And then there was Bill Jan. 3, 1986
As I said yesterday, after Texas came Bill, Fran’s one-time lover she claimed had simply become a business partner, a situation I never believed, and a fiction Fran did very little to maintain.
He seemed to have a power over Fran I never fully understood,
a man full of mind-games and dramatic mood changes.
And once again, I found myself in the middle of a love triangle
I never intended to get myself mixed up in. Although Bill was always somewhere in
the background, previously she was involved with Frazier.
After her trip to Texas, I got insecure and needed
reassurance from her that I was still a central part of her life.
I had grown up with people constantly walking out and got to
believe anyone I got emotionally attached to eventually would as well, and
often as not, I caused the event.
But her trip magnified these insecurities. She said good bye
while I was at work in the Fotomat booth in Clifton, after which I heard
nothing from her for more than three weeks.
I received progress reports from her father, who in his own
nasty way made things worse, telling me of the various motels she’d stayed in
during her trip out, suggesting she was not alone. He kept track of her by the
bills he had to pay.
She sent no word directly. No call informing me of her safe
arrival, no letters of love. She later claimed she had written three.
One post card did arrive written the last day of her stay in
Texas; she was apparently drunk when she scribbled the message.
Meanwhile, I prepared the big apartment expecting her to
move in with me, and to make up for the lack of attention of her trip.
She came back in a rush, having brought her brother with
her, asking me to put him up until he could arrange to move north to Vermont.
She said she didn’t want to live with me. Worse still, it
was Safire that informed me that Fran had gone off to Connecticut when Fran had
said nothing to me about her going – just a continuation of the Texas trip.
Up went my defenses and within a few weeks, she and I had
our first serious falling out and this drove her into the arms of Bill.
She said she went with him because of the money. Bill was
freelancing for a New York electronics company designing slide projectors for
various uses, including training for the U.S. Army and Broadway shows – Talking
Heads “Stop Making Sense” used some of his equipment.
While she dabbled in cocaine prior to this, she leaped into it
with both feet, since this was part of Bill’s scene.
Seeing no future in Fran living with me, I agreed to allow
Pauly to take up residence in my spare room in exchange for him kicking in
money for rent, groceries and utilities.
Fran’s brother came back from Vermont and again needed a
place to stay, causing significant friction between me and Pauly. Eventually,
we got him out, only to have Fran change her mind about wanting to live with
me. She apparently had been put out of her arrangement with her girlfriend and had
no place else to go, except for her father’s place – which she did not want to
do.
Pauly assumed I would let her and started packing up his
stuff, stunned when I told him not to.
I had made a commitment to him, and I would live up to it –
driving Fran even further away and more firmly into the arms of Bill, with who
she would later live.
I just didn’t trust her enough to alienate my best friend –
which turned out to be something of a mistake since he didn’t live up to his
part of our bargain either.
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