I lived in a hovel on the edge
of historic colored town. The Cottage.
My grandfather sold it to me on an agreement-for-deed.
For $15,000. No money down, 8% interest, a payment of
$150 a month. I could afford to stay at the house and write.
I had a $6 typewriter with no cover over the keys Brenda bought me
at Surplus Sales in Tallahassee, a Royal 440. I took the second bedroom
for a writing studio. The boys slept on the sofa and the floor in the living room.
I sat at my window looking out at the window of the second upstairs bedroom
of my grandfather's house. In Vanity of Duluoz, Kerouac writes about
all the windows he has written under. When my grandparents died,
I bought their house from the estate with money I inherited.
I called the second upstairs bedroom my eyrie.
I sat at the window looking out at the second bedroom
of The Cottage I used to write at. I had an IBM Correcting Selectric III
I bought at IBM on the Employee Purchase Plan. We were Nigger Rich.
We were rich as winners of the Irish Sweepstakes. I sold The Cottage
to a friend and took back a mortgage. So I had a paid-for house and
an income from a second house. I had gone from living in a hovel
to being a slumlord. A reversal of fortune. I quit IBM to stay at home
and write Evil Genius and Open Book. The rest is history. I wrote Forty,
about selling Evil Genius and Open Book at Fantasy Fest '87 and
Miami Book Fair International. Thank you, Mitch Kaplan.
I didn't publish a book again until Bukowski Never Did This.
Bukowski never did do that. Nobody else did, either.