Pauly leaves Passaic for the final time July 24, 1985
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 my mind so that
eventually, I moved back to the apartment next door which I had kept renting
for those rare times when they let my uncle out of the looney bin, and since he
hasn’t stopped trying to kill himself, they have kept him in, keeping the
apartment vacant.
I didn’t totally abandon Pauly. I got him a part time job at
the Fotomat (my job actually as it forced me to work at another site much more
distant than one within walking distance of Passaic,) I even gave him my old
car and encouraged my ex-girlfriend, Suzanne to date him) But the last year
wore Pauly out and he opted for a new
utopia in Lake Hopatcong, to live with another old friend, Rick.
Pauly had come and gone before from Passaic, but I get the
feeling this time he won’t be back. He is still looking for a dream while
fleeing a nightmare, leaving behind this time of legacy of pain staying would
only continue to remind him of.
Maybe his leaving this time isn’t nearly as dramatic a
change as the previous time, after Garrick’s aunt and uncle old the apartment
complex, and he, Garrick, Lewis, and Jewell fled, he to Towaco, the others to a
house in Lake Valhalla – all of which fell apart, sending Paul back here, Garrick
to live with Hank in Haledon, all others having since settled in other places far
from here, with Pauly leaving me to fend for myself here alone.
What happens after this remains a pure mystery.
This Pauly is a different, less hopeful Pauly than the one
who fled Passaic in the past, having gone through the trials and tribulations
of love and the desperation of possible failure, yet moves on to yet another
dependency, if not me, or Garrick or Hank this time, then Rick. Perhaps Pauly
sees real hope in this change, some vision of paradise I can’t see, though I
suspect in the end he may be no better off than he is here because he carries
the same baggage with him.
I know this is not the end of our friendship. Our lives and
been intricately connected since the first day we met, and will continue to be,
and that all the changes in our lives we have experienced have had some meaning
only time will unravel for us.
Good bye, Pauly, I will definitely miss you.
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