Now and Yesterday (43 page)

JONATHAN: I might disagree with you there, Connor, but often I do find myself wondering whether the value of what we've built since the fifties exceeds the value of what we tore down.

 

CONNOR: Ah!

 

JONATHAN: We addressed what we had to address after World War Two—the racism and sexism and all that, right? Tore down conventions. But the other things we tossed out the window, like Sunday dinner with the family—are we going to leave behind anything of as much communal value? Are we even happier now? I mean, as a gay man it's great to be out, to be free of shame, but I have to say—and I'm about twenty years younger than you—I can see there was a certain thrill, a certain value, in the old days, of being included in this very special, secret society; a pride, even, that was embodied in those shadowy relationships. It's true that what we've got today doesn't quite equal that, in color or texture....

 

CONNOR: No, not at all. But it's not just gay people, it's everyone. As a nation, we've traded in a sense of special for simply being OK.

JONATHAN: Very dapper.

 

CONNOR: I bought that suit expressly to be in the photograph. I think it cost eighty-nine dollars, at Bond's. That was an amazing group of people. I was enormously proud to be among them, to have been taken into the gallery. And I started meeting some very fancy people, at that point, and happily they started buying my work.

 

JONATHAN: You started going places, as they say.

 

CONNOR: Yes, and getting invited places.

 

JONATHAN: Such as?

 

CONNOR: Oh, society stuff. La Côte Basque, Pavillon. Palm Springs, Palm Beach. Not that I ever fit in. Yet I have to say that those people, the great doyennes and moguls, who'd been kids before the war—they did the sixties-international thing with that great, elevated specialness we're talking about. Babe Paley—QED. There's no real glamour around that kind of human being nowadays, only buzz. No more Eleanor Roosevelts or Albert Einsteins, either. No icons worthy of a pedestal. Yet people continue to grow up and become . . . what? Paris Hilton? They're children, with this parody of stardom. And stardom itself, at its height in Hollywood, was only a gold-plated imitation of this precious human capacity for magnificence! [pauses, then sighs] It's like a delicious strain of apple, bred and perfected over centuries, that no one eats anymore, because they're so used to the tasteless, mass-produced thing that's sold in supermarkets. So the orchard lies in waste.

 

JONATHAN: That's a very fancy image, Connor.

 

CONNOR: I'm assuming we can look at all this in editing. [glances upward and around the studio, then refocuses] Honestly, I did my share of fleeing magnificence. Even as I put my heart and soul into my work. Which is why I'm doing this interview now—to embrace, if I can, a phase of growth that for the longest time simply frightened me. I didn't know how to do it. There were no wise parents guiding people in the right direction, toward the right kind of big. No Eleanor Roosevelts. [shakes his head, visibly moved] I saw the doors being opened throughout my life—I saw them!—and just couldn't walk through them.

 

JONATHAN: Until now. Everything has its time.

 

CONNOR: Yes. [pauses, as if to control himself] Sorry. I have some emotion around this.

 

JONATHAN: Don't be sorry.

 

CONNOR: I wish it were easier to know what we want, to know what there is
to
want....

JONATHAN: Didn't he have a great body?!

 

CONNOR: Yes, didn't he? And he certainly wasn't afraid of showing it off.

 

JONATHAN: Did he act seductively around you?

 

CONNOR: Lord, no. He wasn't the least bit interested in me—I mean, beyond that kittenish thing he did with everyone. Now the lady's husband—that was a different story.

 

JONATHAN: Really—he hit on him?

 

CONNOR: He knew nothing would come of it, but at parties and such he had to let everyone know he was attracted. It was a supremely uncomfortable thing to watch, yet glorious, too, in a way.

 

JONATHAN: God bless the envelope pushers.

 

CONNOR: I suppose so. Palm Beach is nuts. It encourages all sorts of mischief. But I'll tell you where I did fit in. I can recall several enormously pleasant weekends up at Sam Barber's place in Mount Kisco—the place he had with Menotti—what did they call it? Capricorn. Now
that
was a special place. Glorious country estate. All the gays of a certain sort went up there—Bernstein, Horowitz, Copland. These were important people. They made music, the authors read their work, we talked seriously about everything. It was fun of an intellectual sort, yes, and there was even some seduction, on some levels. But there was also a code that bound us, a conspiratorial covenant, if you will. Maybe a useful kind of doublethink; maybe even a queer ethics, to use an academic term—all around the collegial and mentorial thing: the sharing and transferring of power. [smirks] Think we have anything like that nowadays?

 

JONATHAN: You mean doing favors for each other and for newcomers to the fold?

 

CONNOR: That, yes. But also just this way of understanding and respecting each other's choices about the public and the private. It was a complete and very nuanced social contract among us. . . .

 

JONATHAN: I'm sorry we don't have any pictures of one of those weekends.

 

CONNOR: No, well, you wouldn't, would you? I mean, I guess there are some—Sam probably took some—but they're probably in one of those “open in ninety-nine years” vaults.

JONATHAN: Your crew.

 

CONNOR: That was a magazine shoot. The photographer was a dream. He really had eyes in his head. His shots were full of meaning. But the writer! She kept pushing and pushing for more information....

 

JONATHAN: About?

 

CONNOR: Me; my assistants; Wallace, who had just come there to live . . . ! She was digging for dirt! As if, instead of making art, we were partying all day long. I had to call the editor and say that if that were the tack she's taking, I was going to withdraw.

 

JONATHAN: And?

 

CONNOR: The piece turned out fine. [grins modestly]

 

JONATHAN: She was only hoping to get you out of the closet.

 

CONNOR: Precisely. Instead of talking about my work.

 

JONATHAN: It's not as if you've ever loved talking about your work, Connor. And you always do manage to have attractive helpers.

 

CONNOR: [laughs] No, you're right. I'm just an ornery cuss, Jon—always have been.

 

JONATHAN: I'm glad we have that on record.

 

CONNOR: In some ways, the closet was made for me. I'm not happy to say that now, but it's true. For a long time I thought the closet one of the best-engineered conventions of all time, the most towering code of behavior ever constructed, bar none. Christianity, Anglo-American jurisprudence, modern hygienics—none was more useful or elegant or adult. Because it was created and maintained so thoughtfully. And then gay lib questioned all that, and AIDS finally killed it. I mean, people used to pour all this ingenuity into coded appearances, manners, pageantry! Everything heightened. Each relationship, each encounter, was a secret adventure of heroic proportions. Now what we've got, instead, is gay marriage. Well and good.

 

JONATHAN: Surely you don't miss the culture of shame.

 

CONNOR: [shakes his head] “Why this is hell, nor I am out of it.”

 

JONATHAN: Funny. [speaks to the camera] Marlowe's
Faust
—Mephistopheles.

 

CONNOR: [smiles wearily] No, I don't miss the shame. Though I look at Facebook sometimes— Wallace shows me—and I have to wonder if this is what pride looks like. Boys dancing around a pool on Fire Island.... I don't know. I miss Capricorn.