Letters

4. June 13, 1919: I am told of a cardiac condition that may do me in at any moment, or may never. I begin, not long after, the attempt to explain this state of affairs to you in a letter, of which this is the latest installment.

4. End of June, 1937: I am told by my friend the late Marvin Rose, M.D., R.I.P., that in my place he would not worry one fart about a myocardium poised for so many years on the brink of infarction without once infarcting. Never mind the discrepant chronology, Dad; my heart tells me that here is where this item belongs. I perpend Marvin’s opinion, in which I have no great interest since my “rebirth,” and resume both my Inquiry and my letter to you, of which etc.

5. 1920-24: My Rakehood, or 1st sexual flowering, during which I also study law and learn of my low-grade prostate infection. Followed by a period (1925-29) of diminished sexual activity, my meeting with Harrison Mack, and my entry into your law firm.

5. 1955—?: My 2nd and presumably final sexual flowering, altogether more modest: prompted by #2 above; aided by a prostatectomy too long put off, which relieved a condition both painful and conducive to impotence; principally abetted by dear Polly Lake. An efflorescence with, apparently, a considerable half-life: there is evidence that that garden is even yet not closed for the night. O yes, and I remeet the Macks, reinvolve myself in their Enterprises, and largely put by the profession of law for directorship of their Tidewater Foundation.

6. Groundhog’s Day, 1930: Your inexplicable suicide, which teaches me to the bone the emotion of frustration, and remains to this hour by no means explained to my satisfaction. I move into the Dorset Hotel; I pay my room rent a day at a time (see #4 left, above); and I open my endless Inquiry into your death. O you bastard.

6. I don’t know. June 21 or 22, 1937, when I close the Inquiry (see #13, below left)? June 22 or 23, same year, when I reopen it? I think fall, 1956, when publication of The Floating Opera novel prompts me to buy the Macks’ old summer cottage down on Todds Point, virtually move out of the Dorset, and abandon both the Inquiry and the Letter, from the emotion of boredom. Damn you.

7. 1930-37: My long involvement with Col. Morton of Morton’s Marvelous Tomatoes, who cannot understand why I have made an outright gift, to the richest man in town, of the money you left me upon your death. Money! O you bastard.

7. 1955: My direction, for Mack Enterprises, of the purchase of Morton’s Marvelous Tomatoes, which, following upon my remeeting Jeannine on the New Year’s Eve (#2 right, above), and followed by the appearance of that novel, led to my reassociation with Harrison and Jane: his madness, her enterprises.

8. Aug. 13, 1932: I am seduced by Jane Mack, with Harrison’s complaisance, in their Todds Point summer cottage, and learn — well, to the vesicles — the emotion of surprise. Sweet, sweet surprise.

8. May 16, 1969: We shall come to it. Same emotion, not surprisingly. O, O, O.

9. Oct. 2, 1933: Jeannine Mack, perhaps my daughter, is born, and the Mack/Mack/Andrews triangle is suspended.

9. Jan. 29, 1969: Harrison Mack, perhaps her father, dies, and the royal folie à deux at Tidewater Farms is terminated.

10. July 31, 1935: The probate case of Mack v. Mack begins in earnest, and Jane resumes our affair.

10. Mar. 28-May 16, 1969: Another Mack v. Mack shapes up. And O…

11. June 17, 1937: Polly Lake farts, inadvertently, in my office, and thereby shows me how to win Mack v. Mack and make Harrison and Jane millionaires, if I choose to. Of this, surely, more anon.

11.

12. June 20 or 21, 1937: My dark night of the soul, when a combination of accumulated cardiac uncertainty (cf. #4 left, above), sexual impotency (cf. #5 left & right, above), and ongoing frustration (cf. #6 left, you bastard), led me to

12.