If writing the Interim Memo for installment 22 was tough, this one has been a serial killer.
The events related in this essay happened in 1961. I wrote this column in 1973. It was a long, hard twelve years between. It is now 1989, and when I came to this place in the manuscript, I realized I had to do something about it.
Because, in the last few years, the man I call Scarff in this piece and I have drifted back into each other’s company. It isn’t the way it was in 1952 or ’53, when we were a high-school kid and a young New York writer. Nor is it the way we were when I was an editor and he was coming in to take over my job, in 1961. But we’re talking again, and seeing each other every once in a while, and I guess that’s a different degree of friendship.
The point is: I couldn’t just run this piece the way it had first appeared, with these patched-up circumstances. I had to either drop the installment, or send it to him to refresh his memory, and ask his permission.
Which I did, today. We talked, I faxed Installments 22 and 24, and just waited for the word. Here is the totality of his response:
DEAR HARLAN:
I HATED READING IT. I HATED READING IT THE FIRST TIME.
I NEVER DECLARED BANKRUPTCY. IF I HAD, PUTTING “EVERYTHING IN MY WIFE’S NAME” WOULDN’T HAVE DONE THE SLIGHTEST GOOD, SINCE EVERYTHING HAS ALWAYS BEEN IN BOTH OUR NAMES.
BILLIE FOUND OUT ABOUT THE OTHER WOMAN BY SOME OTHER PATH, NOT FROM ME.
I MADE MORE MONEY AS A FREELANCE THAT YEAR THAN BILL PAID ME IN SALARY. I EVEN LENT YOU SOME OF IT.
BILL TOLD ME I WAS THE EDITOR AND YOU WERE BEING DONE THE FAVOR OF AN EXTRA MONTH’S SALARY, BUT YOU WERE NOT TO DO ANY BUSINESS WHATSOEVER; YOU WERE THERE TO FILL ME IN ON THINGS IN PROGRESS, PERIOD. HE TOLD ME YOU KNEW THAT.
GO AHEAD AND RUN THE DAMNED THING. I’M FRIENDS WITH YOU NOW, AS USUAL.