"We were at that backyard restaurant at the other end of the island, in a bar," Truman Capote's lover John 0'Shea once recalled. "The place was jammed with locals... maybe what you'd call the transient locals... like Jimmy Kirkwood and Peter Fonda and the usual clutch of game-fish machos roughing each other up for the benefit of those English queens down from Sugar Loaf or wherever it is they live, and things were pretty lively all round...

"Anyway, up to our tables comes this chick... not bad, but full of gush, who turns around, flips up a miniskirt and asks Truman to autograph her buns. Not batting an eyelash, he takes out a felt-tipped pen and scrawls his name across a plump little buttock. It wasfunny, really sort of nice.

"Then, not two minutes later, comes this kid bartender, Joey, they call him, who's obviously been eyeing the proceedings. The thing is, he's got his jockey shorts in his hand and not where they should be. One quick cruise and -- everybody's listening now -- I turn to Truman. 'You can't sign your name on that,' I said, 'but maybe you could initial it.'"