June 14, 1979
Raleigh
On the bus yesterday morning, I ran into D., who has a Mohawk and goes to court tomorrow on two counts of drunk-and-disorderly conduct, one count of trespassing, and one count of urinating on a woman’s leg. She’d promised to sleep with him if he bought her beers, so he did. Then she ran off with her friends, so he caught up and peed on her skirt.
June 21, 1979
Raleigh
This morning I found $6 in the parking lot of the Arthur Murray Dance Studio. In the ninth grade I found $1, but since then it’s just been change. Jane called in sick at the restaurant today, so I worked alone and made $25, part of which I spent immediately on a dime bag and part of which I spent later on paint.
June 29, 1979
Raleigh
Miss Woodard was my teacher in the third grade. She was Paul’s and Amy’s as well. On June 7 she retired and the school proclaimed her a champ. One day when I had her, a kid wet his pants during geography, and she told the class that Steve was just excited about learning. Even in 1964 I thought that was funny.
July 1, 1979
Raleigh
It’s been a couple of days since I’ve written. Friday night I took some LSD and arranged five yellow Kodak boxes in the front yard. It was good acid. It made me notice color a lot, and I could read and not get depressed. Saturday I took some crystal and spent all night doing rubbings of envelopes. Now I’ll be off for three days.
I found out that Jack and Mary, the night managers at work, secretly refer to me as “the space cadet.” God, that makes me mad.
July 6, 1979
Raleigh
Yesterday afternoon three black women beckoned me to their car and told me that my fly was down. I thanked them because nobody ever tells you things like that.
July 7, 1979
Raleigh
Last night, after taking a bath and ironing, I went to the Capital Corral (gay bar) and met L., who was older than me—thirty-five, maybe. We talked about the normal things you talk about and then came back here. He didn’t say anything about my artwork but suggested right away that we sit on the bed in our underwear. But L. wasn’t wearing underwear. Instead he had on diapers and rubber pants.
I was not braced.
L.’s favorite phrase was “a real turn-on.”
Diapers were “a real turn-on,” as was being peed on and being five. “Daddy,” he said, “if I was your little boy, how would you dress me? Would my little rubber pants be tight?”
I was a nervous wreck. L. was disappointed that I wouldn’t play along, and I think it was pretty clear I just wanted him to crawl home. I went into the kitchen for a long time, and when I came back to the bedroom, he was asleep.
September 1, 1979
Raleigh
My favorite way to take crystal: I sit backward on the toilet with the seat down, facing the wall, the green jade box I made in Oregon on the tank lid. I always cut the speed on the Patti Smith Radio Ethiopia album. I use a razor, then snort it with a straw, and when I’m through I stand outside the bathroom and think of how nice my jade box is.
September 17, 1979
Ithaca, New York
This is the third autumn in a row I’ve gone off to pick apples. Avi and I left Raleigh on Tuesday in his Volvo and drove through Virginia, then to his parents’ house in Pittsburgh. We arrived in Ithaca yesterday. Last night we saw the movie Manhattan on campus and slept in a graveyard beneath a headstone that read BOYS.
Along the way we picked up a hitchhiker, a guy from Queens going to Buffalo. Now Avi can’t find his traveler’s checks, so we’re going to fill out a police report.
September 24, 1979
Knowlesville, New York
Avi and I found rooms at this hotel in Knowlesville. It’s run by a man named Brad who has nine children by two marriages. Here are his three rules:
1. No enjoyment of showers on Friday and Saturday nights. This doesn’t mean they can’t be taken, but they have to be short. The bar features country-and-western music on weekends, and if we use all the hot water, there won’t be enough for “the broads in the ladies’ rooms.” “Hey,” he said, “put yourself in my shoes.”
2. “It’s all right if youse brings a cunt up to your rooms for the night, but, hey, two nights, three nights, and you got to pay for it. Put yourself in my shoes.”
3. Pay in advance.
We hit a dog last night while trying to find the hotel. Avi swears it was a terrier, but to me it looked like a poodle. We knocked on seven doors searching for its owner, most of them trailer doors with loud TVs inside. “No, it’s not ours,” people would say. “We got a retriever.” “We got a collie.” “The lady down the road has dogs. Maybe a hundred. Maybe fifty. At night they bark, a din so great you need earplugs. But us, we’re used to it. G’night, boys.”
We follow our noses to the house, which smells like dog shit. “How many do you have?” Avi asks the woman, who answers, “Enough.”
She says the poodle or terrier we hit wasn’t hers. Then we drive back and find that the dog is no longer there by the side of the road. It’s run off. So we give up.
October 1, 1979
Knowlesville
Avi and I went to Rochester for the weekend and had a car accident—my first. I was disappointed: no blood. I would have enjoyed just a trickle. First the stick shift came off in Avi’s hand, so we spent the day at George’s brother’s house. George is a picker and his brother is a mechanic. All I did was sit in a folding chair and drink grape juice. It was all right. Then later, while Avi was driving, the hood opened up. He couldn’t see where we were going, and when we struck a telephone pole, my head hit the windshield and broke it. No blood, though. None at all.
October 14, 1979
Knowlesville
There was a major fight at the hotel late last night between the owner, Brad, and his daughter Ginger, who is eighteen:
Brad: Where are my goddamn pants?
Ginger: In the dryer.
Brad: No, they’re not. Somebody took my goddamn pants.
Ginger: It wasn’t me.
Brad: Was too. (The sound of someone being slapped.) Bitch.
Ginger: Go ahead, tie me up and gag me like you did to Mom.
Brad: (More slaps.) Bitch, whore.
Ginger: (Sobs.) I hate you. I hate this goddamn place and I’m sick and tired of being called a whore.
Brad: Who called you a whore?
Ginger: Three people. I’m getting out of here. I’ll go live on the streets. You think I’m such a whore, then I’ll go live like one.
Brad: (More slaps.) I hate you.
Ginger: I hate you.
Brad: You don’t care.
Ginger: I don’t care. I’ll go to Albion or Medina.
(Exit Brad. Enter Stepmother.)
Stepmother: Just because everybody calls you a whore doesn’t mean you have to act like one.
Ginger: I’m sick of it. I don’t want to wait tables for him no more. Everybody calls me a whore just because I got big tits.
Stepmother: Who called you one?
Ginger: Sugar. Sugar did. Sugar’s got an ass-whupping coming.
(More sobs.)