Late last night a group of drunk white boys ruined their car and three others just outside my window. The crash was loud. I was in the sunroom at the time, thinking of ways to make money. The windows were open, and I heard one boy say to another, “Get going, asshole. Fucking leave. Drive, you fucker.”
The guy behind the wheel tried to take off, but his car was too damaged. I called the police and called them again after one of the boys ordered two others to remove the license plates and the stickers. If you want the cops to come in Chicago, you really have to put the word gun in your sentence. I called a year ago and said it and they were here within two minutes—three cars of disappointed police officers.
The boys took off with the plates and stickers and I went to the corner, where a group of neighbors were gathered. It was two a.m., and I stood with a black bicycle thief, his friend, and a family of five with Southern accents. The little girl was named April, and like everyone else in her group, she was barefoot. One of her teenage brothers had a big cross tattooed on his forearm. Then there was her mother and her grandmother, who said, “Them boys was drunk. I mean, drunk.” She reached for a cigarette, then called to her grandson, “Skeeter, you got my lighter?”
When the cops finally came, the grandmother told them that the boys had been drunk and that she’d had a time of it earlier, trying to keep everyone’s prints off everything.
By this morning the drunk boys’ trunk had been jimmied open and all four tires were gone. Once a car gets a flat in this neighborhood, it’s considered abandoned and is stripped.
August 12, 1988
Chicago
Amy made it into the Second City touring company. They chose six people out of two hundred fifty. Nothing can keep her down. Amy’s success means success for the whole family. I’m so proud I’m splitting open with it. She has something extra. Anyone can see it.
August 15, 1988
Chicago
I listened to AM radio church shows while I worked yesterday. One preacher denounced feminine men. “Now, when God took Eve out of Adam, He took all of her out,” he said. “He didn’t leave any behind. Then I see these men with the weak elbows and wrists, dressing like women, and I say, ‘No.’ I say ‘No’ to that.”
I’ve pretty much decided to take Neil to the vet tomorrow. She shit all over the house this weekend and then peed on the rug. She’s seventeen, so I can’t really write this off as a phase. Her shit is liquid. Food just goes in one end and comes out the other.
August 16, 1988
Chicago
We took Neil to the vet today and on the way there she peed on me. She peed on my lap and then she just sat there. She didn’t even try to get away from the urine. She’s being cremated now, and I’ll get the ashes in a few days. I’d always expected her to die at home. The vet said that’s what everyone wants. He examined her, her shrunken kidneys, her bad breath, which indicates severe digestive troubles, and asked if Neil had stopped being a pet. “Has she withdrawn?”
I said yes. She quit cleaning herself six months ago, and from then it’s gone from bad to worse.
Now my life is post-Neil.
August 20, 1988
Emerald Isle
Names of beach houses I saw today:
Clambaker
Crow’s Nest
Dune Castle
C&C by the Sea Upstairs
Skinny Dipper
God’s Gift
Buck’s Stop Here
Captain’s Country
Skipper’s Chip
Sea Mist
Sea Shape
Pelican’s Perch
Footprints
Duck Inn
Breezy Outlook
Tip Top
The Scotch Bonnet
Rip Tide
Beach Nut
Lazy C
Summer Love
August 23, 1988
Emerald Isle
At the dinner table, Mom fed the dog a piece of steak off Dad’s chair, and he called her a big dummy. He was wearing a pair of shorts that hadn’t been washed in weeks so I didn’t see what the big deal was. No one did but him.
September 5, 1988
Chicago
Tomorrow I go to school to have my ID picture taken. Teachers wear them on lanyards around their necks so they’ll have something to fool with when they get nervous. One week from tomorrow, I’ll have my first class, and I’m still working on an outline.
Tonight I remembered that I don’t know anything about point of view, or about anything, really. So far I’ve gotten along OK, but as the teacher, you’re kind of supposed to be on top of it. My greatest fear is having someone like N. in my class, the editor of the school paper. He writes articles about the nuisance of cigarette smoke and City Hall’s feelings about artists’ spaces. Were he in my class, he could easily point out my inadequacies. I can point them out too, of course, but I’m not the student, and I worry that in defending myself I’ll sound too desperate.
September 6, 1988
Chicago
Tomorrow is the cocktail party for faculty, and today I found a $5 bill on the street. I’m thinking I’ll spend it on magazines. One thing I’ll buy is this week’s New Yorker, which has a Joan Didion “Letter from Los Angeles” in it.
September 8, 1988
Chicago
Last month, Evelyne’s electric bill was $345.
Kim’s was $109.
Shirley’s was $280.
Mine was $35.
September 9, 1988
Chicago
I came upon two evangelists on State Street this morning, both conservatively dressed white women in their late thirties. One handed out pamphlets while the other preached. “Oh, just look at that,” she said into her microphone as a young woman walked by. “The way she’s dressed, she’s asking for it, begging to be raped. And when she is raped, she’ll deserve every single minute of it and eventually burn in hell.”
It seemed harsh to me, her judgment. If the young woman had stopped to listen, would she have been redeemed?
September 13, 1988
Chicago
I realized I was a teacher when I felt warm during class and got up to open the door. Later on there was noise in the hallway, so I got up and shut it. Students can’t open and close the door whenever they feel like it. For my first day I wore a white linen shirt with a striped tie, black trousers, and my good shoes. At the start of the session, I had nine students. Then one dropped out, so now I have only eight.
September 22, 1988
Chicago
I played my class a taped speech given by a woman named Nancy Sipes. It’s about selling Amway, and while (my sister) Amy and I think it’s just the best thing ever, one of my students thought differently and dropped the course during our fifteen-minute break. Then I was down to seven, but luckily two more students added the class, so now I’m up to nine.
September 24, 1988
Chicago
I started a small job for Malik, the Indian man at R.J. Paints who has dark brown spots in both his eyes, not far from the pupils. All I’m doing is stripping a door. To make less mess, I took it off the hinges and carried it outside to his small backyard. I worked alone until three women in saris stepped out and took seats in lawn chairs. They’d ask me a question in English and then speak among themselves in a language I wasn’t familiar with.