Day 16 (Sun 8/24): Patuxent R. (off Solomon’s I.): 0900: Up anchor & motor O.J. upriver with Jane M. & behind André C. in Baratarian, to meet movie folk at Benedict. D.C. to burn tonight on Bloodsworth I. Thundershowers likely (70 % P.O.P.). What are they up to? What am I?
Day 19 (W 8/27): Tred Avon R. (Martin Cove): 1830: Anchor in 6’, alone. Air still & muggy. BBQ filet mignon, salad, Fr bread, gd modest Bordeaux (Château La Tour de By ’62). Are Castine & Cook conning Drew? How is my daughter? Are they rehearsing for the real B.C.? Do I care? Are Castine & Drew conning Jane? Is Drew conning me? Is our Author conning us all? Where does Bray fit in? 2100: Full moon. Herons. Bored & horny. I miss Polly.
Day 21 (F 8/29): Choptank R. (Sawmill Cove/C’bge): 1030: O.J. in slip: end of cruise. End of cruising. To hotel for mail & clean suit. To office for mail & report. Hope Jeannine’s OK and wonder what on Earth induced me to etc.
Etc. Jeannine wasn’t; isn’t. Not impossibly because her possible father first diddled and then ditched her, my possible and troubled daughter has evidently left her Fort Erie sanatorium and gone to live in Lily Dale, N.Y., with our fuzzy friend Mr. Jerome Bonaparte Bray, last seen in the Prohibited Area of Bloodsworth Island and there looked for (vainly) by U.S. Navy helicopters when Drew Mack and I sailed in aboard the O.J. on Day 17 (M 8/25). The question of Harrison Mack Jr.‘s freeze-dried excrement — whether, in their crash program to launch Cap’n Chick’s Crabsicles in 1970, Mack Enterprises might inadvertently have disposed of that item of the Mack estate and thereby once more fertilized the future with the past — no longer seems important to the case, compared with those more fertile questions of Day 19. And that call on the midnight of Day 0 (F 8/8), which Jeannine answered in the living room of my Todds Point cottage before I was awake enough to get the phone, was from Polly Lake, now Mrs. Someone Else, desperately intending after all to propose joining me in O.J. ‘s cruise and holy matrimony despite my rude failure, earlier that day, to propose the same to her. And hearing I was Not Alone, Polly felt an utter, final fool, hung up the phone, married her Florida Chap at last, and sent me on the 21st the announcement thereof, which ticked away in the Dorset Hotel till today, Day 21, when I snatched up my mail, hurried over to the office, learned many a remarkable, mysterious, and distressing thing, wondered where in the world to begin, wished dear Polly were there to advise me, recognized her handwriting on that one piece of mail, and opened that Announcement.
On the back whereof, in Polly’s firm clear precious hand, she announced further all the above: her last-crazy-long-shot visit to Cambridge and my office on Day 0 (when I rebuffed her); her crazier desperate last phone call that night; her conclusion that she was a vaster fool than even she’d supposed; and her (lethal, but) nonetheless loving last Good-bye to
Yours posthumously, 21 days (or so) hence,
Todd Andrews
O: Jacob Horner to Jacob Horner. His rescue of Marsha Blank from Comalot Farm, and present anxiety in her behalf.
8/7/69
TO:
Jacob Horner, Remobilization Farm, Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada
FROM:
Jacob Horner, Remobilization Farm, Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada
Only today the Anti-Ballistic Missile bill was approved by two votes in the U.S. Senate, General Hull retreated from Canada back to Detroit, the Germans captured Liège, the Marines landed on Guadalcanal, Napoleon set out for his second exile aboard Admiral Cockburn’s Northumberland, Neptune remained stationary in Right Ascension, the United States of America established a War Department, the Viet Cong raided the “most secure” of U.S. military bases, at Cam Ranh Bay, and your Woman Marsha Blank/“Peggy Rankin”/“Pocahontas” received a packet of Honey Dust through the afternoon mails, enclosed in a letter from Jerome Bray to “Bibi” Golden/“Rennie Morgan”/Etc.
You are Concerned. “Peggy” is semicomatose again, as when you Picked Her Up at Lily Dale on 7/22, St. Mary Magdalene’s Day. “Rennie” (again) is dead drunk. Dr. Morgan impatient. You Do Not Believe that he will abide much longer Ms. Golden’s ever less convincing portrayal of the late Mrs. Morgan, who seldom used alcohol. It is only for the sake of Bibi’s own therapy, since her recent abandonment by Reg Prinz in favor of Merry Bernstein, that Saint Joe indulges her sloppy rendition of Rennie, to the point of sleeping with her. But he dislikes drunks, especially when they misplay starring roles in Der Wiedertraum, already out of gear. What will you Do, you Wonder, when he throws her out and redemands that you Produce His Wife, alive and well as before you Came Between Them?
For that matter, what will you Do if Marsha (whom you Can No Longer Easily Call “Peggy Rankin” or “Pocahontas”) really does revisit Bray next week, as she declares she must? You are Jealous (and Vaguely Frightened) of him. You are Truly Frightened for her. But you are as Terrified by the prospect of another solo expedition to Lily Dale as by the prospect of what will happen when you Fail To Restore Rennie Morgan to her husband by 9/1, per schedule.
Yet who is there to go with you, if Marsha does not return and you must Re-retrieve Her? Tombo X grows weekly more belligerent; wants all honkies off his premises. Casteene appears to have disappeared with Merry Bernstein’s group. Anarchy threatens. Reparalysis beckons.
Remarkably, you Care About All This.
Last time you were Lucky. Tell us about it, Horner, they demanded, Casteene and Saint Joe, in the P & A Room on Thursday 7/24, Fast of Av, ☌♆☽‧☌♂☽, when you Regained The Farm at last, Fetched Marsha straight to the infirmary, and were by them Shaken Awake, not from Paralysis, but from Exhausted Sleep. What’s Bray up to over there?
He wasn’t home, you Replied. Fortunately. It was your Impression that he had gone again to Maryland with the film company, leaving Marsha, in the condition to be described, to tend his automatic computer and feed his livestock.
What sort of livestock? Is the farm legit, or a front? Indian nationalism? Dope? Is it the same premises that the Remobilization Farm occupied from 1956 to 1965, before it moved here? What’s he up to with that computer? C.I.A. connection? What took you so long?
Goats: 3 nannies, 1 buck, 1 kid. Front. Don’t know. Maybe. Yes. See below. Don’t know. Rebegin:
In fulfillment of your Wiedertraum prescription — to Reenact Jacob Horner’s Movement of 7/19/53 from Baltimore to Wicomico, Maryland, his Interviews At Wicomico Teachers College of 7/20/53 and 7/21/53, and his Excursion To Ocean City of 7/22/53, where he Met and Subsequently Bedded his Fellow English Teacher Peggy Rankin — you Set Out Alone in light rain from Fort Erie on 7/19/69 in the late Doctor’s old Mercury wagon, your First Such Adventure in 16 years. Steering wheel! Accelerator! Brake! Very Nearly Paralyzed by Saturday traffic on the Peace Bridge (you are Not Surprised at Senator Edward Kennedy’s loss of control at Chappaquiddick), you were Detained by U.S. Customs officers on its farther shore on suspicion of being Stoned, but Released for want of evidence after their thorough inspection of vehicle and driver. Thirty minutes into the journey, you were Already Exhausted, and once safely out of. Buffalo, you Stopped at the first available motel on the back road you Preferred to the New York State Thruway: the Eden, in Eden, on Rt. 62, about 25 miles from your Starting Place. It was not yet noon; you Had No Baggage; they wondered. The balance of that day and night, as Generalissimo Franco captured Cadiz, Huelva, Seville, Cordoba, and Granada, you Sat in a chair before the motel TV receiver Watching Walter Cronkite watch Apollo-11’s entry into moon orbit, then the reports from Chappaquiddick, then the test pattern.