Hoskins: The Artist as
Terrorist
by William Todd
by William Todd
Copyright 1981 by William Todd
First Published by Ehling Clifton Books 1982 [Edition Suppressed]
Cover by Nancy Todd [Jaeger]
Republished by Andrew D. Todd, Rowboats of San Diego September 30, 2025
Narly forty-five years have gone by since the events depicted in this book, the book's original authorship, and the failed attempt at publication. The reasons for its suppression no longer exist, various people having died in the intervening years, and the book is here effectually published for the first time. I would like to express my gratitude to Deborah Adrian for her help in OCR-scanning a surviving paperback copy.--- ADT
Acknowledgments
I [William Todd, in 1982] am indebted to the many friends of Jim Hoskins who have provided a good deal of the background material for this book. Some have asked not to be mentioned by name, and it seems best to apply the same rule for all.
In addition, I would like to thank the following persons who did not know Hoskins, or only knew him briefly, but who have read the manuscript and commented helpfully on it: Bobby Bell, Kuaana Bell, Jeanne Edwards, Elaine Green, Morse Johnson, John Martin, John McEvoy, Jenefer Robinson, Rebecca Ross, Cheryl Scott , Michael Scott, Pauline Smolin, and Mary Todd.
Chapter 1 Opening at Big Ray's 1
Chapter 9 The Views of some Friends 101
Chapter 11 The Final
Straw: Norman Spinrad 137
Home
Art exhibitions invariably begin with what is called "the opening." This is o social event with drinks and snacks, and often attracts more people than will subsequently see the exhibition in its entire run. If the opening is in a museum or major gallery, the work shown is often of an honored worthy who is either dead or too important to come. These are in the minority. Most openings feature the work of local not-so-famous artists, and constitute the major social events in their lives. They gather with their friends, rivals, mates, and perhaps even o patron or two. The artists may outnumber the nonartists, which makes for conviviality, but cuts down on the number of sales. Someone who goes to only a few of these openings sees many of the same people and gets an impression of the local community of artists. Even when there is a large exhibition in a museum, the young artists and art students come to the opening (sometimes getting in without tickets) and swirl through the rooms with the establishmentarians who have been brought out by the great name. Occasionally, some of the latter, drawn either by true interest in art or a desire to be fashionably in the forefront, return the compliment and go to the little openings.
A few of these gatherings attempt to imitate the larger openings, but most have their own way of doing things. Some are really open houses for groups of studios where the artists have their work on display. Since the artists often live in their studios to save money, each is a little world of its own, where no wall space is left out of account and even the toilet seat may be, if not a work of art on its own, at least designed to add to the general effect. Other openings may have a string of nude photographs of the young mistresses of the artist to set the stage, while yet others may have some impromptu theatre to intensify the effect of the paintings. It is only the exceptional opening where there are motorcyclists with chains, and where a middle-class visitor might feel uneasy at the fact that the only exit is blocked by a large mean-looking man who might not like to be asked to move.
On the night of the first opening a t the Raymond Phynder Gallery no one was in any danger despite the fact that owner, Big Ray, sometimes wore a spiked German helmet to parties and could easily have frightened a lot of people with a [p.2] bad look. The artists, many of whom had had bad experiences at other galleries, felt comfortable with Ray and happily stepped over and around the many cats who lived in the gallery. Some had reached the point where they would have exhibited if he had opened a gallery in a cave or tree house, but part of the point of locating the gallery in the country town of Milford, Ohio was its location next to the wealthiest suburbs of Cincinnati. It was hoped that the surrounding residents would notice it, would come to the openings, and would not neglect to bring their purses with them.
Some had reached the point where they would have exhibited if he had opened a gallery in a cave or tree house, but part of the point of locating the galler in thecountry town of Milford, Ohio, was its location next to the wealthiest suburbs ofCicinnati. It was hoped that the surrounding residents would notice it, would come to the openings, and would notneglect to bring their purses with them. So far, no one had arrived who appeared likely to throwhundred dollar bills around,and it was clear to an experienced eye that such eoe would not come. The sleepy little town had no lack of charm and more than its share of antiquarian interest, but it had yet to be"discovered"by the fashionable world. There were no gleaming brass door knockers and house numbers, no fake gas lights, ond the gallery did not have an awning reaching down to the sidewalk.
Still, whle the sorts of people who might spend large sums out of ignorance were not present, there may well have be some less conspicuously wealthy people who knew what they liked, and were prepared to pay fair a price for it. Indeed, among the people gathered in the front of the gallery, still enjoying the waning smlight, there were some who could have occupied almost any station in life. Conversations could easily be overheard and brought together many different accents and personal styles. In one group a middle-aged man was talking with a much younger one while a young woman looked on. Th older man looked as if he was interested in what the other had to say despite being a bit put off by the energy which the youth put into his speech and gestures, and, above all, by the close range at which he chose to converse. Such a pair might have ended up circling around the woman, one advancing while the other retreated, had not the older man been much taller. As it was, he stood extra straight and the other, in order to avoid an almost entirely vertical conversation, had to keep a certain distance.
The older man, in a well-worn jacket and knit tie, looked as if he were dressed less formally than usual, while the younger, in paint splattered but freshly washed jeans and sweatshirt, looked as if he might have made a special effort for the occasion. The latter was as surely an artist as the former was not, and, with a squat powerful body topped with musses of curly black hair, he could easily have been a sculptor. In addition, he used his large hands to shape his words in a way that was profoundly unmidwestern and suggested an origin in one of the large cities of the east. The older man might also [p.3] have corne from the east, but if there was something about him not mid-western, it was a different sort of something. As it turned out, both had lived in Boston and were talking about a gallery ownernamed Montague whom they had known there.
The young woman was almost as tall as the older man and looked hardly out of ber teens. But, since she seemed also to be an artist, and to feel ot home in the group, she was probably older than she looked. She would hove been quite good looking but for a square jaw that was almost grotesquely oversized. Even so, it was the kind of thing that o person of eccentric taste might have liked. The man who was old enough to be her father did indeed show some interest and addressed remarks to her, but without getting much response.
Suddenly, she turned to the younger man, whispered in his eat, kissed him, and clouted him cheerfully in the stomach. Before he could reply, she had departed to join another, younger, group.
The young man, apparently used to sudden blows to the stomach, continued to listen to the other.
The older man, amused by this self-revelation, continued his story: "All the time he was talking about money he said he preferred to talk of art, but we never quite got around to that. He as much as said that the gallery lost money, and that he supported it on his private income. I didn't believe him, even at the time."
The young man, in addition to being mercenary, was a surprisingly good mimic, and produced a facsimile of what must have been a highly affected voice: "One would like to subsidize one's favorite young artists, but there are so many. One wishes one were wealthier."
This idea seemed to tickle the fancy of the younger man who evidently had a score to settle.
A bohemian setting tends to give the art produced a special quality different from that of young artists who have recently graduated from fine arts programs. For one thing, as one would expect, the bohemian artists tend to have a good deal of natural talent. There are none who have limited natural ability but who
Most women who think it would be romantic and
exciting to have an affair with such a man will find that
the reality is quite different from their expectations.
The men are likely to be highly eccentric and difficult,
to feel very comfortable about living in squalor, and to
view permanent commitment to a woman as a kind of
madness. Even if the woman accepts all that, she may still
find that the artist spends a great deal of his time
on his art, that he pays little attention to her, and that
he feels justfied in starting a casual or serious
affair with another woman if he thinks that it will help
his work. The women who end up in that world must either
themselves be strongly committed to art, or must be so
disenchanted with other kinds of men that they have turned
to artists as a last resort short of lesbianism. Some,
after giving the artists a try, do go on to that last
step. Most women who live with "alternative" artists have
a clear idea of what they are up against, and have
developed ways of making themselves felt.
The third center of attraction operated in an even more subtle way. Since she was dressed in the most subdued, even drab, way imaginable, one might have overlooked Jean entirely had she not been six feet tall. In a longish skirt and high-necked blouse of nondescript dark colors, her clothing looked as if it had come out of someone's attic. But, because of her oldfashioned and poverty-stricken appearance, together with definite tilt to her chin, one could easily picture her as the sort of woman who might have sat talking to one of the impressionists in a cheap Paris cafe in the nineties. Despite the unostentatiousness of her dress as compared to that of Charlene, she seemed to know that, however hard she appeared to try to hide her light, her beauty would nevertheless shine forth all the more brilliantly.
Home
Art exhibitions invariably begin with what is called "the opening." This is o social event with drinks and snacks, and often attracts more people than will subsequently see the exhibition in its entire run. If the opening is in a museum or major gallery, the work shown is often of an honored worthy who is either dead or too important to come. These are in the minority. Most openings feature the work of local not-so-famous artists, and constitute the major social events in their lives. They gather with their friends, rivals, mates, and perhaps even o patron or two. The artists may outnumber the nonartists, which makes for conviviality, but cuts down on the number of sales. Someone who goes to only a few of these openings sees many of the same people and gets an impression of the local community of artists. Even when there is a large exhibition in a museum, the young artists and art students come to the opening (sometimes getting in without tickets) and swirl through the rooms with the establishmentarians who have been brought out by the great name. Occasionally, some of the latter, drawn either by true interest in art or a desire to be fashionably in the forefront, return the compliment and go to the little openings.
A few of these gatherings attempt to imitate the larger openings, but most have their own way of doing things. Some are really open houses for groups of studios where the artists have their work on display. Since the artists often live in their studios to save money, each is a little world of its own, where no wall space is left out of account and even the toilet seat may be, if not a work of art on its own, at least designed to add to the general effect. Other openings may have a string of nude photographs of the young mistresses of the artist to set the stage, while yet others may have some impromptu theatre to intensify the effect of the paintings. It is only the exceptional opening where there are motorcyclists with chains, and where a middle-class visitor might feel uneasy at the fact that the only exit is blocked by a large mean-looking man who might not like to be asked to move.
On the night of the first opening a t the Raymond Phynder Gallery no one was in any danger despite the fact that owner, Big Ray, sometimes wore a spiked German helmet to parties and could easily have frightened a lot of people with a [p.2] bad look. The artists, many of whom had had bad experiences at other galleries, felt comfortable with Ray and happily stepped over and around the many cats who lived in the gallery. Some had reached the point where they would have exhibited if he had opened a gallery in a cave or tree house, but part of the point of locating the gallery in the country town of Milford, Ohio was its location next to the wealthiest suburbs of Cincinnati. It was hoped that the surrounding residents would notice it, would come to the openings, and would not neglect to bring their purses with them.
Some had reached the point where they would have exhibited if he had opened a gallery in a cave or tree house, but part of the point of locating the galler in thecountry town of Milford, Ohio, was its location next to the wealthiest suburbs ofCicinnati. It was hoped that the surrounding residents would notice it, would come to the openings, and would notneglect to bring their purses with them. So far, no one had arrived who appeared likely to throwhundred dollar bills around,and it was clear to an experienced eye that such eoe would not come. The sleepy little town had no lack of charm and more than its share of antiquarian interest, but it had yet to be"discovered"by the fashionable world. There were no gleaming brass door knockers and house numbers, no fake gas lights, ond the gallery did not have an awning reaching down to the sidewalk.
Still, whle the sorts of people who might spend large sums out of ignorance were not present, there may well have be some less conspicuously wealthy people who knew what they liked, and were prepared to pay fair a price for it. Indeed, among the people gathered in the front of the gallery, still enjoying the waning smlight, there were some who could have occupied almost any station in life. Conversations could easily be overheard and brought together many different accents and personal styles. In one group a middle-aged man was talking with a much younger one while a young woman looked on. Th older man looked as if he was interested in what the other had to say despite being a bit put off by the energy which the youth put into his speech and gestures, and, above all, by the close range at which he chose to converse. Such a pair might have ended up circling around the woman, one advancing while the other retreated, had not the older man been much taller. As it was, he stood extra straight and the other, in order to avoid an almost entirely vertical conversation, had to keep a certain distance.
The older man, in a well-worn jacket and knit tie, looked as if he were dressed less formally than usual, while the younger, in paint splattered but freshly washed jeans and sweatshirt, looked as if he might have made a special effort for the occasion. The latter was as surely an artist as the former was not, and, with a squat powerful body topped with musses of curly black hair, he could easily have been a sculptor. In addition, he used his large hands to shape his words in a way that was profoundly unmidwestern and suggested an origin in one of the large cities of the east. The older man might also [p.3] have corne from the east, but if there was something about him not mid-western, it was a different sort of something. As it turned out, both had lived in Boston and were talking about a gallery ownernamed Montague whom they had known there.
The young woman was almost as tall as the older man and looked hardly out of ber teens. But, since she seemed also to be an artist, and to feel ot home in the group, she was probably older than she looked. She would hove been quite good looking but for a square jaw that was almost grotesquely oversized. Even so, it was the kind of thing that o person of eccentric taste might have liked. The man who was old enough to be her father did indeed show some interest and addressed remarks to her, but without getting much response.
Suddenly, she turned to the younger man, whispered in his eat, kissed him, and clouted him cheerfully in the stomach. Before he could reply, she had departed to join another, younger, group.
The young man, apparently used to sudden blows to the stomach, continued to listen to the other.
"1 bought a few things from Montague, and, each time, he carefully explained how little interest he had in making money."
"Bullshit. He's a mercenary bastard. Even more mercenary than I am."
The older man, amused by this self-revelation, continued his story: "All the time he was talking about money he said he preferred to talk of art, but we never quite got around to that. He as much as said that the gallery lost money, and that he supported it on his private income. I didn't believe him, even at the time."
The young man, in addition to being mercenary, was a surprisingly good mimic, and produced a facsimile of what must have been a highly affected voice: "One would like to subsidize one's favorite young artists, but there are so many. One wishes one were wealthier."
"Have you ever sold any work through him?"
"A little. At first he wouldn't take anything of mine. He said [p.4] all the ladies who came in trying to find something to match théir blue couches wouldn't buy it."
"He also complained about ladies with blue couches to me. He said that the art lover who opens a gallery had to accept certain realities. got the impression that another of those realities was that I could have made up a whole school of eighteenth century French painters and sent him off on a wild goose chase."
This idea seemed to tickle the fancy of the younger man who evidently had a score to settle.
"It's easier to put over a hoax on people like Montague than to get them to take something good. I've known artists who got discouraged and finally decided to do something crazy and absurd, and had success. Like nailing a pair of pantyhose to a board and writing "FART" on it in big red letters. You'd be surprised how seriously you can be taken if you look right andact right."
"Well, really, it can be hard to distinguish between certain kinds of radically new work and outright frauds. Anyhow, you have to know more than Montague does."
"Sometimes it's so much a matter of how you strike the dealer when he first sees you. When we went to Boston Bridget wasn't painting that well, but she's striking looking and there was a naive charm in her work that just matched herpersonality. He took anything she had to offer, and pushed it. I had to pester him to pay her, but he kept us going for months ."
"Yes, I can imagine his being pretty vague about money when it comes time to pay artists."
"Shit yes. But the worst came later. Just when she really got her painting together, he wouldn't even show it. We were both pissed about that."
"Probably he couldn't sell it to the ladies with the blue couches anymore. Part of the problem consists in the kind of customers that he has. Even in the east, a lot of wealthy people look upon an art dealer just as an interior decorator."
"It's a relief to be here. I don't think anyone would ever take Ray to be an interior decorator."
[p.5]
There was a pause when the younger mon seemed unsure whether to something thot was on his mind.
With Ray and some of his male friends it was not hard to imagine that they might get it into their heads to undertake something, perhaps a happening in the streets, that would bring them into conflict with the local authorities. However, some of the women present were at least as willing to defy authority One of them was so quiet and serious that it was hard to imagine her in conflict with anyone. However, she had become aware that an old drifter who lived along the river bank was being evicted from areas he had fished for decades moreover, was being taken to court. Mary Jane went to the hearing herself, and, after sentence had been passed, stood and made a few telling remarks to the woman judge. As a result, she spent the night in jail for contempt of court sentence which could hardly have been more deserved in q literal sense. The next day she emerged undaunted and fully prepared to take on the local power sruvcture.
While that establishment was not the most enlightened that could be imagined, its members probably did not set out to be evil and repressive. They had in the past had some conflicts with a gentleman who continued to think that it was all right to drive an army surplus tank down the main street, and this had perhaps decreased their toleration for eccentrics. Then there had been what must have seemed to be an invasion of bohemian artists. While some of the ordinary people in the town [p.7] got on quite well with Ray and his friends, there were others who wanted to keep the town exactly as it had been, and who feared any sort of change. It was true enough that the town, with its narrow streets and old stone water mill was unique and valuable. In fact, no one appreciated this more than the artists who were still standing in the deepening shadows. From the corner outside the gallery one could see the whole line of shops along the main street in one direction, and, in the other, the mill and the rickety iron bridge beyond it.
The only sour note in this tranquil scene consisted in the horrid noises and clouds of noxious smoke spewing out of a car stalled on the bridge. The car, an old red Pinto, was not actually on fire, but, after a few more lurches and backfires, it seemed to surrender to whatever loathsome disease afflicted its innards. It had barely stopped before a burly figure emerged from the passenger door and pushed the car briskly off the bridge.
Instead of stopping at the end of the bridge, the car continued up the gentle grade at a surprising pace with the man pushing it now entirely hidden from the view of those standing outside the gallery. They could see only a young woman steering a car which, instead of complaining loudly at every revolution of the wheels, seemed to have found a capacity for quiet and effortless motion. It was only when the car came to a stop at the curb that the man behind it stood up and was revealed. He had obviously enjoyed his exertions, and, joined by the woman who got out of the car, he crossed the street to greet his friends with a broad grin. Neither of the erstwhile motorists seemed at all upset at the unhappy state of their car. If anything, they were pleased that it had gotten them as far as it had. Moreover, as they joked about the manner of their arrival, they acted like people who were taking modest pride in a new invention. A mode of automotive transportation in which one person enjoys a pleasant soothing ride with minimal danger of accident while the other takes satisfaction in the healthy exercise of pushing. If one knew even a little about Jim Hoskins and Melanie Findlay, one would also know that she, with equal enthusiasm, would take her turn pushing.
Of course, that was before their names were splashed
across every newspaper and television set in the country
in such bizarre circumstances. Even then, Hoskins'
friends would have allowed that he might have done a
good many unusual things, and that some of them could
have gone a bit beyond the bounds of art as
conventionally defined. Still, whatever happened later,
the arrival of Hoskins and Melanie turned out to be the
signal that everyone had been unconsciously waiting for
to enter the [p.8] gallery. In addition, their presence
changed the tone of the group which had been standing
under the large sign of the gallery, and which had
blended in with the soft pastel colors of the street. It
was as if the newcomers had brought a different
atmosphere with them, one that could be depicted only
with less restrained colors. There was now even less
inhibition and, above all, more energy. Energy which, as
it turned out, had the potential to move in many
unsuspected directions.There was a pause when the younger mon seemed unsure whether to something thot was on his mind.
"It all to a head one night when he had an opening and said was going to show several of her paintings. We looked all over and couldn't find any. So I pried him away from some assholes he was buttering up and asked him. After all, her pieces were so tiny that we might have missed them. He gave a sickly smile md said he couldn't find room for them because theey were so large. I stilt don't know if he just forgot what they were or was deliberately insulting us. She didn't say a word, but she started drinking everything in sight. Then she got to pouring as much of the champagne punch as she could onto his plants."Inside the gallery, Ray, needing to make some arrangements with his woman friend, or just wanting to find someone, tended to shout hoarsely in a way that shook all three rooms. And this was his restrained indoor voice. Once, on a hike through the neighboring suburb that constituted Ray's best potential market, he had exercised his outdoor voice to the full while flourishing a walking stick he had fashioned in the woods. The shouting went on rythmically for some time, and, while volume blurred words beyond recognition, the impression given was that of a fundamentalist preacher of the old school come to wreak retribution on all the sinners cowering in their great houses. Thus, while Ray did not himself paint, he certainly set an example for style. It was unfortunate only that it was not a style calculated to make the rich feel at home in his gallery.
"Did he see her do it?"
"1 don't know, but she was really wild. It was so funny because, all dressed up in her only dress and her only high heels, she looked more aristocratic than the rich ladies, but went reeling crazily around. I finally got her out the front door and heard her say something about being too humiliated to be dressed like that. Then, before I knew what had happened, she had her dress over her head and threw it in the gutter. I was pretty drunk myself but did get her into the car before we got arrested."
If anything else had been needed to unnerve staid
and dignified people, one of the group, when
introduced to a woman who was a probation officer in
the criminal courts, talked of the probation
officers he had had himself. Although his
difficulties had probably arisen only from the use
of marijuana in the days when the penalties were
severe, he made it sound as if he were an armed
felon. When he went on to speculate that he might
[p.6] have her for his next probation officer, he
prompted a professional reply.
"You do have control over whether there will be a next time, you know."
At that everyone laughed, as if she were
proposing that he try to take into his hands
something properly left to the gods. The woman,
while used to people who had confronted the law, was
not ready for this, and whispered to her companion,
a fringe member of the group,
Once an outsider got the idea that a genuine commitment to art can go hand in hand with a fear of the police, the whole picture begon to make more sense. Most of the people present had an idea of living freely that was much more radical than that of even political radicals. Moreover, it was largely conditioned by their idea of art. This had in the past entailed certain amount of friction with the police, and it was generally assumed that it would continue to do so."I don't know how you find each other. It must be the glint in the eye."
With Ray and some of his male friends it was not hard to imagine that they might get it into their heads to undertake something, perhaps a happening in the streets, that would bring them into conflict with the local authorities. However, some of the women present were at least as willing to defy authority One of them was so quiet and serious that it was hard to imagine her in conflict with anyone. However, she had become aware that an old drifter who lived along the river bank was being evicted from areas he had fished for decades moreover, was being taken to court. Mary Jane went to the hearing herself, and, after sentence had been passed, stood and made a few telling remarks to the woman judge. As a result, she spent the night in jail for contempt of court sentence which could hardly have been more deserved in q literal sense. The next day she emerged undaunted and fully prepared to take on the local power sruvcture.
While that establishment was not the most enlightened that could be imagined, its members probably did not set out to be evil and repressive. They had in the past had some conflicts with a gentleman who continued to think that it was all right to drive an army surplus tank down the main street, and this had perhaps decreased their toleration for eccentrics. Then there had been what must have seemed to be an invasion of bohemian artists. While some of the ordinary people in the town [p.7] got on quite well with Ray and his friends, there were others who wanted to keep the town exactly as it had been, and who feared any sort of change. It was true enough that the town, with its narrow streets and old stone water mill was unique and valuable. In fact, no one appreciated this more than the artists who were still standing in the deepening shadows. From the corner outside the gallery one could see the whole line of shops along the main street in one direction, and, in the other, the mill and the rickety iron bridge beyond it.
The only sour note in this tranquil scene consisted in the horrid noises and clouds of noxious smoke spewing out of a car stalled on the bridge. The car, an old red Pinto, was not actually on fire, but, after a few more lurches and backfires, it seemed to surrender to whatever loathsome disease afflicted its innards. It had barely stopped before a burly figure emerged from the passenger door and pushed the car briskly off the bridge.
Instead of stopping at the end of the bridge, the car continued up the gentle grade at a surprising pace with the man pushing it now entirely hidden from the view of those standing outside the gallery. They could see only a young woman steering a car which, instead of complaining loudly at every revolution of the wheels, seemed to have found a capacity for quiet and effortless motion. It was only when the car came to a stop at the curb that the man behind it stood up and was revealed. He had obviously enjoyed his exertions, and, joined by the woman who got out of the car, he crossed the street to greet his friends with a broad grin. Neither of the erstwhile motorists seemed at all upset at the unhappy state of their car. If anything, they were pleased that it had gotten them as far as it had. Moreover, as they joked about the manner of their arrival, they acted like people who were taking modest pride in a new invention. A mode of automotive transportation in which one person enjoys a pleasant soothing ride with minimal danger of accident while the other takes satisfaction in the healthy exercise of pushing. If one knew even a little about Jim Hoskins and Melanie Findlay, one would also know that she, with equal enthusiasm, would take her turn pushing.
A bohemian setting tends to give the art produced a special quality different from that of young artists who have recently graduated from fine arts programs. For one thing, as one would expect, the bohemian artists tend to have a good deal of natural talent. There are none who have limited natural ability but who
have been trained to do respectable work in the style
of someone else. Another feature is that their work does
not all share a certain family resemblence, something
that sometimes happens in art programs, where the
students may have the same heroes or take advice from
the same instructor. Moreover, while non-academic
artists may talk about each other's and their own work
constantly, they are usually careful about giving each
other advice. There is no one who thinks he can go down
a line of studios saying such things as "You might try a
yellow wash there," "You need something in the upper
right corner to balance it," "You seem to think that
strength consists just in bright color," and so on. Of
course, even academic artists stop getting that kind of
instruction when they graduate, and the division between
the two groups often gets smaller as they get older.
Still, the difference remains that academic artists have
grown up with the idea that, as soon as they finish a
work, if not before, people are going to assess what
they have done, often rather critically. This does not
prevent their sometimes doing things that seem wild and
crazy to middle-class consumers of art, but, even then,
they are likely to know comparable work that is being
done by others across the country, and how their own
work relates to it.
On the other hand, people who have largely taught
themselves, with perhaps a few courses here and there,
are much more likely to depend entirely on their own
judgment. They may have worked in isolation for long
periods, and they may have gone a long time before they
even thought of selling anything. This independence of
mind sometimes produces work that would have died an
early death in an art academy, but it can lead to
something that successfully breaks all the rules.
All artists, even great ones, fail more often than
they succeed, but different sorts tend to fail in
different ways. With academic artists the failures most
often reflect a lack of imagination, either on a
particular occasion or in general. Even [p.9] then,
their technique and capacity for self-criticism keeps
them from ever being confused with the "tourist artists"
who lack both imagination and technique. The artists in
the group at Ray's gallery varied a good deal in their
backgrounds, but they seldom lacked imagination. When
they failed, it was generally because the artist had
produced something that did not make sense to anyone not
sharing his outlook, his experience, or, more often than
one might think, his sense of humor. This obscurantism
occurs in all areas of art and literature at all but the
most simplistic levels, but instructors in art academies
tend to fight against it with at least some success. It
is the completely untrammelled artist, who worries
little whether the
police and courts sympathize with his life style, who
may also be rather cavalier with those who do not
understand his art.
On this evening the work consisted in large part of
night paintings, particularly cityscapes, and there was
a theory behind it. There are not, relatively speaking,
a great many night paintings in the history of art
despite some noteworthy ones by Turner, Van Dongen, Van
Gogh, Anquetin, and others. These are all meant to be
viewed in sunlight or artificial light while, in the
painting, street lights are generally represented with
brilliant yellows and moonlight with silver. On this
occasion the twist was to represent night with paintings
which were themselves to be viewed in the dark and which
used luminous paint. As a middle-aged observer of the
passing scene who had not met this group all at once
before, I got rather confused in the dark and came away
with no very clear picture of what was going on.
However, on reflection, it seems that there is no reason
why paintings have to be viewed in artificial light,
particularly if they represent night. Instead, they may
as well be allowed to "light themselves." Many new
variables were introduced, and it is an idea that may be
taken up more widely.
Whatever might be shown, the opening itself was
always an event which would be hard to replicate
elsewhere. There was a tension in the air that went
beyond the presence of Tanya theTorch (who was given to
setting fire to things) and a man who had once been a
"female" burlesque dancer. These people added color,
undoubtedly, but it was the fact that almost everyone
present had some sort of mostly controlled and rather
diverting craziness that created the atmosphere. In
addition, the necessity of periodically turning off the
lights to see the luminous art helped along the sort of
thing which was more suited to the dark in any case.
Despite what they might say at times, most of the
artists in Ray's gallery did not really expect economic
success and might have felt uncomfortable if they had
achieved it. They were, in fact, living representatives
of a tradition which is older even [p.10] than
soap-making in Cincinnati, and which has a legitimacy
far more solidly based than the fashions that come and
go in art. Unlike most of the cities of the midwest,
Cincinnati has tradition of art and music which
was transplanted almost intact from South Germany in the
years before the civil war by the many settlers of that
nationality. After the war there was a "golden age of
painting," whose chief luminary, Frank Duveneck,
returned to spend some years in Munich. The work being
done in Munich a hundred years ago was less exciting
that of Paris, but Duveneck had more
immediate financial, and even critical, success than,
say, Monet. Of course, Duveneck's fame declined as
Monet's increased, but the fact remains that he was a
good painter who founded his own school in Munich,
brought it back to Cincinnati, and is still represented
with occasional paintings in galleries and museums. If
anything else had been needed to solidify a European
artistic tradition in Cincinnati, this was it.
Wherever there are reputable painters who can sell to
the gentry, there are also disreputable ones living and
working in the corners of warehouses. Some of these may
even have found it occasionally necessary to support art
with a little theft. This had undoubtedly been the case
in Munich, where artists and "riffraff" were not
altogether exclusive groups. When this other less
glorious, tradition came to America, it seems to have
cleaned up to the point where there is a low rate of
actual crime (as opposed to violation of drug laws and
general zany behavior) among even the poorest artists.
Still, uneasiness around the police, an avoidance of
the steady jobs which would interfere with art, and a
genial willingness to accept poverty remain the
cornerstones of this tradition.
A community of bohemian artists is generally at the
core of a somewhat larger group of people who may not
think of themselves as artists at all. They may begin
only with a vague urge to do something unconventional
and original. For example, almost all of the "youth
aberrations" of the last twenty years, including
self-immolators, crazed speed poets, lesbian witches,
and gay motorcycle gangs, have been trying, above all
else, to achieve a certain style. At the minimum, it is
designed to shock parents and the middle class at large,
but it cannot be carried very far before it becomes an
art form in itself. People of this sort may never take
up painting, drawing, or sculpture, but, if their
rebellion persists to the age of twenty-five or so, they
will come to know some artists and will have a better
understanding of the motivation of artists than does the
general public. They also provide a bridge of
sorts between the bohemian artists and the rest of the
world, and some of them might even buy some pieces if
they had any money. As it is, they are patrons of the
[p.11] arts to the extent of occasionally buying an
artist a drink.
Whether these fringe persons end up in motorcycle
gangs or in a succession of part-time jobs, they, like
the bohemians, have a recognizable, but less
thorough-going, culture of their own. Indeed, as the
bohemians stand to them, they stand to a much larger
group. There are millions of young people who have been
sufficiently influenced by rock music, and everything
that goes with it, so that their heroes are musicians.
Even on a local level, the glamourous kid is the one in
a band, not the athlete or the future business
executive, still less the one who wants to be a
professional soldier.
These musicians have either popularized, or been
themselves, songwriters. That is to say, poets. And,
whatever one thinks of their work, there has never in
recorded history been such a large audience for poetry.
For many young people this is a passing phase, but for a
significant proportion it is not, particularly the ones
for whom the attractions of working and making money
never quite compete with those of music and altered
consciousness. Some of them find that, somewhere along
the line, they have adopted a basically aesthetic and
non-utilitarian attitude toward their own lives. A few
move in through the various circles of bohemian life,
take up art explicitly, and find themselves in a group
such a s that assembled at the Raymond Phynder Gallery
on this evening. Once there, they remain a distinct
group separate from all the mainstream traditions of
art. Their art is more closely connected with the habits
and circumstances of daily life, and there is no clear
distinction between art, gadgetry, cooking, and
carpentry. For example, Hoskins made ornamental knives
which could also, as a mere coincidence, be used for
slicing green beans. But one of his recipes for stew
began with the words, "slice beans with a knife you have
made yourself..." While some of these artists, including
Hoskins, sometimes turned out highly abstract work, none
of them limited themselves to that, as is common for
artists in universities.
One cannot look at much of the work of most bohemian
artists without coming upon highly personal elements,
such as artifacts they have picked up at home or in
their neighborhoods, clothes that they have worn, or
objects which have some extra-artistic use. Of course,
these elements are abundant in the work of many
painters. However, for these artists, many of whom are
self-taught, they are the very essence of art itself. It
is thus there is an easy transition from, say,
customizing and individualizing one's motorcycle to the
stage where, having accidentally totalled it, one puts
it on a pedestal, repaints its twisted members to
resemble the limbs of a strange predatory animal, and
then calls it art.
[p. 12]
[p. 12]
One of the older members of the group, Cockett, had
not yet appeared. Rumor had it that he was having dinner
at the little country inn next door. Hoskins had talked
about him before in the way that he often talked about
his friends, a way which seemed paradoxical until one
knew a good deal about Hoskins himself.
Most people are romantic enough to have some
illusions about their friends. At the least, they are
likely to fully recognize and talk about certain
weaknesses only in moments of anger onr other kind of
insight. Hoskins was not like that. If you were his
friend, he unerringly, and quite quickly, came to see
those weaknesses, with particular emphasis on the
illusions you had about yourself. This was not a highly
emotional process on his part, and did not seem to
involve any great disillusionment. He knew that there
would be those vulnerabilities in others, in the way
that he recognized his own, and it was just a matter of
marking them down for future reference. He would
eventually let the friend know, generally by means of a
joke, sometimes in the middle of a workout at the YMCA
with a barbell poised in the air. Sometimes those little
bolts of insight hurt much more than Hoskins probably
realized, but never enough to drive the friend away or
permanently alienate him.
Hoskins would also, under certain circumstances, tell
one friend of his reservations about another. He had to
trust the person not to spread the information
foolishly, and he also had to think that he had a need
to know.
In the present case he believed that Cockett had
friends on the police force. This was an odd objection,
since he had friends on the force himself. Moreover, the
fact that I did as well did not seem to bother him. As
with many of his statements, the real meaning was hidden
behind the literal meaning. In retrospect it seems clear
that what he meant was that he believed Cockett to be
the sort of person who, if he had known about Hoskins'
more radical plans, would have told the authorities.
Hoskins was thus warning his other friends that, if they
were planning anything similar, they should be careful
around Cockett.
Hoskins also believed that Cockett's main abilities
lay in crafts more than in, say, traditional painting.
For him, as much as for anyone in the group, there was
little distinction between art and general life style.
If one thinks of painting more as an activity worth
engaging in for its own sake than as merely a means for
the production of valuable objects, the distinction
between an hour spent painting and an hour spent eating
in a restaurant need make less aesthetic difference than
might be thought. If one dresses in a particular way,
and behaves in such a way as to produce a certain
calculated effect on the other [p.13] diners, one can
manipulate as many variables as one could in a painting.
One can also express oneself and one can certainly
produce a strong effect. There was, for example a
Norwegian philosopher who, on entering an expensive
restaurant, casually helped himself to a meatball from
the plate of a lady he had never seen before. After
thanking her, he then proceeded to his table and sat
down. While this act may not in itself have qualified as
art, it could be compared to a single brush stroke in a
painting, and could have been fitted into something
larger.
It was this sort of outlook that allowed Hoskins to
respect and even admire a man like Cockett for the
things that he did and the person that he was in an
aesthetic way, quite apart from his assessment of
Cockett's art in traditional terms (which were also
present in some other realm of Hoskins' consciousness).
It did not take more than a glance at Cockett,
sitting at a circular candle-lit table to see that he
belonged to the group. With silver hair and an air of
elegance and ease, he would have been quite a handsome
man in the ordinary way without any special additions of
character or personality. On this evening he was dressed
in an old-fashioned black suit with a black string tie,
and, hanging from a hook nearby, a flat-topped
low-crowned black hat. The clothing may have come from
rummage sales, but one would never have guessed it from
the way he wore it. Whether he realized it or not (and
he probably did) , It was a clever way of capitalizing
on his age. As an elder in a group which had a strong
historical connection with previous generations of
bohemian artists, Cockett was one of the few old enough
to be the living connection. By dressing as a
contemporary of Frank Duveneck he was advertising that
fact.
Cockett had the sort of appearance and manner that
invites fantasies. In particular, there was an air of
authority and command about him even as he smiled,
greeted newcomers, and talked animatedly. When Hoskins
invited him down to his apartment after the show, the
reply came with great precision and studied courtesy.
"That would be extremely nice. I may very well come."
It was as if he were a local ruler carefully making a
preliminary decision whether or not to visit an
especially deserving village in the next week, a matter
which could not be completely decided on the spot
without taking account of information not yet available.
If one's imagination balked at the image of Cockett
as the ruler of a dozen native villages, one could see
him as a judge
in a frontier town of the old west. Possibly a
hanging judge [p.14], though the twinkle in his eye as
he now presided over a festive dinner suggested that
there would be dry witticisms in between death
sentences.
A return to reality brought with it the fact that
Cockett was accompanied by several decidedly attractive
young women. They could have been his daughters or
grand-daughters, but one somehow had the feeling that
they were not. In any case, following in his wake, they
added to the effect as he arrived of the gallery.
Some artists have the inestimable advantage of looking excactly the way people think artists ought to look, and Cockett far surpassed Hoskins in this respect. As he accepted the pleasantries of one person after another, it was easy to suppose that the slight abstraction of his manner was a result of his having his attention fixed on something too subtle and profound to be fully apprehended b y the others. But, for all that, he really was an important model for his younger friends. He had actually lived the life they intended to lead. He knew exactly what the costs were, had paid them gladly, and was now entitled to do a little basking in the local limelight.
Some artists have the inestimable advantage of looking excactly the way people think artists ought to look, and Cockett far surpassed Hoskins in this respect. As he accepted the pleasantries of one person after another, it was easy to suppose that the slight abstraction of his manner was a result of his having his attention fixed on something too subtle and profound to be fully apprehended b y the others. But, for all that, he really was an important model for his younger friends. He had actually lived the life they intended to lead. He knew exactly what the costs were, had paid them gladly, and was now entitled to do a little basking in the local limelight.
Cockett did not pay a great deal of attention to his
lady friends, apparently preferring to talk with the
other artists. Several times, when he found the
conversation of another man interesting, he suggested a
stroll outside. The idea of taking a walk in order to
have a conversation unimpeded by the noise of a party in
itself seemed more characteristic of the last century
than the present one, and went well with Cockett's
costume. As he walked down the dimly lit street of old
store fronts, his
black hat and cane stood out starkly whenever he
passed a street light. He might have drunken enough to
cause his gestures with his walking stick to be rather
exaggerated, but b lent importance and urgency to the
remarks he directed at his younger companion.
Then, just before they disappeared. from sight around a
corner, there was a brief glimpse of the older man,
suddenly immobile with his hand arresting the arm of his
companion. In a shaft of light Cockett's white hawk's
face was caught in profile as he hammered on the
pavement with his stick and shot forth something.
Whether i t concerned art, women, or the best sort of
whiskey would be hard to say.
Back at the gallery, the young male artists were, for
the most part, more interested in talking with each
other, and with the female artists, than with those
women who were not artists. On the other hand, it was
not the sort of party where the women go off with
docility and talk of children, cooking, and clothing.
There was the feeling that, temporarily ignored though
they might be, they would shortly make their presence
felt. The women who associate with bohemian artists are
quite [p.15] varied, but they do have certain tendencies
in common. Almost none, with the exception of a few of
the youngest ones, have a groupie mentality. While
bohemian artists have a kind of glamour, they are not a
very conspicuous element in most cities, and it takes
some doing to find them in the first place. In this they
are unlike rock musicians, and, even when found, they
are not so easy for a woman to approach. If she is not
an artist, she must know something about art, and she
must learn to be a good model, something which is more
difficult than it might appear. In addition to that, she
must have a personal style of dress and behavior which
is original and which is in some way exciting. Moreover,
while she need not be good looking in the ordinary
sense, she must have the kind of looks that bespeak
character. In short, if an ordinary pretty girl without
a great deal in her head decides that she would like to
have an affair with such an artist, the chances are that
she will either fail completely or come up with a fake.
At the least, it will take much more than the little
tricks that have worked so well on other men.
The first problem is to be taken seriously, and this
is accomplished most easily by arranging periodic shocks
for the artist. For_example, it may do him a world of
good to come home expecting dinner and find a note
advising him that it is better to fast on evenings with
an orange sunset and that, anyway, she is spending the
evening, and possibly the whole night, modelling for
another (unspecified) artist. In all truth, the man thus
deprived of his friend's cooking and company is likely
to take it better than would the average business
executive. The woman may have a difficult path to
follow, but she also knows that she can occasionally
express herself in ways such as [p.16] these. It would
probably be the consensus of such women that, while
bohemian artists are as sexist as other men, they do
tend to be less rigid.
Among the women present on this evening there were
two that stood out particularly. One was tiny with
perfect miniature features and thick red hair flowing
down her back. She had on a long white evening dress
and, while not really the most attractive woman present,
she was probably t h e one that the newcomer noticed
first. A closer look revealed that her dress was almost
transparent, and that she had no slip under it. In most
social gatherings such attire would probably be resented
by other women who would regard it as unfair
competition. At the least, they would gather in corners
and make fun of the woman whose dress everyone could see
through. Here it was perfectly safe. It might be • taken
as an unusually direct statement of sexuality, in which
case even the women in the group, who all had statements
of one kind or another to make themselves, would accept
it as such. The men, if excited by her particular style,
would be happy to cooperate. But they wouldnot assume
that she was any more available than if she had been
dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, like most of the
other women.
On the other hand, the young woman's whole costume, from the flowers in her hair to her spiky high heels, might be taken as a sort of joke, perhaps a humorous allusion to the supposed sexual preferences of some of the men present. For that matter, it might be part of a satire in the "camp" tradition which is so much a part of gay society, and, to some extent, the milieu of even heterosexual artists. If so, it was quite good camp. She was dressed in a way that really does go straight to the fantasies of a great many men who would rather not admit it. But, by carrying it off with verve, style, and humor, she ennabled these same men to enjoy it at one level, laugh about it at a second, and yet, at a third, accept it as a kind of minor art which they could applaud and be seen appreciating without feeling as if they had been caught watching a pornographi movie.
It was unfortunate only that Charlene, in her guise as a pre-war movie star, had boxed herself into what was really a silent part, or, at any rate, one that required a Clark Gable for the complementary role. Needless to say, while there were some interesting men present, none had that larger-than-life gallantry which disappeared even from the movies decades ago. As a result, she was reduced to practising walking in a precise line along t h e narrow floor boards. Putting each dainty foot precisely in front of the other, she swayed slightly from one side to another to keep her balance while making barely audible [p.17] clicks with her heels.
On the other hand, the young woman's whole costume, from the flowers in her hair to her spiky high heels, might be taken as a sort of joke, perhaps a humorous allusion to the supposed sexual preferences of some of the men present. For that matter, it might be part of a satire in the "camp" tradition which is so much a part of gay society, and, to some extent, the milieu of even heterosexual artists. If so, it was quite good camp. She was dressed in a way that really does go straight to the fantasies of a great many men who would rather not admit it. But, by carrying it off with verve, style, and humor, she ennabled these same men to enjoy it at one level, laugh about it at a second, and yet, at a third, accept it as a kind of minor art which they could applaud and be seen appreciating without feeling as if they had been caught watching a pornographi movie.
It was unfortunate only that Charlene, in her guise as a pre-war movie star, had boxed herself into what was really a silent part, or, at any rate, one that required a Clark Gable for the complementary role. Needless to say, while there were some interesting men present, none had that larger-than-life gallantry which disappeared even from the movies decades ago. As a result, she was reduced to practising walking in a precise line along t h e narrow floor boards. Putting each dainty foot precisely in front of the other, she swayed slightly from one side to another to keep her balance while making barely audible [p.17] clicks with her heels.
Many of the men had Charlene in the corner of their
eye, but most were more interested in talking with
Hoskins who, in turn, paid no attention to her. Even
though he was a competing center of attraction, he did
not have his own style in the sense that Cockett did,
something that immediately caught the eye. Most of his
clothing, for example, was strictly utilitarian.
Although he did have a favorite cap, a hat, and a
T-shirt with a picture of a quasi-human gorilla under
which was written "Don't hassle this animal," even these
were chosen for whimsical or humorous reasons without
much intention of constructing a total image. On this
night, in contrast to Charlene, he stood still in a
corner while people milled around him. He attracted both
men and women without being particularly handsome,
without telling funny stories, or in any way trying to
be the life of the party. He did look strong and
healthy, but it was mainly the way he smiled. There was
more than a touch of good-natured evil there. It made
you think that you were in communication with someone
unusual who would somehow use highly unorthodox methods
to make life around him a little more interesting.
The third center of attraction operated in an even more subtle way. Since she was dressed in the most subdued, even drab, way imaginable, one might have overlooked Jean entirely had she not been six feet tall. In a longish skirt and high-necked blouse of nondescript dark colors, her clothing looked as if it had come out of someone's attic. But, because of her oldfashioned and poverty-stricken appearance, together with definite tilt to her chin, one could easily picture her as the sort of woman who might have sat talking to one of the impressionists in a cheap Paris cafe in the nineties. Despite the unostentatiousness of her dress as compared to that of Charlene, she seemed to know that, however hard she appeared to try to hide her light, her beauty would nevertheless shine forth all the more brilliantly.
It was obvious to anyone that Jean would have made a
perfect mistress for an artist. Intelligent and
sensitive, but remote and abstracted, the artist could
puzzle over her face endlessly while sitting opposite
her in cafes. He would also watch her expression while
making love to her, and, after some considerable time,
he would decide that he was ready to take her as his
model. A similar woman was once painted by both Manet
and Albert Marquet, sitting on a couch with just a black
velvet ribbon around her neck. This traditional symbol
of prostitution was also, in the circumstances, a mark
of elegance entirely appropriate to the woman's face. Of
course, this particular model was probably not really a
prostitute, any more [p.18] than was Jean. Even so, the
symbol was not entirely misplaced. Such women are so
rare, and so necessary to an artist of a certain sort,
that no one man can expect to possess her exclusively
for very long. Demanding sexual faithfulness of her
would be as silly as demanding it of a prostitute. The
wise artist who is lucky enough to find someone like
Jean enjoys her while he can.
The artist's mistress usually appears in one painting
after another in many kinds of costume and situation as
he tries to capture her fascination for him. An
impressionist might never have gotten beyond fairly
conventional poses, because • of the limited conception
of women at the time. However, if an artist of the sort
present at the gallery had taken Jean as a lover, there
would have been an added twist. She might appear as a
Madonna with the infant Jesus in one arm and a flame
thrower in the other, attacking Vietnamese children. Or
a s an expensively dressed executive in a sumptuous
office, dictating a letter to one secretary while
another assists her in giving birth to her baby. Or she
might end up with her features twisted so strangely out
of shape in an abstract painting that only the artist
would understand. But, whatever series of artists worked
their will on her, and whatever succession of poses she
might be subjected to, Jean would endure all and emerge
just as enigmatic as before.
By now the gallery was full of people who had given
themselves over to intoxication, not so much of drink
but of the atmosphere they themselves had created. Jean,
seemingly unattached, went quietly from group to group
with her skirt flowing after her and her head bobbing up
above the crowd. As with Charlene, none of the men
wanted to be seen making too much of a woman, and none
followed her around. Part of the reason was, of course,
that a good many of them were with women who might be
jealous of Jean. But, more than that, male bohemian
artists seem to know by instinct that the women will
come to them of their own accord, and that it is a
tactical mistake to court them. But that did not mean
that they were not acutely conscious of Jean, and that
many of the men were not trying to guess whether she was
engaged for the evening. If there was to be a lucky man,
i t was not easy to tell by watching Jean's face. She
approached everyone in a sympathetic and interested way,
with just a little play of expression on her lovely
placid features. But there was never any show of real
excitement. Rather, she conducted conversations in a
rather Victorian way, as if she were briskly performing
pleasant duty by briefly making contact with everyone
present. Sooner or later one of two things would happen.
Some man would wander by and make an apparently offhand
or bantering [p.19] approach, which would actually be
very serious indeed. Or else Jean would find some way of
indicating who it was who really interested her. Such a
move might not have any extreme sexual implications,
but, even if it did not, almost any man would be greatly
flattered. In the end it was Jean who chose. When
Melanie went to the bathroom, Jean immediately broke off
her conversation and moved quickly but without apparent
haste to Hoskins with her head held high. He was still
talking with a couple of other men, so, whatever she
said, it must have been discreet. However, there was no
disguising the look on her face as she spoke laughingly
to him. It was hard to imagine how anyone could refuse.
Watching from a distance, one could not hear what
Jean said to Hoskins, but the other men were
sufficiently impressed to stop falking and look at one
another. The problem would obviously be Melanie's
presence. Perhaps he would make a date with Jean for
some other time, but it even seemed possible that he
would go home, wait until Melanie had gone to bed, and
then go out again. It was not for some time that another
man, probably out of curiosity, referred to Jean,
talking with Hoskins, tactfully remarking how attractive
she was. He replied with a definite shake of his head.
"She's gone downhill in recent years. I think she
drinks too much."
Since Hoskins disapproved of drinking anything
stronger than herb tea, this had to be taken with a
grain of salt.
"You mean a glass of wine a day? It certainly doesn't
show on her face . "
"Well, there's something wrong. I'm sure of it."
With that, he changed the subject and, as far as could be seen, turned his back forever on a woman few men would have refused.
With that, he changed the subject and, as far as could be seen, turned his back forever on a woman few men would have refused.
A t the time it was a mystery to some of his friends
how Hoskins could so easily reject women like Jean in
favor of the rather unglamourous Melanie. Especially
since he had other women anyway and could have added one
more. This instance was not a n isolated one. Once a
young man was having tea with Hoskins in his apartment
when he noticed a photograph of a nun in full habit
across which was written, "To Jim, with love." When he
was told that it was a picture of Melanie, whom he had
heard of but never met, he was a bit shocked. He was,
after all, a nice young man. Still, he recovered quickly
and moved to the [p.20] next concern of a healthy youth,
and wanted to know whether the picture did Melanie
justice. Hoskins, quickly reading his real question,
replied,
"She's not good looking. I've never been interested in looks particularly."
Thus, while it may be true that h e liked the way
Melanie looked, or even saw something beautiful in her
on occasion, he seemed not to have had any illusions on
that score, or to have seen something that others did
not.
Part of the reason for this seeming indifference to
something that few men ignore has turned up since.
According to some of his long-time acquaintances, it is
not true that he never cared about looks in women. More
likely, he had had so many beautiful women in the past
that they no longer had any special mystique for him, at
which point he came to prefer other qualities. But there
is more to it than that.
It is clear that Hoskins was always preparing for
something, and that he deemed it necessary to grow ever
stronger. He, like others in his circle, believed that
life was always ready to produce a crisis. Since the
crisis would probably be physical in part, the physical
conditioning was an essential ingredient, but should
only be a part of some larger quasi-spiritual program of
self-improvement.
If a man is really committed to such a program, it is
bound to influence his choice of women, and it becomes
easier to see why Hoskins might have come to prefer
women like Melanie to beautiful ones. It is an old idea,
going back at least to the story of Samson and Delilah,
that a beautiful woman is likely to weaken a man.
Moreover, even if the man has precisely this danger in
mind, he is still likely to do things for a beautiful
woman that he would not do for a plain one. He is thus
likely to be distracted from his program of
strengthening himself. This may be true even if the
woman, like Jean, seems to offer herself with no
conditions. Later on, when she finds how little time and
attention is left over for her, the conditions will
appear. That is, unless she simply wanders away.
Since having a beautiful woman is likely to decrease,
on the average, the number of bench presses that a man
does, so surprising that Hoskins reacted to Jean as he
did. In contrast to Melanie's triumphant healthfulness,
Jean represented, at least to him, some bad habits
which, in any involvement, might have a negative
influence on him. Perhaps he also sensed that her beauty
would bring with it problems which would distract him in
an even more fundamental way.
Melanie, on the other hand, was a positive boon to
almost [p.21] anyone's program of self-improvement.
Toward the end, they had weights set up in their
apartments, and, after a long day of teaching school,
she thought nothing of coming home and undertaking bench
presses, inclined presses, dumbbell pullovers, curls,
and hundreds of situps and leg lifts. It is much easier
to do these things oneself if someone else is doing them
alongside, and Jean hardly seemed the type for that. As
if that were not enough, Melanie shared Hoskins' strong
interests in the theory and history of oriental martial
arts, and could summon up a certain amount of enthusiasm
for virtually anything that came into his head. In
retrospect, all this seems a little too good to be true
on the part of Melanie. Granted that she was a physical
person who enjoyed using her muscles, and even tearing
the occasional telephone book in half, there must have
been times when she would have preferred simply to rest.
While Hoskins would not have been unreasonable about
that, he was not likely, in the grip of one of his many
projects, to have realized that Melanie might have been
pushing herself too hard while being reluctant to say
anything. He was not the sort of man to voice a woman's
thoughts if she did not say anything herself, at least
if those thoughts might turn out to be inconvenient.
There are not, in fact, many men who would do that, and
almost none who live as precariously as Hoskins did.
[p.22] BLANK
[p.22] BLANK
Washington
Park
Even now that Hoskins has been dead some time,
his memory continues to pop up in odd places, and
this is only partly because of the manner of his
death. That was, indeed, spectacular enough. The
police chief of Cincinnati concluded his
investigation by saying that Hoskins had clearly
been a dangerous terrorist. This conclusion was
based on the arsenal of guns he kept in his
apartment, his poisoned bullets, and his equipment
for making silencers and land mines. Above all,
the police chief and his advisory group of
prominent citizens were probably impressed by the
fact that Hoskins' notes contained a list of some
of these same prominent citizens whom he had
apparently proposed to kill.
While none of this can be denied, there is a
more important fact. Whatever Hoskins did on that
night in the October of 1980, he was more of an
artist than a terrorist, and, indeed, even his
brief career as a terrorist probably grew out of
his experience as an artist.
One usually does not expect artists to b e
terrorists, or vice-versa, but Hoskins was not
easily pigeon-holed, even by people who were used
to bohemian artists. Most of his friends, while
admitting that there was a great deal that they
did not know about him when he was alive, still
found it a little hard to picture him as a
terrorist. Some "terrorists" are merely people who
have held up banks and have some vague idea that
it may help them to escape if they take hostages.
But the real heavy-duty terrorist is part of a
closed group of fanatics who take literally the
ravings of some ideologist who may well have had
too much common sense to get caught with a gun.
Either that, or they see themselves as having some
patriotic or quasi-religious claim on some bit of
land, often almost worthless, from which they or
their ancestors have been driven. Whatever their
ideology, they have little patience, little
capacity fo reflection, and rather more nervous
energy than is good for them. Then, in a final
burst of naivite, they get the idea that it will
help to blow something up, kill someone, or
cheerfully machine-gun a crowd of Christmas
shoppers.
Hoskins was not like that. He was highly
reflective, had prepared for years, and acted
absolutely alone. He belonged to no radical or
subversive organization, and did nothing to cause
[p.24] anxiety to his friends on the police force.
To the extent that he had an ideology, it was
bound up with his life as an artist, and had much
more to do with aesthetics than politics. If one
must see him as a terrorist, he was one of a kind
not found in Europe or the Middle East. A solitary
man who decided to undertake, for reasons largely
unknown, "a guerilla war against mankind in
general."
It should already be obvious enough that
Hoskins had a personality which cannot be
adequately described in a briefaccount such as
this. However, since his path ran back and forth
through one of the most interesting hidden corners
of American life, and finally to such a strange
death, it is appropriate for such survivors as
myself to set forth their memories. If these are
then made the basis for a little modest
speculation, it wil be possible to say something
about that path and the sorts of people who lay
along it. It will even be tempting to venture some
guesses as to the way in which it approached its
end, though this part remains obscured in an
almost impenetrable fog. The rest is, as they say,
history.
In this case the history, in the shape of
national television and virtually every newspaper
in the country, is rather puzzling. Hoskins' last
public statement (which was also his first) was a
social and political one protesting the conditions
of the poor in his neighborhood. Since he lived in
one of the poorest parts of the city, there was
plenty to complain about. The media thus pictured
Hoskins as a man with an extremely strong bottled
up social concern who finally, after countless
frustrations, found that it could be communicated
only in an extremely forceful way. The trouble is
that few who knew Hoskins thought that he was much
interested in politics, revolution, or any sort of
social change. On the contrary, he seemed to revel
in the fullness of life and unpredictability of
emotion which was so much a part of his
surroundings. He had, in fact, adjusted so well
that it was difficult to imagine him living
anywhere else. There is thus an enigma, and the
answer, if there is one, must be sought both in
the singular character of an unusual man and in
the life of an old-fashioned city neighborhood.
When people ask what someone was really like,
there are many things which they may have in mind.
Sometimes they wonder how the person passed
his time when he was not at a party, making an
effort to be good company, or in the grip of a
sudden enthusiasm. Partcularly in the case of
someone who exuded as much energy as Hoskins, they
wonder whether he was like that all the time, or
when no one else was around. While such questions
are, in the nature of the case. hard to answer, it
seems that Hoskins had relatively little middle
ground between "on" and "of" positions. He did
spend hours at night in [p.25] his apartment,
physically relaxed and heavily engaged in
marijauna, a drug whose effect on him was to
dissociate him from the world.
Even the next morning, he would often apologize for being out of touch and in a process of recovery. On the other hand, however he may have felt, it always appeared that he made a major effort t o rouse himself and, if anything, succeeded a little too well. Exercise was good for him because it absorbed a bit of that extra steam and brought out the side that reasoned so well and was so good at analyzing the complexities of anything from Asian martial arts to relations between the sexes. Not surprisingly, some of the most interesting things he said were spoken while running. It was enough to bring him down to earth, but, the way he did it, not enough to preclude thought and conversation.
Even the next morning, he would often apologize for being out of touch and in a process of recovery. On the other hand, however he may have felt, it always appeared that he made a major effort t o rouse himself and, if anything, succeeded a little too well. Exercise was good for him because it absorbed a bit of that extra steam and brought out the side that reasoned so well and was so good at analyzing the complexities of anything from Asian martial arts to relations between the sexes. Not surprisingly, some of the most interesting things he said were spoken while running. It was enough to bring him down to earth, but, the way he did it, not enough to preclude thought and conversation.
Another part of the question, "What was he
like, really?", amounts to, "What would it have
been like to meet him?" That, of course, depends
on who you are. Almost anyone could have walked
into the weight room of the Central YMCA and met
Hoskins. He was virtually a host or ambassador. He
might have introduced himself and the others
present, and he would have been happy to explain
the equipment or go in search of a missing
dumbbell or plate. Behind that affability and
helpfulness there would have been a quite shrewd
process of assessment. He wanted to know, first,
whether you knew what you were doing on the
physical level. If you seemed to know soething
about, say, boxing,he would listen with attention,
and watch you hit the bag. He might well pretend
to know less than he did. That was to find out if
you were an opinionated know-it-all who, despite
having some information or technique, were not
capable of, or interested in, learning anything
new. If so, he would finish watching and
listening, make his own assessment of you
privately, and go away. If, on the other hand, you
seemed interesting and reasonable, he would
converse at length. If he later thought that your
abilities and knowledge dove-tailed with his own,
he would offer to work out with you.
Even if you were not strong enough,
knowledgeable enough, or were too concerned about
injury to be of much use to Hoskins on the
physical level, he might still take up with you on
some other level. Here, too, there were some tests
which were applied so smoothly that people did not
know they were being tested. If you had any
arrogance about you, whether based on wealth or
professional status, superior moral qualities, or
intellectual accomplishment, you might find
yourself being led on. He was capable of
pretending to be almost anything from a heroin
addict to the exiled Prince of Romania if the
occasion demanded it and someone took the bait.
[p.26]
[p.26]
If, however, you did not have that special kind
of pretentiousness that bothered Hoskins so much,
it was easy to pass his tests. Most people did.
You did not have to be exceptional in any
direction for him to be consistently friendly and
reasonably sympathetic. He was too inner directed
and private to go much out of his way to help many
people very much, but others sensed this fact, and
did not make inordinate demands.
He made no bones about being much more
interested in his own projects than those of
anyone else, and one consequence was that he had
few problems with those unfortunates who are
lonely and need the company of others a bit more
than others need them. In short, those who are
known as bores. Although he did not laugh at or
put them down, highly vulnerable people, whether
male or female, tended to stay well clear of him.
Thus, even though it seemed at times that he knew
half of Cincinnati, there was something in him
which practically guaranteed that, if he didn't
want to know you, you didn't want to know him.
I first met Hoskins one night in the December
of 1978 at a workout of the University of
Cincinnati Judo Club. I had come, not to
participate, but to officially rejoin the club
after an absence of a couple of years, and to pay
my dues for the following quarter. It also seemed
a good opportunity to look over the competition I
would meet when the club resumed its workouts
after the Christmas holiday. There would be, in
addition to the beginners, some tough young
athletes who would not know the meaning of pain,
and who would spare no effort to throw a stranger
to the mat and pin him there.
As I had expected, most of the participants had
a tendency to stare straight ahead without saying
anything, and the most uninhibited one was
Hoskins. He was thirty-nine at the time, and, like
myself, was much older than the others. Moreover,
af six feet and 220 pounds, he looked slow and
overweight. He was also friendly and willing to
talk, a tendency which, in that environment, often
signified weakness. If you can make friends with
someone before you work out with him, he may not
try to hurt you later when he has the chance.
Here, thought I, was someone I wouldn't have any
trouble beating.
Almost everything in that first impression was
false, and could have been dangerously misleading.
In a surprisingly shor time Hoskins got rid of his
extra weight and, when the club resumed its
workouts, the young students seemed rather tame
compared to him. While he might smile and joke, he
practicaly ripped some arms out of their sockets
as he yanked people over his head and landed them
on the mat. It often happened that these throws
were not precise enough to get full points, and he
would then exercise his option of folowing the man
down and trying for a choke hold. On those
occasions an escape had to be [p.27] made quickly,
if at all. Once those strong hands and wrists
closed around some hapless neck, there was not
much the victim could do but give up. Of course,
Hoskins had only been at it a few months and knew
very little about judo, but it made much less
difference than one would have thought.
It was only gradually that it became clear that his rudimentary knowledge of judo was just the tip of the iceberg, and that, during many street fights over more than twenty years, he had used almost every imaginable technique. He was quite willing to share this knowledge, and, in the following months, we started working out in the Central YMCA, which was near Hoskins' apartment. Since he was a powerful and original artist, and I had always had a strong interest in many kinds of art, we had plenty to talk about. Thus, what with exercise periods, drawing and art sessions, hikes in the woods, etc., came to know him reasonably well in the last two years of his life.
Hoskins' life and death were both bound up with
his neighborhood in a close and unusual way. His
death, particularly, was a neighborhood
event which happened to eclipse the others in
scale and style, and which, uncharacteristically,
produced waves and ripples far beyond. It is
therefore worth pausing to examine that
neighborhood in some detail.
The center, both geographically and spiritually,
is Washington Park, a small flat tree-lined park
lying half-way between Hos-kins' apartment and the
YMCA. It is now a place where life abounds in the
raw, but it has not always been such. At one time,
in the middle of the last century, Cincinnati was
truly the gateway to the west, a staging point for
traffic along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, a
steamboat building center, and a hub for the
networks of railroads spreading west. The
entrepreneurs and merchants who profited from this
wave of progress built moderate sized but rather
stately homes on the flat ground adjoining the
downtown business district. They did not neglect
to construct a monumental red brick concert hall
in which the symphony still plays, and a park was
provided across from its front door.
Looking down on the sidewalk from one of his two bay windows, Hoskins could see the winos as they gathered in front of the store which sold their treasured Mad Dog along with such other favorites a s Thunderbird, Ripple, Annie Green Springs, and Bali Hai. He himself did a quite. convincing imitation of what he called the "twelfth street shuffle", and taught it tovisitors. The secret was to stagger backwards groping blindly for support with one's hands while keeping one's eyes fixed firmly on a particular spot. As another diversion, he often led his visitors to the bay window to watch and listen to the men and women on the street below. Sometimes, one would approach another wielding a broken bottle and shout, "I'll kill you, you son of a bitch", but only fall into the other's arms in an embrace. Occasionally they really did fight, but not often, since a wino occupied in a fist or knife fight was likely to have hisMad Dog plucked from his hip pocket by a bystander.
While the winos constituted the most conspicuous group in the neighborhood, they were only one element among many. It is hard to imagine any area of comparable size containing more diferent sorts of people, and Hoskins was nearly unique in his ability to communicate with all of them. In fact, he was a sort of living bridge, not only between the different sub-culture of his neighborhood, but between them and the outside world. This last role came about partly because of his work as an artist, but even more because of his long-time membership in the nearby YMCA, an institution of many curiosities.
In addition to forming a physical barrier between two districts, the massive old building also had a social line of demarcation dividing most of the lower floors from the lobby and the upper residential floors. These latter were mostly populated by elderly men quite different from the ruddy healthy-looking ones who presided over the locker r o o m s of the so-called "physical department." While a few of the the residents retainemd some self-respect, most looked terribly defeated and despirited. These hung around the lobby in clouds of cigaret smoke, often giving way to horrible hacking coughs. Once on the street, many looked more or less like Bertrand and the men from the Drop-Inn Center.
The men who daily passed through the groups of residents to the swinging doors of the physical department were from a different world. Even here, there was considerable range of occupation, but almost everyone belonged to the economically priced Business Men's Club. Most of the members, like Hoskins, were not businessmen on any large scale, if at all, but the club did include the police chief and some presidents of companies. If they had anything in common, i t was that everyone looked younger than he was, in sharp contrast to the residents and men of the neighborhood, who almost all looked older than they were.
\
There were also the retired men who came to the gym in much the way that they had formerly gone to work. Like the younger men, they tended to think of their bodies as extremely subtle machines whose functioning it was important to keep improving as long as possible. Since even a man in his seventies could train himself to lift a heavier weight in a particular position, or improve his game of handball, a sense of optimism [p.32] and a feeling of steady progress overcame the rather depressing physical atmosphere. For most of the older men work was not a dirty word, but one did not have the feeling that many of them regretted their retirement from it.
Still, whatever problems might have been left outside the Y, Hoskins gave the impression of one who is pleased with the progress he is making. On the physical level, he always seemed to be running more laps, lifting more weights, or adding another fifty sit-ups to his regimen. It was easy to assume that the other aspects of his life were pursued with equal vigor and success. In view of this almost overwhelming picture of strength and joy, it would have seemed petty and poor-spirited to ask what he lived on.
It was only gradually that it became clear that his rudimentary knowledge of judo was just the tip of the iceberg, and that, during many street fights over more than twenty years, he had used almost every imaginable technique. He was quite willing to share this knowledge, and, in the following months, we started working out in the Central YMCA, which was near Hoskins' apartment. Since he was a powerful and original artist, and I had always had a strong interest in many kinds of art, we had plenty to talk about. Thus, what with exercise periods, drawing and art sessions, hikes in the woods, etc., came to know him reasonably well in the last two years of his life.
Washington Park, one block wide and two long,
must once have been the last word in urban
elegance with its central bandstand and
statuary, the paths leading out symmetrically
,and its great trees. It would be still if its
regular patrons did not include drunks,
criminals, and prostitutes of every race, sex,
and persuasion. The crime is mostly petty, but
there is the occasional stabbing, sometimes more
or less by accident, and policemen seldom enter
a t night. When a body is reported on the
sidewalk, the driver of the ambulance has been
known to drive slowly along the curb, and even
up on the sidewalk for a better look. If he sees
liquid spreading from the body, in the [p.28]
form of urine released from the relaxed muscles
of the newly dead, he may then speed of without
ever stopping his vehicle. While life is not
exactly cheap in Washington Park, it is not as
expensive as elsewhere. Still, the degeneration
of this area, like that of the city surrounding
it, has been gradual, and not without touches of
grace and humor.
Those of us who lived around the park knew
most of its regulars either by name, by habit,
or by some peculiarity. There was the large
white man with the red beard who stood alone for
hours every day nodding, laughing, and talking
into space. He seemed happy, seemed to have
plenty to say, and gave little hint as to
whether his underlying problem was alcohol,
drugs, or hopelessly snarled wiring in his
brain. Some said that he believed himself to be
a radio, and that some peculiar noises he made
were meant to be static. There was also Lester,
an extremely small but mean-looking black man
who addressed everyone as "chief", and who never
stopped moving any part of his body while he
talked. Somewhat less sane was Ricky, a fortyish
gentleman who wore an Uncle Sam suit together
with a baseball cap to which had been glued
cardboard wings, as of Mercury. Often
encountered singing in front of buildings, some
thought that he sang at them and worshipped
them. In any case, he was convinced that the
whole city survived at his pleasure,and that he
himself had caused the small earthquake which
had recently passed through. He liked to confide
in Hoskins, who, in turn, urged him not to tell
the social workers about his secret powers. They
couldn't handle such potent stuff, said Hoskins.
And then there was Bertrand.
Bertrand was discovered by a young artist who
was fixing up an abandoned house fronting on the
park. The artist, Mike, was by this time used to
the area. He had, among other things, hired a
hard-bitten little woman who took it upon
herself to follow winos who had stolen tools and
get them back, with physical force when
necessary. Mike had a number of convenient
categories in which he placed people. There
were, for example, "heavy-duty incestual
hillbillies", "cats completely crazed by Mad
Dog" (Mogen David MD 20/20), and "glue sniffers
who had had an intense experience." Bertrand
fitted into none of these. An elderly and
thoroughly gay indigent of Chinese descent who
had lived in abandoned buildings for as long as
anyone could remember, Mike found him in the
building he had bought. As became a
Cincinnatian, he let Bertrand, whose street name
was "Tippytoes", continue to live there, and
gave him a little work now and then. One night,
when Bertrand got back after the building was
locked, he had to spend the night in an alley.
Th next day he complained to Mike about "the
inconvenience having to spend a night away from
home." Mike then had a [p.29] duplicate
key cut for him. And so Bertrand had his first
key in many years, thus raising him to a status
above that of the others with whom he daily went
through the garbage cans looking for a "downtown
lunch."
Hoskins seemed to be the only absolute teetotaler
anywhere around Washington Park. He said alcohol
made him sick, and and added, irelevantly enough,
that he hated drunks anyway. Perhaps he did in
sóme deep metaphysical sense, but he as polite and
friendly to the winos on the street. Of course, he
sometimes put them on gently, as when he told one
that he couldn't stop to talk because he had to
get right home to his mother. With Hoskins there
was often a double joke. In this case, it was the
faet that his mother did live in the same
building, and might actually have been expecting
him on that accasion.Looking down on the sidewalk from one of his two bay windows, Hoskins could see the winos as they gathered in front of the store which sold their treasured Mad Dog along with such other favorites a s Thunderbird, Ripple, Annie Green Springs, and Bali Hai. He himself did a quite. convincing imitation of what he called the "twelfth street shuffle", and taught it tovisitors. The secret was to stagger backwards groping blindly for support with one's hands while keeping one's eyes fixed firmly on a particular spot. As another diversion, he often led his visitors to the bay window to watch and listen to the men and women on the street below. Sometimes, one would approach another wielding a broken bottle and shout, "I'll kill you, you son of a bitch", but only fall into the other's arms in an embrace. Occasionally they really did fight, but not often, since a wino occupied in a fist or knife fight was likely to have hisMad Dog plucked from his hip pocket by a bystander.
While the winos constituted the most conspicuous group in the neighborhood, they were only one element among many. It is hard to imagine any area of comparable size containing more diferent sorts of people, and Hoskins was nearly unique in his ability to communicate with all of them. In fact, he was a sort of living bridge, not only between the different sub-culture of his neighborhood, but between them and the outside world. This last role came about partly because of his work as an artist, but even more because of his long-time membership in the nearby YMCA, an institution of many curiosities.
One peculiarity at the Y was the fact that,
in a society oriented toward youth, it took its
tone from the older men who had belonged for
many years, and who were, without any conscious
deliberation, accorded a good deal o f respect
of an informal and sometimes irreverent sort. In
addition to being humorous and fun to be around,
they were much less judgmental than the people
who set the tone in an organization usually are.
[p.30] Moreover, unlike some of the younger
people at the suburban Y's, they stayed clear of
petty intrigues themselves and discouraged that
tendency in others. Hoskins was much too young
to be counted as one of them, but he, like
others, profited from their calming influence.
Another feature of the Y was that it
represented the interface of the Washington Park
district with the downtown business district in
several different ways. On the geographical
level it had one side lying along a main street
with fast traffic. A bemused wino with less than
complete lateral control of his feet crossed
there only at his peril. The back of the Y, on
the other hand, cozied up to a building with an
unusual name and a kind of off-beat
attractiveness, the Alcoholics' Drop-Inn Center.
A converted garage, the clients there were
bedded down for the night on wall-to-wall
mattresses, given something to eat, and then
turned out into the gray early light. When some
of them urinated against the back wall of the Y,
it was perhaps a territorial gesture, their way
of claiming part of it for their neighborhood.
In addition to forming a physical barrier between two districts, the massive old building also had a social line of demarcation dividing most of the lower floors from the lobby and the upper residential floors. These latter were mostly populated by elderly men quite different from the ruddy healthy-looking ones who presided over the locker r o o m s of the so-called "physical department." While a few of the the residents retainemd some self-respect, most looked terribly defeated and despirited. These hung around the lobby in clouds of cigaret smoke, often giving way to horrible hacking coughs. Once on the street, many looked more or less like Bertrand and the men from the Drop-Inn Center.
The men who daily passed through the groups of residents to the swinging doors of the physical department were from a different world. Even here, there was considerable range of occupation, but almost everyone belonged to the economically priced Business Men's Club. Most of the members, like Hoskins, were not businessmen on any large scale, if at all, but the club did include the police chief and some presidents of companies. If they had anything in common, i t was that everyone looked younger than he was, in sharp contrast to the residents and men of the neighborhood, who almost all looked older than they were.
However, while there was little mixing
between the physical culture exponents and the
residents, the latter, and the neighborhood as a
whole, exerted an influence that was tatooed on
the walls of even the physical department. For
one thing, that walk through the clumps of
indigents in the lobby was enough [p.31] to put
one in the proper frame of mind, and to make one
wonder if the YMCA newsletters, so full of those
wholesome family activities, could really
emanate from the building.
Despite the fears of some neighborhood
leaders, even the extensive remodelling that
later took place did not convert the Y into a
"luxury health spa for the rich." If the mouldy
old walls and steam pipes with crumbling
insulation had not been enough, the management
hired one of the residents, Mack, as the
life-guard. A rather sweet old man, he looked as
if he could not possibly have saved anyone, even
to the extent of throwing a life preserver.
After opening the pool, he would move his bulk
laboriously down a ladder, where he lay still in
the water for twenty minutes or so. Then, just
barely heaving himself up again, he would sit in
a chair the rest of the day, conversing in
snatches of a few words with swimmers as they
finished laps and pushed off again. He died
alone in his room one night, and was a subject
of conversation for a day or two.
The essence of the Y was to be found in the
basement on any weekday morning. In addition to
the weight-lifting equipment, there were chinning
bars, boards for sit-ups, pulley machines, three
punching bags, and a wrestling mat. Late in the
afternoon, the after-work people crowded in and
set weights moving in all directions with human
grunts, mechanical groans from the quipment, and
alarming crashes as heavy weights were dropped.
But, in the mornings, the gym was thinly populated
and the relaxed atmosphere suggested that this was
really an alternative to the world of work.\
Some of the men there did work on schedules
that allowed them their mornings free, but, even
so, the majority seemed not to work in any
full-blooded way, either literally or in some
broader or more spiritual sense. Some
people like Sam, a recently retired professional
football player, and Steve, a psychology
graduate student, were between jobs or programs,
and had rather vague and uncertain plans. Others
worked a bit here and there now and then, and
managed to get along in that fashion. Another
man in his mid-thirties said it was his
principle to "work a while, study a while, and
play a while", apparently with no end to the
cycle in sight. A few had managed t o get hold
of rather lucrative positions which demanded
very little time and work, and a couple were
independently wealthy.
There were also the retired men who came to the gym in much the way that they had formerly gone to work. Like the younger men, they tended to think of their bodies as extremely subtle machines whose functioning it was important to keep improving as long as possible. Since even a man in his seventies could train himself to lift a heavier weight in a particular position, or improve his game of handball, a sense of optimism [p.32] and a feeling of steady progress overcame the rather depressing physical atmosphere. For most of the older men work was not a dirty word, but one did not have the feeling that many of them regretted their retirement from it.
Hoskins himself had had some jobs, including
one with the Internal Revenue Service, but, over
the years, the only thing he had worked at
consistently was his art. Although he had
considerable ability as a painter, and in other
directions, he never received very much
recognition. This was partly because he did so
little to push or sell his work, and partly
because his notion of art included so many
things, such as Dadaist happenings, which were
unsaleable in the nature of the case. Thus,
however much energy he put into his "projects",
which might range anywhere from painting to
making an ornamental knife for slicing carrots,
he was widely perceived as not working at all.
In addition to having ambivalent attitudes
about work, a good number of the men had had
their difficulties with marriage that other
packaged solution to s o many human
problems.Again, Hoskins fitted in easily. He had
been separated from his wife a good many years,
and, having had many affairs in the meantime, he
now seemed to be quite comfortable - with
Melanie. But even that arrangement was a long
way removed from conventional marriage, and,
well as they got along, one was not sure that he
felt any very definite long-term commitment.
Still, whatever problems might have been left outside the Y, Hoskins gave the impression of one who is pleased with the progress he is making. On the physical level, he always seemed to be running more laps, lifting more weights, or adding another fifty sit-ups to his regimen. It was easy to assume that the other aspects of his life were pursued with equal vigor and success. In view of this almost overwhelming picture of strength and joy, it would have seemed petty and poor-spirited to ask what he lived on.
While the Y was in many ways a happy retreat
from some of the sorrows of the world, there
were minor disturbances to the tranquility of
life even there. For the past month a pipe in
the ceiling had been leaking onto the corner of
the mat, with the water running off and forming
a pool by one of the pulley machines. The steady
dripping and the inability of the staff to fix
the leak had been the subject of a certain
amount of humor. However, when a section of
plaster had fallen off the ceiling, people began
getting upset. After all, this was a home away
from home, and some of the men were more
sensitive about any new sign of serious
deterioration in theY than they would have been
in their official homes.
Almost everyone had complained to the management. but [p.33], each time, it resulted only in a workman's coming downstairs, looking dolefully up at the ceiling, and then going away again. On the morning when another part of the ceiling was discovered littering the mat with yet more chunks of soggy broken plaster, Sam had remarked, "It's a good thing Chicken Little doesn't work out here. It would confirm his worst suspicions."
Almost everyone had complained to the management. but [p.33], each time, it resulted only in a workman's coming downstairs, looking dolefully up at the ceiling, and then going away again. On the morning when another part of the ceiling was discovered littering the mat with yet more chunks of soggy broken plaster, Sam had remarked, "It's a good thing Chicken Little doesn't work out here. It would confirm his worst suspicions."
Now, a month later, injury had been added
to insult. Instead of finally fixing the leak,
the staff had come, apparently in the dark of
the night, and constructed a wall of plywood
and two-by-fours which extended from the
pulleys, up onto the mat, across a good
portion of it, and then off it again. Behind
the wall could be heard the water, dripping
even faster than before and accumulating in a
large pool before seeping down into whatever
was below. It made it impossible for us to
play judo without risk of throwing each into
or over the wall, and even wrestling would be
difficult.
When the wall was first seen, a little knot
of men had gathered. As usual at the Y, there
was a mixture of those whose speech was
largely profane and those who went years at a
time without taking the name of the Lord, or
anyone else, in vain. This difference of style
probably bothered the former more than the
latter, but it did not interfere with
communication about an important matter like
this.
"Jesus, what the fuck is that?"
"I wonder what my wife would say if I built a wall around a leak in our bathroom."
"They told me upstairs that they couldn't fix the leak. This is permanent."
"Who the fuck ever heard of a permanent leak? What are those assholes doing with our money?"
"It comes from the whirlpool bath upstairs. They can't get to the pipe without tearing out the whole bath, and I guess they don't feel like that."
The collective mood of the half dozen men then
took on a slightly paranoiac tinge. The people who
used the whirlpool bath were, in their
imaginations, a different and more privileged
group, no doubt wealthier and more influential,
while those in the basement were being deprived of
their rights so as not to inconvenience them. I
felt a bit uneasy at this. All our memberships
included the bath, and Hoskins and I used it
ourselves whenever, in wrestling, we had
tried to twist each other's limbs [p.34] in ways
nature had not intended. He seemed to have
forgotten. Then his whole face lit up happily as
another of his schemes
took control of him.
"I know what we need. A duck pond. I'll get some big white plastic ducks and put them in the pool behind the fence. Then you guys can lean over the fence and throw popcorn to them. We can invite all the neighborhood kids in, give them popcorn to throw to the ducks, take pictures..."
He was off again, and the others knew from
experience that this might only be the beginning.
He would scour flea markets for ducks, and any
downtown department store that happened to have a
duck in its window-display might find that
Hoskins, using a combination of charm and
audacity, had made off with it. This train of
thought was broken only when Sam challenged him to
the daily weight competition that they had been
carrying on for some months.
These began with bench presses, and one
expected Sam, at six-five and 255, to almost
effortlessly push heavily laden barbells off his
chest into the air, at least until he got down to
the ninth or tenth repetition. What was surprising
was that Hoskins, weighing fifty pounds less,
could press the same bar, perhaps seven or eight
times. He obviously enjoyed being able to compete,
and would keep trying, amid shouts of
encouragement, until the bar would rise no more
and others had to grab it before he lost control.
His best exercise was wrist curls, an odd
procedure in which one is seated with hands on
knees, facing up, and one lets the bar down almost
to the finger tips before lifting it up again onto
the knees. He did this easily with 250 pounds,
more than Sam used.
Since there was no longer any room for judo, we
next got into our wrestling position. Neither of
us knew what he was doing, but Hoskins had gotten
the idea and had persuaded a former college
heavyweight wrestler to teach us. The man had not
wrestled for some time, even though he ran and
played racketball regularly. After five minutes of
instruction, Hoskins quickly pinned him to the
mat. Then, another former college wrestler, Mike,
had come around. An interesting young man who
shamefacedly sold furniture of inferior quality
and beauty in a department store, he regularly
attended a church where every other parishioner
was an old lady.Perhaps for a change in company, h
e seemed to enjoy working out with us, and was
amused rather than upset by Hoskins' strength. He
had difficulty, however, in getting Hoskins to
roll onto his stomach, a wrestler's automatic
response to trouble. He instead rolled onto his
back, a position in which he could have been
pinned if he [p.35] had not been so strong. His
many years' experience in street fighting had made
him constitutionally incapable of turning his back
to an opponent, and he pointed out that, even
lying on his back, he could do all manner of
vicious things. Mike nicknamed him "Brutus", and,
shaking his head at this apparently incurable
wrestling sin, remarked,
"I guess he's used to a contest where there isn't any referee."
Now, as we were about to start, I was amused to
hear Hoskins say, as always when Mike was absent,
"Let's not go for pins, but for submission holds."
Starting on the bottom, I slapped the mat twice
to begin. No matter what I did or how quickly I
tried to move, he always got my right ankle. It
was not, on the whole, a terribly good feeling to
have the leg one needed for almost any manoeuver
held up high in the air, particularly when Hoskins
was trying to do something to one's neck with the
other hand. However, our inexperience was such
that, if one just kept struggling, an opportunity
would eventually present itself. As often, he
wound up on his back, and, applying a little judo,
we tried to choke each other. We were seldom able
to do this and ended up in what he called a
"hillbilly standoff." Only once in those months
was I able to force him to give up, while, on the
contrary, he had many times applied on my long
arms a kind of armlock that seemed to come
naturally to him. It was in judo that I had a
slight advantage over Hoskins, who knew even less
than I. However, by the time that the leak in the
ceiling was eventually repaired and the wall taken
away, we had both come to prefer the more
elemental art of wrestling.
Hoskins' attitude toward exercise, like his
attitude toward many things, was more complex than
that of almost everyone else. There were at least
three elements in it, all of which interacted in
various ways and produced his changing and often
violent enthusiasms for one form of activity or
another. At one level was the sheer joy of
movement and muscular exertion. This was
spontaneous and infectious in its childlike lack
of inhibition. At another level was the potential
application of theactivity to street fighting and
unarmed combat in general. If one knew only a
little about Hoskins, one might easily get the
idea, at least in retrospect, that he expended
this energy in an effort to prepare himself for a
career in terrorism. In fact, there was more to it
than that, and there was an underlying theory
which he was attempting to verify. The theory was
based on T'ai Ch'i, a Chinese art which [p.36]
Hoskins took to be basic and primary. In a way it
was Indian-wrestling writ large. The idea was to
so position and manoeuver the body that, whatever
tactic one's opponent resorted to, one's weight
remained centered between one's feet. Thus, in
response to a thrust or attack, it was necessary
to "empty out" the mid-section or other area
attacked without disturbing one's balance.This
meant moving it out of the way, but moving other
parts of the body in the opposite direction to
compensate. Having mastered the practice of
T'ai Ch'i, together with its hard style and
combative correlate, K'ung Fu, Hoskins took up
judo because it seemed to him something to which
the theory of T'ai Ch'i could be extended. Since
"judo" literally means "gentle way" and great
emphasis is placed on giving way in order to bring
an opponent off balance and throw him, this
expectation appeared to be justified. However, he
quickly found out that, in practice, judo involves
a great deal of matching strength seemed to him
wrong in theory, and he set to work to devise
variations of judo throws which would depend only
on theemptying out motions of T'ai Ch'i.
In the books which Hoskins had on T'ai Ch'i
there were also metaphysical and even mystical
passages. Remaining centered allows one to keep
one's chest expanded and full of breath, or ch'i.
This ch'i was also viewed as the immortal element
in man, something spiritual which can float around
after death and mingle on polite terms with those
other bits of ch'i constituting the remains of the
ancestors. Moreover, ch'i came to include, not
only what one loses if one is whammed suddenly in
the stomach with a baseball bat, but also such
things as one's self-confidence, one's ability to
dominate others psychologically, and one's
general moral well-being. Perhaps as a result of
my influence, he began to make fun of these
aspects of T'ai Ch'i, and it was not long
before we began using the phrase "losing one's
ch'i" ironically and in jest.
Nevertheless, in spite of the jokes, Hoskins
was deadly serious about the physical aspects o f
T'ai Ch'i. He believed with a single-minded
passion that it was at the bottom of every martial
art, and it got to the point where he would sooner
be dropped head first onto the mat then resist in
a way that seemed contrary to the spirit of T'ai
Ch'i. It was also clear that he was applying all
sorts of aesthetic criteria to an area where most
practitioners count only throws, victories, and
injuries.
We had made some progress on those terms when
we had to decided that switch from judo to
wrestling, and it was then that Hoskins it was
possible to put the theory to a more decisive
test, If ever there was an activity that matched
[p.37]strength against strength, it appeared to be
wrestling. Thus, he reasoned, if w e could find an
application for the T'ai Ch'i principles of
"giving way" even there, the case would be proven,
quite apart from the less conclusive results of
our judo activity.
Needless to say, we never reached that point in
wrestling, if, indeed, it exists. On the other
hand, Hoskins' determination to give a
quasi-aesthetic theory some unlikely applications
has more profound implications. Much of his life
appears to have been based on such a theory, and
he may have died in an attempt to do something
analogous to applying T'ai Ch'i to wrestling, but
on a larger scale.
[p.38] BLANK
More than anything else, this was because o f the way in which he spoke and the quantities of knowledge in the background. Since Hoskins had had little formal education beyond high school, he must be counted as a self-educated person. Like many such persons he had learned a good deal more than most of his contemporaries in college, but, even then, he was atypical. One had the feeling that he read voluminously, but not voraciously. That is, he seemed not to read primarily for fun, but to acquire information he needed for one of his many projects. He was not the sort of bibliophile who picks up a book in a bookstore or library, more or less capriciously, and is found an hour later, in the same spot, deep in some matter in which he had little prior interest. Hoskins always knew what he was going to read, knew why he was going to read it, and was unlikely to be distracted. On the other hand, he read systematically in art, martial arts, history, and various kinds of science and technology. These main strands caught a good deal in between and Hoskins was adept at bringing his information to bear where it was relevant. Once engaged in a serious discussion, his conversation was not playful, and he did not flit from one subject to another. He proceeded rationally, looked for explanations, and made predictions. He was ingenious, thorough, and confined his speculations to a few areas that had special importance for him. In short, his style of thinking and talking was highly professional, and the only odd thing was that he talked about things [p.40] professionals do not usually talk about. Many people found this confusing and even baffling, but it wasn't really. Our educational system generally searches out people with very good minds and stamps them with certain sorts of "core" interests, to which other optional ones can be added later. But Hoskins did not take well to authority, and had apparently evaded the educational authorities along with the other kinds.
Someone once said of Melanie that she was both the most outgoing and least flirtatious young woman he had ever met.This friendly directness allows her to explain without embarrassment her relationship to Hoskins and something of her history. She prepared to be a nun from the age of twelve onwards, but then decided not to take her final vows. She met Hoskins at an art exhibit while she was in full habit, and, after one thing had led to another, she joined him after he ran away to San Francisco. Upon returning, they settled into their downtown arrangement of separate apartments, but a mostly shared life. She explains that she has no problems living in the neighborhood, and, like Hoskins, enjoys the local color. It further appears that, while she did not actually become a nun, she is still very much within the Catholic establishment, and teaches in a parochial school. This does not seem to involve any crisis in faith, and, reading between the lines, our man sees that she is an energetic and committed teacher who enjoys the best of relations with the nuns who run the school. After a couple of cups of tea and an invitation to return anytime, our student of society leaves, more confused than when he came. Like Hoskins, Melanie has several lower class characteristics, and, even though she works, her pay is so low that, on that score as well, she falls below the middle class line. But our sociologist is no fool, and he sees, more quickly than would his department chairman, that there is something wrong with his categories.
Ii is unlikely that the officers saw it quite that way.They probably did not inquire closely into the causes of fights and simply meted out punishment to those who were continually involved in them. Moreover, it is not clear who Hoskins attacked. There may, for example, have been a confrontation with a drill instructor or officer.
In addition to all that, he had, during this time, taught himself to paint. The discovery of a strong new talent in oneself is always one of the most exciting things that can happen. For [p.54] someone like Hoskins, it is really much more important than, say, a new lover, and it is likely to have a much greater and longer significance.
This idea of the soft outside was much more characteristic of Hoskins in his early middle age than it seems to have been of his youth. The "pacifism" of his Marine Corps days, where he had simply attacked men who were mean to smaller weaker men, was gradually replaced by something much more subtle, at least until the end. One of his discoveries was that a great many people who looked as if they might be aggressive could be controlled quite easily in advance. Hoskins particularly liked to [p.77] experiment with the members o f the motorcycle gangs who sometimes came around his neighborhood.
It is hard to know exactly what sort sort of roadblocks Hoskins may have encountered, and, most important, what sort of inner reaction he had when confronted with these facts of artistic life. We do know that he had made at least one suicide attempt, and it is probable that it had as much to do with art as with women.
The recognition that they are not destined to be famous artists who can support themselves on their art leads to a parting of the ways for a great many artists. Some make a decision which is as radical and hard to reverse as the decision to enter a convent or monastery. This is to sit precariously but resolutely on the fence of civilized society. The cries of the dispossessed come from one side while, on the other, many people of much less intrinsic worth carry off every kind of reward devised by man. It is not easy to develop one's art unde r[p.81] those circumstances, and only a few manage to do so.
Moreover, when faced with a strong man who is not to be swayed by a little peer group pressure, most other men are quick to assume that they do not have access to the levers which might b e used to move him out of a position he has taken. Generally they are right. The two common levers, sex and the lust for power, are not available to many, and were particularly inapplicable in Hoskins's case. He really did not want power, so even the few in a position to promise it could not have reached him on that level. He did want sex, but he was entirely heterosexual, and he could find his own women. Even women could not use that lever very effectively. If one were to start refusing or rationing sex in an attempt to influence him, he would quickly have replaced her with another. Thus, even now, there is little reason for anyone at the Y to think that there is something that he could, or should, have done. No one could have found out much with questions, and, even if he had, he still could not have deterred Hoskins from his basic course.
With this he made a slight gesture with his gun, and the point was clear enough. If you are not influential, you need a gun to get your message across on TV. Indeed, in the first part of the interview he seemed to be particularly angry at the TV stations for not giving the poor the publicity which might eventually lead to some improvement in their situation. He had apparently chosen to take over a TV station for that very reason.
At this time Hoskins was turning out work rapidly, and in a constantly changing way. One day he would read a book, get an idea, and produce something. Then, after having recommended it to his friends, he would, three days later, have an entirely different idea. The first would now be forgotten and dismissed, and he would be at work realizing the new one. Having read Machiavelli's Prince and Hitler's Mein Kampf, he did a portrait [p.102] of Hitler, not because he had any particular sympathy for him, but because he was interested in exploring as many different sorts of people as possible.
Despite a lack of money, Hoskins and Ray gave many parties on Court St. The wine was highly adulterated, and, not being able to buy food, they kept a supply of potato chip crumbs and dirty paper plates which they spread around. New arrivals were then told that they had come too late for the food. When Hoskins saw someone he did not like coming up the stairs, the people present would all start saying "raisins" simultaneously, giving the impression of a much larger number of people. Then, when the visitor knocked, Hoskins would open the door a crack, straining as if holding it against the pressure of a crowd. The would-be guest would go away thinking that the party was so packed that not a single extra person could be fitted in. There were generally present at these parties artists, poets, and writers of all kinds, in addition to the people who worked at the [p.103] downtown library. As later on, almost any sort of person was welcome, provided only that they were not dull. Some of these people were close t o being psychotic, and a good deal of craziness was tolerated. Hoskins drew the line only when oneman arrived with a body guard and began threatening people. He and his body guard were soon ejected, a fairly rare occurrence once people were already in.
There was also a steady stream of women friends, and Hoskins sometimes had different ones morning, afternoon, and evening. While there was, as with so many other men at the time, a tendency to count and keep score, Hoskins apparently became sufficiently bored with mere repitition to introduce fantasies into these relationships, even the transitory ones.
Like Hoskins, Ray was perfectly comfortable in a chaos of art of all kinds, objects of every conceivable origin, and the kaleidoscope of people drawn to such things. The only certainty was that of an uncertain future, but, where Ray imposed a minimum amount of order and stability on his surroundings, Hoskins had, in the early days at least, acted as if the changes could not come fast enough to satisfy him. New ideas from books and new women were only the beginning. There was seldom a month when he did not take up a new artistic technique or medium, and these included some of his own invention. [p.104] At the time of our talk Ray was attempting to get together as much of Hoskins' work as possible for a show. This was a formidable task since Hoskins had left no records of work sold, had given a lot away, and had destroyed many of his products. Even so, Ray had collected enough so that friends who thought they knew Hoskins' work were surprised to see art, and even kinds of art, that they had never seen before.
In addition to the art, Ray had some other concerns. One was that Hoskins' commitment to Melanie was not as simple or solid as it had seemed. At bottom, it was as unnatural for Hoskins to stay with one woman as it was for him to stay with one art form. He thought he had learned what he could from Melanie, and was ready to move on. In particular, he wanted to try some new sorts of women, the wealthy ones who lived in the suburbs surrounding Milford. He seems to have had no desire to change his own style of life or to accept money from the women he surely would have found if he had left Melanie. Rather, the idea was that this was one of the few things he had not experienced. While he suspected strongly that the rich had nothing of value to offer, he wanted to find out for sure.
The only problem was that he could not leave Melanie the way he had left the others. He had taken her straight out of a convent, and she had been with him ever since. She obviously wanted to continue indefinitely, and, after much agonizing, he decided to stay with her. This was the true meaning of his deciding not to move to Milford. Melanie had known about the possibility of the move, but had assumed that she would be sharing the new house with Hoskins. Thus, when he renewed his commitment to her, she was entirely unaware of it. It was also a commitment to Washington Park, since, apart from leaving Melanie for other women, he had no desire to leave.
On learning this, another woman who had known Hoskins and Melanie commented, unkindly, "So, instead of leaving her, he decided he'd stay right there and kill her. How nice. I love the way men decide that women are better off dead than left without them."
This, o f course, is not fair, and was probably not intended literally. Hoskins surely did not plan to kill Melanie, nor is it likely that he thought she would fall apart if he left her. It was obvious to their friends that she had more than enough strength of character to manage on her own, and, indeed, that she would not be alone very long unless she wanted to be. He was not the sort of man to have illusions on that score.
By this time, a downpour had started outside, and, as I helped Ray to get his sidewalk display inside, he brought up something [p.105] which puzzled him. In the course of my writing and our discussion, many things about Hoskins had turned up which would strike most people in an adverse way. This not only bothered Ray, but raised a problem.
With Steve the atmosphere was different. He had years ago been lucky enough to find a beautiful spacious apartment at an unrealistically low rent. Now, it was about to be made into a condominium, but he was enjoying that last bit of luxury while he still could.
Although we had worked out since Hoskins' death, I was struck for the first time by the resemblance between the two. It was not that they actually looked so much alike, but there was the same feel, the same kind of welcome when one came through the door. It sounds easy. Everyone should be glad to see their friends, and should show it. But few do. So many people have so many concerns which inhibit any encounter with another person.
The person who has any or all of the above concerns may smile and even joke. But his or her affability will be limited by a peculiar look in the eye, a little twist to the mouth, or a tense and crabbed set to the shoulders. We are so used to being approached in this way that it no longer bothers us on the conscious level. But, whether we realize it or not, the absence of those constrictions causes us to have an immediate and [p.106] profound sense of relief. A genuine greeting is comparable to the way in which a good golfer approaches his golf ball. With a straight stance, and without any peculiar wiggles or waggles. And then the swing proceeds smoothly without any hitches or catches. It again sounds easy. But, again, it isn't. This, then, was part of the answer to Ray's question, but Steve had a related one of his own.
I suggested enlarging on such material as Hoskins' night escapades in the department store. Steve disagreed.
Some philosophical qualification is required here. It really does not explain much to say that someone did something because he was temporarily or permanently insane, still less to say that his "craziness" was what made him do it. To say that someone is crazy is to assess rather than to explain his behavior. Such an assessment is often useful. It implies, for example, that many of a person's actions may be difficult to predict, that communication may break down at times, and that it may be a mistake to become that person's employer. But, whatever the practical value of such information, the attribution of craziness in itself does nothing to explain why the agent engaged in one erratic action rather than another, or why he ever began to act erratically. When the general public said that Hoskins went crazy, the legitimate implication is probably only that his killing of Melanie seemed grossly out of character with what was known of his life.
Hoskins' friends sometimes talked that way too, but meant much more. For them, what it came down to was that he almost never seemed morbid or self-destructive, and that he must have changed in some radical, and probably temporary, way in order to have killed Melanie. What remains true is that they spent all that time with him without feeling that they had to worry about anything. True, there were a very few incidents of the other kind, but they were so infrequent that even a fairly reasonable person was justified in dismissing them. Particularly in view of the fact that most of us knew many other people who wanted to do things that seemed much crazier.
One of the calmest people in Hoskins' circle of acquaintances was Henry. He had known Hoskins longer than any of us, but there was a profound difference in temperament between them. Where Hoskins wanted to put ideas into practice with maximum enthusiasm right away, Henry had file cabinets where he stored ideas. He was always working on some literary or pedagogical project, and the others, never forgotten, would eventually have their turn.
Hoskins had once told me that Henry had no sense of humor, which was puzzling since half of what Henry said had a gentle irony or whimsy to it. When I mentioned to Hoskins some of the things Henry had said and done, he laughed outright and said he must have been wrong. But, really, it was something deeper. [p.108] Henry reflected on things at length, and, turning them over in his writer's mind, was likely, months later, to describe the most mundane events in unexpected ways. Thus, even a routine action might emerge in an existentialist light as a bizarre and basically ridiculous response to a problem which, when fully revealed, no one could take seriously. Hoskins, who was much more an actor than a writer, wanted to do something to create a humorous or ridiculous situation, and was not content to wait for things to happen.
When Hoskins discovered that Henry had bought a house on Washington Park, he was puzzled, along with the other residents. Henry had converted the basement into an office from which he published a small philosophical journal. Some of the neighborhood leaders suspected him of trying to gentrify the area, and could scarcely believe the truth: that, despite the present lack of takers, he was patiently waiting for the day when other small businesses who were casual about their addresses would take offices in the considerable remaining space in the former house of prostitution. Hoskins was fascinated by the house itself, the garish red paint on the interior walls, and the numbers on all the doors. As a former editor, he was also in sympathy with Henry's operation in the basement.
No matter how tenous the finances of the journal, Henry, like an Englishman wearing his dinner jacket in the jungle, came every day with a jacket and tie, and sat at his desk in front of the rather elaborate communication system he had rented from the telephone company. The desk itself, with curved chrome and a rubberized top, was one of a set of two, refugees from the glamourous thirties, which he had picked up second hand. At the other desk was Myrtle, his former cleaning lady, whom he had converted into his secretary. A large good-natured woman, she learned her work quickly and pleased Henry immensely by bringing in a goldfish bowl complete with goldfish. Considering the circulation of the journal, the office layout and atmosphere was the mercantile analogue of children playing house, a fact that was not lost on Henry. The best part of the joke was that the journal ultimately succeeded, at which point it had to be moved from Washington Park.
When Hoskins was alive and Henry was asked about him, he would respond in a cordial way with as much quiet enthusiasm as he displayed on most subjects. If the questioner did not already know, Henry would explain that Hoskins was an artist resident in Cincinnati for a long time, and that he had been involved in putting out several little literary journals. If asked further, Henry might volunteer that he and another friend had once bought some of Hoskins work. It had been at a timen chern. Hoskins was trying fordin more it a rue, and was uncharacteristically [p.109] pushing his work, but it was also clear that the purchase had had no element of charity. On the contrary, Henry knew art and considered Hoskins' work worth buying.
Perhaps more than anyone else, Henry saw Hoskins as a respectable citizen of a solid and upstanding sort. That is, a member in good standing of the Cincinnati art community. As a poet and playwright who had supported himself on his writing for a good many years, he thought of Hoskins simply as another member of the same loosely knit group who happened to work mainly with different materials.
Henry did distinguish, within this group, between those who were too unreliable to cooperate with in joint undertakings and those who could be relied on to do what they had agreed to do. On this criterion, the only one Henry really cared about, Hoskins clearly passed. He had not wanted to be art editor of Henry's magazine because he did not want to judge the work of other people. But he had said so, and he did help with the printing in order to learn how the press worked. As far as Henry was concerned, he was sane, in contrast to all those people with romantic illusions who promise to do things they cannot hope to actually bring off.
As it turned out, nothing deterred Henry from that opinion of Hoskins. He had worked long on one of his computer projects on October I5th, and did not get the news until late that night when I told him. Upon hearing it, he showed not the slightest surprise and asked only a few perfunctory questions. It was as if he had been told that Hoskins had taken up watercolors instead of oils, but felt that it was too early to guess what the final value of the product might be.
[p.110] BLANK
The abstract paintings then gave way to very small and delicate drawings and collages. This work was almost entirely non-representational, and highly personal. As with much of Schwitters' work, it often seemed not to be particularly communicative, and comprised material from all sorts of sources which had meaning for Hoskins. For all that, it was interesting, if rather mysterious, and did not look out of place in galleries. It was surprising only that such delicate work could be produced by such a large seemingly indelicate man. In the context of what later happened, not to mention those dadaist and expressionist influences, this direction of artistic development is paradoxical. An artist who wishes to achieve impact with a strong opening statement could hardly do worse than to produce work which is progressively smaller, more delicate, and whose meaning is ever more obscure. Like many artists before him, Hoskins evidently became increasingly interested in working out certain internal problems that arose in the course of his work. He then found himself addressing, not the general public, but the much smaller group which understands such things. Thus, even though he continued to the end with this sort of work, it evidently left other needs unsatisfied, needs which required other kinds of art.
While there is more than a suggestion of pretending to be somone else in this, there is a large gap between harmless pretences and those which involve a hopelessly divided personality, or which lead to violence. We could get away with much more than we usually do along those lines without getting into trouble. It would do most corporation lawyers a world of good to spend a couple of weekends in Washington Park, pretending to be winos. It might be a problem if the lawyer began to prefer [p.119] Washington Park to his own environment, or got radically confused about his own identity, but, short of that, he would learn more than he could have in most other ways. Hoskins remarked favorably on a friend who had done something like that, and he seems to have done some experimenting of this sort himself. He once recounted a late-night incident in which he had put on an animal mask of a wolf-like sort, pulled his hat down to cover part of it, and taken a turn around Washington Park. He had then sidled up to a couple of winos to ask them for "money for a plate of soup", and had been pleased at their alarmed responses when they caught a glimpse of his face.
Whatever pretenses one makes, if one makes them consciously in order to learn about oneself and others, one is in a position vastly superior to that of persons who cannot help making pretenses. In the latter case one is only a pompous bore, but, in the former, one can have some of the excitement of the player of hide-and-seek who is waiting to see whether he will be found.
It is, for many of them, a short step from
there to chasing God out of whole realms
of society, and particularly out of art.
This having been done, the way is clear
for almost any new invention, whether it
comes from oriental philosophy, an intense
drug experience, or artistic creation.
Another piece of the puzzle consists in Mind Game, released only in August of 1980: This is one of Spinrad's best books, and, since Hoskins soon afterwards began a project of his own which coincided with one in the book, it is fairly safe to assume that [p.140] he read it. He was probably, by that time, looking out for anything by Spinrad, but, as with the other books, he spoke about it only indirectly.
After abstracting from superficial qualities, one can see that Barron is very nearly the embodiment of one of Hoskins' most persistent fantasies. Not only is he the defender of any underdog who can get through to him, but it is hard to imagine any more potent threat to the kinds of big league bullies who were almost entirely out of Hoskins' reach. When Barron, with his hundred million viewers behind him, calls an elected official or corporate head, the victim does not dare to be "unavailable." Then, when he does get on the videophone, he finds himself on Barron's turf, playing under Barron's rules, and without any preparation for the unpleasant surprises Barron will spring on him. Hoskins must have realized that, fictional though they were, these techniques were light years ahead of beating up bullies physically.
[p.38] BLANK
A Little
Background Information
Hoskins was a sociologist's nightmare, and
would have been impossible to place in any
social class. Originally from the
Kentucky-Tennessee border area, two of his
close relatives had been killed in the normal
guerilla warfare of the district, and his
family later moved to Cincinnati to work in
the factories during World War II. However,
instead of following the usual American social
pattern for people of his generation, taking a
vertical social jump up a notch or two and a
horizontal geographical one out to the
suburbs, he finally ended up without any job
in the same area in which he had grown up.
Thus, on three criteria, place of residence
($50 a month apartment), kind of income
(public assistance), and amount of income
(below poverty line), he was strictly lower
class, if not lower-lower. On the other hand,
no one who knew him would have even thought of
so characterizing him.
More than anything else, this was because o f the way in which he spoke and the quantities of knowledge in the background. Since Hoskins had had little formal education beyond high school, he must be counted as a self-educated person. Like many such persons he had learned a good deal more than most of his contemporaries in college, but, even then, he was atypical. One had the feeling that he read voluminously, but not voraciously. That is, he seemed not to read primarily for fun, but to acquire information he needed for one of his many projects. He was not the sort of bibliophile who picks up a book in a bookstore or library, more or less capriciously, and is found an hour later, in the same spot, deep in some matter in which he had little prior interest. Hoskins always knew what he was going to read, knew why he was going to read it, and was unlikely to be distracted. On the other hand, he read systematically in art, martial arts, history, and various kinds of science and technology. These main strands caught a good deal in between and Hoskins was adept at bringing his information to bear where it was relevant. Once engaged in a serious discussion, his conversation was not playful, and he did not flit from one subject to another. He proceeded rationally, looked for explanations, and made predictions. He was ingenious, thorough, and confined his speculations to a few areas that had special importance for him. In short, his style of thinking and talking was highly professional, and the only odd thing was that he talked about things [p.40] professionals do not usually talk about. Many people found this confusing and even baffling, but it wasn't really. Our educational system generally searches out people with very good minds and stamps them with certain sorts of "core" interests, to which other optional ones can be added later. But Hoskins did not take well to authority, and had apparently evaded the educational authorities along with the other kinds.
Another confusing thing was that Hoskins,
in addition to his main areas of knowledge,
had acquaintance of the kind of trivia which
is so characteristic of the academic who has
taken too many courses and cannot manage to
forget anything. Once, when trying to
identify a bust at a fled market, it turned
out that Hoskins knew something about
Pluutarch, This, of course, is typical of
graduates of good schools and colleges. They
may not know anything worth knowing about
Plutarch (unless they specialized in some
related field), but he came up somewhere in
some course, and they can place him roughly
in history.
Such odds and ends of fact have a social
importance out of all proportion to their
real value. If one knows what one wants and
needs to know, it makes little difference
whether one knows that Ben Jonson was a
playwright, and whether one can pronounce
such names as "Camus" and "Mozart" more or
less correctly. But, despite that, the lack
of this sort of superficial information
offends a certain kind of social arbiter and
causes him to place the other in a lower
social class. If he then finds that the
other person has a deep and subtle knowledge
of some important subject, he still does not
fully reinstate him to the "educated upper
middle class", but places him in some
transitional area. Hoskins had enough
information of this sort to allow him to
float easily into any group that had
interest for him, and, since he never really
cared whether he was accepted or not, his
ease of manner made it virtually certain
that he would be.
It thus did not seem odd that he should
mention Plutarch until one reflected that he
had not taken courses which covered him.
Plutarch also seemed unrelated to any of
Hoskins' own maininterests. The true
explanation for the source of much of his
information, both trivial and important, is
that he loved to talk with all sorts of
people, and, unlike most talkers, he
listened to what they said. Not only that,
he liked to search out people's enthusiasms
and get them to talk as excitedly as
possible about them. When he invited Mike,
the wrestler, to dinner, he was delighted
when Mike, his mind somewhat altered by some
substance, jumped up on the dining room
table and expounded his ideas. While Mike
was sane and reasonable, one did not have to
be in order to engage Hoskins's interest.
Once, in the [p.41] basement of the Y he had
come upon a crazed right-wing political
fanatic visiting from Texas. Hoskins,
pretending to have similar views himself,
had drawn the man out. When the dust had
settled, the visitor, almost in a state of
apoplexy, had left screaming about wanting
to bomb the White House. More often, the
enthusiasms were less violent, but Hoskins
always wanted to get the maximum from them,
and often asked questions. Somewhere along
the line, perhaps in his San Francisco days,
he may have met someone with pleasingly
eccentric views which somehow involved
Plutarch. Perhaps he was a medium trying to
get in touch with him, or possibly abroken
down history professor who had found LSD.
But, whatever the source, Hoskins
remembered.
Hoskins ended up with a rather unusual
attitude toward the formally educated world.
He had a strong suspicion that the exaggerated
claims so often given for the benefits of
formal education were hogwash, but he was not
quite sure. This caused him at times to have a
little more respect for that world than he
would have had if he had known it first hand.
However, working contrary to that tendency was
the fact that a good deal of his contact with
academia had been with renegades. Some had
been flung out, and some had left by choice.
Others had one foot in and one out, but almost
all were highly cynical. Moreover, many were
so patently unbalanced that it was hard not to
laugh. Hoskins got on well with such people,
and it was easy for them to together arrive at
the proposition that everything serious in the
world is really, if not some kind of joke, at
least pleasant in the irony of its own
self-delusion.
For better or worse, this levity affected
Hoskins' ideas about art. It was so easy to
make fun of people who took it too seriously,
and so hard to resist sometimes incorporating
a few little jokes in his own art. From a
commercial point of view, this is one of the
most disastrous things an artist can do. He is
often selling to people who are unsure of
themselves, and who, above all else, are
afraid that their friends will laugh at them
and think they have been taken for a ride. If
the artist himself has so much as a twinkle in
his eye, they will react as they would if
their stockbroker hinted to them that he drew
up his list of recommended stocks with
humorous intent, and in order to see what
fools he could get to buy them. As with the
European Dadaists of the tewnties, it takes a
very secure buyer to buy from such an artist,
and no city contains many patrons of the arts
who are willing to risk a joke on themselves.
It was another aspect of Hoskins' humor
that helped take him outside the normal class
structure. If one is asked one's occupation
and one replies that one is, say, a radio-TV
repairman, one is placed, at least
approximately, in the system. But, [p.42] if
one goes on to say that one's reply was only a
joke, or that one has some other real
occupation, for which the first is only a
cover, contusion is created. Even it one
admits that one really is a repairman, but
acts for some reason other than making money,
one again creates confusion of a different and
perhaps deeper kind. Hoskins was a master at
creating all those kinds of confusion. He
could not even be perceived as a relaxed "laid
back" connoisseur of drugs and the pleasures
of an easy life. He drove much too hard for
that, but in a direction no one could quite
understand or credit.
Imagine, if you will, the serious young
sociologist who istaking a survey of the area
of Twelfth and Vine. He has interviewed
Hoskins. He is puzzled and a little bothered,
as he should be. He has come across something
of socal significance, which eludes his
categories. This is because a sociological net
cast in terms of income, type of occupation,
place of residence, and so on will not
distinguish the bohemian from the rest of the
urban poor. The bohemian may well not even
classify himself as an artist, and, even if he
does, he can easily be confused with the sort
of artist who is temporarily living in poor
surroundings until he can commercialize his
work and make some money. The true bohemian
can be detected only by the questions about
values, attitudes, and the nature of art which
our young man is
forbidden to ask.
That sociology makes a mistake in asking
such narrow questtions is clear from the fact
that bohemians have considerable economic
consequences. They epitomize art and
libertinism for the average person, and it
takes only a half dozen of them living in an
area of several thousand people to give that
district a reputation as an "art colony."
Then, all kinds of rising young professionals
and business people, their heads full of
exciting sexual images, move t o that part of
town. The bohemians, appalled by rising prices
and the people they suddenly find on the
streets, quickly move out. The new residents
never quite realize that there are no artists
left in their art colony, nor, in the midst of
their "singles" activities and experimental
sex and drug parties, do they realize that,
for bohemians, sex is never more than
something which can be used to enhance
artistic activity. Still, whatever
misconceptions may linger, it is a small group
of impecunious artists who have effectively
doubled or tripled real estate prices in the
area.
A real bohemian community in a geographical
sense is almost a contradiction in terms. Such
artists naturally settle anywhere in a city
where space can be had cheaply, and thus tend
to scatter. There is none of the middle class
notion of "taking over a neighborhood." On the
contrary, most bohemians have a sense of
danger which leads them to be as inconspicuous
as their life [p.43] style permits.
Our social investigator may not be fully
aware of these facts, but, in any case, he
supposes that there will always be a few
eccentrics and anomalies who constitute an
affront to the most carefully drawn
categories. Then he goes across the hall to
interview Melanie Finlay in her apartment.
This time he is profoundly troubled. She i s
such a nice conventional young woman, middle
class to her very core, that he wonders what
on earth she can be doing living in such an
area. When she discovers his business, Melanie
invites our young friend into her immaculate
apartment and gives him herb tea.
Someone once said of Melanie that she was both the most outgoing and least flirtatious young woman he had ever met.This friendly directness allows her to explain without embarrassment her relationship to Hoskins and something of her history. She prepared to be a nun from the age of twelve onwards, but then decided not to take her final vows. She met Hoskins at an art exhibit while she was in full habit, and, after one thing had led to another, she joined him after he ran away to San Francisco. Upon returning, they settled into their downtown arrangement of separate apartments, but a mostly shared life. She explains that she has no problems living in the neighborhood, and, like Hoskins, enjoys the local color. It further appears that, while she did not actually become a nun, she is still very much within the Catholic establishment, and teaches in a parochial school. This does not seem to involve any crisis in faith, and, reading between the lines, our man sees that she is an energetic and committed teacher who enjoys the best of relations with the nuns who run the school. After a couple of cups of tea and an invitation to return anytime, our student of society leaves, more confused than when he came. Like Hoskins, Melanie has several lower class characteristics, and, even though she works, her pay is so low that, on that score as well, she falls below the middle class line. But our sociologist is no fool, and he sees, more quickly than would his department chairman, that there is something wrong with his categories.
On the other hand, he does have a certain
stake in the status quo, and the most
upsetting thing is that Melanie is not in the
least eccentric. She has not set out to
confute statistical generalizations, something
that is easily suspected of Hoskins. Moreover,
she is not, like many of the young artists and
students living on the fringes of the area, an
easily dismissible phenomenon. She lives in
the heart of the most depressed listrict, and
the aura of solidity and stability which
surrounds her suggests she may stay
indefinitely. As our man picks his way
pastcoke bottles and garbage cans in the
stairwell, he has the distinctly uneasy
feeling that, where [p. 44] Melanie leads,
others may folow, folow in a way in which they
would never follow Hoskins. That is, there may
be many other educated young women who wil
have a sufficiently strong sense of purpose
and desire for a life of their choice that
they wil rationally and permanently accept
being submerged in economic, residential, and
other ways.
Some people insisted on seeing Melanie as
the ex-nun who was still a nun at heart, but
had substituted Hoskins for Christ as her
vocation. It was this training, they said,
which alowed her to suffer, with serenity,
even a very strong man in a violent mood.
After her death at his hands, it was only too
easy to see her as a martyr. However, in these
days when there are so many ex-nuns, it would
be simplistic to say that she was typical, if
there is such a thing. Some, for example, seek
reality by becoming cocktail waitresses.
Others know how to flirt so well that it is
hard to imagine how they ever managed to stay
away from attractive young priests. Many are
anything but serene, and not a few are capable
of violence themselves.
Melanie did not represent any of these
extremes of reaction, else she would not have
been happy teaching under the supervision of
nuns. Moreover, it must also be admitted that
her training may have led her to show Hoskins
more patience than most young women would
have. In the end, it may even be true that she
sacrificed herself in an attempt to keep
Hoskins from destroying himself.
It thus cannot be denied that there was an
element of self-abnegation in Melanie's
relation to Hoskins, and that she may have
been a martyr in a sense more or less
analogous to that in which he was a terrorist.
In the last few decades the status of martyrs
in the public mind has declined radically to
the point where they are viewed as being
hardly better than terrorists. A martyr is no
longer a heroine, but someone who foolishly
sacrifices things she ought not to sacrifice,
and who ends up almost as a non-person as a
result of letting herself be pushed around by
some other person, or by an institution
(particularly the Catholic Church).
On this negative view, Melanie was a plain
girl who had no experience of men and was
completely swept off her feet when a talented,
attractive and dynamic man did her the great
favor of noticing her. Then, the story goes,
she put up with almost anything that he did
because it was too late to go back to the
convent, and because she knew that she would
not be able to find anyone else. As in all
such negative views, there was an element of
truth. Melanie was not pretty, and, given her
muscular development, it was at times easier
to see her as Hoskins' female workout partner
than as someone toward whom he had romantic
feelings. In addition, her total lack of
[p.45] affectation and foolishness
suggested that she was beter suited to almost
anything than romance. That is why, it is
said, she allowed Hoskins to spend so much
time with other women, some of whom she knew
about, and even occasionally entertain them in
his apartment.
In fact, such a picture is grossly
exaggerated. Even at first glance,
Melanie looked bright and fresh, and there
were times when she was beautiful in the style
of the Dutch masters. Not the currently
fashionable kind of beauty, perhaps, but it
sooner or later had an impact on almost every
one who knew her. Among her many friends there
were always some who would have been happy to
take up with her if she had left Hoskins.
Moreover, it cannot be overemphasized that she
was nobody's doormat. While she put up
with a lot from Hoskins, she also influenced
him in countless ways and even managed him to
a surprising extent. In the last years of his
life she had far more influence over him than
anyone else, and it is quite possible that she
kept him from carrying out any number of urban
guerilla projects.
The fact that Melanie was such a force of sanity in Hoskins' life was closely connected with the attraction she had for virtually everyone who met her. People do not generally keep others on the sometimes narrow road of sanity by cautioning them, scolding, nagging, or even pointing out consequences. It is far more effective simply to make mundane activities sufficiently pleasant and interesting so that there is less need to act out wild fantasies. This was what Melanie did so well, and it was this capacity for living in the present and immediate future which endeared her to everyone else. She enjoyed almost anything she did so much that even rather sour people, if set to doing the same things with her, often had a good time in spite of themselves. While this is not the sort of thing which is supposed to be included in a sociological definition of class, in t probably has a good deal with our refusal to countsch people as Melanie as lower class. She just did not fit the depresed despirited image of the truly poor, no matter where she lived and no matter how little money she had.
If there is nothing else that distinguishes the middle class from the society of Washington Park, it is the ability to hide the most important feelings that one has. Among the middle classes, these feelings are seldom exposed to public view even when there is strong temptation to do so, as, for example, when there is a divorce. Almost everyone has ben shocked more than once when couples they had supposed to be happily married have split up. If nowadays we are not quite as surprised as we used to be, it is not so much because we have more clues to the feelings of the people involved, but because we have come to [p.46] assume that no marriage is safe. One of the most dramatic examples of this sort of play acting I had ever seen occured when a couple gave a party the night before they announced their separation and impending divorce. It was the best and most elaborate party they had ever given. In addition to acting with particular affection toward one another, the parents of the woman were on hand, a rather sophisticated couple who mixed easily with the guests. One might at least have thought that divorce in such circumstances would be amicable, perhaps with touches of humor and an embrace at the divorce court. But it was nothing of the sort. They fought bitterly over custody of the children, accused each other of every conceivable immorality, and showed a great willingness to hurt themselves a lot for the opportunity to hurt the other a little.
The fact that Melanie was such a force of sanity in Hoskins' life was closely connected with the attraction she had for virtually everyone who met her. People do not generally keep others on the sometimes narrow road of sanity by cautioning them, scolding, nagging, or even pointing out consequences. It is far more effective simply to make mundane activities sufficiently pleasant and interesting so that there is less need to act out wild fantasies. This was what Melanie did so well, and it was this capacity for living in the present and immediate future which endeared her to everyone else. She enjoyed almost anything she did so much that even rather sour people, if set to doing the same things with her, often had a good time in spite of themselves. While this is not the sort of thing which is supposed to be included in a sociological definition of class, in t probably has a good deal with our refusal to countsch people as Melanie as lower class. She just did not fit the depresed despirited image of the truly poor, no matter where she lived and no matter how little money she had.
If there is nothing else that distinguishes the middle class from the society of Washington Park, it is the ability to hide the most important feelings that one has. Among the middle classes, these feelings are seldom exposed to public view even when there is strong temptation to do so, as, for example, when there is a divorce. Almost everyone has ben shocked more than once when couples they had supposed to be happily married have split up. If nowadays we are not quite as surprised as we used to be, it is not so much because we have more clues to the feelings of the people involved, but because we have come to [p.46] assume that no marriage is safe. One of the most dramatic examples of this sort of play acting I had ever seen occured when a couple gave a party the night before they announced their separation and impending divorce. It was the best and most elaborate party they had ever given. In addition to acting with particular affection toward one another, the parents of the woman were on hand, a rather sophisticated couple who mixed easily with the guests. One might at least have thought that divorce in such circumstances would be amicable, perhaps with touches of humor and an embrace at the divorce court. But it was nothing of the sort. They fought bitterly over custody of the children, accused each other of every conceivable immorality, and showed a great willingness to hurt themselves a lot for the opportunity to hurt the other a little.
This masking of feeling does not occur in
the street life of Washington Park. If one
wino feels irritation with another, he does
not begin by inviting the other to have a
friendly drink on the curbstone in order to
"sort things out." Instead of hiding this
rift from third parties, he tells everyone
within shouting distance what a bastard and
son of a bitch the other is.
Of course, even the middle class is
adjusting to changing attitudes, and no one
nowadays expects any couple to be entirely
free of the strains of differing values and
goals. The standard deceit now consists, not
in covering up such things from absolutely
everyone else, but in giving close friends
the impression that all such problems are
being dealt with in a mature way, and that
everything is under control. In this respect
Hoskins and Melanie were thoroughly middle
class. Indeed, the blemishes on life in
their apartments were hard to take
seriously. Hoskins' apartment was a total
jungle of objects he had acquired over the
years, and his studio upstairs in the attic
was similar except that his dogs also
relieved themselves there. This bothered
Melanie, and she occasionally did sons
cleaning. This, in turn, bothered Hoskins,
who regarded his apartment as almost a
museum in which everything was already in
its proper place. However, both made jokes
about this state of affairs. On one
occasion, when he considered that she had
intervened on a massive and unwarranted
scale, his violence was confined to taking
her key to his apartment and breaking it in
two in his fingers. This act, probably
facilitated by al those wrist curls at the
Y, was such a parody of the things that went
on around them that it both became a joke
and seemed to suggest that he would never
direct any real violence at her.
There were other cases when Hoskins
resorted to direct methods, as when he
hurled objects at the wals of his apartment
or smashed them on the floor. These
outbursts were converted into jokes of still
another sort. One of the holes in [p.47] the
wall was labelled, "Defaced Wall Art", and
Melanie took much of his more conventional
art work into her own apartment where she
placed it in "protective custody." As the
series of jokes went on, it was easy to
think that the holes in the wall and the
smashed objects were part of a pastime which
both enjoyed. In retrospect these incidents
must have been more than that, and must have
somehow presaged the act where Hoskins
emptied a whole clip of ammunition into
Melanie's body. In making a joke of them,
both must have concealed something far more
important than t h e incidents themselves,
perhaps something as obscure to them as to
everyone else.
Despite these occasional outbursts,
what was remarkable about their day to day
life was the island of relative placidity
they had created in the middle of the
swirling and often violent life around
them. Our young sociologist, on later
reading the newspaper accounts and
recognizing the people he had interviewed,
might well have felt a certain rueful
vindication. It is not so easy to create
little social islands which are immune to
the laws of the larger neighborhood.
Sooner or later those laws will triumph,
and it is the anamolies who will, in one
way or another, be eliminated.
[48] BLANK
[48] BLANK
The
Military and its Aftermath
A man's military reminiscences are
notoriously the least reliable of all. Still,
they almost always have some basis in fact and
it is often possible to separate those
original facts from the layers of
interpretation, and even wishful thinking,
that have been added year by year.
In the present case it is known that
Hoskins did join the Marines soon after he
left school, and that he was discharged
shortly thereafter. By his own admission, he
was involved in many fights and was put in a
special "punishment" platoon. He was finally
discharged because "he couldn't get along with
others."
Hoskins did not often talk about his
military experience, but, when he did, one
could detect, in between the humorously told
anecdotes, a certain tinge of disappointment
and a sense of lost opportunity. After all, he
was, at bottom, a military sort of person.
Most armies are not terribly displeased
when they get combative recruits, and a good
army is, in large part, one that can take
young men of that sort and turn their
aggressions from each other toward the enemy.
Apart from that, the young Hoskins must have
been ideal material. He had an abundance of
physical skills, loved guns, and would have
been interested in mastering almost any kind
of miltary technique, tactic, or strategy. In
addition, he had the intelligence to become,
not just an ordinary good soldier, but an
officer of high rank. What, then, could have
gone wrong?
There were two things that Hoskins had to
say about his relation to the Marine Corps.
First, he liked the exercises. "I got along
well at that level. Even when they put me in
the punishment platoon, I found that they just
did more pushups and situps, and so I liked
that. Then they thought there was something
wrong with me for enjoying the punishment
platoon." Since, in later life, he was one of
very few people who actually enjoyed abdominal
calisthenics, even without the satisfaction of
lifting a barbell, it is not hard to believe
that he also enjoyed them twenty years
earlier. It must have confused the drill
instructors and officers to find a recruit who
enjoyed the punishment. Evidently they did not
have the imagination to make him sit indoors
doing nothing while the others did exercises
outside the window.
[p.50]
[p.50]
Second, according to Hoskins, it had really
upset him to seen all the bullying that went
on, whether by drill instructors, officers, or
the bigger and stronger recruits.
"When I saw anyone being physically cruel, I'd just wait for my chance, maybe days later, and then I'd get him. After a while, I even took to smiling at them and telling them that they could count on getting hurt later on."
Ii is unlikely that the officers saw it quite that way.They probably did not inquire closely into the causes of fights and simply meted out punishment to those who were continually involved in them. Moreover, it is not clear who Hoskins attacked. There may, for example, have been a confrontation with a drill instructor or officer.
Hoskins said that he had called himself a
"pacifist", not in the sense of being opposed
to war, but in opposition to the bullying
which he claimed to have been so widespread.
Doubtless it was, but I wondered whether he
had not enjoyed his pacifism and whether he
had not been a bit like another pacifist of my
acquaintance-- one who pre-emptively assaulted
and beat up people he believed to be prone to
violence, particularly members of motorcycle
gangs.
Such ot least is the outline of Hoskins
military career, but, whatever may have
happened, he continued to feel in, later years
that he could have fitted into a military
machine that was a little more intelligent in
its training methods. Indeed, after the years
had mellowed him, he demonstrated traits which
would have had a different, and even more
important, kind of military utility. After he
had moved to the Williams YMCA, a co-ed one
where Melanie could work out with him, he
became the unofficial leader of quite a little
group of younger people who suddenly found it
exciting and romantic to do sit-ups and
leg-lifts in addition to the running they
would have anyway. While he did it
unobtrusively, it was Hoskins who decided what
should be done in what order, and what route
would be taken when they ran through the
neighborhood. He did not tell anyone what to
do, but decided fairly definitely what he was
going to do himself, after which the others
all folowed. While he had been virtually a
junior member at the downtown Y, he was here
much older than most of the young students and
professionals, and adapted easily to the role
of healthy and vigorous middle-aged man
conducting his group of cheerful followers
through a regimen that, in itself, would
hardly have appealed to anyone. As before,
there was much laughter and many jokes, but
also a kind of unspoken deference. For
example, even though Hoskins was not a
particularly fast [p.51] runner, his juniors
tended to group themselves beside or behind
him, never once taking the lead and
challenging him to catch up, something he
probably could not have done. It was easy to
be reminded of the good-natured and popular
colonel leading his staff in a morning
constitutional run.
Hoskins made me think of a young Israeli
paratrooper I had once met in a campground
outside Paris. While Ira was not nearly as
strong nor as well versed in unarmed combat,
he was another highly intelligent man who did
not seem particularly interested in material
success. In civilian life he lived on a
kibbutz and had refused chances to go to
college in order to remain a grapefruit
picker. Even though he rad extensively, he
wasalso quite proud of the speed with which he
could pick fruit, and saw no reason to move to
any other occupation. In the army he
similarly had no desire to move to a position
of command, but was fascinated by almost
every aspect of military life and
organization. When he found that I was an
amateur military historian, we wandered all
over Paris while he added to his stockpile
every scrap of information I had on the
campaigns of Napoleon, Genghis Khan, and
Douglas MacArthur. In his turn he explained
the Israeli Army with a depth and insight that
would have done credit to a general in any
other army.
Ira was particularly anxious to argue that,
despite the remarkable successes of the army
in recent years, it was not made up of
supermen.
"Except for the fighter pilots, the whole army is just ordinary guys like me. Not especially gifted or violent or anything. I wouldn't hit anyone else, even if he hit me first. But I felt comfortable during the war when we were clearing out ravines. Of course, combat is always scary, but a lot less so when you have confidence in your organization."
The more we discussed the Mongols' use of
terror to control countries they could not
afford to garrison, or MacArthur's amphibious
tactics, the more I got the impression that
the Israeli army had invented something still
more important. They had made it interesting
and enjoyable to be an ordinary soldier. Their
drill instruction involved no sadism, and the
soldiers, who all recognized the necessity of
their mission, were encouraged to develop
their skills at their own pace, and in a way
that gave them pleasure and satisfaction.
"Some people get a little scared before their first parachute jump, but we have lots of jokes and, when you get used to jumping, it's hard to realize that you ever worried about it."
[p.52]
It certainly was not that Ira lacked fear.
He had the impression that his unit would be
assigned to attack the Golan Heights in case
of war with Syria and that, in the meantime,
he might be sent out alone on dark beaches
with a silenced .45 pistol against terrorists.
But he felt so good about his army experience
as a whole that even these thoughts caused him
only occasional discomfort. In fact, it became
obvious that he was, after a few days, tired
of his vacation in Paris, and was waiting
anxiously for the time, when he could return
to his kibbutz and his parachute unit.
It also transpired that the Israeli army
did not have an officer class in the
European or American sense.
"There's a guy in my kibbutz who is one of the commanders in my unit, but he works in the fields too and doesn't have any special privileges."
Indeed, it happened that it was Ira, and
not the commander, who had a most important
special privilege, that of instructor in fruit
picking to groups of young people who were
visiting Israel.
"A lot of these girls in visiting ulpans are away from home for the first time and are even riper than the fruit. As their instructor, I get to look them over, and they tend to come to me when they want some excitement. The commander is always complaining that I get first pick."
This account of the side benefits of fruit
picking helped explain why Ira was so content
in the fields and in the army. But that was
not the only reason, or even the main one. Far
more important was his confidence that both
the kibbutz and the army were sufficiently
flexible to take advantage of any talent he
had to offer. Not only that, it was virtually
official policy that soldiers and fruit
pickers should enjoy their work whenever
possible, and that working conditions could be
altered in various ways to conform to
individual preferences. It is not likely that
many enlisted men in any of the American armed
forces have that sort of confidence, nor do
such mottoes appear to be engraved over the
gates at West Point or Annapolis. However, if
the morale of lowly members of an organization
is as good as Ira's, the organization as a
whole can hardly help but be healthy,
efficient, and effective. I believed Ira when
he said he was typical of his fellow soldiers.
That, in turn, explained a good deal of recent
history.
It seems in retrospect that Hoskins was
tailor-made for an army like the Israeli one.
Even his commitment to art would [p.53] have
been accepted and encouraged, and, in times of
peace, there would have been no invention of
meaningless duties to interfere with it. It
has now been a long time since Guadalcanal and
Iwo Jima, and, if the path since has been a
rather dreary one for the Marine Corps, it
probably is traceable in part to inflexibility
and a resulting inability to take advantage of
good material when it offers itself.
Whatever kind of discharge Hoskins received
from the military, the fact that it was in
some sense "psychological" may well have
suggested to him the idea that he could
qualify for and live on disability payments
the rest of his life. In the circumstances,
this is an idea that would tempt a good many
people, and it would take only a few
discouraging experiences with the world of
work to bring it to actuality. Moreover, a
person who is always conscious of this
alternative is not likely to make the
compromises of someone who has to work to
live.
As it happened, Hoskins got married, had
children, and entered into the white collar
world quite successfully. It appears that he
lived the life of a conventional married man
in a suburb more convincingly than any of his
downtown friends could have imagined. As far
as the neighbors were concerned, he had only
an art studio downtown in the way that other
men played golf or went to baseball games. At
that time, it would have been natural to
suppose that he had settled down after his
stormy interlude with the Marines, and that he
would, as the saying has it, "go a long way.".
The economy was expanding in those days, and
it must have seemed that a young white man
with great intelligence, boundless energy, and
natural leadership would require a kind of
genius in order to fail. However, in addition
to the possibility of that secure life income,
there were two other factors.
One was the fact that Hoskins, at all
stages of his life, attracted women without
even trying. And then, when they offered
themselves, he was not the man to refuse
terribly many of them. That was not really
part of the sixties executive pattern. The
French company official may be expected to
have his mistress, but his American
counterpart in those days was stretched so
thin between an extremely demanding workload
and an equally demanding family life that,
moral or social strictures apart, there was no
time left over. Then, when a man is caught
between two or more women who have begun to
cause more pain than pleasure, yhere is always
the temptation to jump ship and escape both of
them, particularly if there is some beckoning
snug little financial harbor at hand.
In addition to all that, he had, during this time, taught himself to paint. The discovery of a strong new talent in oneself is always one of the most exciting things that can happen. For [p.54] someone like Hoskins, it is really much more important than, say, a new lover, and it is likely to have a much greater and longer significance.
Even abstract artists of the sort Hoskins
later became generally start with figures or
landscapes. When the beginning artist
discovers that he can produce work that is
faithful to his subject, and to which he can
add any shade of feeling or expression he
wants, it can be an almost overpowering
experience. Hoskins' early portraits indicate
that he reached that point fairly quickly. It
is hard t o imagine any business or
professional experience which would have had
that much excitement for a man who seems never
to have cared about becoming rich. There must,
from that point on, have been many times when
he looked out the office window, and his
thoughts turned from work to art. In addition
to the inherent satisfactions of art, the
prospect of life as an artist promises almost
absolute freedom from all the control that one
must submit to in any ordinary kind of job. It
is thus not too hard to imagine how a man as
independent as Hoskins came to end his working
days. The upshot was that he wound up in San
Francisco with still another woman, Melanie.
The idea of never working again may seem
wonderful to a harrassed man in an office with
only boring work, but it turns out to have its
problems. Even the life of an artist with a
small independent income, no matter how free
and romantic it may seem, is not all it is
cracked up to be. The root difficulty is that
there is still a compulsion to sell work. It
is not so much for the extra income, but with
the idea that, if what one is doing is
worthwhile, there must be people willing to
pay money for it. Unfortunately, without luck
and connections it may be almost impossible
for even an extremely good artist to sell
hardly anything at prices that do not seem
ridiculous, and which even pay for the
materials.
Most often, the young artist just out of
art school sets' up shop with great optimism
and immediately produces half a dozen pieces.
He or she may enter them for shows, or simply
have open houses in the studio, but, either
way, nothing sells. The artist nevertheless
goes doggedly forward and paints more
canvasses. Soon, there are no walls left on
which to hang paintings, either in the studio
or the apartment. Some paintings are given to
friends, and the rest are stacked in a corner
of the studio. Still, nothing has been sold,
and the cost of paint and canvas is beginning
to mount. A few pieces are sold to friends of
friends for fifty dollars each. Then the
artist decides to paint over old paintings
that no longer satisfy. There is some
aesthetic justification for this. Some of the
old colors can be allowed to show through
effectively, and an old painting [p.55]
provides a good basis for new work. The artist
at this point announces that he is now doing a
different, and much superior, kind of
work. It may be better, but it still does not
sell.
By this time, almost every canvas has been painted over, some many times, and there is hardly anyone left who will hang the paintings even if they are given them. The artist can always continue to work, but not many can convince themselves that work can be entirely its own reward. It is then that most stop, particularly if there is no independent income, and they have run through their savings.
By this time, almost every canvas has been painted over, some many times, and there is hardly anyone left who will hang the paintings even if they are given them. The artist can always continue to work, but not many can convince themselves that work can be entirely its own reward. It is then that most stop, particularly if there is no independent income, and they have run through their savings.
Hoskins did better than that, but, even so,
his total receipts could not have amounted to
very much. There must have been times of
profound discouragement when it seemed that
society had no place for an artist of his
sort. In his last years he sometimes talked
that way, without much apparent bitterness,
and acted as if he thought daily exercise was
enough to keep body and soul together.
In this respect, those who live on welfare
are quite a lot like the idle rich in that
neither group has a sense of purpose unless
they invent one for themselves. Most middle
class people may not think of themselves as
struggling for survival, but they would be
surprised to find out how much of their
activity would be rendered meaningless if they
were assured of a certain level of support for
the rest of their lives. Even those sub-dole
residents of Washington Park, the winos, had
at least a schedule imposed by thirst and
necessity. From the Drop-Inn Center they went
to panhandle people on their way to work, to
the wine store with the proceeds, to the
Spring St. Mission, where they were given a
baloney sandwich, to the garbage cans, and so
on, until it was time to hit the crowd again.
For Hoskins there was, in one way, no reason to ever get out of bed and leave his apartment, other than the need to cash his check and make a few purchases. Like the jet setters at the other end of the spectrum, he had tried travel, but, like the more intelligent of them, had discovered that no real problems were solved by rapid change of geographical location. Thus, while he had been in San Francisco in the Haight-Ashbury Period, and in New York before that, he finally settled down to a small space.
For Hoskins there was, in one way, no reason to ever get out of bed and leave his apartment, other than the need to cash his check and make a few purchases. Like the jet setters at the other end of the spectrum, he had tried travel, but, like the more intelligent of them, had discovered that no real problems were solved by rapid change of geographical location. Thus, while he had been in San Francisco in the Haight-Ashbury Period, and in New York before that, he finally settled down to a small space.
This hermitage, which was quickly filled
with manifestations of Hoskins' many
interests, became a center for a large group
of people, most of whom had themselves
departed a bit from the straight and narrow.
Since so many people came to him, Hoskins had
little need to go out, and his forays into the
streets had long since settled into a pattern.
Every weekday morning he went to the Y. He
occasionally lunched at the chili parlor, or,
[p.56] on rare occasions, the restaurant of a
friend some ten blocks away. But mostly he
just went back to his apartment and stayed
there, sometimes entertaining a woman, until
Melanie came home from school. Then they made
dinner and Hoskins smoked marijuana until
around ten, when they went to bed.
Meals were simple. Hoskins was extremely
suspicious of the great majority of food,
particularly anything with an exotic taste. In
addition, he ate slowly and ate little,
surprisingly little in view of his size and
strength. While this attitude toward food did
not seem to be intentional or cultivated, it
was, in effect, another of his natural
adaptations to his situation. He simply did
not want the food he could not afford, and
would not eat it if offered to him. Similarly,
although he lived only a half-dozen blocks
from the downtown shopping area, he almost
never went there. He treasured many
possessions, but none of them were things that
were sold in most stores, certainly not the
downtown ones .
The weekend routine was a little different,
but no less fixed. On Saturday he visited his
wife and children. On Sunday morning, if the
weather was at all good, he and Melanie went
to a flea market at a drive-in theatre. They
there did all the impulse shopping that middle
or upper class people do at anything from
discount houses to specialty shops. However,
in distinction to even the most stripped-down
of the discount houses, a great deal was for
sale for a dollar or less, and ten dollars was
a major purchase. In addition, it was much
more colorful and interesting. Many kinds of
people came, often from the distant
countryside, to sell many kinds of items. A
family of country people would drive a hundred
miles to sell objects that could not have paid
for the gas. But perhaps it was their way of
participating in the glamour of the city. Some
of the goods were exotic, some were probably
stolen, and all could be haggled over. Hoskins
and Melanie often made it a party with other
friends, and, in the course of purchasing a
few dollars worth, they would examine
virtually all of the thousands of articles for
sale.
Since they never sold anything at the flea
market and never threw anything out, their
apartments often had to strain to accomodate
each Sunday's new acquisitions. Melanie tended
to buy what she needed t o decorate, or to
make her apartment more comfortable. Hoskins
bought whatever he liked, or whatever he was
collecting at the time, and so his apartment
became ever more cluttered. Still, order was
not totally lacking, and a chair could always
be cleared when a visitor dropped in for tea.
Thus, even though one often had to step over
the drunkard Von Fritsch at the ground level
doorway in order to get inside, both
apartments constituted, in their [p.57]
different ways, little refuges from the noise
and confused sensory overload of the street
below.
There was, however, something that
disturbed Hoskins even in his lair, and it
turned out to be a worry that the poor share
with the rich. The vast majority of the
population does not have to worry greatly
about being dispossessed. If a freeway is put
through their suburban neighborhood (which is
unlikely, since so many suburbs have followed
the freeways), they can fairly easily find
another similar neighborhood, probably without
going far. For the rich it is not so simple.
Many feel comfortable only in enclaves, of
which there is generally only one to each
major city, and it does not take much to spoil
those enclaves for them. Far short of an
invasion of urban poor, a dozen new rich
families moving into the country club with
their boisterous manners and loud clothes can
spoil the whole atmosphere for many of the
older residents. This is because they have
spent all that leisure time developing a whole
web of "nice" places to go, "necessary"
activities, and "suitable" friends. As they
grow older, they come increasingly to depend
on that complex of places and people. But, no
matter how much money one has, one cannot
force everything to remain the same, and any
arrangements one does make are bound to be
delicate and unstable. Thus, many rich persons
of middle age or more live in daily terror of
having to move, and of all the, to them,
massive consequences of such a move.
In a similar way, the residents of
Washington Park had, often over many years,
discovered bit by bit how to live
satisfactorily where to get day-old bread for
almost nothing, where a dog can be walked,
what to do if arrested, who might be willing
to hire a little temporary labor, and, above
all, where it is safe to be at what time. All
this would be different in some other poor
area, much less in a different city. While
middle-class people need only to look up the
same old franchises and brand names in a new
city to perpetuate the same life style, the
poor and the rich have to start from scratch.
And they have no assurance
that they will be successful.
For this reason, one of the most
distressing things for Hoskins and his
neighbors was the demolition of buildings.
Washington Park itself had been largely
immune, but no less than a dozen old brick
houses in the area of his apartment had
recently been torn down. He was particularly
upset when the bank kitty corner across the
street was wrecked, and then the large
handsome old house directly across Vine
Street. There were, in this last case, several
mitigating factors. For one thing, he and
Melanie were allowed t o go though the house
[p.58] before it was wrecked and salvage
anything they pleased. This would not have
seemed a great privilege to most people, but
Hoskins was able to find some parts with which
to repair one of the old air rifles in his
collection, and they both found some broken
furniture capable of repair. Then, when the
demolition began, there were many touches of
comedy. The lowest bid on the demolition came,
not from one of the standard wrecking
companies, but from the "Willie Blow-Top
Gang", a group of traditional house wreckers
who took down one brick at a time. It was
rumored that they charged no cash, being
content just to sell the materials they
salvaged. White Appalachians from the southern
mountains, they presented a new and striking
appearance even in a district which was
supposedly half-populated with such people.
Not only did Willie Blow-Top and his men
introduce an element of the ancient barter
economy into a modern urban setting, but they
had curious ways of dealing with each other.
If one, working four stories above the street,
wished to attract the attention of another, he
simply picked up a brick and threw it in his
direction, sometimes grazing the addressee. In
all things, they seemed totally unconcerned
with danger, and onlookers were amazed at the
absence of violent death as the weeks and
months wore on. One time Hoskins told about
one of the men standing on the ground looking
upward with his mouth open while two others,
directly above him, were trying to pry loose a
section of stone facing with crowbars.
Eventually they gave up and, immediately after
all three had gone down the street to a bar,
the stone ripped away and fell with a
tremendous crash exactly where the third had
been standing.
The Blow-Top gang did not take easily to
strangers, even ones who bought things from
them, and anyone who spoke to a man on the
ground about buying something was likely to be
the object of catcalls from others working
higher up. These were not obscene, or even the
sort likely to provoke a fight, particularly
in view of the fact that the challenger would
have to climb walls that might fall at any
moment to reach some isoated brick crag.
Their most severe insult was, "He's
iggerant,jes plain iggerant." Of just
what the stranger was ignorant was never
made entirely clear. not even whether it
related to some feature of the materials, or
simply to a point of etiquette governing the
proper approach of a stranger. For all one
knew, the approved approach might have been to
sit on the ground in the litter and brick dust
for a half hour, watching with one's arms over
one's head, before even deigning to sidle over
and make a remark about the weather.
It was the sort of thing that Hoskins would
normaly have enjoyed tremendously, and, even
as it was, he was sometimes [p.59] moved to
tell some humorous anecdote about the gang.
But, for the most part, he was silent. Perhaps
the very length of the demolition process, in
which progress, or destruction, was hardly
noticeable from one week to the next, kept
reminding him of the threat to his own life
style. Sometimes, he would come in to the Y
and announce his intention of moving to the
country. To his friends that sounded like a
prescription for pure disaster. Since he was
practically a hermit in his rooms, one
supposed that, in the country, he would never
see anyone at all. He nevertheless continued
to talk about such plans, and even became
interested in a particular house in Milford.
Then, one morning, he said that he was not
moving to Milford because it was full of
hillbillies. Considering the people by whom he
was presently surrounded, this statement was
rather peculiar. However, as with so many of
his odder utterances, his friends held their
silence, not wanting to disturb any line of
thought which tended to keep him where he was.
As in poor areas elsewhere, the people
tended to make up for a lack of expensive
diversions by engaging in sexual intercourse
on a scale which would have surprised most
middle-class people. It was also talked of
much more openly than elsewhere, and a good
many of the shouts on the street pertained to
it. While casual sex was dangerous in that it
often led to violence, and even death, it was
also something of a joke and a constant
subject of gossip. Hoskins remembered an early
encounter of his own with a married woman
whose husband was banging and shouting at the
door.
"She kept telling me to keep quiet and let him go away, and he did eventually."
Neither at the time nor afterwards did he
seem to regard this incident as being more
than a minor lark. In the telling, it appeared
to rank with such ordinary escapades as his
theft of chimney pots from roofs in broad
daylight. Or the time when he and Melanie, as
another kind of diversion, had broken into the
headquarters of a motorcycle club to defy
their threatening signs and steal their
insignia and keepsakes.
While in later years, Hoskins broke with so
many of the traditions and ways of his
neighborhood, he seems to have kept up casual
affairs with a good many women without
thinking much about it. This became a problem
for him only when a woman pressed him to see
her more often than he wanted, or otherwise
demanded increased intimacy. On his view, such
demands were in no way justified, and,
if they persisted, he generally dropped the
woman altogether.
It had been a long time since he had lived
with his wife, but [p.60] Hoskins seemed to
have no intention of getting a divorce. This
was partly so that he would not be under as
much pressure to marry Melanie or anyone else.
After all, anyone interested in marriage would
be likely to belong to the mainstream society
that Hoskins had left far behind, much further
than anyone realized. Melanie gave the
appearance of understanding, but she probably
didn't, really. There are not many women who
would have been enthusiastic about the idea
that life can best culminate in a shoot-out.
Exercises in
the Basement
One might be pardoned for wondering what
business a bohemian artist had working out in
the basement of the Y every weekday morning. It
was directly contrary to tradition. In Europe
ill health often went with poverty, and, even
more than that, the spirituality required for
art seemed to imply a disdain for physical
activity (with the important exception of sexual
activity). Something of this was carried over to
America, and many groups of bohemians have
indulged heavily in cigarettes, alcohol, drugs,
and irregular hours, using only coffee to hold
themselves together. As in Europe, robust good
health has often been seen as the hallmark of
the middle-class person, and, wishing to be
different, many a bohemian has taken a little
modest pride in his hacking cough and stooped
shoulders. Indeed, some have even thought it
romantic to have, or seem to have, the
beginnings of a terminal disease. For the person
with this outlook it is almost a pity that
tuberculosis has become so rare, and that it is
so difficult to follow D. H. Lawrence in this
mode of extinction.
Hoskins could never have been like that.
However, his rejection of ill health did pick up
on another element that had been present in
bohemian life all along. This consisted in the
idea that the great mass of prosperous society
is always a threat to bohemian life, and that
the bohemian must carefully husband his
resources and be prepared for the worst. Surely
one who thinks in that way would be well advised
to guard his health and develop his strength. In
addition to this, many bohemians have come to
express their hostility to mainstream society by
beating it at its own game. For example, when
Hoskins saw respectable citizens chugging along
the sidewalks in fashionable jogging suits, it
gave him definite pleasure to know that, no
matter what they did, they would never be a
match for him in a physical confrontation.
With a great many men, class hostility is
translated into imagined fights, and it was in
the gym that Hoskins won those fictional battles
with crashing rights to the jaw and punishing
swivel kicks to the knees.
On most workout days there were three of us,
Hoskins, Steve, and myself. As such, we formed
one of the little clusters typical of the Y.
Some played handball or racquetball together,
others met daily at the universal machine, and
others concentrated [p.62] mainly on running or
swimming. None of these groups were at all
exclusive, and, like the others, we were happy
when newcomers interested in judo or wrestling
occasionally joined us. While really no
different from the other groups, we came to be
perceived as rather unusual. Once, when I
happened to mention to a man in the locker room
that I had been working out with Hoskins, he
looked at me in an awed way and answered, "You
work out with him?" Surprised, I tried
to fathom this response. It turned out that he
had once observed Hoskins teaching someone how
to kill or disable people with a few quick
manoevers. While this is standard practice in a
number of martial arts, many people are somewhat
unduly impressed the first time they see such
techniques demonstrated. This man had apparently
concluded that anyone who trained with Hoskins
was likely to sneak up behind total strangers,
and, with a horrid cry, shatter their spines.
Then, too, there were a few people who,
seemingly bemused by the group image, lost sight
of individuality within the group and got our
names confused.
These attitudes were actually confined to
only a few people, and, even there, the cause
was probably mainly the fact that Steve and
Hoskins had certain esoteric physical skills.
For example, while Hoskins had mastered some of
the more obscure Asian martial arts, Steve threw
boomerangs. The idea of throwing something in
one direction, and then having it whip around a
corner to honk some unsuspecting person, may
have seemed just a little eerie. Moreover, while
almost everyone did abdominal exercises, it
seemed to be mainly Steve and Hoskins who
regarded them with positive joy. They counted
them in units of a hundred, and anyone who
worked out with them generally wound up doing
sets of at least fifty. While their enthusiasm
was infectious, it was never quite infectious
enough to make me sorry when we had finished
doing leg lifts while hanging from a bar. The
judo and wrestling, already great fun, were made
even more attractive by the contrast with
abdominal exercises.
After trying all the combinations and
sometimes, for a joke, two against one, we would
settle down on the mat to rest and talk. Steve
sometimes told jokes, but, since Hoskins could
generally guess the punch line before Steve got
to it, there was more suspense in watching him
than in following the joke. Then there might be
a discussion as to how to best deal with women.
Steve was often in the throes of an intense and
complex problem, a matter which one day caused
Hoskins to draw on the blackboard beside the mat
a likeness of Steve drowning in a Bunyanesque
sea of depression. These discussions, like so
many others among males over thirty, were
defensive in tone. It was [p.63] not a question
of seducing anyone or running up any kind of
score, but of avoiding the various sorts of pain
and trouble which seem to attend relations
between the sexes. Sometimes it seemed that
safety in numbers was the best policy. Hoskins
had a number of other strategies to
suggest. One was to avoid the extremely
attractive but unpleasant women that Steve
sometimes ended up with (each time he broke off
with one we had a little celebration). But his
final solution, which he jokingly recommended to
others, was to marry a woman, separate from her,
and then stay married to her. The separation
assured an ample supply of other women, and the
marriage kept them at a safe distance.
Our discussions undeniably had sexist and
macho overtones, but they were yet different
from those to be found in most bars. No one
thought women were inferior, that they deserved
less than equal pay for equal work, or that they
should be excluded from any activity. On the
contrary, Hoskins encouraged Melanie in weight
lifting, and he eventually transferred to a Y
where she could also be a member. However,
despite this, the assumption was that, in
society as it presently exists, men and women
tend to have fundamentally different goals that,
in any relationship, will eventually come into
conflict. There was then a question of who was
going to win. For Hoskins, the woman's winning
meant marriage and children while the man's
winning meant steady sex and a certain amount of
domesticity without financial or other
commitments. There might be some way in which
men and women could live together and satisfy
all their goals, but, in the atmosphere of the
wrestling mat, such an idea would have
seemed an extraordinary flight of fancy. Given
these assumptions, it was almost inevitable that
we came down to tactics, not so much for
winning, but for avoiding irreparable losses. It
often seemed at those times that more
enlightened men would need, not so much a
greater respect for the rights of women, but a
great deal more optimism about the possibility
of minimizing interpersonal conflict in general.
Hoskins was, if not a cynic, a man who thought
that one did well to take what was good before
the situation deteriorated altogether.
These conclusions were often rather
depressing, and, in the face of Hoskins' bouyant
personality, seldom lingered long. Wethen went
on to equivallent og a children's story
time. One morning, Hoskind gave account of
one of his brief periods of employment.
"It was just after I came back from San Francisco, and I looked kind of freaky and dangerous. The only job I could get was as a night security guard at a departmentstore. Each night [p.64] when they closed, they locked me in behind those glass doors.I'd stand there looking out, and once some girls came up to the other side of the doors and called through the glass to me. They wanted me to let them in, and, when told them I was the guard, they couldn't believe it. Then they got laughing harder and harder, and more people came until there was quite a little crowd all looking at me like at the zoo. So I jumped up and down and growled and waved my arms."
"Then there was an attack dog that was supposed to help me guard the store. At first he snarled whenever looked at him, but he gradually got used to me, though he was still pretty scary. The trouble was that I had to take him home with me when I got off work. I had him by a big chain, but he'd leap and want to kill people on the sidewalk, and I could just barely hold him. So we sort of zig-zagged back home without wounding anyone, and I got him to go to sleep on the floor beside me. Exceptevery now and then he'd hear something and go charging through the apartment and smash against the door."
"Once I had to drive him out to the vet, and I was going along the freeway with him right behind me in the back seat. I could hear him growling, and it sounded like he might get me in the neck at any moment. By the time I got back I was pretty worried, and I took him over to see Ray. He knows a lot about dogs. Well, we got over to Ray's place without his biting anyone, and I knocked. Ray came downstairs and looked through the glass door at the dog and wouldn't even open the door. He knew too much about dogs."
"It went along like that for a while, but eventually I became that dog's best friend and I could do anything with him, though he remained just as hostile to everyone else. There wasn't much to do those long nights in the empty store since no one was stupid enough to break in, so I started playing games with him. We played hide-and-seek a lot, and I'd run into the women's fitting rooms and he would come crashing under the partitions until he found me. Then l'd push all the elevator buttons and try to get into one without him. Once even faked him in and got out before he could. Then I went through the store yelling until he came down the stopped escalators and found me. The best thing was the bicycle. I'd get a bike from the toy department and some real heavy coat from the men's department. Then I'd put the coat on and ride fast around the store. He'd follow me, skidding and sliding on the turns, and, when he caught up, he'd take a huge chunk out of the coat. Then I'd hang it up and take another coat. We went through a whole lot of coats."
There were a lot of people at the Y, and at
other Y's and judo clubs, who also had stories
to tell. It was obvious that the differences
[p.65] in the stories said a great deal
about the persons. One was a youngish
policeman and spare-time weight lifter who had
had some horrible experiences in the
Washington Park area when he had been a
patrolman there. He made these into funny
stories which caused people's hair to stand on
end, probably in order to exorcise his own
demons. The stories actually were
funny in the blackest of black ways, but it
took a strong stomach to digest them.
Others told deprecating stories about
themselves. Jay Loomis was a doctor, less by
inclination than by the circumstance of having
been born into a second generation Jewish
family. As an alternative to military service
he had entered the Public Health Service, and
was assigned to a study of West Virginia coal
miners. A city boy, he had been given a
trailer deep in the mountain fastnesses of
that state, with no outlet for his
considerable literary interests except for the
few books he could take with him. His first
job was to give physical examinations to the
miners, and he quickly encountered some
situations for which he had not been trained.
For example, one aging miner demanded that Jay
write a letter to his wife guaranteeing that
he was no longer as sexually potent as he had
been previously. It seemed that his wife had
been dismayed by the decreasing frequency of
their sexual encounters, and had concluded
that the miner had a mistress on the side. Jay
complied with the request and adjusted to many
similar things better than many young doctors
might have. He was a little surprised by the
extreme sexual reintation of the society, but
concluded, reasonably enough:
"There just isn't anything else to do there, so they get totally involved with sex. Then, if anything goes wrong with that, it's a real problem."
While Jay did not find himself a lover in
the mountains, the life style affected
him in other ways. Never really very medical
to begin with, he quickly lost all faith in
the research beingconducted. In all justice to
him, it was probably as ill-conceived as most
other government projects of that sort.
"One thing, I got tired of going to mines and taking all those Urine samples, cataloguing them, and sending them back to Cincinnati for analysis. So, after a while, I got a great big pitcher of piss in my trailer. I used it myself and invited anyone who came in to piss in it. Then, when it was time to send in the samples, I just poured it into the little bottles."
As fate would have it, Jay was squarely in
the middle of making [p.66] up his samples one
day when the director of the project, who had
come all the way from Cincinnati, walked in.
"I've never seen anyone look as bad as Dr. Winckelmann did that day. He called me a scoundrel, which was probably the worst name he knew, and he went on for a long time. It was the worst thing he could imagine anyone doing. Soon I was recalled to Cincinnati and spent the next month copying entries out of a medical dictionary."
Of a related sort was the story told by
Jimmy, a young man given to violent
depressions partly brought on by the fact that
he taught in a junior high school.
"It was the year I was studying in Hamburg, Germany. I used to write home to my father in Kansas, and one time I happened to mention that German women didn't shave their legs."
Since Jimmy was another highly literary
young man, his letters were impressive, and
his father happened to show this one to a
friend who was the editor of t h e local
small-town newspaper. The editor liked it so
much that he printed it, together with a
picture of Jimmy. By another stroke of fate,
some immigrant Germans in that part of Kansas
saw the letter, did not like some remarks in
it, and sent it to a newspaper in Hamburg.
Thereupon, the Hamburg paper translated the
letter into German and printed it, again with
Jimmy's picture.
"Since it was only the local tabloid, I didn't see it, and found out about it only later. The first thing knew was when I wentinto a little restaurant and gave my order. The waiter looked kind of funny at me, but he went away with my order. Then, as I was sitting in the middle of the crowded restaurant, the cook came out and walked right up to me. She was an enormous wor.an who must have weighed three hundred pounds, and she lifted her skirts almost to her waist and started screaming at you young me. 'If you don't like my legs, you go to Paris or New York, you young _____.' I managed to get past her out of the restaurant, but I eventually had to leave Hamburg. My father felt real bad about it."
Jay and Jimmy afterwards laughed about
these scenes of their earlier humiliation, but
Hoskins had too much of a certain kind of
pride to talk about his own fiascos, no mater
how humorous they might have been. He enjoyed
these sorts of stories when others told them,
but he lived in a world where one took more
precautions. He was not likely to write long
[p.67] self-revelatory letters to anyone, and,
if he had decided to fake urine samples, he
would have locked the door first. He did not
invite people to laugh at him, and, if he had
been caught in the middle of something, he
would have bluffed it out to the end.
The stories which were most like those of
Hoskins were told by Kuro Smith. An imposing
man some ten. years older than Hoskins, and
a good deal bigger, his appearance embodied
so many contradictions, at least from the
point of view of most midwestern Americans,
that they were baffled in their attempts
to classify him. After a number of
different careers, he was now teaching
English at a junior high school in a poor
district different from, but comparable to,
Washington Park. There, too, they did not
know quite what to make of him, and were not
sure whether to count him as white
when they made out their
affirmative action reports. Kuro solved the kind of discipline
problems which so bothered Jimmy rather
easily. For example:
"You know how medical students are always playing jokes with parts of the human bodies they get to dissect in anatomy class? Well, a few years back, when I started teaching, I got a human thumb from one of them. Then I made a little pouch for it and hung it from my belt with a chain. Whenever kids acted up, I'd stand over them real close and finger this pouch. After a while they got curious, and they'd often ask what was in it. I always told them, "You don't want to know", or sometimes, "It's something that could happen to you." Then, occasionally, I'd take the pouch off and lay it on my desk on top of the papers. Finally, one day, I had to go to the office for a few minutes. I told the class to be quiet, and, pointing at the pouch on the desk, I said to one of the big kids, " You watch that and don't let anybody look at it, including you." By the time I got back, the class was completely quiet for the first time in the entire history of that school. Even now, I sometimes overhear kids saying to each other, "You better watch out, you mother, I'm a friend of Mr. Smith."
It is important to keep on top of the
situation at any junior high, but, at this
one, failure to do so was punished in a
vivid way. The home economics teacher, a
young woman who was not destined for quite
that mission, had immediate trouble. The
students in her cooking class ripped off all
her clothing and covered her with butter,
not neglecting to force it into each opening
in her body. With Kuro the students probably
knew that a good deal was put-on, but it
appealed to the sense of humor of teen-agers
who, in their Class Will, bequathed a new
body to one of the girls because "the old
one was worn out."
[p.68]
Once, again as a half joke, Kuro assigned a
paper to be written on the Easter Bunny, a
figure not exactly in tune with the prevailing
mood of the school. He then described one of
the papers. [p.68]
"A few years ago, there was this white Easter Bunny that came hip-hopping down Liberty Road. He had arms full of all kinds of presents and goodies for the kids and ribbons around him and like that. Then, when he gets to Liberty and Harding, some tough guys see him. They beat him up and take his stuff, and he has to run away with a limp. Then, next year, he's afraid to come back, so there aren't any presents for the kids."
"A couple of years go by that way, but then along comes this big mean old rat who feels sorry for the kids. So he tunnels under Kroger's store and digs up through the floor right where they got all the candy and cookies. Then he drags it all out and hides it. Finally, when Easter comes around, he takes some to each kid in the whole neighborhood. So now we got the Easter Rat."
Like Kuro, Hoskins did not tell stories in
which there was ironic pleasure gained from
picturing people as helpless waifs at the
mercy of fate. In each case, fate may have
been savored for dramatic or humorous effect,
but their stories jeered at it, and also at
the people who let themselves become victims
to it. Many of the stories Kuro and Hoskins
told were about things they had done which
many respectable people would have found
highly objectionable, but which ended up in
such a way that the shocked middle-class
observer had no basis from which to lodge a
reasonable complaint. There was never a need
to leave town or copy entries froma
dictionary, nor any other kind ofhumiliating
outcome. With Hoskins this was partly a matter
of keeping certain things secret, but, like
Kuro, he loved to tie people in elaborate and
amusing double binds.
After storytime we would have another
workout and then move to the locker room where
Hoskins started making his telephone calls.
These were a daily ritual, and, even at the
time, they hinted at a more extensive life
than one would have expected. After all,
an unemployed man with no car, no house, and
no business interests would not ordinarily
have that many people to call. In the end
Steve and I came independently to assume that
he was calling married women whose husbands
were at work, an assumption that was
lent plausibility when Hoskins much later
remarked to me that he was carrying on
relations with eight women. In the light of
what ultimately happened,particularly the
allegations that he was making munitions, one
might wonder whether some of those calls
really were to lovers.
[p.69]
[p.69]
Whatever the truth may have been, it is
clear that there was, or should have been, a
bit of a mystery all along, and that it was
marked, not only by those calls, but by a
degree of systematic reticence on the part of
Hoskins.
A few people had real difficulty in
interpreting this sort of thing, particuarly
since Hoskins really did get some pith helmets
and seemed about to undertake the operation.
Sam encouraged Hoskins by being a good
audience in a rather noncommittal way, and
Hoskins always tried to involve him.
If a terrorist were looking for a good cover, it would be hard to improve on that of Hoskins. Solitary isolated figures are always noticed by someone, and they generate suspicion. Moreover, all that loneliness and conscious concealment will create psychological pressures that mount with each year and ultimately become intolerable. Hoskins had had his plans for a good many years, perhaps as many as fifteen, and there are not many spies and secret agents who remain in the field that long. On the one hand, even though he may have engaged in other covert activies, Hoskins was not as subject to arrest as they [p.71] are; on the other, his self-imposed mission was not simply to gather information, but to take on society in a frontal and suicidal manner.
As people wandered in and out of the
shower room, or sat exhausted in front of
their lockers, there was general
conversation among the many kinds of men who
gathered at the Y. Some of them were openly
puzzled by Hoskins and could not understand
why an obviously middle-class man would
choose to live where he did. The questions
were always put in a jocular way, and
Hoskins would answer in like vein extolling
the virtues of the winos and the
neighborhood. Sometimes, when the
questioners had a glazed look in their eyes,
he would mention one of his favorite
projects. This was an archaeological dig at
Twelfth and Vine.
"We'll all get white pith helmets and khaki shorts, just like the British in Egypt, and then we'll rope off a vacant lot. I used to watch the excavation of the Indian mounds at Fort Ancient so I know just how to do it. We'll get the winos together and give them free Mad Dog to help us dig. Then, when we get down a few feet and find bits of old wine bottles, they can be spread out on a convas. Finally, we'll glue the bits back together and everyone on the dig can have a genuine resurrected Mad Dog bottle to put on his mantle-piece."
"How about you, Sam? I can see you now in a pith helmet and Shorts."
"I don't think so. I might dig up something I couldn't deal with."
As time went on, Hoskins continued to
form friendships at an intermediate level of
intimacy with a great variety of people. He
found many of these friends at the Central Y
and the Williams Y. Most of the men were
sufficiently intent on their athletic or
physical development so that they would
happily take on a training partner who had
the necessary skills or level of ability
regardless of any other differences that
might separate them. And, if two men played
handball or lifted weights together, they
could spend hours a week together and [p.70]
discuss all sorts of subjects for months, or
even years, without the one's ever
inviting the other to his house. If there
were basic differences of outlook or
temperament which might make conversation
difficult in a purely social setting, at the
Y they could always talk about what they
were doing.
The effect of this was that it was easy
to meet Hoskins and become friends with him,
but virtually impossible to know him as well
as most people know their close friends.
There can have been few people in the city
who were acquainted with more people in a
social (as opposed to business or political)
way, and all these people were shocked by
the manner of his death. On the other hand,
there seems to have been no one, with the
possible exception of Melanie, to whom he
confided his most important plans.
When one considers the ordinary human
need to explain oneself and be understood,
this is quite remarkable. Even reticent
people generally single out a few friends to
whom they confide their secrets, or at least
hint at them. Indeed, Hoskins seemed to do
this. His attitude toward his art was a
sensitive subject, as was the source of his
income and his military discharge, but he
did sometimes talk about those things. And,
then, when he talked about his affairs with
married women, one had the feeling that
these were his most closely guarded
secrets. In the event, there was something
much more important that he was concealing.
This concealment was obviously
necessary. He probably thought that his
friends would have felt compelled to do
something if definitely convinced that he
really intended to carry out some terrorist
plot. And this despite the fact that there
was probably nothing that could have been
done. No one else, not even a psychiatrist,
could have been convinced that Hoskins
really intended to do anything before
he actually did it. He appeared to be too
normal and healthy, not to say
intelligent and rational. He himself must
have known that he could have passed off any
rumors as to his intentions as arising out
of a joke, and that he would have been
believed. But he probably did not want
to put his friends on the spot by letting
them know too much.
If a terrorist were looking for a good cover, it would be hard to improve on that of Hoskins. Solitary isolated figures are always noticed by someone, and they generate suspicion. Moreover, all that loneliness and conscious concealment will create psychological pressures that mount with each year and ultimately become intolerable. Hoskins had had his plans for a good many years, perhaps as many as fifteen, and there are not many spies and secret agents who remain in the field that long. On the one hand, even though he may have engaged in other covert activies, Hoskins was not as subject to arrest as they [p.71] are; on the other, his self-imposed mission was not simply to gather information, but to take on society in a frontal and suicidal manner.
There have been spies who have remained
in place for decades in the hope of coming
by a single crucial piece of information.
For example, there was the German watchmaker
who established himself near the British
naval base at Scapa Flow right after World
War I. He had to wait almost twenty years
before he heard from a sailor that one of
the submarine nets would be out of place on
a particular night. He may have been a
little crazy by that time, but it did not
require any great resolve or judgment to
report the obviously important fact that led
to the sinking of the British battleship Royal
Oak by a U-boat.
The man who has to plan his action and
carry it out all by himself cannot afford to
have his judgment distorted by overly
secretive habits, or by bizarre personal
relations. He is likely to keep his secret
better, and act more effectively when the
time comes, if he mingles freely and easily
with large numbers of people. He will then
accumulate other, lesser, secrets of the
ordinary kind, and he can divulge them
appropriately. If his image is as
light-hearted as was that of Hoskins, he can
even be caught in the middle of his
preparations and pass them off as a harmless
amusement. He need only maintain a certain
reticence on a few subjects, subjects which
no one is likely to bring up anyway.
Whether Hoskins consciously thought of
his lifestyle as a means of concealment will
never be known. Even if he did not, he had a
way of naturally adapting to the terrain in
which he found himself, and his way of
hiding his true intentions should be seen as
such an adaptation. A few of his closest
friends wondered about a few things. Some
may have had a feeling that something was
wrong. Even they would have known better
than to try to influence him. Thus, on
balance, no other kind of life could have
served his ultimate purpose nearly so well.
[p.72] BLANK
[p.72] BLANK
The
Demands of the Culture
Like any other original invention, Hoskins'
plan for living was an amalgamation of
existing patterns. In particular, it allowed
him to satisfy certain traditional demands,
but in a new and strikingly different way.
One of these demands concerned whatever it
is that is known as masculinity. While almost
everyone in our culture seems to have
difficulty in deciding what his or her sex
role ought to be, much less realizing it, the
sub-culture of the southern mountains, i n
which Hoskins was raised, gives these concepts
a special twist. There, for better or worse,
masculinity has a good deal to do with
killing, and even more with risking violent
death with equanimity. There are special rules
which might as well
have been arranged to test that equanimity.
Translated into the urban life of Appalachian
Cincinnati, one of these rules says that, when
the wife of one man is caught with another
man, there must be a confrontation betweeen
husband and lover. Afterwards, the husband, if
he has survived so long, may, at his option,
do anything he pleases to his wife. Not all
the husbands who are committed to that code
follow it with joy in their hearts. Some take
rather circuitous pre-emptive measures. One
such, on a bench in Washington Park, was once
heard to advise another with respect to his
wife,
"Either feed her too little or too much.
That way no one else will want her."
This is not exactly a modern urban idea.
But, then, citified men are allowed to settle
differences in court. In the mountains, where
honor does not allow for such solutions, it is
safer to have a wife who is either obese or
emaciated.
These rules are really only extreme forms
of ones that operate in the larger society. It
is probably unfortunate that there is still
such a thing as a peculiarly masculine sense
of honor which goes far beyond such things as
telling the truth and not stealing from
orphans. However, these "weakened" rules do
allow for the loss of one woman to another man
without violent confrontation, provided that a
better looking woman is quickly acquired.
Moreover, while physical combat is no longer
required outside of quite special
circumstances, the man who has honor is
required to be conspicuously successful in
some form of [p.74] competition. This is not
usually very difficult since he can choose his
weapon, and it can range anywhere from a
tennis racquet to a stock portfolio. In the
worst case, nothing is required beyond the
ability to consume impressive amounts of
alcohol. Finally, having cultivated some such
ability, honor can be secured by periodically
letting other people see it in action.
Hoskins claimed that all this was silly. On
the narrow front, he denied having sexual
jealosy and said that Melanie, or anyone else,
was free to have affairs without his raising
any difficulties . He seems to have meant this
and, unlike most men, to have suited action to
words. He also tried to free himself from the
other implications of the masculine sense of
honor, an extremely difficult thing for any
man to do. He was, for example, openly
scornful of the ordinary sort of
competitiveness which exists among American
men. The problem, as he saw it, was that so
many men used competition to give themselves a
little feeling of superiority over those that
had been vanquished, and loved to let the
latter know, sometimes in relatively subtle
ways, that they felt rather good about being
winners. The opposite side of the coin was
that, when they lost, they were prickly and
uncomfortable because they expected the
winners to act as they would in their places.
Hoskins' divergence from the standard
pattern was nowhere clearer than in supposedly
competitive sports. If he had stuck to Kung
Fu, he could have been an acknowledged master.
But he had a great urge to try new things, and
did not mind being thrown in judo,
outmanoevered in wrestling, or hit in the head
in boxing. According to his view, there really
should not be any competition at all. It was
just a matter of people individually pursuing
their own goals and helping each other
whenever possible. That was where the y came
in. If one worked out with someone who was
better in a given area, it was both a chance
to learn something and an opportunity to enjoy
an exhibition of skill. Afterwards one asked a
few questions and dismissed any injuries that
might have occurred along the way.
He was, however, quick to distinguish those
who understood these things trom those who did
not. Once, in sparring, a man hit him
unnecessarily hard, and in such a way as to
indicate that he was more interested in
"winning" than in learning. Hoskins hit him
hard enough to ring his bell, and he was never
again seen at the Y. Thus, even decades after
his stint with the Marines, it was typical of
Hoskins to adopt a position of
non-assertiveness, and then back it up with
the implicit threat of physical force. His
final expedition, with its humanitarian
message, could be looked on as a vast
magnification of a number of tiny incidents at
the Y.
This sort of attitude has great advantages
for any man other [p.75] than the very few who
are so liberated that they need not worry,
even on the subconscious level, whether they
are sufficiently masculine. On the one hand,
it allows a man to be as enlightened as he
pleases and decry everything macho, while, on
the other, he can think of himself as an
enforcer.
Sometimes people sense a contradiction in
the use of violence to support non-violence,
particularly when terrorists claim to have
non-violent objectives, as they often do.
However, the objection probably should be
aimed, not at the principle itself, but at
particular applications of it. The spanking of
children when they aggress on other children
is a relatively innocuous application of the
same doctrine, and it really can be used to
make children a little less savage. Moreover,
the people who were afraid of Hoskins were
often the ones who benefited from that fear.
His final foray in violent non-violence should
not be allowed to obscure the fact that his
methods were frequently successful and
well-chosen.
Most often, a competitive man was the
object of a little joke rather than a physical
injury, and one such incident was particularly
instructive. Hoskins had noticed two men who
took particular pride in the number of sit-ups
that they did. When they reached three hundred
a day they were pleased enough to talk about
it a little. Hoskins himself never talked
about how much weight he lifted or how many
exercises he did except when others,
particularly women, had been doing them with
him, and he wanted them to take satisfaction
in their accomplishment. Having decided that
Johny and Hank were being a little too
superior about their sit-ups, he waited a week
before mentioning that Melanie did four
hendred and fifty a day. What delighted him
was not the immediate response, but the fact
that Johny and Hank abandoned all their other
exercises in order to do more sit-ups. Hoskins
happily observed the process as they daily
groaned from their sit-up boards and tried to
forc ever more repetitions from painfully
over-strained stomach muscles.
"Do you think four hundred and sixty will
be enough? It would be if Melanie were a man,
but I think they'!! have to do five
Five hundred it turned out to be. Having
achieved their goal, Johny and Hank had less
motivation to continue, and, within a month,
were back to three hundred. This, no doubt,
was appropriate to their goals, just as it
made sense for Melanie, who did not have a gym
full of exercise equipment, to do more. But
they no longer talked in quite the same way,
and they probably realized that, unfortunate
as it was, it was not a really [p.76]
shattering thing if a woman did more sit-ups
than they.
Another concept that attracted him was one
associated with the Japanese martial arts,
that of being "soft outside and hardinside."
The idea was that one who had reached a
certain level of self-discipline "inside"
could afford t o present a gentle exterior,
even t o the extent of suffering a certain
carefully calculated amount of rudeness from
others. In its original context that necessary
self-discipline implied anything from running
barefoot for miles in the snow t o entering a
judo tournament with a broken rib. As it
happened, Hoskins did run barefoot in the snow
at night in Washington Park, but it was not
done in the Japanese spirit with clenched
teeth and a grimace. Rather, it was done for
fun, not the least part of the fun being the
looks on the faces of winos huddled deep in
their Salvation Army overcoats.
One of the large official books on judo was
co-authored by an elderly Japanese worthy and
an American who had devoted his life to judo.
Hoskins liked to do imitations of them,
popping out his eyes and grimacing horribly
for the Japanese, and then, for the American,
kneeling spastically before the master. The
book seemed to say it all when it addressed
itself to the virtually unthinkable idea that
some misguided judoka might actually drink an
alcoholic beverage before arriving at the
dojo. This appalling thought, tucked
discreetly into a footnote, was given
extremely short shrift. Such a practice could
in no circumstances be tolerated, not because
of the possibility of injury, but because it
might lead to "undignified behavior on the
mat." Hoskins did not drink, but he thought
that undignified behavi on the mat ought to be
encouraged at all costs. He certainly did his
part.
Despite these differences in attitude, and
provided that the "hard inside" part of the
dictum allowed for some fun and games, the
basic idea was still sympathetic. While
it is to imagine a highly ranked Japanese judo
or karate man being very outgoing in his
humility, Hoskins really did have the ability
to put people immediately at ease. Like the
Japanese, too, he would probably have said
that it was a good thing to tolerate a certain
amount of guff before, say, delivering a deft
blow to the genitals.
This idea of the soft outside was much more characteristic of Hoskins in his early middle age than it seems to have been of his youth. The "pacifism" of his Marine Corps days, where he had simply attacked men who were mean to smaller weaker men, was gradually replaced by something much more subtle, at least until the end. One of his discoveries was that a great many people who looked as if they might be aggressive could be controlled quite easily in advance. Hoskins particularly liked to [p.77] experiment with the members o f the motorcycle gangs who sometimes came around his neighborhood.
"You start off by getting closer to the man
than he wants you to be. Smile, but invade his
personal space. He won't know how to protest.
Then touch him. On the arms or shoulders. It
looks friendly, but you are actually
controlling him psychologically. And, of
course, you do it in such a way as to set up a
martial arts technique in case of trouble. You
know you have control of him, and he knows it
too, even though he doesn't know how."
Still, to the extent that the soft outside
implied helping others in distress, as it
seemed to, it must have appeared to Hoskins
that he was not accomplishing very much.
Indeed, someone who is really committed to
helping the downtrodden has relatively few
options. The obvious one, of beating up
bullies, has its limitations. Not only does
one eventually get too old for that, but, more
important, the biggest and worst bullies do
not use physical force and are not easy to
reach. Anyhow, not too much would be gained by
marching, into the office of the president of
an offending company and kneeing him in the
groin amid the screams of horrified
secretaries. Hoskins knew this perfectly well,
but the alternative, some sort of organized
protest, was really unavailable to him.'
Organized protests almost always involve
organized politics, if not the political
parties as such. But it would be hard to be
less political than Hoskins. While he may have
had a few friends who happened to be
politicians, he distrusted all the parties
deeply. Moreover, he was highly and openly
contemptuous of any kind of leftist ideology.
Even when Melanie joined a radical
neighborhood organization dedicated to exactly
the goals Hoskins was later to proclaim in his
"announcement", he treated it with derision
and refused outright to join himself.
Hoskins' distrust of politics, and even of
any organized social group, derived from
something deeper. More strongly than anything,
he believed that nothing is worth doing that
involves sharing basic decisions with others.
On the very few occasions when conversation
edged toward this topic, he would make
analogies to art. Letting someone else
influence personal decisions would be
comparable to an artist's changing colors in a
painting to please someone else. That, in
turn, would be almost as silly as doing a
painting in collaboration with another artist.
A student of art might take suggestions from a
teacher, but this would be out of the question
for a mature artist. Since Hoskins applied
aesthetic principles everywhere, this made
many kinds of co-operation impossible. In
fact, it was harder to get him to alter his
[p.78] schedule or habitual way of doing
things than it would a traditionally busy
person whose docket is crammed for months to
come. Apart from the basic difficulty in
getting him to come out of his house and
neighborhood, it sometimes seemed that no
power on earth would get him to wrestle on
Thursday instead of Friday if it implied some
alteration in his general routine. On Friday
he would wrestle with anyone who showed up,
and, if Thursday was weight lifting day, he
would lift with anyone present. If there was a
dire necessity, he might work out a whole new
schedule, but, generally speaking, he avoided
compromise by seeking out people whose plans
already happened to dovetail with his own.
About this he made no bones. Life consisted in
what he called "projects", and a shared
project was virtually inconceivable.
This is not to say that Hoskins did not
have a quite genuine desire to help the people
in his community. However, there are not many
ways to accomplish much strictly on one's own.
The consequence was that such actions as he
took in defense of underdogs came to have less
and less effect. Since he was not given to
self-deceit, he was quite aware of that fact.
The resulting sense of futility must have been
one of the elements leading to that final
project, one which could hardly have been more
solitary.
Another part of the problem is that, if one
shows the soft outside long enough, it is
difficult to know how hard the inside really
is. There are many people who gradually lose
the substance on which their self-image rests
without ever realizing it. Then, when the
crisis comes and they need to call on that
hidden strength, it is not there any longer.
Only a fool depends on something that has not
been tested recently, and Hoskins certainly
was not that. It had apparently been at least
a coupl of years since his last street fight,
and that bothered him. He had also become too
sensible to pick one just to test himself. He
did what he could to keep in good condition,
and such things as wrestling, boxing, and judo
were, in one way, better test than fights with
incompetents in the street. Still, no matter
how hard we tried, there is always an element
of intensity which is missing when one knows
that the other is not trying to hurt one.
Hoskins must have increasingly felt the need
to conduct one more trial of strength.
The
Glories of Failure
The concept of failure is both complex and
powerful. It enters into the daily lives of
millions of people. It also has a different
meaning for different generations.
An important group at the Y consisted of
men born from 1900 to about 1925. That is, the
generation that fought World War II. Many of
these men had played conspicuous parts in that
war. Not only that, they had been mature
adults at the time when the country had risen,
in many ways, to be the greatest country in
history. Since this outcome rested in large
part on a military victory, the sense of
accomplishment from having played even a small
part must have been considerable. A man with a
good war record would always be remembered for
it no matter what happened afterward. Looking
back on it all, it was no wonder that so many
of the older men at the Y found it so easy to
joke with each other as if there were no real
worries in the world.
The next group covered those born until the
beginning of the baby boom after World War II.
This was the generation which was supposed to
achieve financial and social sccess. The ideal
here was the sort of man whose parents had not
finished high school, but who himself had an
advanced degree and a professional or business
position which paid him at least twice his
father's income. Hoskins' birth date placed
him well within this group, and he must, at
the beginning, have seemed in an excellent
position. His parents had come from the
country to the city when he was young enough
to take advantage of the city schools (before
they became what they are now, and his unusual
intelligence must have made its appearance
early. However, the one almost sure way not to
cash in on the post-war economic Doom was to
become an artist. Even most alcoholics did
better.
It was a pity that Hoskins was not born
fifteen or twenty years later, which would
have placed him in the third group. While the
fifties were the time for upward social
mobility, it is now quite common for the
children of highly educated professional
people to drop out ot school and become
waitresses, short-order cooks, and the like.
Along with this supposediy downward movement,
there is a great lessening of the stigma
attached to these jobs, largely because there
are so few "satisfactory" jobs available. It
has also led people to realize that one can
work at even a menial job, read good books,
belong to groups of intelligent and articulate
people, and live a quite [p.80] fulfilling
life. Moreover this new bohemian social milieu
is perfectly suited to the sort of independent
self-educated intellectual who would never
have been interested in working or making
money even in the best of times. A younger
version of Hoskins would fit right in with
countless groups of other young persons, and
would not seem particularly strange or
eccentric. Still, being born when he was,
there was no such easy road, and no way of
getting those traditional demands completely
off his back, no matter how well he seemed to
settle into life at Twelfth and Vine.
In the careers of even bohemian artists
there was generally a time when they thirsted
after, or at least dreamed about, the sort of
public success which would impress the cousins
who were doctors or rising company executives.
In Cincinnati, as in other cities, each year
produces a new crop of able young artists who
feel they are on the edge of producing
something truly remarkable. It is probably
unfortunate that their notion of the
remarkable is something that will compel
respect from almost everyone who witnesses it,
and which will eventually produce a degree of
fame, at least among the knowing. The odds
against these young people are at least one
thousand to one. The most interesting ones are
often those that come close to success, but do
not quite make it. Their teachers praise them,
and their fellow students sometimes even speak
of them in awed tones. Moreover, they come
close enough to the mark to realize that they
are in competition with people of so nearly
equal ability that the few who succeed will be
chosen by their friendships with the
influential, the way they look and behave,
and, above all, by chance. This fact revolts
some who are either purest of heart or most
naive. It is then that they quickly take their
work away from the market place, or any place
where it can is judged by the imperfect judges
of this world.
It is hard to know exactly what sort sort of roadblocks Hoskins may have encountered, and, most important, what sort of inner reaction he had when confronted with these facts of artistic life. We do know that he had made at least one suicide attempt, and it is probable that it had as much to do with art as with women.
The recognition that they are not destined to be famous artists who can support themselves on their art leads to a parting of the ways for a great many artists. Some make a decision which is as radical and hard to reverse as the decision to enter a convent or monastery. This is to sit precariously but resolutely on the fence of civilized society. The cries of the dispossessed come from one side while, on the other, many people of much less intrinsic worth carry off every kind of reward devised by man. It is not easy to develop one's art unde r[p.81] those circumstances, and only a few manage to do so.
It is much more common for failed artists
to go the same way as many other kinds of
failures. They hold a respectable job, which
they curse in private (and sometimes in
public), and they take to drink, but not in
sifficient quantities to end them up in
Washington Park. Many turn bitter, and some
take out their failure on their families. Most
do not undertake physical fitness programs,
and most do not make any serious attempt to
turn failure into success of some other sort.
A few may, in addition, throw whatever
obstacles they can in the path of young people
on the way up and feel a little harmless joy
whenever one of them slips on a loosened rung
in the ladder. The problem of failure in our
society was put best by a man I met on an
airplane in the middle of a wild winter night.
He was a businessman who had been a football
player at Notre Dame (evidently a star) some
years previously, and he was concerned with
some news that he had just received.
"About a year ago I tried to recruit a player for Notre Dame. A big running back, he had everything, size, speed, quick acceleration, even split vision. But his grades and tests were low. Finally they thanked me for my trouble but said they couldn't take him. "Joe, he can't make it here, and it wouldn't be goodfor him to try." By this time I'd talked a lot with the boy and his parents and I wanted to do something for him. So I got him a full ride at another place that was lower academically. Well, he went there last fall never having sat on the bench for even a minute. He had been that valuable to his high school team, and he never got hurt. For some reason he didn't start on the freshman team at college. Maybe there was someone better, but probably he wasn't coached and handled well. So he played some, not too well I gather, and sat down mostly. He got half way through the season that way, and do you know what that pig fucker did then?"
At this point the handsome intelligent face
with a receding hairline above a hooked nose
took on a black look.
"He'd leave just before the end of a game, beat the others back to the locker room, and steal money out of wallets."
"The trouble was that no one, including me, ever prepared him for failure. His coaches had all been full of the Vince Lombardi, "Winning isn't the main thing, it's the only thing" kind of stuff. Not only did it not tell you what to do if you lost, it implied that it didn't matter what you did if you lost. So this is a kid with very limited resources in terms of intelligence and character. Everyone has told him he can't fail. He does fail. At [p.82] that point a kid like that may steal or he may do anything. Andit isn't really his fault. Not mostly anyhow."
"It's the same in business too. There are many more failuresthan successes, and we have an educational system that prepares people only for success. It ought to prepare people for failure."
Coming from one of few men who obviously
could not fail, except possibly in some
esoteric (perhaps Catholic) terms defined by
himself, this undoubtedly sincere reverse pep
talk made as indelible an impression in the
night sky as the alarming noises coming from
the tortured airframe.
It is not quite true to say that society
has no plans whatever for people who fail. For
example, the aspiring youth who wants to be a
high corporate executive is likely to be
found, thirty years later, working for someone
who works for such an executive. By now
promoted to his level of incompetence (as
Lawrence Peter so aptly puts it), he has a
desk in a large office from which he can just
barely see the outer door to the private
office in which his erstwhile ambitions would
have placed him. Similarly, the failed
politician ends up in an uninteresting
political patronage job in the county
courthouse, and the failed artist ends up
doing layout and pasting letters on
advertisicopy for the local newspaper. Society
lets the person decide his or her avenue of
advance, and then, as a result of some
combination of ability, bribery, and luck,
finally places that person at some point along
the path. If one does fail, it is demoralizing
to have a job which is a parody of the desired
one, while, at the same time, one has to
watch, and probably serve, the person who has
the job. It might be much healthier to try
something else altogether, this time with more
realistic expectations. BUT it is a small
minority of persons who do. and it is in this
sense that our system does not prepare us for
failure.
Bohemians as a group do have an attitude
toward failure, and a way of dealing with it.
It is claimed that the ambition of
middle-class professional people i s misplaced
because rewards are not worth having, much
less striving for. As applied to art, this
attitude is that fame is as meaningless as
money because most of it comes from the
unknowing. More important, there is no useful
purpose to which that fame can be put. The
best an artist can do is to satisfy himself
and those few others who understand what he is
trying to do.
This may sound quite comfortable. It is for
some people. It was for Hoskins at times. But
he was not really quite mellow enough to feel
entirely comfortable with anything that might
be problems. perceived as failure by anyone.
Therein lay one of the main problems. [p.83]
A more positive effect of artistic activity
without much outward reward consists in some
rather interesting ideas about art itself.
These were not new with Hoskins, and are not
easily transmitted verbally. Rather, they have
to be rediscovered by each new generation o f
bohemian artists.
Hoskins came to think that the process of
painting is more important than the finished
painting, and more generally, that the art
object is only a souvenir of the process of
creating it. This kind of purism is largely
limited to artists. The non-artist, who knows
nothing of this sort of experience, has access
onlyto the finished products and I cannot
imagine that there is anything else of value.
The artist's view may be quite different. He
generally takes most satisfaction either at
certain points within the process, when
problems are solved, or at the moment when he
finishes. After that, the object, whether sold
or hanging on his wall, tends to lose value
for him. Even if he continues to like it, it
becomes gradually commonplace, and can never
again compete for his enthusiasm with his
present work It is not uncommon for the
reflective painter to realize this, and to
begin telling his friends that what he finds
really valuable is, not his collection of
work, but his continuing ability to paint.
At this point bohemian artists differ
somewhat from those who sell their work for
good prices. If other people pay thousands of
dollars at a time for one's paintings, it is
natural to take them a bit more seriously
oneself. Moreover, even young painters who
have not yet sold, but hope to, may look upon
their finished work as capital which will
support them later on. This attitude changes
only when they find that there are no takers.
It is the opposite attitude which fits the
life of the bohemian artist best. If he
regards finished paintings as dead, he has no
qualms about painting over them, and is thus
spared the time and expense of stretching new
canvas. The problem of storing finished unsold
work is not so critical, and, if he wishes,
the destruction of old work can form the basis
for a happening.Granted, there is something
sad in all this. However, one who is intent on
turning commercial failure into success of
another sort must face it almost every day of
his or her life.
In addition to this embrace of "failure",
there is another factor that must be dealt
with: anger at those bad artists who succeed
commercially by some combination of
salesmanship, "contacts", and pure bullshit.
Any serious artist is aware that a good deal
of this goes on, often commanding high prices,
and it is on odd teature of most people that
the undeserved success of others grates more
heavily than their own undeserved failure.
Hoskins was far from the only one who had been
brought close to suicide by such things, but,
in his later years, this anger had [p.84]
decreased, and had been partly replaced by
amusement at the over-seriousness of some
artists and dealers. Not to mention people who
tried to be fashionable by involving
themselves in art. He had come to think that a
certain amount of nonsense is inevitable in
art, but that it should be happy nonsense
rather than pretentious nonsense.
When looked at in this way, there was no
reason that the process of creation need be
devoid of fun and humor. On the contrary, if
it took itself too seriously, there would
always be the risk that the art would limit
itself by arbitrarily excluding potentially
valuable and relevant parts of human
experience. It also seemed to Hoskins that art
should parallel life, not only by containing
humor, but in other ways. For example, he
thought it foolish for the artist to pretend
to make his work eternal, or for others to try
to make it so. Better yet, the art should
contain the seeds of its own destruction in
the way that the human body does. Nothing
could have pleased him more than to have
produced a work, say a sculpture, which would
dramatically self-destruct. Ideally, it would
be sold to rich people and placed on a
pedestal. Then, during a social occasion, it
would implode with a soft hiss, leaving behind
little but the smell of
a monumental fart.
It was in such a frame of mind that, one
morning sitting on the mat, he founded
"Neo-noodleism." The idea of engaging in
foolishness for its own sake, yet drawing on
whatever artistic resources one might have,
attracted even some otherwise fairly serious
people. It might not produce valuable art,
but, if one regarded art objects as hollow
remnants of interesting experiences, that did
not matter.
By the time Hoskins had produced
neo-noodleist match-book covers, and was well
on his way to T-shirts, the joke had been
elaborated somewhat. There was, for example, a
hand signal for neo-noodleists to use in
greeting one another. He also did not neglect
to take off all the other little groups of
artists and literary people who regarded
themselves as being sufficiently elite to
scrutinize new members suspiciously. It was,
Hoskins said, characteristic of a person who
would never make the group to ask what
neo-noodleism was. The members of the group
already knew. It was also a little like a
Rotary Club with a neo-noodleist lawyer, a
doctor, a good many artists, and mixed other
ranks. Hoskins liked to deliver mock political
harangues, which always turned out to be
self-contradictory, but were imflammatory in
all directions at once. Then, when the
innocents in his audience in the weight room
were looking wonderingly at each other, he
would talk in low obviously sincere tones of
placing a neo-noodleist on the city council.
Since he was, in fact, related by marriage to
a city council [p.85] member who attended his
parties, and later his funeral, some people
were never sure quite how far the joke went.
And then, afterwards, they wondered whether it
had really been a joke at all.
These people were misguided. Neo-noodleism
was never a conspiracy, and it was certainly a
joke, though one on which could be hung some
relatively serious ideas about art. One such
idea underlying it was that, since painting
was more valuable as an activity than as a
process of production, there were other
activities, even "unproductive" ones, which
admit of corresponding subtleties and
variables, and which could also have aesthetic
value. For example, the theater has always
been recognized as an artistic activity in
which the medium is the body of the actor,
manoevered according to a previously conceived
master plan. Closer to Hoskins' temperament
was the happening, a kind of performance that
allows much more spontaneity than a stage
play, and which may also use art objects as
props. While Hoskins did not often use the
word, they were going on in both Cincinnati
and San Francisco during his stay there, and
were part of his artistic outlook. If he did
not like the word, it was probably only
because happenings had since gone beyond the
ironic fantasies of chess-playing coffee
drinkers, and had become pretentious and arty.
His attitude was that such things should be a
normal part of everyday life. In reaching that
conclusion, he made it virtually impossible to
distinguish between art and non-art, except,
perhaps, in terms of degrees. Thus, even a
hike in the woods was partly orchestrated
around a cluster of sights to be seen,
experiences and feelings to be had, and, then,
some sort of surprise event which would be
improvised and later remembered.
As time passed, Hoskins seemed to think in
longer terms. The projects often included
works of art in the narrow sense, but went far
beyond that. For example, on one of his
expeditions to the Sunday morning flea market
with Melanie, he was passing down one of the
long rows of the drive-in movie theater when
he noticed something unusual. It was a large
doll of a nun,about a foot high, which stood
out from the other dolls with its black habit.
While such a thing might seem a rather odd
gift for a little girl, the Cincinnati o f the
thirties should not be underestimated. It had
probably originally been given to a girl by
her parents in the hope that she would become
a nun herself. Hoskins had something else in
mind.
With a big smile, he picked the nun up and
displayed her to Melanie. Then, with several
bystanders looking on, he picked up the nun's
skirts and probed with his finger underneath.
Since the flea-market tended to draw all sorts
of people, this action might have offended
some if it had not been performed with [p.86]
such obvious good humor. As it was, a
middle-aged lady of highly respectable
appearance, who was standing nearby, had great
difficulty in hiding her laughter.
As often with Hoskins, there was a veiled
satirical meaning. In this case it was the
fact that he was standing beside an ex-nun
whom he was figuratively handling sexually,
and who was in full accord, as when she had
inscribed that picture of herself in full
habit, "To Jim, with love." The lady who was
trying to conceal her amusement did not know
quite the whole story. It was a foregone
conclusion that Hoskins would buy the nun, but
also that he would alter it to satisfy his
aesthetic sense.After taking the doll apart
and slightly elongating the neck, he repainted
it to achieve an unpleasant sickly pallor and
installed false eyelashes. Then he removerd
the hair and dressed the nun in her habit with
the hood back far enough to reveal the bald
head. This, because of the alteration t o the
neck, bore a disturbing relationship to the
rest of the body. When he finished by mounting
his nun in an open box suggestive of a coffin,
she had a striking and grotesque aspect which
would not have been out of place in any
collection of modern art.
Most likely, Hoskins intended the object
for Ray's gallery, in which case it would be,
not so much an exhibit in itself, but a prop
for another happening, the opening of the
show. That, in turn, would imply a pattern of
behavior, a decision whether to take Melanie
or someone else, and so on. On the other hand,
even if it never left the apartment, it would
become part of the Tour of the Apartment and
Studio. This consisted in taking each new
visitor upstairs through the studio, and then
the apartment, where there were scattered an
extraordinary number and mixture of curious
objects, exotic books, and art of all sorts.
People of a naive kind were occasionally a bit
surprised at some of the things they saw. For
the more worldly, the shock was the fact that
an artist who seemed to take himself so
lightly had produced so much good work, a good
deal of which was scattered upside down and
helter-skelter amid old air guns and bits of
automobile. One wanted to rescue it, but, of
course, one realized that for him it had
importance only as a way of enhancing the
Tour, and may have had a less pivotal role
than the canine excrement on the floor.
When an artist reaches the stage where
anything can be seen as material for art, art
is likely to take over totally. That may
happen even if he does not call it art. It
becomes almost impossible for him to hold a
job or enter into any very demanding relations
with other people without hopelessly
compromising that art. The actions which are
aesthetically right are almost never the ones
required to keep a job, and, unless a spouse
is engaged in much the same sort of activity,
the artist wil be [p.87] misunderstood there
too. Melanie followed him a certain distance,
and gloried in some of the schemes he thought
up. But even this unusual tolerance may have
backfired in the end, giving him the idea that
she was willing to go much farther than she
was.
It is a feature of all good art that it is
executed according to a plan. The plan may not
exist in much detail before the work is begun,
or, if it does, it may change; nevertheless,
when finished, the artist will be able to say
why he or she has done things in one way
rather than another. This applies to avant-garde
art as much as to any other, no matter how
unconventional the techniques. Even if buckets
of paint are thrown at canvas, the artist may
have a particular effect in mind, and
may have to throw fifty buckets in order to
achieve it. He or she may then get something
that could never have been produced with brush
or palette knife. Thus, when art and daily
life merged for Hoskins, an artist of his
ability would naturally want to plan things
out as carefully as possible. Moreover, in his
search for increasing aesthetic satisfaction,
there was\a tendency to integrate as many of
his projects as possible into one grand
scheme.
This is much more dangerous than it sounds.
In art or elsewhere, an attempt to tie
together a large collection of disparate
elements into a unified whole is likely to
have unanticipated consequences, and may
contain some unpleasant surprises.
It may also be helpful to use a military
analogy of the sort that Hoskins liked so
much. He was like a commander of irregular
troops or guerillas who had fought a number of
minor engagements. Some operations had failed
while others had succeeded without attracting
much attention. As time passes, hebecomes
increasingly frustrated, but, at the same
time, begins to think on a larger scale.
Finally, at the point of desperation, he
decides to gather all his forces and stake
everything on one battle, a much bigger battle
than he has ever fought. If he can achieve
victory, at whatever cost, it will make up for
a lifetime of little defeats.
It was clear that Hoskins did have some
more extensive project than the ones he talked
about. For example, he was always hurrying off
to do something or other, but, unlike other
people, he never mentioned what it was he was
so concerned with. This is not to say that the
plan was limited specifically to one
objective. He could not have been as happy and
relaxed as he was most of the time if he had
been constantly contronting death on a
conscious level. But the plan must always have
been there in reserve, and he may have found
it comforting to do a, little more work on it
every couple of days or so.
[p.88]
[p.88]
No one asked him about the purpose of his
activities, partlybecause of the kinds of
friends t h a t h e chose, and partly because
of the atmosphere of the Y. The fac that one
couldwork out six days a week there and never
feel the imptation to confide anything one
would later regret had a good deal to do with
the moral leadership of the older men. They
were at once easy to get on with and rather
impersonal. One had the feeling that they had
seen someone or other make most of the
mistakes that there are in life, and that they
would be disturbed if they thought that their
younger compatriots were bent on making those
mistakes. One consequently tried to seem a bit
wiser and more sensible than one really was.
They could laugh about some of their own
misadventures, knowing that they would not be
repeated, but they did not ask many questions
of their younger friends, particularly ones
like Hoskins. They may have been afraid of the
answers. Since the style of these men was
attractively wordly and comfortable, it was
copied by much younger men. Thus, the downtown
Y, again in contradistinction to the family
Ys, constituted a refuge from prying
questions.
It was, oddly enough, Hoskins himself who
came closest to breaking the rules. He raised
controversial subjects and sometimes expressed
opinions that might have offended some of
those present. It occasionally seemed that he
was indulged as a talented and rambunctious
favorite child whose sins were forgiven
because of his underlying good intentions.
But, whatever else he did, he never once asked
a question that someone might not want to
answer. As a result, he was never asked such
questions himself, and, for all anyone knew,
he could have been hatching a plot to blow up
half the city.
This aspect of Hoskins' life at the Y has
had some unanticipated consequences for some
of his male friends. I t has happened several
times that they have been confronted by
feminists who have asked the following
questions:
"Surely, some of you at theY must have known that something was going on with Hoskins. Didn't you try to do something about it?"
"Was it that you recognized him for the dangerous person he was, and didn't want t o deal with that?"
"I can't imagine that a group of women would have taken such a hands-off attitude toward one of their number. Didn't you feel that you ought to confront him and try to work something out?"
These questions apply to a good many cases
in addition to the [p.89] one under
discussion, and are not easily answered. But
they need to be.
Those
who knew Hoskins, both female and male,
can supply part of the answer. There are
many people with whom it is possible to
approach delicate subjects by degree.
One gets them talking about themselves,
and they find themselves revealing more
than they had originally intended. Not
only that, they come to see that their
frustrations are not so different from
those of other people, and they may even
consider the possibility that solutions
which have worked for others might work
in their own cases. Many people have
been at least temporarily talked out of
suicide in some such fashion.
It
is inconceivable that Hoskins would have
engaged in any such conversation. He
revealed some things to his friends, but
only things he had already decided to
reveal, such as the outline of his
relations with women. Nothing could have
induced him to disclose anything beyond
that. He would instantly have seen
through any attempt to draw him out, and
would never again have trusted anyone
who attempted it.
There
may also be some systematic differences
between male society and female society
which touch on this issue. Many women
feel that an intrusion into the affairs
of someone else, even if resisted and
resented at the time, is justified if it
heads off trouble later on. On the other
hand, very few groups of men have the
kind of intimacy, probably born of being
underdogs. which would allow them to
make the inquiries which would reveal
the trouble so clearly as to require
action.
Moreover, when faced with a strong man who is not to be swayed by a little peer group pressure, most other men are quick to assume that they do not have access to the levers which might b e used to move him out of a position he has taken. Generally they are right. The two common levers, sex and the lust for power, are not available to many, and were particularly inapplicable in Hoskins's case. He really did not want power, so even the few in a position to promise it could not have reached him on that level. He did want sex, but he was entirely heterosexual, and he could find his own women. Even women could not use that lever very effectively. If one were to start refusing or rationing sex in an attempt to influence him, he would quickly have replaced her with another. Thus, even now, there is little reason for anyone at the Y to think that there is something that he could, or should, have done. No one could have found out much with questions, and, even if he had, he still could not have deterred Hoskins from his basic course.
Still, it is now possible to at least
guess at the answers to some of the
questions that no one ever asked
Hoskins. Anyone with that many ideas and
that strong a desire to integrate them
[p.90] together would have to be working
toward one vast plan with slots for all
the projects comprising it. Since, in
this case, all these projects were
intended to increase the amount of
aesthetic value to be found in daily
life, the master plan would naturally
have been for his life as a whole. And,
of course, that would include its end.
Most people think about their own deaths in
only a rather vague way, steering clear o f
the details. It is, after all, unpleasant to
think of most forms of death. Some people grow
slightly hysterical at such prospects and make
peculiar jokes. One Japanese scientist, in an
obituary for another, wrote, "Ironically,
though a specialist in fluid mechanics, he
died of an internal hemhorhage." (He could
control all kinds of fluids, but not his own
blood! HA, HA, HA!) Hoskins did not think in
that way, and he evidently chose the sort of
death that would fit his lifestyle in much the
way that he might have decided on a finishing
touch for a work of art.
Since a style of death tends to go with a
style of life, there are many people of whom
one can say whether their manner of death is
fitting. For example, if a man has always
lived quietly and cautiously, it is
appropriate that he die in the course of an
optional operation to head off some potential
problem, and that he have the sort of
insurance that will cover his funeral. A
compulsive gambler, on the other hand, might
prefer challenge another such to a game of
Russian Roulette, with the understanding that
the survivor go to Las Vegas with the total
assets of the deceased .
As far as that goes, it was entirely
appropriate that Hoskins should die by
gunshot, but it is likely that he thought in
much larger terms. He must have realized that
he could use his own death to achieve
something which would, in its own way, eclipse
anything that had ever been accomplished by
those contemporaries of his who had become
businessmen and lawyers. Whatever they had
achieved, it had been rather dull and prosaic,
but the path leading to Hoskins' death was not
dull, whatever else it may have been.
There are only a few people who think of
their own deaths,not in a negative way, but as
an opportunity. In fact, the last and best
chance to do some of the things they have
always wanted to do. The one time when there
is nothing to be lost and everything can be
risked. Under those circumstances more con be
accomplished than at any other time, and the
possibility of wasting such an opportunity
while dying passively in a hospital appears to
such a person to be a piece of criminal
negligence.
In the end, Hoskins took on a TV station. He had joked about doing such a thing many years previously with a number of different people. On at least one occasion he had asked about [p.91] the security arrangements. On another he had remarked that since this particular station was built almost as a fortress, it was a good objective for a solitary urban guerilla. While it might be hard to take, once taken, it would be easy to defend. We thus know that the raid on that station was at least under active consideration for a long time. Then, since his views on going to prison were quite clear, we also know that it was a death plan in which he would die, not only by gunshot, but defending the piece of the media he had captured.
In the end, Hoskins took on a TV station. He had joked about doing such a thing many years previously with a number of different people. On at least one occasion he had asked about [p.91] the security arrangements. On another he had remarked that since this particular station was built almost as a fortress, it was a good objective for a solitary urban guerilla. While it might be hard to take, once taken, it would be easy to defend. We thus know that the raid on that station was at least under active consideration for a long time. Then, since his views on going to prison were quite clear, we also know that it was a death plan in which he would die, not only by gunshot, but defending the piece of the media he had captured.
Artists have a great need for an audience
since art is, by its very nature,
communicative. Bohemian artists come
dangerously close to denying this need when
they narrow their audience virtually to their
circle of friends. In whatever way they may
try to persuade themselves, the fact remains
that most sooner or later become convinced
that they have something to say that deserves
a larger audience. If we conceive Hoskins'
raid on the station as an art happening,
growing out of a long series of lesser
happenings, it can also be viewed as an
attempt to reach just that larger audience.
Unlike most terrorist events, there was little
or no attempt to make the station takeover
seem anything other than a personal
expression, and Hoskins' main demand was only
that he be allowed to make his "announcement."
He then put on a show that affected people in
an unusual and striking way. This was partly
because of the social and political content of
the message, partly because he was obviously
sacrificing himself for something he perceived
to be more important, and partly because, of
the novelty of his action. While it will here
be argued that the act was really not a
political one, the impression created was
still correct in some respects.
Hoskin' final happeing was indeed part of
something larger, and was the culmination of a
series of anonymous "art statements" he had
been making around the city. These, in turn,
were extensions of other, lesser, happenings,
and of many art projects stretching back over
twenty years. What remains is to examine the
events of that last night in more detail, and
to treat it as one would any other work of
art: by tracing it to its antecedents and
trying to see why it took one particular form
rather than another.
A
Night in October
It is known that, on the night of
October 14-15, 1980, Hoskins killed
Melanie with multiple gunshots, and then,
in the early hours of the 15th, went to TV
station WCPO. He there held up two
newspeople who were returning from a story
and gained access to the building. He then
disarmed the security man, handcuffed him,
and held some dozen people temporarily
hostage with an automatic rifle. He had
brought a considerable collection of guns
and ammunition with him, and he said that
he intended to shoot it out with the
police.
Upon entering the station, he said that
he had an announcement to make, but
instead agreed to videotape an interview.
In this interview with Elaine Green, one
of the reporters he had intercepted
outside the station, he rapidly regained
his calm and talked in his usual easy way.
He complained about the conditions of the
poor generally, about the way in which the
rich set them against one another, and of
the human suffering he daily witnessed
from the bay window of his apartment.
Green remarked on the possibility of doing
a TV story from that window. Hoskins
laughed and said that he didn't expect to
be there to do it, but that she could.
When she inquired why, instead of coming
with a gun, he had not called and asked
them to do a report on his neighborhood,
he smiled and replied,
"You wouldn't have come."
With this he made a slight gesture with his gun, and the point was clear enough. If you are not influential, you need a gun to get your message across on TV. Indeed, in the first part of the interview he seemed to be particularly angry at the TV stations for not giving the poor the publicity which might eventually lead to some improvement in their situation. He had apparently chosen to take over a TV station for that very reason.
The interview created a sensation when
it was shown in its entirety on local TV,
with segments making the national news
that evening. The idea of Walter Cronkite
talking about Hoskins may have seemed
bizarre, but it was, after all, natural
enough in the circumstances. Hoskins may
even have expected it.
The first part of the interview was
filled with irony. When a photographer
opened the door and started to come in,
Hoskins welcomed him, as if to a social
gathering, then pointed the gun [p.94] at
him and directed him to an empty chair.
"Park it over there." In talking of
prisoners in the city jail and elsewhere
he pointed out the hypocrisy of the
official doctrine that they were being
rehabilitated.
"You can't rehabilitate those people. They were never habilitated in the first place."
Then, finally, he referred to a
controversy in which the police department
had asked for more powerful pistols.
Remarking,
"They've got their Magnums now",
he looked at his own weapon and
finished,
"and I've got my Magnum."
This was said in exactly the tone of
voice he had once used in telling me that
he had just got a racquet-ball racquet. He
was, in those words, challenging the
police to a shoot-out as if it were merely
a game. Then came the second part of the
interview.
Elaine Green asked him if he had
anything else to say, and he did.
"I blew away my girl friend."
Before anything else happened there was
a long pause. Then, when the interview
started again, there was a different
relationship between Hoskins and Green.
She later said that, in the first stages,
she was primarily concerned with the fact
that Hoskins was an obviously dangerous
man who might, at any moment, kill
everyone present. As such, she had
negotiated with him, not giving in on
every point, but trying to conciliate
and calm him. It probably mattered
that she was a woman. In the first place,
it was second nature for Hoskins to try to
get what he wanted from women by charming
them rather than overpowering them. Even
in these circumstances, having to deal
with a woman rather than a man must have
brought out the less violent part of his
nature. Second, there are many men who
would have been humiliated by being
reduced to powerlessness and being
captured in their own home base. Even if
such a man had had too much sense to
actually say anything provocative,
the anger would have been evident to
someone as sensitive as Hoskins. Green,
whatever she may have felt, treated
Hoskins, not as an unwanted intruder, but
as a person with whom an understanding
would have to be reached. [p.95]
Many quite reasonable people might have
inwardly reacted to Hoskins' revelation of
having killed Melanie with the attitude,
"If you have done something as bad as
that, you might as well kill yourself and
get it over with."
Indeed, if someone had said that to
Hoskins, he might have agreed.
Elaine Green took an entirely different
tack. Her attitude seemed to be that
someone who had done something that
terrible must be in the direst emotional
straits, and must therefore need help.
From that point on, it was fairly clear
that she was, not only trying to keep him
from killing anyone else,but also
attempting to steer him away from some
form of suicide. When Hoskins realized
this, he first seemed amused.
This was, in fact, not the first time
that Green had surprised Hoskins with a
reaction he had not expected. During their
earlier negotiations, even before entering
the studio, she had evidently been
forceful enough to cause him to remark,
"You've got balls, lady."
Surely conscious of the irony of saying
that to a woman, he was probably also
somewhat pleased to encounter someone who
was showing enough presence of mind to
make the game interesting. And now, when
he expected to find only people who would
wish him dead as quickly and neatly as
possible, this same person wanted to help
him out of what was designed to be a dead
end situation. Of course, he really did
not want to be diverted away from his
shoot-out with the police into the only
alternative she could have had in mind,
confinement in some psychiatric
institution. When he realized that she was
serious, and he had difficulty in making
her understand that there was no way in
which she could help, he became extremely
forceful.
"You don't understand. I've killed my girl friend. I have to pay for that."
After the interview ended, Hoskins
withdrew into himself and acted almost as
if the others were not there. This
prompted Green to ask what he intended to
do next, and, sensing indicision, whether
they could leave the building. Hoskins
agreed, stipulating that they move some
furniture around in
such a way as to facilitate his defense
of his position.
Finally, during a telephone
conversation with the police, in which he
must have realized that they would starve
him out instead of rushing him, he shot
himself.
[p.96]
There is no great mystery about Hoskins' actions once he took over the station. He clearly preferred death to prison, and, quite apart from that, his grief over Melanie's death, and his part in it, may have been so great that he did not want to live. After the police made no move to attack his position, he could have gone outside to engage them, but saw little point in it. He had remarked that that would be too easy, the implication being that the contest would be too uneven to be interesting. Then, too, he must have feared the possibility that he would only be severely wounded in such a battle, and eventually be taken alive. The only way to make sure the job was done properly was to do it himself.
[p.96]
There is no great mystery about Hoskins' actions once he took over the station. He clearly preferred death to prison, and, quite apart from that, his grief over Melanie's death, and his part in it, may have been so great that he did not want to live. After the police made no move to attack his position, he could have gone outside to engage them, but saw little point in it. He had remarked that that would be too easy, the implication being that the contest would be too uneven to be interesting. Then, too, he must have feared the possibility that he would only be severely wounded in such a battle, and eventually be taken alive. The only way to make sure the job was done properly was to do it himself.
The events leading to his shooting
Melanie and raiding the station are an
entirely different matter. We do know that
he had talked about taking a TV station a
good many years previously, and that he
had asked questions about this particular
one. Then, too, the ease with which he
carried out his operation suggests that
this particular project had been carefully
thought out in a detailed way. Neither it
nor its execution were the work of someone
merely "reacting to a weird drug", and the
autopsy was hardly required to inform us
that no such drugs were present .
We also know that Hoskins planned to
put such a plan into operation within a
matter of, say, weeks or months. It had
not been very long since he wrote in his
diary that, for the first time in his
life, he no longer felt that he was
getting stronger, and that "preparation
was maximum." On the other hand, there is
reason to think that, as recently as some
thirty hours before he died, Hoskins did
not plan to take the station the next
night. called that evening (Tuesday) to
arrange our wrestling, and suggested
Thursday morning at the Williams Y, but he
pointed out that the children of the women
in the exercise class would be in the
wrestling room on that morning and we
agreed on Friday instead. If he had
planned to be dead by Thursday, he
probably would not have worried himself
about such details. Moreover, both he and
Melanie sounded as cheerful as usual, and
there was absolutely no hint that anything
was in the air.
On one possible account, Hoskins and Melanie got into a bitter argument over something entirely unrelated to taking over the TV station. The dispute led to his killing Melanie, and Hoskins then decided to finish out his life according to a previously established plan. There was nothing to lose in so doing, and some sense might be rescued from a senseless act.
There are several things against this account. For one thing, Hoskins would not have needed a gun to kill Melanie. Strong as she was, her T'ai Ch'i ability would not have been of much use against hard blows delivered in the style of either karate or [p.97] K'ung Fu. Once knocked down or out, Hoskins could easily and fairly painlessly have killed her with one of the choke holds we had often practiced. If he were sufficiently angry to want to kill her, there is no reason to think he would have bothered to go for a gun. When a normally calm person loses control alto- gether, there are not likely to be any unnecessary delays. Since he shot her with a gun, it is likely that he already had the gun when the argument started.
On one possible account, Hoskins and Melanie got into a bitter argument over something entirely unrelated to taking over the TV station. The dispute led to his killing Melanie, and Hoskins then decided to finish out his life according to a previously established plan. There was nothing to lose in so doing, and some sense might be rescued from a senseless act.
There are several things against this account. For one thing, Hoskins would not have needed a gun to kill Melanie. Strong as she was, her T'ai Ch'i ability would not have been of much use against hard blows delivered in the style of either karate or [p.97] K'ung Fu. Once knocked down or out, Hoskins could easily and fairly painlessly have killed her with one of the choke holds we had often practiced. If he were sufficiently angry to want to kill her, there is no reason to think he would have bothered to go for a gun. When a normally calm person loses control alto- gether, there are not likely to be any unnecessary delays. Since he shot her with a gun, it is likely that he already had the gun when the argument started.
Of course, Hoskins and Melanie had
their conflicts. There was that recurring
issue of her straightening up his
apartment, but he could keep her out
whenever he wanted, and he had partly
resolved that issue by breaking her key to
his apartment. More serious, there was the
time when an old woman friend of Hoskins
had spent a weekend in his apartment.
Still, upset though she was, Melanie's
reaction had been to withdraw from him and
immerse herself in other activities. It is
hard to imagine how anything of that sort
could have precipitated the woman
battering so typical of the district, much
less killing. As will be seen later,
Hoskins did have moods in which he wanted
to leave Melanie, but felt that he was
morally committed to her. He had been in
that sort of situation before, but the
upshot had been, not violence against the
woman, but violence turned against
himself. At least one suicide attempt
occurred in such circumstances, and there
is no reason to think that it would have
been any different this time.
Let us instead weave the known facts together in a different way. The result is only a story, but, in the circumstances, we can expect no more.
Let us instead weave the known facts together in a different way. The result is only a story, but, in the circumstances, we can expect no more.
Hoskins began by staying up past his
usual bed time of ten o'clock. Then, being
a bit overtired, he went into one of his
ordinary rages, very likely when he could
not find something he was looking for.
This would have led to violence against
furniture.
It is necessary here to consider
briefly the art of furniture smashing. It
is not just a reflex, but, as Hoskins
often pointed out, a creative activity.
First comes the feeling of frustrated
passivity. One cannot find t h e Phillips
screwdriver. One tries with an ordinary
one, but succeeds only in gouging the
screw one is trying to remove. One looks
again with no success. One next tries with
a knife. The tip of the blade breaks. As
one's fury mounts, it seems that the
invention of Phillips screws was a
particularly malicious plot meant to
confuse the honest workman and sell more
screwdrivers. Probably just one more
instance of the evil intent of the
military-industrial complex. And there is
not a god-damned thing one can do about
it. One is a helpless victim in the grip
of a hostile environment. Then a ray of
bright light breaks through. One can too
do something. [p.98] One can lift that
m______ f_______r of a bureau over one's
head and, with a mighty effort, smash it
to smithereens. There is, in fact, a
characteristic and wonderfully sickening
sound of plywood panels tearing
apart and legs cracking off.
At such times the smashing of furniture
seems to constitute a remarkably rational
and clear-headed solution t o a nagging
problem. One has been condemned to an
infuriating passivity but, in the space of
a second o r two, one can regain the
initiative. Then, after the act, one looks
down at the splinters and feels that one
has accomplished something. It matter not
if those remains once constituted a
favorite possession.
Probably, that night, the final
stimulus was something that would seem
quite small if we knew about it, but it
must have occurred in critical
circumstances. The gods of violence could
generally be propitiated by the final
demise of some object which had made its
way through the flea market, or perhaps
only by a karate kick at the wall. But
there may come a time when a man wonders
whether he has really solved the problem
of passivity in the face of adversity by
such means. Hoskins just have reached such
a point on that night. It must have seemed
to him that all such stop-gap solutions
were insignificant in comparison to the
one final self-destructive solution which
would put all problems, great and small,
to rest forever.
Whatever it was that caused Hoskins to
decide that this was the night for the TV
station, the great rush of enthusiasm that
must have accompanied that decision would,
like his less harmful passions, have been
difficult to contain once it started to be
translated into action. By the time he got
himself armed and ready to go, Melanie
would have realized what he was going to
do, and would have been willing to attempt
just about anything to prevent him from
leaving.
It is actually much easier to kill than
to shake off someone as formidable as
Melanie. Even though she probably could
not have kept Hoskins from making his way
downstairs, she could have caused a
commotion which would have waked the
neighborhood. He certainly could not have
carried out his plan under those
circumstances. It is possible that he
killed her when it became obvious that she
was going to block his plan, and perhaps
even call the police.
Contrary to this, it would ne nice to
believe that a gun went off accidentially
in a struggle, but Melanie's multiple
wounds hardly allow for that. The most
likely story is that there was a conflict
of wills so strong that there arose a
situation in which it became possible for
Hoskins to do something he would not have
dreamed of in any other circumstances.
In these situations it generally takes
two people, alternately being made angry
and causing anger, to produce the violent
[p.99] result in which the stronger or
more heavily armed one wins. In marital or
quasi-marital cases these disputes seldom
arise out of context with the past, and
are generally continuations of old
arguments which have become increasingly
bitter. Hoskins and Melanie might well
have discussed his plan before. She was
too sensible for anything like that, and
must have attempted to dissuade him. But,
she may also have thought that it was a
necessary fantasy for him, and that he
would never actually carry it out. This
was the reaction many of his friends might
have had if they had heard of the plan.
Hoskins was full of ideas, but a lot of
them were never realized, and, anyhow, he
had never done anything truly crazy.
Whatever she thought, Melanie may have
said some conciliatory things in order to
end what must have seemed to her to be
unnecessary arguments. Hoskins may thus
have had the impression that, when the
time came, Melanie would let him go, or
even go with him. Still, when she saw that
Hoskins was armed and ready to take on the
station, she could have gone into a panic
entirely uncharacteristic of her usual
cool self-possession.
Suppose now that Hoskins had indeed
come to the end of his tether and that he
had decided to take the station and
conduct his final shoot-out. A man at that
stage would positively count on someone
who understood. Someone who tried to stop
him would only make a difficult thing that
much more difficult. At a later stage,
when Elaine Green showed signs of trying
to talk him out of death, Hoskins made it
clear that he would brook no opposition,
and that he was prepared to do whatever he
considered necessary. This attempt to stop
him occurred when it was much too late,
and it involved a stranger who could not
be expected to understand.
By contrast, people are most sensitive
when someone close to them objects and
threatens their resolve. Such a resolve,
even if it occurs in a seemingly impulsive
way, may really have taken years to build
up. It begins as a mere fantasy, perhaps
with wildly unrealistic elements which
incorporate half-forgotten dreams. Then it
hits the person that someone might
actually be able to pull off something
similar. "Just for fun", one starts to
think how it might be done. It becomes a
mental habit to return to the idea now and
then over the course of months and years,
and to work out additional details.
Somewhere in the middle of this it comes
to be implicitly assumed that the person
who will carry out the plan is none other
than oneself. The next stage is to begin
making actual preparations outside of
one's own mind. These are at first
undertaken in the spirit of, "Of course, I
may not want to do it, but it doesn't hurt
to be prepared." Someone like Hoskins may
even think of these preparations as being
the steps a rather sane and prudent man
would take in case it [p.100] became
"necessary" to undertake a radical course
of action. Something rather like buying
insurance or having one's roof reshingled.
But, be that a s it may, if the
preparations are continued long enough,
they gain their own momentum.
One will at some point ask oneself
whether, after all, there is any point in
continuing if one is not going to carry
out the plan. By this time, one has gotten
so involved in these activities that one
does not want to give them up or admit
that one has wasted all that time. Not
only that, one would have to admit to
oneself that one stopped because one was
afraid.
If one has any sense at all, one is
afriad, and it takes a lot of
determination to overcome that fear. Of
all the steps that occur in this process,
the most difficult and sensitive is the
first one that is seen as irreversible. In
the present case, this would probably have
been Hoskins' act of arming himself with
Melanie as a witness. Having done that,
there was probably no stopping afterwards.
Once past the critical point, it is
much easier to keep going, and the
sensitivity of the agent to objections
declines as i h e gains confidence.
However, at the critical moment, even a
quite stable person may react to
opposition in strange ways.
Melanie, well as she knew Hoskins, could hardly be expected to sympathize. It must have seemed much more important to save Hoskins' life than to allow him a weird, literally self-destructive, freedom of expression. It is unlikely that anything she could have said would have stopped him at that point, but they may have had a verbal interchange which intensified both their feelings. When words failed, as they must have, a person as physical as Melanie would certainly not have stood idly by. And, when someone as strong as she decides, in a desperate mood, to disarm a man like Hoskins, the result can hardly fail to be violent.
Melanie, well as she knew Hoskins, could hardly be expected to sympathize. It must have seemed much more important to save Hoskins' life than to allow him a weird, literally self-destructive, freedom of expression. It is unlikely that anything she could have said would have stopped him at that point, but they may have had a verbal interchange which intensified both their feelings. When words failed, as they must have, a person as physical as Melanie would certainly not have stood idly by. And, when someone as strong as she decides, in a desperate mood, to disarm a man like Hoskins, the result can hardly fail to be violent.
There is, of course, no way of knowing
how close this story comes to the mark.
But we can still ask why Hoskins
originally decided to end his life with an
attack on a TV station, and how that plan
fitted into a certain larger conception.
It will help to first consult a few
surviving friends, but, ultimately,
whatever answer there is must lie in a
further examination of Hoskins' art.
Chapter 9
[p.101]
The Views of some Friends
[p.101]
The Views of some Friends
Having distributed an
earlier draft of the present work to
some friends of Hoskins for comments, I
went first to Big Ray, whom Hoskins had
considered his closest friend. While Ray
had not met Hoskins until about 1968, he
did have personal experience of the area
around 12th and vine in the fifties, and
of the street gangs who
roamed it.
roamed it.
"They were rough mean nasty sons of bitches. They would attack old ladies, other gangs, anyone who was around at the wrong time. If they got you down, they would stomp on your head, anything they could think of. When I knew Jim later they were still around and, somehow or other, they all respected him. I don't know what he did to get that respect, I don't think he had ever really been a gang member himself, but it must have been something. The leader of the worst gang was _______. Don't print his name or he's likely to find you and kill you if he's still alive. There was one rumor that he was killed in Cleveland, but others that it was someone else. Anyway, it happened that he had some artistic ability and Jim had such an influence over him that he got him to come to an art school we were going to at the time."Hoskins and Ray met in Mt. Adams, the Cincinnati bohemian community at the time, when the latter was running the first head shop in the city there. As one might have expected with Ray, it was not limited to drug paraphernalia, and contained all manner of curiosities. Among other things, he sold hundred pound aerial bombs from which the explosive had been removed. Hoskins dropped in one day to ask Ray to handle The Naoj, the little poetry magazine of which he was the founder and editor. It was in this way that their long friendship began, and, shortly after that, they took apartments in the same building downtown.
At this time Hoskins was turning out work rapidly, and in a constantly changing way. One day he would read a book, get an idea, and produce something. Then, after having recommended it to his friends, he would, three days later, have an entirely different idea. The first would now be forgotten and dismissed, and he would be at work realizing the new one. Having read Machiavelli's Prince and Hitler's Mein Kampf, he did a portrait [p.102] of Hitler, not because he had any particular sympathy for him, but because he was interested in exploring as many different sorts of people as possible.
"He did this, not just with books, but with living people. He picked people who made him stretch in different ways, and, in turn, he stretched them a whole lot. When you were with him you could sometimes tell that he was gauging just how far you could go. He never tried to push you beyond that point, and you might not see him for a while if he waspushing in some direction he didn't think you could go. Then he'd be back and things would be real relaxed for a while. But, every once in a while, he would check to see if you had changed and could do something new."The Naoj was a typical "little magazine" with the editor and his friends doing much of the writing. The January 1968 issue has on its cover a somewhat hermaphroditic bearded figure, swarmed over by tiny curly-headed children. On his left arm there is a tatoo of an anchor, while the protruding nipples are marked "sweet" and "sour." Then, on the leg, there is a heart with an arrow through it , pointing to the groin, under which appears the word "love." The staff must have had fun thinking up such things, and the magazine was advertized in a similarly untrammelled way. This is what led to a number of street happenings, most of which were intended to attract publicity for one or another of Hoskins' many projects. Included among these was an event where Hoskins and another artist took turns lying on the sidewalk and drawing around each other with chalk. The whole chain of drawings led to Ray's new downtown store, and thus gave the person who followed it a foretaste of what he would find at the end.
Despite a lack of money, Hoskins and Ray gave many parties on Court St. The wine was highly adulterated, and, not being able to buy food, they kept a supply of potato chip crumbs and dirty paper plates which they spread around. New arrivals were then told that they had come too late for the food. When Hoskins saw someone he did not like coming up the stairs, the people present would all start saying "raisins" simultaneously, giving the impression of a much larger number of people. Then, when the visitor knocked, Hoskins would open the door a crack, straining as if holding it against the pressure of a crowd. The would-be guest would go away thinking that the party was so packed that not a single extra person could be fitted in. There were generally present at these parties artists, poets, and writers of all kinds, in addition to the people who worked at the [p.103] downtown library. As later on, almost any sort of person was welcome, provided only that they were not dull. Some of these people were close t o being psychotic, and a good deal of craziness was tolerated. Hoskins drew the line only when oneman arrived with a body guard and began threatening people. He and his body guard were soon ejected, a fairly rare occurrence once people were already in.
There was also a steady stream of women friends, and Hoskins sometimes had different ones morning, afternoon, and evening. While there was, as with so many other men at the time, a tendency to count and keep score, Hoskins apparently became sufficiently bored with mere repitition to introduce fantasies into these relationships, even the transitory ones.
"Once he had a biker girl who dressed in a leather jacket and chains. Jim told her he was a warlock and used lipstick to draw a pentagon with symbols on the sheet where she was to lie down. Then he sprinkled birdseed on her and began chanting incantations from the kama sutra. Whenever she came around after that, he'd reach for the birdseed and start chanting. Then he did other things with other girls, but it turned out more and more that he wanted to experience as many different things as he could with them, and he'd go from one to another if he thought he could learn something new."As I talked with Ray in the antique shop he had opened next to his gallery, people drifted in and wandered about. One woman wanted some old Jehovah's Witnesses publications while a young man was interested in a vicious looking old leather blackjack which could be used to crush a knee to suet. Another person wondered about the giant sized figure of a knight in armor in front of the store while yet another spoke about the poster he had seen in front of the gallery. It was captioned, "Expose yourself to Art", and showed someone who looked suspiciously like Hoskins from the rear, facing a statue and flinging open his raincoat.
Like Hoskins, Ray was perfectly comfortable in a chaos of art of all kinds, objects of every conceivable origin, and the kaleidoscope of people drawn to such things. The only certainty was that of an uncertain future, but, where Ray imposed a minimum amount of order and stability on his surroundings, Hoskins had, in the early days at least, acted as if the changes could not come fast enough to satisfy him. New ideas from books and new women were only the beginning. There was seldom a month when he did not take up a new artistic technique or medium, and these included some of his own invention. [p.104] At the time of our talk Ray was attempting to get together as much of Hoskins' work as possible for a show. This was a formidable task since Hoskins had left no records of work sold, had given a lot away, and had destroyed many of his products. Even so, Ray had collected enough so that friends who thought they knew Hoskins' work were surprised to see art, and even kinds of art, that they had never seen before.
In addition to the art, Ray had some other concerns. One was that Hoskins' commitment to Melanie was not as simple or solid as it had seemed. At bottom, it was as unnatural for Hoskins to stay with one woman as it was for him to stay with one art form. He thought he had learned what he could from Melanie, and was ready to move on. In particular, he wanted to try some new sorts of women, the wealthy ones who lived in the suburbs surrounding Milford. He seems to have had no desire to change his own style of life or to accept money from the women he surely would have found if he had left Melanie. Rather, the idea was that this was one of the few things he had not experienced. While he suspected strongly that the rich had nothing of value to offer, he wanted to find out for sure.
The only problem was that he could not leave Melanie the way he had left the others. He had taken her straight out of a convent, and she had been with him ever since. She obviously wanted to continue indefinitely, and, after much agonizing, he decided to stay with her. This was the true meaning of his deciding not to move to Milford. Melanie had known about the possibility of the move, but had assumed that she would be sharing the new house with Hoskins. Thus, when he renewed his commitment to her, she was entirely unaware of it. It was also a commitment to Washington Park, since, apart from leaving Melanie for other women, he had no desire to leave.
On learning this, another woman who had known Hoskins and Melanie commented, unkindly, "So, instead of leaving her, he decided he'd stay right there and kill her. How nice. I love the way men decide that women are better off dead than left without them."
This, o f course, is not fair, and was probably not intended literally. Hoskins surely did not plan to kill Melanie, nor is it likely that he thought she would fall apart if he left her. It was obvious to their friends that she had more than enough strength of character to manage on her own, and, indeed, that she would not be alone very long unless she wanted to be. He was not the sort of man to have illusions on that score.
By this time, a downpour had started outside, and, as I helped Ray to get his sidewalk display inside, he brought up something [p.105] which puzzled him. In the course of my writing and our discussion, many things about Hoskins had turned up which would strike most people in an adverse way. This not only bothered Ray, but raised a problem.
"I know there was that negative side and all that stuff about death. Anyone who spends his time making silencers and bombs would have to have it. But, if that were all, how come everyone liked him so much? Most of his friends weren't ordinary people either. Some were just as strong in their own right, but, if all the stuff in the newspapers were true, they wouldn't have respected him the way they did. Not one of them had anything against him when he died."Not knowing how to answer, I left with the feeling that there was still much to be explained.
With Steve the atmosphere was different. He had years ago been lucky enough to find a beautiful spacious apartment at an unrealistically low rent. Now, it was about to be made into a condominium, but he was enjoying that last bit of luxury while he still could.
Although we had worked out since Hoskins' death, I was struck for the first time by the resemblance between the two. It was not that they actually looked so much alike, but there was the same feel, the same kind of welcome when one came through the door. It sounds easy. Everyone should be glad to see their friends, and should show it. But few do. So many people have so many concerns which inhibit any encounter with another person.
"Does he or she need anything from me?"
"Is there any reason to be angry?"
"Will we get along well this time?"
"Should I reveal certain things that are bothering me?"
"Am I likely to get the advice I want to hear?"
The person who has any or all of the above concerns may smile and even joke. But his or her affability will be limited by a peculiar look in the eye, a little twist to the mouth, or a tense and crabbed set to the shoulders. We are so used to being approached in this way that it no longer bothers us on the conscious level. But, whether we realize it or not, the absence of those constrictions causes us to have an immediate and [p.106] profound sense of relief. A genuine greeting is comparable to the way in which a good golfer approaches his golf ball. With a straight stance, and without any peculiar wiggles or waggles. And then the swing proceeds smoothly without any hitches or catches. It again sounds easy. But, again, it isn't. This, then, was part of the answer to Ray's question, but Steve had a related one of his own.
"In a way I was overwhelmed by reading about all these things and my own part in them. And, seeing it all in black and white, I began to apply my training as a psychologist. Taking your account in that light, you would have to say that Jim was severely depressed. However, but that isn't true to my memories at all."Steve, like Ray, wanted the other side of Hoskins brought out more. The happy side, the one that applied his considerable creative imagination to making life more fun.
I suggested enlarging on such material as Hoskins' night escapades in the department store. Steve disagreed.
"I'm afraid that wouldn't work. We thought those things were funny, but people reading now, with his hit list in their minds, would just be confirmed in their opinion that he was a sicko. It would look as if he had no sense of guilt about tearing up all those coats, and I know from my practice that that's a bad sign."It was a conundrum. We both knew that a lot of things Hoskins did were harmless, and that they were often great fun. But the more we told other people about them, the more sinister they would look. Then Steve smiled wryly and recalled something I must have repressed.
"Do you remember some of the things that he wanted to do that we ignored or just brushed off? Can you imagine how we would feel now if we had gone along with some of those seemingly harmless little exercises?"I told Steve of Ray's theory that Hoskins tested his friends to see how far they would go. Steve replied,
"He must have found us pretty limited in that direction."Unfortunately, these additional facts seemed to confirm the idea that, the more one said, the worse one made it look. Nevertheless, almost everyone who knew Hoskins is ready to [p.107] swear that this impression is a misleading one and that, no matter what facts turn up, he was not a dark disturbed figure preoccupied with death. Anyhow, not 99 per cent of the time. Even among people who did not know Hoskins, but who saw the television interview, the favorite account is that he was a nice, decent man who suddenly went crazy, and then regained his sanity just before he died.
Some philosophical qualification is required here. It really does not explain much to say that someone did something because he was temporarily or permanently insane, still less to say that his "craziness" was what made him do it. To say that someone is crazy is to assess rather than to explain his behavior. Such an assessment is often useful. It implies, for example, that many of a person's actions may be difficult to predict, that communication may break down at times, and that it may be a mistake to become that person's employer. But, whatever the practical value of such information, the attribution of craziness in itself does nothing to explain why the agent engaged in one erratic action rather than another, or why he ever began to act erratically. When the general public said that Hoskins went crazy, the legitimate implication is probably only that his killing of Melanie seemed grossly out of character with what was known of his life.
Hoskins' friends sometimes talked that way too, but meant much more. For them, what it came down to was that he almost never seemed morbid or self-destructive, and that he must have changed in some radical, and probably temporary, way in order to have killed Melanie. What remains true is that they spent all that time with him without feeling that they had to worry about anything. True, there were a very few incidents of the other kind, but they were so infrequent that even a fairly reasonable person was justified in dismissing them. Particularly in view of the fact that most of us knew many other people who wanted to do things that seemed much crazier.
One of the calmest people in Hoskins' circle of acquaintances was Henry. He had known Hoskins longer than any of us, but there was a profound difference in temperament between them. Where Hoskins wanted to put ideas into practice with maximum enthusiasm right away, Henry had file cabinets where he stored ideas. He was always working on some literary or pedagogical project, and the others, never forgotten, would eventually have their turn.
Hoskins had once told me that Henry had no sense of humor, which was puzzling since half of what Henry said had a gentle irony or whimsy to it. When I mentioned to Hoskins some of the things Henry had said and done, he laughed outright and said he must have been wrong. But, really, it was something deeper. [p.108] Henry reflected on things at length, and, turning them over in his writer's mind, was likely, months later, to describe the most mundane events in unexpected ways. Thus, even a routine action might emerge in an existentialist light as a bizarre and basically ridiculous response to a problem which, when fully revealed, no one could take seriously. Hoskins, who was much more an actor than a writer, wanted to do something to create a humorous or ridiculous situation, and was not content to wait for things to happen.
When Hoskins discovered that Henry had bought a house on Washington Park, he was puzzled, along with the other residents. Henry had converted the basement into an office from which he published a small philosophical journal. Some of the neighborhood leaders suspected him of trying to gentrify the area, and could scarcely believe the truth: that, despite the present lack of takers, he was patiently waiting for the day when other small businesses who were casual about their addresses would take offices in the considerable remaining space in the former house of prostitution. Hoskins was fascinated by the house itself, the garish red paint on the interior walls, and the numbers on all the doors. As a former editor, he was also in sympathy with Henry's operation in the basement.
No matter how tenous the finances of the journal, Henry, like an Englishman wearing his dinner jacket in the jungle, came every day with a jacket and tie, and sat at his desk in front of the rather elaborate communication system he had rented from the telephone company. The desk itself, with curved chrome and a rubberized top, was one of a set of two, refugees from the glamourous thirties, which he had picked up second hand. At the other desk was Myrtle, his former cleaning lady, whom he had converted into his secretary. A large good-natured woman, she learned her work quickly and pleased Henry immensely by bringing in a goldfish bowl complete with goldfish. Considering the circulation of the journal, the office layout and atmosphere was the mercantile analogue of children playing house, a fact that was not lost on Henry. The best part of the joke was that the journal ultimately succeeded, at which point it had to be moved from Washington Park.
When Hoskins was alive and Henry was asked about him, he would respond in a cordial way with as much quiet enthusiasm as he displayed on most subjects. If the questioner did not already know, Henry would explain that Hoskins was an artist resident in Cincinnati for a long time, and that he had been involved in putting out several little literary journals. If asked further, Henry might volunteer that he and another friend had once bought some of Hoskins work. It had been at a timen chern. Hoskins was trying fordin more it a rue, and was uncharacteristically [p.109] pushing his work, but it was also clear that the purchase had had no element of charity. On the contrary, Henry knew art and considered Hoskins' work worth buying.
Perhaps more than anyone else, Henry saw Hoskins as a respectable citizen of a solid and upstanding sort. That is, a member in good standing of the Cincinnati art community. As a poet and playwright who had supported himself on his writing for a good many years, he thought of Hoskins simply as another member of the same loosely knit group who happened to work mainly with different materials.
Henry did distinguish, within this group, between those who were too unreliable to cooperate with in joint undertakings and those who could be relied on to do what they had agreed to do. On this criterion, the only one Henry really cared about, Hoskins clearly passed. He had not wanted to be art editor of Henry's magazine because he did not want to judge the work of other people. But he had said so, and he did help with the printing in order to learn how the press worked. As far as Henry was concerned, he was sane, in contrast to all those people with romantic illusions who promise to do things they cannot hope to actually bring off.
As it turned out, nothing deterred Henry from that opinion of Hoskins. He had worked long on one of his computer projects on October I5th, and did not get the news until late that night when I told him. Upon hearing it, he showed not the slightest surprise and asked only a few perfunctory questions. It was as if he had been told that Hoskins had taken up watercolors instead of oils, but felt that it was too early to guess what the final value of the product might be.
[p.110] BLANK
The
Development of Hoskins' Art
There were three main artistic and
literary influences on Hoskins: German
Dadaism, the beatnik movement, and the
writings of Norman Spinrad. Let us begin
with the first and oldest, though not
necessarily the first to have its effect
on him.
The movement known as "Dada", though
founded in Zurich in 1917, still has the
excitement of the forbidden for aspiring
artists. It has resisted attempts to
define it, but it has been reputed to be
anarchistic, nihilistic, and, perhaps,
even evil in a mysterious way. That
alone would be enough to recommend it to
the young artists of almost any period.
The young European artists who were
sitting out World War I in Switzerland
were probably bohemians to begin with.
However, the implied charge of cowardice
was not easy to dismiss, even for people
who were convinced that the war was
unnecessary and stupid. There was still
the question of whether they were in
Zurich because of their
pacifism, or whether a fear of fighting
and dying had preceded the pacifism. In
this atmosphere the group grew closer
and became more intense than it would
have otherwise, and poured a tremendous
amount of energy both into the
revolution in art which was underway and
into the further development of a
bohemian lifestyle.
This time there was no direct
connection, via Munich or elsewhere,
between the artists in the Cafe Voltaire
and those in the cafes and bars of
Cincinnati. Still, they had a common
heritage, and there were, at the same
time, in Cincinnati some of those
"disreputable" artists for whom dadaism
later had such appeal. Then, when
dadaism spawned such movements as
surrealism, it was natural for artists
everywhere to take notice. Another of
the offshoots of dadaism was the
Happening, an art form which had
particular vogue in Cincinnati, and
which briefly drew together all sorts of
counter-culturalists. In the early
sixties there was a large scale
happening involving roller skating in
the Union Terminal, a tour of the
never-used subway, and a demolition
derby of fantasically sculptured
automobiles in the disused reservoir in
Eden Park. Somewhat later, a German
gentleman appeared on the stage of
Wilson Auditorium of the University of
Cincinnati, and was permitted to
slaughter a pig in full view of the
audience. He then cut it open, threw the
bloody innards into the crowd, urging
people to toss them back [p.112] and
forth.
In one way it is little short of
amazing that anything so purely dadaist
should have been permitted in a city as
conservative as Cincinnati. On the other
hand, the more conservative the dominant
culture, the less restrained the
counter-culture will be. The latter is
fully capable of bringing off such
events before the elders of the city
have quite realized what has happened.
Whether or not Hoskins was physically
present for the public execution of the
pig, no one could have been there more
enthusiastically in spirit. Moreover, he
had a sustained interest in the history
of dadaism which went well beyond these
picturesque offshoots of it. In
particular, while French dadaism
has claimed much of the attention, it
was in German dadaism, and the closely
related German expressionism, that his
particular interest lay. Although much
of dadaist activity was not of the sort
that could not easily be recorded at a
time when movie cameras and electronic
gadgets were not widely available, there
exists an excellent study of German
dadaism by Rex W. Last. Since this is
the primary book on the subject in the
Cincinnati Public Library, where Hoskins
spent so much time, it is highly
probable that he read it.
It was typical of the dadaists to
work in more than one medium, and none
worked in more than Kurt Schwitters.
While he wrote poetry and fiction, these
came to be integrated into what he
called "Merzkunst." This consisted in
the collection of all kinds of rubbish
and junk, some of it printed matter, and
the modification and reassembly of it.
According to one anecdote, a friend once
found Schwitters outside one evening
grovelling on the ground looking for
something. It turned out that he was
looking for a scrap of blue paper to
slip into one of his collages. Sometimes
the work came out in the form of
sculpture, sometimes collages, and
sometimes a kind of Merz poetry, which
often consisted of the assembly of words
found printed on junk. Indeed, the word
"merz" itself was found when Schwitters
picked up a piece of paper with
"Kommerz-und Privatbank" printed on it.
Before he ever heard of Schwitters,
Hoskins was collecting junk, such as tin
cans, flattening them, inking them up,
and then running them through an etching
press. This transferred the texture of
the object onto damp paper in a way that
would not otherwise have been possible,
and which allowed the junk components to
be subordinated in a work of art to a
greater extent than can be achieved by
simply glueing the components together.
For the dadaists and expressionists,
all this proceeded on the assumption
that "art was no longer possible." What
they meant by that is somewhat obscure
since they immediately produced [p.113]
work that we have no difficulty in
classifying as art. Probably they meant
that they intended to produce work which
either
would not be recognized by the older
generation as art, or would cause their
elders to turn away in horror. For
example, a typical expressionist work is
the statue of a blind beggar by the
German sculptor Barlach, now in
Harvard's Busch-Reisinger Museum. The
beggar's head is twisted upward and
backward so that it resembles the head
of a bird whose neck has been broken.
Underneath there is a deformed and
shrivelled body in kneeling position
which can hardly support the head. The
figure is obviously modelled on someone
very near death, but the hollow eyes and
sadistic smiling mouth also have a
disturbing predatory aspect which makes
the viewer realize that the beggar is as
evil as he is pitiable.
Another of the expressionists, Georg
Grosz, was a fellow student o f
Schwitters at the Dresden Academy of Art
just before World War I. Grosz has the
probable distinction of having more
talent than any artist in all history
for what might be called "the vicious
portrait." His figures are fully
recognizable, but go much deeper than
mere cartoons. There is often an
insect-like or rodent-like character to
them, and the implication is that the
person depicted, while happening to have
come out as a human being, would, in
terms of personality, have been more
suited to the body of the insect or
rodent.
If anything separated the dadaists
from the expressionists, it was that,
while the former also wanted to shock
their audiences, they were willing to do
it in a greater variey of ways,
generally with a joke of some sort in
the background. For example, Schwitters
seems to have worked in a spirit quite
different from that of Grosz. Instead of
having a malicious and deformed outlook
on life, he enjoyed himself while
collecting his junk, and was certainly
only half-serious at times. The anti-art
thatehe substituted forart was in many
ways an excuse doing exactly what he
felt lile doing without having to
apologize to anyone. According to Last,
communication did not appear to be a
primary concern of his, and he often did
not make the effort of reaching out to a
public audience. This was Hoskins at
times, and Schwitters also seems to have
had much the same sort of love of fun
and games. He once wrapped a dirty old
chamber pot in brown paper and carried
it around Paris with him. Then, when
someone showed interest in the package,
he gave it to him and disappeared around
a corner.
There was in Schwitters, as in
Hoskins, a penchant for black humor, and
this is probably what really made him
famous. His short prose piece, "Die
Zwiebel", begins with the narrator
remarking that it was an eventful day on
which he was to be butchered. He then
goes on to explain happily how fine the
[p.114] weather is, that the king is
present, and that there are pretty girls
waiting to clean up the mess he will
make and prepare his innards. The story
has many convolutions, and, at the end,
time is reversed, and the narrator is
unbutchered. It seems that no one had
ever before written enthusiastically
about his own butchering, and the story
had a considerable impact in Germany,
and even beyond. Unfortunately,
Schwitters seldom seemed able to leave
well enough alone. In the present case,
he took a good and striking idea and
went on to reduce its impact by adding
extraneous and irrelevant blind alleys.
This tendency was also evident in much
of his art work, and produced a feeling
of clutter. Of course, that is partly
the occupational hazard of any artist
who picks up casual objects and tries to
unity them into a work of art. Unless he
does it extraordinarily we!l, the
finished product looks only like a pile
of junk all glued together. Much of
Hoskins' work is more convincing than
that of Schwitters. Even his collages
fit together visually, and one never has
the feeling of bits and pieces trailing
off in all directions. On the other
hand, like Schwitters, he had the sort
of irrepressible sense of humor that was
likely at times to compete with purely
aesthetic considerations and produce
something that was a better joke than a
work of art, even in those many dadaist
contexts where a joke is part of the
art.
Quite apart from his art, Schwitters
seems to have been much the same sort of
person as Hoskins. Someone basically
happy and outgoing who thought it was
fun to fool around with all sorts of
perverse things. In fact, in terms of
dadaism, Last characterized Schwitters
as the childish figure of the movement,
who was "unaware of the dangerous forces
he was
meddling with."
In addition to these general
connections between Schwitters and his
ilk on one hand and Hoskins and some of
his friends on the other, there are two
other German artists of the period who
seem to have had a special effect on
Hoskins.
Kathe Kollwitz is generally counted
as a German expressionist, as opposed to
a dadaist, but was really one of a kind.
Hoskins often talked of her and made a
special point of attending a show a t
the Cincinnati Art Museum that included
some of her work. Married to a doctor
with a slum practice in pre-World War I
Berlin, she began by sketching the
people who came to consult her husband.
Since they were exactly the sort of
people who lived near Washington Park,
this may have appealed to Hoskins, but
that was certainly not the main thing.
Many young women, then and now, like
to marry doctors, but most would not be
so thrilled to find themselves living in
a slum apartment. Particularly when they
discovered that their front room had
become a waiting room packed tight with
the poorest [p.115] and the sickest.
Some such women would at least have
distanced themselves psychologically
from the carnage. Kollwitz seems to have
become ever more involved in this
suffering. According to her diary, she
early became convinced that there is
much more pain in the world than
pleasure, or anything which might seem
to balance or justify it. She then set
out simply to record it. The motive
seemed to be not so much to prompt
social change as to satisfy some inner
need of her own. Being a mother herself,
she naturally tended to sketch mothers
and children, but not in the ordinary
way. Most of the children are sick, but
a good many are also malnourished to an
alarming degree. There are some sketches
of newly dead children in the arms of
their grief-stricken mothers. These are
portrayed without any sentimentality
whatever, always in black and white, and
with only the simplest techniques. If
Georg Grosz was the master of the
defamatory portrait, his contemporary,
Kathe Kollwitz, was equally the master
of the graphic depiction of pain, plain
and simple. Moreover, while he used
every insinuating color and glaze, she
could do it with an old lead pencil and
a few lines on a scrap of paper.
After the war broke out in 1914 and
her son was killed in one of the opening
battles, Kollwitz began depicting the
horrors of war. Twenty years later, the
Nazis, who had different ideas about
war, forbade her to exhibit. Again, she
probably was not so much of a political
anti-war advocate (there are late
pictures of her at the time of WW Il
with photographs of relatives in German
uniform on her desk as an artist who
continued to do what she did best.
While Kollwitz really pre-dated both
dadaism and expressionism, her
categorization as the latter is
appropriate in one respect, the one that
probably most appealed to Hoskins. Like
some of her compatriots, she produced an
initial impact on the audience out of
all proportion to that which is usual in
art. No matter how much one may admire
Rembrandt or Hals, their portraits do
not produce the immediate shock that is
likely to occur when one first
encounters Grosz or Kollwitz. This is
not necessarily to say that the latter
are as good, that they reward as close a
study, or that they will be hung in
galleries in three hundred years.
Perhaps they are the outgrowth of a time
when the audience for art is less
attentive and subtle, a time when it has
become necessary to give the viewer a
good jolt before proceeding to more
subtle matters. Hoskins was also used to
an environment where little attention
was paid to art, and he, too, came to
value any art which could make a strong
opening statement and get its foot
wedged in the door. Despite the fact
that he was far removed from the world
of mothers and children, he was
impressed by any artist who could stop
the viewer in his [p.116] tracks the way
Kollwitz could. Her work also has the
sort of subtlety that does not
disappoint the viewer who stops to
look, but other artists have that.
It is not her subtlety that gives
Kollwitz a special place in the history
of art.
Hoskins attempted this sort of thing
at times, sometimes with a good measure
of success. He was not one of those very
few who can pick up a pencil and
intuitively produce something
electrifying in thirty seconds or so.
But he did have a clear idea of what he
wanted and the technical ability to
produce it. There is one aluminum
sculpture of the head of a prize-fighter
which succeeds in much the way that the
work of Kollwitz and Barlach does. The
face of a handsome man distorted by a
displaced squashed nose and swollen
lips, it suggests powerfully that the
devastation of the features has
accompanied a comparable mental
disfigurement. Like Kollwitz' drawings,
it is a direct rendering of physical
suffering, overpoworing in its apparent
simplicity, a simplicity which
disappears when one attempts to do the
same thing oneself.
The really remarkable thing is that
someone who did so little conventional
sculpture could have produced something
so good. And, then, having done it,
would not be sufficiently excited to
continue. The statue was dumped in a
corner amid the other clutter and given
a far lower status than the old air
rifles. Worst of all, it was not even
pointed out in the Tour of the
Apartment. Thus, while any other artist
would have based a whole series of work
on such a success, not to mention taking
it to the galleries, Hoskins forgot
about it and went on to other projects.
Part of the reason may have been his
system of categories. There was, for
example, metal work. This included, not
only aluminum statuary, but the aluminum
propellor for his air-boat and all sorts
of other gadgetry. These were important
to him, and his success with the statue
may have convinced him that he was in a
position to attempt a propellor. This,
too, had a kind of beauty, and, while it
was totally unlike any of Kollwitz'
work, he did regard her depiction of
suffering as only one kind of artistic
expression among many.
Hoskins followed the usual dadaist
pattern of producing, not just
paintings, but sculpture, collages,
found art of various kinds, and poetry.
Like many artists, he seems to have
begun with portraits, and his earliest
ones are highly realistic with a mastery
of detail surprisingly good for a
beginner. He then experimented with
impressionist techniques and painted a
lovely airy side view of an early
mistress sitting in a chair. Later on,
he produced some abstract works with
muted colors and softly outlined shapes.
These are in the mainstream of modern
American art, and, were widely admired.
Despite that, it did [p.117] not take
him long to dismiss them with contempt.
A good deal of this work survived only
by virtue of Melanie's protective
custody.
The abstract paintings then gave way to very small and delicate drawings and collages. This work was almost entirely non-representational, and highly personal. As with much of Schwitters' work, it often seemed not to be particularly communicative, and comprised material from all sorts of sources which had meaning for Hoskins. For all that, it was interesting, if rather mysterious, and did not look out of place in galleries. It was surprising only that such delicate work could be produced by such a large seemingly indelicate man. In the context of what later happened, not to mention those dadaist and expressionist influences, this direction of artistic development is paradoxical. An artist who wishes to achieve impact with a strong opening statement could hardly do worse than to produce work which is progressively smaller, more delicate, and whose meaning is ever more obscure. Like many artists before him, Hoskins evidently became increasingly interested in working out certain internal problems that arose in the course of his work. He then found himself addressing, not the general public, but the much smaller group which understands such things. Thus, even though he continued to the end with this sort of work, it evidently left other needs unsatisfied, needs which required other kinds of art.
There was one kind of work which does
not belong either with the collages, the
sculptures, nor the abstract paintings,
but which h e continued to produce, at
least sporadically, over a long period
of time. This consists in the making of
leather masks. A number of artists have
made masks, and a few are on display in
the world's great museums. While mask
making has been, on the whole, a rather
unexploited art form, it is not hard to
see why Hoskins was drawn to it. On the
most obvious level, he apparently
thought of himself as living one sort of
life which was masked by another. That
was played up by the press, and, if the
journalists had known about the masks,
they probably would have had something
to say there too. However, Hoskins' idea
was much more general than that. He was
delighted when a friend told him that
his psychiatrist had once compared him
to a gorilla with a clown's mask. He
even promised to make a clown's mask
suitable for a gorilla. Hoskins had also
read Irving Goffman, who at least flirts
with the idea that everyone always
figuratively wears a mask, changing
masks for different occasions.
Even though masks have been a
minority art form, they are connected
with something that has much wider
currency in the history of art. The
mask, by its nature, hides something,
and it [p.118] trades, not only on what
can be seen, but on what one supposes to
be behind it. Many artists have put
half-concealed secrets into their work
with great effect. The 17th century
Dutch landscape painters, particularly
Hobbema and Ruisdael, often had a tunnel
of foliage through which the viewer
looks until he can just make out a
detail, perhaps a small figure, which
catches the light. That figure, provided
it is noticed at all, is more
interesting than it would have been in
the foreground. Moreover, it becomes a
subject for speculation. This phenomenon
is to be found persistently, e v e n in
the work of much later painters such as
Corot. Then, with impressionism, cubism,
and other forms of modern art, the
tendency was, not to half-hide the
subject behind a bush, but to merely
suggest it with a few strokes, or with
some fragmented or distorted
representation. If one masks with a
mask, as opposed to one of these other
techniques, one makes the person behind
the mask, or the person who is imagined
behind it, part of a work o f art that
changes from one wearer or imagined
wearer to another. This fact, while not
acceptable to many more traditional
artists, who want their work to be
self-enclosed and complete, was entirely
congenial to Hoskins.
If masking and secrets have been of
crucial importance in art, it is only
because much of the excitement in human
experience can be traced to those
elements. Probably the primeval game,
far supassing other children's games in
importance, is hide-and-seek. Basically
it is a life and death game. The seeker
seeks in order to kill the one who is
hiding. Children know that, but adults
gradually convince them that the game is
harmless, at which point they lose
interest in it. This first secret of
one's hiding place then gives rise to
many others which one dares the world to
uncover.
Hoskins was always offering people
new games, often with their own secrets,
and he often talked about making masks
for his friends to try on. It was not
always clear quite what he had in mind.
While he did think of masks as artwork,
sometimes of an abstract kind, he also
admired some of the quasi-human masks
used in the film "Star Wars." Then,
again, it sometimes sounded as if he was
making masks that could actually be worn
as disguises.
While there is more than a suggestion of pretending to be somone else in this, there is a large gap between harmless pretences and those which involve a hopelessly divided personality, or which lead to violence. We could get away with much more than we usually do along those lines without getting into trouble. It would do most corporation lawyers a world of good to spend a couple of weekends in Washington Park, pretending to be winos. It might be a problem if the lawyer began to prefer [p.119] Washington Park to his own environment, or got radically confused about his own identity, but, short of that, he would learn more than he could have in most other ways. Hoskins remarked favorably on a friend who had done something like that, and he seems to have done some experimenting of this sort himself. He once recounted a late-night incident in which he had put on an animal mask of a wolf-like sort, pulled his hat down to cover part of it, and taken a turn around Washington Park. He had then sidled up to a couple of winos to ask them for "money for a plate of soup", and had been pleased at their alarmed responses when they caught a glimpse of his face.
Whatever pretenses one makes, if one makes them consciously in order to learn about oneself and others, one is in a position vastly superior to that of persons who cannot help making pretenses. In the latter case one is only a pompous bore, but, in the former, one can have some of the excitement of the player of hide-and-seek who is waiting to see whether he will be found.
Most of the masks Hoskins made have
disappeared. What remain are some pieces
that he also called masks, but which
have no openings, and which are much too
small to actually be worn. As with the
collages, he seems to have become
increasingly concerned with abstract
problems which arose in the course of
mask making, and to have ended up
producing "minimal" masks which have few
features. They could be thought of in
many ways, for example as shrunken heads
with
contracted features, and he may have
had some such interpretation in mind.
However, as he got further and further
from
recognizable human features, he seems
to have been attempting to generalize
the notion of a mask to the point where
even inaminate objects could be thought
of as having masks. Once, significantly,
in a show of his masks he included an
exhibit marked "The Umbrella Unmasked."
This consisted of an umbrella hanging
from the wall while, next to it, hung
its cover.
It is clear that the masks had more
to do with the series of happenings that
culminated in the raid on WCPO-TV than,
say, the collages and the paintings.
However abstract they became, they were
bound up with his notion of a double
life, not to mention a life of mystery.
Unfortunately for our purposes, he kept
that part of the mystery so well that it
is now impossible to reconstruct the
connection in any detail.
Much less mysterious in its
implications is yet another strain which
stands in contrast to the "conceptual"
art, and which consists in work that is
frankly angry and violent. It is to that
strain that the head of the fighter
belongs. It not only depicts violence,
but, like the work of the
expressionists, is itself a violent
assault on the feelings of the viewer.
In point of time, [p.120] the fighter
seems to stand about midway in the
sequence of "violent art" that Hoskins
produced, a sequence that ended with the
station takeover. While beginnings of
such things are hard to isolate, his
early poetry is full of every sort of
violence, much of it sexual. As art it
does not seem to represent a
particularly important stage in his
development. He wrote poetry only for a
short time, never wrote a great deal,
and, in my hearing, never once mentioned
having written it. In fact, he seems to
have founded and written for, his poetry
magazine as something of an experiment.
In the course of it he produced some
good lines and powerful images, but
whole poems seldom held together very
well. Undoubtedly he could have done
something with poetry if he had worked
at it over the years, but he instead
went off in other directions.
Suffice it to say that there are two
main ideas that keep occurring in
Hoskins' poetry. The first is that
politicians are not to be trusted. He
continually shows contempt for them in a
language which sounds like the political
language of the sixties. However, he
also dismisses radicals and
revolutionaries in much the same, often
obscene, terms. He is thus revealed, not
as a reformer, but as one who stands
completely outside the political process
and rejects all parts of it
indiscriminately.
The other over-riding theme is that
the mass of the people have
brought their misery on themselves
through their unchecked material vanity
and greed. Once one reaches the point of
complaining about and rejecting
something that the mass of people
accept, one ends up in an odd position.
Hardly anyone in our society, and
certainly not Hoskins, likes being an
elitist who claims to be on a higher
plane than all those others who are
subject to some pervasive weakness or
illusion. However, if Hoskins meant
literally everything he said in his
poetry, he was claiming to be one of the
few who were free of greed.
This implied superiority is also
implicit in the stance of almost any
bohemian artist. He must believe that
his work is worth doing, and that it
would be valued by people of taste. But
he also knows that there is little or no
market for it. The masses who do not
want his work must therefore lack taste.
In an analogous way, any political or
social revolutionary ends up in much the
same uncomfortable position. No matter
how hard he may want to identify with
the working (or sub-working) class, he
is likely to conclude that the members
of that class are kept in a subservient,
or even brutalized, state, in large part
by their own attitudes. ven though
Hoskins was not political in any narrow
sense, he believed thoroughly that the
solution of many problems lay in the
voluntary acceptance of poverty. And, of
course, there was almost no one in his
[p.121] neighborhood who really agreed
with that proposition.
While Hoskins had never had much
money, it was obvious to anyone that he
could have had it if he had wanted it.
This put him in an awkward position when
he was speaking to people who never had
had a chance to be anything but poor.
People who did not think poverty was
something to be embraced. He was not the
sort to stand on the bandstand at
Washington Park and tell these people
that they were being stupid to attach so
much value to what they could not have,
but it did make its way into his poetry.
The people who most nearly shared
this problem were another set of
avowedly apolitical bohemians, the
beatniks. One of the best and most vivid
pictures of them comes from Lawrence
Lipton's book, The Holy Barbarians.
Himself a somewhat older poet, he
recalls a community of young bohemians
in which he lived in Venice, California
in the fifties. Most of them were
interested in combining poetry with jazz
in various ways, and in making that
combination the centerpiece of a new way
of life. Drugs were also an important
part of it, and these ranged from peyote
and marijuana to opium and heroin, often
in combination with alcohol. Still, the
harder drugs were regarded with
suspicion, and LSD came only with the
hippies, who were a later extension of
the beatniks. As with other bohemians,
the acceptance of poverty was one of the
most important bonds of the community.
Lipton quotes beat poet Kenneth Rexroth,
who knew other forms of life, as saying
that, having adjusted to poverty, he was
able to eat better, drink better, and
live better than his friends who had a
great deal more money.
Lipton had been a bohemian long
enough to compare the beatniks to the
bohemians of the twenties, when he was a
young man. Of the latter, he says that
they expropriated what they wanted from
the rich. This amounted to their
independence, their ability to ignore
the conventions and sin with impunity,
and their access to the arts. The rest,
and particularly the problems connected
with the production and ownership of
material goods, they were willing to let
go. Of course, the young bohemians were
happy to take in the lovely young
daughters of the rich, and even an
occasional unfulfilled but attractive
wife, but they were not expected to
bring money with them. Like their
descendents, the beatniks, they were
apolitical and thought that the
communists of Russia had made a mistake
in taking from the rich what was least
valuable, their money and possessions.
Lipton goes on to point out, however,
that the young bohemians of the twenties
often had expensive, if rather
bizarre,tastes which, in the end,
tripped them up and destroyed their
lifestyle. In this respect the beatniks
were more consistent and [p.122]
thoroughgoing. If they came into a
little money they did not blow it in the
best restaurant in town, and they really
did not want expensive clothes. Poverty,
after all, did not constrain the art
that the beatniks wanted to practise.
And, whether they were also painters,
sculptors, or dancers, they all
participated in those nocturnal sessions
with pot, jazz, and the reading of
poetry. Everyone kept sketchbooks in
which they drew each other, wrote their
poetry, and engaged in every variety of
speculation . Mor e or less free sex
went without saying. The ordinary
excitement that accompanies it was
heightened for the beatniks by the fact
that they could, at any moment, be
arrested, not only for drug possession,
but on such charges as fornication and
adultery.
A good deal of this was comparable,
not only to the twenties, but to dadaism
and even older forms of bohemianism.
Certainly, there was nothing new about
poetry, poverty, art, and free love. On
the other hand, jazz (and the consequent
association with black musicians) and
drugs did make a difference. These
elements produced a community which was
tighter, more isolated, and which was
regarded with even more hostility than
other bohemian communities. There was a
lot of real hate on both sides.
Among other things, the beatniks
developed a way of talking which, once
almost secret, has long since entered
the larger language. In reading Lipton
it is easy to flinch when one comes upon
dialogue such as
"Like, I don't want to bug you man . "
a n d
"Like, that's the scene, man ...."
This is because the only people who
talk that way now are either slimeballs
on probation for writing bad checks, or
are the last tired remnants of youth
cults whose only common ground with the
beatniks consists in the use of drugs.
But that sort of language was once
fresh, and it reflected a group of
people who
felt, often literally, that they were
so trapped in a materialistic and
stifling society that life was
worthwhile only underground. No extremes
of poverty deterred them, and suicide
was often the only alternative. Many
dadaists had felt much the same way
about the utterly conservative life of
the French and German middle classes,
but they lived in societies which a t
least pretended to respect art, music,
and literature. The bohemians in Venice
West were dealing with a society which
not only resisted innovation in art, but
which largely rejected the very [p.123]
idea of poetry in favor of tail fins.
Hoskins came upon the beatniks as
they were flowing into the hippie
movement (and harder drugs) in San
Francisco. He had, in fact, already done
some of the same things in Cincinnati in
association with Ray and others. His
acceptance of poverty, his notions of
free love, and his unconventional art
had all predated his stay in San
Francisco, though they may have been
reinforced there. He had even served his
poetical apprenticeship with The
Naoj. On the other hand, we have
seen that he wrote poetry only for a
fairly short time, and it was probably,
even then, less important to him than to
the beatniks. Hoskins also had
relatively little interest in jazz, or
in the combination of jazz and poetry
that so fascinated Lipton. Thus, he
could never have been counted as a
beatnik, despite a similar outlook. In
the end, there is really only one thing
that he learned from them, but that is
crucial.
In Cincinnati it is difficult for any
person, or any group of persons, to be
truly alienated. No matter how
different, or even crazy, one's
ideology, one will have a whole series
of friends and acquaintances who
represent many different things.
Membership in the Y alone guarantees
that, but so does involvement in almost
any activity. A great many of the people
one meets will be eminently sane and
civilized, and they will not display
hostility unless goaded. It is not
possible for anyone who has any hold on
reality to imagine that they are all
linked in some nefarious plot to destroy
the value of life.
This is not true of the great cities
of the West Coast. Partly because of
their greater size, but mostly for a
number of other reasons, it is possible
to set up isolated communities, running
to the thousands, which have almost no
contact with the outside world. This is
particularly true of San Francisco.
There is now a gay community so
self-sufficient that its members can go
to gay grocers, dentists, and lawyers.
They can even go to church or die
without ever meeting a heterosexual
minister, priest, or embalmer. This has
been true, to a high degree, of the
various other groups that have had their
day in San Francisco, including the
beatniks and hippies.
It also happened that many of the
leading figures in the beatnik movement
were Jewish nonconformists from the east
who had had a major falling out with
their families, their religion, and
their whole tradition. Some were old
enough to remember the more virulent
forms of American anti-Semitism, and,
having left, or been thrown out of,
their own group, they felt doubly
isolated. Add to that the normal
hostility of the public to bohemians and
a police force trying to enforce the
drug laws, and you have good beginnings
for a case of alienation. The
crowning blow, however, was
the fact that many [p.124] of the
beatniks hardly saw anyone outside their
own community in a social, or even a
casual, way. If the outside world is
once allowed to appear as a giant
monolithic force bent on crushing one's
own community, the isolation will
prevent one from ever learning
otherwise. It is then a short step to
attributing unpleasant and threatening
characteristics to almost everyone in
the outside world.
As bohemians, the beatniks were
atypical in this respect. Most bohemians
in most places and times have had a good
deal of contact with a great variety of
people. As one example, the contrast
between beatniks and more traditional
bohemians is nowhere so marked as with
their differing attitudes toward the
rich.
Traditional bohemians, because of
their involvement in art, are more
likely to have some contact with
extremely wealthy people than are most
members o f the middle classes. Indeed,
there is a time-honored stance that
bohemians have taken toward the rich,
and it combines, in one proportion or
another, amusement, contempt, and
toleration. Whatever else the bohemian
may feel about the rich, he does not
generally fear them, nor does he hate
them. On the contrary, he very much
wants them to be there. Not only do they
support the arts, but they give away, or
throw away, all manner of objects which
the bohemian can put to good use. For
example, he does not want a new tuxedo
because it symbolizes a kind of life
which he thinks is silly. But he is
delighted if he can pull a used tuxedo
out of a trash can. It now constitutes a
wonderful piece of camp , and he can
wear it to amuse his friends. The true
bohemian looks upon himself as a
scavenger. A community in which there
are rich people makes for much better
pickings than would be found in the
alleys and thrift stores of, say,
Leningrad or Poznan.
A vivid illustration of this
principle once occurred in a discussion
between two young women, one a bohemian
and the other a committed socialist. The
latter was objecting to the fact that
some rich people owned a good deal of
land adjacent which would be turned over
to the school for a much needed
playground. For this woman, the very
existence of rich people was an affront.
She wanted, above all else, to take away
their possessions and divide them up
among the masses. The young bohemian
took the opposite position. In a society
where even the poor have TV sets, most
of the people already have much more
than they need anyway. Their lives would
not be improved by the addition of
baubles taken from the rich. More
important, this woman much preferred to
live in a world in which there are
beautiful mansions owned by the rich
than one in which they [p.125] have been
turned into ugly playgrounds for the
children of the middle classes. She,
like most bohemians, perceived
socialists as people who want to
eliminate the two interesting classes,
the upper and lower, and create a world
of unrelieved middle-class boredom.
Like other bohemians, the beatniks
saw their main enemies as those
middle-class people who build white
suburbs with no museums, no concert
halls, no interesting cheap restaurants,
and no theatres. But they were just
unbalanced enough to wonder whether all
outsiders, including the rich, were not
in league against them. They lost sight
of the fact that the rich were also
unwelcome in those same suburbs.
Moreover, while the beatniks were expert
scavengers, they seem not to have
felt the traditional amused
superiority toward the people who threw
away the objects they collected .
The beatnik attitude toward the rich
did not make them political, much less
socialist. They wanted wealth even less
than the bohemians of the twenties, and
the idea of dispossessing the rich never
even occurred to them. But there were
occasional displays of anger toward the
rich. Unlike previous bohemians, they
did not have that minimal contact with
the wealthy, and did not sell them art.
Then, too, they lived in a society in
which there was much more pressure to
"succeed" and acquire wealth for
themselves than was the case, say, in
Paris of the nineties. It is harder to
be comfortably contemptuous of the rich
when one was brought up to believe that
only they can be happy. The upshot was
that, if one caught a beatnik in one of
those occasional bursts of anger, one
might have mistaken him for a political
person. This was true of Hoskins as
well, and it goes some way to explain
the "political" aspects of his message
on TV.
Before Hoskins set out for San
Francisco, he may have had a touch of
paranoia, but it was nothing compared to
that of the beatniks. However, from
hearing him talk about his San Francisco
days, it was clear that he had been
affected to the point where he had, in
some moods, come to think of himself as
being in fundamental opposition to
society from the top to the bottom.
The beatniks were intellectuals in
essence, and were as harmless as most of
those in universities. Hoskins, however,
was much more a man of action. In San
Francisco he met, not only latter-day
beatniks, but other men of action.
Around the edges of the beatnik and
hippie communities were some extremely
intense people in the martial arts. Some
were Oriental masters, and some were
overheated Americans, but they all
preferred violence to poetry. The line,
however, was fine. In judo, for example,
one is supposed to grip the jacket of
the other only [p.126] lightly. Some of
the best practitioners operate with such
speed and delicacy that one would think
there was hardly any force involved
until one sees the other man hit the m a
t so hard that he bounces. Since there
is also room for invention and
expression, it is easy to think of judo,
and the other martial arts, as "true
art". This explains the fact that, in
San Francisco and elsewhere, there has
been a certain amount of contact
between poets, painters, and martial
artists. On the other hand, if a similar
sensibility is involved, the motivation
may be different. For example, one
of Hoskins' workout partners left
suddenly to become a mercenary soldier
in Africa.
The continued contact with
beatnik-hippies who had a distorted view
of the outside world and
beatnik-oriented mystic martial artists
who wanted to kill someone seems to have
upset Hoskins' own natural balance to
the point where he got ideas which
probably would not have occurred to him
in Cincinnati. Even then, these
terrorist ideas and plans would probably
have dissipated when he returned to
Cincinnati if they had not become part
of his notion of art.
Hoskins' own way of bridging whatever
gap there was between the martial arts
and the traditional arts involved, among
other things, the making of beautiful
weapons. Theseincluded many knives, a
couple of swords, and a kendo stick.
Practice with them amounted to a kind of
ballet, but a ballet which was really a
rehearsal for something else. Since
there was already a continuum ranging
from the poetry of the beatniks to the
weapon-less martial arts, such as judo,
karate, and aikido, it was easy to
extend that continuum a bit further to
include weapons. Further, even the
violent use of weapons could be seen as
an art, almost as much as sculpture or
poetry. It could be violent art turned
against oneself, as in the Japanese
ceremony of seppuku, or the
elimination of others with maximum grace
and economy. By the time Hoskins
returned to Cincinnati, he found it
possible to practise violent art at the
same time that he was producing those
delicate collages.
Hoskins was not the only violent
artist in history, nor was violence
limited to dadaists, German
expressionists, and beat artists. Such
elements are to be found, not only in
what is portrayed in art and literature,
but in the motivation of many artists
and writers. Joseph Conrad, in an
author's note to a collection of
stories, remarked that he was
considerably abused for publishing
"Freya of the Seven Isles" on the ground
of its cruelty.
"I remember one letter from a man in America who was quite furiously angry. He told me with curses and imprecations that I had no right to write such an abominable thing which, he [p.127] said, had gratuitously and intolerably harrowed his feelings. It was a very interesting letter to read. Impressive too. I carried it for some days in my pocket."
This sort of thing is not so
surprising when one considers that
artists have the same agressive
instincts as other people. Irritation at
the rest of the world is surely part of
the essence of life, and an artist has
some rather powerful weapons which he
can use, generally without even getting
into trouble. Conrad, while
systematically destroying the characters
he had led his readers to identify with,
probably chuckled to himself as he
imagined the effect he was producing.
Hoskins certainly had his share of
aggressive tendencies behind the
pleasant facade, and his brief forays
into sculpture and poetry were
apparently not sufficient to satisfy
them. The aura of violence crept into
much of his work in a number of media,
but, unlike the figure of the fighter,
which was intensely realistic, there was
also an increasing air of unreality.
While this last is hard to describe,
it is helpful to compare it to the
unreality of science fiction movies
which contain whole worlds full of
strange beings exploding violently in
brilliant unfamiliar colors. Such
visions may prompt the viewer to wonder
whether he is really standing on solid
ground, and, more basically, whether the
little world of earthlings, or anything
in it, really makes any important
difference in the infinitely larger
scheme of things.
There was something else in Hoskins'
environment, in Cincinati as well as San
Francisco, which reinforced any movement
in the direction of unreality. It would
be no exaggeration to say that
ninety-five per cent of bohemian artists
believe in ghosts, astrology,
extra-sensory perception, and a good
deal else. Of course, such beliefs are
almost as wide-spread in the present
generation of, say, college youth.
In one instance, two psychology
classes were presented with a stage
magician who performed tricks of the
"mental" sort. In one class he was
introduced as someone who believed
himself to have special powers. In the
second merely as a graduate student and
amateur magician who performed standard
tricks and wanted to brush up his act.
Almost as large a majority of the
students in the second class as in the
first attributed special powers to the
magician, powers he did not even claim
for himself. The conclusion seems to be
that the fanciful and the supernatural
are so much a part of ordinary
"experience" for so many young people
that they are ready to see such things
almost anywhere, regardless of contrary
evidence.
There are two important differences
in this respect between college students
and bohemian artists. For students, such
beliefs [p.128] are often part of a fad,
and they are frequently given up after
graduation. If a young man or woman gets
a job with IBM, it is unlikely that the
office manager wants to be asked what
his birth sign is. On the other hand,
bohemians almost never work for IBM.
They thus encourage each other in the
opposite direction, gaining more layers
of belief a s they go along.
The other difference concerns
religion. Most college students claim to
have a religion and to have a belief in
God, no matter how vague it may be. The
occult world is then tacked on to some
set of religious beliefs without any
concern for logical consistency. Still,
the exotic beliefs, whether they come
from contemporary science fiction or
ancient superstition, are held in check
by fairly orthodox religious beliefs.
These may actually be just as fanciful,
but everyone is used to them, and they
do not seem as extraordinary.
Bohemians tend to regard religion,
and even God, as middle-class creations.
One of them, when considering the
conversion of a disused church into a
studio, quipped,
"Of course, we'll have to de-sanctify it and get in a priest in to chase God out."
Hoskins, with his orientation toward
science and technology, was much less
subject to these influences than most of
his friends and acquaintances. Still, no
one could have lived in his circle
without being acutely conscious of
beliefs in the supernatural. This
atmosphere probably had some effect on
his art, and it is quite possible that
his collages contained supernatural
symbolism. Apart from all else, it is
quite easy to imagine his taking
artistic advantage of things that he did
not really believe in. Indeed, a
bohemian artist who did not share the
beliefs of his milieu would have to make
some accommodation to them in order to
communicate with anyone.
Sometimes the unreality was of a
different and less literal kind. Bizarre
feelings, moral notions or social
practices in unlikely combinations. For
example, the grotesque and suicidal
dolls combined notions of traditional
childhood with kinds of self
destructiveness and blackness of soul
which most people would hardly expect in
children. There is such a thing as
juvenile suicide, but the concept that
Hoskins produced requires almost as much
an abandonment of ordinary common sense
attitudes as that required by the notion
of inter-galactic travel. [p.129]At
least in those who know nothing about
disturbed children. Even the idea of
capturing time on television sounds a
little like the suggestion of one of
Conrad's characters in The Secret
Agent that one could, by blowing
up the Greenwich Observatory, blow up
the first meridian, and thereby destroy
the faith of the British middle class in
science. The fact that Hoskins' scheme
actually worked makes it seem less
fantastic than it really was. Even then,
it was probably more realistic than many
of his other ideas.
The last phase of Hoskins' violent
art, while partly motivated by attitudes
he may have acquired from the beatnicks,
was too wild in its content to have been
in spired by them. Similarly, with one
exception, it was too uninhibited to
have come fromthe dadaists or
expressionists. That exception is the
German dadaist poet, Hugo Ball.
Hoskins really became enthusiastic
about the dadaists only after he
returned from San Francisco. It was in
connection with an interest in
architecture sometime in the
mid-seventies that he came across
Schwitters' concept of a Merzbau,
or living space constructed entirely out
of found objects artistically
integrated. Since the idea of building
one's own dwelling out of clutter and
junk to suit one's tastes appealed to
him greatly, he was led to explore the
other ideas of the dadaists, and came
eventually to Ball. Although Hoskins was
no longer writing poetry by this time,
he was still capable of being profoundly
affected by it. Towards the end,
however, there seems to have been no
poet other than Ball who got through to
Hoskins strongly enough to make him
alter his own course.
On the surface, no one could have
been more different. Sickly as a child
and adult, Ball grew up kissing the
picture of the Sistine Madonna at the
foot of his bed, and went through life
depending, first on his mother, and then
on a wife who took her place.
Unfortunately for Ball, his extremely
strong religious tendency was paired
with an even stronger hatred for that
same brand of German Catholicism. He
seems to have hated himself for his lack
of independence and, not being able to
achieve it, put the blame instead on his
religion. He characterized it as
feminine, and it seemed to Ball to have
robbed him of the traditional masculine
virtues. Many would not have viewed
Catholicism in this way, but Ball's own
religious practice was somewhat
idiosyncratic. After all, an excessive
tendency to kiss the Madonna is not
likely to help a boy shoulder his way in
amongst the tough kids on the vacant
lot. Whatever its origin, Ball's
struggle against religion kept him
perpetually on the edge of a nervous
breakdown until, toward the end of his
life, he reconverted to the religion
which he had so detested.
Despite all these differences, the
thing that connects some of [p.140]
Hoskins' art, and a good deal of his
thinking, with Ball's sort of dadaism
can be illustrated with a typical stanza
from the latter's poetry:
This is the time when the Behemothraises his nose above the salty tide.The people jump from burning boatsinto green slime, glowing beneath the fire.
In German these rough, powerful, and
threatening images are even stronger:
Das ist die Zeit, in der der BehemothDie Nase hubt aus den gasalzenen Fluten.Die Menschen springen von den brennenden Schutenin grunen Schlamm, den Feuer uberloht.
Whether or not Hoskins actually read
this poem, it is the sort of thing that
would have appealed to him. For one
thing, the images might easily have come
from those science-fiction movies he
liked so well. For another, the
implicitly violent picture of a sea
monster about to devour people jumping
from
burning boats into a poisonous green slime
had just the sort of impact that he so
often looked for. Sometimes Ball went beyond concrete
images to achieve that impact. In his
long anti-Catholic phase he liked
nothing better than to portray the
Virgin Mary as a prostitute and, not
content with that, he seemed also to
attribute to her the seeds of almost
every perversion which later arose in
Christianity. In describing the birth of
Christ, Ball attempts to make every
detail both grotesque and ugly. For
example, he describes the mother's labor
cries as ripping her teeth from her
jaws, but, in return, bringing
forth a shower of ill-gotten gold.
Lines and ideas such as these are
most likely to occur to an ex-Catholic,
but the tone of Ball's work, while
repelling a good many people, appealed
to Hoskins. He was not put off by either
the brutality or the inherent wildness,
particularly when he saw that harsh ugly
ideas and images were capable of
overwhelming the platitudes that most
people live with.
Below the surface, there is a
considerable similarity between Ball, a
largely unknown poet and writer even in
his native country, and Hoskins, a
similarly obscure artist in Cincinnati.
Of course, there are the violent images
in the work of each, and the fact of
each occasionally being on the brink of
suicide. But the most important
similarity is the fact that each man
conducted a lifelong and ultimately
unsuccessful revolt against something
that he had been brought up in, and
which had [p.131] penetrated deep into
his spirit.
Even in his most anti-religious
periods, Ball talked in religious terms,
and his violence was of a Catholic kind.
Hoskins was not affected in that way by
any religion, but just as deep in his
culture was the idea that man is born to
fight. The fighting had to be physical,
and it could be conducted with guns,
knives, or fists, but, best of all, with
guns. Life must therefore be highly
competitive, but it is necessary that
even the winners ultimately die by
gunshot when faced with overwhelming
odds.
It may seem odd to compare an
attitude such as this, apparently
fragmentary and individualistic, with
one of the world's major religions. Such
an objection would rest on a
misunderstanding of both. As regards the
religion, Roman Catholics the world over
may, in theory, subscribe to the same
doctrines. But that is only a small part
of the story. The feelings, the derived
beliefs, and even the behavior of Roman
Catholics all vary greatly from place to
place and from time to time. In fact,
Ball's German Catholicism was probably
quite different from even the
Catholicism of German Catholic
Cincinnati. Moreover, for all we know,
it might have been the kind of thing
which would have had a strong effect on
Hoskins (or anyone else) if he had
encountered it.
On the other side, the particular
code of masculinity which eventually
helped bring about Hoskins' death looms
larger and more widely than many people
realize. It is obviously part of life in
the southern mountains with their famous
feuds, and this kind of ethos has been
ably described by Tom Wolfe in his
accounts of the race driver Junior
Johnson and the (West Virginia) test
pilot Chuck Yeager. Moreover, in the way
that the very language of Appalachia
reflects something much older, so do its
customs and its notions of manhood.
One can find ideas of this sort in
English literature going right back to Beowulf,
but some of the most vivid
manifestations are in the Norse sagas,
that other great spawning ground for
masculine romanticism in both the
English and German traditions. While the
sagas are full of battles, attention is
directed most especially to single
combats. Here the accidental factors are
minimized. While they are not usually
arranged duels in the later European
sense, they are almost always
prompted by the need for a man to
take revenge in order to preserve his
honor. They are, in fact, almost exactly
like such feuds as those between the
Hatfields and the McCoys, not to mention
what goes on now in Cocke County,
Tennessee and Harlan County, Kentucky.
As in Appalachia, the cycle of
violent death and retribution in the
sagas is accompanied by a good deal of
earthy humor. A sort of joke which keeps
recurring is prompted when one [p.132]
warrior cuts off the leg of another with
an axe. When the second looks down in
shock and disbelief to see his leg
missing, the victor laughs loudly and
remarks,
"It's as you think. It's off."
Not, perhaps, the sort of humor
current in suburban breakfast nooks and
recreation areas, but one which Hoskins
would have understood
Also familiar to both Ball and
Hoskins would be certain recurring
images and events. When Skarp-Hedin
Njalsson wishes to pick a fight with
another man, he suggests that the latter
remove from his moustache the hairs from
the posterior of the mare with whom he
has just been in intimate contact.
Again, when he goes sliding across a
frozen stream and strikes an enemy in
the back of the head with his axe, the
blow is described as being so powerful
as to knock the victim's teeth out of
his jaws onto the ice. This cycle of
murder and revenge did take its toll,
and, in Iceland, the warriors so
decimated each other that most present
Icelanders are descended largely from
the Scottish and Irish slaves (who were
beneath the requirements of honor). This
basic pattern of self-destructiveness is
also noticeable in certain Appalachian
communities.
The place of honor in the sagas tends
to go to a special kind of single
combat: that where a great hero fights
all his enemies singlehandedly, and is
eventually killed. The idea seems to be
that a hero who fights his enemies only
one at a time is never fully tested and
extended to the utmost. Death should
take place under circumstances which
allow him to claim the position of the
greatest warrior of his time. The
greatest hero of the Icelandic sagas,
Gunnar of Hlidarend, is killed in this
fashion when the heroine refuses to help
him by allowing him to cut off her
beautiful hair for a new bow-string.
While, so far as is known, Hoskins was
not acquainted with the sagas, he
clearly had in mind a death comparable
to that of Gunnar.
It c a n thus be seen that the
traditions to which Ball and Hoskins
respectively belonged are comparable
with respect to their antiquity, and
that the secular one could easily play a
role comparable to that of a religion in
the minds of its adherents.
In any culture there are some who
simply reject such ideas and go happily
about their business. At the other
extreme are those who internalize the
values and beliefs of their culture.
Ball probably had relatives such as that
in the priesthood, and some of the
Hatfields and McCoys undoubtedly died
happily with bullets in their brains.
The most unfortunate people are those
caught half-way between. The ones who
strive mightily to achieve the goals
they cannot but hate.
[p.133]
[p.133]
No one who knew Hoskins perceived
him as upholding the ideology of the
southern mountains any more than Ball's
friends (over most of his life) would
have seen him as a proponent of
Catholicism. Hoskins spent the vast
majority of his time trying to replace
competition with independent parallel
development. He made friends by the
dozens where an antagonistic man would
have made enemies. He tried to avoid
challenging and confronting people with
as much energy as Ball spent on
prostituting the Virgin. He tried to
show in every way possible that there is
an independent kind of masculinity which
consists of individual private
accomplishment, and which need not lead
to the vanquishing of others.
Such a struggle produces basic
conflicts and moments of deep
depression. Ball did not attempt to hide
them. Hoskins did. The jokes, the
friendliness, and the air of intelligent
reasonableness were all part of an
attempt to put a pleasant face on a
quite different, and quite difficult,
reality. Only on rare occasions did
anything else show through, as in the
smashing of furniture and art. When he
tried to hide the true meaning of even
these episodes, Hoskins probably paid
too great a price in order to maintain
his emotional independence and avoid
confiding in others. It is quite
possible that it was Ball's inability to
hide these self-doubts that enabled him
to hold out many more years before
retreating to the faith of his
ancestors.
In addition to this life parallel,
which was probably accidental, there was
also a definite artistic influence of
Ball on Hoskins. Ball would often write
quite disconnected poetry with some
lines and phrases included merely for
sound. But, then, there would be exotic
images and fantasies. In "The Sun" the
poet imagines himself stretched out on
the ground with his boots resting on the
horizon and his eyes narrowed to distort
the world. It then seems to him that the
sun, whose "wisps flash vermilion into
the world's night", may fall and crush
the town and church towers. As the poem
continues, the whole is transformed into
an artistic happening in which the sun
will be loaded onto a wagon and
taken to Caspari's art gallery. A
beast-headed negro
"with bulging neck, bladder nose and a long stridewill hold fifty whitebucking asses like those yoked to wagons at thebuilding of pyramids.A crowd of bloodbright people will clot thestreet: midwives and wetnurses,invalids in wheel chairs, a stilting crane,two female St. Vitus dancers,a man with a ribbed silk tie and a [p.134]
red-smelling policeman."
What happens over and over again,
with both Ball and Hoskins, is a quick
and effortless transition from violent
ideas and images to an artistic
spectacle with humorous overtones. All
this then gives rise to euphoria, a
state of mind which makes almost
anything possible. Ball's poem ends with
the poet remarking that he is full of
joy and cannot stop. He wants to make a
new sun by striking two together like
cymbals, at which point he will fly off
with his lady in a violet sedan.
Recently, when I gave this poem to a
poet and critic who had never heard of
Hugo Ball, he read it through and
remarked,
"This man is completely crazy, isn't
he?"
The man had no way of knowing how right he was, but his reaction seems indicative of something significant about Ball and his effect on Hoskins. It is not just the fact of Ball imagining himself to be a stretched-out giant with his boots resting on the horizon, or his making a new sun. Many sane poets have permitted themselves flights of fancy such as that. It is something much more subtle, having to do with the way that ideas and images are developed and run together. Something that adds up to the conclusion that the poet is not just developing fancies but is quite possibly describing the world he sees in literal terms.
The man had no way of knowing how right he was, but his reaction seems indicative of something significant about Ball and his effect on Hoskins. It is not just the fact of Ball imagining himself to be a stretched-out giant with his boots resting on the horizon, or his making a new sun. Many sane poets have permitted themselves flights of fancy such as that. It is something much more subtle, having to do with the way that ideas and images are developed and run together. Something that adds up to the conclusion that the poet is not just developing fancies but is quite possibly describing the world he sees in literal terms.
It has been argued against people
like Ball that they are essentially
destructive, and have little to offer in
the way of hope. This complaint is an
old one, but it has little foundation.
Pessimism may happen to be true, and it
is nothing against it to point out that
it is, indeed, pessimistic. There may be
many reasons for pointing out impending
catastrophes, even if one has oneself no
plan for avoiding them. Quite apart from
practical consequences, to reject this
sort of thinking because it is
depressing is to blind oneself to a good
deal that is most valuable in art.
In view of these facts, it is odd
that this criticism weighed so heavily
on Ball. He reported later that, when he
began the dadaist movement by reciting
his poetry at the Cafe Voltaire in 1917,
he was in such a state of near emotional
collapse that he could scarcely
continue. Evidently he had such a
fervent need to believe the things he
had been taught as a child that the
nihilistic tendencies he found in
himself terified him.
Hoskins, o n the other hand, took
naturally to nihilism. All dadaists
thought that art is partly a joke. This
includes even Ball, as can be seen from
some of his "sound poetry." For Ball,
however, it was a frightening, and
ultimately horrible, joke. [p.135]
Hoskins, by the time he encountered
dadaism, had already concluded that art
was, at best, a good joke, and he was
pleased to find others who agreed with
him. Then, since there was obviously
nothing worth doing beyond art, apart
from those abdominal exercises, there
really was not much to be lost by
devoting one's life to the joke. The
fact that a movement in art (or anything
else) led nowhere was a sort of
recommendation for Hoskins. As we will
see in the next chapter, he believed
that there was nowhere to go, at least
nowhere that anyone would want to be.
[p.136] BLANK
[p.136] BLANK
The
Final Straw: Norman Spinrad
In addition to his TV interview,
Hoskins left another message, more
ambiguous and considerably less public,
but just as forceful in its own way.
After he killed Melanie, he arranged her
carefully with her arms folded over her
stomach, and he placed a book in her
hand. If Hoskins had been a more
ordinary sort of terrorist, the book
would have been a treatise of a
political nature. Indeed, when the
police reported only the title, "Agent
of Chaos", one might have supposed as
much. It is, in fact, a science fiction
novel by Norman Spinrad, one of the few
authors of fiction Hoskins seems to have
read seriously.
When asked, Hoskins would most often
say that he did not read fiction
at all. This was something of a puzzle.
He may have been self-educated, but he
had educated himself in every other
direction, including poetry and moies.
Moreover, in all the time he spent
at the library, he must have passed by
the large collection of fiction on the
ground floor thousands of times in
search of those beloved facts of his.
The implication seemed to be that he did
not have time for any fantasies other
than his own. It is thus worth asking
why he broke his general rule to read
Spinrad, and why this particular novel
was singled out for this gesture.
Part of the answer lies in certain
peculiarities of Spinrad as a writer. Of
obvious ability, he can sometimes create
believable and rather fascinating
characters, and he has written some good
books. At other times, he seems not to
bother, being content with characters
who do not come alive. In any case, his
books circulate mostly on news-stands,
and even the best ones are hard to find
in libraries and bookstores. In addition
to working out the technical details
which are so much a part of science
fiction, Spinrad seems to be much more
interested in his own visions of social
organization than in individual
character. These visions are on such a
large scale as to transcend anything
that could be called politics. While
there are references to various sorts of
utopia, not to mention futuristic
anti-utopias, Spinrad is neither an
enthusiastic dreamer nor a biting
satirist. There is an arm's length
quality to much of his writing which
suggests that he is more interested in
these visions themselves than in
connecting them with any program of
social change. Indeed, it is quite easy
to lose track of the real world
altogether when reading Spinrad.
[p.138]
[p.138]
Someone who was more used to fiction
might have tired of his writings.
However, someone who reads more for
ideas, both technological and abstract,
than for the excitement of character
development might find almost all of
Spinrad's work congenial. Apparently it
was so with Hoskins. Each book has some
entral concept which is both novel and
striking, and the feeling of being
slightly adrift without even the comfort
of recognizable human nature probably
would not have bothered that particular
reader. After all, some of his own work
had that same dizzying quality.
Whatever the motivation, anyone who
knew Hoskins well, and later read
Spinrad, would realize that Hoskins had
read a good many of the former's books,
and often referred to them in a veiled
way. I can remember, for example, one
rather esoteric discussion about the
role of premises in logic. It puzzled me
atthe time. Then, when he later, in
front of Steve, referred humorously to
the obscurity of my views on the
subject, I really wondered what he was
on to. It was not like him to have
random interests that were not connected
with one of his projects, but he gave no
hint of the context for this one. It was
only after his death, when I read
Spinrad's The Solarians, that I
realized that the discussion came right
out of a passage in that book.
One idea that runs through a good
deal of Spinrad's work concerns the
possibility of a society which is, in
large part, controlled by computers. In
The Solarians thereis a
non-human species called the Duglaari
who once had an absolute dictator who
attempted to give himself a certain sort
of immortality. He did this by storing
in a huge computer a master program
which governed almost every aspect of
the life of all citizens, and which
reflected only his own values and ideas.
Then, in order to enforce this code and
make whatever decisions were left over,
the machine itself chose from among all
candidates, rulers who resembled this
first ruler as closely as possible. In
addition, all breeding was controlled in
order to make everyone conform to the
template of the original ruler, and this
had the consequence of making all
citizens highly mechanistic. Moreover,
the largest grouping of humans, who are
involved in a losing war of attrition
with the Duglaari, find that, in order
to compete at all, they have to make
themselves as much like the Duglaari as
possible.
This idea of a society becoming ever
more tightly controlled until everything
anyone does conforms to a
pre-established program is advanced only
as fiction, and pertains to a future
world imagined by the author. On the
other hand, since it comes up repeatedly
in different books, and in different
contexts, it is easy to see how it might
feed certain sorts of paranoia. A
[p.139] modest amount of "paranoia" is
normal among normal people in the
Washington Park area. They know that
they do not have control over a great
many things that affect them, and the
residents there are as powerless as any
in the city. One does not have to be
unbalanced in order to wonder what
unpleasant surprises the city may have
in store for one, and to believe that
all the so-called "planning commissions"
may well have interests alien to one's
own.
An outside observer may see the
treatment of the poor, not as a plot,
still less a computerized one, but
simply as a result of the fact that
society is run by affluent people who
have no personal concern for the poor.
Naturally, they allocate most resources
to the projects in which they do have a
special interest. On the other hand,
many people are quick to attribute their
own poor treatment to hostility rather
than to neglect. There is more dignity
in having enemies than in being too
unimportant to be noticed.
If one starts with a healthy
suspicion of the more prosperous
elements of society, and is then put in
a position to watch the poor being
gradually pushed out by local government
and business acting in concert, it would
not be terribly unreasonable to conclude
that the society as a whole is becoming
ever more tightly organized and
controlled. This is the sort of picture
Spinrad keeps painting, and it probably
had some influence on Hoskins. He
certainly did not believe that we are
presently all under the control of some
great machine, nor did he think that the
whole city government was uniformly
opposed to the poor. He believed, for
example, that his cousin by marriage, a
conservative city council member, had a
genuine concern for the plight of the
poor. Still, he was pessimistic about
the long-range future and may have
accepted Spinrad's implicit predictions
about the next century.
In The Solarians, the
Duglaari are neither merciful nor
especially merciless when they have
conquered a previously human solar
system. Efficiency prevails, and they
quickly crowd all the humans, whom they
consider vermin, into a small
reservation. The humans then kill each
other off in competition for whatever
small amount of food and water there may
happen to be. There is here a
recognizable analogy to the treatment of
the urban poor on the part of the middle
class, and Hoskins particularly noted in
his interview that the residents of his
district were deliberately crowded and
set against each other. It is quite
possible that he also had the Duglaari
in mind.
Another piece of the puzzle consists in Mind Game, released only in August of 1980: This is one of Spinrad's best books, and, since Hoskins soon afterwards began a project of his own which coincided with one in the book, it is fairly safe to assume that [p.140] he read it. He was probably, by that time, looking out for anything by Spinrad, but, as with the other books, he spoke about it only indirectly.
This book is only half fiction and
comes close to being an expose of a
large and thriving semi-religious cult
[*] with branches in all major cities
and countries. In the book Spinrad calls
it "Transformationalism", and the
purpose of this sect is mainly to make
money at the expense of ordinary people
with weak egos who are enrolled and
reduced virtually to voluntary serfdom.
There is a heavy reliance on personality
tests, pseudo-scientific gadgetry, and
adaptations of many sorts of legitimate
and illegitimate therapy. There are
"life directives" which cannot be
disobeyed, and which are backed up with
the threat of violence. As in the case
of certain actual sects, some people who
have really challenged the leadership
have even been killed in circumstances
so bizarre as to render prosecution
ineffective for lack of anything
resembling a sane witness.
[* The Scientologists and L. Ron Hubbard, of course--ADT]
[* The Scientologists and L. Ron Hubbard, of course--ADT]
The hero of this novel is a small
time movie director, Jack Weller, who
loses his wife, Annie, to
Transformationalism. When she receives a
life directive not to communicate with
him at all, he goes, first to his
lawyer, and then to a "deprogrammer."
Since there are no legal remedies, his
only option is to join the sect himself
in order to find Annie. Once enrolled,
he has to convince each echelon in turn
that, while he joined for ulterior
motives, he is really becoming a true
believer. Spinrad here portrays
skillfully the battle of a man trying to
keep his sanity while holding down a
demanding job, spending almost all his
free time being barraged by propaganda,
and then secretly reporting to his
frankly mercenary deprogrammer whom he
only half trusts.
The novel culminates when Jack meets
the leader. of the cult, John B.
Steinhardt, who is a drunken former
science fiction writer with a winning
cynicism and great overall charm. At
that point Jack finds Annie, but also
finds that her personality has been
"eptified" to the point where he no
longer wants her, particularly when it
appears that whe will not leave the
movement under any circumstances.
The treatment of Annie, a beautiful
(but not especially intelligent) young
actress, is quite effective. Bored and
frustrated with her career, the
transformationalists begin by offering
her analysis of her problems at bargain
rates. Then it is suggested that some of
their treatments will help, and they do,
in fact, make her feel better. At the
next stage, her transformationalist
therapist exploits Annie's conficts with
her husband and convinces her that she
must either get him to join or leave
him. When Jack reacts violently she does
leave him. By this time, her problems
far outdistance the resources she has
for dealing [p.141] with them, and she
becomes increasingly dependent on the
movement. Finally, she discovers that,
if she puts all her trust in
Transformationalism, she is spared the
pain of having to think about her
problems at all.
By the time Jack finds John B.
Steinhardt and Annie, he is in so much
trouble with the movement that he is
threatened with death. He leaves under
an agreement not to divulge any of his
knowledge, and the book ends with Jack
refusing an otherwise golden opportunity
to direct a movie on a related subject.
Transformationalism is depicted as
having corporate tentacles in all
directions, and Jack thinks the offer to
direct the movie may have come as a kind
of test to see if he intends to keep his
bargain.
In the last months of his life
Hoskins became interested in the
organization that Mind Game
seems to depict. He decided to play a
scientific hoax on this sect and wrote
claiming that he had invented a
perpetual motion machine. The
correspondence was soon in high gear,
and, whenever Hoskins got a letter, he
would laugh uproariously and show it to
his friends. If he had lived, he would
undoubtedly have carried things much
further.
Hoskins' friends were disturbed by
this and warned him of the dangers of
fooling around with people who, at the
least, were capable of being monumental
nuisances. In retrospect it seems likely
that Hoskins, having read Mind Game,
knew more about them than we did, and
took them on as a challenge. While, like
so many things that he did, it was
partly a joke, he put too much time and
energy into his frankly bogus perpetual
motion machine for it to be just that.
Probably he hoped to convince the
leaders of at least the local branch of
the validity of his project in the hope
that they would eventually go public
with it and make fools of themselves.
The book pictures the leaders of the
sect, with the partial exception of John
B. Steinhardt, as bullies and
victimizers of the first order. Perhaps
Hoskins felt a little as he had in the
Marines, and wanted to show a few people
what it is like to be victims of a hoax.
Moreover, even though Hoskins seemed the
last kind of person to confuse
fiction with reality, he may at times
have felt as if he were going to avenge
Jack and Annie.
Yet another of Spinrad's books that
dovetails with aspects of Hoskins' life
is Bug Jack Barron. The
protagonist of this book, which is set
in the relatively near future, is host
of a talk show in which the callers tell
him what "bugs" them. If the host, Jack
Barron, is then bugged, he gets the
public figure responsible on the
videophone and conducts a three way live
roundabout right on the television
program.
Barron is a master of TV technique,
and has the advantage, [p.142] not only
of his quick wits, but of the ability to
make the image of his opponent on the
screen become smaller and grayer without
warning. He can also lower the
opponent's voice or cut it off
altogether. Barron has thus become a
powerful figure who can publicly cut
politicians and captains of industry to
pieces, and he has an audience of a
hundred million.
None of the characters in Spinrad's
books seem, on the surface, to be very
much like Hoskins, and, in the case of The
Solarians and Mind Game,
he seems to have been influenced more by
the general view of the world than by
any particular character. In the case of
Bug Jack Barron there may be a
more personal influence. And that
influence may have existed despite the
fact that Jack Barron has an entirely
different style from that of Hoskins.
Barron is enormously ambitious, is
almost humorless, and has a basic
disc-jockey show-biz personality. No one
would have described Hoskins in any of
those ways, but these differences
nevertheless pertain more to style than
to substance, and they should not be
allowed to obscure some basic
similarities.
First, then, consider ambition. The
person who, like Barron, lets everyone
see his naked need to succeed does not
necessarily have a greater need than
someone who hides it and lets it
ultimately come out only in strange or
perverted ways. In addition to what is
ordinarily called ambition there is
clearly an inhibitory factor, and there
is no reason to think that it is
constant, always letting the same
proportion of the iceberg show above
water. In Hoskins' case there is some
reason to think that the hidden
component was considerable. Over the
last ten years there have been a number
of incidents in Cincinnati in which art
exhibitions have been disrupted. Whether
or not Hoskins had anything to do with
those disruptions, he did talk about
such things with some of his friends.
This is the sort of thing one would
expect from frustrated ambition. The
artist who sees that work inferior to
his own is accepted where his would be
rejected will, if he has any ambition at
all, feel bitterly. If he is a man of
action, he may be inclined to try to do
something to rectify the situation, even
if the act is little more than symbolic.
Closely related t o Barron's ambition
is his exhibitionism. It is not enough
for him to gain secret power, but he
must have fame and attention as well. A
tendency to exhibitionism is also a
quality which i s widely distributed,
and, paradoxically enough, it can b e
hidden for a suprisingly long time, as
in Hoskins' case. Still, no one who
ended as he did could have lacked that
quality, and his need may even have
approached Barron's. What is strikingly
different about Barron is merely that he
makes no more pretensions to modesty
than to humility. [p.143] To continue
our comparison of a fictional character
with a real one, anyone meeting them
would have been struck by the fact that
Hoskins had much better manners. Where
Barron insults people as a matter of
course and runs roughshod over all sorts
of feelings, Hoskins smiled, often
talked guardedly, and displayed
considerable sensitivity. This may
reveal, not so much a difference in
attitude toward others, but a difference
in style attributable, i n no s m a l l
part, to the difference between
Tennessee and New York City.
Even more striking is the fact that,
while humor accompanied Hoskins right to
his death, Barron seems almost entirely
without a sense of fun. For many people,
the charge of humorlessness amounts
almost to the worst condemnation
possible. On the positive side, it is
often believed that a humorous
"good-natured" person is bound to have a
whole range of other virtues. For
example, i t was probably because of
that trait that many believed that
Hoskins would be incapable of violence.
What emerges is that humor, like good
manners, is part of a style with which
one does things, but may not have much
connection with the things one decides
to do. Again like good manners, it is an
extremely effective style. A person of
humor and charm can get away with
actions that a crude humorless person
would not even dare contemplate. Our
culture, by attaching the wrong kind of
importance to style, tends to blind us
to the more dangerous features that
linked Barron and Hoskins.
After abstracting from superficial qualities, one can see that Barron is very nearly the embodiment of one of Hoskins' most persistent fantasies. Not only is he the defender of any underdog who can get through to him, but it is hard to imagine any more potent threat to the kinds of big league bullies who were almost entirely out of Hoskins' reach. When Barron, with his hundred million viewers behind him, calls an elected official or corporate head, the victim does not dare to be "unavailable." Then, when he does get on the videophone, he finds himself on Barron's turf, playing under Barron's rules, and without any preparation for the unpleasant surprises Barron will spring on him. Hoskins must have realized that, fictional though they were, these techniques were light years ahead of beating up bullies physically.
It may have been no accident that the
closing episode of Bug Jack Barron
parallels part of the closing episode o
f Hoskins' life. In the course of his
activity Barron becomes implicated in a
murder which h e did not directly
intend, but for which he justly feels
partly responsible. This leads to the
suicide of his woman friend, and he
confesses everything on his television
show. Like Hoskins, he also takes that
opportunity to make a social statement.
It would be too much to say that Hoskins
did [p.144] these things because Barron
did them. Better to say that both men
shared a number of attitudes, that they
lived in a potentially violent
atmosphere, and that neither was exactly
a shrinking violet.
There is also a more important and
less speculative connection between
Barron and Hoskins. In the book, Barron
comes increasingly to think that
people in politics, and public life
generally, are power-junkies who need to
increase their power in the same way
that an addict needs an ever increasing
supply of heroin. All these people have
lost sight of whatever social concerns
may have originally moved them. For that
matter, Barron believes that even
youthful revolutionaries are likely to
be more strongly motivated by that
same desire for power, and by hate for
their elders, than by love for the
oppressed. While Barron is labelled as a
cop-out by his erstwhile friends in
politics, he claims that their
motivation is no better. He, at least,
does not delude himself.
These views are held by many people,
and Hoskins probably had such a position
long before he read the book. It may, in
fact, have been one of the things that
endeared Spinrad to him. However,
Spinrad then goes a step further.
Barron, because of his immense
popularity, is offered a presidential
nomination by a coalition of major
parties. He is about to refuse on the
ground that he already has more
influence than he would as president,
but accepts only because he thinks that
he can use a presidential campaign to
enhance even further his position in
show business. The book ends with him on
the point of winning the election, but
also intending to resign immediately
afterwards.
The idea that a talk show host can
use the presidency only to increase
still further his audience count might
easily have had an impact on Hoskins. It
might have convinced him that, if he
could do only one thing, t h a t thing
had best involve television. Unlike Jack
Barron, Hoskins did not have an
established position in television, but
that did not prevent him from capturing
one for a few hours.
We come now to Agent of Chaos.
This book, set at least three hundred
years into the future, has space ships
and the standard trappings of science
fiction. It also comes as close to being
a political novel as any Spinrad seems
to have written, although, even here,
what is championed is really a kind of
anti-politics. In one way, it is an odd
book to single out from Spinrad's other
works, since it is far from being his
best. Some of the leading characters are
rather thin, and none are as lively and
vivid as John B. Steinhardt or Jack
Barron. However, Hoskins' selection of
this book does tend to reinforce his
almost-true claim that he did not read
fiction. Even when he did, he was most
interested in ideas which need not have
been [p.145] set in a fictional context
ar all.
The most interesting character in the
book is one who appears only in
quotations from his writings. Gregor
Markowitz is presented as a twentieth
century social scientist, but he and his
books are actually the invention of
Spinrad. In his Theory of Social
Entropy Markowitz claims that
there is such a thing as social entropy
corresponding to the physical laws of
entropy, according to which particles of
matter tend to scatter randomly. In the
way in which it takes physical energy to
keep order in a system of particles, it
takes social energy to keep humans
together, and to coordinate their
actions with one another. Thus, any sort
of organized society is in itself
unnatural, and will ultimately be wiped
out by the tendency to increased social
entropy. That is, the forces of chaos.
Like many contemporary Marxists,
Markowitz thinks that it is not enough
to be on the side which must ultimately
win, but that one must help
inevitability along with one's own
efforts. It is, as the old saw has it,
like riding up an escalator. You will
get there anyway, but you can get there
faster if you walk up.
Unlike almost all other political and
social theorists, Markowitz claims no
other benefits for his utopia. Chaos
does not provide an adequate food
supply, democratic institutions, or even
human life. It has only its own grandeur
to rcommend it. It is best illustrated
when one looks outside at night and sees
only stars scattered in infinite space.
The plot of the novel is designed
mainly to illustrate Markowitz'
theories, and to provide a certain
amount of suspense along the way. The
world is pictured as having a unified
government, called the Hegemony, with a
central council composed of people of
many different former nationalities.
While there is competition for the top
spot, that of Hegemonic Coordinator,
this body has enough unity to keep
peace, and to reduce the majority of the
citizens, called Wards, to a state of
sheep-like obedience. The other class
consists of the Guardians, a kind of
super police force, each member of which
has been trained to be extremely
suspicious and trigger happy. Not only
is any deviant behavior on the part of
the citizenry snuffed out before it can
get fairly under way, but the Guardians
are so suspicious of one another that it
is impossible for anyone to unify enough
of them long enough to mount any coup
against the government.
Despite this near total control of
the society by the government, there are
two small groups in secret opposition
who can make a nuisance of themselves at
times. One is the Democratic League, a
band of left-over liberals who have
their headquarters in the disused subway
tunnels of New York City. This group
seems meant to represent the distilled
common essence of every present
political group that sets itself up in
opposition to [p.146] totalitarian rule,
and Spinrad uses virtually every
technique available to the novelist to
make it appear ridiculous. One of its
leading lights, for example, has spent
so many years underground in the
darkened subways that, like a mole, he
is blinded by sunlight, and can only
scrabble around underground. The leader
of the League, Boris Johnson, can
function in sunlight, but has something
of the mentality of a mole. Hopelessly
and naively brave, he doggedly attempts
to assassinate government leaders, but
is always foiled at the last moment.
This is because his right hand man is
actually an agent of another group who
gives away each plot before it can be
consummated. None of this arouses
Johnson's suspicions, and his shock when
the agent finally reveals himself is
complete. The Democratic League is led
to its final absurdity when it is
revealed that none of the leaders have
any idea what they are fighting for, or
even what meaning they attach to the
word "democracy." It turns out that all
such concepts have been lost, and that
Johnson and his colleagues have only a
vague idea that they do not like living
under the Hegemony.
The main weakness of the novel, as
art, consists in the fact that Boris
Johnson lacks any credible motivation.
Still, the message is clear. Politicians
of the right are power-hungry
authoritarians, while all the others are
hopeless incompetents who will only make
matters worse. The only real hope
consists in some third force which is
entirely apolitical in its nature, its
goals, and its methods of operation.
This is Markowitz' Force of Chaos, and
all the best parts of the novel pertain
to it.
While Hoskins did not speak in this
idiom, he, like Markowitz, thought that
political opposition was, at best, a
waste of time, and, at worst, a force
which would impose an order just as bad
as the existing one. This view is often
confused with Marxism, and political
radicalism generally, since it has
become a hallmark of the radical to
distrust the liberal even more than the
conservative. However, the radical then
goes on to advocate something which
would be another political party were it
not for the fact that it has no hope of
winning elections. Hoskins thought that
radicalism was even more hopeless than
liberalism because it had the sympathy
of such a tiny slice of the
population. Further, he thought that any
sort of violence in the name o f
radicalism would simply antagonize the
public still more. This view was amply
demonstrated one night when he met two
radical young women who were
distributing literature outside a punk
rock night club that he occasionally
visited. One woman he considered absurd
and dangerously out of touch with
reality. The other attracted him as a
person, and he invited her to dinner.
Melanie was away at the time, and,
whatever happened, he regarded the
woman's Maoist outlook as the chief
[p.147] drawback in an otherwise
humorous and interesting personality. He
did not see her again, partly because he
was afraid that the police might have
her under surveillance, but probably
more because he did not want to be
involved with anything like Boris
Johnson's group of starry-eyed bumblers,
whether they called themselves liberals
or radicals.
The third force in the world
portrayed in Agent of Chaos is
not a political group which has moved a
bit to the left of liberalism, but is
the Brotherhood of Assassins. Their main
aim is to destroy order, whether of
government or of organized opposition,
and to introduce as much randomness as
possible into human affairs. In this way
they seek to increase Markowitz' social
entropy and thus work toward complete
chaos. According to the history
provided, the Brotherhood evolved in
some vague way from the religions that
had formerly existed. In the course of
this evolution God got dropped, to be
replaced with a scientific concept of
entropy and chaos, presumably under the
influence of Markowitz. However,
something of the emotional quality of
the old religions remained and was found
useful since actions determined by
impulse proved less predictable than
those based on reason. Thus, according
to Markowitz, human emotion is a Random
Factor, and decisions based on it are
closer to being arbitrary.
After the Hegemony was established,
the Brotherhood assassinated three out
of the first seven Hegemonic
Coordinators and planted a fusion bomb
which destroyed Port Gagarin.
Afterwards, they saved one
extraterrestrial colony when its dome
was holed by a meteor, but then turned
around and blew open another dome,
killing everyone in the colony for no
reason that anyone could credit.
This doctrine was obviously
attractive to Hoskins. He had stored up
a large amount of anger toward all kinds
of bullies, and he had come to believe
that they dominated society as a whole.
Markowitz and the Brotherhood of
Assassins offered him an outlet,
particularly when he was in a mood like
that in which he must have been when he
wrote of undertaking a guerilla war
against mankind in general. Since he was
too much of an individualist to join any
kind of group, regardless of whether
they wanted to distribute leaflets or
toss bombs, any ordinary kind of
terrorism was ruled out. On the other
hand, one man, acting alone, could
create a considerable amount of chaos.
In addition to these attractions, the
philosophy of chaos had an aesthetic
appeal. If one were to write a script
for a play or organize a happening
around left-wing politics, or even
revolutionary activity of the ordinary
kind, one would be fighting anuphill
battle against boredom. The themes are
too familiar and have been played out in
all their variations too many times. But
[p.148] the idea of simply producing
chaos for its own sake, while not new
with Spinrad, has at least a certain
freshness. Spinrad would have succeeded
in producing a first-class work of art
in Agent of Chaos if he had paid
as much attention to character
development as he did in Mind Game
or Bug Jack Barron. As it is, he
left something to be done, a vacuum
which w a s filled by another sort of
artist - one who did not share Boris
Johnson's lack of personality, and one
who was in search of a fitting climax.
How much of this Hoskins got from
Spinrad and how much he already had is
now impossible to say. Generally, people
are most influenced by books which
mirror the thoughts they already have,
but which take them a bit further, or
give them some new twist. There are
several ways in which this could have
happened in the present case, probably
in connection with two additional ideas
which Markowitz develops.
The first is a paradox within ordered
societies. Since it takes social energy
to hold a social system together against
the pull of social entropy, that energy
must be systematically produced. But the
only way of producing it is to order the
society more tightly in order to put to
use more of its resources in the most
efficient way. However, the upshot is
then a still more ordered society which
requires yet more energy to hold it
together. So it must be ordered yet more
highly to produce the energy, and so on
ad infinitum.
The First Agent of the Brotherhood of
Assassins, Robert Ching, is a follower
of Markowitz, but he is bothered by the
following problem. If the time left for
the existence of man is finite, the
self-destruction of an ordered society
cannot be assured. It may be able to
order itself so tightly as to defy the
forces of entropy right to the end. That
is, the death of the Sun might be what
brings about the death of the Hegemony,
with the result that Chaos, while
remaining supreme on the macroscopic
level, would never prevail in the sense
of producing a chaotic human society.
Ching is eventually reassured by the
imminent development of a true space
ship which can take humans to other
solar systems, with the result that
humanity can be prolonged indefinitely,
and will eventually reach Chaos.
Hoskins was probably intrigued by
this sort of reasoning, and, even though
he did not confront the infinite in
quite the way that Robert Ching did,
there was an analogue at home. If one
had to say which elements in Cincinnati
represented chaos, as opposed to order,
one could hardly fail to nominate
Washington Park with its winos and
thugs. It was exactly this sort of
disorder that Hoskins seemed to enjoy
and revel in, even if, in his personal
habits, he was orderly in some ways.
Thus, it is the message he left with
Melanie, rather than the videotaped one,
[p.149] that really makes sense in terms
of his known outlook. What he must have
feared was, not that life in Washington
Park would continue as it was, with all
its abuses, but that it would be
radically changed. In the TV message he
seemed to be demanding change, but,
really, that must have been the last
thing he wanted. Granted, he was opposed
to the redevelopment and
"gentrification" of the neighborhood,
the demolition of buildings, and the
moves to get the winos off the streets.
But that may not have been a
conventional humanitarian concern. It
may have been simply because, In
Spinrad's terms, these were all moves to
replace Chaos with Order.
Why, then the television message?
First, people seldom state their real
complaint, particularly under
conditions of stress. For example,
businesses and other organizations
often fire their employees because
co-workers and superiors find it
impossible to get along with them.
But, however good a reason this may
be, it is seldom felt to be adequate.
Thus, they wait for a pretext, at
which time some broken rule can be
used as a reason. It matters not that
others, who are liked, can break that
same rule with impunity. The more
general principle here is that, when
organizations or individuals set out
to do something which will generate
flak, they are likely to attempt to
"dress up" their real motivation in
such a way that it will be more
compelling to more people. Sometimes
they do this convincingly, and
sometimes only in a way that seems
arbitrary (and worse than the real
motivation).
In Hoskins' case something similar
may have been operating. He could not
have gone on TV and said that the
quality of his life was being
threatened because the establishment
was working to move out all the crazy
colorful people he loved to live among
and replace them with young
professionals whom he would find dull.
No one would have taken him seriously.
So he found two ways in which to code
that message. One was in social terms,
and it had an extraordinary effect. No
matter that it made his friends look
at each other in wonder. The other
ending, which must have been much
closer to home, was that copy of Agent
of Chaos in Melanie's hands.
This was too weird for a mass
audience, and it was reserved for
those who would This probably was not
quite it either, but Hoskins as an
Agent of Chaos seems much better, at
least if one allows the agent a little
smile.
Then there is, in the book,
something that may have been the very
last straw. The Brotherhood of
Assassins has its secret base on an
asteroid, and is building the first
true space ship which is capable of
voyages to other solar systems.
However, just before the ship is ready
to take off, the base is discovered
[p.150] by an air fleet of the
Hegemony, which threatens to destroy
both the Brotherhood and the space
ship. At this point, Robert Ching
devises a ruse to get the enemy fleet
to land. The spaceship takes off from
its hidden silo, and, before the
Hegemonic ships can give chase, Robert
Ching blows up the whole asteroid. He
thus destroys himself, the members of
the Brotherhood not on the space ship,
and the enemy fleet.
Thus far, we have nothing more
than an ordinary ending for a
science fiction novel, but these
events are again tied into the
philosophy of Markowitz. Apart from
his extension of the theory of
entropy, Markowitz is modelled after
those philosophers in the tradition
of Hegel who have a love of paradox.
A commitment to paradox need not
involve a rejection of rational
thinking, but, if, like Markowitz,
one is mainly interested in being
unpredictable, one will avoid
rational action. Hence,
wherever possible, Markowitz
recommends that we act, not only
emotionally, but on the basis of
maxims that are paradoxical or
involve inverted or perverted
reasoning. For example, he points
out that man normally tries to
prolong life and, at the same time,
make use of that prolongation of
life to reach certain other goals.
As he puts it, "man shrinks from
death and strives for Victory."
However, if one's goals can be
reached by suicide rather than life,
then one can both have one's victory
and act contrary to one of the
primary laws of "nature."
According to Markowitz, this
so-called "natural state of man" is
not really natural. Indeed, chaos
will eventually wipe out that state.
It is thus claimed that suicide is
actually more in accordance with the
basic principles of the universe
than the temporary aberration known
as human nature. If,then, suicide is
inherently more chaotic than
continued life, a suicide which has
large-scale chaotic consequences is
thus what Markowitz counts as the
Ultimate Chaotic Act. Robert Ching
achieves such an act in a kind of
atheistic religious ecstasy.
There are obvious parallels
between Hoskins' last actions and
Markowitz' notion of an Ultimate
Chaotic Act. We have seen, for
example, that his death was a kind
of suicide, but, like Robert
Ching's, one that was meant to have
as much effect as possible. It was
meant to disrupt the routine of a TV
station, and the interview, whatever
other purpose it may have had, was
intended to shake up as many people
as possible and divert them from
their normal thoughts and
activities. In this it may have been
more successful than Hoskins could
have known, and the very
unpredictability of his act
contributed to its chaotic
character. Finally, however much
planning may have gone into the
takeover of the station, the prior
events of that night seem to have
occurred in a frenzy. Indeed, since
the Brotherhood of Assassins kills
more or less randomly, this is the
only framework [p.151] under which
the killing of Melanie would have
made any sense whatever.
There are two things that do not
quite fit. One is that Markowitz seems
to have had no particular views about
art in general, or in what might be
called happenings. It is likely that, if
Hoskins took Markowitz seriously, he
followed his system, not just as
philosophy, but because it could be made
a component of an artistic process and
lend it depth. Philosophical or
religious claims can be incorporated
into works of art in many ways, and may
enhance the value of the art even if no
one concerned accepts them. Among all
the great artists who painted Christian
subjects for hundreds of years, there
were some agnostics and downright
unbelievers. There are also many people
who respond aesthetically to those
paintings, who have no religious
inclination toward Christianity. In a
similar way, Hoskins could have thought
that Markowitz' theories were
interesting, and worth building a
happening around, without accepting them
as unqualified truth.
This possibility suggests another.
That, in what might have been an
impromptu gesture, Hoskins picked up a
book which, not only meant a good deal t
o him in one way or another, but which
allowed him to put something he had not
previously intended into his
performance. It may sound rather strange
to suggest that someone would actually
play a joke after having killed the
person closest to him, and in full
expectation of his own imminent death.
But to rule that possibility out would
be to deny a well-established fact.
People die as they have lived. A man who
could never resist a humorous touch,
however black the humor, would not
suddenly change when approaching death.
It has been suggested above that, as far
as assessing personality goes,
humorousness pertains more to style than
to substance, and is not one of the most
basic variables. Still, we should not
otherwise deny it its due. Not only can
it be an important element in art, but,
even in personality, it has a way of
persistently following certain people.
Besides which, Hoskins had as much of
the night as he wanted after he killed
Melanie, and he may have gone though
many moods.
Hoskins might have wanted people to
think that he was acting on the
instructions of a science fiction
philosopher who would strike them as
being utterly mad. It could have been a
perfect put-on, and to the extent that
he was in anything like his usual state
of mind, he might have been considerably
pleased as he imagined some highly
respectable people grappling with the
views of Gregor Markowitz.
Among academic philosophers, humor is
about as welcome as the Black Death . It
iS, in fact, a favorite weapon. If one
philosopher at a professional meeting
can manage to make the [p.152] views of
another appear so ridiculous as t o draw
a laugh from the audience, he can hardly
fail to win the contest. The loser,
while trying to appear to be a good
enough sport to find humor at his own
expense, will scan that same audience in
the fervent hope that no influential
colleagues are present to witness his
humiliation. It is thus almost
inconceivable to such people that a
touch of humorous absurdity could be
something one might want in one's
philosophy. Even if it could be used for
artistic purposes.
Hoskins was not an academic
philosopher. Moreover, since he valued
humor in art, there is no reason t o
think that he valued it less when he
combined philosophy with art. The idea
that what society really needs is to be
dispersed a s rapidly and widely as
possible through random action could
have appealed deeply to a man whose
humor was always more pointed when
matters struck close to home. We are
thus left with what was not only
Markowitz' Ultimate Chaotic Act, but may
also have been Hoskins' Ultimate Chaotic
Joke.