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35 Dear Blaze I n love stories, the characters write letters to each other whenever life conspires to keep them apart. Mail is the consolation prize for absence. No doubt it would be helpful to slip into these pages the letters I wrote to Depty Dawg that autumn. Except I don’t know what happened to them, if they got lost in his wanderings, or if he kept them a time. It occurred to me they might show up when I returned to Austin, just as Margery’s recording had resurfaced in Whitesburg. Through the grapevine of Blaze’s friends here, I’ve learned that his attaché case was discovered in his room after his death, filled with lyrics, notes, and keepsakes; someone else told me for certain the items were in a paper bag. Not that it matters: the basement where the contents were stored flooded in the mid-’90s, washing all his mementoes away. Thank God I kept his letters. I don’t dare try to recreate mine. My attempts would be too self-conscious for a history of this kind. I can only imagine that they were a lot like his— chatty, ardent, full of heartfelt encouragement and pieces of news. Revisiting the Castle Hill apartment yesterday, I had this sudden recollection of opening his letters, the excitement of doing this hard thing together, enduring separation for the sake of art. That may be the optimist’s view, but at the time the notion tinted my solitary life in Austin with a wash of dedicated purpose. He had signed the letter Blaze; that may be a first. At last he seemed ready to transform himself in the eyes of the world, and in his own. I didn’t understand why we had to be apart for this, but that was the way things were. I was glad he was back with friends in Carroll County, but envious too: what was I doing in Texas when he got to go back to Georgia? The thing was, I wasn’t as lonely as I thought I’d be. When you’re a nomad, you’re always sleeping on someone else’s floor. I’d never lived alone before, and I was surprised how much I liked it. 142 Dear Blaze | 143 Reading through Dep’s letters twenty-seven years later, I recognize enduring aspects of his character that have been embroidered into his legend. His generosity is a binding thread of his legacy to the musicians in Austin. His sincere encouragements helped me then too, though I’m not sure I fully understood their value, or their rareness. I picture me writing him back, telling him he shouldn’t worry either. That I’d bought an old manual typewriter at a yard sale, that I was spending the afternoons in the kitchen on Castle Hill, struggling to put my escapades as a waitress down on paper. It’s curious that I never thought then to write about Depty Dawg, or our off-beat love. He could crystallize his immediate feelings and observations into a song; it would take years of reflection before I could write about mine. Odd, too, how it hasn’t gotten any easier. I sent him money when he asked, which wasn’t often. We agreed it’d be more practical for me to hold onto my pennies, and save up for plane tickets to come see him. I was also hustling. That summer Jean Carlot had supporting roles in two student films at the university, and a cameo in a docudrama for the Elizabet Ney Museum. Depty’s absences were teaching me self-reliance , an insight I’ve only had in hindsight. There was probably a lot I didn’t write to him. A response, for instance, to the comment about me fulfilling my physical needs, as he so delicately put it. It wasn’t something I was inclined to do. I’ve never really gotten the concept of casual sex; isn’t that an oxymoron? Even the times I thought I was having casual sex, turned out I wasn’t. At Les Amis, a wiry, young writer named Matt was pursuing me fairly persistently . Nothing like an absent boyfriend to make a woman more attractive. There’s an implied vulnerability, easy to manipulate, as in how could he leave you alone? It’s possible I’d started to wonder that myself. I agreed to go out with Matt in the illogical hope that one...

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