Cormac McCarthy’s Olivetti

       —Cormac McCarthy July 20,1933-June 13, 2023

I can almost hear William Faulkner sluicing a vein with all that O-negative blood resonating in Cormac McCarthy’s writing. A seething ghost informant. Both of us distantly related to the first Cormac McCarthy, having canted back to kiss the Blarney Stone. In love with conjunctions. And, and, and…. A man who couldn’t keep his day jobs, who carried a 100-watt bulb so he could write at night—no matter what fleabag hotel room he called home. And I love the fact that Cormac used an old Olivetti that cost $50 from a Knoxville pawnshop. And that hand-to-mouth living from grant to grant, a story I know well. A well that goes dry when you least expect it. Nothing but dust and bitter darkness aligned with distant stars. There is something poignant about Cormac auctioning off his 50-year-old Olivetti for a quarter million in order to fund his writing residency at the Santa Fe Institute. A haven of scientists, and of course, Cormac. And a friend found him a replacement Olivetti for $11 in a thrift store. Those Olivettis were the Italian race-car typewriters of writers, sleek, svelte, built low to the ground, and extremely transportable. He’d take the old Olivetti to the gas station for its yearly blow-out with the air hose. To think 5 million words poured forth like a river of regret from the paten of that old Olivetti. Talk about mileage. May he be granted 5 million more words. I learned to render my random scribblings into poetry on a enameled powder-blue Olivetti purloined from my mom’s paramour. That Olivetti was more like a moped than a race car. The matching zippered case was like a mod-squad mini dress. White go-go boots and all. All those bottles of whiteout. But when I couldn’t find new ribbons for it, I let it go. I had to let it go.