Old letters and New Demons

By Richard DeVall

Old Letters and New Demons is a novel of the two combined genres of historic and speculative, for an adult audience. In 1929 Harry Crosby shot his girlfriend and two hours later he killed himself. They were found fully clothed with their shoes off and their toe nails painted red. After this incident, Harry’s wife Caresse, moved to an estate in Bowling Green, Virginia, where she wrote pornography with Henry Miller and Anis Nin in the 1940’s. She is a very strong female protagonist.
In 1983 John and Julia Gavis dug up their father, who was killed by their younger brother, along with their mother and brother in 1978. This was in Spotsylvania, a few miles from Hampton Manor, an estate, where Caresse Crosby lived. When charged with disinterment of a human body, John and Julia were wearing multiple layers of bread wrappers on their feet and hands and said it was to keep the demons away.
I linked these two tales together because of close proximity to each other and because they made a great template for a novel. I tied the two stories back to Egypt, beginning in the 1920’s, and ended them in 2016.
This novel is brimming with humor, sarcasm, wit and a fist full of ancient energy. This is a two for one book. There’s the story of Albert and Constance, aka Harry and Carasse, but also Greg Singleton, who in 2016 purchases a home in Bowling Green and finds a talisman in a box that changes his personality and goals
An excerpt of this novel was published in RumbleFish Press in December of 2017.
“Look out any window and you can see it’s all crumbling. It’s becoming a wrinkled loaf of French bread pretending to be a newspaper.
I scan the room for swollen crotches and find only wilted love. Everyone has had everyone in this room and we’re all drowning and sinking into dead memories. Even the dog collapses from the weight of the choked dreams. The jaundice light bulb winks out and everyone applauds. Death is celebrated here. Even the silhouette of an alley whore on the Rue Saint D

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard DeVall
• Release date: Apr 5, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370352388

Book preview

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 1

Old Letters and New Demons

Illness strikes men when they are exposed to change.

Herodotus

Held in archives

New York University

Constance Williams to Richard Williams

February 11th, 1925

Dear Dick;

My hopes have been dashed. A German by the name of Van Buren has had his chauffeur bring buckets of booze every day to the sanitarium. He and Albert and the rest of them drop a rope from the second floor window and hoist it up. I blew a whistle on the whole affair. Now Albert is suffering delirium. He’s none too pleased. He called me a back seat driving Congregationalist and then some.

You know I adore him. I wouldn’t suggest this if I didn’t. He values the opinion of his older brother. I’m at my wits end. He thinks I’m naive. He believes I can be easily dismissed by feeding me the line Going out for a smoke. When I know it’s a drink he’s after and not just one.

I don’t care about the women. I know he’s a Tomcat. I worry that he’ll become feeble minded. He belittles me and says I’m jealous and controlling. He says he won’t tolerate it anymore. He spends time alone in his room talking to himself and he tells me I’m possessive. I’m trying to help him stay clear of the crowd. He needs time to clear up his mind and clean out his organs. He’s stopped writing and editing. He’s lost precious friends and there’s not a cabaret in all of France where he hasn’t soiled himself. Our marriage may not be orthodox but in our own way we’ve always been committed.

Dick, you need to be honest with me. Is it true there’s a barrel house on every corner? I don’t want him pinched every time he goes out. Is there a modern Inebriation Sanatorium where Albert can recover? If I get him on a steamer can we stay with you and Mary? You can observe him for yourself. Please cable me back, I’m desperate.

Connie

Richard Williams to Connie Williams

Western Union

Library of Congress

Bring him – Mary has friend – works top notch hospital - stay with us -

Letter to Anais Nin from Constance Williams

Held in conservatory

National Institute of Arts and Letters

March 4th, 1925

Anais,

I’m in New York staying with Dick and Mary, Albert’s brother and sister in law. Everything is Jake. Although time has had its way with poor Dick. He’s a stock trader on Wall Street. Mary and I met him today for lunch in lower Manhattan. We went to peek at the new Chrysler building. Another skyscraper! Looking at it I felt like a slave seeing his first pyramid. I’ve forgot what America can do when it wants to create something strong and beautiful.

This city is a beehive of activity all aimed at consumerism. It’s such a different atmosphere than war weary Europe. It’s very materialistic and there’s no time to smell the roses. The whole city reminds me of an ant colony. Dick says his job is a lie told to suckers who don’t want to hear the truth. I swear he’s as maudlin as Albert in the cups.

Of course I miss Montparnasse, the bakery smells, the sidewalk cafes, the butcher on Il Saint Louis, Pierre. They’ve all been replaced with bus and truck exhaust. Everything here tastes as if it’s made for a mass market. The sweets have too much sugar. Wine is hard to find with these damned reformers. And the noise, it’s a cacophony of car horns, truck belch, Italian masons, carnival barking Jew urchins, jack hammers, steam shovels and the hammering of a thousand rivet driving Irishmen. Not to mention the thump of the street cars all followed by the distant scream of a steam whistle. One can hardly think.

I’m here for Albert and thank God he’s listened to Dick. He signed on at a hospital for those suffering with incurable afflictions. Mary told me Dick positively annihilated Albert with tales of permanent brewers droop. Can you imagine poor Albert taking this to heart? But I’m thrilled he’s listened to him because ever since Egypt Alberts been a little scary. He gained a dangerous glint in his eye and prowled our house like a caged animal. I slept with one eye open.

Anyway, they’re doing marvelous things with people like Albert and he’s told me he’s met some astonishing new friends. His skin is no longer sallow and they mentioned people such as him are often misunderstood geniuses. When we heard that it was all we could do to keep from roaring. Mary turned and nearly swallowed her lucky strike.

When we drove away she simply pounced on Dick to take us to Harlem this weekend to see Ella Fitzgerald at the Savoy. He promised us a trip this Saturday night and Mary told me she’ll have to pay. Someone said Langston Hughes takes the train up from D.C. to Harlem once a month and does a reading. We’re hoping he’ll be there to open for Fitzgerald.

It’s all different and I suppose exciting but one can’t be free and do what one wants, not in the company of the good Williams lot. They’re very considerate and they would be mortified to learn of the kind of trouble Albert and I pursue. I’m thinking about renting a walk-up a few blocks down. Our conversations have centered around Albert naturally and that’s fine. Other times Mary and Dick and I have such interesting things to talk about as to what kind of mothers will flappers make? If evolution is real why aren’t we still evolving?

Some do and some don’t darling was my reply.

It’s simply unfathomable how much pilgrim dust remains in the air and seeps into the homes and the hearts of these city dwellers. I’m positively ravenous for something more stimulating than a crossword puzzle, all the rage. I haven’t been here long enough to detest anyone and it’s left me with too much time and bouts of melancholy.

Did I mention there’s no cheese worth its salt? They’re crazy for deli sandwiches and baseball. And mustard is considered culinary etiquette. Of course upper Manhattan is where the writers hang out in a speakeasy by the name of Tom Toms. I might swing by and say hello to Leo Schwartz who’s a friend of Alberts. Perhaps I’ll see some of the other notables of publication.

I read in Vogue the Charleston has jumped the pond and is working its way towards your fair city. When I return I’ll be sure to bring some shattered silk and mustard. All the news that’s fit to print, from a small Island in a distant land.

Love Connie

Chapter 2

"I was unhappy for a long time, and very lonesome, living with my grandmother. Then it was that books began to happen to me, and I began to believe in nothing but books and the wonderful world in books — where if people suffered, they suffered in beautiful language, not in monosyllables, as we did in Kansas

Langston Hughes

1940 Autobiography the Big Sea

Fast forward to 2016

Greg Singleton, a damaged human and unsuspecting widower, going about the business of rebooting his life, finds something related to Constance and Albert Williams. This item dramatically alters his personality, dreams and aspirations

Because of a thyroid condition and a poor heart I was as wide as I was tall. Due to the heart condition I was too ill to attend second grade. I was held back at the age of seven. Things began to improve for me in the fifth grade, when I started taking growth hormones in the form of shots every week. Until those shots, I was invisible. I began to grow. I grew to average height. By the time I entered middle school, I found myself older than my peers and angry. I was awkward. I had a feeling that the world had a meeting and I wasn’t invited. I wasn’t comfortable in my own skin. Then alcohol hit my brain and for the first time that uncomfortable feeling melted away. By seventh grade I was an alcoholic and a thief.

By eleventh grade, I’d become a drug-dealing alcoholic, a supremely stupid combination. When those around me entered their senior year, I was in jail with a revoked bond. It was part of a plea bargain to drop a felony charge down to a misdemeanor. I had a life-changing epiphany in jail. I didn’t like it. I hated it. I was a very young naïve kid in a terribly violent confined space. Every fiber of my being was constantly on high alert. I hid inside of my cell and disappeared into books. I read everything I could put my hands on. My vocabulary slowly increased and through those books I traveled the world and I saw it was bigger than my town and my friends. I knew I needed to learn how to function and make a living so I read about stocks. To this day I like watching money move.

Reading changed my life in small, incremental ways. I stopped using drugs. I moved to Adams Morgan in D.C. and lived there from the age of nineteen until I married at twenty-three. I was serious with myself when I got married. Enough to know the marriage wouldn’t last a month if I wasn’t honest. I worked very hard deleting stories I’d repeatedly told, because I know longer knew if they were true. I tried my best in our marriage and we produced three wonderful children, two girls and a boy. Those kids all went to college, eventually, and now have careers and fantastic children and understanding, even-keeled spouses. My part in that: I repeatedly told them what not to do. I was honest about my past. I told them I wasn’t a team player and didn’t listen in school and made bad choices and took drugs that altered my brain and I can’t remember shit.

My wife’s part was she went to college during their early years and that had a big influence on them. She became a C.P.A. and started her own bookkeeping business, doing the billing for a number of local doctors. I became a heating and air conditioning rep. At some point I sought and found sobriety with the help of AA. When the last child moved out so did she.

I was comforted by my AA crowd of friends. I met Sandy in a noon meeting when her car didn’t start in the parking lot of the Presbyterian Church. It was raining, she was new. I could tell she wanted to say forget it and leave the car and go find a drink. I took her to her job and on the way I bought her a big chocolate ice cream cone and left her with some words of encouragement. Slowly she and I became us. We, along with her two girls, became a family. I was glad to be a husband again. Her girls learned to love me and I loved them.

In the winter of 2016 Sandy was hit by a careless driver. Both she and the driver were killed. A few months after the funeral, my 10-year-old grandson was spinning around like a whirling Dervish in my office chair. I was about to tell him to knock it off when he suddenly stopped and looked sad and said, Grandad, I know you’re lonely and miss Grammy Sandy, but at least she’s in heaven, right?

That kid was the final push to make me move from Arlington to Bowling Green, Virginia. I’m not a big heaven and hell guy. I’m a big I don’t know guy. That might make me a bad person I’m not sure about that. I don’t understand where the water would recede to from a worldwide flood. However, I believe attacking someone’s faith really is a sin. And I almost had some kind of melt down in front of my ten-year-old grandson.

I began to shake as he stared at me. Every emotion came crashing down and I don’t think I ever felt so tense and ready to lash out and bite something and my loneliness was like a planet locked in a deep vacuum stuck in the void. I wanted to grab something fragile and sling it, while at the same time collapse and sob. I looked at my wide eyed grandson and I knew I wasn’t fit to babysit. I fought back a religious, moral, incoherent rant aimed at a child. I was emotionally wound up too tight and I was sick of the looks and the prodding questions about my mental health.

My son would ask me, Are you okay?

I’d answer, I’m fine.

Are you sure? Cocked head, concerned look.

I remember doing the same thing to people with their cancer. How are you feeling? Then I’d give them an inquisitive stare. I wish I could take every one of those looks back. I wish I could talk to Sandy. She was more than I deserved and her absence was all I felt.

All four girls call me incessantly. I can hear busy feet and their hands are full. Their phones dive in and out on the volume. Their lives are way too busy to call me all the time. They’re up to their eyeballs in life, living, breathing, scratching daily life. Every phone call started to chisel a new scar. Nothing will go back to the way it was before Sandy died. I wanted to grieve and I wanted to yell. I wanted an immediate fix with a new woman who suddenly knew me, somehow, and instantly erased my feelings of isolation and loneliness. On top of that I was reminded every night, at a meeting, that I was one step away from another drink. I was beginning to ruminate about that. Was that really true? I’m not the same guy that stopped drinking eons ago. I needed new scenery and because I work at home I needed a different house. This was the siren song that I couldn’t quiet.

I’ve often wanted to be closer to nature and teach the grandchildren the beauty of the outdoors. They get little snippets of it at camp but I feel that’s not enough. And, in the absence of Sandy meeting me at every corner the house was becoming haunted and closing in on me. My nerves were frayed and I was soaked in anxiety. I was at my wits end and desperately needed to do something about my situation. AA taught me there’s no such thing as a geographical cure but that was the route I was taking so I kept silent and didn’t tell any of my friends what was going on in my head. That silence created resentment in me and I began to cast a jaundiced eye towards AA. At the end of every meeting someone would mention Sandy, some harmless snippet about something she said or did. It was just being nice, but it added weight to my anger. Why can’t they leave the dead to rest?

They became rooms full of people that memorized slogans and lacked originality. I slowly, deliberately, began to pull away. I had bouts when I blamed Sandy for leaving me. That’s how selfish and confused my thinking had become. I was at my wits end.

They say all married couples daydream about what would happen if their partner died and I was no exception. In my fantasies I would have unfettered romps with younger women. That stupid concept grew in my mind and it became some kind of beacon. I dwelled on this imaginary someone, out there, who held the key to my happiness. If I could just find her everything would be fine.

Also, if I could go someplace where I wasn’t treated as a widower I wouldn’t be required to act the part. In a new place my reaching out and talking to strangers wouldn’t be interpreted as being needy. That’s the vibe I got from the AA crowd when I was trying to steer away from another Sandy conversation and meet a new comer. Was I over thinking? I’m sure I was. But I was having a hard time sleeping and I had nothing to blame except this brick structure bulging with the memory of Sandy. I felt, at my core, I couldn’t break this depression while living in this house. There was something in the air that was leaching away my serenity.

Dad, it’s too soon, This came down in three-part harmony. A crescendo of dad it’s too soon, don’t sell the house, pierced my ear drums. I sold our brick Cape Cod on Fillmore in Arlington, just shy of a million bucks. I moved 70 miles away to a small town named Bowling Green, and into a large Victorian house with a wraparound porch. It cost me three twenty. I’m surrounded by magnolia trees, pin oaks and azalea bushes. There’s a forest in the back yard and on the right side. There’s no noise. My front yard is like a private city park that’s walking distance to a coffee shop. I had some second thoughts. But I treated them like spam and sent them to the trash heap.

In my day dreams I saw the grandchildren with paint ball guns running through the woods, smelling dirt for the first time and learning that each tree has its own bark. I drove past a lot of little rivers on the way here and I was going to teach them how to fish instead of always staring at a screen. This was going to be good for all of us. I felt the seed of hope.

When I got there, with my knees and back, I admitted I’m no fan of stairs. I turned a small room on the main floor into my bedroom. Sandy would have hated this room because it was across from the kitchen. She didn’t like grease in the air, and claimed it landed on her skin and hair. She purported to smell it on herself all day. I respectfully, made sure to run the fan on high when I cooked something. Our old microwave was above the stove. The stove in this kitchen is on an interior wall and has no microwave above it. The range hood doesn’t vent to the outside but re-circulates air through a stainless steel screen. That got me thinking about grease in the air. Yes, I said to an empty room, I think like you do Sandy. I started plotting on a way to move the air out of the kitchen.

I found my measuring tape in one of the boxes in the living room. I measured and marked the distance to the spot where I needed to install the exhaust - microwave - combo. I walked outside to look for the closest window in relationship to the kitchen. I stood back and remembered why I bought this place. It isn’t one of those girly San Francisco painted ladies with five bright colors and ginger bread and saw-tooth trim all over the place. The porch has sturdy fluted columns with ionic capitals, which I thought represented ram’s horns. At closing I told the realtor what I thought.

She said, No, sweetie, those are scrolls and then slid me more paperwork and I bent over and signed who knows what.

I found the window above the kitchen and went back inside. The entrance opens into a large living room with steps on the left. There’s another set of steps in the back that are called servant steps. They’re not ornate and are squeezed in between two walls. The front stairs are grand with burl wood box newels and decorative spindles and gleaming hand rails. Halfway up the stairs is a landing with a window. The sun is rushing through as I stand. It shines across the inlayed floor and I swell with pride admiring my new home. The fireplace has a long mantel. Blue glazed ceramic tile with tiny age cracks line both sides of the firebox. Two huge pocket doors are tucked away separating the dining room from the living room.

This is why I hate steps. I’m already thinking about taking some hillbilly heroin, oxycodone, for my right knee. I push past the nag. I slide the hatch out of the way and pull myself into the attic. The attic has blown paper insulation. It’s bright up here, because of the dormer windows. I kneel in the area where I think the wall from the second floor might be and begin brushing the insulation out of the way. I’m balancing myself on a ceiling joist. I find the board I’m looking for and believe it’s wide enough for a small exhaust duct. This board is the top of the wall bellow me, which is on top of the wall below that, giving me a straight shot to the kitchen. Now I’ve got a plan.

As I turn to leave my elbow hits a wooden box half-buried in dust and insulation. As I pry it from its nest a plume of dust rises. I sneeze and grab the box and move toward the hatch. The box looks interesting with faded paint. It may have been a jewelry container or perhaps held toiletries. It’s locked. I shimmy back onto the ladder. My knee is screaming. I limp to the dining room where I collapse at the table.

After a rest I put cardboard on the dining room table and pry the box open. It’s filled with yellowed newspaper clippings and handwritten notes, scrawled on pages from a pocket note pad. There’s a figurine that’s twice the size of a pack of cigarettes. It’s a relief that appears to be have been pried from a sandstone wall. The carving still has bits of color on it. The head looks like a rat with dabs of green for eyes and little red dots in the middle. It has fangs scratched under the mouth and the torso of a segmented snake. The legs are bent like a standing frog that has splotches of yellow and brown hyena spots with claws.

I wonder if this little clump of stone came from the wall of a tomb, it looks ancient. I imagine a mummified Pharaoh drying up a few feet away. I hold it up in the air to catch the light. I think about walls with chariot paintings and open-mouthed hippos as I turn it this way and that to see all the detail. I’m thinking about a tomb painted with human legs and arms under oversized crocodile heads when I feel something bite into my hand. I look for a needle or piece of glass but don’t see anything, only a tiny red spot in my palm. Maybe it’s from the insulation in the attic. For some reason it reminds me of poison ivy. The way you know there’s something there, but you can’t see anything, only to have it break open oozing a clear itchy liquid. After that the boils begin to appear. Then your skin turns into hard scabs because you can’t stop digging into your own skin. It spreads everywhere and the relief from itching only last a little while.

I clear my mind and ignore my hand. I’m still dreamy about a tomb. Perhaps this clump of stone is one of the protectors, the gods and gargoyles. I begin to have a tingling sensation inch its way up my arm. I wave my hand around, because it feels like it’s asleep. This creature has a sickle above its rat head clasped by two clawed arms, with the curve of the sickle forming a half circle above it. I have a vague glimpse, like when a cloud blocks the sun and then comes bursting out from the other side. This vision is in and out that quick, and this faded memory, is weirdly nostalgic in nature and gives me a hazy instantaneous flashbulb spark, no more significant than the quick burst of volume from a TV commercial. It’s of a pyramid jiggling in the distant from the heat of the day. I set the stone aside and pick up the top newspaper clipping.

****

The Palestinian Star is written in red ink above a black and white photo

It’s a picture of a man with a wide brimmed fedora and a woman wearing one of those flapper hats that droop all the way around. She’s wearing puffy pants that bulge to the knee and sandals with socks and he’s wearing a white linen suit. They’re standing in front of a row of vendors with tables and wares. Behind the table is a street lined with stucco-covered row houses and balconies with ornate metal work. The woman has dark hair and she’s looking at the man, who is looking at the camera. Under the photo the story begins.

****

Albert Williams and wife Constance visit the ancient city of Thebes, today’s Luxor. The two expatriates, known for their bohemian lifestyle, enjoy the city by the Nile as they wait transport to take them to the Temple of Baalbek, location 500 kilometers away in Lebanon. It’s an often visited destination since 900-ton foundation stones were recently found under Roman ruins. How did an ancient people do it? This has baffled archeologists and historians alike. Today’s world traveler now has Baalbek on his to-do list after acquainting themselves with the Valley of the Kings.

Mrs. Williams stated that she and husband Albert are most interested in the God Cobb, often referred to as the Red Night. There is little known about this minor God discovered in the tomb of Osiris in 1880. Osiris is the jackal headed God of the underworld, killed by Set, God of storms. Osiris was reassembled after being drowned and mutilated. Immediately after being cobbled together, he fathered Horus, protector of evil and the father of Cobb, the God of magic. Cobb is known to cause obstruction for those who met with an untimely death and create problems for them as they try and navigate the underworld, through a binding spell.

The Red Night is the name of Albert and Constance famous publishing house known to support struggling writers. In Paris these two patrons have been spotted multiple times by journalists in cabarets such as the Moulin Rouge. Often times accompanied by the likes of Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce and Archibald MacLeish. These expats are known as the lost generation having been disillusioned by war and the constraints put on them as artists. They’re keen to portray high society for its decadent underbelly and true vocabulary. The Red Night’s most recent publication features longtime friend, George Anderson, who credits the writings of America’s own F. Scott Fitzgerald for his success.

The two have been on tour collecting and sending bric-a-brac back to Paris since June. We’re rather exhausted and planning to return home after North Africa, Mrs. Williams said. This heat is oppressive and the marvelous tombs are somewhat intolerable at this time of year. I’d go so far as to say, they’re life threatening. She laughs and with a wave of a hand and a flushed look they leave the bazaar in search of drink. Cairo’s temperature reached 108 F at midday with few tourists observed.

****

Who the hell are Albert and Constance Williams? I put the paper back in the box and study the little figurine. Did this really come from a tomb? I shove the whole mess back into the box and stand, testing my knee. It’s fine. I decide to drive to the Gold Dragon. I’m hooked on hot and sour soup. I don’t want a lot of food. I lost all my fat when Sandy died. Especially after seeing what the car accident did to her.

Chapter 3

Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.

Hippocrates

Letter to Alice B. Toklas

from Albert Williams

Archives of the Original

Neully-sur-Seine, France

february 3rd, 1926

dear alice:

thank you for your note of concern ally, and thank gertrude for me as well. i am fully recovered and in control of my faculties for now. i must say my mind has traveled many times during this sojourn absent of absinthe, and rested in your hall where I was alone and allowed to gaze upon Cezanne. i wish to do that again, until the webs form. he tried to teach me something that I feel I should have grasped. my commitment to picasso and his sun and moon has never wavered. constance says I have the soul of both. the ubiquitous sun tells me there is only his influence and the absence thereof. you have no idea how I detest the moon. it’s the vulgar paramour of the sun. the moon is shrewd and only dead meat to me.

it’s been dreadfully cold even wrapped in beaver and mink we shiver. connie’s let me burn a little poppy juice, at bed time, and then kisses me goodnight with lips soaked in brandy. i am left awake longing for more of the drink. it’s been especially hard with my father bellowing his disappointments. they seem to gather and collect and scatter like buffeted flocks. one never knows the direction. his latest comments involve financial improprieties. as it turns out overdrafts have caused my father peculiar humiliations. he has a list at the ready and i like a fowl am easily flushed. then when fired upon, i drop into submission, and act the part of penitent.

having had enough i remind my father of the greek metanoia, which is new testament stuff, to turn or feel sorrow. having confessed and expressed repentance it’s out of my hands, and the decent thing for him to do is absolve the sinner. i tell my father it’s for his own peace of mind. and my father who is my friend hugs me and weeps, which just shreds me. at this time he asks, son do you know how many times we’ve played these parts in this tired play?

i am not cured of drunkenness for there is no cure. i am to cling to my sobriety come hell or high water. i’ve comprised a list of all the things i need to do to gain my father’s trust. they know I’ll never be the normal son. my father has grudgingly accepted my going into the publishing business. having also mentioned i can’t write, and must never think I can, since it’s a waste of everyone’s time. at these times my father glows white as he becomes the moon.

my goal is to gather time without incident or reckless spending. i have gone through as much as five thousand in one month, mostly on losses at the track. i can’t keep asking father to sell more and more stock. it opens the window where lectures fall out and disrupts my mind and destroys my serenity. i’m brimming with new ideas and then i’m ambushed by another conformity speech. it stumbles into me like one of those poor civil war soldiers made to parade every July.

connie is heading to England to visit with her daughter and son, delphine and edwin, once it warms up. when the weather breaks i’ll be back to paris. i must say i’ve tried to be a friend to young edwin, especially when i refused her ex-husband Stanley, visitation to either. i have since relented and everyone appears to be settled. connie gets updates on their schooling and i hear delphine is doing fine in down house. we had a nice picnic and took the long walk to windsor castle on our last visit. edwin’s in aysgarth, which has a good in house system, with lots of sport, much like Harvard, only without the day pupils. let’s hope that never changes.

my brother richard has been swell. a regular kind of joe, a lifelong brooklyn robins fan and spends the season at ebbets field. father often holds him up as someone that’s successful in the financial game. dick hates it. he says he feels like taking a shower after work and he’s nothing more than a sanctioned shyster. the old man comes from a different time and hasn’t the soul of an artist. dick says sometimes his voice sounds like fathers. other times he regurgitates things father has said to him growing up. it just comes out. poor dick says it makes him feel like an automaton, placed on a track, and destined to stay the course.

i was heartened to hear him express admiration for me for having really lived. this city is

ripe with the ordinary and poor dick has been swept up in it. he sees no exit. this new york crowd

thinks itself vibrant with youthful rebellion but peel back a few clichés and a platitude or two and

all you find is a faster car, a beaver coat and finger wave coiffures. death by mediocrity abounds.

i’ve been a lout in many ways and am now restored. i want to put my nose to the grind stone and churn out some damn good writing. dry as i am i believe i can tap something mercurial and hopefully economic. everyone i know is writing short stories and poems. but leo schwartz says those two forms of publication are on their way out and novels are all the literary agents want. excerpts can be run in magazines, as short stories, and newspapers as serials, and each chapter needs to stand on its own. it’s the only concept they want. everything is geared towards commercialism, and