A D Journal 1986

  I dreamed of Fran last night. The pain of last year’s break up settles I my chest like a bad cold, never bad enough to put me in the hospital, but it won’t go away either. I keep hoping she’ll come back when I know she won’t. Not that I really want this consciously, Three years being with her is a long time, as is the year apart holding hope for a reunion that can’t possibly take place. I have to come to accept that she is a hippie, someone who clings to an already outdated belief system I long ago abandoned for something more practical. But as much as Fran is an advocate for all that peace and love stuff of the 1960s, she is also an extremely angry person, capable of exploding in rage, a five-foot-tall bundle of dynamite that at times has scared the shit out of me. At times, she comes across as a little girl, full of a little girl’s passion, and full of little girl’s pain, while at other times, she is the most adult person I know. Some meanspirited people claim she...

   Joann made an appearance at the mall looking for comfort again. She is a small girl, a graduate of the school of mall rats, whose whole life for years revolved around this place, working for a time at the Dunkin during the day, and hanging out here during the overnight when I worked at baker. Brown disheveled hair, brown sad eyes, and a mouth always twisted into an expression of pain, even when she is happy. This time she came back like a stranger, calling from the bagel shop near the side door, asking permission to come see me. Once everybody’s girlfriend especially the cops and the guards, she got married at some point after she left here but returns to these hallowed halls after getting a divorce. She called me because she believes the new guards want to keep her out. Her reputation precedes her, and the new guards have heard about all the trouble the old guards got into on her account and want to keep arms’ distance from her –as if she carries the plague. ...

    There is nothing more humiliating than showing a bad play to a great playwright – especially when you’re the one who wrote the bad play. Fortunately, the man was kind, an old friend who I had shared writing classes with in the past, who had authored one of the three great plays in the festival – all of which had come out of those classes. I kept thinking maybe I had pushed too far and had too little to offer. But I also knew that when I come too close to success, even moderate success, I find a way to screw it up. The class we shared had held a lot of promise for me and I panicked, and later telling myself I had no talent for it and that I ought to give up, maybe go back to warehouse work. Instead of seeing each failure as less acute than the last, making progress even if not yet where I want to go, I get depressed and see failure as the end all. My play at the festival didn’t even get a laugh from the more sophisticated audience Sunday night, while sitting bes...

    Well, my play/sitcom came off better than I expected. While some people may be lying to me in order to make me feel better about what might be a national disaster, I wasn’t quite as embarrassed as I thought I’d be. I’m not quite ready to hear the truth, however, and so avoided people like Michael who I knew would give it to me unvarnished and with no regard for my feelings. The play was one of those idiotic exercises in writing I engage in in order to teach myself how to develop a plot. The characters were shallow and the emotions unbelievably mushy. The only parts that worked for me involved the comedy. Fortunately, the festival had worse. Yet sitting through it and watching the other plays was a strangely uplifting experience. Even the best of the lot (which was not mine) showed that misdirected emotions could be worse than shallow efforts like mine. My play has other flaws that will take time and experience to cure. Some of the other plays have fundame...

    I was still living in Portland when 1972 began, but already making plans to come back east again after almost a year. Things had turned sour. I had lost (had it stolen) my wallet with my alternative identification, and could not risk being stopped by the police. I had caught a little of the paranoia Mike and Marie lived with as the FBI began closing in on them. It got so bad, the two of them abandoned us, trying to find a way to get out of the country. Mike kept talking about getting to India before the feds finally busted him again. Worse still, Louise and I had angered a local police captain by allowing his niece to sleep with her boyfriend in our spare bedroom. The mother of the girl had grilled the girl, even dragging out her dusty Bible to make the girl swear on it, eventually causing her to break down and tell the truth. The police captain was looking for a way to get at me, and we knew we would have to get out of town before he did. The mood of the cou...

          I keep looking back at the 1970s with affection I didn’t appreciate then, as if they were better in retrospect than they were in reality. The year 1973 was a miserable year for me and yet for something reason, I suddenly feel nostalgic about it. I just moved into rooming house in Montclair a month and a half earlier. Ed, who had been one of the early residents, had taken off for the west coast with one of the women who lived across the hall from him, beginning the shuffle of people that would not cease the whole time I lived there, part of that shiftless post hippie population not yet aware that the Summer of Love stuff had ceased. Ed was a tall and thin character, smoked a lot of pot, got drunk a lot, and yet had aspirations to be someone someday if only he could figure out what and how to get there. I don’t remember the woman’s name. She moved in after he did, fell in love with him, and off they went. Meatball, a broad-shouldered, beard...