PFK1 (26 page)

the other way around.

Man, I could write forever tonight.

Oh yeah, and I’m still alive.

For now.

The next move is mine. You give away the things you love, and

one of them is this. Here is a signal. Here is a sign.

I’m sending Polly all the subsequent volumes of my journal. Let

the story pick up where it left off. If my guess is correct, she will not

be able to resist reading these words.

Take a big bite of my poison apple, girlie. No, better yet, let me

shove it down your throat. Let me expose myself nakedly to you.

That’s what you wanted, ain’t it? You’d do it again, right? Like a

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pervert in the park wearing no pants under his raincoat, I will expose

myself.

Nobody deserves the truth more than you. Eat the truth, bitch.

Suck its cock like you did mine.

Yes yes yes. Let Polly make what she can of these painful

passages. If I am not wrong, she will read every wretched word.

Now that I think about it, in her perfect selfishness and in her

ability to rationalize her private crimes, she reminds me a lot of...of...

my own mother! Aaaaauuugghhh!

Abigail Van Buren says men either marry a woman like their

mother or the opposite. Omigod! She was the same!

When I fucked Polly, I was fucking my own mother. I was a

goddamned motherfucker.

An asshole motherfucker piece of shit.

I can’t believe how fast we drifted apart. How far and how fast the

dissolution went. It seems like a dream now that I once pressed my

lips to hers, had my cock in her body, in her mouth, or my tongue in

her vagina. How many times did my lips close upon those little pink

nipples of hers? How many times did I rub her button with my finger,

to make her whimper and coo?

Hmmm? How many?

How quickly she vanished from my life! For her, I rejected all the

others, only to discover that she was going to reject me.

What incomparable irony. Delicious.

Now on to other business. I’ve gone through all of my junk and

found everything she ever sent me and torched it in the barrel out

back. Gone. Every drawing, every letter, every photo. Except for

one thing. Ya know what? I found this nude drawing she made of me

back when she was giving me her jealous shit about Arianna. I’d

forgotten all about it.

The thing is uncannily accurate, showing me with an erection, hairy

legs, stupid beard and everything. The thought bubble atop my head

says: "I hope Arianna doesn’t mind me cumming at the very thought

of her..."

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I’m going to keep that little scrap. The idea that she sat down and

created it amuses me. It amuses me no end. What a jealous bitch she

was. Likewise, the letters I have copied into this diary will have to

stay unless she takes it upon herself to destroy the books. She will

have that option. I hope she exercises it.

As a final punishment, I hereby sentence Polly Ellsworth to the

Gulag of Namelessness, for hereafter I will never write her name

again. She will only be "the other one."

She is forever vaporized.

* * * *

August 19, 1978

This next part I am again writing like a non-fiction novel because

simple transcription cannot adequately express what I have just been

through. Late last night I went to the ocean to take a swim. I wasn’t

planning to drown myself or anything like that. I just wanted to put

myself in a hazardous situation where I was likely to die.

I wanted to do something extremely dangerous. I wanted to swim

with the bananafish. I wanted to go surfin’ USA.

To mark the occasion, I sent "the other one" all five volumes of my

journal. As a parting gift. They have these nifty padded manila

mailers at work. We use them to ship welfare files here and there

around the state.

I used one to mail my journals to her.

Let her and the new boyfriend read them through.

Those crazy kids. I know that her evil morbid curiosity will ensure

a thorough reading. So many juicy tidbits. My guess is that 1977

alone ought to make her (pubic) hair stand on end.

My long, soundless Edvard Munch scream.

I left work early and got good and drunk at home. By 10:00 PM I

was plastered, so I drove up the coast to a unique natural formation

known as Devil’s Churn. It’s a spot where the ocean has chewed a

100-yard long trench in the rocks. The water there comes roaring

through like a runaway freight train.

Many people have drowned there.

Pretty challenging swim, all things considered.

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But about right for me.

The other one probably doesn’t even remember telling me about the

time she fell kerplunk in Devil’s Churn, way back in 1972 or

thereabouts. She was with Blane at the time.

No swimmer himself, Blane never even tried to fish her out. That

honor went to some other hero who risked his life to save hers.

Totally bedraggled and spitting up seawater, the girl lost her purse and

one of her shoes, but was otherwise unhurt.

I thought it over and decided Devil’s Churn was right for me. I

especially like the name. Devil’s Churn. And I really did feel like

taking a swim. Near as I could guess, there was no shortage of

potential hazards, and likely no heroes in sight at 10:30 PM on August

18, 1978. A really horrifying finale to my existence on earth would

be very much to my liking.

So I decided to take the plunge.

Surfing like the fucking Beach Boys, man.

Like Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. Of course, a fatal

accident was not my primary intention, I swear it wasn’t. Not my

primary intention. Certainly not. See? I’m still alive. How I

survived, though, is not precisely clear.

The ocean gets quite warm along the coast this time of year. By

mid-August, Nick says, it’s like bath water out there.

Perfect for a nighttime dip.

I climbed over the locked gate at the state park and found the head

of the trail. I strolled past the warning signs and went on down to the

water. I sipped a pint of Black Monk whiskey and felt like a million

bucks. A beautiful starry night glistened above me.

Devil’s Churn looked beautiful too, perfect in every way. A

blasting, ripping, roaring, rock-infested formation. The Churn is like

a narrow football field, about 40 feet across at its widest point. The

waves really rip through.

Everything augured well for a great test of my physical stamina.

To get things rolling, I puffed a large sized stick of African reefer and

polished off my bottle of whiskey.

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Wham! Oh yeah. A lovely head of stuff to help me appreciate this

wonderful world we inhabit.

I was completely wasted.

Standing near the edge of the Churn, I felt nothing but self-loathing.

Nobody can hate me any more than I already hate myself. My

internal critic never shuts up, not even for a minute. I got undressed

by the side of the water, folding everything into a neat pile. My keys

were still in the ignition. As a memento, I left the other one’s little

sketch of me on the seat.

All I wore as I barefooted it across the rocks were my black bikini

briefs. Ideal apparel for taking the plunge. In no time at all, I was

peering down into the heart of the Churn, shivering in the spray, as

goose bumps appeared on my stupid long arms and my skinny flat

belly. I saw my size 10 feet, my hairy legs, and my stupid long-

fingered hands. Penis and testicles were in their assigned places, as

usual begging for trouble.

Such a feeling came over me, a desire to be done with life. I

always feel that way when I think about the other one, about her

abortion, about what a fool I was to fall in love with her.

Or when I think about Leanne and getting her pregnant. Or when I

think about blowing off Marie Montambeault. Or when I think about

my family and growing up in the Catholic Church or my stupid job.

Or when I begin to think really hard about my foolish, empty

ambitions. The list goes on and on.

It grows bigger by the day.

Every fucking decision I have made since the fall of 1969 has been

100 percent wrong. Ever since I met that fucking Leanne, I have done

everything wrong. No question about it.

Wrong wrong wrong.

I do not forgive myself.

I forget nothing. I forgive nothing.

That is my motto.

As I stood there, the task of living, of trying to go on, seemed so

fucking pointless. I have had this feeling for a long time and it has

nothing to do with her.

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It’s not her, it’s not me, its life itself that I dislike. What a vicious

fucking struggle. Why do we endure this endless pain, this

frustration, this awful fear? What is the point? What is the fucking

point? Life is not worth living.

I felt a tremendous sense of peace and purpose out there in the

darkness. The sky above me. The crashing waves below. The

horizon lit by the pinhole camera light of a zillion stars.

Any moment I could go into the water, I thought. How easy it

would be. My body was poised for the dive. The spray was soaking

me. The authorities would not rule it a suicide. They would surely

call it accidental.

Besides, in these past few weeks I have tried hard to be positive.

All smiles and upbeat planning for The Future.

"He had too much to drink," they would say afterwards. "These

unfortunate accidents occur two or three times a year on the

picturesque Oregon coast."

I imagined my brother Mick receiving a telegram in Africa, my

sisters and my mother getting the news by phone. From some cop or

hospital employee, I thought.

Probably a nurse.

My next mental image was of my mother badgering the state to see

if I had taken out any life insurance and if so, who was the

beneficiary? I imagined the crestfallen look upon her face upon

learning that I had donated the entire $10,000 to Planned Parenthood.

That made me smile.

The image dissolved into the bemused expression on the face of the

other one when (and if) she ever learns of my fate. Yes, I’ve done

everything wrong. There’s nothing left but this.

I am tired of being stuck here in beautiful Death Camp Earth. The

Final Solution? You got it, baby. The seawater, sweetheart, the

boiling foam. Drowning is how Martin Eden ended his life in the Jack

London novel by the same name.

It’s a pretty sound method.

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News reports say the Khmer Rouge have turned Cambodia into a

killing field, with pyramids of skulls rising higher than Angkor Wat.

You gotta love those Khmer Rouge.

They’re certainly an upwardly mobile bunch of bloodthirsty

communist guerillas. It’s all of a piece, one vicious thing connected

to another. Here is my one, my final, my truest possible statement:

Fuck everything and everybody.

Then came the truly weird part. As I stood there ready to go, my

teeth chattering in the spray, I heard a voice calling out to me.

Probably an auditory hallucination. But it was there, it was definitely

there. Like a little girl’s voice, crying:

"Venice-easy! Venice-easy!" Don’t ask me what the words meant

because I don’t know. I remember that it had a real eerie quality. The

opposite of a siren song, I guess, because instead of diving into water,

I suddenly backed away from it.

Swimming across The Churn no longer seemed like such a cool

idea. Come to think of it, the idea was madness. What the hell was I

doing at Devil’s Churn in the middle of the goddamn night anyway?

How insane can you get?

I sighed in disgust. If I really had any guts, I’d keep enduring the

horror of life right through to the bitter end. One way or the other, I

would simply ride it out and keep on plugging.

I put my clothes back on. What a hassle. As I turned around to

head back up the trail, my foot went out from under me and I slipped.

I must have forgot to tie my one of my shoes and tripped over the

lace. As I lurched forward, I lost my balance and fell in the water.

Wham! In one terrifying instant, I fell head first into Devil’s

Churn! Immediately, I felt myself being dragged out to sea.

Holy shit! My knee hit a rock and then my shoulder smashed into

another rock. Omigod! I was deep in the water, fighting for my life.