Jubilee Hitchhiker

by William Hjortsberg

  Ianthe left for California around the same time the boys departed. On his own again, his novel off in the mail, Richard looked for possible venues for shorter pieces. Throughout October, he stayed in mail and phone contact with Helen Brann, hoping to facilitate just such an assignment. McGuane, Harrison, Hjortsberg, and J. D. Reed all supplemented their literary incomes by freelancing for Sports Illustrated. This struck Brautigan as an enticing proposition. Through his agent, he proposed articles on hunting and basketball to Patricia Ryan, the text editor at the Luce publication. Although Pat found “the notion of Brautigan on basketball intriguing,” the magazine already had a staffer working on a piece about the SuperSonics, and she regretfully declined. Ryan did offer Richard a Sports Illustrated assignment, which included a guarantee, and he promptly had Helen Brann submit “A Gun for Big Fish” to her.

  Richard had lots of time to think about the house he bought. Every time he walked through the empty rooms, he considered the renovations he wanted before he moved in. Brautigan gave Peter Miller a call and asked him to come to Montana and have a look at his new place. Richard made arrangements for Miller to fly to Bozeman on the first weekend in November.

  It was snowing when Peter arrived. “God, this is cold,” he thought. Brautigan showed him around the Pine Creek property, and Miller agreed it had tremendous potential. It was the wrong season to begin a big construction project. Richard and Peter agreed to meet again in the early spring and finalize their plans.

  Richard Brautigan left Pine Creek at the end of the first week in November, flying out of Bozeman on a $139 Frontier flight that routed him through Salt Lake City to New York. This time he stayed for two weeks in room 1207 at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, 24 Fifth Avenue. The rate was $23 a night. A lot of Richard’s time in the city was spent hanging out with Bob Dattila and eating expensive meals at The Palm. Harrison wrote, after his return to Frisco, hoping he “had a Gotham gala, replete with girlbum stew.” Brautigan likely got together with Carol Brissie, who had been out in San Francisco during July, when Brautigan treated her to a memorable scampi dinner at Vanessi’s.

  Brautigan discussed market strategy for The Hawkline Monster with Helen Brann. She wanted a $75,000 advance for the hardcover and quality paperback rights, with a guaranteed first printing order of twenty-five thousand copies. Richard would retain the approval of dust jacket design and ad copy accorded him in his previous S&S contract. All this sounded fine to Brautigan, who asked his agent about having Simon & Schuster bring out a new collection of his poetry. Helen thought this was an excellent idea. She advised waiting until after they made the Hawkline deal before proposing it.

  Brautigan left New York on November 21, taking an American Airlines flight to San Francisco. Ensconced again on Geary Street, he got back in touch with Jayne Walker, and they resumed an on-again, off-again relationship. She often met him at Enrico’s, where he spent almost every late afternoon drinking with his buddies before heading next door to Vanessi’s for dinner. Walking down Broadway alone always seemed “quite a trial” for Jayne. It was a neighborhood of strip clubs and topless bars, and she feared people would assume she was a hooker.

  Walker had brought back “a fair amount” of saffron from Spain. “Richard was immediately struck by the brilliance of my move,” she said. He knew saffron was worth its weight in Kryptonite in the States and yet relatively inexpensive in Spain. Brautigan became obsessed with acquiring some of the uncommon spice. To that end, he proposed a trade to Walker. He would give her a signed copy of The Octopus Frontier, already a rare and desirable early Brautigan title, in exchange for some of her saffron.

  “Richard would never have signed a book for me because he was so completely paranoid about letting anybody sell his signature,” Walker recalled. Brautigan had been “horrified” to learn that some of his old friends were selling his letters now that he had become famous. A bargain was struck. Richard had “a very clear idea in his mind of what the book was worth on the market because he always kept track of stuff like that.” They measured out a quantity of saffron in his kitchen, “not that much really,” and Brautigan signed a copy of his book for Jayne. A couple days later, he phoned her in Berkeley, furious because he had just learned the true value of his saffron and discovered it wasn’t worth as much as a signed copy of The Octopus Frontier. Walker refused to renegotiate the trade. “A deal is a deal,” she told him.

  At the end of November, Helen Brann mailed Brautigan a $500 kill-fee check from Sports Illustrated, which had rejected “A Gun for Big Fish.” She was trying the story next with Esquire. A week later, Brann sent Richard his new Simon & Schuster contract for The Hawkline Monster. They settled upon a $50,000 advance for hardcover and quality paperback rights, with a straight 15 percent royalty on the hardcover edition. Helen added a clause stipulating a full-page ad in the New York Times within one month of publication. Along with the book contract, Brann enclosed copies of an exclusive agreement with her new agency for Brautigan to amend as he wished. Richard made a few changes, eliminating the agency’s control over “ideas” and “recordings” and striking out all language entitling Brann to deduct expenses such as postage and telephone calls from his account. In his own hand he added, “You will handle the magazine sale of my poetry only at my discretion.” After a week of scrutiny, Richard signed both documents and mailed them back to Helen in New York.

  Helen Brann wanted to move forward with plans to market the motion picture rights for Hawkline. She had entered into an arrangement with theatrical agent Flora Roberts to represent that side of her business. Roberts, a Bronx-born New Yorker, had worked as an assistant to legendary Broadway producer Kermit Bloomgarden before becoming an independent agent in the early 1950s. Among her long-term clients were Ira Levin and Stephen Sondheim. Roberts sent a manuscript copy of Hawkline to film director Peter Bogdanovich for his consideration.

  All in all, 1973 had been a very good year for Richard Brautigan, ending on a fiscal high note when Helen Brann sent him a check for $45,000 in December, his advance from Simon & Schuster for The Hawkline Monster. In a mood to celebrate, Richard took his daughter and Anne Kuniyuki on a trip up to Mendocino over Christmas. They stayed at the Sea Gull Inn, which provided a pleasant refuge from the cold, foggy weather. Ianthe was sick the whole time, coughing continuously on the drive north. She believed because Anne worked as a professional nurse, she would take care of her. Things didn’t work out that way. Ianthe thought Anne was very nice, “but she was no healer.”

  1974 began on a prosperous note. In January, Brautigan received $15,000 from Dell, the third of his contracted annual advance payments for his three-book deal. Helen Brann wrote that Esquire was taking “A Gun for Big Fish,” enclosing a check for $900. Another January letter came with $250 from Mademoiselle for Brautigan’s recent seven-part poem, “Good Luck, Captain Martin.” Simon & Schuster offered a $20,000 advance for Richard’s new poetry collection. They did not want to publish the book until September of 1975 to avoid any sales conflict with Hawkline. Jayne Walker sent him a telegram at the end of January offering to cook “a fine dinner” for his birthday. Brautigan quickly accepted.

  A letter from Jim Harrison came that same month. Jim had “had a wonderful time with [Hawkline] last night between midnight and three, the best hours of any day, the first untainted hours. Boy did I ever want to fuck those Hawkline sisters.” Harrison thought it his favorite of all Brautigan’s books, and ventured that Richard might have a hit on his hands. “It is metaphysical fiction and then some [. . .] It is so opposite, and vitally, any naturalistic ideas of fiction while copping their best techniques.”

  During the next six weeks, Brautigan spent time with both Anne Kuniyuki and Jayne Walker. The contracts for the poetry collection arrived at Geary Street the third week in February and were immediately signed. During this period, Brautigan helped Kazuko Fujimoto with her Japanese translation of Trout Fishing in America. He was impressed with her “knowledge and perception” of his book. When Helen Brann
sent the contracts for the Japanese edition of The Abortion on March 12, he urged his agent to get Fujimoto (just finished with her work on Trout Fishing) the job of translating that book, too. An advance of $20,000 for the new poetry book was mailed two days later.

  Brautigan flew down to Florida at the end of March. He stayed in an upstairs bedroom at the large airy home of Guy and Terry de la Valdène on White Street in old town Key West. Richard wrote poetry, swinging in the hammock on the Valdènes’ screened-in porch. Guy kept busy working on a film about his passion, fly-fishing for tarpon, which he and his brother-in-law, Christian Odasso, who spoke only French, were codirecting. Financing came from the Valdènes’ family. “We blew more budget money on food and wine,” Guy confessed. “I mean we ate like pigs.”

  They had a French crew and a tight five-week shooting schedule, up every morning at six, except on days when they were weathered in. Christian was a professional filmmaker with some experience. Guy knew where to find the fish. He had been a still photographer for Sports Illustrated and Field & Stream. “The thing didn’t quite work,” Valdène later admitted. “We wanted to bring a bunch of writers and sportsmen together and really try to capture the fishing and also get a lot of new views and check out the Key West scene.”

  To this end, Guy Valdène recruited Jim Harrison, who flew in from Michigan with Dan Gerber, and Tom McGuane, who wintered in Key West. For about a week, Brautigan wanted no part in the film. Guy attributed it to Richard’s “standoffish” disposition, calling him a “tall ostrich in the corner.” Brautigan followed his own agenda. He bought a “goofy” secondhand bicycle with high handlebars. Valdène recalled that “he’d just cruise the streets of Key West, back and forth, all day long.”

  Richard’s schedule also included working on a regular basis. He rented an Underwood electric typewriter ($15.60 a month) to type final drafts of the poetry he wrote longhand on sheets of unlined paper. Dink Bruce observed that Brautigan seemed a bit uncomfortable in the tropics. “He didn’t like the heat.”

  On his first day in town, Richard picked up a beautiful nineteen-year-old girl with “childlike eyes and a fragile mouth.” Knowing he was old enough to be her father added “a certain delicious something” to their lovemaking. Brautigan joined his fishing pals and the film crew for nightly feasts and drinking bouts. At the time, the Pier House was downtown Key West’s most luxurious hotel. Its bar, the Chart Room, provided the locals their main hangout.

  Tourists frequented Sloppy Joe’s, a converted icehouse on Duval Street that had misappropriated the name of Hemingway’s old 1920s drinking hole. The original Sloppy Joe’s, now renamed Captain Tony’s, was tucked away around the corner on Green Street. The Chart Room was a small intimate bar with sliding glass doors opening out onto the patio. Conchs (natives of Key West) gathered here to pick up the local gossip and play liar’s poker, a game using bank notes instead of cards with the serial numbers providing the hands.

  One night at about nine or ten o’clock after a long day’s filming, the gang was kicking back in the Chart Room. Numbers of people wandered back and forth between the bar and the pool. Without a word, Guy stripped off all his clothes and jumped naked into the water. Soon, one after another, everybody took off his or her clothing and jumped in. Dan Gerber remembered “there must have been twenty or thirty men and women” paddling around together.

  Foster, the Chart House security guard, didn’t know what to make of the situation. In the end, he peeled off his makeshift uniform and plunged in to join the fun. Almost the only one not to go skinny dipping was Brautigan, never reticent in the past about appearing nude in public. Richard didn’t swim. He stayed fully dressed in his jeans and tall black cowboy hat, running gleefully back and forth into the bar to buy bottles of Dom Pérignon and pass them out to the hedonistic bathers.

  About a week after his arrival, Brautigan traveled up to Miami to meet his daughter, who was flying in alone from California. As always, Richard allowed Ianthe plenty of freedom. They took many long walks through the old town together, especially at day’s end, when they’d head down to the waterfront and watch the incredible Technicolor sunsets. Because there was no more guest space available at the Valdène’s home, Ianthe stayed with Tom and Becky McGuane, who turned their son’s room over to her. Every morning she awoke to the sight of Thomas, an angry displaced seven-year-old, glaring at her from the foot of the bed. Otherwise, she felt very comfortable at the McGuane’s and had no trouble sleeping, unlike her father, who took Valium to combat his chronic insomnia. The drug did the trick, but Richard found it prevented him from dreaming, so he gave it up. “I don’t dream,” he said, “and I have to be able to dream.”

  A permissive father, Brautigan still remained very protective of his daughter. One night everyone went out to a traveling carnival that had set up in town (going full-blast through Lent in true Key West pirate tradition). Richard took Ianthe along, and the gang stood in line for the whirling rides and lost their pocket money on dubious ball-tossing games. Brautigan allowed himself to be filmed anonymously among the merrymakers but would not permit the French crew to focus their cameras on his daughter.

  A devoted swimmer, Ianthe spent much of her time in the water. She was disappointed to discover there was no surf in the Keys. Becky McGuane gave her a cute little bikini to wear at the beach. Terrified by dangers of the deep, Richard warned his daughter to beware of being eaten by barracuda. “Don’t wear any flashy rings when you go swimming,” he told her. “Not if you want to keep all your fingers.” To ensure her safety, Brautigan arranged for Ianthe to swim at the Pier House pool. When she asked if he’d like to join her, Richard replied, “I just swim at night.”

  After a spell of heavy weather things broke clear just when Guy happened to have some unexpected free time on his hands. “You wanna go fishing?” he asked Brautigan. Ianthe romped about in the tropical sunshine wearing shorts and a halter top, but remembered how her father’s fair skin, so prone to burning, required him to cover up completely in trousers and long-sleeved shirts. Richard agreed to go out onto the flats and sat incongruously fully clothed in the fishing skiff, wearing a high-crowned black cowboy hat (Valdène remembered it as being “about two feet taller than his head”), while the rest of the gang stood around bare-chested in shorts, the wind whipping their salt-bleached hair. The camera crew came along in Dink Bruce’s boat. McGuane, Harrison, and Scott Palmer joined them in Tom’s skiff. Guy promised Richard that he wouldn’t be filmed. Guy needed shots of jumping tarpon, and the three boats set off toward the Pearl Basin in search of fish.

  Far out on the vast pellucid ocean wilderness surrounding the tiny island of Key West, where stillness and the endless open sky provided a welcome contrast to the frantic party frenzy of the tourist-crowded town, they came across a large school of tarpon. Outboard engines were switched off and tilted up out of the water to avoid spooking the fish. The camera boat and McGuane’s skiff waited behind as Valdène, a bandanna wrapped around his forehead, pirate-fashion, silently poled upwind toward the feeding fish, elusive silver shadows in the sea grass. “I literally poled for forty minutes after this school of fish. I could see them rolling just out of range.”

  Knowing Richard desperately wanted to hook and play one of the huge tarpon but wasn’t skilled enough to make the cast, Guy did it for him, double-hauling the weight-forward line, expertly shooting the fly out toward his quarry. After many attempts, casting again and again, he finally had a take and set the hook. “I want you to feel the power of this thing,” Valdène said, handing the rod to Brautigan. For a few ecstatic electric moments, Brautigan played the big fish until it broke off. “He was so happy he was howling at the top of his lungs,” Guy observed. “So excited he literally couldn’t talk for fifteen minutes.” Dink’s boat was too far out of camera range for Christian to get a shot.

  That night at dinner, still high from his tarpon experience, Richard asked Guy, “You want to film?”

  High himself, having recently smoked
a joint, Guy replied, “Why not?”

  They shot the interview out on the porch. Richard swung in the hammock. Guy sat beside him in a wooden chair. “Tell me about the fish,” he asked, camera rolling.

  “Massive,” Richard replied enthusiastically. “Very powerful. Extraordinary! So extraordinary as to create immediate unreality upon contact with the fish [. . .] Everything went into slow motion. My mind couldn’t deal with it anymore.” Brautigan’s poetic imagination provided the appropriate metaphor. “The water is almost like marble breaking—liquid marble coming up—silver Atlantis coming out of the water.”

  What particularly impressed Richard was that all the fly-rod-caught tarpon were unhooked and released unharmed once they were brought to the boat. “Hemingway said a thing about material possessions that I think is a beautiful thing,” he mused, swaying in the hammock, his expressive hands forming shapes in the air before him. “He said you can never own anything until you can give it away. And the ultimate keeping of the tarpon would be the releasing of it, and the killing of him then just becomes something that people block out on the walls, whereas if you release him, you have him in your mind forever alive.”

  Watching from behind the camera, Dink Bruce almost couldn’t believe what he saw. “Because here [Richard had] been sedentary this whole time, but he knew that Guy was up against the wall and he knew he needed a piece of Richard on this film because he’s selling it, it’s French TV, right? And they really liked Richard. And he put out this ten-minute special effort for Guy.”

  Valdène shouldered the blame for the main fault of the final cut. He felt they had “fabulous footage” of wild fish and the Key West scene, but thought he didn’t include enough coverage of his writer pals because he didn’t want to be “a pain in the ass.” Instead of bugging Tom, Jim, and Richard for repeated filmed interviews, Guy more or less let them off the hook. “When we got to the editing, we had hundreds of thousands of feet that were not specific enough,” he said. “So, in the movie it was like what are these guys doing?”