“Good,” I said. “Sell it. The sooner the better.”
“You’re never here, and I don’t want to be here, so why not sell?” she said.
“Sell it and come to New York. I need you.”
“Ha. I doubt that very much.” She said, “Somebody asked me what you were up to and I had to say I don’t know.”
“My life is falling apart. I can’t write anymore. I’m no good without you.”
“Well, if it isn’t one thing, it’s another,” she said.
I wrote her a letter telling her how much I loved her and needed her and then didn’t mail it. It wasn’t good enough. The tone wasn’t right. I rewrote it. Still not right. Too stilted. Like a bad translation. Self-conscious. Girlish.
And then I ran into her online. I visited a chat room called Lib Blab and there she was, under the screen name LADY LIBERAL, in a discussion with some people about Where Liberalism Went Wrong, and I clicked on her name for a private chat.
MR. B: Hey. Whassup?
LL: Who’s this?
MR. B: Bernie. Saw your comment about gays and couldn’t agree more. The left keeps getting drawn into cavalier battles over equal rights for dancing dogs and hermaphrodites that bleed us white and divert us from the one battle that really means something and that is: where does the money go? The bread and butter stuff. Caring for the homeless and all these deinstitutionalized mental patients who’ve been left to fend for themselves here in New York. First things first.
Well, that got her interest. She told me that her husband lived in New York and I asked her why she didn’t and she said, “I’m not his type anymore.”
MR. B: What a jerk. I’m 45, single, tall and in good shape, U of M ‘66, and I enjoy conversation, good food, music, travel. Where would you like to go?
LL: Is this a pick-up attempt?
MR. B:
I jabbered along (ah, the childish pleasure of anonymity), winking and LOLing and ROFLing and I said I wanted to meet her for coffee.
MR. B: I’m looking for my dad. He’s 72 and has a gear loose. He ran away.
LL: Really.
MR. B: Schizophrenic, or something.
LL: Call the police.
MR. B: I want to meet you.
LL: Why?
MR. B: I like talking to you. Tell me more about your husband.
LL: What about him?
MR. B: Do you love him?
LL: Of course.
MR. B: There’s no “of course” in love.
LL: Oh?
MR. B: Let’s meet. I like you. ((((hug)))) Want to call me? Say yes. 8-]
LL: No. Sorry.
MR. B: Oh. :-X
I was grateful for that no. Iris might be confused about us but she wasn’t in the market for random liaisons with strangers.
One night, sailing around Staten Island, I told Mr. Shawn that I couldn’t write and he said, “When was the last time you got laid?”
“It’s been a while,” I said.
“Maybe that’s your problem.”
I finished one story, “Our Far-flung Correspondents: Riding the Lift Bridge in Duluth,” and Mr. Shawn bought it, all 650 words, and it never appeared in print. A mercy acceptance. But I was grateful.
Dear Mr. Blue,
I’ve always wanted to be a writer but when I try, I sit and gaze out the window and don’t get any good ideas and after a while I go and read a good book. What’s wrong?
—Dazed
My dear Dazed, You and me, too. We need motivation to write, just as we would if we were driving to North Dakota in January. The prestige of being there is not enough. You might go there to earn big money or escape from the FBI or to find hot sex with a librarian in Valley City but the thrill of writing a letter with a North Dakota postmark would not be strong enough motivation. Not for me. Unless I were writing a letter about that librarian.
Dear Mr. Blue,
I spend my days in a tiny cubicle writing meaningless drivel, surrounded by brain-dead coworkers and Dracula managers, and all I can think about is that long concrete ribbon that leads to Montana and a life of freedom and adventure and honesty. Why haven’t I left yet?
—Discouraged
O
Discouraged,
I know exactly what you mean.
I was drinking hard. A big glass of Scotch or two when I got home to the apartment and then a third and some red wine to induce sleep, but I’d pace the terrace late at night like the captain of the Titanic and worry about losing Iris, worry about my prostate, about money, my savings flying away like dry leaves in a hurricane—
Mr. Wyler, this is MasterCard. May we expect a payment from you this week?
I
was becoming more familiar with daytime television than an adult of normal intelligence should ever be and one day I saw J. D. Salinger on
Hollywood Squares,
happy as a kid in a toy store. He answered all the questions correctly and sang “K-K-K-Katy,” which I was amazed he knew, but he did, all the words. I switched the channel and a lantern-jawed actor murmured, “Kimberley, David can give you a house in Greenwich but he can never give you love. He can give you wonderful clothes, but not the spiritual peace of mind that you crave. This squalid struggle for money and publicity—let’s leave it—you and me.” I made myself a tequila sunrise. I thought, Shame on you, a graduate of the University of Minnesota, with a proud tradition to uphold, and here you are, a common lush.
My darling dear,
It’s warm and bright in New York and this morning I walked to work through Central Park, where the drive was thronged with walkers and skaters, and then down Fifth Avenue, making a detour into St. Thomas for a little prayer time. Asked God to give me something to do with my life, and if He doesn’t want me to be a writer, okay, fine, then what’s my new assignment? I stopped at Scribner’s bookstore and picked up
Great Expectations.
Thought maybe I’d steal some ideas from Dickens, who had so many of them. My afternoons are fairly empty. So are the mornings, for that matter. Dickens was one who never faltered. Writing came naturally to him. Chekhov, too. And Updike. I saw him today in the hallway outside Shawn’s office, tall, graying, courtly. The model of a modern man of letters. I was a few feet away, pretending to study a wall map of New York harbor, checking the water depths in various places. Updike had an old black briefcase. If he got up and forgot it, I was going to steal it and hold it for ransom and the ransom would be that he writes a story for me to publish under my name. I’ve been struggling for a year to write one—he could do it in an afternoon. (And if it were under my name, it wouldn’t have to be as good, right?)
He took the briefcase with him.
Then I thought of taking him out on Mr. Shawn’s boat and dumping him overboard, the briefcase filled with bricks, chained to his ankle, and keeping the contents to publish at my leisure. Larry Wyler’s thoughts on Cubism. Larry Wyler’s dense new novel about mathematics. Larry Wyler’s brilliant critique of Reinhold Niebuhr.
This is how desperate I am. Considering bumping off a beloved American author. Snuffing the Rabbit man.
But in my current state (frozen) I find Updike’s flagrant success oppressive and vulgar. While I sit in this dingy cubicle on the 17th floor, whittling away at the same old stick, winding up with nothing but shavings.
Well, I must go now and think. Hope you are well. Write when you have time. Do you think you might move out here to be with me? That would be nice.
Love,
Larry
Dear Larry,
It was nice to hear from you. I’m sorry you’re having a hard time. So are a lot of people. I went to clean out Mr. Hoffstadter’s apartment today, having succeeded in putting the old booger into a nursing home. He’s been working his shopping cart route along Rice Street for five years now, yelling at the streetlamps, trying to keep them in line, and living off cigarettes, coffee, and cashews from the Episcopalian food shelf. Anyway, the apartment was a horror show. Filth and trash and spores of fungi everywhere. A nephew was supposed to take care of it but one look and he decided to pass. Some alien life form occupied the refrigerator. Anyway, the potato salad was moving. I thought I might have to shoot it. Amid the debris were some lovely oil landscapes and antique furniture and rare editions, souvenirs of Mr. H’s previous life in the upper middle class. He was the comptroller and vice president of Hyperion Mutual Life until dementia got hold of him. Unfortunately, he retained much of his executive personality even after he lost his other marbles and was able to intimidate people as he marched up and down the street, pushing his cart, shitting in his pants, screeching in an authoritative way, and people let him be. Poor old thing. I got him roped in and sedated and now the apartment is cleaned out and the nephew, who stands to inherit upward of two or three million, has sent a donation of $100 to MAMA along with a Hallmark thank-you card. You learn so much about people in this line of work. If you find New York unbearable, you should come home.
xxox,
Your Iris
I asked Shahtoosh, my fact checker honey, if she had any advice for a blocked writer, and she just laughed and said, “Hey, lay back and enjoy it.”
We were lounging around on my terrace. She couldn’t believe that anybody who owned such a nice apartment could be in real trouble.
“I wonder how John Updike does it. My gosh, the man is indefatigable. Short stories, novels, literary criticism, art criticism, poetry, reporting—”
“You wouldn’t think so if you knew what I know,” she said. “He gets a lot of help from checkers. You knew that he can’t spell, right? Words like
lien
and
lean,
and
here and hear. Indefatigable.
Can’t spell it.”
I wanted to cry. Another hero, kneecapped. The author of the Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom novels that I admire beyond words—
Rabbit Rent, Rabbit in Rehab, Rabbit Is Raunchy, Rabbit Relaxes
—a bad speller.
Dear Mr. Blue,
My wife used to be a federal judge and we were all terribly proud of her, and then, after ten years on the bench, she took a sabbatical to “explore her identity,” and now she is a serious roller blader. She is 51. She has resigned her judgeship so she can go off to senior women’s amateur tournaments all over the country and compete. She has never won anything above a bronze medal. She used to have opinions on literature and politics and culture, but now she is totally dedicated to leaps and figure 8s and the double axel. She is not a slender little thing, and I hate to see her embarrass herself skating around in a skimpy little skirt and blouse like a circus bear, but deep down, I am losing respect for her. Why is she doing this?
—Exasperated
Dear Exasperated, Your wife got tired of people being proud of her and decided she doesn’t care if anybody stands up at her memorial service and talks about her legacy or not, she would rather have some fun. She likes to roller blade. So she decided to spend her time doing it. What don’t you understand about this? I have devoted most of my adult life to writing stories and now, in late middle age, I’ve washed up on a reef and can’t write for shit. I must say that roller blading strikes me as entirely honorable and useful compared to what I’m doing now. Maybe you should blade on your wife’s rollers before you get down on her like this.
Dear Mr. Blue,
Is it mere coincidence that the word therapist also makes the words “the rapist”? My psychiatrist Jekyll is giving me the creeps, milking prurient details out of me about my love affairs with older men with big eyebrows. I got to talking about my latest lover and Jekyll got all giddy, whereas he shows not a glimmer of interest in the fact that I am a compulsive hand washer and have a thing about chickens. I am a successful career woman (a county prosecutor, but don’t print that in the paper), but I have forty-three sets of bed sheets and pillowcases with chickens on them. Sixteen chicken tablecloths. A recorded rooster awakens me every morning. I have a Leghorn chicken night-light. If I don’t wash my hands at least three times an hour, I begin to sweat and shake. Jekyll couldn’t care less. All he’s interested in is my sex life. I’d walk away but my self-esteem can’t take another shot in the chops.
I’m a good person. I tutor inner-city kids, I take public transportation. But in addition to chickens and hand-washing, I have this other compulsion to say cruel things to fat people. For example:
What do you keep in those creases?
Need me to get something out of your back pocket?
Ever think about buying group insurance for yourself?
Where’d you get baptized? SeaWorld?
I asked Jekyll, “Why do I get my jollies from poking fun at these porkers?” and he shrugged and said, “Tell me more about Dale and your weekend in Duluth.” The other morning, on the bus, I said to a black lady who was occupying two seats, “Who paints your toenails? The guy at the auto body shop?” I live in fear that I will be arrested and it’ll get in the papers and my mother will disown me. Mom is the most important person in the world to me. She’s a little hefty herself. In fact, the only way we can get her out of the house is to grease the doorframe and stand outside holding a Twinkie. I know it would break her heart if she knew that I was inflicting gratuitous pain on blimps and wide rides. Should I get a new therapist?