Updike & Me

I had joked about it, had joked with colleagues that I would see him on the elevator. And what would I say? What would I do? Judy K., my manager, had seen John Updike, with a briefcase, one morning on the subway as she, and presumably he, traveled to Random House (Alfred A. Knopf, for him) from uptown Manhattan. She related to the rest of us that she said nothing to him. Joseph Heller was on the elevator one day. I said nothing. But on a hot sunny day, circa 1987, I spotted John Updike as I was leaving the building at lunchtime. Something about his gangly stride confirmed my suspicion. (Did he wear a jacket and tie? Seersucker?) I changed course and returned to the building, awaiting his entrance. What would I say, if anything? (Everything I relate now is washed over by waves and waves of memory and bleached by the selective sanitizing of lapsed years.) "Mr. Updike?" "Yes?" He (as with other authors I have encountered in public, such as Mona Simpson, at Scribner's on Fifth Avenue in the same era) seemed pleasantly surprised that anyone would recognize him. After all, he may have felt, I'm an author, not a rock star or an athlete; this is America, where authors garner a degree of anonymity. Or perhaps his reaction merely exhibited his courtly kindness. "I really love so much of what you've written," I stammered. (I hope my words were at least that positive. I did not want to be a phony liar, but I also did not want to be a rude idiot.) "Well, thank you. Thank you very much." I sheepishly said, "Do you mind if I ask you for an autograph?" as I fumbled for a piece of paper and writing instrument. I found a piece of Random House notepaper with my name imprinted on it (a cool thing to have while working there; made one look and feel important, even if you were a factotum). I must have mumbled to him that I worked at Random House (in the now-defunct School Division, where Toni Morrison once worked, I'm told, and a division that elicited a "Huh?" while I once fielded softballs in the outfield at Central Park with the likes of Ashbel Green and other Knopf editors). He asked me my name so that on the back of this memo notepaper he could address his autograph personally "here in the lobby of 201 E. 50th John Updike." In black ink. And thank you for that and for all the delicious volumes of your words and works. And for your twinkling delight in this life. May you rest and peace and may light perpetual shine upon you.