That was when I said what I said about the morning my roommate and I had circled over to the library on our way to our early English class period and found him already there sitting on the steps with his trumpet case between his legs and with an open book on his knees. And when I said I remember the book and it was The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, he said he remembered the book but not the encounter. And I said it was not a verbal encounter. I said I just happen to be the kind of freshman who was very curious about what kind of reading other than textbooks and reference assignments upperclassmen were doing. And so was my roommate, I said, and he knew who you were by name because he had already started going over to the band cottage to practice with the French horn section because he wanted to make the free trip home with the band when it went along with the football team for the annual game against Wilberforce in Chicago. I knew that you were waiting on steps for the doors to open because I knew you worked in the library, I said. Because I had seen you working at the main circulation desk.
That’s all I said about that at that time and that was when he told me what he told me about how he had come to have use of the Fifth Avenue workshop we were in. It was not really his, he said. It had been leased from the jewelry company by one of his very well-to-do friends, a writer who spent long periods away in Europe doing research for scholarly and critical books and articles on French, Italian, and German writers and artists.
It turned out to be just what I needed to make me buckle down and really try to find out what I could do with some of this stuff I’ve been playing around with from time to time, he said. And then he said, Man, if I can get enough of this stuff to come off the way I think it should I just might be able to cause a few people to reconsider a few things they take too much for granted. It’s not just a matter of saying this is my way of coming to terms with this stuff, it’s more like saying Hey, this is another way that might be even better or at least a pretty good alternative. It really is a matter of trying to test the validity of one’s own sense of things.
And, of course, you know I know that there are going to be some people out there who are going to think I’m out of my mind. Or wonder if I have a mind. But what the hell, man, that’s a chance I’m willing to take. After all, trying to do what I’m trying to do with this stuff is exactly what I put the horn aside for. I didn’t give up on that horn, man, he said. Hell, I can still make a living with it, but I’d rather be trying to do what I’m trying to do with this stuff, some of which I must admit sometimes sounds pretty wild, even to me. But I’m afraid it really does represent my sense of what life in these United States is like.
Then, while I was looking at titles on the bookshelves and thinking of what I was going to say about some of the books of contemporary poetry and fiction I knew he had read in college, he stepped back out into the showroom and said something to somebody there, and when he came back and said what he said about what I had told him in the snack bar about the courses I was taking, that was when he also said, Man, I sure hope your class work is not going to keep you so tied down that you won’t have enough free time for us to get together from time to time when I get this stuff up to the point where I’m going to need to start running it by somebody.
Somebody not only from down the way but also somebody who spent even more time in that neck of the woods than I did. And you might just be the one I suddenly realized that I should have been looking for. Somebody from down the way who’s also interested in what books are really about. Man, most of the grad students I run into up here seem to think of poetry and fiction mainly as raw material for research projects that will enhance their academic status.
I said, I know what you mean, I really do. I said, Man, I think that was the first big thing I realized when I got to college. Some courses were about grade-point averages, but some were about the nature of things, and I don’t mean just geology, physics, and chemistry classes. All of that was obvious. I mean the way some of the liberal arts courses were taught. Man, I used to go to the library to work out academic assignments, but what I really did was get the class work out of the way so I would have more time free to get on with trying to find out what literary books were really all about, without being concerned about answering test questions about them.
Then I said, Hey, speaking about research and homework assignments, as things down in Washington Square are going now, I’m pretty sure I can find time to listen to whatever you decide you’d like to run by me from time to time some weekends. Just let me know ahead of time. Not that I can promise any editorial expertise, but that’s not what you’re looking for
