by Tom Robbins
One unusually warm summer day, the marshal and his deputy were spreading fresh asphalt over a weather-beaten patch of pavement at the end of First Street when they commenced to argue over something or other. I’d like to believe the disagreement was metaphysical in nature but it likely concerned politics or sports. The topic most assuredly was not religion: to this day, when its population has swelled to approximately a thousand, there are only two churches in La Conner and except for the very occasional wedding or funeral, each is in use only for about an hour on Sunday mornings. In Warsaw, Virginia -- as an example of one of the towns Down South where I grew up -- there were four churches for white people, one for colored, to serve a mere four hundred souls, and at the Baptist house of worship there was something going on virtually every night of the week, week in and week out, though I cannot say that Warsaw was any more righteous than La Conner. At any rate, whatever the subject, the difference of opinion escalated, and before long it became physical. The two men -- marshal and deputy -- commenced to grapple, whereupon they toppled down onto the hot, sticky asphalt, and as a crowd of citizens and tourists gathered, they wrestled there. Within a minute, they resembled tar babies out of an Uncle Remus story. Or creatures from the Black Lagoon.
Since nobody dared step in and pull them apart (it would have required a sacrifice worthy of a Nobel Prize), they tussled in the tar until they exhausted themselves and, to a round of cautious applause (speaking of homegrown entertainment trumping TV), sheepishly, separately, slinked away, leaving gummy black footprints downtown that remained until the autumn rains.
Madame Mayor was not amused. Or, maybe she was and just stifled her laughter. Whatever her private reaction, she suspended both combatants for six weeks. And for six weeks there was no law in La Conner. According to full-time residents, the town has never been more peaceful.
In the early 1970s, La Conner, Washington, was the dwarf capital of America. Perhaps of the world. To be sure, there was a greater number of little people in both Sarasota and Gibsonton, Florida (circus and carnival winter quarters, respectively), but Sarasota was a city of nearly forty thousand, whereas even Gibsonton was three times the size of La Conner, whose title -- unofficial and unrecognized -- was predicated on a per capita basis: approximately seven hundred citizens, three of them dwarves. Nothing in either the water or the gene pool accounted for the ratio, however, because none of the three -- not the hippie dwarf, not the straight dwarf, not the Native American dwarf -- was related or had been born in La Conner. There was, in fact, nothing one could point to that might explain this small phenomenon, and it’s uncertain that anyone but me paid it any mind. I was predisposed, I guess, having resided my teen years in Warsaw, Virginia, with its magical family of world-class midgets.
The Indian dwarf lived on the Swinomish Reservation and rarely crossed the bridge into town. He was not even Swinomish, I was told, but on loan from another tribe for reasons never explained. On the other hand, the hippie dwarf and the straight dwarf were regular habitués of La Conner’s nightlife circuit, often enlivening the scene by demonstratively trading insults at the 1890s Tavern and the cocktail lounge of the Lighthouse Inn (it was a short circuit). The straight dwarf was Hollywood handsome, clean-shaven, sported a swept-back Michael Douglas haircut, and wore neatly pressed wool trousers and nice button-down-collar dress shirts. The hippie dwarf looked like a Hobbit. His graying hair hung down below his butt, while in front, the tip of his beard preceded his shoes in and out of rooms. The straight dwarf was incensed by the hippie dwarf’s appearance, accusing him almost nightly (after one or two full-size libations) of giving dwarves a bad name, only to be berated in turn for denying his offbeat birthright -- his congenitally issued passport to a life of individualism and dissent -- and selling out to “the man.”
As befitting his haircut, the straight dwarf was, indeed, involved in filmmaking, although on the production side, and after a time he moved to Utah to work on a series of wholesome nature movies financed by the Mormons. The hipster’s name was Maury Heald, and he possessed a heart, a spirit, a life force, and a résumé that would have dwarfed most men twice his size. In the fifties, for example, he’d traveled to Cuba to join the revolution, living with the rebels in the Sierra Maestras alongside Che Guevara and Fidel Castro. A talented commercial artist, Maury worked as a draftsman for NASA at Cape Canaveral before it became Cape Kennedy, and it was while in Florida that he was saved from drowning by Esther Williams. He’d fallen into a pool, and due to the brevity of his legs, was ill equipped for swimming. Ms. Williams, the champion swimmer turned movie star, happened to be walking by and, fully clothed, dove to his rescue. He claimed he repaid her, though he didn’t say how.
It was at an advertising agency, in San Francisco if I’m not mistaken, that Maury designed the Frito pack, the same red-and-orange motif the package bears today. Obviously, it was a successful design, but one evening -- admittedly, we’d had a puff or two of pot -- Maury confided that it had wider and deeper implications. He revealed that the design, if scrutinized from a particular angle, held the visual key to the fifth dimension. I assumed he was putting me on, of course, but I must admit that ever since, I’ve found myself staring at Frito packages longer than good sense might dictate or the munchies require. The reader may be inclined to investigate more thoroughly than I.
32
“let tom run”
Although I’m unsure of the derivation of the term “banner year,” I think I know what it means, and in accordance with that meaning, 1971 was definitely a banner year for me. Another Roadside Attraction was published that year, Terrie gave birth to our son Fleetwood, and I met the literary agent Phoebe Larmore, who, more than forty years later, continues to represent me. Back from Japan, I was immersed in the writing of Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, and Phoebe’s efforts on behalf of that novel would elevate the trajectory of the rest of my life.
My contract for ARA gave Doubleday right of first refusal for my next book, stipulating an advance of five thousand dollars should they accept that book for publication. Phoebe, friendly with the young woman who’d been my editor at Doubleday, had had a peek at some early pages of Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, and was, she told me later, knocked out by them. Aware that I didn’t have an agent, perplexed by my poor contract and Doubleday’s seeming indifference, and confident that she could find a more supportive situation for me elsewhere, she wrote to me in La Conner (I couldn’t afford a phone) and offered her services. I thought it over for approximately as long as it would take a neutrino to travel through a slice of Swiss cheese at room temperature. And accepted.
By this time, however, I’d received the $5K, and it was keeping Fleetwood in diapers and me out of the fields at night. Operating behind the scenes, Phoebe enticed Ted Solotaroff, one of the last of the old-time hands-on Maxwell Perkins–style editors still working in New York, to read my manuscript-in-progress. Within days, Solotaroff privately offered to best Doubleday’s offer by a multiple of ten, provided I could somehow terminate my obligation to Doubleday. Up to the challenge, Phoebe now convinced Doubleday that I was blocked, suffering chronic back pain, and too stressed out to finish writing Cowgirls. Doubleday, all too cheerfully, agreed to cut me loose if I’d pay back the five grand, whereupon I borrowed that amount, half each from a couple of older friends, and linked up with Solotaroff at Bantam Books, which would remain my publisher for the next thirty-seven years.
Incidentally, Phoebe’s nose grew not by so much as a centimeter when she spoke of back pain: I was, indeed, hurting and it was relentless. Because it was so low -- down around the coccyx -- it would have qualified as what our cousins in Merry Olde call “a royal pain in the arse.” Many days, I was forced to write standing up. Due to its proximity to the nether regions, and the fact that spinal X-rays weren’t revealing anything definitive, my primary care provider eventually referred me to a proctologist.
Driving down to Seattle to have someone peer into, and perhaps probe with metal instruments, my per
sonal allotment of the ancient mysteries was hardly my idea of a merry afternoon; so, as is my custom in unpleasant situations, I decided to squeeze at least a dollop of fun out of the ordeal, or, if nothing else, endeavor to lighten it up. To that end (pardon the pun), I dug out my duck mask.
This was no ordinary duck mask. This was not the ducky-wucky false face any mother would have chosen to enliven festivities at her little one’s birthday bash. Molded from hard plastic, thickish and crude, this mask -- a sickly yellow with a smear or two of red -- suggested the countenance of Donald’s thuggish cousin: the bad duck who’d done time in Folsom for armed robbery, the one who’d been escorted off the backlot at Disney for sexually molesting Minnie. It was difficult not to picture a hand-rolled cigarette or the stub of a cheap cigar dangling from its beak.
Concealed in an innocuous paper bag, the mask accompanied me to the proctologist appointment. There, a nurse ordered me to completely disrobe and don one of those embarrassing paper-thin cotton gowns that tie, always awkwardly, in the back. Bidding me sit on the edge of the examination table, she announced that Dr. Medwell would see me soon. The instant she left me alone, I retrieved my bag and put on the duck mask.
Upon entering the examination room, the doctor took one look at me and froze in his tracks. He did not move. He did not smile. He did not speak. Dr. Medwell just stood there for the longest time, staring, seemingly unsure whether to approach me or retreat. Finally, to relieve the tension, I said, “Well, aren’t you at least going to refer me to a veterinarian?” That broke the ice, but he still refused to examine me until I took off the mask.
Beginning in 1980, I had season tickets for Seattle Sonics basketball, attending virtually every home game for twenty-six years. A hoop fan as well, Dr. Medwell had purchased season seats in a section near my own, and frequently we’d run into one another entering or exiting the arena. Recently divorced, he was dating various women, and when he was with one I hadn’t met, he’d always introduce me, even years later, saying “This is the patient I told you about. The one with the duck mask.” Still in my possession, I suppose that mask and I are destined to go down in the annals (or should it be the “anals”?) of Seattle proctology.
The term “legendary,” like many another superlative or word denoting singularity or extreme excellence (not to mention wonder or marvel), has been in modern times so excessively and undeservedly employed by advertisers, media hacks, and the barely literate masses that it has lost much of its impact and nearly all of its meaning. When applied to New York’s Chelsea Hotel, however, it’s truer to its roots than a natural blonde. For many decades the Chelsea was home away from home for countless artists of every discipline, and its walls have witnessed legendary activities ranging from the sublime to the tawdry, from Bob Dylan composing “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” to Sid Vicious stabbing his girlfriend. For one week in 1975, I resided in the Chelsea, riding the subway every business day up to 666 Fifth Avenue, where, at Bantam headquarters, Ted Solotaroff and I went over the Even Cowgirls Get the Blues manuscript page by page, line by line.
The editing was attentive, it was scrupulous, yet ultimately featherlight, changes and corrections minimal at best. I was surprised. A notoriously slow writer, a writer in love with language and ideas, I was confident my prose was well wrought, yet it was also colored by a “crazy wisdom,” wabi-sabi, playful yet deadly serious approach not exactly commonplace in Western literature, and I wasn’t sure how this would fly with an old-school pro such as Solotaroff. At one point early in the unexpectedly painless process, Ted paused and told me the following story:
Jim Thorpe, who would go on to become by consensus the greatest athlete of all time, was in 1911 a student at tiny Carlisle Indian Institute in Pennsylvania. This was at a time when Harvard was a national football powerhouse, so fans chuckled when charitable Harvard deigned to go down to Carlisle and engage the poor boarding school Indians on the gridiron. Harvard’s team featured an all-American linebacker known for his strength, vision, and unusual lateral quickness, and regarded as the best player in the country. On Carlisle’s first play, Thorpe, unable to outmaneuver the linebacker, was tackled barely beyond the line of scrimmage. The same thing occurred on the next play. On third down, Thorpe called his number again. This time, instead of trying to run past Harvard’s star, the Indian from the hills of Oklahoma ran directly at him, knocked him down, ran over him, and raced eighty yards for a touchdown. Then he circled, ran back up the field at full speed, picked up the linebacker (who still lay on the ground), held him in the air, shook him hard, and said politely but emphatically, “Let Jim run.”
Ted allowed this to soak in for a moment. Then he said, “It didn’t take me long to conclude that that was the only sensible approach to editing this book of yours. No editor can hope to impose his will on a performance like this one. We’ve got to let Tom run.”
At the time, Bantam Books was a mass-market paperback publisher, buying, at auction, reprint rights to successful hardcover books and reissuing them in inexpensive, small-format, paperback editions. However, Solotaroff and some confederates were scheming to change that business model, and their maneuver began with Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. After first buying Cowgirls, Bantam then sought to auction off the hardcover rights. This constituted a major turning of the tables, a significant reversal of tradition, and the move met with considerable resistance in the publishing world. Bantam’s ploy, the first of its kind in the history of New York publishing, was almost universally scorned. Almost. Eventually, one brave soul at Houghton Mifflin, the venerable Boston house, thumbed a patrician nose at custom, purchasing rights from Bantam in a precedent-shattering deal, and in 1976 introduced simultaneous hardcover and trade paper editions of Cowgirls. (Bantam would issue the mass-market paperback a year later.)
By no means an out-of-the-gate galloping success, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues did all right for itself. The New York Times compared it favorably to Thomas Pynchon, Pynchon himself wrote that it dazzled his brain, calling it “a piece of working magic,” and me “a world-class storyteller.” The Bantam paperback, when it appeared in ’77, did attract a large following, almost entirely via word of mouth, and Cowgirls remains my best-known (though not best-executed) novel, doubtlessly because it was filmed (in 1993) and movies, deserving or not, are perceived as sexier than books.
Particularly admired by women, Cowgirls was for years the only novel by a male author to be sold in some feminist bookstores. A philosophy professor from Wright State University delivered a paper at a conference in which she claimed that Cowgirls represented the first work in history in which a female protagonist undertook the classic hero’s journey, passing through all of the stages as outlined by Joseph Campbell in his monumental study, The Hero With a Thousand Faces. While I was flattered by the reference to Campbell and world mythology, I must confess that the feminist thrust of Cowgirls had simpler origins.
In Appalachia in the thirties, we kids -- free from the intrusion of wholesale technological entertainment -- amused and grew ourselves with improvised role-playing games, usually of an adventurous nature. Our backyard exercises in make-believe were varied in content, and while dominated by masculine examples, were seldom gender-specific. My beloved cousins Martha and June could assume the persona of a cowboy, an Indian, a pirate, a pilot, a cop, a robber, or a soldier as readily as Johnny or Georgie or I. It wasn’t until many years later that it occurred to me that while any of us boys could actually, theoretically, grow up to be a soldier, an explorer, a cowhand, or a detective, those opportunities, particularly in the South at that time, were simply out of the question for Martha and June. Their aspirations, exposed to the harsh beam of reality, would have been both more limited and more tame.
Thus it was in sympathetic retaliation that I peopled my second book -- a language-driven seriocomic novel that raised the flag of physical, psychological, sexual, and spiritual freedom -- not only with a female hitchhiker whose exploits on the road surpassed those of Jack Keroua
c and pals, but with young women who, determined to finally realize their cowgirl fantasies, take over a ranch by force. This action costs one of them, their leader, her life -- but one should never operate under the illusion that one can always live out one’s wildest fantasies with impunity. One must be willing to be charged a high price.
Yesterday, while examining for the first time in many years, a first edition of Cowgirls, I came across excerpts from reviews of its predecessor, Another Roadside Attraction, evaluations in which I as a writer was likened to Mark Twain (by the Los Angeles Times), James Joyce (Rolling Stone), and Nabokov and Borges (Playboy). Apparently, the book garnered its share of raves after all. How like an unevolved Cancerian to hold on to his negative notices and forget that there were others that many authors might have killed for.
Since publication of Cowgirls, it has been my policy never to read reviews, though people do voluntarily quote them to me, some out of shared pride in my perceived success, others out of malicious glee in what they regard as a well-deserved public scourging. I can’t say for certain if my no-read policy has been wise or foolish: who knows what good advice I may have missed? On the other hand, it has shielded me from unnecessary distractions (God knows there is a sufficiency of those already), while the elixir of understanding that every ego, however philosophically downsized, enjoys and at times even craves, is usually supplied -- occasionally by the bucketful -- from other sources.
For example, not long after the publication of my third novel, I received a letter from a young woman, a stranger, that read in part, “Your books make me laugh, they make me think, they make me horny, and they make me aware of all the wonder in the world.” I’ve never forgotten that testimonial because she smacked the nail on the head with a titanium hammer: though I’m oblivious to it during the act of writing, those are precisely the responses I might wish my books to arouse. And is there a higher accomplishment for any novel, any poem, than to awaken some reader’s sense of wonder? Probably not.
