Editor
Simon & Schuster
Dear Mr. Snell,
I am sorry to have missed your phone calls, but I do very much appreciate your interest in my book. I guess you are senior editor there?
Anyhow, Mr. Snell, I am a bit confused. I had been led to believe by Mr. McCloud that I was working with another editor, Ralph Vendetti. Is that not so? Please do not suppose I am trying any end-runs here or that I am trying to cause confusion. I’d just like to be less confused myself.
It may be a labor of Hercules to make me unconfused, but I would appreciate it so much if you could try.
Cordially,
Septic
p.s. I do not mean to ignore your questions about my past life or your inquiries about “contacts.” It’s just that I am in a position now where all of that, all that happened to me and all that I was, really is past—or so I hope. I wrote the novel to get control of that and give it form, to probe and question it but also close it off. You’ll understand that, having done that, I am reluctant to revisit it in any other context. Also, despite the novel, I do not wish to exploit those experiences. I wrote the novel to help myself and to help others too. That probably sounds naïve, but it is so.
April 23, 2003
Dear Ralph,
I know I will irritate you horribly by appealing to your kindness and calling your kindness by its right name. You’ll sputter and snort and be rude to the next three or four people who cross your path. That’s just too bad. I want you to do a kind thing. It makes no business sense at all, this thing I want you to do, and it will settle smack into your round lap the most troublesome and wiggly of gifted and unstable babies to take care of. He’ll make demands on your time, your consideration, and your passion. He’ll force you to listen to what you do not want to hear and extend your interests to where they do not want to go. He is, as you would put it, a needy son of a bitch, and the person he needs is YOU.
Barton Wilkes, you’ve heard of him, former aide of some sort to Senator Thurmond and plague for some time of Martin Snell. That fact alone ought to make your heart leap out to enfold him, were your heart a ready leaper.
You would add stars to your crown by employing him, specifically to edit and consult on CLASS ASS. Given steady and focussed work, in a professional environment that would be stable and unquestioning, he’ll be a real asset to you. He is smart. All you need to do is let him work, listen to him, and (hardest of all) don’t confuse him by being (a) rude, (b) ironic, or (c) inconsistent.
Add to that a few hugs now and then, some inquiries after the state of his feelings, and the occasional tear, and you’ll have the employee of your dreams. Well, not YOUR dreams, but anybody else’s.
Do it for me?
Fondly,
Reba
You wonder why I am asking. Well, Barton is a curiosity, but he also went out of his way to help my brother Juniper, forcing Mr. Snell to re-employ him. Add that to your suspicion that I am a meddling do-gooder and you got it!
April 23, 2003
Dear Percival and Jim,
I have some inkling of what Barton is like when he’s on the rampage, and I hope he hasn’t been bothering you too much. I expect he’s been bothering you some. Barton’s perfectly harmless, you know, and I wouldn’t say that were I not sure. Barton on the rampage is a little like Winnie the Pooh out for blood.
The thing to do is find him some focus. He doesn’t really need sympathy; he needs work. I’m convinced he’s a real pro, smart and efficient, if he’s given something to do and a way to spare himself the always-waiting chores of hating himself and imagining that others must too.
C’mon, there must be something there at old USC for him. It’s a private school, right, with lots of slush and slop in the way of administrative offices busy doing not much of anything? Barton could write wonderful reports, go on or organize retreats, institute task forces, manage Centers, coordinate initiatives.
I’ve written to Ralph Vendetti, trying to hook Barton in with him on CLASS ASS, which is going to be a big hit, you just wait. But Ralph has cultivated fangs, which bare themselves at the approach of anybody who might dent his protective shell. Barton is a practiced denter, so I don’t know if that’ll work out.
Hope you two are flourishing. Must be almost the end of term there, right? I don’t suppose you guys teach much, publishing talents that you are. That’s a shame, since I can tell how fine you’d be with the kids.
Juniper sends his love, and me too—
Reba
SIMON & SCHUSTER, INC.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
April 25, 2003
Dear Reba,
My Dad told me he used to go with a bunch of friends to church basketball games in the West Virginia little town he grew up in. They formed an unappointed and unwanted cheering section. He told me one cheer was:
Methodist Once!
Methodist Twice!
Holy Jumpin Jesus Christ!
As for your proposal—Holy Jumpin Jesus Christ!
I’ll think about it.
Sincerely,
Ralph
James R. Kincaid
University of Southern California
University Park Campus
Los Angeles, CA 90089
April 26, 2003
Dear Barton, Martin, and Reba,
You know, if you take a step back and look at how this picture is forming itself, what you do is what satellites allow us to do with weather patterns and seats high in stadiums allow us to do with football plays or halftime shows. You get to see large movements and convergences that are hidden from you if you are close up. It was Napoleon, I believe, who first started viewing battles from atop hills not too close. That way, he could observe with perfect clarity what the cannon smoke and screaming and things in the way (he was short) would have hidden from him. It’s called The Big Picture. It’s what God has of us, for instance. Not that I’m God or even Napoleon (though I have had seats very high up in football stadiums, let me tell you), but I think I share that capacity with them. People at our department meetings are always saying to me, “Jim, you never get bogged down in facts.”
Anyway, here’s what’s shaping up. It’s shaping up on its own, but if we recognize what’s happening we can save time and dollars by doing it faster and better. Martin, you should hire Barton to work on Strom, as he IS the project. Hire Reba too, as she knows Barton’s mind and is, I can tell, an excellent illustration and copy-editing person. This team will do the job. And it’s the team that destiny is forming in any case.
We’re working on redoing the opening section, Percival and I. With that plus the outline you’ll see where we are exactly. Have it to you in ten days, and that’s not exaggerating.
Barton, I hope you have stopped looking in my windows. It’s quite un-nerving, even though neither my wife nor I are especially modest or have anything to hide. It’s just that we—make that I—am not easy with having my day logged. I’m sure I waste time, eat too much, dawdle, and, to be frank, do things on the Internet I shouldn’t. OK. You got me. But in the scale of human activity, even in the scale of human criminal activity, does what I do weigh heavily?
Let me know when the Barton-Reba-Martin team is set. I’ll send tee-shirts.
Best,
Jim
Interoffice Memo
April 26, 2003
Dear Percival,
Why don’t you use the customary “Dear” in your salutations to me? By not doing so, you draw attention to your self-conscious avoidance. Avoidance of what? You can, after all, call me “Dear” without suggesting you’d like to fuck. It doesn’t mean you’re in love with me, pledging to me eternal devotion and a willingness to lend me money. Are you homophobic? Is that it? I wouldn’t have thought so, but what else am I to conclude?
But set that aside. I bother you now to tell you that I thought I’d make things easier for us by writing the enclosed, which I sent to Martin, Barton
, and Reba. What I didn’t tell them was that we thereby arrange Vendetti, Juniper, and Septic on that whore project and keep them away from us. I think it’s an excellent way to distribute and distance our problems and make it appear that it was all a matter of kismet.
You’ve got to admit I can be cagey when I want!
XOOXOOXOOX,
Jim
FROM THE DESK OF PERCIVAL EVERETT
April 27, 2003
Dear Jim,
If you insist. I don’t think I’m homophobic. I admit, though, that the idea of having sex with you doesn’t present itself to me, even in nightmares. I avoid the “Dear” to save time and to do what I can to preserve nice words for nice times.
Did you realize you were sending the same xeroxed letter to all 3? That is, you made that plea to Barton about his peeking and the confession about your illegal Internet porn activities to all of them. Did you mean to do that? You think Barton’s going to be happy with that? You think Martin is not going to use your confession against you? You think Reba isn’t going to think you’re trying to get Juniper fired again? You’re going to have all three of them swooping down on you, angry and armed.
Just fooling you. Of course you are not in danger—probably.
But your idea of dividing all these people into teams is bad and the particular division you make outlandish. I bet when it was your turn to be captain and pick a team for recess softball you ended up with all second basemen.
Juniper is with Snell, and they’ll do the Strom book. We don’t want Barton within a million miles of that. We’ll handle his continued meddling, but we don’t want to give him official status. You want him empowered to force revisions on us?
Anyhow, the big picture you managed to miss, God, is this: Vendetti and Reba are an item, so he’ll hire her. Septic, as author, is already there. Reba will cajole Vendetti into hiring Wilkes as well. Lots of cooks, but I imagine Septic’s book is already about where it should be, so they’ll do no harm.
Next time, lover, find a spot on a hill that’s not right behind a tree.
P
April 28, 2003
P—
Horseshit and fuck you!
J
Memo: Septic, Reba McCloud, Barton Wilkes
From: Ralph Vendetti
Date: April 30, 2003
Just to confirm our conversations, some in person and some by phone.
Reba McCloud, hired for this project only, and Barton Wilkes, permanent special field and subject editor working for me, are assigned to do preproduction, marketing, copyediting, permissions, illustrations, and miscellaneous editing for the book known as CLASS ASS by Septic. Septic will be consulted on all details and have the right to appeal any disagreements to me. I trust there will be none. If not, I needn’t be involved at all.
Mr. Wilkes, we are especially glad to have you with us and regard ourselves as lucky to have roped you in.
May 1, 2003
Martin:
Barton Wilkes is working for me on the CLASS ASS project. If you had any sense, you’d recognize this as a real break for you. But you don’t and you won’t. You’ll be tempted to ask me questions. Better not.
Also, Reba McCloud has been signed on with a work-forhire contract, this project only, at least for now. If you bother her in any way, I will eat your eyeballs.
Ralph
May 5, 2003
Dear all,
I remember in some group therapy session I was in—I’ve participated in so many, I can’t keep any of the sessions or the disorders they were designed to keep under control straight—the leader made the observation that truly disgraceful behavior, so long as it is truly excessive, is usually rewarded. She said there were personality types who sensed this and lived their lives on that principle.
I hope I am not one. I’d rather think that I have fallen in among people so gracious that they forgive. I don’t think any of you are neurotics who need and thus encourage neurotic (with me, psychotic) behavior for your own ends. I think you are good people who want to help.
It’s a corny thing to say, but I feel redeemed. Of course, I’ve felt redeemed before, in some years several times. Still, I feel that this is different, that I have somehow fallen asleep in a sty and awakened in a new land.
To all of you, you who brought me here, I give you my thanks and the promise for many parties to come. That seems to me much more in your line than apologies. Strangely, parties now seem more in my line too.
Love,
Barton
May 5, 2003
Dear Reba,
Just a short addition to you. What you have done for me is so kind and so uncaused, you make me think of Cordelia. Were I of the stature of Lear, I’d propose that we two go off to prison too, singing old songs and telling old tales. As it is, I’ll just say thanks.
Your friend,
Barton
Percival Everett
University of Southern California
University Park Campus
Los Angeles, CA 90089
May 6, 2003
Dear Martin and Juniper,
As promised, here is a draft of the opening pages of A HISTORY…. This may give you an idea of the tone Jim and I have settled on, of the pace we think fits the Senator’s style, and the context we hope to establish. True, it doesn’t get down to issues or details, but we think the most interesting thing about this history will be the absence of such things. This will be history without what is usually regarded as an “historical record.” In a sense, this will be a far more vivid, even authentic history, in that it not only takes into account a particular perspective on the past, but IS that perspective. We do not make any pretense of empirical justification, of giving a world outside Strom. There is, for Strom and for the reader, no world outside Strom. He never was able to see one or make one. We might call that a tragedy, were it not for the fact that, in this, we are all Strom.
My daddy filled his life and mine with stories, stories that often had a point. It wasn’t always very clear what that point was. I meant to say that it wasn’t clear to me what the point was; but, come to think of it, I don’t think the point was very clear to Daddy either. Maybe it was clear to him and not to me, but possibly it was the other way around, often as not. Maybe he had one point in mind and I garnered another. But what I’m talking about and not getting to is something else entirely. Maybe there weren’t any points, just the stories. See what I mean? I am not trying to be fancy, but we Southerners put a lot of stock in stories, not just to entertain ourselves but to tell us and others about the world we live in and how we should live in it.
But maybe the stories were only stories, telling us not one damned thing. Maybe the stories manage to get in between us and a whole lot of nothing. Think maybe? All those stories and all that time spent telling them and listening to them. I wonder now why. It has always made me feel good to tell stories. Early on in politics, I realized that the best answer to a question is a story. People like to hear stories, maybe so they can go tell them to somebody else. But why is that? I always thought it was because stories gave us all something to chew on, set us straight, you know, on issues and the like. But maybe stories did just the opposite: gave us the satisfaction of thinking we were chewing, but there was no meat.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean to say that stories were lies or that I developed the knack of telling them just to slither my butt out of tight spots. A few of the men I learned county politics from told me that, told me that “old fuck-yer-dog tales” would do more for you with folks around here than any sort of political position. But it wasn’t just fuck-yer-dog stories and it wasn’t just tight spots. I saw that they used stories all the time and, right away, so did I. Not just fuck-yer-dog stories but bless-your-mother and fling-the-sorghum stories too. Politics is just one story after another, stories inside stories. But I don’t know what isn’t.
Anyhow, when you look back on your life or, in my case, on the life I have shared with African-American pe
ople and their struggles, you realize that all you have are a bunch of stories, stories that may or may not pack a wallop but that certainly don’t seem to me to pack anything else—like revelation. Maybe it’s just me. That’s possible. I’ve always been a man who knew the lay of the land for twenty yards on every side. Knew every detail. If you train your eyes that way, by frilly damn, you are harder than hell to beat in an election. You become the best politician you can be. Maybe I am the best politician of the twentieth century. I don’t know who has won more elections and lost fewer. I also don’t know whether that’s a good thing to be, whether I haven’t paid a high price.
What kind of a history can I write when I never looked past twenty yards? But then I wonder if anybody really does have much more range than that to plow in. What the hell do you say past that point? I mean, who knows what the big issues are anyhow?
My daddy loved to tell a story of Big Ed McClellan, the worst coon hunter in the county. Big Ed had the best dogs anybody could want and he even, it is said, bought a book on coon hunting. He’d lived here all his life, wasn’t any youngster, and seems as if he’d done nothing but coon hunt. It wasn’t that he was dumb exactly or handicapped, the way some are, with poor eyesight or real strong body smells that make hunting tough. Big Ed was greedy and he was a thinker. It was the last that got him in trouble. No sooner was Big Ed out with his dogs than he started to think. If the dogs headed one way, got a scent, Big Ed would think where other scents might be coming from. If they got a coon treed, he’d think where all the untreed coons was. Also, he’d remember coon hunts before and try to make ‘em match up with the one he was on, so he could either copy the success or avoid the failure of the past. The result was he thought so much the coons was as safe with Big Ed hunting them as if they were in a zoo.
You get the moral of that, you kind readers out there? My daddy said the moral was, “When you got a coon treed, keep your eye on that there coon and none other.” I was never too sure what that meant and am not too sure to this day. Maybe my daddy thought the idea was to keep a short, unwandering focus. I always thought the moral was to keep to the present, not to imagine that the past had any bearing on it or that the present would have any impact on the future. I guess that view came to be known as a kind of existentialism. That’s what an aide of mine said, when I explained my view of that story. But if my view deserved a fancy name it was sure by accident. Anyways, I wonder now if Daddy didn’t steer me wrong. Maybe he should have said that Big Ed was simply thinking at the wrong time and that there was a better thing for a thinker to do than go coon hunting.
A History of the African-American People (Proposed) by Strom Thurmond Page 21
