My father-in-law, to whom this letter is addressed, and I never had a particularly warm relationship. My wife adored him. He was a Hippie, sort of a Marlboro Man version -- Western, laconic; a painter, who taught art in Southern Oregon first at the college and then later at the community college. He was basically a good guy, just shy and emotionally walled off. Selfish.
The letter below relates, in the first paragraph, an afternoon spent looking for work when I arrived in New York City and my thoughts, strange though they were to relate to one's father-in-law, on the bankruptcy of romantic love.
The second paragraph is a romantic remembrance of the apartment -- referred to here by its street address, 2210 -- I shared with my wife in Berkeley.
Autumn 1988
Pete,
Bought myself a monkey suit the other day, and wore it today, while I did a little slick-hair-&-dandruff jig through Wall Street and then Madison Avenue. Bought myself a beer for lunch at a nearby Irish pub while I was waiting for the next installment on my road to success. Budweiser -- not Harp or Bass -- was my choice; got out my book, a Wycherley play freshly purchased from a rug on the sidewalk (where everything is sold), tossed my head up at the TV and caught a few snippets of American Legion Baseball (ESPN); some lanky teen was lobbing a breaking ball over the plate, and getting banged for doing it. I dropped down for a line or two more of THE COUNTRY WIFE. When, bam! -- It hit me, something very exact: "No," the character Harcourt says, "mistresses are like books. If you pore upon them too much, they doze you and make you unfit for company; but if used discreetly, you are fitter for conversation by 'em." Now, either this is saying that monogamy breeds misogyny, or, the simple one, "Too much of a good thing . . . therefore, moderation." Either way, it affected me, affected me in that if this is truly the case, which I knew exactly at that point it was, Oh, boy, how shitty and really less than ideal romantic, hyper-sexual "perfect relationship" love is. So I thought about this, for the span of a beer mug, basking in the simultaneity of Harcourt's statement and Legionnaire baseball, and then I pulled Ashley's watch out of my pocket and glanced at the time. It was time to go. I entertained the idea of staying where I was and not moving an inch except for motioning to the barkeep to graduate me to a pint of Bass, but I was in the monkey suit, and my conscience bit me. I slid off the stool with my tail between my legs and scampered off to interview letter 'X.'
The one thing about today which I can't turn my back on, monkey suit, noose and all, is that it wasn't Berkeley. No more waxing, ruminating and peregrinating in anticipation of the parting of clouds and sounding of trumpets as the masses spill into the river Jordan, pounding on my apartment door (#11). Too many fantasies and too much life's blood gets lapped up by your own four walls, which doesn't mean that you can't live a "good" life, just not a very satisfying one. (So many fucking dreams don't square up outside of home; that's why we have so many self-mutilators: beer, whiskey, coyote's breath, speed, criminals.) And isn't it odd that out of this Icarian potpourri some get tagged artists, writers, prophets? -- World historic individuals, as Hegel would say.) But Pete, the real reason for this letter is to thank you, for helping us shut down old 2210 in proper fashion. We had a lot good evenings with beer, and a lot of good mornings with coffee. And out of everybody who was in and out of that place, friends and family, I always felt that you came the closest to feeling the appreciation for it that I felt for it. Those last nights with you and Jesse (and maybe this is too backward looking and romantic of me) were the absolute apotheosis of what 2210 always was. And I'm talking here of the yellow light and Navajo walls -- and your paintings -- and the books, and beer in the fridge, and some music playing, and an important conversation on somebody's lips. But for all this, it was time to call it quits.
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