A History of the African-American People (Proposed) by Strom Thurmond (40 page)

P

April 23, 2002

Mr. Martin Snell

Editor

Simon & Schuster

Dear Mr. Snell,

I am sorry to have missed your phone calls, but I do very much appreciate your interest in my book. I guess you are senior editor there?

Anyhow, Mr. Snell, I am a bit confused. I had been led to believe by Mr. McCloud that I was working with another editor, Ralph Vendetti. Is that not so? Please do not suppose I am trying any end-runs here or that I am trying to cause confusion. I’d just like to be less confused myself.

It may be a labor of Hercules to make me unconfused, but I would appreciate it so much if you could try.

Cordially,

Septic

p.s. I do not mean to ignore your questions about my past life or your inquiries about “contacts.” It’s just that I am in a position now where all of that, all that happened to me and all that I was, really is past—or so I hope. I wrote the novel to get control of that and give it form, to probe and question it but also close it off. You’ll understand that, having done that, I am reluctant to revisit it in any other context. Also, despite the novel, I do not wish to exploit those experiences. I wrote the novel to help myself and to help others too. That probably sounds naïve, but it is so.

April 23, 2003

Dear Ralph,

I know I will irritate you horribly by appealing to your kindness and calling your
kindness
by its right name. You’ll sputter and snort and be rude to the next three or four people who cross your path. That’s just too bad. I want you to do a kind thing. It makes no business sense at all, this thing I want you to do, and it will settle smack into your round lap the most troublesome and wiggly of gifted and unstable babies to take care of. He’ll make demands on your time, your consideration, and your passion. He’ll force you to listen to what you do not want to hear and extend your interests to where they do not want to go. He is, as you would put it, a needy son of a bitch, and the person he needs is YOU.

Barton Wilkes, you’ve heard of him, former aide of some sort to Senator Thurmond and plague for some time of Martin Snell. That fact alone ought to make your heart leap out to enfold him, were your heart a ready leaper.

You would add stars to your crown by employing him, specifically to edit and consult on CLASS ASS. Given steady and focussed work, in a professional environment that would be stable and unquestioning, he’ll be a real asset to you. He is smart. All you need to do is let him work, listen to him, and (hardest of all) don’t confuse him by being (a) rude, (b) ironic, or (c) inconsistent.

Add to that a few hugs now and then, some inquiries after the state of his feelings, and the occasional tear, and you’ll have the employee of your dreams. Well, not YOUR dreams, but anybody else’s.

Do it for me?

Fondly,

Reba

You wonder why I am asking. Well, Barton is a curiosity, but he also went out of his way to help my brother Juniper, forcing Mr. Snell to re-employ him. Add that to your suspicion that I am a meddling do-gooder and you got it!

April 23, 2003

Dear Percival and Jim,

I have some inkling of what Barton is like when he’s on the rampage, and I hope he hasn’t been bothering you too much. I expect he’s been bothering you some. Barton’s perfectly harmless, you know, and I wouldn’t say that were I not sure. Barton on the rampage is a little like Winnie the Pooh out for blood.

The thing to do is find him some focus. He doesn’t really need sympathy; he needs work. I’m convinced he’s a real pro, smart and efficient, if he’s given something to do and a way to spare himself the always-waiting chores of hating himself and imagining that others must too.

C’mon, there must be something there at old USC for him. It’s a private school, right, with lots of slush and slop in the way of administrative offices busy doing not much of anything? Barton could write wonderful reports, go on or organize retreats, institute task forces, manage Centers, coordinate initiatives.

I’ve written to Ralph Vendetti, trying to hook Barton in with him on CLASS ASS, which is going to be a big hit, you just wait. But Ralph has cultivated fangs, which bare themselves at the approach of anybody who might dent his protective shell. Barton is a practiced denter, so I don’t know if that’ll work out.

Hope you two are flourishing. Must be almost the end of term there, right? I don’t suppose you guys teach much, publishing talents that you are. That’s a shame, since I can tell how fine you’d be with the kids.

Juniper sends his love, and me too—

Reba

S
IMON
& S
CHUSTER
, I
NC
.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020

April 25, 2003

Dear Reba,

My Dad told me he used to go with a bunch of friends to church basketball games in the West Virginia little town he grew up in. They formed an unappointed and unwanted cheering section. He told me one cheer was:

Methodist Once!

Methodist Twice!

Holy Jumpin Jesus Christ!

As for your proposal—Holy Jumpin Jesus Christ!

I’ll think about it.

Sincerely,

Ralph

James R. Kincaid
University of Southern California
University Park Campus
Los Angeles, CA 90089

April 26, 2003

Dear Barton, Martin, and Reba,

You know, if you take a step back and look at how this picture is forming itself, what you do is what satellites allow us to do with weather patterns and seats high in stadiums allow us to do with football plays or halftime shows. You get to see large movements and convergences that are hidden from you if you are close up. It was Napoleon, I believe, who first started viewing battles from atop hills not too close. That way, he could observe with perfect clarity what the cannon smoke and screaming and things in the way (he was short) would have hidden from him. It’s called The Big Picture. It’s what God has of us, for instance. Not that I’m God or even Napoleon (though I have had seats very high up in football stadiums, let me tell you), but I think I share that capacity with them. People at our department meetings are always saying to me, “Jim, you never get bogged down in facts.”

Anyway, here’s what’s shaping up. It’s shaping up on its own, but if we recognize what’s happening we can save time and dollars by doing it faster and better. Martin, you should hire Barton to work on Strom, as he IS the project. Hire Reba too, as she knows Barton’s mind and is, I can tell, an excellent illustration and copy-editing person. This team will do the job. And it’s the team that destiny is forming in any case.

We’re working on redoing the opening section, Percival and I. With that plus the outline you’ll see where we are exactly. Have it to you in ten days, and that’s not exaggerating.

Barton, I hope you have stopped looking in my windows. It’s quite un-nerving, even though neither my wife nor I are especially modest or have anything to hide. It’s just that we—make that I—am not easy with having my day logged. I’m sure I waste time, eat too much, dawdle, and, to be frank, do things on the Internet I shouldn’t. OK. You got me. But in the scale of human activity, even in the scale of human criminal activity, does what I do weigh heavily?

Let me know when the Barton-Reba-Martin team is set. I’ll send tee-shirts.

Best,

Jim

Interoffice Memo

April 26, 2003

Dear Percival,

Why don’t you use the customary “Dear” in your salutations to me? By not doing so, you draw attention to your self-conscious avoidance. Avoidance of what? You can, after all, call me “Dear” without suggesting you’d like to fuck. It doesn’t mean you’re in love with me, pledging to me eternal devotion and a willingness to lend me money. Are you homophobic? Is that it? I wouldn’t have thought so, but what else am I to conclude?

But set that aside. I bother you now to tell you that I thought I’d make things easier for us by writing the enclosed, which I sent to Martin, Barton, and Reba. What I didn’t tell them was that we thereby arrange Vendetti, Juniper, and Septic on that whore project and keep them away from us. I think it’s an excellent way to distribute and distance our problems and make it appear that it was all a matter of kismet.