Toward the end of my tenure at Millsaps, the writer’s colony at Ole Miss was building up. Oxford then wasn’t nearly what it is now. I would venture to say the nightlife in Jackson was considerably more active and more fun than in Oxford. I sampled plenty of both.
What Ole Miss had was Barry Hannah and Willie Morris, a fresh beginning and a new look at myself, what I wanted out of life, and what I had to offer the world. Had I done it, my classmates would have been people like Larry Brown and Donna Tartt, but I didn’t. I picked up an application several times. I spoke to an admissions counselor twice about transferring but didn’t.
My father didn’t care for Willie Morris. He said he was a drunk and unreliable. “Most writers are drunk and unreliable,” I said, trying to make him laugh. It didn’t work. I could have said that whenever I go to any of the better restaurants in town, one of his peers and fellow board members would be at the bar, but I didn’t. For guys born in the thirties, drinking too much and smoking too much was almost a requirement. An awful lot of them died from it.
Oxford would not have been out from under my father’s shadow. He graduated from there and spoke there every few years. Sometimes, he and Brum Day would make a trip to Oxford for a baseball game. Still, it was an opportunity to start fresh and make myself in my own image, but I didn’t do it. My dad’s plan for me seemed so much more secure. Besides, I didn’t have to become a writer to drink too much.
I used to be obsessed with Hollywood. I would save my money, and in the break between spring and summer sessions, I’d drive out and stay for a week at a motor lodge near the Shrine Auditorium. Hanging out at the Ackermansion (anyone could hang out there, just show up on Saturdays. If you don’t know what the Ackermansion was, you really should find out), I met a writer who was my dad’s age. I’d never shown anyone my stories. Not my family. Not my teachers. He was so friendly though. Gentle and kind and wise, like a tall Yoda in tennis shorts.
I showed him some stories I wrote about a world where the old never die, and the young never grow up. Everyone in the middle died out centuries ago. Cetatians and Cephalopods reveal themselves to have been the most intelligent creatures on Earth all along. I always thought there was a novel in that. I still do.
He encouraged me to write. He said he had a friend who taught writing at USC and would speak to him on my behalf if I were interested. I picked up an application and a bottle of whiskey and completed both in the hotel room one night. When I woke up and sobered up, I thought I really should throw that away before I did anything foolish. Instead of that, I did something foolish, dropped it off at the desk, and paid the clerk fifty cents for a twenty-five cent stamp.
At the Else School of Business at Millsaps, they talked about “flying a trial balloon.” I had a degree from there—just barely. During the stretches when my brother’s illness was calm or when he was hospitalized, my father liked to eat at the Sunday Brunch at the Jackson Country Club. I’m not sure why; it always worried him to death waiting to get everybody together so we could go through the line, and his mother was stopping to speak to every other little old lady in that part of Hinds County. There were an awful lot of little old ladies congregating at the Jackson Country Club. Mink stoles when it’s only sixty degrees outside always amused me.
When it got to the point where you could see plate under everybody’s lunch, I spoke up. “I’ve been talking to an admissions counselor at USC. They want me to come talk to them about their film writing program.” My friend’s reputation as a writer gave his recommendation of me some weight. I don’t often tell this story, and I didn’t even tell my father who the writer was. I probably never will tell anybody. You wouldn’t believe me anyway.
“Why, that’s in California.” My grandmother said. Apparently, I was in danger of cavorting with Yankees. I’d done it before.
“Come see me tomorrow. Show me what they sent you, and we’ll talk about it,” my father said.
We did talk about it. “If you feel like you need to do this, then you should,” he said. I think I would have gotten a similar response if I had told my father I was going to become a Jew or marry another man. My father would have accepted any of that, even my being a writer, but it just wasn’t his plan for me.
I had become entangled with a woman who was having a pretty horrible life. A horrible life that wasn’t, in any way, her fault, but it was still happening to her. I really should have just avoided blondes. They tended to be more trouble than the dark tones I preferred. I promised I’d stay by her side until things got better. I thought that maybe just promising it would help. I also thought spending an awful lot of time and money would help, too. Whatever the case, whatever I was trying to accomplish with her hadn’t been accomplished yet.
I wrote my friend in Hollywood that I appreciated his efforts on my behalf, but for the moment, I felt like my father was counting on me to help with the Office Supply Company. That wasn’t exactly true. My father said I could go, and I wasn’t very much help with the Office Supply Company, but I had this unresolved promise. As much as I wanted to be a writer, the idea that I might actually accomplish it, even paying my rent by it, seemed impossible. It would be another five years before I began making trips to Hollywood again.
When I did go back, he would ask “Are you still writing?” I was, but I wasn’t showing anyone.
Confidence in art is a funny thing. Almost nobody has it, and those who do are often assholes. I know people who are successful artists, writers, and musicians who are assholes about it specifically because nobody thought they could ever do it. Not giving up is key. It’s so easy to say, “This isn’t very good. My work isn’t nearly as good as that other guy. I probably should stick with waiting tables, selling cars, or working in an office. Nobody wants to buy my stuff anyway.” There are a million best-selling books that will never be printed because somebody believed that.
Except for Donna Tartt and that Blonde Girl, everybody in this story is a ghost now. As outrageous as it sounds, I outlived them all, and I’m still writing. I can’t say that’s fair. They were much better at this life thing than I am.
Something about almost dying made me decide to start showing the world what I was writing on a silly little website my step-daughter convinced me to sign up for, and now I’m almost ready to start believing I really am a writer.
I've made about two thousand dollars on writing, including stories I wrote years ago for the seventy-fifth anniversary of King Kong. Clearly, I haven’t figured out how to make it pay yet. People are reading, though, and I honestly believe that one day I’ll connect the dots and at least make enough money at this to say I’m a legitimate writer.
I know that Brownian motion is supposed to apply to teeny-tiny particles, like dust motes or pollen granules, but perceived size depends on distance from that which is perceived, and if we back far enough away from ourselves and our histories, the random pathways that led to the truly significant encounters that affected the course of our lives take on a decidedly Brownian nature.
Thanks for sharing your writing journey. I love that you continued to write, regardless of the shit life was handing you. THAT alone makes you a "real writer." You've inspired me to write about my own circuitous route to the point of showing my work at age 45, after I led my father's life and decided to make up my own. Love reading your posts. Excellent writing.