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XIII Dobro Dick
When I was at Richard's wake (at Marian's), People Magazine called and
wanted to talk to some of us about Richard. I had gone over to Richard's
house with Sean Cassity, another friend of Richard's, so I missed out on
the fuss. We were wandering the writer's path between his house and his
barn studio. The path still really seemed fresh, even though there was
some early snow on the ground. We talked about suicide. When we got back
to Marian's, Dobro said that he had talked for a half an hour to People
and tried to do the best he could. Later they called again when Tom
McGuane was there. Most of what they used in the article was from Tom.
None was from Dobro. That was too bad because Dobro was Richard's favorite
object of ridicule. Dobro is a mysterious old-style musician, cowboy
drifter. Then, he lived in a sheep wagon behind Marian's place and lured
young women from Livingston back there to listen to his weird, quaint
instruments and to surrender to his wiles. Dobro plays every song and
instrument from sea chanties on the squeeze box, to ditties on some weird
middle-eastern sounding bow-played instrument. Dobro was Richard's fool
(when I wasn't). When Dobro was hustling a woman in a bar, Richard would
sneak up behind him and say "Let's hear a ditty on the ol' squeeze box."
Once Richard actually followed him and his latest girlfriend to Dobro's
room at the Murray Hotel in Livingston. While Dobro tried to impress the
girl with ditties on the squeeze box, Richard stripped completely naked on
the bed and lay making alluring gestures at Dobro. Dobro said he wound up
getting the best of Richard that night, but from the way Richard described
it, that seems impossible. Sometimes when I came over to pick up Richard
and drive him back to Bozeman (usually to drink at the Eagles Bar), Dobro
would be standing in front of Marian's in the slanting snow holding an
instrument case. Richard would point ahead and say, "Drive on," and we
would leave him standing there in the snow.
Gorgo's Brautigan Stories Index
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