all us fantasists. He had to be discreet, he explained. The US Military had become interested in missiles and jet propulsion, and was now funding the California Institute of Technology’s rocket group, which was testing secret prototypes out in the desert. He gave a vague account of the group’s activities that conjured visions of mystics raising fire demons in the wilderness. The desert as an empty stage beneath a theatre of stars, a limitless temple of research. He was equally obscure about this occult sect of his, the Ordo Templi Orientis. He was living a strange double life, one of wild asceticism and divine exhaustion, toiling beneath the harsh sun by day, enacting sacramental rites at the Agape Lodge of the OTO by night. He embodied a weird fusion of modern science and ancient wisdom, part hip technocrat, part Renaissance wizard.
He certainly cast some sort of spell over the room that night. It was an energy that seemed to split the discussion into waves and particles. No one voice could hold all the attention after that point. The party began to fracture and oscillate. Hubbard was in one corner detailing an improbable jungle adventure to Cleve Cartmill. Anthony Boucher was exchanging rapid Spanish with Nemesio. Heinlein and Williamson were circulating. Leslyn went into the kitchen for olives and more sherry. I had already noticed a buzz of attraction between Jack Parsons and Mary-Lou. I watched with dread as she slowly, inexorably, began to gravitate towards him.
They were in deep discussion about astronomy and astrology when Heinlein pulled me into his orbit. He announced that he was going up to his study to show Jack Willamson his ‘Timeline of Future History’ and insisted I join them. We went upstairs. Heinlein had on his wall a chart that mapped out a chronology of all the futuristic stories he had written and was planning to write. I stared at it blankly as Williamson made enthusiastic comments. When I think of it now I see the strange comment The Crazy Years – mass psychosis in the sixth decade next to the 1960s, but perhaps that’s because it was the one prediction Heinlein really did get right. At the time I’m sure I simply looked dumbfounded by the imagined course of the next two centuries as if searching for some clue as to what was going to happen that evening.
I excused myself and went back downstairs. I was beginning to feel the effects of the sherry. I took a wrong turning and found myself in a utility room. I felt as if I was trapped in the labyrinthine tesseract of Heinlein’s story. I eventually found my way back to the lounge and looked around like a lost child. Hubbard caught my eye.
‘She’s outside, kid,’ he drawled with a cruel smile.
I went to the door and spied Mary-Lou by the front porch standing close to Jack Parsons. He was pointing up at the sky, tracing a constellation as he talked in a low, intense drone. I felt as if I was losing my footing and I held onto the door for support. I went back inside, walking in an absurd crouching posture. Leslyn Heinlein frowned as she handed me another glass of sherry and asked Nemesio about Mexico. He said that he was actually from Cuba. I tried hard to concentrate as he told me his story. Like many young men he insisted on a pattern to his as yet unformed life. He was always late, he concluded. He had planned to go to Spain to fight with an anarchist militia. Two days before he was due to embark from Havana, Franco marched into Madrid. He then went to Mexico to study, with the intention of meeting Leon Trotsky. He finally obtained a letter of introduction only to arrive at Coyoacán four days after Trotsky was assassinated by Ramón Mercader.
‘I think this is why I started writing about the future, so as not to be late,’ he explained with a grin. ‘But I am also interested in technological utopianism.’
He had come to LA, making contact with a disparate group of American radicals: Trotskyists, members of the Technocracy Movement and libertarians like Heinlein, who had been involved in Upton Sinclair’s End Poverty in California campaign back in the 1930s.
The party was beginning to break up. Mary-Lou came back into the lounge.
‘Larry,’ she said, somewhat breathlessly, ‘I’m getting a ride with Jack.’
‘But, but, Mary-Lou,’ I slurred. ‘I thought I was driving you home.’
‘It’s okay, Larry. You’ll want to