Who, Me?

by Who, Me- A Memoir (retail) (epub)

  Ten pairs.

  Sometimes nice sweaters or caps or hats, always something a little "goofy;" reindeers on the sweaters or caps with UP AND AT UM stencilled on the front, hats with pointed gothic tops.

  And I'd arrive in Kansas City loaded down with stuff.

  Everyone happy. The New Yorker traveler, after all.

  Christmas. And then I'd take off maybe New Year's Day, off to San Francisco where I'd sleep on a sofa in Richard Morris' apartment on Pacific Heights.

  The only problem there was that Morris almost invariably would get up at three or four AM, come into the living room and start smoking cigars, drinking wine—for a couple of hours no less.

  But I never slept much anyhow, and it was great to be with Richard and his girlfriend, artist Mary Vanderslice, one of the all-time greats.

  I'd spend hours and hours with heavily-bearded, bushy-haired Morris, listening to him talk about his latest book on the beginning of the university, beginnings or endings, cosmology, how the universe "happened."

  He wrote goofy, funny stuff too. And I published him a lot in Ghost Dance. But mainly he was Mr. Serious.

  Brilliant guy.

  Years and years of visits. And when I was in San Francisco I'd always pal around with my belly-dancer-psychologist friend, Blythe Ayne, whose "Minute stories" (Minute is the name of the main character in her stories) are classic, classic, classic.

  Blythe Ayne. Bukowskian poet A.D. Winans, visual poet-artist Toby Lurie, poet-publisher Todd Moore: the whole San Francisco "gang."

  Sometimes I'd go around as Connie; San Francisco and Connie went very nicely together. Lovely to feel the wind on my nyloned legs, pass by a mirror and be surprised by the loveliness I saw. Very successful as Connie.

  Todd Lawson was gay and I went out drinking with him one night, but nothing ever "happened" between us. Funny, you might think that we would have ended up "doing" something, but there was never anything erotic in the air between us. Nothing at all.

  He liked little oriental (Chinese) guys, and I liked women.

  I remember one night when we were out together, just leaving Vesuvio's bar on North Beach, some guy came up to me and said "Carole, Carole, I didn't know you were back in town."

  Carole?

  I lowered my voice, and out of my beautifully lipsticked lips came, "Listen, buddy, don't mess with me. My bodyguard is watching both of us right now; you mess around with me and you're fish food."

  "God!" the guy screamed and ran off down the street.

  One night Toby Lurie drove Connie-me and Blythe Ayne up to the very top of San Francisco, and we both got out of the car in our high heels and followed him to what he called "the highest point on the island."

  Great view: the Golden Gate Bridge, all the skyscrapers . . .

  I was home; that was what life was about.

  I've got a Tobey Lurie word-picture on the wall right over the computer where I'm working now, all kinds of slashes and swirls of red, yellow, blue, green words—not printed but scrawled—almost impossible to read: "the dance of another man . . . nor sing his song . . ."

  Illegible but brilliant.

  Sometimes I'd go watch Blythe belly dance down at this Arab club on North Beach.

  She kind of looked like the young (as in The Last Time I Saw Paris) Elizabeth Taylor—with double Taylor's bust-line.

  Originally from Nebraska, she'd gone to Egypt to study belly-dancing, and was an Egyptian fertility goddess: the essence of tits and ass come to life. It was hardly flesh any more but more like vibrating flame.

  She'd always focus in on me as the center of her dancing and at the end would flip off one of her sashes and flip it over the back of my head while everyone in the audience would go wild with applause and screams.

  Meaning? YOU ARE MY CHOSEN ONE, LATER ON TONIGHT, YOU WILL BE THE CENTER OF MY SENSUAL HEAVEN.

  Although we never made out.

  Almost once. There I was in my black lace Connie outfit with gold high heeled shoes and Lycra pantyhose, in her apartment, lying on the bed, she looking much the same. Two whore-stars wandering around in outer space looking for a little action.

  She started caressing andmassaging my black Lycra legs, I started caressing hers . . . it was happening: the roller coaster was beginning to slip down its slope. But then I stopped. Why? Fidelity to Nona? I could go just so far and then . . .

  She even studied Arabic. Got very fluent. Did very well with Arab men.

  It was rather a surprise when she ended up getting a Ph.D. in psychology and ended up as a practicing psychologist in Washougal, Washington, just a short drive from Portland, Oregon.

  Her stories centering around a character named Minute are real classics.

  But she never pushes her work, is content to just write, psychologize, and live her life in her mansion up in the hills in Washington on the edge of a vast canyon filled (at times) with cougars and bears.

  Sometimes I'd go up to Northern California, north of San Francisco, to visit Len Fulton, editor of the Small Press Review, publisher of the yearly reference book The International Directory of Little Magazines and Small Presses. He also published a bunch of books under the imprint Dustbooks.

  Lived (still lives) in Paradise, which began as Pair of Dice; a gambling town in the gold rush days.

  Huge house, one added-on huge library room filled with the thousands of volumes that he received over the years for review in the Small Press Review.

  One time I gave him the test.

  "Let's see if this is workable. Where's Hugh Fox's work?"

  "Easy."

  And two seconds later he handed me a pile of my novels and poetry books.

  A tall, slim guy, dark hair, little moustache, Fulton was originally from New England, but California was home, home, home for him.

  When I got prostate cancer recently he wrote me a letter all concerned and worried: "Do all you can. Get cured. Get well. You are one of the most important people in my life."

  It didn't hurt, over the years, to have reviews, reviews, reviews in every issue of the Small Press Review and (when he expanded it to include the Small Magazine Review too) Small Magazine Review.

  And like Blythe, Fulton was another greater writer himself, novels, plus plays. The last time I visited him up in Paradise a local group was putting on one of his plays about Paul Revere and I couldn't believe just how touching, moving, impacting it was.

  Bonding.

  Like Al (A.D.) Winans in San Francisco.

  We were always close, from the first time we met.

  He's this tough-guy poet, kind of a disciple of Charles Bukowski. In fact Fulton has just published a book Winans wrote on Bukowski, and my review of the book appeared on page one of the Small Press Review. You see how it all intertwines, interacts?

  Sometimes when I was in San Francisco I'd meet Al at Vesuvio's on North Beach; we were always close, a certain sameness between us both, tough-guy me and tough-guy him, both of us, under the surface, very, very sensitive about everything.

  Now, thirty plus years later we exchange e-mail letters. Every day no less.

  The same with Lynne Savitt who lives in the New York area—the sexiest, most beautiful woman in the world—who I write to every day (e-mail) as Granny Lust.

  This strange electronic oneness that has emerged out of our years of flesh-and-blood interaction.

  But back thirty years ago . . .

  Another great friend was/is Glenna Luschei, this Lithuanian-American poet who lives in three places: San Luis Obispo, Carpentaria (California), and Wilkesboro, North Carolina.

  Beautiful, blonde, she'd walk into a room and it was like sunrise in Sainte Tropez.

  She'd married this guy (Bill Horton) whose family had gotten to California (from North Carolina) around the Cape of Good Hope back in the 19th century, and bought up huge chunks of the state.

  One of Horton's aunts lived in this huge glass house on a hill overlooking acres and acres of avocado groves, and when she died, the house went
to him, of course.

  One of my favorite places in the world.

  A little house in the middle of the avocado groves (which brings in a nice fortune every year) for me to stay in, a big painting of Robert Peters (another poet pal) on the wall to keep me company.

  Glenna was always studying Portuguese at the U. of California in Santa Barbara, just down the road, and she'd always take me to the Portuguese department.

  How I learned Portuguese is yet to come in this story, but the minute I opened my mouth and started speaking Portuguese, the Portuguese from Portugal would go crazy, “Brazileiro, Brazileiro!” (Brazilian! Brazilian!)

  She'd always take me out to some fancy place to eat; local poets and editors would always be dropping in.

  I was always her soul-mate, pictures of her and copies of her poems all over the walls in my house.

  Great poet.

  Or there was Karla Andersdatter who lives in Sausalito, just on the edge of Muir Woods, right on the water. Owns a bed and breakfast and makes her real living as a psychic over the phone.

  Visiting her has always been a soaring, uplifting experience.

  No one understood me better than her. Not that I believe in supernatural psychism or anything like that. But intuition, insight, the gift of seeing you inside out, understanding your past, anticipating your future.

  Simpaticissimo.

  Great novelist.

  Always called (calls) me her soul-mate.

  East Lansing, San Francisco, New York, Boston and all the stops in between.

  Arlene Zekowski and Stanley Berne in New Mexico, Richard Kostelanetz and Stanley Nelson in New York, Bill Costley in Wellesley, Duane Locke down in Tampa . . .

  Published everywhere, known everywhere . . . great . . .

  Even a year in Valencia, Spain, where Nona had a Fulbright teaching at the university.

  Another immersion in Spanish. Like the two years in Caracas.

  Again more sense of belonging, oneness.

  1975, the year Franco died.

  I assiduously kept a journal, which was published by Charles Plymell (Cherry Valley Editions), another pal from COSMEP.

  Published in 1986. The dedication:

  To Nona—My 'co-author' for all these last fifteen years

  I'd met a Cecilia Guilarte in Hermosillo, Mexico back in 1961, and all of a sudden she came back into my life. Got me invited to give a lecture in Toloso, the Basque country, where she lived.

  I got to be good friends with my next door neighbor, painter Eva Mus, and her husband Rafael.

  I'd be walking down the street and Rafael would drive by, stop, "Hugo, vamos a tomar un trago, que te parece?” (Hugo, let's have a drink, what do you think?)

  "OK."

  And he'd take me into some local bar; treat me to a little glass of wine. Or I'd treat him, and we'd sit and talk for an hour.

  At home. At home with Harry Smith in New York, at home with Richard Morris in San Francisco, with Jerry Dombrowski in Boston; now at home in Valencia, Spain.

  One day Rafael took us down to Sagunto, a Phoenician port on the Mediterranean coast.

  Weird. Nobody in Spain ever moves around like in the U.S. And the people in Sagunto looked so orientalish/Middle Eastern-ish;I suppose they were the descendants of the original Phoenicians.

  Knew nothing about Phoenicians, gradually became aware of their part in Spanish history, their wars with the Romans who eventually, if you'll pardon my Spinglish, beat the shit out of them.

  Which was what got them over to the New World, Peru where they became the Mochica Indians. More about that later.

  But this little touch with the Phoenician past was important. I was getting steered in the right directions, my horizons broadened, my canyons deepened, without ever realizing that I was on the path to being the first person to really prove a Middle-Eastern (Phoenician) presence in the New World in ancient times.

  Went to exhibitions of Eva's paintings, had her do portraits of Margaret and Alexandra.

  Beautiful job.

  I'd go down to the market every morning for coffee, this coffee place where Julieta, the dueña/landlady, and I became the best of friends very quickly.

  She wanted me to stay in Valencia forever and ever.

  "Pero no tengo trabajo acá.” (But I don't have a job here.)

  And the next day the principal of the local high school appeared next to me with an espresso in his hand.

  "Lo que necesitamos acá es un profesor nativo: un americano como tú. Te quiero ofrecer un puesto acá enseñado inglés. Qué te parece?” (What we need here is a native professor: an American like you. I want to offer you a place here teaching English. What do you think?)

  "No se. Déjame pensar un poco.” (I don’t know. Let me think a little.)

  Rafael and Eva had lots of parties and I'd always end up taking Eva's cutie-pie blonde cousin home because she couldn't go home alone, and she'd stand there in the doorway of her place waiting for me to . . . waiting for me to—what? Kiss her?

  I never did, but . . . if I had . . .

  It was all there in my hands: a possible Spanish bride, a possible job . . .

  I wasn't about to play around with any other women. Not with Nona keeping me busy full-time, but the job? Eventually said no because Michigan State was waiting for me, and didn't I have it made with Nona? La Vida Perfecta.

  I contacted the State Department; they got me some lectures at the university in Lisbon so I went there and gave my usual lectures on American literature, politics. And then we came back to Michigan.

  1975.

  Some deaths in the family. After my parents moved to Sun City, finally, finally, finally got a fully-paid house of their own, my father lasted out a few years, and then died of a ruptured ventricular aneurysm. When he'd had his heart attack years earlier a big "pouch" had developed in his heart but he'd lived with it for years. Now suddenly one day he had a pain in his chest, went in and stretched out on the bed and it burst.

  My mother called me.

  "Your father has just died. Ventricular aneurysm."

  "Oh, I'm sorry, I'll be right out. I love you."

  "You don't love anybody but yourself!" she sneered at me, with a voice like a steak-knife going into my own heart.

  I went crazy, hung up, and didn't go to the funeral at all.

  Grieve, OK, grieve, cry, wail and tear your clothes, but don't stab your tongue-knife into my heart!

  She stayed on in Sun City a little longer by herself, but was out one day working in the garden, fell down and broke a hip and moved into Mount San Antonio Gardens in Pomona.

  A nice place.

  When I'd visit her there they always put me in a nice room, we'd eat breakfast and lunch in this huge dining room filled with a crowd of antiques like my mother herself. Then you were on your own for dinner.

  She had a nice room. Most of her fancy Victorian furniture gone, but still some left. She always made a point of showing me her jewels, her finest clothes, her diamond watch collection.

  You bought a room there, only when you died the money stayed with the Mount San Antonio Gardens. Paid a sum every month for room and board, too. Room and board and medical expenses. Were guaranteed to never leave there alive. They kept you on; until death did you part.

  Nice place though. Close to Pomona College where they'd take all the oldies to concerts and plays.

  But I found it depressing somehow, all these hunched-over ranch-style buildings huddling through endless gardens, chilly nights, everything dark, endless corridors with very little light in them. Not to mention the endless old people in a lounge here or a lounge there, talking endlessly about The Past.

  But she was happy there.

  You'd always hear about "all these educated people."

  That was her big thing, "all these educated people."

  And I suppose they were.

  My grandmother died, too. Out in Arizona where she'd been living with her son, Jake, and daughter-in-law, Gertrude, for years. />
  I'd only visited her once.

  Feel bad now that I hadn't gone out there every year like I always went to visit my mother. At least once a year. I could have combined Arizona and California, n'est pas? But I didn’t.

  And when my grandma died there weren't any revelations.

  I thought there would be....more about that Czech past...more about the secrets kept secret....

  Ahh.....one thing came out.

  My cousin Judy in Chicago called me after she'd gotten back from the funeral:

  "One interesting thing came out. Just before she died she told me how she meet our grandfather, her husband, James P. Mangan. She'd been working in Seidel's bar. You remember that? Right?"

  "Sure."

  Mrs. Seidel. The old woman my grandmother had lived with after her

  276.

  parents died. That was the story.

  "Well, here's what she told me. Her last words, practically. She said that when her mother died, her father had married her mother's sister, her aunt, and she couldn't stand the aunt. So she left home at age twelve, made her living cleaning houses. And Mrs. Seidel took her in. I guess Gramdma was a real beauty. And when she was old enough she started working in the Seidels' bar. Some years passed and one day one of the guys in the bar asked her out on a date. She went. He drove out someplace kind of isolated, tried to rape her, she resisted, ran away from him and there was this streetcar way, way out somewhere west of Chicago, this streetcar coming along, she flagged it down, and it turned out that the streetcar conductor, James Patrick Mangan, became our grandfather....interesting story, no?"

  "Very interesting."

  But that was it.

  Still felt that there was much more to be found out.

  Her maiden name was Roos. I tried to call Rooses in Chicago....mentioned Mary Roos-Mangan to whoever I could find. No responses. Almost went to the Chicago Historical Society, wrote to the Mormons...but she was such a minor character in the world drama, what kinds of records could be left?

  I had gotten so busy, so occupied with my own life, kids, five altogether now . . .

  Busy, busy, busy, busy . . .