E. started off by talking about his hometown girlfriend, who he’d just learned had been cheating on him.
“That’s because she’s trash,” I said, trying to make him feel better. “She’s a liar and a skunk, and this is how she gets attention.” I said that what goes around, comes around, and in time the guy she was seeing now would be cheating on her, just like she cheated on E.
He was glad to hear it.
Next came M. and A., who both had good stories. Then it was J.’s turn and she ran out of the room crying.
K., a young woman who is always tardy and wears lots of makeup, said that she’s not currently involved with anyone but is pursuing a guy who is already in a relationship.
Boo. Hussy. Troublemaker. No one came out and said this, but our attitudes conveyed it. I love teaching college lately.
October 29, 1989
Chicago
Mom arrived for a visit yesterday, and we went from the airport to the Palmer House, where we had a cup of coffee. We walked around, we went to Amy’s, we took naps, and today we’re going shopping.
I was on the L, reading a book, when someone said, “Sir?” I looked up to see the most terribly disfigured person imaginable. He took my breath away, a black man who’d been horribly burned. His head looked like a candle in the shape of a head, the skin slick and dripping down like wax. He was missing both his hands, and there was a can attached to his bandaged stumps. Taped to it was a sign reading NEED MONEY FOR OPERATION.
Man, it scared the life out of me.
November 1, 1989
Chicago
Mom left today at four. She was a big hit with my beginning students. I brought her in for my Ask a Mother segment, and she was fantastic and answered everyone’s questions with humor and wisdom.
Last night we went to Eli’s for steaks. I was wearing a tie but not a jacket, so I had to wear one the restaurant provided that was way too big for me.
November 2, 1989
Chicago
Paul enrolled in a technical college in Durham and has been assigned an English paper in which he needs to compare and contrast two things. The teacher said it might be good to compare the people of Raleigh to those who live in Durham. “In this town, folks are curious and will allow you to merge into their lane, while in Raleigh they’re all too busy and stuck-up,” she said.
Paul is thinking that for his paper he’d like to compare mushrooms to acid.
November 21, 1989
Chicago
I’ve been offered a chance to teach summer school. The class lasts three weeks and pays $2,300. It’s five days a week, three hours per day, and I could use the money to move to New York.
December 21, 1989
Chicago
On the last day of class I took my students to the Walnut Room, where we sat by the big Christmas tree and had cocktails. Everything on the menu had a festive name. One item in particular was called something like God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen California Blush Wine.
Afterward I went with Ben and his mother to the Wagon Wheel Restaurant, where the two of them ate bacon cheeseburgers. His mom could be fifty but looks younger. She wore a knit bonnet, and through it I could see gray hair but couldn’t determine how much of it she had. This was the ten-year anniversary of her divorce. At first she thought she’d order the pancakes and have a beer to go with them. Then she changed her mind and went with the bacon cheeseburger, deciding that instead of beer she’d have coffee. Ben’s mother works at B. Dalton and earns $75 per week. I liked her a lot.
1990
January 1, 1990
Raleigh
At midnight Gretchen and I were driving down Glenwood Avenue. Someone honked his horn for no reason, and I looked at my watch and realized it was the New Year. A new decade, even, one I am entering with an electric typewriter. (Christmas present from Mom.)
Everyone says, “Thank God the eighties are over,” and I wonder if they say that about every decade.
This afternoon I worked on the Clark Avenue rental property with Paul. Last week during the cold snap, Dad set up a kerosene heater that covered everything with soot. The former tenant had left the freezer door open, so it’s black in there as well. Paul and I spent a day washing everything down, and then Dad drove over and the three of us painted while listening to the FOXY 107 countdown. Everyone in our family listens to black music, everyone, all the time.
January 4, 1990
Raleigh
Mom reads her horoscope daily, sometimes in two or three different places. It’s something she started doing a few years back, and while I don’t believe in astrology, still I find myself falling for it. This morning she told me that an older person will be giving me something in return for a favor, and that the gift has the potential to change my life.
Dad is the only older person I know who owes me a favor—Paul and I painted that apartment he owns for free. So I waited for him to give me something. When it became clear that it wasn’t going to happen on its own, I asked him to give me something.
We were in the kitchen and he said, “All right, hold on. I’ve got something for you!” He went into the basement and returned a few minutes later with a box of S&H Green Stamps. Some were pasted into books, and some were loose. This was a box he’d brought with him when we moved to Raleigh from Binghamton in 1964. I didn’t think anyone honored Green Stamps anymore, but Dad said they’re still redeemable in Florida.
“How will these change my life?” I asked.
“Well, I guess that’s up to you,” he said.
January 23, 1990
Chicago
According to the mother of one of my new students, women whose last names end in the letter A tend to have larger breasts than women whose names end in any other letter. The student, Lisa, had her arms crossed when she said this.
January 29, 1990
Chicago
I’m trying to replace the kitchen faucet for Shirley’s tenants and wound up going to the hardware store with a guy named Jack, a carpenter who’d come to give an estimate on the new closets. He’s been married three times. His first wife left when their youngest son was only two years old.
I asked why she left, and Jack said she’d fallen in love with some hillbilly’s dick. He said, “Fuck it. I don’t give a damn what that bitch does. Who needs her?” He told me that she stayed away for three years before coming back to check on the kids.
When Jack’s first mother-in-law died, his reaction was “Then fucking bury the bitch.” He started drinking heavily when married to his second wife, who was as bad as the first. Now, with the third, he’s been sober for five years. The two of them take nice vacations and went to Hawaii once, where whores charge $200 just for a fucking blow job!