Harried visit November 3, 1985


 

She came and went, but is still not gone, nor has the storm of controversy disappeared from around her.

It sends shock waves ahead and behind.

I should have known she would be coming and that the reason for her coming would not be simple.

I’ve been writing about her again and that seems to draw her out of the woodwork.

She has numerous reasons for coming; the least important of all is seeing me.

No, that’s not true either.

Seeing me is a matter of convenience, and she manipulates me by withholding fact until it is too late for me to do anything about any of it – and possibly upset her plans, or would be so embarrassed to do so as to seem unreasonable.

She called yesterday at two in the afternoon saying, “I’ll be down for a visit.”

A short visit, she said, just in and out.

She claimed she would have to get back home to meet a friend the next morning.

“Going to New York City,” she said, and in my half conscious state this did not hit me as a calculated statement.

I offered to let her spend the night. It seemed silly to have her drive all the way back only to come back to this neck of the woods a few hours later.

She said “Maybe,” and hung up.

Some hours later she called. She had gotten off at the wrong exit – again – and was lost in the heart of Passaic.

I went out and led her back through the maze of streets to my little hovel.

It was then she informed me that she was to attend a Halloween party in Clifton.

“Something my boyfriend doesn’t know about,” she said.

How strangely her mind works, the push and pull of motives and plans. She comes all the way to Jersey to party and make peace with me – at least long enough to have a place to rest.

“I start a new job Tuesday,” she said.

In the meantime, she is making good use of her short vacation.

This morning I deliberately overslept – just to see what would happen.

Maybe that upset her plans enough to wrangle a real visit out of her.

She managed, however, to salvage her trip, and even managed a brief telephone confession to her boyfriend back home, telling him she would be going to a party without him.

Maybe she feared I might accidentally reveal her secret the next time I met with them together. And then, in yet another bit of last minute information, she informed me that she had driven her boyfriend’s car with her, but that her friends from the party would be picking her up and could I keep an eye on the car if she leaves it here.

“I’ll be back to collect it in the morning, I promise,” she said, wiggling her fingers as she left to the honk of horn of her party friends just then pulling up outside.

 

 



email to Al Sullivan

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

An old nemesis December 11, 1985

Image
    Surisky hated me from early on in grammar school, although “hate” may be too strong a word to describe his reaction to me. I was simply available to him for abuse, Third grade was pivotal for both of us. Prior to that, we were simply feeling our way through Catholic School routine, emerging eventually as whole personalities from the muck of early childhood. He came across as a thug, trying to convey the image of a tough guy. He wore a leather jacket and spiked boots, and snuck into see James Dean movies. Third grade was tough on everybody, including the teachers, who considered us the worst class in the history of the school – even in the safe grades of Kindergarten, First and Second. Two of the three nuns retired after passing us on. But it was in the third grade that we began to work our magic, driving even the stout-hearted nuns crazy. Later, the nuns tried to break our spirit. But we fully represented our age and had the full impact of the 1960s behin...
Read more

The clock is ticking July 18, 1985

Image
  We’re talking love here – silly fictional love with all the connotations of disaster. I seem to be on the meat chopping block with Safire looking for qualities in me that are lacking in her husband. The fact that there is a husband in the first place greatly disturbs me. All this said, I’m uncertain as to why I haven’t ended this already, except to know she is too much like my ex-wife to pass up without a closer examination. Even the way she thinks: slow, methodical, going from point A to point B. It has only been a week since she blurted out drunk that she wanted me in bed. It seems like much longer. And she hints of something more permanent, suggesting that I might fill in for her husband for a much longer duration. The night before last she suggested I come see her in her trailer, as if she is legally separated from her husband, when in fact she is supposed to be biding time until he finds them both a place to live in Baltimore. This is the same kind of smoke and...
Read more

Pauly leaves Passaic for the final time July 24, 1985

Image
    Pauly is leaving Passaic again. This comes after two years of us rubbing shoulders after he had been cast out of paradise in Towaco, after his goddess, Jane, went and married that man Pauly calls “a bum.” This has been a tough two years, filled with Pauly’s typical manipulation, his usual shaping of reality to his own needs often at other people’s (mine) expense. When Pauly first came I had Fran’s cultist brother as a temporary guest and Pauly spent most of his time trying to push me into getting that guest out. A few months later – in November – Fran got the ax from her ex and changed her mind about moving in with me after I had committed the spare room to Pauly. He assumed she meant more to me than he did and was already packing when I told Fran no. She had no place to go except for her father’s house, a father she had a love/hate relationship with, and she held it against me, even though we continued to see each other romantically. Pauly being Pauly drove ...
Read more