Salugi
at Starbucks
I sat next to him in Mr. Illivicky's Problems in American Democracy class in high school. We were both graduating seniors, but I hadn't met him before, as I had transferred to Midwood only the past fall. As part of the course, we had a weekly afternoon internship at the Manhattan office of Senator Robert Kennedy. Our supervisor there was a young black man named Earl Graves, who years later went on to found Black Enterprise magazine and today is one of the richest African-Americans in the country. It was the spring of 1968 then. While Elihu and I and our classmates dealt with constituent requests regarding potholes, immigration problems, and difficulties with local draft boards, problems in American democracy included the raging antiwar demonstrations following the Viet Cong's Tet offensive; the capture of the U.S.S. Pueblo by North Korea; the withdrawal of an incumbent President as a candidate for re-election; the race riots that followed the killing of Martin Luther King Jr.; and finally, in June, two weeks before graduation, Bobby Kennedy getting himself assassinated on the night he won the California primary. If there had been a senior prom that year, neither Elihu or I would have attended. The first thing you'd notice about him, of course, were the things on his face and his hands, and on the rare occasions when he wore short sleeves, the things on his forearms. It was only when we were in college, and from other people, that I learned what they were, and even now I'm not really sure I remember: only that they were the same disease that the Elephant Man had, and that Elihu was born that way, with those weird moles and odd-looking plastic-like patches and strange spots. Naturally I stopped seeing those imperfections long ago. A friend of mine, who didn't meet Elihu until she moved into his building in 1997, said that his deformities explained everything that happened with Elihu and Bud. I resist that interpretation, perhaps because I don't want my own deformities -- none of them visible -- to explain everything that's gone wrong in my life.
Date: Tue, 4 Apr 1995 20:33:28 -0400 From: [email protected] Subject: Re: Stuff anew Kevin - No complaints here. I've been working hard (at least in comparison with my usual mostly non-working work hours), but I don't care - the day passes quicker. I'm just so concentrated and excited. Nothing certain yet, but Bud had an interview yesterday in Atlanta for the Essex house here in New York. He's one of only four candidates. The interview consisted of written questions, a personal interview, and a "bake off" - each candidate separately had to prepare an item of the committee's choosing. Bud had to make a chocolate mousse (sp?) and to be creative. He flavored it with freshly squeezed orange extract and topped it with coffee-flavored whipped cream. I think he got the job (and I thought McGovern would win - I'm led to believe in my own biases). But if this isn't the job, then it will be the next one or the next, but it will be. Also spoke to my folks over the weekend. Somehow over all these years, I never officially "came out" to them. It was a big non-event. "Are you happy?" "Are you healthy?" "Do you want UCLA or Arkansas in the final game?" "Do you want to stay for bagels?" Gave my nephew my Superman comic book collection. All issues of the various titles since 1986, including annuals, mini-series, appearances in other comic books, crossover titles. It "blew his mind" - literally sat there staring off into space, dumbfounded. Just the reaction I had hoped for. After my friend Frank died (he worked at DC), I lost the joy I had found in comics. That voodoo witch in New Orleans was right. During the last year my life has changed dramatically in ways I hadn't expected or planned. Elihu
Although we sat next to each other in Mr. Illivicky's class in the spring of 1968, my schedule at Senator Kennedy's office did not coincide with the days Elihu worked there, and I don't remember talking to him that often. But then I wasn't very friendly with anyone at Midwood, which was the third high school I'd attended. I was too wrapped up in my own problems, which entailed weekly visits to an elderly psychiatrist who treated me in a darkened room filled with African masks. I did envy Elihu the fact that he didn't have to take gym. One time I was complaining about P.E. and he said he'd gotten out of taking it. His condition, I guess. I could understand his not wanting to get undressed in front of other guys. Hell, I'd left one high school mainly because I had to take swimming and they made us swim nude in the pool. (My younger friends are astonished that boys swam without bathing suits in New York City public high schools in the 1960s and smile slyly at the pleasures of looking at others naked.) Midwood was too small to have a swimming pool, and I didn't mind the locker room, except when I had P.E. first period and had to change into a t-shirt and gym shorts at 7 a.m. on icy winter mornings. There was the time I returned after a week's absence and another guy asked why I'd been out and I said, "I was very sick," and he said, "Oh, fairy sick," and a second guy laughed, but that was the extent of my phys ed trauma. It would have been a lot worse for Elihu.
Date: Sun, 9 Apr 1995 22:45:47 -0400 From: [email protected] Subject: Re: Still waiting Kevin - You seem to be putting roots down in the community, getting on this gay rights organization board and everything. Are your wandering days doomed? Actually, you seem pretty happy down there. I'm still waiting to hear from Bud - I've called several times each day/night since Thursday, but no answer. Is no news good news? Bud has telephoningphobia - fear of making phone calls. Vito had the same problem calling people. If Bud got the position at the Essex House (I think it's between Sixth & Seventh off CPS), he would probably write me to let me know! Found porno pictures (excuse me, erotica.male) on the Internet. Also had to download a viewer and a binary decoder to see the pictures. Yet once again, driven by the sexual urge, I have made new discoveries in my continuing search for knowledge. Hopefully more to tell later - Elihu
Back in high school I didn't really know anyone who was, as we now say, sexually active, but then I kept pretty much to myself. If Elihu was in a crowd or clique, I didn't know about it. If I hung out with anyone, it was only with a bunch of losers with whom I ate lunch: a fat Chinese boy whose father owned a nearby laundry and who always wore well-starched dress shirts; an incredibly dull guy who would talk about the most boring aspects of his life (his allergies, his arguments with an aunt) in minute detail -- I didn't shake his friendship until I neglected to send a present in response to an invitation to his second wedding in 1986; a cross-eyed boy with terrible acne who every day predicted (hoped?) that the world would end that evening. The only chance I had to meet some of the more popular kids was in Advanced Drama, and even there, I can recall only one serious couple, a genuinely sweet boy and girl who somehow seemed much older than myself. There was a guy everyone knew was probably homosexual, but he was such a great actor and singer that nobody much cared. Certainly nobody figured he was actually doing anything with other guys. Well, let me qualify that: certainly I didn't imagine that any boys in our high school did that sort of thing. I wasn't even certain any boys did it with girls. That was what 1968 was like for me.
Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 22:33:56 -0400 From: [email protected] Subject: Another week gone by Kevin - Another week has gone by. Tax season is finally done (today). Worked yesterday on Easter Sunday. Big deal. Unfortunately, it was after two late nights at my parents' house for seder. Discovered a new diet - just looking at matzoh makes me lose my appetite. The weight loss comes from a lack of Oreos for Passover. Although I did see a kosher lepesach pizza mix!!! Also have had a head cold/sinus attack since last Thursday. Atlanta - never been there, but it has a great reputation. As long as you don't venture outside the city into Newtterritory. Watching the Weather Channel through the year I've noticed that although Atlanta has the typical summer heat, there seems to be a noticeable winter as well. And if my aunt in Montgomery AL is right, you have to go through Atlanta to get to heaven (you have to go through Atlanta to get to anywhere from Montgomery), so you're a leg up! A cultural focal point of the new South and the home of Coke - that's about all of my stray thoughts on the subject. In the continuing saga of Elihu & Bud - no news to report since I haven't spoken to him since last Monday. Either he's not at home, or he's listening to tapes through earphones and doesn't hear the phone, or he's turning off the phone at night. With the hour's difference, the holidays, and his earlier bedtime (he's up at 3:00-4:00 AM), we haven't connected. When last I heard, he was waiting to hear from the Essex, was turning down the Regency (although I suggested he go on the interview if it would mean a trip to NY), and hadn't heard from others. In my paranoia, I imagine offers from SF, affairs in NO, joining the Foreign Legion - after all, shouldn't he be pining away for me in his apartment, lonely and miserable? He has to tell Antoine's something since his contract there ends in June. Just have to wait it out. My mom informs me she hasn't slept all week since our conversation because she's worrying about my health. Now I recall why it took me so long to tell them I was gay - it wasn't worth the hassle of dealing with their neuroses. Sometimes I think I should go to Bosnia - after all what's a small inferno. At least it's away from everybody here. All's well - just wish I knew how things are going to end up. Back to the dirty pictures on the Internet. I'm still plain old -- Elihu
I took a year off after high school to have a nervous breakdown, and the next time I saw Elihu it was 1970 and I'd gotten involved in student government in college. In the spring I'd applied to be elections commissioner in the student government elections. I even think Elihu might have been on the panel of students who interviewed me for the job, but I'm sure he wasn't the one who asked me how I would handle it if a student politician did what a girl did the year before, hit someone over the head with a bullhorn. My reply, "I guess I would tell her that she had poor impulse control," got laughs, and I got the position. But the student elections scheduled for the second week of May got postponed until fall after the invasion of Cambodia, the Kent State and Jackson State killings, and the nationwide student strike that shut down nearly all the college campuses, including ours. By the time our takeover of Brooklyn College had fizzled into sporadic "liberation classes" as students headed off to the beach or cheap flights to Europe, I had more friends than I ever had in my life. I was friendly with everyone, but basically I fell in with the groups who supported the Mugwump Party, the one that won the postponed elections that fall. Elihu, who was by then a junior, got a position in the student government president's cabinet, as Student Activities Director, or SAD. I became an assistant editor of the student government newspaper and our office was across the hall from Elihu's; overlapping crowds of people hung out in both. It was from some of his friends that I heard about Barry's food peculiarities. Supposedly he wouldn't eat "foods that touch." That meant that if some of his mashed potatoes brushed up against his string beans, he wouldn't eat either because each had gotten "contaminated." This didn't sound too crazy to me, but by then I was on my third psychotherapist. Nor did I think much of what Elihu's friend Elspeth said: "You know, he does eat Oreos every day, and I say that's a 'food that touches' -- the white stuff and the chocolate cookie part. But Elihu says Oreos are a unit, not two different things, and anyway, he can't live without them. So he makes up the rules as he goes along." I long suspected, and maybe ten years later Elihu confirmed, that "foods that touch" was a total fabrication Elihu had invented as an interesting quirk for himself. I could relate: I had bleached my hair blond and conspicuously wore a St. Christopher's medal even though I was Jewish. However, Elihu never did join any of us for lunch, and in all the years I've known him, we've gone out to a restaurant together only two or three times. On one of those occasions he ate mixed vegetables with orange Sichuan beef.
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 1995 22:47:07 -0400 From: [email protected] Subject: Re: Yes Spoke with Bud last night. He accepted the position at the Essex House, as pastry chef & partial sous chef (asst chef). And so the move is definitely on! Sometime in July? Details to follow as soon as Bud gets the details from the Essex later this week. Most importantly to me (other than the obvious), this is a prestigious position within the industry - the type of job for which Bud would move to NY even if he had never met me. What have I gotten myself into? Twenty years on my own by myself and this man is literally walking into my life! Happy, scared, nervous - vulnerable but trusting. I must be out of my mind. And everyone seems to be enjoying my agonizing. Kevin, this guy is bright, witty, funny, tender, mischievous, caring and a gorgeous 6'4" hunk, who loves me. Is there a flip side to this that I'm failing to see? I think not! I'll write again tomorrow when I've collected my thoughts better.
Though Elihu and I hung out with the same people in college, we weren't particularly close. Because I'd taken a year off before college, Elihu was a year ahead of me: as a junior, he was part of the older people in our crowd, mostly seniors and super-seniors (people in their fifth year) while I was a sophomore who tended to be part of a group that was mostly freshmen. And I guess we were both a little weirded out by the fact that we'd known each other, even slightly, in high school. Elihu didn't seem all that different to me but I had changed radically. By the time all of us went to a New Year's Eve party at the end of 1970, I had a girlfriend, the younger sister of another girl in our crowd. My girlfriend was good friends with Elspeth, whom most people considered Elihu's best friend. Elihu's other close friends were two girls who were very much like Elspeth, fat and funny. One of them was a psych major who liked to analyze everyone and talked much of the time in a mock-German accent; the other was an art major whom everyone knew was hopelessly in love with our favorite art history professor, a neurotic man in his fifties who gave me the only C that I ever got as an undergraduate because in my paper on Henri Rousseau's "The Sleeping Gypsy" I neglected to mention that the scene depicted was entirely a dream or a fantasy. Elihu didn't date girls, as far as I knew, but this didn't make him odd -- not in our crowd. There were a lot of guys who we figured were probably asexual or gay, and some of the girls had boyfriends and some didn't see guys except in groups. Actually, nobody dated, as far as I could tell. The classic way to spend a Friday or Saturday night was for us to go out in groups of five to ten people, like the times Elihu, me, my girlfriend, Elspeth, and a whole crowd would go to our student government-sponsored movies: Freaks, Fellini Satyricon, Diary of a Chambermaid, etc. Afterwards we'd go out to diners and get a big table and eat pancakes and muffins or we'd go to someone's house when their parents weren't home and smoke pot and drink Sangria or Boone's Farm Apple Wine. I didn't drink, which wasn't that unusual in our crowd. Elihu didn't
smoke pot, which was.
Date: Tue, 16 May 1995 02:20:36 -0400 From: [email protected] Subject: Mid-May It's mid-May. I point that out in case you hadn't noticed. There's absolutely nothing important about mid-May. It just happens that it is mid-May. Are you off to Texas, staying in Tallahassee, moving elsewhere, doing what or not there or elsewhere as the case may be? Do you have gypsy blood? I look for massive stability in my life, always procrastinating in the hope that by the time I'm ready to do what needs to be done, what needs to be done has already been done or no longer needs to be done. Can you tell that my mind is a mess? Bud was going to move in to my apartment. But what to do with the dining room glass table? I could move the computer into the bedroom, move the piano to where the computer is, and put the table where the piano is. And the six dining room chairs? The Persian rug could go in the living room, and the current living room rug into the bedroom. There's room for the artwork (!?!); a total of five televisions would be tacky. We could squeeze into my apartment but it would mean many compromises, neither of us truly happy with the situation. But if that were all, we could conquer the furniture. There's no room for his son to have some privacy visiting. Furniture would either have to be stored or given away. And we are rushing the relationship. Bud is changing cities, jobs, and into a relationship. Perhaps he could use some privacy as well. First - to be in the same city; later we can set up housekeeping in an apartment that's "ours". And I need to procrastinate as well. So now I call Bud and he tells me he's made arrangements to give away his furniture except for the table etc. And I had liked the idea of 3 beds in the bedroom, perhaps a tri-bunk bed? I have to get this relationship in sync. I do think Bud should get his own apartment initially, hopefully in the same building or nearby (we both agreed it had to be in Brooklyn Heights). I'll let you know. What will you do this summer and after? Remember, it's just a job, bartering one's services for the daily bread. My job is pretty boring right now - the pace will pick up a bit during the summer (great timing). Gives me a chance to do some co-op stuff. Met with a contractor - painting after nine years (and a new sink, blinds, small appliances). Bud spurred me into action. Otherwise I would have procrastinated for a couple more years. That's about all. Let me go finish exercising (yes, I used this as an excuse to put off the daily routine). - Elihu
Elihu was a history major who was definitely going to graduate school. Elihu's mother was a kindergarten teacher with a master's degree, and his father had a Ph.D. in sociology and was the chairman of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at a private university in the city. Although every one of the guys in our crowd failed his draft physical (I had a letter from a psychiatrist that said my prognosis was guarded), I don't recall hearing Elihu's draft physical story, so I assume his condition automatically qualified him as 4-F. He got accepted to grad school at Brown. The last time we spoke before he graduated, Elihu criticized the campaign statement I had in the student newspaper during the third of my losing campaigns for the Student Assembly. I'd written a totally sentimental piece about how I'd found myself in student government; it was corny and talked too much about my relationship with my girlfriend. "Kevin, that statement of yours was embarrassing," he told me. "Fuck you," I said, embarrassed because he was right. But if he was angry with me, he soon forgot about it, or so I assumed. My anger with him, like my anger with everyone, lasted about fifteen minutes.
Date: Tue, 23 May 1995 23:26:23 -0400 From: [email protected] Subject: Camelot? Kevin - I can honestly say I haven't been this happy in years. Being in love with an incredible man helps; there's an entirely new adventure awaiting me. I'm busy fixing up the apartment - new bathroom sink/cabinet, blinds, kitchen table, small appliances, towels, even light switches and painting after only 9 years! Even the job - it's still incredibly boring but I have time to work on co-op matters, which is important to me. And I feel good about my body; I'm even having good hair days. Bud is driving me crazy. He knows exactly which strings to pull, how to torture me by twisting my words (when did you stop beating your wife etc). Incessant questions - the cost of rents, garage space, electric bills, car registration. And I'm supposed to scout out apartments! Bummer news - his kid brother has AIDS, two episodes so far. Since his brother lives in Austin, the family didn't even know he was HIV+. There's a special relationship between Bud and Dennis based on the 12 year difference in age; Bud is very protective of him. What do you say over the phone 1500 miles away? It's the end of May. It seems every summer you're deciding what to do next, where to live. Have you given any thought to being Shirley MacLaine for a year? Elihu
By my senior year I had a new girlfriend and was busy with plans for grad school myself, so I didn't hear much from or about Elihu while he was at Brown. I got at least one letter in which he mentioned going out "with a very Catholic girl who said she wanted to have ten children - which I thought was overbearing!"
Date: Thu, 25 May 1995 22:53:14 -0400 From: [email protected] Subject: Re: In reply I was sorry to hear about your sister's problems and think that you are probably right that she needs therapy. This week's plan is for Bud to move in with me, bringing some of his furniture (like the table & chairs, a rug, stereo, TVs). I think he's feeling very vulnerable and alone, trying to cope with his brother's illness. I'm fine either way - this apartment or two apartments. I'll have to adjust either way. But it's still early to make any final decision. Enjoy the holiday. Let me know what happens with the funding and what happens with your sister. Good luck. Elihu
After he got his masters at Brown, Elihu decided not to continue in their doctoral program, or maybe they suggested he leave. Anyway, he ended up back in New York, in CUNY's doctoral program in history, moving in with Sam, a friend of ours from Brooklyn College. Sam had been a year behind me in school and when his parents moved to Florida, he transferred to the University of Miami for his final two years of college We'd stayed in touch, and when Sam came back to the city to attend Columbia's grad program in math, I helped him move to a summer sublet in Morningside Heights. That fall he and Elihu moved to a two-bedroom apartment on 120th and Amsterdam, in the building caddy-corner from Teachers College. I remember going to look at the apartment with them and opening the bathroom door to see what the bathroom looked like and getting a breathtaking view of an incredibly beautiful naked woman coming out of the shower. Her roommate hadn't told her that guys were coming over to look at the apartment. It's funny how twenty years later, I remember exactly what she looked like when I can't recall so many details of those years. I urged Elihu and Sam to take the place, but they didn't need much convincing. I helped them move, of course.
Date: Mon, 29 May 1995 19:44:57 -0400 From: [email protected] Subject: And on into June Kevin - If I understand you correctly, for the next 8-10 months you will be doing something to be paid from some funds. Remember, Student Govt used to spend money this way - first spend it, then allocate it. Interesting. At least you'll have the same e-mail address. Glad that your sister's story was made of doses of my misunderstanding, mishearing, misleading, and mistaken misinterpretations. Must admit that a wild escapade across the country made for a better story. Spoke to Bud briefly this afternoon. He was just back from a weekend in Austin visiting his brother. He's hopeful about his brother's condition; Bud sounded very tired, both physically and mentally. Being apart now is harder than before as we get closer to the actual move. Bathroom sink and cabinet are to be delivered and installed tomorrow. Then two weeks to painting. I've been cleaning out closets, drawers etc. Found the cat's stash of rubber balls, pens, coins, and chapstick tubes. Also found some newspapers I'd been saving: Hurricane Hugo, Steinbrenner being thrown out of baseball. Why would I save the Times for those articles? Who remembers. See ya. Elihu
It was Elihu's father who got me started in my, ahem, academic career. One night when Elihu was living at his parents' house -- I can't remember if this was before he was living with Sam or after -- I was chatting with him on the phone, as we did every month or so. He got off, and then called me right back to say that his father wanted to speak with me. Dr. Stone said that one of his anthropology professors had died of a heart attack on his way home from a Tuesday evening class and he wondered if I would be interested in taking over the course. I met Dr. Stone the next day, having spent the entire night awake reading books and articles on pedagogy and teaching social science classes in college, only to have him say, "Mr. Foster, your students are going to eat you alive." I'd already been hired. I was about 23 and I looked about 18 and most of my students were older than I was. I had no idea what I was doing, taking over for a professor with thirty years' experience, but somehow they treated me as if I were a real college teacher, dutifully taking notes as I discussed cross-cousin marriage or couvade or the debate between Marvin Harris and Napoleon Chagnon regarding the Yanomamo. Elihu started teaching introductory courses in the history department too, so for a while we were adjuncts together. I recall seeing him on campus only a few times, however. As with our first jobs in Senator Kennedy's office, our part-time schedules rarely overlapped.
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 21:18:15 -0400 From: [email protected] Subject: Re: Time to paint I've started moving my books, CDs, videos etc from the bedroom which is the first room to be painted starting next Monday. This is a major headache - but after a week I'll have my apartment back and it will look great!!! I wonder if Bud will notice? My bet is that he won't. Otherwise, all is the same. Work sucks. I know, they pay the bills etc, but the job could be more challenging. Once Bud gets here, there will be enough going on in my life that I'll be thankful for the 9-5 job that I never have to think about away from work. We received a 19 page memo outlining the employment guidelines and anti-discrimination rules at RGP. How progressive! Of course that day I overheard the personnel director telling a bigoted, racist joke to one of the directors of the firm (and it wasn't even funny)....So much for the guidelines. Did your sister arrive en route to greener pastures out West? I know you have funding for next year, but do you follow the academic calendar and have the summer off or must you suffer like the rest of us? Off to move some more books - I have to do the moving now since I won't be home for most of the weekend - stupid planning on my part! Elihu
I tried not to take sides in the big blowup between Sam and Elihu regarding the Morningside Heights apartment. Actually, I seldom visited them there, busy as I was with my teaching, my own schoolwork, and dealing with other stuff in my life that I had put off for a long time. As best as I can remember it, Elihu ended up leaving the apartment. He claimed that Sam had driven him away because he wanted to install as a roommate a childhood friend, a Julliard student who later became, in 1982, the first person I knew who died from AIDS. Sam claimed that Elihu ran up huge phone bills with the help of my first girlfriend and her husband, who lived in Boston but often came into Manhattan to go to Studio 54 and other clubs where people who liked to put glitter on their faces congregated. At first I assumed that both Elihu and Sam were into that kind of scene, and it may be mixed up in my 47-year-old brain, but I do know it ended with Sam suing Elihu in small claims court. Sam told me that Elihu came to the hearing with Dr. Stone but because his parents lived in Miami, Sam was alone. Sam won in small claims court and told me he felt proud of handling what he called his "first adult crisis" on his own. I continued to be moderately friendly with both Elihu and Sam, neutral like Switzerland, only without any Nazi gold. Elihu's father paid the money the small claims court said that Elihu had owed to Sam. Somewhere along the line I lost touch with Sam. I heard he eventually became a lawyer and died. That happened to a number of guys I knew.
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 1995 19:11:57 -0400 From: [email protected] Subject: Painting - Day 1 The bedroom is 80% done - window and doors yet to do. I'm moving the bedroom out of the living room back into the bedroom - it will be a long night, but I took tomorrow off. Tomorrow he's to finish the bedroom, do the bathroom (no moving to do!!!) and the foyer (yuch - the CDs have to be moved). Then tomorrow night I fill in the foyer and move the living room. The worst is over - I'll be glad when it's all done. Spoke with Bud last night - I love that man. He just makes me feel so good. About five more weeks to go. Saw Batman Forever with some friends Saturday. I like Jim Carrey. I also like Jerry Lewis so go figure. Ate on the boardwalk at Brighton Beach. Surrounded by Russians. Had a waiter from hell - "Would you like something to drink?" and then forgets to take the order! Two meals arrived - unfortunately there were three of us! The bill didn't total. The change was wrong. But we were in a great mood so we really didn't care - just laughed about it. Well, Kevin, back to moving stuff. More later in the week. Elihu
When he was still living in Manhattan, Elihu called me and asked me if I wanted to come to a meeting of a bisexual liberation group. I said okay, and I drove up and we went to some apartment on the Upper West Side filled with neurotic assholes, all of whom were a lot older than we were. Thank God we didn't stay long. There was nobody there that I was attracted to, and after I told Elihu that, I asked him if there was anyone there he had been attracted to, and he said, "You, maybe," but I was certain he didn't mean it. When Elihu moved into an apartment in Brooklyn near Elspeth's, I once visited him during a very hot summer. I was wearing a blue tank top and was pretty tanned, and I got the feeling he was staring, but probably it was just my imagination or vanity. At work that fall, Dr. Stone told me that Elihu had had a rough time with his orals, but that everything worked out okay, and all he had left to do to get his degree was write his dissertation on the Anti-Masonic movement.
Date: Wed, 5 Jul 1995 14:21:40 -0400 From: [email protected] Subject: Re: July Time goes by so quickly and yet day-by-day life seems to take so long. At the end of the month Bud will be here. There's an unreal quality - at any point of time since last October, our paths might have (and upon occasion almost did) diverged. There's a personal enormity to the situation. I don't have expectations because I don't know what to expect. I'm approaching a grand adventure without fear because I can't figure out what I'm supposed to be fearful of - loss of independence? Rubbish. Be flexible to working out problems and enjoy. Unfortunately we'll be starting out on a depressing note - Bud's kid brother is dying; Bud is in Austin at his brother's hospital. Life's a bummer and then you die. On a cheerier note - my apartment (before the invasion and inevitable rearrangement) is finished. Mostly a clean look (the dust is settling already), with some minor modifications as to color, plus the new bathroom sink and cabinet. Everything's been either vacuumed or dusted and waxed several times. Of course it took two weeks rather than the four days as promised and I did most of the touch-ups (just to get the contractor out of here!), but for the modest sums involved <g> :) (as compared to the cost of renovating the Taj Mahal) I'm way pleased. Visited Washington several times as a kid with my parents prior to the protest marches. I was always in love with the monuments and the other big white buildings; impressed by the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian etc; overwhelmed with the importance of the place as the nation's capital and the workings of government. It's on my list of places to visit/live: New York, New Orleans, Boston/Cambridge, Providence/Newport, Washington, London, Berlin (but it would mean studying German, more than the one year at Brooklyn). Never been to Baltimore - looks good on film/TV and from the baseball stadium. Has a good rep in the press. Politically active and distinct from the rest of Maryland. Very worth considering if you get the job. Have this week off. Last night was up on the roof for the fireworks. Macy's had two shows - 34th and the East River, and from the Seaport. Really dazzling display (other places for the Fourth of July are the Capitol mall in DC and along the riverbanks in Boston for the Boston Pops). Tomorrow I go to fest at the Museum of Natural History amid the new dinosaur exhibit. Otherwise just hang out and enjoy the decline of my bachelorhood! Elihu
Elihu's dissertation never got done. Disgusted with the low pay of adjunct teaching, Elihu took a job at a huge investment bank on Wall Street. I'm not quite sure what he did, but I believe it had something to do with municipal bonds. I left New York around this time to become a gypsy scholar in search of the great god of tenure -- which has managed to elude me all of these years. I remember only one Elihu story from the time before he bought his co-op in Brooklyn Heights, and it's really an Elspeth story: Elspeth, who'd dropped out of college before graduation, was working in an office at a local police precinct and had been having an affair with a married cop. ("All cops are married," Elihu later told me.) The affair had ended badly, and Elspeth swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills. She called Elihu to say goodbye, then took the phone off the hook. Obviously Elihu was not going to say, "Goodbye, Elspeth, it was nice knowing you," and go back to watching the Mets game. He dialed 911 and ran the three blocks from his apartment to Elspeth's to meet the police and paramedics there, and he rode in the ambulance to the hospital, where they pumped her stomach. I phoned Elspeth soon after Elihu told me about her suicide attempt, offering my sympathy and telling her that trying to kill herself was stupid. She agreed. I saw her only one time after that, recognizing her from the back even in her New York City Transit Authority bus driver's uniform. I later heard she had a baby with a married cop who died of a brain tumor. That was at least ten years ago. I think even Elihu has lost touch with her by now.
Date: Sun, 9 Jul 1995 19:51:49 -0400 From: [email protected] Subject: Re: Waiting for Godot Kevin - OK, maybe not Godot per se. I have a cold in my nose, compounded by a sinus attack which is causing a headache and stomach upset. It's either psychosomatic (I have to go back to work tomorrow) or a result of my trip to the Museum of Natural History. No, I'm blaming the dinosaurs (great exhibit - from 19th century stuffiness to 21st century razzle dazzle: jaws that move, multimedia, new active poses for the beasts; only negative was the constant disclaimers that theories might be incorrect). No, I blame all those camp kids - one of them gave me the cold!!!! The apartment is done (OK, I have to put in new shelf paper in the cupboards and clean the refrigerator; I've only used the stove twice in the ten years I've been here - let Bud clean it if he wants to). All is in the ready stage. Of course I still don't know when Bud or his furnishings will arrive. I've waited this long, no need to hurry him now. He was off to Austin to be by his brother's side in the hospital, but his brother pulled through and should be out of the hospital next week until the next bout. Actually, I don't know where Bud is now - he made me promise to call him last night at 7:00 his time - only he wasn't home last night or today. I'm concerned since he might have taken off to Texas again. Long distance is a bitch. Did you see the Sunday Times travel section? There was an article extolling the virtues of Baltimore. Not that I'm superstitious, but do you think that it's an omen for you? By the way, my I Ching fortune on my birthday stated that I'm treading on the tail of a tiger that does not bite me. There will be progress & success etc. The commentary explains that although the journey might be hazardous, I'll have a pleased satisfaction. Interpret away. Maybe I'll get through to Bud tonight. Should be busy at work tomorrow - keeps my mind from wandering. Elihu
After all my family and many of my friends had left in New York, my visits back there grew more sporadic. Sometimes I would come to the city and not even bother to call Elihu. It was only when we both discovered E-mail that we got into regular contact again. Before that, we had phone conversations at infrequent intervals, and on one occasion he surprised me -- prig that I am -- by talking at length about his adventures in anonymous, public sex at a playground near the apartment that he had bought in Brooklyn Heights. By then these experiences seemed to be in Elihu's past, although he expressed the fantasy of having sex on the top of the Empire State Building with all of New York watching. It didn't sound as if he was joking. Any speculation I'd make about why Elihu would get turned on by public sex would facile and ignorant, the kind of thing said by Elihu's college friend, the fat psych major with the fake German accent. So I'll keep my facile ignorance to myself. When I was living with John, Elihu told me that he envied me. He said something banal and sincere like, "It must be nice to have someone to share your life with." (Actually, it was nice and it was also hell.) He couldn't keep his mind on sex even during the act, Elihu told me. He'd be with a nineteen-year-old exterminator whose Volkswagen with mouse ears advertising his services would be parked downstairs, and during their late-night lovemaking Elihu would be distracted by the sounds of sanitation trucks as he wondered whether they were picking up the garbage on his side of the street or the other.
Date: Sun, 16 Jul 1995 21:37:20 -0400 From: [email protected] Subject: Random thoughts from a fried brain Fortunately, the heat tho' intense was brief. Sorry about Baltimore not happening. If we're still on omens, do you think about returning to Brooklyn during that long hot Tallahassee summer? Actually, I'd be ascared to ever leave Brooklyn; it's my home and I'm really a small town boy in disguise. My "other half" arrives August 7th - what will I e-mail to you without my update of my long distance woes? Even the OJ trial will end some day. Of course I haven't spoken to him since Monday last; either he's busy preparing for the move, he's in San Francisco visiting a brother and old friends (he is spending a week in SF before the move here but do I know which week that is?!?), he's in Austin visiting the hospital for his kid brother (hopefully Dennis is back home, so perhaps visiting him at home?), or none of the above. How much do cowbells cost? But the biggest news - Brooklyn College plans to tear down the steps across Bedford Avenue, demolish the building it connects to, restore the Bedford Avenue gates, add extensions to Whitehead, the LaG/Library buildings, Ingersoll, and Roosevelt, build a small quadrangle between Roosevelt and James Halls to reflect the main quad, and add a new building behind the new quad with the athletic fields behind it. It will be a modern version of our old campus, without those hideous steps. If they get the funding. Always the ifs. Elihu
After the big shakeup and downsizing at his investment bank, Elihu was forced out of his job after nine or ten years and given "early retirement." I gather the severance package equaled my puny salary for that year. Elihu floundered for a while; he had become identified with the grand old name of his Wall Street firm, and he was hurt, angry, confused and alone. He eventually found a job at a much lower salary doing something or other at a midtown accounting firm. I never have figured out what Elihu's new job title was, but I know that in addition to managing databases and billing accounts, he had to do photocopying. Elihu was one of those people who live the entire year for their two-week annual vacation. Every year he'd take a trip, and every year it was to New Orleans. Sometimes he'd throw in Houston or San Antonio for a couple of days, but New Orleans was its focus. During these years I lived in some typical Sun Belt vacation destinations, but I suspect Elihu never wanted to visit me in Phoenix or Orlando because it would mean that people would be going around in shorts and short sleeves or even less. Or perhaps it was that he liked going back to the familiarity of the French Quarter, a place I've always found sleazy and overrated. Or maybe he just preferred being alone on vacation to visiting a friend. On a trip to New Orleans in October 1995, Elihu met Bud in a bar. They spent the whole week together, or whenever Bud could get out of his work as a pastry chef at Antoine's. They decided to move in together. Bud would come to New York and live with Elihu.
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 1995 21:51:25 -0400 From: [email protected] Subject: August - Less than a week to go I apologize for not being a more timely correspondent. It's less than a week before Bud arrives - I think! He's in SF visiting yet another brother. He's supposed to send me a post card :)!! with his flight information. Any bets that he arrives on Monday before the post card arrives (and I'm supposed to pick him up at the airport - which airport I don't know yet). Just finished cleaning and defrosting the refrigerator - the last major project (I'm not cleaning the oven; I've never used it; he wants to use it, he can clean it). This weekend will be the last general tidying up of the apartment - I've never cleaned so much in my life. Maybe on his salary we can afford a "cleaning person"! Work is an abomination. Besides the fact that this is the busiest time of year for me (not the Spring), besides the fact that my assistant has to cover the reception desk for three weeks (so much for my work being important - only tax returns with the final deadlines coming due in less than six weeks), besides the fact the weather for the last month has been hot and humid and I don't feel like leaving my apartment's air conditioning (you can appreciate how bad the dog days of summer can be in NY) - the system malfunctioned and I lost about half of my client files. The files can be recreated over time although it does mean a great deal of extra work. But the abomination is that the Firm could care less about the effort and the overtime that I have to do save them! I've done brokerage and accounting - perhaps I should be looking at the insurance or media industries for my next job - and there will be a next job soon. My brother and I took my parents to the Rainbow Room to celebrate their 50th anniversary. There we gave them their gift - a weekend at the Plaza on their anniversary, tickets to Sunset Boulevard w/Betty Buckley, limos etc. Despite all their admonitions against having a party I was afraid they'd be disappointed that we didn't have one after all, but they were really pleased, even showed some emotion. Then the next day they stopped by to express their concerns about Bud - how do I know he's not an axe murderer, etc. Parents!!!!! Had two VCRs die on me in one night. Ever have one of those days? Here's hoping your days have been good ones. Wish me luck - I'm about to embark on an adventure in the completely unknown. As I said to my parents - "I know I'm crazy." Elihu PS. Know your haircut style well. I've considered it but my hair is so wavy it would quickly go astray. Oh how I always wanted straight hair. PPS Were you affected by the hurricane?
I arrived in New York the following Monday, got the key to my ex-girlfriend's apartment from her super while she was at work, and called several friends, but not Elihu. Bud was arriving that day, so I knew Elihu would be busy, and after all, I planned on staying for two weeks. I didn't phone Elihu until Thursday. Bud hadn't shown up, hadn't called. We made a lunch date for the following Tuesday, only Elihu told me he doesn't eat lunch, that I should meet him at Grand Central Station, near his office, at 1 p.m. Elihu suggested we just walk around and talk, but when I spotted a Starbucks, I insisted we go in. For one thing, I had to go to the bathroom, and while I'm not thrilled by the proliferation of Starbucks and Barnes & Noble, at least they've brought convenient public restrooms back to Manhattan. I also wanted to get out of the sun and order a Frappuccino. Elihu, typically, ordered iced tea. We hadn't mentioned Bud until then, instead talking about my trip and who I'd seen and what I'd done. But when we sat down, I asked him if Bud had arrived yet. "No," Elihu said. "And he's not going to." "You mean like never." He nodded. "I haven't heard from him. He was leaving his job and apartment in New Orleans to go to California before he came here, and his phone has been disconnected -- but I knew that last week." "There's no forwarding number?" Elihu shook his head. He smiled. I thought it was odd that he was so philosophical, or seemed to be, about this. I went through all kinds of suggestions for him to track down Bud: Elihu could call Antoine's in New Orleans to see if he'd left a forwarding address; he could call the Essex House to see if they had a record of when, or if, Bud was coming to work there; Elihu could try to call Bud's mother or brothers or his son at Harvard, but he gave plausible reasons why he couldn't and wouldn't do any of these things. I know a game of "Yes, But..." when I see it, so I stopped playing. "So you think this was all a game he was playing?" I asked. "It's so incredibly fucked-up." Elihu shrugged, letting go of his iced tea to make a gesture that signified "that's the way it goes." But if he wasn't angry, I was. "I can't believe the guy was just jerking you around all these months. It's unbelievably cruel." Then, thinking of the enormity of it, I backtracked: "Maybe he got sick...maybe he was in an accident and can't get in touch with you." "No, he's just not coming." "Well, do you think he's still in New Orleans?" "No, I think he's gone." "What, gone with the wind?" I said. "I don't get it. It's like totally the cruelest game to be playing with someone you supposedly care about...." Elihu nodded, and I wondered if part of him wasn't relieved that Bud was not moving in with him. I flashed back to something that happened to me in the playground in junior high, before I knew Elihu. Two bigger guys were playing salugi with my Hebrew school books, tossing them above my head to one another as I kept jumping up in a futile attempt to rescue them. I felt frustrated, humiliated, and angry, but I was powerless to do anything that would get back my books. Suddenly I thought: what do I care, I hate Hebrew school, let them have the goddamn books, and I just walked away. They kept trying to tease me, opening the pages of the books and pretending to read nonsensical sounds they thought resembled Hebrew. They followed me, taunting, but once I no longer cared -- or pretended to, and I didn't get into Advanced Drama in high school for nothing -- they didn't have power over me anymore. I told Elihu about my salugi memory. "Yeah, I guess everyone has that done to them," he said. "But not when you're adults. Not when it's somebody who supposedly cares about you," I said. "I mean, guys aren't going to come up to me and grab my Frappuccino and start tossing it around to keep me jumping like a lunatic." Elihu smiled. "Just because it hasn't happened to you yet doesn't mean it can't." This response left me so frustrated that I said inanely, "Salugi at Starbucks isn't appropriate." I sounded like one of my several former psychotherapists. Elihu laughed at the remark, and finally, so did I. After leaving Starbucks, we walked over to the park by the UN and looked out at the East River. A manatee had made her way up from Florida that summer, had been spotted at Chesapeake Bay and nicknamed Chessie, and then had been tracked going even further north. The day before it had been tracked in the East River, deliriously off course. Apparently it had headed into Long Island Sound on its way to New England, getting farther from home all the time. As we walked, we talked about Chessie the manatee and Bud the no-show and eventually about my inchoate plans for the future. Elihu had to get back to work. Before we said goodbye, we decided who would E-mail whom first when I got back to Tallahassee.
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 1995 22:46:10 -0400 From: [email protected] Subject: Re: New? I was glad you were in NY last week - great timing (I needed my old friends). You're looking good. Are you still tempted to trek back North even after your visit? No word from Bud - there never will be. He's not at the Essex Hotel. I'm relieved. Don't have to follow up. There's a finality in not knowing where he is. Time to move on with my life - it's been a month now since I spoke to him. At least I painted the apartment, new bathroom, frames, kitchen table (not to mention the new shelf paper in the cupboards - boy am I glad I didn't clean the oven for him). And I have a new outlook - I still want to settle down into a relationship. The only thing missing is a relationee to settle down with! I wish you'd get off this salugi kick. I don't feel angry, I'm looking ahead. Besides, you gotta admit I've got an interesting story to tell people now! I'll get back to you soon.
Date: Sun, 20 Aug 1995 21:18:08 -0400 From: [email protected] Subject: Search begins And so I've decided to begin the search: the bars, the personal ads, on the Internet (actually AOL), phone, any group meeting anywhere in NYC (current listings in the NY Native). Maybe it will be a political meeting, perhaps square dancing, perhaps religious services(?). But I am determined. Even though I know I'm in for a lot of disappointments - the available pool is not all that large - guys around our age, professional background, some intelligence, some personality, healthy, and not currently involved (married men need not apply). I'm not asking for Mr. Gorgeous, but looks have some importance (this is to be a guy I want to develop a relationship with - he can't always walk around with a paper bag over his head.) I'm doing OK; feeling lonely for myself. Not exactly how I planned the end of my summer. But I think I can channel my restless energies - do stuff around the house, go out on my own (besides the search). Involved with the co-op this week (don't know of any 2 bdrms in this building, although they do become available from time to time - listed in the paper). And work is hectic. So I'll keep busy. I'll keep you abreast of the details of my search. Elihu PS - So your Tallahassee friends never heard of salugi? Tell them I never heard of "keep-way"!
Copyright � 1999 Richard
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