Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
I love that story.  I can just see you in the dark in your wet toilet
paper, trenchcoat and mortarboard with tassel, and your father's
so-very-low-key response, waiting until he was alone with your mother
to express alarm.  Perhaps it strikes me the way it does because it's
so different from how my parents might respond.  Either way, I'm
charmed by the story and by your parents, and by the glimpse it gives
us into some of the forces that shaped you.
  

    
No doubt that incident made me what I am today.
  

    
No doubt.

Cal State Fullerton circa 1969/1970, where we both met as students,
seemed to be both a magnet for established science fiction writers as
well as an incubator for potential writers.  In the former category we
had Harlan Ellison, Ted Sturgeon and Ray Bradbury, just to name a few,
and in the later category we had at least you, James Blaylock and KW
Jeter.  

For me, the catalyst for what was to come was an English professor
named Will McNelly, who taught science fiction as well as Chaucer and
other English department classes, but he also wrote science fiction
criticism, intros and forewards, compiled anthologies,and edited _The
Dune Encyclopedia_ which, BTW, contains the only work I personally have
ever published!)

Was McNelly the catalyst for all this activity, do you think, or was
he just coincidental to a process that was ongoing anyway?  Did you
(and Blaylock and Jeter) take any classes from him?  And, you were an
English major, I believe - did you have any writing classes there?  If
you did, were there influences at Fullerton that shaped your later
writing, or were your writing skills pretty fully developed by that
time?  What other writers do you recall being there at the time?
  

    
It turns out that Kim Stanley Robinson was going there then -- but
somehow Jeter & Blaylock and I didn't meet him until years later.  Too
bad -- he'd have been a great addition to our little group of
proto-slackers.

Will McNelly was certainly the magnet that brought the established
authors, but it was Dorothea Kenny (or DeFrance, as she was then
called; little old Irish lady who could put palpable venom into
pronouncing the word _Prot-est-ant_) who was the magnet for us wannabe
writers.  I never did take a class from McNelly -- Blaylock did, dunno
about Jeter -- but I took a lot of them from her: Celtic Myth, Irish
Lit, something called "Writing Seminar" -- and she hosted a writers'
group at her house about once a month.  We'd eat pizza & get drunk on
beer & read our shabby manuscripts ... my book _The Drawing of the
Dark_ (which was about beer, in fact) was dedicated to her.  She really
did have an effect on at least what Blaylock and I were writing -- and
in fact we've consulted her in recent years for sources on the Holy
Grail and things like that. 

I did run into McNelly a lot, like in the hall of the English
Department when it was still on the 7th floor of the Humanities
Building -- and he was always very friendly & jovial; but it was
deFrance/Kenney who really polarized Blaylock & I.

It was the McNelly connection, though, of course, that led us all into
Phil Dick's orbit.  We'll get into that next week, I gather.
  

    
Oh heck, why wait?

The book I am currently reading contains the blurb:  "Influenced by SF
master Philip K. Dick, Powers taps into Dick's surrealistic style to
great success" - Library Journal.

So let's get into it:  How did you happen to meet Phil Dick and what
kind of influence did he have on your life, your writing, and your
career?  Was he influential in getting your first work published?
  

    
Well, let's take this in pieces.  And of course you were there, so
I'll rely on you for corrections & amplifications!

In early '72 Phil had been living in Canda for some months, having
simply _stayed on_ after a convention Guest of Honor gig in Vancouver,
and let his house in Marin County go.  In fact he was living in a
Canadian heroin-rehab place, though he had checked in because of being
suicidal, not because of being a heroin addict.  (Some bits of this
story are peculiar.)  And in early '72 he wrote a letter to Will
McNelly saying, basically, "I need a place to live."  McNelly read this
letter aloud to his SF class, which seems questionable, and two young
ladies in the class piped up, "We just lost a roommate!  This guy in
Canada can live with us!"  And such was Phil's desperation that he
elected to take them up on it.  

And of course you and I knew the young ladies, and so one night we all
piled into your yellow Camaro and drove out to LAX!  And soon enough
there he was, Philip K. Dick himself, coming through the gate with a
suitcase tied shut with an extension wire.  He was broad-shouldered and
tanned from having, as he said, pitched logs for weeks at the heroin
place, but under his game grin he looked haunted and lost, I thought. 
He seemed like a guy at the last inch of the last rope -- which he
pretty well was, right then.  I remember he was carrying a Jehovah's
Witness translation of the Bible, which he said was to mollify Customs.
  

    
I hadn't read anything of his except for _Time Out of Joint_ some
years earlier, and so I wasn't dazzled into stammering incoherence, as
I would have been with Leiber or Heinlein, or with Dick himself if I
had read more of his work.  The roommate arrangement didn't work out --
he was given a couch to sleep on, and was expected to pay for all the
groceries -- but soon he moved in with a newly-divorced guy who had a
two-bedroom apartment, and there was a faily idyllic period there.  I
was reading his books in a rush, and rapidly coming to realize that
this gray-bearded guy with whom we were all gabbing and drinking cheap
wine was probably the best writer I'd ever know.
  

    
Do you remember the three CSUF girls who were living across the hall? 
One afternoon one of them had come over to Phil & Joel's apartment to
tell us about her many, many woes --  I was sitting next to her, and
Phil was across the table, and he and she were looking earnestly at
each other as she talked -- and I happened to have in my pocket a pair
of those fake-nose-&-eyebrows glasses -- so I put it on, and then
whipped it off again as soon as I saw Phil's eyes widen.  I was deadpan
when she glanced to the side at me -- I shrugged -- and Phil just went
whooping out of his chair, laughing helplessly, and it appeared to be
that he was laughing at some detail of her troubles.

There were many such great moments.
  

    
I've never been able to see a lot of Phil's influence on my writing. 
(For one thing, he's unarguably a far better writer than I am, and I
just don't see a lot of overlap.)  I did probably learn the skitzy
paranoid plotting as much from him as from Pynchon.  Phil did read one
thing each of Jeter's and Blaylock's and mine, that I know of, but I
think all three of us were shy about shoving our silly manuscripts at
him -- though we shoved them at _each other_ often enough.

When Laser Books went bust in '76, I was suddenly broke; and so Phil
read a novel manuscript I had been about to send to Elwood, and then
wrote a letter to his agent at the Scott Meredith Agency, asking the
agent to read my novel and to take me on as a client.  As it happened
the agent didn't like the manuscript -- it was a novel that's never
been published, and the agent said he was frankly mystified by Phil's
enthusiasm for it -- and it was to be many years before I would
actually get an agent.  But Phil had certainly done what he could.

He did help me posthumously -- as I think he meant to, actually. 
(That sounds _occult,_ doesn't it?)  He got into the habit of giving me
the manuscripts of the novels he wrote in the '70s, and he always told
me I was free to sell them if such a course should ever become
imperative.  Eventually it did, and he wound up subsidizing _Expiration
Date._  (He knew, better than most, the rip-tides & reefs of a
professional free-lance career!)

He was always very _pleased_ with my career, the bits of it he lived
to see.  I remember when my first book came out, and he and I went to a
local bookstore to grab some copies.  I was being modest, but Phil
told the cashier, "This guy wrote this book!"  And the cashier smiled
and looked at the book and said, "Well, congratulations, Mr. --" (pause
while she looks for the most prominent name on the cover) "-- Mr.
Elwood!"
  

    
(Roger Elwood was the editor of Laser Books, see.)
  

    
I see!

Do go on.  For example, how did you come to live across the hall from
Phil?  Later, you two traded apartments.  What was that about?
  

    
And, I should add, having been invited to add corrections or whatever,
I just want to add my perspective on the night we all piled into my
Camaro and went to LAX.

I had taken McNelly's SF class, and then Chaucer.  One day he came
into class waving this letter from Phil and read it to us.  My
recollection of what the letter said was a description of how lonely he
was having been dumped by the women he came to Canada with, and how
sad and lonely he was.  I don't recall at all that he said anything
about needing a place to live, all I remember is that he said he needed
a friend.

I could relate, and dashed off a quick note saying that I was saddened
by his letter and I would be his friend.

So imagine my shock when McNelly called me into his office a few days
later and said, "Phil's flying into LAX Thursday night and wants you to
pick him up."  I was stunned, and I knew nothing about the other
students who had written offering him a place to live, and I had no
idea what I was going to do with him when I picked him up.  I thought I
asked you to go with me, but I could be wrong about that.  All I know
is, those other two were furious that I was involved at all.

I had read nothing that Phil had written except that letter.

But, off the the airport we went and picked up a greying, bearded,
portly man, wearing a buttoned up trenchcoat, carrying a package
wrapped in wire and clutching a Bible.  He had the most intense gaze
I'd ever been on the receiving end of and made me exceedingly nervous.

Somehow all of us crammed into the Camaro, and headed off for Norman
Spinrad's house in Laurel Canyon.  On the way, we drove by that
fountain at Wilshire and Santa Monica, the one that has colored lights
playing on it, and that fountain somehow became the metaphor for what
would later transpire.

And, of course, I didn't yet know about the lost, lovely, lonely,
long-dark-haired girls.
  

    
That's right, you asked me.  And I do recall that the other two were
furious -- and they were querulous about your driving.  And yeah, off
we went to Spinrad's!

The apartments -- well, Phil was Joel's roommate, and across the hall
were the three CSUF girls; eventually they moved out, and Phil met
Tessa, who was to become his fifth wife, and Phil & Tessa moved in
where the CSUF girls had been, and I moved into Joel's now-spare room. 
(This is like the fox & chickens & grain riddle.)  So I was Phil's
across-the-hall neighbor -- but I only lived in the one place, we
didn't trade.

Do you remember the landlord?  He was supposed to be an epic, wrathful
drunk who would "take out whole city blocks" with his car, when he got
going.  The landlord somehow got the (erroneous) idea that Phil was
misbehaving with his wife, and was reportedly going to kill him, so
Phil lettered a sign and tacked it to his door: TIM -- HAVE MOVED OUT. 
WON'T BE BACK FOR A LONG TIME.  GOODBYE.  PHIL.  (Though in fact he
was still living there.)  Apparently it served its purpose.
  

    
Wasn't it in that apartment across the hall that Phil had his "pink
beam" experience that led to the writing of his Exegesis?  Were you
still across the hall then?  What was that like?  And, while you're at
it, will you fill us in on exactly what the Exegesis *was*?
  

    
While you're at it, would you relate some stories about living across
the hall from Phil?
  

    
By the time Phil had his pink-beam experience -- March of '74? -- he
and Tess had pretty well distanced themselves from old friends, I
believe -- certainly I hadn't seen them in a while, except at Cal State
once or twice.  But I'm pretty sure he was living on another street
right around the corner -- Ruby?

When I first met him, the major enigma of his life was the
para-military break-in at his house in Marin county in '71; and when we
re-established contact in '75, the major thing was the pink-beam
experience.  But I wasn't around when either one happened!

The Exegesis was the vast stacks of notes (and drawings and diagrams)
that he wrote after the '74 experience, sorting out arguments and
evidences and trying to figure out what the experience had been.  (He
considered everything from "Russian microwave telepathy transmissions"
to the hypothesis that he was simply crazy -- and none of them quite
fit all the evidence.)  

Jeez, Linda -- by the time he was living across the hall he was pretty
well withdrawn from everybody!  And though I remember a couple of
colorful stories, they wouldn't do for public airing.

I do, though, remember that I was (uncomfortably) present when Phil
asked Tess to marry him!  A bunch of us had gone to Disneyland, and at
the end of the day Phil and Tess and I were the first to get to the
Carnation restaurant on Main Street, where we had all agreed to meet
before going back out to the cars.  Tess and Phil and I ordered
hamburgers, and when we were done, Phil turned to Tess and said,
"Tessa, will you marry me?"

Oh God, I thought; act distracted.  So I took the neglected pickle
from Phil's plate and shifted my chair around to eat the pickle and
stare at the crowd.  Tess had opened her mouth to answer, but Phil held
up his hand; and he said, "Powers, what are you doing with my pickle?"
 "Well," I said, "you were finished."  "I was _not_ finished," he
said, "I was saving the pickle for last."  I held it out -- "Okay,
here."  He was frowning; "I don't want it now that you've been gumming
it."  (Tess still had not had a chance to answer.)  "I'll get the
waitress to bring you another," I mumbled.  "No," Phil said, "I don't
want to bother the waitress for another; I just want you to understand
that you should _ask_ people before you go taking things off their
plates!"  Sorry, sorry, jeez -- and by this time the rest of our party
had ambled up, and the conversation shifted to other things.
  

    

Now THAT'S a story.
  

    
When this story first begins, *I* am the one who lived on Ruby, but I
moved shortly thereafter to Quartz Lane, followed in short order by
Phil.  In fact, I was afraid he moved down the street from me
deliberately, but now that I hear the sequence of events, perhaps it
was purely coincidental.

After Quartz Lane, after he married Tessa, they moved to Cameo Lane
(we were all living in the jewelbox area of Fullerton!).  Shortly after
he moved there, I received the following letter from him:

Sept 0, 1973
(if there is one)

Dear Linda,

I feel very sorry you moved away from this neighborhood, because
without you it is suddenly drab and dumb here.  And I wish I had had
the opportunity to say goodbye to you and maybe give you a little
goodbye present.  Anyhow I think of you a lot.  What you added to my
life was glamor.  Looking back I'd say that in a very real sense when I
encountered you I encountered an authentic genius.  You have the same
wild and unpredictable quality that, say, Beethoven had, and he, too,
like you, refused to conform.   Linda, you are a terribly real person. 
I hope you find the professional field in which your genius can
function; then you really will be happy.

As you may know, Tessa and I have our little baby boy, now, and I wish
that you would come by some time and see him.  He scowls all the time;
I think he feels disapproval of his parents.  We have a car -- oh
hell, why am I telling you this?  I just want to tell you that despite
all the pain we inflicted on each other, and all the communications
fuckups, I think back to our relationship as one of the most meaningful
of my life, so God be with you and show you the way to happiness
(maybe he already has).  If you ever need a friend and all your others
are at the movies and you can't call them, call me:  524-7306, and I'll
cheer you.

Why is the ink running out of my typewriter ribbon?  Maybe the
typewriter feels futility; I am writing on water.

I can, without the aid of notes, recall 1,579 funny things you said. 
That's a gift to the world.

Gee, Linda, do you realize it's been ten months since our friendship
broke off?  And yet you are as clear to me, clear and distinct and real
in my mind, as if I had just seen you yesterday.

Love,
Phil

P.S.  We have a new aparment.  The cat, Pinky, likes it.  So it must
be good.  Linda, have you ever cried for six hours straight, without
even being sure why?  But then something funny happens, like the cat
catching a mouse and putting it live in his food dish, because mice are
food and that is where he eats.  Linda...

[then a handwritten note]
I still carry your picture in my wallet with pride.
  

    

Oh, Linda.  What a wonderful letter.
  

    
That is a great letter.  Has that one been published?
  

    
I don't know if it's been published, Tim...

Gail, yes, it was, but let's put it into perspective.  Earlier, Tim
said that Phil had practically walled himself off from the rest of us
at the time that his "pink beam" experience occurred.  The truth is, it
was very easy to fall out of - and back into - grace with Phil, each
characterized by effusive outpourings of affection or invective,
whichever was appropriate.  (I'll post an example of invective
momentarily.)

For example, Tim, will you talk about the time in 1972 when everybody
was going to see "A Clockwork Orange" but I wouldn't go because I was
too scared, so Phil essentially told you to take me, and then come over
to his place afterwards because he and Tess would be having a party,
and waiting anxiously to hear my reaction to the movie?
  

    
Another letter, just for balance.

At some point early in Phil's relationship with Tessa, he began to
beat her.  One day, she came to my apartment, in tears, covered with
bruises, and described in some detail how he had turned up the stereo,
locked the door, closed the drapes and beat her.  My roommate and I
advised her to leave him, which I had done when he beat *me* up.  She
didn't; she went back home.  I don't know what transpired next, but I
received this letter:

October 31, 1972

Dear Linda,

Advising Tess to leave before the trip to San Francisco is so
irresponsible that I begin to think back to all the people who have
told me they see a sadistic streak in you.  Any chance of our being
able to stay in Fullerton depended on that trip, as you knew.  All your
admonitions to go up to Marin County and fight it out in court were
just so much hot air in view of what you advised Tess.  You were
tinkering with our lives and I don't appreciate it, Linda.  You showed
the sort of infantile irresponsibility that borders on the malicious;
if Tess hadn't come back I probably would have given up and not tried
to go to San Francisco.  When I think back to what I said to you
earlier that morning at the restaurant - the affection I expressed for
you, my loyalty to you, my determination to stay in Fullerton.  I told
you my main reason for wanting to stay - which motivated me to make the
trip to San Francisco - was you and our friendship.  Just a few hours
later you advised Tess to leave me.  Neither you nor Alice showed any
concern or interest in my life, and I had just dedicated myself to
maintaining our friendship at the expense of Tess's trip to Canada. 
This is self-defeating for you, Linda; had Tess followed your advice I
would probably have gone on the [sic] Canada and be there now.  "Stay
here in Fullerton," you implored me, and when I did my best you
undercut me in the coldest, most dispassionate manner possible.

Canada calls to Tess and me, and so does San Francisco.  I must in all
honesty tell you that even had our friendship continued, yours and
mine, I almost certainly would have honored the promise I made to Tess
fairly soon - I'm ethical enough to tell you now that our decision to
leave this area soon is not predicated on the breakdown of the
relationship between us and you, which just occurred, but on a prior
sense that underneath the talk that friendship lacked integrity.  You
were able to maintin it when it suited you and only to that point; it
was, for you, a convenience and a whim.  You came here when for example
you were stood up, and left once we had bolstered your ego.  That
actually is the function to which you have put me throughout the time
I've known you:  bolstering your ego, especially when someone you have
more respect for deflated it.  I'm tired of propping you up so that you
can go back to those whose company you prefer; I am not a wailing
wall, Linda, but a person.  Tess long ago got weary of your self-pity
and your using us to cry on.  We will be leaving this area, but not
because of what happened; rather, because of what failed to happen:  a
friendship created out of loyalty and respect, rather than use and
convenience.  In a childish way you have tinkered us out of your lives,
but we would have gone anyhow; our use-factor is limited:  it can be
strained only so far and then we get tired of hearing you complain to
us of troubles that the rest of us grew out of in our grammar school
days.

With regards,
Phil

[you notice that there is absolutely no acknowledgement whatsoever of
the actions that led me to advise Tess to leave...like I just one day,
after breakfast, decided to sabotage his relationship...]
  

    
That letter is breath-taking, Linda.
  

    
Well!  I do recall that we came home excited about the movie; I'd seen
it before, and you were impressed by it (which is a good trick;
usually everybody's got to get past an initial loathing).  And we went
over to Phil & Tess's place and asked Phil if he'd play the soundtrack
album -- which he had been playing a lot in those recent weeks.  And
Phil and Tess both were in their gloomy mode, and Phil said he didn't
want to play the album, that he and Tess had liked the movie well
enough but didn't (unlike some, perhaps) have their heads up their
asses about it.  Clearly his "anxiety to hear" your reaction to the
movie had dissipated.
  

    
Slippage; I knew that would happen. Comment still holds, though it's a
different =sort= of breath-taking.