Gauloises, A Coke, And You: A Ghost Story for Frank O’Hara

It started with the strong smell of cigarette smoke, Gauloises, a brand of which I am not particularly fond, which seemed to come from nowhere and permeated the apartment- a few months after I moved in. Having been a smoker in the past, I had tried that brand before and found them very harsh tasting, so I gave up smoking them, and eventually, smoking altogether. So, since I don’t smoke and don’t allow people to smoke in my apartment (and my friends know better than to do it in front of me), I was really curious as to where the smoke was coming from. It would come around dinner time and then just as mysteriously disappear about an hour after dinner. I started to look for ways it could have seeped in, but the apartment, though very old, didn’t appear to have any cracks of any kind in the walls or floors. I even asked several of my neighbors if they smoked or could smell smoke and after getting really rude stares and blunt answers, I decided to let well enough alone.

Following the death of my parents, I received a significant trust fund that enabled me to move east to New York City to go back to school for another advanced degree — this time a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at N.Y.U.

It took me almost a year to find my own place, but when I did, I jumped at the chance. It had been built some time during the late 1920s — the downstairs main entry foyer still had the original Art Deco design throughout. The elevator had seen better days, although there were still hints of the strict Deco linear form in its interior. It too possessed a charm all its own. Periodically, when the elevator was out of service, you would have to climb the five flights of stairs to my apartment. Whoever had restored the place must have really loved the period, and I had been lucky to find it. Being a writer, I was excited when I found out that its previous tenant had been Frank O’Hara. O’Hara had been one of the leading figures in the New York School which consisted of an informal group of artists, writers and musicians who drew inspiration from jazz, Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism which eventually became a strong part of the then contemporary avant-garde art movement. It was here in this apartment that he had written some of his best poetry and I was hoping that by some kind of osmosis, that a little poetic talent would rub off on me.

I designed it with imitation classical 1950s Modern furniture; the dining room table was made of solid steel with matching chairs; the sofa bed was stream-lined but surprisingly, very comfortable and could be made into a bed in a matter of seconds for out-of-town guests. My bedroom, however, was furnished in a mixture of Classic Romantic-style and Modern. The large four-poster canopied bed was draped with sheer netting which hung from the canopy. My dressing table was an authentic Modern piece with a large, circular mirror attached to the top of the table and streamlined with circles and sharp edged carving. This piece had been given to me as a gift by an elderly friend who had been forced to move to a retirement home in New Jersey. I was very proud of my new space and began work on a new book of poetry as soon as I had settled in

I had just gotten used to the smell of cigarettes when the next peculiar things started to happen. Over a series of several weeks, I would come home and find half-drunken Coke bottles — the kinds which were very popular in the 1950s and ’60s, placed all over the apartment I couldn’t figure it out. Why were they always half empty? Where the hell did they come from? No matter how many times I poured the bottles down the sink and threw the bottles away, there would always be fresh ones waiting for me to discover them. Sometimes, I would find them on a small table which stood by the front door in the entryway, sometimes by the couch and on the kitchen counters, where I did all my eating and writing. And one time, I found one on the floor by the toilet. No one had a key to my apartment, (I had changed the locks because one never knew what kind of nut would break in while I was gone.) No one, not even the landlord, had a set of keys, so I was really scared. I finally thought that maybe my apartment was haunted. The classic signs of a haunting were all around me now: the smell of cigarettes, the empty Coke bottles, the feeling that someone was watching me, and several nights I would wake up and hear, quite muffled, the sound of a male voice laughing in the living room as if he were having a conversation with someone. I’d get up and turn on the living room light, to find it empty, the distinct odor of cigarette smoke in the air. Finally, one day I stood in the middle of the hallway and said,

“This is my apartment now. Please stop. I don’t want to move, and I think we can live together if you promise to stop being such a mess. O.K.?”

In response to this challenge, everything came to a head that night and it certainly gave me a jolt.

I had been in a deep sleep, when I suddenly woke and sat up. There was a strong smell of smoke and at first I thought that the apartment was on fire but then, as my vision cleared, I saw the figure of a man standing by the window, smoking a cigarette. He appeared to be solid, yet there were times when the full moon seemed to shine right through him. I gasped and was about to turn on the light when he spoke.

“Please don’t turn on the light. Bright lights hurt my eyes.”

He turned around and walked through the curtains and stood at the foot of my bed.

“I thought it was time we should meet, especially since you sounded more than a little upset. And I can’t really blame you, so, here I am.”

He took a deep drag from his cigarette, held the smoke for what seemed like an eternity and let it go, blowing smoke rings. I could almost make out his face in the dark room. It was a face I thought I recognized, but couldn’t be sure where.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I’m Frank.”

“Frank?”

“Frank O’Hara. In the flesh, more or less.”

He laughed at this joke. I didn’t know whether I was dreaming or if this was really happening, but I sat up more fully in bed and made myself comfortable by punching my pillows together. He looked at me and smiled. I smiled, somewhat unnerved yet very excited by his appearance. What was he doing here? I didn’t feel threatened, so I took a deep breath, laughed and said,

“So, what do you think of the apartment?”

“You’ve done quite a lot with it,” answered Frank. “The old place has gone through a lot of changes since I lived here in 1953.”

“I imagine so,” I said.

“So, you’re a writer, huh?”

“Yeah. Well I’m trying to be. There’s a lot I still have to learn.”

Frank laughed.

“Like what?”

The question wasn’t an easy one for me to answer. For years, since I had received my MFA, I still didn’t possess the smarts as to how to pursue publishing my work.

“Well, you know…little things… like writing a series of poems I can really be proud of, strengthening my voice gaining the confidence to send out my work. I have had friends read my stuff and they all love what I’ve done, but I am a little insecure about my work.”

Frank sat on the edge of my bed, leaned forward and looked into my eyes.

“If you don’t have confidence in your own work, you won’t get very far, kid.”

He reached out to touch my face and as his hand brushed slowly across it, I could feel a tingling sensation, quite pleasant actually. I breathed a little heavily and closed my eyes.

“I know this has got to be a dream,” I stammered. “You’ve been dead for a long time, Frank. And yet, I have a confession to make to you.”

“Oh yeah? What?”

I swallowed and looked into his beautiful eyes. I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation at three o’clock in the morning.

“Ever since I saw you reading, “Having a Coke with you” on YouTube, I’ve been in love with your poetry. I love the conversational style you had — nothing high-handed, just normal. I wish I could write like that. I have always thought how much I would have loved to have had the chance to hang out with you and the other writers of your generation to just share ideas, talk and drink. New York must have been a lot of fun in the Fifties, right?”

“What’s YouTube?”

I laughed at what I thought was a ridiculous question, until I realized that he didn’t know what I was talking about. Computers during his lifetime had taken up several rooms and the internet hadn’t been a reality yet. He had never seen a desktop or even a laptop computer nor the internet.

“Things have changed a lot since your death Frank. Computers are now much smaller. We even have hand-held computers for our phones. They’re called I-Phones. Here.” I leaned to my night-side table where my phone was charging. I went to the web, found his video on YouTube and played it for him.
Frank’s smile was free of pretense and genuinely warm almost child-like. I smiled. He was watching himself for the first time since his death in the 1960s.

“I remember when we filmed this. God, look at me.” He handed me back the phone after he had finished watching it. “Wow! That’s something really cool.”

“I know,” I said with a yawn.

He laughed, got up and walked to the window.

“We’ll talk again soon. Go to sleep. I’ll try to stop smoking, but it’s so damn hard to quit, even after you’re dead. Goodnight.”

And with that, he slowly evaporated into the darkness and I was left alone in bed. After about an hour, I finally drifted off to sleep and dreamed of Frank and his friends.

The next morning, I got up and had my breakfast, showered, shaved and went to work at Barnes & Nobles. Even though I didn’t have to work due to the inheritance, I loved working. I wasn’t going to be a lazy slouch. I needed to work in order to feel active, to experience life, as corny as that sounds. I was still a little groggy when I got to work and my boss Steve asked me what was wrong. I told him that I had had a bad night — insomnia. Being a frustrated writer himself, he understood and sent me into the back room to open the boxes of new releases, place the security devices in them, and put them on a cart for the other book sellers to put out on the floor. It was a nice change of pace for me and I got the chance to look at some of the books and do some writing at lunch.

In fact, for the next several weeks, Frank always popped in to check up on me and my writing either at lunch time or in the evenings at home. Frank was intrigued by the laptop, since they had not even come into reality until well after his death. I had bought an old manual typewriter, even though my laptop was perfectly fine. I used to curse at the machine because each time I finished a poem, instead of doing a quick spellcheck which was my usual method of correcting, I would pull the paper out of the typewriter, carefully read, make corrections, insert a new piece of paper and go through the writing over and over until we were both satisfied with the poem. Frank was indispensable in every way.

“Why not try it this way?” he’d say to me. He’d give me some ideas and I would often listen to him as he expressed himself as eloquently as he had when he was alive. Many of my poems turned out to be a lot better and I found myself coming into my own “voice.” He was a wonderful roommate and teacher and I found myself, as the months passed, slowly becoming aware of a deep, strong affection for him. I wasn’t lonely when he was with me, but each time he left me, I was overwhelmed with sadness and intense loneliness. What were we going to do? I knew I couldn’t keep taking and taking from him. My writing had improved through his tutelage and I even began to publish some of my work. For the first time in years, I was in a relationship with someone who, even though dead, gave me a lot of encouragement, and I would always be thankful for that.

Things started to change though between us. He became more and more obsessed with my desktop computer. And we went through gallons of Coke which I had begun to drink with him. But while I would have a glass or two before or during dinner, Frank would drink, (I don’t know how, but he did), three or four bottles a day. It was getting ridiculous. The once highly sociable man of letters was becoming more and more reclusive. He had a whole lot of catching up to do regarding social media, and it became more and more difficult for me to get him to do anything. I had created a Frankenstein’s creature and I didn’t know how to stop the ball from rolling downhill and smashing my life into little pieces. But one night, I managed to get him out of the apartment and away from the apartment. After work, one weekend, I decided to go to one of the many open mics at a small café in the Village. I got there early and signed in. This open mic was the only place I felt comfortable enough to read.

The place was packed by the time the open mic started. I watched and listened to the other poets and fiction writers read and finally, my turn had come. I walked up to the mic and smiled. In the back, standing by the door, I saw Frank. He was smoking his Gauloises cigarette and I could see the confusion of the other people in the café who could smell the smoke despite it being a smoke-free environment. “Hi everybody. My name is Michael Mackenzie and this poem is dedicated to my favorite poet, Frank O’Hara. It’s called “Lunch Hour, A Coke, and You — New York City, 1956.” I looked at Frank, smiled, and read it.

When I had finished, I looked up. Frank was smiling at me and nodded his approval and then just as he had done the previous night, he slowly melted away. I read a couple more poems, thanked the people for giving me the time to read and slowly walked off the stage. People clapped politely, some even shouted their approval. I stayed until the end because I always did that out of politeness to my fellow writers and after the program I went outside, took the subway downtown and went home.

When I got home, I could see that Frank was there by the smell of the cigarettes and the half-full bottle of Coke. As I dropped my keys onto the side table by the door, I said, “I’m home.”

Frank materialized in the living room by the large bay window which looked out onto the city.

“Hi.”

He was dressed in a tuxedo — where he got it from, I didn’t know, and he looked really handsome. Frank opened his arms and I slowly came to him.

“Thanks for the poem.”

“You’re welcome,” I whispered.

I looked into his eyes and smiled.

“Frank, I love your work so much. I have since the day I first saw that documentary you did in the early 1960s on art and writing and poetry. When I saw you read your poem, “Having a Coke With You,” it felt like you were talking to me.”

“Aw, kid. That was my style. Conversational in nature. Not pretentious shit but real, honest feelings. Tonight I heard you read that poem and it was real, honest and beautifully expressive. Listen, I believe I have a lot to offer you if you want my help. I used to help a lot of poets in my life. We shared a lot in the old days. If you’d like, we can work together. What do you say?”

“Sure. But do me one big favor?”

“What’s that?”

“Let’s go out more often. I am sick and tired of staying home watching you play video games and chatting on Facebook and Linked-In. You used to be so out-going. Now, you’re becoming more and more reclusive and I need for you to be with me out there, instead of here. Will you promise me that we’ll go out more often? Please?”

He smiled.

“Sure kid. Anything for you.”

We went into the living room to talk. It felt really good having someone who understood me. He lit up a cigarette which appeared out of nowhere.

“Give me one, will you?”

“I thought you gave up smoking,” he chuckled as a lit cigarette mysteriously appeared in my hand. I took a drag and coughed. I took another drag and smiled.

“I did.”

We talked late into the night about how much the city of New York had changed, how many of his friends had died, about war, death, life, but around 2 a.m. he left, and I experienced the best sleep I had had in a long time.

For months, we would ride the subway. I would take notes on the people we saw, while he seemed to be somewhat amused and intrigued by the people looking at their I-pads and cell phones. This was really new to him and I would later explain to him about the new technology. He was fascinated and asked a lot of questions. If I didn’t know the answers, I Googled his questions or asked Siri. We went to the Museum of Modern Art where he had worked and helped develop many of the museum’s collected works. He was a connoisseur of Modern Art and I continued to grow as a poet. We would go to the old bars where he used to hang out with his friends and I heard stories from the old-timers who were left of his generation, about life in the city during the 1950s and ’60s. Musically, I developed a strong taste for 1950s bebop and jazz. I bought records featuring Charlie “The Bird” Parker, Billie Holliday (a favorite of mine), Stan Getz and others. Many nights, when we weren’t working on my writing, we would sit on the couch in the living room, smoking, drinking Cokes and listening to the music or watching old movies. But I noticed a real weird change in his attitude. He began to withdraw from the outside world and become more and more of a home-body. He would stay in the apartment for months, drinking huge 2-liter bottles of Coke. He would watch porn on my desktop while I was at work. He became a victim of technology.

One weekend night as I tried to work, I heard Frank talking on my cell phone to somebody. I walked into the living room and was about to say something when he hung up the phone.

“Who were you talking to?”

“Some guy named Leroy.”

“Who’s he?”

“A friend.”

A friend. I knew what that meant. He was using my cell phone to hook up with guys. I don’t know how he did it, but I grabbed my phone.

“That’s it. No more technology for you.”

I went to my room and slammed the door.

The next morning, I found a vase of roses on my kitchen table. Joe was in the kitchen puttering around making breakfast. For a ghost he certainly was quite productive. I didn’t question the logic. I just accepted things for what they were.

“Good morning,” he chirped.

“Frank, what’s going on?”

He smiled.

“I’m sorry about everything. I just was so overwhelmed with “brave new world.” I feel like a complete Luddite. It was just too much for me to take in. I have never seen shit like this before. Forgive me?”

He smiled. How could I be angry with him? He was right. When he had died in the 1960s, none of this stuff even existed — I-pads, cell phones, laptops, desktops, digital television and cable, all of these things overwhelmed him.

“I understand. Thanks for breakfast.”

He smiled and sat down and watched me eat.

“Hey Frank?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry I was such a bitch last night.”

“Aw kid, forget it. Hey, I have an idea. Why don’t we get back to some writing and maybe catch a movie.”

“Now that sounds like the old Frank O’Hara I read about. Let’s do it.”

The next few weeks were a lot of fun. He returned to his normal outgoing nature. We talked about my work and what I needed to do to improve it. A lot of times, he would stand behind me as I typed out my poems.

“I got this. Stop watching over my shoulder. I feel uncomfortable. I hate it when anyone reads over my shoulder while I work, o.k.?”

He would chuckle, apologize and put on some be-bop jazz music while I continued to work. He became a real mentor to me and I valued the time we spent together. But after a while, I realized that I didn’t need his help as much as I thought I did. Gradually, I could feel him slipping away and one night when I came home from work, the apartment felt empty. It was then that I realized that Frank had left me. He had taught me everything he could and had left me alone in order for me to grow and become the poet I was meant to be I never saw Frank again, and I miss him. But sometimes, I can feel his presence in the apartment, accompanied by the smell of Gauloises and I still find those damn half-empty Coke bottles. And I smile.