Mentor: A Memoir

by Grimes, Tom

  Describing it, Frank wrote:Books covered all four walls and most of the floor. There were no shelves, simply stacks of books four or five feet high leaning precariously against the walls, mounds of books in corners, books strewn across the floor, occasional open volumes whose pages would flip at a breeze through the open window. I handled my own books with reverence, and stored them neatly; Professor Cipher seemed to use a shovel. But,” for Frank, “the shock left almost instantly, and suddenly the disorder seemed thrilling—some kind of rejection of materialism, perhaps, or simply the urge to literally swim in books, or a vaguely aristocratic disdain for order. Whatever it was, I thought, it was probably very Harvard, very Oxford and Cambridge, and therefore magically wonderful.

  To a lesser degree—thanks to Connie’s regular neatening of it—Frank’s office maintained the tradition of absentminded disorder—the casual clutter and overflowing ashtray. I had bought, framed, and given Frank a special photograph, which I’d spotted in a magazine. I’d tracked down the photographer and paid him for a negative, as well as permission to reproduce the image. In the picture, rain falls as a pool table stands on a muddy, countryside road. Around it, three Chinese men wear drab, mandarin-collared shirts and baggy trousers. Two smoke cigarettes. And as the three observe him, a fourth man holds a pool cue, leans over the table, and lines up a shot. When I handed him the photograph, Frank studied it. Then he smiled and said, “It’ll lend the office just the right touch of insanity. I’ll have Connie hang it up.” But he didn’t. He set it on a shelf and, when I returned to teach the following summer, I found it lying face up, the frame’s glass pane cracked, and the photograph puzzlingly crumpled. Scanning the plaster wall, looking for a bent or loose nail, I found nothing, not even an indentation. The negligence was quintessential Frank. So, rather than repair the picture, I laid it on his open dictionary and imagined his momentary bewilderment the next time he wanted a word’s definition.

  But despite the condition of their offices, on the page Frank and Professor Cipher demanded clarity. Ready to discuss his prose, Frank stood in Professor Cipher’s office doorway until his teacher recognized him. “‘Ah, yes. Mr. Conroy,’ he said, shuffling through the papers on his desk.” Once he located Frank’s four-page “dramatization,” he added, “‘Come around and sit here where you can see.’” After taking his seat, Frank “saw with alarm that the first page was covered with red markings. ‘Pay attention,’ [Professor Cipher] said. ‘I’ll walk you through this time, but in the future it’ll be up to you to figure out what I mean.’ He gave a slightly evil chuckle,” Frank wrote. “Then, tapping the pages every now and then to indicate one of his red marks, he began talking very rapidly. ‘Awk’ is ‘awkward,’ usually a question of rhythm, usage, grammar, or overwriting. ‘Cli’ is ‘cliché.’ ‘Rep’ is ‘repetition,’ something you’ve already said, a device you’ve already used or a stylistic tic. ‘Unc’ is ‘unclear,’ which means either I don’t understand what you’re saying or you’re saying something that can be understood in more than one way. I mean the literal meaning. You understand?’”

  This discussion could have been Frank talking to me on any number of occasions, for at the heart of the conversation lies a boy’s longing to learn his mentor’s secrets, the way his knowledge controlled the world and therefore made him seemingly perfect and absolute.

  Frank wrote, “‘I think so,’ I said, attempting to conceal my excitement. I had always written by instinct, and the idea that he was taking my writing seriously enough to do line-by-line editing made me tremble.”

  Likewise, in Texas, I trembled. My novel wouldn’t exist until Frank acknowledged it, and it wouldn’t be good unless he said so.

  At first, Professor Cipher’s approach to Frank’s work was impersonal, just as, to Frank, I once was no more than the sum of what I wrote. But our relationships with our teachers—Frank’s with his, and mine with Frank—evolved into crippling dependencies.

  “I relished every moment I spent with the man,” Frank wrote, “especially tutorial. I worked hard to be worthy of his faith and rapidly gained control of my language. (“You are a racehorse,” he once said to me, “among elephants.” I glowed for weeks.) He was no doubt ‘projecting,’ (as the psychoanalysts used to say) onto me. His youthful artistic ambitions, perhaps. Much more, I was ‘projecting’ onto him, seeing him as something close to a god on earth.”

  The day Frank graduated Professor Cipher said to him, “‘You’re going to be a writer. . . . Better find yourself a rich wife.’ And then—a breathtakingly daring and uncharacteristic thing for him to do—he gave me a fast little hug.”

  With me, Frank was equally reticent. For years, we shook hands, nothing more. But one cold, drizzly afternoon, after lunch, I put my arms around him, as he was about to open his car door. Startled, he didn’t pull away, but his embrace was tentative, as if he didn’t quite know how to hug me.

  At the end of his essay, Frank wrote:It was good that as an adult I had carefully examined the dynamics of my own youthful projections onto Cipher, because that allowed me to deal better with the phenomenon when, now and then, a student would temporarily project onto me. For some young writers, it is no more than a necessary stage and should be handled with respect, tact, as much measured generosity as can be managed and, of course, common sense. There is no need to back off quite as much as Cipher had backed off from me.

  Yet Frank and I never “backed off ” from each other, emotionally. Instead, we echo each other. He wrote about his late teacher; unexpectedly, I now am writing about mine.

  At the beginning of February I called Frank, prepared to hear his disappointment regarding my novel. I was also afraid that he’d think I’d lost my talent, my promise, and my mind. Three years had passed since we’d sold Season’s End. In light of its failure, had Frank decided to distance himself from the book and, therefore, distance himself from me? True, he’d spoken highly of me to Rust Hills and, once again, had invited me to teach at Iowa. But what if the new novel changed his feelings? I wanted to believe that his love was unconditional, rather than contingent upon my literary success, but I wasn’t certain. So I called not only to ask about my novel but also, indirectly, to ask about our future.

  When he heard my voice, he said, “Professor Grimes!”—not “Hey, babe,” or “Tom!” Unintentionally, he’d demoted me from author to instructor.

  “The novel’s that bad,” I said.

  Surprised, he paused, then said, “To the contrary, my friend.”

  “It’s good?”

  “It’s better than good.”

  Not everyone agreed, but after speaking to Frank and having my questions about the novel and his affection for me answered, I could no longer be wounded. Disheartened, maybe; unpublished, certainly; but not artistically devastated. I’d written a far from conventional novel, in part because I felt constricted by literary realism. But I also wanted to write a novel that none of my peers was attempting to write. In the way that Frank’s failed first novel had provided him with the rage necessary to create Stop-Time, I used Season’s End ’s failure to write a more, rather than a less, ambitious novel. And while I wanted Frank to tell me the book was good, despite the fact that his enthusiasm for Season’s End may have blinded him to that novel’s flaws, my anxiety subsided because—good novel or bad—he’d committed to taking the trip with me ; the artistic trip, not the publishing trip, which didn’t begin well. Neil, Eric’s former assistant, had taken on Eric’s clients, and his letter to me about the novel began, Dear Tom, You’ ll probably want to stick a pencil through my eye. Neil didn’t think the novel accomplished what I’d hoped it would accomplish. Knowing I’d spent two years writing it, he regretted having to tell me so. Separately, Candida wrote, Tom, your prose is nothing short of amazing. If I wore a hat, I’ d take my hat off to you. But I can think of only five or six editors I could send this to. The book’s ironic voice, they felt, didn’t serve the book’s dark sensibility. Form and content hadn’t fused flawlessly
to produce a work of art. With Eric no longer working for the agency, I felt more like a burden than a client to Neil and Candida. This delusion, Frank assured me, was all in my head. But in my head is where I live. So I thanked them for their generosity and their effort on my work’s behalf, and I started over.

  Henry Dunow, an agent who had contacted me in Iowa, agreed to read the novel. Then, with enthusiasm, confidence, and the appropriate touch of intimacy an agent and a writer need to share, he offered to represent me. “Although, the book could use some cutting,” he said. Within days, Jody and I trimmed four hundred and sixty-seven pages to four hundred and seventeen pages. Then Henry submitted the book to several editors. This time, no one answered within forty-eight hours. There were no pleas for more time, no clamoring for our attention. Instead, Henry and I waited for forty-one days, April 17 to May 24, 1994. Each morning, I woke hoping to hear the telephone ring. At 5:00 PM, I resigned myself to the fact that I wouldn’t. I dreaded Friday afternoons. Once they ended, silence reigned for two days. Yet, rather than diminishing my anxiety, the weekend’s silence intensified it, giving my imagination sixty hours to concoct disastrous scenarios. The results were always the same: no one would publish my novel. But my novel had to be published, not to satisfy my vanity, not for fame, not even for money, since I knew I hadn’t written the type of novel that would yield a life-changing advance. No, my novel had to be published for one specific reason—so I could escape Texas and the university where I taught.

  Also, I was determined to have my choice of an editor (if I was to have an editor). Of those who had read the novel’s early pages, only Gerry Howard had seen the book’s potential. And so, despite his wariness concerning my ability to finish the book, I decided to work with him should I have the chance. I believed he would be the best editor for the book. I’d betrayed my intentions once. I wouldn’t do it a second time.

  Late one Friday afternoon, Henry called. Gerry had offered to buy the book. The advance: $17,500. Even though it was $25,000 less than the advance for Season’s End, I didn’t hesitate. “Say yes.”

  “Maybe we should wait,” Henry said.

  “No. Sell the book.”

  Amused, Henry said, “Okay.” Five minutes later, he called back and said, “Well, you’re a Norton author.”

  As soon as I heard those words, three years of anxiety whistled through the infinitesimal hole in my heart and vanished.

  Henry added, “When I accepted, Gerry laughed. He said that was his opening bid. He would have gone to twenty-thousand.”

  To me, this didn’t matter.

  “Gerry was running out the door to get to Los Angeles for the book fair,” Henry said. “He’ll call you next week.”

  “Okay,” I said. Then I added, “Thanks. I mean it. Thank you.”

  After I returned the receiver to its cradle, I stepped into the living room and dropped to my knees. With my forehead pressed against the carpet, I closed my eyes and remained there until my breathing slowed and I was at peace.

  Eight weeks later, I was clinically insane.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  It was 1994 and Frank had invited me back to the workshop for another summer. The day we left for Iowa, Jody and I packed the car, then placed our cats on the backseat in their carrying cases. Since they hated to travel, we’d given them tranquilizers. Stoned, they stared at us from behind their cages’ silver bars and meowed weakly, protesting their confinement. By the time we reached the interstate, they were asleep.

  In Kansas, we stopped at a motel. I’d packed a bathing suit and when I dove into the pool I was alone. I swam laps, then rolled onto my back and, beneath a cloudless blue sky, wondered how, at thirty-nine, I’d sold my third novel and was returning to Iowa to teach. I’d worked hard for twenty years, but my effort didn’t seem connected to who I’d become. I felt like an eggshell that had been dyed with vivid colors, then pinpricked and drained. It may appear solid, but beneath its decorative surface it’s hollow and nearly weightless.

  At Frank and Maggie’s house, we set our bags in the guest room, then walked down to the kitchen, where Frank handed me a cold imported beer.

  “I hear we have something to celebrate,” he said. Then we tapped glass bottles.

  “The advance is only seventeen five,” I said.

  “Hey,” he told me, “it’s a book!”

  The day Frank left for Nantucket, I stood in the driveway as he crammed the final items into his station wagon. Pausing to show me the interior of a small leather bag, he said, “This is what it comes to.” The bag contained insulin vials and syringes. At fifty, Frank had developed diabetes. For several years pills controlled the disease. Now, at fifty-eight, he’d been switched to needles. His health’s long, episodic decline had begun, and he knew it.

  By contrast, over the next two months, my health seemed to improve. During the day, I taught, read, and played basketball. In the evening, I drank bourbon. Then, after sleeping for three hours, I’d wake at 2:00 AM, walk from the bedroom into its adjacent sitting room, turn on a lamp, settle into the armchair beside it, open a novel, and read until dawn. Not being able to sleep once the alcohol’s effects had worn off didn’t strike me as unusual. Neither did returning to bed at sunrise, or pouring my first cup of coffee at noon. If what I felt constituted the state others defined as happiness, I was happy. I played scales on Frank’s piano. And, after dusk, I sat in the yard and watched glowing fireflies form constellations.

  But one night, I woke at 3:00 AM when my body sprung upright on Frank’s side of the bed. My heart beat so loudly that the sound filled my ears. For a moment, I thought I’d gone deaf and from then on I would hear only the internal thumps, gurgles, and growls my body made. Sweat had soaked my T-shirt, slickened my forehead, and dampened my beard. I’d leapt out of a dream in which I stood beside my brother near the tenement apartment building where I’d lived, fourteen years earlier. There, on the sidewalk, he handed me a sealed envelope that contained a warrant for my arrest.

  Years earlier, I’d fled Provincetown when I had a chance to return to New York. On Cape Cod I had moved into one half of a small, wood-shingled cottage, divided in two by a thin plasterboard wall. The day I’d signed the lease, I didn’t know if I wanted the place, even though all I could afford was its $140 a month rent. Still, I hesitated. But as the afternoon’s light faded and shadows swallowed the weedy front yard, the prospect of being homeless frightened me.

  The landlord was an overweight guy in his thirties with a pasty face and black hair. He carried a tall, cardboard Big Gulp container filled with Coke and spiked by a clear plastic straw. Between sips, he chewed a hamburger he’d pulled out of a greasy paper bag. “Listen,” he said, “it’s Saturday. It’s five o’clock. You have to be out of your place on Monday and you can’t possibly find another apartment by then. This is a good deal. Take it.” He removed the lease agreement from his coat pocket and placed it on top of the living room’s cheesy, plywood-paneled wet bar. “Sign,” he said. Then he tilted a ballpoint pen toward me and his hand remained motionless until, five seconds later, I took it. Once I’d written my name he said, “Someone broke a lease on me recently and I can promise you, I will hound that person to the end of the earth.” Then he looked at me and raised his black eyebrows. As I drove away, I knew I’d made a mistake. The following day I called and told him I’d changed my mind.

  “Too late, you wrote a check.”

  I said, “It’s Sunday. I know you haven’t cashed it. So please, do me a favor. Tear it up.”

  “No,” he said. “And if you stop payment, I’ll sue you.”

  I moved into the cottage and within twenty-four hours I had my radio, my leather jacket, and my ten-speed bike stolen, presumably by the drug dealers who lived in the adjacent cottage. At the police station, the officer to whom I reported the burglary said, “You look like a decent guy. Why are you living there? That’s the worst street on Cape Cod. Half your neighbors pedal dope; the other half live on food stamps, welfare, and
whatever they can steal.”

  Two driveways filled with fallen, desiccated pine needles separated our cottages. In mine stood a VW beetle; in theirs, a black Camaro with skull and bones decals pasted to its tinted windows. Every time I ventured into my backyard to drop a garbage bag into the dented aluminum trash can, the dealers’ German shepherds sprinted toward me, snapping their teeth, their nails scratching the rusty aluminum door an instant after I slammed it shut. Eyeing me through the dingy pane of glass above the doorknob, they growled, implying that, next time, they’d chew off my leg.