The Tender Hour of Twilight

by Richard Seaver

  We chatted about Paris, about Merlin, about Christopher and Austryn, the former back in England, the latter ensconced in the south of France with his new wife. Patrick was now Paris editor of our old rival, The Paris Review. Olympia, while not on the rocks, was in dubious shape, Maurice threatening to pull up stakes and move his operation here. No, I hadn’t had any correspondence with him for years. Grove had bought Naked Lunch from him, but had no immediate plans to bring it out until the legal waters had been tested with Chatterley. “I heard about that,” Alex said, nodding. “Brave move…” No, Maurice was not paying him any royalties for all the books he had written and translated, roughly a dozen. He couldn’t fully blame Maurice for the nonpayment. Two or three years earlier, the French vice squad had walked into the rue de Nesle, seized twenty-five Olympia titles, including Lolita, and banned them all. According to Alex, Maurice had sued the government to have the ban lifted, but between the legal fees and the seizure of books he was virtually bankrupt.

  Jane? He said they were out of touch. When he saw my expression, Alex hastened to add: “I was the best man at her wedding.” Never fantasize about the lives of others: you’ll always be wrong.

  Alex asked about Jeannette. We had a two-year-old child, a girl named Nathalie, and another babe in arms, Alexander. “Named after me?” Trocchi smiled. “Could be,” I said, though I knew it was not. “Fatherhood ain’t easy,” he added, pulling out his wallet and showing me a picture of a handsome baby boy. “Mark,” he said. Then he flipped to a picture of his wife, Lyn. A startling beauty from nearby Long Island. Married on Long Island? I asked. He laughed. “As far away as possible, in Tijuana, Mexico. Lyn’s parents did not approve. They’d heard stories about me that probably whitened their hair.”

  He was back to his life on the scow, the setting for the novel. Lonely but productive. His fellow scow captains a strange, disparate lot, many at rock bottom, either willing to stay there because the job came with a furnished cabin, however spare, or using it as a way station to a better life. His only problem had been the curiosity in some when they had heard the clicking of typewriter keys next door: What kind of man working on a scow would waste his time bent over a typewriter?

  “Read the pages,” he said, nodding at the envelope, “and tell me what you think.”

  I pulled out the manuscript. About twenty-five or thirty pages, I calculated. Was this all that the time on the scow had produced? “I’ll read them tonight,” I said.

  He stood, we shook hands. “Good to see you, Dick. It would be nice to work together again.”

  After I had escorted him out, Barney, seeing me pass his office, gestured me in.

  “That took a long time,” he ventured. “What’s he want?”

  “He’s back to Cain’s Book,” I said. “He gave me some pages, which I’ll read tonight.”

  “What makes you think he’ll ever finish? Have you read that piece in Evergreen? If you have, you’ll know he’s deep into drugs.”

  “From what he told me today, those Evergreen pages are the opening chapter of the book. What he gave me today is chapter 2 … Barney, I haven’t seen the man in five years, so we have a lot of catching up to do. Anyway, even if he’s a junkie, he can’t be any more addicted than Burroughs. And Burroughs can clearly write. The question is, can Trocchi?”

  * * *

  That night I read Alex’s pages aloud to Jeannette. She was still intrigued by him; but as someone who loathed the very notion of drugs, she was worried.

  Next day I poked my head in Barney’s office, told him that the Trocchi was first-rate. Instead of looking pleased, he greeted the news with a frown. We already had Naked Lunch under contract. Did we really need another heroin addict on the list? It’s very different from Burroughs, I said. Do you want to read the pages? He waved the suggestion aside. Not now, not now. How much is he going to want as an advance? I’m sure not that much. Heroin doesn’t come cheap, Barney reminded me. Anyway, remember how long it took Burroughs to write Naked Lunch—five years? ten? I’ll make most of the advance contingent on delivery, I suggested. He nodded. We settled on an advance of $750, a fraction of what we had paid for Naked Lunch. Half up front, the rest contingent on further segments turned in. I argued for more, just a tad, but that was as far as Barney would go. I felt that he would have been pleased if Trocchi turned down the offer and disappeared. See any legal problems with it? Barney asked. I shook my head. Not so far. Good, he said.

  Trocchi called. Did he have any more pages? I asked. Yes, another twenty or so. Could he bring them in? What about a contract? I said we’d give him one; we’d discuss terms when he got here. When he arrived, looking more groomed this time, he bore an envelope containing not twenty but only twelve pages. No apparent continuity with the earlier material. If we received only fragments, would they ever fit together? Contract, what about the contract? Did I detect a tinge of panic? More than a tinge … I cited the figure Barney and I had agreed on for the advance, then, in a moment of lucidity, aided by the opening lines of Molloy—

  There’s this man who comes every week … He gives me money and takes away the pages. So many pages, so much money … When I’ve done nothing he gives me nothing, he scolds me …

  —told him we’d be paying in segments. He looked stricken. “That’s pretty niggardly, Dick,” he said, shaking his head. “It doesn’t exactly show a lot of confidence, does it? Even Maurice did better than that.”

  “I’m afraid so. Part of the problem is that we’ve got Naked Lunch under contract, and Barney’s questioning whether we need…”

  “Another junkie?” Alex finished, looking hurt. “Tell him Cain’s Book will be as far from Naked Lunch as … as Chatterley is from Tropic of Cancer.”

  “Look,” I said, “I’d be happy to go back to Barney and see what I can do, but be forewarned, if he’s in the wrong mood, he’s liable to say fuck it. Maybe you should shop it around and see if you can come up with some more money. I’d understand.”

  “The other houses,” he said with clear disdain, “are full of shit. They’re scared of their own fucking shadow. I’ve talked to some editors, and they all think I’m a druggie nutcase.”

  We would pay him the day he delivered. How about today? Could he be paid for the first two installments? He looked desperate and suddenly pathetic. I excused myself, found he could be paid, but only by check. Trocchi shook his head. Cash, he said, he would need cash. I told him he would have to come back tomorrow. Well, could I lend him a hundred dollars? I didn’t have that much to hand. Could we go to the bank and get it? I felt trapped, but mostly depressed. Sure, I said, and we walked the three blocks to the Manufacturers Hanover branch at Ninth Street and University Place, where I withdrew the money from my personal account. He clutched it, as a castaway an elusive life preserver, shook my hand warmly, and scurried off—yes, that was the term, his movement now agitated, almost confused. That, I told myself, watching him decamp, was the major difference between then and now: in Paris his pace had been measured and self-assured; today it was hurried, harried, dictated not by an inner rhythm but by some outer imperative.

  * * *

  There were weeks when Alex did not arrive at an appointed hour, nor send any word, and when finally he did appear, it was usually without warning, which made it hard to pay him as he delivered, often pulling me out of a meeting and refusing to leave until the barrelhead had been greened. Barney noted my irritation and told me more than once that I had asked for it. He needled me, too, about the manuscript’s snail-like progress, and I had to admit it was frustrating. So many pages, so much money. But, I added, when they came, the pages were invariably good. Will they fit together? Barney wanted to know, doubtless remembering Naked Lunch. I said there would have to be some juggling once the manuscript was in, certainly, but a book there would be. A good book. He was reassured, at least momentarily, but I noticed he was careful not to emerge from his office whenever Trocchi showed up.

  When on one occasion several weeks had e
lapsed without word, I became worried and asked several of our mutual New York friends for news of Trocchi. The only one who had heard was George Plimpton, who said Alex had hit him up for small sums—twenty, thirty, once fifty dollars—as advances against a short story he would “shortly” be sending for The Paris Review. I asked George how Trocchi looked. There was a pause on the other end of the phone, as if he were searching for the proper words. “Not well,” he said. “‘Disheveled’ I guess is the term … I gather you know that he got arrested.” I didn’t. “I don’t know the details,” George said.

  When at last Alex showed, looking far better than George had described him, I pointedly asked if he was in trouble with the law. Again the hurt look. “Of course not, Dick. Whatever else I am, I’m discreet. Very discreet. I deal only with people I know, who are all trustworthy. Besides, Lyn has been on me to get clean, and I’m working on it.” Like all gullible people who want to believe what they know in their heart is a lie, I told him how important that move was, even congratulated him. And, to buttress what he said, the pages he delivered that day were among his best.

  * * *

  Another two weeks went by without word, and with Barney breathing down my neck over the good money I’d thrown out the window for a book that would never be, I decided one afternoon to pay Alex a visit. He lived only a dozen blocks away. I climbed the dreary steps to his door and knocked, thinking as I did what a terrible idea it had been to come, especially without warning. I heard noises inside, a familiar voice asking, “Who is it?” and at the one-word answer “Dick,” further scurrying. When the door finally cracked open, Alex appeared clad only in Jockey shorts. Lyn was still in bed. The place was a rat’s nest. Clothes strewn about the whole loft, furniture the Salvation Army would have snubbed, the ashtrays filled with cigarette stubs from among which thrust literally dozens of needles. A glass of water and spoon on the bed table. The kitchen sink was filled with unwashed dishes, to which clung remnants of food dating from the Year One. To complete the picture, I stepped, with a loud squashing noise, on a cockroach the size of a mouse. It was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life, and I was about to apologize and beat a rapid retreat when my hosts, who after the unexpected intrusion seemed quite at ease, invited me in as if my visit were perfectly normal. “A spot of tea, old man?” Trocchi chirped, pulling on a pair of khaki pants and wrestling a sweater over his head. “So nice of you to stop by.” I shook my head. “I really can’t stay. But since I hadn’t heard from you, I began to worry.” Now Trocchi apologized, moved over to a long table, swept debris from his typewriter, rummaged among yellow foolscap, and dexterously emerged with a thin pile of typewritten pages. “Voilà!” he said, handing me the manuscript. I thanked him but said I didn’t have the cash with me to pay for them. He shook his head, as if that were his last worry, he’d stop by tomorrow to pick it up. The teakettle began whistling, and Lyn, who had by now risen, was rinsing three cups, and we sat down as if to Alice’s Tea Party. I felt deep, very deep in the rabbit hole as I struggled for conversation. For it was clear that Lyn, far from easing Alex off the habit, was just as hooked as he. Once again, Jeannette had been right. I was truly sad. Then a terrible thought crossed my mind: Where was little Mark? I decided not to ask.

  Standing to leave, I asked when I might expect more pages, and Alex grinned, pointed to the still-half-buried typewriter, and assured me there would be more “within the week,” adding, “We’re almost there.” I now had more than 150 pages, which, according to Trocchi’s original assessment some months back, was roughly half the manuscript but which, he now told me, represented a good two-thirds. “I can’t really edit it until I have the complete manuscript,” I said, lamely I knew, but again Alex assured me he was working every day. Glancing around, trying not to be judgmental, I knew he was lying through his tobacco-stained teeth.

  To my surprise, Trocchi began to deliver the rest of the pages on a fairly regular basis. I was delighted, though I learned the impetus was largely that George Plimpton, John Marquand, Peter Matthiessen, and apparently every other soft touch in town had cut him off, so I had presumably become his prime source of income for the next hit. That illusion was shattered the next time I saw George, at a glitterati party at his sumptuous waterside digs on East Seventy-second Street.

  I’d known George for the better part of a decade now and liked him immensely. We had become close friends. When we first met in Paris seven or eight years before, his patrician accent had put me off—was this real or affected?—but as the months rolled by, I decided the slightly English upper-class speech pattern was part and parcel of the package: you either took it or left it. I realized that behind the seeming affectation was a serious young man who cared deeply about literature and the world. Still, I often felt oddly alien at his parties, for most of the people there—men and women—seemed entrenched members of the uptown establishment—literary, political, social—whereas I was a downtown, dyed-in-the-wool outsider.

  That night, amid the cocktail buzz, George took me aside and asked me if I’d heard that Lyn was now on the streets. “You mean … on the streets?” He nodded. “Jesus!” was the only word I could muster. “Not only that,” George confided, “this isn’t a recent turn of events. Apparently, it goes back as far as Vegas. Maybe before. From what I’ve heard,” he said, “it wasn’t Alex who forced her. When they reached a point where they couldn’t scrape up enough to eat out in Venice, it was Lyn who suggested they move to Vegas, where she knew she could score…” At which he was whisked away to sit down at the piano and, revealing one more talent, tickle out some pretty mean jazz.

  33

  Coenties Slip (At Last!)

  FOR ALMOST TWO YEARS we had known that suburban life was not for us. On our return from Venezuela with nothing affordable to be had in the Village and with Nathalie clamoring to be born, we had felt lucky to find our apartment in Bronxville in the nick of time. But now, with our lease expiring, it was time to leave.

  Friends and neighbors thought we were crazy. “Two young children,” they would cluck, “that’s the time people leave the city, not rush back to it.” For us the only question was where.

  Again, serendipity: Jack and Delphine, having decided to forsake Paris at least for a while and, like us, give New York a try, he as an artist with two or three one-man Paris shows behind him, she as a budding actress, had recently found a building in lower Manhattan, on Coenties Slip, a four-story prerevolutionary brick edifice that in its earlier life had been a sailmaker’s loft. Jack, Delphine, and their three-year-old son, Duncan, lived on the third floor, and Jack’s studio was the top floor. On a weekend in May, with Nathalie and Alexander in tow, we drove the old Studebaker down to look at it, fell immediately in love with the romantic old house, and decided on the spot to move there. Its full floor of fifteen hundred square feet was more than double the size of Bronxville. The comforting cacophony of the tugboats plying the waters at the nearby confluence of the Hudson and East rivers, incessantly sounding their horns, and the privacy of the area, which after five was virtually empty as the denizens of the nearby Financial District scurried to their suburban homes, combined to make the place irresistible, especially when we learned that our share of the monthly rent would be $75.

  A couple of drawbacks: there was no grocery store within miles, in fact no stores at all. No nipping out to pick up some last-minute item at nine or ten at night. And, oh, yes, the other, minor problem: the building was illegal. A later law allowed AIRs—Artists in Residence—to live and work in some of these buildings, which were specially designated, but that was still a couple years away.

  What the hell, it was too tempting to pass up. Move in on a Saturday, when no one was around, which we did with the help of a moving company, the Padded Wagon. The first thing we did, emulating the Youngermans, was rig up an adjustable mirror outside our bathroom window that overlooked the front door, to monitor any visitor. Only friends and neighbors allowed. To all others we would play dead. Cops. R
obbers. Firemen. You name it.

  We weren’t totally alone down there: Ellsworth Kelly had also moved back from Paris and lived just up the street. Also another painter, Agnes Martin, a generation older but still struggling as an artist. Bob Indiana. Across the little park—appropriately named Jeannette Park (which they had unforgivably misspelled “Janet”)—that fronted our building was the Seamen’s Church Institute, a snug harbor for old or out-of-work sailors, where one could go for a simple but palatable dinner now and then for virtually nothing. If you opted for upscale, there was always Sloppy Louie’s up the street a couple of blocks. The Youngermans had invested in a Vespa, stored under the stairs in the first-floor entrance, and twice a week Jeannette and Delphine would straddle the pale green mount and head northward to Canal Street to grocery shop, two pretty Parisian lasses, hair flying in the wind, before long the wonder and envy not only of the lower Broadway merchants but especially of staid Wall Streeters out for a midday stroll, who would pause in their three-piece suits to stare at these two young women careening in their hiked-up skirts through the cavernous avenues of their territory, like alluring aliens from a planet far, far away.

  34

  The (Over)Heated Tropics

  WITH Lady Chatterley barely out of the gate and still embattled, we had already begun plans for publishing Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer, banned not only here but in virtually every country worldwide. It struck me as an act of near madness, but I toned down my concern and simply suggested to Barney one day that it might be prudent to put Lawrence behind us before committing to Miller. He shook his head, grinned that bad-boy grin, which I had quickly learned meant “I know this is wrong, but ain’t we having fun,” and said the timing was out of his control. Already at the end of last year, he had been in correspondence with my old friend Maurice Girodias about Miller, he explained, both because Girodias was an old friend of Miller’s and because he alone knew of the publishing complexities concerning the rights to Tropic of Cancer. When the French publishing giant Hachette had bought Maurice’s troubled house, Les Éditions du Chêne, in 1950, they had automatically obtained rights to the Tropics, which Maurice had inherited from his father’s Obelisk Press. Under that arrangement, neither Miller nor Hachette could sell any rights to the Tropics without the other’s consent. This already complicated matters, for Miller had a Paris agent, Michael Hoffman, whose opinion he valued and who was not at all sure the time was ripe to have these explosive works published in the States. And just the other day, Barney said, he had heard from Girodias that a copy of Tropic of Cancer sent from Paris to an American professor had been released by customs, which could mark a breakthrough, but, Maurice had also pointed out, the attendant publicity might also encourage other publishers, aware of the enormous success of Nabokov’s Lolita the previous year, to move in on the Tropics. So there was no time to lose. However, where Henry Miller himself was concerned, two not insignificant problems had to be faced. First, Henry was now happily ensconced in Southern California, completing a new opus, Nexus, but spending most of his time painting, and not at all sure he wanted his banned works published here. Michael Hoffman agreed. All the fuss and furor, bringing Henry back from his carefully chosen wings to center stage, certainly to controversy, if not judicial attack: Did he really need that at this late stage of his life? Second, Henry already had an American publisher, Jay Laughlin of New Directions, who had been faithful to him through the years, though admittedly he had published only the non-censorable books. Miller would have to offer Cancer to New Directions first. Nonetheless, Barney had sent a telegram to Miller in late March, offering publication of Tropic of Cancer by Grove, with an advance of fifty thousand dollars, huge for us.1 On April 4, Miller wrote back thanking Barney but as predicted mentioning his obligation to offer the book first to New Directions, adding that in any event he thought “any attempt to publish these books [Cancer and Capricorn] was premature.” But added that he would take further counsel from Michael Hoffman when he, Henry, was there on the seventeenth.