Another week of McKewen’s cultural lapping-up journal entries about visiting Baroque palaces like Schloss Charlottenburg, as well as a night at the Deutsche Oper (Peter Schreier and Edith Mathis in Mignon) and an afternoon amidst ten centuries of artistic glories at the huge Kunst Galerie down at Dahlem, then this appears on the travelogue like a dark stain:
… at this little dive named Buddy’s Bar off the Kantstrasse with Hei-ko when who should show up but Len Spurgeon, looking very hot and with him a very handsome blackskinned gentleman, a corporal in the American Air Force named Hiram something. Both in leathers. Both with so much attitude, the usual crowd of skinny boys for hire and older gentleman with two hairs plastered across their bald spots made way and even bought them drinks. Len said they were going afterward to a private party up in Wedding near the Berlin Grossmarkt, where there would be other ‘leathermen’ and a lot of ‘good-looking, bad-tempered Negro gentlemen looking for white boys to piss on before fucking. Interested? You should be.’
I had to admit that if Hot Hot Hiram were any indication of the guys, I actually might be interested, although I’d never really done anything S/M, he should understand. To which Len replied, ‘Don’t be a pussy. Have yourself a life. You’ll have plenty of time to become a suburban matron when you’re back in the States.’
So the three of us drove to this I mean beyond nowhere area around the docks at the Spee River, where there was nothing but factories. Sure enough, in the middle of this big empty-looking building, there’s a party going on, very hush-hush, look through a peephole at you when you ring the bell. Inside there’s a small, rather middle-class decorated apartment, with maybe fifty guys, all in jeans or leathers, most without shirts, a few only in jockstraps and obvious orgies going on all over the place, as well as spot S/M demonstrations of bootlicking and one guy being spanked over another’s knee and a more formal-looking flogging. I’m already tanked on beer, and the hashish we smoked on the way over, and once we got here, and it’s all very hot. I figured that Hiram was Len’s date, but once we’re inside, Len vanished, and after I’m wandering a bit, I come onto Hiram being sucked off by some German guy and he pulls me over to play with my nipples which I don’t usually like, but when I pull back from his fingers, Hiram slaps my face hard, and says, ‘Stand still.’ And I say, ‘I don’t like it when anyone does that.’ And he says, ‘You’ll like when I do it.’ And now the German guy takes my dick out and he sucks us both at the same time, then takes us in turn and meanwhile Hiram plays with my nipples, twisting them, and pulling, and kneading and it no longer hurts, in fact it’s wonderful, wonderful, I’m about to come and I say so and he pulls the German guy’s head away from me and onto himself, and keeps playing with my nipples, and we do this maybe through five or six rounds, until I’m about to collapse with the pain/pleasure, and then Hiram lets me come and tongue-kisses me while I do, never once letting go of my nipples. And when I’m done, he makes me bite his nipples, saying, ‘Harder! Harder!’ while the German guy brings him off. And afterward I fall on someone’s sofa, and just black out. Someone manages to get me home, and the following afternoon, I wake up at maybe ten past one and it’s Len on the phone and he says, ‘I knew you for a Blackhawk the minute I laid eyes on you,’ and I say, ‘A what?’ and Len says, ‘A Blackhawk! A dinge queen! Stick with me I’ll bring you places you never dreamed of.’
Another few days pass with nothing. There’s a brief, intriguing entry the following Saturday at the morning open-air food market at the KarlAugustplatz on Schillerstrasse where Frankie thinks he’s seen Hiram walking with another black man. When he tries to catch up to them through the crowds, they’re gone. He bumps into Hiram again that night, at a leather bar in Schöneberg, however, and meets the other fellow, also Air Force, stationed at Nuremberg, named David. For a few minutes its looks as though they might even have a three-way. Then something unclear happens and the two leave without him, headed somewhere else. The very next night, however, Frankie encounters David at a music club he’s doing research on, and this time they do go home together. Frankie is enchanted. His journal entry for the next day goes on at embarrassing length about David’s body, his penis, the softness and different brown shades of his skin, his hair etc. David leaves on Monday morning but McKewen is hooked on black men now, himself using the name ‘Blackhawk’ that Len gave him, and suddenly seeing African-American men all around Berlin, on the U-Bahn subway, among the soldiers stationed at Checkpoint Charlie, restaurants and clubs on the Kurfürstendamm. One time someone he approaches turns out to be Nigerian, and although they converse, McKewen figures out the man doesn’t exude the same appeal. ‘They have to be American!’ he concludes.
This will become a major theme in Frankie McKewen’s life and later on in his work, playing as it does into some fantasy image he has of himself as a child growing up along the Mississippi River (which he did) and having a black friend/lover/playmate (which he probably didn’t).
The next entry that interested me occurs the morning McKewen is to pick up his ‘bespoke’ suit. He and Len meet at the large open-air flea market that has sprouted along the north side of the Strassse des 17 Juni, alongside the Technisches Universitaat in Charlottenburg. McKewen goes on at some length about the goods at the stalls, vendors and passers-by, then notes:
Among all the strangely sized hardcovers in German, most of which Len told me were school texts and the kind of books teenagers read, was a copy in English of Ackerly’s Hindoo Holiday, a book I’ve been trying to find for the longest time. In a solid-looking ‘pocket-sized’ British version. Only problem was the price: DM35.00. Far too much for the book or for my own pocketbook, which was about to be crashed into later on today when I paid for the suit and Dutch treat at Krantzler.
I was about to move to the next table but kept coming back to the book. Len couldn’t help but notice and he asked whether I was going to buy it. I told him it was too much and that I couldn’t, wouldn’t pay for it. ‘No trouble,’ he said, and looked at where the blowzy stall vendor was bad-naturedly haggling with another middle-aged woman. As I watched he slipped it off the table and into the pocket of his corduroy jacket in a single, graceful movement. He moved onto the next table, and the next. I was astounded by the casualness and by the deftness of his larceny. Both convinced me this was by no means the first time he’d stolen something from under the eyes of its owner.
Even though I wanted the book, after we’d left the market Len had to force it on me. I relented, of course, feeling perhaps he’d stolen it, i.e. put himself into jeopardy, because of me.
The little incident cast a pall on the rest of their relationship. McKewen refers to it several times in the journal. He also mentions one further incident, later that afternoon, after the two had not only tried on but decided to wear their new suits. They’ve just spent a wonderful hour walking together along the Kurfürstendamm, another hour in Krantzler, they’ve paid the bill and stood up to leave. McKewen goes on in this entry about how the suits make him and Len look ‘handsome as gods, rich as Rockefeller, manly and exciting as prizefighters’. When they pass through the restaurant’s narrow foyer, two attractive, well-dressed German women pass by speaking to each other constantly through the half-veils of their hats, noticing Len and Frankie. McKewen thinks the women are attracted to them, and he turns to follow them with his eyes. One woman has just spoken to the maître d’. The two then half turn to look at Frankie, who bows in their direction. ‘Zwei Schwüle,’ he hears the woman say to the other woman, without breaking step, without any emotion, as they are led to their interior booth. ‘Two faggots!’ McKewen is embarrassed; no, he is mortified. But Len only laughs. And when they get outside it has begun to mist suddenly. ‘Schüle für Schwüle!’ Len quips, (dampness for faggots) and whoops in laughter as they run for separate taxis. Frankie will never forgive him for that.
When I arrived at the Casa Herrera y Lopez that night I was surprised to find a note flutteringly attached to the gate. Thinking it might represent
some domestic emergency, I got out of the car and took it down.
Scribbled in a handwriting I didn’t recognize was the message, ‘I Know All About You! Everything.’ No signature. No identification. I crumpled it and was about to litter the street with it when I thought, wait, what if it was Ray Rice’s doing? I’d save it to compare to some future handwriting he did for class. A test or something. Instead of ditching it, I threw it in the backseat.
I slept easily and deeply. I was awakened at what the digital clock told me was 5:45 a.m. by an insistent ringing of the bell on the outside gate. Evidently Conchita had not slept over. I dragged myself out of bed, put on a bathrobe and answered. A few minutes later, a Federal Express truck pulled around the circular driveway and stopped at the front of the house and a package was thrust into my hands. One glance was enough to tell me it was the promised overnight package from Von Slyke. I signed for it, saw the truck out the gate, locked up, threw the package on Von Slyke’s library desk without inspecting its contents and dragged myself back to bed.
Once again I fell asleep surprisingly fast and slept deeply. This time, however, I had a dream. In the dream, the bell was once again ringing. I got out of bed and at the front entry let into the yard another FedEx truck. Only this time the deliveryman was Ray Rice. And the package in his hand was filled with something alive. Alive and squirming. Squirming so hard it all but leapt from his hands. I kept trying to look and see whom it was from, by reading the return address. When I’d just managed to do so, the package split open and a large eyeless pink snake jumped out at me. I fell back against the double doors as it writhed around at my feet and raised its head, cobra-like, hissing and spitting. Only at that moment did I realize that I’d forgotten my bathrobe and was naked, and tried to cover myself up.
I awoke from the dream to hear the phone. Grabbed it.
‘Dear boy! I apologize for ringing you so early. But I have the best news. I ab-so-lute-ly must share it with some-one.’ Irian St George, breathless with excitement.
‘What do you think?’ he went on. ‘He’s done a complete volte-face and said “yes”. He’ll come to the Oscar Wildes. He’ll write an acceptance speech. All I need do is in-tro-duce him.’
‘Did he tell you why he’d changed his mind?’
‘Not a bit of it. Which makes it all the more de-lic-ious! You know, of course, he’s not been photographed, not allowed an interview, in nearly a decade. This will be the first time De Petrie’s been seen in public since he shot up the bank at OutWrite in Seattle. Of course you’re too young to know about that scandale, but you may have heard about it.’
Even in my slumberous state, I recalled something in Cummings’s book about how De Petrie, as introductory keynote speaker to the literary weekend, had told the audience they were all wasting their time and they ought not have wasted their money but that it wasn’t too late and they should go home immediately, before they further corrupted each other.
‘Not that I give two damns what he says to offend at the Oscar Wildes,’ St George beat me in saying. ‘Just so long as he shows up and says some-thing! I will be for-ev-er grat-i-fied! By the way, he ac-tu-al-ly men-tioned your name. Said some-thing or other about you and your thesis. Yes, I recall. He said he wants to talk to you in person about it.’
‘Really!’ That was news.
‘I know you contacted him at the be-gin-ning. Still, I’m aw-ful-ly sur-prised he’s going this far,’ St George said. ‘You must have somewhat piqued his in-ter-est to gain such lar-gesse.’
‘I have been speaking to Mr Axenfeld, who’s been very helpful,’ I said. ‘I believe they speak regularly. Which might explain it. Of course, I won’t be able to see either of the two in person, as I’d hoped to …’
‘Why not?’
‘The expense. I couldn’t possibly afford it. Nor the time.’
‘Time ought not be a prob-lem! The sum-mer ses-sion midterm is upon us next week. Sure-ly in the five days you can man-age to get to Florida and Cape Cod? As for the expense’ – he headed me off before I could interrupt – ‘make your plans, then call my office. We’ll arrange it.’
‘You’ve already been so kind,’ I began. ‘How can I ever hope to compensate you for –’
‘You can’t. You won’t. We’ll both sim-ply have to ac-cept that,’ he said. Then, in a less peremptory tone of voice, ‘Re-garding your the-sis. As your proc-tor, we ought to be meet-ing for an up-date.’
‘I’d been hoping you’d find some time,’ I quickly said. ‘It’s really progressed a great deal since we last spoke. Developed richly in some unexpected areas. But you’ve been so busy lately whenever I’ve attempted to see you and you’ve had so many other, far more important, things on your mind that it seemed difficult to –’
‘Make an ap-point-ment to see me when you ret-urn. We’ll discuss it then … Just think of it, my boy! De Pet-rie at the MLA awards! It fair-ly gives me shud-ders! The Lord a-lone can fore-tell what great swatches of de-light-ful mis-chief he shall dream up for the oc-cas-ion.’
St George tittered, as though he were holding an especially dissolute pornographic glossy, then signed off.
I brewed myself a pot of coffee, then wandered back to the library and pulled open the FedEx package, trying not to think too much about the all too transparent symbolism of that tiresome dream about Ray Rice and the snake. I did for one second speculate upon what exactly I might and might not be apprehensive of. I concluded it was senseless and split open the package.
I’m not sure what I’d expected from Damon Von Slyke. Whatever it could have been, what I received wasn’t it, but instead a decided curiosity. It was a photocopy of a short story titled ‘Master and Man’ from his collection of tales The Japonica Tree, a story I’d read years ago and which, despite the Tolstoy rip-off title, was rather more in the vein of Tennessee Williams’s almost equally famous tale ‘Death and the Black Masseur’. In Von Slyke’s opus, a young man fresh out of college in the Midwest finds himself living in Brooklyn Heights, and completely by chance encounters a stunningly attractive character named Harold, known to his louche companions as ‘Horsemeat Harry’, due to his massive genital endowment, with whom the narrator has at first a spoken, then a sexual relationship. Harry teaches the narrator a variety of nuances concerning Sado/Masochism, a service for which the narrator pays handsomely. At the end, the tables are suddenly turned and Horsemeat Harry begs to be humiliated. The narrator, irritated and irked, abandons him to his depressing milieu.
What Damon Von Slyke had sent me was this not-up-to-snuff story (according to Fleming, the ‘feeblest and most unwholesome of the collection’) with the name Harold crossed out wherever it appeared and the name ‘Leonard’ drafted in by hand. I reread the story, but when I was finished I found that I didn’t believe a word of it. That is to say, I didn’t believe that Len Spurgeon was Horsemeat Harry. Or that Damon and Len had this particular kind of relationship. I couldn’t precisely say why I didn’t believe it. What I knew about Len so far from all the other Purple Circle sources was so varicolored and at times so morally and ethically indefensible that this specific relationship would not have been far off the mark. Yet, in my heart, it felt off. I put it away, drank my coffee and pondered.
First was my absolute certainty that Damon Von Slyke was inventing in attempting to pass off the story as a bona fide account of what had transpired between himself and Len. The one thing I was sure about was that whatever relationship any of the Purples had with Len had been unusual, unexpected, in some way unprecedented. This yarn, with its bullshit O’Henry ironic reversal, seemed too glib, too expected.
The second thing I pondered evolved out of an unanticipated memory that arose while I was reading the story, a detail in that dream I’d been rudely awakened out of this morning. The FedEx package with the Freudian, attacking, hissing, orgasmically discharging penis-snake had not – like the real parcel – originated from Von Slyke, and despite Ray Rice being its means of conveyance, he hadn’t instigated it either. T
he name on the package had consisted of two capital letters ‘LS’! I couldn’t possibly deceive myself that they stood for anyone else but Len Spurgeon. That perception was so unlikely, so disquieting, I didn’t have any idea what to do with it. What did it signify? I was terrified of being sexually penetrated by someone long dead?
I decided to move on. I opened my laptop and began searching the Web for airline reservations, looking for flights to Fort Myers, Florida, for the following day. From there, I settled a flight a day later to Boston connecting to Provincetown, and a connection from P-Town to Boston back to Los Angeles. Those accomplished, I arranged for car rentals at both destinations, utilizing the same firm I was using long-term in LA so as to retain all insurance benefits. Only then did I dial Aaron Axenfeld.
‘Family business,’ I prevaricated, ‘brings me unexpectedly to the Fort Myers area this coming weekend. I was hoping you might discover an hour to give me. I’ll drive over from the mainland. It’ll be my one retreat from all my humdrum family. Please don’t say no. I couldn’t bear it. I’ll only take an hour of your time. I’ll stay in a hotel. I promise to limit my bothering of you.’
The Book of Lies Page 36
