PFK1 (6 page)

been a professional, in my opinion.

The only problem there was that she was far too hardheaded to see

any value in art.

It’s too bad because there are hardly any women professional

cartoonists. I think the field is wide open for a good one.

As far as writing goes, the best part for me is seeing a project

through to completion. That’s the most important litmus test at my

level. Can I crank the pages out or can’t I?

Do it, don’t dream it.

Sometimes the total commitment thing is a real drag and I just want

to quit. But I know I will finish, and the prospect makes me feel

kinda giddy.

Maybe I’ll even get lucky with a publisher.

Story Titles –
Sensation Stories, Obsessive Love, Domestic

Partners, Swoon, Pure Sleaze, Slam Dance, A Military History of the

Japanese Empire Since 1905, The Girl And The Boy, The Manly Arts,

36

The Word "Ixnay" And Its Potential Permutations, The Buns of

August, This Dark Dream, Hovercraft
.

This journal is a sweet sad love song. I’m writing for you, my

darling, whomever you are and wherever you may be. I dream of

lying beside you on soft, summer nights, caressing your silken body

before we fall asleep.

* * * *

March 4, 1978

At long last a communication from Ms. Ellsworth arrived today. I

find it hard to respond unemotionally so I will try out some sentences

to see how they look.

Probably this is what I should have expected. Her words sound like

the words of a drab, self-centered smartass leading a drab, self-

centered life.

Polly comes across as one of those women who trade life for

existence and security over love. She wants to be unpleasant and so

she is, like that horrible bitchy Yvonne dame Chesley dated up in

Portland last year.

I personally believe in Ms. Ellsworth and think she’s great, but who

the fuck listens to me? Too many of these young women have no

confidence in themselves or their abilities. It is a cold, depressing

world they inhabit. To be honest. she sounds even worse off than I

am.

No red hot love. Instead, a plateful of cold leftovers.

I can close the book on this one, I’m afraid. Send the record back

to the file room. But there is also much in what she said that surprised

me. Get this:

Polly confessed to having done a recon mission on our house after

Thanksgiving last year. Dammit! I knew it!

She cruised by our place on SE 25th Street late one night after the

holiday, she said. Couldn’t bring herself to come in and say hello. At

the time, her sister Peggy was living seven blocks away from us on SE

32nd Street.

Polly didn’t stop to see me, she says, because I scare the "Asshole

Motherfucking Piece of Shit Hell" out of her.

37

An exact quote.

Really? I think I can pretty much guess why Polly couldn’t bring

herself to knock on the door. She knows just as well as I do what

would have happened.

If she had stopped, she probably would not have emerged until

about four days later, with us as a never-again-to-be-split-asunder

pair. Of that I have no doubt.

Unfortunately, Ms. Ellsworth always was a bit of a chicken, afraid

to stick her neck out, afraid to take risks.

Ashamed to return to her organic chemistry class just because a few

dorks had seen her cute little tits. Afraid to stand up to her mother

Prude. Afraid to go it alone. Afraid of the truth. Afraid to play it

straight with me, a man who loved her with a burning passion, a man

who likely would have done anything for her except let her bully and

nag him.

I suspect that if Polly had screwed up her courage, we would be

together again. She never could resist my physical presence,

goddammit, and by that I don’t simply mean sex.

By that I simply mean me.

I could look into her eyes and feel the chemistry, the elemental

attraction of mutual magnetic forces. Words that came out of Polly’s

mouth were words I wanted to hear, from a voice that made me glad I

was alive.

I believe that I had pretty much the same effect on her. Polly’s

rejection of me I have therefore never quite figured out.

I don’t think she honestly knows either. Every time she tries to

explain it, she comes up with an entirely new set of reasons. In

rejecting me, I always thought she was rejecting something about

herself as well, something pretty important.

Fuck! When we made love, it wasn’t just bodies in motion, a

mechanical friction. It was more like nuclear fusion, imploding atoms

in a searing cataclysm that had the power destroy worlds and affect

faraway galaxies.

And I’m not exaggerating, either.

38

I suppose Polly can make light of it now, deluding herself with

smarmy opinions and verbal cheap shots. Well, that’s really too bad.

I wish it were different.

The price she pays for her cowardice will grow exponentially. She

will never completely escape my influence. She will never know any

man like me. I know it. I just know it.

Polly’s life will likely be spent some with financially stable,

crashingly dull creep. That is what I believe. All I wanted was to be

able to trust her. If there was a lot she wanted from me, okay, there

was a certain amount I wanted from her as well. As soon as I was

sure of her love, I would have given her my all.

Proof of her love. That’s what I was after. Not just the words, but

the fact. She demanded it from me, but was never willing to supply it

herself. What I have left is the knowledge that I loved her with a true

and honest heart.

That’s all there is to say.

I won’t write to her again.

So what else is new? A lot. Megan is teaching me how to do this

stupid welfare bullshit, showing me which forms to fill out and how to

authorize payments. She’s already done it before, at the West Eugene

branch office, until August of 1976.

First, Megan was a unit clerk, a crummy job if ever there was one,

she says. Unlike the worker jobs, which pay more, the unit clerk must

be able to type. Right before she moved to Pendleton with Mark, they

finally gave Megan the worker job she wanted.

"A woman who had a baby decided she didn’t want to come back

to work," Megan said. "So they let me have it."

Although Megan looks exactly like a slender Barbie doll and

dresses stylishly, her looks are deceiving. She’s an unrepentant rebel

who hates authority almost as much as I do.

Megan tells me she rues the day that she ever learned to type

because it confined her to a job rut that she feared she would never

escape. Despite her college degree, they have never given her a

chance. This is her big opportunity to escape the clerical ghetto.

39

As a bonus, she gets to teach me how to be a worker. There could

not be a more apt or willing pupil.

I don’t know about this. Being in such close proximity to this

beautiful woman all day long. She stands beside me at my desk and

points out things I’m supposed to complete on the 403B forms. I can

feel the warmth of her body near me and I drink in this lavender

perfume she wears.

Megan dresses like the thoroughbred she is. Holy Fucking Moley.

Sometimes I think she often unwittingly feeds me these sub sensory

attractant sexual chemicals that penetrate deeply into my primitive

testosterone-soaked male brain.

I am powerless to resist them. In the meantime, Megan is so

beautiful and capable I can’t fucking believe my luck.

By the end of the day, I’ve usually got a hard on a cat couldn’t

scratch.

Yesterday, I had to masturbate almost as soon as I got home so I

could settle down and get back to work on my book.

However, in her company I behave like the perfect gentleman I am.

Believe it or not, I do know how to behave myself around women. It

has never been my habit to stare, leer, or otherwise lech after them in

an unseemly fashion. The simple knowledge that an intense physical

attraction exists is more than enough for me. Be relaxed and natural is

my way. Make clean jokes and be fun. Do be a nice boy. Don’t be a

jackass. I guess I can thank my Catholic School upbringing for

something, anyway.

In addition, in the course of fashioning this journal, I have gained

extra experience in how to divorce my thoughts from my actions. I

am no longer as impulsive as I once was.

Besides, inasmuch as I look forward seeing Megan at work in the

morning, I won’t let anything distract me from my writing project. It

is of paramount importance.

* * * *

March 8, 1978

Despite my recent vow to the contrary, I sent a response to Ms.

Ellsworth after writing it twice and typing it once. I really don’t

40

expect an immediate reply. In essence, I’m just swapping ideas with a

woman I once knew.

One thing I did do was ask her to stop insulting Chesley in our

correspondence.

She has no call making snitty put-downs of my friends, especially a

person she hardly knows. It is interesting that she can take me to task

for writing negative stuff about people and then turn around and do it

herself.

In nearly three years of knowing her, I have learned that the rules

she invents for others do not necessarily apply to her.

But I had to laugh at her fears. They are not of me but of herself.

Surely she knows the last thing I wish for her is harm. During our

affair I was much too casual and nonchalant about her – I admit that.

It dawned on me way too late how truly serious she was. In

retrospect, I think I would have preferred a good long discussion

about The Future before we became physically intimate. A full, frank

discussion beforehand might have given me food for thought.

Instead, we just started fucking.

Come to think of it, I did have a conversation like that once with

this Sarah I. woman I knew back in Atlanta. I met her right as I was

about ready to leave town in 1975.

We made out at a party, but that was all. Still, it was some pretty

passionate necking. Real deep tongue action. Sarah liked kissing me,

I could tell, and I liked kissing her. A lot. But Sarah insisted she

would not be intimate with a guy unless he agreed to an exclusive

relationship first.

"Oh, I’m not saying we have to immediately get married," Sarah

said. "But if I am with a guy he is only with me. Nobody else."

Sarah said that had to be the deal, right up front. She also added

that she was no prude and liked sex, but it must be in the context of an

exclusive relationship. Now that I look back, I think maybe she was

on to something.

Perhaps if I had gone through such a discussion with Polly, I might

not have misread so many of her desperate signals.

41

At this late stage, I am beginning to believe that couples probably

ought to get to know each other a little better before they start fucking.

Having at least some idea of what you are getting into with someone

might smooth the adjustment.

Ah, hindsight.

Finished Chap. 28 tonight. I did not think it needed a notebook

rewrite so I just wrote it straight. It went fine. The Vladimir Lanolin

radicalization vignette brought the manuscript up to page 82. I’m

hitting my stride at last, working without interruption. I might even

finish ahead of schedule.

I’d like to get through this thing without having to do a complete

third draft, if at all possible. Also need to index the names so that

they will be consistent in the final version. I keep changing them so

often they remind me of party hats. You take them off as soon as the

candles are blown out.

Planning a trip to Eugene this weekend.

Need to do a few things there.

* * * *

March 9, 1978

Then again, the damn thing will probably need a complete third

draft after all. Oh well. Finished Chap. 29 this evening, bringing it up

to page 86. At this rate I may be done by the end of the month. I sure

hope so.

Tomorrow I intend to clean house, wash clothes, and get ready for

my trip to Eugene. Also need to get some money.

Work is going okay.

Got a letter telling me that my tax refund is being held again for

overdue student loans.

Those fucks. I will never get out from under those old college