New York
According to an article I read this morning, Scouting was invented to rescue boys from the clutches of their mothers and schoolteachers. The fear was that they’d turn out gay, or deviant, as they said back then. Parents were advised to be on the lookout for boys who willingly took baths and kept diaries. Guilty and guilty again.
February 27, 1996
Albany, New York
William Kennedy and his wife are a waiter’s worst nightmare. At dinner last night they ordered their drinks neat. Then, when they arrived, they asked for a bowlful of ice. Mrs. Kennedy wanted her salad without onions, while he asked for his without tomatoes or cucumber. She ordered her entrée without broccoli and potatoes and asked instead if her fillet could be served with just spinach. William asked for his pasta without the mushrooms.
When her order came she frowned down at the plate, saying, “Oh, no. I don’t think I want this. Just bring me a sirloin steak, rare.”
The two of them ordered from busboys and called the hostess over at one point to ask for a club soda. They weren’t malicious, but I can’t imagine that either of them ever worked in a restaurant.
April 14, 1996
New York
I saw Helen yesterday for the first time since late January. She’d called me over to fix her mop, and I arrived to find her without her teeth in. “You’re fat,” she told me. “You need to take some of that blubber and give it to Hugh. He’s got a skinny ass.”
May 13, 1996
New York
A man called last night, saying he had read my book and asking if I could come clean his house. I offered to give him Bart’s number, but he reiterated that he wanted me. In exchange, he said, he would give me four stories I could put in my next book. I told him my book wasn’t about other people’s stories, and he got snippy and yelled, “Then why the hell don’t you screen your calls?” before hanging up.
June 21, 1996
New York
A stranger called from New Jersey to ask if I’d written a movie he’d just seen. I told him no and he talked for a while about this and that. He offered a cure for writer’s block, which was odd, as I hadn’t mentioned anything about it. It turned out he’s a painter who is having a hard time finishing a portrait. That was the day my typewriter broke. I couldn’t work so just sat in the rocking chair and listened to him.
August 6, 1996
La Bagotière
Things are moving along at the house. Not only do we have water, but now there’s even a washing machine. This saves us from doing laundry in the tub, which always took forever, especially the wringing-out part.
I’m continuing to put new vocabulary words on index cards. “What does that mean?” I keep asking Hugh as he’s talking to people. “How do you spell it?” He lost his patience a few hours after we arrived.
In the morning we went to the small city of Flers and ran into R. and her husband, P. They’re a fit and attractive couple fifteen years older than us who feel that their friends should be equally youthful and good-looking. After she’d kissed me, R. put her hand on my stomach and pinched my cheek, saying that I am fat and pale. “Look at me!” she sang. “I am very bronzed! P. and I have been watching the Olympics. The black people run as if they’re being chased by tigers, so now we are doing the same thing! Every morning we jog in the forest. Then I go home to bronze myself.” She invited us to lunch, but I begged off. Three green beans and she’s full.
September 9, 1996
New York
I walked so long and hard in Paris the other day that my overgrown toenails rubbed against one another and started to bleed. Before leaving for the airport, I went to cut them and, finding no clippers, I used a pair of Colette’s poultry shears. That is exactly why you don’t want people staying in your apartment when you’re not there, or even when you are, really.
October 10, 1996
New York
Amy’s been called for jury duty and she phoned from the courthouse, saying, “It’s a rape case and I hope I get it. The guy is really cute!”
November 18, 1996
New York
I was on the number 6 train early yesterday evening, coming from 59th Street. The car was crowded and I stood before a group of three men. All were black and in their late twenties and all were dressed in similar-looking bomber jackets. The fellow in the middle was the heaviest of the three, and as we got under way, he nudged me and pointed, saying, “Hey, you. There’s a seat over there. Ax that lady to move her bag so you can have it.”
“That’s OK,” I said. “I’m fine standing.”
He pursed his lips and mocked me for his friends. “I’m fine standing.” They laughed, and he continued. “I can’t stand this shit with everyone putting they germs in my face. Fuckers. They’s all faggots and lesbians, faggots and lesbians, the whole city is turning faggot. Yo, man, I’m going to ax you one more time to sit the fuck down.” He took his foot then, placed it against my thigh, and pushed me.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked. “I mean, what difference does it make whether I stand or sit? What’s it to you?”
He said that I was blocking his view and that he wanted to look at the girl seated opposite him. So I moved down the car a few feet, wondering why he couldn’t have said so in the first place and hating him with all my might. It sickened me to hear him sweet-talking the young woman who was now back in his sight line. “You are one beautiful lady, has anybody ever tolt you that?”
He went on and on, and against all the advice I was telepathically sending her, she responded. No, she wasn’t married, she said, but she did have a man in her life. Yes, she would take his phone number, but she wasn’t promising anything. He called it out, and I was a fool not to write it down. If I’d had a pen on me, I’d be calling him night and day until he was forced to change his number. “Yes,” I’d say. “We met on the train and you said you wanted to get together. Don’t you remember?”
November 26, 1996
New York