P.S.

Rave sent me little notes like this P.S. all the time. You can sense the plaintiveness in her tone. She struggled as long as I knew her with obscurity. She had wanted to be a successful playwright herself, and she did get one on Broadway (I won’t be too specific to preserve her privacy, but it is quite an accomplishment. even though it didn’t run long). People liked her work and there was so much promise in what she did, but it was harder for a woman to blossom in those decades. She had deeply introverted tendencies, for example living alone in a small DC apartment the whole 14 years I knew her, when such a solitary life would have been unbearable for many. Her son doted on her, but she stoked a feud with his wife of 25 years that did her no favors among the family, and although she adored her grandson, she couldn’t see that her criticism of his mother got in the way. She could be a challenge in these ways, and yet on the other hand so charming. She kept hoping that I’d be the famous one, and when I got on national television news she was impossibly hopeful… but I didn’t care for the spotlight any more than she had, although I’m not really an introvert. Whenever she refers to someone who can “use” her memories, she is almost always referring to me, obliquely.

P.S. Dear S.

I had to write this. And it could be longer, of course, because there are a thousand other memories of those days. But what I have written should go to someone who is a T. Williams fan — for no one else could appreciate the many personal memories I have of the man and his plays and the times of His Life. I read bits and pieces by someone who knew him and has a name themselves and then of course with a name the doors swing open. But if I’m just a no-name ordinary nobody who can recall funny and interesting bits of a famous man’s life, I could be the one to do it. But I need encouragement from someone who can use my memories of the young man who swung into the scene, left his name on Broadway, and still remains a bit of a mystery to a lot of people out there.

It would be nice if my small voice could be heard.

R.