Pete Hamill - Loving Women

BB gave me a book to read, by a guy named Richard Wright. The man is a Negro. There were things in the book that I’d never thought about before. For example:

“Among the subjects that white men would not discuss with Negroes were the following: American white women; the Ku Klux Klan; France, and how Negro soldiers fared while there; French women: Jack Johnson; the entire northern part of the United States; the civil war, Abraham Lincoln; U.S. Grant; General Sherman; Catholics; the Pope; Jews; the Republican Party; Slavery; Social Equality; Communism; Socialism; the 12th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution; or any topic calling for positive knowledge or manly self-assertion on the part of the Negro.”

It made me think that I should discuss all this with the Negroes but I don’t know much about any of it. It’s like a lot of other stuff: I feel ignorant most of the time, not just when I hang out with the Negroes. It’s with everybody. The dumbest thing I ever did was dropping out of high school. I thought nobody from Brooklyn could ever get to college and now I meet guys like Dunbar and they tell me college isn’t that hard, that I could go when I get out. But I can’t wait that long to learn about everything. I keep thinking I should just read the whole damned encyclopedia from A to Z. In a way, that’s what they really mean by “hip”—knowing everything.

The Boulder. Do I really feel it? Or am I imagining it? And if I only imagine it, is it real? I know the feeling is real but it makes me feel ashamed, like I can’t control myself. I hate the way feelings just take over. But if I didn’t feel anything, what would I be? A rock. A plant. There’s gotta be some way to have both .

Vagina. The passage leading from the uterus to the vulva in certain female mammals. A sheathlike part or organ .

Vulva. The external female genitalia .

Uterus. The portion of the oviduct in which the fertilized ovum implants itself and develops or rests during prenatal development. The womb of certain mammals .

Clitoris. The erectile organ of the vulva, homologous to the penis of the male .

(Where did all the street names come from? Cunt, pussy, snatch, box, furburger, muff, crack, quim, crevice, twat. The glory hole. The bearded clam. And cunt. Always cunt. Cunt and cunt and cunt.)

“But above all, the best thing is to draw men and women from the nude and thus fix in the memory by constant exercise the muscles of the torso, back, legs, arms, and knees, with the bones underneath. Then one may be sure that through much study attitudes in any position can be drawn by help of the imagination without one’s having the living forms in view.” —Vasari on technique. (In the base library.)

Why are so many goddamned countries run by old men? Eisenhower’s already old and he just started the job, and there’s Churchill in England and Adenauer in Germany and Chiang in Formosa and this prick Syngman Rhee in Korea. The papers say the war could be over by now, that we have a deal for this peace treaty, but Rhee won’t sign. Our guys keep getting killed and Rhee doesn’t give a rat’s ass. He wants it his way. So he will keep the war going as long as there’s enough Americans to do the fighting. We ought to shoot the old bastard. How do they do it? How do they get people to obey them? They couldn’t beat up anyone in a street fight. How do they make young people go places to die?

I find myself reading more and more of the front of the newspaper. Now there’s a new thing, the French in Indochina, and it seems like it’s getting worse. Dulles says it’s all tied up with Korea, but from the papers you see right away that the French shouldn’t be there. The place is a colony, and the Indochinese want the French the fuck out. The French won’t go, so the Indochinese are trying to shoot them out. When does this shit end? They also say there is a Communist govt in Guatemala. At least that’s closer to home, though I’m not even sure where Guatemala is. Gotta check the atlas .

(I also find myself forgetting about the comics sometimes, and I worry about it. I still read Sawyer and Canyon, and I glance at Li’l Abner and Joe Palooka. But I used to read everything on the comics page. I told people who laughed at me , Hey, this is just like a lawyer reading law books. Since I was eleven I wanted to write and draw a comic strip. But suppose I’m losing the urge? I mean, suppose I don’t care about comics anymore? Then what happens to me? What can I become ?)

I checked the atlas. Guatemala is just south of Mexico .

From The Art Spirit by Robert Henri (great book lent to me by MR):

“Find out what you really like if you can. Find out what is really important to you. Then sing your song. You will have something to sing about and your whole heart will be in the singing.”

That’s so true. Henri is talking about music in order to make a point about art. But it’s also true about singing. I listen to the blues guys singing and the power comes from the fact they are singing about what’s important to them, even if it is pain. Henri also says:

“… Most people go through their lives without ever doing one whole thing they really want to do.”

(My father: it’s true of him. It was probably true of my mother. True of most of the people I know back in the neighborhood, even most of the people in the Navy.)

And Henri says:

“The self-educator judges his own course, judges advices, judges the evidence about him. He realizes that he is no longer an infant. He is already a man: has his own development in process. No one can lead him. Many can give advices, but the greatest artist in the world cannot point his course for he is a new man. Just what he should know, just how he should proceed can only be guessed at.”

Jesus Christ .

When I say the word “I” what do I mean?

One evening we went to the empty beach facing Perdido Bay. I loved the name of the great wide bay because of the loud honking record of “Perdido” by Illinois Jacquet and Flip Phillips. They’d taken a simple tune by Duke Ellington and made something insane of it, a sound without control. The bay didn’t look at all the way the record sounded, but I felt some kinship to it because I’d at least heard the foreign word. Eden told me “ perdido ” meant “lost” in Spanish.

“What does Santana mean?” I said.

“Big holy one,” she said, and laughed sarcastically.

“You don’t think you’re holy?”

“No.”

We walked along the beach and talked about the history of the whole area, the fleets of French and Spanish sailors who washed up on its shores, to die of strange new diseases or to stay too long and die of an aching loneliness. The histories at the base library were vague and sketchy, written for high school students. Which one of those men first called this bay “lost” and why? Eden squeezed my hand. I asked her when her family had come to the Gulf and how and why. She gazed out past the bay and said, “Centuries ago.” Explaining nothing about the how and the why.

And then we stopped. Two men were walking barefoot on the beach far ahead of us, their trousers rolled to their knees. One was short, the other much taller. But even at this distance, I recognized them. The tall one was Miles Rayfield. The other was Freddie Harada.