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❖ 8 ❖ TUCSON AND HENRY MILLER The Webbs arrived in Tucson during what Jon described as “the worst rainy December in history here” and made a down payment on a small former grocery store at 1009 E. Elm Street, where they set up housekeeping. Jon did not tolerate the warm, rainy weather well. He wrote Blair that he was “just up from bed briefly—recovering from what Dr. said was going into pneumonia.” Jon complained of a backache, the result of overextending himself in fixing up their new home. One unlikely problem came when rain caused an old cesspool under the patio to cave in, producing a hole, ten feet deep and six feet wide, in their backyard. At a loss as to what to do about the hole, for a time they settled on “using it for a rubbish box.” Jon, Jr., was still in the army, and he and his family visited Tucson after a tour of duty in Meunchweiler, Germany. The family was on its way to their new home in Hayward, California, and stopped long enough to film some home movies with Jon, Jr.’s new 8 mm camera, to generally catch up on things, and have a lunch of barbequed chicken and refried beans. Sometime during the visit, Louise fell into the sinkhole and was almost buried under the rain of dirt that followed her down. Jon and Jon, Jr., had to gingerly climb down and pull her to safety. Marcus Grapes had married, and he and his wife also paid the Webbs a visit in Tucson. They were moving to Los Angeles, and Tucson was more or less on the way. Before he pulled his car into the Webbs’ driveway, Grapes still was unsure of his standing with Jon and Louise. The relationship had never progressed past Jon critiquing Grapes’s poetry and Grapes playing the occasional benefactor, but this time “there were hugs all around, and suddenly I realized that there was something deeper there, that there was affection , not that I was like a son or anything, but that there was some kind of teacher/mentor thing there, that he and Lou just liked me. I dropped my guard then and let be what was going to be.” It was good to have visitors, but as always, the Webbs soon turned their attention to work. With little money, certainly not enough to finance a new 123 ❖ Tucson and Henry Miller ❖ issue of the Outsider, they hit upon a plan for a more modest business venture . “We are going to open a quality used paperback—some new later— & little mag bookshop to get a bit of bread and butter money,” Jon wrote Blair. He was counting on the fact that the couple’s new home was only a few blocks from the University of Arizona campus to provide business for the bookshop. To get things going, Jon asked Blair if he might send “any old paperbacks you don’t want,” and asked about a New York City bookseller that might sell him stock at a reasonable price. Since helping finance the first Bukowski book,Blair had been someone Jon could rely on,and Blair often helped by sending small amounts of cash. When this happened, Jon always sent something in return. “Jon always gave more than he got,” Blair said.“At least that was my experience. Lou did things like make pictures of clowns for my kids.” Jon soon decided it had been an error to impose upon Blair for free stock, and took back the request. He told Blair that some items had already been donated“from here and there, not much, but maybe soon we can get a bookshop look.” Blair later recalled that the “bookstore idea in Tucson never developed but Jon did put out a flier which he sent to friends. It was a deal where he did not have any books himself, but as he got orders he’d pass the orders on to a distributor and got a percentage of the sale. Most of the books were sex oriented—how to manuals.The only book of literary substance was Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer. A really weird selection.” When the bookstore plan died, Jon realized it was time to get back to the work of the Loujon Press.His greatest successes had come with the Bukowski books, and he decided to try a third go with Bukowski. Jon planned to produce a phonograph record of Bukowski, a...

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