Oh yeah? That's interesting. Thinking about it, I think Hank was a teeny bit jeolous of him. A lot of stuff he said back then I took it for the gospel truth, and then, of course, came to see that he was just like everybody else - sad, longing, insecure, telling lies. The difference was, he FOUND the thing to draw us all in - the presentation of the wild, forlorn over-the-top boozer, the lover with all the women, and his physical talent (?!) making love. That is of course, unless he passed out somewhere unimaginable. The stories!! He was brilliant. His tales shone a light on the average folk and made them look stupider than stupid. With all his REAL talent, which was in his words in his head on his crappy old typewriter, he told me many times how he had not been given the credit or the audience that William Burroughs had; or Ferlinghetti (sp?), and the latter was kind of a phony anyway. And here am I, trying to tell you what he told me, and it's tough. He could actually get away with saying the most selfish things and get away with it. His voice!! was so....fine, like the way people (I imagined) spoke to one another in L.A. in the first part of the 20th century; or like in the movies from the 30's and 40's, only his was better because he didn't have to fake that. One day he took me to Venice beach. He was having an awful time. I wore my teeny weeny bikini. I walked around the beach in that...he sat on the sand fully clothed. He worried about the traffic, about driving back. He took me to visit Steve Richmond that day. As soon as we arrived Hank instantly got in a better mood. OK, I don't want to get timed out. Have no idea what I'm saying to you guys, no time to proofread. Thanks for reading.
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Alright, back to the few days on Carlton. We talked a lot, or I listened quite a bit. We ate steak, smoked, drank; I don't have a lot of memories of those days before the Big Thing happened. It's been too many years, and I can't make it up. I mean make up dialogue or anything else. I remember him as looking exactly like his pictures. Not more ugly than he was pictured or better looking, but his face had that softness of intelligence and having lived, and his eyes twinkled, really; so much that his face was great to look at, in all its ugliness. He always seemed like he was holding back a laugh. And his face was self-aware, and other layers, that I don't have words for. But exactly the same as the photos. But we did fall into a sort of Hank-ish routine. Drinking, talking. But...the sex, well, he tried, but IT didn't really work anymore. He was always soft.The booze, I guess, and maybe his age, his weight, his blood pressure, who knows? At first I was a little bummed out. I thought maybe I should be enough to make him go. But of course that was dumb young girl thinking; thinking I was not good enough. I remember him lying on his side looking at me with tired eyes. He wanted to sleep I guess. Later, I hope this weekend.
