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IX
The So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away Airplane
Richard, Marian Hjortsberg (she and Gatz had gotten divorced), and I spent
quite a few afternoons in good weather sitting on her porch or out on the
grass drinking wine and commiserating. One such afternoon, shortly before
Richard's latest novel, So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away, was to come
out, he had just gotten a copy of the cover. Richard wasn't too happy with
the pink and lavender colors in it, but otherwise, he really liked it. We
did too. The picture of the comfy furniture by a body of water really got
at what the book is about. After watching the warm sun, mountains, and
trees through our glasses of Chablis for a while, Richard gave me the
cover and told me to make a paper plane out of it. I promptly did this,
making it as long, sleek and airworthy as possible. I think we all agreed
that it looked like a pretty good airplane. Then Richard said, "Get back
from the sidewalk about twenty feet and throw it as well as you can. If it
goes across the sidewalk, the novel will be a complete success. If it
doesn't, tragedy." We were all confident that there would be no problem
with such a sleek, well-balanced airplane. I stepped back, even waited for
a little tailwind, and tossed it. It sailed beautifully to the edge of the
sidewalk then took a nose dive. We all looked at the stupid little
airplane in horror. It was right at the line of demarcation between
failure and success. Richard got down and inspected it very closely and
still couldn't decide whether it had made it or not. Even if it had, there
was still the question of whether the whole thing had to be across the
line or just a molecule or two. I guess then we assumed that the paper
airplane was sort of like a football on the goal line where the molecule
rule went into effect. When the book was pretty well ignored upon its
publication (even a woman writing for Richard's beloved San Francisco
Chronicle, raked it over the coals--he said she was a hatchet-person
brought in from the outside), I looked back guiltily and wished I had made
a good airplane--like most of the others I've ever made.
Gorgo's Brautigan Stories Index
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