Tennessee Williams was wearing a plush gray jogging suit, and Tennessee did not jog. In his seventies, he made it look like a formal pair of pajamas. He was jabbing at three thick steaks just starting to smoke over a charcoal grill. We were on the patio in the backyard. His conch house is there on Duncan Street in Key West. It was a warm night, May Day, 1979.
“How do you like yours done, baby?” Tennessee asked me, and I told him medium rare.
Around prowled three fluffy cats, big ones, and two sleek ones. There was a chirping of birds about the gazebo, and a translucent glow about the pool.
If you listened closely you could hear Tennessee Williams humming to himself. I don’t know what he was humming. An Italian opera maybe. He stepped back into the kitchen that gave onto the patio.
“There should be some wine glasses in one of these cupboards,” he said. “I say ‘should be’ because the place has been ransacked!” And then he laughed.
I wasn’t ready for that. Id read about it. Gore Vidal and Truman Capote and everybody who wrote who knew him said that Tennessee’s laugh was the most disarming sound ever unleashed by poet. It was Big Daddy’s laugh.
“Fortunately Tennessee finds this sort of thing amusing,” Dotson Rader said. That Dotson Rader, the one who writes in the Parade Magazine that comes with your Sunday paper, interviews with Hollywood stars and the like. Dotson was Tennessee’s companion.
“Well, there are wine glasses,” Tennessee said. “However…”
In Tennessee Williams you will find nothing like the Pinter Pause; every beat is filled musically, poetically.
“…This is all the wine there is. Dotson?”
“Tenn?”
“Fetch some more wine, will you? You know where.”
Tennessee couldn’t bring himself to say it. The liquor store was Big Daddy’s around the corner on Truman Avenue. And Dotson Rader left and went there. And Tennessee Williams and I drank a glass of wine together on the patio in the backyard of his conch house. Just Tennessee Williams and myself. No shit.
“Where do you live, baby?”
“In a little conch house across from the cemetery.”
“That’s a lovely little cemetery, as cemeteries go.”
“Alabaster hope chests,” I quoted a line from a poem about it.
“Are you in love?” Tennessee Williams asked me.
No shit. I’ll stop saying that. I couldn’t think of much else to say then, besides yes, which was sort of the truth. Being in love and believing you are in love have exactly the same present effect, and it is only afterward or when confronted by reality that you can understand your own previous belief is a patent falsehood. But all this was before I read Proust, and here was Tennessee Williams asking me if I was in love. In Key West, in 1979, when I was twenty–eight. Get it? I got it. Was Tennessee going to get it? Stay tuned.
Tennessee was a trip. When I told him yes, he laughed, and you could either laugh with him or you could stare at him like he was a wonder, and that only made him laugh more. So we laughed like fools and I’ll tell you that was one funny thing that I was in love. And then when we’d finally laughed ourselves out, Tennessee took a long sip of wine and looked me in the eye and said, “They ransacked my house, you know.”
“Yes. You just said…”
“And they killed my caretaker.”
I nodded.
“Do you know about it?”
“Sure.”
“Do you know who did it?”
“No. But you need to know about this joker who’s selling your paintings out of the trunk of his car.”
“What’s that?”
“Those paintings you donated to the Greene Street Theater.”
“What about them?”
“Guy’s selling them out of the trunk of his car. He was pushing them last night at the West Key Bar.”
“You don’t say.”
“Nobody bought any.”
“Good!”
And we laughed to beat the band.
“Did you bring one of your stories to read, baby?” Tennessee asked.
“Sure.”
“We’re all writers here, you know, in this house. We all write. Put the corn in when the water starts to boil.”
I was working then as reference librarian at the Monroe County Library. My friend Robert Dean Mowry and I had moved to Key West from Chicago the year before to start a theater. One day I wrote a letter to Tennessee Williams, saying I was a writer in town too and we should get together.
I had written a handful of stories, mostly unpublished, and two plays for kids. A theater company called The Truck back in Chicago was performing the plays and paying me and Bub royalties. I had the brass to call myself a playwright. Bub was content to be a damn good actor who could also sing like Sinatra, design and build sets, and direct the show if need be, he didn’t give a shit.
So one day I’m sitting at my reference librarian’s desk and the phone rings and usually it’s some guy in the West Key Bar wanting to know what is the wingspan of a frigate bird or something like that, which I think is like twelve feet, but this time, it’s someone saying, “This is Tennessee Williams.” And damned if he doesn’t sound just like him.
I said, “Well, hey.”
He said, “I have your letter here.”
“Yeah man.”
“Have we met?”
“Uh, no.”
“We should meet, don’t you think?”
“I think so.”
“I’m having dinner tonight with a friend. Would you care to join me?”
“Sure.”
“At my house. Do you know where it is?”
“You bet.”
“And bring a story to read.”
Tennessee cut into his steak and “salted” it, commenting on the seasoning, “Fake.”
“Artificial,” Dotson enjoined.
“I am not deceived.”
“Tennessee has a heart condition,” Dotson wanted to remind me. He seemed to want me to know that he was personally responsible for Tennessee’s well being. I got the impression then that Tennessee was fucked. That he was being ripped off and taken advantage of. Tennessee would zone out of the conversation, would be clearly somewhere else altogether, and Dotson would speak for him as if he weren’t there. “Tennessee’s very tired. He just opened a play in New York.”
I knew that. Now Tennessee was calling it The Two–Character Play. It was his latest variation on his obsessive theme of the split self that this time resolved itself into a brother and sister not unlike in spirit young Tom Williams and his doomed sister Rose.
“How’s it going?” I asked.
“Let’s not talk about it,” Doston said.
“Why not?”
“Tennessee says you’ve written a short story.”
“Yeah.”
“Why do you write short stories?”
“I’m sorry?”
“There’s no market for them anymore. Not even Esquire really.”
“I don’t know, they just seem to come out that way.”
“He’s shy,” Dotson said to Tennessee.
“Don’t be shy, baby,” Tennessee said to me.
“I’ve written a couple plays too.”
“I love plays,” Tennessee Williams said. (Now there’s a quote!)
“Kids plays.”
“You mean plays for children?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t like children’s plays.”
“Wait a minute,” Dotson said. “Are you straight?”
My future hinged on this answer. I could tell the truth, whatever that is. Or what? It was already over.
“Yeah.”
Dotson looked at Tennessee in horror. “Did you hear that, Tenn?”
Tennesee went on eating.
“You’ve got to go easy on Tennessee,” Doston said. “He’s got a bad heart.”
“Everybody’s straight.” Tennessee said. “He just hasn’t met the right boy yet.”
“Maybe,” Doston said. There was a long pause, as in a Pinter play, and then we returned to A Streetcar Named Desire.
“Do you play poker?” Tennessee asked me.
“Yeah.”
Dotson cleared the table. He brought back a plate of Oreos. Tennessee pried one open. Then he took out a bottle of pills he was taking for his heart condition. He cracked open a capsule and sprinkled its contents onto the Oreo, put the Oreo back together, and ate it.
“Tennessee hates to swallow pills,” Dotson said.
“Ok.”
“It’s amazing,” Dotson said.
“What is amazing?” Tennessee asked as if returning from an errand.
“What’s happening in Iran now.”
“What’s happening in Iran now?” Tennessee asked.
“The Shah.”
“Ah yes, the Shah. The Shah of Iran.”
“He still plans to go back. And do you know what?” asked Dotson, as if we could possibly know. “I’m all for him. He’s made some very progressive changes over there. Before the Shah, you could be put to death for being gay.”
“It’s too far away,” Tennessee said. “Let’s play poker.”
“Bub, I’m at Tenn’s place. He wants to know if you wanna come over and play poker.”
“No shit?”
“No shit.”
“Let me talk to him,” Tenn said, so I did. “Come on over, baby.”
“Ok,” Bub must’ve said, and Tenn hung up.
“Now read your story, baby.”
I did. It was a story called “Something for Nothing” about a failed romance.
“I like it,” Tennessee said, “because there’s no sentimentality about it, and it is not self–conscious. That’s usually the biggest problem.”
“That,” Dotson said, “and the fact that there’s no market for short stories.”
“Send it to Anteus,” Tennessee said, as if to correct him. “Or Partisan Review.”
“So, what’re we, gonna play for money, or what?” Bub asked me when he showed up.
“Money, I guess.”
“How the hell are we gonna do that?”
“Robert Dean Mowry, Tennessee Williams.”
“You can call me Bob.”
“I’m delighted to meet you.”
I figured he would be. Bub was six–feet tall and slender with handsome chiseled features and presence, not just on stage but in real life.
“And vice versa,” Bub said.
“I wish we could play some music, you know,” Tennessee said. “I would love to hear a beautiful concerto now. But we have no music. The house has been ransacked, do you understand?”
“What I heard.”
“So let’s play poker.”
Let’s drink some more wine. Cheers. Let’s smoke some dope. Bub pulled a joint out of his pocket.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Dotson said.
Now we knew he was an idiot.
“Wonderful,” Tenn said.
“The man has a heart condition.”
“It’s not like we’re doing amyl nitrate.”
“That would be lovely too,” Tenn said.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Tenn” said Dotson, “but they haven’t any poppers. And they’re straight.”
“Let’s play poker,” Tenn said. “I’ll deal.”
“This is absurd,” Dotson said, and it was, because we seemed to have, as far as Tennessee was concerned, all the reality of an apparition. It felt like we were unreal to him, if that makes sense, not the other way around.
“Deuces,” Tennessee Williams drawled in several more syllables than you’d think, “are wild, you know, and one–eyed jacks.” He looked at us solemnly over his glasses. “And nines, you know.”
“What the hell,” Bub said, and he proceeded to lose about ten bucks.
I won five dollars, but then I started losing too. I was down five bucks, then ten. It was a hell of a note. But it didn’t matter, I guess. Tenn was winning. He seemed happy.
“Where are you from, baby?” Tenn asked Bub.
“Chicago.”
“Chicago,” Tenn repeated and then he retreated to somewhere far away, Chicago maybe. “Do you know Studs Turkel?”
“Studs Turkel,” Bub laughed. “Matter of fact, I used to go with his secretary.”
Dotson shook his head.
“A nice man,” Tenn said. “But he drinks too much.”
We nodded.
“My brother’s running for Governor of Illinois, you know.”
We did.
“Isn’t he a fool?”
You had to admit it seemed pretty foolish.
“My brother Dakin is a complete fool!”
“Tennessee doesn’t like his brother,” Doston said.
We gathered that.
“I hate him,” Tenn said. “He is an ignoramus!”
We all laughed at that.
The card game withered away due to lack of funds and interest. Tennessee pocketed our money. He did. What the hell.
“Now what?” Dotson asked. “Shall we go out, Tenn?”
“Will you read something for me, baby?” Tenn said to Bub.
“Sure.”
“What should he read, Dotson?”
“I haven’t the vaguest idea.”
Tennessee Williams studied Robert Dean Mowry for about half a minute and then pronounced: “Chance Wayne.”
“Oh please,” Dotson said, but Tennessee was off to hunt up a copy of Sweet Bird of Youth. “Good luck, Tenn. I will wager you don’t have a single copy of your collected works anywhere in this house. He’s only lived here since 1949.”
“The house has been ransacked, you know,” Tenn called back. Then he returned with a paperback and sat down next to Bub on the sofa. “You shall be Chance.”
“Ok.”
“I shall be the Princess.”
Bub didn’t miss a beat. “Of course.”
Tenn’s voice lush and low and seductive, wise, pointed, wry, and curious.
Bub’s hard–edged, thrown off–balance, but balancing, combative.
” ‘It gives you an awful trapped feeling this, this memory block. I feel as if someone I love had died lately, and I don’t want to remember who it could be.'”
” ‘Do you remember your name?'”
” ‘Yes I do.'”
” ‘What’s your name?'”
” ‘ I think there’s a reason why I prefer not to tell you.'”
” ‘Well, I happen to know it… ‘”
Fascinating, and fascinating each other.
Tennessee closed the book.
“Tell me what you’ve done,” Tenn said to Bub.
“Mostly build sets.”
Tennessee went to the telephone. “I must tell someone about this boy.”
“It’s late,” Dotson said. “Whom are you calling?”
“No answer.”
“Then hang up.”
Tennessee hung up and stared at Doston, who stared back. This was past Pinter to End Game.
“It’s been a lovely evening,” I said.
“No shit,” Bub said.
“Thank you for dinner, Tenn.”
Tennessee Williams did not answer. We got up to go.
“Take care,” Doston said.
“Bye, Tenn,” I said.
Tenn looked up. “Goodbye, baby,” he said, and we left.
Outside, on Duncan Street, Bub said, “How much’d you lose?”
“Twelve bucks.”
“Twenty.”
“For an Evening with Tennessee Williams.”
“Not bad.”
“Who you suppose he was calling?”
“We’ll never know.”
We never did. Tennessee Williams went on living on Duncan Street sporadically till the end in 1983 when he choked on a bottle cap in a hotel room in New York, where he was opening a play, but we never heard from him again.
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