[* * *] As to dedication of book to you, Lou, it is all pretty simple. When I heard you over the phone and you did not give me a bunch of literary doubletalk, accent, etc. etc.—your complete sense of unfalsity, this led me to suggest the dedication to you. This, plus the fact that it being the first book in your series (you and Jon: Loujon), it seemed in a sense of history—and literary history is the only one that seems to have some sense—the only dedication. As to being on cover with you, great, but it does not seem real, it is a conjecture sort of thing and I will not know it, really, until the magazine is in my hand and I stand here in this room with it and something in my head says, it happened. I will have a drink on it, a good scotch and water, and I will think of myself down in the alleys again or in all the rooming houses in hell, and the jails, freezing, madness etc., and it will come through to me good. You know, for all this, I still feel pretty much outside of everything yet. It is as if, any moment, somebody is going to knock on my door and a couple of guys are going to enter some day, “All right, friend, we’ve come to cut off your arms.” Psychologically speaking, there might be a reason or a term for this, but we do not live with reason or terms, unfortunately. [* * *]

[To Jon and Louise Webb]

March 17, 1963