprotected by his mother,
or that shrinks use couches, not really to let the
patient’s verbal productions go free but
because Freud couldn’t stand people staring at
him!
I’m thinking of writing a piece about my
therapists called “The Four Faces of Freud.”
The dilemma is that I still don’t know a better
way to feel better emotionally.
That’s why I applauded Gary’s decision to seek

Richard Grayson 39
professional help, though he still denies the

possibility of the problem being a long-term
one and says, “I’ve been stable for 24 years,
until last week.” Now he’s a mass of anxiety,
given to hyperventilation, trembling, insomnia
and nervousness.
It’s something which is a puzzle – a therapist

would say I was “ambivalent” about therapy.
It’s a maze of conflicting feelings; perhaps I can
somehow work it out in my fiction.

4 PM. It’s not warm out, but it is sunny and
pleasant. I guess spring is something well
worth waiting for. The apple blossoms are
beginning to bloom, and I feel good about
things.
Fridays are such nice days, and I love

Thursday nights, after my class, when I can
look forward to Friday and the weekend.
I’m starting to look forward to things again,

which is a good sign. I haven’t made any plans
for the summer as yet, but I want to be in the
sun again.
Things did not go badly yesterday. At BC I ran

into Davy, who’s let his hair grow long. He’s
such a nice guy, and if he wasn’t rushing to the
Rockaway bus, I would have told him about

my RCAF exercises. Maybe this summer I
could try running on the beach mornings like
Davy: I think I’d enjoy that.
I saw Susan Schaeffer and arranged a tutorial

session for April 22. And the Fiction
Workshop was a surprise. After Josh read
“Summoning Alice Keppel” aloud, Simon
commented first.
He said that he felt I had stolen the fictional

essay idea from Borges and really criticized the
story. Josh said it was a mediocre Monty
Python sketch, and at that point I said, “All
right, it was just an experiment; I want to try
some new things and I’m prepared to fail.”
Peter Spielberg said, “Whoa! Don’t get so

defensive.” Karen caught the basic idea of my
story and Barbara understood it best. Denis
was, as usual, annoyed at my references to
things he never heard of; Anna said, “You
hadda be really smart to get this.”
Finally Peter said he found the story delightful

and compared it to Barthelme and felt it was
entirely successful. Then I went through all the
veiled references to Dean Acheson, Cardinal
Spellman (Spielberg caught that), Virginia
Woolf and Proust; it was a real trip for me.
Richard Grayson 41
I have to admit that I was glad to see Simon

put in his place, so to speak, by Spielberg.
Afterwards I was inclined to be much more
charitable with him when we went to the Pub
with Todd.
Simon asked Karen for date, and she was

friendly but mentioned that she had a
boyfriend. I figured she did.
I left at 6:45 and drove downtown. I tried to

call Ronna from my office but both her lines
were busy. Class went okay; at least I wasn’t
boring. Probably because Tuesday had been so
bad, a lot of people were absent.
But I read aloud from the reader and Ebel’s

article, trying to get them to write personally
and meaningfully. I assigned a paragraph
defining one of six things: joy, depression,
honesty, anxiety, rejection and liberation. I let
them out early because I ran out of things to
say and rather than keep the discussion going
until the clock said it was 8:30, I stopped while
most people seemed interested.
Then I went to my office and spoke to Ronna.

Earlier, she said, the line had been busy
because Ivan had phoned her. “He talked for
an hour about himself,” she said.
Ivan’s doing well with his job; he sold an

article on computers to some publication and
he bought land upstate. I’ve got to keep
reminding myself that Ivan and I are no longer
in competition with each other (not that we
ever really were; that was something I cooked
up by myself).
I asked Ronna how her taping at the TV center

went; casually I asked it if was for Hank. It
wasn’t, but Hank was on the show with her.
I’ve got to stop thinking of Ronna as my
girlfriend; if I don’t, tonight will be a disaster.
I’m supposed to pick up Ronna at her office in

an hour, which was what we arranged on the
phone last night.
Gary saw the psychiatrist at Columbia

yesterday and he feels it helped somewhat, but
he’s still very unsure of himself. He’s worried
about a lot of real factors: whether to continue
with the doctoral program or get a job, for one
thing.
And Gary’s father retires from the post office

this summer, the family’s lease is up in July, so
Gary’s unsure what’s coming off for him.
Perhaps his trip to Europe will bring him
relaxation; a change of scene does sometimes
help.
Richard Grayson 43

It’s a beautiful afternoon, and I’m feeling
happier, more full of joy, than I have in many
weeks. I’ve felt like this only a few times in the
past six months: that day in November when I
drove out to Hempstead Lake Park and one
Friday afternoon in January when I was
working as a messenger for the Voice.
The very air is suffused sweetness, and tears

are welling up in my eyes as I write this. These
are the moments when I understand what I’m
doing on this planet. “Act, Mami, das ist so
schön.”
Ronna was in front of her building, wearing a

navy blue shirt and blue tights, when I picked
her up at 5:30 yesterday. When she got into
the car, I kissed her on cheek and noticed she
was carrying Keats’ complete poems.
We drove up to 34th Street, having decided to

see Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, and had
dinner at this nice coffee shop, Leon’s, on
Second Avenue. Ronna had been there with
Susan once and ordered a chopped liver
sandwich (she used to do that all the time for
her anemia) while I had a hamburger.
We talked about my teaching and her job; she

booked that model author on a Washington

talk show today. But Ronna feels that she
wants to leave ARCO although I bet it will be
hard for her to. Cathy, her boss, and Gwen,
the Filipino girl she works with, are very fond
of her; she showed me the heart-shaped thing
on a chain that they bought her for her
birthday.
It was the most pleasant meal I’ve had in quite

some time. It was still light out when we
walked into the theater. The film was very
good, and Ellen Burstyn deserved the Best
Actress Oscar.
It’s so good to share things with someone

again. We drove back into Brooklyn and had
Carvel ice-cream sodas on Nostrand Avenue,
laughing at our own belching. We talked
about Howie getting married, and Bruce
getting married, and Felicia’s August wedding
and Bonnie’s engagement.
Bonnie’s wedding won’t be for a year; she

went out with Marc right after Eddie, then they
broke up but eventually got back together
again. I guess both Ronna and I appreciated
the irony in that, but we didn’t say anything.
Back in my room, I gave her her birthday card

and present; she said she’d been looking all
Richard Grayson 45
over for Forever Panting; earlier in the evening,

she’d asked if she could borrow my copy, so I
knew it was the perfect gift. The title comes
from Keats, which made it seem even more
appropriate.
We sat on my bed, with a basketball game on

TV, and started at each other. I kept getting
this fluttery feeling in my stomach, wanting to
reach out to her.
I said, “You’re making me a little nervous” and

giggled stupidly. She said she felt the same
way. So we decided to play Scrabble, which
was fun. She said she’s been playing a lot with
Hank and she always beats him, but tonight I
won.
I took her home at midnight, for she and Susan

were to buy their bridesmaids’ gowns this
morning. At her house, I shut off the engine
and kissed her once, then again; then I hugged
her tightly and told her to have a very happy
birthday.
It felt so good to hold Ronna. She got out of

the car, opened the gate, hesitated and came
back. I opened the window and said, “What’s
the matter?”
“I just wanted to kiss you goodnight again,”

she said. So we did, somewhat awkwardly,

through the window. It was the nicest kiss of
my life. I went home to bed and had the most
pleasant dreams.
Today I went out to Rockaway and stopped in

at the Sarretts’. Grandma Ethel left to play
cards, so Grandpa Herb and I talked about his
two years in Manila when he was in the army
in the 1920s.
Then the Philippines was an American

protectorate, ruled by Gen. Leonard Wood
from Baguio. Grandpa Herb told me about his
buddy Tom Moore from Omaha (they ran card
games together) and an earthquake he woke
up to one morning and how he had to guard a
corporal who’d killed a sergeant in a fight and
about the tortuous ride up to Baguio and how
cold it was there and about the Walled City
outside the Pasig River and the natives’
mummies.
It all sounds so exotic and extraordinary. As I

walked along the boardwalk later, I decided
there must be a story somewhere in all that.

I woke up relatively early this morning, and
after breakfast took a ride out to the Nassau
County Museum and Field Preserve at Garvies
Richard Grayson 47
Point.
I just love being out there, where I feel close to

something – maybe it’s the truth that I feel
close to. I keep looking at the exhibits about
the dig and the geologic history of Long Island,
of the glaciers and the Late Archaic Indians.
I guess what it is, is that I feel in touch with

past there, both the human history of the era
and the physical history of the area. I walked
along a different trail this time; there are so
many there that I want to save new experiences
for the future.
Walking through the woods, I felt peaceful and

serene. I thought of Ronna celebrating her 22nd
birthday today; I’ve been thinking of her since
Friday night. I have to admit that I love her
now as much as I ever did. So is it just
memories of the past or is it something real in
the present?
I never stopped feeling warm affection

towards her. It’s funny: we can talk about
anything now, anything but our feelings
toward each other. We can never go back to
what we had, and neither of us wants to, but
can we have a new kind of intimate
relationship?
I look at the example of Mason and Libby

rather than that of Bonnie and her fiancé. I
guess we’ll just take it slow, take it naturally
(Friday night’s goodnight kisses were natural)
as we always did.
But whatever happens, I’m glad of one thing:

I’ve discovered that the love Ronna and I had
for one another was real; otherwise we could
not have come out of the last six months
feeling the way we do.
I stood on the cliff overlooking Hempstead

Harbor and I felt good; I felt loved. I wished
Ronna were there so I could share it with her.
But just three weeks ago I thought I was falling
in love with Kara. Now I realize I feel an
image I’d created – through our letters – of
Kara, who probably did the same with me.
Still, I wouldn’t want to become close to Ronna

again just because I’ve been rejected in my first
real attempt to find love somewhere else. And
I know I can live my life with Ronna if I have
to. Shelli has moved to Madison now, with her
husband, and I’ll probably never run into her
again, and that doesn’t matter, not anymore.
Yesterday I drove back to Rockaway in late

afternoon and ran into Mikey on Beach 116th
Street, where he was picking up a few things
Richard Grayson 49
for his mother. I went back to his house with

him, where Mrs. Moss complained of being
tired because she’s returned to a job she had
five years ago, working 9-to-5 in a data
processing firm in Manhattan.
Mikey told me he didn’t particularly care for

“Go Not to Lethe,” my LaGuardia Hall story –
but neither did I. His thesis will be probably
not be finished this term; it’s almost impossible
to carry out all the research and the drafts by
May.
Mikey said the interview with the Manhattan

DA’s office hasn’t resulted in a job offer as yet.
Mike, Mikey said, is still trying to finish his
Incompletes; now the teachers are screwing
him the way used to screw them, setting up
exams for him and then not showing up.
Mandy got a high-paying job with an
insurance company.
Other news: Mikey heard that Joel Shearson

got engaged and has a job lined up with a
judge; Bob Miller’s unhappy with his job; Alan
and Sherie are moving out of WASPy
Arlington and into the more Jewish Maryland
suburbs.
Mikey said that a few weeks ago he, Larry,

Mason, Libby, Mike and Mandy were on the
beach in their winter jackets when they saw

Davy swimming by shirtless.
“You know, Mikey,” I said as I left, “either

Davy’s nuts or else the rest of us are all crazy
and he’s the only sane one.”
I then dropped in on Grandma Sylvia and

Grandpa Nat, who gave me some dinner.
Grandma Sylvia can move her right hand – at
one point they thought she might lose the use
of it – but the pin near the elbow causes her
intense pain.
Grandpa Nat asked about my teaching and

Grandma and I discussed soap operas. She’s
glad Robin broke up with Jason and said that
Robin and little Michael were over last week.
Grandma Sylvia said Michael looks just like
Jonathan (which is exactly the same thing that
Grandpa Herb had said in the morning).
When I left Rockaway at 7 PM, the sky was a

pastel blue and pink. It’s been a good
weekend.

April is nearly half over, and yet every
morning when I wake up, the temperature is
still in the thirties. I need the warmth of the
sun. I want to get tan again and put my
Richard Grayson 51
snorkel jacket away for good.
I phoned Ronna last evening in the middle of

her birthday festivities. She wanted to know if
she could call me back, but I told her I just
wanted to wish her a happy birthday.
I had two callers myself last night. First Libby

phoned to ask me a question about intransitive
verbs; Mason had told her to call me because
he wasn’t sure. I hope I didn’t lead Libby
astray with my answers and explanations.
I’m so fond of Libby and her delightful who-

the-hell-cares attitude about life; she plunges
headlong into things.
Then Gary called; if anyone is Libby’s opposite,

it has to be Gary. Yesterday he went to an
unveiling with Kathy. Although he didn’t
even know the person, h felt it was his
“obligation” to go because of his “status as
Kathy’s boyfriend” (Gary’s words).
He’s better now, but for how long? Now that I

think about it, one can almost sense the rigidity
in Gary. His gestures and the way he holds
himself are so stiff and formal. Now I could
never see Libby having an anxiety attack
because she’s so in touch with her feelings.
“In touch”: she’s always touching people,

which is so nice. I have to admire Libby in that
she considers her needs first. In Sugar Bowl on
Wednesday, her boyfriend Nicky came over,
and watching them, I can see that Libby is
never cruel and not wantonly promiscuous but
just seems to know how to get pleasure.
She’d laugh at Gary’s talk of his “boyfriend

status,” as she isn’t anything to Mason, Melvin,
Nicky, Gore, etc. – she just does and feels.
Sometimes I try to shock Gary out of his

concern with the shoulds, but I’m afraid he’ll
never get to even the point where I am – which
is certainly far from total liberation. I may
never get to be like Libby, but I’d like to move
in that direction. Will I ever be the person I
want to be?
I wrote Avis a long letter, but it’s so frustrating

communicating with her in that way. I miss
her long black hair, her face, her skinny body,
the way she talks – writing is no substitute for
face-to-face contact. You can’t hug anybody in
a letter.
I lay awake a long time last night, thinking

back on my life. I’m so glad I’m not afraid of
the truth anymore. Mom, and especially Dad,
would rather be ostriches than human beings,
Richard Grayson 53
and unfortunately both Marc and Jonny seem

to subscribe to their way of life.
The quality I’m most grateful for is my

inability to accept the obvious, my curiosity. If
I die tonight, I’ve already had a full life, a rich
life. I have two imperfect but loving parents,
four grandparents and to brothers. I have had
many friends and I’ve been in love and people
have loved me.
I’ve learned a lot and seen a lot of beautiful

things. There are times when I feel that I’m
very “together,” that I understand myself, that
I’m no longer so scared.
Today I sent to see Susan Schaeffer give a

lecture in SUBO. I really admire her, for she
seems to be “together.” She says her dream is
to stay in the Neponsit Home for the Aged for
a few weeks and to be waited on and not have
to do anything, as she’s been teaching full-time
since she was 23.
Susan appears to be such a “regular” person

despite her recent success. “You go to another
city and people make a fuss over you like you
were something special,” she said. “And then
you go home and your family still thinks
you’re lazy and your kids think you’re stupid
or whatever.”
I wonder how I’d cope with success, although I

don’t think it’s something I’ll have to worry
about for some time. Another rejection notice
today: California Quarterly sent back “New
Haven,” saying that the idea was good but
nothing happened in the end. Which is a valid
criticism.
Tonight I have Comp Lit, so I’d better get

ready to return to the college.

Today has been an ideal day. Not a perfect
one, but like life in general, it was all the more
ideal because of its imperfections. If every day
could be like today, I wouldn’t mind – except
that after a while it would get boring. I look at
myself now, at 9:30 PM, and I like what I see: a
productive writer, a good teacher, a man not
afraid to face his fear.
It was a dark cool day, and even though I am a

sun worshipper, I have always loved this kind
of day. It’s as if one can hide and do
outrageous things. Comp Lit was canceled
yesterday and the Fiction Workshop was
canceled today, so I had a lot of free time.
At noon, I decided to take a drive to

Connecticut. To ride in my car is to be free.
Richard Grayson 55
Going places is a tonic for me, and even the

simple matt3er of crossing the state line and
being in New England somehow seems a
minor triumph for a former agoraphobic. I
enjoy traveling short distances, anyway.
I arrived in Greenwich after 1 PM and found a

place called Indian Something, where there
was a pond with pigeons and ducks and
mallards and seagulls. I parked nearby on the
spaces marked “Greenwich Residents Only,”
but I didn’t stay out long because I am still a
bit scared of birds. (When I was little, I would
dream of them and run into my parents’ bed at
night.)
Then I found this Victorian mansion on a hill; it

was the Bruce Museum. I walked around the
hill for a while, to the solitary picnic table on
top, where I looked down at Greenwich. Then
I entered the museum, which is the oddest
place; a Russian woman, a young girl and a
man said I could go right in, that I just had to
wipe my feet.
They had an exhibit of paintings – somewhat

pastel-ly and impressionistic – by a local
woman, and a bust of Hermes by Praxiteles
and numerous stuffed moose, beavers, foxes
and so many birds it made me slightly queasy.
It seemed to be a potpourri museum, with even

a tiny zoo featuring a monkey, and a little
planetarium where I touched a meteorite that
had fallen in Arizona and tried to comprehend
that it had once been hurtling through black
space.
After half an hour, I drove back to New York,

stopping to get my first look at Orchard Beach
in the Bronx. Over the Bronx-Whitestone
Bridge and into Queens, I decided I would
drive down Northern Boulevard until I found
the Jack-in-the-Box where I had the accident in
May 1973, that night at the printers with Ronna
and Maddy, Peter, Ian and Sid.
Going there has something to do with what I

call “confronting my past.” It all started
accidentally, with my meeting Shelli and Jerry
and going with them to Sugar Bowl. Then I
saw Ronna again and returned to Richmond
College to hand in my thesis.
Now I want to put myself face to face with

painful associations, to get them out of my
system. I examined the pole that I once
rammed into, which I still believe is dangerous
and not easily visible. So I shouldn’t blame
myself for the accident.
I had lunch in the new Mark Twain Diner that

Richard Grayson 57
popped up next to the Jack-in-the-Box; it was

over a hamburger that I began feeling creative.
On the long drive home, I fee-associated
images of today and my recent past and when I
came home, I wrote, at lightning speed, six
pages into a notebook.
It’s a sort of poem-like story much on the order

of “Rampant Burping.” I was so worked up, I
had to take a Librium to get me out of that
manic mood I feel when my creative juices are
flowing.
I gobbled down my dinner and I was very

nervous about teaching as I drove downtown
to LIU in a pouring rain. I had terrible
diarrhea and spent half an hour in the
bathroom (I have a faculty bathroom key).
I was terrified I would get sick and I thought of

saying that I had a meeting tonight and just
collect the class’s papers. But after awhile, I
felt much better, as the diarrhea seemed to get
everything out of my system, to liberate me.
And damned if I wasn’t a great teacher tonight!

We had a delightful lesson: we laughed, we
communicated, we had good discussions. The
whole thing just left me feeling so high.

8 PM. It’s amazing how quickly my spirits can

plummet and then just as quickly be restored
again. An hour ago, I was completely drained,
somewhat frustrated and rather depressed.
But eating a Jamoca Almond Fudge cone from

Baskin-Robbins as I watched a mild spring day
turn into night worked wonders. Today was
the most mild day of the year; hopefully,
warmer weather will soon be here.
(As an English teacher, I’m aware of my

misuse of hopefully, but now I’m just little
Richie Grayson in my jeans and sneakers and I
say, “Who gives a fuck?”)
I revised yesterday’s jumble of writing and

typed out a story today. It’s surprising how
unconsciously I scatter images and concerns
throughout a piece without any intent to do so.
I titled the ten-page story “The Bridge Beyond

the Pleasure Principle”; it’s another “Roman
Buildings” accumulation of the driftwood of
my psyche. I wrote about so many things: my
breakup with Ronna, my meeting with Shelli
and Jerry, the drive to Greenwich and the
Bruce Museum, my concern about Dad’s not
seeing a doctor about his neck. I included so
many little details of my recent life and used
Prof. Ebel’s article, which has been haunting
Richard Grayson 59
me, in the story.
Objectively, though, I see the story’s overriding

concern with death and frustration, just as
separation and loss dominated “Roman
Buildings”: there are images of cars and
highways throughout the piece.
But this kind of very personal fiction (in my

mind it is closest to poetry) is very taxing for
me. Like some forms of psychotherapy, it tears
off, scrapes away layer after layer of
accumulated defenses and poses and it leaves
me feeling raw and exposed.
I have to get it out of me – I do not want to give

it up – and it is very painful afterwards.
Tolstoy talked about leaving a little of one’s
flesh in the inkpot: that is how I feel.
And yet where am I, relatively speaking?

Tomorrow I must mark the class’s papers and
figure out what I’m going to do in class. I have
no money although I hardly spend anything,
but with the prices of parking, meals, vitamins,
xerox and postage so high (also highway tolls),
I never can keep a buck.
I’m certainly not extravagant. Except for a

sweatshirt, I haven’t bought clothes in months.
I can’t see as many movies as I used to.
Putting a car in a Manhattan parking lot or

eating out at an expensive restaurant is now
unthinkable.
Still, I feel rich: I have my writing (another

rejection notice today, but not really; the editor
of Spectrum said they can’t accept material
from outside the Amherst community) and my
friends.
I saw Bill Rothbard today after two years. He

has a beard now but was still wearing a
corduroy sports jacket, and he asked about
everyone. Bill’s been in medical school in the
Philippines for two years but has decided to
transfer to Cornell.
I walked with Bill around the campus for

awhile, and then we stopped in the SG office to
visit Mrs. DeSouza, who’s the only person
besides Eddie that I still know there. As we
parted, I wished Bill good luck.
I called Steve, who was in the middle of

making an orange chiffon cake; Mitchell had
given him the recipe. Steve reported that
Elihu’s father sent him the check for the phone
bill promptly and that he’s been busy with this
paper he’s writing on the West Village Houses
project.
Richard Grayson 61
Tonight Gary phoned before going to a lecture

on Transcendental Meditation, to see if maybe
that can help him. Yesterday Kathy called him
with “crushing news.” They’d been talking
about marriage, Gary said, and he is sure of his
feelings for her, but yesterday out f the blue,
Kathy told him she is going to Houston this
summer with her friend Joan (Joel Kaplowitz’s
now ex-girlfriend) to “think things through.”
She wants time away to decide whether she

loves Gary enough to marry him, and she
wants the option of seeing other guys. Gary
was devastated by the news, but he said Kathy
is troubled by her parents’ unhappy marriage
and that “she has some growing up to do.”
Still, it came as a shock to him.

10 PM. I’m flying so high tonight after really
getting off on teaching. Making contact with
my class, having them get an idea or laugh at a
joke or just be open with me – it’s the best
feeling in the world, next to creating
something.
I am a teacher now, their teacher, and I am

honest with them and don’t pretend to be
something I am not. In a way I feel great love
for my students: for Ms. Mackey, the
sparkplug of the class, who always has
something to say; for Mr. Anaso, a smiling

West Indian businessman with terrible
handwriting; for Ms. Marryshow, silent and
shy, who wrote about the anxiety she felt
during an operation on her son’s scrotum (how
that moved me, those incoherent but deeply
felt sentences); for Mr. Carey, who seems to be
judging me as a young punk – but I saw him
interested tonight and think I’ve won him over.
Teaching is better than therapy – and they pay

me! (although not much and not often). All I
know is that driving home down Flatbush
Avenue tonight I felt whole, I left loved and I
felt fulfilled.
Also, the weather helped, as today was a real

spring day. Just last night I lay in bed thinking
that I was becoming asexual, neuter, a
sublimating machine. But the warmth of the
sun made me feel loose and free.
When I arrived on the BC campus at 4 PM, the

quadrangle was filled with squatters and
frisbee players and marijuana smokers. I
smiled to Hank, who was sitting with two
girls, as I joined Denis and some other people
in a circle (most of them I knew only by sight).
Denis and I caught a glimpse of one pretty girl
in a skirt whose thighs and more were exposed
by a passing breeze.
Richard Grayson 63
I’m now open about my homosexual feelings,

too, hiding them only from my family, not
hiding them from anyone else or myself. I feel
open to so many things now.
I like Denis a lot although we’ve never really

gotten along; we’re such opposites. But he’s
very engaging and charming, and in the end I
think he’s real.
Class is so much fun. We’re like a big, raucous

family, and I love the chatter and the
playfulness, which is the only thing left that
reminds me of the old LaGuardia days.
We did Anna’s story today. She writes about

high-school-girl things, but somehow she’s a
natural; her words have a flow that is almost
hypnotic. At one point I started to laugh, and
Peter said it was not sincere laughter and
Simon said, “You should hear his other laugh.”
I turned to Josh and repeated a phrase from

last week’s Monty Python: “Well, I certainly
didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition.” Barbara
brought me a present, and I was touched, even
though it was only a book she got from her
sister Joanne, who works in a publishing
house. Incidentally, Joanne knew who Alice
Keppel was. The book was on T.S. Eliot, whom
Barbara hates but she knows I like.

After class, Denis, Todd, Anna, Sharon and I
went to Sugar Bowl and had a great old time; I
truly love all of them.
Anna is precious and I like t tease her; I told

her she should fix me up with her sister who’s
my age. Anna said she described me to her in
such flattering terms that her sister said, “He
sounds like he’s six feet tall.” Us shrimps like
to hear that sort of thing.
I respect Sharon too, ever since I realized she’s

not as much as a Jewish-American princess as
I’d originally thought. Simon can be difficult
to get along with, but he also can be very
pleasant as well.
Baumbach, Spielberg announced today, has

said he’s willing to sublet his house to us this
summer for a nominal fee. It’s an idea worth
considering, I guess.
On my way to my car, I ran into Melvin riding

a bicycle. He said he’s still going to BC and
working. Mel’s attempting to grow a beard,
but it isn’t growing in evenly and it makes him
look so cutely childish. I wish I now could see
more of Melvin and the other old friends.
Last night I had a beautiful dream about Kara.

Richard Grayson 65
In it, she called me and said she wanted to

apologize, that she would come over to my
house. We met Leon coming off a plane at the
airport and went home together. Too bad it
was only a dream.
But reality is lovely, too.

4 PM. A light drizzle has just begun to fall, but
Jonny and his friends have not been deterred
from playing ball outside, beneath my
window. I’ve just taken a shower and I feel
clean. Mom has this scented talc that smells
like roses, a smell I love.
This has been a wonderful week, filled with

good things. Fridays are the nicest, though, in
some way: I get to do anything I want, all day.
Ronna phoned last night, and it was good to

talk to her and to hear her voice. If I were a
more positive fellow, I could say with certainty
I still love her very, very much.
I had called her Sunday to wish her a happy

birthday (she couldn’t talk because the family
party was in progress and she was all choked
up after receiving a beautiful set of earrings
from her sister) and then again on Tuesday,
when she was out.
Ronna said last evening that she’d just been on

the phone for hours – first with Hank (who
mentioned that I too had been relaxing on the
quadrangle, leading Ronna to say that she was
envious of us) and then Susan, and then she
had to phone her cousin to see about going
tonight to the free movie at Brooklyn College.
Ronna asked if she made a fool of herself last

week. I said, “You mean when were playing
Scrabble and you didn’t know what chimera
meant?”
“No,” Ronna said, laughing, “and anyway,

Susan that’s not an English word.”
I disputed this and then asked: “Do you mean

about coming back to the car?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, no, Ronna – that was one of the nicest

things I that can remember.”
“I sort of thought so too,” she said, “but I

didn’t know how you felt.”
We talked about our jobs and I told her about

my trip to the Bruce Museum on Tuesday –
and now I must admit to myself that while I
Richard Grayson 67
stood outside the place, on that hill

overlooking downtown Greenwich, I was
wishing that Ronna had been there to share it
with me.
She asked, “Can I see you next weekend?” and

I responded affirmatively; I’d been so afraid to
ask her out. She said she’s pretty busy this
weekend, so we’ll make it next Saturday or
Sunday.
Last night Jonny left me a message that Alice

had called, so I tried to phone her all evening
but the line was busy. I had this feeling that
something was wrong, so I persisted and
finally reached her at about midnight.
She had been very depressed about something,

Alice said, but she talked it over with a friend
from her old school. Alice said she was going
to bed and would call me in the morning.
I said I’d pick her up tonight and we could talk

over dinner, and she suggested that afterwards
we could see the free movie at school. (I’d feel
funny about seeing Ronna there – yet I want to
see her, to touch her). I wondered why Alice
wasn’t seeing Andreas this weekend, and she
told me he’s in Germany – on business, I
suppose.
I got my check from LIU today for half the

semester, or the part of it since I took over the
class. The check – for $230.19, pretty good –
more than compounds the satisfaction I get
from the job itself. I went to Kings Plaza and
started a savings account at the Dime with it.
As they say, it’s good to have money in the
bank again.
I washed the car and picked up Marc at the

Kings Highway station. He had to lug around
this radio he’s making. Marc got so
embarrassed when I decided to celebrate the
bicentennial of Paul Revere’s ride by opening
the car window and shouting, “The British are
coming! The British are coming!”
“You have to be stoned for that sort of thing,”

Marc said. I don’t know; perhaps I’m nuts, but
I feel very uninhibited with strangers and like
doing absurd things and observing people’s
reactions. It’s so great to go out in a sweatshirt,
blue jeans and sneakers and feel a cool breeze,
not a cold, blustery wind.
I’m having a lot of trouble with the exercises

on the top of Chart 4 of the RCAF plan; I just
can’t manage forty pushups in a minute. But
I’m so near to goal that I want to keep pushing,
although I have to make myself do the
exercises every day.
Richard Grayson 69
Cambodia has fallen to the Communists after

the five year war. The Khmer Rouge were
greeted by cheering crowds in Phnom Penh.

11 PM and I’m sleepy after a pleasant Saturday
night at home. Jonny and I managed to have a
nice time just watching TV and having snacks
(though Jonny’s so skinny now that the snacks
don’t affect him as they do me).
Gary today asked me if I get lonely. Of course

I do, I told him, but I feel that loneliness is a
state of remembering what Aunt Arlyne’s
brother Kamen wrote in my sixth grade
autograph book: “Life is rich, warm and
beautiful.”
I know I came across as a bore to Gary (a

switch) when I tried to describe the way I feel –
it doesn’t come out right at all sometimes. But
I am so excited by the enormous possibilities
ahead and the potentialities within me.
I am grateful for my life, which has been so

very good. I guess there’s nobody who would
believe what a closet optimist I am. I see other
people’s lives and I’m glad I feel differently
than they do.
Take Gary. He’s still upset over Kathy’s – I

don’t know what to call it – her resistance, I
guess. On the phone Gary confided that he’d
been planning an engagement to coincide with
her graduation from Queens College this June.
He feels she “has a lot of growing up to do”
because of her hesitations.
But I look her upon Kathy’s searching as a

positive thing; she seems to have seen so little
at life. Naturally I can’t tell Gary that I view
the whole thing is a blessing in disguise;
neither can I question why he would want to
marry a woman whom he admits is
“immature.” (I don’t believe in “maturity”
anyway.)
Or take Alice. We were together for seven

hours yesterday and I saw Alice more closely
than I ever had before. She’s in a real
quandary about school; she hates teaching,
there are monsters in her sixth grade class, the
parents are all against her, she dreads going to
P.S. 197 every day of the week.
Alice wants to write and teaching interferes

with that. The $60 a day doesn’t make up for
the torture she feels she’s going through. She
would like to quit, but if she quits her first
teaching job, how will that look on her record?
Richard Grayson 71
Alice has always had what Renee once

described as “a low shit tolerance” and she,
like me, has run away from things before.
Last evening Alice and I went out for dinner at

this Mandarin restaurant on Flatlands Avenue
where the food was terrible. She and I seemed
to have different ideas of what kind of an
evening it was going to be: I was dressed like a
slob and she was sort of done up.
Also, I’m not used to spending as much money

on dinner as Alice is; at first she wanted to go
someplace like Reno Sweeney’s, but I informed
her I had only six dollars. She was desperate
to pick up a guy, and when we went to SUBO
for the movie, she kept looking men over.
She talks about flirtations she has with a gym

teacher at her school and various others:
suggestive repartee and writing notes to each
other. To me, it all sounds so junior-high-
schoolish and desperate.
Alice distrusts psychology and would never let

herself open up to therapy or new ideas. She
reads Dale Carnegie and Norman Vincent
Peale and seems to believe that if someone is
just positive or pushy enough, they’ll make it,
and that’s the way she is about her writing.
We sat in my car near SUBO for an hour,

talking about her teaching. I can understand
that the pain she’s going through over it is
very, very real – but I feel powerless to help
her besides just listening to her troubles.
We saw The Way We Were at SUBO, and I’m

glad I didn’t see Ronna there; after watching
Streisand and Redford in front of the Plaza at
the end of the film, it would have been sort of
weird to see Ronna. (Would she have
smoothed my hair?)
Alice and I met Melvin’s brother Morris

outside SUBO, disappointed because he was
waiting for a girl who never showed up.
But a girl in one of Morris’s classes came by.

She was waiting for her parents to pick her up,
and it turned out that her sister, in the family
car, is one of Alice’s students (one of the nicer
ones, apparently; earlier, while driving to BC,
we spotted two of the boys in her class and
Alice really freaked out).
Morris doesn’t wear a yarmulke anymore, and

he was out on a Friday night. We had a few
laughs with him, and then he went to sleep at
Melvin’s place while Alice and I went to the
Floridian for a bite to eat.
Richard Grayson 73
Today was a warm, muggy, cloudy, windy

day. It seems as though this long winter is
irrevocably behind us.

6 PM. I’ve just been trying to read The Wings of
the Dove, if for no other reason than because I
feel I’ve been getting intellectually flabby.
About this time every year, I resolve to read all

those books that I’ve always imagined I should
read. But I’ve always had great difficulty with
James; my mind wanders through those
meandering sentences of his.
I was in Kings Plaza yesterday and came upon

Craig in Macy’s, where he was shopping and
visiting his old co-workers (I, on the other
hand, will not set foot in Alexander’s).
Craig looked much the same and said he’s

working for a furniture manufacturing firm in
their market research division. He said he has
a lot of applications in for federal jobs in
Washington.
I told him about seeing his old running-mate

this week (Bill was wearing a Kutner-Rothbard
button on the lapel of his corduroy sports
jacket) and he said he knew Rothbard was in,
that Linda had spotted him.
Mark referred to Linda by her maiden name

and said he was seeing her that night, and
when he talked about her for a bit, he never
mentioned Harvey. I’ve grown too discreet to
be asking embarrassing questions, but I
wonder if Harvey and Linda’s marriage is still
in working order. Maddy once mentioned
Linda’s not wearing her wedding ring.
Craig says the only people from school he sees

are Hank, Linda and Maddy. He inquired if I
knew anything about Elspeth, Scott, Elihu and
the others in my crowd, and he told me that Ira
is married and at Cornell and that Karen lives
in the Village, possibly with a man who may
be her husband.
He also started to tell me that Felicia is getting

married and then stopped and said, “Oh, of
course you knew that.” I wonder how much
Craig knows about Ronna and me; after all,
Hank is his best friend, and didn’t he and
Hank paint Ronna’s room for her?
We joked about Carole and Hymie. He didn’t

go to the wedding, telling them he had to be
out of town but ended up being spotted in
Brooklyn that weekend by Barbara Dweck, a
bridesmaid (and his ex-girlfriend; he
mentioned that Howie had once caused trouble
Richard Grayson 75
between them). Craig and I parted with a

handshake.
This morning I called Elihu, who’s been busy

with four papers (all on the Anti-Masonic
movement: “When you have four papers to do,
you maximize your research”) and had a bad
cold.
We keep our discussions to very impersonal

subjects. I would never think of bringing up
Steve’s name, or Jerry and Shelli, and Elihu
wouldn’t discuss them with me, either. He did
mention that Ellen is in Vermont now, looking
for a place where she and Wade can settle after
the marriage.
The conversation dragged on for awhile and

ended after we ran out of neutral topics of
conversation. I feel uncomfortable about Elihu
possibly reporting back to his father, my
department chairman, about my teaching.
Josh phoned today, and I was pleased he called

and said so. I’d been afraid that Josh had been
annoyed with me because of the way I’ve been
doing in class; Spielberg likes my stuff and
hates Josh’s. But Josh is apparently too big to
take an envious attitude, nor is there any
reason for him to be jealous of me.
(I just remembered a dream I had last night,

about selling two stories and getting the
acceptances in the mail – from my unconscious
to God’s reality.)
Josh thinks he’s getting an ulcer because he’s

been having terrible pains in his stomach. On
Thursday he and Barry went to Columbia to
see Allen Ginsberg, but it was so crowded that
they couldn’t get in.
Josh desperately needed a bathroom, so he

went to Steve Cooper’s apartment on 120th.
Steve was in class when he showed up, but
Drew was there, half-dressed, with a guy in the
bathroom who looked like the fencer from the
party.
Josh made drew fix him a bicarbonate of soda

and then left, saying, “Every time I come here,
Cooper isn’t here. What is he, hiding in the
closet?”
Drew smiled and said, “I could take that two

ways you know,” and then Josh and Barry left
Drew and the bathrobe guy to their fried
chicken and watermelon.
I wanted to do something tonight, but Josh

says he has a chance to get laid and of course
that takes precedence. Oh well, back to Wings
Richard Grayson 77
of the Dove. I wonder if Henry James had

nights like this.

3 PM. I should have stayed in bed this
morning, as my dreams were deliciously
pleasant. But the mailman brought two of my
self-addressed stamped envelopes back to me,
containing stories rejected by the Georgia
Review and Fiction Magazine. There wasn’t
any rejection notice in one, and just a
mimeographed form in the other. I felt so
despondent and discouraged.
Sometimes – last night, for instance – I feel sure

I am a brilliant writer who will one day be held
in esteem. I have this great well of creativity to
dip into, and such good ideas and the
discipline to carry them through.
But then today rolls around and it seems as if

no one at these magazines appreciates my
talent. Is there any talent there? Yes, I’m
practically sure of it. Was selling the story to
New Writers just a fluke? I hope not.
I think what I’ll do from now on is just submit

one story to one magazine at a time. That way
(ha, ha) I won’t ever have to worry about two
magazines accepting the same story. I felt
shitty after the mailman came and just wanted
to forget about writing and go out for a while.

Luckily, I found Mason walking up Avenue H,
from his student-teaching at South Shore to the
college, and I gave him a lift. I went to xerox a
page of my students’ compositions I had typed
up, for use in my class tomorrow evening.
I have more free time now, and I don’t have to

write any more this term, as Spielberg will not
let me hand in anything else to the Fiction
Workshop – which is understandable, as the
others haven’t yet handed in their required
three stories and the term will be over in a
month.
In Comp Lit, I just have to take a final and read

the books. So I don’t have much to do but
prepare my lessons for LIU. And I want to
hang out with friends for awhile, just the way I
used to when I was an undergraduate – so I
did just that today.
Mason and I stood on the quadrangle, listening

to the playing of a rock band, courtesy of
student government. They were loud but not
all that bad; the lead singer was pretty
energetic and seemed to think he was Janis
Joplin.
Then Mason and I went to meet Libby at

SUBO; she had also just finished her student-
Richard Grayson 79
teaching. We had our lunch outside of

Whitehead, by the rock garden. I always enjoy
being with Libby and Mason.
Afterwards we went to visit Fred, Melvin’s

roommate, whom I just learned about last
Friday from Morris. Apparently Melvin and
Leroy went upstate with two girls and haven’t
come back. Actually, it turned out that I’ve
known Fred by sight and he knew me by
name.
Fred is a very nice guy, and we all sat around

talking while Libby made a cube for her sixth-
grade students. It was like old times for me,
hanging out at a friend’s house, talking about
school and music and books.
Fred’s in the Open Road Club, and this Friday

they’re having a square dance thing. I think I’d
prefer to go to the Dance Department’s recital,
though, as they’re performing a new work
with music by Mike’s brother Adam, and Carl
Karpoff will be in it.
Fred was supposed to go climbing up in New

Paltz today with Alan Karpoff, but neither of
them was able to get up at 6 AM. Mason told
us he’s probably going to the Fresh Air Fund
camp again this summer, and that made me
wonder what I should do.
I’d like to make some real money this summer,

although I don’t relish the idea of a 9-to-5 job
in a Manhattan office. I wonder if there even
are any jobs like that to be had in this economy.
Still, I can’t just do nothing.
I think I could get into traveling for the first

time, but I don’t have any money. I better just
concentrate right now on getting through the
next five weeks.
I called Ronna last night but her mother said

she had gone into Manhattan with her cousin
and wouldn’t be back until late. Billy came on
the extension to shout that all his fish had died,
so they decided to get a mouse instead. Now
Billy has a dog, a mouse and a snake, and
Ronna’s mother said she felt that was enough
pets for Billy for now.

1 PM. For as long as I live, I shall probably
never cease to reexamine and pick apart my
life, wondering just why the hell I am the way I
am. My depression of yesterday deepened as
the day wore on. I went to the Sheepshead Bay
library, where I ran into Sharon and got a
headache.
Sitting at the counter of the Foursome Diner, I

Richard Grayson 81
felt so bad that I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t

do it very well, managing to squeeze out just
one tear from my constipated eye.
Perhaps, I thought, I depend too much on my

writing for my self-esteem, that I let rejections
of my work as a writer destroy my whole self-
image, and conversely, I become too elated
when I get favorable reaction to my writing.
But I don’t know how to stop feeling like this.
I dragged myself to class last evening – seeing

Gary on the way – and I was glad I did. For
we discussed Borges and perhaps I talked too
much (like Borges, I show off my knowledge
too much), but I needed to do it to regain some
sense of myself.
I am in my element in the world of books,

literary theory and criticism and such. But is
that enough to base a life on? Graham Greene
said that writers only lead “a sort of life”
because they spend so many hours at the
typewriter with imaginary characters and
events.
I find I am giving up my Royal Canadian Air

Force exercises. I couldn’t get past the top of
Chart 4, which is the Physical Capacity level
for men aged 25-29. That’s probably the best I
can do, given my body type and genetic
makeup.
And, sadly, I have discovered that all my
exercising did not really get rid of my paunch;
only dieting can do that, and I don’t yet have
the discipline to give up cookies, pies and
sugar.
Alice called last night, very elated. In her

excitement, the problems at school were
forgotten. Jonathan Schwartz called her up
and they made a date.
He had read her letter and thought about his

behavior when Alice brought the clams to the
studio. (Alice’s letter must have been
beautiful, alternately winsome, sarcastic and
real; like me, Alice can manipulate words in
letters to play on people’s emotions.)
Jonathan Schwartz told Alice that she should

come by WNEW at 9 PM a week from this
Saturday. His program ends at 10 PM and
then they’ll go out for a drink. Alice is so
excited, I’m worried about her being let down
when this finally comes off. She had forgotten
about him after all these weeks and now she’s
ready to run away with him.
“Oh, I hope he falls in love with me,” Alice

said. “Do you think he won’t?” She’s
planning to bring along her diaphragm. I tried
Richard Grayson 83
to calm her down, saying, “Suppose he’s a

cold-hearted bastard?”
But Alice replied, “Wow, that would just make

it even better.” By then I knew that I wasn’t
going to get through to her. She’s already
saying “Andreas who?” As a friend, I could
only wish her luck. Perhaps Alice is not
immature; after all, she knows what she wants
and she goes after it.
I had beautiful, intricate dreams again last

night. I dreamed of Brad, whom I haven’t
thought about in years. And I woke up at
6 AM, listening to Dad get ready for work.
He referred to the people at Steve’s party as

“queers; at Dr. Lippmann’s, he once said how
people have to repress things; he once called
Cousin Robin a slut. How Dad loves to judge
and label things and how I hate that.
But deep down, I pity him; he will die having

spent his whole life running away from the
truth, from feelings, from himself.
Mom does it too, by her obsessive cleaning,

cleaning, cleaning. On Sunday even Grandpa
Herb and Grandma Ethel admitted that it was
a “sickness.” I pity my mother, too: how she
endlessly tries to block out every spark of life
by trying to impose order on the world.

Neither of my parents can ever really win,
because the feelings will always pop up. Or is
it just that I cannot repress as well as they can?
For the first time, I thought today about my
name change: I was born Richard Ginsberg,
but I am now Richard Grayson – because my
parents thought “Ginsberg” wouldn’t make as
good an impression on people.

I can’t sleep; my mind is whirling with ideas,
thoughts, recriminations. So I figured I’d write
today’s entry now, as I will probably be half-
dead all day Wednesday.
It’s a restless house, at this hour. Marc awoke

a little while ago and I hear him now having
trouble breathing, trying to get relief with
tissues and nasal spray. His allergies have
been bad recently.
The light is on in the master bedroom, too.

Mom, having done all her scrubbing and
shining, is now either plucking her eyebrows
or reading one of her books on Jewish history
and culture.
I’ve just finished the first volume of Leon

Edel’s biography of Henry James, which is
very readable and quite interesting. The thing
Richard Grayson 85
that sticks in my mind most is a comment that

mind-fucker Simon made yesterday while we
were having pizza after class.
Simon’s so into “telling it like it is” and

leveling with a person, but I see it as a form of
pseudo-liberated hostility. (Why is it that,
when someone says, “Now I’m going to tell
you what I honestly think of you . . .” whatever
follows invariably negative, never a positive
statement?
Simon and I are envious of another now, but

it’s something brought about by him. I can see
that he’s outraged because Spielberg likes my
work more than his; in Baumbach’s class last
term, Simon was unquestioned top dog.
(I wonder if his anger has something to do

with his ill-concealed rage at his mother for
“preferring” – Simon’s term – his stepbrothers
to him. That’s why he left home.)
Anyway, Simon said I’m “not a serious

writer.” That got me angry, especially after he
said Todd and Sharon were. I suppose the fact
that my output is more than theirs put together
doesn’t make a difference, nor does the fact
that I risk rejection by sending things out
constantly while Simon is still afraid to chance
it.
He says he “knew he was going to be a writer”

last year, but I’ve known it since I was ten or
eleven years old. Plainly he was trying to hurt
me – he even added something about
Baumbach telling him that I wasn’t very
talented – in the guise of “complete honesty.”
I’ve changed some of my ideas about that;

maybe Simon’s therapy hasn’t reached the
point where he can differentiate between
hostility and truth.
Anyway, enough about that. Susan Schaeffer

liked “Alice Keppel” a lot, the other stories less
so. She said I should send it out and not worry
about rejection notices; she’s gotten as many as
300 a year. She let Prof. Mayer read the story
and he thought it was good.
Susan seems to be really interested in me as a

writer; usually, she’s really tight with just the
Poetry people. And she doesn’t seem spoiled
by her success and didn’t seem perturbed
about not winning the National Book Award,
but of course she’s had a week to regain
composure – although I doubt that she needed
to.
The hour tutorial went so fast; it’s a pity we

have only more tutorial left, for she’s taking a
Richard Grayson 87
leave of absence next year.

In the Workshop, we did one of Denis’ less
well-written stories. Afterwards Denis said
how we base our critiques of one another’s
stories on personality and that some people
won’t attack other people’s work – which led
to Simon’s whole rap in the pizzeria. The only
person in the class I really dislike is Simon.
My class at LIU went fairly well. We had a

nice discussion on some of the paragraphs
people wrote and afterwards I talked with a
few students. Most of them are surprisingly
dedicated to getting an education.
I realize that I’m a whole different person in

front of that desk now: Mr. Grayson the
English teacher is gaining confidence and
poise. Surely teaching English 11EKL at LIU is
one of the best experiences of my life.
I called Ronna to make arrangements for

seeing one another this weekend, and she said
I’ve definitely changed. The other day Mason
said I even walk differently now, as though I’m
important.
Poor Ronna is unhappy with her job. But the

Times called her, saying they liked a press
release she wrote so much that they want to do
an article on the book she was publicizing. I’m
afraid I didn’t let Ronna talk too much. It

seems that I’m an inexhaustible stream of
words lately.

1 PM. I’ve just come back from Rockaway. It
was dark and cool on the boardwalk, and the
salt air was, as always, intoxicating. The Army
Corps of Engineers is pumping sand onto the
beach from the bay near my grandparents’
houses; it’s good that there will be a beach this
summer.
But I like the beach best on days like today

when I feel alone, when there’s just a few
elderly people and dog walkers around. It
started raining as I drove home; we’ve been
having thunderstorms lately. I feel at peace.
Yesterday I got my hair cut at Telepathy,

always a special treat and a little luxury.
Talking with Joe is pleasure, as I feel that he
really cares.
I was driving up East 56th Street at 4:30 PM or

so when I saw Harry riding his bicycle up
Avenue K. I honked and he stopped. When I
got out of the car, he gave me one of those
bone-crushing handshakes. It’s good to know
Harry’s still the same; I’d forgotten how much
Richard Grayson 89
I missed seeing him.

He had a law book in his bike basket. He’s
finishing up his second year at law school,
which he doesn’t enjoy but which he has to go
through to become a lawyer. He still dresses in
sweatshirt, T-shirt, torn denim and ripped
sneakers, and I’m glad he hasn’t sacrificed his
own style to convention.
He asked how Ronna was, and I told him, and

I talked about my teaching and writing. Harry
still writes his poetry. He’s living in his
parents’ house now that they’ve moved to
Canarsie.
“Who are you living with?” I asked, not sure if

he’s still with Fern.
“With my wife,” he said.
I was surprised and said, “The same one?” and

he laughed. I didn’t know they’d gotten
married and didn’t want to let him know that
because it seemed as if I was supposed to know
it.
I took Harry’s number. He said Ronna and I

should come over to have dinner with Fern
and him sometime. We shook hands again and
parted. At the Junction I bought a birthday
card for Teresa and then walked over to
LaGuardia and wrote her a letter at what used

to be the Grapevine table.
Alex walked by and wondered aloud if I was

not up to my usual know-it-all self; he
expected to know about Bonnie’s engagement
before he did. Eddie passed by and gave me a
Rockefeller “Hiya fella” wave and grin – but
after all, he is SG president now.
Dean Jones passed by and reminded me about

the Alumni Board of Directors meeting that
night, which I had forgotten about. I wrote to
Teresa about myself and I included the latest
gossip.
I really hope Teresa is happy is happy in

California. Alex said that Helen’s coming back
from the Coast in June, but only for a visit; I
owe her a letter too.
I arrived in SUBO at 8 PM as the Executive

Board was just getting out of their dinner
meeting; I called to Ivan’s brother-in-law Dave,
who looks well, and also said hello to Ben
Baranoff and the other board members.
I’m the only male at these meetings who

doesn’t wear a tie and jacket – but I don’t feel
uncomfortable because I’m me.
Richard Grayson 91
The meeting began with Dean Dunn (who’s

always been friendly to me although he really
doesn’t know me) speaking about the BC
admissions policy. The board members are
upset because they think standards are falling.
Then Hilary Gold discussed last week’s

takeover of the Registrar’s office by Puerto
Rican students and faculty demanding the
ouster of Kneller’s hand-picked chairwoman of
Puerto Rican Studies.
There was an all-night negotiating session with

Justice Department observers, Hilary, Bob
Gross, Eddie, etc., and finally a compromise
was reached and the offices were vacated.
At the meeting I sat next to Dean Donald Hue,

the BC Alumni historian. It’s a great place to
pick up material for fiction. Ira Harkavy
shocked me by announcing “the death of our
fellow Board member, Lorraine Nussbaum,
today.” I had wondered why neither Maddy
nor her mother was there.
Elaine Taibi told me that Mrs. Nussbaum had

cancer. I feel so bad for Maddy and her
brother, both of whose parents are now dead.
When I got home from the meeting, I called
Ronna to tell her, but her sister said that she
was out on a date.
I am ashamed to say I am so petty as to be

angry and jealous. Perhaps Ronna and I can go
over to Mrs. Nussbaum’s mother’s house,
where the family is sitting shiva. At midnight I
finally decided to write Kara. I wanted to
resolve things, if only on my part.

3 PM on a gloomy, muggy afternoon. I’m
feeling depressed over the events of yesterday
and today. After the Fiction Workshop, Denis
drove me and Josh back Josh’s house, where I
had parked my car.
It was 6 PM and on the car radio I heard about

a subway fire that resulted in the Transit
Authority stopping all IRT service from
Atlantic Avenue to Flatbush and New Lots.
Until I passed Eastern Parkway, though, it
didn’t occur to me how it would affect things.
There was a monumental traffic jam, with

literally hundreds, maybe a thousand people,
standing at the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush
Avenues. I stood in the same spot for fifteen
minutes; the rain wasn’t helping, either.
I had a rushed dinner at Junior’s and then got

to my classroom at 7:30 only to find three
people had showed up. Several more
Richard Grayson 93
straggled in and we decided what to do.

Some people wanted to hold class, but of
course most of them wanted to go home. I had
planned a lesson leading to an assignment – a
paragraph of classification – and I figured I’d
only have to give it again anyway for the other
half of the class.
My indecisiveness was evident as we kept

wavering; I suppose I should have acted strong
and made a decision. Anyway, finally we all
went home, and it appeared that other classes
were doing the same thing.
I figured that some people would have trouble

getting home, and I guess I did the right thing.
But I felt really disappointed about not getting
to teach the lesson I’d prepared, and I felt
lousy about my “weakness” and indecision.
But I still think it’s better for a teacher not to be

a dictator. The students wanted to put me in
the role of a leader, and when I refused to
accept sole responsibility, there was confusion.
Yet I still don’t believe in making all the

decisions for the class and think nondirective
teaching is valuable. Or is that all a cop-out?
I didn’t sleep well knowing I’d have to get up

early today for Lorraine Nussbaum’s funeral;
I’m used to snoozing till at least 10 AM now. I

put on a tie and jacket and started driving
vaguely in the direction of the chapel in Boro
Park.
At a stop light, I noticed the car next to me had

Craig driving and Ronna sitting next to him. I
should have called Ronna again to make sure
she’d heard the news, but I guess I’d been
trying to “punish” her for being out on a date
Wednesday night when she “should” have
been home.
My petty jealousy makes me ashamed. (Was

that why I finally wrote Kara the other night? I
hope not. I just wanted to clear up the hurt
and confusion I was feeling toward Kara.)
Craig and Ronna said they were going to pick

up Linda, but I got lost in Boro Park and the
three of them arrived at the chapel before me.
Maddy looked as though she were taking it
well; she’s gotten thinner and looked
composed. I extended my sympathies to Jay
and his wife, a pretty girl, and his mother-in-
law.
Karen came with her sister and mother, and

Artie and other friends of Jay were there, and
Elaine Taibi, and Maddy’s friends Toby and
Joyce. Maddy’s grandmother was very upset
Richard Grayson 95
and crying.
The services were brief, as is the style today.
Mrs. Nussbaum was a very nice woman. It
was just a few months ago that she was telling
me at a Board meeting how she was going for
her Ph.D. She must have been very ill then,
but she didn’t give the appearance of it.
I sat next to Linda during the services. Ronna

and Craig were on the other side, and it was so
strange to see Ronna there, looking very
mature in her dress, her hands clasped.
She was with other people and I had come by

myself – and I’m seeing her tonight. Why I did
I feel almost guilty when I told her I’d pick her
up at work at 5:30 tonight? It was as though
we were having an illicit affair. I kissed
Maddy as they went off to the cemetery and
said goodbye to the others.
After changing clothes, I went over to Josh’s

and we had lunch at the Pub. I’m so glad Josh
and I are still friends; somehow I feel Simon
will try to wreck our friendship, but I’m not
going to let that happen. Josh went to see Prof.
Goodman and I came home to rest.

9 PM. I’ve just finished a book, Conversations
with Jorge Luis Borges, which Simon lent me. I
suppose I’ve been too hard on Simon, although

he’s capable of great cruelty. Yet I also must
face my own jealousy relative to Simon – and
also the difference in the way we perceive
what we write.
Anyway, I’m grateful to Simon for the book.

Borges is fantastic, opening me up to so many
new possibilities. Reading him spurs my
imagination.
I’ve just come back from Rockaway, where I

went over this evening to visit Grandma Sylvia
and Grandpa Nat. When I arrived, Grandma
Ethel and Grandpa were visiting, so I got to see
all four grandparents in one shot.
The Sarretts didn’t stay long since they went

home to have dinner. Grandma Sylvia fixed
me a cold platter for supper. She showed me a
three-inch-long nail or post that the doctor
took out of her elbow. The pain has somewhat
lessened since its removal.
Uncle Monty has been in the hospital for two

weeks. He was coughing up blood, they took
tests and discovered a spot on his lung; they’re
operating on Monday. Grandma Sylvia and
Grandpa Nat are quite worried.
Uncle Harry came to visit and didn’t stop

Richard Grayson 97
alluding to his wealth, talking about his new

Cadillac Coupe de Ville and the restaurants he
goes to. He showed off the new blue suede
jacket he got for a steal at $50 (it was like a
dungaree jacket and is much too young for
him). I left there an hour ago.
Mom and Dad are away for the weekend,

staying at Connie and Annette’s house in Sag
Harbor. Marc and his friends are downstairs,
and Jonathan is watching the Marx Brothers in
his room.
It was raining heavily all evening yesterday,

beginning when I picked up Ronna at work.
She asked if we could eat in Brooklyn because
she wasn’t hungry right away and her stomach
was upset by a Szechuan lunch she and Gwen
went out for.
The hour-long rush hour drive wasn’t so bad

with Ronna for company. She explained
something the rabbi said at the funeral, about
not going by the rabbi’s manual and doing
something illegal: marrying the same couple
twice. Mrs. Nussbaum was very ill in the
hospital and Jay was married there in her
room; that ceremony was the legal one and the
other one was for all the family and friends.
Mrs. Nussbaum, Ronna said, knew she was

dying, as what had been breast cancer spread

through her body, but she didn’t let anyone
outside the family know; she joked to Maddy
about not wanting certain people at the
funeral. One feels that there was great courage
in the woman and that she died in peace.
Ronna and I went to Jahn’s for dinner and then

to BC to see a dance recital in Gershwin. It was
very enjoyable; even though I don’t
understand modern dance, I enjoy watching it.
Carl was in two of the pieces and he was quite

good. His twin Alan was there, with Davy,
and Alan came over to talk to us. Alan’s in
Special Ed now and likes it; he finally wrote to
Avis in Germany and he asked me if I’d seen
Leon. Alan is terribly nice; I like him more and
more.
One of the dances had original music by

Mike’s brother Adam, and it was very good;
Adam took a bow onstage. I think it’s great
that people we know are so talented.
Back at my house, after tea, Ronna and I were

in my room, sitting on my bed, both attracted
to each other, both afraid to act. I told her
about my feelings toward her, how I never
stopped liking her, how her body still turned
me on.
Richard Grayson 99
She said she felt the same way, but she did not
want things to go back to the way they were
last October. “Neither do I,” I said. Ronna was
really miserable then; we fought over petty
things and then I wouldn’t go with her to
family functions and I liked weird movies and
was selfish.
But now, she says, she feels we can never be

boyfriend and girlfriend again. Yet if we’re
not, it doesn’t matter that she doesn’t agree
with me about Buñuel or Open Marriage or
anything.
We’re separate individuals now, and we don’t

have to incorporate each other’s personality
into our own. That doesn’t mean, we decided,
that when we see each other from time to time
that we can’t express our affection physically.
I love Ronna and I want her to be happy, to see

other people, to develop herself (I want those
things for myself). We kissed and hugged and
held each other until midnight. It was good to
hold a person again; it was truly great to hold
Ronna again.

It’s 7 PM on a cool yet sunny Sunday. The
trees are leafy now, and it’s about time, too
since this is the last week of April and the first

third of 1975 will be gone.
I slept exceedingly well last night; how often I

dream of acceptance and rejection notices now.
Yesterday I got a polite rejection from Jesture.
But, determined, I spent my last paycheck from
the library on xeroxing stories.
I’ve sent out to the “big” magazines. Susan

Schaeffer said to try them first, and I guess I
might as well, but I don’t have very high hopes
of being accepted by Esquire, the Chicago
Review, Playboy, Mademoiselle or Redbook.
Today, in the Village, I bought The Directory of

Little Magazines at the Eighth Street Bookshop,
and when these pieces start coming back, I’ll
set my sights a little lower. Susan says the only
way to get experienced is to start sending out
and getting the feel of these things – but she
started in poetry, which is probably more
easily published than fiction.
At least, though, I’ll have a head start on

people like Simon, who are afraid to send out
stuff. If I’m one-tenth as pushy as Alice, I
should get somewhere.
This morning I did something I used to do in

college: I took myself to a noon Sunday movie
Richard Grayson 101
in Manhattan. It was a French film called Don’t

Cry with Your Mouth Full, and it was superb;
I’m sure that only a few lucky people will get
to see it.
It was a beautiful, lyrical study of a teenage

French provincial girl coping with her
impending womanhood. The lead actress, a
girl of 16 or 17, was gorgeous; at least she was
my type, nubile with big breasts and baby fat
on her thighs and stomach. She reminded me
of Ronna (and of Kara) and I guess I loved the
movie because she was so beguiling.
It’s good for me to treat myself to movies in

Manhattan on Sunday; I feel like I’m doing
something special. After walking out of the
Paris Theatre at 2 PM, I strolled around the
Plaza and the GM Building and past the horse-
drawn carriages to watch the Hare Krishna
people singing and dancing.
Since I quit my job at the Voice, I’ve hardly

been in Manhattan and I’d forgotten how
magical it can be. I drove down to the Village
and walked through Washington Square Park.
It’s been pretty seedy the past few years, but
today it looked alive again.
There’s a new children’s playground, there are

still the ever-present fiddlers and guitarists, the
frisbee players, the people sitting at the

fountain. For a minute it seemed like the
summer of 1969 again when I was there with
Joe Spitz or Brad Miller. For all that I’ve
changed since I first reentered the world
following my withdrawal into my room, at
times I feel that the same raw material is there.
I know I’m not expressing myself very well.

It’s just good to know that my well-being
doesn’t depend solely on externals like having
a job or a girlfriend or even a therapist.
As I said, I went into the Eighth Street

Bookshop (Laura wasn’t there) and then came
home at about 4 PM. I spoke to Gary, who’s
been depressed over an Incomplete given him
by some Columbia professor. Kathy gave him
a framed graduation photo of herself, and he
took that as a good sign. My God, it seems like
they don’t communicate at all.
I later told Ronna about it and she said a few

years ago it probably wasn’t Wendy who
wanted the lockets and the joint bank account
with Gary, and I think she’s right. Gary is
probably now clinging to Kathy as he did to
Wendy, and Kathy wants some room to
breathe, which is why she’s going to Houston.
On Friday night Ronna called Bonnie from my

Richard Grayson 103
house to make plans to go shopping, and she

put me on the line. I offered Bonnie my best
wishes; she’s a nice girl. Everyone’s getting
married. Susan tells Ronna she feels Felicia’s
marriage to Michael won’t last because they
fight constantly over little things, and even
Felicia tells Ronna she’s going into it with the
option of divorce in the back, and maybe the
front, of her mind.
Linda’s marriage to Harvey is very odd. When

people ask her, as they did at the funeral,
“How’s Harvey?” she says “Fine” so
perfunctorily that one suspects something is
amiss. With all the vibrations I get from Linda,
I’ve always been abashed to inquire about
Harvey.
Well, at least one person will end up a Henry

Jamesian old bachelor.

10 PM. Alice called last evening, wanting to
know if we had some album of Frank Sinatra’s
so that she could bring it to Jonathan Schwartz
when they see each other this Saturday night.
When I said that I didn’t, Alice replied that she
was willing to pay $25 for it somewhere.
Alice and Andreas have taken Renee’s old

apartment. Renee is moving to a bigger place,
and the rent was so reasonable -- $100 a month

– that they decided it would be worth it to
have their rendezvous in on the weekends. It’s
cheaper than going to motels and it’s within
walking distance of Alice’s house.
I asked Alice if she told Andreas about her date

with Jonathan Schwartz; she did, and Andreas
wasn’t too thrilled.
I awoke today with a stiff neck from driving

with the window open all day yesterday.
Another of my stories came back; the editor
wrote me that his magazine had run out of
funds.
I went to the college early this afternoon, but I

couldn’t find anyone I knew and sort of
wandered from the quadrangle to the lily pond
to Whitman Auditorium. People seem freer
now that spring is here, and I’m definitely
restless sexually.
On Friday Ronna said that I was the best lay in

the world, and while I’m sure that’s only true
because of the deep feeling we shared for each
other, it was still a boost for my ego. I think
I’ve been concentrating too much on being a
writer and not enough on being a man.
Today at school, and yesterday at Washington

Richard Grayson 105
Square, I was aware of people’s bodies – males

and females – and aware that my enjoyment of
watching them is heightened and any old guilt
has been lessened. I wasn’t meant to be some
sort of Henry James celibate; I don’t want to
shut any doors.
We got bad news today about Uncle Monty.

The doctors opened him up and found a
massive malignancy around his heart; there
was nothing they could do, so they just closed
him up again.
Aunt Sydelle was, of course, hysterical. Merryl

and the twins were at the hospital and they
called Dad to try to calm her down. The
doctors are going to try to treat Monty with
chemotherapy, but I guess things don’t look
too good.
Dad managed to calm his sister down

somewhat. She’s always said that everything
happens to her; only now it seems to be
coming true. First Uncle Bill was so ill before
he died and now Monty.
Dad is pretty good in these situations, though;

it’s surprising how well he handles things, and
I admire that.
I had dinner in Campus Corner this evening –

a grilled cheese sandwich and grapefruit juice

for a change – and the refugee woman at the
counter asked me where I’ve been lately. I saw
Leroy with some girl by LaGuardia, and then I
ran into Marie, who’s been running around
like a chicken without her head. Marie is
working 9-to-5, taking 12 credits and running
for GSO President.
She had her comprehensive exams on

Saturday, and she’s certain she failed the one
in Field IV (American Lit) only because she
thought the test was three hours, not two;
when Prof. Beckson took her test away, she
was shocked, especially since she knew she did
well on the rest of the exam. Now she thinks
she has to take the comps again in December.
We went to the GSO office to talk with Fred

Perlman, who was typing up the candidates’
statements. No one filed to run for Vice
President, and Marie and Fred urged me to
run.
It’s an interesting offer, and the prestige of

being the V.P. of graduate students would be
nice. But I’m not very interested in the day-to-
day, nuts-and-bolts workings of student
government. Still, I told Fred I’d think about it
and speak with him later.
Richard Grayson 107
I ran into Morris downstairs in LaGuardia. I

like him so much and wish I had more time to
spend with him, but it was nice that he walked
me to class. In Comp Lit we compared Borges
and Cortázar; I am more and more impressed
with Borges as a writer.
Gary called tonight, upset over Prof. Cole’s

refusal to turn his Incomplete into an R grade
(a class taken for no credit and no grade)
without Gary doing his thesis. But he always
wants people to extend themselves for him. If
they don’t, he labels them selfish – and from
Gary, that’s not a compliment.

2 PM. I feel so depressed. This whole thing
kind of sneaked up on me while I wasn’t
looking. I don’t know why it happened, but
maybe if I write it out, I will find some
answers.
I had anxiety dreams last night, and I awoke at

4 AM thinking about my class at LIU. There
are only six sessions left, and according to the
outline Dr. Eisenstadt gave me, the class is
supposed to do one more paragraph and three
full-length themes.
I feel guilty because we’re so far behind; I can’t

ask the class to do all that in just three weeks. I
had told them that I would eliminate one of the

full-length themes and that they didn’t have to
do the final theme on the last day of class. But I
called Dr. Eisenstadt this morning and he said
they must do the final theme in class on May 15.
Now I have to go back on my word, and I’m

afraid the class will be angry with me. I realize
that I seek their approval too much, but that’s
how I’ve always been. Dr. Eisenstadt said I
have to hand in all the class themes to the
Department at the end of the term.
I should have been keeping folders with each

student’s work. I just hope that most of them
can find their themes to hand in to me. And
I’m worried about Dr. Eisenstadt finding my
grading of the class and/or my correction of the
papers unsatisfactory.
Oh, hell – what the whole thing boils down to

is that I’m afraid of being judged. I never
thought that teachers, college instructors, could
feel this way. But then again, I never thought
that college teachers could have acne or would
masturbate or be scared when they get into a
classroom.
I feel like such a phony, such a charlatan! I’m

not fit to judge other people; I don’t know my
ass from my elbow. I get so many rejection
Richard Grayson 109
notices, I’m not even sure I’m any kind of a

writer anymore.
There is this aching dark ball inside of me and

I’m so ashamed of it and I want to give it up
but am afraid it would be too painful. Once I
thought it was related entirely to guilt over
homosexual feelings. If only it was that
simple; how I wish it were.
In a little over a month, I’ll be 24. But this isn’t

what I pictured being 24 would be like as a kid.
I figured I’d be married, with a high-paying job
and maybe a child, even – in a nice house, with
respect in the community, what the hell ever.
But I’m still a child, play-acting at being an

adult. I’m still in my father’s house, being
cared for by an overprotective mother, being
judged by surrogate fathers like Dr. Eisenstadt,
engaging in sibling rivalry with a 14-year-old.
And there’s Mrs. Nussbaum’s death, and the

real prospect of Uncle Monty’s death. I hardly
knew Mrs. Nussbaum, but the prospect of
losing both my parents the way Maddy and
Jay have, seems too horrible to think about.
(And yet there is the wish, the dream . . . that
maybe that would make me an adult.)
While I was never close with Monty, his critical

illness does strike very close to home; I guess I

keep worrying about Dad. It all seems so
pointless, so disturbing. I want to scream. (I
sound like one of my students’ essays on
depression.)
It’s so dark now. Shouldn’t it be warm and

sunny at the end of April? Perhaps I just put
my finger on the central issue. I have all these
expectations that don’t appear in reality. I’ve
been fed a lot of it by my parents, by society in
general.
But now I know I’ll feel this way (at times)

whether I’m a college president or a Nobel
Prize-winning novelist. My skin, my body, is
aging – but inside I’ll always be a child.
I’ve got to learn to accept myself; I’ve been the

best Richard Grayson I could be, haven’t I? Or
is that a rationalization? Whether I have
material success or high status or people who
love me, I’ll still be me.
Now, of course, I feel guilty about feeling

guilty. I think of suicide fleetingly, but I
suppose I shall muddle through the years that
are left to me, as best I can, treating myself
firmly but gently. At least I hope so.

Richard Grayson 111
Agony, however painful, always ends. It was

that way with my depression of yesterday.
It was that way with the long, tortuous war in
Vietnam, which ended yesterday.
Big Minh, the third president of South Vietnam

in a week, surrendered unconditionally to the
Communists, and U.S. Marines got the last of
our countrymen out of Saigon. Today the Viet
Cong is in complete control and Saigon has
been renamed Ho Chi Minh City.
Getting back to my depression, it ended

without warning. I forced myself to take a
drive over to the Queens Center because I
could not bring myself to go to the Fiction
Workshop.
In Orbach’s and in A&S, I looked at men’s

clothes, just feeling the fabrics and looking at
the beautiful shirts and pants. Most of them
were beyond my means, but I did find a lovely
black knit shirt reduced for clearance to $2.99
and I bought it.
Suddenly I realized that the tight mass

somewhere in my gut had disappeared. I had
supper at home and went to LIU, where I filled
my class in on what we’d be doing for the next
three weeks.
I was a bit dull last night, but just the fact of

getting up in front of fifteen people, most of
whom are older than me, and being a teacher
was good enough for me to feel somewhat
triumphant.
Libby called me when I got home. She’s going

on a canoeing trip this weekend and asked if I
could type up a paper for her. She offered to
pay me, but that isn’t necessary – anything to
feel useful.
Steve called, too. He’s been busy working on

an Architecture paper and “partying” at Le
Jardin and Hollywood and other places like
that.
I slept poorly, anxious about teaching again

tomorrow (but I only have five more classes
left) and filled with sexual tension with
nowhere to go. I really need to make love
twice a night. All this garbage about being
asexual and sublimating is just that: garbage.
I need to release myself physically more. That

cropped up in a long letter I received from
Professor Ebel this morning. He wrote it on
Sunday, after finishing my stories.
He says he plans to give me Honors for the

thesis, providing Prof. Leibowitz agrees.
Richard Grayson 113
Henry writes that he likes my writing, “which

ranges from brilliantly inventive to no lower
than a high plod.” He commented on my
stories separately.
He liked “Garibaldi,” which I’d deliberately

put first – but the rest of the collection couldn’t
match it he never quite got over the
disappointment. He liked “Reflections,” “New
Haven,” and “Jethro.”
Of “The Facts” and “Roman Buildings,” he

wrote, “This is inventiveness of a high order . .
. what I like in YOUR writing is the underlying
poignancy: sort of grin-and-bear-it detachment
– with suicide-as-an-ever-present-possibility-
but-what-else-is-possible-in-this-particular-
zeitgeist-when-you’re-well-mannered-middle-
class-and-articulate, if that’s an adequate
description of what you’re doing.”
He called “Peacock Room” “ambitious and

unimpeachably successful” but found “The
Jet,” Change of Pace,” “Early Warnings” and
“Talking to a Stranger” weak. The last story,
“Coping,” he liked almost as much as “Peacock
Room,” but he did state that suspects I stack
the better pieces up front. (He’s right.)
His last paragraphs: “Maybe you could get this

book published under a title like The Limits of
Detachment. But the fact is that detachment

does have its limits. There were points even in
reading ‘The Peacock Room’ at which I found
myself unable to CARE very much about
people with such reduced libido, oomph,
pizzazz, and even when you’re in a Marx
Brothers frenzy, you compensate for the
danger this obviously poses to you by zipping
in and out between your asterisks, not risking
the possibility of sticking with one thing too
long. . .
“So maybe you need an infusion of karma

from somewhere or you run the serious risk of
ending up like old Salinger – and at least he
can console himself with his millions. I mean,
holy shit, fella, this all-the-world’s-a-middle-
class-Jewish-stage bit is just an updated
Buchenwald of the emotions.
“There is in your writing a notable absence of

physicality. No physicality, no deep feeling.
That’s the way it is. So DO SOMETHING with
yourself. It’s never too early to start moving
on as a writer/person, and it’s always too early
to stop.”
Thursday, May 1, 1975

3 PM on a drizzly, cool first of May. I’ve been
thinking a lot about Ebel’s letter. I believe the
criticism he makes is valid. The only (gay)
Richard Grayson 115
sexual encounter in all of my stories, he states,

is “significantly bowdlerized.”
But then I have to consider who is giving the

criticism. Knowing Henry Ebel from the article
in the Richmond Times, I know him to be a man
whose main concerns are emotional, and even
more than that, physical.
At this point in my life, I don’t think I’m

capable of describing sex graphically without
being awkward, and that is the main reason I
avoid it. Perhaps in the future, as I open
myself to new experiences (and I intend to do
so), this will come naturally in my writing.
Ebel’s P.S. said, “But I do admire your

sophistication, which wasn’t available to me at
your age, and which cost most of my peers (if
they ever did achieve it) an exaggerated price.”
Yesterday I tried to call Ronna at her office, to

find out if she’d be interested in having dinner,
but Gwen said she was out sick. I called
Ronna’s house, but she was sleeping and I
didn’t want to disturb her.
Restless, I drove to the Junction, hoping to

meet up with a familiar face. I found two:
Mason and Stacy, who were waiting at the
Rockaway bus stop. I offered them a ride
home and they accepted.

I had interrupted a discussion, though. Stacy
was trying to interest Mason in sharing an
apartment around Ocean Avenue. (Stupidly, I
wondered what it would be like if I shared an
apartment with Stacy. . .)
Stacy said she had seen me at Susan Schaeffer’s

lecture but couldn’t get to me to say hello.
She’ll be going for her Ph.D. at the Graduate
Center next fall, in their Personality program.
I was telling her about my stories, especially

“The Peacock Room” (thanks to Susan
Schaeffer and Henry Ebel, I have new
confidence in it), and when I said it was about
bisexuality, she expressed an interest in
reading it, so I told her I’d drop off a copy at
her office.
Mason was quiet most of the ride, and Stacy

mentioned this; I hope he didn’t resent my
horning in. I told him to tell Libby not to pay
me any money for typing a paper, that a hug
would suffice.
When I dropped Stacy off, she and Mason

kissed and she told him, “Think about it.” He
told me he’s going back to the Fresh Air Fund
camp this summer after graduation; he can’t
wait until his student teaching is over.
Richard Grayson 117
I dropped in on Grandma Ethel’s for dinner. I

should have called first, but I know she’s not
resentful of having to prepare a meal for me.
Grandpa Herb and I watched the last
Americans being helicoptered out of Vietnam
on the news.
Grandma Ethel said that on Monday she was

with Grandma Sylvia, who kept calling The
Place and the hospital and finally they told her
everything was okay with Monty. Grandma
Ethel expressed the view that they’re right not
to tell Grandma Sylvia the bad news: “How
much more can she take?”
Another sad bit of news came: Great-Grandma

Bessie’s sister Etta died of cancer today. It is
ironic because last fall Grandma Bessie was so
ill and when I went to visit her in the hospital, I
saw Etta, who looked fine.
Back home again, I finally spoke to Ronna. She

developed a cold on Monday night following a
shiva call on Maddy; she went with Craig.
Billy has scarlatina and perhaps he was
somewhat contagious.
Ronna sounded awful, and she said she’d stay

out the rest of the week. She was bored,
although Hank visited her. “He’s crazy,” she
said, “with Billy and me so contagious.” She

didn’t mean it as a contrast with me, but we
both know I wouldn’t come to see her. Perhaps
Hank, who seems so uncomplicated – a literal
Boy Scout – is better for Ronna than I was or
Ivan was.
I read her Ebel’s letter and we discussed it. She

said, “Does he know you’re not physical
because you went out with me for two years?
Hmmm?” She’s so funny and self-deprecating.
But we had a good discussion about sexuality.

Now we’re friends who also have a physical
relationship. But can that work?
Friday, May 2, 1975

8 PM. I’m lounging around this evening,
having successfully resisted efforts by Josh and
Steve to have me stir from the house. But I
wanted an evening at home and time to
myself.
It’s so chilly and gloomy for May; it seems like

spring will never come, much less summer.
I’m anxious for the warmth of the sun. I long
to go out in shorts, to bicycle around, and to go
to the beach. But there will be time later.
The Fiction Workshop went nicely yesterday.

Josh’s story got a generally favorable review
Richard Grayson 119
for a change. Simon was unhappy with what

he considered negative criticism of his stories
on Tuesday, when I wasn’t there. Peter
Spielberg is actually such a nice, gentle man;
how wrong I was about him.
Barbara hasn’t handed in a story since the

beginning of the term, and Peter said he’d give
her an Incomplete if she didn’t produce –
which only seems fair.
I drove downtown and had dinner at Junior’s,

though I was greatly annoyed with what I
thought were obnoxious mannerisms of the
two guys sitting next to me at the counter –
until I realized they were both blind.
Then, of course, I felt ashamed. But after

awhile, I realized that blind people can be
obnoxious, too.
I received teacher evaluation forms in my

mailbox, but I’m not going to be a masochist
and read what my students think of me. We
had another boring class on subject-verb
agreement; I couldn’t figure out a way to make
it interesting.
I still don’t feel like a teacher. When Mr.

Schecterman brings me his Reserve orders to
leave in two weeks on Sunday or when Mrs.
Sclafani brings me a note from the head nurse

in the hospital to say she missed the last two
classes because of extra duty, I feel like saying,
“It doesn’t matter.”
Mr. Carretti is driving me crazy because he

attaches himself to me at the end of every class
and asks questions and makes comments.
Also, I was embarrassed because I called one
woman by the wrong name; it’s hard for me to
differentiate between the three black women. I
know they don’t all look like, so I suppose it’s
some sort of latent racism on my part.
Marc came into my room late last night. His

TV repair course at TCI ends in August, and
he’s considering going back to college, perhaps
to study engineering part-time.
I told him Staten Island Community College

would probably be best for that and said I’d
send away for a bulletin. It pleased me that
Marc would confide in me, as he never has
before.
Aunt Sydelle is still very upset about Monty, of

course, but she’s glad that Cousin Scott is
graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta
Kappa, just like his cousin Richard.
Last night I dreamed about Stacy. I wonder if

Richard Grayson 121
we can have any sort of honest relationship.

Her beloved shrink Betsy O’Hanlon teaches
Psych at LIU and has the office above mine.
I met Libby in front of her Painting class this

afternoon, and she gave me her Education
paper on Aesthetic Criticism to type. Libby-
like, she hadn’t quite finished it and wrote the
conclusion as she sat on the floor of the Boylan
corridor.
She gave me a batch of homemade oatmeal

cookies in lieu of payment. I told her and
Mason to enjoy their canoeing on the
Delaware.
I ran into Ronna’s sister, who said Ronna

wasn’t feeling well at all and had been crying
yesterday. In LaGuardia I was handed a copy
of Kingsman by its editor-in-chief; Ian and
Bruce were discussing something at the time.
At home, I began typing Libby’s paper – and

doing a lot of editing. I was appalled by her
writing style – sentence fragments,
misspellings, poor punctuation – but I wasn’t
surprised, given the state of higher education
today.
I phoned Ronna, who had gone to the doctor

and said she was feeling somewhat better. We
didn’t talk long, but I know how miserable it is

to be home alone sick and with nothing to do.
Teresa wrote from Palo Alto, saying she was

pleased to get my card. She is Nick’s “partner
(no, not in crime)” and it’s working out
beautifully. Nick seems to be an
understanding, loving man, and there are no
day-to-day blowups.
That’s good. Teresa went through a veritable

battalion of creeps. She’s becoming a
California hausfrau and she’s happy, although
she’d like to write or work more. Dear Teresa
– I’m glad things are good for her.
Saturday, May 3, 1975

7 PM. It feels good to be sunburned again; my
body is pink from lying for an hour in the sun.
I’ve just had dinner at the Venus Diner, just a

few blocks down Flatlands Avenue from
Ronna’s house. I thought of dropping by, but
she might still be under the weather or else she
might be going out with Hank or someone.
I’d never been to the Venus Diner before. The

waitress at the counter was pretty in a plain
sort of way. Her face and her arms were
milky-smooth, and it made me think of Kara,
who had once been a waitress there. I don’t
Richard Grayson 123
think I’ll ever hear from Kara again.

As I sat munching my onion rings, I thought
about my life and that naturally led to thinking
about a story. I don’t know whether to
separate me from my fiction.
But here I am, at 24 (almost), endlessly mixing

memory with desire, living in what I call the
suburbs of passion (I heard the phrase on a
soap opera) and constantly looking back on my
experiences with Shelli, Stacy, Ronna as things
in the past.
Ebel was right about the lack of physicality in

me. Mrs. Ehrlich used to point out how I was
burying my sexuality, and she was right, too.
Anyway, one of the things I want to do this
summer is explore the physical side of life.
There will be a summer, that’s clear now, but

will there be a sensual me? Can I break out of
this well-ordered intellectual existence that I’ve
vacuum-packed myself in? In a way I’m as
spotless as any of my mother’s rooms.
I’ve got to get out of my mother’s house, my

father’s house, my brothers’ house and break
free. I’m given the respect of a professional at
LIU (this morning I called Mr. Schecterman,
who has Reserve duty and told him not to
bother with the final since he’s taking the
course Pass-Fail), but I’ll never be treated that

way by my parents.
Anyway, I’d like to write this story called

“Newmark Remontant” about this thirtyish
twice-divorced novelist and college professor
who’s resigned himself to the suburbs of
passion (perhaps that’s the title of one of his
books) and finally, prodded by characters
resembling Alice and Prof. Ebel, he manages to
get somewhere.
It’s just the germ of an idea now and it may

take months to “percolate,” but I’m sure I’ll get
around to it eventually; I’ll leave it to my
notebooks for awhile. I like the name
Newmark (from Felicia, of course) and I came
across the word remontant the other day; it
means “to flower again.”
I got a note from Herb Leibowitz at Richmond,

asking who I want my second reader to be for
the thesis. He also states I cannot graduate
until I take my language exam. I thought
they’d forgotten about that; that’s going to be
one pain in the neck.
Josh called late last evening and finally did

persuade me to go out; we went to eat at the
International House of Pancakes. Josh told me
he’s definitely going to California this summer
Richard Grayson 125
with his friend Rob.

Josh really hates Spielberg and the MFA
program in general. I remained silent, but at
least we agree about our dislike of Simon.
After supper, we drove out to Rockaway and
came home via the Cross Bay Bridge and
Linden Boulevard.
I got in at midnight, read Carlos Fuentes’ Holy

Place for Comp Lit (it’s not bad), and went to
bed. I have difficulty remembering my
dreams lately.
Alice came over at 1 PM, while I was

sunbathing. (It felt so good to sit in the
backyard by the pool with the sun on my bare
skin.) She and Andreas painted last night;
Renee is moving the last of her things out
today, and Alice will have her trysting place.
The landlord will probably wonder why Alice

is never there, and Alice is afraid that
somehow her mother will find out about it.
But most of all, Alice was excited about her big
night tonight, when she goes out for a drink
with Jonathan Schwartz.
Of course, she’s got a big scene planned.

(“How can he not fall in love with me?” she
asked again.) I’ll turn on WNEW at 9 PM to
see if I can get a sense of what’s going on, as
Alice will be in the studio with him.

But Alice says she also loves Mr. Hartman, a
gym teacher (married) she flirts with at school,
as well as Mr. Blumstein from Midwood.
Perhaps I should be more like Alice: “pushy,
aggressive and obnoxious,” as she
characterizes herself.
Sunday, May 4, 1975

It’s a rainy afternoon. My parents are dead.
Oh, they’re not physically dead, of course;
they’re still their old youthful-looking selves.
But they’ve quite effectively cut themselves off
from the flowing rhythms of life.
My mother cleans night and day; during the

week Maud is here, so she does go out at times:
to shop, to pick up Marc at the train station
and Jonny at school; like me, they are too
fragile to walk. As Mom herself is; she phones
for someone to pick her up at the beauty parlor
two blocks from the house.
On weekends, Mom is a straightening-out

machine. She complains that she has no time,
but often in the middle of the night she can be
seen rearranging kitchen cabinets or polishing
furniture. She does not exist apart from this
house, apart from her family.
Perhaps one day, if my father dies (really dies)

Richard Grayson 127
before her and if finally her children can break

free of her, she may be alone in this house.
What will she do then, I wonder? She lets no
one do things for themselves. “That’s not how
you do it,” she’ll say, and she will show you
the right way.
This morning she took away my orange juice

before I had finished with it – such is her zest
in clearing the table. She has made a living-
room into a looking-room, a room in which
Galsworthy’s stiffest Forsytes might feel
uncomfortable.
My mother has created a museum here, a

monument to her Teutonic rigidity (although,
curiously, she has an obsession with all things
Jewish – not that she believes in the religion,
mind you, but she’s all out for Israel and
anything faintly Semitic).
I’ve got to get out of here; I realize that now,

after endless years of psychotherapy, I still do
not see what is as plain as my hand: it’s my
parents’ emotional constipation which has
made me into a being barely in touch with life.
At least I could discover intellectual

stimulation for myself. My room is like a
library-mausoleum. I can read and read and
they will think I’m being “quiet” and
“constructive.” And I am, but I’m also being

rebellious and wicked.
Thank God for the nausea I suffered in high

school; it meant that I wasn’t dead, that there
was a spark of life within me. If only I’d
known it then, I could have put it to use and
would not have had to make myself an
agoraphobic prisoner of my house.
Of my father, what can I say? He’s afraid of

the truth, so he behaves like an ostrich, and he
taught me to do the same. From the lump on
the side of his face to not making preparations
in his business, he has always been the same:
never making contact with reality unless it
captured him first.
Now the IRS is auditing him, and he’s nervous.

In the morning, I hear his hacking cough from
smoking; once he quit but then he went back.
He follows sports and bets on games with
some bookie in Monticello. He goes to movies,
sometimes without my mother, because she
doesn’t enjoy them.
Together for 25 years, they mesh perfectly . . .

and they created three male human beings, of
which I am the first. There is the odor of death
in this house, and I’ve got to leave. The risks,
the fright: they can’t be worse than this.
Richard Grayson 129
It’s a wonder that I’m able to create and dream

and feel at all. Last night I had a dream in
which I wanted to strangle my parents; in
another dream, I was leading an adult life with
a family in a flooded city, sort of Venice on the
Lower East Side. That’s what life can be like, I
know it.
Five years ago was Kent State. How much and

how little I’ve changed since then. Last night I
read José Donoso’s Hell Has No Limits, which
was simply superb. I typed up Libby’s paper
and then delivered it to her house in Park
Slope, giving it to her brother Wyatt.
After studying in the college library, as I was

driving back home, I spotted Josh walking in a
yellow slicker in the rain, so I drove him over
to a friend’s house. Alice called while I was
gone, but she’s not home now. I wonder how
it went last night; I couldn’t tell a thing by
listening to Jonathan Schwartz on the radio.
Monday, May 5, 1975

4 PM. It’s dark outside, but at least it’s not
pouring, like yesterday. I guess I sounded
harsh and cruel, those things I said about my
parents yesterday. I do love them – very
much. And that is why I want them to be
better, to be freer, to be happier.
I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I’m

starting to cry. I want someone to hold onto:
Ronna, anybody.
I’ve just finished reading a truly magnificent

novel, Heartbreak Tango, by an Argentine,
Manuel Puig. It affected me as no book has in
a long time. It was a comedy but beautifully
sad.
I had so many dreams last night. It think this

is one of them:
I was watching an old TV show, Leave It to

Beaver, and a friend of mine was on TV with
Orson Welles. The phone rang, and it was
Simon, but he said, “Denis?” I told him no, I
was Richard and then I noticed that it was 6
PM and I was late for Comp Lit.
I was at the college soon after that, and there

the actress Nancy Walker was a secretary in
the Art Department, and I tried to avoid Dean
Jones. I collected money for working in Hilary
Gold’s office on Tuesday from 11 AM to noon,
although I never really did work at that time.
Then I entered Hilary’s office and this woman,

a soap opera character, was saying goodbye to
a crowd of people; she was going away to
Richard Grayson 131
prison for a crime she committed. As I filed

past her and took her hand, she said, “Dear
Hank, I’ll miss you.” She had mistaken me for
Hank!
Back at my apartment, I took off my sport

jacket and loosened my tie. Ronna was
cooking spaghetti for dinner, and Hank was
sitting at the table, waiting to be served. Alan
Horowitz was there, and we shook hands, but
there was another guy there whom I didn’t
recognize.
He said he was Stuie Taubman, the kid who

used to head the Jewish Student union, but he
looked nothing like Stuie. I figured, it’s all a
soap opera on which an actor had been
replaced. Then I woke up.
In other dreams I was Greek or with Jay

Hershenson at some convention in a San Juan
hotel or depressed on a rainy day like
yesterday. I woke up feeling refreshed but
empty, and there’s been a growing anticipation
in me all day.
I got a very kind rejection of “Coping” from

Redbook today; the editor said people would
rather not be reminded of Kent State anymore.
I don’t know what this malaise is. I don’t

understand why I feel so odd. Perhaps I’m

anxious about teaching, but I have only four
classes left. Maybe I feel guilty about grading
students because I don’t feel worthy of judging
anyone or anything.
I called Ronna yesterday, but we didn’t seem

to be making connections. I don’t seem to be
making any connections these days. My acne
is flaring up. I wish it was warm, like
Saturday, again, and I could sit in the sun. My
sinuses hurt.
I went into Manhattan by subway this

morning, to catch the noon showing of
Shampoo at the Coronet. Warren Beatty played
a womanizing hairdresser stud; I’d like to be
like that just once. Even though he’s unhappy
at the end of the film, I’d like to be that free
with women.
Also, I find myself really attracted to Warren

Beatty. No, I’m not crazy writing like this. For
once, I’m not guarding myself. This is me, and
yesterday was me, and I’m always me.
I never could understand it when people say,

“I’m not myself today.” I’m always myself:
when I’m petty and when I’m generous; when
I’m brave and when I’m a coward; when I
think I’m ugly and when I think I’m beautiful;
Richard Grayson 133
when I’m teaching a class or masturbating;

when I’m nauseated or when I’m writing away
like this.
It was nice to go into Manhattan for a movie

during the week, but I almost felt guilty. I
want to do something crazy. I want to be
physical. Ebel’s letter has been on my mind so
much.
For once, someone who judges me has said it’s

all right – no, it’s more than all right, it’s good –
for me to be physical. And strangely enough, I
feel that when I’ve worked this all out, I’ll be
happier. I feel anxious now – on the train
coming home, I nearly had an anxiety attack –
but I feel that something good is close at hand.
Tuesday, May 6, 1975

Last evening turned out to be rather pleasant.
After a quick bite to eat at Kosher King, I went
to Comp Lit, which I greatly enjoyed. I’m very
glad that I took the course because it exposed
me to new forms of writing; I’ve become
especially interested in contemporary Latin
American writing.
A girl in the class came up to me and told me

how thin I’d gotten since the beginning of the
term. Even if it isn’t true, it still made me feel
great.
I spent the evening on the telephone with three

women. First, Libby called to thank me for
correcting and typing her term paper. She
described the canoeing trip along the
Delaware. Saturday was warm and sunny and
nice; back at the camp that night she made
Mason eggplant parmigiana and they smoked.
But it started raining (as it did here) and

Sunday was a horror. They got soaked as they
paddled through the rain; Libby was up front
and the rapids kept drenching her while
Mason paddled furiously just to stay in one
place.
It got to the point, Libby said, where she didn’t

care if the canoe turned over. But they got
back to the city finally late Sunday night;
Mason slept over and neither of them went to
teach in the morning.
My next caller was Alice, to tell me of her big

night – which turned out to be, as I had
anticipated, a dud. It was like a boring first
date, and she and Jonathan Schwartz really
had nothing to say to one another.
She got to his studio at 9 PM, and he showed

her around, but his phone kept ringing; once a
woman called and he asked Alice to leave
Richard Grayson 135
because it was personal and he didn’t call her

back in until fifteen minutes later. Jonathan
made cracks about her living with her mother
in Brooklyn (which to him seemed like Hell);
he asked about Andreas and they discussed
writing.
He seemed to have no sense of humor and he

sounded as if he was trying to impress Alice,
which wasn’t necessary. He was dressed
sloppily, and instead of taking Alice out for a
drink, he just asked, “Where can I drop you
off?” when they got in his car.
At the end, they shook hands and he said,

“Keep in touch” without meaning it. Alice
said she looked good but was feeling quiet and
not bombastic.
She was depressed, of course, but Andreas told

her it’s good that she went and discovered that
her idol wasn’t what she’d thought he was.
Alice had built it up so much, Jonathan
Schwartz couldn’t have been as great as she
imagined, and she understands that now.
Then Stacy called and we ended up talking for

an hour. She thought “The Peacock Room”
was “great” and “touching” and it made her
feel good about me, “a sensitive young artist
attuned to himself.”
Of course she recognized the characters as

similar to Ivan and Lisa, and she mentioned
seeing Lisa on the Rockaway bus that morning
(“She’s more mature I am”). I think Stacy feels
guilty about what she described as a “run-in”
with Ivan.
Stacy said that Ivan started calling her and he

tried a seduction scene in her bedroom but she
said she wasn’t interested. (This was in
contrast to Ivan telling Ronna, “Stacy’s after
my body again.” Which truth do you believe?)
Stacy wants a monogamous relationship,

which sort of surprised me. She said Ivan is a
good person, but he’s young and has always
been pushed into older things: “He needs a
strong-willed woman who’ll fuck him and then
leave him.”
She’s sort of angry about her role as an agent to

solidify the relationship between Ivan and
Lisa. Life is a soap opera, certainly. Will I
never get away from Ivan? He’s become sort
of an alter ego, a bête noir.
Anyway, then Stacy and I cleared up our own

relationship, which was difficult. We were
pretty honest and she talking frankly about her
relationship with that woman. Apparently
Richard Grayson 137
Phyllis said that I talked about her nastily – but

Phyllis viewed Stacy as a threat to her
relationship with Timmy and that may account
for it.
Stacy said that she did enjoy my company

when we were going out, and I told her that I
always liked her. After all the difficulty,
perhaps Stacy and I can be friends. And that’s
how we should keep it, I believe.
Wednesday, May 7, 1975

7 PM. It’s finally turning warm and sunny,
thank goodness. I lay out in the sun for hours
this afternoon, but clouds kept coming
overhead and blocking out the warmth and
heat.
And yet as much as I wanted the sun, I found

myself grateful for the clouds. What a pleasure
it is, though, to feel the sun on my bare skin. It
makes me feel so clean and pure.
When I got up, I noticed a little cat near me, a

calico thing sitting serenely. I brought out a
saucer of milk, but it ran away.
Teaching went very well last night. First my

students filled out the teacher evaluation forms
(I’m so glad I did not look at them; in more
masochistic days I couldn’t have kept myself
from peeking). Then I discussed description

and read aloud Balzac’s description of M.
Grandet from the reader.
I feel at ease in the classroom now; instead of

hiding behind a desk, I was able, for the first
time, to sit on top of the desk, closer to the
class. I have fun with them and maybe, just
maybe, teach them something.
Earlier I enjoyed the Fiction Workshop. We

went over a story of Sharon’s; she and I seem
to be working in the same middle-class-Jewish
milieu. I’m really going to miss the MFA
program over this summer.
While walking Denis to his car, I ran into Mira

Baron, Mitchell and Drew’s mother: a lovely,
crazy woman. Denis and I were going to meet
the others in Sugar Bowl but because of the
rain and heavy traffic, we decided not to and
he let me off at my car.
More and more I’m coming to appreciate

Denis, just as I find myself unable to take
Simon. He was again wearing different
colored socks yesterday, so he must be
completely color-blind.
Anyway, I had dinner at Junior’s and then

went to my class. All the rituals of my life
Richard Grayson 139
have always been dear to me; I guess that’s

because I’m the kind of person who likes the
familiar, the comfortable.
Today I went to BC – first at the Junction, I

xeroxed my class’s final theme, which is as dull
as most final theme topics are. I ran into Stacy.
Odd how I hadn’t seen her for months and
now we keep bumping into each other.
On Friday I’m going to stop by her office to

pick up my manuscript. Stacy knows that we
never really got a chance to be honest with one
another. Which is a pity, because I think Stacy
is a good person, really – just as we decided
Ivan was.
She needs more hours at work and has to ask

Aaron about it, and Stacy says he’s after her
body and she finds him gross. I could see
getting intimate with Stacy; after all, we’re
both very bright, creative, monogamous
bisexuals – but I don’t know if it would be
good for me.
For if I want to get close with Stacy, it would

bring back in Ivan, and Lisa, and Ronna, and
Timmy, and Phyllis, and Melvin, and Stefanie,
and Mason, and Libby, that endless chain of
exes – and I’d find myself in the middle of a
post-LaGuardia muddle.
I saw Prof. Merritt on the quadrangle, and we

shared some uzo (they were giving it out
because of Greek Day). I told him about
teaching my class and he said he still is
terrified the first day of each semester –
“because you know they’re sizing you up,” he
said.
It’s good to know that I’m not unique and that

I’ll probably be nervous even after twenty
years of teaching. Then Prof. Mayers passed
by. It seems his wife had open-heart surgery,
which is too bad, but I hope that she’ll be okay.
They said they had another English

Department meeting to pick a new chairman
since Maurice Kramer’s on sabbatical next
year.
I went to Sugar Bowl and sat down next to

Elayne, who said she saw Leroy (she calls him
by his last name, Rivera) and that spoiled her
day. He’s involved with four different women
now, and Elayne said, “He’s still the bane of
my existence.”
Now, Elayne said, guys keep asking her over,

wanting to cook a meal for her as a bribe to get
her into bed. She and Elihu are going to a
party at Mindy’s tomorrow night. Mindy and
Richard Grayson 141
Charles are getting married on Saturday, and

Elayne and Elihu bought them a camping pot
for a wedding present, figuring they can use it
in Vermont.
Elayne said Elihu is going to Madison this

summer and that he speaks constantly to
Shelli. “I don’t think much of that crowd –
they’re sickies,” she said, meaning Shelli and
Jerry and Leon, etc. But I’ve stopped making
value judgments – at least publicly.

11 PM. I’m glad that teaching will be over in a
week. Tonight I really became disgusted with
my class – or at least with Ms. Mackey and Mr.
Carretti, who come up after each session to
brown me and/or to argue for points on their
compositions.
Of course both of them are between a B+ and

an A, and I’m almost tempted to give them the
lower grade because they make such nuisances
of themselves. They criticize me, which is
okay, although not great for the ego – but what
really annoys me is that they’re more
interested in the grade rather than in learning.
I suppose I should blame the system rather

than the individuals, but it’s such a rectalgia.
(Isn’t that a lovely word? I discovered it
recently.) Well, one more lesson to get

through, one more theme to grade, and then
grading the final, and then giving marks for
the term – and that’s it.
In one respect Dr. Eisenstadt was right: if you

give an inch, they take a yard, and in the future
(if there is one), I’ll act accordingly. But this
was my first time teaching, and I made an
awful lot of mistakes which will help me to see
what not to do if I ever teach again.
It does make me think, however: was as I

greedy for a good mark as Carretti and Mackey
are? I only received a B in Freshman
Composition, and I guess I felt I might have
deserved better, but I never thought of
complaining.
All through my undergraduate days I never

challenged a mark. But then I was never very
pushy or assertive.
Last night Ronna called. Her cold is better,

although she still sounded nasal and was
coughing. She’s back at work and they’re glad
to have her. The weekend after this one she’s
going away on a trip to Washington with
Gwen and her cousin.
Susan is sailing for Europe on Wednesday, and

Richard Grayson 143
Ronna wants to spend more time with her

before she leaves, but she still asked if she
could see me this Saturday night. I said yes,
we’ll go to the movies or something.
I called Mikey last night. He, too, has been

suffering with a bad cold, and with his
bronchitis, he’s got to be careful.
Mikey’s been job-hunting and had some luck;

he’s almost sure of this job from the CETA
program, but it would be at the Financial Aid
office of John Jay, and even if the job is
confirmed, he’s not sure he wants it.
Another possibility is an internship in John

Scacalossi’s office at BC, something Mike
found for him. Scacalossi interviewed Mikey
and found him well-qualified for the job in
Campus Security; the pay would be $10,000,
but federal funding isn’t assured yet and won’t
be until late summer.
Mikey doesn’t think he’ll finish his thesis until

autumn, as his adviser is taking her vacation
over the summer. He said that his mother is
still working, that Mandy likes her job but is
going back to school soon, and the Mike is
running around trying to find teachers so he
can make up his Incompletes.
I told Mikey of the offer I got to run for

Graduate Student Organization Vice-President,
and he said I was wise to ignore it.
Last night I had very angry dreams. I was

furious with Mom for telling me how things
are done; at Dr. Bob Wouk; at Mrs. Ehrlich; at
Prof. Baumbach for talking about “the way to
write.” All those shoulds drove me crazy in my
dreams.
I also had a pleasant dream about seeing

Sunday, Bloody Sunday with Avis – God, how I
miss her face, her voice, her touch.
Today, in Fiction Workshop, we went over a

story by Denis about his childhood; it was
pretty good. Simon irked me by saying he’d
finished his “novel,” all 29 pages of it.
But I went with him, Sharon, Todd, Denis,

Barbara and Anna to Sugar Bowl after class.
Come to think of it, Josh was the only one
missing; he has to work after class.
In Sugar Bowl, I ran into Alex, who’s writing

his farewell column already. By next year I
will know almost no undergraduates at BC.
Friday, May 9, 1975

9 PM. Sunburn feels so good. I sat out for two
Richard Grayson 145
hours this afternoon, and now the front of my

body is this glowing red color. It feels hot, and
I don’t mind it all.
I guess I’ll always be a narcissist, and I’ll

always like getting tan because I know I look
better that way. (Of course when I’m 50 and
wrinkled like Grandma Ethel, I probably won’t
think so.)
If I don’t have a lean and muscular physique, if

I don’t have a classically beautiful face, if I do
have a paunch and no chin and a head shaped
like a balloon – well, at least I tan nicely.
I just came back from Macy’s on Flatbush

Avenue, where I bought a silver choker-thing
on a chain. I wanted to pamper myself. I
guess it was Ebel’s letter that prompted me to
try to become sensuous. Ha! I’ll never get
there and I know it.
But you can’t always tell. They say Hugh

Hefner was a virgin until 23, and I’m certainly
ahead of him.
Last night I called Gary, who’s leaving for

Europe on Sunday. He’s been running around,
clearing up a lot of last-minute things at
Columbia, doing the necessary shopping and
making other arrangements.
I told Gary I’d come to the airport to see off if I

can make it. Sunday is Mother’s Day, so of
course I have to be with the family and visit
my grandmothers.
Today I got a letter from Avis, who writes that

she wishes some people from America could
visit her. She mentioned that Stuttgart isn’t all
that far from Strasbourg, and I said I’d give
Gary her address just in case, although I doubt
he’ll get to Germany.
Avis, who wrote the letter on Tuesday, said

she’ll probably call her sister tomorrow, when
Mindy and Charles are getting married at the
UN Chapel. Avis feels somewhat guilty about
not being there, but the expense of the jet fare
was just too much.
Avis and Helmut are planning a party next

week to celebrate the end of Helmut’s
conscientious-objector work. He’ll then play
what Avis calls the “applying to the University
game.”
They’re going to leave Germany in mid-July

when Avis’s babysitting job ends (she lost out
on a fantastic job at a book bindery and was
depressed about it) and go to Greece. She asks
if I could meet them there.
Richard Grayson 147
I might be able to handle traveling to Europe

now, but I don’t have the money. Avis said
now that it is spring, she misses the long
afternoon talks we had on the steps of
LaGuardia and the lunches at Campus Corner.
Afternoons she mostly heads to visit her friend

Rose and they take long walks or bike rides.
They’ve been saving some money and have
been helping Helmut’s cousin Ursula move
into a new place.
Avis said that “something is changed inside of

me; I’ve calmed down a bit,” and she quoted
something apropos from Colette. She still
pulls her hair nervously, but she’s not ridden
with insomnia and her blood is flowing evenly.
She closes: “I am fine, Helmut is fine, we are

getting by, we are still in love, and we both
send a little bit of that to you. You know I miss
you very much and I love you more than just a
little bit.”
Dear, dear Avis – how much I care for her. I’m

glad the way things worked out for her,
although once in a great while I regret what
might have been.
This morning I went to Stacy’s office to pick up

“The Peacock Room.” She had to get the

manuscript in another room, and while I
waited, Aaron nodded and eyed me
suspiciously. Stacy came back and said, “It
was great.” I said thank you and that I’d be in
touch with her, and we left it at that.
I didn’t want to interrupt her work. I want to

build a positive relationship with Stacy, but I
want to proceed slowly. I guess I’ll never be an
incautious person like Alice or Libby. But I
can’t really make myself into something that is
not me.

3 PM. I feel peaceful, cozy and snuggly. I’ve
just been lying in the backyard. It’s a mild,
partly sunny day, and wispy clouds kept
blocking the sun, but I didn’t mind. Cool
breezes kept tickling my body.
And when I covered my head with a towel to

keep warm, I opened my eyes and saw the
white terrycloth around me. I could breathe
through the spaces between the fiber; the
experience was pleasant, being immersed in a
white-towel world.
Maybe this is all nonsense, but it made me

think about the infinite variety of worlds that
exist. My body was slightly warm all night;
Richard Grayson 149
even now I feel a burning sensation on my

legs. I am, right now, merely a creature of
sensation, of pleasure.
I feel as though I were a cat and someone was

stroking my neck. I could like to be held and
patted and cuddled. Still, I can’t really express
myself well – nor do I want to.
I think that’s where Prof. Ebel was off the

mark. When I’m feeling this good, I don’t care
about analyzing it, and even describing it is
somehow useless, so why try?
It strikes me that it’s much more interesting to

write about (and to read about) frustrations
rather than pleasures. I’ve had many
satisfying sexual experiences with Ronna, and I
can remember it being the same way at times
with Shelli.
But I’ve never been able to describe those

moments, nor have I really wanted to. It seems
somehow a waste to write about fulfilling
things, except in an autobiographical context.
Tonight I’m supposed to be at Ronna’s at 7 PM,

but I still don’t know where we’re going. If it
were up to me, at this moment, we would
spend the whole night in bed. But we’ll
probably go to the movies and then out for a
bite; that is, if we go out together at all.

This morning I woke up early; I had difficulty
sleeping. I decided to pay Grandma Sylvia a
Mother’s Day visit a day early.
On the way there, I passed Steve Cohen’s

parents’ house and I noticed his Cougar, with
its North Carolina plates, in the driveway. So
he and Pauline must be home. I’d like to see
them again.
On Rockaway Beach Boulevard I was driving

behind Ivan’s car, but I didn’t want to honk my
horn and say hello. I think Ivan was driving,
as the driver had black wavy hair and was
smoking a cigarette. But he turned left at
Beach 116th Street and I didn’t want him to
think I was following him.
Grandma Sylvia was getting dressed when I

arrived, and Grandpa Nat just getting up from
a nap; he did not go into work today. The way
they argue over such trivial things, one would
think them to be a miserable, violent couple –
but I’m so used to their outbursts toward each
other that I find the yelling comical and
touching.
Grandma Sylvia got my Mother’s Day card

and I see she got one from Cousin Robin and
little Michael too. She didn’t mention Uncle
Richard Grayson 151
Monty’s illness, so I don’t know how much

they’ve told her.
Dad and Mom were in Cedarhurst last night

and they said Monty looked all right; he came
home from the hospital on Wednesday (the bill
was $8,000!) and will receive treatments by a
doctor in Far Rockaway. Grandpa Nat and
Grandma Sylvia had lunch, and we discussed
other things.
Cousin Scott will be graduating in a couple of

weeks and then in September he’ll be going to
law school in Washington. I suppose his
girlfriend is joining him; from what I hear,
they’re never apart.
That sounds clingy to me, but I guess they are

anxious to get married. Which reminds me:
Mindy and Charles are getting married today,
and I wonder who’s in attendance at the UN
Chapel.
I’ve got to give some thought to just what I’m

going to do this summer. I want a job (I really
need the money), but they’re so scarce now.
Also, I don’t think I could take a 9-to-5 office
job in Manhattan, if only because the prospect
of rush hour in the subways gives me the
creeps.
Sunday, May 11, 1975

5 PM. I’ve got to start writing again and stop
lying in the sun. (Every time I think of Simon’s
29-page “novel,” I want to break something.)
I’ve been so lazy and unproductive lately. But
I have been thinking about Baumbach’s and
Colchie’s views of fiction.
I guess we have to do something different from

what was going on before. In one of Borges’
ficciones, he makes the point of the absurdity of
writing a traditional novel in the 20th century,
and I can see the point.
Who reads anymore, anyway? Besides the best-

sellers, that is? The new (or, by now, not so
new) electronic media have made us writers
into near-irrelevancies.
I’ve got to get into McLuhan again, but I do

agree with what I learned in high school: that
the medium is the message, that the text is
more important than the content – yet I persist
in trying my hand at realistic stories, and I
enjoy them.
I see my feelings toward Ivan as more than just

jealousy, or our interrelationships: Ivan is an
electronics and computer wizard, and in the
end it will be a technocrat like Ivan who will
Richard Grayson 153
destroy me and my kind (and yes, I do

presume to be an artist).
Oh, well – enough of that. I’m deliriously

happy after last night; it was a totally beautiful
experience, a sort of gentle echo of the past.
Ronna wasn’t home yet when I arrived at her

house at 7 PM. Earlier I had called and joked
that if she didn’t come home, I would take her
mother out instead, so Mrs. C greeted me by
saying, “I’ll be ready in a minute, Richie.”
Ronna phoned and said she was on her way

from the station, that she’d been in the Village
with Susan and Felicia. I sat down at the
dinner table where the rest of the family were
having their meal.
Billy grabbed me by the hand and took me to

his room (Ronna’s old room) to show me his
three white mice and his snake with two of its
skins already shed.
When she arrived, Ronna looked terrific in a

pink top and silk scarf. We didn’t feel like
seeing any of the neighborhood movies, so we
decided to take an aimless ride, stopping off to
buy some tampons Ronna needed.
We drove around Flushing and up Main Street,

talking of this and that. She’s seeing Susan off

on Wednesday; on Tuesday she’s finally going
to BC to ask teachers for grad school
recommendations; and next weekend she’s
going to Washington with Gwen and a few
other Filipina girls.
Hank took her to a Boy Scout meeting on

Thursday night (one would expect Hank to be
a Boy Scout leader). He wants Ronna to do
something with the boys, and true to form, I
gave her a vulgar suggestion for an activity –
but Ronna’s used to me by now.
Back in Brooklyn, we had a 10 PM dinner at

the Floridian. In the car we kept laughing,
saying how basically we could never stand
each other. It was so funny, but if we really
had meant it, we wouldn’t have been able to
joke about our incompatibility.
Ronna said that her sister’s boyfriend is mean

to her, joking about her weight and making fun
of her; he’s not too bright, either (he plastered
Susan’s name on the rear of his revved-up car),
and Ronna only hopes that they don’t get
married.
We went to my house and watched TV in the

basement, but we both knew we couldn’t avoid
touching each other. It was I who initiated it,
Richard Grayson 155
but Ronna responded. I am so attracted to her

still, but I found it hard (ha) to tell her that.
Actually, hugging and holding and kissing her

was the best way I could express how I felt
although I did tell her that I loved her. I
thought it was all nice but didn’t expect it to
get very far.
But we were standing up kissing and we got

carried away; it was so fine (how lame am I in
describing this?) and finally we were
horizontal on the couch making love.
I came the first time and it felt good to have

Ronna next to me, under me, again. We lay
and talked softly and explored each other’s
bodies (on TV, Olivia Newton-John was
singing “I Honestly Love You”) and then we
made love again – this time for Ronna, and it
was good to feel her come.
We lay together like the old days – yet is

seemed we were never separated – until past
2 AM. I haven’t stayed up that late since last
fall, and neither of us felt depressed.
I don’t think anything’s changed drastically.

She said she loved me, and I love her so very
much.
Monday, May 12, 1975

4 PM. The coming of summerlike weather and
the coming end of my teaching duties have
made me feel so liberated. I feel so free now,
and I want to enjoy things, be a hedonist for a
while.
Gary left for Europe last night, but I told him I

couldn’t see him off at the airport; he
understood that it was Mother’s Day and I
wanted to see Grandma Ethel.
Gary mailed me a copy of his itinerary so I can

write him; his flight was to Zurich, and by now
he must have arrived in Strasbourg and he’s
probably settled in with Bill Beer and his
girlfriend there. I gave him Avis’ address in
case he can make a side trip to Stuttgart.
Last evening I went out to Rockaway and

arrived only a few minutes after Grandpa Herb
and Grandma Ethel had gotten home. They
spent the day in Oceanside, where Arlyne and
Marty made a barbecue. I had attempted to
ride out there earlier, but the parkway traffic
was just too heavy.
Uncle Irving and Aunt Minnie arrived at the

Sarretts’ apartment just after did, but they
didn’t stay too long; they had just come from
Richard Grayson 157
seeing Aunt Tillie and Uncle Morris, who were

having this ridiculous fight because paranoid
Uncle Morris thinks another elderly man has
designs on Aunt Tillie.
After they left, Grandpa Herb, Grandma Ethel

and I had a nice chat over tea. Grandpa Herb’s
father, who died before I was born, sounds like
he was an intellectual; according to Grandpa
Herb, he read Zola and other writers in French
and he played chess and the violin and was a
Bolshevik. It’s odd that all of his children
turned out to be decidedly non-intellectual. I
would have liked to know Great-Grandfather
Saretsky.
I was up late planning stories; I’ve decided to

write some more realistic stories, using the
same characters in “The Peacock Room” and
“Coping.”
It’s a sort of soap opera-ish, Galsworthyian,

Balzacian thing. I can take these two New
York Jewish garment center families” on
wealthy (the Kiviaks, based on Ivan’s family)
and the other middle class (based on my own
family). I don’t have to limit myself to one
mode of writing.
I slept deliciously and dreamed of Ronna.

Saturday night was almost too good to be
believed. As we were lying in each other’s

arms, I asked Ronna if she was sorry it
happened; she said she wasn’t but she might
cry when she got home. I wonder if she did.
We do love each other, but I guess we’re not

“in love.” I was with Mason and Libby today,
and I guess they are basically in the same bag.
I picked up Mason at South Shore and we went
through the car wash at the Junction and then
found Libby.
The three of us sat down in front of Gershwin,

where a school band was playing jazz; they
were excellent. I just closed my eyes and let
the music take over. It was extraordinarily
good when this blonde girl started to sing
“Once in Love.”
Libby is going to both summer sessions so she

needs an apartment near school, like she had
last summer. We went to put up signs in
Boylan and LaGuardia, where Susan came up
to me. I hadn’t seen her in half a year. She’s
excited about her upcoming trip. Ronna’s
sleeping over at her apartment tonight and
Susan sails on Wednesday.
In her usual onrush of words (Mason says she

talks so fast, he could never follow what she
was saying), Susan said grad school at Rutgers
Richard Grayson 159
was horrible, but it’s over; she’s going to finish

her coursework in December because she’s
decided a Ph.D. is worthless today anyway.
I wished her a good vacation and then went

with Mason and Libby to Melvin’s for lunch.
(On the way, we passed John Zuccarelli, who
gushed, “You look fabulous!” to me. Gay
people say the nicest things.)
The student government election is currently

underway. I’ve never met this year’s
Mugwump candidate, but I know the party is
so strong, he’s assured of victory.
Mason and Libby and I had lunch in Melvin’s

kitchen. Fred is transferring to Queens College
to be near his girlfriend Beverly (I met her at
Avis’s house in September).
Fred and Melvin found this dog, which we

took out for a walk – but the dog doesn’t
understand how to shit, so we didn’t get very
far.
I like hanging out with Mason and Libby. And

I met Alex, who’s always so wonderful; he told
me that he mentioned me in his farewell
column in Kingsman! Today was almost like
the best of the old LaGuardia days.

9 PM. Driving home through a thunderstorm
from LIU just now, I felt so content. It was
more than that; it wasn’t elation or exuberance,
however. The best way I can describe it is to
say that I felt a sense of person-ness, the sense
that I am real, to myself and to others.
I am me, Richard Grayson, and though I may

be both teacher and student, friend and enemy,
son and brother, angry or loving, scared or
confident – the basic me is always the same.
This is perhaps the most wonderful thing I
have learned in this life, and it’s more than
worth whatever price I paid to acquire it.
It’s so simple, really, but so magical. I don’t

have to “act” any way to please people and I
don’t have to be anything I’m not.
My class and I had a long and interesting

discussion about grades today. It’s a rotten
system, but that’s the way it is and we have to
operate in it as best we can. I told them not to
be nervous about their final and explained how
I felt teaching writing was a kind of
impossibility.
I urged everybody to just do the best they can,

whatever their capabilities, just as taught them
Richard Grayson 161
the best I could my first time out. Perhaps in

later years I’ll think I wasn’t very good at all,
but the point is that I was as good as I could be
now. I think my students went away feeling
somewhat more relaxed and reassured than
they did when they walked in.
Mr. Walek, the Orthodox fellow who took the

final tonight because Thursday is Shavuoth,
said I was a good teacher and a nice person.
(He wasn’t browning me because he’s taking
the course Pass-Fail and he’s already assured
of a P.)
Earlier in the day, it was hot and sunny. I went

to BC at 2:30 to keep my appointment with
Susan Schaeffer; I waited outside her office
awhile, and then Dan Mayers showed me a
note she’d left, saying she was sorry but she
couldn’t make it to today.
I had two hours to kill and while wondering

what to do, I was noticing a pretty girl walking
in front of me in the hall. She looked familiar
to me somehow, and I called “Ronna?”
hesitantly.
She turned around and smiled. Ronna had

gotten her letters of recommendation from her
old Spanish teacher and was going to see
Lillian Schlissel. But there were three people
ahead of her, so we walked down to Boylan

cafeteria and had apple juice.
It was strange, but nice, to be on campus with

Ronna again. She said she had lunch with
Hank (yes, I’m still jealous of him) and had
seen Sidney, who quit his job with the Long
Branch Record and is working for another paper
in New Jersey.
Ronna went to see Prof. Schlissel and I went

out on the quadrangle, where I was soon
joined by Anna and Simon. When Ronna came
out, she said that Prof. Schlissel had told her to
apply to Iowa as well as Buffalo, GW, Purdue,
Penn State and Michigan, all of which have
good American Studies departments.
Later, Ronna told me that Simon and Anna are

just what she figured they’d be like from things
I’d said and from their stories. A friendly
group came by: Diane, Stefanie and her friend
Carol, Marc Cohen, and Alex, who was
wearing a suit, coming fresh from a job
interview.
We all chatted for a while and it was just like

the old days for me. I walked Ronna and
Diane to WBCR, where they were going to
meet Hank. Sitting on the grass earlier, I’d
found a beautiful gray hair on Ronna’s head
Richard Grayson 163
and she let me pull it off.
When we party, I shook Ronna’s hand, but she

kissed me. Then her cousin kissed me on the
cheek; that was nice. (Ronna said that Susan
was surprised when I kissed her hello
yesterday.)
Then I ran into Karin and Vito. I hugged him

and scolded him for not calling me. He said
he’s been feeling guilty about it, but lately he’d
been doing things alone: reading a lot and
going to films. We made tentative plans to see
each other; even from our brief meeting, I can
see that Vito’s grown as a person.
I ran off to class, where we did my “Coping.”

The class liked it enormously, except for Denis.
Simon thought it was well-constructed and
Todd said that it was very professional.
Spielberg said he was surprised that I’d written

it; he admires my versatility and some of my
insights, but he said that while the writing was
always competent, the story did not interest
him very much. He disliked the soap-opera
quality of it (which was deliberate on my part)
– but I figured he would.

3 PM. A little while ago, I was sitting by the
lily pond with Mavis and Alex, talking

seriously about life. Each of us wants to be
somebody, to be known and famous and
respected in our field.
But deep down, we know that very few people

really make it. (I spent last night reading
Norman Podhoretz’s Making It, and while I
don’t really like the man, I guess I have to
sympathize with his ever-present ambition, for
I have it, too.)
We had just come from the English majors’ tea.

Both Alex and Mavis had applied for the Sam
Castan Award, but Ian won it. And Carol won
the short story award. Two years ago, of
course, I knew I was going to win the
playwriting award and I did, but I never wrote
another play.
There were ever so many would-be poets and

novelists and playwrights in the SUBO
penthouse (I discount the department faculty)
that it makes one very despondent. How can
someone stand out in such a crowd?
Alex and Mavis are both graduating and I

know they’re insecure about their futures.
Mavis was offered a teaching assistantship if
she stayed on at BC, but she’s decided to go to
Maryland or Ohio for her M.S. in Broadcasting
Richard Grayson 165
even though they’re not giving her money –

which seems like a good move for her.
Alex hopes that he gets that job editing a

United Fund newsletter. He’s also a fine artist
and would like to put that talent to good use.
Alex and I read over Mavis’ farewell column
and we talked about our fear of the future.
I somehow wanted to cry because we seem so

small and afraid and the world so big and
challenging. Alex says you have to believe in
your abilities, but what if you’re insecure?
Sometimes it seems like there’s nothing to do

but hold onto each other – a hand on Alex’s
shoulder, an arm around Mavis’ waist. And
we sort of know that in years to come we
probably won’t be seeing each other – that’s
how life goes.
But maybe – the thought comes to me now –

the secret is to live for now, to understand that
life is transitory and unfair, but to seize the
day, the old Carpe Diem thing. The past was
nice but it’s over; the future is uncertain; so we
can immerse ourselves, not in the destructive
element, but in the present.
I know what I’m saying is probably trite and

hackneyed, but often it takes time before truths
become “truths.” I look at myself and I look at

people around me and I see we’re all – to use
Dad’s phrase – muddling through.
Last night I spoke to Ronna and there were

such good vibrations between us; it’s
impossible not to know how much we care
about one another. But we have to let go
because it’s for each one’s benefit.
I literally let her go last night – to talk to Hank

on the other line. (I saw Hank today in
LaGuardia and he gave me a very open smile; I
can’t imagine him being anything other than
what he feels, and that’s a very good quality.)
Yesterday Alice called. She’s ill with an upper

respiratory infection, which she caught from
her students – but she’s not at all sorry to be at
home. She doesn’t want to teach sixth graders;
she wants to be a famous magazine-article
writer.
The other people I see all have similar dreams

and discontents. John Zuccarelli (who said I
looked “fabulous,” and of course I love him for
that) has ambitions in the theater. Carl
Karpoff, passing by with a girl, both of them in
shorts, wants a career in dance. Yolanda,
whose birthday was on Monday, is another
aspiring writer.
Richard Grayson 167
I’m not sure what Vito wants, but I know he

wants to rise above where he is now; maybe
he’s just interested in glamour, since he said
that going to the Tony Awards and reception
was the high point of his life.
Mavis said we don’t want to end up like our

parents, and that’s true. I love my
grandparents, but they are not really alive:
their existences revolve around their health
(necessarily, I suppose), their meals, the TV set
or card game, and their families, who are all
really too involved in their own lives to offer
them much.
Alex said a person has to keep growing and

learning, but how many do? Even at the
English majors’ tea, I see people like Professors
Murphy, Starling, Mayers, Merritt, Kitch – they
are all quite wonderful, but would they rather
be somewhere else, doing something else?
I don’t know. Well, summer’s almost here and

maybe it’s time just to soak up the sun and
relax. But relaxing is never an easy task.

10 PM. My teaching at LIU is at an end, and
what remains is the most obnoxious part of the
job: giving final grades. I had a long talk about
grading with Jim Merritt yesterday. He says

as long as there’s the system, we have to live
with it and do the best we can, although it’s so
subjective.
Today Susan Schaeffer told me a cute story:

that Jim sent a change of grade card to the
Registrar and listed as a reason, “I was unjust.”
The Registrar’s office sent it back, saying,
“Insufficient reason.” So he handed it in again
with the notation, “Clerical error,” and it went
through.
I’m going to miss my students; as they left after

the final, several of them said I did a good job
in taking over the class in mid-semester. It was
so odd; it was like all finals, with people
writing away, staring into space and thinking,
cricking necks – except that I was the teacher,
the man in front of the room, watching silently
as I read a biography of V. Sackville-West.
It’s strange how all of the routines of the

various episodes of my life become so dear to
me – well, not all of them, as I loathe the sight
of Alexander’s at Kings Plaza. But I enjoyed
my little rituals: my dinner at the counter of
Junior’s, my going to the office I was given use
of, my class sessions.
I suspected near the end of the term that some

Richard Grayson 169
of my students might have been plagiarizing

from Time or someplace, and that disturbed
me; it had never crossed my mind before that
anyone would.
But at the end I knew all their names, even the

quiet ones like Mrs. Marryshow, a West Indian
nurse; Mr. Anaso, also a West Indian; Mr.
Lawrence, who told me of a rough day at work
at Chase, where he had to pick up $200 million
in government securities; the Orthodox Jew
Mr. Walek, who told he was thinking of
dropping out (which would be a pity; he wrote
a beautiful description of a Chasidic Rebbe).
Maybe I was the one who failed them, not

giving them enough mechanics, but I think
maybe I tapped something inside some of
them. I’ve been waiting for this night, after
which I wouldn’t have to be nervous on
Tuesdays and Thursdays, but now that it’s
over, I feel slightly sad.
Yet no matter how I’m judged, either by Dr.

Eisenstadt or my students, I know that I’m
proud of myself just for having the guts to take
the job and to go through with it all, for not
running away from something difficult.
Today I got a letter from Kara. It was a great

surprise, and I found myself hesitating about
opening it. Finally, curiosity got the better of

me, and I read it and it made me happy in one
way and sad in another. It must have been a
very difficult letter to write, and I admire
Kara’s courage.
She was avoiding me, she admitted. Through

our letters, she had expected so much of me,
she had built up a very romantic picture of me
and figured I would sweep her off her feet.
No feet-sweeper I, she found out, and so she

was disappointed and then guilty about feeling
disappointed. So she didn’t see me again.
How I feel now: I can understand completely

Kara’s feeling and I’m not angry at her
anymore. I’m glad – and a bit surprised – that
I’ve gotten to the point where I didn’t
anticipate things. So to me, Kara was not a
disappointment and I felt no letdown upon
meeting her.
(And I don’t think it’s that she is simply more

desirable than I am, for there were things about
her that annoyed me slightly but I had
expected that some of her traits would.)
“Right now,” she writes, “I’m just concerned

with letting you know how anxious I am to
quit acting this way, and that I like you and
Richard Grayson 171
I’m glad you’re not my fairytale knight so

maybe we can be friends. Were you this
messed up at 19?”
She’s going out to Boulder with a roommate

after finals, and she’ll be back in the city
around the middle of June. Kara ended by
saying, “If I were you, I’d drop me . . . a whole
lot of hassles.”
That makes me feel sad and sorry for a person

who’d say that about herself (if what she says
is sincere, which I assume it is). I want to write
Kara and tell her that it’s okay, that I’m her
friend.
But I see now that I don’t want it to go further

than that. Kara’s young and she has growing
to do. I shouldn’t compare her with Ronna or
Avis, who over the years have become more
honest as they’ve gotten more sure of
themselves. Ironically, it was Kara who made
me appreciate Ronna all the more.
Friday, May 16, 1975

I’ve just finished making my own dinner, a
hamburger and chunky chicken soup, and I’m
preparing to spend a rather dull evening at
home. I can’t bear to look at the final exams
yet; I never before realized how, when the
students breathe a sigh of relief that their work
is done, the instructor’s work is just beginning.

While I was out yesterday, a Mrs. Edelman, a
secretary in the BC English Department,
phoned, and I called her this morning as she
had instructed. It seems that Prof. Kramer
wants to interview me for an assistantship in
the fall; I arranged a meeting with him for next
Friday at 11 AM.
I’m not going to worry about it, because there’s

nothing I can do; either I will get the job or I
won’t, and in either case, my life will go on.
Sometimes my own fatalism amazes me. It’s
always been my dream to teach at Brooklyn
College, though.
I am friendly with quite a few members of the

English Department faculty. Dan Mayers
seems to like me, and I always talk with Jim
Merritt; Jack Kitch is friendly, as is Miriam
Heffernan. And of course I’m on good terms
with Susan Schaeffer, Peter Spielberg and Jon
Baumbach.
Yesterday I found myself next to Lillian

Schlissel at the counter of the Sugar Bowl, and
she seemed interested in telling me how the
American Studies program is going. I
mentioned the fact Ronna had seen her, and I
also informed her what Scott, another
American Studies grad, was doing. She said
Richard Grayson 173
she’d recently been wondering what he was up

to. I remember how much Scott admired Prof.
Schlissel for her dedication: timing her
children’s births to coincide with Christmas
and Easter vacations.
I had a 90-minute meeting with Susan

Schaeffer yesterday. She enjoyed “Garibaldi in
Exile” and feels that I’m at my best when I
adopt that voice somewhere between
Barthelme, Borges and the Marx Brothers.
She admired “Coping” less and showed me

how to fix up the dialogue; apparently, I had
been trying to imitate real-life dialogue too
faithfully, including every annoying mmm, well
and um.
We talked about President Kneller and the

Russian language and the delight people take
in hearing the sound of their own name. It was
nice to talk to Susan like that, and it’s too bad
that she’s going on leave next year.
I told her to have a good year (although I may

not see her for several years – but then I told
my students to “Have a good summer” as they
left and I’ll probably never see them again),
and she said I should continue to send stuff
out.
I will, although today I broke my record,

getting three rejections: from Carolina
Quarterly, Esquire and the Atlantic Monthly. I’d
take it much harder if it wasn’t for Susan
Schaeffer.
Our Fiction Workshop yesterday was a very

small group. Barbara hasn’t shown up for
some time, not since Peter threatened her with
an Incomplete. And Josh and Denis had
decided not to come, pissing off Simon because
today was to be the critique of his “novel.”
But he got good reviews. Even I had to say

that while I thought his calling a 29-page work
a novel was pompous and absurd, the writing
as a whole was very effective and the piece as
an entity “worked” in that it moved me.
Everyone else, including Spielberg, pretty
much agreed.
I was sitting on the porch this afternoon, and

Bonnie gave me her Kingsman to read. In his
farewell column, Alex thanked me for all the
gossip I’ve given him over the years (he also
thanked Jesus Christ, but not for gossip).
I liked Mavis’ piece, too – but then I’ve always

been one of her biggest fans. I must remember
to send graduation cards to Mavis and Alex
and Mason.
Richard Grayson 175
This afternoon, I dropped by Harry’s after

seeing him sitting out on his porch with his
dogs – shirtless, of course. (Though he has
muscles, it gives me some satisfaction that
Harry has even less chest hair than I do.)
He was studying a law text for a final on

Monday, so he didn’t want to go over to
Canarsie Pier with me. We both agreed that
the summer job situation is very bleak indeed,
even if Ford’s economists say that we’re
moving out of the recession.

It’s starting to cloud up a bit, but it was a
beautiful day. I don’t think I’d enjoy living in
Florida because up North, with the change of
seasons, the advent of spring and summer
means so much more.
There’s a kind of unleashed sensuality at this

time of year as we get rid of our heavy winter
clothes and see more of our bodies. This year,
particularly, I feel much more comfortable
with my bisexuality.
Except for a few people like Alice or Josh, there

is almost no one I’d be hesitant to telling about
my feelings. Now it seems a joy to be bisexual,
an added bit of luck. (In writing to Avis
yesterday, I described my life to her as “a long

series of lucky breaks.”)
Today on the beach, I enjoyed looking at male

and female bodies. Sometimes I prefer one sex
to the other, but today I was equally aroused
by breasts and chest. Perhaps finally I shall be
able to let go and act on all of my different
impulses, but for now I feel freer than I ever
have.
I recognize that at the core of my homosexual

feelings is probably deep narcissism. I keep
comparing my body to that of other guys.
Sometimes I feel I’m hopelessly fat and flabby,
but then I remember that the first guys to take
off their shirts in May are the ones with the
best bodies.
The really fat and skinny people are probably

holed up wherever they disappear to every
summer. And I know my body isn’t that bad;
I’ve looked at myself in a mirror at a distance
and I’ve found myself looking tanned and
muscular, and my paunch seems to disappear.
I’ve always had big biceps, for some reason,

but I wish my chest were more solid and
defined. I’d like to have visible stomach
muscles, too, but that would mean giving up
the foods I enjoy too much. Of course I always
Richard Grayson 177
wanted some hair on my chest. That’s always

been a symbol of masculinity, and I notice
guys unbutton their shirts to whatever point
where their chest hair begins.
I have no quarrel with the bottom half of my

body: I have nicely muscled legs with nice
blond hair. My feet are too small, though.
It’s so odd writing about my body; I’ve never

done this before and it embarrasses me, but I
think that’s all the more reason why I should
do it.
There’s the ever-present issue of penis size, of

course, but I’ve never figured out if I’m small,
average or large, and it seems to be of no
concern for most people, especially the women
I’ve known.
That’s enough self-therapy for tonight. I got a

letter from Herb Leibowitz at Richmond. A
new hassle has come up: they had eliminated
the creative writing thesis, so he’s got to call
the M.A. committee and see if they’ll waive the
rule for me.
Fortunately, he said, my prose style is very

good; he’s read the thesis. And he said
September is okay for the language exam. I
think I’d better take a course in French at the
Graduate Center this summer.

I went to Rockaway this afternoon and
followed Mikey’s care home from Larry’s
house. We stood in front of his house and
talked. Dean Vera Tarr walked past us, going
to a party up the block, and we exchanged
hellos.
Mikey still has two finals and he’s got to work

on his thesis. He said Mike ran into Scott this
week. Starting in the fall, Mike is going to grad
school in Psych at BC, so now I’ll have an old
friend at school again as I go into the second
year of the MFA program. Mikey is going to
work in the John Jay Financial Aid office – that
is, if nothing better turns up.
We went to a store on Beach 116th Street to buy

a converter for his TV set; I was so involved in
the salesman’s explanations, I didn’t realize
that Grandpa Herb and Grandma Ethel were
standing about a foot away. They hadn’t
noticed me, either, and the moment of
recognition was a funny one for all of us.
Later on I looked for them on the boardwalk,

but I found only Grandpa Nat with some
friend of his. We talked for a few minutes, and
then he had to go pick up Grandma Sylvia at
the beauty parlor.
Richard Grayson 179
Another rejection from The New Yorker. I guess

they don’t need another Barthelme.

Last night turned out to be one of the craziest
evenings in a long time. Scott called at about
7 PM; he finished with law school finals and
had finally been inducted into Phi Beta Kappa
a year after his graduation like I did.
Scott said he’d been planning to stay home and

watch TV, so I told him – my biggest mistake –
to drop by. He arrived at 9 PM and
immediately put on the Mary Tyler Moore
Show, which he claimed he had never seen
before.
He talked about law school and phoned a

friend of his who was trying to get him a girl
for the evening. Scott said he hadn’t been laid
since Christmas, when he came to New York to
see Miranda. You can imagine how sorry I felt
for him.
But Scott still has his charm. He told me a

professional writer had seen the story I sent
him and thought it was “as good as
Barthelme.” And Scott noticed my arms and
asked if I’d been lifting weights. So I was
flattered and I agreed to accompany him to a
bar even though I don’t drink and had
diarrhea.
I suggested the Pub and so we wound up at a
table there. My stomach was acting up, but the
Pub’s awful-smelling restroom had no toilet
paper.
After watching Scott finish off a roast beef

sandwich and fries, we moved to the bar,
where he could drink beers and pick up
women. I felt so absurd standing there, ginger
ale in hand, staring at people who I ordinarily
would not associate with.
Scott kept leaving to call his friend who was

trying to get him laid. I tried to detach myself
from the scene and become an Isherwoodian
camera, an observer.
Finally I got on the phone and called Josh. He

and his friend Bob, the one he’s going to
California with, were just sitting around
drinking coffee. I told Josh what I was doing
in the Pub (I could hardly hear him over the
racket) and he said we should come over.
I mentioned this to Scott and also said that

Elspeth lived in Josh’s building as well. At
this, Scott’s eyes lit up: Elspeth had come on to
him in the past, and he was sure she’d be an
easy lay.
Richard Grayson 181
For awhile, I thought this was funny, but when

he rang her bell and she sleepily said, “Who is
it?” and he replied, “A voice from the past:
Scott Koestner,” I felt so embarrassed. It was
only the beginning, however.
We had woken Elspeth up and she was

dressed in a work shirt and nothing else. She
said hi to me and I wanted to die. I told her I
had to go downstairs to Josh’s and how Scott
just wanted to say hello, and I left quickly.
I thought it was so obvious. And I felt lousy.

Elspeth has gotten much prettier and I thought
of the nice Christmas card she had sent me and
how Scott was using her.
I went to see Josh and Bob. Bob’s nice, and he

had this really fine dog who was just dying for
affection. We talked and read the Sunday
Times. Robbie came into the kitchen with Rose
and another girl, who goes to Michigan, where
Robbie has been accepted for the Ph.D.
program in Developmental Psych.
Half an hour later, Scott came into the

apartment and took me aside. He said his
timing was awful: that very morning Elspeth
had broken up with her boyfriend of eight
months and she wanted to cry and talk about
with Scott.
I felt bad for Elspeth but glad that Scott didn’t

take advantage of her. But now he had to go
back upstairs and use me as an excuse to leave;
he had told her that I felt ill and didn’t want to
go to Chinatown with them so he couldn’t go
either because he had to take me home.
Eventually Scott joined us for coffee, and as

usual, turned the conversation to himself,
bragging about law school and talking about
how he’d written a parody of a brief by
Douglas.
He was greeted with a deafening silence but

plodded on anyway, to my embarrassment,
because I’d brought him. Josh left the room
abruptly to walk the dog, he said; I could see
he couldn’t put up with Scott.
I rolled my eyes skyward as Scott continued

(Robbie and Rose kept exchanging significant
stares) so that Bob would realize that I felt the
same way about Scott’s talking as Bob did.
Then Scott abruptly said he wanted to score

some pot in Long Island City. I just wanted to
get him out of there so I agreed to go along.
He drove like the maniac ex-cabdriver he is/
When we got to the guy’s apartment in Long

Richard Grayson 183
Island City, we found him plying a card game

called “Oh, hell!” with his girlfriend and a
neighbor. The transaction went fairly quickly
(though not fast enough for me) – but on the
way back, Scott was stoned from the pot he’d
smoked at the apartment and got on the
Triboro by mistake.
He tried to talk his way out of the toll, but I

simply just handed him the money. Finally – I
thought it was never going to happen – I was
home and Scott was saying goodbye and
swearing me to secrecy.

Alice called me yesterday at 3 PM and told me
to meet her in Brooklyn Heights. In half an
hour, I was in front of the Promenade
Restaurant on Montague Street, where I saw
her.
She told me that she had been at the

Promenade Art Show and was interviewing
Mr. Blumstein for ninety minutes. I’ve been to
so many of those shows, I have almost learned
to recognize each exhibitor’s work.
Frank Blumstein does pen and ink sketches

and watercolors, mostly of Brooklyn people,
animals and buildings. He’s fairly good, but of
course Alice is not interested in him for his art;
she still hasn’t outgrown that high school girl

crush when he was our Spanish teacher.
We passed by his booth and I said hello. He

said, “Stewart?”
“No, Richard.”
“Gold?”
“No, Grayson.”
“Mumps?”
“Right.” So he remembered I got mumps

when I was a senior.
Alice told me he has a girlfriend named

Miriam. He’s a striking man for his 38 years.
No longer teaching, he told Alice his

reputation got so inflated he became the “star”
of Midwood, a kind of pedagogical Mick
Jagger. Kids took his class not to learn Spanish
but to be entertained.
For a while, it was “a real trip,” but then he

realized he had been more of a showman than
a teacher and decided to take a couple of years
off.
Richard Grayson 185
After we left Mr. Blumstein, Alice kept asking

me, “Don’t you think he would have asked me
out if he was really interested in me?” and I
kept saying, “Yes.”
She’s even thinking of writing Jonathan

Schwartz again. But if he failed to respond,
she’d want to die. I told her about Kara’s
letter. Kara reminded me of Alice, who also
seems to enjoy things more in anticipation than
in actuality.
We had a ginger ale and an iced coffee outside

in Capulet’s, and she told me how Andreas is
so dull and passionless. When they make love,
he never kisses her. She loves him, but she’s
not getting enough sex from him (on Friday
night they just painted their supposed love
nest) or enough excitement.
The gym teacher at school is coming on to her

more and more; he’s married and something of
a swinger, into bisexual swapping and
pedophilia and more kinky stuff.
We went to Picadeli for some solid

nourishment and Alice continued her litany.
Money or no, she’s decided to turn down the
principal’s offer to stay on after June; she’s just
not happy being a teacher.
Alice said she stopped by Flatbush Life to see

about a job. It seems that Denis Hamill, Pete’s
brother, has taken over Mark Savage’s job. (I
need to call Mark and Consuelo.)
I drove Alice up to the Village, where she was

scheduled to meet Andreas. On the way, I told
her of the disastrous evening with Scott and
mentioned that Scott wanted me to call her to
see if she was available for sex; Alice replied
that she was in such a bad mood on Saturday
night that she might have responded to Scott.
I am disgusted with him. Finally, when we got

to my house, he said, “It’s 2 AM, a great time
to pick up the girls who are left when the bars
close!” I assured him that the only thing I was
interested in was sleep.
And his warning me not to tell anyone about

his trying to make Elspeth struck me as sleazy
and hypocritical. Avis is so lucky that she’s rid
of him.
Surprisingly, though, when I spoke to Josh, I

learned that he wasn’t particularly upset with
Scott. He left his apartment so abruptly
because he was disgusted with Robbie and
Rose and their friend, who were so dull and
like old people. In fact, Josh said as he and I
walked through the Botanic Gardens this
Richard Grayson 187
afternoon, Scott was the most interesting

person there that night, even if he is egotistical.
I can see Josh’s point about Robbie and Rose,

who are the only person each other has gone
out with and are already like a 45-year-old
married couple. Robbie is very nervous and
gets an upset stomach when he has to go to
Manhattan.
Josh is anxious to go out to California. He and

Bob are leaving July 17, and he’s asked me to
think about taking over his room in the
apartment for the summer.
There’s a meeting of the Alumni Association

Finance Committee at Ira Harkavy’s law office
tonight, according to a memo I got from David
Pollack. But I have to go to Comp Lit and get
the questions for the final.
I got the check from New Writers today, all $25

of it. My story should be coming out soon. At
least that letter counteracted the effect of still
another rejection notice.

It’s 2 PM on a very hot, hazy day. That Burger
King meal threw me for a loop yesterday. I
went to Comp Lit to get the final questions but
I had to leave in the middle of class.
I had awful diarrhea and some nausea – as I

walked to my car, I thought I was going to
have one of my old nausea/anxiety attacks, but
I held myself together and just rested all
evening.
Steve Cooper called me back; earlier I had

phoned him and spoken to somebody who
didn’t sound like Drew and said he was Tony,
a new roommate. Steve said Tony has been
living there since the beginning of May; he was
a friend of Drew’s who got kicked out by his
roommate.
Tony has a good job at St. Luke’s and he’ll be

taking over Drew’s room, as Drew got a job
teaching music upstate at Fredonia, and in the
summer Drew is going first to Italy and then to
Oneonta, where he’ll be playing in an
orchestra.
Steve and Tony want to find a three-bedroom

apartment in the Morningside Heights area,
and they may have found one on Riverside
Drive. Steve’s in summer school now, already
taking graduate courses in the Architecture
school; of course, he already has a lot of Urban
Planning credits.
And he’s been trying to get fired so he can

Richard Grayson 189
collect unemployment checks. But apparently

his boss knows what he’s up to, and so far all
Steve’s goofing off and lousing up have been to
no avail.
Steve is also upset because he destroyed his

refrigerator; while trying to defrost the freezer,
he used a screwdriver to break up the ice, and
it punctured it and all the gas escaped.
I slept well last night, and this morning I went

to LIU to pick up my grade cards. I hope to
finish grading by next Monday; so far I haven’t
been able to bring myself to look at the finals.
A letter from Herb Leibowitz said that the

M.A. Committee waived the requirement that
the thesis be critical; that was fast work. Prof.
Leibowitz is such a nice guy; he wrote that he
agrees with Ebel that my thesis merits Honors.
But I have to hand in another copy, with the

pages consecutively numbered, a title page,
and a table of contents. So that will be more
work. He said he’d like me to take care of it
“before the fireflies of summer appear.”
I xeroxed my check from New Writers and now

I’m beginning to get excited again about seeing
“Rampant Burping” in print. Once again I
grow hopeful about my career.
I’m trying to anticipate Friday’s interview by

Prof. Kramer, but I’ve learned that neither Josh
or Simon or Denis, who also applied for the
assistantship, have been called for an
interview.
I’ve definitely decided to take a language

course at the Graduate Center this summer.
Leibowitz said that when I pass the language
exam in September, Richmond College will
award me my M.A. I want to get that out of
the way completely.
Besides, I supposedly also need a foreign

language for the Creative Writing program.
Can it be possible that by next June – a year
from now – I’ll be Richard Grayson, B.A., M.A.,
M.F.A.?
I finally got to go to the beach for an hour

today – what heaven to lie on the sand and get
my feet wet in the ocean! Things are going so
well I’m almost afraid that the bubble will soon
burst and everything will be just awful.
Gary (or “Monsieur Gary,” as he signed

himself) wrote from Strasbourg – a typical
tourist’s aerogramme. He loves the sights, the
foods and the wines.
Richard Grayson 191
Bill Beer and his girlfriend proved themselves

to be excellent hosts, although they returned to
the States this weekend (they were anxious to
get home after eight months) and left Gary,
who doesn’t understand a word of French, by
himself.
The Strasbourg weather is fine and there are no

newspapers or TV to bother him; Gary claims
that Alsatians have never heard of showers or
deodorants. And he said he’d write from
either Amsterdam or Great Britain, so I guess
he’s not going to see Avis in Stuttgart.

A hot night. Josh called yesterday with very
bad news: his sister is gravely ill. I said how
sorry I was, and Josh said, “I’m sure you
couldn’t care less.” That hurt, but I know Josh
by now and I knew how upset he was.
He came into my room a bit later and said, “I

think my sister’s dying.” He was trying not to
cry, and he apologized for what he’d said on
the phone but of course I told him to forget it.
A friend of Hope’s called Josh’s parents. Hope

has been living in California for a year. The
Hodgkins returned, only worse (before it was
in Phase 1, and now it’s the final stage, Phase
4), but Hope didn’t want to notify her family.
After her friend’s call, they called the hospital,

which said they needed Hope’s record from
Long Island College Hospital before they could
operate.
Josh had just come from driving is parents to

the airport to catch the first flight to
Sacramento. I felt so bad for Josh, and so
helpless.
I had been in the middle of marking finals and

watching Another World, what I was doing
seemed so useless and ridiculous. Yet my class
finished the semester and took their finals
despite the death of their first instructor, and
when actors on the soap opera get written out,
the storyline goes on.
We left for class together and had drinks

beforehand. I saw Stefanie with Melvin (and
also Carol) and everything looked cool
between the two of them; I’m glad. Melvin
said that this summer he’s either going to
finish his Incompletes or torture himself for not
doing it.
In class, we went over a story by Anna. Peter

canceled class for Thursday, so we only have
left the two sessions next week. After class, I
went to Sugar Bowl with Todd, Simon and
Richard Grayson 193
Sharon.
Denis called me and said he’s got a well-
paying job waxing floors in a Madison Avenue
office building from 5:30 to 11 PM, so he won’t
be coming back to class for the rest of the term.
And Barbara hasn’t shown up in weeks, not
since Peter threatened her with an Incomplete.
I woke up at 3 AM today and couldn’t get back

to sleep, so I wrote for a while and then lay in
bed thinking, mostly about Josh’s sister. Today
I went to the beach in Neponsit and lay in the
hazy sun, reading Herzog.
I passed Ivan’s house and noticed the door was

open and the maid was cleaning. I am still
very curious as to what goes on in that house
when the door is closed. To me, Ivan’s family
represents the ideal, but they must have some
flaws.
This evening I looked so good, more attractive

than I’ve ever looked. I am tan and wearing a
work shirt and dungarees. After dinner by
myself in Kings Plaza, I thought of picking
Ronna up at the station. But I decided that I
should call her house first, which was a good
move because her mother said something
about her going to a party at WBCR.
Hank again! He seems to be always with her

now. I guess they are boyfriend and girlfriend

again; at least Hank’s friends must think so.
But I don’t think Ronna loves him. I can’t
imagine Hank and Ronna sharing the
passionate intensity she and I did.
I felt very depressed. If she had gone back to

Ivan, that I could understand. But Hank’s a
solid, dependable, dull Boy Scout. I wanted to
go out, and I wanted to be with a woman, and
only a woman, to talk to.
But Elayne and Mavis and Alice were all out,

and when I called Stacy, whose sinuses were
bothering her, we talked pleasantly and she
invited me over on Monday but not tonight.
Finally I decided to go to Cedarhurst; I should

have gone to see Uncle Monty before. Also, I
wanted to do something constructive and see
what people’s real problems are so I can see
how trivial my concerns are by contrast.
I interrupted the tail end of their dinner in

Cedarhurst. Bonnie and her boyfriend Ted
were there, and so was her twin Alice, up from
Florida; it had been years since I’d seen my
step-cousins.
Monty looks pale and somehow fragile (or is

that in my mind?). He’s getting those
Richard Grayson 195
treatments and he goes out to see customers a

little, but there’s no real business; still, just
doing nothing depresses him, he told me.
We’ve never been close, yet I feel so badly for
him now.
Aunt Sydelle did the dishes while the rest of us

sat outside on the patio. How I’ve always
loved that backyard in Cedarhurst! Our
conversation was interrupted every two
minutes by another plane landing at Kennedy
airport.
Aunt Sydelle is flying to Chicago for Scott’s

graduation on Friday; his girlfriend Karen is
picking her up at O’Hare and she’ll be back
home that night. Scott and Karen are driving
his car back to New York and won’t return
until Sunday.
I liked talking with Ted, Bonnie and Alice,

although they’re all very quiet. Still, a family
evening was a good antidote to my earlier self-
absorption.

2 PM. I hate when I get like this – in a real
depression. Everything I do seems to increase
my unhappiness. I want to cry, but I can’t.
I got a parking ticket today, for no reason

except that I carelessly forgot to put a dime in

the meter. I guess I wanted to have something
to be angry with myself about.
I feel so lost. Part of it has to do with Ronna. I

am hurt because she’s closer to Hank than to
me. Last Tuesday, when she came to school, it
was he who she came to see; I met her by
accident. That night when we were talking, he
phoned on the other line; I wonder if he calls
her every night.
Ronna goes with him to WBCR parties and Boy

Scout meetings and with his best friend Craig
to funerals and shiva calls. She used to tell me
how nice Hank was, but how dull and
unimaginative and practically asexual.
Perhaps he’s changed. I suppose she talks

about me to him, but I wonder if she told him
that she and I made love two weeks ago. Isn’t
she using him as an escort? I know that’s
really not what I’m concerned with.
Maybe I should just tell her I don’t want to see

her again and leave her to good-natured,
uncomplicated Hank. As I look back on our
relationship, I can see that Ronna was not there
when I needed her.
No, that’s not quite true. And I wasn’t always

Richard Grayson 197
there for her when she needed me. Besides, it’s

an unreasonable expectation.
Last night I felt such an overwhelming sense of

loneliness. I needed a woman to be with, just
to talk to, and to respond to me, if not sexually,
then at least the way a woman responds to a
man emotionally.
Stacy has been very nice, but we’ve never been

on the same wavelength – or maybe we’re
exactly on the same wavelength, which is the
problem.
I miss Avis desperately; on Saturday I

facetiously told Scott that if Avis ever does
come back for good, I’m going to ask her to
marry me. But was I joking? I couldn’t get
ahold of Mavis or Alice of Stefanie or Elayne
last night, but maybe it was just bad luck.
In Cedarhurst, I tried to forget about my

problems, but Ted, Bonnie’s boyfriend (she
lives with his parents and goes to BC),
reminded me of Hank: similar appearance, that
said solidness and quiet dependability.
Ted was handy with things around the house,

and he bowls. I liked him very much, in the
same way I cannot dislike someone as guileless
as Hank, so I end up feeling guilty about being
furious with him.

Cousin Alice lives in Fort Lauderdale with her
grandmother, aunt and uncle; I can tell her
apart from Bonnie now. She says she’ll be
going back to Florida soon, as she has to
register for Broward Community College.
The twins told me they ran into Mom and

Marc at Kings Plaza the other day. Cousin
Scott called while I was there; he and Karen
had just come back from a short trip to the
Wisconsin Dells and he was giving Aunt
Sydelle instructions for her visit to
Northwestern for graduation on Friday.
Aunt Sydelle said that Cousin Michael is

growing brighter and cuter every day and that
Robin’s working for an orthodontist in Forest
Hills three days a week.
I slept a heavy, dream-filled sleep that was not

at all refreshing. At noon I picked up Mason at
South Shore and took him to the college (where
I got the ticket). It was his last day of classes at
BC; he has just one final and then graduation.
Mason asked to borrow my gown, but I told

him it would look absurd on him, as he’s at
least seven inches taller. I confided in Mason
about my uncertainties – but he’s not sure
where he’s at now with Libby, either. They’ve
Richard Grayson 199
broken up and gotten back together so many

times.
Shelli called Mason. She’s in from Madison,

without Jerry, to visit her parents. Madison
sounds so insane; there is a whole soap opera
there, with everyone sleeping with everyone
else.
Then there’s a “war” between Leon and this

rich woman who collects men that started on
the dance floor of a disco when Leon asked her
to dance. So now Leon and this woman are
leaders in a battle which has numerous
skirmishes among other individuals.
Elihu wrote to Madison asking for gossip

about it, and Leon wrote him a letter filled
with made-up things and closed by saying,
“Elihu, we don’t need another sieve in
Madison.”
They sound so fucked-up there. But am I

doing anything that’s more constructive?
Friday, May 23, 1975

I’ve just showered, shaved, and washed and
styled my hair. I’m not going out, but it’s good
for me to get cleaned up as if I were.
Last evening I decided to stop feeling sorry for

myself and take myself out, do something on

my own that I would have preferred to do with
another person. So I drove into Manhattan
until 6 PM, when it became legal to park. I had
dinner in the Village Art Restaurant, and it was
a pleasant meal.
Then I walked up the block (avoiding Elaine

Taibi, who was across the street) to the Eighth
Street Playhouse, where I used my student
discount to see Vittorio De Sica’s A Brief
Vacation.
The film was beautiful, haunting; I felt that I

had had a brief vacation after seeing it. It was
after 8 PM when I left the theater and just
beginning to get dark.
I had a pleasant twilight drive back into

Brooklyn during which I thought about a lot of
things: how Mason said that another “perfect
couple,” Brian and Louise, have broken up;
and what Mason said about the nonsense in
Madison and how all these people are on
welfare, which makes me really angry.
I thought about seeing Jay Nussbaum in Kings

Plaza; and Josh’s offer for me to take over his
room for the summer.
I thought about my students’ exams and how

Richard Grayson 201
giving them their final grades is agonizing,

though I should have it all done by Tuesday.
I wonder whether I’m marking them too high
or too low. They are people to me, people I like,
and I have to assign them letters of value.
On Farragut Road, I had this odd feeling that

the red light I was waiting for was not going to
change. And it didn’t. It was so weird. I felt a
pins and needles sensation throughout my
body, and I realized it was pent-up anger,
uncontrollable rage at things out of my control.
(I’m sure there’s a logical reason for the traffic

light; probably I noticed, subconsciously, that it
hadn’t changed for a long time.)
Mostly I was furious with Ronna for not calling

me and for being so close with Hank. I felt that
I, at least, never made any pretense of
unselfishness while Ronna always talks about
it and ends up behaving as selfishly as I do.
I thought of how I dread listening to her talk

about her job. Mason said he just stopped
listening to Libby when she talks about certain
subjects.
Now I know that my fury was childish. Mrs.

Ehrlich and I used to discuss how I hated not
having control over different situations.
Ronna did call, after 10 PM. She said, “I’m

sorry for not calling sooner, but I’ve been out
every night.”
“Uh, look,” I said, “I really can’t talk right now.

I have company.”
We said we’d speak to each other another day.

I know avoiding her, and my anger, probably
isn’t the best way to deal with situation, but
the words flowed out of me as if by protective
instinct.
And of course I hoped she might think I was

with a girl and be jealous. I dislike operating
that way, but at the time it seemed the easiest
thing to do.
One thing from this business: I can finally

understand Ivan’s attitude toward me, which
must have been the same as mine towards
Hank. Namely, how can Ronna go out with
this schlemiel after seeing me?
This morning was my interview with Prof.

Kramer, who said there may be no funds at all
for the assistantships. (Every day the papers
are full of the city budget crisis; it’s really a
catastrophic thing.) But he said he’d go along
tentatively on the assumption that the funds
Richard Grayson 203
will be there.
I talked about my views of freshman

composition, and we discussed D.H. Lawrence
and the MFA program and other things. I
think the interview went well; I was myself,
which is all I could be.
Kramer said they would get in touch with me

later – if he thought I was any good, that is. In
any case, I won’t hear anything until early July.
I spent the rest of the day lolling around on the

beach, where I saw Ivan’s dog Tiger, and
generally goofing off. I want to saturate myself
in lazy decadence now so that when summer
really comes, I can feel like going about getting
a job.
It would be nice to stay at Josh’s; it’s a good

opportunity. But I keep thinking of reasons
not to do it: money, no air-conditioning,
money, alternate parking, money. . .
I wonder how Josh’s sister is.

I’m going to stay up another two hours until
midnight, when there will be a total eclipse of
the moon. Jonny may get out his telescope;
we’re alone in the house, as Marc is off at a
party and so are Mom and Dad.
I called Josh last night to find out what news

he had of his sister. He was expecting a call
from his parents, but so far the news has all
been bad. No one expects Hope to live.
The enormity of this is too much for me to

comprehend. Josh said he had made a
reservation on a flight to California for this
morning (one cannot fly direct to Sacramento),
and I told him I’d drive him to the airport.
But he never called me back this morning, so I

assume his parents talked him out of going.
Hope looks so terrible, they probably don’t
want Josh to see her. Josh’s parents must be
going through pure hell.
I was very upset last night and took a drive by

myself to think about things. I noticed Ivan’s
brother Kevin coming out of the Ram’s Horn
Diner with his arm around some girl, and I
could tell by the look on his face that he
worships her.
I called Ronna last night, but again she was

out. Maybe I’d just better leave her alone, to
enjoy whatever relationship she has. If we’re
no longer lovers and it’s difficult to be friends,
I don’t want us to be enemies.
Richard Grayson 205
Today was a record-breaking hot day, a fine

start for the Memorial Day weekend. I spent
the day in Rockaway, at the beach. First I
stopped by Mason’s house; his brother Joey
was outside and he said that Mason was
helping their father install an air conditioner.
I went upstairs to watch and say hello. They

finished rather quickly (I had never seen
Mason’s attic before; it’s enormous) and we
walked over to Mikey’s, joining Mikey and his
mother in sitting on the porch.
Mikey starts his job in the John Jay financial

aid office on Tuesday; I don’t think he’s
particularly happy with it, but so far Scacalossi
hasn’t gotten that federal grant for that security
office job at BC.
Mason tried on Mikey’s gown for graduation

and it will be a bit short on him, but it fits
okay. Mason and I walked backed to his house
and I vacated his driveway to make room for
some visiting cousins from Philadelphia and
parked in Mikey’s driveway.
Mikey went down to the beach and we stayed

there for some three hours. The water was
really too cold for swimming, but the air was
warm.
We ran into both Karpoff twins separately.

Alan, on his way to see Davy, said he got a job
this summer teaching phys ed to handicapped
and retarded kids. Carl seemed pleased that I
saw and enjoyed his dance recital; he’s
working at the new American Youth Hostel
store in Manhattan, ordering camping
equipment and stuff.
Mikey and I lay in the sand, talking about this

and that. He has his eye on some girl from
Beach 129th Street and another one who works
in the John Jay library, but Mikey is so shy.
Then so am I, really; my public effusiveness is
all a big act.
Mikey told me Mike has a job for a couple of

weeks, counseling entering BC freshman; I
guess Hilary Gold put in a good word for
Mike. I told Mikey to give Mike and Mandy
my regards when he sees them tomorrow at a
barbecue Larry’s making.
I suppose Stuie and his wife and Steve Cohen

and Pauline will be there; I noticed the
invitation to the latter couple’s wedding on
Mikey’s dresser.
I think Mikey will apply to law school for fall

1976 admission; this time, I hope, he’ll have a
Richard Grayson 207
good shot at it. Mikey’s mother asked me to

stay for dinner but I declined with thanks; by 4
PM, I was tired of the beach and I wanted to
avoid a beach-day traffic jam driving back into
Brooklyn.
I’m red and brown all over by now, and I’ll

probably risk skin cancer if I stay out in the sun
much more. But I love it that summer seems to
be here for good.
Now I’m getting anxious to look for a job. I just

have one more student’s paper to grade. What
a chore it is, and it makes me see that I really
wasn’t a very thorough teacher. I’d like to stop
doing everything half-assed.

7 PM. It clouded up late last night and no
lunar eclipse was visible. It’s like a repeat of
the Comet Kohoutek fiasco. The weather
turned dark and gloomy and much cooler
today. The temperature did not go past 60° –
so much for summer being here.
I read the Times last night and fell into a kind

of sensual sleep. I woke early this morning,
pleased that it was cloudy for a change, and I
took off for Manhattan early, to make the noon
showing of Alain Tanner’s The Middle of the
World at the 68th Street Playhouse.
I must have looked very feminine this

morning, for both the manager of the theater
and the couple to walk in after me (for awhile,
I thought I would have the lovely place all to
myself) mistook me for a woman.
It gives me a queer feeling to hear myself being

referred to as a “lady” or by the pronouns
“she” and “her.” But my old bugaboos about
homosexuality (and more than that, lack of
manliness) are nearly all gone now.
I think my basic orientation is toward

heterosexual relationships, even if I do have an
awful lot of gay feelings; probably when I do
enter into a homosexual relationship – which I
expect to happen someday – I will relate to my
lover just as I do to a woman.
I’m not sure that this makes sense as I write it,

but I know what I mean. Like in the film
today: I can relate to heterosexual intercourse
because I know and understand and enjoy the
feeling of my penis in a vagina, of being on top
of a woman, of touching a breast or stroking a
woman’s long hair.
I found myself getting impatient with the film,

but that was because it moved as slowly as life
itself (like my diary?) as it told the story of an
Richard Grayson 209
affair between a Swiss candidate for

parliament, a married engineer, and an Italian
waitress – an affair that lasts 112 days.
The film was very sensual and the scenes of

Switzerland made me want to go there, just as
after seeing A Brief Vacation I wanted to see
Northern Italy. I think the point it made was
that we don’t really feel the people we see, not
even our lovers whom we see naked and at
their most vulnerable and defense-free.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Ronna, who did

not call yesterday or today. Perhaps it’s finally
over now; only by making love two weeks ago
could we set one another free. Now it seems to
me for the best, even though I was very hurt
and angry earlier.
We could fall in love all over again, we both

know it, but where would that leave us? It’s
like in the movie, when the waitress’s friend
asks her when she leaves Paul, “Is it because he
was a bad lay? . . . because he wanted
abnormal sex? . . . because he lost the
election?”
To all of these questions, Adriana answered,

“No.” I can’t explain – and I’m sure that by
now Ronna feels the same way – why we must
part for good. I don’t think we can even be
friends anymore, but I know that’s how it’s

going to be.
So I’ll forget about Ronna, finally, and keep

myself open for something new. I have
patience.
After the movie, I took the 59th Street Bridge to

Queens and proved to myself that I could find
my way out of the area where Scott and I were
last week. I’m not sure why I wanted to do
that.
Actually, I wanted to get to Roosevelt Island

and couldn’t find the bridge from Queens. I
had a great big lunch at a new Greek diner,
The Forge, on Queens Boulevard, then came
home.
Mom said that at the surprise party last night

for Irma Cohen’s 50th birthday, Annette Saturn
told Mom to give her my résumé. She’s
friendly with the chairman of the English
Department at Kingsborough and may be able
to wangle me a teaching job there. That would
be terrific.
On Tuesday I’ll bring in my grades and papers

and roll book and keys to LIU, and that will
end my spring semester of teaching. I think I’ll
write a note to Dr. Eisenstadt, thanking him for
Richard Grayson 211
the chance to teach.

I’ve almost definitely decided to take that
French course (or another language, if it’s
closed out) at the Graduate Center this
summer.
Chances for a part-time job look slim, judging

from the size of this Sunday’s classified section
and the general economic picture, although I
might try a temporary agency.
It’s odd how much I miss Gary; how I take him

for granted, just as I take everything for
granted.

A kind of manic Memorial Day. This morning
I drove into Manhattan and went to the old
U.S. Customs House (a magnificent building)
to the Second N.Y. Book Fair. Last summer I
went to the first one, at the Cultural Center on
Columbus Circle – that place owned by
Huntington Hartford.
All the small presses and little magazines and

various feminist, Third World, gay and radical
publications had set up exhibits, just like last
year's. It was a kind of huge candy store for
me, going from table to table collecting leaflets
and catalogues, and looking somewhat
wistfully at all the books, pamphlets and
magazines I could not afford to buy, and

signing up for mailing lists.
At the table for The Magazines - 6 fairly well-

known publications including Fiction
(published by Mark Mirsky at CCNY - his new
novel just came out, published by the Fiction
Collective) and Partisan Review, I saw a
somewhat familiar figure with a Parnassus
head visor. I asked him if he was Herb
Leibowitz and he said yes and I told him I was
Richard Grayson.
He said he enjoyed many parts of my thesis,

particularly "The Peacock Room." I thanked
him for the kind words and told him I'd drop
off the other copy of my thesis at his office so I
can get my M.A. this summer. He said they're
having a meeting of the M.A. Committee on
Wednesday, and they're probably going to
eliminate the comprehensive exam. I told him
I was teaching at LIU and said I'd see him
around. He's the editor of Parnassus - Poetry in
Review and a frequent book reviewer for the
Sunday Times.
The Fiction Collective had a table, but the

coordinator of it, Peggy Humphreys, would be
there on Wednesday. Moving from table to
table, I felt surrounded by kindred spirits:
poets, fiction writers, literary people. (It
Richard Grayson 213
probably was a great place to get laid; various

black-stockinged girls with granny glasses and
long dresses were similarly moseying along.)
I came across the New Writers table and

introduced myself to the editors, Connie
Glickman and Miriam Easton (both pleasant,
Jewish and 40ish), whom I've corresponded
with. They showed me Volume 2, Number 3 of
New Writers with my story in it; I decided to
buy a couple of copies even though they said
they'd just mailed my contributor's copies out
to me.
They said I should send them another

manuscript. It felt surprisingly good to see my
name and "Rampant Burping" in print; I was
more than a little excited, and when I came
home, Mom and Dad made a semi-big fuss
over the magazine.
Lest I should get a big head, however, I ran

into an editor from a little magazine who had
rejected "Alice Keppel." I didn't say who I was,
but got to talking to him, and he said he
always sent criticism except when rejecting
manuscripts of no value whatsoever. Needless
to say, I got my story returned that way,
without even a note.
But I feel at home in the semi-underground,

somewhat counterculture literary world. I see

it's much easier to publish poetry than fiction
and much easier if you're a woman (and
probably easier still if you're a lesbian).
Alice, my own friendly neighborhood little

publisher, came over this afternoon after
finishing the latest issue of Henrietta. We had a
raucous time, for Alice is still the best
raconteuse money can't buy; even Mom and
Dad think Alice is a genuine original, a kook.
We watched Another World (Steve Frame was

killed in a copter crash today; the actor playing
him had demanded better scripts and was
summarily fired) and took a test in the issue of
Cosmopolitan that Alice brought over, to see
what kind of lover we are. (Apparently I'm a
manic lover, Alice an eros type.)
Alice saw Mr. Blumstein yesterday at the

Washington Square art show – she’s so crazy
about him – and then went to meet Andreas.
Alice says I must see the apartment (she still
calls it "Renee's place" for lack of a better
name): they've painted a fake fireplace on the
wall, with a cat sitting on top of it.

Spring in Brooklyn: 1975

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Spring in Brooklyn: 1975

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SPRING IN BROOKLYN

Superstition Mountain Press

Printed in the United States of America.

Superstition Mountain Press

Tuesday, April 1, 1975

I saw Mrs. Ehrlich tonight at 7:15 p.m. The

I recounted much of the last six months. I told

adjustment to not having a girlfriend.

I never really put it into words before tonight,

Mrs. E felt that maybe that’s a sign that I’ve

Right now my writing and my reading and my

She was pleased that I’m so sure of my ability.

I await the mailman eagerly each day, but since

I explained my encounter with Shelli and Jerry

I mentioned how I coped with a stolen car and

She wanted to know why I’d made the

Also, I admitted that I want her approval and

I told Mrs. E of my dream about not wanting to

The dream seemed like a primitive taboo; now

recognized – no, I felt – that I wanted to go to

She said that if there’s ever anything specific

“It’s not necessary to tell me good things about

“No,” I said. “I know you’ll accept me just as I

Perhaps that was another reason I came. After

Tonight I got a call from Steve Cooper, and we

But when they came before the arbitrator,

the international phone calls were made.

Elihu started off on the wrong foot with the

Wednesday, April 2, 1975

I asked him why he was living as he does. His

(and we know from the Borscht Belt), what the

Why have I turned myself into a recluse, a

Why do I continue to exert myself every

In hopes of finally looking like the guys with

Well, then, why do I trek out to public

And why do I fill notebook after notebooks

written? Why do I write stories at all?

I finished “Coping” today, and I’m not sure it’s

Deep down, I’ve begun to wonder whether

Why, why do I continue to live this weird,

That, my friends, is the $64,000 Question. And

I want to do this. At least for now.

Right now I can’t stop writing, even though the

rewards are not much evidence: a good word

My eyesight is going, slowly but surely, and

And I suppose that for this spring, at least, I’ll

Josh was over today. He came on his bicycle,

God, I sound so smug and superior, just like

Well, you know, Leon is in Madison, hanging

I do agree with Steve, though: I think Elihu’s

Kara called this morning and said she was too

Thursday, April 3, 1975

The other night I dreamed that Prof. Cullen

really don’t have my M.A. at all yet. So today I

I had a difficult time getting to sleep last night;

Last night I dreamed I went out for an evening

A very heavy rain was falling when I awoke

His parents revived him with smelling salts

Even Gary admits that it was probably an

Gary did have a big fight with his Aunt Estelle

Also, Gray’s been involved in the middle of the

It seems Joel is very attached to his

Anyway, I didn’t feel it was my place to

I went to Richmond College at about 2 PM