Ruminatrix
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Saturday, Jun 28, 2003
Sleepless in Mecca
Back in this hot city I am reading Elizabeth Hardwick's extraordinary memoir "Sleepless Nights." Two excerpts:
"The unspeakable vices of Mecca are a scandal to all of Islam and a constant source of wonder to pious pilgrims."Of an ex-lover:
For the pilgrim to Mecca the life of the city trembled with its dangerous salvations.
The 1940s
New York: there I lived at the Hotel Schuyler on West 45th Street, lived with a red-cheeked homosexual young man from Kentucky. We had known each other all our lives. Our friendship was a violent one and we were as obsessive, critical, jealous and cruel as any ordinary couple. The rages, the slamming doors, the silences, the dissembling. Each was for the other a treasured object of gossip and complaint. In spite of his inclinations, the drama was of man and woman, a genetic dissonance so like the marital howlings one could hear floating up from the courtyard or creeping up and down the rusty fire escapes....
I slept with A three times and remember each one perfectly. In all three he was agreeably intimidating , and intimidating in three ways. 1. The murmured bits of dialogue, snatched from the air, grammatical encrustations, ellipses. Isn't this the kind of evening the best of all? or, usually I. On and on in small whispers: better than and women who and one time -- small, dark drifting comparisons. 2. A seizure of spritual discontent and graver asceticism, mournfully impugning. 3. Regretfulness, kindness, charitable good humor, apologies for the lateness of the hour. Where's your little red coat? Can I take you to a cab? Or: You'll never want to see me again... too late... too early... no cigarettes left.Wonderful, lucid, as un-nostalgic as can be. Happy Gay Pride Sunday and a hug to the Supreme Court -- or a majority of them, at least.
...In those days I did not care to enjoy sex, only to have it.