The Lacuna

Here’s where you and I come in. They recruited my old boss for the job, Leroy Davidson from the Walker. He only got 50 thousand clams to work with but he’s done a killer job, Leroy chose everything himself. He’s fed up with the Europeans sniggering about heart-throbbing landscapes and the American Scene, so he decided to give them an eyeful. Seventy-nine paintings, mostly Modern Art: Stuart Davis, Marsden Hartley, Georgia O’Keeffe, it’s a killer. Even Goodrich at the Whitney says so. We’re hanging it here in New York for the summer and then it moves to the National for a few weeks. Leroy says Congress needs to see what American Art looks like, before we send it off.

That’s the story, morning glory. You’d come to D.C. in October. You’re already on the State Department’s cleared list, Leroy says we can hire you in a tick to help with the crating and get this show ready for transatlantic. If you want, you can even come along for the ride. The war’s over, pal, this time we would go first class, not steerage. No more riding on top of our wooden crates in the train car, which really was not half a bad place to lob around, as it turned out. (Like Hope says, Thanks for the memories!) But think of it, man, you and me in Europe. Goose-feather beds. What a gasser.

Sounds like you might be cooking with gas already in your present situation. But give me a buzz if you are ready to take Paris. So long chum,

TOM CUDDY

April 3, 1946

Dear Frida,

Your letter arrived yesterday and now lies open on the desk, a spectre, burning at its edges. This damage is not yours, you aren’t the cause. It’s a normal and ordinary request, for a friend to come and visit in New York when you are there for the bone-graft surgery. A friend who owes you everything, and might now smuggle rellenos into the hospital to speed your recovery, who should do this. But no sleep came last night, only thoughts in a nightlong darkness of the summer coming, a ride on the train, the penetrating glare of strangers. Imposing on your fashionable friends in New York, these Americans who understand everything. All of it envisioned in a cold panic.

This is a despicable confession. But one telephone call yesterday to the train station to ask about a ticket was enough to drag a stomach inside out, dejado de la mano de dios, left alone by god, this feeling. Abandoned by reason or safety. Perched on the side of the bathtub rocking like a child, hopeless, wishing for the invisibility of childhood. August of each year brings thoughts of dying. But bad days come in any month. Eyes can pierce a skull. Travel to New York is unthinkable, when even at the corner market, a stranger’s stare can paralyze. This terror hasn’t any name. This running home, feeling like a scorched muslin curtain that blew too near the candle.

Forgive this cowardice. If you have the strength to lift your head as you travel down Fifth Avenue, look for one book in the shop windows there, standing in as a substitute for your once and future friend,

SÓLI

The Asheville Trumpet, April 28, 1946

Woman’s Club Sponsors Book Review Night

by Edwina Boudreaux

The Asheville Woman’s Club sponsored its annual Book Review Night on Thursday at 6 p.m. in the Lee H. Edwards High School Auditorium. Tickets sold for twenty-five cents each, raising $45 dollars for the Asheville Library. The theme of the evening was, “Mexico Old and New.”

Mrs. Herb Lutheridge, President, opened the program with the Pledge of Allegiance and introduction of speakers. Miss Harriet Boudreaux began the festivities with her review of “The Peacock Sheds His Tail” by Alice Hobart. The book concerns the love story of a Mexican girl and American diplomat in the turbulence of unrest in modern-day Mexico City. For her presentation Miss Boudreaux wore native dress of embroidered blouse and skirt brought from the Mexican continent by her aunt, who traveled there as a bride.

The second presenter was welcomed by many excited young ladies in attendance, Mrs. Violet Brown reviewing “Vassals of Majesty” by Harrison Shepherd. The novel tells the exciting conquest of Ancient Mexico by the Spanish Army. Events came alive under Mrs. Brown’s retelling, followed by a lively discussion. Numerous questions arose concerning the author, an Ashevillean residing in the Montford neighborhood, which the speaker demurred at, claiming familiarity with the book itself, not its progenitor. In her forty-five minute presentation Mrs. Brown brought to the fore many themes that might be missed by the average reader, such as Man Against Nature and Man Against Himself.

Mrs. Alberta Blake, librarian, closed the evening by thanking the audience on behalf the Library Committee, noting all money raised would purchase several new volumes. She assured all those in attendance that duplicate copies of the two books presented will soon be on the shelves.

April 30, 1946

Mrs. Violet Brown
4145 Tunnel Road, Bittle House
Rural Free Delivery, Asheville North Carolina

Dear Mrs. Brown,

This message may startle you, please forgive a bolt from the blue. A telephone call to Mrs. Bittle yesterday confirmed that the former guild of lodgers remains intact, minus myself. (She may thus think it improved vis-à-vis her advertisement of “Only Good People Here.”) And that you could therefore be reached by this address.

The purpose of this letter is to plant a request: against all odds, a man who can perform every secretarial duty himself from A to Z, including changing the typewriter ribbon, now seems to be in need of a secretary.

A startling ship of fortune has docked in this harbor on Montford Avenue, towing an unwieldy barge of correspondence, telephone calls, and attention from young ladies. It is a wonder, how others who become so blessed still manage to go forward with their lives. Mr. Sinatra receives five thousand letters a week, according to the Echo, and he still looks the picture of high spirits. Only a hundred or so come here each week, but they fall like mounds of autumn leaves, leaving the spirits damp and crawling with nervous beetles. What is to be done? An old friend who recently telephoned, a fellow who also worked at the National Gallery during the war, proposed: “Lace up your boots, jive cat, and requisition yourself a canary to be your stenographer.” After translating this advice into my own tongue, the question remained: Where does one requisition such a canary?

Then on Sunday your name rose up boldly, Mrs. Brown, in the Asheville Trumpet. There you stood with my book in hand, facing down a riotous crowd at the Woman’s Club gala. Applying the same calm efficiency you used for handling Mrs. Bittle and her everlasting muddles. Keeping your steady hand on the tiller, you guided the Book Night toward the deep waters of literary theme, quieting the commotion of Miss Boudreaux in her getup from the “Mexican Continent.” The ladies pressed for details of the Author Himself, but you professed no knowledge of such person! Imagine the fracas, if you had revealed the truth: that you and the author had once lived under the same roof, with a landlady who sometimes mixed our laundry together.