January 13, 1980: Poetic Apprentice

Published in the Journal, Poetic Apprentice

January 13:  A lot has happened. Ginsberg had told me when we first met that he’d taken on too much and he promised we’d apprentice together later. He also mentioned that he had hypertension and asked me, since I’d spent so much time working in an emergency room, what it was, and I suddenly wasn’t certain enough to say anything about it. But I went to the library and looked it up and wrote up a little report on what I learned. This was on the 7th. On Thursday January 10th after class, Allen called out “Is Randy here?” I didn’t say anything at first because it was a big, big, big class and I couldn’t figure out why he’d call for me. Then he said, “Roark?” and looked at me. And I said yes and he said, “Could I see you?,” looking away, shyly, quietly shuffling his books. And I said sure. So I sat in a chair behind him by the door while the students filed out and Allen had several conversations and suddenly he jumped up and called out “Randy!?” And I shot out of my chair and said “Yes!?” and he said directly “Do you have a car?” and I said sure and he said “I need a ride to pick up a phone tomorrow for about an hour” and I said “What time?” and he said “It’s up to you” and I suddenly realized that Beth had to work the next day and so explained to him that I wouldn’t have the car after all. Then he looked up and away at Susan Edwards on the other side of him and said to her, “He’s going to be an apprentice.” And that was it.