PFK1 (44 page)

I can’t stay in this beach burg much longer. I always have to do my

grocery shopping at 7:00 AM on Saturday to avoid the clients. Thank

goodness Nick owns a washer and dryer so I don’t have to go the

laundromat anymore. The air is stale here, the people air I mean.

They won’t leave me alone. I can’t go to Bay Street without seeing

some jackass drinking up his welfare check while his poor kids do

without.

Worse, I know all these dirty little secrets. To tell the truth, I loathe

all these jive ass white honky motherfuckers. I have no compassion

for them whatsoever.

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But I do weep for their children.

I’m spinning my wheels here. I keep telling Megan that she can

come up as soon as I get established there. She doesn’t seem too

thrilled about that plan either.

What can you do? I haven’t told Megan this, but I’ve already put

my name on the worker transfer list. To the Portland area. They like

transfers because no training is involved. No word about any

openings yet. I’ll just sit tight.

* * * *

April 17, 1979

Reading about Jack London again. It is hard for me to believe such

a human being ever existed. Truly a self made man. His short stories

are fantastic, the novels good and bad.

London’s novel
The Call of the Wild
has a mystical quality to it that

can’t be denied.

I fucking love the way it ends:

But he is not always alone. When the long winter nights come on

and the wolves follow their meat into the lower valleys, he may be

seen running at the head of the pack through the pale moonlight or

glimmering borealis, leaping gigantic above his fellows, his great

throat a-bellow as he sings the song of the younger world, which is the

song of the pack.

Oh, how I love that last line!

London sold The Call for $2,000 outright. Never made another

dime off of it. Never sell anything outright is the moral of that story.

About half finished with
The Dark City
. Not sure what to do from

this point on. I don’t think I care. I’m just going through the motions.

It is lousy and artificial. Everybody who looks at it hates it. Megan

has many reservations.

In the meantime, I’m not dead yet. I’m extremely restless and

driven by forces I do not fully comprehend. It has always been thus.

What will happen next?

Megan took a photo of me standing beside the shore pine outside

the welfare office a couple of days ago. The sun was shining brightly

282

overhead and, as usual, Megan made me look like some kind of a

slick fucking male model instead of the stupid twit I actually am.

I can hardly wait until I’m old and fat. Then I will have an excuse

for feeling lousy all the time. But when Megan takes these

photographs of me, I appear extremely handsome and look like I am

having a ball. I look as happy as those guys in soft drink

commercials.

* * * *

April 23, 1979

Another long work day. I am hoping the state employees will go

on strike this year. I could really use a break from the routine.

Chesley called. He says I need to shell out $100 for a tux to attend his

wedding. I said what the shit?

He says Shirley is insisting on an elaborate ceremony and he is

going along with whatever she wants. The date is now definitely set

for July 28.

Let me see. I spend $130 on the flight to California and $100 on a

suit. Probably need a haircut too. Then there will be food, beer, and

possibly a rented porno movie for the bachelor party. Wait a second.

This whole thing is spiraling out of control, just like the Pentagon

budget. I can’t believe these cost overruns.

I probably wouldn’t mind it however, if Shirley wasn’t such a

fucking scrag. Feel like I’m losing a friend. I probably am.

Chesley and I discussed Randy and Wilma at length, arriving at

similar negative conclusions via independent paths. We can see what

is wrong with others, but not ourselves. I told Chesley that I hope he

won’t fall into the same trap as Randy, married to a crabby, self-

centered, and domineering woman. He assures me to the contrary,

though I have serious doubts.

Planning to wind up
The Dark City
at 140 or 150 pages.

Because it is so full of violence and perverted sex, I feel like I am

writing for popular tastes. Perhaps, however, I am being just a little

too obvious. I’d like to think of it as Swiftian satire, but maybe it

ain’t too swift.

283

One thing I promise: When complete,
The Dark City
will contain

all my own special touches. A throw away novel for a throw away

age. Not art, just plastic.

As apathy leads to ignorance, so ignorance inevitably leads to

disco. Verily I say unto you:

These are troubled times.

Night is falling softly. I have to go outside and dig it for a while.

Megan is coming over later to spend the night. I have prepared in her

honor a luscious vegetarian lasagna, a big green salad, garlic bread,

and a chocolate cake dessert. Eleanor, Nick, and Harry will be joining

us.

I am hosting a dinner party.

The evening sky blazes a gorgeous red, a burnished blood crimson,

a red like no other red I have ever seen. It is a most glorious sunset,

tinged with sliver, blue, and gold.

It is a purely glittering rubio horizon. Our orb hurtles through

space, a water world crawling with itty bitty organisms.

* * * *

April 28, 1979

This business of Nick showing no respect for my privacy is really

beginning to bug me. I appreciate that he has such a high opinion of

Megan but that doesn’t seem to extend to me. I’m pissed off at him

because he let some friend of Eleanor’s spend the night in my study.

Without asking me, a room I pay for each and every month!

When I came back from Megan’s this morning, I walked in to find

this Connie dame snooping though my
Dark City
manuscript. Fuck!

"Is this your stuff?" Connie demanded. "I don’t like it."

Who fucking asked her? I didn’t answer and told her to get out of

my room. Later, she told Nick she thought I was rude.

What the shit? The bitch roots though my private stuff – and calls

me rude when I object?

Goddammit. Another dumpy, crabby woman. I’ve had my fill.

The guy who winds up with Connie will have himself a real Shirley-

style prize.

284

I should buy my own house but I don’t know where I want to live

and I don’t have enough money. Nick is okay most of the time. I

gave him a raft of shit about letting her stay in my study. The fucking

jerk. I pay him extra for that room, goddamnit.

Took a long drive in the bus after my go around with Connie.

Megan is shopping in Coos Bay with her pal Ginny.

This new book I’m writing in cost fifty cents more than the last one

I bought. Goddamn Jimmy Carter inflation. Whenever I start a new

book of this journal I look back over the old ones to see if I’ve

changed any.

A little. I still don’t know what I’m doing most of the time, but

I’ve got big plans. Meanwhile, I just try to survive from day to day

without getting into too much trouble.

I don’t know what else to do.

The Boston literary magazine
Dark Horse
said no dice to the

chapter I sent them. So did the magazine Neworld, also rejecting me.

My story The Noisome Wind was not what they were looking for,

they said.

Three fourths of my submissions are still out. If just one or two of

them connect, it will have been worth the expense and effort. The

personal rejections are what I like most. The one from Neworld was a

plain form.

Most are like that.

* * * *

May 6, 1979

Torrential rains are pounding down as I write this. I’ve got six

pages done on Chap. 18 in
The Dark City
. I’m on page 47 of my new

notebook. Writing is such a chore sometimes. But never a bore. But

sometimes I’d rather smoke dope and dream the day away.

But writing beckons: It requires steady concentration and constant

effort. When it goes good, I look up at the clock and it is 9:00 PM.

Then I look up again and it is 11:40 PM. Serious work is very

satisfying, unlike this stupid diary, which is six plus volumes of pure

mind vomit.

Precisely how I intended it.

285

Got a new padlock for my black trunk, a real bruiser, put the key on

my ring, and had a duplicate key made.

No more intrusions. Motherfuckers.

Megan and I got the garden fully planted this morning, just before

the rain started. We still have room in the greenhouse but the outside

plot is done. What a pain to put up the chicken wire. But necessary to

keep the stupid cats out. They seem to think the garden patch is in

reality a large outdoor litter box.

Megan moved into her new place, a one bedroom apartment in a

house out on Rhody. What she has her eye on, though, is the cabin in

Heceta Beach next door to Ginny.

* * * *

May 7, 1979

Then again, maybe I’ll just move to Portland no matter what.

Megan really disappointed me today. I won’t go into the details or

hash it over, but my disappointment was keen.

Mainly, I blame the managers. I think it’s a crying shame how they

are allowed to abuse the employees. The old biddies are clearly afraid

to mess with me but everyone else is fair game.

I keep telling Megan this is isn’t the environment for either of us,

that we must get out of here as soon as possible. Sure, the physical

setting is spectacular beyond compare but we must consider the

human factor as well.

My beloved beauty and I need to be in a big city where we can rock

together, not go stale in some crappy little one-horse town. Maybe I

can get a half time in one of the branches up there. I have over

$2,000. My student loans are manageable now that I’m caught up

with the Eugene one.

I could wipe out those old loans today if I felt like it. But they get

cheaper every day. So why bother? The rate is fixed at three percent

and inflation is running 13 percent. Besides, I’ve got plans for that

money.

Like politics.

* * * *

May 11, 1979

286

At the union meeting in Salem. It is weird. Buncha chronic

complainers, if you ask me. I say if you don’t like your job, go on the

attack. Start fucking with the managers. Fight back. Screw with their

heads. These whiners are so pathetic.

Job Rep methods. Teamsters. AFSCME. Ratification of OSEA

contract. Do we ratify? Bob Ghouley – reorganization. Become like

private industrial unions by 1981. Leadership.

Membership. Adequate pay – are they really saying that?

Adequate? Why hasn’t this issue been addressed in General Council?

Staff. Board. District Directors. Delegates. Interested people.

Ratification issues. BURC. Job Reps again.

Senate Bill 57

Job Reps key to the entire union. Impasse or contract offer – which

will it be?

Later: I left the meeting early and drove home. Burned out from

the drive, I walked in through the kitchen, where I found Nick and

Lisa laughing. They were ridiculing
The Dark City
, which they had

been reading upstairs while I was in Salem.

They were giggling and calling it "The Dark Tittie." What a

charming sense of humor they both have. Why do people feel free to

piss on things that mean something to me?

I would never do the same to them. Why do they do it to me? It

hurts my feelings and it really bums me out. Dealing with people is

such a struggle. What I get is a big drag down. Even worse than a put

down.

Now I know I am leaving here. ASAP.

But I shrugged and told them that writers write and snipers make

crappy jokes.

Surprisingly, that kind of shut them up.

* * * *

May 16, 1979

Ah yes, it’s all falling into place and life is good. My big

opportunity may arrive sooner than I think. I worry altogether too

much. What is the fucking point?

287

Got a new camera on Monday. A 35MM Olympus OM1 single

lens reflex camera, exactly like Megan’s. Now she can teach me yet

another special skill.

The only difference in our cameras is that mine comes with a silver

and black body while her camera is completely black. I’m way