Interview conducted on May 22nd, 2015, at the Harriet Hancock Gay & Lesbian Community Center in Columbia, South Carolina:
[Voice of interviewer, Todd Mendel] “...and we’re recording. Please state your name and age, please.”
[Voice of an elderly male] “My name is Peyton Edwards, and I’m seventy-six years old.”
[Todd Mendel] “Tell me about your recollections of Carter Ridge, when did you first learn about him?”
[Peyton Edwards] “I was a freshman I believe, at the University of South Carolina, here in Columbia. I lived in a dormitory just off of the Horseshoe, the center of the campus back in those days, and we had heard that some millionaire was using the old library across the way. Everybody was all abuzz about it. Around the same time there was more and more press coming out about this guy, this really young guy, named Carter Ridge. The first time I saw his photo, it must have been in Time or Life magazine, and I was in love. (laughing) I had the biggest crush on him, he was just so handsome. And then one of my dorm mates said that it was Carter Ridge who was renting the old library, and I became obsessed. I wanted to see him in person.
[Todd Mendel] “Were you openly gay back then?”
[Peyton Edwards] “Oh goodness no. Heavens no. Nobody knew. I heard that there was some late night shenanigans that happened over on Senate Street, and I kind of went over there sometimes on late night walks on a Friday or Saturday, but I never did anything. I was scared to death. I just would take matters into my own hands, so to speak. (laughing)
[Todd Mendel] “So there were no rumors at the time about Carter Ridge?”
[Peyton Edwards] “Rumors? That he was gay? Whatever for? He was young, rich, and there was always this young woman around him who I just assumed was his girlfriend. Why, was he gay?”
[Todd Mendel] “I was just curious what the gays of your generation thought of him...”
[Peyton Edwards] “We loved him. I finally saw him in person for the first time one afternoon, walking on campus. I was coming back from Calculus, rounding the corner by Rutledge chapel, and there he was, twenty, thirty feet away. I could see the blue of his eyes from that far, and that beautiful dark blond curly hair. My heart nearly stopped. Soon there was a small mob of us, all kinds of students and faculty. He was like a rock star.”
June 1962, Columbia
Of all the men Carter had encountered and “experienced,” as Margot put it, the architect Alessandro was the one who still had the deepest effect on him. He would write long, personal letters to Alessandro, and send them to his address in Milan, and wait. Sometimes there was a response, oftentimes not. Part of the gap was the fact that international post service was not very reliable in Italy, with letters getting lost, but also because the gap was emotional. Carter was in love, and Alessandro was not, or perhaps he was, but he was more sensible, knowing that the distance between them was prohibitive for maintaining a love affair. So he tried to dampen Carter’s ardor, sending short, one-page letters every few months, which Carter devoured immediately, and which would flood his heart with desire to return to the villa he had taken in Siena, or Alessandro’s familial cottage on Lake Como, to summer evenings along the shore, drinking martinis and laughing, enjoying the bella vita.
Since then Carter had resigned himself to the fact that he would never find love. Sex, yes, but love with another man, the kind of love that made one’s heart want to pour out bad poetry onto paper or sing sappy lyrics when alone waiting for another moment together, that kind of beautiful life-affirming possibility of sharing daily the intimacies of one’s existence would not be possible for him. He no longer wondered what Alessandro was doing, if he thought also of Carter, or if they would ever meet again. He had let that part of himself scab up and scar over, and focused on working to bring about a better life for others even if it meant neglecting his own happiness.
Carter remembered coming home one day as a young boy from grammar school at Mead Hall and wrestling with his tie knot, trying to slip it over his head while simultaneously attempting to kick off his shoes so that he could run off into the backyard and play. Geraldine, the family housekeeper, had seen Carter struggling and gave a quick laugh, saying, “Hold on, Carter, let me help you out.”
She’d sat Carter onto her lap, and gently undid the knot in his tie, a knot that he’d purposely had left in place each day so that he could slip it back over his head the following morning for class, and then slowly, methodically, undid the tight balled-up knots of his shoelaces. “My oh my,” she whispered to him, calming him down, “you got some serious knots up in here! Mm-hmmm... you know, Carter,” she paused as she dug her index finger into the loosening lace, “This here is what life is all about.”
He’d looked up at her quizzically, his eyebrows furrowed. “Taking off our shoes?” he asked.
She laughed again, “No honey. Life is all about undoing each other’s knots. We alls got knots in our lives, and the purpose, the reason the good Lord put us all here together is to make us learn to free up them knots in other folks’ lives. There!” she said, as she undid the final lace and slipped off his shoe.
Carter reached over and gave Geraldine a hug, “Thank-you, Geraldine,” and then slid off her lap. He’d started to run off, but stopped and turned, saying, “Geraldine, if you ever have a knot you need me to untie, you just let me know!”
The simple lesson had stuck with him over the years, and he had made it his calling after having gone to Greenville for the lynching trial. With Margot he had knit together a kind of life, one that gave him meaning as he worked towards bringing The Good Life to South Carolina, and through her creative wizardry he projected this external image of success, of having it all, even if behind the closed door of his suite at home in Galanos, Carter was alone. There he retreated from the limelight, and listened to music, playing LPs he had picked up over the years, from his travels, on his hi-fidelity stereo. Sometimes he and Bradford would go to a Negro record store after their monthly lunches, and go through the stack of new releases. Bradford’s taste was decidedly more upbeat, and he loved the popular rhythm and blues acts that he heard on the local Negro radio station, but Carter tended towards more melancholy, less sanguine fare, such as the introspective complex jazz of Chet Baker. When Margot had still been living in Manhattan, the occasions he would visit her he would spend a whole day in Harlem, going from record store to record store, loading up on new audio treasures.
He built up an extensive collection back home in South Carolina, and would go through a stack of LPs on his hi-fi most Saturdays, his voice trailing along to Nat King Cole, his foot tapping along to John Coltrane or Stan Getz, as he read in his dark leather club chair overlooking the garden, and beyond it, the start of Hitchcock Woods. By sunset he might have spent an entire day alone in his room, and he would see the golden shimmer above the tree line, the thick clusters of oaks, dogwoods, and pines losing themselves into a collective opaqueness that cast their pitchy shadows across the lawn until finally the entire estate would be bathed in their darkness except for the deep blue of the western sky still beckoning from afar. It was during this sliver of time, neither day nor night, that he called his “magic hour,” and whatever anxiety, despondency, or frustration he had guarded all day would unbind itself and meander away. It was then that he was at his most creative, his most hopeful, and he would jot down ideas, or get up at last from his chair and make a phone call, or go down to the pool for a quick swim, rejuvenated and optimistic about the future, about tomorrow.
And then along came Gabriel.
The day after the cadets arrived to begin their summer internships at the old library, Carter had the feeling as if it were the first day of school with a sense of anticipation of seeing again this curious young man with the wide smile, enthusiastic demeanor, and wandering eyes. After Shelby’s drive up to Columbia from Galanos, Carter quickly ascended the staircase of the old library and as he approached to greet the three secretaries at their round table, he saw that they were giggling with a cadet, his cadet. The older of the secretaries blushed when she saw Carter and reflexively patted her hairdo and adjusted her girdle with a quick thumb into the fabric of her poly-blend dress.
“Good morning, ladies.”
“Good morning, Mr. Ridge,” they all said.
The cadet stood at attention, and then relaxed when Carter passed to head to his usual worktable at the end of the cavernous room.
“Oh, and cadet?” Carter asked
“Cadet Sawyers.”
“Cadet Sawyers,” Carter said, “Would you be so kind as to let the media team know that I’m here and ready to start our planning meeting?”
Cadet Sawyers let loose a quick smile with his nod, and said, “Of course, Mr. Ridge.” and turned away. He must have made a face when he walked past the secretaries’ table, because two of them giggled and laughed in response to Sawyers walking past. The request had been just a ruse, Carter could easily have waited the five minutes for the team to assemble for their scheduled meeting, but it allowed Carter to learn the cadet’s name, and to look him square in the eyes as he talked to him. There was no doubt now, he had seen those eyes before. Not on Senate Street, or at the sad bar of last resort hidden downtown, but wherever he had been cruising for sex. They were the eyes of an accomplice, of another man seeking something that neither dared give voice to, but that each knew the other wanted. Needed. Carter sat at the long wooden table and tried to keep his eyes focused on the proposed media spending buy for July, but like iron fillings to a magnet they kept returning to get another glance of the cadet as he sat working with the policy team in their alcove.
He was curious about Sawyers’ interest, with the knowledge that nothing would come of it. Carter was cognizant he was under a microscope now, and between Margot’s watchful eye (a jeweler would’ve been jealous), and the campaign office staff, he needed to be careful to not let anyone know of his fascination with this puzzling cadet. And yet there was also the fact that Sawyers had an unusual handsomeness that wasn’t immediately obvious, with his military style shaved head, dark eyes, and slight gap between his two front teeth which was evident each time he smiled — no, beamed — which was often. Sawyers had an earnestness, a positive energy about him that brought back echoes of his first crush back at prep school, Lane. Sawyers had a phrase that he used, COME on, with the emphasis on the first word, that he would use on occasion as he teased one of the secretaries (COME on, Miss Wendellson) or under his breath if he was trying to stuff a folder back into a full cabinet (COME on, stupid folder). He bounced his right leg at a constant rate while seated, releasing some of that effervescent vitality he exuded. Wherever he was, he seemed to sparkle and bubble with a constant optimism that was contagious. Occasionally, Sawyers caught Carter staring, and Carter would return to reading the proposal that he was supposed to be working on, instead of ogling the athletic frame of the cadet nearby.
Once the media budget meeting was finished, the cadet major came to give him a quick update for the afternoon’s itinerary.
“Your luncheon speech to the South Carolina Builders’ Association is in the yellow folder, and then following that, Shelby will be taking you back to Galanos for the evening.”
“I don’t have any meetings scheduled this afternoon?”
“Not unless you want me to set something up.”
“Which cadet will be joining me at the luncheon?”
“I assume it will be Cadet Sawyers since he’s assigned to your office detail this month.”
“Okay, well, let me know when I need to get going.”
Soon Carter was walking with Cadet Sawyers out of the office towards the curbside on Sumter Street where the Citroën was idling. When they were out of earshot from the rest of the office, Carter turned to Sawyers and asked, “How is it going so far?”
“Sir?”
“The work here, this is your second day, correct?”
“Yes, sir. I’m enjoying it a lot.”
Carter looked over at Sawyers when he said this, and saw those eyes focus intently on his own.
“I’m glad. You seem to be a quick study.”
For early June, the humidity was not overpowering, and they were still in the relative cool of the shade from the old library building.
“You may have told me yesterday, but I am afraid I have forgotten your first name,” Carter said as they rounded the corner towards the dark blue sedan.
“Gabriel, sir.”
Of course it is. What else could it be, he looks like a protecting angel.
“God is my strength,” Carter said.
Gabriel laughed, and then said, “You know your Bible, sir.”
They reached the car, and Shelby came out to open the door.
“What are you studying at the Citadel? Do you have a major?”
“I’m into the classics. Ancient Greece and Rome,” Gabriel replied.
Carter looked over at him, the sun was in his eyes and he squinted. “‘The classics’?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So, you must know all about Harmodius and Aristogeiton?”
Gabriel blushed. Carter wasn’t sure if it was because he had never heard of these two names before, or if it was because he picked up on Carter’s subtle hint. Sensing his embarrassment, Carter turned to get into the back seat.
“Maybe it will come up in the next semester,” Carter said to assuage Gabriel. “You’re still just a junior.”
The next day the weather had changed from surprisingly pleasant to typically infernal which necessitated a change in vehicle. The air-conditioned Continental was prepared for the day’s itinerary, and again it was Gabriel who had been assigned by Cadet Major Adams to join Carter for his afternoon speech at the Chamber of Commerce’s monthly luncheon.
“I looked up Harmodius and Aristogeiton last night,” Gabriel said as their steps echoed down the elm wood stairwell of the old library towards the front exit.
“Oh?”
“Yes. The tyrant killers. The ancient Athenians called them that,” Gabriel said.
“Among other things. Very good!”
Carter turned and looked at Gabriel as he held the door open for him. Those eyes were now endowed with the hidden knowledge that Carter knew what was feeding his hunger.
“Among other things,” Gabriel said with a smile.
The deep humidity of the short walk from the cool old library dampened Carter’s body, reminding him that his back, his arms, and his torso were mere estuaries for the sweat that pooled and then ran down his length to gather in his groin, along with other bodily needs. Gabriel kept a half pace in front of Carter as they crossed the grounds towards Shelby who waited until the last minute before exiting the air-conditioned interior and opening the side door for Carter, but it was Carter who wanted to maintain a half pace before Gabriel in this flirtatious dance they had started.