I do understand the strange day ben fagan finally came to visit me alone, bringing wine, smoking his pipe, and saying “Jack you need some sleep, that chair you say you’ve been sitting in for days have you noticed the bottom is falling out of it?”—I get on the floor and by God look and it’s true, the springs are coming out—“How long have you been sitting in that chair?”—“Every day waiting for Billie to come home and talking to Perry and the others all day. . . My God let’s go out and sit in the park,” I add—In the blur of days McLear has also been over on a forgotten day when, on nothing but his chance mention that maybe I could get his book published in Paris I jump up and dial longdistance for Paris and call Claude Gallimard and only get his butler apparently in some Parisian suburb and I hear the insane giggle on the other end of the line—“Is this the home, c’est le chez eux de Monsieur Gallimard?”—Giggle—“Où est Monsieur Gallimard?”—Giggle—A very strange phone call—McLear waiting there expectantly to get his “Dark Brown” published—So in a fury of madness I then call London to talk to my old buddy Lionel just for no reason at all and I finally reach him at home he’s saying on the wire “Youre calling me from San Francisco? but why?”—Which I cant answer any more than the giggling butler (and to add to my madness, of course, why should a longdistance call to Paris to a publisher end up with a giggle and a longdistance call to an old friend in London end up with the friend getting mad?)—So Fagan now sees I’m going overboard crazy and I need sleep—“We’ll get a bottle!” I yell
