Chester Himes (53 page)

During their stay Chester and Lesley were guests not only in Ishmael Reed's home but also in that of Maya Angelou. Lesley recalls Angelou setting the table with absolutely huge plates and glasses, explaining that
she
was such a big woman she had to have everything about her big: a reflection of the poet's appetite for life that Chester must have enjoyed. Another time she queried how he responded when asked what kind of books he wrote. That had always been a problem, Chester told her, but he thought that from now on he was
just going to say he wrote best-sellers. On their next shopping trip Angelou did just that, Lesley laughing the whole time, when a shopgirl posed the question.

Sometimes visibly disoriented on the California visit, Chester, upon returning to Spain where he received copies of Bill Targ's fine limited edition of A
Case of Rape
, seemed to rally. Chester and Lesley moved from Casa Griot into Casa Deros;
Le Manteau de rêve
was published to good notices and sales; the same publisher, Lieu Commun, in 1983 brought out
Plan
B, reconstituted from drafts and a detailed summary that Michel Fabre discovered among Chester's papers.

One of the most important things any writer or other artist does is to try to make the world large again, to reinvest it, or our attentions to it, with something of the grandness, mystery, and wonder everywhere about us, to break through the crust of dailyness, of our habits and self-limitations. But Chester's world now was shrinking daily, receding into itself. He could no longer read. The correspondence that had meant so much to him, that had been for so long his connection to the world, was beyond him now, increasingly of little interest. He grew ever weaker. One morning he woke to find all use of his legs gone; by July he had become totally paralyzed. There were severe blockages in his arteries, an aneurysm near his heart. His esophagus had grown so contorted that he had great difficulty swallowing, eventually being put on a liquid diet when he refused to eat. Finally he gave up even speaking, though Lesley believed that he might still have had the capacity and heard him, hours before he died, murmur “Oh Lord, oh Lord.”

Lesley tried to see to and to anticipate all his needs. On the morning of November 13, 1984, alarmed at Chester's appearance—he had become so pale, she thought, and somehow insubstantial, as though he were fading before her eyes—Lesley called the doctor, who came and told her that Chester would be dead within hours, then a priest, who failed to arrive in time. Wishing no pictures to be taken of Chester in his drained, emaciated state and this being the custom in Spain, Lesley prevailed upon the mortician, a fan of Chester's work, to help. He did so, taking the coffin to an older, little-used graveyard in Benissa to divert journalists there before returning it to the newer cemetery just in time for the graveside service. The plaque Lesley placed by her husband reads:

Chester Himes

Escritor

Missouri, USA, 1909

Moraira, 1984

Su esposa Lesley

What all art finally asks is this: How should we live, and how work against the self-destructive nature of ourselves and our history? If there are no final answers—and one suspects there are not—there is still great privilege and honor in forming the material of our individual lives and our times, as Chester Himes did again and again, into the very shape of the question.

A fellow Triestine who had known the great writer Italo Svevo for decades once wrote to Eugenio Montale about the danger of overanalyzing Svevo, of coming to see him as something more than just a man who wrote—a man like the rest of us, spilling over with faults, failures, fears, foibles—thereby turning his life into legend. What this correspondent said might well have gone on the marker of Chester Himes's final resting place: “All he had was genius, no more.”

Black on Black
. Garden City: Doubleday, 1973.

A Case of Rape
. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1994.

Cast the First Stone
. New York: Signet, 1952.

The Collected Stories
. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1990.

The End of a Primitive
. New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997.

The Harlem Cycle
. Edinburgh: Payback Press, 1996–97.

(Also published individually by New York: Vintage Crime, 1988–89.)

If He Hollers Let Him Go
. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1986.

Lonely Crusade
. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1986.

My Life of Absurdity
. New York: Paragon House, 1990.

Pinktoes
. New York: Dell, 1966.

The Primitive
. New York: Signet, 1955.

The Quality of Hurt
. New York: Paragon House, 1990.

Run Man Run
. New York: Dell, 1966.

The Third Generation
. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1989. New York: Signet, 1956.

Yesterday Will Make You Cry
. New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1998.

I cannot, of course, thank everyone who has had a part in this book.

Like all who will come after, I owe an immense gratitude to those who, in first writing about Himes, have provided the floor we walk on: Stephen Milliken, James Lundquist, Gilbert Muller, Ed Margolies, Michel Fabre.

On a more personal level, I must thank Lesley Himes and Roslyn Targ, who have been close in spirit for many years now, and who have provided invaluable information, insight, and assistance.

Gratitude, too, to friends of Chester who took time to share with me their memories and impressions: John A. Williams, Joe Hunter, Jean Miotte, Herb Gentry, Melvin Van Peebles, and especially Constance and Ed Pearlstein.

Special appreciation is due my friend and fellow Himes enthusiast Bob Skinner, who throughout the project stood valiantly by ready to read, advise, even to ferret out the occasional recalcitrant fact. All biographers should have librarians as friends.

Similar thanks to Tish Crawford for many conversations face to face and via e-mail about Chester and his work, and to Patrick Millikin, draft reader, book finder, coffee mate, and friend extraordinaire.

Sincerest thanks to the staff of the Amistad Collection housed at my alma mater, Tulane, and to that of the Schomburg Center in Harlem.

Editorially, fond thanks to Robert Shapard, who many years ago as editor of
Western Humanities Review
published my first long essay on
Himes, and to Jamie Byng, whose encouragement and support quite literally brought this book into being.

Thanks, always, to agents Vicky Bijur and Stella Wilkins for taking care of business, running interference when necessary, and generally helping me maintain the illusion of professionalism.

Finally, thanks to Karyn, who has had to live with Chester and me, even when, as sometimes happened, Chester and I weren't getting along so well, for a year and a half of new chapters, endless revisions, self-interrogation, panic, sudden trips to New York or California, and not a little whining. Chester would have loved her.

Photograph of Himes as dashing young man—note damage to teeth—inscribed “To my beloved sister-in-law 'Stell From my beloved me, Chester.” (
From the papers of Joseph Himes. Reproduced with permission of The Amistad Collection
)

Faculty of Lincoln University, 1912. Includes Chester's father, Joseph Sandy Himes (second row, far left).
(From the Lincoln University Yearbook. Reproduced by permission of the Ethnic Studies Center at Lincoln University)

Chester in teen years.
(Photograph from the collection of Lesley Himes. Reproduced by permission of Lesley Himes)

1946 Van Vechten sitting.
(Photograph by Carl Van Vechten. From the Carl Van Vechten Photograph Collection of the Library of Congress. Reproduced by permission of the Library of Congress and the Van Vechten Trust)

Chester in 1954, shortly after arriving in Europe.
(Photograph from the collection of Lesley Himes. Reproduced by permission of Lesley Himes)