Pete Williams was my closest and dearest friend. Bright, witty, talented, warm, feisty, and, even better, complex. He was rarely without surprise.
We met in 1966 when he directed the pilot for a proposed TV soap (that never got on) and we hit it off immediately. We began going out on double dates, later went to the same gym together, and soon we saw or talked to each other every day. He was engaged to a lovely girl, Didi Morrow.
One evening about three months into our friendship, after we’d taken our dates home, we stopped by a bar for a nightcap. We ended up having three or four and when we left and were walking down the street, Pete suddenly slipped his arm around my shoulder. He surprised me; there was extreme warmth and intimacy about the gesture. When I looked over at him, he grinned and said, “That bother you?”
“No ...” I shrugged, trying to be as casual as possible. “Why?”
He shrugged in return, then gave my shoulder a squeeze. “Ever since I’ve known you, you got me pretending I don’t have arms.”
This stopped me dead. (That line stayed with me; it was typical of the way he put things.)
Pete stopped walking, too. He took his arm from around my shoulder and we stood there on the sidewalk facing each other as he dropped the zinger: “You know something, Jimmy? I’d like to go to bed with you.”
The level offhand way in which he spoke let me know he was serious. So I said neither What nor Come on nor You’re kidding!
I was, in fact, caught so completely off guard I was unable to speak. My expression must have said it all. The look on my face fractured him. He reared back, howling in laughter. This sudden explosion riled me, made me feel naive and stupid. When he stopped laughing and saw that my confusion had turned to anger, he tapped me on the arm. Cocking his head, he said: “Listen, just because I’d like to make it with you doesn’t mean I couldn’t also beat the shit out of you. Kindly unglue the face.”
When I told him I did not indulge, he merely shrugged and said, “Too bad, you don’t know what you’re missing.” My face still had incredulity stamped all over it. “I know,” Pete grinned, echoing my thoughts, “what about Didi? Oh, Jimmy...” He shook his head. “I can tell from your expression there’s not much use talking about it. I love her, I adore her. I have, what shall I say, catholic tastes, I can’t help it, so I enjoy them. The best of both worlds. Besides, if I didn’t feel I had enough love in me for more than one person, I’d feel downright bankrupt!” Once again he looked at me and laughed.
We, of course, did talk about it. We talked about everything as our friendship deepened. He never made another overture. Oh, he kidded, but that was all.
I was best man at his wedding and am godfather to his son, Pete, Jr. His marriage to Didi was as successful and happy as any marriage I’ve witnessed. This fall, after directing a soap for three years and several off-Broadway shows, he directed his first Broadway play, Duet for Lemons. A solid hit, still running. He had just signed for his first movie. He was on his way, moving up fast. No one deserved it more.
On October 16th, eleven days after the opening of his show, sitting in a movie house on Forty-second Street catching a double feature he’d missed—he died. Just died, sitting there alone in the balcony.
Pete Williams had recently turned thirty-seven, had no previous history of heart trouble, had rarely been ill.
His death was, to me, brutal, obscene, completely gratuitous. I did not take it well. By that, I mean I took it selfishly, as a deprivation, something taken away from me.
At the funeral parlor, when left alone with him—Didi had stepped outside with his mother—I stared and stared at that cocky upturned face, that nose, it was a pugnacious nose, the shock of chestnut hair, hair that seemed so alive now, the most alive part of him. I had belted down a few raw, burning shots, and suddenly I absolutely begged him: “Come on, Pete, come off it! Pete, that’s enough, up and at ’em! Bad taste, Pete! Pete, joke over!”
I stopped and looked closely at him, stood there staring down at him. There, that mouth, the lips pressed together suppressing his grin, just a slight tug over in the corner, as if acknowledging the secret of his deception.
“Jesus, Pete—come on now!” And I caught myself with a hand raised. An impulse—to what! Slap him? Yes, actually slap him awake. Or make him flinch, scare him out of it by the threat of my gesture.
The next day, the day of the funeral, some minutes before those slick-haired carnationed monkeys in their foul gray suits closed that murderous gleaming mahogany lid for all time, I had an impulse to lean down and whisper: If you stop it—I’ll make it with you. I will!
Pete’s death still haunts me.