Jubilee Hitchhiker

by William Hjortsberg

  Sometime in February, fed up with his marital woes and clomping about in his lonely, empty apartment, Brautigan flew to Vancouver in British Columbia. Not much is known about this trip. Richard went to the anthropology museum at the University of British Columbia to look at Pacific Northwest totem poles. He also took in some Chinese movies at a theater in Chinatown. It was a time of solitude, a familiar condition for Richard.

  Back in Frisco, alone and depressed, Richard phoned his former lover, Siew-Hwa Beh, who was living in Berkeley. He told her he’d broken up with Akiko because she’d been unfaithful. “Aki slept with someone,” Brautigan said in despair. “I couldn’t believe that this friend slept with my wife.” Richard never mentioned any name, saying only, “This friend is a close friend. I didn’t know I would be so betrayed by a friend.” Siew-Hwa knew in her heart how much this hurt him, “because he was too fragile.” Beh had always been monogamous in her relationships and understood how much an outside affair would hurt Brautigan. “Once you are with Richard, you are with Richard,” she observed.

  Beh headed straight to Green Street and consoled Brautigan. He said he wanted them to get back together again. “Why did you marry her?” she asked.

  “I never wanted to marry her,” Richard replied. “I never wanted to marry her! You left me, so I wrote to her and she wanted to come and see me. When she got here, she said she couldn’t stay unless I married her to get her a green card. I never wanted to marry her! I never wanted to marry her!”

  Brautigan’s desperate insistence unnerved Beh. She started to cry. “Crying and crying and crying,” she recalled. The winter afternoon darkened into night. They had no dinner. Richard’s blood sugar plummeted. “Richard had a sugar thing,” Beh recalled.

  “I’ve got to get out of here,” Brautigan shouted. “I can’t deal with this. I’m hungry. I’ve got to get out of here!” Richard stormed out, leaving Siew-Hwa alone, crying in the empty apartment. This was the last time she ever saw him.

  A little later, Siew-Hwa ran into Kitty Loewinsohn in Berkeley. They started discussing the Brautigans’ split. Kitty told her “about how much she and Ron helped Aki about this and that.” Siew-Hwa thought Kitty forced herself “to be naive and blind.” Something her friend said struck a chord. At that moment, she “knew it was Ron Loewinsohn who slept with Aki.”

  Beh called Brautigan soon after this conversation. “Richard, is it Ron?” she asked. Brautigan made no reply. “He kept quiet,” Siew-Hwa said. “He didn’t say a word. He would not say a word. That was the way Richard [was] faithful to people.”

  Brautigan’s long-standing habit of pestering his friends late at night for advice on everything from punctuation to contractual nuance went into overdrive in March. Keith Abbott found these drunken monologues “unbearable.” Richard recounted the tiniest legal detail of his impending divorce “over and over, as if his memory were gone.” At one point, he told Keith, “I guess the only thing I can do is write. If that’s so, then that’s all I’ll do.”

  Brautigan phoned Sandra Musser often. Richard said Akiko was “trying to destroy me.” He described his wife as “a pathological and very clever liar,” claiming to have heard she’d told someone she only married him to get a green card. Brautigan’s fury boiled over. He accused Aki of having had another lover, far back when “she was cheating on her husband with me.” He raged about overheard gossip. “She fucked an American pop star trying to get to the United States.”

  After repeated phone calls from Akiko, Richard hung up and called Sandra Musser. He wanted his attorney to inform Verna Adams that they “would take serious action if Aki ever tried to get in touch with me again.”

  While protecting his privacy, Brautigan took steps to pry into his wife’s personal affairs. Richard asked a friend, a “very perceptive person” who didn’t want his identity revealed, to investigate Akiko’s feelings. Under the guise of lending a sympathetic ear, the friend encouraged Aki to divulge a number of confidences. He reported everything back to Brautigan. Akiko said she still loved Richard and felt “very bitter” about the failure of their marriage. She didn’t want to go to court, proclaiming her fondness for Ianthe. The undercover friend thought they “could definitely get together and work things out.”

  Helen Brann and Seymour Lawrence “consummated” their deal for Richard Brautigan’s new “novel” early in February. The advance remained unaltered, and another $25,000 was added if either Dell or Laurel published a paperback edition. The author was also to receive a straight 15 percent royalty on all hardback sales and retain 100 percent of the subsidiary rights (British, translations, serial, dramatic, radio, film, and TV). Sam planned to publish in October. Helen got her dates confused and assumed the book was coming out in September.

  Helen called Richard with the good news. Having final design approval, Brautigan wanted to avoid the production problems he’d encountered on June 30th, June 30th. Kathy Simmons would now oversee all the details involved in coordinating catalog copy, advertising, flap copy, and jacket design. Brann put Brautigan in direct touch with Simmons. The Delacorte contract was finalized on February 12.

  A finished copy of Targ’s edition of The Tokyo–Montana Express arrived at Helen Brann’s office a week later. It was a beautiful book hand-set in Garamond on laid Guttenberg paper, with a title page printed in three colors. Limited to 350 copies, the slim hardbound volume was priced at $50. Helen instructed William Targ to ship the author’s copies to Brautigan’s address in San Francisco.

  At the end of February, a check for $1,000 went out to Akiko from Sandra Musser’s office for “spousal support,” in accordance with an agreement with Verna Adams. Richard signed his Delacorte contracts a week later. Richard’s ten complimentary author’s copies of the Targ edition never arrived. He called Helen Brann and complained, leaving the matter in her hands. With Brautigan’s court date two days off, he told Sandra Musser he “thought they were running pretty close.” Richard heard Aki wanted $1,600 a month in support. He thought this was “ridiculous.” With time running so short, he asked his attorney to get a postponement. Sandra told him she was ready to go to court the next day.

  On March 11, Sandra Musser filed an Income and Expense Declaration signed by Richard Brautigan. It spoke volumes about the author’s declining popularity. In 1977, Brautigan’s net income was $94,799 ($77,813 was a release of royalties earned between 1966 and 1977 but held back by Dell Publishing). His 1978 net income fell to $16,464. By 1979, it was only $15,620. In addition, the declaration stated “that because Dreaming of Babylon failed to realize the projected sales, Dell Publishing has reduced Petitioner’s advance against book publications from $125,000 per book to $35,000 per book.” As a result, Richard anticipated his net income for 1980 to be between $15,000 and $16,000.

  Musser and Brautigan walked into the courtroom on Thursday, March 13. Sandra instructed him not to wear a denim jacket and jeans. “Richard couldn’t understand why not,” she reflected years later. They had not been told Beverly Savitt, Verna Adams’s partner, would be waiting for them. Savitt went on the attack. Their entire strategy up to this point had been based on mutual cooperation. Brautigan expected to make an offer between $750 and $1,000, based on his net income. The court awarded Akiko $1,900 a month in support, a judgment using gross income as its basis. “Bam!” Richard wrote, describing the episode a couple months later.

  Most evenings, Brautigan went looking for action at Enrico’s. Failing to find old friends or attractive women, he’d sit at the bar and tell his troubles to Ward Dunham over several snifters of Calvados. “After Aki left,” Dunham said, “he was never happy after that.” One evening, Richard mentioned to Ward that he felt haunted. “You deserve to be haunted,” Dunham replied.

  Other nights, Brautigan would amble down to Cho-Cho on Kearny Street and spin a tale of woe for Jimmy Sakata. “Fuck it!” Jim told Richard. “You worry too much. Just say fuck it. Nobody can take everything from you. You have your life, your freedom.”

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p; Brautigan brooded over the March 13 court order. He felt he had “received short shrift in the hearing,” and instructed his attorney to request a transcript. Richard was upset that he had not been allowed to provide oral testimony to rebut what he felt were the “exaggerated claims” of Akiko’s counsel regarding his income and standard of living. At his urging, Sandra Musser filed a petition for a modification of the court order. Musser concluded the petition stating Brautigan’s testimony “may not change the court’s ruling but it will result in petitioner feeling as though he had his day in court and the matter will be equitably resolved.”

  On April Fools’ Day, having decided to give up the expensive Green Street apartment, Richard rented a narrow studio upstairs above the entrance to Vesuvio Café (255 Columbus), across the alley from City Lights. Known as the Cavelli Building since a bookstore by that name opened there in 1913, it sported an Italian Renaissance Revival second story added five years later. The move represented a return to Brautigan’s earliest days on the Beach. Beret-wearing Henri Lenoir, proprietor of Vesuvio and a fixture on the bohemian side of Frisco since the early 1930s, had known Brautigan for twenty-five years. Richard was exactly the sort of tenant Lenoir enjoyed having. The rent was $125 a month.

  Richard placed his desk (a hollow-core door resting across twin filing cabinets) directly in front of the lone window looking toward City Lights and installed shelves along the side walls. Brautigan’s big office electric typewriter sat dead center. Most of his papers remained stored in stacked cardboard boxes. Instead of thumbtacking artwork to the walls, he had everything properly framed. A large poster advertising Rommel Drives on Deep into Egypt dominated one side of the office. Brautigan also displayed original Bruce Conner art, a drawing and a collage, from the early sixties. It was a much more upscale office than his previous workplaces.

  A week later, Sandra Musser filed a Request for Admission of Facts and Genuineness of Documents with the court. Outraged by his wife’s claims on his literary and real properties, Brautigan prepared the list of eighty-four numbered items requesting “separate and truthful responses” from Akiko. Brautigan endeavored to establish a “sole claim” to the Bolinas property and all his books written and copyrighted before the 1977 marriage. He specified that he did not “edit, amend or update” any of these works between December 1, 1977, and December 31, 1979, and that the $20,000 received in 1978 came from Hal Ashby productions for the film rights to The Hawkline Monster.

  Two telling domestic details enlivened this legalistic compendium of bank accounts, bookkeeping, and book titles. Number 6 stated: “That Mrs. Brautigan spent only two days at the Bolinas property, including one overnight, while married to Mr. Brautigan.” Item 7 provided fine-tuning: “That Mrs. Brautigan’s sole contribution to the Bolinas property was to assist in cleaning the premises to ready it for rental.” To obtain precise information regarding Richard’s various bank accounts and tax returns for the Request for Facts, Akiko met once with Esmond Coleman, Brautigan’s accountant.

  Around this time, producer Francis Ford Coppola pulled the plug on his production of Hammett in Los Angeles. The director, Wim Wenders, stopped filming. With his film job on hiatus, Tony Dingman came up to San Francisco and moved in with Richard on Green Street. Dingman was always good company for Brautigan, knowing how to make him laugh. Tony also provided a willing butt for Richard’s teasing and practical jokes, accompanying him on his daily rounds to Cho-Cho and Enrico’s.

  Brautigan, Dingman, Ward Dunham, and Curt Gentry developed a shorthand alphabetic code to describe the slutty aspects they most admired in the passing parade of women. “VPL” stood for “visible panty line,” a fashion statement they believed indicated easy virtue. “VPL at two o’clock,” someone would call. All heads at the bar pivoted to watch the designated ass bobble past. “WS, WS,” meant “will suck, won’t swallow” and was used to share secret information about those who’d gone out with one of the group. “The great thing about it,” Gentry recalled, “you could do it in front of people and they didn’t know what you were talking about.”

  From time to time, Tony Dingman arranged impromptu gatherings at Brautigan’s apartment, seeking diversions to take his friend’s mind off his troubles. Far across town, Bruce Conner had the same idea. He invited Richard over to dinner in spite of his wife’s objections. Jean Conner had been offended by Brautigan’s habit of accepting an invitation and then canceling at the last minute if something better, often a date with a young woman, came along. Jean relented, and Bruce tendered an invitation to Richard.

  Even as dinner simmered on the stove, Brautigan phoned the Conners to say he couldn’t make it. Bruce heard the sound of loud voices in the background. A party was under way at Richard’s place. Absolutely furious, Conner jumped into his car and drove all the way from Glen Park over to Pacific Heights. He stormed up the stairs and pounded on Brautigan’s apartment door. “Where’s your address book?” Bruce demanded when Richard opened up. “Where’s your address book?”

  Confused, Brautigan said it was on his desk, back in the office. Conner pushed past him. As soon as he found the address book, Bruce turned to the “C” section and erased his name, address, and phone number from the page. Conner left without saying another word.

  Richard kept busy all through April, working on the dust jacket and ad copy for The Tokyo–Montana Express. The minimal inside front flap material would be the final sentence from Brautigan’s introduction to The Overland Journey of Joseph Francl, followed by “one stop on the route of the Tokyo–Montana Express.” Richard concocted a brief statement of self-praise, referring to his “daring imagination, humor and haunting compassion.” The inside back flap copy consisted of “Umbrellas,” one of the shortest stories in Brautigan’s collection: “Another stop on the Tokyo–Montana Express.” Richard instructed his publisher not to use the words “a novel” to describe his forthcoming book in any of the ads.

  A court order filed on April 18 directed Richard Brautigan to pay for his wife’s attorney’s fees and costs. By the twenty-seventh, these totaled $2,700. Discouraged by what he perceived as the failures of his legal counsel, Richard fired Sandra Musser, replacing her with Joel A. Shawn, a lawyer in the San Francisco firm Friedman, Shawn, Kipperman & Sloan. This led to additional expense. Brautigan had to pay a $3,000 retainer and sign a three-page agreement promising to keep the trust replenished to the tune of $2,500. Sandra Musser believed all of Richard’s problems were caused by ego.

  Sam Lawrence came out to San Francisco toward the end of the month. Brautigan always had fun with his publisher. Lawrence brought good news. Richard had been invited to read at the Poetry Center at the Ninety-third Street YM-YWHA in New York on November 24, during a three-month reading and book-signing tour for The Tokyo–Montana Express Delacorte had in the works. There were plans for paid college lectures to coincide with Richard’s promotional appearances. The Boston booking agency Lordly & Dame, Inc., had been contracted to make the arrangements.

  Sam met Enrico Banducci for the first time over the course of several jet-fueled conversations. The restaurateur offered to host an autographing party for Richard’s new book at Enrico’s. They agreed the launch party would take place on the publication date, Wednesday, October 26, between 2:30 and 6:00 pm.

  The Chronicle’s Sunday magazine, California Living, informed Sam they would feature an interview with Brautigan, together with a selection from The Tokyo–Montana Express, in their October 26 edition. More good news arrived. Richard’s friend, poet Ed Dorn, currently teaching at the University of Colorado, had arranged for Brautigan to be writer-in-residence in Boulder from mid-July to the first of August. A speaking engagement at the Chautauqua Auditorium in Chautauqua Park had been scheduled for July 19. Lawrence anticipated the audience to number around two thousand.

  Tony Dingman’s company didn’t dispel Brautigan’s gloom. Aki’s ghost still haunted the spacious Pacific Heights apartment. The place had been her choice. Faced with Akiko’s financial de
mands, Brautigan was eager to escape the burden of the high Green Street rent. Tony helped Richard haul his typewriter and filing cabinets, boxes of papers, books, and the various drafts of current literary projects over to his new office above Vesuvio. The black Naugahyde sofa went out to the Bolinas house. So much miscellaneous junk remained, Brautigan rented space number A-32 ($90 a month) at the Army Street Mini-Storage under the Southern Embarcadero Freeway. Richard trucked numbers of carton boxes over there before departing Green Street forever.

  After leaving palatial Pacific Heights, Brautigan checked in to a cheap SRO residential hotel in North Beach. The tiny room brought back painful memories of Richard’s penniless days in the fall of 1963 when he couldn’t afford the rent on a similar shabby crib and the landlord had locked him out, holding his manuscripts for ransom until he paid up. This time, Brautigan felt his wife had hijacked his life.

  Akiko called Don Carpenter often, “to try to get me to take her side in this fucking thing.” Don said Richard’s notion of loyalty was that he shouldn’t even talk to her. Carpenter thought the Brautigans’ breakup was “the most horrifying divorce I’ve ever heard of in my life.” Richard “was really savaged by it. He was unable to deal with the concept of the way women and lawyers come after you in a divorce situation.” To illustrate his point, Carpenter recounted an episode when “the lawyer reopened the divorce case over a pair of Czechoslovakian duck decoys that someone had given Richard. He’s sitting in a restaurant waiting to meet the lawyer to sign the papers. The lawyer doesn’t show up. Hours go by.” When Brautigan asked his attorney what went wrong, he was told Aki wanted the decoys. “The whole fucking thing collapses over two duck decoys!”