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by U

too terse. It looks nice on the page, however.

  Perhaps I will try McMartin Publishers next. I have no reason to

  believe I can make any headway there, but the Literary Marketplace

  book says they are willing to consider photocopied submissions.

  It’s such a pain trying to sell myself like this. I have no idea how to

  go about it. In a way, it’s a lot like politics, though far more nebulous.

  Politics in this country may be a complete fucking joke, but it has

  clear rules. Literature is almost entirely a crapshoot.

  112

  Must buckle down to more writing after this brief political sojourn.

  All I really want to do at the party meeting is to vote against

  Kozlowski.

  That’s my goal. Mr. K. is a narcotic drug on the DemoRats, a

  somnambulant ball of black tar opium. He puts us all to sleep. I don’t

  see how anybody with a shred of savvy can get motivated with him in

  charge.

  Have an idea for a short story called "Sex Dolls." It’s pure

  pornography. I’m wondering again if maybe I should try my hand at a

  fuck book. But it limits your audience and therefore seems like the

  wrong way to go.

  Still, I could show those bastards how sick it all can really be. Put

  so-called normal sex right in the open, like Edward Albee’s play An

  American Dream. I love when his characters talk about "bumping

  their uglies."

  * * * *

  July 1, 1978

  It’s the first day I’ve really had off since the middle of June. I felt

  exhausted when I got home last night so I drank two beers, smoked

  two joints, and fell into bed for the next fourteen hours. Felt great this

  morning, though. I slept like a baby, with almost no dreams at all.

  Really wished there had been a woman in bed with me. We could

  have had a lot of fun, baby, because I was in just the right mood.

  Really had a terrific hard-on, too. I really coulda made her (whoever

  she is) laugh and laugh. What I think I’ve figured out is that on a

  physical plane, women like to be babied, except babied with a sexual

  component.

  I mean in bed. Out in the world it’s adult this and adult that but

  during playtime in bed, women like it not too serious. How can it be

  serious when all you are really doing is bumping your uglies?

  What they like is a bit of tickle and pinch and issou a liddle

  snookums kind of play time. Honestly, I will do anything a woman

  wants in bed but for crying out loud she must give me a break out of

  it. I mean, who likes to be nagged?

  113

  The urge to start a new book is strong upon me. What the hell. I’m

  just gonna blitz it out. The Dark City is done, as far as I am

  concerned. Oh, I can revise it some more, if I so desire, but I’m not

  sure I’m improving it.

  Sketching out notes for Ding A Ling. No hyphens in the title.

  Three words, unhyphenated. Capital A. Write what I damn well

  please and screw the critics, internal or otherwise.

  Yes, I know it’s childish to write as I do, but that’s just the point.

  That is just the fucking point. It’s real, ain’t it?

  Who of us is not a child emotionally?

  I support myself with a real-life job, not a trust fund or the

  parasitical behavior of having someone else support you. As for

  profession, I am a scribe, recording not the lives of kings but of

  peasants. You should see the massive dossiers Megan and me

  compile on the welfare clients. Holy shit.

  We’ve got a whole room full. Every time somebody wants a

  peanut it’s another piece of paper, a form. Megan knows them, inside

  and out. What a smart girl she is.

  Yesterday, I told her that we know so much about the clients we

  can probably predict to the minute when they’re likely to take a dump.

  She kinda rolled her eyes at that.

  So it goes with my days. I may wind up spending my life alone. It

  may be written in the stars.

  More likely in myself. Astrology I do not believe in, not one

  fucking whit. Similar to Christianity or Marxism, palm reading or

  voodoo, and about as believable. Hocus pocus, ergo bloviata,

  abracadabra, mumbo jumbo. Shazam.

  Peromeneah sacula saculorum. Amen. Mea culpa, mea culpa,

  mea maxima culpa.

  I don’t need anyone in my life and I am serious about my writing. I

  have a day job and write every chance I get. I’m burning up with

  words, attacked by them. They set me on fire. I’m trying to say new

  things, incredible things other people haven’t thought of or don’t

  know how to say. I wanna goeth where no man has goneth before.

  114

  Probably get started in right around my birthday. Seek a larger,

  more expressive vision. Make people laugh.

  * * * *

  July 2, 1978

  I’ve sent four query letters out so far. Each individually wrapped

  and separately typed, with photocopied sample chapters. Perhaps I

  should be sending them out one at a time. I’m not exactly sure what

  the etiquette is here but at the rate of one plink at a time it will take

  forever to get it around.

  What does it matter? I have no confidence it will be accepted but

  rejection is at least a response. I can’t tell you how many times things

  have disappeared into the ozone.

  Not sure what to do next. Some short stories, possibly with a

  notable sexual component. Maybe some crime fiction. I have been

  reading a lot of it lately. A modern detective story, with a female

  protagonist. Something very offbeat.

  I need to create a detective. Who shall it be? I might try a 3,000 to

  5,000 word short story. About 10-15 typed pages. Try to work it out

  in a notebook version first.

  Experiment.

  * * * *

  July 3, 1978

  Helped Megan and her husband Mark move tonight. Mainly their

  big stuff. They are now living out by Siltcoos Lake in a house that

  was built in 1950.

  A Walt Disney-style place. Very nice.

  Low slung roofs thrown over a big, zig-zagging cedar box.

  Unusual but attractive. Roomy and comfortable, with a great view

  and a private deck that is ideal for sun tanning.

  I really like Megan and Mark. They seem to have a good

  relationship. From the outside, it appears friendly and close.

  Mature and supportive. No mutually degrading dependency

  discernible there.

  I think Mark’s favorite expression may be "What an asshole!" A bit

  volatile. He works in Eugene during the week and returns on the

  115

  weekends. Megan says it is taking forever for him to find a job that

  will utilize his master’s degree in social work.

  Must admit I really envy that guy. He’s got what I consider the

  perfect wife in Megan. She’s smart, bright, funny, hip, slender, and

  sexy. Blond and beautiful. The kind of woman I always hoped I

  could find, if somehow or other things worked out instead of always

  fucking up.

  What I did wrong previously is now perfectly clear: I kept a

  journal. I wrote things down. I was not the bland, inarticulate, but

  financially stable male so beloved
by the women of my generation. I

  kept a journal to record some of my thoughts and let this other person

  use it against me in precisely the same way Nixon nailed himself with

  his White House tapes.

  "How can you deny this... this abomination?" Ms. Ellsworth said,

  more or less. "It is written down. How can you claim it’s not true

  when you have put it on paper?"

  She never had any shame about rooting through my stuff. When I

  started reading Marie’s journal years ago I had to stop after a couple

  pages because my sense of shame overwhelmed me. The thing I

  remember most was deciding that Marie had developed a cool way of

  keeping a journal, writing occasionally in a blue lab notebook.

  Nevertheless, the irony here is that I still feel this powerful sense of

  regret about the way things turned out between Polly and me. I

  honestly believe in many ways that we could have (at one time) been

  the ideal match for one another. I swear I could have entertained the

  hell out of her. I guarantee it.

  When we were together, I could make her laugh with ease. She

  loved to laugh. I know we could have had a lot of fun.

  Likewise I would have worked my ass off at any job I could find

  and would have treated her with all the love and tenderness that I have

  in me.

  As far as her family was concerned, there is no doubt in my mind

  that I could have charmed the socks off the whole fucking eight

  person tribe.

  Even her mother Prude, eventually.

  116

  A big family? Just let me at them.

  The only problem back then was that I wasn’t entirely sure about

  my feelings and Polly seemed like she was in way too big of a hurry.

  And for what?

  Why was she in such a fucking rush? I don’t get it and never will.

  She still isn’t married to that guy. She still doesn’t have the baby she

  said she wanted. If she has somehow wrangled the "commitment"

  from him she said she wanted from me it sure as hell ain’t evident to

  the rest of us.

  Eventually, I see her getting married to some incredibly dull (but

  financially stable) dodo and spending her life in Dullsville. In

  Dullsville with Dodo Guy. That’s where these desperately insecure

  middle class chicks always end up.

  Married to dull, tiresome men while their true loves, (as Kerouac

  might say,) wander alone through the wilderness, all of them

  passionate, romantic, brave, driven, sorrowful and lost. They stand

  atop sheer cliffs in the inky midnights of the world, solitary figures

  forlornly baying at the Goddess Luna.

  So be it. I am moving on. I give up. For too long I have played

  the complete and total fool. It didn’t work out, as is the case with

  many things in life. I’ll say one last thing about her, however. Polly

  Ellsworth could really push my buttons.

  The woman was a natural in bed, a truly gifted sex partner. She

  never once made me feel like it was a big goddamned favor she was

  doing me. Not once. I don’t know whether it was me or what the deal

  was, but Polly was always ready to go, always hot to do the dirty

  deed.

  Nine times out of ten it was initiated by her. Her slender hand

  would slide across my belly, touch my cock, and start to stroke.

  Goddamn, she was a good fuck.

  The only inhibition Polly ever had was about me eating her pussy.

  Was a bit hesitant about that. Got over it quickly enough, though,

  much to my delight. Young women are so sweet and pink and clean

  down there.

  117

  Why is it they are all convinced otherwise? Where the hell do they

  get that fucked up idea in their heads?

  They must have their minds warped by society, I suppose. You

  can’t sell anything to women unless they figure something is wrong.

  Why else would they buy douches and deodorants and all that other

  crap? They really fall for everything, blow themselves up at every

  turn. The choices women make are often terrible.

  Damn. How truly beautiful young women can be was really laid

  plain that time Polly and me took a bath together.

  How exquisite she was. That summer, Polly had long dark hair and

  big brown eyes that gave her a perpetually questioning look. During

  the time when I knew her, she was a woman who asked lots of

  questions and worse, demanded answers.

  We first got to know each other in that half-assed speech class we

  took together. One of the assignments was to prepare and deliver a

  declamation in front of the rest of the students. As I recall, that drove

  about half of the students out of there before the last day to add or

  drop classes came around.

  But Polly and I remained. I stayed because it was convenient and

  looked like an easy A. Polly stayed, as she later confessed, because I

  did.

  In any case, our declamation could be comic, political, social,

  satiric, serious, whatever. But it had to be original, dramatic, and at

  least 500 words. Memorized.

  To prepare for it, the instructor started making us read bits from

  Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations aloud in class. Then it came time to do

  our thing.

  Mine took me about ten minutes to write and another twenty to

  memorize. The material I used came from my memory of a speech

  from Randy Thune, a Rockwell High classmate. He’d written a

  speech for our sophomore rhetoric class denouncing radical left

  wingers for their politics. Randy is a right winger, a disciple of

  William F. Buckley.

  I turned his speech into a satire, tossed in a few new jokes, and

  stole Randy’s closing line:

  118

  "Someday they will understand that the conservative is not the

  enemy of the common man."

  Seven years later, and I can still remember the huge fucking laughs

  I got with my delivery. That was sweet.

  A bunch of other people got up and did theirs. They stumbled over

  words, forgot their lines, screwed up right and left.

  Then Polly Ellsworth stood up in front of the class.

  Instead of some typical feminine blather about the need for world

  peace, Polly launched into a comedy routine about the lengths people

  will go to pretend they are better than they are. She punctured human

  hypocrisy with one zinger after another. She had me cracking up.

  Also worth mentioning, now that I’m at it, was Polly’s body, which

  at age twenty was sleek as a racing hull and decidedly ultra fetching.

  I was totally entranced.

  I don’t know if she was reading my mind as I sat there staring at

  her, but once class was over she walked so slowly out of Deady Hall

  that I had no trouble falling in alongside her.

  "That was quite the declamation," I said.

  Her long, dark brown hair fell across her big, dark brown eyes

  before she brushed it away and returned my glance.

  "Yours was better. You got more laughs than I did."

  "I laughed at yours. Didn’t you hear me?"

  "You and the instructor were practically the only ones."

  "Well, you’re just ahead of your time. Everybody should have

  been laug
hing," I said to her. "In my opinion."

  "If you say so. But yours was the best."

  "Thanks. I maybe spent an hour on it."

  Again the hair fell across the eyes. "I wasn’t sure," Polly said, "if

  you were laughing at my jokes or at me."

  "Don’t be insecure, I said. "You’re too pretty for that."

  She blushed.

  Then I introduced myself, telling Polly my name, which she already

  knew. I knew her first name, but learned her last name for the first

  time.

  1 19

  She accepted my invitation to walk to the Memorial Union, where

  we found seats in one of the second floor window boxes, watching

  people walk by in the courtyard below.

  This was the winter of 1971.

  Soon we were talking, to my surprise and pleasure, about ourselves,

  our backgrounds, our petty hopes and dreams.

  "What’s your major?" I asked.

  "Art and Art History."

  "Pray tell," I said, "why would an artist such as yourself be in a

  speech class?"

  "I figured it was an easy A."

  "Me too. I’m in Poly Sci."

  "Pray tell," she said, mimicking me, "why would a statesman such

  as yourself be in a speech class? Ooops! I think I answered my own

  question."

  "Yes, you’re right. I’m going into politics eventually," I said. "I’m

  already pretty good at speechmaking, but I need to be even better, if

  I’m going to get anywhere."

  "I see."

  There was a pause, while we munched muffins and drank beverages

  from the commons. She had coffee with milk, while I drank apple

  juice. The winter sun came through the window box briefly and Polly

  looked radiant.

  "I’ve seen you with a woman around campus," Polly said. "Several

  times. Who might she be?"

  "My ex-girlfriend. Leanne."

  "You sure she’s your ex-girlfriend?" Polly said.

  "As sure as I am the sun is shining."

  Technically speaking, I was lying. I’d had a number of rocky

  moments with Leanne and we were always on the verge of breaking

  up. But as no formal split had yet taken place.

  Not liking to be put on the defensive, I said:

  "What the current status of you and your boyfriend?"

  120

  Polly looked at me with an expression like I had groped her tits,

 

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