A Really Good Richard Yates Story
by Jacob Malewitz
Alpine 8, New Empire Crossing, 500
Adrian New Legion Armor, 2 2 2
“Where can I find him?”
“You wish to read the—
“No.”
“You do not wish to read Richard—
“I would like to meet him.”
He began laughing; a fact that angered me more than my mother throwing me out of the house after I almost set the living room on fire with a couple cigarettes lit at the same time. I was down to fifteen a day before that, but let me tell you how I met Richard Yates.
“Richard Yates is dead.”
“The novelist?”
“Yes. A good writer but dead.”
“So your saying I can meet him.”
“Perhaps a dead Richard Yates would meet you.”
My imagination was on fire. I could meet the one writer whose books and short stories I had never read.
This is going to be a really good Richard Yates story. A man who had much in common with me, except for the fact all I knew of the man was a brochure I had received from Virginia Woolf, whom I corresponded with on occasion. I tried to tell it to this man, whose name I fear revealing will only shed more light on it. His name was Mcallmack, Richard Mccallmack. This got me thinking; was he Richard Yates?
“Virginia Woolf said he was a great writer.”
“I do not think she was alive when he started having success. I doubt she even knew him. You read this online did you not?”
“No, me and Virginia correspond frequently.”
“Oh, I talk to Hemingway a lot too.”
It was all making sense. This man knew famous writers too. I wanted to know more. “Please go on.”
“That was a joke.”
“Where can I find Hemingway. I do think I read “To Build A Fire.”
He started coughing at that point, and he would not stop. The man ended up dieing right in front of me. When the ambulance came—a white one—they were just as confused when I told them to contact Ernest Hemingway. Bad time to make jokes, I think one of them said.
“A joke?”
“You from another planet or something.”
“I guess I’m not, but I think I need Richard Yates’s phone number.”
He looked puzzled, and I was just the same. “He is a writer.”
“You’re a writer aren’t you? One of those metaphysical types who takes a couple shots of cold whiskey in their coffee in the morning.”
I had no idea what he said, but neither had I learned to put cold whiskey in a drink in such a way. It made me wonder if Richard Yates or Hemingway had done this. It made me wonder if I, too, could be a writer.
I left. Seeing a man die before your eyes is something that should always be explained in detail on a page faster than Hunter Thompson can write, and faster than Fitzgerald could down a pot of black coffee while Zelda worked her way out of a straitjacket. I have no idea who Hunter Thompson or Fitzgerald are, but I will move on lest I have confused you.
The days passing were kind of like being on a lock and key. All those generalizations of writers that could be found in dictionaries was not enough. “The Great Gatsby?” “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?” It was the sort of stuff man had been dealing with since the time of stone tools—again I meander.
I had a goal. It was all about finding this man Richard Yates and asking him the three questions we all wanted to ask God.
Working through the small cities with a dictionary picture in hand—I think it was a literary biography encyclopedia book of some sort—I went to every writer I could find and asked where I could find this elusive man. One man started laughing at me and I wanted to punch him. He did offer to sell me drugs. I took that as a sign Yates was slaving away on his novel during the day, and playing the role of a junkie at night. I wanted to read his works, but I barely knew the man.
The list could go on about what people said to me. Some laughed in my face, after which I snapped a few times and attacked them, but for the most part the people would offer me spare change and shots of whiskey in exchange for never bothering them again. What I did not understand was why the whiskey was so warm.
One man drew me a map that I proceeded to follow, but it lend straight into the police station. I went in, asked for Richard Yates, and they even looked up on this desktop sort of machine, and said there were a thousand living Richard Yates.
“Richard Yates the writer.”
“We can’t compute that.”
“Compute until you find him.” The man had grown angry with me so I had punched him; it cost me this time. That was a mistake, but the few days I was in lockdown proved fruitful. I thought that, perhaps, instead of finding this Yates man I should find either Hemingway or Thompson. For some reason the name Fitzgerald scared me.
I looked at the clock in the asylum, I mean jail, and wondered aloud whether I would ever find these great writers. A man who had been staring at me was combing his hair with a switchblade—he seemed my type of friend: Any man who could get a knife in a jail was worthy of asking some questions.
“You don’t know Richard Yates, do ya?”
“Names Kronick.”
“That’s a really good name, but I asked a question.”
“Ya, I heard of him.”
“Can you find him for me? I have all the spare change you will ever need.”
“Buy the ticket, take the ride.”
“I like that, buy the ticket—“
“How much change you got.”
“I think it’s mainly dimes, but we’ve got a few quarters in there too. Enough to make it to California.”
“Why California?”
“I heard he wrote movie scripts there.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
We went on this journey of sorts, where spare change seemed to turn into more spare change. I would set the coins on a table, and more would appear. I guess it was how I looked: Professional. I offered my services to the people who added to my collection, asked if they were looking for Richard Yates too, but no one seemed to know the man. He was almost dead; a man forgotten by the world.
I would like to compare him to Hemingway, but what would be the point? Both were successful writers and I could not tell you one more word of comparison. I knew a few dictionary notes on each, but they seemed as different as decaf to the strongest whiskey soaked coffee in the world.
Kronick was a life savior. Our car broke down at one of these establishments we stopped at, and he went so far to acquire a vehicle without even asking the people who owned it. I had never thought cars could just be hopped in like that; my father would always take a knife when talking to people in cars, always winking at me as he did this, but Kronick seemed to be more of an honest man.
We worked our way as far as Maine until I found out I was reading the dictionary biography of Stephen King. My glasses had been lost when Kronick passed them over for a clear bag of what he said was aspirin, and even squinting could not reveal a difference between the life of Stephen King and Richard Yates. The journey had been expensive as well: Where once we had $2.50, now we were down to half that. I hoped people would exchange more coins with us, though I still did not understand why they would just set them on the table without taking any of ours.
“Where are we going again?” Kronick was busy smoking his aspirin, which looked like it might have helped the headache I had from driving so much and drinking the strong coffee.
“Richard Yates.”
“Oh yeah, Richy Rich.”
“Do not ever call him that again.” I gave him the most daring look I could imagine.
“If I see him, and he makes all that money writers make, I think we should trade cars like we always do.”
“I still can’t believe you just take it and they don’t even mind.”
“Been doin’ it all my life bro; people got more than they really need anyways.”
We drove. Drove and stopped and tried to drink this coffee with aspirins in it, which made me oddly aroused. The waitress looked like a million bucks after taking the aspirin, like traveling down a road where there were only bats and then seeing a white dove.
“What’s your name? Is it Richard Yates?”
“Uh, my name is Sara.” She did look like a Sara, but I had this inclination there was more to her than just her name.
“And you know Richard Yates. Is that what you’re saying?”
“You folks movie stars or something?” She said. “You sure look it.”
“We are movie stars interested in finding a certain Richard Yates,” Kronick said as he put some aspirin on his teeth.
“I’ll be off in an hour.”
I had heard that phrase before in New York after someone slipped something into my drink. “Only if you add a shot of whiskey to the coffee—cold whiskey.”
“You like cold whiskey too!”
We were in love, me and Sarah. She seemed to have a lot of headaches, taking the aspirins so much that Kronick got relatively pissed off. She did have a good temperament, the longest white legs I had ever seen, and eyes that could kill.
“We’re going to Hollywood.” I said as we drove down some forgotten interstate.
“You are movie stars!” She yelled. “I just knew something strange about you folks. And you paid with spare change because your mansions are so expensive. It really does make sense.”
I had no idea what she just said, but three was not company in my book.
Traveling is like finding a good piano with all the vestiges of old wood and broken keys that reminded me of home. Sarah seemed to take it well, even after she threw up some aspirin, and it all amounted to a portrait that both Kronick and me saw ourselves as. We were like renegades in the badlands, taking the queen out of the castle because the whiskey was too warm or her husband not fitting for someone of her class. I began to call her queen, thinking of traveling through another wasteland without a queen was something I didn’t want.
“Queen, huh. Think Richard Yates will be impressed to meet a queen?”
“I know it, darling. He’s probably a heavy drinker/smoker, but whose perfect?”
By the time we reached Hollywood it was apparent the spare change we had would not go very far. The headaches were getting worse and we were all out of aspirin. At one point on the journey I had started babbling about too much light reflecting off the dashboard and nearly crashed us into a tree.
The man who seemed to be working the for quarters on the street in Hollywood had all the answers.
“Know him? I used to live with Richard Yates.” It made sense: millionaires working like they were some inept car washers. This man would lead us to Richard Yates. “And I’ll do it for free. Can I have some of the cocaine?”
“What?”
“Oh I see how it is. Then forget it!”
“We do have aspirin.”
“No we don’t. But we can get more of the fine snow.” Kronick seemed confident, and it was becoming apparent this man either had severe back problems or ate aspirin like it were candy.
We found some more aspirin. And I was surprised that the kinds at the local stores was not the right flavor of aspirin. We had to go behind a store and beat up a guy so he would give us some.
“This is not helping our mission,” I said as I watched the blood spill down the white man’s face.
“Ya, ya. It’s all about Richard Yates isn’t it! Huh? Well let me tell you. I already know where to find him. He’s dead.”
“That’s not funny.”
“I read your stupid book, he died over fifteen years ago. How could you miss that?”
“He was too good to just die.”
“You never read a damn word of his stuff. You’re living in an illusion.”
“And you have a aspirin problem.”
“Doesn’t change the fact he’s dead.”
“Don’t yell so much dudes.” Queen seemed disturbed by all these events, and there was little I could do. Kronick was important to my mission, he had all this addicting aspirin, but there was little I could do.
“I think this is where we part ways, Kronick.”
“And you know what? It’s not aspirin you idiot. It’s a drug. It’s cocaine. I been stealing all this money and cars just to get more. That’s why I was in prison.”
He pulled out his blade. “The car and the babe are mine.”
He really wanted to kill me at that moment. I had never been in a fight in my life, never done so much as a pushup, and Kronick was ripped, armed, and messed up on coffee, whiskey, and aspirin. My odds were low.
Queen made a move I did not expect. She must have known I would lose the battle with Kronick. She did some sort of ninja move that words cannot express, but I will try. She put one hand on the ground, threw her legs up and around Kronick’s neck, and then twisted. He fell to the ground immediately. “You killed Kronick!”
“He’s not dead.”
“That was the best move since—“
“You guys aren’t movie stars are you?”
“No.”
“And Richard Yates is really dead isn’t he?”
“That is a yes and no question. I will find the man.”
“Why?”
“Because I have nothing better to do.”
Out of aspirin, a pretty girl sitting next to me, the sun a bit too strong reflecting off the dashboard, and not a diner in the state that would serve whiskey with coffee—it was becoming apparent Richard Yates did not stay here long. I did not know much about writers, but aspirin and whiskey are key ingredients in the cocktails they mix.
“What if he really is dead?” Said Queen.
“I never believed in life after death.”
“What?”
“He can’t be dead. It wouldn’t be right. We will find him.”
“What does the book say?”
“He was working on adapting a novel into a movie. Something bad happened.”
“All we need is whiskey, cigarettes, coffee, and aspirin.”
“We buy the ticket, we take the ride.”
We left California. I heard of a writing retreat deep in the Oregon territory that Yates had once taught it. I won’t tell you how we found that out, but I will try. I had asked a man on the street washing windows in a brand new white suit—which made him really shine. He did not smell to well, but I imagined this man was a writer at some point.
“Oregon. Retreat.” That was the short version of what he said. I found out the rest by asking questions at party stores where we stocked up on whiskey and cigarettes. The aspirin was too high and we were out of money.
We reached Oregon, and I think the aspirin was wearing off. I began to look at Queen in a different way, but she ignored my lusty stares and sipped on whiskey. Queen was humming some song to herself, and I thought it showed talent.
We had a quarter left to find Richard Yates. Gas was expensive and I didn’t know how to borrow a car.
“Richard Yates is dead.”
“Same story that I don’t believe.” Allow me to back up. This man was a teacher at the retreat. We had walked about a mile to make it there; with nothing left to alter our thinking process.
“I don’t believe you.”
“I was at the funeral. He smoked and drank too much, but lived longer than his hero Fitzgerald.”
“Can we meet Fitzgerald? You think he knows where the man is.”
“You smell of whiskey, and she looks like a prostitute.”
I did punch the man, as you would imagine. He went down hard but got up and really laid me out with a few punches. He had the gray hairs but still put me down like a bad habit.
Queen started laughing. At first I thought it was because of me, and the way that the man had clocked me, but I saw that she was more hysterical.
“I think he is dead.” She said. “I gave up a minimum wage job for this.”
The teacher picked me up. “I’m sorry. I guess calling her a prostitute was wrong.”
“We just want to meet the man.”
“Would you like to meet a ghost instead?”
“Can I at least have some whiskey in my coffee?”
He started laughing. “Who the hell are you people? You seem to be the Richard Yates type.”
We ended up making friends with this man. He told me that every person we mentioned, from Hemingway to Yates, was actually dead. It made the challenge even greater for me. All we needed was a car, but I didn’t want to be drunk behind the wheel with a waitress desperate for more aspirin.
For some reason he gave us a car. Queen seemed pleased, but the bag of green weeds didn’t seem to appease her enough. The cigarettes did though.
“I think we should get off the aspirin,” she said to me.
“I’m wondering if we are wasting our time. I never even read one of his books.”
“Everyone says he’s dead.”
Let me tell you how I finally met Richard Yates. He was taller than I imagined, squinted his eyes in a way that made me think he needed glasses, smoked a couple cigarettes at a time like me. He didn’t take any aspirin, not even cold whiskey in his coffee, but he did know how to put words on the printed page. I met him in Canada. I went to the first person I saw and asked them if they were Richard Yates. Instead of laughing or acting confused, he told me a really good Richard Yates story.
“Who do you want to meet next?” Queen said.
“Virginia Woolf.”
“Is she dead too?”
“Writers never die; they just fade away. All we need is to borrow a car from Richard, some strong coffee, and a workmanlike approach to finding her.”
