Love, Kurt
Page 10
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Bernard has just called from Dayton. He will be here at 4:40 today. He’ll stay until Sunday. I’m leaving on Sunday via any means I can muster. I’m going to try to catch a bomber from Stout Field.
I wrote to the Miami Beach Redistribution Center and they sent me a booklet all about it. I will send it on to you. Beyond a doubt it will be heaven, Darling.
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A b s t r a c t i o n: Slope
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Foal Soul Soul Shoal: Fully Foul Shoal. Fool Foal Soul, Fool Shoal. Shall Souls Surely Slope? Shall Foul Foal Souls Slope? Shall Shoals? Nope.
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I am a s q u i r r e l. #$%&1412@¢34 ––poor neglected things never get used. ¢@n’# you $ee #ha# I love you more #h@n 12, 14 & 34? Do you love me #%? KURT XXXXXXX
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BEN HIBBS
EDITOR
REMEMBER THAT NAME!
DEPARTMENT OF MIXED EMOTIONS:
The enclosed material has had our careful consideration, but we are sorry to report that it is not quite suited to our needs. We are grateful to you for letting us see it and can assure you that we are always glad to consider anything submitted to us.
Yours very truly,
THE EDITORS
CRIPES, BEN, IT WAS NUTTIN!
CLOSE, BUT NO CIGAR
LOOK AT WHAT YOUR HUBBY GOT––AND HE’S ONLY 22! SHADES OF ORSEN WELLES.
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SUNDAY AFTERNOON
SEPTEMBER 30 - 1945
DEAR WOOFY-DARLING:
OCEAN: THROUGH THE UNDULATING SURF AND TIDES OF TWO BILLION PEOPLE I AM HERE AND YOU ARE THERE: HUSBAND AND WIFE PARTED IN VIOLATION OF MORALS AND NATURE, AND IN BRUTAL OPPOSITION TO OUR OWN INNOCENT, HONEST AND JUST WILLS. IS THERE A SOLITARY VILLAIN TO BE SINGLED OUT AND BLAMED?
WHAT’S TO BE DONE, ANGEL? SOMETHING, SURELY. WE MUST WAIT FOR MY DISCHARGE––DECEMBER, JANUARY, FEBRUARY? BUT NEED WE BE APART? I’VE PRAYED TO GOD THAT WHAT HE HATH THEREFORE JOINED TOGETHER, LET NOT [MAN] PUT ASUNDER. I AM ALSO REFERRING MY BLEEDING HEART TO UNCLE LOUIS LUDLOW. WE SHALL SEE JUST WHAT THE OCEAN MAY BE ABLE TO YIELD TO THE SHORE.
MY ADDRESS IS––
HQ. CO.
AGF RD #3
FORT RILEY, KANSAS
AND A DISMAL SPOT IT IS, A VOID. YOU’D BE BORED AND DESOLATE WERE YOU TO LIVE IN NEARBY JUNCTION CITY OR MANHATTAN––SO THAT’S OUT! MY GOD, WHAT A WASTE OF TIME!
DESOLATION TO MELANCHOLY TO APATHY TO BLISS TO ECSTASY TO BLISS TO APATHY TO MELANCHOLY TO DESOLATION TO MELANCHOLY TO APATHY TO…LIKE A PENDULUM MY MIND HAS BEEN SWINGING SINCE I KISSED YOU LAST, SLEEPY AND TEARFUL. I CARRIED SOME OF YOUR TEARS AWAY WITH ME, ON MY LASHES, CHEEKS AND MOUTH. BLESSED ARE THE MEEK, FOR THEY SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH. BLESSED ARE JANE AND KURT, FOR THEIRS WAS THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. UNQUALIFIED HEAVEN IT WAS AND SOON SHALL BE, DARLING.
I’VE WRITTEN A GREAT DEAL OF GARBAGE TODAY AND YESTERDAY, TRYING TO GIVE EXPRESSION TO THE EMOTIONS THAT HAVE KEPT ME SLEEPLESS AT NIGHT AND CHAIN-SMOKING THROUGH WET GRAY DAYS. I CAN’T DO IT BECAUSE I’M OVERWHELMED AND SUFFOCATED AND AWESTRICKEN BY THE MIGHT AND SPLENDOR AND SWEETNESS AND FURY OF THE FLOOD OF LOVE AND WONDER THAT YOU HAVE CAUSED TO BURST FROM ME. I LOVE YOU TERRIBLY.
KURT
IT REALLY DID HAPPEN––EVERY SUBLIME SECOND OF IT!
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Oct. 3, 1945
Dear Heart:
I think that I’ll get a letter from you today––Wednesday, and so, rather than drool on…I’ve nothing worth saying other than that there is a demon in the pit of my stomach, with hands and feet of ice. His only pleasure seems to be to stroke the walls and ceiling of my stomach with his icy hands and shuffle his frozen feet on its floor. Golly, Angel, it’s almost grotesque, I love you and miss you so much. Darling. Darling. Darling.
I’ve yet to be assigned. Louis Ludlow should have got my letter by now. Wait. Wait. Wait.
Tell me, dear one, are you perchance with child, half mine? If so, I see no reason for anything but rapture on our parts. We can (because of what mom left to me) afford it––and if it has been conceived in this last month, no child was ever conceived in more love or in a more blesséd union.
Even, Angel, even if Louis Ludlow can’t or won’t get me shipped to Harrison or Atterbury, I shall be home, almost certainly by Christmas.
I’m reading Dragon Harvest. I quote from page 26. “The provoking fellow came strolling in, bland and i n s o u c i a n t…”
Oh, Darling, I feel like hell, having made your life for the present the dull thing it must be. Please, Dear Heart, go on loving me. I’ll be home, soon. It can’t go on much longer. And then, Sweety, we’ll go to Chicago as we first planned it. And you shall change from Alyosha to Zossima and I shall change from Kolya to Alyosha.
Much love––Cutie
Kurt––
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DEAR WIFE:
This letter is the death rattle of three cancerous years: three festering Witches whose abscesses dripped butchery and bestiality into a seething broth concoted of greed, apathy and ignorance. They are dead, thank God, and we’ll bury these unholy sisters so we’ll not be upset by the rancid stench of their putrifying. They are dead. For them this is
-THE END-
We are very alive, Darling, and young and full of warm love––with a lovely lust for each other and for wisdom. For us this is
-CHAPTER I-
I love you now, Sweetheart, and I’ll love you always. You are a beautiful wife. I was made to love and to make love to only you. To do otherwise, Woofy, is physically impossible for me.
The smug and blesséd cat above is a graphic description of how your husband felt on the eve of his being freed to spend every remaining minute of his life with you. You should be proud to be loved so terribly much. Oh golly, Darling…
XXXXXXX
KURT
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Saturday night
October 6, 1945
Dear Woofy, wifey:
Somehow––time passes. I’ve just come from taking a shower: it’s 9:30 P.M. and I’m about to go to bed. But first I want to tell you about what I thought in the shower.
It started with an idea of yours. Remember when you were standing barefoot in the gentle little surf on the Roney Plaza Beach (formerly the property of God)? You had your dress up to your heavenly hips and an almost full moon glowed big stupid and beautiful above us. You were wondering what distant beaches certain of the molecules in the surf lapping at your feet had visited.
I was thinking about that in the shower and wondering at the tinyness of molecules. And then I thought: “Why, some of Woofy’s molecules must be with me now––in my pores or lungs or mouth or even my blood. For we have been as wonderfully close to each other as any two people can get without becoming actually and forever the same person––so in that love making some of your molecules surely found new homes in me.” And I came upstairs, smiling cheerfully and humming Humoresque and thinking that this had altogether been the nicest, loveliest and most wonderful thought I have had since we parted.
And then, sweet Angel, another thought came to me––: an obvious thought that made my first idea look like what a spring thunderstorm makes the popping of a Champagne cork look like.
Think of that part of me that is now inside of you.
––Darling, I love you so! What heavenly love we should be making at this dull and brutal moment!
Good night, Angel. KURT
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&n
bsp; 7 OCT 45
Poor Sweet Darling…Bored? Lonesome? Oh damn.
At least you shan’t want for love and letters. Those two things I can give you in quantity. That much nourishment I can give you.
I’ve yet to hear from Louis. Have you? At any rate I shall be home, with a discharge, within eighty days…so start checking them off. Everything points to it. We will surely be able to enter the Winter Quarter (when does it start, Sweety?) at Chicago. Know full well that with a full little tummy on myself, my wife and my children, my motive in life will be to work and study and do what is in my power to give something that is damned good for the whole World. Generally, Peace and Democracy. However, full tummies come first. First things come first. The main motive is you, as I am more animal than spiritual. I will do anything to keep you loving me. What by-products come from that love the world is welcome to. You, alone, are justification for my living. A pox on the rest of creation––but you give me some gorgeous ideas that would probably make the rest of creation, if it insists on being on Earth with us, happier.
This is a stinking big piece of paper. My love-maker is a great deal more articulate, expressive and poetic than this typewriter. Love was conceived so great, so powerful, that it is beyond our comprehension to describe accurately in words. Its absolute description is in a blissful series of sensations. That physical description of how much we love each other IS absolute and adequate. And I almost weep for not being able to make you feel, to make you know certainly and ecstatically how much I love you. And want, for at least a second or two, to be you. I don’t think that very many people honestly feel that way. If I am superhuman in any respect, it is in that respect––I love you most awfully, Woofy.
I shall have a three day pass soon. It is impossible for me to come to Indianapolis for it––but could we meet in Kansas City? It is a very slick town full of bars and nightclubs……………………….and beds, Angel. When should I ask for the pass? Or can you make it? Do you think it would be worth while?
S O O N !
KURT
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10 OCT 45
Dearly beloved:
There was a big racoon on the library steps last night. He was quite friendly and I spent most of the evening fooling around with him. Someone here, I haven’t as yet found out who, brought him up from a coonlet. I’ve been investigating the coon business and having them for pets is evidently a pretty common thing. They will make marvelous pets if they are taken before their eyes are open, one informant tells me. So, sweety, we will one day get ourselves a coonlet, before its eyes are open. Golly, what a nifty pet they are! Tell Allie about this––and watch her eyes light up.
I’m afraid my story about the rose is terrible, but after all it’s only about the fourth short story I’ve written in my life. For my fourth short story I should say that it is not nearly as repulsive as could be expected. I’ll send the damned thing to you and you send it wherever you like. Just for variety in rejection slips, send it to the Atlantic first and then to Esquire. Any changes you see fit to make please make. This is not a work of art but a grasping at money. I love money.
I work from 8 to 5 every day. I’m on a 40 hour week and so take two days off each week. Those two days vary with the whims of my boss. The bastards (the Army promised that they wouldn’t) have counted my 76 days at home on recuperation as a furlough so I’ll have to scrap like hell to get a furlough. Theoretically, I haven’t had a proper furlough in over a year and a quarter. That, and this is also theoretical, entitles me to something over 20 days at home. But I don’t think I’ll get it. Oh, Hell, Sweety, Believe me when I say I shall definitely be home for Christmas––and probably a lot sooner than that. That, Dear Heart, is not a bad deal for the Army. Time passes somehow. If you can think of any slick ways (ask Phoebe) that we can lay away some money during the interum, please write me about them. I’m simply nuts about money.
It’s morning, now. I’ve just had my two days off…Monday and Tuesday. In that time I’ve discovered a big river and a pet racoon so I’m not nearly as lonesome as I was. I swear to God that I don’t feel like talking to a soul. I haven’t made a single damned friend. I fugure I’ve got enough of the damned things. The food is terrible and believe me when I say my mouth waters for some of your cooking. The food here is that terrible. I weep for lack of your cooking. Darling, you are not the worst cook in the World.
This office is no place for a love letter. I write my best love letters in pencil, I think…when I’m full of coffee. In the morning. I’ll try to abort one from my soul tonight. When you get a dull affair like this one, I suggest that you refer back to more inspired works.
I love you most awfully, Darling.
Love…Kurt
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MOONIVERSARY ~ 1/10/45
ANGEL:
30 days ago we were married
I am humble and full of childish gratitude and wonder for the cool, the sweet, the gentle and deep, the brilliant, exquisitely melodic, rhapsodic, rolling, rumbling thundering, hell-fire burning, throbbing, bursting, trembling, sighing, crying, dying, smiling, sleeping love you gave to me.
The young and warmly loving two of us in bed are closer to God than the topmost spires of the greatest and most blesséd cathedral in creation. There are three gates to paradise: through your eyes, through your lips and between your thighs. You, darling, have blessed me and let me through each of them––and have, in doing so, given me immortality and joy everlasting by stretching earthly seconds into ages a billion times greater than the age of Sun. What I have said is blissful truth.
–––––––Small wonder, darling, that I am humble and full of childish gratitude.
–––––––Lo, how the mighty have fallen! Paradise lost.
–––––––Paradise regained? Please, Please, Please, When?
I ADORE YOU, DARLING
xxxx
KURT
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11 Oct 45
Angel:
I’ve got the life of Beethoven, War and Peace, and Brigg’s Simplified Calculus going simultaniously. I wish I had less enthusiasm and more brains. Then again, I find comfort in what seems to me to be an absolute law: PEOPLE ARE ABSOLUTELY INNOCENT OF WHAT THEY SEEM TO BE. Do you believe that? There are so many external forces (and the laws of physics are enough to discourage a man from being what he wants to be) that I can’t see how it would be otherwise. At the age of 23 I cannot roller-skate and probably never shall learn. That is absolute––I cannot roller-skate. And yet, had the proper inclination in the form of chemicals, or had the proper person insisted that I learn to roller-skate, I would probably be quite good at it by now. But they didn’t. So at 23 I cannot roller-skate. And I maintain that I am blameless of my ignorance of the sport. You, Dear Heart, will never ever be able to carry a tune without changing key every three bars. You will never be able to do it. My sister can carry a tune, and has such a good ear for it that she can sing two-part harmony. You are blameless for not being George Gershwin. George Gershwin is blameless for not being you. There can be no argument as to who is BETTER––you, me, George Gershwin, John Dillinger, George Washington Carver, Arthur Rodebaugh. If there weren’t a God, He would have to be invented. The present synthesis does not gibe with the human facts. Here is a chance for real genius. The greatest man to ever live will be the one that invents the real God, and presents the World with a book of His teachings. A Bible written in a Lunatic Asylum may be the answer. If the physical scientists are the men destined to stumble onto the answer, then it will be quiet investigators like my brother, who, driven up obscure passage-ways of research by their curiosity, and not by General Motors, DuPont and the War Department. Speed, destructive power, efficiency, volume, load capacity––the answer wont be found among these. Perhaps I’ve
told you how I hate all the bright-eyed young men I’ve met in the Army: engineering students, chemists: handsome, tall, intelligent, clean. I think I hate them because they think the answer to a better World (and the means to a bigger income) is in their taking the groundwork layed by Descartes, Newton, Pascal, Aristotle etc. and turning it into speed, destructive power, efficiency, volume, load capacity. That is why I love my brother as much as I do. He does not think that way. Of the three of us––Bernard, Allie, and Myself––Bernard has the best, at least the most far-reaching, chance of doing the World a great favor. Allie will turn out marvelous children, I’m not at all certain what I’ll do (because I am ignorant), but Bernard KNOWS an awful lot of important things, and is SKILLFUL in applying them.
What a screwy letter, Darling. I had no idea that it would turn out this way. Maybe with a little serious application we will get to be as admirable as Bernard. It’s worth a lifetime of trying.