Adios, Scheherazade

Never mind the numbers, it’s just a thing I’m going through. I may be coming out to see you, or that is I may be coming out that way and if I do I’ll drop in and see you, and if I do drop in and see you I’ll tell you all about it. In the meantime, take my word for it that the 61 and the 5 don’t mean a thing. Nothing. It’s just a part of a compulsion I seem to have lately.

I also seem to still have some of my older compulsions, like foolish lying. Like if I come out to San Francisco it won’t be for any reason at all except to see you and talk to you and tell you about my problems, so it’s hardly accurate to say I’ll “drop in.” That was just another of my attempts to cover myself. As though if I don’t look as though I’m really extending my hand, then maybe I won’t be so exposed to a rebuff.

I wonder if you know what my attitude is toward you, and I wonder if it would shake you up to know. I admire you, and I envy you, and I look up to you, and for God’s sake you’re four years younger than I am. But you have always had one thing that I have never had, and that I called recently the awareness of the multiplicity of possibilities, by which I mean you have never allowed yourself to be locked into anything, you never stayed where you didn’t want to stay, you never went where you didn’t want to go. I’m not sure that’s a program you can get away with all your life, but for people your age and my age it’s the only way to fly, and I only wish I’d realized it years ago. God knows you were always there to set the example for me, but it isn’t until now, when I’ve painted myself into the corner, that I’ve finally stopped to think things over and come to the realization.

The fact of the matter is, Betsy has left me. You will probably say three cheers to that, or why didn’t I leave her, and I know you never did approve of Betsy. Or maybe that’s too strong a word, maybe I simply mean you didn’t much care for Betsy. You never pushed any idea that you should have approval or disapproval over how I run my life, it was my own idea to give you that authority, and why I’ve done it I don’t know.

I don’t even know why I’m writing you this letter. I had to write something, I suppose, and you were on my mind, so I’m writing you. But if I come out, there’s no point in this letter, because I’ll tell you all this stuff in person, which will be better, and if I don’t come out, then there still isn’t any point, because I don’t expect a letter back from you and there really isn’t anything you could possibly say in reply to all this crazy stuff.

So maybe I’m not writing you a letter at all, maybe I’m just making believe to. Maybe what I’m doing is, I’m making believe to tell you the situation so I can try to visualize what your attitude is toward it all. For instance, if you were me right now, what would you do? Would you go to the police? Would you go to Betsy? Would you go to Hester in San Francisco?

Yes, the police. I’m wanted for a statutory rape I didn’t commit, and wouldn’t you just know I’d get the name without the game? Yes, it is funny, but it isn’t just funny, it’s also very serious. Betsy has left me and the cops are after me and I’m not writing the dirty books any more.

I just changed typewriters. Can you tell? This is also a Smith-Corona, just like the one I did the first two pages of this letter on, except this one is beige and the one in Macy’s was blue.

I’m in Gimbels now. See, what happened, I signed in at the YMCA as Dirk Smuff, that’s my dirty-book pen name, and I guess when the cops sent out their man-wanted thing on me they listed Dirk Smuff as an alias of mine — meaning Rod or Samuel or somebody really finked on me — and by God if the Y didn’t suddenly swarm with cops last night. Literally swarm with cops.

Luckily, I wasn’t in my room, I was down the hall in this dumpling’s room, this faggot that picked me up in the shower. For Christ’s sake, don’t get the wrong idea, I haven’t turned queer or anything. I was just not acclimated to being absolutely alone, that’s all, and after dinner, sitting around with a lot of ketchup and greasy hamburger smeared around inside my stomach, looking at the four walls, I began to get miserable, really miserable.

I didn’t even have my typewriter. I’ve been having a thing about the typewriter lately, a sort of minor neurotic problem (that’s the reason for the numbers), so what I did when I went out for dinner, I donated it to the Y.