In the Shadow of the American Dream (13 page)

I GOT LIVIN' ON MY SIDE

(lyrics—work in progress)

I got livin' on my side

but it don't buy me a place to sleep

not a place to lay my body (head)

don't buy me food to eat

it don't buy me no wheels

it don't buy me ma pills

it don't buy me heaven

it only buy me hell

it only buy me hell

it don't buy me no meals

only what I go out and steal

unless I go on out and steal

whatever I go out and steal

dreams come fast in the summertime

but baby it's goin' on winter soon

I broke as a hanged bandit

like kickin' a rock in the river

it ain't ever comin' back no more

got living on my side

but it don't buy me a set a wheels

don't buy me my pills

only what I go out and steal

oh time time time got your shoulder

leaving me nothin' to cry on

I got livin' on my side

but it don't gimme someone to lie on

it's so easy with whiskey whiskey

so easy with amphetameenze

my rooms so cheap it ain't got windows

makes it hard to figure out my dreams

in the town square they talk like dogs

up in the offices they grunt like hogs

it never really is what ya figure it'll be

unless ya figure out the drunken key

unless ya got a copy of the sideshow key

March 18–June 1, 1979

New York or Ocean

Journal de L'Homme Ordinaire—

Journal of the Ordinary Man

April 11, 1979 (Wednesday)

Looking through this sparse journal dated from mars 18, I see so little in the way of internal mapping. Most is external as usual in all the journals, the internal is stuff that isn't threatening/embarrassing. Well, have to stop this, the words
cryptic
and
symbolist
on page 16 of this journal were referring to my meeting a young Englishman my own age in the jardin des Tuileries. What was extremely funny (not in hilarious sense but in amusing coincidental realizations) was that this mirrored my last days in New York before arriving here. I brought the fellow home and we made love and afterwards talked about getting together again, he suggesting that I come for dinner on Tuesday the tenth. In lying together among the tangled sheets we talked while I smoked a cigarette and dreamed towards the white ceiling watching the smoke whirl through the sunlight. I felt somewhat relieved in going to bed with another person other than Jean-Pierre especially in light of the fact I am leaving, it was sort of a removal point, difficult to deal with my leaving him and also there was some sort of breakthrough in lying down with a boy of my own age. Most of my growing up since my first sexual experience with a man has been in the arms of older men, men in their thirties and forties, not so much that I desire older men for age but for their grasp on life, the settling down inside of themselves, some kind of calm and reassurance and proof of life; dunno how to make this clear as I've never pondered it much except in odd moments and now as I grow older I desire younger and younger men though I don't usually sleep with anyone younger than me and rarely someone my own age or even close mostly because of their awkwardness and my desire to relate to someone who has a lot more thinking and reflecting behind him. It also occurred to me that possibly I have always slept with older men because of some kind of inherent security, that the age difference separates me from them to an extent, thereby giving me a sense that I can say what I want and if it's not accepted by them I can always attribute this to their position in time and aging; this is not to be unfair to myself, it's just a slight possibility and I don't know if it is invented or real. There is something a bit frightening to me about relationships with someone my own age in way of lovemaking, etc., but now with this Englishman I felt relieved of any thoughts concerning the whole subject; it no longer exists with the intensity it once did. I even felt an infatuation with him after he left, similar to meeting Phillip while involved with Randy, with Phillip it drove me against the wall that I was leaving after meeting such a down-to-earth guy, him and his childhood Stetson camping out in the rolling hills of Montana … that kind of suburban innocence hmm … so the problem was in explaining to Jean-Pierre that I wanted to go to dinner and possibly we would have sex, me and this English guy (Alan). It took several days to work up to the subject; in the meantime I was alternating between feelings of possibly being very wrong considering that I was involved with J.P. for this long and that it might hurt him if I was to do so. Then came senses of myself as a human being who needed freedom to do exactly what he desired in way of contact, sexual or otherwise … I always am consumed in this sense that I should be able to move where and when I desire; I wouldn't give up my relationship with J.P. for another person in the way of commitment, just need to explore things as they move my way … images of floating from room to room and bed to bed and country to country and time to time … just moving as chance brings me and at the same time being involved with one person who I feel comfortable with for a period of time, someone I can relax and be myself, allow any thoughts changes, etc., to come forth.

Okay I told Jean-Pierre and he said, You must feel free to do as you wish.

Fine, now days later last night I left for Alan's house and stopped by J.P.'s job to give him the keys to the apartment and standing there I asked him if he truly understood, I was worried he might not, that I did love him and yet this was necessary. He said, This isn't the time to talk about it. I left through the driving rain and caught a metro to St. Lazare station and found Alan's house after much walking around and searching streets for the right avenue. He lives upstairs on the seventh floor of an old building with courtyard, student sorts of rooms, creaking staircases and dank hallways and dripping pipes, recalling the roach havens I lived in on the Lower East Side near Bowery mission—whines and howls of babies and dogs. Heard the sound of a radio program from the BBC down the dark hallways and followed it to his door, he was bent over with a pair of red rubber gloves on, cuttin' up celery and apples for our meal. I went inside and he struggled with one glove, pulled it off and extended his hand for a shake. I sat down in the room at the table, a wobbly chair. It was a small room, very small with old crumb-littered rug disappearing beneath a tiny cot, the roof/ceiling sloped down at a sharp angle and a tiny skylight with one broken pane opened out so that if you stood up your head would go through and peer out over rainy gray Paris roofs. A nudie calendar with some Swedish blonde woman with taut nipples breasts and sitting against a cheesy backdrop was on one wall, chestnut branches in bloom pushing from an old juice bottle filled with scummy green water and a sink that didn't work. We listened to the news for a half hour while he cut the vegetables and fruit and poured out nuts over them; vegetarian he is. Okay so during dinner we talked of mundane things, somehow just no click of personalities, I realized my infatuation and then the senses slid away. He's an amiable guy, seems to know a lot more about American media culture than I do, which is okay granted I never watch the tube at home and don't really care a bit for any of it. He told me of this girl he knew: She was born of a rich family who were all communists, her brothers became lawyers and defended many students during the May Day clash aftermath, she became a nun and after some time realized that wasn't quite what she needed in her life, her parents died and left her a château in the south of France, she created a triangle between France America and some other country, riding about on jets and fucking everywhere, she liked to be tied into chairs and roughed up a bit not beaten badly but slight sadism, more the desire for the threat of it following with wild lovemaking than the actual beatings. She soon created the triangle involving Canada rather than the States as she had met an American who beat her quite badly, I asked her, Why Canada I mean I thought you went in for roughhousing. She replied, Those Americans are too bloody literal. Now she has retired to the chateau and raises a large garden. I went to her house; her family was always a bit eccentric and didn't go in for furniture of any sort, so in going to her chateau one must sit on the floor, eat on the floor, and watch television on the floor, no rugs or such so that these enormous slugs would go trailing their slime all over the floors of the house, she would say, Oh my, look at that one, aren't they marvelous creatures?

At one point I wanted to leave quite badly, the place was great but I was feeling slightly claustrophobic for as we got into bed it was so extremely small that I could not move an inch without falling out. Rain tapping on my head through the broken skylight and some alley or roof cat yowling away like a banshee out in the night … We made love and talked in the dark, I tried fucking him but he had difficulty in doing so, so we masturbated together. Of course in all this time I did not forget J.P. in fact I thought of him each hour, each hour wishing I hadn't said I'd spend the night, wanting to rise up put on my jeans and split and head home through the dark streets and take a shower and climb into bed with Jean. He asked me if I liked threesomes and I said my two experiences with them were awfully awkward and therefore not enjoyable, no way to move naturally among two other bodies, always elbows in the face or knees in the balls, that sort of thing. He suggested possibly he call a friend some other time and all of us get it on. I murmured a noncommittal answer. It's extremely easy to find the reasons for not wanting to be involved with a person; but that sort of thing isn't necessary for me, if I feel uncomfortable by way of a relationship with a guy I simply don't get into it further than it's gone. I realized the extent of my infatuation and fluctuated between feelings of being a fool for not staying home that night, or at least
not
staying the
night
here at Alan's. I still feel he's a nice guy but I am leaving and I do want to spend my time with Jean-Pierre and Brian when he arrives. Besides, what I felt was possible between Alan and me was a good communication with humor and illumination—not so. We are too far apart culturally and in our vision/scope of life itself, he being content to talk about media scenes, me wanting to talk about life. More important, me wanting to learn about my senses more, feel more comfortable with my leanings and travel movements

Woke up at six o'clock and in the gray light got dressed and kissed him good-bye and descended the rattling stairs to the courtyard, through the heavy doors to the street, ogres of concierges leaning over ground-floor sills with puffed alcoholic faces leering toothless grins in my direction as I walked down the street, up in the sky huge black blankets of rolling clouds passing over roofs and in the far east a billowing line of gold breathing light, of sunrise spectacular and life-filled and I hurried home to St. Georges, stopping for a croissant for J.P. and thinking of him being up by now shaving with his customary sink of cold water and hard razor blade, the dog yapping for its breakfast and the look upon opening the door between our eyes, I passed loads of stupid cops as usual in the doorways and streets all peering about with dead glazed eyes for action, went upstairs opened the door, J.P. was nude in the bathroom before the mirror with shaving cream on his face and a line of blood trickling among the white, he's cut himself again, I always tell him to use warm water but we exchanged ça va's and I sat down at the kitchen table with a cup of steaming coffee and sighed. He came out a bit later and sat down acting as if there was nothing happening between us; me filled with all these wondering senses of what he thinks and feels about last night my not returning home. As for the north shore it seems he's no longer going to go for three days but will make it the week and wants to be alone for a few days by himself up there, thus I would return myself by train with the dog. I realize now the change in plans and of course why; needless to reiterate here … So I guess I'll stay here alone all week and he can spend all the time at the shore by himself, I resist senses of being made to split at some time for someone else's solitude, though all this time his only vacation aside from August being next week, somehow I feel sensitive to his asking for the time alone meaning away from me. Again it's understood but I would feel better not going at all than to have to pick up my things and take a train back alone … I guess it's the move of
having
to leave,
being
the object of intrusion … Many things for me to do here, to complete or prepare for leaving, some writings I want to finish, also the call expected from Brian. Again today, all this morning I've thought about J.P. and Brian and past and present relationships and realize I have to stress to any and all persons I become involved with that I must be able to do what I wish, it is my life and my senses and it can be called selfishness, but I absolutely have never been able to put myself in a position where I deny chance and other ways of movement, whether over distances and landscapes or in lovemaking. It's the settling down that is so difficult; choosing one form excludes all others, the only answer is not choosing at all but merely moving under one's own will; this is something that angers many people, that many people find faulty and that many people say is an avoidance of responsibility; maybe so but then again I am alive and I am continually distracted by movements around me and alternative things, continually looking searching for traces of my life and others amongst the landscapes.