Cheever_ A Life - Blake Bailey [289]
When he returned to Ossining, however, it wasn't Elaine he had in mind while wrestling with the urge to write “I love you” a “hundred times, a thousand times”—though he realized that this was “aimed at the wrong customer”: “I write an advertisement for the New York Review of Books: ‘Revolting, elderly, alcoholic novelist desires meaningful relationship with 24-year old aristocratic North Carolinian with supple form and baroque biceps. Little gay experience but ready learner. Etc’ “ The Carolinian in question was Gurganus, of course, who'd come to dominate Cheever's thoughts to a disturbing degree—disturbing because it was all so hopeless. Or was it? Around Valentine's Day, Gurganus sent Cheever some of the better stories he'd written in workshop, including one titled “Minor Heroism” that Cheever had found so promising he'd even been willing to offer concrete editing suggestions (How about a little more of this? And perhaps a little less of that?). Cheever sent the story to Maxwell, and became almost unbearably excited when his old friend paid him a visit that Saturday (the first, perhaps, since his doleful rejection of “The Geometry of Love” in 1965): Maxwell thought the story was wonderful, but now it was up to Shawn—who, Maxwell cautioned, had “never taken a story about a homosexual.” That Monday, Cheever drank martinis and waited anxiously by the phone, dying to get the go-ahead to call Gurganus with good news; as it happened Maxwell had already called him. “Yeah, and I'm Mae West,” Gurganus remembered saying when Maxwell introduced himself. The latter, soft-spoken as ever, insisted he was indeed from The New Yorker and would very much like Mr. Gurganus's permission to publish “Minor Heroism.” “That was one of the nicest things I've ever participated in,” Cheever wrote Maxwell afterward; Gurganus would always consider it “the kindest thing anybody's ever done for me.”
It came with a few strings, though, or so it seemed. A day or two later, Cheever wrote a playful love letter describing “the modesty of [his] demands”: “All I expect is that you learn to cook, service me sexually from three to seven times a day, never interrupt me, contradict me or reflect in any way on the beauty of my prose, my intellect or my person. You must also play soccer, hockey and football. I once asked myself (while skating) if Allan and I became lovers would I have to give up scrub hockey?” As a matter of fact, Cheever had given up scrub hockey (if he'd ever properly picked it up) almost before Gurganus was born, but this was by way of pointing out, subtly, that any ideal chum of Cheever's would have to swing his hips less and whack a ball or a puck more. Gurganus was subtle, too, in letting Cheever know that he had other plans. “The closings of your letters disconcert me,” Cheever wrote. “We started off with love, and moved into respect, devotion and affection. … I suppose we'll go through sincerely, truly, and end up Dictated but unsigned.” Gurganus had no particular objection to signing off with love (especially after the “Minor Heroism” sale), as long as he let Cheever know that this was more of an agape type of love, since his erotic drives were decidedly occupied elsewhere. In his journal, Cheever brooded over the “string of lovely boys” Gurganus never failed to mention (“How dare he refuse me in favor of some dimwitted major in decorative arts”); meanwhile he asked Gurganus to consider whether such callow youths “appreciate the excellence of your character and the fineness of your mind.”
The best Gurganus could do was insist that he loved Cheever—after a fashion. When the semester ended in May, he paid homage in Ossining, where Cheever was waiting for him at the train station (“like being met by Melville on the docks,” said Gurganus). Deeply moved, already tipsy, Cheever held his beloved's hand as he drove them to a