Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002
Page 3
Mexicans have been great for rides lately, especially young ones. It’s so hard to put things into focus right now. Maybe in a few years I can make sense of this fall in Oregon. These are just notes. By then, though, this time will be touched by sentiment.
December 16, 1978
Odell
I’ve returned all my library books and given the orchard cat a big Christmas can of dog food. My last ride home from work was with a Bridge of the Gods toll collector. He looked like a Punch-and-Judy puppet and said that in the summertime, the job pays off because young women wear “scanties” and you’re never too old to take a peek. John wanted me to carry a package to Cheyenne but changed his mind. So that’s it. My next bed will be in Raleigh.
1979
January 1, 1979
Raleigh
On New Year’s Eve, Ronnie’s friend Avi and I wrote on the street with Valium. Later we went to his friend Julia’s. She has a cardinal in her freezer. I saw it.
January 18, 1979
Raleigh
I have been working at the Empire (my new name for Mom and Dad’s rental properties). Today Mom helped, and she and I talked about prayer in school. She is an agnostic. The Phil Donahue Show has gotten her thinking. Today she said, “The Bible’s view of women stinks.”
January 19, 1979
Raleigh
Amy babysits and scours the houses for dirty magazines, which she then brings home. She really is divine for her age (seventeen). Today while I shoveled the driveway, she asked what I thought the filthiest word was. I said cunt. In her opinion, it’s fuckwad. She said it sends chills down her spine. The other day we went to see Midnight Express. She was really loud during the torture scenes and kept squirming in her seat, saying, “Shit, oh, shit.”
January 20, 1979
Raleigh
I met and went home with Eduardo, a twenty-eight-year-old Costa Rican now living in Raleigh. It’s fun to see where people live. Eduardo has quite a few black-light posters. I never thought I’d do this—go home with strangers—but it’s OK with the right stranger.
January 24, 1979
Raleigh
For the umpteenth time I’m swearing off drugs. Lily and I took acid and then rubbed MDA into our gums. It was great in her apartment, then we went to a dinner party for a while. Then we went to see Pink Flamingos. Then back to her place, where I prayed until I fell asleep. Lesson: Never be where you don’t want to be on acid.
January 29, 1979
Raleigh
Today I worked at the Empire on Gloria Penny’s sewer line. Her backyard was covered with lumps of shit and green toilet paper.
In current events, a sixteen-year-old in San Diego opened fire on an elementary school playground with an M16 and 250 rounds of ammunition. The pope is in Mexico.
March 1, 1979
Raleigh
I’m depressed because I withdrew $75 from my savings account. It’s the same passbook I’ve had since 1966, and I’m only on the third page!
March 8, 1979
New York, New York
All over downtown I’m seeing posters reading:
Doctors’ Warning:
Deadly Disease.
Leprosy Disease.
Stay Away from
the Women Tramps.
Men Caught
Leprosy
and Tuberculosis
from the
Women Tramps.
You Will Endanger
Your Family with
Deadly Disease.
Stay Away from
the Women Tramps
or You Will Be in a Bad Ward
and Suffer Terrible the Rest of Your Life
with Tuberculosis and Leprosy.
March 11, 1979
Raleigh
On our way home from New York, Lily and I stopped in Baltimore, where we went to Edith’s Shopping Bag and got Edie Massey’s autograph. She was in Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble and will be in Polyester, which isn’t out yet. I bought a magazine, Lily got a button, and when we told Edie she looked good, she pulled off her nice hair and screeched, “It’s a wig.”
Every man on the street was old and dirty and looked like he was on his way to an adult bookstore.
March 28, 1979
Raleigh
I found a job. Today I’ll work, really work, for the first time since December. I’ve been hired as a waiter at a little restaurant next to the Arthur Murray Dance Studio called the Breakfast House, so I’m up at five. The last time I was up at five was because I hadn’t gone to bed yet.
March 29, 1979
Raleigh
Everyone at the job is very nice. Especially Mary, the cook. I made $13 in tips, mostly in dimes and quarters.
There was an accident yesterday at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant, so a lot of people talked about it.
April 16, 1979
Raleigh
Dad on friendship: “Sure, some people are nice. Real nice. Nice like carpets so you can walk all over them.”
May 3, 1979
Raleigh
I am in trouble with Lisa’s landlady, Cleo. Last night D. came to visit with a friend. They were loud on the stairs. Cleo was woken up by the noise and called me, saying, “Now, listen, Andrew. We can’t have this.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It won’t—”
“We just can’t have it.”
I hope I haven’t gotten Lisa evicted. She’s at Bob’s every night, but still, it’s her apartment. All the tenants here are old and everything bothers them. They make me think of Mrs. Covington, who comes into the Breakfast House every day. She complains if I don’t fill her coffee cup to the top, and then when I do, she complains that it’s too full.
So I’m in trouble and need to find an apartment by next Friday.
May 7, 1979
Raleigh
Ronnie and I spent the day apartment hunting. My best option is in the house next door to the IHOP, with a fireplace, a finished-off sunporch I could use as a bedroom, a living room, and a small kitchen. The bathtub is almost miniature.
We talked to a landlord with an apartment on Ashe Ave. He said he would rent to me if:
1. I am not an atheist
2. I do not “carouse”
3. I do not smoke marijuana
4. I do not have parties (a $50-per-person fee is charged for every “jerk” I invite)
5. I do not have black friends
6. my friends don’t belong to any “hate groups like the NAACP that call us white people honkies”
7. I don’t get pregnant (he evicts unmarried pregnant women)
He said all of this seriously, and afterward Ronnie gave me a pair of pants.
May 12, 1979
Raleigh
Yesterday was move-in day into the apartment next to the IHOP. The place is bigger than I remembered. It feels nice and empty, and after getting settled, I took some LSD—not enough to see God, and not enough to think too much.
May 17, 1979
Raleigh
Gas in four states is now selling for over $1 a gallon. I’d love to work in a service station just so I could hear people complain. Apartment life is good. I’m using my ironing board as a kitchen table.
May 21, 1979
Raleigh
Nell Styron is the hostess of the Upstairs Restaurant, and today was the first time I’d seen her without a bow in her hair. Ronnie and I ate there this afternoon. We had taken some acid, so we had borscht for the pretty color. I’m so afraid lately that she’ll get hurt or killed. What would I do without her?
May 24, 1979
Raleigh
Something cruel:
Yesterday I caught a wasp and put him in a jar in the living room. Later I threw in a dead bee, and the wasp chewed it up. Last night I poured Canada Dry and Comet into the jar. The wasp rolled over on his back, kicked up his legs, and died in a matter of minutes. I felt really bad about it. Lots of people kill wasps, but I made it suffer. He was large, though, so I fi
gured it was either him or me.
I really try to refrain from marijuana until at least ten thirty at night, but when it’s put in front of me, I forget how miserable it makes me feel. I get nauseated and don’t move around as much. At night, though, I take a bath and listen to the radio. At night, it’s great.
June 1, 1979
Raleigh
Conversation at work:
Me: Are you Italian?
Italian guy: Just do your job and minda you own business.
June 3, 1979
Raleigh
Conversation I overheard at the IHOP:
Woman: Excuse me, may I join you for a moment?
Billy (who is blind and doesn’t wear dark glasses): Yes, ma’am.
Woman: You can’t see me. I’m just an old woman with a favor to ask.
Billy: Yes?
Woman: I’d like to pay for your meal. I’m from Durham.
Billy: Have you lived in Durham all your life?
Woman: Yes, my husband died unexpectedly. Here’s a ten-dollar bill.
Billy: I’ve been blind since I was born.
Woman: Trust in the Lord, He’s all we’ve got now.
Billy: Yes, all we’ve got.
Woman: Yes.
Billy: Yes.
Woman: Did you ask how old I am?
Billy: No.
Woman: Well, God bless you.
Billy: Yes, you too.
June 6, 1979
Raleigh
A joke Jane at work told me:
Man to a woman he’d just screwed: If I’d known you were a virgin, I’d have taken more time.
Woman: If I’d known you had more time, I would have taken my panty hose off.
June 13, 1979
Raleigh
I was walking home when someone in a passing car leaned out the window and spat right in the center of my face.
I am reading The World According to Garp.
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.
&nb
sp; 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.