That’s a 1925 Klan song verse in the Jean Stafford biography I’m reading. Like many good biography subjects, she became a mess toward the end of her life. One of her last ideas was for a recipe book called How to Cook for One While Drunk.
September 7, 1990
Emerald Isle
Mom left the beach a day early. Paul drove her. She seems to be in poor health lately. She coughs and hacks a lot more than usual. The sound of it brings out the worst in me (said the guy with a cigarette in his mouth). It’s bad, though. We call her Mount Vesuvius. She spent a lot of time indoors on this trip.
September 19, 1990
Raleigh
A joke Dean told me:
Q. What is it in the air in San Francisco that keeps women from getting pregnant?
A. Men’s legs.
September 25, 1990
Raleigh
Last night Dad predicted that six months from now I’ll regret ever having left Chicago. He’s been a real terror lately. An hour later he yelled at me for picking up a meatball with my fingers. It was on a dish in the refrigerator and he accused me of touching a lot of them before deciding on the largest. I think he worries that I’m spreading AIDS. He doesn’t like me drinking out of anyone else’s glass either.
Dad doesn’t pay attention when you talk to him, so Paul’s taken to throwing the term IRS into his sentences. Then it’s suddenly: “Hold on a second, what did you say?”
October 2, 1990
Raleigh
I’m in the breakfast nook, drinking a cup of coffee, when, out of nowhere, Dad wants to talk. “I have something important I need to discuss.”
Then he decides that he has to take Melina for a walk. Ten minutes later, he returns and slams a coaster on the table—which is made of Formica, not wood—and anyway I have my cup on one of the ten catalogs that arrive in the mailbox every morning. Then we go to the A&P and the entire time we’re in the car, he talks to the dog instead of me. As we walk into the store, he confides that his biggest regret is that Melina never got to have sex, that he ruined all that by getting her spayed.
At the A&P he walks around eating things—free samples, pieces of fruit he should be paying for, whatever’s open. He charges into the back room, demanding the freshest tomatoes and discounts on wilted lettuce. He berates the cashiers and bag boys. On the way home, he finally gets to what he’d wanted to talk about: Paul. “That guy is going nowhere fast,” he says. He predicts that he’ll become an aimless alcoholic and I remind him that Paul is only twenty-two and deserves to live a young person’s life.
“Aw, baloney.”
October 5, 1990
New York
Before leaving for the train station, Mom and I watched part of a Today show segment about monkeys that are trained as helpers for handicapped people. They showed a quadriplegic fellow in an electric wheelchair instructing his little servant, Lisa, to pick up a cassette tape off the floor.
The monkey did as she was told, and when the guy ordered Lisa to put it in the machine and press Play, she did that as well. Sometimes, to demonstrate their love, the monkeys will stick their filthy hands into the mouths of their masters, who are completely paralyzed and can’t swat them away.
When the time came, Mom drove me to the station. The train was there waiting, and when we said good-bye, her eyes welled with tears. I had a terrific time with her this past month. I sure do love my mother.
And now I am in New York City. The train took eleven hours, and during that time I accidentally walked in on three people who were sitting on the toilet, two women and one man. Once every hour I’d go to the bar car for a cigarette and listen to the drunks, who were always saying something like “When I say you’re a friend, you’re a motherfucking friend. I’m not bullshitting you, man.”
I took a cab from Penn Station, and Rusty was waiting at the apartment when I arrived. It’s much bigger than I’d imagined. The neighborhood is too beautiful for me. I don’t deserve it. Or, OK, my block I deserve. It’s more industrial than the ones around it, and we look out at a parking lot for trucks. Two short blocks away, though, it’s perfect. Tree-lined winding streets, restaurants and coffee shops. It’s enchanting. I can’t picture myself in any of those places, but still. How did I get to live here? Rusty says that some of the apartments in the area are going for a million dollars. I’m not sure about that, but I do know that a ginger ale costs three dollars. Three dollars!
At two thirty a.m. Rusty took me out on his motorcycle, and we went all over. At six thirty I went to bed, and three hours later I got up. First I heard a siren, then trucks, then car horns, then every noise in the world. I can’t get over it. I walk down the street and I can’t get over it.
This morning I went to the nearest supermarket. Chicken was 89 cents a pound. Other things—Wesson oil, orange juice, butter—were generally 15 cents more than they should be.
October 7, 1990
New York
Everywhere I go in New York, people are selling electrical tape. They sell it in stores, on the sidewalk, on card tables, and at street fairs. There must be a terrific demand for it here.
On Rusty’s TV, on a cable channel, I saw a nude woman say, “I want to wipe my pussy with your face, motherfucker.” On TV!
At last night’s Feature (gallery) opening, I heard someone whisper, “Is she the one who sets herself on fire?”
I saw lots of chicken today for $1.50 a pound.
October 11, 1990
New York
Today I saw a woman with no legs who said, “Can you give me a dollar, sweetheart? I’m trying to buy an electric wheelchair.”
I think beer is expensive here. A six-pack of Bud, for instance, is $6. For Bud! So tonight I’m drinking Schmidt’s for $2.89. Lily told me that an ounce of pot goes anywhere from $320 to $400. I felt bad in Chicago paying $60 for a quarter.
I haven’t worked out my coffee situation yet. Each night I try somewhere different. Chock Full o’Nuts has too many distractions, so the best place so far is the Bagel Buffet on 6th Avenue. The IHOP gives customers a whole pot. It’s awful coffee, but at least you don’t have to flag someone down every ten minutes. Plus you could sit at a booth for as long as you needed to and they never hustled you out. At the Bagel Buffet, you get a paper cup of coffee for 60 cents so it’s just $1.80 for three cups, which I can afford if I cut back a little in other places. Now I need a library card.
October 14, 1990
New York
Tonight on 6th Avenue I saw a completely naked woman. She was black, disturbed, and her breasts hung down to her waist. I saw her yesterday in the same spot, but dressed and yelling, “I’m getting drunk!”
I previously enjoyed walking down 6th, but tonight it was rowdy and humid and someone threw a bottle that smashed on the sidewalk ten feet away from me. Who threw it? The nice thing about crowds is that someone can throw a bottle and you don’t take it personally.