To be or not to be

If you're just arriving, this memoir starts several posts down. Please scroll to the bottom and read upward.

In the weeks that followed our first meeting, I would occasionally show up at Ed's door. Neither of us ever called. He accepted my visits as if he'd invited me. As I described years later:

I sat on his blanket-covered couch and sipped his company. There was much he would teach me and much I  would never understand. He spoke of having shut himself off from friends and enemies in that shelter that had become my frequent haunt. With solitude as his lover, he spent each day reading and dreaming. 

Perhaps he needed an undemanding audience. I was reticent and adoring. On the other hand, he was sharp enough to see that I was walking miles to his place in the frosty air, and that I could be bold. Perhaps he admired that boldness.

We'd get stoned and listen to an album of classical music entitled Our Greatest Hits--sometimes playing the Moonlight Sonata over and over. One night while Beethovan's notes stretched and wound around us like taffy, I was trying to remember an actor's name: "James...James...? What's his last name?"

"Shhh...just wait."

I waited. And as the music came to a close, it popped into the clear space of my head: "Coburn."

We smiled at each other. Just wait. Relax. Let it come. 

I loved his ramblings, his clownings, his musings. One night he stood under the arch that separated the living room from the hallway and recited To Be or Not to Be. When he got to "Aye, there's the rub," he rubbed his butt against the gas heater and added: "And it feels so good!"

There was a girl next door--a student--who was attracted to him. She lived with her boyfriend who was a bit older. Ed mused that they seemed to be getting it on a lot: "He must be well hung...I am not well hung, but I have big balls." 

One night the girl came over and asked him a lot of questions about his sexuality in front of me. Clearly I exhibited no more sexual threat to her than if I'd been a pet poodle. She said, "I asked you before if you're gay and you didn't answer."

I don't remember the exact words, but I remember he sidestepped the question. He launched into a rap on the meaning of the word "gay" and how homosexuals had adopted it so they could apply the definition of "gay" (i.e., fun-loving and upbeat) to themselves. Out with the gloomy homosexual and in with the happy one.

This girl's prying suspicions tapped at his Pandora's Box and I didn't pursue the subject after she left. He rarely spoke of other men, but he did talk a lot about Barbara--the intense beauty in that photo on his dining room wall.

On the wall of his bedroom, Ed had another photo of Barbara taken by the same photographer (an art student named Colman). In this photo, Ed and Barbara are leaning against a white wall next to each other looking towards the camera with insolent sexuality. She's petite next to Ed. Maybe five foot two to his five foot four. Ed's shirt is open all the way. Both wear jeans.

I envied them. It wasn't jealousy I felt. It was pure envy.

From my diary:
Pain had twisted his passion into relaxed mockery. All because of a woman. They had not been lovers for some time now, yet her name refused to leave his lips. It was easy to see that this self-inflicted hermit--despite the wry smile and large philosophical talk--missed her. Each of his sentences had her memory in it. He didn't have to say "This reminds me of her." Yet, when her name finally forced itself through those mocking lips, it sounded casual but strongly reverent.

He often reminisced about being in bed with Barbara for a week. They let their classes slide while they slid up and down each other.

I spent the night that first night and every time I'd visit. After all it was very late and I couldn't easily walk back to the dorm. There was no self-consciousness about it. Most likely because we were stoned. But still...

It wasn't at all romantic. Ever. Sensual yes. Romantic no. He'd give me one of his shirts to wear to bed and he'd be buck naked under the covers. It was the first time I'd ever been in bed with a man, and even though I melted at his touch, I resisted.

In another lifetime, this is the one thing I'd do over. Looking at it now with enough sexual experience under my belt to last a hundred lifetimes, I suppose my refusal to "have sex" probably enabled us to grow as close as we eventually did. Ed's attempts didn't end there. But even after I was no longer a virgin, after college, something held me back.

AIDS would not appear on the scene until 10 years later. So it wasn't an issue.

It was primarily his sexual bragging that kept me from surrendering when we were in school. I didn't need to be compared to his "nemesis." I didn't want my sexual awkwardness to disappoint.

That first night he cuddled and stroked me until I suggested we get some sleep. Of course it might have occurred to him that I was inexperienced. As time went on, we seemed to enter a Gentleman's Agreement: I didn't question his sexuality and he didn't ask if I was a virgin.

Ed had a talent for touching. He introduced me to a sensuality that was probably more of a turn-on than if I'd let him pound away. He liked to hold me for hours until I could feel every last muscle in my body let go. And we'd drift in and out of sleep that way.

Back at the dorm after that first night, as I settled down to the horrific gassy meal I shared with Diane every night (a disgusting mess of canned cream soup, rice or noodles, with canned veggies heated in a popcorn popper that Diane called "GLOP"), I told her that I'd spent the night at Ed's. She asked how he was as a lover. I fudged the answer.

Respect for each other as artists grew over time. The first time that he actually regarded me as an artist was when I walked in ranting about how hard acting was: "I don't want to do it anymore. It tears me up inside."

"Then that's exactly what you should be doing," he said. "Do the thing that tears you up inside."

That wraps this post. But a postscript:
Ever since Ed's mother told me of his early death from AIDS, I've felt driven to write this memoir. But I've also had twinges of doubt. Maybe I'm just whacking off, enjoying a literary form of cyber-necrophelia. Then today while wandering Hollywood, I ended up at the Los Angeles Municipal Gallery in Barnsdall Park, and stumbled upon a series of lithographs and a documentary entitled "Four Stones for Kanemitsu" which records in detail the laborious, meticulous genius that is required to make a lithograph.

Lithography was Ed's focus as an art major. I used to watch him work at it after he went back to finish his degree. But I had no idea how damned difficult it is. Maybe I'm just losing my mind as I close in on the latter part of my life and reflect on all that went before, but while I watched that documentary, I could feel Ed right next to me...saying in my ear:

"Keep going. Keep going. Do the thing that tears you up inside."