by J. F. Powers
Pax,
Jim
BETTY WAHL
150 Summit Avenue
Tuesday morning, 4:30 a.m., December 11, 1945
Dear Betty,
I am thinking of you now, so much as in my grogginess I am capable of thinking of anything, I am not thinking of my work, that I know. […] Over the weekend, between Surgery and OB, they get out everything, and I have to sterilize it. I hope I do not die too early a death, or that you will ever have to work at the kind of job most people do. You will lose the nice sense of justice you possess now (which does not seem to be justice to me sometimes when it comes out in you), and you will not be so impressed by order, but will be more intent in stirring up a little chaos of your own. Somebody, Maritain, I guess, says too many people in the church and high places want justice based on order, instead of order based on justice.
So it is here. The hospital runs along pleasantly to the outside eye. But if you know the truth, it is that the floors get mopped and the garbage gets taken out because a sufficient number of men and women have made a mess of their lives and upon that broken rock the hospital runs; likewise the nurses who must go through three years of training in order to be able to earn six or seven dollars a day, and there is nothing they do that might not be acquired in a year easily. […] I love you and want you to love me. […]
Jim
Don Humphrey’s plight was the specter before Jim of a future he feared for himself. He believed his friend was being sacrificed to the “business sense” of those whose privilege it should have been to assist him.
BETTY WAHL
150 Summit Avenue
December 11, 1945
My dear Betty,
I’ve been rushing around today ever since I got up, and I got up late—3:00, which is because I was tired from last night. It is seven or so in the evening. I’ve just written a letter to Harry Sylvester that I hated to write, asking him to buy the house for Don, at least until he comes in the spring. […]
Your distraction,
Jim
BETTY WAHL
150 Summit Avenue
December 12, 1945
My dear Betty, and heavy on the “my”:
Well, since I got up two hours ago (it’s now 2:30 in the afternoon), I’ve been writing letters (Fr Garrelts, my friend Haskins2 in Washington—all about you—and Abigail McCarthy). About “business”: I think I told you that I’d written to Harry Sylvester asking him to let Don live in the house until spring if he bought it. I think, on the strength of Emerson’s recommendation, which must precede my letter three or four days to Guatemala, that he will buy the house and that Don will be permitted to live there until his, Harry’s, return. Which will amount to what you so kindly outline, a temporary shelter, but closer to things than the cottages you mention. […] I am trusting then that Harry will buy the house; that Don will be able to move in, say, by the first of January; and that, until spring, he’ll be able to impress the nuns at the college with his work and that finally he’ll be able to find a place, or, better, build one such as he wants.
I find the extant houses around St Joseph’s very undesirable, too high, terrible cracker boxes. Whenever I start hitting Collier’s at $1,700 per, I will have my friend Jack Howe, who slept next to me in the clink (and Frank Lloyd Wright’s right-hand man), draw a house just for us (he will not put a basement in it, however; they abhor basements). And that, I hope, takes care of houses until we hear from Harry and until we have to begin thinking of one for ourselves. (Won’t that be a business?) I am getting confused by the situation. No money, a real need, and distance between us and the field of operations. I have attempted, in today’s letter, to involve Fr Garrelts more … […]
I love you.
Jim
BETTY WAHL
150 Summit Avenue
December 27, 1945
Dear Betty,
[…] Yesterday I went to Robbinsdale, and there were the Humphreys filled with the new life. Today a letter from Harry Sylvester saying he will not buy the house. He believes he is being robbed, among other things, and is looking for someone to blame. I have written to him, offering myself. I hope that I’ll never have any money if it makes me that wary. I tried to call Fr Garrelts, but got Mr Chapman. “Hello, AC. This is JF.” I’ll call again tomorrow. There is no hurry about letting Don know. Harry wrote to Emerson and Sister Mariella too. I hope something turns up.
It is too bad Harry makes it sound as bad for himself as he does, or maybe he doesn’t in the other letters. He talks about being “finished” with me and St Ben’s; that is, he thinks his decision not to buy will finish him. That is silly. But just goes to show you how utterly normal supposedly enlightened people can be. I hope Sr Mariella will be able to cool him off and save his self-esteem. It will not be easy, considering the way he’s got things twisted around. […] Harry says: “Neither you nor Sister Mariella have a so-called business sense, and you are even proud of the lack; I wish I could afford to be without one.” Hmmmmm. How does one get a business sense? I think it is nine-tenths talking dull and acting as though you have one. Do you have a business sense? I wonder if he means I don’t write stories for Collier’s. Suppose I sold a story there. What would he think then? I do not think he’d like it. […]
Best to all and love to you.
Jim
BETTY WAHL
St Joseph’s Hospital
St Paul, Minnesota
Friday morning, 3:00 a.m., December 28, 1945
Dear Betty,
[…] I’ve been thinking we ought to go to Ireland as soon as we can when married. I am beginning to wonder if we can afford to settle down. Every time I think of the Humphreys, I feel rotten. I still haven’t got Fr Garrelts yet, so suppose they are blissfully ignorant that they’re out in the cold again. Confidentially, I do not want to see too much of the Sylvesters, after this. It must be very convenient to be able to assess one’s dreams—for I assume that’s what living at St Joe was for them, the prospect—at so many hundred dollars and if they come too high to abandon them. I’ll be at the station to meet you Sunday. I love you, as ever.
Jim
Sister Mariella came up with a house for the Humphreys, one owned by the Benedictines.
BETTY WAHL
150 Summit Avenue
January 13, 1946
[…] Sunday, 3 in the afternoon
Dear Betty,
It is that time. I’m just up. I went to 5 o’clock Mass (and Communion) this morning. That was because I had a helluva lot more stuff to sterilize than ordinarily on Saturday night. If it is like that next week, I’m afraid I won’t be in such fine fettle for the party. As it was, I think, I was tottering on the edge of the state of grace. I won’t go into it all. Only say I pray God I’ll never forget these years and that if I’m ever asked to say a few words, anywhere, I’ll remember the people who scrubbed the banquet hall, who will wash the dishes, and who will hope those present will use the ashtrays. […]
There was something wonderful about the words “… when we leave St Paul” in your letter. The idea of leaving and leaving with you, having you as indeed I’ve never had anyone or anything unless it be my portable typewriter, which I used to travel with. If you would only consent to traveling a little. This country will never be the same. But you don’t want to hear that, do you? […]
I love you deeply.
Jim […]
BETTY WAHL
150 Summit Avenue
January 16, Feast of St Marcellus, Martyr, St Honoratus, Confessor, St Elizabeth Alice, Virgin Beautiful
Dear Betty,
It is your birthday. I have just come from the city, where I was hard put to find something for your birthday. I had put off thinking about it until today, hoping to stroll into something. I didn’t, so I sent you books. I am sorry I could not get you something more essential or intimate. You were not much help, however, if you recall. I wish very much that the ring were ready. At times I regret that I didn’t buy one at a
jewelry store. […] You are twenty-two. You are beginning to bloom. I thought of sending you the book Lovely Is the Lee, which is all about Ireland, but thought on second thought you would not enjoy it.3 There is a line in it, but I find I don’t have it now. Anyway, it says Ireland is like the heart of a woman: she will give all for love, nothing by force. That is good. It is too bad all women aren’t like that. You are. Do not change. […]
I love you.
Jim
Jim rejoiced when his obligation to work at the hospital was lifted. He arrived at the “great idea” of giving up the job and devoting himself to his own work with the financial assistance of Father Egan. This, two months into their engagement, was Betty’s first experience of Jim’s intransigence on the matter of work.
JOHN MARSHALL
150 Summit Avenue
January 19, 1946
Dear Marsh,
A note I’d like you to answer at once. George Barnhart4 called me from New York last night and said that it is now official, that it was “authorized,” that we are now free to accept such employment as we wish at such wages as we can get, meaning the hospital stuff is no more. […] I’d like to know what the word is in Chicago and assume you’ve had a better opportunity than I have here to find out. […] I don’t want a job, of course. Only the freedom to write and, it may be, starve. For I intend to make it like that, have had my mind made up for some time, and might as well begin to find out now if it’s possible. […]
Jim
BETTY WAHL
150 Summit Avenue
January 23, 1946
My dear Betty,
Your letter rec’d and read and reread. Also one from Fr Garrelts, with more ideas for the play;5 from a friend in Chicago who gives me the lowdown on parole there, and it looks like I am a free man, but I am not rushing down to demand it, am giving them a few days; a card from Fr Egan in which he says “Prince of Darkness”6 will only make the literati smirk, says it’s a balloon in fancy dress, but he is glad it’s over and now I can get down to work (I’ve got a notion to go over and confront him with my freedom, ask to be supported—he’s always talking about he’ll do it if I ever want him to); and that’s the mail. […]
And now … amen.
Pax,
Jim
HARVEY EGAN
150 Summit Avenue
January 1946
Dear Pere,
I have just rec’d your bill of disapproval. I wish that you’d try to be more approving. After all, where would the NY Times Book Section be today if they’d not liked as many masterpieces as you are on record for not liking. You’ll never be popular with that old critical attitude, finding everything wrong and poking fun. Did you ever stop to think that you and not the world may be wrong! Well, I am mostly curious about where you saw the story. More and more I am thinking you should have been a Jesuit, with your fabulous connections and interests, and all of them leading right smack into Rome. […]
Incidentally, turning to a subject dear to you, you can get your checkbook out any day now. There is a report that old JF will go free (my agents in Chicago and New York both tell me that’s the way it is now), and […] of course I am going on the HFXE7 payroll immediately. It was good of Fr Egan to offer to help me, and I was sure he meant it because he was always urging me to forsake my material concerns and fly to him. Pax.
Jim
JF “I can live on $100 a m.” P
BETTY WAHL
St Joseph’s Hospital
January 24, 1946
Dear Betty,
It’s a little past four in the morning, Thursday, and a few minutes ago, as I was removing the third “load” from the sterilizer, a great idea came to me. It does not directly concern you, so it is not absolutely great. But it is fairly great. I immediately thought of telling it to you, as I’m about to do, and then a few moments later it occurred to me that I ought to ask your advice, even permission. Here it is. I will quit this job and go live with Don and Mary, upstairs in one of those side rooms, the lightest one and warmest (though I will depend on an electric heater of some sort for heat), and write the stories I have in mind for the book, only two or three more, and will begin either my novel about priests (The Green Revolution) or the one about jail (The Hotel). By the time we get married, I will have a lot done. I work pretty damned well when I don’t do anything but write, I know from experience. I will pay Mary and Don at least seven dollars a week, more if I sell some stories for very much. Now tell me what you think of that, what you really think. […]
I hope this letter doesn’t upset you in any way. I don’t see why it should, but a couple of times I felt that you thought $80 a month, even if I had to work 48 hours to get it and you had to sleep alone nights, was the best we could hope for. I think a clean break is necessary. The pills must go, and we must have some surgery (powerful imagery). I will not go into this any further. It is very simple. More than anything, I want your honest and intimate opinion. I don’t want you giving way if you think the idea is all wrong. It would seem to me to be a chance to get a head start on our future, so much of it as entails my writing for our living. And now, turning to the center of things, I love you.
Jim
BETTY WAHL
150 Summit Avenue
January 26, 1946
Dear Betty,
I looked for a letter very much from you today, but none came. It is three in the afternoon, Saturday. I got up at ten this morning and went to Fr Patrick Kelly’s funeral, solemnized by the archbishop, at the cathedral. He was a wonderful old priest at the hospital, actually loved by everybody. He is a subject of mine, and I have only put off writing about him and Sr Eugene Marie,8 who looked after him until she was transferred to North Dakota, because he was still living. I knew that when she left, he would die. He did five months later. I then stopped off at the parole office to see the man. It is all set: I am a free man whenever I wish to go, only have to let the hospital know and teach someone the job I have. I think it’ll be the 9th, my last night. I had hoped to have your letter today so as to know what you thought of the idea I broached the other night (and also to have your reaction to “Prince of Darkness”). […]
I also bought a ticket for Here Is Ireland this morning and will go all by myself—the only one I know who takes me seriously on the subject of Ireland—tomorrow afternoon. I expect to enjoy myself. I made some coffee two days ago but forgot to drink it. I am drinking it now. It tastes flat. Does coffee get flat? Then, after buying the ticket, I bought a pecan roll. Then I went to see Fr Egan about the good news. To discuss us. He would like an early marriage. The dog (the Pastor’s) tried to bite him while I was there. Very funny. I must write it. […]
Fr Kelly lay in his coffin with his biretta on, dapper to the last. I am quite tired from not sleeping. To bed then. I love you but would like to hear oftener and at more length from you. It is a scheme to make me love you more. You can’t.
Jim
4
It would seem you have the well-known business sense
January 29, 1946–February 14, 1946
Jim, ca. 1928, “a member of the Blackfoot tribe”
Betty, who had the Teuton’s boundless appetite for drawing up schedules, budgets, inventories, instructions, and rules, embarked on a lifelong, utterly hopeless crusade to convert Jim to the joys of time management.
BETTY WAHL
150 Summit Avenue
January 29, 1946
Dear Betty,
It is Tuesday. I think you ought to know that, and I’ve been waiting since last Friday or Saturday for a letter. This morning two of them arrived. Yesterday, when no letter came, I was thinking of altering my future, or rather that it had been altered for me: you had decided I was too this or that, and you’d heard from Elmo again. Well, getting into your letter, I am sorry it caused you so much grief, my big idea. I know you are as anxious as I am to have me amount to something, as they say. I doubt that I will at this rate. When you split up the day and proved I h
ad plenty of time for writing if I’d only stop fuming … shades of my mother. It would seem, though, when the smoke has cleared away, that I ought to stay here and continue what I’ve been doing. All right, we’ll see.
Fandel’s1 is absolutely out. I won’t go into why. If you knew anything about bookstores or department stores, you’d know why. It would be even worse in a hick town, selling Your Income Tax and Lloyd Douglas. In some ways whoever it was that wanted you to go to Chicago and get a job and see the world was right. I mean, working isn’t what it’s cracked up to be by people who don’t do it and by those who do but haven’t desire or imagination enough to know the difference. As for going to the Humphreys’, you have killed that prospect dead. I had not thought that it would be like that. I would go to Sandstone again before I’d go there. I am glad to know it is that way. I would have perished in the snow getting away if I’d gone there first and then found out.
I ought to write a happy letter, I suppose. I am awfully glad you love me enough to cry over letters for fear you’ll run against my grain. I respect that and love you for it. It is true, though, that you have nothing, just as Sr Mariella has nothing when it comes to a solution. It is always the same. I had thought this the time for me to get a head start. When we are married, the screws will be much tighter; then considering a plan to write would amount to nonsupport and desertion and six or seven other things that the state and church sit on you for. I ought to wind this letter up cheerily. I can’t. (My mother sent a clipping showing me where somebody got $125,000 from Hollywood.) I don’t want to live in your grandmother’s house. We’ll live here. I love you.
Jim
Let me say, Betty, I was sorry I put the issue up to you, especially the housing part. It was my responsibility. I don’t know how to meet it except to say we’ll live here. So we’ll live here.
