The very first dirty word I ever heard out of Edmund White’s mouth wasn’t what I expected. I was expecting the OG of Gay Literature to blurt out cocksucking, finger fucking, felching, something like the no-holds-barred vocabulary of his books. But no. The first dirty word Edmund White uttered when I met him was “pussy”. We were sitting in choice orchestra seats at a production of Uncle Vanya at New York’s City Center when the curtain rose and leading lady, Cate Blanchett, appeared. She was this close to us. Ed leaned over and twittered, “I can see her pussy” which we actually could through her diaphanous underpants. We both howled like school girls, and I could tell Blanchett heard us and sent a scathing look our way. That made me like Ed immediately. That was also the time he told me the story of “awful Lillian Hellman” who, whenever she went to the theater and had to leave her seat, would deliberately step hard on the feet of the people in her row. “A meaner woman you never met.” Ed loved telling this story and repeated it many times at his apartment cocktail gatherings.
I came to know Edmund White, first, of course, through his work; de rigueur reading for gay guys coming of age in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Then, through social media exchanges, after which he invited me to West 22nd Street to act as a fill-in caregiver/typist/companion. Ed was recovering from a series of small strokes and didn’t want to be left alone. His boyfriend (later husband), Michael Carroll, was leaving for Chapel Hill to help his boyfriend, Phil, move from there up to Boston where he’d accepted a teaching post at B.C. In Michael’s absence, I was hired to give Ed a hand with his new book manuscript, Inside a Pearl: My Paris Years. Through our correspondence, he learned that I was a French major and devoted Francophile. He and Michael also got a kick out of the fact that I’d been friends with writer, M.F.K. Fisher, and had had dealings with Lowell native, actress Bette Davis.
So, it began…
Ed’s daily regimen was this: up early, breakfast, usually consisting of cereal, strong coffee, a sweet roll perhaps while checking his email, catching up on correspondence. This was followed by work, dictating what he’d written the night before. He wrote longhand in black-covered monographs, black ink. Right away, he asked me how a sentence or two could be made better. But this was the renowned Edmund White and I said, “I wouldn’t presume” to which he purred, “Please do…” Ed had a habit of quite suddenly running the palm of his hand over his face, from forehead to chin, in one, rapid movement. Before I realized this was a nervous tic, I took it to mean he was exasperated with my work performance. Work would wrap up around noon for lunch, usually restaurant sushi or sandwich (always Ed’s treat). This would be followed “for fun” with Ed giving a lecture at one or another prestigious venue around town then home to ready for his guests. Ed loved to entertain; he’d arrange the most delightful gatherings in the manner of what his lifelong friend, artist Marilyn Schaefer, called “dumpling evenings”, intimate get-togethers and dinners (never more than six guests). Ed had an almost psychic knack for bringing people together, who’d get along with whom. A string of literary lights passed through that lovely dining/living room area: John Rechy, Benjamin Taylor, Joyce Carol Oates, Barry McCrea, Gabe Hudson, J.D. McClatchy, Chip Kidd, Christopher Bram, Alfred Corn. Ed knew everybody. He kept a heady schedule (I had a hard time keeping up). There was an Auntie Mame aspect to Ed’s character; in the middle of work or business, he’d be seized with an idea, “Let’s go to the theater!” “Let’s go try this new restaurant!” He’d grab his coat (he was fond of an old Miyake frock) and head us out the door. He loved squiring me and others around Manhattan and was, himself, a kid at Christmas over the latest Broadway play – he disdained musicals – or restaurant. In Ed’s company, there was never a dull moment; after a performance of Balanchine’s Jewels at Lincoln Center, we spied Peter Martins in the lobby and went over for a chat. During my work visits, we ran into Alan Cumming strolling The Garment District, Charles Blow in the Men’s Room at Babbo, Thomas Mallon in City Hall Park. Mark Doty, Sarah Schulman and a burgeoning Ocean Vuong in The East Village’s Phoenix Bar.
A memorable evening: we met and had dinner with Joyce Carol Oates and members of the Oxford University Press at an upscale Upper East Side Italian restaurant before continuing on to a reading at the nearby Barnes & Noble. I was so nervous, I downed not one but two double martinis and wound up schnockered, to Ed’s delight. I was so blotto, I’m told in the back of the taxi cab taking us to the bookstore. I proposed marriage to Joyce Carol Oates, my ardor based on the fact that we both liked cats. Ed salved my embarrassment saying, “It’s okay, Leo. Now you’re part of Joyce’s world view.”
Ed was wildly, inordinately generous; he liked handing out wads of cash. One time, in payment for what didn’t amount to more than a morning’s work, he slipped $500.00 into my hand. If I was going for a walk, or heading to the store, it was common practice for him to ask, “Do you need any money?”
He was possessed of a voracious appetite, for people, for curiosity, for food, for sex. There’s no describing what a brilliant, fertile mind Ed had, or what delightful company he could be. He was capable of expounding on Balzac and Proust one minute then suddenly being on the floor of his apartment collapsed in belly laughs over a joke about what a nightmare actresses who’d married multiple times (like Liz Taylor and Hedy Lamarr) must have been to live with. He got a charge out of seeing how a guy my age could be so gullible and once had me convinced that he’d composed the national anthem of Burma. When I was back home, he had the disarming habit of ringing me up, saying not “hello” but chiming excitedly, “Write this down!” and would dictate some morsel of memory, an anecdote he’d resurrected and wanted preserved. I can’t tell you the number of times I’d come home to messages on my answering machine: “Hi, Leo. It’s Ed. Hello? Hello? And then, wryly, “Oh, I suppose you’re off chomping on your Sunday mutton chop or something.” I have not one but two recordings of Ed warbling “There are fairies at the bottom of my garden.” Ed and I loved Bea Lillie.
Ed would retire early to his bedroom but I don’t think he ever slept; he’d be up all night writing, listening to the radio, reading. He read with an almost extraterrestrial speed, and one bedtime I remember he began Lanny Hammer’s thousand page biography of James Merrill and by morning had finished it. Not all the time but most of the time, Ed played opera while he wrote; he said music facilitated his writing. Michael was the opposite, needing complete silence. When he wrote, he wore ear plugs. Both he and Ed were thoughtful hosts; remembering that Milos Forman’s Amadeus was one of my favorites, Michael went out and rented it and they ran a private screening in Ed’s bedroom. A very special Christmas Eve.
I’ve kept thousands of emails Ed sent me through the years, Treasures. Whenever I need a lift and a laugh, I pull one up and feel much better. Ed’s company, whether in person or on the page, made of Life something sparkling, something special. The thought that this reservoir of creativity has left us and will no longer be writing is appalling.
I sometimes wonder why Ed welcomed me, some jamoke from Lowell, into his circle of friends. He must have seen something of worth in me; he invited me back to work for him a few times. The last time I was there, it was a New Year’s Eve. We were all gathered around the t.v. set, and Stephen Colbert and his guests were singing, Where or When. “We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when. But I know we’ll meet again some sunny day.” Some wistful sixth sense told me I’d never see Edmund White again, and I never did.
Photo of Leo Racicot and Edmund White by Joyce Carol Oates