Can't write long. Cycled all day. My fanny feels like hamburger & my back feels like there's a rock in it. I had that bad dream again last night. Harold has also been dreaming about that ?man? and it upsets the hell out of him because he can't explain how both of us can be having what is essentially the same dream.
Stu sez he is still having that dream about Nebraska and the old black woman there. She keeps saying he should come and see her anytime. Stu thinks she lives in a town called Holland Home or Hometown or something like that. Sez he thinks he could find it. Harold sneered at him and went into a long spiel about how dreams were psycho-Freudian manifestations of things we didn't dare think about when we were awake. Stu was angry, I think, but kept his temper. I'm so afraid that the bad feeling between them may break out into the open, I WISH IT DIDN'T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY!
Anyway, Stu said, "So how come you and Frannie are having the same dream?" Harold muttered something about coincidence and just stalked off.
Stu told Glen and I that he would like us to go to Nebraska after Stovington. Glen shrugged and said, "Why not? We have to go somewhere."
Harold, of course, will object on general principles. Damn you, Harold, grow up!
Things to Remember: There were gasoline shortages in the early 80s because everybody in America was driving something and we had used up most of our oil supplies and the Arabs had us by the short hairs. The Arabs had so much money they literally couldn't spend it. There was a rock and roll group called The Who that sometimes used to finish their live performances by smashing their guitars and amplifiers. This was known as "conspicuous consumption."
July 8, 1990
It's late and I'm tired again but I should try to get as much down as I possibly can before my eyelids just SLAM SHUT. Harold finished his sign about an hour ago (with much bad grace I must say) and put it on the front lawn of the Stovington installation. Stu helped him put it up and held his peace in spite of all Harold's mean little jibes.
I had tried to prepare myself for the disappointment. I never believed Stu was lying, and I really don't think Harold believed he was, either. So I was sure everybody was dead, but still it was an upsetting experience and I cried. I couldn't help myself.
But I wasn't the only one who was upset. When Stu saw the place he turned almost dead white. He had on a short-sleeved shirt, and I could see he had goosebumps all up and down his arms. His eyes are normally blue but they had gone a slaty color, like the ocean on a gray day.
He pointed up to the third floor and said, "That was my room."
Harold turned toward him, and I could see him getting ready with one of his patented Harold Lauder Smartass Comments, but then he saw Stu's face and shut up. I think that was very wise of him, actually.
So after a little while Harold sez, "Well, let's go in and look around."
"What would you want to do that for?" Stu answers, and he sounded almost hysterical, but keeping it under a tight rein. It scared me, more so because he is usually as cool as icewater. Witness what little success Harold has had getting under his skin.
"Stuart - " Glen starts, but Stu interrupts with,
"What for? Can't you see it's a dead place? No brass bands, no soldiers, no nothing. Believe it," he says, "if they were here they'd be all over us by now. We'd be up in those white rooms like a bunch of f**king guinea pigs." Then he looks at me and says, "Sorry, Fran - I didn't mean to talk that way. I guess I'm upset."
"Well, I'm going in," Harold sez, "who's coming with me?" But I could see that even though Harold was trying to be BIG & BOLD, he was really scared himself.
Glen said he would, and Stu said: "You go in, too, Fran. Have a look. Satisfy yourself."
I wanted to say I'd stay outside with him, because he looked so uptight (and because I really didn't want to go in, either, you know), but that would have made more trouble with Harold, so I said okay.
If we - Glen and I - had really had any doubts about Stu's story, we could have dropped them as soon as we opened the door. It was the smell. You can smell the same thing in any of the fair-sized towns we've traveled thru, it's a smell like decayed tomatoes, and oh God I'm crying again, but is it right for people not just to die but then to stink like
Wait
(later)
There, I've had my second GOOD CRY of the day, whatever can be happening to L'il Fran Goldsmith, Our Gal Sal, who used to be able to chew up nails and spit out carpet tacks, ha-ha, as the old saying goes. Well, no more tears tonite, and that's a promise.