entertainment; sheer joy. I return to The 39 Steps, first just to wonder what so enchanted J.D. Salinger — it was his favorite film. It’s clear to me that there are two reasons for this. One, the essential innocence of the film. It’s sweetness. It’s one of Hitchcock’s early sound films, made before he went to Hollywood, and in it he seems to be laying before us all his concerns -- quite exuberant about what he has discovered he is capable of doing, about what he is going to do. The film begins with ‘Mr. Memory’ performing at a music hall. Hitchcock is obviously in love with this atmosphere (he brings it back at the end with The London Palladium). He loves the interaction between audience and performers — the uninhabited candour when they are dissatisfied with the show, but — this is all in good faith — he says — take it with good humour. The audience might complain, but no one really dislikes the show or the performers — we’re all in this together — we just want you to know you’re being fooled, and, ultimately, it’s all foolishness. This kind of goodwill would not have been lost of Salinger, who — for all his faults — was remarkably innocent, or at least thought himself to be so -- a child really -- whose fate was to be disappointed, then destroyed, by evil. The film proceeds with many delightfully unlikely adventures. Like Shakespeare’s Pericles — or any of his romances — it is about transformations, about the uncertain relationship between the outer and the inner self, and how do we find the truth inside? Robert Donat is certainly meant to be handsome — I do not find him so really -- but his too carefully groomed mustache gives this away. Madeleine Carroll is handcuffed to him half-way through the film, and their spirited banter is grand — you know they are attracted to each other, but unlike Hepburn and Tracy we know it would be impossible for her to be in love with him — as he is supposed to be a murderer (but he is not). My favorite moment is when they are handcuffed together in bed, and just before going to sleep he gleefully recounts his crimes — all lies of course -- and she can’t help laughing (she turns her head away so he won’t see). Of course she is in love with him; somewhere deep down she knows he is good. Because we all know, don’t we, the fundamental difference between good and evil? This kind of trust in the redeeming power of love would have appealed to Salinger. So would the hero’s mistaken identity as killer. Salinger grew to be a kind of criminal — first for falling in love with women who were inappropriately young, but really for daring to detest his fans. This is what I take from Salinger. Nothing I write here -- or anywhere — is for you. It's for me. One or two people may read it now and then, but I owe you nothing. Only this, because it’s all I have. It’s appropriate that I should be watching The 39 Steps (O I just have to tell you one more moment, when Carroll and Donat touch secretly at the end, as they are watching the capture of the German spy. Their hands drift together, quite naturally of course, and no one can see it but us. And Donat still has the chain dangling from his wrist. What does that mean?) Yes I am in Montreal. And I can’t quite believe I’m writing these lines. My lover said that he was tired of me being unhappy; all I could say was “It isn’t likely to change until I have a real weekend in Montreal.” I’ve had it; and we’re still here. Now I know what it is I missed. Men. The everything of men. The smell of them, from stem to stern. The way they strut around — men strut their stuff you know, they know what they have down there, and many of them know how to wield it, and they are proud of it too. They are even proud of what’s behind. I must tell you that I haven’t had quite so many men sit on my face — one after another — for quite a long time. This is what I missed, most of all; it’s always been, for me, amazing, just giving into the sheer ‘mannness’ of men, by letting them take advantage of me in that particular manner. No one has sat on my face for approximately a year. The very few strangers I have met online — well I didn’t feel comfortable doing that with them; there has to be something really gorgeous about you if I am to submit to you in that way. The first one was hairy and muscular and sweet (adoring) and was pretty intoxicated by calling me ‘Daddy' and having ‘Daddy’ tell him to do things. The second was a young man — who, it took me a few seconds too realize— was pretty hypnotized by his own butt, and it only took me a few minutes to be hypnotized by it too. This is where I was meant to be, and what I was meant to do; I realize now what I suspected. And I’m sure it’s true for many queers. During COVID-19, I went back into the closet for a year. It’s been just like it was back then; the trauma of this is pretty severe, I think it’s probably why people are ODing on drugs like clockwork, committing suicide and shooting each other. Not because they are queer — though I’m sure some queers have joined that club — but because whatever particular nightmare is your worst fantasy, has -- for many of us -- come true during this time. If you have read this far (God help you!) you will probably understand what I’m saying. But many will not. “What in God’s name are you whining about?," they say. “You don’t have it that bad.” It’s like the husband who says “Why are you divorcing me, after all, I don’t beat you." A quote: “Ever allow the implacably objective to come to power, and that will spell the end of compassion and imagination on earth.” (Jakob Wassermann) We have been ruled by ‘reason,’ by left brain fanatics who have given us twenty thousand reasons for not loving each other, not hugging each other, and not sniffing each other’s private parts. Like dogs we will now take to the streets, and reclaim our destiny— because what is human about us is that we are animals. The problem is only when we dare to imagine — even for one moment -- that we are completely 'objective.' That is a kind of fatal fooling.
