PFK1 (41 page)

March 17, 1979

This next part I will again write as a non-fiction novelization,

because I’m not sure how else to approach this material.

Yesterday afternoon I nearly left town – for good. The scene with

Megan had me so thoroughly pissed off that I decided I was just going

to split. Quit my job and move to California. Just like that. If

Charles can move to New York, I can move to Los Angeles.

Why the fuck not?

Nick can have the furniture, I thought. He has almost none.

Clarice got it all in the divorce. He can take my deluxe double bed,

my overstuffed sofa, matching chair, cedar chest, waterfall vanity,

night stand, and mirror.

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He can have my solid oak coffee table and assorted knick knacks.

All the cool stuff I’ve painstakingly accumulated since moving back

from Atlanta in 1975.

All I intended to take was my table, one straight backed chair, my

Olivetti typewriter, clothes, books, linen, towels, photos, journals,

papers, underground comix, sleeping bag, pillow, pots, pans, and

cooking stuff.

By midnight I had the bus packed and was ready to go. I went to

work as usual in the morning. A feeling of peace and contentment

such as I have never known settled over me. I was escaping all the

hassles here.

I spoke to Megan cordially twice, both times about work issues.

Otherwise I ignored her. She was supposed to come over later in the

evening to advise Nick about planting some herbs in the garden. By

then, I figured, I would be long gone. At noon I came home and

loaded the last of my stuff. On the kitchen table I left a note for Nick,

brief and to the point.

Moving to California, it read. Don’t expect me to return. The

furniture is yours. Good luck in The Future.

This is the way to do it, I thought. To hell with Megan. Fuck the

job. Fuck this town. Fuck everything and everybody. Los Angeles is

my next destination.

The last items on the agenda were cleaning out my bank account

and closing my PO Box.

I was leaving Megan behind. That was the important thing. If she

thought about me at all, she could ponder what went wrong during

slow moments at the welfare office. Let her get on with her life. As

the years go by, it would eventually become crystal clear that we were

never meant for each other.

No fucking way.

Just another blip, a failed affair. My guess was that she would

eventually wind up back with her husband, or some similar half-assed

upwardly mobile dork.

Such guys are a dime a dozen.

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A song by Nicolette Larson ran through my head as I prepared to

leave:

salt sea air

your windblown hair

reflections on a dream

thoughts of you

with who knows who

flow through me

like a stream

and I get a feeling

I’ve seen the last of you

Rio de Janeiro blue

En route to the bank I stopped by the river and took one last look at

the house on Cox Island. I read somewhere once that that the house

on Cox Island served as the model for the Stamper residence in Ken

Kesey’s novel,
Sometimes A Great Notion
. It’s a beautiful old house,

slowly decaying by the river. I took a B&W photograph of it as a

keepsake. Hope it turns out.

At the bank, I discovered that I left my goddamned passbook

behind at Nick’s place. When I went back to retrieve it, he was

standing in the kitchen reading my note.

"What the hell is this all about?"

"I’m outta here," I told him. "I’m moving to California."

Nick shook his head.

"Are you kidding? You need to be a little more forgiving," he said,

"if you want to get anywhere in life."

"What do you mean by that?" I asked. The passbook was on the

table, beside a rubber-banded deck of cards. The nine of diamonds

was on top, facing up.

I picked up the passbook.

"This is all about Megan, isn’t it?" Nick said.

"Mostly," I admitted.

"I can’t believe you are still pissed off because she had her moment

of doubt. C’mon, aren’t you being a little harsh? Having doubts is

perfectly natural for a woman. It comes with the territory. Jesus,

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Patrick, she left her husband to take up with you. Most women would

have played you guys off a hell of a lot longer than she did."

"But she’s still married."

"So what? That’s a mere formality at this point. Aren’t you doing

exactly what you claim that other woman did to you before? Getting

all pissed off because you wouldn’t go at her speed? Megan was in a

much tougher spot than the one you were in, Patrick. She strikes me

as pretty courageous, leaving him for you."

"I don’t know. You can look at it any way you want to," I said. I

was starting to acquire his habit of emphasizing certain words in

sentences. Doing it annoyed me, though.

Nick lit a cigarette and blew out the match.

"Don’t you see? Don’t you get it?" Nick said. "Isn’t it obvious

how ironic this is? You are doing the same thing to Megan that other

woman did to you."

"Oh bullshit."

"No, it’s true. You push, she pulls away. You gotta let her take the

lead, Patrick. Leaving your husband ain’t easy."

Nick pointed out that Megan had said she was sorry, that she had

made a mistake in going back to Mark.

"How many other women have you known who said that they were

wrong, that they made a mistake?" Nick asked.

I had to think hard about that one. From my mother to the nuns at

school to Meredith to Leanne to Marie to the other one, I could not

remember a single woman ever admitting that she wasn’t perfect, who

frankly said that she was capable of making a mistake.

They nearly always had explanations or rationalizations or

managed to somehow blame me when things went wrong. Even Jill

had only said that she changed her mind about me. I think her words

were that she "came around." None had ever said she was wrong or

made an apology, at least not that I could recall.

Except for Megan.

So Nick and I had a long conversation, sort of an argument, with

Nick taking Megan’s side. He said that my leaving town would hurt

264

her badly. Instead, he said I should stick around to see how things

developed.

Nick is a big fan of Megan’s. Always has been. He said she didn’t

deserve to have me just up and boogie (his word) without a decent

explanation or the courtesy of a goodbye.

"So if I had showed up here five minutes later than I did, you’d

have been out the door? Just like that?" Nick asked.

I shrugged. "I’ve abandoned other places and other people on

shorter notice," I said. "So what?"

Nick laughed, amused as hell for some reason.

"You really are a character," he said. "Did you know that Eleanor’s

teacher friends all asked about you after the poetry reading? One by

one, they came up to Eleanor later and wanted to know if you were

going with Megan and if so, how serious was it?"

I said nothing.

"You know, having you around is like being around some movie

star," Nick went on. "You attract so many women your aura even

rubs off some on me. Sorta makes me feel like I’m sprinkled with

pixie dust too."

"I’m so pleased for you."

Nick laughed again. "That is so like you, Patrick. Truth is, I got a

lot of pleasure in making sure Eleanor told her friends that you are

already spoken for. It’s plain that you’re in love with Megan.

Eleanor says the female staff at the middle school is pretty darn

disappointed. Whatever it is you’ve got, they want it and they want it

bad."

"But I’ve got nothing," I said. "I’ve never had anything. I am a

loser and I’ve been one as long as I can remember. I’m not interested

in a relationship anymore. I know I am in love Megan but she has

betrayed me. What she did was the worst. Tell me why I shouldn’t

hold her to the same standards I have been held to? Can you tell me

that? Indecision is a negative decision as far as I am concerned.

She’s already up made her mind."

Nick gaped at me like I was out of my fucking goddamned mind.

He took a drag on his cigarette.

265

"You are out of your fucking goddamned mind," he said. "You

can’t hold Megan to those standards because those are crazy

standards. They are the standards of a person who wants to be

unhappy, who is insisting on failure."

"Whaddaya mean?"

"Look, just because you let that other woman jerk your chain

doesn’t mean it has to stay jerked forever. She was the fool, my

friend, not you. She played you wrong and walked out on the best

there is, the cream of the crop. That is you, my friend. You have it

all. You’ve got brains, personality, good looks, and loads of ambition.

Even better, you seem capable of falling in love, actually in love, the

way women want to be loved. You know, with real passion, with

romance. Which is more than I can say for most guys, myself

probably included."

"That’s nice of you to say, but I’m not happy," I told him. "I’m not.

I never have been."

"That’s because you won’t let yourself be happy. Start with

Megan. Stop doing the same crappy stuff to her that’s been done to

you. Enough with the guilt trip, the hassles, the tragedy, the bullshit.

What a fucking waste of energy. Stop doing it. It’ll make a world of

difference, Patrick, I swear it will. You gotta be a little more open, a

little more forgiving. Stop always fighting the last war."

"Huh?"

"You’re going wrong just like that other woman, by refusing to

give Megan another chance. Yes, that’s it – I know I’m right. Simple

as that."

"I think this is different," I said.

"Oh, yeah? How so? That other woman you were so hot for

fucked with your head and showed you no respect by reading your

journal. Then she fucked some other guy and turned around and then

tried to make you feel guilty about it. She dumped you and never

gave you a second chance. The next thing you know she winds up

pregnant and blames you as the fucking jerk. Patrick, everything that

dame pulled on you was a con job and a mind fuck. From the

beginning, she never played you straight, not once."

266

"I’ve read someone else’s journal," I said.

"Your woman friend in Florida? So what? That isn’t the same

thing. You glanced at a couple of pages of her book and let it go.

You certainly didn’t try to use it against her, didn’t try to hurt her

feelings with it. And now that I’m on the subject," – Nick stubbed out

his cigarette, one of many in the astray – "let me say something about

that Florida woman – her name was Marie, wasn’t it?"

"Uh huh."

"She was by far the best thing you ever came across until you met

Megan. I can’t believe you let that babe slip through your fingers.

Man, what a knockout. Smart as a whip too, judging from her letters.

I really love that photo of her in a bikini you’ve got. Oh man,

incredible. Compared to Marie, that Polly Ellsworth dame was a

stick."

"You’ve read Marie’s letters?" I asked.

"Oh, sure. And all of your journals, too. I’ve read just about

everything you’ve got in that black trunk of yours upstairs," Nick said.

I was dumbfounded.

He fired up another cigarette. "Patrick, I’m an expert on you. In

my opinion, your novels, stories, and poems need a lot of work, but

your journal is wonderful. It’s really fun to read, once you get used to

your weird loopy handwriting."

It took me a full minute to recover from the shock of having my

privacy violated yet again. I could not believe my ears.

"Who said you could get into my stuff?" I said.

Nick shrugged. "Nobody. But you never expressly forbid it, either.

Besides, I get bored around here with you gone most of the day.

You’ve created a lot of great reading material. Wish I could write

stuff like you. I know you really dig the beat writers and Bukowski,

but you’ve got to start moving away from them. Be a little more

controlled. By the way, the lock on your trunk isn’t worth a damn. I

picked it with a bobby pin."

I suppose I should have been more angry about Nick’s invasion of

my privacy than I was. But the sad truth is, I am so used to being