Death in the Afternoon

My father was quite an aficionado of the Spanish bullfight and over the years I attended a lot of bullfights with him. But none was as memorable as July 11, 1987 in Pamplona for two reasons, I was almost killed in the encierro—the running of bulls—and, later that afternoon, I watched a picador narrowly escape death by the one of the same bulls.

I have to admit that in the ten years that I regularly ran the encierro in Pamplona I was always the most apprehensive about running the bulls from two particular ranches—the Muiras, which have the reputation of having killed the most matadors, including Manolete, and the Pablo Romeros, which were the biggest bulls in Spain. That particular Saturday morning, the fifth day of the Fiesta of San Fermín, we were running the Pablo Romeros, known by the American runners as the “boxcar” bulls. Since it was my third year attending the fiesta, I had not run in more than a dozen encierros, so it’s not surprising I made mistakes, serious mistakes.

I started the run in a position that only an experienced runner should take, near the top of Calle Domingo, only a few hundred feet from the corral, which meant that the bulls would catch me at the 90 degree turn where the course heads up the dreaded Calle Estefeta. The Estefeta is a straight and narrow uphill street of shops shuttered for the run. The street holds no quarter for runners looking to bail out other than a small alley that bisects the long two-block stretch.

In my short time running the encierro, I was aware of the particular dangers of the course and one of them was that turn, which was difficult for the bulls and even some of the lead steers to negotiate. I was told that I didn’t want to be on the outside corner as the bulls skidded into the turn and to be between a 1200 pound bull and the heavy wooden barricade.

But on that chilly July morning that’s exactly where I found myself, at exactly the wrong time. One of the bulls skidded into me and hit me with his hind-quarter so hard that I flew about 10 feet into the barricade well ahead of him and out of his path. It felt like getting hit by a car.

It was an inglorious encierro for me. I lost all the skin the entire length of my left arm and, unknown to me until I returned to the States, had dislocated a disc in my vertebrae. That morning, however, the medics at the makeshift enfermaria, bandaged me up and sent me on my way.

Aching all over as I was, I knew I had to bare the pain to see these bulls fight that afternoon. If my father didn’t have a date for the bullfights, I could wrangle his other ticket in his abono from him. I enjoyed seeing a bullfight with my father as he was quite knowledgeable. He also had a press pass, which he occasionally used to get us into the callejón, the passageway between the barricade and the stands to get closer to the cuadrillas, the bullfighters’ entourages, and the action. That he said I could go with him.

Of course, the Pablo Romeros did not disappoint. I remember the hush that fell over the crowd when the door from the stalls opened and an even larger bull came out for the second fight of the afternoon. His name was “Chivito,” little goat, and weighed 651 kilos or 1435 pounds. I couldn’t imagine why he was given such a name, but it would soon became apparent.

Chivito ran the length of the ring twice then trotted out to the center and, after turning abruptly as if something had caught his attention, charged the barrera and leaped over it, landing in the callejón, where he chased mozos through the narrow passage before being led back out into the ring.

“He’s big enough he can see over the barrera,” my father observed. “He’s attracted to any movement behind it.”

Then the first picador, a horse-mounted torero with a lance, came out along with another torero carrying the traditional magenta and yellow cape to draw the bull’s attention. The bull immediately charged the horse and hit it so hard that the picador flew off. He quickly got to his feet, but would have been gored if not for the torero attracting the bull’s attention with the cape. The picador scrambled over the barrera into the callejón. The bull turned again to the now rider-less horse, and butted his head under the horse’s belly like a goat and proceeded to lift the horse completely off the ground and with a flip of his head tried to send the horse over the barrera.

As the mozos held his now battered but yet unbroken mount against the barrera the picador climbed back on his horse, while the torero caped the bull a few more times. Again the bull, ignoring the torero, charged the barrera and leaped over it. Again mozos ran for their lives in a chase to lead the bull back into the arena.

By then the second picador had come into the ring. Chivito immediately charged the horse, pinning it against the barrera and then got his head under the horse and proceeded to lift both man and horse off the ground. If it hadn’t been for the mozos pushing back from the callejón, he would have flipped both man and beast out of the ring.

The bull turned his attention back to the first picador and charged him again. The picador got his lance into the bull just as it met the horse, got under it again and gave it a toss. Because the picador was leaning over so far, the toss caused him to fall off the horse and be impaled on the horns of the bull. The bull started violently tossing his head, throwing the picador off who was stuck to his horns.

The bull was eventually distracted long enough for the medical team to pick up the fallen picador. As they raced out of the ring with the picador on a stretcher, he managed to give the crowd a thumbs up, which they acknowledged with cheers and bravos.

“That’s always a bad sign,” my father said. “He’ll be dead before they get him out of the plaza. I’ve seen it too many times before.”

Finally, the first banderillero came out and placed the first pair of banderillas in the bull. I noticed, due to the sheer size of these bulls, it was difficult for the banderilleros to get their barbed sticks, banderillas, over the horns and into the back of the bulls’ necks. They were arching way over and leaping higher than I’d ever seen them to avoid the lethal horns.

It’s not uncommon for the matador himself to place one of the three pairs of banderillas into the bulls neck, but that day the matador who was to fight Chivito, Luis Francisco Esplá, refused and was jeered by the Pamplona crowd and even had a bottle thrown at him. After all six banderillas had been placed and Chivito was showing signs of tiring, Esplá came out to fight.

Esplá’s fight was mediocre, not worthy of such a fine bull, but eventually death came to Chivito, but not to the picador, Victoriano Cáneva, who survived his cornada. I found out later, that the horns of the bull had punctured a lung and his liver. He was in surgery for two hours in a Pamplona hospital and spent the next 11 days in intensive care, after which he was moved to a hospital in Madrid. Luis Francisco Esplá vowed that day he would never again fight in Pamplona.

Fraulein Clausewitz

I spent the Christmas of 1990 with my German girlfriend Anke and her family in Hamburg. While we were there we took some trips through what was until a few weeks prior, East Germany. Germany had just been reunified a couple of months before and you could drive from Hamburg to Berlin, for the first time in over 40 years, which we did. We were thinking about opportunities there might be in the newly-unified city. I had never been there and was eager to see what it looked like before the wall that surrounded the western half of the city was completely torn down. I grew up on spy novels and Berlin was, of course, ground zero in the Cold War, the gateway between East and West through the Iron Curtain.

By the time we returned home to Brooklyn, we had decided to move to Berlin the following summer. I had to break the news to my parents. My mother would be fine as long as she could meet the girl with whom I was making the move. The problem was meeting my father was always a potential deal breaker in any relationship I’d had.

I remember introducing him to a beautiful girl named Cornelia I was dating in college. We were at his house in Philadelphia one evening and I remember my father handing off the phone to me while talking to one of my sisters. While I was talking on the phone, my father offered to show my girlfriend his war room in the basement where he had a giant table set up with a World War II battle scene with toy soldiers, artillery and tanks. When they came up from the basement Cornelia glared at me. She took the first opportunity to tell me that my father had made a pass at her in the war room.

That’s the way it was with my father. If he liked a girl I was dating, he eventually ended up making a pass at her and if he didn’t like her, he was vicious and cruel toward her. So you can understand my apprehension. I wasn’t concerned whether my father would like Anke, but that he wouldn’t at least be civil to her and she would come away from the experience wondering what kind of family she was getting involved with. Add to this the fact that Anke herself was very quiet and unassuming.

A few months after coming home from Germany, my father called to say my sisters were coming to Philadelphia to spend their spring break there. He invited me and my girlfriend  to come for the weekend and I thought it would be a good opportunity for Anke to meet my sisters and, of course, my father, if ever there was a “good” opportunity. So we drove down to Philadelphia from New York.

At first everything was going well. I think my father was on his best behavior because of the presence of my teenage sisters. I don’t remember what we ate, but it was probably one of my father’s great pizzas he made from scratch, having spent the afternoon picking up ingredients at the Italian Market in South Philly. Anyway, family gatherings with my father usually converged around the playing of a board game, in which he would berate us on the stupidity of our moves and otherwise humiliate us in the company of whomever had the misfortune of letting themselves be dragged into this private hell known as game night.

 I think in my father’s mind the choice of the game was decided by the fact of Anke being German. The Second World War would be reenacted in a game of Risk. As my father handed out the different colored playing pieces, he looked at Anke and—in a bad German accent—said, “And SS black for za fraulein,” as he gave her the black tokens. The pained expressions on the faces of the rest us showed embarrassment, if not surprise, at my father’s typical bad taste. I knew this wasn’t going to end well.

I never understood by father’s fixation with the military. The full extent of my father’s service was being bounced out of ROTC after being classified 4F for bad eyesight, bordering on legal blindness and flat feet. But it never seemed to dampen his interest in all things military. In his library of over six thousand books, there were over 500 books on war and military. He had a toy soldier collection that once belonged to Hermann Göring. He knew by heart the dates of all the great battles in history. A game of Risk then was mere child’s play for a great amateur war strategist. Except that the black tokens were slowly spreading across the board from Europe and into Africa, Scandinavia and Russia.

The Risk board was beginning to look a lot like those maps in World War II newsreels showing what would happen if Nazi aggression went unchecked. When my girlfriend Anke made any kind of unconventional move in the game, my father would stroke his chin and say, “Verrry Interrresting,” like Arte Johnson in a German uniform peeking through a potted plant. He started referring to her as “Fraulein Clausewitz,” alluding to the great German military tactician, which, coming from my father was the closest she’d ever come to receiving any kind of compliment.

It was not my father’s finest hour as Britain fell to Fraulein Clausewitz’s army, which she then used as a stepping stone to Greenland, Canada and eventually the United States. One by one the rest of us were eliminated from the game leaving my father and Anke battling it out in what was left of the U.S. My father was beginning to seethe as Anke clearly demonstrated her Aryan superiority and more importantly seemed to be immune to my father’s remarks, which always had the effect of throwing us, his kids, off our game, allowing him to win.

Finally, my father conceded the game to Anke by throwing down his cards and saying, “I’ve had enough. I’m going to bed,”

“You surrender?” I asked him.

“Yes,” he answered curtly.

“Unconditionally?” I added.

“Smartass,” He said and without so much as a by-your-leave stalked upstairs to bed. Suffice to say that the atmosphere for the rest of the weekend was chilly.

Although my relationship with Anke ended that following summer in Holland, just 10 kilometers short of the German border, I don’t believe that in this particular instance the breakdown of the relationship had much, if anything, to do with my father being an asshole. But I underestimated my father’s ability to hold a grudge until some four years later when I was going through my father’s papers after his death and found a version of his will, almost identical to the version that was ultimately probated except for a few minor additions and deletions, that excluded me from any inheritance if I was married to “that Nazi bitch, Anke [Last name misspelled].”

Coffee, Tea or Me?

The story of my father meeting his second wife, Beverly, is told here in two parts: first through entries in my father’s journal at the time, which gives some insight into his state of mind in the days leading up to meeting and marrying her. The details differ between his journal entries, written only a week later, and his unfinished autobiography written 28 years later, but the basic facts are consistent. They met at around 10:30 pm on Friday, December 9, 1966 and were married less than 72 hours later.

Dec. 5, ’66 I guess I burn my bridges as fast as I erect them. Like Karen, for example. Just couldn’t take her lack of feeling. 28 years have hardened her too much. Frenchy can’t make the Gemini Ball, so I’ll not go. Back to “0” again. Still awaiting the return of the ticket from Diana—also be interested to see if she’ll reply. Mary Ann called last night—very warm and friendly for a change. Says she might come down with the boys in January. Might just be starting the new year off right. Still waiting to hear from Verena about word on her job. Two months since I heard from Suzanne & 1 week from tomorrow is the first anniversary of our engagement. So much for sentiment. Three weeks from now I’ll be in Washington—ugh! This job rat-race again. I still feel like an emotional zero—but getting out of here will surely help. Haven’t got much mail lately. 207 days left. (29½ wks)

Dec. 8, ’66 I often tell myself that I shouldn’t be alone like this—that I don’t deserve to be alone. I suppose I have had the opportunities—and muffed a good many of them. But people who love or have loved people should forgive & forget. Maybe that’s it—maybe I just haven’t been really loved. They—Gudrun, Suzanne, Mary Ann, Diana, Alicia, Carol, Nilla, etc.—all know I am alone—they’re not exactly overleaping themselves to get here. And here I am—29 more weeks! I drive at night—like to my class—or I lie awake at night—I feel as though there should be someone by my side. Where have all the young girls gone? I’m nearly 30 and my prime is passing. Not much, if anything to show. Some photos, some writings, some memories. We really live in the minds of others—even before we die. How many people think of me? Soon it will be a year since Susanne & I were engaged & soon a year since she left. Soon it will be 5 months since I was last alive. Yes, I have been dead for 5 months—five long months. But I shall be dead much longer. There are only three people who can bring me back to life—Gudrun, Susanne or Mary Ann.

Dec. 18 ’66 That was some sentence, that last sentence, “Someone new and fantastic.” Less than 24 hours after I wrote that I met Beverly. Bill came up to my place around 8:45 with a friend called Karl. We drank and talked until 10—then Bill left. Karl and I drank to 10:30 then went down to the 3rd Unit rec room where his room-mate was having a party for his fellow Philco workers. Bev was there with Karl’s room-mate. I only got to know where she lived. I agreed to drive her to her job at 4 p.m. the next day. I showed up at 11:00 a.m.—we talked, then she came over for lunch to my place—then I took her to the airport, where I was to pick her up again Sunday at 10:30 p.m.
                [On Sunday] I brought her back to my place & we never left each other’s sight until we were married 5 p.m. Monday!
                It is so nice to have someone to live for. Beverly will fill a big empty spot in my life. She has more class than Susanne, more beautiful & less screwed up than Gudrun. I am more than happy to trade in my past for a future with Beverly. I might even stay on at the NASA job!



For their first wedding anniversary my father gave Beverly a copy of the book Coffee, Tea or Me? inscribed above, which had just been published two months prior. Not the most thoughtful gift, but the traditional first anniversary gift is paper.

This would be the last entry my father would in his journal for 389 days. What follows is my father’s detailed version of his whirlwind romance with Beverly, which he wrote in his autobiography in late 1994.

                Life at the Villa Monterrey was picking up. Bill Hamilton, ever the ladies’ man, was quite a help. We shared a lot of information on the girls at the Villa. Indeed, we ‘created’ the Seven (Social) Dwarfs. It started with a girl who had distinct body odor—she was ‘Smelly’; then there was a thoroughly dense one—‘Dopey’ naturally; then there was one with a notoriously bad sleep-around reputation—she was ‘Easy.’ And on it went: ‘bashful,’ ‘rock,’ ‘bitchy,’ and ‘sloppy’. Bill and I actually took a pair of identical twins to a Villa costume party once.

                The first big event of the fall was the NASA Gemini Ball, that was to be held on Saturday, the 10th of December.

                Now there was this exceedingly sexy, sultry, attractive girl who worked at NASA and who lived at the Villa—Sharon Huvar. She was about 5'6", blonde, blue-eyed and got men all worked up just walking down the halls of the MSC. Men had wet dreams about her. I suppose, however, that most believed that she was beyond their reach. I got along with her, though I'd been warned that she had a middle-aged divorced Mom with whom she lived who was extremely jealous of her daughter and kept her under as tight a reign as possible. Well, be that as it may, I asked Sharon to accompany me to the Gemini Ball—and was surprised and delighted when she accepted! I think we had one date, a rather ordinary one, before the big night. Bill was amazed that I'd hooked Sharon for the Ball and gave me a few ‘nudge, nudge, know what I mean?’ jabs. He thought that, if I performed properly, that Xmas would come early for me in 1966!

                A few days later (it being still two weeks before the Ball), Bill approached me with news of an upcoming Friday night [December 9] party in the 3rd Unit Rec Room—being thrown by a ‘buddy’ of his. He said the guy was also a GE contract worker at NASA; I would have no problem if I showed up. He was also anxious to inform me that a new “gorgeous” tenant had just moved into our unit: a tall, leggy blue-eyed blonde that I ‘would just kill for.’ He said that his buddy had also authorized him to invite her to the party; so I should definitely be there. It was the Friday night before the Gemini Ball.

                That was an interesting week: Sharon dropped by my office several times, usually with such marginally relevant questions as to what color and type of dress I thought she should wear. Only now, looking back with venerable hindsight, can I appreciate that the girl was definitely attracted to me (and probably her mother, a working class woman herself, thought a professor would make a good catch). I was proud of the fact that Bart and others would stick their heads out the door to watch Sharon's seductive fanny as she exited our hallowed halls.

                Friday night soon arrived and Bill and I, after a few drinks at my place (overlooking the 3rd Rec Room), decided that the party was getting full enough to warrant our attention at a closer scrutiny.

                As we wandered around the crowded place I was relieved to see that Sharon was not around, but curious as to this new beauty that Bill promised would be there. When I asked him, he pointed up to the mezzanine area and said that she was up there talking to our host. I bounded up the stairs to check out this babe.

                Bill was right, she was a beauty. But that twangy Southern drawl: it sounded like an audition for Scarlet O'Hara! Now, if I could just overlook that . . .

                But I succumbed nonetheless. I was delighted to hear that she was an airline stewardess (for Delta). She had just moved to Houston from Atlanta the previous Wednesday, so she was fresh meat. We made petty, pseudo-sophisticated small talk for about half an hour and then, in my usual, now-legendary, manner, I asked her if she would become my mistress. I must say this, she took it right in stride, not battering one little Scarlet eyelash: “Sonny boy, why you just couldn't afford me!” Two things I did not know at the time: (1) that within 60 hours she would be my wife, and (2) that she would be totally correct in her warning! I was not discouraged, but pressed her for a date for the following night—then I remembered the Gemini Ball. But, she said, she had to work this weekend, so . . . I quickly asked her when she was returning. She said on Sunday. I asked her when on Sunday (I clearly was not to be dissuaded). She said she wouldn't get back until just after Midnight. I offered to pick her up at the Airport. She said that wouldn’t be necessary, then looked as if she was going to turn away and enjoy the rest of that evening. My mind was churning, it had to claim some psycho-emotional beachhead. Sharon and the Gemini Ball were the furthest things from my mind! Then she turned back to me.

                “Peter, there is one small favor you could do for me, if you don't mind . . .” I was overjoyed—she had remembered my name, at least!

                “Anything, sweetheart. What is it?”

                “Well, my car hasn’t arrived yet and I could use a lift over to the airport tomorrow.”

                “What time?”

                “I have to be there by 1:15.”

                “No problem.” I paused. “But there is one condition . . .”

                “What's that?”

                “That you have lunch with me beforehand.” She looked a trifle put-out.

                “Well, I usually sleep late and then just grab a cup of coffee—cause I can always eat on the plane.” I was not to be deterred.

                “Look, I'll be over at noon, we'll take it from there.” She thought about it for one fateful moment, then decided in the affirmative.

                Her apartment was only down the stairs and about 10 yards away. I rang her bell precisely at noon.

                A voice on the other side of the door said that she couldn’t open the door because she didn't have any clothes on. She said she would unlock it and I could come in, but I was to wait about half-a-minute to give her time to get back to her room to put on her robe. I agreed, then heard the door latch unfasten.

                I waited a full 5 seconds before I tried the door. I wanted to see the goods, but all I caught was a glimpse of a pair of tender succulent bums turning into a doorway down the hall. When she came back out in her robe, she showed me her kitchen area and said I was welcome to make us whatever with whatever I found available there. I made a small cheese omelet which we downed with some white wine.

                As we walked to my car I asked her what time she returned. She said that the plane got in a little after midnight and she would be out about 15 minutes later. I said that the night would still be young and that I‘d pick her up where I was dropping her . . . about 12:20 a.m. She started to protest but I guess she realized that I would hardly take no for an answer, so reluctantly agreed. I was so delighted that I didn't give a moment's thought to Sharon or the Gemini Ball that same evening. I only remembered that I was picking Sharon up at 7:30. Hopefully, not expecting any amatory success with Sharon, 11:30 would not be too early to call it quits at the ball.

                Sharon looked lovely when I came to fetch her, and her mother was quite enthusiastic about the whole thing. I knew precious few people who would be there (Bart & Sally Hacker were not going), so was not all that enthused about the whole thing. Further, I was feeling guilty knowing in advance that I had to make an early evening of it, particularly as how eager Sharon had been. So off we went.

                The ball didn't amount to all that much—especially to relatively new people like me, who had neither participated to any real extent in the project and who had friends at the Ball. At about 10:15 p.m. the tension became too much and I just had to get out of there. It was, I thought, going to be difficult to leave so early; Sharon had been at NASA for a few years and knew quite a few people at the Ball. Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it—Sharon misinterpreted my urging that we make an early getaway. She thought I was so hot for her that I couldn't wait to get her back to my place.

                We got back to Villa Monterey just before 11 p.m. Because I was thinking in terms of taking Sharon back to her apartment, I took the turn on the path from the garage in that direction. Again, she saw this as an admirable lack of presumption on my part—and steered me back in the direction of my own place, reminding me that a gentleman always invited a lady for a cup of coffee after an evening's drinking, so why shouldn't I? Egads!, the less interested I was, the easier it became.

                When we got into my apartment Sharon made a lunge for me. Not only was it a hungry, intense kiss, but I felt one of her legs rise up as she rubbed me very obviously with her thigh! Well, as Confucius say, “a stiff prick knows no conscience” so, putting all thought of Beverly aside for the moment, I obliged Sharon in the large Naugahyde recliner that dominated my sitting room (why soil good sheets when they might soon be used again in such a short time?!) It was still just a little past eleven and I guess, in her mind, my performance rated an encore, so Sharon moved on top of me this time in the recliner and I was ready in a flash. Next thing I know, Sharon is urging me towards the bedroom. I sneak a furtive peek at my watch. It was almost 11:30 p.m., I had to walk Sharon home, clean up the place a bit, then drive over to pick up Beverly by 12:15 a.m. It was definitely time to give it a bit of a rest, besides, I got the first half of a hoped-for twofer, why screw it up now? Besides, if I listened to that voice of the little man inside of me and opted to linger with Sharon, there were still two additional considerations: first, I would have to bring Sharon home to her overbearing mother, second, going all the way plus lingering or steeping in it, would only connote a more serious, potentially marital-type, relationship. So, in this, one of my final moments of rationality for that year (read: decade), I took Sharon home, promising her that there would shortly be a re-match, but that right now I was past it, and needed to get my beauty sleep. Lord only knows what path my future would have taken had Sharon said to hell with her mother and insisted on sharing that night with me! But she didn't and, in a few minutes, I was in my car, heading towards the airport. I picked Beverly up at exactly 12:15 a.m.

                My psycho-traumatized memory will not allow me to recall the events of that night. Suffice it to say, the hour, the booze, the loneliness and poverty of my existence in Houston, job dissatisfaction, when coupled with the beauty, intelligence, and interest of this Southern beauty, led me to propose to this woman. We naturally tested the relationship in the sack and—surprise! surprise!—it worked! When dawn broke I roused Beverly, boinked her one more time (to make sure I'd contacted reality) and insisted on going into the Marriage Bureau in downtown Houston. I remember driving, top-down, in my TR-4A convertible, with my super-duper Blaupunkt radio blaring Happy Together by the Turtles, oblivious to the world and its responsibilities (it was, after all, a workday that Monday a.m.).

                At the Marriage Bureau I was informed that, while there was no waiting period and no blood test in the state of Texas, a Doctor’s certificate attesting to a negative Wasserman test was a requirement. Undaunted, I took us from City Hall directly to my friend [Dr.] Joe MacLemore's office.

                When we got to Joe’s office, his secretary had only just opened up the door. When I told her I was an old friend from Cambridge, England and it was an emergency, she let me straight in. I grabbed Joe and told him he had to do me a pre-marital blood certificate, stat! But Joe was not one to be pushed into anything that quickly. He urged me to slow down, catch my breath, send Beverly back to his office so he could meet her himself, then he might consider my request. Beverly duly went back to see Joe in his office, while I paced around the waiting room.

                When Joe came out of his office, having left Beverly sitting inside, I collared him.

                “Well? . . . How about it?” I looked questioningly at him.

                “Well, let's put it this way,” he said, looking quite seriously, “If she’s got a twin sister, I’d join you in a double ceremony!” So that was it, another nail in my bachelor’s coffin. Now, back to City Hall!

                City Hall was enjoying a slow day at its Marriage Bureau. We had forms to fill out. In the middle of it all, while the clerk was typing out the forms, I looked over at her and stammered “Are we really doing what I think we’re doing?” And she stammered back “I think so . . .” When the forms were ready, we had to ask what we did next. We were told that all we had to do was find someone to perform the ceremony. Then, as we looked quizzically at each other, the clerk informed us that any judge we could find in chambers on the 4th floor who was willing, could perform such a ceremony—unless, of course, we had a preference for a religious ceremony. We headed for the elevator, and the 4th floor

                Despite it being only 10:30 a.m. the judge we found was obviously intoxicated. But he was obliging. He started the usual ceremony, but about 1/3rd of the way through reading it, his eyes started to fail him and he handed over the little book to Beverly and I to read aloud to him, then cut us off just before the end and declared that we were married. He fell back into his chair and I tucked a $10 bill in his handkerchief pocket and, thanking him profusely, took Beverly and left. By 11 we were back in the car, heading south, married. It was December 12th, 1966; total elapsed time of knowing each other beforehand: 4+ hours. The marriage, with two children [Jennifer and Jessica], would last until October, 1977.

Letter to My Sister Jennifer April 28, 1993

April 28, 1993

Dear Jen,

Well, after a pleasant evening at Lipton's, Helen took me to Gatwick where I arrived at 9:15 a.m. I had to go Trash class, but since it was but half full, I had a bank of three seats on which to camp out. Janet was there to meet me. Today is Wednesday, she left Saturday to go up to New York to rendezvous with her Dad at her sister's house, from where they would leave Sunday afternoon for the airport and Rio, leaving me behind to gear up for Rio.

Jess just called to get her monthly check early--as she has a date in Traffic Court for a speeding ticket she got while in Houston! Now, she'll probably have to go for the Defensive Driving Course!

Jeff called Mark to ask about the Marriage Law in Texas(e.g. no waiting period, but a blood test), so I guess things are getting bad. Aborigine grandchildren, I can't believe it..it just keeps getting worse..worse than a bloody Finn! Oh well, what can you expect from a product of a broken home? Please promise me you'll marry someone of the same race! Ukrainians are close enough! Maybe I'll be dead before the Yannomammos start dropping. I'm leaving here on 7 May, will be back on the 22nd. Weather is much improved here. I fixed the back door on the little Solido ambulance. Managed to get back here with 8 jars of curry sauces and a 1/2 liter jar of Branston pickle. Those bastards/creeps at the coin shop claimed not to have the proof sets in yet! Found a good bookshop, called Ulysses, on Museum street which had 2 Colin Wilson books I didn't have, but couldn't find Atlantis on that street.

Hope you're not working too hard..but I guess I needn't worry, you'll be in Naples soon! See what you can find for transport to Pamplona around July 6th..if you can take the fast train to St. Jean, Alfredo can pick you up, and then take you to Irun for the Pamplona train (one always has to change from French to Spanish trains at Irun)..only one stop to Pamplona and if you call the hotel Maisonnave from St. Jean I can have a taxi out to meet your train and take you in.

Janet liked that red cedar house nr. Royston for which we had the pretty color brochure. It looks like we'll be able to sell this house between now and October and thus we'll be able to buy in England right after.  Not much else new, except the weather is nice.  Thanks for putting up your old dad and coming up to Cambridge with me..who knows? maybe I can come over before the 25th..  

Study hard, do well, I'm sure you'll find a good position somewhere.

Love,

         

A Life of 21,072 Days

My father lived a total of 21,072 days. As of today, I have now lived 21,072 days.

That’s 57 years, 8 months and 9 days.

I guess it’s only natural to want to contemplate my life and make the inevitable comparisons between my life and his. He had been retired for a year and a half when he died. I have not yet retired. Although, I’m contemplating a sort of semi-retirement in which I can devote my time completely to writing. He wrote a book and a half and read 1500 books. I have my first book coming out next week and have read only 1360 books.

Of course, I’m in excellent health, which my father hadn’t been over the last year or so of his life, so it looks as though I might get a little more time than my father had, but I’m looking at it as borrowed time from today on.

Lucy Part III of III

This is the last installment of my father's writing about his affair with his 19-year-old student Lucy. It's unfinished in that he was still writing it at the time of his death on January 15, 1995. In fact, judging from the time stamps on his computer files, this was the last thing he ever wrote. But you can read about the end in his letter of Tuesday, July 26th, 1977 to me in The Summer of 1977 post.

I guess the daily chronology of this is less than exciting and it doesn’t go very far in conveying my troubled state of mind. It was getting so that I didn’t want to go anywhere where my emotional security regarding our deeper relations might get tweaked. Lucy has always, like any truly beautiful woman, been vain, impressed with the power which her looks give her, and, quite normally, with the nice looking men whose attention she can command. Since she is also searching for herself, her identity, some relation to a field of interest, and exploring all that the world has to offer, it would be restrictive indeed to censure her for the effects of all these qualities and these drives. They are normal, and easily anticipated in someone so ideally endowed. But NEVER, NEVER get romantically enmeshed with such a person at this stage. It is death: slow and sure and painful. And the more sensitive the person who falls, the more endlessly devastating will be the effects. I know, for I shall never never be the same again. It will be better, much better for the man who claims Lucy at the end of this tunnel of growth and experience. Lucky will be the man who claims the last dance and takes her home. I shall always regret that it will not be me . . . with anyone . . . with her above all.

 So many things now seem clearer in the perspective of time. She didn’t feel, couldn’t feel, and she was only aware of a small part of it. She said that she was a total loss in the mornings . . . not very amorous (at all!), not very with it. But, you know, while I accept this on one level, I still deny it on another. Sure, if she stays out late, has a nice draught before going to bed, etc., she’ll still be out of it in the morning. But, on the other hand, if you love and are loved, if you feel and are felt, if you are really into sharing, well, it all just flows . . . there are no demarcations. Look, it isn’t all that bloody important to me but obviously this is providing that it doesn’t represent a turn off that lies just a little deeper. Just that I can imagine Lucy so happy and so into life that I can’t see such an artificial distinction.

But then there’s more. For Lucy does like to call the tune in a sexual way. A cue rarely, in itself, turns her on. It is merely like a request to be considered and she reacts to it in whatever way she feels at the moment. It is her own well circumscribed ego that accepts or rejects; sadly it is rarely an ‘ego involved’, if you know what I mean. I think that her past ecstasies have very much been selfish ones, bits of self-fulfillment . . . I don’t think she’s ever put her neck in the noose, handed someone the loaded pistol. I might even venture to say, since she is older now and projections are now potentially more accurate, that she may not be capable of true abdication (however impermanent) of self. But she knows how to get what she wants. She got Morocco, but she agreed that she wouldn’t stint on the loving (sun, sand, and salt water really turn me on, I’d said) up to a point and if I’d agree to lay off stiff morning overtures. Well, we both lived up to our promises, as it turned out. I am still amazed how many things I must have felt but repressed during all those days. Indeed, to read them paraded out on paper, in limited context, one would think I was miserable 99% of the time. Far from it. Just that, having ended disastrously for me, I tend to analyze and explore those elements which seem to have signaled or contributed to it. This accounts for subjective distortions and, relatedly, a little unfairness.

On Monday morning we zipped down to Abbotts and plonked our money down for a 7 day all in trip to Tangiers, leaving the very next Wednesday from Luton. We busied ourselves with preparations, between brass rubbing, pubbing and the like. Lucy was noticeably ‘up’ once the Moroccan die was cast. We drove to Luton on a bad afternoon and took off for Tangiers about 4 p.m. British time. We arrived in Tangiers around 7 p.m. It was a cool 66, but Lucy was brimming with happiness . . . and wearing a straw hat I’d bought her in the market square . . . and looking gorgeous in it!

Our hotel was quite nice and quite modern. I was a little shocked when I saw two single beds at right angles to one another, and fixed so that they could not be placed side by side. But the view of the Straits of Hercules beyond the Bay of Tangiers was really nice . . . in fact, we faced nearly due West and the sun set right out our window. We put our gear away, showered deliciously, redressed quickly, got a light evening snack, a meal, took a walk, then it was bedtime.

Of course, being fairly familiar with Tangiers from my previous trip, I was brimming over with things to show Lucy. Our first minor problem was that Lucy was already well tanned and would and could soak up the sun for hours at a time. I, on the other hand, could take no more than a couple of 60 or 70 minute exposures on the first day and only about 20 more on top of that for each of the next three days. The longest I could stay out under that sun, even after a week, was two 50 minute stretches a day . . . if that. I’d say that Lucy could be out, after that same period of time . . . at least two 3 1/2 hour stretches a day. And, remember, this is not counting the exposure that comes from all that walking around in the city and touring!

I seem to be returning constantly to the subject of differences. Look, I don’t think the seeming disparity between me, who could spend 5 to 6 hours at a stretch with the colorful denizens of the Casbah, and Lucy who could spend the same amount of time basking in the sun poolside, is significant. Remember, Carl and Lucy’s current boyfriend could enjoy the security of knowing that Lucy loved them. I never could (because she never ever did). Had I that security, the story would have been very different. Very. First, she could have talked to Sammy for five hours and it wouldn’t have made any difference, though I might still be angry at Sammy for using up her time and energy; or anybody for that matter. Indeed, an honest and close examination of those few of my past relations that involved me being loved clearly and unequivocally by a good woman (Mary Ann, Helen, Diana) reveals that I often take advantage of the situation and hurt them with my consequent inattentions (or attentions elsewhere!). You know, it’s a funny thing, but I caught myself feeling this very early in my affair with Lucy.

I guess it was in late April one day in my office. It may indeed have been that same day that Lucy told me that it was quite likely that she would walk away from me after the summer. I can remember feeling that although I was completely emotionally ensnared by her at that moment, and that I was a captured victim I knew if I only could succeed in bringing her around to loving me equally, then the balance of power (so called) would shift immediately. I knew that if I could only reach that stage (of her loving me) that it would instantly cure my insecurities and I’d have exactly the right operational attitude that would be required to hold Lucy completely. It has never ever failed though not something I would ordinarily brag about: once they fall, they never fall out (unless I want them to). This is because my tremendous self-sufficiency doesn’t spell ‘need’ or at least that kind of ‘need’ that turns people off. I treat them at best well and considerately and as independent and intelligent people, and they never know for sure . . . .at worst I let them on their own if it’s not me who’s off on his own. I was made to be some explorer or sea captain type who has to follow his urge to go off and return to pick up my love when it suits me. But this is a failing. And here’s where Lucy comes in. You see, she represents so much to me, in terms of what we can be to each other together, that we would move a distance from each other and this would trigger reactions that would make us come together again . . . from natural, internal mechanisms . . . neither of us would go beyond a certain point, because of love, selfishness, and mutual consideration. Interesting . . . and I had a vision of a near perfection that I cried for my failure to get even to the necessary starting point! And I was so confident; I had not the slightest worry if I could only get to that magic point. It wasn’t a matter of time, per se, just a matter of a few days or weeks at most, but starting only from that moment that Lucy unequivocally—not necessarily permanently—invested her heart in me. But that never happened. Alas. It is so nearly equivalent to the bottom line, that I am tempted to stop the story at this point.

And I have to be careful, elsewise this will be merely a chronicle of hurts and pains. Let me carry on by regaling some of the beauties. We did indeed share love for travel, meeting new people, eating new and exotic food. We had a liter and a half of good white wine with lunch, two with dinner, whisky in our tea in the late afternoon and always a night-cap. Lucy had a great sense of humor and got a real kick out of rare and unusual people of character. She warmed immediately to our little hunchbacked guide, Hassan, who, in turn, warmed to her. She really savored our mint tea that we had in the back of Ali’s shop in the Casbah. We could have both sat there and did quite often for hours. Only her requisite sunbathing kept us from staying even longer within the walled city. We enjoyed our shopping, though Lucy had too much heart to be a stern and unrelenting haggler . . . but she shared my victories with great relish. She made everything we did together a really enjoyable experience. She had that sensitivity and quickness of mind to reflect on the great beauty and happiness of everything we did right then and there while we were doing it. She was, to borrow a loving term from Gudrun of old, “fine, very fine.”

We walked, talked, took pictures and I took great pleasure in the hungry happy way Lucy drank it all in . . . like watching a little girl in a toy shop. She wanted everything. And how I wished I could have given her everything. Indeed, I felt so bad that I hadn’t planned to take more money than I did, for my only credit card was not honored, except at one bank where I did manage to get an additional $150 advance. In fact, we spent about six hours of our vacation doing just that: trying to get enough money to buy even more and, more importantly, to rent a car to take a side trip down the beach to Tétouan, but we had no luck. But Lucy took it in good stride and we did have one great evening before we left—almost.

Unfortunately, Tangiers was not without incident. Let us say at the outset that I am glad that I am writing this and not relating it verbally to, or in front of, Lucy; for she would probably laugh and make light of the whole incident but maybe not. Depends on how self-perceptive and honest she is.

It seems that there was this attractive young Dutchman probably about 27 or 28 who was at poolside daily. He had come down with his girlfriend (as we learned later) of several years’ standing. He had taken a fancy to Lucy and had taken to nodding a hello and an acknowledgement about the third day before we were to leave. He had noticed that Lucy and I had taken to having a bottle of the white local wine at poolside at midafternoon. On the next to the last day the waiter brought us over a 2nd bottle of wine and nodded in the direction of the sunbathing Dutch gentleman. We saluted him without glasses and drank his health. He did not come over immediately. In fact, we’d gone upstairs, showered, and come down again and were in the bar/restaurant area adjoining the pool area when he came over. And he made no bones about his interest in Lucy. By ordinary American standards it would have been embarrassing, I contend. Less than three minutes of perfunctory questions during which time he ascertained the usual details of nationality, occupations, relationships, he began straight at Lucy and his own interest in coming to the U.S., his need for contacts and all sorts of things. The man was clearly nobody’s fool, he was good at it. And I know that he caught something in Lucy’s eye, that invisible something  . . .  ‘interest’ you might call it for lack of a more suitable word. She was clearly flattered by his attentions and that almost invisible dropping of guard that often follows. As I like to say, like the zebra in the herd of tens of thousands who has a limp or infirmity that is almost naked to the ordinary eye. But not to the lioness. With uncanny perception it can find the one animal with the slightest disadvantage/weakness. And so on. This guy knew, he got the scent just standing slightly downhill. And man, he knew no social bounds.

I can just hear Lucy laughing and arguing and getting irritated if she had to hear this to her face. What an imagination she would say! And that in itself would tell a tale. I would stake my life on my perceptions. It was a bit like the Sammy situation, only this guy was not only humorless, but deadly serious. Well, I figured on being about half European myself and decided on a European answer to the situation—the American one would have been to either tell him to piss off, thump him on the spot, if he didn’t, or gather the lady gently by the arm and move away. I asked him if he wasn’t sure he didn’t want me to leave because clearly he seemed to have something very personal he wanted to say to the young lady. A slightly less deadly but more sophisticated chap would have stepped away then. But he merely said ‘no’ and kept at it . . . talking as if I weren’t there. He told her how much he wanted her. I interrupted again. “I think you’d really like to take her upstairs and have it off, wouldn’t you?” I said, almost a little incredulous myself. He seemed a little surprised at my directness but only for a split second. Still a little surprised, he looked at me and said “You would give your permission?” I looked at Lucy this guy was too much. “I don’t think it’s mine to give, is it?” Lucy dismissed us both with something like ‘don’t be silly’ and the conversation took on a suddenly less heavy breathing tone as he plowed on about needing to have someone in the U.S. to sponsor him, etc. In the end these two swapped addresses!

I am also 100% convinced that if this guy had met us on, say, day 2 of our trip, our love affair would have ended on June 17, not when it did. I would have been ‘set up’ by his persistence and her refusal not to abruptly cut him off but to enjoy his attentiveness. I would have taken the next plane to London, without a doubt. Fortunately, as the case was, we had less than 24 hours left and Jan, or whatever his name was, left us for that brief period. But I hurt deeply with the knowledge of what clearly, to me, would have or could have happened.

On our last night in Morocco we joined out travel group and went out to a ranch about 17 miles outside of Tangiers for an evening of music, wine, & barbecue. Everything was going fine, it was a pleasant farewell evening. But then it happened. I get on line for the chicken and this over-zealous waiter’s shoulder hit a large ornamental tree trunk on which a small lamp had been set. It tipped over and fell. On my left foot. The tree trunk weighed about 400 pounds . . . and I was only sandal-shod. Even at that, the ground below being sand, my toes simply went down into the soft ground. But the buckle over the second little toe went down as well, and broke the toe. At first I thought I could make it through the evening. But then the swelling started . . . and the pain commenced. And it was painful indeed. And I felt such a fool. In the end the photographer took Lucy and I back to Tangiers and the hotel in his car. I still recall it all with great embarrassment.

If Lucy only knew . . . I was hurting from two things at the same time. I felt the decay and ruination of everything I had wanted. I only wanted her love . . . they could cut the damn toe off! I’m not saying she was not solicitous, she was indeed. One fact. Weird as she thought my request was, she did agree to make love—and me with my left foot in the air! I paid her kindness back by walking the two miles to the Casbah (we couldn’t get a cab to save our lives that morning!) and spending another hour-and-a-half picking up all the items we thought we’d leave until the last day. Instead, that last day we made two trips to the Casbah and bought every single item that we wanted—using up just about our very last cent. On the surface—and in many ways—it was a wonderful trip and I knew we’d both love to do it again.

We landed at Luton at nearly midnight, were delighted that the old Jag started up right away, pleased that my painful foot could still manage the clutch pedal . . . and got home to Cambridge about 3:30 in the morning, exhausted but full of loot. That early Thursday was the 23rd of June . . . one week and we’d be off for Pamplona.

Dreary England soon dragged on Lucy again. We went down to see Clive in London on Friday. We met him in a wine bar in the West End with his new housemate, the soap opera star Alan Browning. Alan was going to Pamplona with him . . . they were going to fly down. Lucy and Clive took to each other immediately. We really had quite a bit of wine that lunch-time. Clive gave Lucy a nice Coronation Crown (coin) and we parted looking very much forward to rendezvousing in Spain.

I can’t remember all we did in Cambridge that last week. We did take the girls to the Midsummer Fair . . . but again the weather plagued us every day. I do, however, remember one more bad day. I guess it began with me caressing Lucy around 9 am. It might sound like I was making excuses if I try to recall what kind of day I’d had before and thus whether it was in need of assurances. I was. I guess there’s always that element. But clearly, the days in Cambridge were a strain for both of us. Anyway, Lucy wasn’t having any of it—and she was snapping and bitter. She was offended, insulted even . . . to her it was just getting prodded by a penis and she found it demeaning. But, naturally, I was hurt. But even then I was going to let it pass. I had, however, to go out to Pampisford to return the lawnmower and the vacuum I had borrowed, and to see the girls. Jessie was nearly hysterical when it came time for me to leave. And, although I knew that Lucy was enjoying an excellent, and rare, morning of sunbathing, I was anxious to return because I was sensitive to her being hurt by a too-lengthy absence at Pampisford. But I had to take the extra time to walk with Jessy down to the Rec Ground to reassure her of my love and non-desertion.

Lucy, Part II of III

In this second installment of his affair with the 22-year-old Lucy, my father mentions inserting a copy of the letter he received from her—the only letter he supposedly received before her arrival. The letter has never been found among his papers.

Well, eight months and a broken heart can produce a fuzzy memory; but Lucy and I did see quite a bit of each other during those last two weeks of April, and we did make plans. I can remember several meetings and matings in my office on the main campus. It was so delicious because our mutual feelings turned a potentially sordid situation into a delicious and exciting experience.

It is so terribly tempting to let hindsight infect my account of what happened. So easy to interject that now I see it as two very different experiences for each of us. I tried to hold myself—or rather my galloping enthusiasm in check. I had to, after all, make plans. In general, it all seemed quite clear: I would have Highworth Avenue just as soon as I arrived in England. Arriving mid-day on Sunday I could have the house in at least a livable condition if Lucy were to come as early as the following Thursday, which was possible. I couldn’t envision that Lucy, feeling as she seemed to (and as I did), would want to delay our being together any more than absolutely necessary to make things smooth for the other parties involved (our two families, as it were).

So, somewhere in that first week after, during our meetings, two big factors loomed. The first was her promise to go through the graduation exercises which were not until 27 May! Fifteen more days than if she came on the following Thursday. Half a month: it certainly was too long for me and, so I thought, would prove too long for her. I mean I could understand her sense of filial duty and all. At one point I proposed paying for an extra round trip so she could return to go through the ceremony! I reluctantly agreed to her coming after the 27th . . . but I also warned her that, since she wouldn’t see me after early Friday the 5th, she might find herself changing her mind by the following Wednesday and coming the next day after all. I stupidly began to emotionally rely on that, for I knew that is how it would be had our positions been reversed. But I put it aside for all the other plans and wrote off to Roland Spicer to get straight on with working at getting Highworth Avenue livable just as soon as that dumb Neanderthal moved out; we had no time to lose.

The second factor did not actually loom too large mostly because I didn’t let it. This was Lucy’s comment that she was making no commitment for the fall. When I started discussing the fall, she said that she would not move in with me. Having spent nearly all her years up to then living at home, she was looking forward to having her own job, her own place, her own car, in short, her independence, her freedom which she felt she had at last earned. Well, it was not a subject that I could see, right then and there. We should go into it, thought I, with the idea that everything could change even halfway through the summer.

I was concerned, and I told her so, about her choosing to work, rather than go to Wharton grad school in business. Anyway, I told her, well, I really was quite happy merely to have her with me for the summer and that the fall, one way or another, would take care of itself. And here I must say that I really did mean what I said . . . There is nothing mutually exclusive between wanting her by my side forever and being willing to accept the limited offer of a summer together. One can always hope. Clearly, the factor of emotional fidelity over the summer was something one would have thought—see how retrospective writing can infect the story!—one could have taken for granted.

I’m sure now that Lucy was the first to realize what turned out to be the crux of the whole affair: that it is difficult, if not outright impossible, to go wholly and rightly into an affair if you know in advance that it will end on a specific date. In the end, but before the actual end, we came to feel that we could have a great summer despite the fact that it would have to end in the fall. I had no misgivings whatever, but that was principally because I never believed it would end in the fall, if we spent the whole summer together.

She, as it turned out, knew that there was no way it would continue after August. It was certain and unswerving . . . and as sure as the fact that she did not love me . . . never did. But I did not know this . . . nor would I have ever wanted to know this. My decisions would have been very different. Doubts I might be reluctantly willing to assign to her; but that she possessed near certainty would have scared the hell out of me. And ‘scared’ really is the appropriate word. To have literally handed my heart and soul to someone who could literally ‘know’ they were going to walk away even, as it were, in the very act of making love with me, well, I find that frightening: it is, as I see it, a confrontation with true immorality.

As respectful as I am of a true Machiavellian, it is respect at a distance . . . the healthy respect that is equally accompanied by a feeling that one is happily at a distance and not involved personally. But face to face, with one’s own heart, mind, or well-being involved—no way. Run! But, I saw it too late . . . and now part of my life is gone forever and I will never be the same. And I have not only lost a part of myself, but an innocent giving of self that I will never recover. I have seen it starkly in evidence in terms of my subsequent relationship with Alexis.

When Lucy and I parted on 5 May, I told her I would call her on Tuesday: I thought by then she might truly be persuaded to come then. I had taken her down to TWA and bought her an open ticket, and she had her passport in hand, so that there was literally nothing to stop her. Since I thought she needed the added psychological incentive, I told her I would even arrange to have her best friend fly over with her for Stanley. I left believing that there was at least an even chance that Lucy would come some 4 days later. And brother did I go to work accordingly! Tuesday evening late I called Lucy from Stan’s boathouse. Stan was not that amenable to paying for Mary Ann, Lucy’s friend, but he would have done it for me, had I asked him. But it was hardly a viable point, because Lucy was not going to come before her graduation it was now clear. Then too, Lucy had, before I left, mentioned that her father liked to take the long Memorial Day Weekend for a family trip but had never succeeded in getting more than 4 out of 8 family members to go on it. And Lucy feared that this might be the last year in which they could conceivably do that; and I think she wanted to give her father the present of her company for that weekend as well. That meant her coming as late as June 1st. However, the way I assumed we both felt when I left was that, if she did make the concession over the graduation ceremony, I would at least get her by that Saturday weekend, as opposed to the Tuesday or Wednesday following. However, it was only May 9th or 10th, so the subject didn’t come up that night.

I went on, bouncily shopping for paint, wallpaper, prints, furniture, all manner of things to set up house and enjoyed every blissful minute of it. My true love was coming.

But my true love wasn’t writing.

One week passed, no letter. I called; she was writing, she said. Two weeks, no letter. I called again. In fact, I called three times before I received her one and only letter. Later on it would be a sore point with me that she could write Carl, her ex-boyfriend, at least twice, and about 6 times to her newest lover! A comparison, I’m sure, she never made herself. My calls must have sounded worried, insistent, and a little insecure. And they turned her off. She even said so. And then that letter came. What a blow! Right in the pit of my stomach. It turned, it churned. I went inside out.

Little did I know that this would be the first of 5 great blows, each of seemingly greater nauseating intensity. Even now I cannot bring myself to write it out, or even read it, I will simply append a xerox copy and let it go for that. The reader can see for him/herself without me having to suffer through another reading/feeling of it.

I called; a stupid, slobbering, emotion laden, hurting call which any objective idiot could have known would not have had any desirable effect. Half a day later, when I cooled down a little, I was able to write a slightly better letter. But it was a hokey letter simply because I didn’t mean a word of it. Sure I was cool . . . I told her I wanted her, but if she was going to screw it up, forget it. But I wanted her so badly that the ‘cool’ strategy, the ‘stance’ was pure sham. Sending her the Footlights tickets was an empty gesture. But she came. She had, in essence, exacted from me a promise of attitude that, well, I genuinely believed I could live with. It was little different from before in that it was now up front. It was that it would be for the summer only. Fine. But I thought I would at least get her wholehearted commitment, even were it only for that limited time period.

It is now coldly clear to me: there is no way you can get any serious or worthwhile commitment from a person who can coldly and clearly see the end of the affair at its very beginning. It is impossible. She was kidding herself if she thought she could do it. Of course, she never did and that is the immoral irony of it all and that, by the way, is why I must now reluctantly agree with my friends no matter how much I love her still that I was ‘used’ grossly by her and I was kidding myself if I honestly expected that she could. I honestly thought she couldn’t either, but I erred by expecting that her failing would come in the form of realizing how much she really cared for me after all!

I can remember the evening I told Beverly that Lucy was coming. You know, in 10 1/2 years of marriage I never exacted any real retaliation for the things that Beverly coldheartedly and intentionally did to me. But that early evening I finally did. It was a blow delivered right between the eyes. And I am ashamed that, for a few fleeting moments I savored it, relished it, luxuriated in it. She had, nearly two years before screamed at me . . . ‘why didn’t I divorce her?’ ‘Why didn’t I leave her?’ and I screamed back because I had nowhere to go and no one to go to. And so it came out . . . she led right into it . . . and I took my cue and delivered my crushing blow: Do you remember your once asking me why I didn’t leave you? And do you remember my telling you it was because I had nowhere to go and no one to go to? Well, Lucy’s coming tomorrow morning. Now I have somewhere to go and someone to go to . . . and I’m leaving. You can call who you want, whenever you want, but you can’t stop it from happening. So long, and thanks for nothing.’ Dramatic, yes; cruel, yes; but also a little satisfying considering the crap that had accumulated all over and around me in the previous 4-5 years. It was almost worth it.

Naturally, I didn’t sleep that night. The flight was due in at 7:35 a.m., and I got to the airport at 6 a.m.! Now I was certain that Lucy was on the flight. It was Tuesday, 7 June, Jubilee day, and 2 days before Lucy’s 22nd birthday—the last day she was eligible to fly at youth rate and thus the latest day she could come and still save the money. Clearly my mind did play on the lots of possibilities that would not have put her on the plane . . . and it was sweet torture to have to wait outside the customs barrier as seemingly so many passengers passed out without her in sight. But she was there . . . and so was I with my nice little Jaguar and a nice day for a drive through rural England.

I had made my mind up that I would not bring up the subject of the future, nor would I play upon her failure to come any sooner, her failing to write but one letter, her offer to not come, etc. I knew that she would probably try to say something . . . but I was absolutely determined that, two hour and a quarter drive notwithstanding, we would say nothing on it until after we’d made love. I think she at least agreed with that; she did bring up some of those subjects, but I put them aside with that admonition, and we went no further. It made her momentarily more comfortable. But I was very much aware that there was much she had to say. That bothered me, but I was determined to be totally happy. Look what price I had paid! Jennifer and Jessica were to be in the village Jubilee Celebration and parade at 10:30 that morning and here I had just walked out on them and their mother! I was not in the greatest emotional state that day.

Anyway, Lucy and I made love that morning as she went to bed for a rest. I was so sensitive to Lucy that it tore me to bring up the fact that I should go out to Pampisford to photograph the girls in their triumphant Jubilee Day parade and celebration. It was a terribly cold and overcast day, with a hint of rain in the air. Only after a while and with great reluctance did Jenny agree to put on her fawn mac, she just couldn’t bear to hide her period costume. Jessy, as always, was less flappable, and she joined her day school teacher and class on the truck float that was to carry them through the village as the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe. I took lots of snaps and a bit of film footage. Beverly hardly said a word; I don’t think Lucy was even mentioned, except to ascertain for sure that she’d arrived as planned.

Lucy was still asleep when I returned to the house a little after 1 p.m. I was pleased that she seemed so ‘at home’ snuggled up in that somewhat shoddy double bed that Odera had left behind. I think we went to the Fort St. George that night, Lucy wearing her Fort T Shirt under her yellow windbreaker. She had gotten quite tanned in the States since I’d last seen her and she not only filled out the shirt quite well, but she contrasted against its white deliciously. I knew she’d make a big hit. And I knew that my friends would appreciate that my wait was well worth all the mooning around and ribbing I had been taking as I admitted to each of Lucy’s prior delays in coming over. Lucy liked the crowd, and it was quite a decent one at that: Jo Hatfield, from Abbott’s travel, and her husband were there, plus all the usual Fort crowd . . . even Rudy the Swiss, who later became my boon companion for the last half of the summer, and Phil Gosling, were there. It was a grand and comfortable evening and I was quite happy.

On Wednesday we did the tour of the town, but Lucy was showing her first signs of depression at the rather foul but not altogether untypical English weather. We did the colleges, and Lucy caught sight of her first church brass, the l9th century one, in Trinity College Chapel. We did a little shopping, bought film and musical tapes. I think we had dinner at Don Pasquale’s that night, also stopped by the Spread Eagle. That, as I remember, made Lucy a little uncomfortable as this was Bev’s local one night a week. Even though there were one or two people who knew me a number of years before I married Bev, it was one of these, on a subsequent night Dickie Webdell who had been my tenant as far back as 1960, who had to have a fatherly chat with me. We had but one drink and we pushed on. I remember that we were also anxiously looking to rendezvous with Stanley who Lucy was looking forward to meeting, but whom we’d not seen as yet.

Thursday was Lucy’s 22nd birthday and I felt I wanted to make it especially nice because I could feel that she was sensitive to not only her physical dislocation but more psychological factors as well. I went by, as previously arranged, and picked up the girls. It was another cold and bleak day, again with hints of rain. Lucy felt awkward as I parked the car outside Pampisford to fetch the girls. Bev didn’t know that Lucy was in the car, it not being clearly visible from the house and Lucy having slightly hunched down reading a magazine or booklet on brass rubbing. Anyway, the girls met Lucy for the first time, and all seemed to be going well. We pushed off for the church at Little Shelford where there is a lovely brass of a medieval couple holding hands only about 3 feet high. I had told Lucy it was one of my favorites, not very far away, and a good one to begin her brass-rubbing career with. So enthralled with her initial success was she that we stopped to book Sir Roger of Trumpington on the way home later that day.

Once we had Lucy underway and instructed in basics, the girls and I headed out to find the makings for a surprise birthday party for Lucy. It was not that easy, Thursday being the local early closing day. But we did find a small shop and got an 8 inch square chocolate cake, some tinned soft drinks, plastic forks and party napkins. The Shelford brasses finished, we held our party in the Jaguar. Fortunately it was big and roomy and the girls had the little pull down trays back of the front seats. As the rain pattered down we had a lovely cosy party, which I know Lucy will never forget. I know I felt so very happy then: everything I loved before me even the rainy and bleak Cambridge seemed to lend itself to the mellow mood it evinced in me. But the mellowness was not to last very long.

That evening Lucy and I rendezvoused with Sammy and Maureen Singh at the White Horse in Milton. We had several rounds there and talked about what we were going to do. We thought we’d take one side trip before leaving for Pamplona. We wouldn’t leave for the fiesta until 30 June earliest, three possibly very rainy weeks away. Lucy was getting itchy. Clearly, we’d have to pop into Abbott’s to see what one week holidays were available.

Anyway, we had a nice time with Sammy and Mo and soon ‘time’ was called at the pub and we drove them home. As Sammy was leaving the car, he turned to me and said, in a half whisper, “Don’t go way, stay here a minute” as he took Maureen into the house. A minute later he was back, but he surprised me by circling round the car and jumping in the back. “Let’s go, man,” said Sam, “before Mo changes her mind.” Sammy was going to continue the evening by drinking with us at Don’s on the market square. Well, I enjoyed Sammy’s company a good friend and mate for over 15 years.

There weren’t all that many people at the Don’s that night. Giuseppe was bartending, Don was there, so was his brother, and his partner. But it was just Sam and Lucy and I at the little bar, drinking Rum & Cokes. By l a.m., after at least the third round, but possibly the fourth, I was tired and ready to call it a night. But Sammy and Lucy were very into each other, having a helluva good time. I turned down participation in the next round, a not very subtle hint that I’d had it. Sammy disparaged my gesture, over insisted and the two of them went into another round. Over sensitive and insecure, I felt a little wounded. I wondered how far Sammy would go. We’d had at least three longish heart to heart talks before Lucy arrived; wherein I not only extolled her virtues, but fairly dramatically conveyed the depth of my feelings to Sam in the early hours of a couple of weekends. So Sammy knew. But there he was, charming the pants off her just like any other beautiful bimbo who crossed his trail. The absence of further alcohol in my body only brought the fatigue on sooner. But Sammy and Lucy went for yet another round. And then Sammy went into his almost traditional routine wherein I was set apart as the party pooper, spoil sport, old man, etc. It seemed I had to either flaccidly admit it or vehemently deny it. I just got angry.

As I mentioned, I’d known Sammy for 15 years. When it comes to women he has no morality whatsoever, not even a twinge of ethics. Sure, we have both long since taken the position that NEVER will we allow a woman to stand between us or affect our relationship in any way buddies to the end and no woman is worth the price of a longstanding friendship between two worthy men. But that is easy for Sammy; he was the sociosexual powerhouse, always winning the birds, and my role was the chap who had to say ‘no hard feelings’. And Sammy played it to the hilt.

Back in 1963, he not only took a drunken sweetheart of mine up to MY OWN BEDROOM to make love to her; but when I had the audacity to bang on my own door and Sammy opened it a few inches, he had the chutzpah to ask me if I could lend him a rubber! So, I knew Sam alright, bright and cunning, and too attractive. He knew full well what he was doing. Unforgivingly stupid, I let my emotions play me right into his hands, and he played social handball with me, finally chucking my cool over the backwall fence.

Lucy was pissed at me for being such a drag and getting uptight over sweet, charming, innocent Sammy! I KNOW that if we were in Philadelphia that Lucy and Sam would have found a way to spin me off, carry on drinking somewhere else, and, even though she will probably steadfastly deny it, eventually succumb to Sammy in bed. What a thought to be thinking . . . and Lucy only two days at my side. But the greatest frustration is not only in the having such a mind-breaking thought but feeling it had a real foundation! In other words, how much was due to stabs of personal insecurity and how much over realization of a true situation. It doesn’t matter, does it? I think I knew then that we wouldn’t be going to a May Ball. I could have had tickets at an extravagant price, but my spirit had been sapped, and the ball was five days away.

I retrieved myself a little at the close of that evening. As the three of us headed towards the house at Milton Road, outside of which Sammy had parked his own car, there was a police road block looking for people as drunk as we were. We were pulled over, and I could see that the officer with the flashlight had a partner with a clipboard and several of those breathalyzers dangling from it. After 20 years of unremitting intoxication on the roads of Great Britain my number, it appeared clearly, was finally coming up. Sam quickly rolled down his window, as I did mine, to clear the air inside the car it was enough to explode in the presence of a lighted match. But I remained cool, calm, and imperturbable partly due to my still shitty attitudinal shape over Lucy. And, by God, I answered all the tricky questions right down the line. We chit-chatted to a conclusion and he passed me along down Milton Road. Sammy was beside himself with disbelief, and for the next 5 minutes until we got back to the house, he praised and amazed over my performance and luck!

Sam went home, but Lucy and I had a little scene. That was, in fact, even more frustrating because I felt so strongly for her and I didn’t want to alienate her at so early a stage, that I laid the blame wholly at Sammy’s doorstep. Now, in terms of the bulk of the blame, or what one might call ‘active participation’, Sammy does carry the burden; but while that was a necessary element, it was not sufficient Lucy’s enjoyment of the flirtation, her insensitivity to my tiredness which clearly was also related to a difficult 48 hours She hadn’t seen me pick up and drop the kids at Pampisford, see their begging and tears, see Beverly’s ranting and hissing of future revenge, to be aware of the trying times I was going through and so much of it dedicated to sparing her of uneasiness daily. She, consciously or unconsciously—doesn’t make a damned bit of difference to me!—encouraged him. Never mind, I don’t even like the upward visceral feelings that I feel right now just recalling it all!

Friday we did more brass rubbing. Lucy was getting freaked out on it. Were it not for the cold and the rain and the clouds I think she could have easily roamed Britain rubbing the brasses. She loved it! That night we went to the Footlights, the first real event of May Week. It was good, as they say, but not great. Lucy enjoyed it . . . it was a nice part of everything. I think it was not until Saturday that we finally caught up with Stanley. He had come by the house. I think they liked each other. We didn’t go anywhere as Stanley was just stopping by on the way home. I got the feeling that Fraucke wasn’t encouraging Stanley’s socializing with us out of a sense of loyalty to Beverly.

Saturday we stopped in at Abbott’s and got the literature on various one week holidays. Lucy was very keen on Morocco, where I had been two years before. I said I’d rather go someplace that was similar, but where I’d not been before. Anyway, we took the various literature and went home.