Last night I went to Hugh Hefner’s all white New Year’s Eve party. It was the usual, but less crazy of his parties. What I observed there is that so many of us are just observers, trying to fit in, lacking the credentials for the “happening moment”, either drinking, dancing, lit . . . by the crashing music. We try . . to connect, the more we try, the worse we feel about ourselves. I am reminded of the young, awkward Gary Cooper, but I suppose there are many layers to any story, and it does take two hours plus a clever screenplay to get to the heart’s knowing.

Dear Jane Russell is seated to my right. “This awful! loud rap music!! Give me the ‘40’s . . . Harry James . . .” The hearing aide she uses distorts the music’s volume. Hugh Hefner’s brother is pointed out to me, he is the perfect symbol of that perfect satyr-of-a-Santa the cartoons depict, lean well-groomed, escorting a youngish nubile bluer-than-black woman of incredible proportions. She is the real thing, his playboy playmate! They stay close all evening. The rest of us wander on the white carpeted lawn, under a ballooning tent sloping toward a stage with a harem-like enclosure for his majesty Mr. Hefner, now 81 and his bevy of three. My friend even knew the girls’ names. He said at one time there had been seven . . . until the “division”.

A gentleman from the Midwest seated himself next to me, saying he was writing Hugh Hefner’s biography. “There are things I still don’t understand . . . he’s very smart though.” It was a smooth evening, harmless by all appearances. I left at ten minutes after midnight with the other three ‘50’s “Starlets”: Terry Moore, Jane Russell, and France Nuyen. I am aware now that I am part of a not too disagreeable deception. “Why don’t you stay with your escort?” Terry asked. “He adored you.” Chris Barkley from Arizona. He built houses and said building shopping centers was more successful since the housing slump. “He’s 35 years old. I encouraged him to have fun” in this visual, actual fantasy environment. “But he wanted to be with you.” Chris was at least 6’6” with a face that wouldn’t rival Gary Cooper’s but made him all the more adorable. Nothing is sure, it never is.