Novel

Monday, January 21

Art Brew was a bitter literary also-ran who wrote the same book, over and over: Feeding Frenzy Pheromones.

He gave off the stink of fear.

Flop-sweat.

It emboldened his enemies.

They came at him in a pack, like sharks, piranha fish, or the Gadarene swine.

But now, with his LDA grant, he was afraid of nothing, angry at nobody, life was a glorious feast. A fig for those by law protected.

Brenda went to get a cutting off Janice's fig tree, which their neighbor brought over from Greece.

Brew called a character Fig Newton once. In Screed.

What did he call Tom Morrill?

Don Porter.

When Brew moved to Tallahassee, from Fort Walton Beach, he made friendly overtures to the writers clique associated with the university, FSU. He thought they would welcome him with open arms.

Some did, some didn't.

Pete LeForge, who was editor of the Apalachee Quarterly, called Raw Energy, a chapbook Larry and Hazel published for Brew in 1976, "anecdotes and ravings," and said, in the review, "We take great pleasure in rejecting his work."

David Morrill, on the other hand, gave a copy of Raw Energy to his father, Tom, who wrote Brew a fan letter.

Tom was a local poet who lived out in the woods, maybe in Wakulla County. Outside of town, anyway. His wife Sarah ran the Apalachee Mental Health Center and Tom stayed at home and wrote. Sometimes he was a Poet in the Schools (PITS).

Brew got fired at the Department of Commerce for writing at work.

He filed a grievance.

He was a probationary employee, OPS, and could not file a grievance.

All he did was cut off his nose to spite his face. Get himself blacklisted as a troublemaker. In a company town.

When Brew's father died, and Brenda went into the field, to survey Big Cypress Swamp, his mother offered to help him watch the boys in Delray Beach.

They drove down there and stayed with her.

The chairman of the board at the bank where Brew's father had been on the board of directors offered him a job at the bank until he could get his family moved down and find a job he liked better. If he liked banking, he could stay.

So when Brenda's dig ended, they moved into Brew's mother's house and Brew helped Brenda find the job at Mitel, through the bank. Mitel were building their U. S. Headquarters, and a manufacturing plant, in the Arvida Park of Commerce, in Boca Raton, and were expanding.

Brew's grandfather sold them the house behind their house, The Cottage, on an agreement for deed, for no money down, 8% interest, and a payment of $150 a month.

They owned a pre-wrecked Mustang Brenda drove to work. Brew rode his ten-speed bike to the bank and took Balder to nursery school on his back, on the bike. Owen walked to school across the street from the grandparent house, Tarrymore.

Tarrymore was a big house. During WWII, his grandfather rented rooms to soldiers stationed at Boca Raton Field.

With a paid-for car and a low house payment Brew and Brenda caught up on the bills and started putting a little money aside, in a passbook savings account.

The job at the bank was the necktie job Brew had always resisted taking.

He felt discouraged, down, he thought his life as a writer was over before it began. He had written more than a dozen books, and had nothing but a handful of pamphlets to show for it.

Brenda encouraged him to print up and mail out more pamphlets, as he had done in Fort Walton Beach, so he'd feel like he was keeping his hand in. Hearing back from readers was good for his morale.

One of the people he sent them to was Tom Morrill.

Morrill commented on what he was doing, in his writing. Brew wrote back.

These exchanges made it into pamphlet Bouillabaisse. Compare OLLA-PODRIDA.

Brew called a book OLLA-PODRIDA once.

Another place Brew sent his pamphlets was to John Bennett, Vagabond Press.

John ended up publishing Screed, a collection of pamphlets, some self-published and some unpublished.

John put a year of his writing life into Screed. How does it make John feel to have to listen to Brew go on about how he is unpublished, or underpublished, just because New York hasn't published him.

John did call him "prolific and probably the most overlooked writer in America today," in the Contributor Notes to Ragged Lion, his Festschrift for Jack Micheline.

Enough's enough, I guess.

After Screed, Brew and Tom Morrill lost touch.

After Ragged Lion, Brew and John Bennett lost touch.

John would forward political things to him, email, and email him short pieces he was writing he called shards, but they didn't call for an answer.

As a dirt archeologist, Brew called potsherds sherds. A shard was a piece of broken glass.

Brew called a character Johnny Potsherd once.

Potsherd went around the Southeastern United States sowing sherds in Indian sites, like Brew went around sowing self-published pamphlets and vernacular writer business cards in campgrounds and state parks

The Greek word for ostracize is from potsherd. Used in the balloting.

Brew implied he had been ostracized.

His books now went straight to the Dead Letter Office of American Letters, the worldwide web.

Well, the books between Forty and Bukowski Never Did This were ostracized. Maybe things were changing. Maybe Bukowski Never Did This would change things.

When Screed came out Brew quit the bank.

He hadn't said anything bad about his co-workers, or his bossmen, but he had blown his cover.

Whatever he typed at work, people would wonder if he was doing his work or the company's work. Was he writing about them?

Now, with a book about working at the mental health center coming out, Brew had quit his job.

Also, note the part Brenda played in the publication of pamphlets that led to Brew's first published book, Screed, and the part Brenda played in letting Brew stay at home to promote Bukowski Never Did This and write DRAGGING UP. Letting him quit his job.

Brew was trying to be a good househusband.

He heard Brenda tell a friend, on the phone, she liked having a support system, at home, to do chores, and cook gourmet meals.

Brew heard a woman say, in AA, "I had a househusband before it was cool."

So did Brenda.

So did Sarah Morrill.

So did Suzette, Owen and Balder's common-law aunt-in-law.

Potter's common-law widow.

Brew's ex-boss.

When he quit, she said, "See you at The Red Bar Sunday."