Visit of Jesse Bernstein

Tuesday, January 26

Jesse Bernstein called and told me how much he liked my work.

What had he seen? Screed? The pamphlets that went into it?

He said he was flying to New York to see his publisher and asked

to stop in Delray Beach on the way for a visit. I thought, Delray Beach

is not on the way to New York from Seattle, but I didn’t want to be

inhospitable, so I told him I would meet him at the airport in West Palm Beach.

He looked like a race-track tout, in a stingy-brim hat and winkle-picker shoes.

He looked like a 7^th Avenue aviator in his shades. He wore his hair in a natural

and had an earring in his ear. The boys called him Aunt Jesse. He slept on the couch

in the living room. He drank a gallon of wine a day and smoked Hav-a-Tampa cigars.

At least he wasn’t taking heroin. He didn’t have the jailhouse tattoos yet. He made

stuffed peppers for us but I had to go to the health food store to buy kasha, or buckwheat

groats. Maybe it was stuffed cabbage. He was like a boll weevil. Looking for a home.

He wanted to stay. He had a trunk with all his worldly goods in it. When it was time

to go to New York, he was going to leave it, and pick it up on his way back. I said,

“Take it with you, man—I’m working.” He could see that that was true. Also, after

a week, a fish stinks from the head. He left. He tried to make me feel guilty, but I was

hard as adamant. I wrote a story about it called “Artist at Home,” after

the William Faulkner short story.