It seemed like Jack was always taking us somewhere, or there were so many people coming over to Ginsberg’s place, or we would go on little trips to see other fantastic people. The most unusual person we met on that trip to New York was Alan Ansen. One day someone suggested we all take a trip to Alan Ansen’s house on Long Island. We all went except for Al Hinkle. That was because Al would sometimes disengage himself completely from us. He always had a way of standing back from the crowd and watching—Jack did that too—but Al would actually go off on his own for a couple or three days at a time, and always came back with a woman! Al was one of those people who was very quiet—you never saw him making passes at anyone or getting out of line or anything. But even as kids, when all the guys would be out looking for women, looking for dates, Al would always sort of disappear and reappear with some girl! Always! Always! He really has, all his life, had a knack for just sort of sneaking up on women. That’s how I always picture him, that his quietness was a way of catching people by surprise. He used to always take off—he loves to walk, always has. He used to leave us, saying, “I’m gonna take a little walk—I’ll see ya,” and he might not come back for a couple days. Then, sooner or later, he’d come lumbering back again, and tell us all his experiences. But he never really got involved with any girls in New York, maybe because he’d just gotten married and his wife was down in New Orleans with Bill Burroughs, waiting for him to come back.
So Al missed this mad trip we made to Alan Ansen’s. Alan Ansen lived with his wealthy aunt. I mean, she was very, very wealthy and very society. You can imagine us all arriving at this very elegant house, and it was kind of like Jack described us arriving at his sister’s house in North Carolina—only this time we were all cleaned up, and we weren’t a motley crew. But to her we were a motley crew. She was very society, and she certainly wasn’t used to entertaining the type of people that we were. But, of course, Neal was never any different—no matter where he was. He walked right in, said, “How do you do!” and “Lovely house you have here, Ma’am!” and just overwhelmed her completely. Meanwhile, I was overwhelmed by the house. It really was a genuine mansion—it was lovely.
Alan had this fantastic music room upstairs. The walls were entirely covered with his records—just records, records, records, and tapes! And at that time, tapes were a comparatively new thing. In fact, I think wire recorders were still more in vogue. Those early machines used a thin wire to record on. I think they were supposed to be more expensive, and they were the better ones; but then of course the tapes took over, and the wire recorders disappeared. It was upstairs in the music room that things really got kind of crazy.
There is no one in the world like this man. He is unique. Neal was unlike anyone, but Alan Ansen was totally unique in a way that you could never describe. He was gay, of course. He was a huge man—a big, big man—and he was so… Well, in those days they used the expression nellie. Unfortunately, he was very unattractive, sadly so, and for a big, big man to also carry himself in such an effeminate way would immediately draw people’s attention. He seemed to delight in shocking people. We arrived from New York City by train, and Alan met us at the station. He lived in this beautiful little tiny town, with lots of trees, picturesque streets, and beautiful, beautiful, magnificent homes; and as he walked us back to his aunt’s house, he was swishing and screaming at the top of his lungs all the way—just delighting in shocking the hell out of anybody and everybody who was willing to watch. And in those days, the 1940s, it was shocking—that’s all there is to it.
We had actually gotten to know Alan Ansen in New York City. For a while, he spent quite a bit of time with us in Ginsberg’s apartment. Allen used to get disgusted with him because he would come in—a couple of times he did this—he came in and he had picked up a couple of sailors, and everyone was uncomfortable. When you walked into Allen’s apartment there wasn’t any place to go. You were just kind of stuck there with whoever happened to walk in. Allen Ginsberg got a little disgusted with Alan’s antics. He would get a little far-out sometimes and push things a little too far. It was like he was doing things that were totally unnecessary. We were all well aware of what was happening, and it wasn’t really necessary to show us all what he was up to—to throw everything in our face. But that was kind of his way—he just liked to shock. At least that’s the way it seemed to me. Maybe that wasn’t his intention at all—maybe that was his total personality. I have no idea. But when Al Hinkle went to Greece recently, he stopped to see Alan, and he told me he couldn’t be with Alan too long. Al told me that he was still the same. “He kind of overwhelms you,” Al said, and that’s just how I remember Alan Ansen—that you can’t take him for too long a period.
When we got to his aunt’s house, she was totally unprepared for us, and she didn’t make any bones about it. Alan took her in the other room to tell her that we were staying, and she was saying, “Please get those tramps out of this house immediately!” Alan replied, “Go fuck yourself!” I will say, he was equally as open with her as he was with the people on the street. He wasn’t having any two ways about it—he told her, “They’re staying, and that’s it!” Jack and Allen Ginsberg were reassuring Neal and I, you know, “It’s all right—he runs the place,” and blah blah blah! In other words: “Don’t worry about it.”