… sunbaked funereal places … E.g.: Las Vegas, NV; Palm Springs, CA; Phoenix, AZ; St. Augustine, FL; Santa Fe, NM; etc.
… an accounting ledger … Purchased at his local stationery store, Laverty & Son, on Eighth Avenue between Thirteenth and Fourteenth Streets in New York. The store no longer exists.
— XXVI —
… canned 3.2 beer from a case … The beer, from an Army beer hall, had an alcohol content of 3.2 %, and was slightly more potent than water.
… the beer hall … The beer hall in question was at Fort Hood, Texas; at the time — Spring 1952—THE home of the Second Armored Division (“Hell on Wheels”). No officers were anywhere in sight on this wholly uneventful day.
… one had Lone Star, the other Pearl … Two brands of beer that were and, taking into account various corporate acquisitions, nominally still are indigenous to Texas.
… It was Rosie! … “Rosie” was Marvin Rosenthal, a corporal with the Seventh Infantry Division; “Koenig” was Walter Koenig, a PFC from the same division.
… chickenshit motherfucker platoon sergeant … The reference is to SFC Luther Crittenden, also of the Seventh Division.
— XXVII —
… More stories … The reader may make his own list, and may be astonished to realize how long it finally is.
… Henry James … No writer’s antennae have ever been as good at detecting well-mannered social and sexual sadism.
— XXVIII —
… its rejection slip clipped … I have no idea if the New Yorker uses or used formal rejection slips.
… printed-out “stuff”… Steve thought the word “stuff” democratic and non-elite, it perhaps made him feel like Clifford Odets, although in any case the word seems somewhat out of place in connection with electrostatically transferred, heat and pressure-fused printed documents.
… in a writing workshop with Steve at the New School … “Writing for Publication” was the official title of the course.
— XXIX —
… admitted to the hospital immediately … The hospital was the Caledonia, located on Prospect Park South. It is now called the Caledonian Campus of the Brooklyn Hospital Center. The nurse’s aides wore plaid jumpers.
… he’d drive him in his car … the car was a 1951 Olds….
… lit one of his Lucky Strikes … By now, of course, in their wartime white package, the switch from OD being a great advertising coup — profit in patriotism.
— XXX —
… at his wife’s office … The office was the Kew Gardens Branch of Thermo-Fax Sales, a division of 3M.
… a gym or an aerobics class … Aerobics classes were virtually unknown in the fifties and sixties.
… three “really encouraging” letters … There were no letters, but he began to believe that he had been praised and encouraged by various flunkeys working at Thanatos, Cistern, Blackfriars Review, and, amazingly, The New Cadmean.
… down in the romantic Caribbean … Natives usually do not use the word “romantic” to describe that part of the world.
— XXXI —
… days of Juicy Fruit … The flavor of this chewing gum has no relation to any fruit known to man.
… and the Milano Restaurant … This restaurant persists in memory as being located on West Fortieth Street near Eighth Avenue.
… existent only in his mother’s stories … One of which was that his father had spent $1,000 for a cigar as they left the Milano: the implication was that this “transaction” was slightly illegitimate, perhaps even criminal.
… drunk on cheap whiskey … E.g., Wilson “That’s All,” Paul Jones, Schenley Silver Label, Fleischmann’s, Four Roses, Three Feathers.
… whom he always thought of, to be truthful, as a hambone…. Although he was a wonderfully demonic Mr. Hyde, an erotically charged fiend.
— XXXII —
… who lived in the apartment above his … Perhaps he had what used to be called a “club foot.”
… whose wife had died in misery … Cause of death unknown.
… whose children were callous … They were minimally attentive, but cold and distant; this may have had something to do with the fact that they believed he had little or no savings.
… lovely of face and figure … The phrase is not actually “written,” but lies at the side of the road.
… did not say what he thought … Let’s assume that he thought nothing at all.
— XXXIII —
… the book of poetry … Title: The Future of Eternity; the publisher was Knopf. The reviews compared the poems — famously — with those of Elizabeth Bishop, a bad sign.
… his street crusted over … This was in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, where Colonial Road “becomes” Marine Avenue.
… that he’d never given up smoking … It was too late, anyway: he had developed lung cancer which had metastasized to his brain (these are some of the brands of cigarettes he smoked over some sixty years in rough chronological order: Wings, Twenty Grand, Sweet Caporal, Old Gold, Philip Morris, Pall Mall, Herbert Tareyton, Lucky Strikes, Camel, Gauloises, Marlboro Lights, Camel Filters).
— XXXIV —
… into the mountains … The mountains are easier to imagine than the sea, which almost always confounds memory.
… amusement park … Cf. Steeplechase, Luna Park, Dreamland.
… blew her skirt up … This was one of the cruder amusements at Steeplechase in the 1940s.
… the Big Lasso … This was a ride much like the Whip — rough and unsubtle.
… his convertible … A 1948 Buick.
… real ferryboats once made regular runs … The boats were small and painted a curiously drab olive green.
… or so Boys’ Life reported … In a piece by Carl Olssen, “Temptation in the Woods.”
… “My beer is Rheingold, the dry beer” … Rheingold beer was brewed in Brooklyn, NY, and was famous for its Miss Subways monthly displays in subways, cars, and buses.
… Flagg Brothers … These shoes were highly popular among high school boys ca. 1945–1947. They had to be dyed cordovan or were considered beneath contempt and unwearable.
— XXXV —
… to ride up to her thighs … Women always seem to know when they are “showing something,” as they say. (This phrase maybe obsolete or quaint.)
… intentions were very clear … Crude behavior often mutely begs forgiveness if presented or enacted as impossible to reign in, “natural.”
… roughly, angrily yanked her skirt down … Eros is to be found everywhere at this party, working, however, rather fitfully.
— XXXVI —
… mediocre state university … What was called, in saner times, a “rube school” or a “football school.”
… Redwood Review … Its original title was Eldorado Review, rather pointedly named after the erstwhile Cadillac model.
— XXXVII —