Lawrence Block: Chip Harrison Scores Again

I left Madison early the next morning. I drove east and almost stopped in Chicago but changed my mind at the last moment and took the Belt around the city. I burned a lot of oil but kept stopping for more so that I didn’t do any damage to the car. It still runs perfectly, by the way.

I drove all the way to Cleveland. I guess I was ready for a big city again. I put the car in a parking garage and took a hotel room and paid a week in advance. I was in no hurry to go anywhere.

It was easy to find things to do. I would go to a movie and when it ended I would go to another one. I bought paperbacks and read them. Sometimes they seemed to be sending me special messages. I would find great personal meaning in very ordinary things. But I recognized this as just a temporary mild madness and let it pass.

That’s the thing. You don’t outgrow that kind of garbage, but you learn to see it coming. Maybe growing up is largely a matter of being surprised by fewer things.

Everywhere I went I would see copies of my book. I wanted to tell people I wrote it, but who was I going to tell? I sent you a copy (which I really hope you got) and I sent a copy to the Headmaster of Upper Valley, the asshole who threw me out. I told what a fink he was in the book and I wanted him to read about it.

I couldn’t think of anyone else.

Then one day I was looking at ads for jobs, and I could find some things that I probably could do, but I didn’t want to do any of them. And I said, Wait a minute, I’m a published author.

I think that’s the first time it occurred to me to write another book. I spent a day or two trying to work out a novel but every idea I came up with was corny, and then I thought maybe I could do the same thing I did in No Score and just continue that story. I didn’t know if the material would be as good, though. It seemed to me when I read it that No Score was pretty funny, and my memories of the past year weren’t.

I guess that brings it all up to date. I bought a typewriter in a pawn shop and got some paper and started writing. At least this time I knew about keeping a carbon.

The book got written faster than I thought it would.

Well, that’s about it. Now I’ll drive to New York and let Mr. Fultz look at this. I could sell the car and fly there, I suppose, but I don’t like the idea of selling the car. Because you gave it to me.

Geraldine, I read through all of this and it feels very funny. All those changes. There are things I wonder about and can’t know, like what happened with Lucille, whether she was really pregnant, whether she had an abortion or had the baby, whether she put it up for adoption or decided to keep it. I have this persistent fantasy in which she keeps the baby as a memento of her dead lover. That would probably be the worst thing for everybody, but evidently my ego gets a boost out of it.

One thing that’s bad is that I still can’t get away from the idea that sooner or later Hallie and I are going to wind up together. I suppose I’m fooling myself but I can’t get it out of my head.

I don’t know what comes next, but you never do, do you? Just one damned thing after another. Thanks for suffering through this. It’s a pretty funny letter, but then the whole thing adds up to a pretty funny book.

I was just looking at No Score to see how I ended it, and it went like this:

I hate it when the author steps in at the end of the book and tells you what it was all about. Either you find it out for yourself or it’s not worth knowing about. So I’ll just say goodbye and thanks for reading this, and I’m sorry it wasn’t better than it was.

That makes a good ending for the book. And for the letter, too.

Love,

Chip