Raleigh
Yesterday morning my story aired on NPR’s Morning Edition. Ira and I had been on the phone the night before, trying to decide which cuts to make. I have an allergic reaction to my voice, but the singing was all right. Hugh’s friend Marian phoned after the 7:40 broadcast and said how much she liked it. A minute later I got a call from a switchboard operator who was late for work on account of sitting in her parked car and listening to me. She said she’d already phoned NPR to say good things but thought she’d reach out to me as well. They played the story again at 9:40, and then I was called by William, Allyn, and several strangers. The moment I’d start talking to someone, call-waiting would act up. At ten I left for the first of today’s four cleaning jobs, and when I returned at six, my machine was full of messages, most of them from people I don’t know who’d looked me up in the phone book. A woman from Oregon called, a guy who runs a theater in Philadelphia, a writer for a TV show; two NPR stations left messages saying they were flooded—their word—with calls from people wanting to get in touch with me. A stranger from Rochester called, stuttering, asking for a tape. It was all I ever wanted. Then Hugh and I left for the airport.
1993
January 16, 1993
New York
Helen’s forty-two-year-old nephew was a public-school teacher and today he died of AIDS. I said I was sorry to hear it and Helen said, “The bastard. Thought he was Mr. Big because he had an education, but where’s him and his college degree now? In the ground, that’s where. The last time I saw him, I called out, ‘Tommy!’ but he kept on walking. I say, ‘Fuck you, Mr. Smart.’ Yeah, we all know how smart he was now.”
February 24, 1993
New York
This was an amazing New York day. In the morning I met with Geoff Kloske, the editorial assistant from Little, Brown who called a few weeks back to ask if he could read my manuscript. He’s only twenty-three, a kid, and has a grandmother in Jacksonville, North Carolina. We had coffee and afterward he took me to meet his boss, Roger, a big, good-looking chain-smoker who said that he, too, liked my manuscript and hopes to get back to me within a week or two.
Afterward I went to our play rehearsal (for Stump the Host). We open a week from tomorrow.
March 8, 1993
New York
The night before the play opened (at La MaMa), William dropped out, saying he wasn’t having much fun. “And if it’s no fun, why bother?”
I spent some time panicking and then decided to take the part myself, seeing as I know the lines. So I performed on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Opening night we had fourteen people in the audience. On Friday, there were forty, and on Saturday we were sold out. Meryl has extended our run, and thankfully Paul Dinello has agreed to take over my part. Hugh and Amy say, “Oh, you know you love being onstage.”
But they’re wrong. I don’t. Not like that, anyway.
March 9, 1993
New York
Roger Donald called from Little, Brown to say he would like to negotiate a two-book deal. To celebrate, I bought a denim shirt and thought it amazing how quickly one’s life can change. I never thought I’d want a denim shirt.
March 13, 1993
New York
I met on Thursday afternoon with Don Congdon, the agent Roger Donald recommended. He proposed lunch and took me to Le Madri, an Italian place near his office and the fanciest restaurant I’ve been to in New York. Don is in his late seventies and was very elegantly dressed. A fine suit, a Pucci tie, a topcoat, even a black beret. The ma?tre d’ knew him. “Right this way, Mr. Congdon.”
Our waiter poured olive oil onto a plate and then gave us bread, which I guessed we were supposed to dip into it. I had thinly carved steak arranged into a turban with grilled radicchio and endive. Don had pasta that he didn’t finish.
While eating, I learned that he represents William Styron, Russell Baker, Ellen Gilchrist, and Thomas Berger. He represented Lillian Hellman for a production of The Little Foxes in, I think, Russia, and Frank O’Connor. He told stories about wandering through the Village with J. D. Salinger, whom he called Jerry, and recounted the night the two of them went to hear Billie Holiday. I heard of the time Don was arrested by the vice squad during Prohibition, and then something about Dashiell Hammett. The problem was that it was all about the past. That said, I liked his language, especially his old-fashioned slang.
April 30, 1993
New York
Between cleaning jobs, I bought a coffee and sat in Union Square Park to read for a while. The benches there are sectioned off with armrests—this to prevent people from stretching out and sleeping, I imagine. I’d just lit a cigarette when a guy approached—wiry, around my age, wearing soiled white jeans and a Metallica T-shirt. His hair fell to his shoulders, he had a sketchy mustache, and he was carrying a paper bag. Ex-convict, I thought. It was a snap assessment, but I’m sticking by it.
The guy asked for a cigarette, and when I handed him one, he took it without thanking me. Then he pointed to my bag of cleaning supplies, made a sweeping gesture with his hand, and said, “I’m going to sit down there.”
There were plenty of other benches, so I said no.
“Goddamn it,” he said. “I told you to move your fucking shit.”
I got up and left, knowing that if I hadn’t moved my bag, he would have thrown it. If, on the other hand, I had moved it, he would have sat beside me and continued asking for things. All afternoon I thought about it and wished that I knew how to fight.
May 2, 1993
New York
Yesterday I rode my bike across the bridge to Brooklyn. On the way back, I got a flat tire, so I was beat by the time I returned home. This morning I looked in the mirror beside our bed and saw a whale—a fur-bearing one—looking back at me. A very tired fur-bearing whale with a cat beside him. The cat looked familiar.
May 12, 1993
New York