Norman Mailer: “An Agreeable Proposal”

I told him I was but not as much as I would like. He nodded his head in understanding and then asked if I could make it over to his house the next afternoon at three to talk. As he said this, he shot a glance down into my shopping basket.

When someone peers at your groceries in the market they are, in a way, sneaking a look at a part of your personality you normally keep hidden behind cupboard doors. The recipient can feel exposed to some degree, not unlike how you feel when you discover that your diary has been read. Mr. Mailer’s eyes lingered on my basket for what I considered to be a moment too long. I had mushrooms, a bottle of tonic water, some garlic, balsamic vinegar, and a stalk of fennel. He looked back up at me, right in the eye. He always looked you straight on when addressing you, and you rarely felt uncomfortable unless your discomfort was his intent. Then, all of a sudden, his gaze drifted off toward something else, and so did his desire to chat further.

I did not feel so much uncomfortable as I did puzzled. Clearly, his mind had become occupied by another issue. We’d been chatting along just fine until his look landed on my groceries. I assumed I would never know what thoughts went plowing through his head. Surely, they had nothing to do with me or the contents of my basket.

“Yes,” he finally said after a second or two of silence, “come by at three. We’ll have a good talk then.” With that, he said goodbye, smiled, and pushed his shopping cart with his carefully picked bananas and other items gradually toward the checkout line, his canes still dangling from the handle that served as his mobile support.

I left the store and drove aimlessly around town, all the while replaying the meeting in my head. I didn’t know what to make of our encounter. I decided to park my car for a while in the West End, near the town boat launch, one of my favorite spots to think. The tide was high and the waves were creeping up the trailer ramp. Even though the night was cold and snowy, I had the window down an inch or two, to better hear the ocean and to taste its spray. Anyone who lives by the sea knows that mist blowing off the water is like Valium to an uneasy mind. I breathed it in. My chance encounter with Mr. Mailer had spawned scores of questions.

The hours I’d spent working as a waiter through the years had driven me to nearly detest their every moment. I had become consumed by a growing dislike of strangers and an even deeper revulsion at taking their food orders. I was weary with pretending to care if they liked their dinner or not. This surprise invitation from Mr. Mailer might, I thought, turn out to be a significant avenue away from it all. Then again, maybe I would end up helping him out with whatever it was he wanted and that would be that. Odds were I would have to continue plopping lobsters in front of tourists with bogus enthusiasm— at least on weekends. After Mr. Mailer was done with me, the project, or both, I’d then likely return to the dull existence of waiting on tables full time. That thought heaved up even more open-ended questions about where my life was going.

I had forgotten most of the reasons I’d moved to Provincetown by squandering away the core of them over years of menial jobs taken merely to stay afl oat. My idea to settle firmly into the life of a writer had eroded, and the only true bright spot was my relationship with Thomas. Thomas was a sensitive carpenter who brought out the best in me without even trying. He’d come to live with me recently after decades of struggle to find his own center, which often still seemed out of reach and sometimes ambiguous. Overall, we found ease at being together even while navigating our new familiarity. All other aspects of my life were unremarkable and rooted in a daily grind of repetition and fractured aspirations. Now, perhaps, a new door was opening; one that offered a revival of my interests and one that would teach me to think again while stilling my downward-spiraling stagnancy.

I returned home to tell Thomas about my encounter; he was usually the patient sounding board for my mental meanderings. He was slightly unclear as to exactly who Norman Mailer was, although he was familiar with the name and knew that he lived in Provincetown. Thomas and I were both children of the seventies, and as with almost everyone who came of age in America in that period, the name Norman Mailer was as recognizable to us as the term Watergate or the music of Pink Floyd. I repeated what I knew about The Naked and the Dead, The Executioner’s Song, the countless Playboy articles, and the Marilyn Monroe connection Mailer was weirdly famous for.

“So let me get this right. He’s famous for a book he wrote about World War Two, another about a murderer, and he’s connected somehow to Marilyn Monroe?” Thomas asked.

“Yes.”

“So what does he want to talk to you about?”

“He mentioned a project,” I said. “Other than that, I honestly have no clue.”