Raleigh
Lisa and I have started taking Greek classes at the church. Our teacher is Jimmy Nixon, and there are nine students. Six of them are children, and I can’t figure out what they’re doing there. Most of them sound excellent to me, though, really, what do I know? Class is two hours long. During the fifteen-minute break that comes in the middle, Lisa and I ran out front to smoke. There is one full-blooded American in the class, a woman who’s taking it to satisfy her husband.
October 9, 1981
Raleigh
I had a cheeseburger for breakfast and then plastered Daisy Leach’s hallway. On her refrigerator is posted a recipe for “Granny’s Bible Cake.” Ingredients include John chapters 12 through 18, Matthew chapter 3, and a pinch of Leviticus. Miss Leach is planning to paint her kitchen yellow, like her neighbor Mrs. McGillis did.
I mentioned this to Mrs. McGillis, who said, “Monkey see, monkey do.”
October 12, 1981
Raleigh
I’ve started the now-empty Jernigan apartment. Someone in their family left a note on the bathroom door reading, GENTLEMEN: BE LIKE DAD, NOT LIKE SIS. LIFT THE LID BEFORE YOU PISS.
They left behind a Day-Glo poster of astrological sex positions, which made me think of the apartment a few doors down and of a picture Gretchen and I found while emptying everything out. It was a crude drawing of a man screwing a woman from behind, and on the bottom was written ROLL OVER, MY DEER.
There are always treasures left behind at the Empire apartments.
October 19, 1981
Raleigh
There are no grocery stores directly en route from Mom and Dad’s rental units on Colleton. You pass a couple of 7-Eleven–type places, but nowhere that has actual food. If I ride a half mile out of my way, I can stop at the Winn-Dixie on Person Street.
All the fruits and vegetables there are prepackaged, so you can’t buy just one onion or lemon or sweet potato. It’s all in plastic, so you can’t even squeeze something to tell if it’s ripe. Their stacks of canned specials are a joke. How are two small cans of tomatoes for $1 a bargain? The prices are crazy, which kills me, seeing as it’s in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. The cashiers are white and young, wearing Van Halen T-shirts under their uniform tops. I passed one of the girls on her break and she was sitting on the filthy floor next to the entrance. They don’t even carry pints of milk at this Winn-Dixie—you have to buy a whole expensive gallon.
October 23, 1981
Raleigh
While I was riding my bike home from Colleton after painting last night, three black guys started throwing rocks and bottles at me. Again I was faced with a decision: Do I give them the pleasure of speeding up, or do I just continue at a regular pace and pretend this isn’t happening? I’m guessing that if one of the bottles had hit me in the head, they’d just have laughed and run away while I crashed onto the street.
This morning a girl almost ran over Lou Stark at the crosswalk in front of Jimmy’s Market. Lou was together enough to get the license plate. Then she called the girl’s parents. She’s from Mount Olive, apparently, and Lou got her into big trouble.
The three who threw rocks and bottles at me were on foot, so I couldn’t get anyone in trouble.
October 25, 1981
Raleigh
Again last night I went to Lyn’s and watched The PTL (Praise the Lord) Club. Jim Bakker, the cohost, is desperate for $50 million. He looks like a baby monkey. Not just a baby. Not just a monkey.
October 29, 1981
Raleigh
When Gretchen went off to RISD she left behind her cat, Neil, who was abandoned a few months earlier by Randall. After swearing she was not my responsibility, I let her in. Now every day I regret it. Neil breaks every pet rule in the book. If she were a person, she’d hang out at the Trailways station.
November 6, 1981
Raleigh
I worked for Joe, painting solar window boxes that look like coffins and will be installed later this week in low-income areas.
Neil is being punished for jumping onto the counter and eating my raw scrambled eggs. I’ll probably untie her tomorrow.
November 10, 1981
Raleigh
We began installing the solar window boxes in Garner, where everyone has either ceramic animals or junked cars in their yard. The first woman whose house we went to lives with her husband and her father, who has cancer. She told us that with bursitis in both shoulders it’s difficult to raise her windows, and of course Pa’s no help, what with the cancer and all. When we arrived, she put two of her three dogs in the cellar. They commenced barking and she yelled, “Peanut and Pee Wee, y’all need to shut up!” Finally she opened the door a few inches, and when the dogs stuck their faces through, she kicked them into silence. One of them stole the slipper off her foot, and that made her even madder.
The woman said that $100 worth of heating oil now costs $175 and that she don’t know what the hell Ronald Reagan is doing to us poor people. Did we know? she asked.
The last stop of the day was behind the Purina plant. I’d never been to that neighborhood. Every house we went to had TVs on.
The window boxes are easy to install. Tomorrow we’ll do more. Today it was seasonably cold and the sky was white.
November 11, 1981
Raleigh
At all the rural houses we stopped at today, the men wore overalls. One gave Bobby a mess of collards for his wife. A mess of collards, he said, spells good sex.
A woman in Garner told us that she tries her best to serve the Lord but that these are hard times for Christians. Before we left she asked us to repair her screen door so she can look out at the landscape God has provided her.
November 21, 1981
Raleigh
A friend of Susan Toplikar’s was hit by a cinder block thrown from a passing truck. He’d been walking along the side of the road, and the cinder block broke several ribs. After crawling onto the porch of a house, he banged on the door, but the people wouldn’t answer until he passed out.
1982
January 4, 1982
Raleigh
I stopped opening my telephone bills months ago. Still they scream at me from the cabinet over the sink where I keep them. The last bill I paid was in late summer, and because the envelope that arrived today was light, I opened it. Light envelopes mean they’ve had it. The letter inside said that if I didn’t pay them $65 by tomorrow, they would take my phone away.
I called to negotiate, and the woman scolded me. “Why on earth don’t you pay monthly?”
“I don’t know.” I pleaded, and she gave me until Thursday the seventh. By then I’ll have enough for the phone but nothing toward my already late rent.
I wondered why the rent and bill situation always has to be so desperate. Then I realized I made it desperate. I am desperate.