Part 13 (1/2)

In these remarks, Don found a theme for his story.

He took several other cues from James. At a hotel party, James said, he encountered ”violence in...communication” and was ”transported to conditions of extraordinary complexity and brilliancy.” The whole thing ”remains for me...a gorgeous golden blur.”

From these these remarks, Don fas.h.i.+oned his story's form, its fresh style for ”new and heedless” readers. remarks, Don fas.h.i.+oned his story's form, its fresh style for ”new and heedless” readers.

He wrote: ”Carola Mitt, brown-haired, brown-eyed and just nineteen, was born in Berlin (real name: Mittenstein), left Germany five years ago. In her senior year at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Greenwich, Conn., Carola went to the Viennese Opera Ball at the Waldorf-Astoria, was spotted by a Glamour Glamour editor.” editor.”

The story then mixes fas.h.i.+on-industry talk with talk by academics, wealthy doctors, and other guests at the ball (a series of ”violent communications”). The effect is to undercut the glittering surface, and to suggest the hypocrisy at the core of the nation's ”machinery.” The narrative points out that the fas.h.i.+on world's marketing of female beauty has serious consequences for s.e.xual behavior and pregnancy rates. One result is that abortion has become a financial boon to the medical community (in the story, abortion is the doctors' main topic of conversation). Art, history, and people have become products churned out in America's lubricious whirl.

As it turned out, Henry James was not Don's only source for the story. In its December 22, 1961, issue, Time Time magazine ran an article on fas.h.i.+on models ent.i.tled ”The Bones Have Names.” The piece profiled the latest ”leaders in the new wave” of modeling: Dolores Wettach, Isabella Albonico, Dorothea McGowan-and Marola Witt. ”Marola Witt, brown-haired, brown-eyed and just 19, was born in Berlin (real name: Wittenstein), left Germany five years ago,” the article says. ”In her senior year at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Greenwich, Conn., Marola went to the Viennese Opera Ball at the Waldorf-Astoria, was spotted by a magazine ran an article on fas.h.i.+on models ent.i.tled ”The Bones Have Names.” The piece profiled the latest ”leaders in the new wave” of modeling: Dolores Wettach, Isabella Albonico, Dorothea McGowan-and Marola Witt. ”Marola Witt, brown-haired, brown-eyed and just 19, was born in Berlin (real name: Wittenstein), left Germany five years ago,” the article says. ”In her senior year at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Greenwich, Conn., Marola went to the Viennese Opera Ball at the Waldorf-Astoria, was spotted by a Glamour Glamour editor.” editor.”

A gleeful collagist, Don lifted whole paragraphs from the Time Time piece, pasted them against the background of James's remarks about the Waldorf-Astoria (which Don a.s.sumed any sophisticated reader-the kind of reader piece, pasted them against the background of James's remarks about the Waldorf-Astoria (which Don a.s.sumed any sophisticated reader-the kind of reader he he was after-would know), and produced a tiny, potent meditation on American culture. He saw how the fas.h.i.+on article ill.u.s.trated James's theme-how, more than ever, James's theme was current. Rather than was after-would know), and produced a tiny, potent meditation on American culture. He saw how the fas.h.i.+on article ill.u.s.trated James's theme-how, more than ever, James's theme was current. Rather than commenting commenting on this, Don produced a collage that on this, Don produced a collage that demonstrated demonstrated it. The result is a far more effective snapshot of contemporary America-with links to the nation's past-than any direct presentation of weighty material. it. The result is a far more effective snapshot of contemporary America-with links to the nation's past-than any direct presentation of weighty material.

Toward the end of the story, a character quotes Emile Meyerson, in French. In English, the line would read: ”Man practices metaphysics just as he breathes, without thinking about it.” Even in the shallowest situations, the human soul-however we define it-is at issue.

In ”Florence Green Is 81,” Don had quoted Oscar Wilde's remark that ”Mr. Henry James writes fiction as though it were a painful duty”-a comment on James's style style, although not on his content, for which Don had the greatest admiration. America's style had changed; New York's style had changed, wholesale, at least twice over since James had first observed it. Don knew that for old truths to emerge refreshed, they would have to be clothed in yet another style, for yet another generation. His chosen duty was to find that style, to join the community of writers he admired-makers of books, window signs, New Yorker New Yorker stories-and add his contribution. His duty was to celebrate the city and lament its sorrowful wounds. stories-and add his contribution. His duty was to celebrate the city and lament its sorrowful wounds.

24.

LOVELY OLD PICTURESQUE DIRTY BUILDINGS.

In Houston, Don had ”learned to impersonate a Texan well enough,” he said. For better or worse, his ”sensibility was pretty well put together” before he came to New York. Still, ”New York is...our Paris; you go to have your corners knocked off.”

Night after night now, often at parties in Elaine de Kooning's studio, he got his corners shaved. ”I was one night congratulated by a prominent poet on my 'rural irony'; being from Texas, you're a natural target,” Don said.

Meanwhile, in Texas, Helen was miserable. Every other day, she spoke to Don on the phone. ”I could hear [his] loneliness as well,” she recalled. By late October, after sitting alone on her wedding anniversary, she'd had enough. She told her sister Odell to manage the ad agency, at least temporarily. Helen was going to New York.

As soon as she told Don she was ready to join him, he began to search for an apartment. He ”walked around for days,” he wrote Helen. He looked at, he said:

lovely old picturesque dirty apartment buildings in filthy and fine neighborhoods, bits of old Village, up to 36th Street (Murray Hill district) and as far up as the sixties where the rents are really high but everything is double-picturesque. On the Lower East Side the rents are lower but the place is filled with b.u.ms (an estimated 45,000) whereas Street (Murray Hill district) and as far up as the sixties where the rents are really high but everything is double-picturesque. On the Lower East Side the rents are lower but the place is filled with b.u.ms (an estimated 45,000) whereas on the Upper East Side the rents are higher but the place is filled with...h.o.m.os.e.xuals...(an estimated 100,000). On the West Side the place is filled with Puerto Ricans and Americans who will, it is said, cut your throat for a nickel.

He settled on a flat in the Mayfair Fifth Building at Fifteenth Street and Fifth Avenue, about eight blocks north of Was.h.i.+ngton Square. He sent Helen a sketch of the floor plan; the sleeping alcove was ”like the dining room part of a living room-dining combination rather than a bedroom.” There was a ”handsome parquet floor.” He a.s.sured Helen that ”the neighborhood is quite good”-the building had a ”24-hour doorman.” The rent was $163 a month. He suggested that Helen recruit his brothers to help her s.h.i.+p the couple's furniture. ”Sweetheart, I look forward eagerly to your G.o.dd.a.m.n arrival,” he told her, and signed the letter with ”every kind of love.”

”I really had no idea how we would get our agency through this crisis,” Helen recalled. Despite an upturn in business (largely by representing beer and wine interests in the city), ”I knew that I was leaving Odell with a serious indebtedness.”

Don met Helen at Newark's airport. They took an airport bus into Manhattan, then caught a cab to their new apartment. Helen's reaction to New York was just as muted as during her previous visits. The apartment was ”really...an efficiency,” mostly bare of furniture, she wrote later. ”Directly across from us on 15th Street there was a garment manufacturing shop. We could look into a room crowded with sewing machines, racks of clothes, and the workers-all women-bent over them.” Street there was a garment manufacturing shop. We could look into a room crowded with sewing machines, racks of clothes, and the workers-all women-bent over them.”

Don was eager to show her around the city, and also determined, perhaps, to keep her from dwelling on the apartment's small size, so he fed her a quick lunch and took her to the magazine office. ”It was dark and dismal,” Helen slated flatly in her memoir. Don was frustrated that she didn't share his excitement about the romance of New York. Their apartment building had once housed the publication offices of Il Martello Il Martello, Carlo Tresca's anarchist newspaper. Delmonico's once stood across the street-Charles d.i.c.kens had been honored there on his lecture tours in America. Don pointed out to Helen the site of the old Triangle s.h.i.+rtwaist fire, which happened to be near Henry James's childhood home. None of this impressed her.

On Sunday evening, Don took her to Kenneth Koch's apartment in the West Village. Koch had promised Don a piece for the first issue of Location Location, and Don wanted to discuss it with him. ”The apartment...was extremely depressing,” Helen recalled. It ”was in an older building that needed remodeling. The paint was flaking and peeling everywhere, and there were water stains on the wallpaper and other signs of decay. When I saw the bathroom, I immediately thought of Baby Doll Baby Doll, a 1950s film with Karl Malden. The film became famous in part for a notorious scene in which Carroll Baker is bathing in an old enamel tub in a run-down farmhouse.”

Koch's wife had set up a table with a typewriter in the kitchen so she could work on her dissertation. Helen mentioned that she might enroll in graduate school, and Koch promised to help her find part-time teaching at the New School for Social Research. Don sat down with Koch and his ma.n.u.script, Koch's wife resumed her typing, and Helen was left with little to do for two hours but contemplate the apartment's dreariness. She had not liked Koch on his visit to Houston. Though she saw a ”more serious dimension” of him now, as he and Don discussed writing, Helen was ”extremely uncomfortable” throughout the visit. ”I was...relieved when we left the building,” she said. ”Don said he thought Kenneth's apartment could be comfortable as a home, but I could not take [him] seriously.”

On Monday after breakfast, Don went to work at the Location Location office. Helen didn't want to sit around the nearly empty apartment, so she walked all morning, trying to find grocery stores and cleaners. Don came home for lunch, and in the afternoon Helen walked up Fifth Avenue to the museums. She carried with her Joseph h.e.l.ler's office. Helen didn't want to sit around the nearly empty apartment, so she walked all morning, trying to find grocery stores and cleaners. Don came home for lunch, and in the afternoon Helen walked up Fifth Avenue to the museums. She carried with her Joseph h.e.l.ler's Catch-22 Catch-22, which had been published the previous year and was gaining cult status among serious readers. Now and then she'd find a bench in a park where she could sit and read the book or a newspaper. A week earlier, President Kennedy had announced that Soviet missiles had been discovered in Cuba. The world appeared to be on the brink of a nuclear confrontation; it was hard to know how seriously to take the threat, but New York was busy stocking its fallout shelters with food and water.

On Monday evening, Don and Joe Maranto took Helen to a spaghetti house near Grand Central Station. They noticed Dwight Macdonald eating at a corner table-recently, Don had read Macdonald's Against the American Grain Against the American Grain. He loved the fact that he could walk around town and run into writers he admired. After dinner, Don, Helen, and Joe headed to the Village Gate to catch a Miles Davis set, then to another bar to hear Sonny Rollins.

Don was especially thrilled to see Rollins perform. Rollins had just released his landmark bop alb.u.m, The Bridge The Bridge. Early in his first set, Helen began to complain that she was exhausted. She asked Don if they could take a taxi home. ”Don was unhappy at giving up the evening so early,” Helen recalled. Once again, she had failed to grasp the romance of the city and its music, which had so captivated Don. ”For the very first time, I became unreasonably angry with him and we were soon having an explosive and devastating argument,” Helen said. They ”had spoken harshly to each other only two or perhaps three times” during their six years of marriage, but now their underlying worries-Helen's fears about her business, Don's anxiety about succeeding as a writer-lay bare the tensions between them. Helen accused him of ignoring his responsibilities. Her debts were his debts. She had sacrificed to make it possible for him to come to New York, and here he was, spending all their money in jazz clubs. For his part, he no longer felt he could ”take care” of her the way she wanted to be taken care of and still pursue his literary dream.

Underneath all this was his clear delight in New York and her equally obvious disgust with most of what she had seen of the city. The argument got so bad, Don finally said that he had agonized over their separation at first, but now he had begun to enjoy his independence. He wanted to ”live alone and date other girls.”

”I was shattered by this admission, even though I too had begun to enjoy the freedom of being without the daily responsibility of marriage,” Helen wrote. ”I told him that I 'understood' and had certainly found other men attractive but that I could not fathom giving up our marriage.

”By the end of the evening,” she said, ”I had decided that I should just return to Houston.”

The following morning, they agreed to wait a few weeks before deciding anything. Don insisted on sticking to his daily routine. He went to the Location Location office, and he met Helen for lunch at the Museum of Modern Art. He had arranged to meet Jack Kroll there. Don had been introduced to Kroll at a party-a bear of a man, a veteran of the Korean war, a former jazz drummer, now a writer with a love of high and popular culture, he understood Don and looked past Don's ”rural irony.” In 1963, Kroll would join the staff of office, and he met Helen for lunch at the Museum of Modern Art. He had arranged to meet Jack Kroll there. Don had been introduced to Kroll at a party-a bear of a man, a veteran of the Korean war, a former jazz drummer, now a writer with a love of high and popular culture, he understood Don and looked past Don's ”rural irony.” In 1963, Kroll would join the staff of Newsweek Newsweek and become the magazine's premier arts and entertainment critic, but for now ”he seemed a bit lost,” Helen recalled. ”Don told me that Jack's friends wanted to help him, but it was not clear what he wanted.” and become the magazine's premier arts and entertainment critic, but for now ”he seemed a bit lost,” Helen recalled. ”Don told me that Jack's friends wanted to help him, but it was not clear what he wanted.”

Kroll had ”troubles” with women, and he was behind on alimony payments to his ex-wife; his friends knew him as a world-cla.s.s procrastinator who could never decide what to write about. He was six years older than Don and he knew the city well-Don watched him closely to see how he handled the ”mess” he was in.

In any case, Helen liked Kroll. The witty lunch conversation kept her from stewing. Still, she continued to feel like an outsider in the city. ”Jack...[was] sometimes difficult to follow in his stream of erudite conversation,” she recalled, ”allusions to people, events, and ideas that were then part of the New York scene.” But the day was brilliantly sunny. Khrushchev had just agreed to dismantle Russia's Cuban missiles; the world crisis seemed to be over and the public relief was palpable. Don invited Kroll to come over sometime for fried chicken-one of Don's favorite meals, ”but one that I seldom cooked,” Helen wrote. Nevertheless, the invitation suggested steadiness, and she left the museum feeling better.

For the next couple of weeks, Helen relaxed a little. She found Manhattan to be ”an adventure every day. Walking around it was an exhilarating experience. We could walk everywhere-to restaurants, theaters, museums, art galleries, and even produce markets, grocery stores, and the laundry. Even though our future together was still undecided, [Don and I] spent hours looking at furnis.h.i.+ngs for our apartment.”

Then depression set in again: ”There were so many shops...that the search for new or exciting designs was exhausting and made the effort less an aesthetic experience than we had known” together in Houston, she recalled.

Every day, Helen phoned her sister. They discussed the ad agency's accounts and once or twice a week Helen would go with Don to the Location Location office. There, she'd write copy to send to Odell. Don had always cordoned off his worlds: He kept his interests far from his father so his father couldn't mock them; he kept his journalist friends away from his art pals so conflicts wouldn't arise between them; he had kept his fiction hidden from most of the Houston crowd. Now Helen was bringing ad accounts into his New York office-smuggling Houston, a world he had tried to leave, into Gotham. Don's discomfort grew as Helen-despite her efforts to enjoy the city-failed to adjust to her surroundings. office. There, she'd write copy to send to Odell. Don had always cordoned off his worlds: He kept his interests far from his father so his father couldn't mock them; he kept his journalist friends away from his art pals so conflicts wouldn't arise between them; he had kept his fiction hidden from most of the Houston crowd. Now Helen was bringing ad accounts into his New York office-smuggling Houston, a world he had tried to leave, into Gotham. Don's discomfort grew as Helen-despite her efforts to enjoy the city-failed to adjust to her surroundings.

Her worries about the agency prompted her to press him for a decision about their future. His response was mixed-evidence of genuine anguish. ”During these few weeks in Manhattan, Don was more pa.s.sionate than ever but unyielding in asking for a separation,” Helen recalled. ”He thought that the life we had shared was 'too pretty,' that the 'real world is not like that.' ”

In his youth, in a city struggling for respectability in the arts, he had idealized women. Now, in this world-cla.s.s metropolis, he saw sophisticated men and women-people like Jack Kroll-moving casually in and out of romantic ”messes.”

In Houston, Don had had to accept being the ”great man's son.” Here in New York, he found himself a ”target”-the naive Texan full of ”rural irony” in an art world rent by petty jealousies. He chafed against these saddles. For all his love of romance-and his efforts to keep it alive-he did not want to be hoodwinked by ”pretty” ideals. He wanted to see the ”real world.” He wanted to be his own own Donald Barthelme. Donald Barthelme.

Even if Texas had shaped his sensibility, he didn't have to deny his limitations or stop trying to overcome them. The world was not not filled with eccentric prairie homes; it was crowded with dirty apartment buildings, and he would seize the world. filled with eccentric prairie homes; it was crowded with dirty apartment buildings, and he would seize the world.

When Helen confronted him about his confusing behavior, he blurted that he ”hated the idea of having a child.” This sentiment seemed apropos of nothing, but it was consistent with his new obsession with the ”real.” More than anything else, Helen's miscarriages had eroded the romance of marriage for him. Now, he insisted on facing what he saw as the truths about women and men.

At the same time, he refused to sacrifice romance and mystery. He wanted pa.s.sion. He wanted separation. ”I had known that Don was repelled by the physical realities of pregnancy, a reaction I certainly shared,” Helen wrote in her memoir. Don's impulse to shut the past behind him played a role here, too. He and Helen had never confronted their grief over the lost babies, or their decisions to donate the bodies for medical research. It was a grief that haunted their intimacy together.