O'Gatty has forgotten his poetry.
He sinks to
the bus bench, leans back on Clark Gable. In silence he
watches Pretty Mary and Socco return bickering to their make-believe
marriage. Just remember one thing, O'Gatty warns in lieu of making me
a straight offer. 
You
take it too seriously, it'll kill
you. A lot of guys come riding in here on their white horses and leave
feeling like jackasses. Humor them. Be kind. Play some bingo. Hold a dance
now and then. And parties--they love parties. All you can do is help them
pass the time, but don't pretend you're their savior. From the phone booth
at the two-way mirror, I dial my studio. When nobody answers I let it
hang. Picking up my ringing phone a few hours later I am not surprised to
hear a stranger tell me that he was the last person kissed by Marilyn
Monroe.Larry Lasker tells me he was one of the first people to see
Marilyn Monroe dead. She was his neighbor when he was a boy. (My neighbor
is the same tunafish Pretty Mary listens to at the Blue Motel.) Larry's
parents let him serve the guests when movie stars came for dinner. Ronald
Reagan's favorite hors d'oeuvre
was peanut butter spread on a Ritz
cracker, topped with bacon chips. As Reagan inevitably grew tiresome, the
party sitting beside him would beckon little Larry with his tray of
speech-impeding treats. In the mail this morning a photograph from Robert
Cumming: an asshole superimposed over the craters that
normally pock the
surface of Reagan's preference.
Anthony Quinn is carrying a canvas
under his arm at the crosswalk. Since playing Gaugin he has been a serious
painter. How it is going? Muddy in the glazes. Down the block, anthropology distinguish the neighborhood. One finds poems,
pen pal requests, names and addresses, short stories, and more film than
Andy Warhol shot of the Empire State Building. This morning it was John Wayne in a haymound with a little boy; yesterday
it was Rock Hudson turning into Helen
Frankenthaler. Our conversation turns to what we find most interesting in
art. Some lean on the dead, some lean on the living.