Page 22 - WTP Vol. XIII #3

Gasoline FLowers (continued from preceding page)
Whether the infinite debacle of our droll friendship was really due to his inordinate jealousy of the invis- ible, yet always looming, boyfriend or whether it was about his poignant status as a ragged soldier, defeat- ed by life and its vices, didn’t really matter. I was too young to fall apart with him.
Tall and rumpled, his jacket flapping loosely out from his bony shoulders and frame, he looked for all the world like a scarecrow without a field, waving and wavering, pinwheeling in the night in front of the Plaza, as the twinkling traffic, including the cab I was riding in, sped down Fifth Avenue ignoring him. To watch him looking wildly for me and for something he had probably lost long ago was hard, but it was
“Without words, as little weight and
truth as they sometimes carry, we would be un- moored completely, more unutterably alone than we already are.”
inevitable. He had had his chance at the writer’s life, or at least he’d been given some clues to that mystery. I still had a few chances left to plot the mystery.
To be sure, part of him wanted the gaudy life of a writer just as much as he wanted to write the ulti- mate story—a life where booze ranked almost as high as love and cigarettes were flirtation’s second-best prop, next to words, and immortality was bound to be nearby.
Words, though, were the great seduction, as they always will be. Without words, as little weight and truth as they sometimes carry, we would be un- moored completely, more unutterably alone than
we already are. Words are essential—their meaning, their beauty, their ability to convey. If there was any- thing lovely to our friendship, it was found within the words we shared and our love for them.
I forgave him then and always for those embarrassing evenings because they were wonderful anyway, even when his wild bouts of emotion began to scare me. In
one letter he was tender about my confession that I had attempted suicide more than once when I was younger, (which had left some actual, physical scars). He compared my efforts to hurt myself, with compas- sion, to his “need to rough myself up with the infan- try,” without any judgment, just the unerring, self- reflective sentiment of wanting to make me a part of his story, not my own.
Richard Yates’ passion for life was wild and his fear of that passion made him meek enough to hide behind his alcohol and his literal screen of smoke and then become sullen and self-pitying of his own meekness. All of this and more he shared with us as he put his finger unerringly on the pulse of the human heart. He wrote for the broken-hearted who keep trying, which means all of us.
Now, when it is too late, I believe him. He did love me. He loved me in the only way he could—with his de- voted words.
Oh, sweet girl, my lovely [girl], please know that what- ever happens I will always think of you with longing and with tenderness.
God bless you, sweetheart.
With love always, Richard
He wrote for all of us who know that even the best of loves bring disappointment, and even the worst of loves come with a somewhat poignant moment or two of unforgettable reflection.
Now, long after his death, the epigraph that he had shouted to me in the din of mid-day traffic on Sixth Avenue exists again, printed at the beginning of every paperback copy of Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates,
“Alas! when passion is both meek and wild!”
—John Keats
Blackstone is a graduating member of the second group of Yale Col- lege that allowed women to attend. In addition to the award for Ex- cellence in the Humanities, she won the Murray Fellowship for travel and study abroad. She publishes poetry in periodicals, including The Harvard Review and is an award-winning children’s book author. Most notably, This Is Baseball, which Christopher Leaman-Haupt loved in his NYTimes review. Baseball was also a Book-of-the-Month Club featured alternet selection, and has been a annual selection for the Scholastic Guide to best early readers, along with This Is Soccer and a few others.“Gasoline Flowers” is her first literary essay.
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