Wicker Park Dog

a novel by

James Z. O’Connor

1989

September

Balducci and I just poured 45 feet of sidewalk over at Honore Street.  The truck came at 7:00 a.m.  We played dueling wheelbarrows until the chute was within reach, and after that we poured the apron for the garage slab.  Balducci hired a finisher named Wiess. I stood around a while and watched Wiess working the bull float and I washed off his tools, but they really didn't need a third man.                       That decrepit, crazy, Polish lady next door watched from the porch, and her son was out in the alley drunk as hell, talking to anyone who would listen.  They're being evicted for not paying rent for something like six months.  I gathered from his monologue they're supposed to be out by today, but he plans on putting up a fight.  He gestured to the house with his beer can.  "Look man, I can't work because of my hernia and I'm waiting to appeal that disability.  I got a thousand dollar stereo and a thousand dollar TV.  They try moving any of my stuff out, I'm calling a lawyer."   
                     He could barely stand up.  He kept saying, "just because I'm drunk, man, it doesn't mean I'm not telling you the truth." 
                     Several times Balducci looked up and said, "why don't you tell us about it later, Buddy.  We're working here." 
                     And the kid would go, "yeah, sorry, I know....  But I was just saying...." and then continue blabbering endlessly about his hernia and how his doctor told him he wasn't supposed to lift more than ten pounds, and how he's going to sue the city if his disability isn't approved, and on and on and on. 
                     Finally Alvin came over and rescued us.  Alvin's this eighty-seven year old guy from two houses over who can't remember a conversation ten minutes after it's happened.  Balducci and I went down to the yard to work the sidewalk and pretty soon Alvin and the kid were having a serious animated discussion.  At one point I heard Alvin say to the kid, "I'm eighty-seven years old.  I was born in 1902. You're not gonna live that long!"   And then he trailed off into cackling laughter and wheezing, and then doubled-over coughing until everyone ran over to him, afraid he was having a coronary.

Last night Balducci and I got the header up on the garage out back.  We stood up the third wall, boxed in another window, flushed everything up, nailed in the top plate.  The header consisted of two sixteen foot 2x12's with half inch plywood in between.  It was incredibly fucking cumbersome.  We lifted it into position and nailed it down while standing on milk crates, which was as unsafe as it sounds.  OSHIT approved.  We were working by streetlight-- alley light actually, and we were both exhausted.

            While I cleaned up, Balducci went to pick up his van at the gas station.  He was walking down Bell and turned the corner at Churchill and all of a sudden there was a manic German Shepherd coming at him.  Balducci ran for his life with this dog just inches from tearing his ass out.  He ran between two parked cars and into the street thinking, yes, made it!  But the fucking dog just kept on coming.  He was on a huge chain that stretched practically across the street.  It didn't jerk the dog back until Balducci was on the other sidewalk.  The dog's owner came out the front door and just laughed.  He was a shirtless little fat guy, wearing bib overalls and slippers.  Balducci stared him down from the sidewalk for several minutes with the dog barking in his face, and the fat little bastard just stood there laughing.  And telling me the story Balducci broke out laughing himself, high-stepping across the kitchen with the imaginary dog at his heels like something out of Buster Keaton. 

            The house is completely absent of food, and both of us are broke, so we walked over to that roach-infested Chinese restaurant across Western Avenue and split a large order of fried rice and drank water.  We sat in a booth by the the window and watched this helpless idiot struggle to parallel park one of those ugly, multicolored vans.  He sea-sawed back and forth several times, holding up traffic in the turning lane.  And then in a fit of stupid panic, he gunned it and creased the whole back half of his van as easy as you would a beer can.   

I took a nap this afternoon and then walked down to Linda's Diner at Clybourn and Webster.  They were serving some kind of Lithuanian stew deal, a sort of oxtail soup goulash.  Then I bought a six-pack and walked all the way down to the lake.  I sat on a bench drinking and watching the people, not giving a shit at all if I looked like a degenerate.  By the way, it's my birthday.  The sky was beautifully pink, though I had no idea if it was legitimate or just due to pollution.

            Since my phone is still hooked up at the old apartment no one knows to call me here.  No one knew it was my birthday, and for long stretches of time today I utterly forgot myself.  I had a similar washed away feeling during the ballgame.  The Cubs clinched their division (no shit), and for a juvenile flash I speculated on it being some kind of omen-- that my loser existence was finally turning around.  But then right away I dismissed the idea.  I have to stop all of my sloppy thinking.  I have to stop wasting my time drinking so much beer, getting stoned all the time, watching TV, letting my mind get flabby.   

I'd like to quit all this lame-ass, petty dealing but I need the money.  I should have around $1500 saved up by the time Balducci leaves for New York.  With the whole apartment to myself, I need to get my ass out of bed and write every day.  No more passivity.  

 I keep agonizing over how I feel and how I crave something from my writing, but essentially what I need is to get my head out of my ass.  Building the barn last year taught me that.  You're almost never comfortable, graceful, efficient doing carpentry.  You're always hanging in the air by one arm, or cramped into a corner and practically wrenching your gonads.  You have to just grit your teeth and get the thing done, because getting the thing done is all you're judged on.  Nobody cares how you feel.

October

Very depressed today, all day.  Balducci and I watched the ballgame with the Pug last night and got very loaded.  We shot pool at a bar called Eco, and Balducci pretty much beat everybody.  One particular game I did come within a ball of beating him though.  Afterwards we went back to the Pug's and got high and watched TV.  I passed out and didn't know where I was when I woke up.  This morning, the three of us went out to breakfast and Balducci dropped me off.  I've felt hung over and shitty all day.  I did some bongs and that only made me feel more unglued. 

The last few days have been abysmally miserable outside.  Cold, rainy, windy.  Balducci and I have been putting up siding on the garage.  Dewayne from the gas station has been shingling the roof.  I hate getting out of bed in the morning.  I lay there listening to the rain and have to fight off Napoleon.  The damn cat keeps trying to wake me up, licking my face, jabbing my neck, and if that doesn't rouse me, he fucking bites the end of my nose.  I hope we don't work today.  All that's left is to put up half a row of siding around the top.   Hopefully Balducci won't have a bug up his ass about getting it done.  It's supposed to get much warmer by this weekend. 

            Rueben came down last night saying the hot water wasn't working in his apartment.  I told him that we'd had this HVAC guy working on the chimney this afternoon, and he must have shut off the hot water heater and not turned it back on.  Which as it turned out is exactly what happened. 

            This HVAC guy was something straight out of Tom Waites-- fifty years old, slicked back hair, sideburns, burgundy doubleknit slacks with matching vest, two-tone shoes, smoking one Lucky Strike after another.  He wore those dimestore reading glasses on a chain around his neck while he worked on the furnace wiring, concentrating and looking quite serious. 

             Anyway, Rueben and I went down to the basement and lit the pilot on his water heater.  While I was screwing around with that he was explaining in rigorous detail how he and the old landlord hooked up the water heater when they first moved in.  It was a classic halfass Mexican plumbing job, accomplished with odd sizes of salvaged pipe.  The whole mess looked like a fucking distillery.   

            Like an idiot I never bothered to check my own pilot.  I went back upstairs to sprawl in the bathtub and the water was barely luke warm.  And I was too fucking lazy and zoned out to go back downstairs again.  But listen, I actually learned something.  If you take a warm bath instead of a hot one, the cold apartment won't be such a shock when you get out. 

            This morning I didn't give a shit about any of that though.  It was going to be a freezing, shitty day, and the thought of no hot water got me incredibly depressed and anxious. I went downstairs and tried to light the pilot, but I couldn't hear any gas at all and gave up.  I was thinking about having to work out in the rain all fucking day and having no way to get warm, and I was getting more and more depressed by the minute.  But somehow, I got up the energy to go back downstairs.  Even though there was no sound and no smell of gas, I clamped a kitchen match with a roach clip and stuck it way back to the burner and Pop, it lit.  I spun the dial from Start to Run, and the flame roared right up.             

On Friday afternoon Lisette called me.  She wanted to come and get me and take me back to Purdue.  Professional Student was working a double shift, plus diddle dicking with some long overdue Borges paper.  She brought Angela along, mostly to make it look respectable.  The two of them got here around 8:00 and Balducci and I smoked a joint with them.  Angela carried in a beer and nursed it the whole time.  She didn't seem too happy.  Her posture was so bad it gave me a fucking backache to watch her.  She's going out with this loser who's even more pathetically messed up than me.  He's in some half-ass garage metal band and I think he's nearly suicidal.

            I slept the entire drive down, and when I woke up we were dropping Angela off at some real shithole apartment complex.  From there we drove downtown and got drunk to the point of brain damage.  A couple of times I tried kissing her but she just laughed it off. 

            Around 2:00 a.m. or so we ran out of money and people stopped buying us drinks because we were getting obnoxious.  We decided to go back to the apartment, but when we walked down to the park the goddamn car was gone.  We walked around like a couple of idiots for half an hour and then caved in to the stupid reality that we'd been towed.     

            I thought it was funny but Lisette was pretty upset because she'd already spent 30 dollars of Professional Student's money and the only way to pay for the tow (aside from me charging it-- I offered, but she refused), was to ATM even more of his money.  After standing around for what seemed like a fucking hour, she decided we would walk back to Buck's and talk an old boyfriend of hers into driving us home. 

            When we were in Buck's earlier she had actually pointed him out to me and badmouthed him incredibly, telling me all the pathetic details of their relationship and what a bland, brainless dweeb he was.  I waited outside and she went in and got him.  His name was Trent, or Brent or something.         As destroyed as I was, I vividly remember sitting in the back of his maroon Monte Carlo and feeling his disgust steaming off his hopeless, suburban neck, while he told Lisette about his job at the post office.  

In the morning we got up early and went looking for the car.  We were hoping it would turn up in the park but of course it wasn't there.  We called the three or four towing companies in town, but no one had it, and we were beginning to think it might have been stolen.  Before heading down that road we decided to check out the parking lots of all the other bars, the theory being that maybe we'd parked at one bar and walked to the another.  Which fortunately is what happened.  We found the car sitting right around the corner from Buck's.  To celebrate our stupidity I sprang for breakfast at the Triple X.

            Professional Student was pretty miffed when he came home and found me camped out in his living room though he tried to hide it.  He said he wouldn't have any time to socialize because he needed to work on his Borges paper. 

            "I'm sorry, " he said. "But when I'm writing I need to isolate myself from any and all distractions."

Which is typical of him, calling it writing when he's merely working on a stupid paper.  He loosened up after a while though, and the three of us ended up spending the whole day together.  We ate lunch at some overpriced organic coffeehouse deal and then, of all things, we rented CARNAL KNOWLEDGE.  Professional Student had to work at 8:00.  We'd rented AMERICAN FRIEND as well, and I said I'd come over to the Center later and watch it with him.

            Lisette had decided to invite a shitload of people to come over, and I was kind of anxious about it. So I got myself wasted and snuck out and walked downtown, over the bridge.  I was walking by this church and I stopped to eyeball the architecture, fantasizing about my father coming here as a kid to visit relatives, and I started thinking about funerals, and it got me seriously unglued and careening.  I walked around in a morbid daze for what seemed quite a while, but then I passed by a bunch of kids running through a huge leaf pile.  There was a little girl sitting on the porch in a play pen squealing with excitement, and somehow after that my anxiety pretty much vaporized, and I walked around the neighborhood placidly stoned.      

            I came back from the walk and about ten people were smoking my dope in the kitchen.  Which was fine in the end, because I made $200 on small bags.  We went to some stupid new bar for a few beers, and then Lisette dropped me off at the Center to watch the movie with Professional Student.  He fell asleep right away, and so did I after half an hour.  He woke me up around 3:00 a.m., and I walked back to the apartment.  Lisette was sleeping in her clothes, boots included.    

Balducci left for New York a few hours ago.  I pretty much expected him to be poking around winding things up till Monday, but all his business was taken care of.  The Honore building is irrevocably in permit limbo probably till late spring. 

            We spent most of the afternoon stretching canvasses in the living room.  He had a few new stretchers, but mostly he took old paintings off their stretchers and put on new canvass.  We talked about the paintings and  what he was thinking at that particular time in his life, etc.  Before he left we made a last effort to unfuck the bathroom sink, which has been a major clog nightmare for weeks, belching out sludge.  Last weeek he'd bought a used power rodder on Maxwell Street for $55.  Safety orange-- it looks like a hammer drill with a big funnel on the front of it.  He fed the snake down the drain pipe and I operated the gun.  We pulled out all kinds of rotten ugly gunk, but the goddamn sink still backed up as soon as we tried running water.  In desperation we poured boiling water down the drain and went at it with the plunger, but in the end finally gave up and called the plumber, who said he'd check it out next week. 

            After that failure, I helped Balducci load a bunch of tools and art gear into the van and he drove off, and that was that.           

I'm invited next door to Dr. Hangout's to watch a video.  Something tells me I'll get pretty fucked up tonight.  I'm already headed that way.

Jonah arrived on the bus from Ohio this afternoon looking and smelling scuzzy, but it was still good to see him.  Right away he confessed to having no money-- he'd spent his last two dollars on vending machine food that morning in Cincinnati.  It's weird how you can go from feeling like a loser to Mr. Respectable over night.  I had about $500 saved up which was supposed to go towards buying a quarter pound.  I told him to relax and kick back, and I took him to the Snow White.         

I ordered a BLT club and a bowl of chili, and Jonah ordered the same thing.  The place was pretty much unchanged from when Toni lived around the corner during our separation (which was a joke since we saw each other constantly and were still fucking). 

            Jonah ate like a wild dog and then sat there awkwardly while I ate.  I said, "shit, have something else to eat.  I don't care."  So we waved the waitress over and he ordered himself another BLT and chili. 

            In the afternoon he put his degree in Engineering to good use by transforming some normal household rummage and drug paraphernalia into the deadliest bong in creation.  He took a gallon milk jug and cut some triangles in the bottom.  Then he took the cap and cored a hole through it with his pocket knife, large enough to pass a bong stem through.  Then he fitted a six inch length of aquarium hose to the end of the bong stem.  He called this contraption "Bob." 

            Now the deal with this bong is, you fill a bucket with water and set it on the kitchen table, unscrew the cap on the jug and sink it into the water and then screw the cap back on.  Then you pack your bowl.  And I'm not talking a little one-hit, I'm talking a serious goddamn bowl.  You pack the bowl and then gently lift the jug out of the water as you hold your flame to it.  The suction of the escaping water draws the smoke into the evacuated part of the jug.  You lift it up until almost all of the water is gone, then you unscrew the cap and bowl assembly, pull it out, and quickly put your mouth over the jug.  Then you push the jug down into the water and hydro pressure forces acres of smoke into your lungs, smoke that's wondrously, scientifically cooled.  One visit from Bob, and you're practically tripping. 

            So we took turns with Bob and got intimately acquainted with him and then spent the rest of the afternoon and evening watching Star Trek episodes on the betamax.  We brought Bob into the livingroom and set him up on the coffee table.  We were watching the episode where this tribe of airhead vixens have stolen Spock's brain and are using it to like a computer to maintain their underground city.  Jonah plunged Bob into the water and took an enormous hit. 

            From the TV came this teenybopper, cartoonish voice, "brain, and brain and brain!  What is brain?" 

            Jonah fogged out a huge cloud of smoke and said, "gentlemen, I think this constitutes drug abuse."
November

The next night the two of us went over to Fiona and Katrina's.  It was somewhere close to Fiona's birthday and we (meaning with my money) bought her a Bootsy album at Village Thrift, and this very hot polyester bitch ensemble (all for less than $10),  which she loved.  The four of us went out to eat at Moti Mahall and then walked over to Max Tavern and took pictures in the photo booth and drank about six beers each.  We ended up at Blues on Belmont Avenue.  We were trashed, but it was still pretty early and thankfully the place was dead, since it's usually packed with the worst whitebread suburban idiots. 

            We were shooting pool.  Fiona was standing by the cigarette machine and I couldn't take my eyes off her.  Of course I was drunk and stupid and uselessly overwhelmed by my feelings.  I took her outside under the pretext of getting high, trying to be suave about it, lighting a joint and passing it to her, saying, "you know,  I'm crazy about you." 

            She said, "I like you too,  but we'll have to see about it."  I'm sure she figured it was just me being drunk. 

            When the 708 crowd started pouring in, we went back to the girls' house and drank their refrigerator empty.  I kept trying to get Fiona alone, following her into the kitchen, and everywhere else she went, but she was wise to me.  We were all too fucked up to go home, so Jonah and I slept in the livingroom.  I was smart and laid claim to the sofa right away.  Jonah had to sleep on the floor, and all three cats pestered him without mercy the entire night.

This morning I was supposed to take Jonah to the bus station, but we overslept.  Now he's here all fucking day.  But I'm going out with Lilly, so it won't be so bad.  I just need some privacy to get my life back in order.  It's been shitty outside, and all we've done the last three days is drink, get high and lie around watching television.  Jonah is beginning to really irritate me, and I'm glad he's leaving.  It's the same thing I hate about Professional Student.  It's like they live on nothing but candy.  They want to exist forever on some kind of serene,  deadhead cloud.  Everything real and chaotic makes them depressed.  They have no ambition in life except to avoid stress.

What a fucking pain in the ass.  Joe Stereo's on his way here.  He left a message this morning-- I was laying in bed around 11:00 and I didn't bother getting up.  He sounded very fake and cordial.  I had the impression he was going to call back at least to make sure I was actually home, but he didn't.  He's on his fucking way and just called me ten minutes ago.  He'll be here in 2-3 hours.  Not too long after his first message Melody called wanting to know if I knew Joe Stereo's whereabouts, because he'd called her and left a frantic message on her machine.  He was very rude and didn't leave his name.  (But who else could it have been?)  I think he's going more than a little whacko.  Melody and I talked about it for a good half an hour.   

            After lunch I went to the lumber yard with Balducci's brother Dino to get plywood for the garage shelves I'm building.  The last two days I've been working for him out in the cold.  Dino has a little truck/blazer thing and we drove over to Logan Square and picked up the plywood.  Those Polish girls behind the counter are amazing.  Big hair, lipstick, mini-skirts, heels.

            "Iz dat regular two by fourz or Vollmanized?"

            When I got back here Katrina called saying Joe Stereo was looking for me.  We chit-chatted about what was I doing tonight, long pauses, boredom.  I got stoned.  Joe Stereo called again saying he was on his way, planning to stay till Tuesday.  But I managed to tell him I was busy, had all kinds of shit backlogged and he could only stay one night.  We'll go out tonight (and spend his money!), have breakfast in the morning and then he'll hopefully disappear. 

            He was saying how he's having such a rough time after the breakup with Melody.  All of his friends are gone.  I can sense he really wants to talk about this and pull me into his sink hole.  That's all I fucking need-- some depressed, spoiled, deluded bastard hanging on me, wasting my writing time, violating my privacy. 

            I was thinking though, that part of my anxiety comes from the fact that before Joe Stereo left I never had all that much negative to say about him (besides him being anal with his record collection), and this summer working with Balducci, talking to Professional Student, etc., I kept hearing how much of a dick Joe Stereo can be,  and eventually I started to badmouth him myself.  Some of it no doubt has to do with guilt over my desire to fuck Melody.  And so I started thinking maybe I don't really dislike him all that much,  and maybe it wouldn't be so bad to see him.  We used to have a decent time going to bars, getting stoned, listening to music, whathaveyou. 

            But the facts should speak for themselves-- he's barging in on me without giving any notice and he's depressed and wants to piss and moan to someone about it.  Having Jonah here was a serious disruption.  I was slowly dying for some privacy.  But at least he was in a good mood.  Christ, with Joe Stereo moping around full tilt it could be hell. 

            I need to talk to somebody.  Maybe I should call Melody back.  I'm going nuts here.  
December

Lately I've had a terrible time getting out of bed in the morning.  I set the alarm for 7:20 and inevitably I end up sleeping till 10:00.  It seems symptomatic of everything with me these days.  A lot of the time my book is a hopeless mess to me.  No direction whatsoever, just a puddle.  But I've had four good days in a row now, and there's a pattern growing, and hopefully it'll glue the project together.  I have the feeling my next go round will be much tighter and sharper.  I imagine smooth black granite and banked curves.  

            Anyway, I got up this morning and went over to Logan Square to pick up the side door for Dino's garage.  I was going to just unload it and maybe hang it Saturday, but it wasn't too cold out so I said to myself,  what the fuck, why not just do it now.  It went pretty easily.  I used the old hinges and had no trouble wrestling the new door up.  I had to plane one side and carve back the door frame but it wasn't difficult.  The old door was 1 1/4, and this new door was 1 3/4, so I had to build out the door jamb.  I walked up to Bell Lumber and got an 8 foot 2x4 and a box of 16d nails and a doorknob assembly.  Everything went like clockwork-- except the goddamn deadbolt.  I had a hell of a time lining up the strike with the bolt, but by then it was getting cold and my hands were numb.  Plus I'd worked all day on just a glass of juice and two pieces of toast.  Tomorrow I'll paint the door, and Dino wants a shelf hung in the laundry room, and that should finish off the work there. 

            I made about $40 today, but then when I got home Napoleon was sick.  He couldn't piss.  Every five minutes he'd climb into the litter box and scratch around and cry.  It's that damn cheap cat food I've been buying.  So I ended up spending 36$ at the vet.  On top of that Joe Stereo called to say he's coming up again this Sunday night.  Job interview.  But he promises it's just overnight and then out the door. 

Majorly stressed out here.  I spent all fucking day riding around putting this shroom deal together.  I should make about $250, so it wasn't for naught, but all the same I hate driving.  Every idiot in town was behind the wheel and the streets were still wet.  I was ready to blow a fucking blood vessel.  And then I got myself all ass-backwards and couldn't find Shayna's building. 

            I think she's incredibly hot for a junkie.  Pale, washed-out look, slightly unkempt-- debauched youth, yet still firm and healthy.  She had me stop at a 7-11 and came out with one of those cheesecake on a stick deals dipped in chocolate.  She offered me a bite several times. 

            When she came out of the bar with the package she smiled at me and something tingled, I don't know.  She has a serious boyfriend/fiancé‚ though, Carmine, who she wants me to meet for business.  Whatever.  I'm such an idiot.  I'm just so fucking lonely. 

Listen to this.  I went over to Carol's around 4:00 this afternoon--  Cortez and Ashland.  I stayed maybe 15 minutes, conducted my business and we bullshitted a brief while.  She was pretty sick though and wanted to go to back to bed. 

            When I left there were eight or ten Latin Kings hanging out in front of her building, leaning into car windows, drinking beer.  Nothing out of the ordinary for that neighborhood, but I'm always a little paranoid over there, like they might think I'm cutting into their business. 

            When I got home there was a frantic message on my machine from Amber about some shooting, and was I all right.  I called her back.  Apparently like five minutes after I left Carol's, some gangsters pulled up and, BAM BUDDA BAM BAM BAM! shot two people.  Unfucking believable. 

            I called Carol and she couldn't stop crying.  She said she was standing at the door just after I left going through her mail and she heard that capgun snap, snap sound and looked up.  A blue 4 door was zooming away.  One kid was lying in the street and another was hopping up and down holding his leg screaming, "Motherfuckers! Motherfuckers!"

            She'd didn't want to talk about it at all, but I kept pressing her for details.  I felt like such a leech the entire time, but I just couldn't help myself.  

After all that depressing shit I had to take a nap to reset my brain.  I slept the rest of the day away and didn't get up until 9:00.  I woke up starving and made some spaghetti and poured a can of chili over it.  Went by Helga's around 10:00 and made about $75.  Brenda and Luanne were there.  Someone had brought a fifth of Canadian Club and we sat around drinking and doing one-hits until Helga's husband, Ian came home.  He's a burned-out, alky guitar player who works at a hotdog stand or something.  They're on the verge of getting divorced about twice a month.  The entire mood there shifted abruptly as soon as he walked in and started grumbling about the lack of beer in the house.  He's one of these alkys who drinks only beer.  Helga stood up, collected her purse, and said, "fuck this shit," and we all left. 

            As we were making our way down the stairs Helga called back to Ian, "Goodnight, Asshole!"

            Went to The Charleston for a couple drinks, and then to Gallery for open mic.  Phoenix, Mike Menthol, Vesty, McCurry, Simply Steve, and the whole suicide blues crowd were there.  Stuart and Amber were there with that pain in the ass puppy of theirs tied to a table leg.  They don't dare leave him home for fear he'll tear the house apart. 

            Stuart cornered me and started talking about buying this 20 unit building on Division at Humboldt Park and having a crew work for free rent and a share of the final deal.  Translated that means you live like a fucking squatter while he nickel and dimes you to death.  I'd much rather work with Balducci. 

            Helga was all over me, but Christ, she's so fat and repulsive.  I conducted a little business with this friend of Amber's who arrived in a taxi and then promptly left afterwards.  That's exactly the kind of obvious behavior that gets you arrested.  I complained to Amber about it, but she said I was just being paranoid.

            "You look like a boy scout and you're white," she said.  No one would suspect you of anything."

            Stuart left early to watch some bullshit on television, plus he has a real job in the morning to go to.  I sat there with Amber and ended up getting pretty loaded.  She's very sweet, and definitely attractive for an old hippy-- black hair, blue eyes, nice little ass, articulate.  But she's a total flake, believes in tarot cards, astrology, elves, ghosts, and all that bullshit.  We were talking about the Gallery crowd of losers, and I introduced her to Phoenix, and she went silent.  Afterwards I asked her what was the matter and she confessed that every since she was 12 she's been supposedly getting messages from someone named Phoenix over her Ouija board.  Only it's spelled F.E.N.Y.X.  Give me a fucking break.

            I drove her and Helga home around 1:30.  It was raining again.  We went by Carol's and there was the yellow plastic police line wadded up in the wet street.  The two of them were very spooked, but it didn't seem to phase me at all.

1990

January

I called New York Thursday, and apparently Balducci's in some triangle situation with several girls.  One he started dating, and then Leslie came out to visit.  Balducci said he'd tell me all about it when he comes back-- which should be around Valentines day.  I told him about the shooting, and he said the other night someone tried to break into the loft and his landlord came over with a goddamn machine gun. 

            Totally penniless, but I hope to end up in few days with the rent and bills paid.  Several deals happening at once.

Last night I sucked back 8 or 10 beers and woke up this morning feeling shitty with no food in the house.  I drank a couple beers and then went to Johnny's for a burger and fries.  I was going to go grocery shopping, but I decided to take a walk.  I went down Webster as far as Halsted and turned around and came back.  At Thebes Park I saw a white puppy run over by a car.  It was wandering along the curb,  and then suddenly darted out into traffic.  A woman in a big Ford T-bird hit him.  It sounded like somebody kicking a flat basketball.  The dog literally skidded about 10 feet from the force of it.  There was a big puddle of pinkish blood.  It laid there in shock and blood was pulsing out of his mouth.  People got out of their cars, and one man kept saying that the nearest vet was at Elston and such and such, open 24 hours.  Then this woman brought over a blanket and a cardboard box, and she split the sides out of it and tried to ease the dog onto it.  He looked dead,  and I reached down and touched his chest and felt nothing. The woman got down and tried giving the dog mouth to mouth.  It was all so sad.  Then we all agreed he was dead, and the woman covered him with the blanket and carried him away, I don't know where.  There was nothing else I could really do, and I just walked away.           

            I was very shaken up, and a couple times almost cried.  I should have held on to the dog or something.  I should have tried to find the owner.  He darted out into traffic, and I just watched him.  But that happens all the time, animals running into the street-- and they always seem to escape getting hit.

God, I feel totally shitty and parasitic.  I called Amber to discuss business, and just to say how I was concerned about Carol, and she told me some amazingly shocking news.  It turns out Creech, (Carol's boyfriend) has been missing now for a month.  Carol had called me yesterday wanting to know if I was interested in buying some of her furniture, in addition to the fact she had some freebies she wanted to unload.  I was thinking that she was planning to move after the shooting, and I was telling this to Amber, and she told me all about Creech's disappearance.  Apparently he called Carol on his way home from work and said he'd be home in fifteen minutes work, and he never showed up.  It doesn't sound like he just ran off on her.  He wouldn't have bought her all that stuff for Christmas-- new washer and dryer, etc., if he was planning to dump her.  And he certainly wouldn't have called her. 

            I felt very strange and unwanted for asking all these questions.  Carol obviously didn't want to tell me about it.  I don't know what to think.  My head is clearing a bit, and I know it's just something that happened-- nothing to do with me, but all the same I feel terrible.  

I haven't been able to do shit since last week-- amazingly depressed.  Thinking about it, I've gone totally downhill since Balducci left for New York.  It's not like I felt it happening that way, but that's the essential chronology.  On Friday I didn't eat anything all day, I just did bongs and got continuously wasted.  Around nine o'clock I went over to Addison and Marshfield to conduct a little business and on the way back I found myself sucked in unstoppably by Dunkin Donuts. 

            I was wearing my long seaman's overcoat.  I looked like a total fucking degenerate, unshaven, crazy-eyed and obnoxious.

            "Yeah, I want three of those Bostons, three chocolate long johns, three French twists.  How many is that?"

            "Nine, sir."

            "Okay, give me three of those with the sprinkles." 

            The little Indian woman behind the counter had this smug, disgusted look on her face, all the while nodding and smiling. 

The next morning I woke up at five a.m. boiling my ass off, though I had the thermostat set for 65 degrees.  I put on my bathrobe and went out to the kitchen and cracked a beer.  The sun was just barely up, and the light coming into the kitchen was gray.  I had left the box of donuts out and they were half stale but I didn't care.       

            So picture me in my ridiculous flannel bathrobe at five a.m.,  drinking a Budweiser and eating stale donuts.  And then, I don't know how else to describe this, but I lapsed into this absolutely schizophrenic moment where I experienced myself as two people.  I was paralyzed, lost between the two of them-- this diseased, grotesque me and this childlike, serene me.  My identity fluxed in and out of these two science fiction packages, and at the same time it felt like I was watching from above.  The sick me was emaciated and terrified, contorted by crying.  The healthy me was like a large infant, pink and glowing.  Its hands and feet were tiny and unformed.  It was faceless.  And then the whole dream movie began to compress.  The healthy me receded and was folded inside the sick me within a sleepy, poisonous bubble.

            All this lasted maybe a minute, but afterwards I found myself sweating like a pig and totally, ravenously hungry to the point of panic.  I finished off the rest of the donuts and then took a loaf of bread and a jar of honey and ate slice after slice, washing it back with beer until my anxiety passed.  After that I felt all the energy drain from my body and it was all I could do to make it to the bedroom and crash.

I've been in a haze since my freakout episode.  All I've been able to do is lie around and watch PBS, or go for short walks.  On Monday I seriously perked up though. The weather was beautiful-- in the 60's.  I did a good part of the laundry.  It was MLK Jr. day, and I was the only white person in the laundromat.  I went for a walk by the Honore house.  That inspired me to go to Kimball Heights and work on my parents' back porch.  I drove out after lunch, and my mother and I went to the lumber yard.  It took me till dark to barely get the stringers figured out, but then Wayne came over and gave me a hand.  We worked till around eight with a droplight, but we managed to get the stairs finished.  I should have just gone home that night, but I stayed, because I think it would have hurt their feelings otherwise.  I watched TV till the end of Letterman and drank 5 or 6 beers.   My mother woke me up around 6:30, and I was still pretty woozy.  There was heavy fog, and dad thought I should wait around till it burned off, but I knew traffic would just get worse the later I stayed. 

February

The Hand Model came over today and I showed him the ruination of his old house on Wabansia.  What was once a gorgeous pre-Great Chicago Fire bungalow,  is now a hideous 3 storey post-modern cinderblock and vinyl atrocity.  We walked around the neighborhood,  weaving up and down side streets, as far West as Washtenaw.  He brought me a belated Christmas present, the autobiography of Miles Davis.  He told me he was thinking of moving to Humboldt Park with the Lipstick Lesbian and the Poet.  He could tell there was something wrong with me. 

            I see myself down in a hole.  I'm sick and I'm afraid how I'll feel in the morning.  I'm afraid at night lately, because when I lie in bed and can't sleep, I'm alone with my feelings.  Last night I held onto the scene of the little white dog getting run over.  I was imagining myself back in therapy, talking to Anne, and I wanted to preserve the scene so I could say to her, "he was just a little dog," and then start crying with her there. 

            I was today that I'm more depressed than ever before.  But really there's a buffer there and I don't honestly feel that much.  With Toni, I remember being depressed days on end, feeling it welled up in my chest.  What I feel now is lost and stifled.  Several times now I've thought about being dead-- thinking, narrating what people will say afterwards.  

            Why can't I keep food in the house?  Why can't I recognize the tailspin and pull out?  I feel toxified with words, smothered.  Nothing helps for long any more, and I don't honestly care.  Either there's a revolution coming to my heart, or I'm going to drown.

I finally broke down and called Anne today.  I have no center and I can't get any momentum going.  I feel totally deaf to my emotions.  Maybe I won't need to see her more than a few times, to get myself on track for finishing the book.  But of course the whole thing has a way of snowballing.  Like everything in my loser quagmire it will ultimately depend on money.  

Officially back in therapy again.  Everything at the Hospital was the same, right down to duct tape on the K-Mart aqua blue seat covers in the waiting room.  Anne's office was perfectly unchanged, and it seemed like no time whatsoever had passed since seeing her last-- except that our last session was in the spring.  But it still seemed like all those wet, dismal times.  She said it's been since May of 1986.  I said that driving around the hospital seemed very familiar, yet I didn't have a single thought about Toni until I was in the bathroom, and then I had this horrible twinge of self-loathing, remembering how I kept trying to convince her to sneak into the bathroom to give me a blowjob. 

            I was describing all that to Anne, painting the story,  and I started comparing it to something out of Alfred Hitchcock, and she cut me off saying, "why does it have to sound like it comes out of a movie?  Why can't you just describe what happens?"

            And I said, "because I feel so…. ridiculous." 

            She said, "you make it sound like you're almost embarrassed to be human."    

             Then I broke down and told Anne about my schizo episode.  Right away she got very serious, but I wouldn't hear any of it.  She said she still wanted me to make an appointment with Dr. Kretenhammer, and to calm her down, I told her I'd think about it.

            After the smoke had cleared from that business, I described to her this recollection I had the other day from childhood where I was sitting in my playpen at the screen door and all the neighbor kids would come by to quiz my vocabulary. We talked about why I can't seem to work steadily-- I either excel or run aground.  She said that it could be due to my attitude that nothing is ever good enough.  I asked her what exactly was wrong with that.  

"It minimizes you as a person," she said.  "And it prevents you from experiencing accomplishment." 

            In the past with Anne, I would usually walk out of therapy feeling charged up, but yesterday I came home totally listless and sank into the couch.

Joe Stereo just left.  I'm driving down to Purdue later this evening and will see him again there.  Plus I'll see Jonah and Professional Student and that whole crew.  Lot's of business-- full of sound and fury signifying jack shit.  The money's over there, the goods are here.  Everybody wants X, and I have Y.  So and so has no phone, leave a message at such and such.  On top of that I'm getting this wicked rumbling noise from my right front wheel and that spells expensive break job.

             I went to the movies with Lilly yesterday.  Lately she's becoming a surrogate grandmother to me.  Well, grandmother only infinitely hipper.  We saw ENEMIES,  A LOVE STORY which wasn't bad, but slow to develop.  Drank way too much coffee and had no dinner.  As to be expected,  I was hyper as hell.  Drank a few beers and caught a buzz in Uptown.  I showed up stoned at Fiona and Katrina's around 8:00 fully expecting to be bored to death, but ended up really spilling my heart to Fiona (and necking with her!) which was very incredibly tender. 

            We went to Lower Links and closed the place.  (I made a pit stop at the Royal Palace for a burger and immediately felt much less freaked).  Fiona kept saying she was mad at me for pulling my disappearing act and wanted to know why,  and so I told her basically it was because I'm so crazy about her, and with her getting married, my past history with Katrina, etc., it all seemed so hopeless and tangled up that I just avoided the situation altogether.  Joe Stereo and Katrina sat there talking with their backs to us, totally annoyed.  After Links we walked over to 7-11 and bought junk food,  and Fiona and I held hands.  We all went back to their house and sat around drinking.  Katrina went to bed and Joe Stereo zonked out on the couch while Fiona and I continued talking.  He was half asleep and could hear us,  but I didn't care-- nor did I care in Links that Katrina was hearing all. 

            I told Fiona the camera shuts off when I'm with her and I find myself totally involved with her-- not narrating the scene from above.  I love the way she smells, and her blue eyes, and gorgeous Liz Taylor mouth.  She kept saying with regularity that she was going to marry Greg.  But all the same, her voice was high and smooth and airy,  like she was almost singing.  

            "What are we going to do about it?" she kept saying, signaling that she wanted to kiss, but wasn't about to make the first move.  And so I kissed her.  Like I said, it was very tender.  My whole body was telegraphing this serene hum.  Joe and Katrina left and we sat around talking and kissing until she fell asleep on the couch.  I curled in with her, and it was very uncomfortable, but worth it.  Eventually though I went over to the chair and slept because I was turning into a pretzel.  Oh, and at one point I went to the bathroom and was taking down my zipper walking through the door and there Katrina was on the toilet.  I know she thinks I'm an asshole,  but I don't care. 

            I said to Fiona that I'd call her in the next few days and we'll see what happens.  I do wish there was some kind of instant program to follow here.  Part of me wants the whole thing to just go away, but all the same if she rejects me, I know I'll feel very depressed.  And then I'm also telling myself I'm starved, and being close with someone after all these months of loneliness is heady stuff and I'm overreacting. But I should change gears here.  I'm thinking this whole thing into the ground.

            I talked with Joe Stereo about it when I came in, and it didn't seem nearly as draining to have him around.  It was much more like it used to be.  We ate breakfast at Johnny's.  I was feeling great, and had eggs and bacon.  He was one step from puking.  He sipped coffee and maybe ate half a piece of toast.  He did needle me again about why didn't I want him moving in, which was irksome. 

            Waiting for these goddamn calls.  Where the fuck is everybody?             

Purdue was tolerable enough, though I didn't get there until 3 a.m.  Had a long talk with Jonah about intimacy and friendship as relates to Professional Student and Joe Stereo.  Saw Lisette a few times but there was no time for us to talk alone, and everything was pretty cordial.  Jonah came up with a good expression, describing how Professional Student comes into the room and ignores everyone.  He calls it "the Spock effect." 

            Very depressed right now.  Business fiasco.  I spent all fucking day Sunday trying to put this deal together.  Driving around with Shayna.  Now there's some complaints about the stuff, and some people are talking about refunds.  After all that anxiety from Sunday, and just dealer paranoia in general, I'm really trashed.  I'm thinking of asking Balducci to advance me money enough to finish the book by say, April 1,  so I can quit dealing.  I can't stand living under a cloud anymore. 

            I worked with Stuart today building stairs.  He's pretty disorganized, and not much got accomplished except that I cut out 2 stringers.  Sat around and drank some wine with him and Amber and then came home and did a few bongs.   Lois Lane came over and offered me some blow.  She held it out to me on her fingernail.  Earlier I also ate this over-the-counter sleeping pill stolen from Lisette's folks bathroom.  I ate 2 last night and had some amazingly vivid dreams.

            I've been thinking a lot about Fiona, and I'm anxious to talk to Anne about everything.   

March

Out of the fog again.  I'm sure the fact I haven't been fucked up the last two days helps.  Yesterday we got hit with a major fucking blizzard.  I spent a good hour and a half shoveling this morning.  All will probably be for naught, since it's supposed to get up around 50 degrees today.  But anyway, I needed the exercise.  

            I talked with Anne about my idea to ask Balducci for money,  and she tried to work me through what would happen if he said, no.  But I called him yesterday, and we talked a good hour and he said,  no problem. I asked for $800, and he said he could give me $600 and let me pass on this month's rent (already 2 weeks late).  So now I have $600 in cash, $100 in the bank, and $600 more on the way from Balducci.  That should definitely get me through till April 1.  My taxes will be another problem but I'll burn that bridge when I come to it.  I'm in debt up to my eyeballs as it is.

And then there's the matter of this mushroom fiasco.  Apparently somebody took a whole quarter and didn't get off.  At most I figure I'll have to refund $200, hopefully though it will be more like $50.  But if everybody comes forward from the last month with complaints I'll be ruined.  I can't get myself too worked up about it though.  One thing at a time.  Anyway, I could quit dealing right this instant, but I'll probably make one or two more scores-- have a closeout bulk deal and maybe raise 3 or $400.        

            I tried calling Fiona yesterday, but some guy answered the phone, either Katrina's brother, Joey or it was Greg, and I hung up.  The euphoria has worn off a bit, and I'm not so freaked out by the situation.  I have no intention of trying to come between Fiona and Greg.  I hardly know her, and most of my attraction is juvenile infatuation.  We do seem to be in sync though, and I could still see something coming about.  I'm not dismissing that possibility altogether, but I'll have to get some pretty strong signals from her first.  It's all so unpractical.  There's no room to maneuver.  I just want to spend some time with her, get to know her, etc.  Anne agrees, and she sees Fiona as someone I can just be comfortable with.  She says I should fight the urge to seduce her, because that would be avoiding real intimacy, which is the thing I have such trouble cultivating.  And also, she honestly thinks if Fiona were really available, I'd be scared shitless and would have never opened up to her in the first place.  I keep thinking I should write to her,  but that's my usual lame impulse.  All the same,  I'm very nervous about trying to get her on the phone.  I'll try calling her again tonight. 

            Got a call from Universidad Popular and they want me to come to a faculty meeting Saturday morning.  I'm nervous about the whole thing, but I need to get out and try something new.  Talking with Balducci helped me realize how I'm not so ambition driven anymore.  I'd much rather diversify my emotions than sit alone going crazy.  The panic about finishing the book is beginning to lift.  It'll get done.  If it takes until June or July, big fucking deal.  I'd much rather have my sanity than risk running myself aground.

Read this afternoon and slept till 6:30.  Watched the news and ate, and watched BLADE RUNNER on video.  I just called Fiona, and I feel pretty good.  I told her I'm not going to invade her life, create scenes, whatever.  We're going to get together next week for coffee or something.  I feel in motion again.  I think I have to always keep something in the pipeline or I become linear.  Tried to work on the book this afternoon, but nothing.  Decided to read.  Watching BONNIE AND CLYDE tonight.  Maybe after that I'll get off my useless ass.  

The whole day wasted, in a daze.  Collected $50 in Uptown from Ernesto.  He had $100, but I told him to offer $50 to the guy who had the complaint.  It turns out everyone thinks he's a flake, and they say fuck him,  but I don't want to risk pissing anyone off.  Plus it puts Ernesto and Amber in a tight spot since they do regular business with him.  Everything seems to be ironing itself out though.  Balducci said if I'm short at tax time he could front me that money as well.  So basically there's nothing left for me to do except work on the book.  Putting together one final half pound score, called everyone and told them I'm going out of business. 

            I have a whole shitbox of Balducci New York stories all scattered in my brain, some noted on a legal pad.  He showed up Friday afternoon.  I was stoned and had given up on writing for the day.  Went down to the basement and was building a wooden tool chest, 30x16x14.  It came out nicely, but way too heavy to be of any practical use.  I gave myself a fucking hernia trying to get it up the narrow basement stairs loaded down with tools.  But it's perfect for my record albums, so it wasn't a total waste. 

            Anyway, Balducci showed up looking like Joey Ramone, his hair all over the place, wearing an insane brown superfly leather jacket, the kind with the long lapels from 1975.  He looked outrageous and beautiful.  We sat down at the kitchen table doing bongs a while and then Balducci dumped out his laundry from a duffel bag and sat on the floor sorting it out and started to tell me a bit of his love triangle story which he had hinted at in his postcards. 

            This girl in the next building is an art model/prostitute/exotic dancer, whatever, and she was sort of seeing Kyle, (who I met in NYC last summer after the barn fiasco).  This is the same woman Marty was talking about who wanted to fuck both him and Kyle one after the other.  She was asking Balducci how he got into construction and saying, "You should hire me, I mean it, as an electrician, or anything.  God, I'm just so sick of lying on my back for money."  

            Balducci paused in telling the story and unrumpled and held up a Bob Hope Golf Classic polo shirt, grinning and then said, "well, I figured, she's drunk, whatever.  But then she got indignant with me.  She said, 'you think I'm kidding, don't you?'  And then she went on to tell me about all these various guys she's fucked and how she took in $600 that night and $300 the night before. 

            "Give you an example.  This one guy's a tiny Mediterranean who's dick is so small he couldn't fuck-- it was literally impossible to make it work.  So finally she got so aggravated she climbed on top of him and straddled his face and screamed at him, 'Eat Me!'

            "He went down on her for like half an hour and finally she ended up jerking him off I think with her thumb and forefinger.  For that she said she charged the guy $400.   

            "This other guy she told me about was a cop with a spitting fetish.  All she had to do was walk around the room naked and spit at him while he jerked himself off.  And for the big climax she took out this lace handkerchief and coughed up a hocker into it. 

            "So she's telling me all this, and about how Kyle isn't that great in bed.  He's okay, but nothing compared to this other guy, K.C.  She kept telling me how she loved the smell of his balls, and every time she smelled his balls it made her crazy.  And he says stuff to her like, 'Listen, this time we fuck for me and I come; next time we fuck for you and you come.'  And I guess she really loves that whole sexual authority thing.  But K.C. treats her like shit, and she doesn't know what to do any more, and so I'm saying, yeah, you should forget about this guy, he's a loser. 

            "She's telling me all of this shit in a stretch of like twenty minutes while I'm driving her home from Kyle's apartment.  When I pull up to her building she goes, 'oh, do you want to come up?' 

            "So we go upstairs and do some coke and she starts showing me all these photo albums of her stuff and pictures of her old man who's an artist and I guess he's fairly well-known-- but I've never heard of him.  Somewhere in there there's a stack of these Polaroids of her totally spread eagle and everything else, and she covered them up, but then she says, 'Well, what's it matter, you're gonna see it anyway.' 

            "We didn't actually do anything that night, but after that the next couple days she kept calling me, saying she can see me painting from her window and she wants me to come over.  K.C. is out of town, you know...."

Balducci's story unfortunately petered out, because the phone kept ringing for him, and so I went back to fooling with my albums and he left to talk with the architect.           

That night Balducci called me from yuppieville after his meetings and we met at Muskie's and ate and then walked over to Sheffield's which was packed with idiots, so we got in the van and drove over to Justin's.  There were these two Eurotrash couples challenging everyone to air hockey.  This one woman in a red dress, bright lipstick, nice shoes was begging me to play against this overdressed guy with a huge towering forehead who looked like Falco.  I'm totally incompetent I told her, but she offered to buy me a drink. 

            So I'm promptly getting my ass kicked, 4 or 5 to zero which doesn't seem to matter to the woman in red because she's hanging all over me and rubbing her tits against me.  About a minute later it's 7 to zero and I turn and say to her, "who is he anyway?" 

            "He iz my hoosband." 

            Fabulous.  Meanwhile this other woman with them is about 4 feet tall and claims to be a pro-class skier.  She's gyrating her hips all over the place demonstrating to Balducci some kind of mogul jumping technique.  I can't remember what else, but somehow we managed to get away from them.  And then maybe five minutes later this huge commotion breaks out.  Somebody takes a swing at Falco, chairs are falling over.  Balducci and I came up front to check it out and the bouncers were holding people back, and the Eurotrash flakes were escorted out of the place.

            After that we went to this party at Shayna's.  Lot's of Art Institute types with pierced eyebrows and tattoos.  I saw a pair of homos dancing together, attired in matching kilts.  The kitchen table was a big mess of tipped over liquor bottles and the floor was all sticky.  There was nothing to drink left, and we stayed there maybe half an hour, which was just long enough for me to get into trouble. 

            I wandered off looking for the bathroom and immediately got lost.  The whole building was dark except for a wisp of streetlight coming through the windows.  It made me feel like I was in a Scooby Doo episode.  I went through one of those warehouse vault doors and down the stairs to the first floor.  Some skinny guy with a crew cut was hanging around the mailboxes and I asked him where the bathroom was.  He pointed down the hall and said, "I hope you've had all your shots," which I took to mean that it was filthy in there. 

            "Thanks," I said. 

            "Oh, fuck you," he said, with a kind of annoyed, tired sigh.

            I stood staring at him, really perplexed by the whole thing.  I mean why would a weasily little guy like this pick a fight for no reason... unless he had a gun or something?  All the same the swagger engine was revving in my chest and I started rocking back and forth on the balls of my feet and smiling.

            He took a few steps toward me and in that same annoyed voice said, "Welllll?"

            And then quite spontaneously, I found myself saying, "look, I have to pee," and turning around and walking down the hall.  Then there was an awful metallic SKREEEE! and I spun around to see the lobby door SLAM!

            The bathroom turned out to be an old factory locker room.  It was a huge maze of lockers, showers, benches, rows of sinks and toilets, as big as any highschool locker room.  The place reeked of piss and everything was covered in grime and horribly dilapidated.  I went into one of the stalls and peed.  When I flushed the toilet it overflowed onto the floor and did not stop, and I crept out of there like a thief.

Yesterday morning I was supposed to go to this meeting at Universidad Popular, but I chickened out.  I was majorly hungover for one, and two I came to the conclusion I have no desire to teach an entire classroom of people.  Maybe one on one instruction, I don't know.  I should be polite and call them, because I gave them every impression I was serious.

            Balducci and I got up around noon and walked over for breakfast at Linda's Diner.  Afterwards a long walk through the neighborhoods,  and he started unwinding the whole New York love triangle fiasco.  There's this girl Jacqui who's a severely needy Polish artist who called him up and said that she'd been hot for him since grad school.  But she's just broken up with Abdul,  and he's still seriously possessive.  Then this Jewish girl Sarah, who is an ex of Devon (who reads for Faucet books by the way).  Devon doesn't like to let go, and he's been trying to discourage the whole thing-- yet doesn't know how far it's gotten along.  Balducci is being cautious, but he can't help thinking about all the stories Devon tells him, because they supposedly had great sex together..."yeah and here's where I spunked all over her tits... and we used to fuck right here on the kitchen table.   Jesus I miss her sometimes." 

            Devon complains that she supposedly gave him venereal warts, but Sarah told Balducci, "look, he's always had warts, and he just gave them to himself by beating off." 

            On top of all this Leslie showed up to visit, so it was bang, bang, bang, one right after the other.  The aftermath of all this in rapid succession was:

            1. Balducci got himself a dose of crabs.

            2. Abdul went crazy and broke all of Jacqui's windows.

            3. Balducci's van was broken into and grafitti'd.

            4. The break-in, machine gun landlord episode as previously mentioned.

            All of this Balducci related without shame or ambition.   Somewhere during his story I remember seeing a pair of pants, wadded up and flattened in the street.  It was pretty warm, and a lot of the snow was thawing, and this pair pants was literally giving off steam.  Also, there were lots of folding chairs everywhere, from people trying to save parking spaces they'd shoveled out.  I got the idea to maybe drive around at night and steal a bunch of them, since we have no decent chairs here.  Down some alley I found a trunk with the lid gone.  It was reasonably light, so we took it to use for hauling tools and miscellaneous bullshit. 

            We came back to the house and Balducci boiled up a big pot of glue and was gessoing canvasses.  I stood around and we talked about my therapy, and Joe Stereo, and various people.  Got a postcard from Melody wanting to know if Balducci and I could come to New York, hang around a few days and then drive her stuff back to Chicago.  But it's out of the question.  It would be a major hassle and not worth the mere $200 she's offering.  Though I would like to see her and try maybe to initiate a harmless weekend sordida.   

            Last night we went to Gallery and then The Charleston-- halfway decent music.  We were both dressed like rubes, and I felt self conscious.  Balducci left to stay at his sister's.  He went up to Michigan with them today, vacation cottage, and should be back tomorrow. 

            Also, last night I was sitting here making some notes and I heard gunshots down the street by the factories.  Several in a series.

            Balducci's talk about these women has got me thinking sex, sex, sex.  Major lust dreams last night.  But I have no one to really call--- Lisette, Melody, Fiona, they're all complicated, messed up, hopeless situations. 

Floundering again.  Everything seems unconnected and sketchy.  I'm getting flabby, stiff and I ache all over.  Balducci came back from Michigan this morning, and I sat around in my bathrobe talking to him while he worked on more canvasses.  Put in maybe an hour and a half on the book, then ended up sleeping all afternoon, then watching TV till midnight.  Scored 3 oz's, very seedy stuff.  I'll be lucky to break even with it.

            Maybe all the drinking Friday and Saturday threw me out of whack.  I'll see Anne tomorrow.  I feel totally closeted and stifled and disgusted with myself.  The essence of my loserdom, the rotten shriveled core of it all is my utter ambivalence towards all and everything.  I can't decide, don't care about anything, just don't give a shit, period.  No focus at all.  Someone just numb me please,  so I can get to sleep.

Met with Anne yesterday.  I talked about how I need to juggle several things to feel healthy-- get a balanced diet of people, food, exercise, writing.  She says I need to get out and be with people because when I'm alone I have no way to exert my self, to see myself reflected in other people's faces, so I get lost.  And because of my whacked out metabolism, I've got to eat right or I'll get more depressed.  Ditto for exercise.  And if those things aren't stoked into the machine, it's very hard for me to get any work done.  Tied in with all that is money, housekeeping, my appearance, etc.  She thinks I should spend more time in therapy dealing with what I'm feeling right there at the moment.  She was asking me how and what I felt when I came in the door, and I felt very much spotlighted and almost started crying.  I hope she keeps this up; and I should encourage it if she doesn't, because I need the experience.

            Tried to get up early and do laundry, but laid there dreaming till 10:30.  But I still got it done.  I don't feel much like working on the book.  Maybe I'll go for a walk.  Going to see this one man performance deal about Oscar Levant tonight with Lilly.  I tried calling Fiona yesterday, but her machine was on.  Maybe I'll walk over to Lincoln Park.  We could meet at Java Jive or something.  One deal away from being out of business.  Other people still want stuff, but this last batch was shit, seedy and all stems.  No sense taking a risk for that.         

Got up around noon today and ate breakfast.  Lied on the couch watching TV till 2:00, half considering taking a nap.  Serena called wanting something, whining.  Told her it was unlikely. 

            Lately I've been thinking about Creech's disappearance and trying to Sherlock Holmes with the details.  I remember early on when I first met Carol last spring she seemed really strung out on coke-- baggy eyes, frantic, exhausted.  She complained to me how Creech had pawned a bunch of her jewelry or something and how she had just pawned a triple beam scale of his to get even. 

            "I don't even need the money," I remember her saying in that superior tone that most losers and junkies trot out.

            And once or twice that summer she sent him over as her "friend," and it seemed to me like they were estranged.  Then all that seemed to blow over and everything was fine between them.  They moved into this nice house over by the hospital (though shitty neighborhood) and got very domestic.  New appliances came rolling through the door, exercise machines, furniture, security system.  Amber and I hung out with her a couple of afternoons.  She didn't have a job, she just sat at her loom all day listening to Joni Mitchell records.  She'd make lunch for us and we'd get stoned on the back porch (Creech forbid any kind of smoking in the house).  Like Jane Austin crossed with Mother Jones, all very mellow and civilized.  This went on until winter kicked in and then, as you know,  Creech all of a sudden vanished.   

            One incident in particular sticks in my head making me think Creech was mixed up in some kind of hairy bullshit.  This was the time my car was fucked up and the battery died.  Carol was going to give me a ride home.  She went to the closet and took out Creech's coat, and he said to her, "hey, there's something in that coat, stupid."

            Plus the fact he was in the restaurant supply business and talked with that second, third generation Chicago mushmouth.  Now I'm thinking he could definitely have been murdered.  But then there's the whole seven year common law marriage thing sticking in the back of my head as well,  and so maybe he did just skip town.  I can picture him right now in some Los Angeles suburb managing a tacky surf-n-turf joint, washing his car twice a week, having his eyebrows waxed,  a hot tub in the back yard.

Drank like a fish with Balducci Thursday through Saturday and bonged it up quite a bit as well.  We went to Max Tavern and Gallery Thursday and got famously wasted.  Left with Louanne and came back here to smoke a joint.  She was looking half-way attractive but I talked myself out of it.  Along with the joint she sunk two bobs and she was totally wide-eyed.

            Went back to Gallery.  Balducci and I were watching McCurry who was charged up and sounded fantastically pure-- did an excellent "6 days on the Road." Then Helga came swaggering her lard carcass over and said to Balducci, "so, I hear you're a slut...."  He was kind of stymied, and I don't remember how he got out of that conversation.

            Jonah showed up Friday afternoon.  I was expecting him several hours later,  and so I came to the door looking like a bum.  I had basically been a sloth on the couch all morning. 

            It was surprisingly 40 or 50 degrees out and Jonah talked me into we walking down to Goose Island for a few drinks, which straightened out my head.  Then we walked over to Katrina and Fiona's, but no one was home.  Drank several more at Max Tavern and Balducci met us there.  Drove over to Lower Links but there was a 4 dollar cover, so we said screw that and went back to Max's. 

            Saturday morning Balducci showed us the drawings of the Honore house,  and we talked about the project.  We'll be making 10 bucks an hour to start, and eventually move up to 12.  Jonah and I drove over to Linda's Diner and had breakfast.  Colder than fucking hell out.  We walked up Webster afterwards to find a drugstore (Jonah needed a toothbrush), and we nearly died, our noses running, fingertips blue, the icy wind searing our faces.  Farted around the house most of the afternoon and then went to see DRIVING MISS DAISY.  Sappy, but not too terrible. 

            That night Jonah had a date with Brenda, so Balducci and I went out with the Pug.  Coaxed Balducci into telling the whole love triangle story over again and it came off well, much tighter and more organized.  Balducci also had a surprise.  It seems he drove down to Pennsylvania with Devon a few weeks ago to take pictures of the finished barn and with hopes of stealing the generator.  5 hour drive.  The front entrance was gated with a big nature preserve sign, so they went around to the back road.  They had just pulled in, and some guy in a pickup arrived and said, "hey, what are you two doing?  You're going to dump trash back there, aren't you?"

            Balducci said, "we're just here to take some pictures."     

            "You're up to something, I know that."  And he sat parked there like Ranger Rick.

            The generator theft was out of the question, but he drove back there anyway and took some pictures.  The shake roof looked great, but he said the idiots had stained the barn dark brown--  covered over that beautiful blonde wood.  But I shouldn't be surprised, because Mrs. Miniver had such horrendous taste.  Not so bad in furnishings, but just a terrible color sense.  The inside of her house was like a barf olympics.  He took the pictures and they drove all the way back to New York without even stopping to piss.  A week later Balducci got his pictures back and they were all of some old ladies having a tea party.  They lost the fucking film on him.

            We had a few pitchers at Eco and went back to the Pug's and got high.  Balducci decided he was hungry.  The Pug cried poorhouse, but we talked him into it.  I ordered a big pizza and then we realized there was no beer in the house.  Balducci suggested we cut a deck of cards to see who goes, because it was totally Arctic out there.  I refused altogether.  I said I'd go if someone drove-- I'd dash in and get it, but no one wanted to drive. 

            So for a while it was basically a stalemate.  We watched some bullshit on TV, smoked some more, played with the dog.  Then the pizza arrived, and the dog wouldn't stop mooching so Balducci tried to coax him into his cage. 

            "Looook at you, you stooopid doggie.  Oh yes, we love you.  That's such a good stoooopid doggie.  Now over here, come on, boy....."

            The Pug latched onto this opportunity and decided to bet Balducci that he couldn't lure the dog into the cage-- loser goes out for beer. 

            "You can do whatever you want," said the Pug.  "Only one condition-- no bodily contact." 

            This I took to mean that Balducci couldn't pick the dog up and throw him in. 

            First Balducci tried luring him in with pizza.  He tossed a slice into the cage, but the dog just stood there staring at it.  Then he got behind the cage and started calling to him and jumping up and down, "come on, get it boy, come on!"  In response to this the dog got very agitated and started barking, which was obviously no good.    

Finally in a stroke of absolute schoolyard genius, Balducci got down on all fours and crawled into the cage himself and the dog followed him right in with his stubby tail wagging. 

            Balducci climbed out of the cage, brushed himself off, stabbed his finger in the air and shouted, "Victory!" 

            But then the Pug objected. "No way, man.  Before he was completely in the cage, I definitely saw bodily contact."

            "Bullshit!" said Balducci. 

            Some stupid,  petty arguing ensued,  but finally we shamed the Pug into going out for beer.  So he got himself all bundled up like Admiral Bird and hiked over to this Mexican bar down the street.  He walked though the door and about 50 men turned in unison and glared at him.  They were watching a porno movie-- some kind of private bachelor party.  He stumbled through them to the cooler and hauled out two six packs.  The bartender charged him twelve dollars, and the Pug didn't say a word.

While he was gone,  Balducci and I were screwing around in the front room with the stereo, not paying attention to anything, and the dog got out of his cage (which we had never bothered to latch), pulled down the bag of dope from the kitchen counter and fucking ate it, shredding the plastic bag all over the carpet.  It was only enough for a few joints, but the Pug was seriously bummed when he returned from his ordeal.

Sunday morning Jonah and I walked over to Earwax for breakfast and he related all the details of his date with Brenda.  "Look, man, " he said to me.  "I've had this thing for her on and off since we were both freshman.  We were always lab partners, in study group, all these meaningful conversations about the movies, architecture, politics, what we were going to do with our lives.  And whenever I was into her she was taken and vise versa.  So now finally years later we're both in the clear and we go out and I realized all I really ever cared about was getting into her pants.  I was like prying my eyelids open listening to her blah, blah, blah all fucking night, and it was the same old bullshit about feminism and the corporations and the republicans.  So finally about 3 in the morning I just said, point blank, "look, Brenda I want to spend the night with you."

            I could tell in advance by the whole cynical windup that she shut him down, which is exactly what happened, but I tried to be sympathetic. 

            She said to him, "Jonah, I'd be lying if I said I didn't have those same kind of feelings for you, but after all the years of platonic intimacy we've shared I think it would be an absolute violation of our friendship...."

            "Platonic intimacy?" I said to him.  He just threw up his hands. 

            Weirdly enough this business didn't make him depressed.  (It made me depressed just listening to it).  He said it felt liberating to get everything out in the open with her.  And then they talked for another fucking hour or two about why relationships suck. I wanted to strangle him.     

            After breakfast we drove over to Java Jive and checked the bulletin board for apartment ads and then dropped in on Amber and Helga at the Occult Bookstore.  Amber had a place Jonah could rent for 275.  A slum of course, but dead central in Wicker Park, close to everything.  Then we went over to Fiona and Katrina's, but only Joey was home.  We had a beer with him which made me pretty psychotic on an empty stomach.  Came back here.  We did a few bobs and that leveled me off.  Laid around till 5:00 while Jonah did his laundry, then I drove him to Union Station. 

I feel worthless.  No doubt about it, I can feel myself sinking.  

Balducci was just here and told me he had this hour long phone conversation with Devon last night, all about his troubles with Sarah.   She'd told Devon that she's attracted to Balducci and wants to ask him out.  Balducci pretended to be surprised, and then offered that he actually does find her attractive.  Devon said, "shit, you might as well go out with her... and fuck her.  Why not?  When you come back here you'll get your chance.  Only I don't want to be there watching it happen."

            He was in and out pretty fast.  Collecting bids, City Hall business.  He said he's beginning to get pre-game butterflies about the project.  It's still a month off,  and I have a good block of time to write,  but I almost wish it was starting now,  because I feel so lost and unable to work.  I've been stretching out lately, trying to get back in shape.  I really need to go into training.  Lay off the beer.  Exercise.  Write. 

I was jerking myself off this afternoon, looking at a magazine in the bathroom.  I was basically wasting time, because I couldn't find anything to watch on TV, and that made me think about what Anne said, that when I pursue sex-- pursue it right away, like on the first date, what I'm doing is actually avoiding intimacy.  I was jerking myself off,  and that connection registered in my brain,  and it was like being mainlined with a drug.  For a few minutes everything was vivid Technicolor.  But then I started thinking about this picture a few pages away of a woman playing with herself, pearls between her teeth, head thrown back.

The woman in this photo spread was named Anne,  and that made my stomach tighten up.  I thought of the end of my last round of therapy 2-3 years ago where I felt obligated to confess to her that I had these sexual feelings for her.  The idea in ending your therapy is to choose a date some time in the future, and you use that time to work through your feelings for the therapist.  But with me it never really came about, that sense of impending loss.  The best I could do was ask for a hug.  I mean I did say I had these feelings for her, but I said it very clinically.  I've been having these feelings... whatever.  Thinking about that made me very tense because I felt like I had to tell her about it, that I was jerking off and thinking about her.  So all day now I've been in limbo,  and I guess this is what I should deal with tomorrow with her.  I have a feeling it's going to be painful.  Have an urge to get stoned now but it will probably make me wide awake and bodyachy.  Maybe just a tiny buzz?

            I did take a walk around the neighborhood during the snow storm, and I felt this weird serenity-- it was almost something I could smell, like when you're about to faint (maybe it was just a sinus pressure thing)  Anyway, I felt so relaxed I just kept walking.  I'd go around a few blocks and end up close to home and then start off again to keep the feeling going.  I passed this woman on the street carrying a box.  She smiled at me and I smiled back, and it felt like there was something happening, flirtation, whatever.  I decided to cut from North Avenue back toward Concord to maybe bump into her again.   And I did see her-- she was loading the box into her car.  But then I got the feeling that I might seem menacing to her.  She probably didn't even see me though, and she drove off.  Something of course is not healthy about all that, something very adolescent, repressed, obsessive.          

            I watched this movie,  TIN MEN which loosely sequels DINER.  Not bad, but too quickly written, obvious dialogue, stuck between TV sitcom and movie.  The love story should have been developed more, I think.  Barbara Hershey was excellent.  Danny Devito was pretty lame.  Richard Dreyfuss had a few decent moments, but he's lazy any more.  Now that he's got money in the bank and probably does coke all day, I'm sure he doesn't care if he walks through a part.

Scored a few oz's yesterday and hope to make $100.  The idea I had of one final jumbo score never panned out because the market went dry.  This stuff is pretty average but people take it because there's been absolutely nothing out there for weeks.  I still consider myself out of the business really, and I'm just selling the oz's whole or in halves just to make quick money.  It seems a shame to leave all those people hanging there without hitting them up one last time.  And now Amber promises me she's found somebody to take over the franchise, so there's no doubt in my mind the end is near. 

            Called Fiona Tuesday afternoon.  She wasn't home, and I talked to Joey.  I think he's been forgetting to pass along messages that I've called.  But Katrina called around 10:00 and said she was going with Fiona to Max Tavern.  Katrina was meeting this podiatrist to sell him on some harebrained mailing list service.  Fiona's letting her hair grow longer,  and her bangs go down past her chin now--extremely sexy. 

            This foot doctor showed up,  and as expected, he was a typical Chicago rube.  He was nigger this, and nigger that.  A real idiot.  He told me that last month he had to appear in traffic court and got taken into a judge's office for trying to pick up this girl while passing himself off as a lawyer.  They thought he was pulling some kind of sex authority shill.       

Fiona and I moved to the bar, and ended up returning to the whole subject of her getting married and my pointless obsession with her.  Fiona asked me what exactly it was that I wanted,  and I told her flat out, I wished she wasn't getting married. 

"That's impossible," she said.  "What am I going to do with you?"

"Kiss me,"  I said.

She rolled her eyes.

            Simply being friends wouldn't be so bad,  because my feelings for her are probably just infatuation.  But then she said if we do want to keep hanging out together we'll have to keep it a secret from Greg, because he doesn't like me at all and he'd go right through the roof.   And so I got to thinking that maybe the reason she wants to keep it a secret from Greg is that she's afraid if we do spend more time with each other that something might actually develop….

            Anyway, we both got really drunk, and then I drove her home.   Afterwards I was feeling pissed-off and depressed, thinking what a coward she is for clinging to this guy because he has a stable job future and wants kids.  And then all that business about how she feels guilty for having been unfaithful to him before.  But she did say she'd call me.  I'm probably just flattering myself,  thinking that she's actually weighing out the pros and cons of me vs Greg.  No doubt she just wishes I was out of the picture.

Had a good session again Tuesday with Anne and worked out a schedule for completing the book. Anne says what I need is to get some structure back in my life.  Set up an agenda-- out of bed by 9:00, write till such and such, take a walk, write till 5:00.  Regular meals.  She says it won't hit me right away, but as the routine sinks in I'll start feeling much more happy with myself for keeping to it, accomplishing something, whatever.   As for finding a girlfriend, she says I might as well forget about it until I get myself in order and feeling positive again.  Otherwise it would be pretty much a disaster.

Jonah is coming tomorrow and wants to stay 4 or 5 days.  That kind of bums me out, because he'll be all hyper and up in my face.  I'll have to really stick to the schedule and work and make him leave the house.  The weather is supposed to be nice, and so maybe I can tell him to take a walk or something.

            Right now it's raining and supposed to rain all day, but I have several bills to mail so I'll have to go out.  Who knows, it might do me some good.  I have been taking a lot more walks lately.  But I still have little desire to write.  Just hovering aimless at the mouth of the cave.

Going to work with Stuart this morning, lackey help with the electrical-- stuff I know nothing about.  Worked a few hours with him the other night and got paid $25 for basically screwing a couple of gang boxes together and then standing around while he worked behind the walls.  He's very anxious to help out and give me work, but he's so fucking disorganized.  Last week when Jonah was here we worked Saturday and built a knee wall and firred out around some utilities and blocked out some beams.  Jonah cut stair treds and worked with Stuart on a railing while I built the wall.  It was all pretty inefficient.  Kept blowing fuses with the Skillsaw. 

            Jonah and I spent most of the week taking walks and getting buzzed.  Went over to Northwestern and gawked at the co-eds.  He called Joe Stereo and told him he had found an apartment-- but didn't want Joe Stereo as a roommate.  Joe Stereo whined embarrassingly, saying all his friends have abandoned him.  What a puppy he's becoming.

            Saw Anne twice last week, Tuesday and then again yesterday.  Having Jonah around really threw me out of whack, his hyperness, and me getting so wasted.  Talked about my father and I think that will be the subject for a while.    

Working again tomorrow for Stuart.  Put in 9 hours yesterday and earned $90 hanging drywall and basic puttering.  Worked with this guy, Vick who owed Stuart rent money and was working it off.  Vick's father lives across from the apartment we're rehabbing.  Vick lives around Honore and Division.  While we were hauling sheets of drywall from the foyer to the back bedroom he was telling me about these two black kids he'd seen that morning on bicycles shooting up a mini-van. 

            "At first I just thought,  man here's two little velcro-heads playing Jimmy Cagney.  You know, like they had cap guns.  But when I got up closer shit, glass was flying.  I hid behind a tree and then outta nowhere the cops came around the corner and these niggers took off.  The cops rode up and put a fucking hammerlock on one of them from the car window, and the kid's bike kept on going like the fucking headless horseman."  

            Vick lasted about two hours and then said he had to go make some phone calls and never came back.  Stuart was not at all surprised when he arrived with lunch. 

            "Vick's another one of Amber's charity cases.  He'd walk farther for a drink than for a job." 

Yesterday was election day.  I went to see Anne in the morning, took care of bank business, went grocery shopping, voted, and then everything slid into slow motion limbo.  Nothing to do.  I had no motivation to write, to read or anything and was thinking about just getting high and going into hibernation, but I wanted to avoid that.  Finally after watching Andy Griffith and Dick V.D., I decided to take a walk over to Lincoln Park and bum around the bookstores.  At first I wasn't all that motivated, and around Armitage and Damen I almost turned around, but I figured what else is there to do, so I continued.  The walk did me good though.  My legs felt limber and stretched out.  I picked up a six of Budweiser on the way back and ended up watching election returns till 11:00. 

Worked for Stuart on Monday.  Friend of his, Biker Mike came over to deliver a motorcycle.  Bald, about six foot six, wearing the whole leather get-up.  He looked at first glance a lot like my Uncle Harlan.  He'd come all the way from Marengo.  I helped wheel the bike off the back of Mike's El Camino and Stuart rode it around the block and to the garage.  We went inside and Stuart paid him $150 and then got out a ladder and climbed up into the attic crawl space and disappeared. 

            "What the fuck is he doing?"  I asked Mike.

            "That's the other half of the deal.  He's got a piece of merchandise up there." 

            We could hear Stuart thumping around all the way across the ceiling, and he came back totally filthy carrying a zip up gym bag which he tossed to Mike.  Mike opened it and pulled out this evil looking handgun-- a 30 caliber carbine pistol (so he told me) with a perforated barrel.  It looked something out of a Combat episode.  It used these long ammo clips that made it look like a little machine gun.

            I said to Stuart, "I thought hippies didn't believe in guns."

            He looked at me completely deadpan and said, "what, you never heard of Charlie Manson?"

We worked till 7:00 or so and put up a fair amount of drywall.  Real half ass work with screwheads sticking out, gapped seams, mashed corners, but Stuart seemed to be utterly pleased with himself and told me that this is his best apartment rehab so far.  His rents though are very cheap, and it's quite a shitty neighborhood. 

            I made 75 bucks.  I'm supposed to work again today.  Stuart's pretty sure he has the place rented, (these two guys want him to hold it till Friday), and he wants to have it ready in 2-3 weeks.  If we really hustle it could be done by April 1.  I told him I wouldn't mind working every day, but he waved me off saying he didn't have the money for that.

Balducci should be here any day now, and I'm anxious for the project to start.  I talked to him on the phone last week and he's in creative limbo too, can't stop thinking about the project and can't get any painting done.  He says we really won't be working steady till around April 15, and so he plans on setting up his studio in the garage.  Maybe with both of us here, we'll embarrass each other into working.  I was telling Anne that yesterday, and basically I see myself waiting for him to get here before I get off my ass creatively.

            Went to the movies last night-- MEN DON'T LEAVE, and found myself crying several time.  No small wonder really.  I'm so fucking pathetic.  I slept through the alarm and got up around 10:00 this morning.  Vivid war dreams.  Landmines being set in the sand, and all these charging people getting blown up.  The last thing was I strangled and stabbed this long haired guy who had laid the landmines.  He had his detonator stuff in a cigarette pack and I walked up to him like Humphrey Bogart and said, "got a light, Mac?"  And then I took the cig pack away from him and started asking him all these questions.  Then I stabbed him in the neck and he rolled down this sand dune in slow motion stirring up tiny cyclones around him that tore him to pieces till he was just a skeleton.                

Balducci will be here Monday or Tuesday, so my period of limbo should end.  I was very screwed up and lost yesterday, and I called New York so I could know for sure--something to put on the calendar.  He was telling me that his van was seriously graffitied the other day.  He parked elsewhere the next night and somebody slashed his front tire. 

            He talked to Jonah earlier in the week, and he's anxious to move out here.  But Balducci says work won't really start till mid month, and besides, he's low on cash.  He said that Jonah wanted a loan, so maybe he plans on staying at Purdue a few more weeks. 

            Balducci told me to go ahead and lay the green carpet in the middle room.  Something I can't do for shit, but I feel a little obligated (plus he said he'd pay me).  I had to clear the room, bookcases, record crates, tools, Jonah's stuff and then wrestle with this huge folded over roll of carpet (barely used, came from his sister's house).  Some stretches of it I cut well, but I got lazy/anxious in other places and screwed up.  I didn't tack it all down, because it needs to settle flat.  Hopefully there'll be enough excess to stretch to the walls in the places I botched.

            Went to the theater with Lilly last night and saw this awful play about Haymarket called "Ragged Dick."  The reviews were positive, but Christ this play sucked.  Afterwards we went to Java Jive and had a good time chatting over desert.  I had triple chocolate bundt cake and she had a scone.  I'm so fucking fat and out of shape.  Not really out of shape that much, because I've been taking walks and working.  Just this annoying winter beer paunch.  Plus my face feels bloated.  I can't fit into most of my pants and my only good belt doesn't fit at all.  I wore my dark Pendleton slacks to the theater and had to leave them unbuttoned under my belt.  I was really stoned and had spaghetti beforehand,  which sat like a bowling ball on my stomach all through the play. 

            When I picked up Lilly I felt very detached and never really felt close to her until Java Jive.  I just kept looking off and zombied out.  Plus I was a little disgusted with myself for being so stoned in the company of someone my grandmother's age.  Not that Lilly would really care,  because she's been around the block and is of course very cool, but all the same I felt like a loser.   

Lisette left a message on the machine yesterday, saying she's coming here, sans Professional Student, and I got myself all revved up thinking she's coming here to party.  But talking to her today, she kept at a serious distance.  And she wants to stay with her coursin.  If she can't see her, she won't bother coming because she's too busy to just come here to visit me.  But I have to remind myself shit, she did call.  I just have to learn not to fantasize the whole event before it happens and just relax, play it by ear.  Plus she said there's this girl Sean (who Jonah has been spending a lot of time with I hear) coming up for a job interview and needs a ride, so who knows.  I think she probably will show.

Filled out the census form today.  It made me feel like a genuine, red-blooded American.   I've got 2 half oz's left in the fridge, and I'll hopefully be moving one today.  I was going to save some for myself but I think I'll sell it all and lay off for a while.  That may be the best way to get a clear head.  It's interfering with my therapy because I forget things and get lost easier.  I just wish this weekend were over so I could get back to the book again.  That must sound insane to someone who works full time, wanting the weekend to just slide away,  but I'm hoping that with Balducci here I can make another big push forward.

            Just sitting here waiting for the phone to ring.  I should go out and take a walk, but it's fucking cold out again.  I cleaned up, did the dishes, swept the floors in anticipation of company.  Now I don't know what to do.  Maybe read Pepys or take a nap.  Or get stoned, what the hell.

Lisette and Sean left a few hours ago, and I laid around watching NEVER CRY WOLF and drinking beers.  We went out to dinner last night and then to Goose Island, smoking a joint beforehand in the car.  But the place was packed with yuppie losers,  so we went to Max Tavern.  Huge dead spaces in the conversation.  I was thinking how young and enthusiastic Sean is.  She had a job interview that morning to teach English in Japan.  She said the interview was very formal,  and she doubts she'll get the job.  I told her she should send a thank you letter if she's really serious about the job.  We had a few beers and then got a twelvepack and came back to the house and listened to Cowboy Junkies.  All three of us covered up with a quilt on the couch, and a rambling conversation ensued.  I was trying to impress Sean with my half-ass knowledge of Chomsky.  They both nodded off, and I smoked a roach and drank more beer and eventually went to bed.  I think I was being too self-conscious about everything, worrying that I didn't entertain them, when actually they seemed to have a good time.

This morning I got up around 9:30 and sat around reading the paper a while, and then met Lisette and Sean at the Busy Bee for breakfast.  Afterwards we took the El downtown and walked the lakefront from Grant Park to the Aquarium and back.  We were going to the Art Institute but the line stretched down the stairs to the street and so we decided to just keep on walking around.  Stopped at the Daley Center and played on the Picasso.  Sat looking at the Chagall wall a while, then took the El back to Wicker Park.  Had coffee at Urbus Orbis.

            Lisette was telling me the reason she was so "quiet" was because her relationship with Professional Student is having major problems, and she's moved back with her parents.  He just couldn't stop trying to run her life, lecturing to her, belittling her.  She hopes this split is for good.  When Lisette left she said she'd be calling me, and I suggested we get together, maybe meet at the Indiana Dunes some time in the next few weeks.  I was very cordial and distant but now that she's gone, I'm fantasizing mischief.

April

Sold my last half oz to Serena Friday night,  and I don't have a speck of dope in the house except maybe a few bong hits.  Her Doberman had puppies and has gone near rabid and demonically protective.  The same lovable dog that chased me around Serena's back yard and played Frisbee fetch with me all last summer came charging at me as I came up the stairs and I think would have ripped my gall bladder out if Serena hadn't grabbed her.  She calmed her down and walked her back to the makeshift pen in the dining room/dance studio.  The pen was a 3-sided plywood box perfectly lined with aluminum foil.  Overhead was a red heat lamp.  The contraption looked like something out of Lost in Space. 

            The dog circled around the pen and picked up a squealing pup in her mouth and carried it across the room aimlessly and then brought it back and released it.  It looked like she was carrying a Lionel train car.  The way the pups whined it sounded like cat's meows.  Then she flopped down among them and they crawled all over her blindly fighting for her teats. 

            I transacted business with Kandy and we smoked a little one-hit together.  Meanwhile Serena went over to the pen and laid right down in there on her stomach.  All I could see from the hallway was Serena's disembodied ass and legs in black slacks hanging out of the pen.  Her feet bobbed and her legs convulsed, and from the angle I was watching it seemed like she was being eaten alive by some cheapo science fiction monster.    

Last night Melody called from New York and we talked for a good hour.  Also, Shayna called, so maybe another shroom deal is in the works.  I can certainly use the money-- $450, maybe more.

            Worked for Stuart from 1:00 to 6:00 yesterday, hanging drywall, slapping up cornerbead, boxing in pipes.  He wasn't at all motivated and called it quits early.  We went back to his house, and Amber was brewing up some kind of hellacious mess on the stove.  It smelled like turpentine and dogshit.  She said it was for her sinuses.  She also had a pizza in the oven and asked if I wanted to stay for dinner but I couldn't deal with the fucking smell.  Plus that damn dog of theirs kept jumping up on me and left a huge streak of slobber on my pants.  Should be working tomorrow again half the day and all day Wednesday.  Balducci may show mid day tomorrow, and hopefully things around here should start improving. 

I was all over the map with Anne on Tuesday talking about how I wanted to lay off smoking a while because it obscures my emotions, and about the time my mother went berserk in the yard when that mental drunk kicked our dog.

Worked for Stuart from noon to 7:00 yesterday building walls for the bathroom, hanging drywall and slopping up Durabond 90.  When I got home Balducci's gear was in the livingroom,  but he spent the night at his parents'.  He called this morning and said he'd be in around 1:00,  and we'd set up a space, build shelves or something to store all the tools.  Or maybe hang drywall in the garage for his studio.  He asked me about Rueben and his claim to the garage, and we conspired as to ways of keeping his oil dripping low rider piece of shit out of there. 

By 3:30 Balducci still hadn't shown.  I napped on and off all morning, watched TV and read Scientific American waiting for him. Stuart called around 11:00 and said he'd taken the day off because of car trouble.  Wanted to know if I'd work, but I told him I was waiting for Balducci.  As it turned out, I could have put in a decent day of work, but screw it, my arms are tired.   Nothing else to do, so I did my taxes.  Don't ask.

Balducci fell over my boots coming in the door and started laughing hysterically. "I just drank like 10 screwdrivers.  I'm so obliterated." 

            He signed the demo and concrete contract with this guy, Travis, and they went over to Lincoln Tap on Wabansia and drank all afternoon.  We went over to NorBell and had pizza.  He said to the woman, "I'll have 3 slices of cheese pizza, and my butler will have the same." 

Travis wanted to meet at this bar on Ravenswood and Montrose, called the EL Stop.  We drove over there and had 4-5 beers, but he never showed.  Country music playing on the jukebox, everyone smoking Marlboros.  Balducci talked about this girl Sarah, refering to her as "the Jewish temptress,"  and he said he told her he wanted to fuck her 30 times before he left for Chicago.  Apparently they're keeping a strict count.  Before we gave up on Travis, Balducci called the Pug and abused him at length.  We came back to the neighborhood and went to Gallery.  It was totally dead there, which seemed strange.  Drank a few more beers,  Balducci fading.  He ended up just drinking glass after glass of water.

Friday I cleaned out the space under the back stairs and built some shelves with scrap lumber.  Balducci sorted out the tool boxes and put most everything away.  We cleared all the lumber out of the garage and hung some drywall to make it brighter.  Balducci went out to his parents, and I hung around the house.  Called Lisette and invited her to come out for the weekend. She seemed very pleased, said she'd call.  She was saying how she hasn't seen Professional Student since Wednesday.  And she got her hair bobbed, and was even wearing makeup when she went out to dinner with her sister.  I was going to do laundry but I ended up beating off and taking a nap.  This blues band made up of Japanese art students was playing at Gallery, but I passed. 

Saturday I worked from 11:00 to 6:00 with Stuart, sanding and taping drywall. Very putrid work.  I remember that morning as I came down Paulina I saw this big orange flame ahead at the corner on Cortez.  Very cinematic,  with the overcast gloomy weather.   It turned out to be an oil drum fire with a couple of local Poles standing around it.   More injury talk with Stuart about his broken back and hip, his recklessness, masked suicidal tendencies, etc.  He talked at length about Amber and all her hocus pocus astrology bullshit.  How she wants to help everybody;  all her friends are helpless losers.  He told me last weeek he was going to rent the downstairs apartment to some friend of hers who said he'd be right over with the deposit, but he never showed and never called.  Stuart called him up saying how rude that was, and Amber jumped all over his shit about it 

            We went out for lunch and brought gyros back to his house,  and he was telling me about an old girlfriend who's grandmother was like 400 lbs and used a cane.  Two grown men could barely lift her.  She was very depressed and just sat around eating all day.  He described this one time where he brought her a salad bar carry-out, and how she shoveled the food into her mouth like a barn animal, grunting, barely able to breathe.  One time she fell over and had to lay there helpless six hours before someone came to help her. 

When I came home Balducci was there with massive groceries, $200 worth courtesy of his mother.  Steaks, chicken, burger patties, tons of everything.  I cooked up this chicken cordon-bleu deal with rice and veggies, and we ate like pigs.  Lisette didn't call.  The Pug came over and we went to Weeds for open mic and drank a few beers.  We got invited to a fancy party over on Superior & Damen in an old rehabbed firehouse.  Birthday party for a friend of Balducci's sister.  We drank expensive scotch and danced for hours.  Dozens of beautiful women.  At one point,  this piniatta was brought into the room and smashed open.  Full of cosmetics, candy, and, buttons.  I put on this button with a lipstick kiss imprint, and this woman said "kiss me," and we sort of cheek kissed likie celebrities.  And I remember somewhere kissing her again-- making a pass at her, kissing her neck or something.  But I don't remember much more, and I don't remember coming home at all. 

I woke up still wearing my sweater.  I came out and was asking Balducci what happened and he laughed at my case of "drunk guilt."  But he said that nothing embarrassing happened.  Majorly hungover all day-- thought I would puke several times.  Helped Balducci hang some lights in the garage, and then we took a long walk scouting out the architecture,  and putting together this idea for a TV series, "Travels with Balducci."  The armchair cynic takes his show on the road.  Verite filming. The slogan for the show was Shut-up and Listen.  His ankle started bothering him again (he has to soak it every night in ice water).  We stopped by Honore and walked through the building.  It was a good idea,  because I can see now how small it actually is, and it's not so overwhelming. Travis had been there that morning and tore the whole back wall away.  The yard was piled with trash and old lumber and tar paper.

Lisette finally called and apologized for Saturday.  She said she was back with Professional Student, on a trial basis.  But then she invited me to come out there this next weekend.  At first I was of the opinion like, why bother because nothing's going to happen.  But then I got to thinking 1 - she must be somewhat interested if she's calling me, and 2- maybe she's not interested totally, but at least wants to keep the option open.  So I think I'll go and see what cultivates.  

Met with Anne Tuesday morning.  Talked about how I have to "go back to the source," with my relationship problems.  The reason I can't make friends, overcome my fear of feelings, etc., has everything to do with my family history.  I felt close to crying, choked up, tense.  The prospect of involving them in my life gives me a big fucking anxiety ache.  Somehow I've got this idea I ought to tell them I'm in therapy and that gives me no end of indigestion.  Came home and talked with Balducci about all that.  He was saying how he didn't really resent his father being gone on business when he was a kid, because when he was home he did involve himself.  And also, Balducci was alone with his folks-- practically an only child after his brother and sister went away to college. 

            Decided to go to Kimball Heights and work on the back porch.  My mother was excited to see me.  I felt detached around Dad.  He came home from work around 3:00 and helped me plumb up the railings and balusters.  I set 2 posts in the ground with cement for the stair railing.  Stayed the night and assembled the stair railing.  Mostly rain on and off, very sloppy work.  Mom made scalloped potatoes and ham for lunch, and washed my muddy clothes.  I took a long bath. 

On Wednesday Balducci and I went over to Honore.  The old house is totally decapitated now.  Balducci's nickname for Travis "The Arian." I came by the house again in the early evening, taking a walk down to the zoo.  This pain-in-the-ass little kid named Nicky was in the lot next door playing with a whiffle ball bat.  When he saw me, he crawled under the fence and asked me what I was doing and I said, "just looking at the house." Then he started menacing me with the goddamn bat and I said, "look, if you hit me with that and I'll paddle your ass with it."  And then the little cocksucker hauled off and cracked me across the hip and ran like hell.  I lunged out and caught a finger tip grip on him, but he got away.  For a moment I was honestly ready to chase him down, but then I got to worrying that the neighbors might think I'm some sinister maniac, in my dark overcoat, unshaven, chasing some little kid.  From a safe distance,  Nicky stood there giving me chin music.  The little shit is in for a life of pain if he keeps that up.  

            Balducci met Travis at Lincoln Tap that night to work out contract details and to pay him 2 or 3 grand.  They ended up getting loaded and Travis suggested they go to Tino's Steak House.  The tab came to $130, which Travis picked it up.

"Forget about it," he said to Balducci.  "Your Italian Jew money is no good here."

Balducci was telling me about this Notre Dame dorm buddy, Zeke the Freak, who's now an MD somewhere in upstate New York.  He kept his room perpetually dark-- Deadhead posters, 2 stereos going for stadium reverb effect.  All the football players would come by and smoke dope and play Risk.  A couple of them ended up playing for the Bears.

            Balducci says his bank loan could be held up if Jonah and I aren't fully licensed contractors with insurance.  So I went down to city hall Thursday for the license.  2-3 hours of running around.  Take this form and go to the 8th floor for zoning. No, you can't use your home address as a business address, start over at square one.  Sign this affidavit saying you don't owe the city any money, go to 9th floor for notary, back to the 1st floor, wait half an hour.  Pay 34$.

            That night Dino took Balducci and I to the Bulls game. The Bulls played terribly, but won anyhow, due to the fact that Orlando's such a shitty team.  Jordan sat out the last quarter.  Ate dinner at Arturos afterwards.  Before the game, Dino gave us a tour of his new building at Milwaukee and Damen.  Each unit is selling for like $300,000. 

Worked for Stuart Friday from 12:00 to 7:00 doing a half-ass job taping.  Came home.  The Pug was there arguing with Balducci about something.  Whatever it was about, they dropped it when I walked in.  The three of us went over to Arturos.  This Prince-looking dude with wet ringlets came over to our table with a gold chain, and Balducci waved him off.  He got extremely indignant, as though a great insult had been heaped on him, and he pulled out a wad of cash and started flipping through it.  Like, hey, I'm a respectable dude here.   After dinner we drove over to Webster place and had a drink and then went to see this new movie, PRETTY WOMAN.  It was entertaining in a prissy sort of way, but otherwise totally unremarkable. 

Lisette called Saturday morning and convinced me to drive out to Purdue for the weekend.  My head was swimming with possibilities.  Shit, shave and shower, pack.  I shovelled in a quick breakfast at Johnny's and was on the road by eleven.  Made the drive down there in an hour and a half-- in time for a late lunch at the Knickerbnocker.  Lisette was clearly ripe for something.  I listened attentively as she poured out all manner of complaints, petty and otherwise about her relationship with Professional Student.  Apparently he's paranoid that anyone and everyone he knows is fucking Lisette when he turns his back.  Including me, and even Jonah.  I think the guy's coming entirely unglued.

We went back to the apartment.  Professional Student was gone-- working till 4 a.m.  I tried to make a pass at her, but she told me to behave myself.  Sean, Jonah and this girl named Nova showed up with a case of beer, and we all sat on the floor drinking, smoking dope and playing Scrabble.  I ended up falling asleep.  When I woke up everyone was gone.  There was a note from Lisette saying they had gone out to eat at Triple X.  They came back soon afterwards with a box of macaroni and cheese saying, Triple X was closed.  Jonah cooked it up.  He had no milk, so he elected to use extra butter.  I ate about three bites of it and then excused myself to puke.

On Sunday we drove to the arboretum-- Professional Student, Lisette, Sean, Jonah, the dog, and myself, all packed into my car.   We tossed the Frisbee around and smoked several joints and conducted ourselves like it was a Deadhead picnic.  Professional Student and Lisette hung on each other, pretending that everything with them was normal.  I tripped over my own feet in the parking lot, and I cut my palm on a piece of brown glass.  Blood dripping down my hand, off my fingertips, but nothing serious.  I went to the car and found an old towel in the trunk and stopped the bleeding. 

            Afterwards we were driving over to Triple X for lunch, and my car started making ominous noises, like a rusty squirrel cage, getting louder and louder.  I pulled over, shut down the engine and popped the hood.  There was nothing obvious dangling or smoking, but when I tried to start it up again, all manner of mechanical racket commenced.  Some woman stopped to help.  Professional Student went off with her, and came back with a crescent wrench.  Jonah attempted to tighten a loose fan belt, but that diddn't seem to help any.  So I said, fuck it, and decided to call the auto club. 

Professional Student was in one of his bullshit, hippy moods, making fun of my stress, clanging the goddamn wrench against the pay phone while I was trying to talk.  We sat on the curb waiting for the tow truck.  After half an hour, Jonah left, saying he had to get ready for work.  Blabbed away with Professional Student and Sean about language, debating whether there is something-- thought, expression, whatever, that's beyond language.  I said, of course there is. 

Professional Student took the academic stance.  "I think Whitehead would argue..."  Once again skirting the opportunity to commit himself.  That's the way all conversations go with Professional Student.  You're drowned in a stream of quotes from various "thinkers," as he calls them, and he never gives an opinion of his own.  It's like pulling teeth to get him to talk about his life.  If you do, invariably it's, "when I read Kundera for the first time..."  Nothing real, nothing felt.  Anyway, after the tow truck came, the conversation walked it's way back to the apartment and continued while Lisette nodded off.  Sean and I walked Professional Student to work at the Center around 5:00.

            Sean, Lisette and I, hung out in the apartment listening to music, and then we went over to the Bishop's mansion intending to watch the sunset, but we just missed it.  Sean and Lisette began talking about their periods of all things.  Sean works at the Japanese restaurant, and she described this woman she works with, fresh off the boat, who asks her endless questions about English vocabulary.  For instance, what's the word for Kotex?  (Which, now that I think of it,  is how the whole conversation about their perioids started.)  Sean told her the appropriate word was, feminine napkin. 

"Why do they call it a napkin?" the woman asked.  "You wipe your face with a napkin." 

            Lisette and I walked Sean back to her apartment, and then we decided to stop in at this new bar, the Yacht Club for "just one" beer, and we ended up drinking 4-5 pitchers and closing the place.  Lisette said not to tell Professional Student about how much we drank because he's constantly riding her.  Then she tells me that she caught a DUI last week.  She was drunk, and very tired and decided to pull her car over at this fried chicken place.  She was sitting there in the car with the engine off, asleep.  The cops made her get out of the car, gave her a breathalyzer, made her walk the line, the whole routine.   She spent the night in jail, and then had to walk home the next morning. 

The cell had nothing in it except a bed that folded down from the wall-- no mattress, just a slab.  They gave her one of those itchy, green military blankets.  At some point she had to go to the toilet and got up and started calling for the guard.  This sleepy, bitchy voice came over the intercom, "What the hell do you want?" 

            "I have to pee, if you don't mind."

            "Just a minute." 

The cell door clicked open.  Lisette walked down the hall and used the toilet, and then wandered  into some kind of rec room.  She sat there reading a magazine and some burned out looking woman came in and offered her a cigarette.  Her name was Roberta.  She was in for her 3rd DUI.  She'd blown off all the court dates and they finally came and dragged her out of her house.  She told Lisette that she had 6 kids. 

In the morning the intercom woke Lisette, and she went to breakfast, which was some kind of terrible soup and a slice of white bread.  She was feeling pretty sick and she gave it to Roberta. The rest of the morning she sat in the rec room watching reruns of Bewitched, and the like until they let her go.  She has some kind of court appearance next month.

After the bar closed we walked back to Professional Student's apartment.  In the middle of the bridge, I tried to kiss her again, with no success.  We got home barely half an hour ahead of Professional Student.  I zonked out on the bed and Lisette took the couch, until Professional Student came in, and then I moved to the couch and Lisette got in bed with him.

I distinctly remember waking up in the night and seeing his bare ass crossing the room.  I think they had been fucking.  I wouldn't be surprised, he has no sense of privacy that way. 

Lisette: "He's not a loser or anything."

Sean: "He's a dealer."

Lisette: "I don't care about that.  But anyway, I wouldn't do it with him.  He's just too desperate.  And he's a lush when he gets wasted."

Sean: "Needy?"

Lisette: "Needy, clingy, desperate, whatever.  He's a puppy dog." 

            Of course, I'm awake through all of this, hungover, dehydrated, my head aching, waiting for a lull in the conversation to put on a show of waking up.   It feels like I'm living a cartoon version of my life.  This pathetic fucker they're talking about stands off to one side of me, oblivious.  I feel nothing.  Wash me away.

After Lisette and Sean went to class,  Professional Student and I went out to breakfast.  We stopped by Amoco and talked to the mechanic. He said my water pump was shot.  Maybe ready by tonight, if they can get the parts.  Professional Student started asking me about my plans, Balducci's project, etc, sounding very annoying.  I told him the project was on hold until the permit mess can be straightened out.  He got very Alan Alda, and said, "so, how do you feel about that...?" 

Fuck him.  His emotions are totally distorted.  I think he could easily be heading for a major Joe Stereo type blowout himself.  After breakfast we walked over to the University and he left me with Lisette, Sean and Shelly (Lisette's sister) who by the way is pretty hot looking, but surely a major Daddy's girl.  Shelly left, and the three of us walked over to the ceramics department.  Saw a lot of bullshit anthropomorphic "sculptures," ashtrays, lamps, etc, but nothing of Sean's.  They dropped me off at the student union and I wrote in my notebook till 2:30 or so and then walked back to the apartment and took a nap.

Professional Student showed up around 5:00.  Bullshit conversation. We bummed a ride over to Lisette's folks, and then picked up Jonah.  Gray outside, drizzling rain.  We went en masse to this lame student play, "A Guatemalan Truth."  Real preachy, churchgoing bullshit.  Professional Student knew everyone associated with it, and so felt obligated to attend.  Though I do give him credit for instantly seeing how bad it was.  We left at intermission.  Walking by the Amoco,  I checked on my car.  It was done, to the tune of $150. Got some beers, and we drove back to the house and lounged around.  Jonah had plans with Sean, and so I let them use my car.  Professional Student fell asleep at about 10:00.  I paced around the apartment, feeling nervous, and eventually decided to just go to bed. 

Tuesday I slept late at Professional Student's waiting for Jonah and Sean to pick me up for breakfast.  Drank two Bass ales and smoked a bowl listening to the stereo and watching the dreary weather.  Around noon I was getting hungry and decided to go out on my own despite the rain.  Went to McDonalds, and by the time I got back to the apartment I had the shits.  Professional Student was in the bathroom screwing with his hair, and I just about soiled my pants.

Finally got on the road around 3:00.  Overcast and ugly the whole way back to Chicago.  When I got home the first thing Balducci said to me was that Rueben's car had been stolen.  As malicious as it sounds, I burst out laughing.

Then he asked me, "well, did you fuck her?" 

"No."

"No!?"

            "False alarm, " I said.

Laid around last night watching PBS.  Ate peanut butter sandwiches for dinner.  Balducci mixed up a family size can of tuna and ate the whole thing.  Some guy from New York named Alex kept calling, but Balducci said to say he wasn't here.  We watched this movie "Break of Dawn," about a Mexican radio announcer named  Pedro Gonzales.  In this one scene,  Pedro cheats on his wife, and there's all this horn locking stress, and Balducci goes, "Fucking Jesus, you get married... Six weeks of romance and fun and then it's thirty years of indigestion." 

After the movie he went to his room and read, and I watched Carson and some of Letterman before nodding off.  Slept till 10:00 this morning.  No milk or bread, so I went to the store.  Balducci's probably going out to the suburbs tonight, so maybe his mother will load him up with groceries again.  

             Travis and Balducci are having this disagreement over a concrete detail, and Travis said to go to the architect, but Balducci's already paid him and doesn't want to "bother him" anymore, so he just did the drawing himself.  He took it to Travis this morning who looked at it and said, "see buddy, I told you your architect would know what I'm talking about."  Balducci said something to me about the "illusion of authority," and we both had a good laugh.  This black guy,  Carver works for Travis, and he brought this kid with him who wasn't working out too well.  Instead of outright calling him a nigger, Travis kept referring to him as "Carver's nephew,"  but his point was obvious. 

Carver doesn't drink at all, and he refuses to even go into a bar.  The day Balducci and Travis drank all day at Lincoln Tap, Carver sat out in the car for hours and wouldn't even come into the bar to take a leak.  He walked down the alley.

Put in a solid day with Stuart on Friday.  Borrowed the Chainsaw Artist's power nailer and I nailed off the loft floor.  More drywall work, more dust.  This was Good Friday.  We went to lunch at this gyro place at Wood and Chicago.  For some reason the cops were blocking off the intersection. We got our food and went to sit down and all of a sudden we saw this huge mass of people coming down Wood street, some kind of parade.  And then it started to get very weird.  Roman soldiers, priests, INRI banners, etc., and then Christ carrying the cross, being whipped by a soldier.  Followed by hundreds and hundreds of children in their Sunday best. To be forever remembered as the gyro passion play. 

Went to a party that night at Ernesto's in Uptown.  Mostly people I didn't know.  Balducci spent a lot of time talking to this guy who claimed to be a probation officer in the Brookfield case.  This guy believes the father was molesting the kid on a regular basis and when the mother found out she freaked and killed the kid.  Then they both tried to cover it up.  Should he be telling people this?

            I spent a lot of time staring at this tall blonde in a black velvet Jackie O dress,  but never got the nerve to strike up a conversation.  Instead I talked to this homely, big headed woman in a black print smock.  Smoked opium out on the porch with Amber and a bunch of biker types.  It tasted like rubber bands.  I was so high and drunk at that point I can't really say if it did anything to me.  The beer ran out, and Balducci and I and a few others started drinking Jaagermeister, which was a big hangover mistake.    Balducci drove us home in my car, flying down Lake Shore Drive at  80 miles an hour.  We were laughing our asses off at how drunk we were.  Brilliant, eh?      

The next morning we were both majorly hungover.  I was supposed to work with Stuart, but he called and said he was sick with flu.  Balducci and I walked over to the Busy Bee and ate breakfast, then took a good two hour walk all through East Village and up Chicago Avenue to Humboldt Park and back.  Poked our heads into this new brick house going up, gawked at the Russian Orthodox churches.  A few nasty streets, here and there, but mostly stable.  When we got back, horror of horrors, Joe Stereo had left a message on the door: 

Dude, I'm here to pick up my stuff.  Call me at the Fiona's. 

Immediately Balducci starts scheming.  He puts the note back on the door and we go inside.   I'm sitting in the kitchen bumming, and Balducci launches into this speech on how this is a great opportunity to "dick this guy over."  Basically I just want to avoid Joe Stereo, but  Balducci insists I have to pack up my shit and leave pronto, go to Kimball Heights.  I'm sitting there stewing over how Joe Stereo's fucked up my day, but finally the reality of the situation hits and I get moving.  Pack up some clothes, dirty laundry to take home.  And then there's a knock at the door.  Shit!  We tiptoe into the bathroom and sit down on the floor.  Radio silence.  We hear him banging on the door several times, and then it sounds like Rueben and Carmelita are coming down the back stairs to answer the door.  But nothing happens.  We wait a good 10 minutes, and then Balducci checks out the windows.  He helps me haul my gear out the back door and we trot down the alley, through the vacant lot over to my car.

So I drove out to Kimball Heights and hung out at my parent's house.  Very boring, as you can imagine.  There's nothing to do but watch TV.  My sister is going into the city to drink with Rosa and this amazingly hot 19 year old girl, Sierra. She looks something like Katrina, but without the mileage.  My sister and I watched this Elvis movie in the afternoon, and Dad came in and out the bedroom, taking a series of naps.  Tried to interest them in going out to the movies but Dad got that anxiety face and said he was toilet bound.  I drove over to the mall with the idea of buying a new pair of gym shoes- anything to get away from TV, but it was closed.  Came back and drank some beers, chit-chat with Dad.  Dyed easter eggs with my mom.  The weather was nice, and so we took some photos on the back porch.

So, get this.  Joe Stereo called Easter morning and got me out of bed.  He's whining about how he rented this truck and it will cost him and extra $50 if he doesn't load up soon and get on the road.

"I staked out your place all day, and I slept in the truck." Blah, blah, blah, poor me, whatever.   He expected me to drive into the city right away.  I told him he was crazy.  He was like, "I'm really in a jam here." 

I got irritated by that and told him, "look, you were totally stupid to rent a truck and come all the way out here on a holiday without calling first."

He said, "I know, I know... but I really need you to do this thing for me.  I'm asking you this as a friend." 

And I said, "bullshit.  You're just trying to jerk me around.  You're laying this guilt trip on me about friendship, all because you were too fucking stupid to make some preparations."  I lit into him for a good five minutes, and finally I said, "All I can promise you is I won't stay too late this evening." 

I got back to Chicago around 6:00 and Joe Stereo was right there waiting in his U-haul.  He looked like shit.  Stringy pageboy haircut, trying to be Joe teen hip, but with his Nixon forehead, he just looked stupid.  Starts whining how he spent hours and hours waiting at Urbus Orbis drinking coffee.  Balducci showed up and played dumb and gave him the glad hand.  Joe Stereo sets straight to work loading up his shit, and he's gone in maybe a half hour.  At one point he says, "we're still friends aren't we?"

Monday I worked with Stuart on this building of his on Leavitt Steet.  Toilet from upstairs leaking through the ceiling of the apartment below.  I'm up on a ladder hacking out the wet ceiling and chunks of it are dropping down on my head and down the front of my shirt.  The tenant is this chubby, black woman named Hattie.  She has a daughter, Brittany who runs wild all over the apartment.  Hattie's laying on the sofa watching Geraldo and she keeps calling to the kid, "Brittany, get back in here!" 

Stuart and I go upstairs to check on the toilet.  The tenant is this black guy with wet ringlets, a little mustache, YSL cap, big gold chain.  The three of us pull up the toilet.  The wax ring needs to be replaced, and a larger rubber ring is needed. YSL says he'll take care of it, and deduct it from his rent.  We're chatting there in the bathroom, and this big cockroach starts down the wall.  Stuart whacks at it, but it get away.  He says he'll bring by some roach motels

YSL says, "Ah, those roach motels don't do shit."  And he goes out into the kitchen and comes back with a can of Raid.  Totally buzzbombs the bathroom while we're standing there.  He turns around half asphyxiated, his eyes watering, looking like he has to sneeze. The fumes start to get overpowering and the three of us quickly get out of there and close the door.     

            The rest of the day I worked sanding the walls at Paulina, and developed this major sore throat from breathing all that dust.  The insurance man came around.  I signed some papers and gave him a check for $72.  So now I actually have liability and health insurance.  Imagine that.  Next thing you know they'll be asking me to join the Rotary.

After work I had a couple of drinks with Stuart and Amber, and she told me a bunch of people from Ernesto's party were intersted in buying shrooms.  She made a few phone calls, and it was set. So I went over to Shayna's and we scored the drugs.  I didn't even have to use my own money. Borrowed 75 from Balducci, and used money Stuart gave me for renting the floor nailer.  Took the stuff to Uptown and turned it over for a quick $350.

Listen, talking to Balducci that night he tells me Travis fired Carver's nephew.  The kid was constantly fucking up, and Travis would yell,  "No, no, no that's not how you do it.  Jesus, you're digging me right to the poorhouse." 

Balducci said to Travis, "well, I liked him, he was a good kid" 

"Sure, I liked him, too" said Travis.  "But the fact is, he's a dog-ass nigger." 

Tuesday and  Wednesday,  Balducci and I put down some hardwood flooring over at Paulina.  I made $180.  Real bending, stooping, all day labor.  Used Balducci's new compound power miter.  Looks like a fucking spaceship.  He's calls it the Enterprise.  Vick's father came over and was looking at our work.  We were joking about Stuart being the Durabond King, and he shook his head and said,  "he's a butcher.  You know, I asked him what he's gonna do with those stairs.  I said to him, 'Stuart why don't you just get some nice 4x4's?'  I told him, 'man you don't want to be a butcher.' " 

At lunch Stuart started in on us again with his plan to go out to California and rehab houses for some rich friend of his.  Balducci and I just played along with him.  But seriously, why would we want to go out to California and work for him.  He's just being a middle man, trying to shave off a deal for himself. He'd offer to pay us 12 bucks an hour, and then pocket fifty grand for doing nothing.  Besides the fact he's an idiot.  When he left, Balducci started calling him Squire Pipedream.

That evening we drove over to Honore to check in on Travis.  The footings were freshly poured (17 yards of concrete).  He was tooling around the site on his little cub backhoe.  Told us about the neighbors being real tightasses about letting him run a drop cord to rip a few sheets of plywood.  And one day he was upstairs doing demo, and he took a leak in the corner.  The next day some lady called and left a message on his machine complaining  "it's bad enough I have to look at that eyesore, but today I saw one of your men urinating."

I talked to Amber Wednesday night, and she said that Karla asked about me. She was planning to go to Gallery, and was asking if I was going to be there.  Apparently she's broken it off with this guy she's seeing named Eric.  Pretty nervous about the whole thing, and talked with Anne about it Thursday morning.  The good thing, I said, was the fact she knows about me being a dealer and she's still interested.  So I can just totally relax and be myself.  Went to Gallery last night and sat with her and Luanne and Melvin.  Apparently Melvin and Luanne are a thing now. They're perfect together.  Melvin is totally brain dead, and Luanne is boring and potato shaped.  Karla didn't look as pretty as I remembered, and I could tell she's definitely over 30.  And that was good because after realizing all that, it was a take it or leave it situation.  I could relax even more because I wasn't obsessed with making a good impression.  Talked to her about and various theatre stuff.  At one point she smoked a cigarette, but I think she's more of a once in a while bar smoker.    

            It was a pretty dull crowd.  Phoenix and Mike Menthol were there looking very ragged.  Mike Menthol was at the bar wearing a flannel shirt and blue stocking cap.  His teeth looked bad.  He recognized me, and I asked him what he'd been up to.  He said he was in the hospital for 2 and a half weeks.  He played two songs, looking very cashed and uninspired.  Phoenix had a crewcut and was fucked up beyond belief.  Getting hooked up to perform he asked Simply Steve for a "bilical cord," and liking the sound of that, he repeated it half a dozen times.  "Steve, buddy, I can't plug in with out that bilical cord."

            Finally, annoyed, Steve said, "I don't have a bilical cord. The doctor cut it off and gave me a bellybutton."

            Phoenix said, "well, all right, give me a belly button."  He hacked his way through two or three songs, completely out of tune.  Karla wanted to leave.  She asked me about where to catch a taxi, and I said I'd drive her home.  In the car, she started asking me about the book, and we got on this discussion about point of view and whatnot. 

At the door, I said, "I wish we could talk some more.  Do you want to go to the movies some time?"  She said sure, and sounded pretty enthused, but of course my brain was pumping major stress chemicals and I could have misread her.  She said next weekend would be good and gave me her phone number.  This coming week her father's going in for surgery--a metal knee implant, and she'll be staying with family.  She lingered in the doorway, and maybe she wanted me to kiss her.  I don't know.  But I think it was wise for me not to be too pushy.                          

Saw Anne on Thursday.  I told her about my discussion with Balducci on learning.  Some people never learn anything because they're always in an "I know" mode.  Example, Stuart or the Pug.  They can never listen; they keep piping in to rephrase what you're saying-- trying to keep face about something they don't know about.  When you're in the "I know" mode, it overrides the rest of your brain and it's almost impossible to learn anything.  And that's the way I've been with friendships, family, women, whatever.  Too busy worrying about what they think, trying to impress them, save face, and not learning anything, instead of feeding off them. 

Afterwards I found this nice desk chair in a trash dumpster at the hospital and brought it home.  Stopped by Honore and watched the other walls being poured.  Balducci was helping out, and I thought about volunteering, but then it started hailing, and I was glad to just get in my car and leave.  Did my laundry and farted around the apartment.  Balducci came home around 3:00 completely exhausted.  He went to take a nap and maybe ten minutes later Dino showed up wanting to borrow the van to unload some of his garage stuff.  Then Jack Caruso came over and the four of us watched the end of the Cub's game. 

My throat is killing me, and Thursday morning I had a major bloody dump, which made me cancer paranoid, though I'm sure it's just another hemorrhoid situation-- stress and liquor induced.  I mentioned it to Anne and she didn't seem alarmed.  Sarah's on her way to visit Balducci.  She should be here between 6:00 and 8:00 tonight.  I'm going over to the Wabansia apartment with my futon to give them fuck privacy.  This morning in the shower I was sifting around some phrases from the book, and maybe tonight I'll take a printout over there and do some editing. 

Back from seeing Anne.  I decided to terminate therapy in two weeks.  I don't know what to say about it really.  I'm understanding, reading my feelings, and I just need to go out there and get experience.  It's like the engine's been rebuilt and only so much bench testing can be done.  She was saying how therapy is a place to work through problem areas.  The last time I terminated,  she said that in the future I might have trouble being intimate with people.  I asked her what kind of situation this time would cause me problems and she said it would be hard to judge because I'm much farther along than last time, but maybe making a "permanent" commitment to someone.  And she talked about how people work towards differentiation-- being themselves around other people, connected, yet independent.

Afterwards I went to the bank and Dominicks, and I went to Sportmart and bought a new pair of gym shoes.  Came back and was sitting on the can, and the cat came in and arched up and got totally freaked by my new shoes.  I tapped my foot, and he zipped off terrified.

This whole weekend's left me feeling like I've lived out of a suitcase.  Back and forth from Wabansia to here.  Locked out Saturday night.  Amber gave me the wrong keys, so I was just coming and going, leaving the place unlocked.  But Saturday night Ian upstairs must have locked the back door.  It was way after midnight, and Melvin's house was all dark.  No way was I going to wake him up and risk having my face torn off by his crazy dogs.  Didn't want to come back here and disturb Balducci and Sarah, so I ended up driving to Kimball Heights.  My mother was asleep on the couch. We watched RIVER'S EDGE, which was a pretty bizarre experience. Not the kind of movie you want to watch with mom.  The next morning she was all set to make breakfast, but I'd promised to go out with Balducci and Sarah, and she seemed kind of bummed to see me drop in and out like it was a pitstop.

Sunday Balducci, Sarah and I walked down to the lake for the Earth Day thing.  It was pretty phony.  Katrina was there, and we got stuck sitting with her for a good hour.  She's having a last party before moving this Saturday.  She was flirty, and I don't know what to do to give her the message I'm not interested.  Bought some beers off this guy with a huge cooler. Listened to two or three songs by the Bodeans, but their set was up, and after that it was just a lot of bullshit save the planet lectures.

Afterwards we walked through Old Town and ate at Golden OX.  Sarah started telling me about her roommate, Janie, and said she wants to fix us up.  The next time she comes she might bring her along, so she can have someone to hang out with while Balducci's working.  I was hoping to pick up the check, but it ran to $70, and I let Balducci pick it up.  I was kind of embarrassed but he told me to forget about it.  We came out of there stuffed and too groggy to walk home, so we took the bus. The rest of the night we laid around on the couch watching REDS and drinking beer. 

            Jonah called and said he was coming up with Sean. He was going to come in around 2:00 a.m.  I slept on the couch waiting for him.  Around 1:00 I heard a big truck or something outside, and all this glowing light was coming through my windows. I got up and went to the door and the whole street was jammed with fire engines.  I woke Balducci and Sarah, and we went out in our bare feet to watch. Balducci's van was parked right in front of the burning house.  We didn't see flames, only smoke.  There was a hook and ladder running to the roof and a fireman was bashing out all the front windows with a long pole.

Worked yesterday (my last day hopefully) with Stuart cutting back rafters to make headroom in the bathroom.  Filthy work.  I made $70, plus Amber gave me $100 shroom money.  She was telling me on Sunday that Ernesto was riding around with some people and they got pulled over for passing a joint around.  He was carrying 4 grams of mushrooms and he ate them all right there.  The cops said to him, "you didn't have to eat your bag, son.  We wouldn't have taken it from you.  Just try to be a little more discreet, that's all.  We can't have people openly flaunting the law." 

I asked what happened with Ernesto after eating all those mushrooms, and she said, "well, he didn't go to work the next day, I know that much."

Out of whack.  Why is Jonah to goddamn irritating!?  It's like watching a pinball machine.  Everything about him drives me up the wall.  I worked my ass off all day at Paulina--  half-ass installing the kitchen cabinets, and then forming a sidewalk. When I got home Balducci and Jonah were putting up cedar fence in the back yard, and so I ended up working another hour.  Granted I didn't do much, but I was ready to take a shower and collapse. Anyway, Jonah was cooking and I was on the couch, and he decided to crank the goddamn stereo on the worst Robert Plant bullshit. He has no fucking taste whatsoever.

Maybe because he's such a nice guy I don't have the heart to push him away. Whatever the situation is, I'm finding it amazingly hard to deal with him.  He's so fucking defensive about everything.  If I bring it up that I hate it when he does such and such, he just does it more, like he's trying to teach me not to be uptight.  Professional Student has the same irritating habit.

            Like I said, he was cooking, and he made chicken, rice and vegetables.  He thinks he's the goddamn galloping gourmet, splashing around, tossing in this, rattling the pots.  After sticking his nose up at the fact I use instant rice, he proceeded to waste the entire box by cooking it all at once.  All he had to do was read the goddamn instructions.  And he has to dirty every fucking plate in the house, instead of just dishing the food from the pot. 

            I helped him paint his apartment yesterday night, and while I was doing all the work, he spent half the time standing around with his arms folded gawking at how different the room looked. And then he had the nerve to criticize me for rolling it on too thin.  I'm due to read him the riot act, I can feel it. He wanted to go out for a walk after dinner, and I said I was calling it a night.   Honestly, I would have liked to take a walk, but the thought of him humming and bouncing all over the place was too much to take.  Part of this tirade must have to do with the fact I'm not used to people in my face since I've spent so much time alone this last year.  But Balducci's very unobtrusive, and I don't mind him at all.  He goes out to the garage to paint, or reads in his room, and I never feel crowded.  Jonah has to be right there sucking the life out of you.  I wish I could talk to Anne about all this now, while it's fresh.

Karla called me last night after midnight, returning my message. She sounded enthused to go out with me.  I mentioned maybe taking a bike ride and she liked that idea.  There's this excitement building now because we seem to be alike.  I sense potential. But then maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.  I called again today to make plans, but she's not there.  I hope she calls soon. 

Had a scare yesterday.  Balducci put Napoleon out the night before and piled bricks in the windowsill so he couldn't climb up and whine all night.  I opened the front door in the morning, expecting to see him waiting in Dr. Hangout's basement windowsill, but nothing.  He was gone all day.  I kept asking the neighbors if they'd seen him. 

Dr. Hangout said, "yeah, I got a message from him. He said to say he's in Tijuana, kind of strung out, but doing all right."

            Poked around the house, taking down the plastic and prying open painted shut windows (got two open, broke one).  Balducci and I spent the afternoon forming and pouring a cement stoop for the garage.  While Balducci went to the store for concrete, I had a good conversation with Dr. Hangout about Germany and the CIA. 

            After the stoop was poured we drove over to Handy Anus to look at cedar fence.  Stopped by Honore Street on the way back and picked up a floor beam to use in the back yard.  Talked to Action Man in the alley.  After that Balducci went to meet the lawyer, ($1,000 retainer) and I basically moped around avoiding the urge to write.  Took a nap on the couch, read the NYT book review.  I went out in the back yard to pull nails and generally clean up the floor beam, and Dr. Hangout said Napoleon had "been found," which immediately made me think dead cat, flat as a pancake on North Avenue.  But then he said, "he's under Steiglitz's back porch."  I went over and he was bug-eyed and whimpering.  Probably Block Dog chased him under there and he was so freaked out he couldn't leave.

            Been trying to call Lilly, and I called Jonah by mistake.  Acted like I intended to call.  

                           
May

Balducci's New York nickname is "Cubby."  One night at a party this girl kept calling him the cub scout, and so he dropped his pants and said, "cub scout this!"  Then, as he tells it, he staggered around the rest of the night with his pants around his ankles.  At times he was passed out, other times he entertained everyone by stuffing huge amounts of food in his mouth. 

            The back yard has been graded and all the rocks raked out. Balducci and Jonah planted two doses of Meadow in a Can-- wildflowers and prairie grass, enough to cover 1700 square feet.  The yard is maybe 800 square feet, so it's going to come in very dense.  With the Cape Cod garage and the new fence, it should look very surreal. 

Steiglitz has totally blown a gasket.  Saturday while I was out with Karla, Balducci was working in the yard, and he went down the alley to get a railroad tie.  He wanted to block off a section of the yard against the garage to make a flower box.  All these railroad ties are piled up along Steiglitz's fence, and Balducci was sorting through them until he found one the right size.  He picked it up and started walking away and then he heard Steiglitz yelling from his top floor window, "I'd put that down if I were you!"

            "Excuse me?"

            "You heard me! I'll come out swinging if I have to!"

            Balducci put the railroad tie back and said, "Come on,  can't we talk about this,"  but Steiglitz slammed the window shut, and refused to come down.  We've not heard the end of this, I'm sure.

Dr. Hangout's tearing out the bottom of his porch enclosure to make an addition to his basement apartment.  Today he carted away probably 20 wheelbarrows of dirt and rubble, and dumped it across from the hot dog stand.  It's a big job, and he looks frazzled.  Listen, several nights this week I've seen Magda playing the violin in Hangout's garage studio.  She paces back and forth in front of the door like a determined schoolboy.  Her hair hangs in her face.  She has a job playing at the silent film festival.  A one-time gig that pays $50.  All the same, she's pushing herself like she's set to debut at Orchestra Hall.

I've been obsessing endlessly over Karla.  I definitely feel something, like gravity is tugging at me.  I don't want to think this thing into the ground, so I'll try not to write that much about her.  Saturday I went over to her apartment around 2:00, and we chatted a while and then ate lunch at a little burrito dive on Broadway. Then we walked down to the lake and sat in the grass.  Afterwards we went back to her apartment, and ate cheese and crackers and drank wine.  Played with her cats.  She was laying on the floor and I was on the couch, and she wanted to take a short nap. 

Afterwards, she was joking, "jeez what am I going to tell Luanne we did on our date."

I said, "you can tell her we slept together--  we drank all this wine, and you can't remember what happened." 

Then we walked down to the Music Box and watched DIAL M FOR MURDER in 3D, which was amazingly camp, more so than I remembered.  We were going to get some Chinese carry-out and go back to the apartment, but at the last minute coming out of the theatre she asked if I wouldn't mind if she just went home.  I was very dejected, but she kept assuring me she was just tired, and she definitely wanted to see me again.

Sunday morning while I was talking about the date with Balducci, Karla called and offered to take me to breakfast if I'd drive her to her folks' on the South side for a funeral.  I picked her up around 11:30. She was waiting outside her building, wearing jean cutoffs, a T-shirt, black flats and a checked blazer.  And sunglasses.  I pulled up and said, "hey baby, you need a ride somewhere?"  She got in the car and slid across and kissed me.  We were going to go to this place she knew about called the Nightcrawler, but it as closed.  We drove around and eventually settled on this restaurant on Southport, close to the theatre.  We both had chorizo omelettes. 

To get to her folks' we drove south on Lake Shore Drive till it turned into 41, and meandered all through the South side until the 80's, and then there was a detour at the river, and we took this one way street over to her neighborhood.  I think she called it East Side.  Her folks lived in a little brick house.  No one was home.  Immaculate inside, lots of family photos.  In the basement was a bar with a mural photo on the wall of the Chicago skyline from the 1930's.  In the laundry room was an oil painting of the Pope in front of Buckingham fountain.  We sat in the kitchen talking and she took a call from her Aunt Reba who she described as sounding very feeble. She walked me out to the car and kissed me.  Just a peck, but there was softness to it.... hard to explain.  Maybe because it lingered just a half second. Took the skyway home.

            Hung out in the backyard the rest of the day building a table.  Just a half-ass job from scrap lumber.  Afterwards Jonah, Balducci and I watched MR ARKADIN for the second time in the last 3 days.           

The Swede is this old man I've seen around the neighborhood a number of times.  He's tall with short cropped blonde/silver hair.  He works for the water department.  Last summer while Balducci and I were building the garage we saw him coming down the alley with a sheet of plywood on his back, scavenged from somebody's trash.  We were coming back from Nor-Bell and at first we thought he might have taken it from our site, because he looked kind of shifty and he was moving fast.  But the next morning I saw him (and a city water truck) on Bell, and he was prying up a manhole cover.  Anyway, this morning at 8:30 when I was going out to my car I saw the Swede get out of a truck a few doors down with his thermos cradled in his arm and a can of Budweiser concealed behind it.  He was wearing a blue heavy flannel shirt, untucked.

Just back now from seeing Anne. One session left.  She was very critical of Jonah and asked do I really like him.  She said he sounds needy and manipulative.  I disagreed.  He's needy in many ways, like Joe Stereo, yet Joe Stereo is a selfish pig and Jonah is decent and loyal.

            On the subject of Karla-- last night when Dino was over, he was describing the risk chart for women who have babies in their thirties.  Dino's wife Stephanie is 33 and Karla is 31.  All day I had been anxious to call her, but afterwards that entirely blunted my feelings.  I told Anne about this, and then explained how on our date we had discussed children, her nieces, Amber's baby, etc., and how she'd like to have one.  I must have let that go in one ear and out the other, simply because I was lonely.  And Anne cautioned me about ignoring things like that-- I should feel them right as they hit me and not put them on the back burner.  Because, obviously if I'm interested in Karla and we get serious, the subject of children is going to come up much sooner than later. Talked to Balducci about it when I came home and he was saying how most of his past girlfriends were his age or a few months older, and the subject was always looming in the near future.  But with this girl Stephanie, and now with Sarah he has room to breathe. 

"Shit," he said.  "At least I know with Sarah that whole discussion's at least six years away." 

            I did call Karla last night and asked if she wanted to take a walk or bike ride or something, but she had a lot of errands-- laundry, grocery shopping, etc., to take care of, and suggested we go out Friday night.  I'm glad I have space to think in now, because what's happening does feel like courtship, and I want to go slowly and weigh all the options.  Maybe I'm rushing things a bit because the alternative is for me to go out blindly and try to meet somebody, whereas this situation with her simply dropped in my lap.

Balducci and Dino went to see Alderman Buzoffski last night.  Afterwards Dino criticized the hell out of Balducci's presentation, saying it was obvious he'd never had a real job. But in the end Buzoffski did say he'd write a positive letter.  That is if the building department gives us the green light.

I wrote most of the day, editing the book, puttering around, but at least that's a start.  Balducci made this collage of penises cut from porno magazines.  "The dada cock ensemble," he calls it.  Sarah wants him to send her a dirty letter, and this is his interpretation. It looks like a huge bunch of bananas.  Somewhere in the middle of the afternoon there was a knock at the door and he had to scramble to hide the magazines and cover up his work, but it was only Dino. 

            Jonah was here most of the afternoon, and I tried to give him the cold shoulder so he wouldn't crowd me and intrude on my writing.  He has nothing to do, and he's just waiting for the project to start.  He's over here every goddamn day hyper as hell.  But since Balducci and I were both quietly working he laid down in the livingroom and read a carpentry manual. 

            For dinner we microwaved a box of frozen White Castle's, and afterwards Jonah started in with his hyper bullshit, but I told him I was going back to work, and so he left.  It's inevitable I'll blow up at him.  I was telling Anne that sometimes the only way to get through to people is to be insulting. 

            . 

Bleak news from City Hall.  Before we can get moving on the Honore house, the property will have to be re-zoned in all likelihood, and that could take several months.  Balducci's majorly stressed out.  I get the feeling he's kicking himself, feeling guilty for some screw-up, but this whole mess is nothing but a freak accident.  He trusted his architect's advice-- he trusted a licensed professional, and things went haywire.  Well, nothing's settled just yet.  We probably won't know the final verdict for a week. 

            If we're delayed I could obviously try and finish the book.  But that would put me at cash ground zero in a month's time. Then I'd have to either borrow more money from Balducci (I owe him close to 3000 already), or get a job of some kind.  Maybe try to finish the book in a month, borrow just enough to get me jump started, and then take a job.  He's certainly sympathetic to my urge to write, but after all money is money.  He doesn't seem too anxious to take on a project just to keep Jonah and I working, and I don't blame him really.  After all, he could go back to New York and paint, take on a few small jobs, and spend time with Sarah. 

            Working for Stuart today at 3:00-- more concrete forming work. Maybe I should show up early with a shovel and get started, milk him for an extra 10 or 20 bucks.  Tell him I thought it was going to rain.  I talked to him this morning, trying to get Jonah in on the job-- have the two of us start early in the morning, but he started whining, "oh, I don't want it finished too early.  Vick's father's an old man and I don't want him to trip out there and sue me..... And I'm so far over budget.." Idiocy spiraling out of control.

            Balducci and I went to this saw sharpening place at Lake and Leavitt, in the middle of the projects.  Across the street I saw three or four uniformed guards sitting on the monkey bars.  The front door of the saw shop operated on a security buzzer.  Manning the door was this old black man wearing a cowboy hat, sitting at a card table, playing solitaire and watching I Love Lucy.

Karla and I were going to walk by the lake or ride bikes or something Friday evening, but it rained all day, so she called and offered to cook dinner instead.  She asked me to pick up beer and some bread.  We sat at the kitchen table eating "finger salads," and drinking, and we never got around to eating dinner.  We went into the livingroom.  I sat on the couch and kept asking her to come over and sit by me, but she evaded the issue.  Then finally she said, "Why don't you come over here." 

            Half a dozen times we were on the verge of screwing-- in the chair, on the livingroom floor, in the kitchen, on the bed, but each time she stopped short.  At one point I stood up and was composing myself, and she looked down at my erect dick jutting from my pants and said, "Hmmm, nice penis." 

We drank all the beer and then started in on cognac.  The adventure progressed from groping at each other's clothes to eventually me tonguing the borders of her panties, and her stroking me. 

I was like, "Jesus, I can't keep doing this."

She said, "why, what's going to happen... you're going to come?  Go ahead and come." 

So I figured, now it's definitely going to happen.  She licked her hand and started stroking me, but again she pulled back at the last minute  "Sweetheart, I'm sorry, but my head is too mixed up right now." 

By midnight my nuts were ready to explode, and I ended the misery by jacking off in the bathroom.  We slept in our underwear, and she snuggled up tight to me.  It was totally comfortable-- no fidgeting or anything,  but I just couldn't fall asleep, totally wired from an overload of hormones.  I don't think I slept more than an hour the whole night.

In the morning we walked down to Southport cafe and had chorizo omelettes again-- the same as last week.  We held hands, and there was a lot of kissing and snuggling.  She walked me to my car afterwards.. 

I came home and tried to sleep on the couch, but Stuart called ready to work.  Balducci came with me to measure the forms and estimate concrete yardage, and Stuart talked him into helping frame walls in the Chainsaw Artist's studio.  It went pretty well considering the building is grossly out of plumb, the floor is warped and the ceiling dips.  Stuart was his usual idiot self, always suggesting the butcher method, and Balducci and I had to press him to do things right.  But by the end of the day, we'd worn him down though, embarrassed him to where he was sweeping up and happy to follow Balducci's orders.  At one point Amber called, stalled in traffic somewhere and unable to open the hood of her car.  Stuart calmly told her he'd be right over, and then went absolutely apeshit after hanging up the phone, throwing the sledge hammer on the floor.

 "God damnit, she's so fucking helpless! "  He ranted on how useless Amber was, and all of her friends, especially Ernesto for being a "faggot."

            When we got home there was a message from Karla, saying she'd be home this weekend after all (she'd planned to go to her folks') and asking if I wanted to hang out on Sunday.  I was flying after that, even though the day had been total shit up to that point 

            Balducci and I took a walk through the neighborhood and over to Humboldt park.  We were walking down Wabansia, near Campbell, and all of a sudden his nose started running.  He pulls out a wad of Kleenex, blows his nose, and realizes he's got a nosebleed.  He has no sense of decorum sometimes; he simply rolled up the Kleenex and jammed it up his nose.  Walking down the street with this long wad of Kleenex hanging there.  Eventually his nosebleed slowed to a trickle though, and he tossed the bloody mess in the gutter. 

We walked through the park.  There were hundreds of families cooking out.  The parking lots were full of beater cars with their radios blaring and men drinking beer.  Down Augusta to Damen and over to Division Street.  We stopped in at the Rainbo for a few beers and end up getting shitfaced.  We drank 6-8 beers each, plus 4 shots of Johnny Walker.  Made fun of the pseudo artists and coveted their hot girlfriends.  This art critic-looking dude, gray goatee, horn-rimmed glasses came in with a very young art student bimbo, barely 21.  They took a booth.  Other friends of theirs showed up, blabbering conversation ensued.  The girl spent most of the time checking out younger men, especially the bouncer.

            At some point Stuart came in to play the video games.  We bought him a shot and a beer.  He seemed utterly gleeful to be out on his own with the boys.  Balducci was asking him about Amber and Mevin, wondering how she could have lived with a basket case like him. 

"You've got the story backwards," he said.  "The reason Melvin is so fucked up isn't from drugs, he's been straight for years.  You see he's a weak person, and Amber of course is an emotional vampire.  She sucks the life out of people.  Melvin was working on a Master's degree when he met Amber.  Now he can barely tie his own shoes."

            Staggering home down alleys.  I got some bug up my ass to start kicking over trash cans, and I went somewhat berserk and dumped like twenty of them from both sides of the alley, making a huge mess. When we got to Leavitt Street, Balducci told me to knock it off.  At home we cooked up frozen dinners in the microwave, and I slobbed Stroganoff and noodles all over my pants, laughing like an idiot all the while.  I got an urge to call Karla and maybe drive over there-- sure I can drive, I'm not that drunk. Balducci tried to discourage it, but I was already dialing.  He threw up is hands and went to bed. 

Karla's machine answered, and I said, "Hey, I think you should wake up," and she picked up the phone, spaced out, half asleep.  I ask her what she was wearing.  I know I started getting very lewd, but I honestly don't remember anything else. 

I woke up around 6:00 with major blackout guilt.  I went directly into the bathroom and threw up.  My face looked pinched and flabby.  Back to bed.  Karla called around 9:00 and laughed everything off.  She asked when I planned on coming over, and suggested we take a walk by the lake and maybe stop somewhere for lunch. 

Balducci comes out of his room looking very hungover.  He tells me he had a homosexual Army dream with Robert Raushenberg in it.  They're in the barracks.  Rauschenberg's being a loudmouth, asking Balducci all these questions.... "So, did you fuck that broad or not?  Did you fuck her good?" Trying to feel out whether or not Balducci's also homo by his answers.  Balducci's takes a drink from the kitchen facuet.  Then he continues.  "Raushenberg has a big hard on.  Then I looked down, and Jesus Christ, I'm sporting wood myself!  This big, shit-eating grin comes over Raushenberg's face, and he says to me, ' Well, son, looks like we got us a couple of loaded guns!' "  

            I tell Balducci my dream.  There's some old guy walking down the halls of this hospital, crippled,  with withered legs.  He's wearing these thick, plastic, black boxer shorts, and trailing all kinds of wires and cables.  There's a guy walking behind him carrying a small generator.  This thing allows the cripple to walk, herky jerky, like his muscles are being electro-shocked into action.  Several doctors walked alongside carrying clipboards.   

When I pick up Karla at her apartment, she's wearing a black spandex sleeveless thing and jean cutoffs.  Her shoulders and neck are Nordic sexy.  I'm sitting in the chair and she comes over and kisses me.  Major groping.  We end up on the floor, she's stroking me through my pants, but of course she stops. 

            We walk down the lakefront and cross back over at Diversey, holding hands.  We stop often to kiss.  She squeezes my ass, calls me "baby."   We go into the conservatory, but it's a fucking sauna.  Wander through the zoo, then over to Old Town.  Stop at Old Jerusalem for lunch.  She's very happy, feeling romantic. Stop for ice cream.  She shows me her old neighborhood on Elm Street. We head North, stopping for a while in the park at North Avenue.  More groping. 

"I want you to tell me something personal about yourself," she says.  I tell her about being in therapy (but nothing else major).  She says she knows lots of people in therapy.  Eric (her boss, my nemesis) is in therapy.  She looks kind of distant, telling me this, but then I find out she has to go to the bathroom, and she's been holding it for an hour. 

            "Wonderful," I say.  "Here I am I'm pouring out my heart to you and all you're thinking about is, when is this guy going to shut up so I can take a piss."  

             We take a cab back to her apartment.  Some jerk named Havlik has left a message on her machine.  Up to this point, the whole day had been ceaselessly gravitating toward us coming back to the apartment to screw, but now she gets very morose, telling me how she was in love with him last year and even wanted to marry him.  Havlik is the poor bastard she dumped to go out with Eric.  She confesses to me that she's been thinking lately of trying to rekindle something with him.  I'm thinking I want to sneak out the door and forget the whole goddamn thing.  She puts on music.  She wants to dance, but I'm too depressed. 

             We go to the Walgreen's for wine.  Walking back to her apartment, the gloom fades into the background.  Somewhere during the afternoon, we end up on the bed kissing.  She has my dick out…  I'm rubbing it on her breasts....  She's going down on me.  At about that point the phone rings, and the machine answers. It's Havlik.  We both start laughing.  

            Of course, neither one of us has birth control.  I'm rubbing it all over her, teasing her cunt hole, but what can we do?  So I roll her over and start humping her ass cheeks while she plays with herself.  Thank Jesus, finally, I shoot this huge wad of come all over her backside.  After that I don't give a shit about anything.  I get a towel and wipe her off, and then I start to go down on her, but she proceeds to get weird again about Eric, and her head not being right.  Whatever.

            We eat some leftover spaghetti in bed, drink wine.  She says to me, "I don't know what we're going to do."   I find myself becoming very even-tempered and philosophical, and I tell her we just need to take it slow and get in touch with our feelings.

Go ahead, feel free to puke any time now.   

Balducci and went into a diner this morning around Chicago and Damen.  The waitress was totally burned out and crabby.  Balducci said to me, "she looks like she got up early so her husband could beat her."

On the subject of Balducci still being single, he told me his mother and sister want to put a rubber band around his nuts and leave it there a week till his nuts are all shriveled and dried up.  They they can just flick them away. 

Sarah called last night and we talked about the whole Janie weekend scenario.  She has us practically fucking already and we haven't even met.  Sarah says I'm exactly "her type," and success with her is just a matter of me wanting it.  But obviously she has a vested interest in seeing this work out.  Part of me is going, why even bother, because it might just screw things up with me and Karla, but on the other hand, there's no sense of standing around waiting for her to make up her mind.  Plus I might actually like Janie, who knows.

I get the feeling I'm waiting around for something to happen-- for Karla, the project, whatever, and I don't like it. It reminds me of Joe Stereo.  Ended therapy yesterday, which makes me guilty because of the funk I'm in now.  But the big thing is I'm actually feeling something.  I keep riding it out, but the urge to hide is ever present.  The main thing is to keep moving forward, and not sit and wait.  We were supposed to pour the concrete at Paulina today, but rain looks imminent.  Balducci and I leveled and secured the forms last night.  Balducci's working the art expo, setting up sculptures, booths, etc.  He should get some free tickets out of it.  If the concrete pour is cancelled, I told him to give me a call, and I'd like to work the expo myself. 

I went over to Paulina for an hour and a half to backfill, smash rubble, clear the yard, and generally get everything set up. I was swinging a sledge hammer, bashing out the remainder of the old sidewalk, and Stuart's goddamn dog was barking his ass off every time I brought the hammer to the pavement.  He was giving me a big fucking headache.  Then this old Polish lady walked by, and I paused to wipe sweat off my face. 

She said to me, "you're going to keel him, dat dog." 

            I said, "that might not be a bad idea."

            "Oh, no.  A dog is your best friend."

            "Well this one sure makes a lot of noise."

            She had several gold teeth.  "Listen, you.  I've lived in 8 different countries. I'm not rich Vooman-- this vas during the war.  And I've been married fifty years now.  I've known lots of women and men, and I can tell you, a dog is your best friend."  

Around the corner an old Pole fell off the roof and died the other day.  One of those cash-in-hand construction crews, no insurance, no budget.  All work has stopped since. 

Rained out yesterday.  Rescheduled for Friday afternoon.  I worked three hours backfilling the forms, smashing rock, brushing down the bull float, sawzalling the tops off stakes, etc.  It was grim looking all day, but it didn't start raining literally till Balducci and Jonah pulled up in the van.  Stuart arrived around 3:00, and there was a lull in the rain. 

He was second guessing us as always, "Oh, I would have gone ahead-- put up a plastic canopy if it starts raining."   But in about ten minutes it started pouring, and didn't stop all night.  The Chainsaw Artist was going out for a six-pack, but when he saw the huge storm brewing, he was bummed. He was displeased with the bathroom we'd framed out.  But then he's a prima dona.  We were all standing in the yard talking about the concrete job, and the Chainsaw Artist goes, "I don't know a thing about concrete, plumbing or electric, and I don't want to.  I'm a carpenter." 

            Balducci told a great story he heard from the Pug, which I've heard before but must have lost in the drug Beirut back alley of my brain.  It seems this contractor was just finishing up a primo yuppie condo job, loading up his gear, and waiting for the woman to write him a check.  Everything was perfect, new carpet, oak doors, crown moldings.  Walking through the livingroom with a  ladder the idiot kicked over a gallon of white paint right onto the carpet.  He looked around in a total panic, and saw his money being flushed down the toilet.  That is until he remembered the baby asleep in the next room. 

Cut to a scene of the crazy bastard tiptoeing into the kid's room.  Gently lifting him out of his crib, and carrying him into the livingroom and sitting him in the paint and then screaming, "OH MY GOD IN HEAVEN!"  

We were bored out of our minds last night.  I just kept thinking how far away Friday was, till I could see Karla.  We got Cabbie Collins' number from his mother and left a goofy message on his machine.  Jonah cooked dinner and we drank the rest of the 12 pack from yesterday.  I sifted through my dope seeds and scavenged a few one hits.  Jonah excavated the tar/resin from Bob, and the two of us managed to get ourselves respectably wasted.  We watched this PBS movie by a guy named Dennis Potter, which was morbid and yet very funny.  Balducci was on the phone with Sarah the whole time. 

After the movie we watched a Beethoven program on PBS and I zoned out entirely listening to the 7th symphony.  Balducci told us at the expo they let him put up a whole series of Raushenberg prints, and that famous revolving sculpture.  No free tickets though.

            Sean's coming down today to visit Jonah, bringing her mother and sister.  They're having lunch at L' Escargot.  I think he'll have to wear a jacket-- maybe I'll loan him one.  It sounds very serious and tense,  but Jonah says Sean's mother is only in her 40's, lives with a boyfriend, gets high. Sean's staying at least a week.  Sarah gets here Wednesday, and she's staying through the weekend, so it sounds like I'll be the hot potato, bouncing from apartment to apartment. 

The back yard meadow looks like a field of cilia.  Last night Jonah and I inspected it in the rain, stoned, eating grapes, standing together under an umbrella.  Hundreds of nightcrawlers were stretched out of their holes.  This morning from the bathroom I watched engrossed as a pair of cardinals fluttered around the rosebush and pulled up worms.  It was such a cornball Sesame Street event,  I burst out crying.

Balducci:

Q: How can you tell if your roommate's gay?

A: When you go to suck his dick it tastes like shit.

Mother's Day yesterday.  Karla called around 9:00 a.m. to say she missed me at breakfast.  Balducci and I walked over to Paulina to look at the slab.  Spent the rest of the afternoon asleep on the couch.   I put off getting a Mother's Day card or present until it was too late.  Asked Balducci what he was bringing home for his mother, and he said, "my laundry."  Then he said, "No, I'll bring my laundry home and do it myself... and I'll offer to crack her back."

            Drove out to Kimball Heights around 5:00.  Traffic out the wazoo on I-90.  Arrived just in time for dinner.  Very uneventful.  Sat around watching TV and returned to the city around 11:00.   Went right to bed.  Lots of noise outside, gang bullshit. Yelling and gunshots, tires screeching.

I feel utterly useless and zoned out.  Probably from too much drinking, too much sleep, not enough decent food, whatever.  My mood is swinging from being totally depressed to anxious/euphoric and it's wearing me out.  Friday night we went to Gallery and saw some pseudo punk homo band.  The lead singer got a nosebleed from grappling with this kid dressed as a gas station attendant.  The usual dregs warmed up, Ed, McCurry, CJ, Bukowski, etc.,  but this time before a very inspired crowd.  They were all grinning like it was the big time.  Got myself very drunk and bought shots for people. 

Karla was very affectionate, lots of necking in front of everybody.  She drove, and she was very loaded, but she refused to come home with me.  I stomped into the house amazingly wound up and frustrated, saying I wasn't going to call her again, screw her, she's jerking me around, teasing me.  Balducci was poking fun at me and I sprayed beer at him.  Scraped out the bong and smoked some throat torching resin and went to bed.

            The next morning I was still wound up.  Took Karla out to breakfast at Busy Bee, both us very hungover.  We ordered three breakfasts between us.  I tried to be aloof with her, but by in the end things became getting romantic again.  Went to the art expo, which was so-so.  Saw John Kefendorf and his wife.  Karla started getting moody, which she blamed on her period approaching.  Got back to her apartment with plans to cook together, but she asked if I'd leave for an hour, she needed some private time, which I assumed to mean she wanted to call Eric. 

I came home very cranky, and Jonah was there taking a shower.  He basically wanted to hang out all evening, and I was in no fucking mood for that.  I told him I was going to bed and turned off the lights.  Could hear him fidgeting around the kitchen for ten minutes or so, and then he left. 

            I figured Karla would call and say she wanted to blow off the evening, but when she finally did call she was sounded happy and anxious to get together.  We went to Treasure Island for food.  Drank several beers and made chef salads.  I was pretty much resigned to the fact we wouldn't screw, plus I didn't care all that much, because I could foresee the limits of my patience being stretched.  We ended up cuddling on the sofa till she was ready for bed.  I wanted to stay and take her to breakfast like last week, but she said, no.           

I know this is the millionth time I've made this proclamation, but I'm really going to get off my ass.  I'm careening out of order, and my life disgusts me.  Can't write, I'm up to my ass is debt with only 100 bucks to my name and very uncertain work future.   I'm fat, fat, fat, and I can't stop thinking about Karla.  So,  I made this list of big priorities to remind me what I should be concentrating on: The Book, Money, Girth, Karla (in about that order).  If I'm not working on one of these areas, I'm wasting time.  Of course, here I am blabbering away.

Amber wanted me to come over to discuss, in her words, "some secret agent bullshit," which I thought was some deal she'd lined up.  But it turns out she wanted to tell me this insane, paranoid story.  She thinks the cops might be taping her phone and watching her house.  And she went into an extended monologue about the red squads.  I really had to pry myself out of there, with her following me out to the car,  telling me I had to start watching my back, and not to use the telephone except for emergencies.

Balducci just left to jog.  I feel like such a loser around him.  We're invited to dinner at Dino and Stephanie's tonight.  Beware of being asked some favor-- possibly helping them move.  But really, I shouldn't mind, because Dino's been very generous to me.          

Balducci wants to go generator shopping.  I was going to work on the book, but it's gloomy and I'm not at all motivated.  Working for Stuart at 1:00.  Maybe I'll try to work on the book this evening.  Dinner last night with Dino and Stephanie.  Chicken with some kind of avocado dip, and stuffed manicotti.  Stephanie's a good cook.  Balducci got her going about her boss and quitting the job, and she went off on a major tangent about what an asshole the guy is.

Balducci and I went over to the Pug's after dinner to measure his lot and garage for a 4-car slab.  We went out afterwards to some bar for a few beers, but I managed to only have one.  Trying desperately to get rid of this ugly gut. Balducci told several high school acid trip stories.

Last night around midnight I was in bed, awake.  I could hear Balducci's on the phone with Helmut out in the livingroom.  Then I heard three gunshots come from Western Avenue, then three more.  I called out to Balducci asking if he heard that, and he called back, "fucking low-lifes!"

I was lying in bed about to nudge the alarm forward, feeling disgusted with myself for not being able to get up and write.  I was staring at the ceiling, and I could feel myself drifting off again, and I asked myself, what are you I waiting for?  Then it came to me that that's the whole problem.  At the moment where everything's a blank slate and I should be choosing, I lay there waiting for some jolt to get me going-- and I just fall back asleep.  Eventually when I do get out of bed it's from guilt because Balducci's already up and running, or the cat's hungry, or I'm overwhelmed by the urge to pee, or whatever.   Not that I haven't thought all this before, but this morning I somehow cornered myself under the microscope and actually, honestly felt it.

I'm growing fatter and drifting irrevocably.  Fighting the urge to sleep.  I probably just need to get some exercise.  Worked several long days this week, drywalling the Chainsaw Artist's studio.  The other day Balducci and I took out the second floor window, cut away the wall, and hung a door.  Worked with Chainsaw's girlfriend's daughter, Alissa, and her boyfriend, Jo-Bob.  Musician types.  Stuart's been an idiot as usual; I'm too disgusted with him to talk about it.  Sarah's been here the last 4-5 days and leaves early tomorrow morning.

            All the steam is gone from the Karla situation after I met her Thursday at Gallery and things went haywire.  Maybe I fucked up and was to antsy, who knows.  Professional Student, and Lisette showed up unannounced.  It seems they're back together for good.  They're leaving for upstate New York and the grad school nirvana womb, so good riddance.  It makes it much easier to write them out of my life.

Anyway I asked Karla if she wanted to go out Friday but she said she was going out with Havlik.  At that point I basically decided the hell with it.  I drove her home and said, "look, I don't think we're even interested in the same things," and basically said I'm not interested in waiting around.  She said she didn't blame me.  I told her if she was interested to call me, and she said, "you can call me too…" 

            I came home depressed and cried on the couch while Balducci and Sarah were in the bedroom fucking.  Drank this airline bottle of liqueur that tasted like shit.  The next day Balducci tells me it's for pouring over ice cream.  Suffice it to say,  these last few days I've been pretty depressed over Karla.  Talked to Sarah about it, and she's right in her thinking that what I wanted was an "instant relationship."  Very unrealistic, impatient, whatever. 

Like and idiot, I called Karla again Friday, saying just because things didn't work out according to my plans that doesn't mean we can't see each other.  She was glad I called, and the next few days we played phone tag.  On Saturday, Jonah and I went to Czar Bar and watched Dr. Hangout's latest musical project.  Magda was looking very hot in a youth hostel, bohemian sort of way.  The band actually sounded good, though when I  tried to compliment Hangout on the show, he waved me off and said, "Pleeeease, we sucked." 

            The whole Janie thing is building up steam.  She sent me a wonderful letter, smart, funny, and it's beginning to look definite that Balducci and I will drive to New York the first week of June for her birthday party.  Sarah says the situation is like this, "look,  just have a good time together and fuck her.  No pressure.  And if you don't screw it up,  she'll come back here again the following week and you can do it all over until you're sick of each other."          

Midnight.  Wide awake and hungry.  Balducci just walked past on his way to the bathroom.  He said, "hey, nocturnal Pepys, go to bed." 

Worked today from noon till 6:00 at Paulina and came home and napped for two plus hours on the couch.  I'm not going to eat though-- must degirthify.  This also gives me an idea that maybe if I nap in the evenings,  I'll have the energy to write nights.  Of course, today I was run down and tired by 6:00 because I was so fucking hungover. 

            I was thinking seriously about blowing off Karla.  She called Wednesday evening and we took a walk together.  Overcast but warm, Seattle like.  I do remember stopping at this one yard to look at a long rectangle of purple irises, but overall it was a dull and useless time.  I keep noticing how she repeats the same stories over and over-- talking about her new CD player, the new B-52's CD, her trip to Wunder Lake with Luanne, various Latino student episodes, New Orleans.  Always very formal and stiff when telling me she's glad to see me, enjoys herself with me, etc.  I'm getting just a thin veneer of her personality and she's not letting me in the door.  She just wants to keep me on the line.  Of course I'm expecting her feelings for Eric to just disappear shearly from logic, which is very stupid.  Anyway, we took this walk, and had coffee outside at this new place on Wellington and Sheffield.  She made no effort to hold my hand or anything, and for most of the evening I was bored and distant.  But when we got back to her apartment, I had a few beers and we watched the last episode to Twin Peaks on the couch together, and all my self control went out the window.  Again I was asking to spend the night and again she said,  no. 

Doing the slow burn walking back to the car, thinking that I'll definitely cut this thing off, but it didn't last long, and I was already vaguely aware of the curvature of my emotions, knowing I’ll swing back in the other direction. (And right now, re-reading this,  thinking maybe in the future I won't even speculate about how I'm going to feel, I’ll hopefully just feel something and be done with it.  But then maybe emotions are slow and herky jerky and you have to wait through them.  Or sometimes you drift into speculation in place of actually feeling something….?)

            I did manage to keep the idea of blowing Karla off alive though, and coaxed it along talking with Balducci.  She wanted me to call about doing something today, and I decided to call her last night and say I couldn't make it, family get together, my sister's birthday, anything.  But then this morning she called and caught me off guard, wanted to at least meet for breakfast and I said, yes.         

Like I said, I was very hungover.   Drove to her apartment and arrived 15 minutes early.  She came to the door in a towel and I had to wait for her to shower.  We went to Southport cafe and had the same stupid omelettes.  Her friend Sylvia met us.  I can't remember if Karla said she was a dyke or not, but when I came back from throwing up in the bathroom,  they were talking about this girl at Leo's Lunchroom.  Karla was sitting across from me with her feet up on my seat.  Wearing short pants.  I reached down and was stroking her calf, and I remember her skin felt just a bit rubbery, loose over her bones, overripe.

Melody and Frankie showed up last night, and we barbecued out back and had some beers.  Frankie's an undergraduate, a Math major, and he's nice enough, but looks like a throwback idiot.  Long hair, hippie beads, tie dyed shirt and carrying a goddamn purse.  We were sitting in the kitchen talking about the neighborhood, and they were asking was it dangerous.  Frankie told us he got the shit kicked out of him in front of his own house in San Diego.  A bunch of drunks were walking by and they said, "Hey, do you live here?" And Frankie said,  yes, and just like that they preceded to wail on him. Talking to Balducci this morning I was saying how that didn't surprise me at all.  When you look like that it makes people want to fuck with you, like kids in junior high punching you in the shoulder. 

So Melody, Frankie, Jonah and I went to Kingston Mines, which I fought seriously, but Frankie was tourist hyper and wouldn't budge.  The place was totally packed with whitebread, and I drank way to much to pretend I was having fun.  I remember thinking I much prefer having a relationship with Melody through our letters than in person.  At some point I got belligerent and refused to let this yuppie/military type squeeze by me and a minor stir developed.  Afterwards he was glaring at me from his seat a long time, but cooled off eventually.  I remember somebody from his table calling me nature boy, which pissed me off because he was obviously thinking that simply because I was with Frankie.  The whole evening was a waste-- $9 cover and then $2.50 for a bottle of Bud. I ended up pissing away 30 bucks. 

Felt like shit all day today, and the half-ass quality of the work didn't help.  Tearing down old lath and plaster-- slapdash bullshit.  Screwing 3/8 inch rock over totally warped, craterized walls.  I got furiously pissed several times and drove the head of the screw gun right through the new drywall. Balducci was taping and kept to himself, out of Stuart's idiot way. Though we did have a conversation about Stuart being lazy and stupid, and how one is a product of the other, or how they're maybe tandem character flaws, and comparing that whole thing to the idea of the “tragic flaw.”  At some point I saw Stuart standing outside the window, and I gently steered the conversation away from that topic.

After lunch we were all set to begin work on the deck, and then Stuart pulled the rug out from under us.  He said he was spending too much money, and repairs were beginning to pile up at his other buildings.  Balducci lit into him saying,  “Jesus Christ,  why can't you be logical!  Every time you get something set up, you change your fucking mind!  You've got us here, and we want to work.” 

I didn't say anything, except to ask Stuart if it was really about the money.  He said, "why should I tell you my motives.  You two are just going to take them apart in front of me." 

So for the time being,  it’s back to working in the Chainsaw Artist’s studio.  Came home around 4:00 and took a shower and slept.   Jonah showed up right after I got out of the shower, expecting to hang out and eat dinner.  I gave him the cold shoulder and said I was going to bed, and he said he'd just eat quickly and leave,  but then Balducci came home and whatever annoyance I was feeling dissipated.  I slept on the couch a while, and then the three of us watched 2 episodes of the Skyscraper PBS thing that I had taped.

Balducci got on the phone with Devon, and they were talking about this girl Devon's seeing now.  He's screwed her once, but now I guess he's thinking of breaking it off, and Balducci said, “Man, you should just stick with it while there's nobody else in the picture.  That way you can learn to relax and get out the kinks with someone that doesn't matter." 

Today was the last day of working for Stuart until next week.  Balducci and I took a long walk down to the bank on Clybourn en route to the building.  Endless talk about women, relationships, sex, money.  He's been wearing the same jeans and lavender shirt to work for 5-6 days, and his B.O. is getting noxious.  Walking by the foundry on Cortland there was a huge cloud of ash and pollution and Balducci pulled his collar up over his nose.  But then he said, "Christ, I don't know what's worse, breathing in lung cancer, or this shirt."     

            We completed the studio drywall.  I insulated, firred and rocked the corner above the door, and Balducci taped.  Chainsaw was in a terrible mood.  He was sorting out tools for a union trim job he starts tomorrow, and he all but accused us of running off with anything he couldn't find-- hammer, tape measure, side cutters, etc.  He's such a fucking slob.  When we arrived, Balducci found his taping knives scattered across the floor.  We were assuming Chainsaw was just hungover, but Stuart said, “Oh, I’m afraid not.  He has a longstanding reputation for being a grouch, and basically these last few weeks he's been exhibiting exemplary behavior.”  Balducci was pissed off about his taping knives,  and he railed on Chainsaw all afternoon, saying what a prima-dona and disorganized half-ass he was. 

We were talking to Stuart about putting up gutters on the building.  He said some friend owes him a favor and promised to do the job, but he's been putting it off for months.  He said, “I’ve known this fellow a long time, and I still think he’ll do the honorable thing.”

Balducci said, "look, you can't expect someone to be honorable unless you've got your foot up their ass."

Work was called yesterday (Memorial Day) for lack of enthusiasm. We were supposed to meet Stuart at 10:00 but we didn't show up till 11:30.  He wasn't there and we walked around to his house.  He was stoned, and totally unmotivated, and it didn't take much to get him to call it off and roll another joint.  He told us this school district war story, one of hundreds he has stored up:

Kids were running by his classroom door, shouting, "Fight, Fight!"  He followed after them and saw this black kid face down in a huge pool of blood and teeth.  It seems some girl had been harassing him, punching him, week after week and finally he lashed out at her.  Then a whole gang of kids beat the hell out of him.  A 250 pound kid jumped on him when he was down, smashing his teeth into the floor.  The kid's in a coma now.

Waiting for Karla to come over,  I played batting coach to little Tony from upstairs and X-ray Jr.  We were going to go next door, but little Tony said he couldn't go next door.  And when I invited X-ray Jr. to come over,  little Tony was saying how Rueben would get mad.  But X-ray Jr. came over anyway, and they played together beautifully.  It seems a shame those kids upstairs don't get out more.  Big time apron strings.  They just hang out on the back stairway and never play outside at all.  They're amazingly well mannered though.  Did I mention that Rueben got his car back?  This was several weeks ago.  A couple of teenagers were pulled over while driving it through Uptown.  Only the radio was gone.  Now he's got it car alarmed and has a huge chain looped around the steering wheel.

Out of boredom I called Karla, and she came over with her bike around 5:00 and we rode around the neighborhood, scouting out possible streets she'd like to move to.  We planted the marigolds Stephanie left for us.  X-ray was cooking out on the front patio, and I jokingly said, "that smells great, what time's dinner?"  And five minutes later he brought me over a huge plate of chicken, sweet corn and deviled eggs.    

            After the ride I loaded Karla's bike into my trunk.  Steiglitz walked right by ignoring us.  Drove her back to Wrigleyville.  We ate pizza at D'Augustino's on Addison.  Mundane conversation for the most part, though we did get into something about Shakespeare and about her teaching a class this summer.  And a story about her father in WWII, drunk in Paris on VE day, so drunk on champagne he fell out of a jeep.  I drove her home afterwards.  She wanted to fool around, and I pretty much pulled away

This morning Balducci took Dr. Hangout to Handy Anus.  Dr. Hangout usually buys him breakfast for his trouble.  There's a great deal at White Castle for one dollar.  Balducci got Dr. Hangout's life story, including a great bit about living around the corner from W.H. Auden in New York and seeing him stumble over to the local coffee house every morning in his bathrobe.  Supposedly Dr. Hangout put out an album 20 years ago, and once even opened for David Bowie.

The road trip is all set!  We leave for New York Thursday midnight.  All my clothes have turned into work gear, and I don't have anything decent to wear, so I went clothes shopping.  Bought two pairs of jeans, and an orange/red striped T-shirt.  Spent $100, unbelievable.  I looked hideous and flabby in the dressing room mirror.  When I got back Balducci and Jonah were wrapped up in blankets drinking Bud and watching episode three of the Skyscraper PBS show.  Ate a microwave pizza and had a few beers, then packed up the new clothes and my laundry and humped over to the Lavandaria, but it was closed.  I'd better get up early tomorrow to beat the welfare crowd.

Waiting around for tonight.  Balducci's out in the garage working on a sculpture, puzzle-looking pieces of plywood 8 or 10 layers thick clamped, glued and screwed together.  He calls it his “skull.”  When it’s all formed out he plans on wrapping each segment in sheet lead.  Myself, I can't seem to get anything going.  Obviously I could work on the book, but I'm just too plain lazy and useless right now.  Anxious about the trip and Janie. 

            We had this flash of inspiration this morning, thinking we could leave and go to Pittsburgh to see the Carnegie Museum, then over to New York, but then we realized we'd end up getting there after it closed.  Thought about Toledo also, but basically the same problem.  Karla called this morning from work to wish me bon voyage.  I acted unenthused to hear from her.  I get the feeling whatever chance we had is passed.  There's no spark at all now, and I'm basically just being cordial to her. 

Last night Jonah made spaghetti for himself and Balducci.  I was laying on the coucht.  They were in the kitchen, and I heard this blast of laughter from Jonah and I looked up and saw Balducci standing there dejected, plate in hand and this mess of spaghetti on the floor.

June

Loads of New York data, but I don't have the energy to go into it right now-- except to say my batting slump is over.  Seduced by a "nice Jewish girl."       

            Working these last two days building a cedar deck at Pulaski and Irving Park for this guy named Verne.  The bid was $2000.  Balducci and I should each make $500 for 3 days of work.  Poured concrete piers yesterday and bought the lumber.  Cold and rainy.  Hauling all this rough cedar at the lumber yard in the rain and wind made me feel out to sea, like something from Melville.  Everything smelled of cedar all day.  I could smell it on my hands even after taking a shower.  It made me think of the barn.  Scavenged a hollow door in an alley and made a long desk out of it alongside this one.  It stretches from the top of my file cabinet to the dresser.  Much more room to work now.     

            Weather very nice today.  We threw together the frame of the deck, then Balducci worked on the stairs while I laid the decking.  Got a line on another job from friends of Verne, building a porch and stairs at in Roscoe Village.  Some contractor bid $2200 and plans on starting tomorrow, so Balducci bid $1800.  It's pretty much up in the air what they’ll decide, but these people know Verne and Jack Caruso.  We also went through the motions of measuring for a new garage there, which is something they’re dangling in front of us.  Even though you’ve seen the ploy a dozen times you still have to go along with it.  And, of course it does let you know the kind of people you’re dealing with.  Came home and showered.  Dinner at Arturos.

Another day cut short by rain-- though we were cashed anyway by the time it started.  I laid all but a small corner of the decking, and Balducci finished the stairs and started in on the railings.  We’ll have to put in a half day tomorrow,  which will involve some minor putzing with the finish work.  Balducci got the OK on that Roscoe Village job.  Probably start Tuesday or Wednesday after the girls leave.  They should arrive tomorrow around 5:00, so Balducci and I have to get up early to clean house, do the laundry, and assorted and sundry pain in the ass chores, before going to work.  

            Dr. Hangout came over while we were unloading the van.  He was soaking wet, having got himself caught in the downpour on his bicycle.  He invited us along to socialize with this German theatre group he’s vaguely connected with that just arrived in town.  It sounded like a good idea at first, but the deal is (there’s always a deal involved) he wants us to play chauffeur.  Balducci's tired and doesn't want to go, but I've already half-committed myself to it.  He said I can borrow the van, but then I really don't feel like drinking and driving someone else's vehicle.  Plus the added aggravation of picking these people up at the Green Mill, and then having to haul them to who fucking knows where.  I called Jonah and Sean, and they want to go, so it may turn out all right in the end.  Maybe I’ll meet someone. 

            The whole New York episode is bearing down on me but I have no motivation yet to put it on paper.  And Sarah and Janie are arriving tomorrow, so I'm likely to drift into limbo for several more days. I've been successful at completely blowing Karla off.  I told her I'd call when I got back from New York, but I just don't feel like expending the energy on her.  Let her do the fucking legwork if she's truly interested.  But then by not calling when I said I that would, maybe I'm somehow humiliating her, and so she feels like she can’t be the one to call.  Do I really want her to call me?  Christ, what a pain in the ass.

What a useless lazy fuck I am.  Can't get out of bed in the morning, can't write anything-- not even to keep up this stupid diary.  I was thinking last night how I'm sometimes afraid even to party, and panic that I might get on the phone and start blubbering, or generally make an ass of myself.  And thinking this fear is obviously a fear of myself.  Afraid of what I might feel, that I might spiral out of control.  It's the same way with my writing.  It's much easier to lay around daydreaming that I'm famous, being interviewed by TIME magazine, than it is to actually do the work.  So I guess I'm afraid of being no good, and too lazy to face up to hard work when I run into a disappointment.  What this all translates into is the fact that I’m a loser and hanging on to my dignity by a thread.

We began the Roscoe Village porch job Tuesday.  Jonah and I ripped out the old porch while Balducci was across town finishing the railing details on the cedar deck.  Wednesday we set the 6X6 posts, put up the box and hung floor joists.  Yesterday Jonah and I put in railing posts, formed out the cement stoop and installed the decking.  Balducci cut the 3 stair stringers.  Very hot Tuesday and Wednesday.  It rained Wednesday night and Thursday morning, but not enough to interfere with work.  We've landed in the right neighborhood.  At least 5 people have approached us with potential porch jobs.  I'm somewhat getting over that anxiety of where my next paycheck will come from.   However there’s always something to fret about.

Karla called Wednesday night and seemed taken aback that I've been in town a week without calling.  She said, "I really like being with you, and I just wanted to say I like you a lot... There I said it."  I felt absolutely nothing, like I was a machine.  Balducci and Jonah both say I'm going to experience a delayed reaction.  Maybe when I see her.  The whole New York story is constipated way back inside me, so maybe I’ll just dole out a few highlights.

Driving there Balducci tells me about a time at art school in New York when he went to a party and got himself pretty wasted,  and on the way home walked into this bar where everyone was black.  The thing to do, he tells me is to be cool and act like everything‘s perfectly normal.  He ordered a beer, and this woman started talking to him.  They had some drinks together and he asked her if she wanted to leave.  He didn't want to take her back to the dorm-- to far to walk,  so she took him back to her place, which turned out to be a totally bombed-out project.  5 or 6 brothers were standing in front of the building.  Up eight or ten flights of stairs to her room, stopping on the landings where she started blowing him.  In the room she gives him a rubber and says, "put it on... hurry up.  Come here.  Fuck me.  Fuck me! "   Very coarse and direct.

"So I'm pumping away," says Balducci.  "Fucking whiskey dick of the century, and then I hear all this noise in the hallway, and I start to get paranoid.  She gets totally indignant and says to me, 'nobody's gonna hurt you, white boy.'   I'm too freaked out at this point, so I jump up and put on my pants and bolt out of there, sacred shitless.  There's a crowd of brothers standing in the hallway.  My fucking heart is pounding.  I took a few casual steps, down the stairwell and then I start running.  Down the stairs, out the front door, across the parking lot.  I don't even know if I'm being chased,  I just keep on running until I'm a good ten blocks away.  Does that make me a racist?” he says.   “No, it just makes me stupid.”

We drove to new York in 3 or 4 shifts, taking turns sleeping in the back of the van.  It was like sleeping in a goddamn boxcar, with the road punching up at you through the floor.  I remember Balducci woke me up at a Burger King somewhere in Pennsylvania.  We ate breakfast, and after about ten minutes on the road my bowels started going berserk.  I was all set to just do it on the side of the road, but I held out till Balducci found an exit.  Gas station.  I  piled out of the van and just made it into the bathroom.  The trap door let loose.  Not pretty.

            Arrived in Manhattan around 1:30 in the afternoon.  Parked the Van in Sarah's pay lot and wandered around waiting for her to get off work.  Checked out a few bookstores, had a beer.  Balducci bought these books at the Dover store on techniques of old master painters.  He's been really obsessed with all that lately.  Trying to mix up different glazes, egg tempera, etc.  Yesterday before we left I went into the garage and there was the funk of death in there from rotten eggs in his trash pile.

Depressing shitty day.  Balducci was gone last night helping to move Helmut out of his apartment, and he didn't come back till 10:30 this morning.  I lazed around, couldn't get out of bed.  Then Jonah was late, and we didn't get to the job site till noon.  Balducci was totally disorganized, and I spent most of the afternoon with my thumb up my ass waiting for him and Jonah to get the stair stringers leveled.  Around 3:30 I started getting spaced and lethargic from hunger.  Balducci says he wants me to do some bullshit busywork task, and I mention that I'm hungry, and he starts in with his coach Ditka routine, telling me when we build the house I'll have to get used to hard work. 

“Jesus, I can't even get four hours out of you,“ he says.  And then he mentions how he doesn't mind splitting the money with me on this job, but... Like he's doing me some kind of favor and carrying me on his back.  I instantly despise anyone who holds shit like that over my head.  If he's stupid enough to split the money 50/50 with somebody like me who's green as hell, then he deserves whatever headaches he gets.  Basically I was depressed and moped all afternoon, ignoring him, carrying this ball of anger.  He was right about me being spaced, but what does he expect.  There was nothing for me to do but stand around bored in the sun.  He gets frustrated, and as soon as I show any sign of vulnerability, he blows his stack and takes it out on me.  I was knotted up and depressed for hours and even now,  hours later I still want to scream.

            Going out with Karla tomorrow, I guess.  Hope I don't have to work.  Balducci's going to the David Bowie concert with Jonah and Helmut, so maybe he'll want to just take it easy.  They invited me way back when they bought tickets, but it cost something like 80 bucks.

Woke up depressed, still in my filthy work clothes, backache, my room a total mess, Napoleon nagging me, yapping for food.  I'm still angry with Balducci.  I realize I do have to grow up here, but I feel paralyzed.  I've got a world of major flaws, so shoot me.  One thing's for sure, if I don't start back on the book soon everything will get worse.  It's the only thing that gives me any sense of accomplishment. 

Balducci's not up yet, and I don't know if we're working today.  Hopefully not.  Supposed to call Karla, but this gray, slow motion weight makes me just want to blow it off.  And also I have no money.  Balducci still hasn't deposited the check from the deck job, so I have to keep asking him to dole out cash.  After yesterday I'm obviously not wild about asking him for anything.   I shouldn't be such a mope here though.  Last night wasn't bad at all, and he really did try to smooth things over, cracking jokes, etc.  But I just hate feeling so dependent, owing him all this money, living in his house, working under him.  And I thought I'd be learning carpentry by leaps and bounds.  The truth is everything comes very slowly, and you only learn after making stupid, wasteful mistakes.  Plus Balducci engineers his own share of foul-ups.  He does have a fearless attitude though, which I definitely need to cultivate. I'm convinced now the best way to learn any skill is on your own.

New York continued….

The day we got there we met Sarah around 3:00 and drove through major gridlock over to Queens (some kind of house sitting gig) where we spent the night.  Sarah was just back from the dentist and she was utterly whacked out on pain medicine.  She had a prescription for codeine, "just in case" which Balducci and I were immediately covetous of, but we were unable to convince her to have it filled.  Took a nap, and then showered and changed. 

We went to dinner at some Irish-type tavern.  Janie met us there.  Honestly kind of a let down at first, because I was expecting someone a little bit more attractive.  But she was cute enough, and actually it took the pressure off me, and I stopped worrying about having to impress her.  Not that I wasn't nervous though.  When Janie went to the bathroom Balducci leaned across the table and said to me, "if I was you,  I'd be tossing back that beer and going for twelve more."

            After dinner we walked back to the house, stopping off at a tiny park. Laid in the grass and got eaten alive by mosquitoes.  On the front stoop of the house we were met by the bigggest, fattest cat in all of creation.  Sarah sat down next to him.  "How did you get outside, Possum, you naughty, bitty kitty." 

"Bitty kitty? said Bladucci.   You outta call him the Hulk!"

 We drank some wine and flipped through the TV channels, and then Balducci and Sarah went upstairs to bed, and Janie said good night.  They had me respectably set up on sofa bed.  I was vaguely hoping Janie might come back down, but we'd just met, and there was the whole weekend to get something started.  But then after half an hour or so she called down from upstairs, "Hello?" and she appeared on the landing in her nightshirt. 

            "I just can't sleep without something to read, " she said, and began browsing the bookcases. 

            She was looking through various books, Shelly, other antique poetry, medieval stuff-- The Pearl.  She came over and sat on the bed with me.  We tried to "translate" some middle English, and worked into chitchat about various books.  After a good hour of that I got up the nerve to lean in and kiss her. 

"Is this a birthday present?" she said. 

            We made out a while, and then at some point she said, "I really don't want to be alone up there," making it sound like there were spiders or prowlers or something.  I suggested she stay downstairs with me, since the bed was larger.  And that was that.  Honestly, I did get turned off by her at first, and I thought about tactfully bailing, because she started getting simpy.  She doodled on my chest with her finger and asked me, "what sign are you, anyway?  I'm a Gemini, and I get along with Cancer...."  But what the fuck, I didn't drive all the way to New York to meet Miss Perfect. 

The next morning Balducci and Sarah left early, and Janie and I went out to breakfast at a place called the King George, and then we took the subway back to Manhattan.  We spent the day walking around, shopping for party stuff, and then screwing several times.  There’s a great view of the Jersey coast from her bedroom window and the Maxwell House Coffee sign.  And down the street is the Atlas Meat Market, which is a transvestite hangout.  We watched them hustling everyone who stopped at the light. 

            I met her parents, but it was very casual.  She needed some kind of platter from them and a punch bowl set.  I was just the guy with her "schlepping" things.  We kept forgetting stuff, and she sent me out to get a light bulb at Blausteins Hardware on  7th Avenue and Bleeker.  Saw TV Robert Wagner walking down Hudson Street, suitcoat over his shoulder, looking extremely sunburned and liquor bloated.

Last night I went with Karla to see Dr. Hangout's Nelson Algren one-act.  Decently paced, believable acting.  The music was fine, but the words came across wooden to me.  No sense of poetry.  Also I had a problem with the whole shifting point of view nonsense.  Dr. Hangout was wearing a gray silk suit and black polo shirt, very suave, I have to admit, even for an aging hipster.

            Afterwards we had a burrito at Arturos.  Karla went to the ladies room and broke in on a teenage Mexican boy and  50 year old hooker.  When they came out all his buddies cheered. The hooker sat at the table with them and the boy had his arm around her like they were going steady.  Some manhood rite of passage thing.  Went to Helga's birthday party.  Her white trash sisters and brothers were there, and it was generally a low-life crowd.  Did enjoy Melvin though, talking about how his drunk sister Abby went through 12 cars in 10 months.  Amber and Stuart were there.  Stuart just got fired from his teaching job.  He's a might freaked out, but I think generally relieved. 

“Those little monsters can rot in hell,” he said, passing a joint to me in the kitchen.  “Not that I really wish that on them, but the whole situation is hopeless.  Unless someone gets serious and takes a blowtorch to the entire school system, nothing’s going to change.”    

I don't understand Karla at all.  I'm beginning to think she must be a dyke, or at least a troubled bisexual.  Drove her home and as usual she didn't invite me up.  Came back here and drank several beers with Balducci-- work argument anxiety dissolved.  He was saying I should go out with Karla one last time and just push it.  "Just ask her point blank if she wants to screw and if she says no, then tell her to fuck off."

We  worked today from noon till 4:30, slapping up lattice, and railings.  ( I just remembered, I had a dream last night where some woman was correcting my pronunciation of lattice, telling me I should say lattice and not laddice. )  I drove out to Kimball Heights afterwards for Father's Day barbecue, more beer.  Bought my dad a book about WW II.  Afterwards I was going to ride along with them to take my sister back to college,  but I fell asleep, and they quietly packed up and left without me. 

When I stumbled in around midnight, Balducci was sitting Indian style on the floor in his underwear, talking on the phone to Sarah.  He hung up immediately and started right in on me about calling Janie.

 "Why haven't you called her?  She'd really like to hear from you.  Man, you need to stop wasting your time with this Karla chick.  Janie's a sure thing.   I mean, you know you're going to get laid with her.  Nothing serious, no bullshit, just fucking and a good time.  What more could you ask for?" 

So I called her and said I'd like to see her,  and  I hope she's driving out here with Sarah.  I even volunteered to pay half her airfare in the event she needs to return to New York early.  Because I think Sarah plans on staying a week.  The whole time on the phone with her I could hear Sarah rattling around in the background, so obviously the entire thing was organized.  It was just necessary to Janie that she be asked.  Whatever.   After all the bullshit craziness with Karla,  it's nice to be appreciated.

Just back from work.  Sanded down the banisters, caulked holes, etc.  Balducci's going to make the post caps and complete the finish work, and that should be it.  Only making $200 as it turns out. The materials turned out to cost more than we planned, especiallt the railings.  But averaged with the deck job, these last 2 weeks have been more than profitable.  Yesterday we looked over a porch down the street for this woman, and hopefully we'll get that job.

            I should be majorly hungover, but mostly I'm just tired.  Balducci and I barbecued last night with Jonah, Sean and Helmut.  Helmut was telling some hilarious episodes about his folks.  He's moved home for a month, then he's moving to Texas for new job.   Helmut said his folks are obsessed with food.  They hover over him, asking, "well, is it good?"  If he says, "Fine, mom, it's great," she starts denigrating it, saying how it needs such and such, it's undercooked, or it's not nearly as good a cut of meat as last week's roast.  And if he makes a criticism, she blows up and gets extremely defensive.  His folks are both retired and drive each other crazy, nothing to do but annoy each other.

            Got high and drank umpteen Old Styles, the ICBM variety.  I passed out around 1:00.  Balducci and Helmut went to bars till 3:00.  I talked to Sarah briefly.  Janie's going to take the train here later in the week, and they'll drive back to NYC together. I was pretty enthused, and Sarah was telling me that Janie definitely seems to like me, and then I immediately got paranoid. 

            Karla left a message this morning saying she wanted to see me tonight.  I'm absolutely not into it.  Let her call again.  Maybe these stalls and false starts with her are the reason I'm so dead frozen right now and unable to feel anything.  Plus Janie-- the two relationships contrapuntal, fucking up my circuits.               

New York continued…

The party was a triple-bill for Janie and this friend of hers with a deformed hand named Gideon (he's supposedly appearing in GQ this month), and some other woman, Judy something.  Drank a decent amount but wasn't at all buzzed.  The stress of meeting all those new people pretty much burned it off me.  Janie's bother and new wife were there.  Everyone claims he's some kind of Mensa type, but he didn't impress me much. 

There was guy who looked like Norm Abrams there.  His girlfriend, Helene looked remarkably like Toni.  Met this art student named Liz, friend of Janie's.  Sort of exotic looking, Asian/Mexican.  Gorgeous eyes.  She was the only person there who was honestly dressed down, a fact Balducci took me aside to mention.  We were both talking to her, kind of flirting but when she found out we were "the guys from Chicago," things cooled off.  Also she had a neurotic manner about her, and was semi-kidding about having gone through a nervous breakdown last year. 

            Balducci said something today which I don't want to forget regarding Cabbie Collins.  He said, "Collins believes in having problems.  He's the kind of person who's always got something bothering him that he really needs to talk about."  This set me wondering if maybe there's this glitch in my programming I need to constantly perturb in order to cope with the world.

            Anyhow, back to the New York party.  We all went out onto the roof at one point, and there were fireworks over New Jersey.  Janie was wearing black silk pants and a burgundy silk blouse.  I could see black lace at her neckline and arms.  I came up from behind and pulled her into me and said how anxious I was for everyone to leave so I could get her clothes off.  Subtly grinding her ass into me, she said, "I know what you mean." 

I was very conscious of orchestrating the whole event, trying to make things romantic, and at the same time wondering to myself, am I feeling anything?  But I don't want to sound too neurotic, because everything was basically relaxed and unserious, and we were both just horny and trying to have a good time.

Around 2:00 in the morning, Balducci and Sarah left and drove back to Queens.  Everyone else pretty much left en masse.  I was already in bed, but Janie said we should clean up.  I balked at the idea, but helped anyway, (and in the end it was a good idea, because the next morning I was grotesquely hungover from mixing sangria, scotch and beer and in no mood for anything).  She came to bed in her underwear, black lacy bra and panties.  I remember talking dirty to her, pumping into her endlessly, drunk, both of us getting very worked up.  She was breathing hard, and very faintly, shyly, she said, "oh, give it to me."  Seriously.

The next morning like I said, I was hungover.  Janie went to brunch with her brother, and I lazed around the apartment writing postcards and reading Swimming to Cambodia.  Went to take a walk but realized I had no keys.  I was pissed off at Janie for stranding me, but I got over it.  When she came back we walked around Soho, looked at this zen sand painting mandala exhibit, and went to the Keith Haring store.  Back to the apartment and went to bed.  She said, "I like you," and I said it back, in a sort of well gee, thanks manner, but it made me nervous all the same.  (And thinking about it now makes me cringe.) 

            After sex sleep we went out to dinner and then saw the Sandra Bernhardt movie.  Joey Ramone himself was there in the theatre lobby looking like someone out of a time warp.  Same red John Lennon glasses, stringy hair, bad posture.  Janie and I held hands a lot and walked around arm in arm like we were a definite couple.  It felt very good, and charged my batteries,  but I worried about what exactly she was thinking.

            Monday,  the last day there,  Janie had to get up early for work.  I stayed naked in bed, and watched her dress.  Said good morning, very casual, telling her to remember there's a naked man in her bed.  Balducci and Sarah didn't come out of the bedroom till after 1:00, but I didn't care, because I was deep into Spaulding, mon. 

            Balducci and I loaded up the van, and we were all set to leave, but neither of us was in the mood to start driving, so we went to breakfast and then to MOMA and checked out the Bacon show.  Finally left around 3:00.  Balducci pulled a maniac maneuver, cutting off this huge line of turning cars in order to get on the bridge.

Rainy, humid, overcast.  No work today, the Roscoe Village porch all but finished.  Balducci wrote me a check for my share, which turned out to be only $125.  We had agreed to pay Jonah by the hour, and he was seriously counting on the money ($350), so Balducci and I took an even deeper cut. 

            Neighborhood kid came over and annoyed Jonah and I as we were microcooking lunch.  Shaquille, (the same kid I saw months ago getting whacked and running between buildings to cry).  Big kid, says he's 11, yet only in 4th grade.  I think he must be learning disabled.  Definitely needs discipline.  Kept going into all the food, asking for cookies, soda, etc., till I told him to go home, or rather to go outside and bother Balducci-- who sent him our way in the first place.  He usually asks for work, and helped me cut the grass a while back, but since it's rainy, he just wanted to sit around and be entertained.  All the other kids are still in school, but he goes to a private school, already out for the summer.  He needs some serious big brother, Ditka treatment, but I'm simply not in the mood.

            Tried writing to Janie, but Peggy Lee on the stereo sucked out all my motivation, made me depressed and thinking about Toni.  Maybe I'm just sifting through all my old agonies for distraction-- to avoid working on the book.  I'm close to returning to it though.  I can feel it just below the surface, under a thin sheet of ice.  But I can't expect the opening to just appear before me, I have to punch through.

            Last night I walked down to the lake, crossing Lake Shore Drive at Fullerton, then South to the North Avenue bridge and then back over, a good 5-6 miles.  Felt extremely very zombie-like, a thin, energetic person floating lost, connected to the mask only at the eyes.  Oddly, I was not at all tired though, until the last mile.    

            Played phone tag with Karla, though honestly I wasn't trying very hard to reach her.  I don't feel anything for her now, except maybe submerged anger-- this urge to violate her.  Her indecisiveness brings this out in me.  Or maybe it's just my whiny adolescent expectations.  Whatever.  All I know is a month ago I was dying to call her, see her, twisted in knots by her sexual teasing/denying, and now I'm just plain bored.  Thinking a lot yesterday about how this little thing with Janie distracted me from the big picture of impending loneliness.  I guess that's why I hang on to Karla even though the relationship's stillborn.  I know I have to keep in motion, but where to turn next?  Maybe take a night class or something.  Had the urge to beat off a few minutes ago, but that mysteriously faded.  Decided instead to take a walk.  

Down Milwaukee, turned south at Noble, then to Augusta.  West, cutting past Stuart's building at Paulina.  His new deck is a major eyesore.  Structurally sound I suppose, but amazingly butchered-- nails bent over, rickety railings, oddball patched together decking.  Ruins the whole patio area.  I stopped and talked to the Chainsaw Artist-- he seemed cordial enough. 

Balducci's working on his lead skull sculpture out in the alley.  Has his belt sander on it's side clamped to a sawhorse, grinding away excess.  I have no motivation whatsoever to write.  Maybe drink beer and read Pepys.  Maybe just sleep.  Indiana Dunes tomorrow.  Taking the train with Sean and Jonah.  Hike, lay around and get high, shoot some photos.  Maybe write to Janie from there.  Hopefully back in time to take Lilly to the movies.  Napoleon's asleep in my underwear drawer.  He's been going out nights again, using my bedroom window.

The idiotic pattern of my life seems very clear lately.  Avoid hard work, avoid fear, seek entertainment.  Balducci's been on my back lately, telling me he feels like a parent.  Yesterday I didn't want to drive (which is the case 90% of the time).  We came out of the house and Balducci said, "you're driving."  I told him I was almost out of gas and we'd have to stop, etc., and that would make us late.  We were going to bid a job at Lincoln and Irving Park.  He drove, and bitched at me th entire way, "Jesus Fucking Christ, I'm always driving, and you make me feel like a dick because I have to ask you.  Why don't you just offer to drive."  We had the same scene the other day about running out of toilet paper.  He bought the last umpteen rolls (his mother did actually), and he was pissed that I didn't just go out for some when we ran out. 

            It's all connected to some core of childhood fear that I'm nursing.  Or my father.  My urban fear, fear of new people, new jobs, driving, traffic.  My inability to get out of bed, my disgusting beer physique, my weather fronts of depression, gridlock of indecision, my loneliness.  I can't write because whenever the ice gets thin and I'm close to making the choice, I choose some distraction.  One entertainment leads to another and weeks go by.  I keep thinking I should go back to therapy.  But if I do that so soon, without really digging in and at least trying to hack it....  Maybe I should start by committing myself to one hour of writing every night-- or to completing one chapter say, per week.   And setting up minimum housekeeping standards regarding laundry, groceries, whatever. 

Christ I hate this gloomy, overcast weather we're having.  It makes me want to tear my head off.  Going to the movies this afternoon with Lilly.  Went last night with Balducci and the Pug.  Met Helmut and this Asian girl, and hit some bars.  Sarah arrives today for a week and a half.   Probably start this new drywall job Monday, working with Jonah. Straight $10 per hour.  Try writing at night.

I came home from the movie, and Sarah was here.  The three of us went to dinner in Chinatown (I drove), and on the way home briefly toured downtown.  Returned home.  Balducci and Sarah went to bed, and I took a walk, thinking of dropping in on Jonah and Sean, but their lights were off so I just walked around the neighborhood.  This strange couple rode by on bicycles down Milwaukee Ave.  Black man, older, junkie-looking. Blonde girlfriend, pretty, long hair, a little dumb and hard.  Both riding 50's bicycles, super decorated with reflectors, shiny chrome, handle bar streamers, both unnaturally happy looking. 

Bought a six-pack and the Sunday paper.  When I came in the door I could hear major grunting and groaning, so I turned on the porch light and sat outside reading the paper and drinking.  Watched the cat play next door in the grass.        Read ther letter Sarah had given me from Janie.  Mostly a rundown of her activities, a dream, and an update on her reading of Fanny Hill.  But there was one peculiar bit: 

I am looking forward to seeing you, but you've got to admit, it's a truly weird arrangement.  Ours is not to question, however, Sarah has determined how things are to be.

I guess both of us are nervous about where this whole thing's going-- or better stated, nervous it might actually be going somewhere.  But talking to Sarah, it all seem pretty cut and dried. The long distance situation makes a real relationship impossible, plus the religion thing.  So like she said, it's basically been determined by Sarah that we're supposed to have a good time, screw, etc., and then let it fade out.   She said to me, "just be a man.  Fuck her and blow her off."

5:30 a.m.   How the hell I'm actually awake at this hour is a mystery, except maybe I'm just nervous about starting the new job.  The client, Dick Strokeme is pretty uptight, and when we went the other day to check out the site, he was on the phone playing bigshot.  Balducci was wandering around the studio and he whistled to him and pointed, like, hey get back here and stand still.  Then he took us down the stairs to the foyer, barking out instructions, "rock this, this and this, tear this out, bead this, fir that out."

He talked about eventually having us put in a new floor in the lobby.  "Yeah, you just bolt a 2x6 to the wall, run your joists, slap down some plywood. It's not rocket science."  Again this is the age old ploy used to suck you into a small, dogshit job.  The promise of some future juicy project.  Strokeme is a short guy, balding, semi-athletic, wearing a University of something sweatshirt.  He kept disappearing every couple of minutes to answer the phone, and Balducci confided he wasn't interested in working for him. 

"This guy's a joke, completely full of shit.  But if you want the money, go for it.  You can borrow the van." 

Met with Karla last night and it was pretty mutual that we break it off, or rather put a dead horse to rest.  I had been talking about the situation earlier with Balducci and Sarah, saying that aside from the fact she's attractive and I like being seen with her, she really doesn't have much to offer.  She's annoyingly indecisive, not all bright, mediocre taste, mediocre conversation, etc.  Plus the fact there's been no sex to speak of after 2 whole months. 

Sarah advised me to definitely blow her off, "hey, if you ever did get her in bed she'd probably be totally inhibited anyway." 

I was going to do that, not call, but then I was thinking that just about every girl I've ever broken things off with I've done that, and I've always felt shitty about it.  So I said to myself, go ahead and call her, see what she wants to do today, and if it sounds boring, just tell her no.  And after resolving that, I was even more comfortable with the idea of breaking it off-- talking it out with her.  So I called, and we agreed to take a walk around 5:00.    Went for a bike ride down by the lake.  Gay Pride Day, thousands of people everywhere.  I was thinking how Balducci and I had walked through a massive throng at Belmont Harbor last summer, and realized shit, a fucking year has gone by already.  Called Karla from a pay phone around 5:00.  Had to wait in line behind half a dozen black queens.  She said she needed to shower, and to come over in 45 minutes, so I continued riding my bike all the way past Foster Beach and then back again.    

            She seemed kind of nervous when she came to the door, hair messed up, just out of the shower, no makeup.  Offered me a beer and we sat talking a while about the literature class she's teaching, and she asked my advice about short stories to use.  We took a walk by the lake, and stopped at the Waveland Cafe for a sandwich and beer.  Sat on the grass because all the tables here full.  By way of getting things rolling, I asked her what was up with her and Eric, had she been seeing him pretty seriously again, and she said "yeah, and I kinda wanted to talk to you about that." 

We started walking again, further north, and then cutting back behind the golf course.  I told her lately things seemed pretty boring, that she seemed preoccupied, disinterested.  We don't have much to talk about, etc.  She said she was seeing Eric once a week or so, outside the office, and although he hasn't made any kind of commitment to her, he has stopped seeing his old girlfriend.  And she's still waiting for this idiot.  If nothing happens by her birthday, she says she'll have to "seriously evaluate" the whole thing.

            All this went pretty much in one ear and out the other, but I felt a trace of some emotion, which I was glad for.  I told her that of course I was a little jealous, but I hoped things worked out for her.  I was anxious to just get out of there.  Also, after 2-3 beers I really had to piss.  There was some kind of barge/dock behind the golf course with two tugs moored to it, and I spotted a porta-john.  But when I walked onto it, this no-neck with a badge, sunglasses, drinking a beer, talking to a bunch of other losers said "excuse me, sir, but I'll have to ask you to come down offa there."  I said would he mind if I used the porta-john, and he paused to let the vocabulary register in his waterlogged pea brain.  Then he said, "no...(but politely)  I'm sorry, sir.  I can't let you do that." 

So, I waited for a lull in the traffic and I pissed against the stone wall of the golf course.  We went back to her building and she asked would I walk with her to the Jewel.  I walked my bike, not talking much.  Said goodbye in front of the Jewel, and we kissed.  I got on the bike, and she said, "be careful."  I sort of laughed and rode off.  Out the corner of my eye I got a flash of her still standing there.  I waved, and I know she was still standing there watching me as I rode away, though I was very self-conscious of not looking back.

Met Balducci and Sarah at the Biograph in the evening and saw DICK TRACY. Turned out to be amazingly good-- Beatty, Pacino, Hoffman.  Built up nicely, but the ending was truncated.  Still far better than BATMAN, though I would have made the "I always get my man," sequence louder, more in close-up, Liza-esque.  It seemed too assembled and unpassionate, linear.  Sarah fell asleep during the last five minutes, and Balducci and I had to run down the ending for her.  Went for ice cream afterwards.  Thinking how I could have several drinks, beer in the fridge, but decided to just feel a little shitty instead of starting the new job tomorrow with a headache and behind the 8-ball.  Resolved to make a clean start in general.  Starting back on the book definitely soon.

Beyond exhausted.  I don't feel sleepy, but I know I'm totally run down based on my level of crankiness.  Must be keeping awake on residual brain drugs.  Plus I haven't had jack shit to eat since lunch which consisted of a leftover taco from Arturos.  Worked all day muscling drywall.  Ten foot sheets of 5/8 onto a 14 ft ceiling.  For the last three days Jonah and I have been framing out Dick Strokeme's foyer, and today we started the drywall.  Tore down the ceiling over the stairs, and two feet above it are the floor joists for upstairs.  Strokeme wants to tear out all those studs and lath, and raise the ceiling.  More work, more money.  Making about $80 per day.  Jonah and I come home filthy as miners from all the ancient soot and plaster dust.  Today worked from 10:00 till 7:00, and if that wasn't enough, we formed out 2 of the 3 walls for Dr. Hangout's basement addition-- in the dark, humping away with plywood and 2X4's till almost 11:00.   

Depressing shit Tuesday.  Woke up for work, and was taking a shower when someone knocked on the back door.  First I thought it was Jonah and called out, "what do you want?"  No answer, so I wrapped myself in a towel and went to the door.  It was Carmelita telling me someone had just broke a porch window, and the garage has been broken into... and look, over there next door, somebody's broken into their car.  Three houses in a row were hit, ours, X-ray's, and the Henson's.  I didn't lose anything, but they hit Balducci terribly.  Sawzall, hammer drill, boombox, an entire tray of paints, but worst of all, his slide projector with slides, and several sketchbooks.  What the fuck good are sketchbooks to them? They probably took one look and tossed them in the trash laughing like lowlife assholes. 

            That night a bunch of us walked over to Alderman Nero's house on Bell Street.  He wasn't home though, supposedly in meetings till late.  We left a message with his daughter, and asked if he'd come over, but he never showed.  Last night X-ray came by saying the Alderman's office had called and agreed to meet with us... a month from now.  Big deal.  Dr. Hangout was in his back yard, and he called over, "you watch yourselves, that Nero is one slippery dude."

Steiglitz saw us standing around and came over the fence.  X-ray rehashed the Nero story to him, and he nodded.  "This kind of shit occurs in cycles.  I guess it's that time again.  Georgia keeps saying we need to beef up the security around here."

After a few minutes of awkward small talk, Balducci said, "look, I'm sorry things got so weird the other day.  I don’t know what happened."

Steiglitz said, "forget about it.  You were on an art high.  I've been there." 

It was all very manly and everyone was relieved that the tension between them was resolved.  All the same I felt like I was going to have some kind of nervous breakdown the entire time.  Afterwards Balducci showered and went to Helmut's.  Sarah, Jonah and I got stoned and sprawled on the couch and watched FRANCIS on the betamax. 

July

Just back from getting a haircut.  Going now to the Biograph, meeting Lilly to see DICK TRACY again.  I need to sit down and fill in all my notes.  Still have a few items yet from the New York trip. Janie's coming in a few days, and I'd like to have all my shit in a row. 

Awake from post-work nap.  Came home filthy once again.  Cut away Dick Strokeme's ceiling above the stairs, a hundred years of soot raining on my head.  Bashed out lath and cut back petrified 2x4's.  Then framed out the new wall height.  Strokeme loaned out Igor the Russian to help.  He's only been here 3 months.  He told me a story today how his great-grandfather came to America, I guess before the revolution.  Was going to bring the rest of the family over.  He returned sickly and died soon after.  I think "little" is the only adjective he knows.  Little hit, little push, little lunch, etc.  He's actually quite educated and claims to have studied at the Hermitage.

Igor and I shared our lunches.  I offered him celery and peanut butter, neither of which he'd ever seen.  Strokeme was on my ass about working slow, but at the end of the day he was chirping how great everything looked.  You have to see his mood as wave phenomena, and realize how his morning asshole behavior will soften by late afternoon. 

            Janie's arriving Wednesday.  Hopefully all the drywall will be up, and I'll be able to take some days off with her.  Very lonely, horny these days.  I hope I don't make a fool of myself with her, get too emotional.  Jonah won't be back till July 15 or so, and I have the run of his place.  Maybe take Janie over there a couple nights.  Dr. Hangout all of us to a 4th of July party in Evanston.  Pause.  He also wants to know if I'll complete Jonah's aborted concrete form work.  I'm basically over committed, but who knows.  Obviously I can use the money. 

Balducci and I ate dinner at White Castle elbow to elbow with that amazing loser lowlife crowd.  We watched this old guy shovel back close to a dozen sliders, and then he took out a huge bottle of Maalox from a paper bag and took a long chug.  He looked at us and held up the bottle and grinned, sporting a chalky Maalox mustache and said, "yep, that's the one."  For no reason in particular, we were talking about high school yearbooks and the fact that he never ordered one, ever, (though his parents did).  Balducci told me that when he was in high school he came home and found his Senior picture, just arrived, framed and sitting on the mantle.  He said the sight of that filled him with such incredible hostility, that he smashed it in the fireplace and tore the picture into tiny pieces.

Hot, hot, hot, yesterday- 105 in the shade.  4th of July.  Janie and I walked to Arturo's for lunch and nearly died of sunstroke.  Saw this insane guy on Moffat in a lawn chair, white, pale as a fish drinking a beer and coating himself with baby oil.   Went to the picnic that evening in Evanston, hosted by a physics professor from Northwestern.  Dr. Hangout's referred to him as his “business partner.”  Talked to this bass player named King Tut from Caine Whammy, who used to be in Indigo.  At one point Magda was translating for this German woman who was explaining something about there being 27 dimensions. 

I got canned by Dick Strokeme.  We came home last night after the party, and he’d left a message on the machine.  Sounding very clinical, that he was "electing to terminate" the job where it was, because he wasn't "enthusiastic about the pace" I was keeping.  On the one hand I'm fucking ecstatic to be rid of the bullshit job, on the other I feel like a loser for being fired.  But at least there wasn't a serious argument, conflict, whatever.  Janie and I drove over there this morning and collected a check for $200.  I’m a little worried about money again, but I talked to Dr. Hangout and agreed to finish the concrete form work Monday, and he even advanced me $100.  Of course literally five minutes after ironing that out, Hangout waltzed into our kitchen to hook Balducci and myself into another of his screwloose adventures.

Typical Hangout scenario involving moving a goddamn piano from Wrigleyville to his garage studio.  The three of us piled into Balducci's van and drove over to Milwaukee and Western, across from Burger King to pick up Byron Soda.  How he’d talked him onto this project I don’t know, but Hangout has a knack for that kind of thing.  Byron was standing on the corner eating a burrito.  He was wearing white painter’s pants, army boots and a flaming pink silk shirt.  Byron got in the passenger seat, forcing Hangout to climb in back.  As we crossed the bridge Hangout brought up the story of those drunk kids who drowned the other night in the river.  Their little boat capsized and they were sucked under.  This served as a handy intro to the oft-repeated story of how he fell off the end of a peer at Lake Geneva as a kid and nearly drowned himself. 

"I was thrashing wildly, sinking.  My lungs were filling up, and I had the sensation I was gong to die.  A stranger, a salesman rushed into the water and pulled me out, ruining his Rolex watch.  A point, I might add, my mother never fails to mention, even to this day."

            Then Balducci told the story of how he nearly drowned when he was three.  I kind of imagine it like that scene in THE GRADUATE, where Dustin Hoffman comes out in the frogman suit.  Big executive cocktail party, California, martinis and finger sandwiches around the pool.  He was wearing one of those kiddie floatation rings, but for some reason he took it off and jumped in the deep end. 

            He remembers sinking in the water, but with no sense of panic, very calm, and then lying on the bottom of the pool several minutes, just looking up until he saw his mother's legs coming towards him, and her lavendar party dress gusting around her like a jellyfish.  She pulled him out and they pumped the water out of him. He remembers throwing up water. 

Dr. Hangout's piano house was just West of Racine and Montrose.  It was being rehabbed-- the walls were gutted, the wood flooring all torn up in several places, windows covered with plywood.  And then shit, we saw the goddamn piano.  It was a cream white baby grand weighing who knows, close to half a ton, maybe more.  We spent a good half hour just trying to get the legs off it and turning it on it's side.  After that Byron started looking at his watch. 

"I have to be in Pilsen by 4:00, " he said.  "There's no way I can get out of it.  I need to sign some very important bank papers." 

So it was up to the three of us then to get the behemoth onto a dolly and drag it out onto the porch.  After that we wrestled it off the dolly and friction slid it down the stairs on a plywood ramp, (my idea.) Down the sidewalk, up another ramp to the van.  The back door of the van is only 60 inches wide, and we had to angle the goddamn piano in midair to get it in.  Granted it was a hernia project, but it went pretty well until the final push when we fucked up the pedal housing and bent it backwards. 

And I should mention how fucking hot it was, and how we were sweating our asses off.  And how this 90 year old woman showed up and started jabbering with Dr. Hangout in German while Balducci and I were ready to slide the piano down the steps.  Balducci kept calling out, "one, two..." and Hangout kept drifting off into this conversation with the old woman, until finally Balducci called out "ONE! TWO! THREE!" and got his attention. 

            At Hangout’s request we stopped at this new yuppie bar on Damen, The Northside, for 2-3 beers.  Afterwards we were all motivationless, and decided to just force the piano all the way into the van, lock the doors and unload it later.  Hangout reached in from underneath to hold back the pedals, and Balducci and I gave a big Heave-Ho, and in doing so Hangout gouged the hell out of his finger.  He bled all over the piano.  There was a big flap of skin just hanging there.  It looked to me like he'd need stitches, but he said it didn't hurt.  Right now I'll bet he's got it elevated, and it's throbbing like a motherfucker.

Women gone at 7:00 this morning.  Balducci and I up with them to say goodbye, load the car, etc.  Breakfast at Busy Bee. Thought about reporting the details here when I got back but ended up sleeping. The last few days I've been getting anxious about relationship talk with Janie, partly because it's inevitable after all the time we've spent together and the cross country meetings.  And also because we're so touchy-feelie, holding hands all the time, sleeping in a clutch.  But nothing really happened, except this morning when she was just about to go. 

            She said, "I've had a real nice time, but I don't know when our paths will cross again."

She's going to California in 3 weeks to be a counselor at a summer camp, returning to New York in August.  She says she'll write and keep in touch, and we'll just play it by ear.  It's good this way.  It'll cool off, and maybe she'll get involved with someone else, or I will.  Because I can't see it working out.  She's just too squeamish and frail, joined at the hip to mummy and daddy, whatever.  And I hate to sound this superficial, but I'm just not all that turned on by her.  Once things get going I'm into it, but I could have easily spent the weekend without fucking her.  Really. 

            Last night was moderately weird.  She never really goes down on me, except just mild playing and licking.  So I was trying to steer her in that direction, but she stopped as usual.  I was feeling pretty irked, because she certainly doesn't mind me doing her.  We were laying there, and she said, "don't you want to make love?" 

            I was agonizing over whether I should explain this to her, because in my mind this is just a fling.  Why create a conflict?  But there was this nagging tension inside me, and I could feel how it would just surface again and screw things up.  So I asked her flat out why she never took me in her mouth and she said, "I'm afraid you might come, and you, know, that's dangerous... If you put the rubber on I'd do it."  Which I can certainly understand, her being from New York and all.  When we did screw, I started feeling very strange, like almost wanting to cry.  I honestly couldn't identify what was going on.       

It was hot last night, and we were all sweaty, and she started saying how it made her think of New Orleans.  And she told me about this time where she almost got herself killed there.  She got off a trolley several blocks early by mistake.  She was walking and things started to look very wrong.  She asked two or three people for directions, and kept getting contradictory information. All the while the sun was going setting. 

Finally, she asked two black men for directions, and one of them promptly turned away and just left.  The other guy said, "yeah, I know the way.  As a matter of fact I'm going that way, myself.  I have some business to attend to."  (I'm thinking, Jesus Christ).  So she followed him, winding up and down all these side streets as it got darker and darker out.  He was this tall skinny dude, very drugged-out looking.  A couple times he asked her, do you have any money?  And he also tried pawing at her, and she told him to cut it out.  (She didn't tell me these details till the end, probably embarrassed that I'd think she was stupid).  

When they passed some people unloading groceries from their car, she wondered if she should she go to them and ask for help.  But she was beginning to recognize the neighborhood, and feeling more confortable.  Some kids were playing around, washing a car, and she also thought about going to them, but didn't. 

Nothing happened until she was literally in front of the house she was staying at, and he asked again, "do you have any money?"  And she said, "no," and he pulled out a gun. 

"It was dark out," she said.  "And it didn't feel real to me at all.  The gun didn't even look like a gun.  I just barely saw a glint of metal.  I wasn't scared.  Actually I got mad and started yelling at him, 'Look, goddamnit, I told you I don't have any money.'  And there was a pause, where I thought, oh no, this is it.  I'm dead.  But then he just grinned at me , 'heh, heh, just a joke, honey.' And he walked away."

Yesterday was the day of the big outdoor concert Dr. Hangout had organized.  6 bands performing in the grocery store lot across from Wicker Park.  Balducci and I were harangued into playing roadies, against protests from Sarah and Janie.  We helped unload the piano from the van with help from Dr. Hangout's old road manager, Deacon Blue, his drummer, Manny, and King Tut.  Dr. Hangout stood at a safe distance, his finger still bandaged up like a huge Bugs Bunny cartoon injury.  Then we went over to Czar Bar and loaded up some PA gear.  Deacon Blue met us there and launched into this story about the days when he and Dr. Hangout were on the road together. "We stayed in L.A. at the Tropicana Motel for 3 months.  The same hotel Janis Joplin died in.  Of course not while we were there"

 We went then to this 2nd story apartment off Damen, down the alley between Rainbow Donut and the EL station.  Half a dozen drunks, bottles in bags were trying to direct us in between the trash dumpsters.  Dr. Hangout and Manny lowered some Pevey amps and more speakers down with this half-ass winch deal.  Dr. Hangout standing there with the control box in one hand and a cigarette in the other-- the bandaged one.  Balducci called him the "nicotine mover."  Drove back to the lot and unloaded the gear.  Some drummer was there, all confused, thought we were the sound engineers, asking all these dumb questions. 

"What you have to always remember," Balducci said, handing me a sno-cone, "is that musicians are in essence very stupid people." 

When all the heavy lifting was finished, Dr. Hangout showed up looking very pleased, a small ladder under his arm.  After that fiasco, Balducci and I came back to the house.  That afternoon Janie and I took a walk to the lake, stopping several times, once for a snack at Cafe Aroma on Webster Street.  Walked on the beach, Janie grossed out by dead fish. Sat on the peer a while looking towards the Oak Street beach and skyline.  Walked back as far as St. Michael's church.  After a quick look inside, we caught the bus on North Avenue.  We had dinner with Balducci and Sarah at Leona's. 

We drove by the Hangout music event afterwards and sat in the car for a few of Caine Whammy's songs.  All static and drone, but did manage to make out King Tut singing what he called his Nelson Algren tribute song.  The last line of which went something like,

"you're gonna go down in the street

with a hot dog in your guts."

Fucking Karla called Friday night and then Saturday morning-- message, asking for "a big favor."  This picture of myself as chauffeur on some idiot escapade immediately registered in my brain.  Blew her off, but when the phone rang in the middle of the afternoon I stupidly picked it up.  Somebody's mother had died, a Mrs. Colfax.   She described to me her hospital progress and decline in annoying detail.  She took a turn for the worse the day of her daughter's big bridal shower.  Her lungs filled up with fluid and she had a massive stroke to top it off.   She wanted me to drive her back to her house after the funeral.  It's pretty hard to say no with death in your face making you feel guilty.  Plus as stupid as it sounds, hearing her say, "I really wanted to see you," did something to me.  Which nonetheless makes me lose even more respect for her, since it means she's completely indecisive.  Maybe she wants to "just be friends," something I have no interest in.  And it's too late to fuck even if that's what she's planning.  The timing is so out of whack.  (I'm not ruling that out,  but then I'd have to cruelly blow her off afterwards.)  I just don't know.  I'm such a spineless idiot.

Meadow in a Can is not working out.  The back yard is scorched and looks like return of the dust bowl.

Working with Dr. Hangout the last two days, forming out the concrete walls.  Easy pace.  I call him around 10:00 a.m. and he's just getting out of bed, says to give him another 20 minutes.  First thing we go over to Smelton Hardware on Milwaukee.  The most abominable rat's nest I've ever seen, worse than SPAZCO even.  Crap piled in the aisle in boxes, open drawers crammed with junk.  Got a load of 2x4's and 3 sheets of plywood.  The old lady behind the counter screaming over and over again for Melvin, who eventually showed up as the very last 2x4 was being hauled away. 

Balducci was telling me they have a second warehouse over on Winnebago which burned down a few years ago, but they still keep skids of miscellaneous junk inside a dilapidated shed.  Piles of fly-dumped rubble everywhere.  The place looks like Bosnia. This crazy old man sits on a stool in the middle of the lot guarding the empire.  A dozen or more cats running around, most of them with eye disease.  Balducci and Dr. Hangout got twenty bags of concrete there a few weeks ago.  The old man kept saying, "ah that's monkeyshit!  It'll crumble."  In a grand, sweeping gesture, he waved an arm over piles of gravel, and sand, saying "you gotta mix it yourself, boys.  Anything else is monkeyshit!"     

On Monday Hangout and I drove out 21st and Pulaski looking for snap ties.  Extremely beat neighborhood.  The office had a bulletproof window like a currency exchange.  Dr. Hangout suggested we take a drive down Madison St. to look at the decay.  I declined.  He started telling me about the big South side race riot of 1919 and how old man Daley was the leader of this gang called the Dukers.  The Irish meatpackers were on strike and Swift brought up thousands of black sharecroppers by train.  Not a pretty story.

            Tired as hell that evening.  Had nothing to eat all day except a bowl of cereal and a peanut butter sandwich.  Came home at 6:30, drank a beer, had a microwave dinner and fell asleep on the couch.  So zonked out that the Pug came in the front door, fetched some paperwork and left without me even noticing.

            Threats of rain, but completed the long wall today.  Dr. Hangout was ready to quit after 2 hours.  This friend of his, Leo came over and was talking about Russia.  He's a Ph.D. and speaks fluent Russian and Japanese.  His wife's from Russia.  Black market stories, Army stuff, WWII.  Dr. Hangout put back 3-4 cups of tea, and by then end way gyrating his hands pretty seriously.  The two of them left for Urbus Orbis, and I worked on till 5:00 or so.  Did the math for the concrete pour-- comes to 2 cubic yards-- around $200.  Less than Dr. Hangout thought, so we may pour within a week. 

            Balducci continuing his experiments with old master techniques, tempera paints, etc.  He was mixing up his own gesso and trying it out on different canvasses, lead white and then with whiting.  I have a vivid picture in my head of Balducci scratching his head about proportions, dry measure vs. oz's, pacing the kitchen, eating a carrot.  We mixed the gesso over the stove; he poured in the whiting, and I stirred.  We went out to the garage, and I watched him coat this square canvass, 3'x3' or so.  About five minutes later Block Dog came trotting in rainsoaked with muddy paws and walked right across the canvass. 

Took a walk tonight but got caught in the rain, and cut back at St. Mary's.  Semi-motivated to get up early tomorrow and write.  Balducci's home to the suburbs and won't be back till 10:00 a.m. or so.  We're working again in Roscoe Village, replacing some stair treds that've started to warp.  Also finally installing the post caps.  Worked a good 2 hours on the book.  Edited chapters 1 & 2 for the thousandth time, but it's something. 

Tried to wake up at 7:00 to write, but just couldn't get out of bed.  Finally up around 8:30, watched some inane TV.  Balducci arose and decided to get some work done in Roscoe Village.  We went to Anzalone for lumber and witnessed this scene in the parking lot: tall skinny black guy walking across the lot with two black sales girls running behind him, orange apron's flapping.

"You get your long-legged, bony ass outta this lot." 

He gave them the finger.

"Fuck you too, motherfucker!  Get outta here, get out..." 

They badgered him all the way down the alley, a good 50 yards, while a small crowd of orange aprons gathered at the dock doors to watch.  His jaw was clenched, and his blood was boiling, and it seemed at any second he would turn around and strangle the both of them, but he just kept on walking, his anger no doubt held in check by the weight of some enormous embarrassment.

We knocked off the half a dozen punch list items in Roscoe Village.  Balducci replaced four or five warped stair treds and screwed in the post caps, and I formed out a one foot addition to their concrete stoop and poured it with bag mix.  Light duty, but all the same, I did manage to cut the cord on Balducci's circular saw.  The guard doesn't slide back, sticks half the time, and I set it down in the dirt and it gobbled up the cord.  He gave me a look, like, "you idiot."  But didn't say anything.  I pulled the blade, and sat in the yard trying to salvage the four inches of decent cord remaining, but it was a lost cause.

            Broke for lunch and drove back to Busy Bee.  The place was packed to the gills.  I sat down at one end of the counter.  This crazy-looking little Cuban guy with a pencil mustache gave Balducci his seat, but it was right next to the register, so he was the perpetual victim of flying elbows.  The Cuban stood in the doorway mumbling to himself, harrassing people as they came in, and kicking the air. 

Two cops came in for lunch, and Stella cornered them saying, "tell him to go home.  He comes in at 6:00 o'clock every morning and stays all day.  He's aggravating my customers.  He's a nuisance."  So the cops took him by the arm, quite gently I might add, and hauled him out the door.  At the last second he turned back and let out a quick burst of something in Spanish with the feel of Viva la Revolution! 

            Thin Polish waitress, dark short hair, sweet little mouth, big eyes.  Looking like Fiona without the imminent beer bloat.  Look,  I know Fiona's just a low-class bitch, but she makes my heart melt all the same.  Balducci told me about this robbery he saw last night.  He was dressed up, on his way to the EL, meeting Helmut at the Goodman Theatre to see the Gospel Oedipus deal.  He passed this strung out kid at the neighborhood center (that building with the 3D ivy-looking mural).  The guy started to follow him, and Balducci got a bit nervous thinking, what is this guy going to bug me for change, and so he picked up the pace.  But then half a block later he heard CRASH!, and breaking glass.  He looked back and saw the junkie running with a purse, down the street.  He fucking smashed a woman's car window in broad daylight and snatched her purse while she was sitting there at a stoplight. 

Balducci saw that she was crying, and he thought he should do something, maybe chase the guy, but talked himself out of it.  "Shit," he said.  "I was all dressed up.  I was on a schedule, and I wanted to get to Utrect before they closed." 

            After lunch we mixed and poured the concrete-- 5 bags.  I left Balducci to do the finish work and came home to write.  At it maybe 45 minutes before succumbing to sleep.  Up around 4:00 and worked maybe another half hour.  Balducci came in and we watched some news.  Yeltsin resigns the Communist party.  We walked over to Busy Bee again for dinner.  He was railing on Dr. Hangout and his whole anti-aesthetic schpiel.  Hangout thinks painting, and all art in general is bullshit.  All this cumbersome theoretical buildup, hipster academic demeanor.  Everything has to fit into his quasi-political, utopian framework. He did a very good Hangout impersonation, stroking his chin, "without a doubt, Graham Greene is quite possibly the greatest novelist writing in English today..."

            I'm Going to Catherine Edelman Gallery tomorrow with Lilly to see a jazz photo exhibit.  Working with Dr. Hangout, early in the morning hopefully.  He wants to pour walls Tuesday, after Jonah returns.  Finished reading the Gaddis book yesterday.  All the characters ran together into a mishmash.  I just couldn't concentrate.  Some of the Africa stuff was interesting though.  It would have worked much better as a short story.  Back to reading Money.  Watched the Voices and Visions thing on Robert Lowell last night for probably the 5th time.  I'm really sucked in by "Epilogue," but feel clueless. 

Suffering from what Balducci calls, "beer barbecue backlash."  Yesterday Jonah and I slaved from 11:00 or so till 6:00 completing Dr. Hangout's concrete forms.  Runner's high near the end, in limbo from pain, but very cranky after hours of swinging that big sledge, anchoring 2x4 braces, etc.  Jonah took a Polaroid of me standing in the middle of the flying buttress maze, and it came out pretty good. Magda was there working downstairs and offered us beers.  When we were finished we revved up the grill and invited her to eat with us, but she was on her way to see some band with Gina from Caine Whammy.  But she did give us these Italian sausages left over from Friday's party.  Dr. Hangout came home and ate with us.  He'd spent all day at "Life is Death Theatre," some improv workshop.  I expressed an interest in maybe going next Sunday, but who knows how much nerve I'll have by then. 

I drank 8-10 beers.  Dr. Hangout was saying how St Mary's hospital is after him for $380, sequella to his bicycle crash in April.  He was riding home drunk in the rain.  He turned onto Pierce from Damen and the bike went out from under him.  Didn't really feel much, picked up his broken glasses and got the bike back up, but then he started feeling woozy and saw blood everywhere.  Went home and woke up Magda and she practically barfed, so he figured it would be smart to go to the Emergency room.  They put 5-6 stitches in his forehead.  He used this insurance card long expired to get in, and has just been ignoring the bills.  Now it's turned over to some collection agency. 

They keep calling him.  The last time he said to them, "my friend, I seriously think we should work together and try to get the debtor's prisons established again, because without some kind of fear like that hanging over me, I confess I just don't feel worried about paying you people." 

We didn't get started on the forms until 11:00 or so, and we kept getting interrupted by rain.  Jonah kept going back to my house to watch the GODFATHER video, and I sat out on the back stairs reading Robert Lowell with Block Dog my feet. 

            We've been calling the gray cat, Whiner, for obvious reasons.  Yesterday while Jonah, Dr. Hangout and I were drinking and talking, Whiner sat under the rose bush, looking almost Buddha-like.  This morning he was wailing away on my windowsill and I launched him under the burglar bars into the gangway.

Sarah arrived Saturday, messengering a letter from Janie. Sounded at first like a Dear John kiss off:

                        "... I've been meaning to call since we returned home, but have an aversion to the phone, and have just been too unsettled this week.  What I wanted to say before I left Chicago + didn't, was simply the basics, which often seem to get overlooked.  Namely, I think you are a fine person…"

            After that preface, I would have expected some kind of, well, it's been nice...whatever.  But it didn't go any further.  She just meandered off talking about her trip back to New York, mid-term exams, shopping for her mother's birthday, etc.  Though I assume since everything else about our little interlude has been undefined and unspoken, the ending of it will simply follow the pattern.  There are just too many obstacles to the relationship ever working out, and there's always been a sense of distance and mutual pleasure taking.  But one or two times I remember crossing the gray void into actual emotion.  Once especially when she was stroking the back of my neck.  I felt myself slipping into chaos and was immensely hungry for it. 

Worked on the book Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, last week and hopefully I'm getting back in the swing, though I felt very lost today.  Had a horrible dream last night where I was wrestling Stretch Armstrong and Mike Sudzdorf in the grass in front of Mr. Lange's old house. They thought for sure they'd clobber me, but I had them both in headlocks, and I remember Stretch slicing his nose open, crescent, half moon cut, on the edge of the curb. 

I said something like, "hah, you losers, I'm invincible."  But then after we got up I realized one of my back teeth was loose, just dangling by a thread.  I became very morose and said, "I guess I'm not invincible after all." Stretch said the tooth was dead and I should wrap string around it and pull it.  Then he became my mother, and we were standing over the bathroom sink at home.  She reached into my mouth and pulled on the tooth and a whole mouthful of them came out with it in succession, unraveling from my gums.  I put the plug in the sink and we gathered up the teeth and put them in a medicine bottle. The whole time I felt excruciatingly depressed.

Dr. Hangout's party Friday was a major blowout.  Talked a lot with Leo.  He sat there drinking cider, and I shamelessly eyeballed his Russian wife, Valentina.  She was wearing this black, silk sleeveless blouse and had her hair done back with a scarf.  I got high with King Tut, Manny, and Magda, but don't remember really feeling stoned.  Drank heavily, spouting my opinions about lame Chicago theatre to this dizzy actress named Raindance or Reindeer or something.  I asked her to come home with me for a drink, but she said no.  I'm sure she must have thought I was a pig.  The next morning Dr. Hangout said to me, "I wish you would have stayed longer, my friend.  You were beginning to arouse the artist in me." 

I guess Magda passed out early and then woke up around 2:00 a.m. refreshed and went to a party with King Tut and Manny. Jonah went down pretty early and was asleep on the couch when I got in.  I didn't sleep very well.  I think because I let the cat out of the bag to Hangout and everyone that I'm earnestly trying to write again.  Thusly, I was forced to endure a bunch of nosy questions, and I felt extremely self conscious.  Had a dream about Toni, where we were sitting at a movie.  We were holding hands and I had this overwhelming urge to tell her that I loved her.  We were naked later on and her vagina looked stale and plastic.  I was going down on her, and she said something about her "little fishes," meaning her pussy lips.  At one point in the dream, watching the movie, there was this Omnimax-like sequence about swimming under frozen water.  And I was starting to dream within the dream-- drowning, getting faint, and I pulled myself out of it, fighting G-forces till I was safe back in the movie house with her. 

            Jonah and I walked down to the air show late Saturday morning.  It was totally overcast, and the show was a bust.  I was bored shitless, but he wanted to just stand around, watching the stupid kites and windsurfers, waiting for something to happen.  His attitude was, "well, we're down here, we might as well get as much out of it as we can." 

I was like, "Jesus Christ, I've got plenty of better things to do with my time, lets fucking go." 

That's Jonah' problem in a nutshell.  It's all part of that deadhead passivity.  He's just waiting for the house project to start, so all his time can become organized.     Of course I should spend more energy thinking about my own fucked up self and getting off my ass.  But it has to be done one brick at a time.  I do know that last week, without coffee and little beer, writing again, I felt on an even keel.  Somewhat dull and blunted, but unstressed, unguilty.  Right now, after this party weekend, I feel out of sync and washed pale.         

            Carmelita's sink trap is dripping again, and several of our kitchen ceiling tiles are brown and waterlogged.  A big fucking mess awaits around the corner.  Next week, next month.  Sooner or later the shit sky will drop in my lap.  Can't you feel it?

Dr. Hangout's concrete pour this morning went without a hitch. The truck arrived at 11:40 and was gone by 12:15.  Dr. Hangout, Jonah, Steiglitz, Balducci, King Tut, and myself in attendance.  King Tut and I humped the wheelbarrows.  Dr. Hangout guided us down the ramps and around corners, and Balducci held the splash board while Jonah and Steiglitz helped us upended the wheelbarrows.  

            Bad night sleep again.  Jonah and I engineered this great practical joke on Sarah, where we emptied out most of both tiers of her box of Margie's chocolates and hid them in a fruitcake tin.  She gets out of bed like zombie clockwork every night for candy.  But laying in bed I started to get very anxious about the aftermath.  And the joke didn't even come off.  This morning I got up and saw that the box had been disturbed, so I replaced all the chocolates.  But it turned out that Sarah got up in the night, groped for candy and didn't even notice the box was almost totally empty.

            That whole business made me lose sleep, plus last night we invited Dr. Hangout and Magda over to watch the Scorcesse thing on PBS, and several weird exchanges took place.  He was groaning through the whole program, because he has this moral thing against too much violence.  Art must save the world.  Sarah finally got annoyed and told him he was full of shit, which really sent him over the edge, complete with grand hand gestures and a door slamming exit.

            "Excuse me, but I've been employed in the business of making theatre for over 20 years.  I've worked with Cassavettes and Henry Jaglom, and I've translated Genet for the stage, so I should I think my observations contain a bit more than a trace of validity!" 

            When the dust settled, Magda remained on the couch between Sarah and Balducci.  Dr. Hangout can be a lot of fun, but he's too, too dogmatic.  He never reads anything new, and basically exists in this tiny world of leftist journals, wordy cabaret rock and anything German.  But I guess you tend to fly up your own asshole when you don't have to work for a living. To his credit he said a few nice things about BOXCAR BERTHA and KING OF COMEDY, but basically doesn't like Scorcesse at all.  Too violent, sexist, psychotic,  he says.  I'm sorry, but anyone who can't recognize RAGING BULL as the best film ever made is a fucking idiot. 

            Oddly enough he's likable at the same time because he's so selfish and such a taker.  It's a riot to stand back and watch him in action.  Totally disorganized, always scratching for cash, always dragging people into scatterbrained projects like moving that baby grand piano.  He was asking me about this "Life is Death Theatre" improv thing again today, suggesting we work off the $100 monthly dues.  The director needs a bedroom framed out in his loft.  He says it couldn't be more and a day or two's work-- which can't be right.  His plans are always laughably transparent.  Obviously he wants to tag along and play fetch while I do all the serious labor.  I can just picture him smoking a cigarette and staring out the window, or running off to make a phone call every half hour.  But I'll probably go for it anyway, even though it makes my stomach quake to think about meeting new people.     

Low powered today.  Set the alarm, but couldn't get out of bed till after 9:00.  Wrote a while and took a nap.  Awakened by Dr. Hangout around 11:30, sounding like he'd just got out of bed.  Invites me to have breakfast at Friar's Grill, which sets me to thinking, what scheme is he trying to milk my labor for now.  

            He started by asking me how my writing's going, what kind of stuff am I doing, etc.  I tell him about the play and the book. He said he's looking for someone to collaborate with, has some kind of producer status with channel 19 cable.  Algren project this, Algren project that.  The usual workers of the world unite lecture.  He went into his version of the history of Second City, his tangential relationship with Steppenwolf, all the while talking faster and faster, his forehead crinkling up.  I got this overwhelming sense of him as a man floundering-- forever putting down the germ of a project and unable to flesh it out. 

            He has a half-cooked idea for another short play about Algren, and he needs someone to do all the detail work. The whole thing sounds lame, but his access to all that video gear may definitely prove interesting.  I told him I’d think about it.  Afterwards we took a bike ride around the neighborhood.  I wasn't too anxious to get back to work, so I kept prodding him with questions about the local color, and he gave me "the 5 dollar tour," pointing out the Algren house and other famous houses: the home of a Jewish cattle baron who made a fortune selling beef to the Union Army; the WWII Polish consulate on Pierce-- gingerbread house, Paderewski once played there; the home of a German upholsterer/labor agitator/Haymarket defendant who was hung.  He described to me the enormous funeral march for the man and said it went down Milwaukee Avenue. 

            Came back to the house, and he showed me this sci-fi looking video piece he put together which he described as an “anti mass media, Marxist fable,” basically the first segment in a longer piece he never got funding to complete.  He actually has a decent presence as an actor, good voice, mannerisms.  But he has an annoying disdain for any of the technical/artistic aspects, and thinks they should be left up to someone else. 

1:00 a.m.  Just back from drinking with Jonah, Dr. Hangout and Leo.  Checked out the open mic poetry at Gallery.  The usual bullshit indulgence & bar laugh writing.  Dr. Hangout signed himself up under the name Edward Kleinwitz.  He read from Leo's notebook of Russian translations and ended with his own "The Grave of Nelson Algren."  Some drunk yelled at him to speak louder and Hangout paused, irritated, and replied, "my friend, some things are not always meant to be heard." 

I was very hot for this poet named Heather until I heard her read.  She looked amazingly like my high school girlfriend, but taller and thin hipped. Beautiful voice honestly, but an idiotic rat's nest of liberal cliches.   

Jonah and I took a major bike ride preparatory to drinking, through East Village, stopping off to look at Stuart's disaster deck, then meandering down Chicago to Noble, across the expressway, then down Huron as far as Halsted, up Superior, then zigzag to Navy pier, eventually ending up in Grant Park to watch the free symphony.  Totally wasted day otherwise.  Barely putzed with the book and ended up taking several naps.  I think the storm had something to do with it.  I was congested and in a fog until after it rained, and then my head opened up.

            Was talking to Balducci about my interest drifting from fiction. Maybe it's all this Lowell I'm reading.  Balducci says he could see me writing scripts and concentrating my "serious" energy toward tight poems, though I think he was just patronizing me.  He sees it as a cop out from finishing the book.   And he's right.  I'd feel like a complete loser if I didn't finish this one thing in my life.

Balducci awoke this morning in a maniacal frenzy and went out and rented an arc-welder.  By the time I got out of bed, he and Jonah had turned the back yard into a spark throwing Sanford and Son carnival. The two of them had gone down to Blue Island yesterday to buy the steel.  They were quoted $75 over the phone, but when they got there, some flunky took them aside, saying “just give 25 bucks cash, the boss will never know.”  And he even made out a receipt for $75, so Balducci could write it off.

            I stood on the back stoop in my bathrobe, drinking coffee, but eventually I got curious and put on some clothes and gave it a try myself.  No flames or gas canisters to worry about, but you can definitely jolt yourself unconscious if the thing isn’t grounded properly. 

Talked to Janie on the phone yesterday eve.  I was just getting interested in some piece on Macneil/Lehrer when Sarah handed me the phone, and didn't really want to talk.  Though at the same time, I would have been bummed if she'd just gone on talking to Sarah and never asked about me.  Says she's leaving for California in a few weeks and will send a few post cards.  Nothing serious, and no mention of our "relationship."   

Looks like fucking rain again.

About 6:00 a.m. X-ray sticks his head out the side door.  "Shiiit. Rain again, goddamnit!" 

Very rough sleep last night.  Stiff back and neck.  This futon needs major fluffing or something.  It's wafer thin now and hard as a goddamn blackboard.  Jonah was supposed to wake me early to finish the welding since the machine has to be back by 11:00, but I slept till after 9:00 and when I came out Balducci and Jonah were already at it.  We would have easily finished the work yesterday except that it rained all fucking day-- never more than an hour of relief at a time.  I was laughing at Balducci's V-neck bandanna looking sunburn-- caused by the welder, but this morning I discovered my forearms seriously burned as well.

All these people in my face are driving me crazy.  I simply can not work with somebody ten feet away in the next room.  Jonah is forever over here rapping on my door, calling out to me.  The other day he was bored, whistling and clanking his keys, and I yelled out, "do you have to fucking do that!"  Last night in bed I tried to read but Sarah was watching THE GHOST AND MRS MUIR on TV which made it impossible to concentrate.  Balducci and Sarah were going to go to the Indiana Dunes, but with all this rain lately, they'll probably bail.  Jonah just hit Balducci up for $500, and he's anxious to do something, wants to go to the movies and says he'll treat, but of course I have to play chauffeur and tool him over to the bank.  I just want to be left alone. 

            I probably wouldn't be this uptight if I wasn't broke myself.  I've got $90 in the bank, and my car insurance is due again-- $145, plus about $300 in other bills due in the next 2 weeks, with no jobs lined up.  Have to go to Kimball Heights tomorrow for dad's birthday.  Jonah is leaving again for New York on Sunday-- driving back with Sarah, so there will be some space and quiet around here soon. But not soon enough for my liking.

Balducci's finally introducing Sarah to his family on Saturday.  I can see keeping distance, but when you have to actually lie and hide out from them, that's ridiculous.  It could be a big tension event, Balducci wanting to be cold around Sarah, and Sarah wanting to hang out arm in arm. 

            She just got a job offer to move to Boston.  Already making 25 K, and only 25 years old.  Now they want to pay her 35 K.  Christ I could live fat and write for 2 years on that, maybe longer.  I just feel like such a loser and hate myself every morning.  Can't get out of bed, can't write, can’t get rid of this fat, do my laundry.  I'm perpetually lost.  Maybe I have a good weekend, or a few days, and then it's back in the fog.  I keep avoiding real life by indulging in bullshit fantasies-- get that drug rush for an hour or so, eat something take a nap, halfassedly read something I'll never finish, watch TV-- imagine I'm famous on the Carson show... and then another day's over, and I'm still a loser.

            Of course I have idiotic expectations.  I know in my head I have to build a life brick by brick, but somewhere I'm going hungry, or I'm paralyzed by people fear, can't make a decision, whatever, and the whole enterprise slows to a dreary trickle.  The book seems to be everything, if only I could get back to the book, but then it's money. I'm drowning in debt.  Or I'm so fucking lonely and horny, and all this maniac shit gets swirling in my head, and I just shut down and crawl into bed.  Maybe I need to go back to therapy.

            Going to try and take a walk without getting rained on, get a clear head and then boot up the book.  If I sit here much longer I'll get majorly depressed.  My neck is tingling, I'm getting that electricity taste at the back of my tongue and everything is starting to get that weird, bright, telescoped anxiety attack look.  Fuck.

Went to Kimball Heights for dad's birthday yesterday and returned this morning. The town is changing like mad.  The foundry is 99% torn down.  Drove out early to do my laundry, expecting them to be home, but they had left to take my sister back to college.  Drove to the mall and bought dad a book, London Fields.  Something I can browse through when bored there.  Felt very bleached out and blunted all day-- stiff, unenthused.

            Ran into McCarney on the way home and talked.  He's not going to the class reunion, but he said Stretch and Celia are.  I called Stretch and he invited me over.  Their baby is 3 months old.  She's very tall, has that Armstrong glare and forehead.  Drank some beers, threw darts, watched cable.  They're up to their necks in debt, in-laws, and excruciating suburban boredom.  Stretch took me out to the garage while he had a cigarette.  He asked me to go on vacation with him mid August.  Wants to drive up to Minnesota, rent a cabin and go fishing.  Stretch's never been much of a fisherman, and the entire idea is full of holes.  You need major reservations for that kind of adventure.  But he's anxious as hell to get away, hates his job, squirming under all the pressure.  I could see taking a road trip, camping out for a week, doing it on the cheap, but what he's talking sounds like big $.  It's just another one of his sporting good store romantic fantasies. 

Our Senior year he was obsessed with making this huge trip to Colorado.  He talked five or six guys into it, and every day at lunch they hashed out the details. Who was going to drive.  How much would the food cost.  What if their parents refused (they’d just tell them to fuck off.)  It’s all they could talk about for weeks and weeks.  Of course it never happened. 

Friday it rained all fucking morning and afternoon.  Balducci, Sarah and I watched "I Dream of Jeannie," and debated various kitsch TV themes.  Karla called and wanted me to meet her and some friend for breakfast.  Quite spontaneously I told her that I didn't want to go out with her anymore.  At first, when she invited me out I thought, well shit, I can't break it off with her if she's invited some other dingbat along.  I figured I'd take care of the problem another time, but then I thought fuck it, and I just told her flat out.  She seemed depressed and more than a little panic-irked. 

Balducci, Sarah and I walked over to Busy Bee for lunch during a momentary dry spell, but got caught in a major downpour coming back.  Sarah and I waited in the restaurant foyer and Balducci ran to the Mexican corner store and bought 3 kiddy umbrellas, 2 red and one blue, very cheap, like $3 each.  We spent the afternoon watching the last half of THE GODFATHER epic on video for the zillionth time.

That night Jonah, his brother and I met Brenda at the movies and went out drinking at Rainbo afterwards.  She brought along this guy from Purdue who couldn't have been more than 21.  He didn't drink, and sat there all night with a glass of water. Went to Duk's afterwards and ate a horrible burrito.  In the can I saw a graffitied Bart Simpson wearing a Latin Kings crown. 

            Brenda is as out of whack externally as I am on the inside, fidgeting around, nervous, on/off moody, whatever.  She was saying how Menthol Mike and Phoenix, Toejam, and the folk scene regulars come by her apartment all the time.  She goes out for coffee with Menthol Mike at Belden Deli and he talks to himself.  His teeth are all going bad, and he's having them pulled.  

Still feeling blank.  Since my obsession about flab, I've been eating too little and making myself demented.  That, plus drinking and depression sleep fests all probably contribute to the current mood.  It's like I'm on Star Trek, trying to beam up, and only 7/8 of me is materializing.  Also I've been thinking my idea that my mood swings are somehow chronic/physical, Lowell tragic is a big fucking delusion.  It gives me the fantasy brain buzz long enough to avoid real, practical problems.  And that whole depression schpiel of the other day had more to do with the fact I was bottling my urge to yell at Jonah and tell him to get out of my face than anything else.  It always has something to do with my immediate life, and inevitably it's about people.

Balducci's big family get together worked out fine.  Everyone liked Sarah.  She was so great with them, he told me that he felt like his presence there was unnecessary.  He said he felt like leaving, and imagined his brother looking out the window watching him walk down the drive.  Here’s a good Balducci story.  His 2nd grade teacher is lecturing about sportsmanship, how it’s not whether you win, but how you play the game, and Balducci stands up on his chair and proudly/defiantly yells, "BULL,"  (a word he admits to me he didn’t even know the meaning of, but heard on the playground).  For this the teacher cracks him across the ear and takes him to the principal. 

I took Whiner to a sort of animal halfway house run by a crazy old woman named Molly McCormick at Irving and Damen.  It cost me and Balducci $40.  About 100 cats in this huge Victorian house.  I put Whiner in a pillowcase and drove him over.  He cried the whole time, and freed himself just as I pulled up.  Climbed up in the rear window panting, his tongue hanging out. 

            I had to wait in the foyer a while, holding him with probably a dozen cats nosing around us.  I could hear her voice in the next room. "Oh my god, he doesn't have a carrier.  Doesn't he realize he's in a life threatening situation!"  Meaning he's a male and not neutered, so supposedly there could be a cat fight.  Everything about her was on the dramatic side.  She came out with two syringes and gave him a de-wormer and something else.  Dusted him with flea powder.  We took him around to the garage and put him in a cage.  She asked what I'd been calling him, and I told her. 

            "Whiner?" she said.  "Sounds like Jewish cat." 

            He'll get neutered in a few days and then stay there till somebody adopts him.  I felt depressed leaving him there, since obviously I could provide a much nicer home.  And then I was worrying that my cat would miss him, since they've been palling around together.  But it was the right thing to do.  I can't afford another pet, and I'm not ready to be tied down with all the responsibility either. 

Was supposed to go to this Life is Death Theatre thing with Dr. H this afternoon, but he never called.  I was honestly looking forward to it, a chance to get out of myself and meet people.  But after having read the big bullshit ad he put out, a call for artists..... poetry created anew each night, mystical myth garbage, Joseph Campbell quotes, etc., I'm not too overly disappointed.

            The Pug came over this afternoon with his girlfriend and Balducci and I helped moved a piano for him.  Then we went over to Roscoe Village and collected $500, the balance from the porch job plus last week’s work.  My share came to $65.  Starting a cabinet job tomorrow.  Take a week or two maybe.  Nice weather all day, but now it's pouring rain again. 

I’ve been sucked into the Algren theatre piece with Dr. Hangout.  Yesterday I worked 9 hours putting together a 10 page script from an Algren interview-- anecdotal about his Hollywood mishaps.  Dr. Hangout thinks it's a good idea, and wants to take the entire book of interviews and turn it into a sort of one man Algren monologue. We're dividing the 300 page book in half, editing it down to a 1 hour script. 

Obviously this gets in the way of the book, but it's something public with my name on it.  It's something, period.  And there was this weird buzz driving me all day yesterday.  Lack of food, nervousness, buzz of something new, whatever.  If I can channel that into other work, I'm home free.  Listen, this fucking computer screen is wavering all over the place.  I hope that doesn't mean a big repair's at hand.  It would fucking bankrupt me.                 

Balducci and I roachbombed the house this morning-- basement, 1st and 2nd floors.  We left for 2-3 hours.  When we came back the house still was toxic smelling as hell, yet we only saw one dead roach in the bathroom.  Then Carmelita came down and invited us up to see the death in her apartment, and it was amazing.  Hundreds of them on the kitchen floor, and armies of them in the bathroom.  They must have climbed the walls from downstairs.

In the afternoon Balducci and I drove out to Villa Park for a pigment crunching tool, mortar thing for making paint.  Terrible directions from the office.  Stuck on the 290 for half an hour, construction backup.  Balducci said, "Christ, they've sent me around the world right into a traffic jam."

We were dissecting Dr. Hangout most of the way, his superior demeanor and disdain for anything aesthetic.  The way he seems so waste months of time, accomplishing scant little.  And we were talking about whether or not it's ethical to tear people down.  I said it's natural, because that's what you're honestly thinking.  He agreed, but felt too much of it isn't good, wastes time, maybe, can get you in trouble in the wrong circumstances.  And then he started wondering why we do it, dissect people, and he came to the conclusion it's a way to protect yourself from becoming a halfass as well.  By being so out front with your contempt for somebody, you make it hard to fall into their trap.  And he was saying how all these people in his life are halfasses (in one way or other), Jerry Juicebar, Devon, Dr. H, Steiglitz, and he said I could become one if, say in a year, I still haven't finished the book.  Which made me think how obvious it must be that I'm floundering.  Of course he buys into the notion of your work as your life, and has a hard time living through his emotions.  But he's definitely right.  Guilt is paralyzing me, shame at being such a failure.  I have to forget about everything except today and move forward.     

            We drove back via Manheim, then East on Lake Street through the ghetto fringe.  I remember spying a bright red house across a 1000 yard expanse of rubble-- gorgeousness amid decay. 

Woke up blindingly aware of my finances.  Car insurance expiring in just 6 days, and no sign of money forthcoming.  Called Dr. Hangout and asked for the $30 he owes me.  Should be collecting it tomorrow.  Also, I managed to line up a job installing some ceiling fans for Caruso.  Maybe I can hit him up for a $100 advance.  My present car insurance is with a total fly by night outfit--  $539 a year.  Forced to go with them because of my driving record when I moved here.  Driving on two tickets, suburban bullshit speed traps.  Anyway it's been more than the required 3 years since I've had a ticket, so I called around and got a quote for $360.  Thought about paying monthly, but instead decided to max out my American Express credit and paid the 6 months premium.  Now I won't have to worry about it for a while.    

            I  spent the rest of the morning laboring over the Algren interviews, highlighting usable monologue.  Sat down with Dr. H for several hours discussing the material, staging plans, etc., and made an inventory of all the anecdotes, 100 between us.  Meeting tomorrow night to start pasting together some kind of order.

Was reading from the Algren bio by Bettina Drew and the phone rang.  I let the machine pick it up.  Sarah and Janie calling, playful.  Janie saying how she's pissed at Balducci for taking her roommate away.  Listening to her voice I became very lonely, not so much for her, (bullshit, definitely for her) but just lonely.  Laid down on the couch and depression started to sink in.  I said to myself over and over, "I've got to get up and do something. I've got to get up and do something.”

Balducci was out with Leslie, which is the reason I didn't pick up the phone once I heard who it was.  My gift for inspiring paranoia was at full tilt this afternoon.  He's been avoiding Leslie now for 5 weeks since she's come to Chicago.  His brother and sister have been harassing him to call her-- obviously she's put a bug in their ear.  And finally last week she called. 

I told him, “Jesus, why are you prolonging this mess so long?  Get it out in the open and get it over with.” 

He called her, very causally, blandly, and she was super-excited to hear from him.  He said he might be going to Europe in the spring, and she said, "so am I.... We should go together, and take the train to Florence."  He's got Sarah calling every night and Leslie dying for any scrap of his attention.  I am wondering though if tonight will make him question how committed he is to Sarah, wonder if she's crowding him.  Whatever.

By the way, last night was the big meeting with Alderman Nero at X-ray's house.  The Henson's were there, Steiglitz, Dr. Hangout, Balducci and I, and a Mexican man from across the street I always wave to but don't know his name.  When Balducci and I arrived, Nero's assistant was there taking notes.  Dr. Hangout was sitting across from her, short pants, topsiders, flannel shirt opened to the navel, talking very animatedly. 

            Nero arrived maybe a half hour late, fresh from being on PBS.  I come to find out the only reason he's meeting with us is because X-ray called City Hall and raised holy hell when he never called back from the night we all went knocking on his door. The whole thing was a waste of time though.  Basically he told us we need to realize how bad things used to be here.  And then he told this story (which was, I admit, pretty entertaining) about this one punk who lived over on Clairmont who kept threatening this old Cuban woman that he was going to kill her dog because it barked too much.  He’d go right to her front door stoned and tell her in gruesome detail how he was going to take a piece of round steak and put ground glass inside it and toss it over her back fence the next time the dog woke him up.  This poor woman suffered for months and then finally went crying to Alderman Nero’s mother, and that was that. 

            Nero loosened his necktie.  “I couldn’t have that kind of thing happening in my own barrio.  No way.  So this certain Sunday morning that punk got himself rudely awakened by a couple of officers in street clothes telling him he had been harassing their grandmother. They drug him out in the alley in his undershorts and rubbed his face in dog shit and he cried like a baby.  Of course you can’t go and do things like that any more.  Times have changed, you know.” 

            Afterwards Hangout was all primed on caffeine and wanted to drag me back to his basement to run through a scene from the play, but I told him I didn’t feel up to it.

Sarah’s back, with Jonah and Sean in tow.  The three of us went to see the new Brando film, THE FRESHMAN.  Worked with Dr. Hangout again from 4:00 to 7:00 or so, adapting a section about the Black Sox from City on the Make, and putting together the cocktail party idea I'd sketched out.  That evening I went with Dr. H to a party over in De Paul. Luxury pot luck affair: black bean soup, salmon platter, mushrooms with nuts and apples in vinaigrette, ravioli, champagne, spumoni, desert.  I spent most of the night talking with this architect and his wife about computers.  He looked like Eric Clapton.  Gave me his card and offered to get me work.  Don't know if I'll follow through though.  I'm to much of an apprentice to be taken seriously.

The Algren thing is going well, I think, 40 minutes or so not including the music.  Hopefully it'll give me a lesson in flow I can apply to the novel.  Dr. H is a die-hard idealogue though.  He's a social realist straight out of Thomas Hart Benton.  He keeps refering to himself as an “outside agitator."           I was getting bored the last few days with the Algren as a young man material, but now were getting into some of the stuff I developed, and the work seems less dull.  I tended towards anything confrontational, gossipy, exotic, and hopefully it'll lighten up Dr. Hangout's propagandizing.

Balducci and I adopted a kitten the other night.  I'm sure I'll regret it.  Balducci and I went to Phyllis' over on Division St. to see Caine Whammy.  Drank with Dr. H and Magda. Loud, loud, loud.  Manny drowned everybody out on drums.  Gina can definitely sing though.  She was wearing a white T-shirt and jeans.  I was saying to Magda, I thought she should movve a little more.  Not jump around or anything, but at least try.  She's not a dyke, but I guess she's on some knee-jerk university, female exploitation kick.  After their set a bunch of us piled into the storeroom and got stoned-- Manny, Hangout, Magda, Gina, Balducci and myself.  Scrawled above the slop sink was the following freshly-inked epistle:

Billy Corgan blows dogs for wine change!

                                    Billy Corgan's to do list:

                                    1- blow dogs

                                    2- buy wine

                                    3- buy more wine

                                    4- Dirk's birthday (don't forget kneepads)

            "Who's this Billy Corgan?" I said.

            "I don't know," said Balducci, coughing out a huge cloud of smoke.  "Some haircut artist."

            Afterwards we drifted across the street to Gold Star.  Balducci and Dr. Hangout got in this big argument.  On and on about historicization, etc.            “All emotions are bullshit,” he kept saying.  Yet I find it interesting that Dr. Hangout can't discuss anything without getting totallty emotional.  He was ready to blow a fucking gasket, and if it wasn’t for the fact that Balducci was buying all the drinks he would have stormed out of there

            We left Gold Star around 2:00 a.m. and agreed to meet Magda, King Tut and Dr. H at Riptide. Balducci and I walked, meandering down Wolcott and through some semi-dangerous locales.  That's where we found the cat.  White, with calico markings on it's haunches, black and orange.  Maybe 3 months old.  I picked it up, and we played with her a while, set her down, and then of course she started following us.  And in something like a five minute span I threw my minimal intelligence aside and was convinced to adopt the damn animal.  We decided to call her Phyllis, since we were coming from Phyllis'.  She followed us block after block, and when we got to North Avenue we picked her up and carried her.  This wasn’t going to put an end to a perfectly good night of beer swilling though.  We simply hauled her over to the house, opened the front door, tossed her in, and left.

At the Riptide I was loading back beer number 10 or so, Magda and Dr. Hangout were at the bar, and I made some lecherous comment, and Balducci looked at me and said, "ah hah, you just crossed over the line, fucker.  You've got the look." Meaning at some point after umpteen drinks my eyes always get smirky and I become sex Jekyll.  The rest of the night I couldn't stop gawking at Magda.  

            Dr. Hangout was talking about Mike Menthol, and Gage's brother who was a big record producer at one time in the forgotten 1970’s past.  He said that Mike Menthol was a minor thing for a while, but then he ate a tremendous dose of acid, and it made him schizo.  Balducci and I were talking about Gage, and his UFO obsession.  Hangout lit a cigarette and said,  “give it a rest, boys. What’s there to say about him?  Gage is a known psychotic.  He’s on medication.”

This morning Sarah delivered a little card from Janie, and so I called her on the phone.  She's was pretty freaked, because this friend of hers just tried to kill himself with pills after his girlfriend dumped him. The whole business obviously rattled a nerve with me as well.  Janie sounded very worried and incapable, and it made me want to flee.

My finances are more than a little hairy.  Only $130 in the bank and big bills coming.  I need a job in the next week.  Balducci thinks the house start-up is imminent.  Waiting.

Jonah and I landed a job today working for Verne.  Railings around the upstairs back porch, repair bathroom ceiling drywall, $325.  $80 for materials, so Jonah and I will take in about $125 each.  A few hours work tomorrow, sanding the railings and finish taping.  I've also been pressing Verne's wife about putting a new roof on the garage.  Could be decent money, 4-5 days work at say, $100 per. 

            Went to Jonah's afterwards and Sean made a chicken curry.  Drank a few beers, plus they had smoke.  Sat there high, reading about Pluto in Scientific American.  Then they turned the stereo up way too loud.  Came home and jerked off and took a shower.   Another message on the machine for Balducci from Leslie, and yesterday there was one saying, "I'd love to go out again, I'm free on Thursday, etc..."  I keep heading off these messages before Sarah hears them, but one of these days, the shit's going to fly. 

I had promised to write Janie a letter the other day while on the phone-- made it sound like it was already in the mail.  But it's 11:30 now, and I'm too tired.  Got a letter from Cabbie Collins.  He sent along his Algren song which I'd asked for-- Dr. H expressed some interest in hearing it.  But the tape was garage band quality and totally muddy, so I have to call him again and ask for the lyrics on paper.  Said, hi to Jonah and Balducci, and asked about Joe Stereo.  Invited us down to see stock car races and redneck boxing.

The new kitty's asleep on my balled-up jeans.  The two cats get along famously; they chase each other across the house and spar for hours.  I'm so fucking lonely, especially at night when everyone couples up-- Balducci and Sarah, Jonah and Sean, Dr. H and Magda.  High school class reunion Saturday... maybe something?
August

Catastrophically broke, borrowed $40 from Jonah, but I'm living on fumes.  Waiting for the check from Verne.  Nothing in the bank, and bills, bills, bills piling up.  Balducci told me yesterday he was shot down by the building department on some front, and now the project demands total re-zoning.  The delays could be endless. The Pug's offering us work, re-shingling his garage roof, bullshit basement foyer drywall, etc.  Good for a week or two, maybe $500. But I'll already be borrowing from Peter to pay Paul by the time the money's in my hands.  Bid Verne's garage roof at $2000, but not sure if they'll go for it.  So basically my ass is on the grill.  The whole Maalox loser scene is only appropriate seeing this is the eve of my 10 year high school reunion.  Comeuppance for all my grandiose expectations, laziness and lack of courage. 

            Balducci and I had dinner last night at Jonah and Sean's. Drank several Budweiser ICBM's and got high.  Lots of talk about Dr. H., his new idea for the script (wants to make it a satirical revue).  How his critical schpiel totally contradicts his work. I've got to bail out on that project.  It's going nowhere, and I need to get focused on my own work, and making $.   Sean, Jonah and I walked down to the lake, stopping off at the foundry a good half hour to watch glowing ingots coming out.  Watched a guy with a cutting torch trim off a stub of iron at the end of the ingot, and the sparks spraying off looked like bundles of glowing fibre optic wire.  Talked with this lesbian couple, very butch, who seemed to know quite a bit about the pouring of the ingots, rolling the steel, etc.

            Bought Italian ice at a place on Webster.  It was very warm out, but pleasant, not muggy.  We sat on the beach at North Avenue and smoked a joint.  I was feeling very reckless with all this $ worry over my head, and just the fact I'm nowhere 10 years after graduation.  We were wading in the water, maybe up to our knees, and I decided what the fuck, I'm going swimming.  Took off my shirt, emptied my pockets, etc., and walked out into the water. The cold didn't make me flinch, and I bulled right through it. Up to my chest, and thinking how fucked up my life is, and making a promise to myself that the fat, lazy, coasting on credit days are over-- almost giddy at the thought of bankruptcy around the corner, swim or get fucked.  I said to myself, "today I am a man," and lunged forward, swimming. I swam out to the cement buoys, and tried to grip one, but it was slimy with algae.  The water was over my head, but I was oddly relaxed.  No balled up knot in the middle of my back, no worry of exhaustion.  I started laughing for no reason.        

            When I returned to the beach, Jonah decided to swim and he stripped down to his underwear, (he and Sean were both wearing jeans, I had on shorts.)  He looked very strange trudging through the water, his long hair back, white underwear glowing.  Sean and I were laughing.  When he came back Sean stripped down to her panties and bra and went out herself and we laughed at her.  We were totally exhilarated afterwards, and the walk home was a breeze.

Balducci just paid me $20 towards the cat's vet work, so I'm breathing a little easier.  Going out to lunch. 

Date with death today for Jonah and I-- spinout on the JFK expressway. Coming back from Verne's job, just before the bridge at Sacramento.  Shiny maroon 4-door, family of blacks, ironically on their way to a funeral.  A tiny little woman woman was driving; she could barely see over the dash.  Basically, she sideswiped me, tried changing lanes without a signal.  I cranked the wheel hard, then back again and my left front tire blew.  We fishtailed across all 4 lanes and then back, slamming into the guard rail.  Traffic miraculously slowed behind us in unison, leaving the road clear for my speedway gyrations.

            The maroon car pulled over.  After we were certain no one was hurt, we stood there chatting, waiting for the police.  A state cop eventually arrived, looking very pissed off, nearly getting rear ended.  "SLOW DOWN, ASSHOLE!" he barked over the loudspeaker. 

He collected all the info from the woman driver and myself, and then the bastard gave me the ticket.  Failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident.  He said it's state police policy, somebody has to get a ticket.  He said, "look, if they'd have actually hit you, then I would have given them the ticket.  Here's the situation, this is a 55 mile and hour highway.  Everybody's going 60, 70.  When you're driving 55 you have plenty of room to slow down, but you were obviously going faster.  But anyway, I'm putting down in my report that you were forced off the road by an unknown vehicle.  When you go to court 9 times out of 10 they'll just throw it out.   Consider yourself lucky, pal.  Normally when you into a guard rail you get another ticket for damaging state property."

            Nonetheless, I was pretty indignant.  I said, "look, this is ridiculous.  When this goes to court, where's the proof that I was going too fast?  They cut me off, without a turn signal.  And I was in the right lane-- the slowest lane of traffic, so if they cut me off,  they had to have been going faster than I was (right now however the logic behind this argument fails me).  And then he softened up and said he'd speak to the prosecutor, and it would be what he called an SOL case.  He scribbled something on the back of the ticket, instructions to basically dismiss the whole thing.           If I would have had any brains, I would have just told the woman to drive off and forget it.

Jonah and I were standing there changing the tire, semi's barreling by, and it started to dawn on us that we easilly could have been killed.  I was pumped up and cracking jokes about the whole thing, but Jonah was very rattled.  At first he wanted to just leave the car and walk home. 

Money situation looks better.  Meeting with the Pug tomorrow evening to discuss the garage roof job.  My bills are safely paid for at least two weeks. Worked a half day with Jonah on Dino's Paulina building, putting up wire racks,  shelving, etc.  Working tomorrow beefing up some other shelving units, sealing the roof deck and painting the iron railings.  We were supposed to meet Dino Thursday at 1:00 but got held up by a massive funeral procession coming up North Avenue.  There must have been 100 cars-- ten limos, several flower coaches. Probably for some dead mobster.

Back on the merry-go-round.  I asked Sheila Stewart to dance at the reunion.  One fast dance followed by 3 slow dances.  Drove her home.  Intense groping and dry humping on her livingroom floor.  Went out to breakfast the next morning, then I we drove back to the city.  Movies, dinner in Chinatown.  Back to her apartment in Kimball Heights, more groping. 

            Backtrack a bit.  I was drunk as hell at the reunion.  Stopped by Stretch and Celia's beforehand for 3 beers, then drank scotch all night.  I was very nervous about the whole thing, but it turned out to be cheery and cathartic.  1-- because of the release of tension for facing the beast head on, overcoming all that anxiety.  2-- seeing all the common, married couples, the popular clique turned very average and stranded in Kimball Heights. 

            Sheila's very affectionate, stroking my hair when I drive, wanting to hold hands--  yet I'm not squirming inside like I did with Janie, or wondering, what's the catch,  like with Karla. But I'm not going to mull excruciating details here and analyze the thing into the ground.  I just know that I feel something thrilling about her.  It's the first phase of something, and this time I'm going to try hard and simply ride it.

Balducci and I went to a party on Wrightwood, near where Toni used to live.  Dino and Stephanie, Janet and Bill, yuppie couples with kids in private school.  Balducci just over some kind of flu.  Lots to write about, but I'm pretty wrung out.  I think I'm getting sick myself.  Going to bed, maybe read Lowell and sleep late tomorrow.  Hopefully I can head off this bug before it takes hold.

Illness held at bay.  Eating vitamins, aspirin, Balducci's acne antibiotics, drinking tons of water, eating big meals.  Just back from Arturo's with Balducci.  Sarah's quitting her job in November and she's moving out here-- they're shacking up.  They'll take over Jonah's apartment, and he's moving into Dr. Hangout's (the Dr. and magda are off to Europe then).  Balducci's fairly calm, but every so often there's a hyper teenage arc to his voice.  He talked brielfy to Sarah on the phone this afternoon.  She was waiting at the airport in Florida.  Her brother is definitely against the move and so is her shrink.  The shrink says Balducci's not giving up enough, that Sarah's making all the sacrifices.  But knowing Balducci, I'd say this is a big step in itself, actually letting a woman through the final Get Smart doors. 

            The thing with Sheila had me depressed yesterday.  Saw her Saturday night.  She had the flu and was all congested, so I drove out to Kimball Heights and brought her flowers and a carton of orange juice, and we sat on her couch watching cable.  Went out for ice cream.  We tried not to get horny, with her cold and all but we failed.  This time I had her pants unbuttoned before she said she wasn't going to fuck-- not yet anyway.  Saying she thought when you do it too soon without getting to know the person, it makes everything complicated and sex becomes the whole relationship.  And I agreed in principle, the whole business of avoiding intimacy by screwing... but on the other hand, if you keep putting it off, it hangs over everything and makes the situation just as crazy.  We laid there on the couch and slept till midnight or so and she sent me home.  The next day I called her from my folks.  We were going to see a movie, but the rain and general gloom, plus her nagging flu made her cancel.  I wasn't disappointed though, and I'd thought myself to cancel all day because I was so goddamn bored sitting around there.  Sat on the porch and read, and watched OCEAN'S 11 on television with my father. 

Sheila had wanted to see some bullshit sci-fi movie, or YOUNG GUNS 2, instead of the new Jack Nicholson.  She said she thought Nicholson wasn't really a good actor.  Said she liked Billy Crystal better.  And at that point I was glad we hadn't fucked, because blowing her off would be much easier.  Drove home pretty bummed out though.  Lonely again.  But went to the barbecue with Balducci and had a few drinks and big food, decent conversation, movies, kids, Gulf war, etc., and felt much better.  I still think the Sheila thing is hopeless, she's so damned safe and ordinary.  She said she'd take a half day during the week and come out.  I'll give it a chance, but I’ve basically given up on her.

I was ready for bed Thursday night, and Dr. Hangout came over and invited us to the Gold Star.  Balducci extracted me from my mope stupor and we walked over.  Met these new German's just in town, friends of Magda's.  Rhoda and Milos.   The three of them are taking a road trip to Califoirnia, and then up to Canada.  Milos is from E. Germany and speaks no English.  Rhoda speaks a little English, but in my drunk state I didn't really notice.  Shot pool, hung out with some lesbians around the jukebox.  I asked Rhoda out to breakfast the next morning.  I had to explain everything on the menu to her.  Nice girl, only 22, but quite plain.  Dino was waiting there for us at Busy Bee.  He needed a key returned that he'd given me.  Very nervous, pacing, carrying his portable phone            

Shaquille's been using all kinds of  foul language around little Tony and Selena, calling her a bitch, saying suck my dick, and motherfucker and everything.  Carmelita complained to Balducci, so he told Shaquille not to come around anymore.  He walked out into the alley and started beating on a chainlink fence with a stick. 

Listen, it turns out Leo's Russian wife, Valentina is a painter and she sold out a complete show, making something like ninety grand.   Dr. Hangout says Leo is history.  Leo's a cordial guy, but basically a milktoast academic with no sense of sexual adventure.   He came over cry on Hangout's shoulder, and I invited myself in for tea.  Sandwiched in between his lament on women,  Leo told an interesting story.  He said a few years ago when the Russian army ran out of vodka, the soldiers took to making their own.  One trick was to take a cheap loaf of bread and coat it totally with book black, then leave it out in the sun till it rotted.  The insides would ferment, and they'd squeeze out the juice. 

Reading Lowell the other night, and it made me feel awkward, out of step with the pacing of words.  Usually I tend to lose myself and bring to mind the sound of his voice from TV.  But this time I felt jangled, and I was aware there was a me separate from what I was reading, and I had this eery craving to speak in my own voice. 

Sheila canceled on me again.  Her brother came into town, needs a place to stay, etc.  She hasn't seen him in a year.  Depressed and lonely night.  Had to force myself off the couch, drifting into an all day nap.  She says she'll definitely come out Wednesday. Got out of bed around 2:00 in the afternoon today.  Watched the Batman marathon on TV, and then Balducci and I walked down to Watertower and saw the new David Lynch movie.  Walking home up Division St. not paying attention and ran smack into Cabrini Green.  Angled down Clybourn, obviously a little nerve-wracking, but afterwards there was that post danger buzz.

Our lame Nelson Algren show sputtered to life last night, and it came off amazingly well.  Dr. Hangout cut back all that carnival barker, real estate satire nonsense and basically directed it as written.  The music didn't drown anyone out, very spare.  The actor Hangout drafted to play Algren was fantastic. He didn't have the script by memory and had to use an ear piece, but it was nearly impossible to detect.  The whole thing definitely needs to be polished, but considering the time crunch we were under...

            Went to the Gold Star afterwards and then to this party at Wrightwood and Sheffield for Magda, hosted by this German queen, interior decorator.  Hangout, Balducci and I were taking in all the bric-a-brac, cedar paneling, Japanese screens, etc., and Hangout lights up a cigar and says, “now this is what I call a real fag den." 

            Just about everybody there was queer. Got very drunk.  Met this woman, Rosa.  Huge beefy arms, big hipped, but a real pretty face.  She's a carpenter it turns out, and we talked about window sills and cornice work or something.  Had her alone in the bedroom and tried to kiss her, but she said, "I don't know you well enough." Then afterwards Magda told me she was a lesbian.  King Tut was standing outside with a brown bag full of bottle rockets, shooting them over at the park.  The cops came and started to hassle him, and were generally abusive to everybody. Rosa said, "look, how about if we just take him inside and we promise he'll behave."  The cop told her to go back inside or she'd be in trouble herself.  King Tut talked his way out of it though.

Awoke with a huge headache this morning.  Balducci and I went to Friars for breakfast.  Was going to work today, putting in a storm door for Caruso, but blew that off on account of my depression, hangover, and the general muggy gloom of everything.  I noticed how in a conversation Balducci seems to stick to the issue and wring it out front to back, very methodically, where I tend to bounce around, truncating the whole conversation, anxious to move onto something else.  It's a good example of how unfocused I am.  I'm not very patient, and I've got a low threshold for hard work and monotony.  I come up with a lot of theories, but I'm too lazy to test them out.  Balducci's able to lock onto a job and see it through.  This is why I can't finish the book, and it's maybe the reason my relationships are so fucked up and I'm so lonely.  It's a big organizational problem.  Anne would say it all has to do with the way I handle my feelings, which I guess is the situation at the sub-atomic level, but I can't really get a picture of that right now.  Just that I'm afraid to feel something.  I'm afraid of making some big investment of my time or my heart, because I don't like blind alleys, and there just doesn't seem to be a safety net.  But as usual I'm all talk here.

Balducci left an hour ago for New York, staying two weeks.  Stomach upset and my sleep messed up from the last two nights drinking.  I was going over some ideas for the book, and I've decided to really bolt into it. Slam out a complete draft by the time Balducci returns.  It's time to get out on the track and burn the sludge off my rings.

            Party last night at Jerry Jakarta's in Edgewater.  Went with Balducci and Dr H.  Before that we stopped in at this benefit for Oobleek Theatre.  Pretentious jerks.  That Boho Reality guy was there, leafing through a sketchbook and discussing some project with another half-wit haircut artist.  I got into a discussion with this dumpy little woman named Simone.  She'd just bought a building, and we had the inevitable, generic real estate conversation.   Art Rogers was running the party at Jakarta’s, and he turned it into some kinf of video improv workshop.  At the front door you had to pick a card describing the character you were going to play.  I was the loner, Balducci was the guy who can't commit, and Hangout was the Philanderer.  Very half-assed arrangement.  Rogers filmed everyone dancing and drinking, and then there were six or eight scenes set up.  It went on forever. 

Dr. Hangout had no chance to hog the center of attention, plus it was all very amateur and he fancies himself an acting veteran, so he spent the whole night reading in the kitchen with his glasses off, squinting one inch from the page, attempting some kind of Einstein pose.  He kept bugging us every half hour or so to leave, and finally around 2:00 he gave up and bummed a ride from some Art Institute types who were going to Division Street.  

            Most of the acting scenes were done by a clique of regulars, and everyone else stood around providing atmosphere.  But then someone came up with this idea for a jealous boyfriend scene, and they dragged Balducci into it.  He had to stand in a doorway necking with this anorexic looking girl.  Then her boyfriend came along and discovered them.  Shoving match, shouting, etc.  Jakarta and I decided to just walk through the scene gawking.  We drew a few sneers from the “serious actors,” but it came off very well, because it was active.  All the other scenes were smothered by too much talking, posturing and bad acting all around.  Balducci and I left around 3:30 and stopped off to close the Riptide.

Just off the phone with Sheila.  She's coming here tomorrow evening.  Forget about getting her in bed any time soon.  Had a pretty serious talk, and she said, "I like you, but I'm not going to sleep with anyone until I know them really well."  I was getting bored, and thinking what a mistake, how can I back out of this.  But I started asking her a lot of questions, asking her to explain herself, and basically not giving a shit, since she was paying for the call.  Plus also trying to be honestly patient and not jump to quickly to a conclusion, since I'm so lonely.  And actually I started feeling this of renewed attraction. So I don't know, maybe I'll give it a chance. 

            Finally got a check out Verne.  Also got paid for putting in Caruso's screen door.  Rained all fucking day.  Jonah and I very unmotivated and gloomy; running errands.  We went to the South Side to order a sliding screen door and then to the bank.  Lunch at Bella's Pizza.  By chance Dino came in, bought us lunch, and dropped a punch list job in our lap.  A 3-unit condo over on on Balmoral.  Jonah and I drove over there, thinking we'd just look around, but we located some energy and managed to do some plaster work and unstick all the windows.  We didn't drink a drop, though there was a whole fridge full of beer. 

Overwhelmingly depressed last night and this morning.  On the phone to Sheila last night, Jonah in the other room.  She cancelled for Saturday, and at the same time Jonah waved goodbye, going home, and it was like the whole house irised into melancholy.  Just laid there on the couch all night.  This morning I got up for a few hours, but ended up back in bed, sleeping till after 2:00 in my clothes with my shoes on.  But I've been abusing myself the last few days, not eating enough, and yesterday I drank 3 or 4 beers on an empty stomach after work, setting the stage.

Jonah and I came across a dog limping in the alley.  Springer Spaniel.  She came right up to us-- a very well-mannered dog, certainly belonging to someone.  We took her to the vet, and he told us her back leg was dislocated from the hip and she would need surgery.  The vet said she'd been spayed, so it seems definite she's lost.  He asked what her name was, and we said we didn't know.  "Well, I have to put something down," he said, so we decided to call her, Trixie. 

There wasn't much we could do and feel good about it, so we coughed up $250 between us and told the vet to go ahead, figuring we'd recover the money once the owner showed.  If we can't find the owner, we're thinking of having a "Save Trixie" keg party and charging $5.00 admission.

A break from the heat imminent, thunder rolling, cool winds picking up.  Shaquille and the alley kids tore apart a wicker chair to make spears.  They're running across the back yards hollering like something out of Lord of the Flies.  I collected a check from Dino this morning, and Jonah and I rode down to the bank to cash it.  It's his birthday.  He's expecting major attention from everyone.  We start a small repair job tomorrow, though still very panicked about money.  Yesterday I drank too much coffee and and poured over the want-ads.  Work still trickles in, but I need steady $.  Laid on the couch all afternoon, sweaty, miserable, half dozing.  Read Lowell for twenty minutes and then fell asleep. Woke up, read more, fell asleep again.  Carmelita barbecuing chicken in the back yard.  The smell is making my insides grumble.  The book is all booted up and waiting for me, but I can feel my motivation flagging.  Waiting for rain to cool this place off.

Just got off the phone with Lilly.  We talked about the new Styron book, and she launched into this epic memoir about her own depression, 12 years ago.  “I ate 150 pills, enough to sink a battleship.  I planned it for a week, terrified by the idea, but I truly felt backed into a corner.  I was in a very unhappy marriage, my mother was sick and needing constant attention, and my daughter had gone to Europe to pursue a musical career.”  

She went to this shrink, and kept saying how she was going to kill herself, but he didn't believe her.  Had her on all kinds of pills.  She'd try them for a day or two and quit because they made her feel so unbalanced.  She saved up all these pills and every day she planned the act.  “And then one morning, I showered, washed my hair and then got into bed and ate all the pills in the house.  I laid there for an eternity, looking at the clock.  My heart was pounding and the light was streaming through the windows.  I was shaking, and I kept thinking, how in the world can I still be alive?  It took fifteen minutes, and then I started shaking violently, and the bed shook and it got dark, and I thought, this is it." 

            Her husband came home early at 3:00, which he never, ever did, and found her.  She woke up at in the hospital.  Her shrink was there at the hospital when they brought her in, and he was crying, saying how she'd told him she was going to do it and he hadn't believe her.  

"He was a little man who sat behind a big desk, and he looked like a bullfrog.  I hated him uncontrollably.  I was very obstinate with him.  He kept saying to me, 'if we don't make some progress here you're surely going to be committed to the state asylum.'  He charged $85 an hour, and I would sit there not saying a word.  He spent most of his time trying to get me angry, because that was his theory, that I was angry at myself.  He was very cultivated and actually knew Horowitz, yet one time he told me he went to see Dionne Warwicke at Poplar Creek and it was a wonderful concert.  I went crazy about that, and I told him what awful taste he had in music and what a middle-class phony he was. 

"He had this wall hanging in his office, a woven 1970’s monstrosity, and one day I asked him,  'Where did you get that hideous thing?'   ' My wife made it,' he said.  And I launched into a tirade about how ugly it was and, how could he keep it in his office.  I told him, 'it's so ugly it disturbs me.'  And he said, 'tough.'  I said, 'well, then I'm going to sit in a such a way that  I don't have to ever look at it.'  'That's fine with me,'  he said." 

At first she actually liked the hospital, (except her sessions with the Bullfrog). She met this artist there named Maddox, who's father was a politician somewhere.  "I was crazy about him and he was crazy about me.  He was very well-read, articulate, charming.  Everything my husband wasn’t.  When it came time for me to finally be able to take walks outside the hospital, they let Maddox accompany me.  We'd go down Michigan avenue and out to lunch, and shopping at all the little boutiques and have a wonderful time."

She was in the hospital for 3 months, and she kept asking the Bullfrog when she could get out and he kept saying, “a few more weeks, Lilly.”  Finally he called her to his office and announced it was time for her to go.  The only condition was she had to attend therapy 4 times a week.  She said fine-- anything to get out, but she had no intention of going. 

            And then he said, "Now stand up. Put your hand over heart, and I want you to promise.  Say, I promise not to kill myself." 

            "This is ridiculous!” she said.  “You act like I'm a four year old."

            "Well, you are a four year old.  That's your whole problem, you never moved past that age, and that's what were going to start working on."

            So she made the promise, and then said to him, "there, are you happy, now?"

Maddox had been discharged a few weeks earlier than Lilly.  "When I got out he had this big party for me, and invited all kinds of artists and musicians and interesting people, and I had a wonderful time.  It was like a movie. Better than a movie.  And then a couple of weeks later he hanged himself."    

The whole time she talked I kept fluxing in and out of the scene, thinking about Toni. I could sense myself beginning to drift behind a wall, but then I'd say to myself, “ride it out,” and I'd fold back into the story again and right myself. 

September

Jonah and I painted all day, Dr. Hangout's 3rd floor apt.  Should make $100 or so each. Sheila's been officially blown off.  I haven't called her in a week.  Cabbie Collins came by last night.  Went over to Gold Star for a few beers.  Collins was describing the birth to us.  He looks fat and confused, trying to convince himself he's happy. 

Went to see THE TWO JAKES again yesterday with Lilly.  Lunch at Cafe Aroma.  I've read most of the Styron Book, and we talked more about that.  She also discussed at length all the drugs the doctor's tried to put her on, and how she always has such terrible reactions to any kind of medicine.  This one drug, Ativan sent her into this two day long hallucination where she heard herself singing "I gotta be me, I gotta be me," a song she had to coach endlessly and therefore hated.  When she came out of it she called up the Bullfrog and said, "I'm through with you, you idiot.  Go to hell!"

And she told me how her original doctor, the one who didn't believe she was suicidal, kept calling her, and trying to convince her to make an appointment.  At first she politely declined, but when he persisted week after week, she finally said to him that the Bullfrog was her doctor now and not him.

He became incredibly agitated, and he said, "I'm your doctor.  You're, my patient, not his!" 

            "No, no you're not." She said.  “And if you don’t stay away from me, they’re going to begin some kind of proceedings."

            After that he gave in and stopped calling, but he still sent her several rambling letters.

Huge neighborhood scene Sunday.  We were all invited to barbecue at Steiglitz and Georgia's.  Jonah and I worked all day painting, and came over around 6:30.  Talked with Soda and Dr. Hangout, as Steiglitz was just firing up the grill on the other side of the fence.  Some other people were supposed to be there by then, but no hurry.  Jonah and I said we wanted to clean up, and we all agreed to get together around 7:30.  So I went in and showered,  laid around reading.  At 7:30 there's a knock at the back door and Jonah, Sean, Dr. Hangout and Soda all pile in, looking very stressed out.  Seems Jonah had gone over there, and Georgia was drunk as a monkey and totally blew up at him. 

"Get out of here.  It's off.  Forget it.  I said 6:30, and now it's 7:30”   

            "But your husband said…"

            "Steiglitz said?  Well, he didn't tell me anything.  I made all this food and nobody showed up.  When I say 6:30 I mean 6:30"   

            They were all standing in my kitchen ruminating over the event, and Dr. Hangout says, "look, there's a history behind this situation.  I've seen it before. There's going to be a big set-to-- Steiglitz and Georgia.  Georgia's going to go fucking ballistic, and I don't want to be there when it happens." 

            So we raided my freezer and went over to Jonah's and had our own little barbecue.  The bugs were insane, and we all ended up inside drinking beer.  Then we drove over to the Gold Star and shot pool.  I had about 2 bucks to my name (which is 2 bucks more than I have right now), and I had to hit everybody up for drinks.  Jonah had money, and usually when I go out, my money is community funds till it's gone, but Jonah wouldn't buy me any drinks, and he kept buying them for Sean and himself.  You know, he wants to preach to me.  He figures since I'm broke I shouldn't be spending any money for fun, I don't deserve it, etc.  Yet that very afternoon I'd fucking bought him lunch! 

            At one point Dr. Hangout swaggered over to the pool table. He goes to set his beer down, but he missed the table by several inches.  SMASH!, the bottle hits the floor.  Dr. Hangout looks down, totally perplexed and throws up his hands and says, "Science!"

Balducci's back from New York. Building permit biz coming to a head supposedly.  Balducci thinks we'll begin in 2 weeks.  I'm not holding my breath.  We walked most of the day yesterday.  Stopped off at Rainbo for a few beers, and then pizza at Rolando's.  He said he was very depressed in New York.  No motivation to do anything.  Sarah anxious to move out here and shack up, and he's telling her maybe they should wait till January.  Concerned about losing his batchelorhood.  I talked to Sarah on the phone earlier and she alluded to the whole situation but made me promise not to tell him.  She and Janie want to come out maybe in a few weeks, but Balducci would rather drive back there.

Today Balducci, Jonah and I rode bikes down to this "Support the Arts" rally at Daley plaza. Supposedly it was going to feature people reading from banned works, but it turned out to be a bunch of bullshit speeches.  Larry Heinemann was okay, Spaulding Grey was excellent (we're going to see him Thursday), but all tolled they accounted for about 10 minutes of the 2 hour program.  The PA was terrible and you couldn't hear anything over the parade of idiots with Jesse Helms banners and pamphlet passing do-gooders.  We left after Spaulding.  Balducci took a risky lunge across traffic and I followed leaving Jonah in the dust.  Balducci rode like a wild horse, and I had to wheeze and grind in 10th gear the whole way to keep up.  Stopped at Bella's and had pizza and a pitcher of beer-- half expecting Jonah to trot in, but his back wheel apparently went crazy, and he had to cautiously pedal home at a snail’s pace.

            We told Dr. Hangout about the rally, and he got in this huge argument with Balducci.  Same old social realism dogma, cutting Balducci off before he could finish a sentence.  Finally Balducci bangs his fist on the table, "No, you listen!  Every time we talk you cut me off and all we get is your schpiel.  We get 10 percent facts and 90 percent attitude.  Nobody else gets to talk and it turns into the Dr. Hangout show." 

Back and forth, back and forth.  Balducci pissed him off by saying "maybe your bitter because you've been working away all these years on the fringe and your career isn't taking off."

In reply came the usual, "don't be giving me your worn out, reductio ad absurdum..." which is Dr. Hangout's phrase of the month. Though to his credit Dr. Hangout did call Balducci on his patronizing tendencies.   Jonah and I sat there.  He said nothing and stared at his feet the entire time, obviously uncomfortable with all the conflict and shouting.  I attempted to buttin a few times, but got stifled.

Collected some cash today and got another job from Caruso.  Making $375 for installing 5 windows.  They have to be ordered, and that'll take several weeks.  Just back from getting my hair cut.  Super short, bordering on crewcut.  Makes my imminent baldness more apparent, but also gives me a rugged look.  I can't stop thinking about sex.  It was tit city downtown, and I gawked shamelessly. 

Balducci's continues to be majorly stressed out about this Sarah business, and I think he's going to try dating other women on the sly to see if he's missing anything.  Talked at length at Bella's.  He thinks she's putting way too much pressure on him.  Manipulates him with the idea, “well, you know I could always fuck somebody else at the drop of a hat.  I'm being so good to you.  You know, I get all these offers....”  So he's pressured to make up his mind before it's too late. 

            These other women are calling him, Pam, Maureen, and as always Leslie, and he's blowing a major blood vessel in deciding what to do.  Plus he's trying to get the lead skull sculpture ready for the Coyote show, and some paintings.

Amazing development gastrointestinal-wise.  By chewing my food thoroughly and swallowing before taking another bite (not as easy as it sounds) that bloated heartburn feeling is totally kept at bay.  I'm afraid I look like a robot eating with such concentration, but then I must have been eating so fast before that I looked equally as weird. 

Balducci and I met Jonah and Sean last night at Gallery for pen mic poetry.  I don't know why I go-- aside from hoping to meet women, because it's always blindingly mediocre.  Balducci and I left and went to the Riptide where they were having a birthday party for some guy who just turned 32.  Lively crowd, dancing, but no room. So many people smoking there my eyes watered. 

Went next to Artful Dodger. Saw this gorgeous woman, long dark hair, slim, black and white striped skirt, white T-shirt, cowboy boots.  The kid from Gallery who wore the gas station uniform and got in a fight with the band a couple months back was there.  Wearing a stocking cap, dancing by himself--a lot of rubbery, funk moves.

            Sarah was jerking Balducci around all day on the phone.  Janie called me, and after I was through talking to her, Sarah said to tell Balducci she was too wrapped up in channel J (porno) to come to the phone.  Then later she called and was giving him shit for going out.  She wanted him to wait around for her to call at 11:30.  And when we got home around midnight, there was a message on the box, apologizing.  All this is really pissing him off, and he told she's being a pain in the ass and he resents all the pressure she's putting on him.   

            On the subject of straying a bit before the big commitment is made, he definitely seems to be considering it.  Come to find out he did have a one-night thing a few months ago.  He went out with Helmut to Rainbo, and this woman started hanging all over him.  It was her birthday and she was smashed.  She drug him into the photo booth with this other girl and took all these pictures.  Stuff like her grinding into him while the other girl's kissing him on the forehead.   

Realizing he was the fifth wheel, Helmut said, "well, I guess I'm going to go."  Balducci thought, Jeez, what have I got myself into.  But then he figured, what the fuck, and went home with her.  She didn't want to fuck because he didn't have a rubber, and so she went down on him, but he had the whiskey dick again, and couldn't come.  Finally he gave up.  He was driving home, miserable, horny down Ashland Ave, and he passed a gorgeous hooker.  He pulled over and she got in.

            "All I got is 11 dollars,"  he says.

            "Fifteen."

            "Really, that's all I have, 11 dollars."

            And so she blew him for a mere 11 bucks. He said, “man it was like having the top of my head peeled back and dumping an 8-ball of coke in there.  The greatest fucking orgasm of my life.  Though I wouldn’t recommend tyring this at home.” 

The very next day, Sarah arrived.

My money situation seems oddly less bleak the closer I get to ground zero.  Calm in the tornado.  Jobs drying up, bills overdue, computer's locking up, vet bills, blowing money right and left, lonely and horny, barely writing.  Thinking about therapy again. The big question being, is the reason I'm floundering because I'm lonely and can't concentrate?  Or, is it that I'll never get something going romance-wise until the rest of my life's put in order?  I really have no real friends except Balducci and Jonah, and I can only deal with Jonah's hyperness in short doses-- plus we can never talk about anything.  Whenever Balducci leaves, my life becomes desolate.  Lately he's been very wound up, and he's been getting little sleep since returning from New York.  His eyes pop open at 5:00 a.m., and he's irrevocably awake.

            The only jobs in the future are 1- cutting weeds at Honore, 2- hauling some cabinets over to the condo on Balmoral and installing a light fixture, 3- installing those windows for Caruso.  Which have yet to arrive.  I knew all this was coming though.  Balducci seems to think we could begin building the garage at least over at Honore, but who knows anymore.  And besides that's at most 2 weeks work, and then it's back to waiting.  All these $ problems and my precarious emotional state seems to demand I do something, get a job, return to therapy, latch onto something.  It's always such a house of cards, so many variables to juggle.  Above all I need to be writing. 

Balducci woke me up this morning by throwing a shoe into my bed.  While I showered, he and Jonah and Dr. Hangout went to the Salvation Army and bought a fucking pool table for $75 and carted it home.  I came out the back door just in time to tempt a hernia unloading the thing into Dr. H's basement.  Afterwards Hangout and Jonah set to work on some plumbing problem, and Balducci and I went to breakfast at Friars.

            Screwed around in the afternoon, rode my bike over to the the bank, watched TV, took the kitten to the vet.  She ran away the last two days, and I was beginning to give up, but she showed up yesterday evening.  Napoleon very happy to see her.  They touched noses and he sniffed her all over.  Anyway, I took her to the vet, and she told me Phyllis was probably pregnant.  She flipped Phyllis over and showed me her little unit, enlarged, red, and drops of blood present.  So now she has to be fixed pronto tonto. 

The adventures of Balducci are myriad.  Thursday while Jonah, Sean and I were at the Goodman watching Spaulding Gray, he was testing the envelope of decadence.  Went to the Bucktown Pub with Dr. Hangout and met Valentina (Leo's in Tokyo), and this black, bisexual, amazon with deadlocks named Sue-Bee.  Some kind of improv deal was going on and Balducci got dragged into it.  They asked to create a virtual space, whatever, and he went down into the crowd and pretended to set up sawhorses, mimed out a pile of lumber and started sawing.  The next guy up was this old Chicago stage ham who pretended to be an infant.  "Daddy make me a tree house..."  Then came somebody from the office of child abuse. Balducci offered him a beer. 

            Then they went to the Northside, where Sue-Bee started picking people up literally-- waitresses, anybody there, even Balducci.  She was talking about how her and Valentina had sex the other day, a huge 3 hour muff sucking session.  She left for the toilet and this other dyke started coming on to Balducci seriously, suggesting a menage-a-trois.  Sue-Bee came back and was pissed off, saying, "don't be looking at him that way!  If anybody's going to make love to him, it's me. I want him all to myself."

            Next to some Uptown bar, in the middle of a tremendous thunderstorm.  Balducci found himself pinned to the wall with arm across his chest by this coked-up guy he described as "the black Tom Mix," who quizzed him relentlessly on astronomy facts.  Finally Sue-Bee told Tom Mix to knock it off.  Then they were talking to this old guy, a former coal miner from Tennessee who said he entered the mines at 14.  Dr. Hangout and Valentina left in Balducci's van.  Balducci and Sue-Bee were doing coke and necking, and ended up walking down to the Lake at 3:00 am., and buying more coke.  Then over to her apartment, where he watched her take a shower.  She was saying how he she liked him, and could see being good friends with him and telling him everything, and how she could teach him a lot of things about how to please women, because she knows how women want to be eaten out, and how they want to be touched, etc.  And she asked him to watch while she masturbated there in the shower.

            It was like 6:00 am, and she had to be to work.  She's a nanny to two kids.  She took Balducci along to the house, a very ritzy place in Old Town, and introduced him to the child's mother as her fiancé.  The woman was very cordial and even let Balducci hold the baby.  Sue-Bee asked the other kid if he liked Balducci, and he said, "no way. He smells."

He said to me, "I think my life is entering a very shallow period."

            He was cashed most of the day, but managed to go out that night with Valentina, Dr. Hangout, myself, and this actress who called herself Suprema (some idiot friend of Hangout's).  She stood outside the Artful Dodger, (calling it the Dirtfull Artball), and kept going "yup.. yup... yuppieeee!" at the tourists driving by, totally pretentious and irritating.  I danced with Valentina, songs and did some grinding against her.  Everyone except me was exhausted from the night before.  I was primed from all the stories and anxious to get wasted.  Everything petered out though, and I ended up at the Northside with Dr. Hangout.    I bought ought a six-pack on the way home, and ended up attempting to reading Pynchon in bed.

Today Balducci went out with Valentina and Sue-Bee, with the plan of examining Valentina's paintings.  He says they're actually quite good, sketchbooks of nudes, the most recent entry being of two women going down on each other.  Sarah's been calling 3-4 times a day and I've been lying to her.  I was on the phone with her tonight when Balducci arrived with Sue-Bee and Valentina in tow.  I said a pizza had just arrived and I had to go. 

Jonah and I did some touch up work at Balmoral today and collected $100 each.  Watched MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY, the Brando version on PBS.  Dr. Hangout let himself in just as the credits were rolling. 

"Ah, MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY," he said.  "What a great tale of rum, sodomy and the lash."  

Then we watched this PBS special about the grandson of Bligh making a duplicate voyage by replica longboat, called "Child of Bounty."  As it turned out the entire pompous expedition was a disaster, and in the end the crew refused to take orders..

Went to Kimball Heights to watch football.  Dinner with the folks, did my laundry, watched a Lana Turner movie.  Depression nagging at my heels all day.  I'm sure drinking a six-pack didn't help.         When I walked out to the car, my father came along, trying to get a conversation going.  Telling me about drug testing at the factory, 11 people fired, etc.  I felt very blunted and spacey.  I drove off, and looking back saw he was standing there on the tree bank.  He always looks childlike to me when I leave, as though sadness were swirling vaguely in the background.  I waved out the window and he waved back.  I think it was this particular episode which caused depression to overtake me.  My mind wandered the drive home, and I thought a lot about bankruptcy and loneliness, but kept coming back to that episode.   

            Laid my gear on the floor and basically went to bed when I got home.  Masturbated, which dredged up this unrequited muck of emotions.  Started to think about Anne, and imagined calling her and driving out to the hospital.  Suddenly I felt exhausted of any ability to distracted myself, and I saw myself as a total failure, face down, ground zero.  I started crying, but then the clean sweep of feeling was botched by some thought, I don't remember what.  Then I decided to call Anne.  Seeing her tomorrow, 9:00 am.

I wonder if it's watching Balducci's doubt surface and his new recklessness that's worn through my veneer of comfort.  I feel better now that I've called Anne, but it's as though my immune system is down, and I've been dipped in fever.

Definitely ill.  Flu symptoms, sore throat, congestion, fever.  Supine all day yesterday after meeting with Anne and performing a few work errands.  Slept too much maybe, then I couldn't sleep last night.  Maniacal dreams.  Riding in a helicopter with a Nazi General, watching other choppers, worn out, bullet-riddled.  Then being marched with other prisoners to be hung in front of huge crowd of Germans.  I was yelling "Hitler eats shit!  Hitler eats shit," as the noose was drawn over me. 

Worked with Jonah today, hacking down weeds at Honore. Grubby, PAPILLON labors, but it helped me sweat out some of the sickness.  Drove around with Balducci and Jonah in the afternoon, various errands.  Sat down to write around 3:00 but found myself out of energy, and ended up sleeping till 6:30.  Made $135 last night on mushrooms.  Shayna's kicking Carmine out again.  He's strung out, broke.  He used to be so cocky and mellow.  Last night he was totally hyper, telling Shayna to watch for phone calls from such and such, "tell him I need that $10, it's very important."  Marching around the loft, very jangled, putting on one shirt, taking it off, trying another, chainsmoking, fooling with a big ziplock bag of pills.

In the car Shayna said to me, "when I first met him, he had $15,000 in the bank, and now he's broke.  I cleaned up my act drugwise but he never did."  Shayna also told me Kirk Funk's in deep shit.  Doing heroin and coke.  Already fired from the coffee shop for dealing, but they still let him come in and make himself sandwiches, and hang around.  Then they caught him ripping off the register.  And still they didn't call the cops.  The owner is telling him to go to one of those 12-step drug programs or else.  Like I said, made $135 last night which covered my student loan.  A reguilar throwback convention at Stuart's-- Dr. Who freaks, astrology nerds, King Richard's fair arts and craft types.  Should be making another $350 next week, backlog of orders.

Within minutes of walking into the office it was back to normal with Anne.  It's only been 4 months, and the receptionists still know me by name.  I was saying how I felt like a failure and at ground zero, but she assured me I wasn't regressing. 

She said, "the way you've been doing therapy is you take care of a bunch of things, and then you go out into the world until you use up what you've learned. It's very progressive, not at all regressive"

            The thing is though, I'm not quite sure what I'm there to work on this time.  All I know is I’m getting depressed.  And my relationship with Balducci is changing.  He's no longer kind of a big brother genius-- I see us almost on the same level emotionally, both a bit lost and needy.  Told her about my failures with the book, the Algren show,  my various love life disappointments.  Talked about the scene the other day with my father.  She says he's possibly making an effort to cultivate some kind of connection with me.  I don't know what I want from therapy, but I do seem to remember having felt the same way other times.  Hopefully some list of priorities will surface after a few sessions. 

Went downtown to take care of my traffic ticket, but all they did was assign me a court date.  So I have to go back again Monday.  Very humid, and my flu weighed me down, slogging around at 1/2 speed, eyelids heavy.  Constipated from lack of exercise.  I feel like going back to bed, but maybe all this sleep is making me stiff and achy.  Working even for a few hours seems to give me energy.  Jonah keeps asking me if I'm all right, but it's not just because of my flu, he senses my emotional confusion.  His "charity" disgusts me.  He has nothing to offer except bullshit hippie platitudes.  Maybe I'm just being cranky, but more and more I find Jonah irritating.

Yesterday Balducci and I were discussing how an academic is like a company man, where an artist is more like an entrepreneur.  Worked framing out Dr. Hangout's new doorways.  I came out from a nap, and it was mostly done, but I helped a few hours.  Magda's back from her 4000 mile cross country jaunt with Milos and Rhoda.  "The return of the Hun," as Dr. Hangout describes it.  Coming up the gangway she looked incredibly lush.  Tan, slim, that waxy pallor gone.  Dr. Hangout was very distant with her, trying to keep up his pose.  Balducci and I speculated on whether she'd been fucking Milos.  Maybe it's Dr. Hangout's way of not getting hurt, since she's just 24.  But I still think it's bullshit.

            We all piled in Bladucci's van and drove over to to Arturos.  I went to the toilet, constipated for a good twenty minutes.  When I came back there was a big argument in progress about THE GODFATHER, Dr. Hangout contending that it slurs Italians, and romanticizes murder and wife beating. Balducci was goading him, saying that he honestly finds all that stuff entertaining. 

The Honore project is finally off the ground.  House permit imminent.  Put up the garage walls today.  My flu fading, no more "Rip Van Sofa," as Balducci calls me.  Dinked around yesterday in the rain loading lumber, running errands.  Played art roadie, helping Balducci move the behemoth lead sculpture and some paintings over to the Coyote show.  A Stevie Ray Vaughn song came on the radio and I was saying his death was a nice way to go, slamming into a hill in a helicopter. 

            Balducci said, "Fuck that!  You should die in the most embarrassing scene possible.  On the toilet with a big shit half way out your ass, jerking off with a noose around your neck... And your mother should find you!" 

Went to dinner at Arturo's.  He wore shorts and his destroyed work boots with no socks.  It looked like he spent the winter at Valley Forge.  Out of nowhere carloads of Puerto Ricans started buzzing by, honking horns, PR flags flapping out their windows. 

            We went with Dr. Hangout over to Gold Star, and then to Czar Bar where we met Jonah and Sean.  Dr. Hangout introduced Balducci to this woman,  Ingrid.  Early 30's, somewhat attractive, Slavic looking.  He spent the whole night talking to her, while I got into this harebrained argument with Dr. Hangout.  Jonah and Sean were off in their own world, nodding like rear window gadgets. 

            Same old stuff with Hangout.  We were talking about the Richard Burton documentary on PBS and he was saying it was horseshit because "personality is dead."  The whole approach, getting people who knew him to give oral biography, he thought was idiotic.  He figures they should be talking about historical events and how they shaped Burton, and not stuff like his childhood, drunken father, etc.,

"They should be talking about capitalism, the bomb, and Marx!" 

I’m not kidding. It deteriorated into the same heredity, environment thing, with him poo-pooing genetics almost totally.  I think the reason he hangs on to this antique tabula rasa bullshit is because it's the only way to see any chance of his Marxist utopia ever happening.  He’s constantly saying I'm just a product of bourgeois upbringing, and sarcastically describes my outlook as, "I don't know.... life is just the way it is." 

I heard Ingrid say to Balducci, “You're not a Marxist, are you."

            "Not at all," he replied.

            "Good, because I've been hearing his routine for years, and I want to tell him to just grow up." 

            Later on I start hearing her saying stuff to him, like, "Are you corruptible...?  You're friends won't mind if I keep you out past your bedtime will they?"  

Some old guy, Larry came into the bar around closing.  Apparently he hung out with Algren, and played poker with him.  He told this great story of how Algren was always asking him to bring over "broads."  So one night, Larry's walking down "Polish Broadway," and this hooker approached him.  He said to her, "I'm not interested, baby, but I've got this friend..."  And so he took her up to Algren's apartment, knocked on the door, and said, "hey, Nelson, I got you a girl.  But she's kind of bashful, so you gotta turn off the lights."  So Larry he brought her in, and she sat down on the couch and Larry tip-toed away.  And so about twenty minutes later they're fucking, and Larry returned and snuck into the apartment and turned the lights on them and ran like hell.

            He said Algren wasn't actually much of a poker player.  He wouldn't look at his cards, just bet-- always trying to wildly bluff.  One time Larry dropped a dollar on the floor and Algren nonchalantly put his foot over it.  Then he slid it over to the other foot and off to the side.  This pissed Larry off, and when Algren reached down to pick up the dollar, Larry reached over and snatched a $20 off Algren’s pile.

            Didn't get very drunk.  Had three scotches, trying to soothe my throat.  Plus I've been thinking, the way to meet women is to not be smashed, because they avoid you then.  Get drunk with them, but don't let them see you at the other end of the bar flushed and wasted.  And Balducci's been saying to me my big problem meeting women is I set my sights on these beautiful ones, serious girlfriend material, and that's such a hopeless lottery, especially in a bar. 

            "You should be going strictly for numbers.  You should say to yourself, I'm going to fuck ten different women by Christmas." Last night he was definitely following his own advice.  After I left, he drove Ingrid over to Riptide.  Then back to her place where they fucked.  She had several excellent paintings, by Balducci's account, and she said they were done by her ex-boyfriend who was an alky and painted a while, but bottomed out.

I woke up this morning to hear X-ray singing to his kids, teaching them "Papa Was a Rolling Stone." There was a message for Balducci on the machine:

"Hello, Deese iz Valentina.  I am standing here vith Sue-Bee, von't you give us a call." 

He walked out of his bedroom in his underwear, grinning.  "Excellent! " he said. "This is just the kind of low-life drama I've been looking for."   

Our trip to New York is off.  The weekend of the 29th is Yom Kippur, and Janie being joined at the hip to mommy and daddy can't blow off the services, or even feign a migraine.  Very pissed off.  Though I do realize the holiday is a big deal to them, and it's a big family thing.  If Balducci and I had just made plans to travel some other weekend none of this would have happened.  All the same I think Janie's spineless and a daddy's girl. 

            I was gloomy all morning at work, and Balducci even asked me was it because of this Janie business.  Since I've gone back to therapy, he's been more aware of my moods.  Though by the end of the day, with the roof totally up and sheathed and the eaves cut, I was fine.  The garage is almost finished already.  My bills paid, making shroom money tomorrow.  Maybe I can coast from the time the garage is finished a week or so and crank on the book.  Sounds possible but obviously remains to be seen.

Around the Coyote shows opened yesterday, but Balducci's space folded at the last minute.  The idiot organizers blew off getting insurance till the last minute, and when they found out it would be $500 a day, they went pale.  Balducci could have probably moved to another space, but he's satisfied with having his name in the program.

Watching MacNeil, Lehrer tonight, I saw an interview with Charles Dutton.  Hardcore ghetto childhood, reform school, went to prison for manslaughter.  He told of being in solitary confinement for 120 days. He read an anthology of plays by the light that came from under the door.  Became obsessed with this particular play and read it over and over.  When he got out of solitary, he was totally focused. Decided to put on the play at the prison talent show, and won 1st place. The amazing focus he had made me sick with self-loathing. 

Balducci's out for family dinner.  His Uncle Santino's in town. Maybe we'll go to this opening for Gretchen somebody at Jimmo's if he gets home in time.  I'm generally depressed.  Thought seriously about just going to bed at 9:30, but sat down here to make a few notes, and the feeling has been somewhat blunted-- though this cloud hangs over me.  And now, quite rapidly, the anguish has dropped off a notch, as though the act of self description massaged the knot away.

I've been mulling over the convolutions of my thinking process, my lack of direction.  And I decided to settle on a specific hypothesis, and play it out, examine what occurs, etc.  This brought on by an experience yesterday.  Went over to Amber's in the morning to conduct shroom business, but she wasn't there.  Spoke to Jennifer a good half hour.  She was describing how she and her husband went about some roof repairs.  I felt a definite openness from her, almost flirtation, and when I left, I came home and was motivated to do the dishes, and clean up the kitchen to the surprise of Balducci and Jonah, because the whole house has been a pit for weeks.  The hypothesis all this brought me to was this:  contact with people greatly juices up my mood.

The neighborhood block organization met last night.  14 people showed.  Neighborhood watch signs passed out, phone numbers and addresses collected for a block directory.  And wouldn'r you know it, Mr. Fucking Community, Dr. Hangout hemmed and hawed and didn't go.  Made up some bullshit excuse about a play, but when I got back from the meeting, he was sitting there at the window reading.  His idea of being politically active is sitting around with various academic slackers and endlessly dredging up McCormick, and Haymarket.

            Came out of the meeting very wound up from all the people and having talked in front of them.  Walked home with Steiglitz and Georgia, and they were having some kind of tiff.  She was making a lot of stupid cracks at the meeting, and I think she must have had a couple drinks.  Some woman suggested we have a potluck for our next meeting, and Georgia snapped back at her, "I don't think we have to socialize with each other.  I think it's important that we remain businesslike."  And generally contradicting the woman for no apparent reason except that she was drunk and cranky.  Went to Jonah and Sean's.  Had a beer and a few shots of vodka.  Black bean soup and rice.  Then to Amber’s to collect money.  Got high with Jennifer, Stuart and Amber.  Jennifer spent most of her time taking care of her daughter, putting her to bed, reading to her, and I was lonesome/disappointed we couldn't talk more.  

I still feel run down and depressed though.  I think due to the prospect of going out tonight and trying to meet people.  Especially if Balducci doesn't come home.  Maybe I'll call Dr. Hangout.  Jonah does want to get together, but having spent all day with him, I could use some relief.  And I could still easily lie down and go vacant.  I hate myself for all this cloudy, nauseating paralysis.  Anne wants to be positive, telling me how resourceful I am, but at times like this I honestly see myself drifting off chronically, accomplishing nothing, inarticulate, and pathetically, hopelessly, lonesome.   

Went to the movies with Lilly, POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE.  Came home and no one was here.  Watched BATTLEGROUND on PBS and fantasized endlessly about slowly fading out like Ricardo Montalbon in the snow.  Very depressed right now, paralyzed. I feel like crying-- the panorama of me dread hanging over my face like a visor.  Stayed in last night watching TV, feeling very schized and sad, didn't answer the phone (though I should have, Dr. Hangout and Magda went to a decent party, but I was avoiding Jonah.  Went to bed around midnight.

Balducci was out with Valentina and Sue-Bee.  He went to pick them up, and he witnessed this little scene in the window, saw them getting dressed and caressing each other.  At the Northside, Valentina suggested going out with Balducci next Friday, and Sue-Bee got very angry and possessive and walked out.

.           

Overcast, dark, rain likely.  Spent the morning driving Dr. Hangout around.  Picked up the windows for his little bunker, went to SPAZCO for roof tar, Bell Lumber for plywood.  Jonah is framing in the windows, and right now he and Dr. Hangout are priming them white.  I could be working, but don't feel like it.  But then again I could at least watch Magda practicing her violin.  She's wearing a dark dress shirt and shorts.  She paces and pivots.  I can't stop there's a poem about her swimming around, waiting to be hooked.   

Wednesday, my 28th birthday I worked 10.5 hours.  Hauling trash and grading what's to be the front patio of the Honore house.  Now there are three huge piles that amount to at least two full dumpster loads of crap on the tree bank.  Then we finished off the garage fascia work and began the siding.  Dinner at Arturos.  Balducci was fading, the flu coming on I think. 

We walked home, and he took a shower and went straight to bed.  He made an effort to wake up, because we were all going out, but I ended up switching off his light and we left him. Went to Riptide with Jonah and Sean around 10:00 and the place was empty.  (It's always dead until after 2:00 when the other bars close). Jonah and Sean bought me a drink, and they began to fade also.  The conversation petered out, and after the one drink I took them home.  Pretty pathetic and depressing.

            Went alone to Gallery for a beer-- poetry night, same old losers. Though Catherine, the "girly girl," was there and looking hot.  Newly married and just pregnant however.  I'd planned to link up with Dr. Hangout and Magda, but ended up playing phone machine tag.  Searched the Division St. circuit for them and came up empty.  But around midnight I went next door and Dr. Hangout was home waiting for Magda.  She came in shortly after and we all had a beer. She said she was hungry, and I lied saying so was I, and the two of us went out for pizza, leaving Dr. Hangout to sit with his thumb up his ass. 

Rolando's was closed, so we went to Arturos.  Shen talked about learning Spanish, and about the time she did LSD.  She was living in Franklin Park, bored out of her mind.  She took the train into the city and went to Kingston Mines, where she met these two black guys and went back to their bombed out apartment in Rogers Park at 3:00 or 4:00 a.m.  They ended up on the beach. 

She said, "one fellow was having beer for his breakfast."  Laughing at everything.  She took off her shoes and splashed around laughing.

            We went to Czar bar, sitting with our legs mingled.  I kept telling her how pretty her hair was.  Then to Riptide.  Talked to her about why I can't seem to write a novel, biting off too much, and I need to try something I can handle.  Back to poetry maybe (which I've been considering a lot).  Left around 2:30.  Sat in the car talking about the Algren play. I shut the engine off.  Talking, talking.  I started to play with her hair.  I leaned in and kissed her.  She undid her seatbelt. Very passionate, rough almost, strong hands.  I let down her seat and climbed over onto her.  But it was obviously not going to work, so she went down on me, and afterwards we laid there together.  She was rubbing her head into me and I said "you're a nuzzler," which confused her, and maybe she thought it had something to do with going down on me, but I explained it to her by nuzzling her back.  I undid her pants and played with her, but she was very tired and wanted to go home.  Kissing and hugging on the front lawn goodnight. 

            I went to bed giddy, bursting to tell someone, and the next morning Balducci said he heard me coming in laughing.

Long day again yesterday. The cedar is up on three sides of the garage now, and we're just waiting for the big door to arrive.  Balducci left for New York around 5:00.  Had pizza with Jonah and Sean, drank some wine and a few beers.  We were going to Gallery with Dr. Hangout, but I became totally comatose and decided to go home to bed.  But the walk home perked me up, and I took a shower and went out after all. 

            Every time I see the open mic crowd, they look a notch or two worse.  I sat next to Elvis Ed watching him psyche up as the intro was playing.  He took several drags on his menthol cig, chugged a Budweiser, took off his glasses, the whole time looking relatively composed.  But then he got this self-disgusted look and puffed up his cheeks and sighed.  After the act he slipped into the bathroom and came out with his Elvis clothes in a brown grocery bag and quietly left. 

            Toejam's back on Heroin.  Menthol Mike actually looked good, wearing his new false teeth, but he was mopey and scatterbrained as ever.  He'd get up and bolt over and you'd exchange a few sentences with him and turn away hoping he'd leave, and he'd drift off despondently and sit down, but then five minutes later the whole thing would happen again.  Talked with Brenda.  Her makeup was horrendous.  She's too pale to be made up like a whore.  I asked her to drive me home and against my better judgment I invited her in, but she said no. 

            I was hoping Magda might be home.  The lights were on in the studio, but I couldn't see her.  I knocked on the door and she asked nervously, "who is it?"  She'd been asleep.  I went around to the front and she was getting out of bed naked.  She put on a robe and came to the door kind of bashfully.  She kissed me.  I asked if she wanted to come over, but just at that moment the back gate jingled and it was Dr. Hangout.  Maybe I can engineer something with her tonight.

Went to Avalon last night with Magda.  We met Jerry Jakarta there to see this band, Lotion.  Catherine something played violin and sang.  Jerry left his first wife for her and they lived together for two years or so.  This was when he was only 24. (Jesus think of it… I was married and divorced myself by the time I was 24).  He had a lingering head cold, but was in good spirits.  After the set the drummer came over, Jack Wesley.  Manic, deranged looking, Beethoven hair, late 40’s.  We were talking about Dr. Hangout and he said, "by the way, where is grandpa?"  This evil grin came over his face.

            Magda and I walked down to Max Tavern and stayed till closing.  I didn't drink that much.  Brought her back here.  Naked and everything, but she didn't want to screw.  Almost embarassed, "Oh hell, I can't.  It's hard to explain.  I think next week or something."  Maybe she needed sperm foam, cream, whatever to feel safe.  But the smug description here destroys the tenderness of the whole event.  Under the blankets, snuggling.  Her making fun of me for snoring.  I was supremely happy for hours, wound up with giddiness, flushed clean. 

At one point she got very serious and kept me at arms length, across the bed and said, "I just keep wondering what kind of dog you look like.  At first I thought you were a Schnauzer, but now I can no longer be sure."

This morning I had to get up early to drive Dr. Hangout around again. The new windows had to be cleaned and re-glazed, because the idiots left sawdust between the two layers of glass.  Then to Bell Lumber yard.  He was in a shitty mood, overwhelmed by a cold.  I was talking about Jerry Jakarta's wife, saying she's directing this new piece at ETC, and  Dr. Hangout said, "she's Jerry's wife, and I love her dearly, but she can't direct her way out of the grocery store." 

            Jonah and I met Caruso at Ashland and Wilson to walk through this 30 unit building he's thinking of buying.  Very slummed out in some apartments.  The boiler room was disgusting, and there'd been a fire in one of the basement apartments, set by a wino squatter who'd been run off.  But overall the place is decent enough for the neighborhood.  2 bedrooms going for under $600.  Better layouts than where I used to live in Lincoln Park.

Just been laying around, dozing on the couch.  Watched TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN.  Jonah is putting in the windows for Dr. Hangout and expects me to help, but I'm just not in the mood.  Growing depressed.  Felt that way yesterday, but talked myself out of it.  After the thing with Magda I was asking myself, what do I have to be depressed about?  And it faded.  But of course this comet fling will burn itself out soon enough-- the impossibility of an affair with her living next door.  Whatever.  I keep getting myself into the same hopeless situations. 

            To tell the truth, my entire life is one big mess of hopeless situations.  And that certainly includes my bullshit fantasies of being a writer.  That car's dead in the ditch.  Let's just say fuck it right here and now and forever.  Fuck the future.  Fuck you.  This is my book, now.  Stick it up your ass!

I was talking to my mother on my birthday asking her what she remembered about my birth.  She told me a few weeks before they'd taken an x-ray and felt I was small enough, but in the last weeks my head grew just enough to where I had to be taken by C-section.  She said the night before I was born, my fater and her were all set to listen to a Cassius Clay fight on the radio.  This was in the little house on Bennett Street.  My mother went into the toilet, and when she came out the fight was already over.  It was a first round knockout. 

I had the most wonderful feeling the other day-- a particularly bright, ambitionless moment where I was swimming in language.  My head was hollowed out and chains of words swam through my mouth and eyes and ears.  Obviously Anne must have a lot to do with all of this.  She says depression is a sense of loss.  And she keeps trying to bring out the issue of Balducci's recent floundering.  De-idealization, she calls it. 

Party today at King Tut's.  Live music, beer and food.  Maybe going with Magda, though rain is forecasted.  I should get out either way.  Too much time inside makes me feel blank.

I woke up this morning with a hangover and went to the fridge and poured myself a glass of orange juice.  It was just turning but I drank it anyway.  Decided to get some exercise and walk over to Linda's for a decent breakfast.  I meandered down the alleys and popped out by Artful Dodger.  Parked across the street was a Latino van loaded to blotation-- mattresses, lamps, toys, end tables strapped across the roof.  No doubt they're moving across Western avenue.  The kids were playing soccer in the front yard with a beer can.

            I continued my meander past all those hideous lollypop houses with their pastel Dry-Vit California stucco.  Across Ashland.  Under the Kennedy.  Past UHF station 50.  Crossing the river I got a big blast of that tannery smell, like a thousand wet catcher's mitts.  Strip mall movie palace, frozen yogurt boutique, pseudo-Southwest art gallery.

            At Clybourn avenue my stomach sank.  Linda's Lithuanian Diner was shut down.  The windows were whitewashed and the neon sign proclaiming:  CIGARETTES.... HAMBURGERS was dead quiet.  On the front door as depressing as cancer read this sign:

Coming Soon: Starbucks Coffee

Balducci and I are just back from taking Block Dog to the vet. $ 265.   He got in a terrible fight with that Rotweiller from behind the glove factory and nearly had his throat ripped out.  We had been working for Dino all day, trimming out some windows on his second floor.  It was around six o'clock, and we were unloading tools in the alley and bullshitting with Dr. Hangout about some harebrained scheme of his for heating his apartment with the exhaust vent from his clothes dryer.  Balducci kept telling him there's no way to get rid of that laundry smell.  Plus it's got to be a serious fire hazard.

            "Exactly,"  Hangout said, gesturing with his cigarette.  "That problem is foremost in my mind.  But if you'll bear with me, my plan vis-a-vis the odor is to set up an in-line filter using activated charcoal…" 

            And then this horrible animal noise started up from the direction of the hotdog stand and the three of us turned in unison to see Block Dog come flying around the corner with the Rotweiller in maniacal pursuit.  Then like something out of Marlin Perkins, the Rotweiller drove Block Dog into the chain-link fence and then clamped down on his neck and started shaking him like a rag bag.  All this happened in the space of five seconds.  Block Dog was in total panic, sending out this agonizing wail.  I'm sure you could hear it all the way to Milwaukee Avenue. 

            Balducci and I stood there totally useless and petrified and watched the whole movie event.  It was Dr. Hangout who jumped in and saved Block Dog.  He picked up a long scrap of 2X4 from the side of the garage and charged over there like a madman and fucking WHAM! beat the Rotweiller on the head with it two or three times until he turned loose of Block Dog and slowly walked off. 

            Afterwards Hangout stood there in the alley, sweat pouring over his face, breathing hard.  Block Dog limped off into X-ray's yard.  But then the fucking Rotweiller turned back in a flash and went after him, and the whole thing started up again.  We ran back there, and he had poor Block Dog by a hind leg and was trying to drag him out of the bushes.  The little guy was wailing for his life. 

Dr. Hangout picked up the 2X4 again and charged through the gate and slammed the Rotweiller over the head, and I mean brutally, ten times or more until blood actually came out of the Rotweiller's ears and he finally let go, and slowly limped away down the alley with his head down, cocked to one side and bleeding, swaggering like a dazed machine.