Lost Years (13 page)

It conveniently so happened that the mailing department at the studio was just then the center of a lot of gay activity, and had several attractive messenger boys. One of these was having an affair with Helmut Dantine. They were very discreet about it; they had to be—it was risky for an important actor to get involved like this, right under the noses of the front office. Helmut Dantine's messenger was a nice boy, not much to look at, actually, but lively and full of Jewish fun. Christopher got to know him, and he helped Christopher get acquainted with a boy named Steve,
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whom he fancied.

Steve was dark and pale, with a long bony El Greco type of face. He was altogether an admirable and lovable character, both physically and morally courageous, lively, amusing, honest and capable of strong affection. If he had found an absorbing interest in life he might have achieved something; as it was, he just plodded along from job to job. He did have some ambition to become an actor, but it wasn't strong enough, and he was too small and slight for leading roles, also a bit queeny in his manner. Denny, who rather liked him, pronounced the verdict: “I think he's quite beautiful, but let's face it, he'll always be a department-store queen.”

Steve had changed his name, probably for show-biz reasons [. . .]. He called himself [Steve Cooley] at the time Christopher met him. Later, he called himself [something else].

Steve and Christopher had supper together on May 25. This was their first date, I think. Steve told Christopher about his life in Las Vegas, before he came to Los Angeles; he had worked in one of the casinos, and also, as I seem to remember, on a ranch; he loved riding horses. At that time, he was studying acting with some local group, and working on the part of Branwell Brontë in a play called
Moor Born
, which contained the unsayable line, “You are moor born.” He
and Christopher used to repeat this over and over, but it always sounded absurd.
³⁹

Collier, Steve and Christopher all enjoyed the dramatic aspects of this affair, from their different viewpoints. Collier found it thrillingly Proustian to look out of his office window and watch the discreet flirtations of the messenger boys—the glances and conspiratorial exchanges of dialogue—which Christopher had now taught him to observe and interpret. For him, it was like the discovery of a secret society; he was now prepared to believe that nearly the entire studio was queer. As for Steve, he certainly loved walking briskly into Christopher's office with a big envelope in his hand and telling Christopher's secretary, “These are for Mr. Isherwood to sign, they said for me to wait, they want them back right away”—which was Christopher's cue to shout from the inner office (grumpily, as if interrupted in his work), “Okay, tell him to bring them in here.” Then Steve would come in, closing the door behind him, whisper, “Hello, darling,” kiss Christopher a few times, whisper, “See you this evening,” and make a brisk exit past the secretary, flourishing the envelope with its dummy contents. . . . Christopher enjoyed this playacting too, of course—but probably not as much as Steve did. Steve was quite shameless, in word and in deed. Christopher realized this was admirable but it embarrassed him.

If they went to bed together that first night, it must have been at Steve's apartment. Otherwise, they had no place to go but Denny's, and they didn't visit him together until May 29. Perhaps they drove up into the hills and made love in Christopher's newly acquired car. This was a Packard convertible, old and noisy but still very sturdy, which had recently been given him by Yogi (Mr. Brown), Yogini's husband. Yogi no longer needed the Packard because he had just bought himself a new car. (I think that he and Yogini had already decided to separate—that is, to accept the fact that Yogini really was a nun.) The first mention of the Packard in the day-to-day diary is on May 19.

On May 28, Christopher stopped working at Warner's for one week. I believe that this break marked Christopher's switchover from Henry Blanke and
The Woman in White
to Wolfgang Reinhardt and
Up at the Villa.
I have an impression (but a very dim one) that Christopher felt that Blanke was dissatisfied with his work, but maybe not. Somehow, I don't believe the script they had worked on was finished. I don't know if Blanke dropped the project at that time, or hired another writer.
⁴⁰

Christopher spent most of his holiday week staying with Denny. Steve joined him on the 29th and left early on the morning of the 31st—he must have taken two days off from work.

June 2: “Bill Caskey's birthday party at Jay's.”

This is the first mention of Caskey in the day-to-day diary, but Christopher must certainly have met him weeks or even months earlier. This was another case in which Denny had played Satan—daring Christopher to start an affair with someone. When Caskey and his friend Hayden Lewis first showed up in the Canyon, Denny had told Christopher that Caskey had been the boyfriend of “a rich old man” (Len Hanna) and that he had been so disgusted by this affair that he had made a vow never again to go to bed with anyone older than himself. No doubt Denny had told Christopher this in such a way as to challenge Christopher's middle-aged vanity. Anyhow, Christopher had met Caskey and had found him attractive, but hadn't done much about it. They had talked at parties and gone for walks together on the beach; that was all.

Meanwhile, Jay Laval
had
done something about Caskey. They had been to bed together—which meant that Caskey had broken his vow—and now Jay was giving Caskey a party for his (twenty-fourth) birthday. This party made the affair official, from Jay's point of view; he was very possessive and unwisely apt to display his new conquests to his friends. No doubt it was the party which aroused Denny's spirit of mischief; he must have egged Christopher on to make a pass at Caskey. That afternoon, Christopher was going shopping and he asked Caskey to come along for the ride. They went into a clothing store and Christopher bought Caskey a shirt, as a birthday present. At the party, Jay drank a lot and fell asleep, as he often did. Christopher returned from the party to Denny's apartment and told Denny that Caskey had promised to follow him as soon as he could get away.
Denny bet Christopher that Caskey wouldn't show up—but he probably wasn't either surprised or displeased when they heard the sound of Caskey's sneakers bounding up the staircase. Christopher, of course, was grinning with gratified vanity from ear to ear.

Caskey and Christopher spent the night together and found themselves sexually compatible; Christopher came in Caskey's mouth, which he was very seldom able to do with anyone. But this didn't lead to instant infatuation—for, according to the day-to-day diary, they didn't see each other again for a week. Jay was very cross and hurt, when he discovered what had happened. He accused Caskey of ingratitude, feeling that the guest of honor at a birthday party ought to stay in his host's bed—even if the host has passed out. As for Christopher, Jay said that his behavior was “hardly what I should have expected, after all his talk about Ramakrishna.” But Jay didn't bear grudges; he was basically very good-natured. There was a peace meeting, apologies were made, drinks were drunk, Jay soon found another boy and he, Caskey and Christopher became good friends again.

The next day, June 3, was a Sunday, so Steve was able to come down to Denny's. Steve and Christopher drove to Lake Sherwood. When they got back, Denny was giving a party. I am nearly certain that this was the occasion on which a pretty blond naval officer named Willy Tompkins
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and an army lieutenant were persuaded by the other guests to take off their clothes and have sex on the couch, with everybody watching. This excited [one of the guests] so much that he wanted to do the same with Christopher, but Christopher was embarrassed and wouldn't. (Willy Tompkins and the lieutenant later retired to Jay's apartment and made love in private.)

On June 4, Christopher went back to work at Warner's—almost certainly on
Up at the Villa,
with Wolfgang Reinhardt.
⁴²

This must also have been the day on which Christopher first discovered, or at least suspected, that he had caught the clap. On June 5, he went to a Dr. Zeiler to be examined and on the 6th he spent the day at Dr. Zeiler's office, being given shots of penicillin. The shots cured him right away—he only saw Dr. Zeiler once more, on the 11th, for a checkup. This was Christopher's second dose of clap and its cure was a happy contrast to the first—those burning douches of potassium permanganate which the Brussels doctor squirted up Christopher's smarting urethra, day after day, in December 1938. The very atmosphere in the offices of the two doctors was quite different. The Brussels doctor was breezy but brutal and his office had a certain grimness, appropriate to those days, when even gonorrhea was a serious business and syphilis was sometimes incurable. Whereas Dr. Zeiler's office seemed bright with the dawn of the Penicillin Era, the doctor gave the injections as casually as if they were flu shots and his nurse, when they had finished, smiled archly at Christopher and said, “That'll teach you to be a good boy, won't it?” No, not good, Christopher thought, but careful. Here was yet another situation in which he felt ashamed of himself and, at the same time, contemptuous of his shame. It was shaming to return from a V.D. clinic to a monastery, but only shaming when he imagined Swami somehow finding out. Once again, he told himself that he must abandon his false position by leaving the center at the first possible opportunity.

It wasn't Steve's fault that he had infected Christopher; Steve was quite unaware that he had the clap, it was in his rectum, so there was no burning and no discharge. When they first went to bed together, Steve wanted Christopher to fuck him but added that this probably wouldn't work, someone else had tried to and hadn't been able to get inside. Christopher tried and succeeded. It always excited him to fuck a virgin and he felt pleasantly superior to the “someone else.” But the joke was on Christopher, because the “someone else” had had clap and he had at least gotten in far enough to give it to Steve.

Steve was very apologetic. He expressed fears that Christopher would now stop wanting to see him. No doubt Christopher
was
anxious to assure him that this wasn't true—they met four times in the next seven days—but the clap really did draw them closer
together, for a short while at least; they had something in common, a shared experience. (Christopher couldn't resist telling Collier about it, however. Collier was delighted. He rolled on the floor, laughing. Thereafter, when Christopher came into his office in the morning, Collier would ask, “Well, my boy, what have you to report—of grave or gay?”) Steve was treated by a different doctor—a woman, I think—and quickly cured.

On June 7, Christopher went to a party at Rex Evans's apartment; among the guests were Maugham, George Cukor and Ethel Barrymore.

It seems to me that this must have been at the beginning of the time when Willie was staying with George Cukor and working on a script of
The Razor's Edge
.
⁴³
It was quite possibly at this party that Christopher witnessed a truly classic display of unabashed ass licking. Someone—I'm nearly sure it was Charlie Brackett—was talking to Maugham about a film they had watched together, a short while before. This someone said: “Mr. Maugham, I don't know whether you remember—I certainly shall never forget it—as we were coming out of that theater, you made one of the most penetrating, one of the most
profound
criticisms I have
ever
heard in my life—you said,
It's not dramatic!
” Willie didn't reply, but he looked at the speaker with his old old black eyes—and the look said all that was necessary.

This was the first time that Christopher had seen Willie since January 1941, when Willie visited Los Angeles with Gerald Haxton. Christopher had lately been told by Bill Caskey that he had been having an affair with Haxton in those days, and that Haxton had invited him to come out to California with him and Willie. Caskey had refused, for some reason, although he had liked Haxton very much. And now Haxton was dead; he had died in 1944. The day-to-day diary doesn't record that Caskey ever went with Christopher to see Willie during his visit. Perhaps Caskey felt Willie wouldn't want to see him, because of the association with Haxton.

June 9: “Saw
The Letter
in projection room. Helped Steve move his things to Rose Garden Apartments.”

This was the Bette Davis film version of the Maugham play, with its punishment-murder of Mrs. Crosbie tacked onto the story as a
concession to the censorship code. Maybe Christopher and Willie saw it together. Anyhow Willie did see the film about this time and, on being asked how he had liked it, made the famous answer, “I liked all the p-parts I wrote.”

The Rose Garden Apartments was where Christopher and Vernon Old had stayed for about a month in 1939—their first Hollywood home. Perhaps Christopher had recommended it to Steve for this reason. But the room Steve got was dark and depressing, down in the basement, with walls so thin that you could hear whatever was said next door. Sex making was embarrassing and therefore apt to become defiantly noisy or to break up in self-conscious giggles.

June 18: “Supper at Players with Swami and Maugham.” This was probably the first of Maugham's conferences with Swami about his screenplay for
The Razor's Edge.
There were other meetings later at which Cukor was present. Maugham and Cukor wanted Swami to tell them exactly what Shri Ganesha would have taught Larry. So Swami wrote it out for them, as concisely as he could. And Maugham put it into his screenplay—presumably.
⁴⁴

The Players Restaurant on the Sunset Strip was in those days
almost a club, as the Brown Derby had once been. Christopher went there quite often—particularly with van Druten, who used to refer to it as “
our
place.” He also often saw Keith Winter there, very drunk and inclined to be weepy about his life and sorrows. (Not long after this, Keith had a breakdown and then stopped drinking.)