Back in 2005, I called Harvey Pekar on the phone. My reason for calling was to ask if he’d be interested in contributing an essay to an anthology I was putting together called Fame & Misfortune. I’d gotten his number from a man who used to book him for speaking engagements. He told me: “Harvey’s real cool, just give him a call.” So I did. The phone rang a few times, then Harvey picked up. I heard that same voice I came to know from his days on Letterman. It was scratchy and distinct, brimming with character.
Harvey listened patiently to my pitch. I was nervous, stumbled on my words a bit too much, backtracked and probably sounded like someone who’d been hit in the head a few too many times. When I was finally done explaining the book, and what I was looking for in an essay, Harvey asked a few questions. He told me it sounded real interesting. Then he got to the point, the million dollar question every writer needs to ask, deserves to ask: “What’s it pay?”
At the time, I had no money. Every submission I received was paid back in copies of books/zines, or by putting contributors in touch with editors and art directors I knew, people who would pay them, however measly the money. But Harvey didn’t need that. He had an outlet for his work, a means of distributing his stories and ideas. So I reluctantly admitted that there was no budget, waiting for him to thank me for wasting his time. “I need to make some dough,” he said, pausing for a moment. It seemed as if he was thinking about whether or not he could handle doing one more piece of writing for free in his life. “Yeah, I need to at least make some dough, a few hundred bucks.” I told him I would see if I could get some cash together and, if so, I would call him back. I never got the cash. So I never called.
When I think about this conversation, I cringe a little. I worry that I insulted him, even though he didn’t seem the least bit offended. To him, it was probably another phonecall, one of many he received that day. But I wish I could have made it work. The anthology remains unfinished, half a decade later. And in that manuscript wasting away on a randomly used harddrive, there is no contribution from Harvey Pekar.
PS: Following Harvey’s death last month, S.I. Rosenbaum wrote a nice remembrance over at Obit magazine.
