He looked about twenty-seven or-eight. Was this John’s son? Was ’Gitte pregnant the last time I saw her in Brooklyn? I said, “John made a big impression on me when I was your age.”
“Yeah? Made a big impression on me too. Guy wasn’t really a father figure in the traditional sense. When I left home, I didn’t have to deal with his crap anymore. We lost touch. Then he got sick. I don’t visit that much. But Mom said you’d be here, so I thought, I have to meet my hero.”
“Hero?”
“Dude, don’t get me started.”
“You live up here?”
“Up here? In northern Appalachia? Nah, I live in the city. Brooklyn. Greenpoint. Trying to make my bones, you know? You have an apartment on the Upper West Side, right?”
“What do you do?”
“Write, man. That’s what I’m saying. If there’s one thing I can thank John for, it’s turning me on to your stuff. He had all your books. I started reading them when I was like, ten. I read your shit and I thought, this is what I want to do. Write like this.”
“I’m flattered. Thank you.” Nothing more to say. “Well, it was a pleasure meeting you, John’s son. I’m sorry your father’s not well. I’ll stop by again tomorrow. Good luck with your work.” I moved toward my car.
“Thanks! It was great meeting you, man.”
“Same here.” I resisted saying, “Feel free to…” Didn’t matter. Theo was one step ahead of me.
“Maybe we can catch each other in the city? I’ll buy you a coffee? I know you like coffee. ’Gitte told me.”
This was the child of my own hero. Couldn’t blow him off. “’Gitte has my number. Call me anytime.” And I left him standing in the parking lot.
I drove back to ’Gitte’s. Is there an inevitablity to life we just can’t detect? Isn’t ’Gitte why I came up here in the first place? Not to see John. Once upon a time, thirty years ago, I met a woman who was everything a woman should be. Was I wrong to want to see her one more time? Talk to her? Maybe touch her hand again for a second or two? Life is short.
The dogs didn’t bark this time. When I entered the kitchen, she was rinsing parsley. I pulled a chair up to the table and ’Gitte fetched me a cold beer. As she handed it to me, she paused. However it was communicated, it was communicated. I drew her toward me and I kissed her.
She took me by the hand, led me up the dimly lit stairs and into the bedroom where she undressed me. We kissed again. This time it was a real kiss, unsymbolic, forceful, aggressive. We separated and she undressed, almost shyly, like a girl. Trembling with anticipation, I touched her breasts, every part of her, kissed the nape of her neck, her ribs. She lay back and invited me into her. The word “fucking” doesn’t describe what we did. More like an old-fashioned dance. As we swayed in and out of one another, I saw myself, my young self, in bed with young ’Gitte.
All things come to those who wait. Very softly she whispered into my ear, “Richard.” And that was it. I came. If this were twenty years ago, that would have been the beginning of a long winding road. Elizabeth would bring that out in me. Could never get enough of her, was surprised by my own appetite. We would fall asleep at dawn, as if we were on a long voyage and the sex act was our vessel.
But this was not that. This was expectation fulfilled, plain and simple.
We lay there for fifteen minutes or so. We didn’t speak. Out in the yard, John’s dogs snarled and woofed. The oil burner kicked on and the radiators clicked with the expanding heat. She touched my chest but my thoughts were already drifting. The National Book Awards. It is possible I could win. That would be good. It would change things. People would return to me, read me more carefully. I glanced at ’Gitte and she was watching me. She smiled.
I rose and found the window. A gray day, or perhaps the sun was setting. Hard to tell this deep in the woods. The unblinking pony stood by his shed. The dogs circled my car. One peed on a rear tire. ’Gitte and I still hadn’t said a word. The lengthening silence generated more silence. The growing chasm between us was pushing me out the door.
’Gitte watched as I dressed. I stepped over to where she lay and kissed her. She was so warm. My last image is that of the lovely ’Gitte lying on the bed, beaming at me, eyes brimming with love. At that moment I finally put it all together. ’Gitte had slept with me because of who I am, not who I once was. The kid I was thirty years ago, she barely remembered that guy. Young Richard was nothing more than a shadow to her. No. It was the guy in the magazines, the guy she told her son about, that was who she was after. Of course.
As I escaped down the rutted road, the woods darkening all around me, I prayed out loud that I didn’t bust a spring and have to return to the house. I made it out to the two-lane. Relief eased me into a meditation on what could have been, should have been and was. Such a short distance between fantasy and memory.
In my old journals, I called ’Gitte an angel but the truth is that in the day we’d never said much to one another, John did all the talking. I had always assumed she was brilliant, but quiet. Naive on my part, I guess. And was she genuinely beautiful once? Who knows? I was stoned every time I saw her. Never saw her in daylight. If she was a beauty, that was no longer the case. Not really. Her belly was wrinkled and her legs were thin and varicose. I don’t know what I’d been hoping for. She was a middle-aged woman who lived in a house in the middle of nowhere. With dogs.
October 19, 2006
I spoke to ’Gitte on the phone the next morning. Oddly, she had yet to mention Theo, and I was not about to bring him up. I told her I had to get back to New York, giving her a complicated excuse relating to the National Book Award nomination. I implied that I would be up again before Christmas. Not sure why I said that, but I did.
I could have headed home right then and there, but I had to see John one more time. I had the tape of our last night together in Brooklyn. I had thrown it into my luggage at the last minute.
He listened to the old recording with suspicion. When the voices ran out and I clicked it off, he said, “Yeah, so?”
I said, “Do you remember that night?”
I was gazing into the mad eyes of the guy I knew thirty years ago. John knew me, he remembered. “Young scholar” indeed. Anxiety pulsed in my stomach. Obviously John saw right through me. He knew I’d been out to see ’Gitte. Knew that I had come only for that. How hard was it to figure out?
All of this passed in a moment. Then John lowered his head, turned away from me and snarled, “Too many people. No time to rest. However it ends, that’s the way it stays.”
Without a word, I left his room. He did not watch me leave. I’d fucked his wife while he was locked up. Can’t get any lower than that, right?
Regret is only a function of time. You can learn to regret anything. But also, in the moment, in the startling, brazen moment, anything is possible. Was I sorry? Fuck no.
October 20, 2006
It’s not over till it’s over. I checked out of my hotel only to find young Theo waiting for me in the parking lot. “I hate to bother you, man, but I had to take a bus up here and ’Gitte told me you were leaving today and I was just wondering if I could catch a ride back to the city with you.”
What choice did I have? My balls were probably still damp from sex with his mother, so there was an obligation, right? It’s only when I had thrown his stuff into the trunk of my car that I remembered that I was not planning to drive back to the city. I had planned to stay at the country house in Connecticut. Too late.
Do I have to describe the ride or the night Theo stayed in my house? Despite my reservations, Theo was a brilliant young man, and it was pleasant to spend time with him. He knew my work and the work of most of my contemporaries. He understood the context. He understood how the writing came together and what my part had been in it all.
The next morning, we picked up coffee and corn muffins at the minimart and drove into the city. By the time we got there, I had given an entire seminar on method. And recounted all the “John” stor
ies I could think of. Theo hung on every word.
Theo confessed that since ’Gitte gave him my books to read, he had always known he would meet me one day. He was almost tearful with gratitude to have had the time together. He asked me if I would read his work. Of course I said yes.
October 25, 2006
I invited Theo to my reading at the St. Mark’s Poetry Project at the old stone church on 10th Street. This was a promotional event I could handle, safely in the city. Been a while since I had read my stuff to this crowd. Thirty years ago the place was perpetually milling with young writers. Ginsberg and Corso would come by. And there would always be a couple of characters passing a pint of wine in the back rows. Now, the crowd was scrubbed, eager. Out on Second Avenue a cold rain fell. Inside the room was overheated and the smell of damp cloth filled the air. I read from A Gentle Death and then added a few pages I’d scribbled about the heart surgery. The audience was rapt. Huge ovation at the end. Felt good.
When I found Theo afterward I could see that he was impressed. But there was also a glint of agitation in his eye. We got a bite to eat at Veselka’s. He picked at his food while I waited for him to laud my reading. Instead, he asked if I’d read his pages yet. I lied, saying I was halfway through them and didn’t want to comment until I’d finished. His expression was that of an eager pup, waiting for the ball to be tossed.
Theo is a beautiful young man with chestnut curls and soulful eyes.
He’s brimming with his future, with his need. As we sat, I noticed two young women at the next table trying to catch his eye.
It was energizing to spend time with Theo. If I had had a son with ’Gitte, would he have been like Theo? No matter. He has entered my life like a gift. And I need a friend right now. I need someone who will listen respectfully to what I have to say.
November 15, 2006
Leon bought an entire table at the awards dinner at the Marriott Marquis. He seemed genuinely pleased and proud. There was a renewed sense of brotherhood between us, a bond forged by all that we’d been through together. Sarah had decided to bury the hatchet and agreed to be my escort for the evening. She was radiant. She held my hand under the table as the winner was announced.
As you know, I won the award. When my name was announced, every part of me knit itself together and my pulse grew firm. The award, however synthetically, amended and improved the world in every way.
After my (brief but brilliant) acceptance speech, Sarah got all loveydovey. This was a moment of happiness I wanted to savor. But then, the press reps converged and pulled me out to do a photo session and interviews. Of course, during the press conference, all the questions were directed to Timothy Egan, who had won the nonfiction prize for his research on the Dust Bowl. The press had heard of the Great Depression. The press had not read my book. Yet.
As Leon hugged me close he cooed: “Next run, fifty thousand. And there will be more, my friend, there will be much more. Gold seal on the cover, the works. Oh, did I mention we’ll be republishing your entire backlist with new cover art in the spring?”
We exchanged conspirator’s grins, as if this had been the plan all along. That we both saw this coming. Hard times are necessary to build a dynasty. Fuck Leon’s other authors. I was the one.
Friendly faces crowded toward me. Someone was snapping my photo. Sarah was holding my hand. But my middle-aged bladder got the best of me and I excused myself. I slipped past the reporters double-teaming Thomas Friedman for quotes on the Iraq War. As I entered the men’s room, my cell phone rang. It was Theo. Somehow he had already heard.
April 24, 1978
I live the life everyone else wants to live. I am supercharged with the excitement of my work and my writing. And I am living life to its fullest here in New York. I am out every night, I have a wonderful lover and good friends, in fact everyone I meet in the streets, at parties, in the subway, every bum, every shop owner, every cop, hooker, hot dog guy, flower lady they are all my friends.
I am like a tenth-century Persian poet, sipping the nectar from the many flowers. Wine, women, song. Delicious.
Discipline is the key. I am not hanging with Zim anymore. He is too distracting. He leaves messages on my answering machine, taunting me. He says I have no guts. He whispers accusations that I am a “schoolboy.” Fuck him.
Katie encourages me. She helps me focus. She is my muse.
And I have been spending time with that Esquire editor, Leon. I entertain him with stories about John and the various street people I’ve hung with. He loves to laugh this guy. Laugh and sniff enormous volumes of cocaine. He’s teaching me about vintage wines and fine brandies. He respects me as a writer.
November 20, 2006
Why can’t I have a moment to enjoy my victory? Insane week. I’ve had to return to Boston. Dad was reencased in his hospital room suffering from some sort of problem with his bowels. The surgery did not go well and he was on a morphine drip. How did it come to this so fast? And why did it have to happen now?
His eyes were barely open, but I assumed he knew I was there. He couldn’t speak, his flesh the color of old raw chicken. The oxygen sucked and blew, a relentless mechanical pulse, tugging him step by step toward the inevitable. Many machines stood guard including a device that beeped at regular intervals, meaning what? “Alive, dead, alive, dead.” The nurse shuttled in every hour or so, detached his excretory bag from the catheter and carried it off to be flushed away—flush, flush—humanity is residue. So many excretions and effluvia of the dying had been dispatched in that little room, hundreds, maybe thousands of times.
Sis came and went. She’s gotten good at this. Hardened. Not like when Mom passed. She’d brought a box of Dunkin’ Donuts and they had ended up unopened beside a foul wad of paper towels on a tray by the bed. The paper towels were there to wipe humidity from Dad’s oxygen mask. I tried to remember the name of the funeral director I had met at Sadie’s.
I was sitting there because…why? For him? He was barely conscious. I was there so I could tell everyone I met, “I was with my dad in the hospital—four hours!,” then all would praise me, maybe love me? So someday the others would show up at my bed when it was my turn to die. Headline: National Book Award Winner finds time to visit sick father in hospital.
There was a text message on my cell phone. CALL ME—THEO.
November 22, 2006
Somehow the old man has survived the week. I should be happy but constant visits have interrupted my writing. Not that I’m writing anything worthwhile. Lame Thanksgiving with Sis at the local Outback Steakhouse. Been avoiding Theo. ’Gitte has called as well. I should return that call but haven’t been able to find the time.
Desire has been the motivating force of my life. I guess there are other things that can serve that purpose: Love, for one. Hate, another. The prime mover has been desire. When I was small I wanted what I couldn’t have. Then I wanted what you had. Eventually, I wanted everything. Later, I wanted a girl, then your girl, then every girl.
I would say to myself, “you play the hand you’re dealt.” And I prided myself in playing my hands well.
But in the long run, everyone gets more or less the same hand. Age deals it. Infirmity and death, that’s all there is in the end. No matter what you’ve accumulated, that’s what you’re left with. There’s no difference between him (Dad) and me.
Here I am now. I have everything I ever wanted. But the dealer won’t stop dealing. And now what do I do? If I don’t want, how can I “be me”? Who am I without desire?
January 15, 1979
I guess I’m not paying much attention to this journal anymore. Been very busy. But I should try to keep it up. The book came out and it got good reviews. One of the stories got published in The New Yorker and another is going to be published in the Year’s Best Short Stories along with Joyce Carol Oates and Richard Ford and T. Boyle and all these other cool guys.
Very exciting. Met Philip Roth at a party. He didn’t seem very interested in me, more interested in Ka
tie, kept staring at her with his black eyes.
Life moves on. Sid Vicious killed his girlfriend. There’s a new club called the Mudd Club down on White Street.
I’ve been seeing Katie nonstop. She takes care of me. Our sex is deeply intimate and intense. And she’s very intelligent and insightful. She’s good for me. She’s got me to slow down on the dope and coke and booze. Which is good. I’d been pretty messed up lately and didn’t even notice it.
Did another reading at the Poetry Project and this time the place was packed. Standing room only. I guess I’ve arrived. Ginsberg was there. It’s obvious that the crowd loves my work. I’m good at reading in front of an audience. Still not making enough money.
Some people in Amsterdam are going to fly me over to work there for a month. And someone I know is setting up a string of gigs on the West Coast as part of a “New York Reads” series. They pay all the expenses plus a stipend of seventy-five dollars a day, which is pretty fucking cool. Plus the book royalties. It adds up.
I’ve begun a novel. The story I wrote about John was so good I’m expanding on it. Really explore the mind-set of a modern Renaissance man, circa 1977. It will be one of those “the rise and fall of” type novels. About how he put it all together when he was young, and what happened to him. How he ends up selling weed with his beautiful old lady and corrupts young impressionable minds. (Like myself.) (Did I get corrupted by him?) Oh and by the way, Leon left Esquire. They’re giving him his own imprint at Vintage. So I’m doing this book with him. Blake is ecstatic.
March 6, 1979
I am writing like a motherfucker. I’ve been totally clean for a month now. This is because of Katie. She has saved me. Plus we are getting pretty serious. It’s different with her now. She’s someone I can be affectionate with. Someone I can be honest with. Also I want to hear what she has to say. I want to love her. She’s so smart and so delicate and so sweet. It’s crazy, I have feelings for her I don’t think I’ve ever had with a woman. We can talk.
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