Bruce Wagner - The Empty Chair

After a few months, the emails tapered off. Carolyn was pushing 80. I started to worry that her health might be an issue. So I resolved to do something bold. I decided to travel to England to meet my pen pal. Why not? Money wasn’t a problem; anyway, I’d always wanted to visit the Lake District and see where Wordsworth and Coleridge hung out. Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth , imagine being a homophobe and living there ! But I was actually thinking in historical terms, literary history mind you, albeit minor literary history, and my idea was to write a piece about the whole experience for a journal or a magazine. The notion of how we met and my flying over to meet her struck me as just the sort of thing that might also be turned into a wonderful little independent film. So I wrote to her and said that it happened I was going to be in the Commonwealth — I never told her that she was the only reason I was coming — and would she be amenable to receiving a visitor? She said she would and that was that.

Have you seen photos of her? I mean, when she was younger? They’re in all the Beat biographies. There aren’t so many, nothing “iconic,” she wasn’t really a looker. I think probably no one really wanted to take her picture, she was kind of a Debbie Downer. A pain-in-the-ass snob with a stick up her ass. There’s nothing worse than a dumb snob, and prudish to boot. It seems like the same few photos are reprinted, over and over. She always looks like she had gas or was being forced to watch dogs copulate — that would be Jack and Neal! Or Neal and Allen. Or Allen and Jack. What stands out the most, in the shots I’ve seen, is her male energy. She looks stern, almost mannish. Which makes total sense, knowing all we know now. Of course the Bell’s palsy didn’t help the overall look.

When I called from London to confirm our appointment, I was beside myself. Welcome to Phil Dick’s Match-dot-com! It was the first time I’d actually heard Carolyn’s voice. She pleasantly offered directions to her place. She said she knew nothing about the “motorways” and the only route she could recommend was the approach from Windsor Castle. Which I thought was apt, because she was royalty — it didn’t matter that everyone but Neal thought she was a pill and a sonofabitch. She was still the Queen and always would be. And boy, did she let you know it!

She came to the door like a movie legend expecting her biographer, a cross between Barbara Stanwyck — there it was, that male, Stanwyck energy — and Doris Day (the latter-day Doris, the one I’ve seen in pictures with her doggies in Carmel Valley). She had a throwaway elegance, an aggressively pretentious modesty, as if her role model was Queen Elizabeth in those “rugged” shots in the Land Rover at Balmoral. After all, Carolyn had decades of experience being the grail, or the next best thing anyway, for thousands of fanboys like myself. She’d outlived her men, and in direct bloodline to the gods, had gained immortality herself—

She asked me in for “a cuppa and nibbles” and it wasn’t long before she turned on the poison spigot. I’m no Kipling, but I’ll do my best to give you a flavor …

[A hilarious impersonation of an American dowager followed, his voice taking on a sporadic, contrived “English” inflection] “By the time Neal was with the Pranksters, he just wanted to die. The trouble was, he no longer believed in suicide. His religion was against it. So he rolled busses, he kept ‘rolling’ busses. I told Kesey it was terrible what was going on but he didn’t want to hear it — Kesey stopped talking to me. They all stopped talking to me, heaven knows why. One day Neal showed up at my house without shoes, looking dreadful. I said, ‘Why are you still with Kesey?’ and Neal said, ‘Honey, people look at me and expect me to perform.’

“Allen was very close to my son. And Allen was lovely — for a time. But around 10 years before he died, he decided he wanted nothing to do with me. We named my son John Allen, after Jack and Allen. When John was a boy, he loved playing with Allen. When Allen was dying, John asked me what he should do because it’d been quite some time since they’d spoken. I said, ‘Call him!’ So John did and the person on the other end said, ‘You know, Allen would have loved to talk to you but he’s in a coma now.’ I’d go see Allen before he decided not to talk to me, he was in London all the time. He’d come for a reading or to do this or that, see one person or the other, and I’d go see him whenever he needed a pair of hands —he loved applause. He even went to Venice on a stretcher because they were giving him some kind of an award. As long as Allen was being honored, he’d show up! I told him years ago, if you can’t learn to accept the plaudits for what they are , it’ll never be enough, you’ll never be able to get enough praise. Right up to the end he thought he was worthless. He thought he was worthless when he was young, and he thought as much right before he died.

“Ferlinghetti decided to dislike me because I said his manager was ripping him off. He didn’t want to hear that. I was owed a lot of money and they finally paid something , like $500 —they wrote me a check. I told him the fellow was stealing from him, but he liked the fellow and didn’t want to hear it. He’s got a different manager now. [He pretended I’d asked him a question] What do I think of whom ? Joyce Johnson? Oh, her. 3 She’s, well— ugh —I won’t get into that. They’re all whores and hangers-on. They slept with Jack once and all of them want to write about it. [Again, he pretended to be engaged by an invisible interlocutor] Who? Oh! That one always liked Burroughs — which probably explained why he stopped talking to me, and why I stayed away.”

They all seemed to stay away from Dame Fag Hag Iron Lady! I’m really channeling that cunt… What else did we talk about? Allen Ginsberg’s visit to Ezra Pound in Italy — Ginsberg and Pound must have been hungry for a pair of hands, no doubt! And Peter Ackroyd. I’m not sure how Mr. Ackroyd came up, but dear Carolyn had an opinion!

“Oh yes, he’s a wonderful biographer. I used to stay in his house in London whenever I was in the city. He’s written some marvelous books — the big one about Dickens — that’s the one he’s known for — I haven’t read the last few — he stopped drinking and now he’s so fat . We don’t talk anymore, I used to know why , but I can’t remember just now. Don’t care, really…

“ Joyce Johnson and I do not speak. She’s jealous! My God, how those women lived! Sleeping around — with anyone. I never did that—

“The fact is, I never liked most of their writing much — the Beats— none of them —never did. Jack wrote a few good ones. But you see, I went to Bennington. I was a discerning reader. I was disciplined, I had a classical education. Do you know that’s what Neal was seeking? Classicism and a traditional life. He wanted respectability. That was how he wanted to live and we did that. Neal was able to get along with people of all classes. And I had respectable friends. That was all Neal really wanted. Neal never had a mother. That’s what he was looking for in me.

“I make good money now, they come and pick my house clean as a bone! I call them the ‘Archive People.’ The Archive People come and comb. And wow, do they know what they’re looking for. In one of my memoirs, I wrote about a book Jack liked, by Sri Au — Sri Audi -something — like the car — no, hold on, let me look… I’ve got one of his over here somewhere— Sri Aurobindo. I don’t know what the ‘Sri’ is all about, maybe it’s supposed to be ‘sir’ but someone got dyslexic. He was a sage, from India, one of those holy men who appealed to Jack. I wrote somewhere that Jack made notes in the margins of books — even I forgot, but the Archive People didn’t! They asked me if I still had it and I said I didn’t know so they came over and we looked, and they found it. O there’s quite a market! I sold a sticker, and this was a tiny ‘Can You Pass the Acid Test?’ signed by Neal, I think I got 75,000 after commission. You know, that was the little diploma they used to give… or maybe I got the 75 before commission. Gave it all to my son, told him to use it, because he was destitute. Don’t wait till I’m dead , I told him. See, he’s out there selling cars and no one’s buying.