Jessica who? June 1, 1985

 

So, what do we know about Jessica anyway – the woman that has dragged Pauly over hot coals?

First, we know she is 22 years old, the same age as Suzanne when I first met her at college five years ago. The same age as Fran, when I met her a few years later. The same age as Louise when Louise and I broke up well over a decade ago.

Maybe there is something about that age that is significant, something that causes a disruption in our lives, full of decision and pain.

We know Jessica is pretty – not quite beautiful. Her mouth is a little too wide, and she lacks the petiteness so popular with Madison Avenue advertisements.

While she may never get fat, she has big bones. She will always stand out in the crowd.

She is dominant: a fault and an attribute. She does not seem to function well in an emotional or confused state.

But she has a lot of Gaul, like many people her age, assumes she knows it all or has a comment on any subject broached.

She reminds a lot of Pauly during his younger days when he could twist facts and figures into making any argument he wanted or needs to verify his arguments.

Unfortunately, Jessica lacks the talent to twist facts the way Pauly could, and often contradicts herself.

She is very materialistic, and Pauly, during our conversations, has tried to defend her.

“She has to look out for herself, you know,” he tells me.

Her attitude irritates me. She seems to care about nothing except for herself.

This week her store reported a disaster when decided to go to lunch rather than wait for the truck to make deliveries, screwing up orders for two days, leaving gentlemen Tony to handle the customers’ complaints when the rolls they dropped off for development weren’t picked up and the pictures they expected to pick up were delayed.

She flatly says she doesn’t care.

Bob, the area manager, said he might have to fire her, Pauly or no Pauly.

It’s difficult to see how her attitude will benefit her as she gets older. It really hasn’t worked that well for Pauly, who people tend to love or hate or both at the same time.

I don’t know what she really wants. She said she wants to work in design. While she has talent as an artist, it’s hard to imagine her starving on her way to fame, the way Pauly has.  She wants everything up front. She has ability, but no vision.

She has four years of college under her belt but looks to go back to some film company which is more assembly line than creative, and she going through the motions like a robot.

I keep thinking she needs a lesson in humility, something that might shock her into some new way of thinking. I suspect it may never happen.

Pauly says she’ll grow out of it, and claims she’s suffered a lot over the last few months.

He sees things in her I don’t. Jessica is not Jane. She has neither Jane’s heart or brain, and as far as I can see, Jessica is doomed to a life of misery and disappointment, and perhaps won’t even know she’s ruined her life until it’s too late.

 

 1985 Menu

 


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 behind us. So,
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 me out of
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 mir
Read more