Long before I was known to anyone else, I began to be sought out by people who wanted to write, or had written and wanted to publish, or had even gone to the futile expense of private publication. There was an October night when I was nearly frightened out of my wits, while sitting before the fire at the Seven Stairs, by the sudden appearance of a tall young man with a black hat pulled far down over one eye and a nervous tenseness that warned me immediately of a stick-up. His opening remark, “You’re open rather late,” didn’t help any, either.
I remained uneasy while he looked around. Finally he bought two records and a volume of poetry, but he seemed loath to leave. He had a rather military bearing and handsome, regular features. For some reason, it struck me that he might have been a submarine captain. Presently he began talking about poetry and told me he had written a volume that was privately printed. A few days later he brought in a copy. The verse was much in the vein of Benton’s This Is My Beloved. He wondered if I would stock a dozen of them on a consignment basis. I agreed. Why not? When he left, he said cryptically, “You’re the only friend I have.”
Months passed during which I heard nothing from him. Then one evening I saw a newspaper picture of my friend aboard a fine looking schooner tied up at the mouth of the Chicago River. He was sailing to the South Seas in it.
He came in a few days later to say goodbye. Of course I had failed to sell any of the poetry, so he suggested I keep the books until he returned from his voyage. As we shook hands, he was still tense and jumpy. A few months later he was dead, shot by a girl he had taken along. I had just recovered from reading the sensational press accounts of the tragedy when I received a phone call from the late poet’s uncle, who said, “I know about your friendship with Jack and would appreciate it if you would give the reporters an interview as we absolutely refuse to do so ourselves.” Before I knew it, I was being quoted in the papers about a man I had scarcely known and a book I couldn’t sell. The girl in the case got some engagements as an exotic dancer after her release from a Cuban jail, but the affair did next to nothing for the book. Not even a murder scandal will sell poetry.
To everyone who brings me his writing, I protest that I am not an agent. But often it is hard to turn them away. There was the little gnarled old man with a few straggly long grey hairs for a beard who came in clutching a tired, worn briefcase. His story of persecution and cruel rejection was too much for me. “Let me see your book,” I said. The soiled, yellow pages were brought out of the case, along with half a sandwich wrapped in Kleenex, and deposited gently on my desk. The manuscript was in longhand. It purported to tell the saga of man’s continual search for personal freedom.
“How long have you been writing this book?” I said.
“All my life,” he replied. He had once been a history professor he assured me.
“And what do you do now?”
A kind of cackle came out of him. “I am a presser of pants.”
“And how did you come to bring this to me?”