red

IN THE OLD DAYS, the postwar classical period of New York, the intelligentsia was largely same sex focused, and it was not unknown for up-and-coming writers to subject to the perversions of a powerful editor or director, so long as they got published. This was not playing out in my mind as I was invited to spend the night at Nelson’s house uptown, but it became evident that evening when, after showing me to my room, the very friendly publisher decided to invite himself into bed with me. “Aha,” he said, “Now, we can get down to business.” The feeling of a sinewy male monkey body tossed me into states of revulsion, gloom, despair.

I ran away, naturally. In my pajamas. Can you imagine me, fleeing like that on West 81st Street?

I wandered for some time like that, through the city. I wandered through other cities. I admired the commotion, the jackhammers, the cranes. Glass doors that sensed your presence and opened before you. Sandy depressions that were becoming parking garages. Eventually I fell in love again, this time with my friend’s wife, who had long sumptuous red hair. It was a lion’s mane of crimson. You should have seen how it spread across the white linen sheets, how the red of her hair flowed into the texture of a red blanket. She was white, she was shapely. She was a 1960s sex kitten. She was a pre-code blonde Venus. She was a Bergman persona.

But I could never tell her I loved her. I could only say something like, “My favorite color is red.”

“My favorite color is red.” It wasn’t really. But I would whisper it in her ear, beneath her thick hair, at any number of dull dinner parties in Tallinn’s Old Town, while her husband was getting a refilled martini or gin and tonic. He was the most boring man who had ever lived and worked at a bank. She was neurotic and dangerous enough to keep me interested. Oh, was I hooked.

One day we were driving away from a boutique hotel. Miss Red was at the wheel. It was a cool, autumn day, the leaves were turning orange and purple. A group of kindergartners began crossing the street, but she was so tormented by the fact that she had again betrayed her husband, that she almost ran the kids over. Before she mowed down the children, I grabbed the wheel, took control of the vehicle, pressed on her leg to slow the car. I reached out of the window, waved a frightened boy across the street. The little boy gave a stunned and shocked look. He was wearing a sweater and bowtie. The boy’s look said it all. “The adults are maniacs.”