The Time I Got the Full Dickey
My memorable lunch with poet and novelist James Dickey
These days, James Dickey is remembered as the writer of the novel Deliverance. More accurately, he is remembered as the writer of the novel that became the movie Deliverance.
In his prime, he was more known as a poet. He was the US Poet Laureate from 1966–1968. His book Buckdancer’s Choice won the National Book Award for Poetry.
I read Deliverance and was impressed not by its violence, but by its lyrical descriptions of the mountains and rivers near where I live. It is a gorgeous book, but much of it has not aged well.
His later novel, To the White Sea, seems to me to provide a better glimpse into Dickey the man. It tells the story of an airman shot down near Tokyo during WWII and cutting a murderous, psychopathic path across the outlying areas.
You see, when I was growing up in a small town just outside of Columbia, SC, James Dickey was a powerful presence. He taught at the University of South Carolina and was a bit of a celebrity. He was known, yes, for his novels and poetry. But he was also known for his bombastic and even aggressive personality.
Like the main character in To the White Sea, Dickey seemed to have convinced himself that he transcended normal morality and community. His violent nature was somehow an expression of himself as an Übermensch unbound by right and wrong.
I kind of bought into it when I was a kid. But I was just a kid.
I was only seventeen years old when I had lunch with James Dickey.
How did that happen? It seems small now, and yet it was a proud moment for me at the time. I won a statewide writing award along with four or five other teenagers, each of us in a particular discipline: poetry, fiction, essay. One of my English teachers submitted one of my personal essays to the contest. I won.
Our award included lunch with James Dickey.
We were all pretty excited. We arrived early to the dining hall at the university where Dickey taught for many years. I shouldn’t say dining hall. It was more like an exclusive dining area where special events were held. We all sat at the white-tableclothed round table and awaited the great man.
I looked at the array of eating utensils arranged around the fine china set before me. I also had multiple glasses, presumably for multiple purposes. I was clueless. Just a poor boy from across the river.
A college student came along and filled our glasses and asked us how we were doing. To my seventeen-year-old eyes, she was stunningly beautiful. She wore a tuxedo shirt and a black skirt over black stockings and shoes. Standard high-end waitress attire. She moved with grace.
Dickey still had not arrived when the waitress brought out our salads. We all sat there nervously eyeing our utensils and wondering about the mysterious protocols of eating this fine food in this fine dining room.
Our waitress saw our nervousness. She pulled out the chair reserved for Dickey and half-sat, turned sideways in the chair and perched on its edge as if to indicate that she was not taking his seat and was only pausing here momentarily.
“I understand that y’all won a contest,” she said. “That’s wonderful. I like to write too. I’m probably not as good as y’all are. My talent is music.”
She chatted with us for a minute or two, putting us at ease.
“I suppose,” she said, touching a couple of fingers to a smaller fork beside the plate at Dickey’s empty spot, “that you can go ahead and get started on your salads.”
She didn’t pick up the fork or take away any of his items. She just let her fingers rest there for a moment. You’d be shocked to know what a bunch of bumpkins we were. Did we even know what utensils to use? This gracious young woman went out of her way to put me and my fellow young writers at ease. We tentatively picked up the small fork to the outside of our plates and began nibbling at our salads.
Our waitress stood and floated away, and all of us loved her.
James Dickey’s rough reputation was not constrained to his books. He was known to be loud and obnoxious and often floridly drunk.
We got the full Dickey.
As we picked over our salads, we heard a roar of commotion to the rear of the dining area. We looked back and saw the bear-like man making his way to us while greeting other people he knew in the room. He wore a tan suit with a garnet tie. He issued a series of loud shouts, broad waves, even a cheerful insult or two. He seemed to stumble a bit as he navigated around tables to join us.
He pulled back his chair and crashed down onto it, hitting the target of his seat with his ample backside. He looked around at us without speaking, examining us for weakness and generally finding us wanting. He looked like an aging football player and fighter pilot, which of course is exactly what he was. He had played tailback at Clemson and had earned five Bronze Stars in WWII. He retained the swagger even if his body sagged a bit. His head was the size and shape of a potbelly stove, and his cheeks were the color of that same stove when vastly overheated.
He was drunk.
He flagged down our now-loved waitress and even before she got close he shouted, “Gin and tonic! No. Bourbon and water. No. What time is it? Lunch? Gin and tonic!”
He got his drink, and we all got our food. Within the first few minutes, Dickey had learned all of our names and made us feel important. We were all a bunch of skinny, wide-eyed teenagers who were relishing the experience.
We quickly realized that we had no need to worry about the finer points of etiquette around Dickey. He ate and drank like the bear he resembled, hunched and scarfing. He made us laugh and cringe as he told us stories from his past that seemed designed to intimidate us more than impress us.
Did we care that he read the inauguration poem for Jimmy Carter? Well, yeah. Were we enthralled by his stories of “when I was your age,” which involved a lot of time in north Georgia woods tracking wild boar? Yes, we were. He enjoyed projecting his self-created, self-contradicting image of the primitive sophisticate.
At some point, he was handed a manilla folder with our essays and poems and stories in it. This was why we were here. We were such excellent (punk-ass) kid writers that we had earned the right to sit at a table with James Dickey. We beamed as he slid a few pages from the folder.
“Douglas Brown,” he mumbled, looking at the paper. He glanced at me. “That’s you?”
“Yes,” I managed to croak out the word.
“Let’s see.” He studied my short essay for a while. I stared at him while he stared at my words. I believe my piece was a meditation on what it felt like to lose a race. I was a pretty good runner back in the day and despised losing.
Finally, the great man spoke. “Not bad. Blandly sentimental, indulgent, very small stakes, kind of dumb in a way, but I see where you are going. You know how to paint a scene. Not bad.”
I was elated. I had been insulted and yet deemed “not bad” —
by James Fucking Dickey.
He sorted through a few other kids’ papers, reading a line or two, offering a word of praise, and then ripping that line apart. He seemed to have a talent for finding the phrase or image that a young writer would be proud of and then plucking away that pride with piercing criticism. It was cruel and glorious.
“Gin and tonic!” he shouted again as he pushed away his empty plate.
The lovely and beloved waitress placed his drink on the table. And Dickey reached a hand under her skirt and squeezed her butt. He looked over at me and winked as the young woman rushed away.
I was shocked and embarrassed. I looked down at my own hands and closed my eyes and tried not to burst into flames.
Even in that awful moment, was I still proud to have had lunch with him? Sort of. Yes. Maybe. No, not really.
It was all still an achievement, still a memorable day for a kid who was trying to figure out his place in the world. Could I write a good sentence? Could I tell a good story? Could I make someone laugh or cry with my pen and paper? Could I reach into someone’s imagination and give them something they need? Could I affect a life?
I had wanted so badly to gain Dickey’s approval. Until suddenly I didn’t.
He’s barely remembered now as a poet. He’s barely remembered as a novelist. At the end of To the White Sea, the murderous main character is surrounded by Japanese people who see through his self-aggrandizement. Did Dickey understand what he was writing? Did he see himself clearly at last?
He’s barely remembered. James fucking Dickey.
I’ve moved on — as a writer and as a person.
But I remember that day.
I am the author of the memoir-ish book Walker Percy Loves You and Has a Wonderful Plan for Your Life. It’s surprisingly funny for a book about grief.
