by Richard Brautigan
It sounds like religious music. A friend of mine just came back from New York where he had Ernest Hemingway’s typist do some typing for him.
He’s a successful writer, so he went and got the very best, which happens to be the woman who did Ernest Hemingway’s typing. It’s enough to take your breath away, to marble your lungs with silence.
Ernest Hemingway’s typist!
She’s every young writer’s dream come true with the appearance of her hands which are like a harpsichord and the perfect intensity of her gaze and all to be followed by the profound sound of her typing.
He paid her fifteen dollars an hour. That’s more money than a plumber or an electrician gets.
$120 a day! for a typist!
He said that she does everything for you. You just hand her the copy and like a miracle you have attractive, correct spelling and punctuation that is so beautiful that it brings tears to your eyes and paragraphs that look like Greek temples and she even finishes sentences for you.
She’s Ernest Hemingway’s
She’s Ernest Hemingway’s typist.
Richard Gary Brautigan (1935-1984) was an American novelist, poet and writer. “Ernest Hemingway’s Typist” was First published in Rolling Stone (No. 48, Dec. 13, 1969: p. 40), and is included in Brautigan’s collection of short stories, Revenge of the Lawn (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1971).
