 |
| Dr. Siluk in Havana, Cuba, at the Ambos Mundos Hotel,
6-2002, in E. Hemingway’s Room, his chair and desk and typewriter at hand |
It’s a hard reminder for
me, one of the most unpleasant I ever had to express. And it all came about
through my own foolishness, too, and I don’t use that word ‘fool…’ lightly, very
seldom, it is one word I think the Lord hates man to use, unless worthy of it.
Even yet sometimes, when I think of it, I want to beat the shit out of the guy,
I swear I nearly got on the airplane and journeyed off to someplace in England,
I never heard of, perhaps, even now, if I was to look through my files, after
all this time, couldn’t find it, and that was thirteen years ago. Possibly,
even now, after all this time there will be a kind of consummation, or
fulfillment, in making myself look bargain-basement cheap by telling of it.
It all started in 2003, I had read all
of Faulkner’s books, all of Fitzgerald’s books, all of Mary Renault’s books,
got signatures, or first editions of them all, and one book signed by each of
those authors but F. Scott’s, and now I had finished Hemingway’s books, all of
them. When I went to Cuba, I even went to the hotel where he had wrote “For Whom the Bell Tolls” The Ambos Mundos Hotel, and sat in his
chair, June of 2002, paying the lady in the room, where he lived in 1932 (Ernest Hemmingway being 39-years old at the time), $5 dollars, to lock the door as I sat in the chair, so
no one would come in to bother me. To tell the truth I felt a little foolish
that I should be sitting in the chair at all, which of course was forbidden. So
now back to Minnesota, I’m looking for a signed book, letter, anything signed
by Hemingway that has documentation to its originality. All my signatures have
such authentication.
All this running around inspires me to
write, I even went to Greece because of Mary Renault’s writes on Greece. I’ve
read nearly all of Sherwood Anderson’s works, and I could go on and on, I have
perhaps 30-special authors I like, and 30-poets I enjoy, and out of them a
handful, I consider worthy of mentioning twice in a sentence.
Well, I searched high and low, the books
were too expensive, and his letters were even higher. Then I found a letter, I
believe it to be original, one written about a boy, who Hemingway met in Cuba,
and he sent him some money, and it had something to do with baseball, it was on
blue paper. And I made some search of
it, and even copied the letter. It was on abe.com, and they are usually pretty
good, and the guy took the letter off.
And I wrote him, I wanted to buy it, but he’d not put it back on, yet in
inferred I could buy it threw him. Well, I didn’t see any guarantee. But a letter like that for $1100-dollars was
a good deal, my motto has for the most part been: when in doubt, don’t! But I
wasn’t listening to my senses (later on, after this
deal, just his signature would cost me $1000, with a guarantee, ten-years
later).
So this fellow who kept writing back assuring me in
Northern England I’d get the letter I wanted, if I sent him a Cashier’s Check
made out to his bank account some other place, so I sent it to him, and he
never sent the letter. I wrote him about it, he wrote back, as I lay awake
nights thinking up ways to injure him without being found out.
But this place in England was some small
town, in Timbuktu (metaphorically
speaking), and he told me
blank, “You’ll never find me,” (and he’s lucky I
didn’t, I’d be in jail for what I was thinking) and I
reported it to the FBI, gave all the information to them, and they were
useless, lazy sprawling like beach bums, and never even wrote me back (had it been Hillary Clinton, they would have jumped on
it, like white on rice).
Well, I never really talked about it
since then, what’s the use I figured. Such fellows grab every opportunity,
thieves, they are just thieves.
What I could say, my wife looking at me,
I said to myself, ‘Gosh darn such a big
fool—that’s what I am.’ I even thought I’d stop working be a bum like
this guy earning money, why be a boob as myself. Well, after beating myself up
some, I’ve learned to go treat one’s self, you always feel better, and I don’t
drink booze or smoke, gosh darn what can I do, I went to Paris, purchased a Dali
print, signed by him, then once back home, I bought a document signed by Benito
Mussolini, the old Italian Fascist dictator, and signed by the King of Italy;
Mussolini I have a lot of history on hand ((the
document being: Cat. No. 123, Lot. 105,
Ref: 69519) (out of Pacific Grove CA)). In any
case, nobody took much interest in this document, for $240-dollars to which
they were originally asking $1500, at the time, at the auction, the natural going
price; today if you tried to buy it at any reputable Historical Signature
Gallery the cost would be $5000-dollars and up. So by and large, all learning
lessons cost. And all bad lessons, you got to treat yourself, and become wiser.
#1196
(10-24-2016)
