| From "Following Richard Brautigan" *The Absence of Richard Brautigan and the Franz Kline Shirt Time is passing and I realize I am no closer to Richard Brautigan than I was back in Oklahoma City. On the fourth day I begin to ask strangers if they know how to contact Richard Brautigan. I wander the streets, lonely as a crowd. I eat a gyro sandwich I buy from a small café, the cucumber sauce dripping onto my shirt front as I walk. After I finish eating I try to rub my shirt clean with the Kleenex-size napkin they provided. I make a smear that looks something like a Franz Kline painting. I walk back to City Lights Bookstore. I am getting nowhere. I bolster myself and ask the beatnik clerk if he knows where I can find Richard Brautigan. I understand that I am as foolish as a beetlehead. He says, "Yeah. I think he’s in Japan." "Really?" I ask, trying not to sound twelve years old. "I believe so," he says. "Hm," I say, as if I had an appointment with him and he has disappointed me. "Anything else?" he asks. He’s sort of half-smiling so I’m not sure if he wants me to move on or not. "Uh, no." "Ok." He goes back to his copy of The Village Voice. "Oh, do you know where his house is? The one in San Francisco?" I’m slipping away. "Sure." "Ok," I say. "Ok," he says, too. "See ya." "Yep." |