Love trouble April 12, 1985

 


Pauly knows he’s making a mistake.

But the hole in his heart is so vast, he’ll do anything to try and fill it.

I’d do as much myself in his place, desperate to rid myself of the pain, leaping into new situations that I hope will make things better, but ultimately know they will make things worse.

But who’s pain are we talking about?

Pauly is not always a nice man, or considerate of other people’s feelings. He often only considers himself and his own feelings – natural for all of us, who have been through similar situations, and yet seems childish in someone we all assumed as being more mature than the rest of us.

He blames Jessica for deciding against him, deciding for someone other than him, calling her “The bitch!”

Yesterday, he complained about her showing up at the Fotomat booth to get her check and left without a word. (Chrystal claims he manipulated the situation by having the check go to the store in Garfield, so she had to go there for it – although I suspect this is just rumor since Pauly has no say as to where checks go, and this turned out to be an unfortunate coincidence.)

Jessica is angry at Pauly, however, claiming he has attempted to get between her and her boyfriend – no rumor, fact, Pauly is doing exactly that.

But she’s not so angry as to shut the door completely on Pauly, keeping communications open, telling him she would still like to see him, still be friends, maybe even go dancing.

They had a date (sort of) scheduled for Friday, Pauly joining in with a group headed to a club to dance.

“She told me her boyfriend might show up,” Pauly grumbled to me two days ago. “She wants me to pretend that there’s nothing going on between us.”

Was this some kind of test? Was Jessica playing a strange game as Pauly suggests?

I like to think her more innocent than all that, just a young woman searching for answers in an otherwise confusing world. Although I tend to take Pauly’s side, I have to admit Jessica faces a lot of changes all at once. She is set to graduate shortly, and her parents have recently sold their house, leaving her to fend for herself. And then, there is Pauly, charging into her life six weeks ago, and expecting her to jump into his life – promising only more insecurity.

She knows what to expect with her boyfriend.

Pauly claims its about the things she gets, free tires, free auto repairs, and loans of cash when she needs it.

Yet it’s more than that. Maybe he is the clown Pauly makes him out to be, but he’s Jessica’s clown. She knows his moods, and how he will react in a crisis.

By moving in with Pauly, she hopes it will work, that it won’t leave her homeless if it does not, with love, without a future.

I’m not saying she’s innocent. She manipulates as well as Pauly does, trying to keep hold of the best of two worlds, keeping Pauly quietly in the closet while she gets to be with him, while finding real security elsewhere – perhaps with her boyfriend.

In the meantime, Pauly aches. Most of the pain comes from that inner part of him that strikes me as child-like. He seems to have lost control, a condition he’s not had to deal with before the way I have, Hank has, Garrick. We have never seen Pauly like this, jumping to the wrong conclusions, making the wrong choices.

“Two can play at that game,” he told me at one point, when he made a telephone call to another woman, Jeanette, hoping to make Jessica jealous.

I know Jeanette. She is the same whacko that claimed Pauly sent her secret messages through her daughter to her a few months back, a crisis Pauly seems to have forgotten, needs to forget, rushing headlong into a new disaster in a desperate attempt to get the affection he can’t get from Jessica.

I’m scared for him, for that moment when he wakes up from this fantasy and realizes Jeanette means business, when she has wrapped her tentacles around him in such a way that he can’t escape.

I’m not saying Jeanette is a bad person. She’s simply looking for commitment Pauly is unwilling or unable to make.

I can’t see him inviting her into his world the way he has with Jessica, his world being his room full of paint and paintings, and solidary habits, more comfortable with himself, his TV and his privacy than with any person.

Maybe his connection to these women has changed him fundamentally, but I doubt it. One day Pauly will wake up and crave solitude again, and this will crush Jeanette, and will push Jessica into the arms of another man, if not her current boyfriend, then someone like him, leaving Pauly alone – perhaps forever.

 

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