You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense Read online

  that.

  the other letter was from the beautiful lady editor, neatly typed on

  expensive stationery, and she said that she was no longer

  publishing her literary magazine, that she had found God and was

  living in a castle on a hill in Italy and helping the poor, and

  she signed her famous name, with a “God Bless you,” and that was

  that.

  ah, you have no idea, in that dark freezing shack, how much I wanted to

  be poor in Italy instead of Atlanta, to be a poor peasant,

  yes, or even a dog on her bedspread, or even a flea on that

  dog on that

  bedspread: how much I wanted the tiniest

  warmth.

  the lady had published me along with Henry Miller, Sartre, Celine,

  others.

  I should never have asked for money in a world where millions of

  peasants were crawling the starving

  streets

  and even some years later when the lady editor

  died

  I still thought her

  beautiful.

  about the PEN conference

  take a writer away from his typewriter

  and all you have left

  is

  the sickness

  which started him

  typing

  in the

  beginning.

  everybody talks too much

  when

  the cop pulled me

  over

  I

  handed him my

  license.

  he

  went back

  to radio in

  the make

  and model

  of my car

  and

  get clearance on

  my plates.

  he wrote

  the ticket

  walked

  up

  handed it

  to me

  to

  sign.

  I did

  he gave

  me

  back the

  license.

  “how come

  you

  don’t

  say

  anything?”

  he asked.

  I shrugged

  my

  shoulders.

  “well, sir,”

  he

  said, “have

  a

  good day

  and

  drive

  carefully.”

  I

  noticed

  some sweat

  on his

  brow

  and the

  hand

  that held

  the

  ticket

  seemed to

  be

  trembling

  or

  perhaps

  I

  was only

  imagining it?

  anyhow

  I

  watched him

  move

  toward

  his

  bike

  then I

  pulled

  away…

  when confronted

  with

  dutiful

  policemen

  or

  women

  in rancor

  I

  have nothing

  to

  say

  to them

  for

  if I

  truly

  began

  it would

  end

  in

  somebody’s

  death:

  theirs or

  mine

  so

  I

  let them

  have

  their

  little

  victories

  which

  they need

  far

  more

  than

  I

  do.

  me and my buddy

  I can still see us

  together

  back then

  sitting by the river

  while shit-

  faced on the

  grape

  and playing with the

  poem

  knowing it to be

  utterly useless

  but something to

  do

  while

  waiting

  the Emperors

  with their frightened

  clay faces

  watch us as we

  drink

  Li Po crumbles his

  poems

  sets them on

  fire

  floats them down the

  river.

  “what have you

  done?” I

  ask him.

  Li passes the

  bottle: “they are

  going to end

  no matter what

  happens…”

  I drink to his

  knowledge

  pass the bottle

  back

  sit tightly upon my

  poems

  which I have

  jammed halfway up my

  crotch

  I help him burn

  some more of his

  poesy

  they float well

  down

  the river

  lighting up the

  night

  as good words

  should.

  song

  Julio came by with his guitar and sang his

  latest song.

  Julio was famous, he wrote songs and also

  published books of little drawings and

  poems.

  they were very

  good.

  Julio sang a song about his latest love

  affair.

  he sang that

  it began so well

  then it went to

  hell.

  those were not the words exactly

  but that was the meaning of the

  words.

  Julio finished

  singing.

  then he said, “I still care for

  her, I can’t get her off my

  mind.”

  “what will I do?” Julio

  asked.

  “drink,” Henry said,

  pouring.

  Julio just looked at his

  glass:

  “I wonder what she’s doing

  now?”

  “probably engaging in oral

  copulation,” Henry

  suggested.

  Julio put his guitar back in

  the case and

  walked to the

  door.

  Henry walked Julio to his car which

  was parked in the

  drive.

  it was a nice moonlit

  night.

  as Julio started his car and

  backed out the drive

  Henry waved him a

  farewell.

  then he went inside

  sat

  down.

  he finished Julio’s untouched

  drink

  then he

  phoned

  her.

  “he was just by,” Henry told

  her, “he’s feeling very

  bad…”

  “you’ll have to excuse me,”

  she said, “but I’m busy right

  now.”

  she hung

  up.

  and Henry poured one of his

  own

  as outside the crickets sang

  their own

  song.

  practice

  in that depression neighborhood I had two buddies

  Eugene and Frank

  and I had wild fist fights with each of

  them

  once or twice a week.

  the fights lasted 3 or 4 h
ours and we came out

  with

  smashed noses, fattened lips, black eyes, sprained

  wrists, bruised knuckles, purple

  welts.

  our parents said nothing, let us fight on and

  on

  watching disinterestedly and

  finally going back to their newspapers

  or their radios or their thwarted sex lives,

  they only became angry if we tore or ruined our

  clothing, and for that and only for that.

  but Eugene and Frank and I

  we had some good work-outs

  we rumbled through the evenings, crashing through

  hedges, fighting along the asphalt, over the

  curbings and into strange front and backyards of

  unknown homes, the dogs barking, the people screaming at

  us.

  we were

  maniacal, we never quit until the call for supper

  which none of us could afford to

  miss.

  anyhow, Eugene became a Commander in the

  Navy and Frank became a Supreme Court Justice, State of

  California and I fiddled with the

  poem.

  love poem to a stripper

  50 years ago I watched the girls

  shake it and strip

  at The Burbank and The Follies

  and it was very sad

  and very dramatic

  as the light turned from green to

  purple to pink

  and the music was loud and

  vibrant,

  now I sit here tonight

  smoking and

  listening to classical

  music

  but I still remember some of

  their names: Darlene, Candy, Jeanette

  and Rosalie.

  Rosalie was the

  best, she knew how,

  and we twisted in our seats and

  made sounds

  as Rosalie brought magic

  to the lonely

  so long ago.

  now Rosalie

  either so very old or

  so quiet under the

  earth,

  this is the pimple-faced

  kid

  who lied about his

  age

  just to watch

  you.

  you were good, Rosalie

  in 1935,

  good enough to remember

  now

  when the light is

  yellow

  and the nights are

  slow.

  my buddy

  for a 21-year-old boy in New Orleans I wasn’t worth

  much: I had a dark small room that smelled of

  piss and death

  yet I just wanted to stay in there, and there were

  two lively girls down at the end of the hall who

  kept knocking on my door and yelling, “Get up!

  There are good things out here!”

  “Go away,” I told them, but that only goaded

  them on, they left notes under my door and

  scotch-taped flowers to the

  doorknob.

  I was on cheap wine and green beer and

  dementia…

  I got to know the old guy in the next

  room, somehow I felt old like

  him; his feet and ankles were swollen and he couldn’t

  lace his shoes.

  each day about one p.m. we went for a walk

  together and it was a very slow

  walk: each step was painful for

  him.

  as we came to the curbing I helped him

  up and down

  gripping him by an elbow

  and the back of his

  belt, we made it.

  I liked him: he never questioned me about

  what I was or wasn’t

  doing.

  he should have been my father, and I liked

  best what he said over and

  over: “Nothing is worth

  it.”

  he was a

  sage.

  those young girls should have

  left him the

  notes and the

  flowers.

  Jon Edgar Webb

  I had a lyric poem period down in New Orleans, pounding

  out these fat rolling lines and

  drinking gallons of beer.

  it felt good like screaming in a madhouse, the madhouse of

  my world

  as the mice scattered among the

  empties.

  at times I went into the bars

  but I couldn’t work it out with those people who sat on the

  stools:

  men evaded me and the women were terrified of

  me.

  bartenders asked that I

  leave.

  I did, struggling back with wondrous six-packs

  to the room and the mice and those fat rolling

  lines.

  that lyric poem period was a raving bitch of a

  time

  and there was an editor right around the

  corner who

  fed each page into a waiting press, rejecting

  nothing

  even though I was unknown

  he printed me upon ravenous paper

  manufactured to last

  2,000 years.

  this editor who was also the publisher and

  the printer

  kept a straight face as I handed him the ten to

  twenty pages

  each morning:

  “is that all?”

  that crazy son of a bitch, he was a lyric

  poem

  himself.

  thank you

  some want me to go on writing about whores

  and puking.

  others say that type of thing disgusts

  them.

  well, I don’t miss the

  whores

  although now and then one or another makes an

  attempt to locate

  me.

  I don’t know if they miss all the booze and

  the bit of money I gave them

  or if they are enthralled at the way

  I’ve immortalized them in

  literature.

  anyhow, they must now make do with

  whatever men

  they are able to scrounge

  up.

  —those poor darlings had no

  idea…

  and neither did I

  that those ugly roaring nights

  would be fodder

  such as even

  Dostoevski

  would not shy away

  from.

  the magic curse

  I never liked skid-row and so I stayed away from the soup

  kitchens, the bloodbanks and all the so-called hand-

  outs.

  I got so god damned thin that if

  I turned sidewise it was hard to see my shadow under a

  hard noon sun.

  it didn’t matter to me so long as I stayed away from the

  crowd

  and even down there it was a

  successful and an unsuccessful

  crowd.

  I don’t think I was insane

  but many of the

  insane think

  that

  but I think

  now

  if anything saved me

  it was the avoidance of the

  crowd

  it was my

  food

  still

  is.

  get me in a room with more than

  3 people

  I tend to act

  ill

  odd.

  I once

  even asked my wife: look, I must be

  sick…perhaps I ought to see a

  shrink?

  Christ, I said, he might cure me

  and then what would I


  do?

  she just looked at me

  and we forgot the

  whole

  thing.

  party’s over

  after you’ve pulled off the tablecloth with

  the full plates of food

  and broken the windows

  and rung the bells of

  idiots

  and have

  spoken true and terrible

  words

  and have

  chased the mob through the

  doorway—

  then comes the great and

  peaceful moment: sitting alone

  and

  pouring that quiet drink.

  the world is better without

  them.

  only the plants and the animals are

  true comrades.

  I drink to them and with

  them.

  they wait as I fill their

  glasses.

  no nonsense

  Faulkner loved his whiskey

  and along with the

  writing

  he didn’t have

  time

  for much

  else.

  he didn’t open

  most of his

  mail

  just held it up

  to the light

  and if it didn’t

  contain a

  check

  he trashed

  it.

  escape

  the best part was

  pulling down the

  shades

  stuffing the doorbell

  with rags

  putting the phone

  in the

  refrigerator

  and going to bed

  for 3 or 4

  days.

  and the next best

  part

  was

  nobody ever

  missed