The Story of my Typewriter Three and a half years later, I came home to America.

It was July 1974, and when I unpacked my a!s that first afternoon in "ew #ork, I disco$ered that my little %ermes typewriter had een destroyed. The co$er was smashed in, the keys were man!led and twisted out of shape, and there was no hope of e$er ha$in! it repaired. I couldn&t afford to uy a new typewriter. I rarely had much money in those days, ut at that particular moment I was dead roke. A couple of ni!hts later, an old colle!e friend in$ited me to his apartment for dinner. At some point durin! our con$ersation, I mentioned what had happened to my typewriter, and he told me that he had one in the closet that he didn&t use anymore. It had een !i$en to him as a !raduation present from 'unior hi!h school in 19(). If I wanted to uy it from him, he said, he would e !lad to sell it to me. *e a!reed on a price of forty dollars. It was an +lympia porta le, manufactured in *est ,ermany. That country no lon!er e-ists, ut since that day in 1974, e$ery word I ha$e written has een typed out on that machine. In the e!innin!, I didn&t think a out it much. A year went y, ten years went y, and not once did I consider it odd or e$en $a!uely unusual to e workin! with a manual typewriter. The only alternati$e was an electric typewriter, ut I didn&t like the noise those contraptions made. the constant hum of the motor, the u//in! and rattlin! of loose parts, the 'itter u! pulse of alternatin! current $i ratin! in my fin!ers. I preferred the stillness of my +lympia. It was comforta le to the touch, it worked smoothly, it was dependa le. And when I wasn&t poundin! on the key oard, it was silent. 0est of all, it seemed to e indestructi le. 1-cept for chan!in! ri ons and occasionally ha$in! to rush out the ink uildup from the keys, I was a sol$ed of all maintenance duties. Since 1974, I ha$e chan!ed the roller twice, perhaps three times. I ha$e taken it into the shop for cleanin! no more than I ha$e $oted in 2residential elections. I ha$e ne$er had to replace any parts. The only serious trauma it has suffered occurred in 1979 when my two3year3old son snapped off the carria!e return arm. 0ut that wasn&t the typewriter&s fault. I was in despair for the rest of the day, ut the ne-t mornin! I carried it to a shop on 4ourt Street and had that arm soldered ack in place. There is a small scar on that spot now, ut the operation was a success, and the arm has held e$er since. There is no point in talkin! a out computers and word processors. 1arly on, I was tempted to uy one of those mar$els for myself, ut too many friends told me horror stories a out pushin! the wron! utton and wipin! out a day&s work 5or a month&s work5and I heard one too many warnin!s a out sudden power failures that could erase an entire manuscript in less than half a

second. I ha$e ne$er een !ood with machines, and I knew that if there was a wron! utton to e pushed, I would e$entually push it. So I held on to my old typewriter, and the 1967s ecame the 1997s. +ne y one, all my friends switched o$er to 8acs and I08s. I e!an to look like an enemy of pro!ress, the last pa!an holdout in a world of di!ital con$erts. 8y friends made fun of me for resistin! the new ways. *hen they weren&t callin! me a curmud!eon, they called me a reactionary and stu should I chan!e when I was perfectly happy as I was9 :ntil then, I hadn&t felt particularly attached to my typewriter. It was simply a tool that allowed me to do my work, ut now that it had ecome an endan!ered species, one of the last sur$i$in! artifacts of twentieth3century homo scriptorus, I e!an to de$elop a certain affection for it. ;ike it or not, I reali/ed, we had the same past. As time went on, I came to understand that we also had the same future. Two or three years a!o, sensin! that the end was near, I went to ;eon, my local stationer in 0rooklyn, and asked him to order fifty typewriter ri shipped in from as far away as <ansas 4ity. I use these ri ons as cautiously as I can, typin! on them until the ink is all ut in$isi le on the pa!e. *hen the supply is !one, I ha$e little hope that there will e any ri ons left. It was ne$er my intention to turn my typewriter into a heroic fi!ure. That is the work of Sam 8esser, a man who stepped into my house one day and fell in lo$e with a machine. There is no accountin! for the passions of artists. The affair has lasted for se$eral years now, and ri!ht from the e!innin!, I suspect that the feelin!s ha$e een mutual. 8esser seldom !oes anywhere without a sketch ook. %e draws constantly, sta in! at the pa!e with furious, rapid strokes, lookin! up from his pad e$ery other second to s=uint at the person or o 'ect efore him, and whene$er you sit down to a meal with him, you do so with the understandin! that you are also posin! for your portrait. *e ha$e een throu!h this routine so many times in the past se$en or ei!ht years that I no lon!er think a out it. I remem er pointin! out the typewriter to him the first time he $isited, ut I can&t remem er what he said. A day or two after that, he came ack to the house. I wasn&t around that afternoon, ut he asked my wife if he could !o downstairs to my work room and ha$e another look at the typewriter. ,od knows what he did down there, ut I ha$e ne$er dou ted that the typewriter spoke to him. In due course, I elie$e he e$en mana!ed to persuade it to are its soul. ons for me. %e had to call around for se$eral days to scare up an order of that si/e. Some of them, he later told me, were orn old !oat. I didn&t care. *hat was !ood for them wasn&t necessarily !ood for me, I said. *hy

%e has een ack se$eral times since, and each $isit has produced a fresh wa$e of paintin!s, drawin!s, and photo!raphs. Sam has taken possession of my typewriter, and little y little he has turned an inanimate o 'ect into a e!in with a personality and presence in the world. The typewriter has moods and desires now, it e-presses dark an!ers and e-u erant 'oys, and trapped within its !ray, metallic ody, you would almost swear that you could hear the eatin! of a heart. I ha$e to admit that I find all this unsettlin!. The paintin!s are rilliantly done, and I am proud of my typewriter for pro$in! itself to e such a worthy su 'ect, ut at the same time 8esser has forced me to look at my old companion in a new way. I am still in the process of ad'ustment, ut whene$er I look at one of these paintin!s now, >there are two of them han!in! on my li$in! room wall?, I ha$e trou le thinkin! of my typewriter as an it. Slowly ut surely, the it has turned into a him. *e ha$e een to!ether for more than a =uarter of a century now. 1$erywhere I ha$e !one, the typewriter has !one with me. *e ha$e li$ed in 8anhattan, in upstate "ew #ork, and in 0rooklyn. *e ha$e tra$eled to!ether to 4alifornia and to 8aine, to 8innesota and to 8assachusetts, to @ermont and to Arance. In that time, I ha$e written with hundreds of pencils and pens. I ha$e owned se$eral cars, se$eral refri!erators, and ha$e occupied se$eral apartments and houses. I ha$e worn out do/ens of pairs of shoes, ha$e !i$en up on scores of sweaters and 'ackets, ha$e lost or a andoned watches, alarm clocks, and um rellas. 1$erythin! reaks, e$erythin! wears out, e$erythin! loses its purpose in the end, ut the typewriter is still with me. It is the only o 'ect I own today that I owned twenty3si- years a!o. In another few months, it will ha$e een with me for e-actly half my life. 0attered and o solete, a relic from an a!e that is =uickly passin! from memory, the damn thin! has ne$er !i$en out on me. 1$en as I recall the nine thousand four hundred days we ha$e spent to!ether, it is sittin! in front of me now, stutterin! forth its old familiar music. *e are in 4onnecticut for the weekend. It is summer, and the mornin! outside the window is hot and !reen and eautiful. The typewriter is on the kitchen ta le, and my hands are on the typewriter. ;etter y letter, I ha$e watched it write these words. July ), )777