Inscription in a Richard Brautigan Book

The inscription was written  on the first page above the blurbs:

Brian,

Welcome to Brautigan. This is mind-funk. Enjoy. Thanks for being you. Keep hoisting them dark pints! 

M. 

12/92

The paperback is a bind up of Trout Fishing in America, The Pill versus the Springhill Mine Disaster, and In Watermelon Sugar. I found it in Brooklyn on Prospect Park West between Prospect Ave and Windsor on Jan. 3. This was a day when people get back into town from their Holiday travels and try to make room for new stuff. There was a small pile of books, so Death had been busy on Brian’s bookshelves.

For non-New Yorkers, here is some context (apparently lots of people in America don’t live in New York). Space is extremely precious in Brooklyn. Books are space hogs. People often put books out on the curb and then other book-suckers pick them up.  Read them or not, they may end up out on the street again, most likely right before or even during a move, part of a slow moving sea of books traded anonymously. If we all lived in big houses in the suburbs, we would just keep them.

Despite the wishes of the M. of the inscription, Brian did the worst thing that you can do to a gifted book. He put it out on the curb. But why? And who are these people?

It is addressed to “Brian.” Just “Brian.” The writer could have helped. Had it started with a “Dearest” or a “Beloved,” we would know for sure that their bonds were of the flesh. Had the Brian been cut with a “Hi” or a “Hey Knucklehead,” we would know that these were friends. Just “Brian,” lends a weight. But what kind of weight? Lover, Former Lover, Mentor, Boss, Parent?

The first two sentences make me lean towards a mentor relationship:

Welcome to Brautigan. This is mind-funk. Enjoy.

It also has a kind of pushiness. I own this writer. This work was mine and now I’m giving it to you. Notice the hyphen in “mind-funk.” This is a performance. Then M. goes on to tell Brian what to do: “Enjoy.” Nobody likes to be told what to do. Imagine we were in a bar together and I turned to you and said, “I command you to breathe and drink your beer.” You would probably think, What an asshole, as you took breath and drank beer.

There is nothing worse than the mentor who tries to mentor the unwilling. I may have been guilty of this in the past.

The next line pushes the scale back towards a romantic relationship, “Thanks for being you.” But a particular kind. This line sounds like a consolation prize for a relationship not had. Something that the lover who thought better of it all would tell you. With that reading in mind, the next line is heartbreaking:

Keep hoisting them dark pints!

Forget that I said this person was bossy. This inscription strikes the right note of camaraderie. A little roughened grammar, a great verb. This is the right way to drink. If you actually get to sleep with the person that you hoist “them” dark pints with, you are doing very well in this lifetime.

We should all hoist while we can, because one day, it won’t be hoisting. That beer stein will be bailing out a sinking ship, one mind-numbing drink after another. This inscription was written twenty-three years ago. Maybe Brian is there already. Maybe the memories soured on this friend, or this lover, or on this self, not because it was a bad self, but because that self can’t be recaptured. Or maybe he didn’t like the book that much and only kept it because of the inscription. There was a dog-eared corner at page 93. The corner could have been marking a favorite passage or be the place that he shut the book forever.

The writer of the inscription signs off with an initial and a period. The M. needs no explanation for Brian. The self evident M. would never imagine that he or she could be forgotten. That  Winter day may have finally come.

As far as the book goes, I’m with M.. I’m having a good time reading it.

ps. Brian, Brian between Prospect Ave and Windsor, if you happen to read this and you have changed your mind, maybe you forgot the inscription was in there, maybe M. just called, maybe you ran into someone that knew you both and you had a long talk about old times over a whiskey, maybe you got it all wrong, maybe you misunderstood a whole decade, Brain, you can have Trout Fishing in America back. Don’t wait too long. When I move, I might have to put it out on the curb.