A: Well, there he goes again. Ordinary America. Is he extraordinary? Is his story more exciting than the story, say, of Tommy Patrick? Really, is he more poetic than Tommy Patrick? He's more literate in the academic sense. We're talking now about language and life. Who has a more exciting life? I don't know. Each is exciting in its own way.
Q: What kind of withdrawal symptoms do you have? You must see a lot of people these days that you wish you could put in the book.
A: Yeah, there's this guy George Gloss, who has the second-hand book shop called the Brattle where I was looking for Nelson Algren's book "Come Morning." He is funny--would have been great.
And invariably somebody will say, "Why didn't you have somebody like me in it?" They want that piece of whatever it is--not immortality--hunk of themselves somewhere over and beyond their immediate physical being.
Did I tell you about the old black man I interviewed for "Division Street?" Oh, he was fantastic. He's about 85 or so, retired--worked as a boner for a meat packing company.
He said, "You coming to see me: what have I got to say that's important?" Now, that is the reason, I suppose, why I'm doing all these books. People feel they have nothing to say. But of course their lives are very rich.
Q: What struck you most about the interviews when you read them over in transcript form?
A: I suppose what struck me most, as I would read them aloud sometimes to my wife or someone else, was the sense of life. There's a life to it. It's exciting as hell when you finish some good ones. About work, there's a wild humor sometimes. Mostly, the self-contradictions in people's thoughts, psyches, about work. Like the elderly switchboard operator in the motel saying, "Oh, I love my work. Oh, I'm happy, I'm very happy with my work. These young girls, they're not as conscientious as I am. Once, though, at two in the morning"--let's say she worked for Holiday Inn--"I'd answer it, 'Marriott Inn.'" And I would say, "Why did you do that?" She'd say, "I don't know what made me do it. Just for a lark, I guess. Want to make the night more exciting. You know what I'd like to do some day? They think we're nothing. We're the center of communications. I'd like to pull all those plugs out and mix them all up. Wouldn't that be great! I'd like to do that." The woman says she loves her job, see, so she's marvelous.
Or the young gas meter reader. I call him Conrad Swibel. He says, "Oh, you gotta fight those dogs off. But every once in a while, say in the summer time, in a suburb out there, these young housewives, they're sunning themselves, you know? And she's in a bikini, you know, and her back is to the sun, lying on her stomach, and the bra is loose. And I go up close and I say, 'GAS METER READER!' She turns around, and I see a lot, you know. She says, 'Why didn't you announce yourself?!' And I say, 'Well, I didn't know, M'am.' You know what? It makes the day go faster." [Laughs.]
I suppose what I find most that really moves me, and I hope Broyard doesn't mind too much my saying this, is that survival quality in the midst of stuff that could make people automatons, robots. They're not yet that, and that's fantastic. This durable quality of the human species is incredible, you know.
"Anatole Broyard is nutty as a fruitcake. He's implying that I'm a good writer but wasting my time with worthless people. Of course, he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about."