The Cry of the Sloth

The Mostly Tragic Story of Andrew Whittaker
Being His Collected, Final,
and Absolutely Complete Writings

BY SAM SAVAGE

COFFEE HOUSE PRESS

MINNEAPOLIS :: 2009

What happens to us
either happens to everyone or only to us:
in the first instance it’s banal;
in the second it’s incomprehensible.

—
FERNANDO PESSOA

JULY

Dear Mr. Fontini,

This is for the record. The sheetrocker has submitted his bill for replacing the ceiling in the kitchen. This was, as you are surely aware, a rather large piece of ceiling, more ceiling, in fact, than many people are unfortunate enough to have in their living rooms. Furthermore, this is the second time, which makes it cumulatively more difficult for me to assume the burden of payment. I am not a wellspring of funds—many people would vouch for that. In short, I cannot remit to the repair people funds in excess of $300 out of my pocket. I enclose a copy of the bill for your perusal. Please remit by the time of your next rent due.

Sincerely yours,

Andrew Whittaker,

The Whittaker Company

¶

Dear Jolie,

This is a smaller check than you expected, and that can’t be helped. Never mind what the separation agreement asserts, you know as well as I do the properties are not “income-generating assets.” Even at the time of your departure at least half of them were white elephants or worse, and they are now so heavily mortgaged, so
deteriorated,
they barely suffice to keep my small raft afloat while it is being tossed about on an ocean of shit, meager as it is and weighted with the barest of necessities. (I mean to say the raft is meager; the ocean of shit is, of course, boundless.) By “deteriorated” I mean
falling apart
. Mrs. Crumb attempted to open her bedroom window last week and it tumbled out into the street. She’s going to have to make do with plastic sheeting, and in the meantime I’ve had to knock twenty bucks off her rent. There are new vacancies every month, an unstaunchable hemorrhage. Two of the units off Airport Drive remain unrented despite all my work, even though I have ads running constantly. It’s ninety-seven degrees outside and I don’t dare turn on the air conditioner. The money I am sending now I have siphoned—“diverted” I think is the legal term—from the Repair and Maintenance Fund. You know perfectly well that scrimping there now will only serve to reduce revenues in the future. I recommend you think about that. If Todd Fender calls me I will hang up.

They’ve taken down the big elm tree across the street. It was the last elm on the block. After the sawyers left I went over and stood on the broad white stump and stared across at our house, in the sun and heat, without the mercy of shadows. I was struck by how uninteresting it looks.

The word seems to be out. People have stopped asking me about you and how I’m getting along. Instead, I get looks of silent commiseration, in which I bask. And when I walk, I swing my arms in a manner I take to be jaunty—that’s to confuse and confound them. In the old days I would have carried an ivory-pommeled cane and people seeing me would have said, “There goes that literary gent.” But now they say … Well, what
do
they say?

Affectionately,

Andy

¶

BIG AND COZY! 1730 Airport Drive. Duplex. Both units 2 bdrm 1 bath. Appliances. New paint and carpet. Spacious older-type bldg with many upgrades. Top unit has view of small pond. Centrally located minutes from bus line. $125 + utils.

¶

Dear Marcus,

I count on my fingers, can it really have been eleven years? We promised to keep in touch, and yet … I suppose even “out East” you now and then get wind of our doings back here in Rapid Falls. I for my part have needed only the Sunday supplement of our local
Current
to keep abreast of
your
career. (I chuckle aloud as I write this, remembering how “career” was once a dirty word to our little band of roughnecks; a chuckle tinged with melancholy). They once published a photo of you on your motorcycle. That was certainly a handsome machine; I never saw so much chrome. At the time I considered sending the picture on to you, but was prevented by the thought that you probably have a clipping service. Each time I see your name in print, dear Marcus, or catch a “rave review” of yet another novel, I experience a salience of warm pleasure at the spectacle of an old pal succeeding, a pleasure mingled, I confess, with a small measure of personal satisfaction. And why should it not be? It was I, after all, who led our little gang in those experiments that you and others, including the wily Willy, have honed to such perfection. I think of myself as the spark that lit the conflagration. It’s a pity the idea of directly importing movie characters into the novel has become so vitiated by practitioners of lesser talents than you. Must we count poor Willy among them? I fear for him.

But stay. I am not writing to talk old shop, nor indeed (if I may turn a phrase), to shop old gossip. I have a friend in need. Not a friend of flesh and blood, though I have those as well perforce. I allude to
Soap
:
A Journal of the Arts
, the little literary review of which I am founder and editor, with its annual supplements,
Soap Express
and
The Best of Soap
. I imagine you have heard talk of us in the smaller press, though you might not have been aware of my connection (I don’t blazon my name across the cover), and you might even have seen the mention in
American Aspects
a few years back, in a review of Troy Sokal’s
Moon Light and Moon Dark
, where they contrasted—favorably—
Soap
’s “neomodernist shibboleths” with the “murky enthusiasms” of Sokal’s “smut and manure movement.” Naturally they got almost everything wrong: there is no rivalry between
Soap
and Sokal, and S & M is a “movement” only in Sokal’s imagination. I did send you some early copies of the mag, which you did not acknowledge. Perhaps you never got them.

Permit me to lay out a few of our “firsts.” We were the first to publish Sarah Burkett’s harrowing travelogue
The Toilets of Annapurna
as well as excerpts from Rolf Keppel’s Zen novel
Ball Bearings
. Both were later republished by big New York houses to no small acclaim. I am sure you know the titles even if you have not read the books. (I am sorry to say that a reader would have to scrutinize the microscopic print on the copyright page to learn of our role in bringing those authors to light in the first place, both being basically smalltown nobodies and with manners that show it.) Miriam Wildercamp’s mirror poetry appeared regularly in our pages at a time when no one else would touch it. Our newest discovery is Dahlberg Stint, who I expect will soon be making waves coast to coast. All this in addition to my own stories, reviews, and occasional short poems. I have edited the mag practically singlehandedly for, lo, these seven years. During that time I have pushed hard against a deadening complacency, striving with Poundian fury to establish some minimal standards. I am proud to say that we now and then have managed to shake things up in a positive way.

But obviously an enterprise like
Soap
cannot survive on subscriptions alone. I have had to rob countless hours from my own writing and go about hat in hand in pursuit of public and private grants. It was never enough, and we have been able to survive only through handouts from my own personal funds. Jolie and I even held regular bake sales on the University Mall, and that worked well for a time, but since then I have lost her assistance, not just her baking skills but also her typing and bookkeeping. Two years ago she moved to New York, to Brooklyn, to study theater, even though she had never shown any interest in theater before. In the meantime relations with the local “arts people” have gone very sour, perhaps in part because I no longer have Jolie’s sparkling personality running interference for me. I do have a tendency, I fear, to speak my mind. But I think the root of the problem is that it has gradually dawned upon these people that I am not going to let
Soap
become a dumping ground for their mediocre productions. Things have come to such a pass that
The Art News
feels entitled to regularly mock the journal in their “Monthly Roundup,” referring to it as
“Soup”
and
“Sap”
and other imbecilic permutations,
“Pus”
and
“Glop.”
That alone should tell you what we are up against. I do sometimes envy you in New York.

With the economy what it is—and the apparent incapacity of the Nixon people to do anything about it—my personal income has shrunk, indeed it has shriveled, while expenses have swelled. Unless I take strong steps,
Soap
is going to become permanently derailed. And more bake sales are not going to cut it. Which, dear Marcus, brings me to the point of this all-too-rambling letter. I have something big in mind for next spring. Plans are still sketchy, but I see a kind of symposium cum retreat cum workshop cum writer’s colony sometime in April, just as the daffodils appear. The idea is to bring first-rate talents from around the region together with a paying audience for a weekend of workshops and lectures. As you know, the sort of people who attend these things are not usually terribly well informed about who is who in the literary world (most have probably never even heard of Chester Sill, or Mitsy Collingwood, who have both promised to be there), so it would be a tremendous boost to have at least one “national figure.” And I must say, after the brouhaha around
The Secret Life of Echoes
you are certainly that! So will you come? Along with a resounding “Yes,” I hope you will send along any bright ideas you might have for the program. Nothing is set in stone yet.