Write to me soon. I love you.
P. S. Do you ever discuss any of these things with Lloyd Parsons? I gather from your letters that he’s your closest friend in the hootch, but I was wondering if your relationship is that free. I imagine the Army’s integration is real enough — I can’t, for example, visualize any racial conflict on a patrol into enemy territory — but sometimes I wonder.
June 22, 1966
Darling,
I have to run out to look at an apartment that suddenly materialized on St. Mary’s Street — kitchen, living room, and two bedrooms, all for $125.00! (Its last occupant was a maiden lady who drove it only on Sundays.) Carol is yelling for me to hurry up, and we’re going over to C’est Si Bon afterwards for some onion soup and those great pâté sandwiches, and won’t be back till late tonight so I won’t have a chance to write to you. I’ll just stick a stamp on this and mail it when I go down, A WRIGHT, SHADDUP ALREADY!
I love you,
June 24, 1966
Dearest Wat,
I think we may get the apartment, but it’s not a certainty yet. Two other girls had been to look at it before us, and they left a deposit on it. But they’re not sure they’re going to take it because one of the girls had rheumatic fever last fall, and it affected her heart, and she’s not sure her parents will dig her climbing all those steps every day. I hope they’re as much concerned about the poor kid’s health as I am, because Wat this is the most terrific apartment ever, with this little entrance alcove lined with bookshelves, and a tiny kitchen off to the left and a fairly decent-sized living room and, of course, the two bedrooms. They’re both very small, but can you imagine the luxury of not having to listen to Carol arguing on the phone with her mother, or not having to yell at her to put out the light? Can you imagine how nice it’ll be to reach for a ribbon on the dresser top and not stick my hand into a cold cream jar Carol has left open? Darling, keep your fingers crossed for me. If we don’t get this apartment, I’m going to enter a life of prostitution.
Meanwhile, other troubles loom.
What do you do with a cat when you go home for the summer? Carol’s parents own a Great Dane who would swallow poor Rusty in a second. My parents would appreciate a cat as much as a case of German measles, and we can’t find anyone here to take the poor beast, even though she’s turning out to be an excellent mouser. (At least she doesn’t run away from them any more.) It occurs to me suddenly that perhaps you could use a mobile mouse trap for under your hootch out there. The rat population being what it is in Vietnam, Rusty could perform a much-needed service while perhaps simultaneously becoming the company mascot, on lesser inspirations have entire wars been won. Vot you say, big boy? Shall we wrap her as a gift? Sorry we don’t have any of the ball-bearing kind, but who knows what sexy Rusty may lure to the camp? She certainly seems to be doing all right with our back alley tenor? Yes? No? I send? I don’t?
I won’t even discuss how shitty I think it was of your C.O. to refuse the R and R. You’ve been there for four months already, and it’ll be six months by August (when I could have gotten away very easily) and I think the old bastard might have broken his heart and said yes.
I miss you. I want you. I love you.
June 28, 1966
Wat darling,
Please forgive this odd-looking stationery. Carol and I are in the midst of packing all our things, and I can’t find my usual dainty, lady-like, jonquil-colored, quality writing paper. You guessed it (God, are you intelligent!) we got the apartment! Papa of the rheumatic fever victim called his child prepaid from Tampa, Florida, to say he would not have her climbing five flights to an apartment even if it was the Taj Mahal, which it couldn’t possibly be in a place like Boston, and the answer was No, definitely No, N-O, double O, O. So the landlady refunded the deposit, which was really very nice of her since she didn’t have to, and then called us to report what had happened and to say the place was ours if we still wanted it. Still wanted it?!?! Carol and I ran from here to St. Mary’s (eight blocks) in a matter of six seconds, showered a month’s advance rent on the poor bewildered old lady and made wild promises such as we’d be in bed by eight o’clock each night after we had eaten all our Pablum. Anyway, it’s ours, and we’re moving in tomorrow, and then locking the place up for July and August. Mommy and Daddy are already on the Cape, and I’ll be going there directly from here, so that’s that.
Roxanne’s wedding was absolutely beautiful, just a simple ceremony, but I wept all the way through it anyway, and practically couldn’t sign my name straight when it came time to witness the certificate. The reception afterwards in her parents’ apartment was somewhat crowded, to say the least. Try to picture four or live hundred relatives and friends packed into a place that’s identical to my parents’, Wat, only two floors lower down. It was possible to get intimate with someone just by being introduced! (Now don’t start worrying about that, I’m only kidding.) The food was marvelous, and there was plenty to drink, and I met a lot of kids Roxanne and I used to go to Dalton with, and we got very weepy all over again, and it was a thoroughly enjoyable female experience. The only sad part of it was that you weren’t there to enjoy it with me. But that, Wat, is the only sad part about my entire life.
Come home soon.
You hear me?
I have now marked the exact end of your tour on next year’s little calendar at the back of my appointment book: March 30, 1967. I expect to meet you wherever your plane lands, and we’ll throw champagne glasses in the lire and pretend there never was a stupid war. March 30th is exactly 276 days from now, you think I’m not counting?
Hey, guess what? We got rid of Rusty. I suppose I shouldn’t put it quite so crassly, but I must admit the cat was beginning to be a severe pain, and both Carol and I were getting quite anxious about what to do with her come the end of the week. She chewed up my best nylons (the cat, not Carol) on Friday, and I had to rush out to buy another pair before going down for the wedding, as if things weren’t hectic enough with the apartment hanging in the balance and with Carol moaning about having flunked Descriptive Astronomy. (She really was surprised, can you believe it? By the way, I passed Renaissance Lit with a B, so I expect you to send me some kind of award from out there in the jungle, like maybe an orchid picked from a tree, or a smooth pebble from a stream, or perhaps even a piece of bamboo drilled with evenly spaced holes, upon which I can play ancient tunes like “And I Love Her.” I will leave it to your imagination.) Anyway, we had a girl from Simmons up for dinner Sunday night when I got back from New York, oh, listen, this was some production. Candlelight and wine, you know, and Rusty cute as anything with a blue ribbon around her neck, cocking her head to one side, the whole adorable quizzical cat routine, Carol and I dressed to kill and stumbling all over ourselves in our efforts to please. When we were mixing the salad in the kitchen, Carol suggested that we turn the Simmons girl on, but I thought this might be a bit much for someone from Muncie, Indiana. In fact, she even declined the scotch we offered, and I thought our entire NBC Special might be preempted, as they say in TV Land, but Rusty rescued the day by climbing gently into her lap after dinner, and purring against her bosom, and I’m happy to report it was love at first sight. Carol is even now delivering Rusty to the girl’s room on Park Drive, over near the Fine Arts Museum, so thank God for that! If I ever write to say I’m about to take in another pet, please send me a hand grenade by return airmail.