A Letter to Fante

 Dear Mr. Fante,

We never met, but a long time ago a common friend, Chinaski, told me you were a writer better than him. At first I didn’t believe it. You know how these things go. Bukowski says something like that and you think he’s either drunk, being generous, or both. But he kept at it. He told me to read you and decide for myself. So I did. Six or seven books later, I have to admit it: he was right.

Good writers make me feel like giving them a call after reading their work, just to have a friendly chat. That’s how I decide if someone is a good writer or not. But you are dead and don’t have a phone, so I’m writing instead of calling. I hope you don’t mind.

The reason for that call changes for me from writer to writer. For example, Kafka made me want to call him just to say take it easy and not be so harsh on himself. Stefan Zweig made me want to call him to discuss the world. Dostoyevsky made me want to call him to talk about the pain that people have to endure and whether it has any meaning. This time, the reason I wanted to call you, Bandini, was similar to the reason I called Bukowski for the first time: humor. Real humor. The kind mixed with bitterness, sarcasm, and self-mockery. You can laugh at yourself without trying to look noble about it. That’s what I like. You don’t stand there posing like some kind of tortured genius. You know the joke includes you.

When I read you, I see a man who understands all the bullshit around him and knows perfectly well that he is part of it too. A man who knew that most things in life are bloated, overpriced, exaggerated. A place to live. A job. A pussy to fuck. Everything asks too much from us. Too much time, too much energy, too much pretending. And reading you, I felt you were tired of it too.

Anyhow, your writing made me think about something I had never quite thought about with other writers. Maybe it was because you wrote so much about your father and his death—by the way, let me ask you something before I forget. After your father died, did you really fuck that old nurse? I mean on that same day. If you did, congratulations. I’m sure the old man would have been proud. He probably would have done the same thing himself anyway.

Maybe it was just because of the mood I was in when I read you. Who knows. But suddenly I kept thinking about all those people in your books—your father, your mother, your wife, your friends—and you too. You are all dead now. Every one of you. And all those troubles, all those hopes, all those humiliations, all those little victories and defeats—they are all gone now. What value do they have now? Nothing. Assuming they ever amounted to much even then. I don’t know what to do with that fact. I don’t know what it means. But it made me think and made me a bit depressed. Though it doesn’t take much to depress me, so maybe I shouldn’t blame that on you or your work.

You know, it also made me think about something else. I realized that there are many facts in life I don’t know what to do with. The fact that there will always be something missing, something we will miss in our finite lives. The fact that some people are born lucky and others are born screwed, and that’s that. The fact that we won’t live forever—that the past is gone. No explanation worth a damn. But then what do we do with this? I don’t know.

Which leads me to the other question I wanted to ask, Arturo. I saw that you write about your childhood a lot. Was that because you were missing it, because it was the most entertaining part of your life? Is it the moment you miss the most? Would it be when you had your child? Or when you hit a home run when you were 12? Or when you received your first paycheck as a writer?

For me, Mr. Fante, I’d like to be dead tired on a snowy January night. I come home after a long walk that I usually take, so tired I can barely move, maybe even a little feverish. There’s a hot calorifer in the apartment and you hear the cracking noises coming from it because of the expansion from the hot water. You hear the TV coming from the living room. Then I lie down and fall into a deep, heavy sleep. What I’d really like is to remain in that moment just before sleep takes you—that last moment when everything loosens, when the weight begins to slide off, when you are still here but already halfway gone. Thoughts go through your head like fast glimpses of images you have no control over.

Or I’m between the breasts of a nice-smelling lady. I’m lying on soft, warm skin, white as marble. We are lying there after sex and her hands are in my hair, caressing me. We are a bit sweaty, but it just makes it better. It’s spring and the weather is nice. A half-open window is there and you can hear a little breeze going through the branches. She asks me if I’m comfortable, but we aren’t talking other than that, and I’m not thinking anything at all. I’m not thinking if this lady will be there the next day, if I’m in love, if I will ever miss her—nothing. My brain is almost stoned. It’s again on the edge of falling asleep. My eyes are closed, but when I half-open them I see her firm breasts going up and down as she breathes, and her blond hair and pink lips. Her eyes are also closed; she just touches me almost mechanically. And maybe the best part, the thing that makes that moment as great as it is, is that we don’t know each other that well yet. So there are no disappointments on either side, just hopes and expectations.

But those times are gone and won’t ever come back. As I’m sitting here alone and typing these words, this is another fact that I don’t know what to do with, and I want to end this letter here.

So dear Arturo Bandini, if you know the answer, please let me know. Or if you know a nice, lonesome blonde lady, please send her to me—that would be better.

Your friend,

Ali