Part 34 (2/2)

Next morning at seven o'clock, he banged on the door to rouse me. ”You're in New York. You don't want to waste your days!” Together, we toured several art galleries in SoHo. At one point, he made a big show of giving money to a street beggar. He walked me down a cobbled alley and pointed to a loft window. ”That's where I built a harpsichord,” he said. We happened upon a street fair with live music and dancing, and I saw how happy it made Don. In that moment, his life in Houston seemed to me constricted-convenient, perhaps, familiar, easy on the child, but lacking the protein that Don's mind and sensibilities required.

That night, we walked to the Village Vanguard and listened to the Woody Shaw band. Don got very drunk. We both thought the drummer was a s...o...b..at; his pretensions and stylistic flair overwhelmed the music. As we left, Don stumbled on the steps leading to the street. He wouldn't let me help him up.

The last time I saw him was in February 1989, six months before he died. I had invited him to give a reading at Oregon State University, where I taught.

His gaunt face startled me. ”Corvallis isn't bad for a small town,” he said, looking around. ”At least it has a Mexican restaurant.” The afternoon was mild. ”Is anyone here smarter than you?” he asked me.

”Sure. Plenty of folks,” I said.

”Good. The only way to keep learning is to surround yourself with people smarter than you are.”

The day before, an acquaintance of mine admitted he wouldn't be attending the reading. ”I only read dead authors,” he'd said.

When I mentioned this to Don, he quipped, ”Tell your friend to stick with me.”

He insisted I take him to a liquor store so he could buy a bottle of wine. I knew he shouldn't drink, but he was still my teacher and now he was my guest. I couldn't refuse him. He purchased an inexpensive Pinot Grigio. In the parking lot, we glimpsed a small helium balloon floating in the air, advertising Fuji film. ”My lovely balloon,” Don murmured.

In his motel room, we shared the bottle and talked about colleagues, friends, books; drumming, Houston, the Village Vanguard.

He told me he had sold a new story, ”Tickets,” to The New Yorker. The New Yorker. ”It's a relief to know I still have some juice,” he said. The story is about diminished circ.u.mstances, a man making the best of life in a rather provincial city. ”It's a relief to know I still have some juice,” he said. The story is about diminished circ.u.mstances, a man making the best of life in a rather provincial city.

”I'm afraid of dying,” he said, and we sat quietly.

Later, in a fiction-writing cla.s.s, one of my students asked him, ”What's kept you working for so many years?” He stroked his beard and tapped a booted foot. ”All my life I've been interested in intoxication, in dazzling the mind,” he said. ”Your mind is constantly capable of surprising you if you work it hard enough.”

That night, in the small campus auditorium where the reading was to be held, he asked the stage manager to tweak the lighting just so. It took several minutes before Don felt satisfied with the atmosphere. He carried typed copies of his stories and excerpts of his novel in progress, The King, The King, in a manila folder with a reproduction of one of Jasper Johns's in a manila folder with a reproduction of one of Jasper Johns's Target Target paintings on the cover. paintings on the cover.

During the reading, he modulated his weakened voice perfectly. Now and then I saw him lift his right foot ever so slightly-a subtle dance behind the podium. He didn't challenge listeners with his most difficult pieces. Instead, he offered the funniest, most straightforward work: ”Chablis,” ”The Baby,” ”Conversations with Goethe,” ”I Bought a Little City.”

During the Q and A portion of the evening, someone asked him if his work was autobiographical. He said, ”Don't confuse the monster on the page with the monster here in front of you.”

After the reading, Don and I walked to my car. The weather had turned. The sidewalks had iced over. He stumbled and I reached for him. He shrugged me off. ”Don't treat me like an invalid,” he said.

In a local bar, he settled into a chair with a gla.s.s of white wine and talked generously, long into the night, with my students and colleagues. When we were alone once more, on the way to his motel, he turned and asked me, ”Did I do okay for you?”

I recalled the end of The Dead Father. The Dead Father. Just before he's covered in his grave, the Dead Father, speaking of the role he has played, of the life he has lived, asks his son Thomas, ”Did I do it well?” Just before he's covered in his grave, the Dead Father, speaking of the role he has played, of the life he has lived, asks his son Thomas, ”Did I do it well?”

Oh yes. Oh yes. Marvelously well.

The following morning, ice covered western Oregon. The snow was thick as cotton. Don needed to get back to Houston, for which I was still mighty homesick. The airport was ninety miles away. Unexpectedly, planes were still flying. My winds.h.i.+eld wipers froze. We slid a few blocks on our way to the freeway. I couldn't see. ”I'm afraid this isn't going to work,” I said.

”No,” Don said. ”We don't want to be badly killed.”

I called a cab for him, and promised to pay the taxi company the exorbitant fare. Don was grateful. As we placed his bags in the trunk, I thought of his story ”Departures”: ”I cannot imagine the future...[you are] sailing away from me!”

”Write a story about a genius,” he told me. A teacher's last a.s.signment to his student.

”Okay.”

He shook my hand. ”Work well,” we told each other. ”Be well.” He was driven away into a blizzard.

CHRONOLOGY.

1931.

Born April 7 in Philadelphia to Donald (an architect) and Helen Bechtold Barthelme.

1932.

Barthelme family moves to Galveston, Texas.

1937.

Barthelme family moves to Houston.

19451946

Writes for Eagle, Eagle, the St. Thomas High School newspaper. the St. Thomas High School newspaper.

19481949

Wins short story and poetry awards in Sequoyha, Sequoyha, the Lamar High School literary magazine. the Lamar High School literary magazine.

<script>