210
DAVID JACKSON
His host, Walter Norman, was standing on the fringes of a crowd
surrounding Nicolas's table at Ciro's bar. Though he couldn't
see Nicolas, he knew his guest's expression, the tears on his face,
by the loud declaiming he could hear:
"What do you bullshit prosers
feel?"
Answer coming from a famous tough novelist who, ten years
ago, had written an army life novel raising a row of sorts and
then becoming a movie:
"What d'ya mean feel?"
"Hah! you don't even know. (Buy me a beer, big shot. )
Look, it's like
I
either feel love or I jump in a canal! See?"
"Listen, poet, suicide's
the
homosexual act!"
At this Walter decided to leave. It was past four a.m. and
he was out of lire, this week's and next's. Hearing Nicolas's
shout, "You too cheap to buy me a beer even?" Walter threw
open the swinging door and lunged into the Campo Larga 22
Marzo. Arms flailing, head down, Walter ambled along startling
those late passersby who did not know him. He was a man full
of unexpected fears and major courage. He was a familiar sight
in Venice and given to loud, shouted retorts when taunted. "You
may kiss the ass of--" (the name of the place where Mussolini
was buried) - a Norman cry in a vast baritone had brought
cheers and applause one evening from the cafes around the
Morosini. Italians understood bravado. His fire-engine red suit,
double breasted with red buttons, or his white suit, white buttons,
brought Venetians to a standstill of respect as he passed along
talking to himself or to a group of friends moving from a cock-
tail party someplace to a dinner someplace else.
Poetry and poets were the two chief concerns of Walter'
life. Tonight, talking aloud, now and then raising his head to
address the stars, he had temporarily put his problem with
Nicolas out of
his
mind and was brooding about something that
had occurred to him some hours before. "Everyone's a four letter
poet, nowadays!" he was telling himself, crossing the
brid~e
of
the San Stefano, "Moss, Hall, Pack, Reid, Bagg, Gunn . ..
my
