A History of the African-American People (Proposed) by Strom Thurmond (25 page)

Interoffice Memo

January 6, 2003

Dear Percival,

Now here’s a switch, but not for the first time. Not for the first time do I find myself playing the role of wise counselor, seasoned pro, cool vet to your part as headstrong youth, jumpy hysteric, rank amateur. But in a team such as ours, and I think you’ll agree with this, we both play all the roles. Like a repertory company. We have one of those repertory companies in our little town, not a good troupe, but a troupe all the same; and they all take turns playing different parts. At least I think they do. I only saw them once. It was a production of “The Innocents,” you know, the Deborah Kerr movie thing, based on Henry James’s “The Turn of the Screw,” which you may have read but probably not. The most talented actors were little Miles and Flora. The others ranged from barely mediocre to shut-your-eyes awful. And there was a problem even with the kids. Flora was just fine, but Miles, for all his talent, was costumed in a nightgown, which was appropriate for a kid who is often supposed to be in bed but is actually prowling the grounds, but Miles (the actor) was quite fat, really awfully fat (though I know we shouldn’t say such things without acknowledging that we may be encouraging anorexia), and his nightgown kept creeping up over his thighs, very unseemly.

Anyhow, Percival, please don’t quit. I am really interested in this project. But that’s not the point, really. It’s the first project I’ve had in years, the first real project and not just something I’ve invented a title for and never done. I mean, this I can do, but only with your help and not just because they wouldn’t do it with just me because I’m white. It’s because you’re black, see?

I messed that up. What I mean is, I think this may be my last chance and I plead with you as a friend not to take it away from me.

Jim

S
IMON
& S
CHUSTER
, I
NC
.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020

January 6, 2003

Dear Percival,

My Juniper, I refer to my assistant Juniper McCloud, just told me, after an unconscionable amount of hemming and hawing, that he was responsible for a rough draft, really what we call “dictation copy #1,” being sent to you as if it were a letter.

My apologies. If the burden of that letter—its gist—is unclear, do let me know.

Do you know the song, “I get no kick from champagne! Mere alcohol doesn’t thrill me at all! So tell me, why should it be you? So come do the trick, la la loo”?

This is the last straw with that Juniper. Whatever his virtues, and I won’t say he has none, so don’t spring to his defense, are beclouded by this impertinence. I’d call it insubordinate, wouldn’t you?

Warmest personal regards,

Martin

F
ROM THE
D
ESK OF
P
ERCIVAL
E
VERETT

January 7, 2003

Dear Jim,

Of course I’ll carry on. I hear what you’re saying and we won’t have to mention it again.

I enclose here a copy of a letter from Snell about expenses. I think you got the one from Juniper clarifying the Snell letter. But without the Snell letter, you must have been pretty confused.

So, here we go. You be little Miles and I’ll be Flora. But please don’t wear a nightgown.

Percival

p.s. We do have to find a way to guard ourselves from Strom heavily revising what we write. He strikes me as still partly, if not functionally, literate.

OFFICIAL NOTICE

From: Martin Snell

To:     Juniper McCloud

Date:  January 8, 2003

I hate to be official here, as it sounds so impersonal. However, as what I am about to say, even to you, is really, in its way, not a personal issue, this seems the best format. By “format” I refer to the memo form. What I mean is that it’s personal but it’s not. You and I are persons, and I am writing to you. That makes it personal. It is not “personal” in the sense people use when they say to someone they have accidentally insulted or spilled food on, “nothing personal.” Often, of course, that’s just an excuse, when people say that, and what they mean is, “This is personal as all hell.” But not with me.

As you know, McCloud, Vendetti has been putting great pressure on me to release you to him so he can make use of you. I do not know what use he has of you or what uses he expects you to fulfill. It did not seem quite right for me to inquire. In any event, I have withstood his pressures for a superhumanly long time, considering his tenure here and mine and what a loudmouthed son of a bitch he is. I can no longer withstand them. A lesser man would have caved in long ago. I am sure you appreciate that.

None of this will, I dare say, alter in any way the social side of our arrangement. You know: the busy-buttoned-up-executives-by-day-larking-playboys-by-night duo we have become. I mean, why should it?

Now, you will be thinking that your gaffe, your latest gaffe I mean, wherein you sent a rough draft to Everett and that other fellow, Kindy? You will be thinking that you are being punished for that. Don’t let yourself dwell on such imaginings. After all, you signed on with Simon and Schuster, not with Martin Snell. Try to keep that straight. Of course, I am not going to put up with shoddy work and with such egregious and embarrassing sloppiness. That just stands to reason.

You see now what I mean by it being nothing personal. Be assured that I can always be counted on to do the fair, the just, the kind thing.

S
IMON
& S
CHUSTER
, I
NC
.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020

OFFICIAL NOTICE

To:       Percival Everett

From:  Martin Snell

cc:        Jane Kinkade

Date:   January 8, 2003

Hi!

I trust you are making good progress, but this notice does not concern that point, though you might say while IT doesn’t concern your progress, your progress IS it for me.

What isn’t of any real concern to YOU is the subject of this memo, i.e., notice. However, it’s best to let everybody in on everything. That’s an excellent rule of business management, when it’s used with discretion: it’s best to let everybody in on everything, which is much like letting nobody in on nothing.

Somebody stop me. I’m rolling today.

As of this inst. R. Juniper McCloud (I didn’t know there was an “R” until I looked it up in personnel records. Did you? Anyways, in the records it’s just “R.” Frustrating. What does it stand for, not that it matters, but is it Randolph? That’s my guess) is no longer assigned to your project. He is no longer assigned to me. He remains under Simon & Schuster’s warm wing, at least for now, but he will be working for a Ralph (call me “Ralph”) Vendetti. You don’t know him (Vendetti), but he makes Woody Hayes (remember him?) seem cultivated and suave by comparison. It’ll do McCloud good to work for him, and if it doesn’t, fuck him. Fuck McCloud, I mean; though for that matter, Fuck Vendetti.

So, for now, I will be handling this project myself. Let me assure you that I remain hotly convinced that it is a winner and look forward to seeing the completed manuscript in short order.

O
FFICE OF
S
ENATOR
S
TROM
T
HURMOND
217 R
USSELL
S
ENATE
B
UILDING
W
ASHINGTON
, D.C. 20515

January 10, 2003

Dear Perce and Jim,

Barton here. Your friend or used to be.

I know about the lunch. I knew about it before it happened, by way of a friend who keeps me in touch with the Senator’s social calendar. I am not involved with that sort of thing, with scheduling those meetings where the Senator can give out awards and look up the skirts of Brownie Scouts. I am what you might call his non-social secretary, the guardian of his intelligence, the protector of his positions, the paladin of his integrity and consistency (making sure that he says today more or less what he said yesterday).

But the lunch. I just hope you are satisfied, fully satisfied, with the fruits of that little get-together.

Don’t say I didn’t send a little birdie to sing in your ears a little tune: “Tweet, tweet, oh lovely day, don’t try to see Thurmond, oh wail-a-way.” I told you it would be a miserable waste of time.

You thought you could get straight to the horse’s mouth. But you have to turn the horse around first.

Why did you do it?

I am not sure I can go on walking under the dark clouds of distrust, wetted by your suspicions and petty qualms. Do you suppose you’re the only ones with qualms? Well, think again. You suppose I don’t have qualms, what with never seeing any write-ups of that rich material I have sent you over and over. Oh yes, I have my qualms.

The difference between us is that I would never have farted them, those qualms, in your faces. It’s a matter of honor and charity. I have them; some don’t.

You know, I am trained in the deadlier forms of martial arts, the kinds that make no pretense about being for self-defense. No, mine are of the attack mode exclusively. No oriental occultism, no spiritual enlightenment, just ways to splay noses over seven counties and drive bone into brain.