by U
delusion that they are perfect. It can make their company quite
tiresome, even with the lubricant of sex.
Work isn’t so bad now that I have more or less decided to get the
fuck out of here at the earliest opportunity.
* * * *
January 6, 1979
Union notes:
ER Committee – need to strengthen the union.
Organize Health & Sciences Center, Dept. Of Revenue – 100
people in three buildings. No first aid, no cots to lay down on.
Only the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Smokers allowed to pollute indoor work areas. Management
smokers free to puff away, causing hardship to employees with
respiratory problems.
Safety
Accessibility
Shop Stewards
Employee Freedom
Personal Responsibility
Negotiation team needs direction on policy issues
Next meeting January 27, 1979
Enough.
Planning to visit John Thomas and McNeese later today. John has
gotten a job working for State Rep. Wally Priestley. The Portland
newspaper editors hate Wally for being such a wild-eyed radical.
It is so much like John to be working for Wally. Personally, I think
the world of Wally because he is the only honest man in the whole
fucking capitol. Even more to my liking, he defeated that twerp Bill
Whitehead in the 1978 primary election.
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Tonight John and Dave are planning to smoke dope and go see The
Rocky Horror Picture Show. I told them I would pass. I finally saw
Rocky last year at the Clinton Street Theater and thought the movie
was kinda dumb.
Oh sure, Susan Sarandon is definitely a double plus fox, a woman I
would have to describe as eminently fuckable. But the thought of
spending ninety minutes looking at that scrag Tim Curry again is
extremely unappealing.
Whenever Rocky played at the Clinton Street the place was always
packed. Although the women looked awfully darned cute in their
vamp outfits, once around with Tim Curry was more than plenty for
me.
* * * *
January 9, 1979
What a world. Work burns all of my time and energy and ideas for
writing just go by the board.
Chesley called today. It was good to hear his voice. He says he is
"happy" with his girlfriend Shirley and is correspondingly smug. I
find it odd that Chesley has taken up with the same woman that Randy
committed adultery with but mutual desperation makes strange
bedfellows. If Chesley is happy, I am happy for him. But I got a bad
feeling about it.
I keep trying to chase the ghosts from my heart but the effort is
fruitless. They are haunting me always. I am a product of my past,
pure and simple. I am pretty sure Megan could make them disappear
in a flash, but she has suddenly gone cold.
I say goody for her.
Should I complain? I suppose not. No one has been more
inconstant in love affairs than yours truly. Still, I am fairly young at
27 and have my job, my good health, and undeniable intelligence.
What else do I need?
Someone to love and be loved by.
That escapes me.
* * * *
January 10, 1979
216
At work. Slow day. The things I must do are unbearably dull and
routine, so I am putting them off. The branch manager and her
stooges are in a panic, though. Mavis actually filed her Department of
Labor complaint against them. The notice must have arrived today.
I mean really. They have exactly one non-white working in this
whole office and they kick her out for no good reason? What the hell
are we supposed to make of that?
Mavis was a temporary CETA employee so she has no union
recourse but as I explained to her just before Christmas, this
discrimination complaint is almost as good. The union is practically
worthless anyhow. I feel like telling them I helped Mavis write it. In
fact, I wrote the whole damn thing for her.
I told her what the options were. Then Mavis told me what to do
and I did it, running every word by her.
Everything they did to her was wrong. They did it because she
became friendly with Dale Jones, the investigator, whom they hate.
But Mavis was a good employee and a hard worker, unlike that moron
Elmore who can’t even tie his shoes.
I find it extremely gratifying that they are now locked in the
manager’s office and looking pretty sick. Serves them right, the mean
old biddies.
Megan is being completely standoffish. She hardly speaks to me.
You’d never guess by looking at her that just three weeks ago we
were in bed, making love like there was no tomorrow.
I can feel the axe coming down.
I have no idea what she is thinking anymore. I have no clue as to
what I have done wrong, if anything.
* * * *
January 15, 1979
Four days ago Megan told me that our affair is over because she
and Mark are getting back together. It is goodbye, Patrick, nice
knowing you. Wham. Like a kick in the stomach. I am too pissed to
do anything but drink and puff on Marlboros, which I am happy to
report I have started smoking again.
I am too bitter for tears.
217
That’s it. I give up. The fucking goddamn bitch. I imagine there
are those who would say I am only getting what I deserve for taking
up with a married woman.
No doubt they are right.
And yet – I did not initiate this affair. I merely fell into a neatly
prepared trap. Megan has used me to get what she wants from her
husband. That is how it appears.
Now I am truly at my lowest point. This incredibly rotten
development I cannot fathom to save my life. Do you want to hear
what she said? Megan actually thanked me for helping Mark "turn
himself around and become a more serious person."
Apparently they’ve even discussed having a baby. Megan wished
me good luck in The Future and added she hoped we could still
remain friends but the relationship is definitely off. Repeat, definitely
off. She said it twice, just in case I was too dense to grasp the
meaning the first time.
I am shocked right down to my socks. You could knock me over
with a feather. This is the lowest of the lows, I swear. I can’t fucking
believe this shit. Probably the worst part is that her rejection of me
makes her more attractive than ever.
As if she weren’t already attractive enough. But this is, oh so much
like the other one I am guessing they must be acting in concert
somehow. Is that what the fuck going on?
That is how crazy I am getting.
Or am I giving them too much credit? Maybe they are just
graduates of the same school of relationship management. It is
possible, I suppose. In some ways this reminds me of that Jeanette
dame I fled from up in Portland last summer.
They’ve apparently all completed the same course work, learning to
manipulate men in a basically deceitful and selfish fashion, while
pro
claiming their constancy and devotion.
It is treachery. It is betrayal.
Meanwhile, I am dumped again and for what appears to be
essentially the same reasons as before. Megan says she re-loves Mark
and intends to move to Spokane with him in March. He has finally
218
found a decent paying job in Washington and should be able to
support her and their future offspring in an upwardly mobile fashion.
Those aren’t her exact words but they are pretty fucking close. I
am so pissed off I cannot fucking see straight. When she told me
about this, I played it cool and said I needed some time to adjust.
Toned down is always the best response, I think.
Never act surprised, never show your true feelings. That’s my
motto. But right now I’d like to get my hands around her neck.
Nothing fatal, mind you, just long enough to leave some nice finger-
shaped bruise marks on that slender, lovely neck of hers.
Yes, that long, slim, slender, beautiful neck. Purple and blue
marks, thereafter turning a sickly yellow and a week or two of
laryngitis and the required wearing of one of those funny neck braces.
Yes, get my hands in position. And squeeze.
For the past two days I have been sitting right next to Megan but I
have not spoken to her once. Tomorrow I have to go to work again
and spend eight hours in close proximity. I refuse to speak to her
unless I absolutely must.
What could I possibly say?
Hold still. I want to fucking throttle you.
Goddamn it. Goddamn it. Goddamn it. It is my own fucking fault
for falling into this trap. I went into this affair much against my own
better judgment and now I am getting precisely what I deserve. What
a fucking stupid clown I am.
No doubt the other one would truly enjoy this new pain I have
brought on myself. Yes, this is really rich. She’d be laughing her
superior, upwardly-mobile laugh. No doubt she’d really be having
fun with this new development, the fucking bitch.
Never underestimate the sadism of women.
At lunch, I drove to the waterfront and watched the seagulls circle
the water for a long time. The Siuslaw River flowed slowly to the sea,
to the open arms of the sea. It’s a lonely blue river, a river of January.
The salt smell was strong in the cold wind. I almost didn’t return to
work, but I had promised this dipshit client I would pay her overdue
utility bill if she brought in her shut off notice. Naturally she did.
219
All that needs to happen now is for Megan to suddenly shift her
affections to another guy – say Karl, Ken, Kirk, or Colonel Klink, and
start shacking up with him. Another parsimonious anal-retentive
compulsive pickrat vacuum cleaner guy.
Soon Megan will announce through her friends that she is finally
"happy" and then Mark will shave his beard. Next, I will see him
down at the Beachcomber Tavern sans facial hair.
After that I will wobble home drunk, as always the total fool.
How interesting this all is, or would be, if it wasn’t actually
happening.
As soap operas go, it has all the requisite touches – a snail’s pace, a
mindless plot, some crudely obvious foreshadowing, and the
underlying assumption that men are hopeless idiots.
Yep. This one has it all. Soap opera fans would enjoy it
immensely. I am ready to leave town this instant. What the fuck am I
doing here anyway? This crappy little beach town offers me nothing.
I think I should probably be in New York or Los Angeles, where
people of talent inevitably must go to get ahead. Let the middle class
bitches and their dumb ass boyfriends sort out their love lives and
leave me out of it.
I feel ill equipped to handle these sudden shifts in preference.
These are grown women in their twenties who are no more sure of
their affections than infatuated fifteen year olds. I just can’t believe
how fickle they are.
Just for the record, let me review the supremely successful
relationships I have forged during the past decade:
1) Leanne – the very first time we fuck, she gets pregnant.
Abortion is unfortunately against the law. A baby girl is born and we
give her up for adoption. Even now, when I think about it, I want to
hold a gun to my head and pull the fucking trigger. Ka-blam! A
shower of blood and brains. So far I have not done this, though I still
think about it often. Five years later, Leanne dumped me for a low
life cretin who beat her. Message: I was not quite enough of a loser to
suit her.
220
2) Marie – I spent Christmas 1974 alone in an empty house in
Atlanta while she ran off with somebody else. I had plenty of time to
think. The minute Marie shoos the other guy away, she tells me she
loves me. By then I’d decided to return home. I left Atlanta and
Marie let a year go by before she told me that she was serious.
What was I supposed to do? The truth is I was too shell-shocked
right then from getting dumped by the other one to just jump right in.
Instead of taking it slow and seeing how we felt about each other,
Marie insisted on the whole deal. It couldn’t be at my speed. It can
never be at my speed. Marie wanted me to move to Florida, and I just
couldn’t make myself go through with it.
Still, I have thought about Marie many times since then, about her
gentle smile, liquid gray eyes, about her beautiful face and body. I
sometimes find myself wishing I could go back and do it all over
again. Right now is one of those times.
Because I am so used to being manipulated, deceived, and conned
by women, I cannot quite believe it when someone is actually playing
me straight. Message: Wherever you may be, Marie Montambeault, I
beg your forgiveness.
3) The Other One – I can’t even bring myself to say her name
anymore, so vile is the taste. What a fucking phony bitch she turned
out to be. She insisted all summer long (1975) that she loved me and
couldn’t understand why I would not "commit." The truth is, I was
holding out on her, for some pretty sound reasons in retrospect. And,
while she was demanding undying devotion from me, she was still
seeing her former boyfriend Blane behind my back.
Yes, bland bland Blane. When I found myself at last starting to see
things her way, she advised me that she had just fucked another guy
and what did I think of that? I was appalled, of course. Next she
dumped me to resume with Blane. Then she announced she was
pregnant. Didn’t say who the father was.
I suggest abortion. She becomes furious.
I couldn’t fucking believe it. Though nominally Catholic, she
aborted said unborn child. Also confessed that she had sneaked
through all of my journals, after promising she would not.
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Later, she dumped Blane to shack up with a new discovery, a man
who is pretty handy with a vacuum cleaner. Meanwhile, she said she
still pines for a long lost San Francisco doctor fag. Looking back, I
think her manipulative behavior was genuinely
weird and utterly
unscrupulous. Message: Patrick was fucking a carbon copy of his
horrid mother.
4) Sarah – sweet as she was, the whiskey and the Marlboros (I was
not smoking then) got to me. Message: Cough, hack.
5) Katrine – a certifiably insane 19 year old when I met up with her.
She even passed a formal screening process. Katrine became angry
when I attempted to live my life in a rational manner. I’m not sure if I
really even bought the idea that she was mentally ill. Compared to
other women I have known, Katrine seemed fairly typical, although a
label got stuck on her by the system.
On the other hand, although Katrine demanded loyalty from me,
she would fuck absolutely any other guy who came along. Wrote her
off to preserve my sanity. Message: Way too much trouble.
6) Jill – a political apparatchik who got pissed off at me because I
wouldn’t run around buck naked in front a bunch of strangers. Made
fun of me when I told her I want to get married and maybe someday
have one or two children. Ridiculed the idea of ever falling in love or
getting married. Got herself a tubal ligation. Message: Jill comes
first.
7) Megan – a married woman who came on to me until I started
having an affair with her. I fell in love, she didn’t. Used me to get
husband to knuckle under. Dumped me the minute she got what she
wanted. Message: You were useful for a while.
Quite the little track record, isn’t it? I am so pleased with my
recent excellent success with women. The way I see it, there is no
correct way to respond to them. If you do what they say they want
you to do, they find a way to screw you over. If you resist them, they
will still find a way to screw you over. To care about a woman is to
give her power. To give a woman power is to invite unhappiness.
You are better off in jail.
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In the case of the other one, my feelings really betrayed me. I
screwed up in not dumping her the instant I caught her sneaking
through my stuff. What a despicable trick. I sent exactly the wrong
message by being gentle and forgiving.
My patience and tenderness backfired miserably. While I was
working my ass off at the rose garden, she was going through my