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Might as well stop before I completely give out.
I love you, Lorna, and I wish you hadn’t thought that way about me not writing.
Love, Lucia
1959 [Spring]
Corrales Road,
Alameda, New Mexico
(age 22)
Dorns
501 Camino Sin Nombre
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Dear Ed,
Thank you, really, for your letter, and above all for the poem. You had mentioned what the man said and I have been thinking about it ever since but mostly about how to say everything for the first time … not why, which you said in your poem.
You always say all the way YES or NO. It is presumptuous of me to comment on your writing but I know that the Yes and No of it, the evaluation of whatever you are writing about, is something that Denise and Co. are not concerned with … the commitment and care (caring not carefulness) are what make you a better writer than they. And is too why I am very happy that you would read my things. “Well, HE’LL tell you the truth,” Race said, a little sorry for me I think. I hope so, but also I am glad because I am not so worried about the badness of the writing itself as about affectation and phoniness which you are quick to pick up or put down, whatever.
But please, I am so embarrassed and ashamed that you should speak to me as if I were a colleague. My fault, because I speak so glibly of my “writing.” I know and am sorry, that you will be very disappointed and shocked by the poorness. Creeley says I am an amateur. But that’s all he said, and only when drunk. Really, I know my writing is bad, that I’m not making it … but I’m not an amateur … because I think I could … if only because I have a lot of things I want to tell, to put down and say. Well.
I have some well said things but they are sent away so I am sending this poorly said thing. My professor told me it was the worst thing I have written and this depressed me, for one thing, because he didn’t say WHY. So, I wish you would try … really nothing you could say, not even “I don’t like it” would hurt or discourage me. This is about something that was very beautiful and valid for me. I want desperately, really, to learn how to write it that way.
… And, Dorns, wasn’t that a nice visit? When can you come to spend a day or so? Race got the job at Bandbox, which will be nice I think, and has two weeks vacation, so is happy, especially since his band sounds good, and he is getting tons of offers for things. Sunday, he plays for Bob Hope show which should be fun, etc. So everybody here is groovy.
Love, Lucia
1959 [Late Spring]
Corrales Road,
Alameda, New Mexico
Dorns
501 Camino Sin Nombre
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Dear Dorns,
Hey thanks for invitation and Cerrillos job card—a comfort etc. to know they are there, altho I think we’re beginning to settle things here in Albuquerque. Race has a job at Western Skies—cinemascope technicolor movie type motel— playing alone, above and beyond the public on a grand piano with a bead curtain around the bandstand. Pay less than Claude’s even but hours are crazy—6 to 8 during week—6 to 1 on weekends. Only 2 week contract but maybe it will last—hope so, it is perfect and with more time and calm I think we can settle things here and come to Santa Fe (all of us) to call on you soon. (All this begins next week—now he is working both jobs—I get home from school—Race leaves to rehearse for Bandbox—goes takes shower—goes to Western Skies, Bandbox—and comes home at 2 and goes to sleep.)
I don’t know if a vacation to Santa Fe would solve problems or not—I doubt it—my trouble is that I avoid solving them even when they are on top of me—and as I said, maybe as things calm down they will get better. I was feeling very sorry for myself the other day and was pretty unfair. It is such a weakness of my own and such a bloody pattern by this time that I am really frantic about what to do—and at same time I don’t want to do anything. I don’t want to have to “expect” or demand and it’s a big problem with me. I started to work on it with the 80 some pages you have Edw. Hey, I’m sort of embarrassed too about that because I know that if you have not commented it is because you find it hard to do so kindly, etc. So why not let’s forget that, OK? It would be less of a task for you and more help to me maybe to deal with less lengthy subjective material. I have some short stories due back next month which are more “polished” and what I want to say is the same as the 80 pages only clearer—it’s about moral commitment and as long as I mentioned it—I don’t know if I do this badly or what—but it is very hard to write about sex and sort of silly, I think. I tried to in “El Tim” and “Acacia” because it is such an explicit commitment—and I don’t think my overall purpose comes thru—judging from Freedman and Ada.
Oh well how did I get on to this—I keep doing such things and tearing up letters to you—it’s a hangover from World War II and the business of only writing happy letters. I used to think up, for hours (desperately), anything more or less happy to write my father.
But I’m depressed as hell. School is a nightmare—I’m doing very BADLY—flunked midterm in psych, which is really one of few decent courses I’ve had in this cheap school. In the other ones I am more or less simply beaten. I just listen and get depressed—not even mad.
Put down mice poison and like this Kafka horrid dream the next few days I had to locate the stench—the rotting horrible stink—all over the bloody house—endless.
33 DEAD BLOATED MICE
And there are at least 3 more somewhere. I can’t find them—I just sit and smell them and try and study and go out of my head.
So I took out the poison and threw away the traps and they are scurrying around as ever (almost lost my mind—I mean it). Have you ever worried about flipping?—seriously. Well, I do a lot, so this was encouraging, or maybe I imagined all of it.
Jeffrey and Mark run away together—hide behind the chicken house—lean on each other and giggle while I call them. It’s too much—how groovy it is for them now that Jeff walks around. When it’s time to go to bed they just go in their room. That’s all they do—just walk in—but it is so lovely.
Since the dead mice are in the kitchen and living room, I am in the bedroom and the blind is up four inches because it is so fucking hot and Pete and Co. keep looking in and cursing at me—they know that I have been to court to get them out.
I have been every day for 2 weeks to our LAW (Justice of the Peace) here in Alameda—nothing—they are busy—come back tomorrow—sorry have to go out, see you tomorrow.
I have been six times to plumber’s—sure I’ll see you tomorrow.
Creeleys came thru. How rested etc. and happy after their vacation. Bob was flipped—gassed—what is a human word—by your writing, Edw.—I mean to the point of definite judgments and statements—not just “too much,” which is all I’ve ever heard him say about anyone.
Liz Okamura much happier in her nice house and more or less a pleasure to be with. I am sorry too I complained about her. I resent anything I have to do with people who depress me and make me feel petty—and as a result bitch about the petty things. Maybe I don’t like to be “pushed” or something—I was so bugged by having to help her clean—will gladly do such things when it is my own idea.
Lovely letter from my mother, who ended the letter with being annoyed at having to stop, but the maids had been waiting for half hour to clean her room.
I keep rambling, hoping to suddenly think of something nice to say—or even to ask.
Next week if not sooner we will come pleasantly to see you.
Love, Lucia
1959 [Summer]
Corrales Road,
Alameda, New Mexico
Dorns
501 Camino Sin Nombre
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Dear Edw.,
First to thank you for the help in all the technical adjectives and timing etc., all the things you pointed out to me that were so right, that I didn’t know, and no one ever helped me with before
. This was the real help I knew I would get from you. I had no idea you would write a letter which would say for me what all writing and art should be. And I, or you, I’m sure, had no idea that you would tell me so clearly exactly what is wrong with my writing and myself. I am completely shaken.
When I was a little girl, not little enough, I wet my pants very conspicuously in the classroom, sort of embarrassing, but to me and all my big girl problems it was too much. I wouldn’t go back to school. I refused to go back to school. One day I got a letter saying that I had been appointed a “Safety Sally,” one of those kids who wears a halter with a badge on it and stops cars at crosswalks. This was crazy, I thought, and went back to school, wet pants forgotten completely. That I was the only Safety Sally in history ever to patrol the inside of a building prepared for any Mack truck in the world, is beside the point. I think I told you about this, as a sort of funny story, actually it is something that bugs me very much, because it is one of the only positive things I have grasped, to only hide the negative.
Your beautiful letter showed me how much I do this … in real life, but mostly in my writing, like the business you mentioned of the two schools. You know I didn’t really give much of a damn, except esthetically (?), about the grade school at all. For seven months that odorless skeleton building was my entire fucking life, was the first fucking life I ever had. It was positive, every minute of it, but not one of the positive things was in my story. The parts you liked, the classroom business, this every day was what I worked with, really worked with and loved. There was no “victory” on my part through a dramatic scene with Tim and the nun, although the scene did exist. But there was a victory, an affirmation much more valid than any in my story. It was the difference in Tim and my class and in myself that took seven months of care. This was the first and only time where I honestly forgot myself, the only time I consciously made an effort and a difference for people I loved.
I denied every single bit of this in “El Tim,” because of the superficial positiveness, because of my opinions, my vain presence, which were not there in real life. I am so ashamed.
And this false positiveness and this vanity is what screws up the rhythm, because I stop like a little kid passing olives to see if the grown-ups are watching.
Prayers were in English … more beautiful because most of the little children didn’t know any other English words besides the prayers.
Anyway, I am sick, now chills and fevers from the bang where you got me right in the neck. The neck, where? I don’t know. Everybody has always given me a Sally badge, no positive negations ever. I was very shaken … I am sure you had no idea what an effect your letter would have.
But the most crazy negative reaction, Edw., is that now I have to rewrite every bloody thing … mostly my precious novel which is only a treatise on my positively opinionated self.
Anyway, yes it was a “help.” Wow. Thank you.
And Helene, too, for your crazy offer to keep Mark and Jeffrey. I don’t think we’ll make it tho, but still it’s nice. Race is rehearsing every day for two jobs with Prince Bobby Jack and Sonny Coleman … remember he talked about Sonny, who is such a fine man and musician. So that’s good, I wish you could hear them. Also he’s rehearsing with his band … they sound crazy. They’re young tho and more or less doing this for kicks so I think Race will probably have trouble keeping the whole scene businesslike.
Last night we hit the spots. What a lovely time we had. It’s too much, Race on vacation! It was crazy tho, but so weird to go from one place to another, each one was like a Musician’s Life—one-act play. Wow, at the Western Skies, a big Hollywood Las Vegas type scene, grand piano and head waiters and rich Texans cursing the band, rich Californians trying to pick up the waitresses. All the time the band is playing together, having this music together, while there is a queer trying to bribe the piano player and a waitress in love with the bass player who is young and the waitress and the queer frighten him. A Cuban is trying to play his guitar and all of the musicians talk about who’s playing where and worry about who’s trying to get their job (Paul Muench got theirs next week). Ernie Jones plays his guitar. REALLY plays. It was beautiful. At intermission he could hardly stand, couldn’t breathe, he is so sick, dying.
We went to the Bandbox, a real niteclub with King and Queen on the restrooms. The owner is a shady character. This was awful, Paul Muench, president of Local 618, was checking cards and told the bandleader he had to stop playing anywhere because he owes so much money to the union. And the bandleader, and the band, could only be bugged at Race, a good friend, who had taken over their job.
Not really, but what else could Chuy, the bandleader, think? He is old and tired, really tired, sitting there playing the drums. Flute player, old Mexican with pan eyebrows who really played. When the show came on a man about 45 with dyed blond hair and sunlamp face got up and begged us to laugh, literally, “Please laugh!” Everybody was too tired. He was horrible. And a girl (sugar-lined) whore, oh well, this scene was too awful, anyway. And Paul Muench told Race’s future slimy employer he could break the contract anytime he wanted to.
Then we went to the Hilton “piano bar” … all these older traveling men who all at some point said “I am alone, myself” to someone else or to the piano player who is a woman who plays the piano and bitches, just plain bitches in a low voice, like Marlene Dietrich and gossips in a low voice—but she speaks and looks like a lady in a neighborhood, so it is pretty strange.
Then we went to Al Monte’s—where Race used to work. That was such a nice place to work—crazy to end there because it is so nice and the people too.
So I don’t know when we will come up except for sure next week.
Creeley thru with school and very happy—delightful to be around etc.
Heinz and Bolo in terrible trouble—killing chickens at the head of a gang.
Edw.—I have now 80 pages left of “novel” which are more or less true things. Would you read them? How about Dorn kids on vacation?
Lucia
1959 [Summer]
Corrales Road,
Alameda, New Mexico
Dorns
501 Camino Sin Nombre
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Dear Dorns,
Kept thinking every day we would come the next day—hope Paul OK without blanket. Jean won’t give prescriptions for people she hasn’t examined but she’s leaving in 2 weeks. Before then if you would see her I think she’d give renewable prescriptions and not care about fee. Meanwhile she cleared out her cabinets and gave me a crock of pills—here are all the tranquilizers—one that isn’t really labelled is a tranquilizer too and the ones where 3 pink ones are together you take 3 a day and take for several days.
I have:
diaper rash
sleeping pills
diarrhea
suntan
asthma
hay fever
liver pills
(upon request).
Hope you are all OK. I tried to call 3 times but Summers didn’t ever answer.
Think we have a house. Really, too, a house (it won’t have plumbing for a month!!!) (we won’t move in till). It is in the mountains with big stone fireplace and vines and pines and moss and springs and a pond with fish in it. It’s crazy, $65 and very big and like a house in Idaho or Montana. Wood with tar-paper shingles and windows that open onto side of hills—too much.
I don’t have anything else to say, isn’t that fantastic!
Yes, school’s out and we have a white cat as of 1 hour ago.
Started a story today. I haven’t written (you). I have, but I never can tell if it’s true but it’s crazy anyway to write to you, know you, etc.
Thank you again for helping me, when you came.
Ernie Jones more or less flipped—beginning that Friday. Started awful fight at Western Skies, got very drunk, wrecked car, broke ribs, and punctured his remaining lung.
It was pretty awful and ironic too, he started it all becau
se he didn’t want to die, didn’t want to go to hospital, because he was so lonely.
They took him to Bataan Hospital. When Race called to see how he was they told him that Ernie had found out what was wrong with him, left his room, and walked out of the hospital with no lung or ribs and nobody could find him.
And I mean there were 200 people looking for Ernie.
And finally at 2 A.M. they found out he had walked to the Vets hospital and gone back to his old ward. He’s better now.
My father sent me the loveliest book, The Elements of Style by Strunk (and White, who reintroduced it).
And that’s all. Ironically things are OK. I mean they are not so strained and are happy actually but not because they are good but because I’ve gone all the way—down, in, out, under, out of, terror, etc. Apparently I don’t care. The house should help one way or other and the cat, which is crazy—he just wet the bed. He is a $100—blue-eyed—white cat and is neurotic, awkward, dumb, but he’s too much—he is like Retie.
Lucia
September 14, 1959
88 Horatio Street
New York, New York
(postcard)
Dorns
501 Camino Sin Nombre
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Dear Dorns, Wish we could hear from you—we are on way to Apple—after pretty horrid, painful, wonderful past week—hard + negative + positive + we have met each other + things will be groovy, will be FINE, now.
Love, Lucia
(postcard continued)
Dear Santa Fe and Helene, Once we got started we figured we might as well keep going. It took just two days is all, not hurrying, so it’s not so far. Lucia, when she is not sleeping, is eating, + Marco, baby Jeff + the dog are beside themselves. We’ll probably stay here a few days more + then split for the Apple. Everybody says it’s hard to find a place big enough so you can come and visit but we’ll try.
Love, Race
1959 [September]
Little Falls, New York
Dorns
501 Camino Sin Nombre
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Dear Dorns,
Do you know that as we turned onto the road to Race’s house we had driven exactly 2,000 miles and we were 20 minutes late—isn’t that fantastic—and now I understand it—it is the EAST—where everyone paints their barns on April 2 and mulches their trees on Sept 12 and there is order. Pope said something in a poem about the order in the chaos of nature or vice versa—I am gassed by the richness, TANGLED and matted opulence of the damned nature here—the bloody voluptuousness of rain and grass and snowballs, cosmos, jack-o-lantern, sweet peas, pachysandra, and the order of the restraint people assume in the midst of it. It’s too much—and the bloody wasteland in Albuquerque—where people can’t take any strength or life from the earth so they give all of theirs up.