The same old shit May 31, 1985

 Pauly plans to spend the weekend with Carol. So does Alf, not knowing about Pauly’s plans, but knowing Pauly well enough that if Pauly found out what Alf wanted, Pauly would step and ruin things as he always did, when Pauly had already ruined those plans from the start.

Pauly has already started his campaign against Alf – not really against Alf so much as for himself, suffering heartache over another woman, he seeks solace in the arms of the woman Alf adores.

“How can he object,” Pauly asked me last night. “He knows I see Carol. He knows I’ve been looking for her number for months.”

He said this coolly, even calmly, but he was neither cool nor calm.

He had surrendered to his glands just as the rest of us have, when we all assumed he was the one person who would not.

Alf has always loved Carol from that first time decades ago when he saw her at some party in West Paterson, his whole life spent trying to impress a woman who could never be impressed by someone like him, a woman destined to find someone important, of substance, not a man fingers blistered from carpentry rather than rock & roll.

She would always prefer someone like Pauly over someone like Alf.

But Alf continued to court her, giving her gifts, which she greedily accepted, if at the same time, refusing to accept him, though not so bluntly as to discourage him completely.

But according to Pauly, she’s been clear in her intentions all along, trying to let Alf down easy, though when I said that didn’t sound like the Carol I remembered, Pauly defended her.

“She’s changed,” Pauly said. “She isn’t the same old Carol.”

Although Pauly said he doesn’t want to see Alf get hurt, he only seemed interested in keeping Alf from intruding on his visit to Carol.

What scared me most was the trust Alf put in Pauly, telling me one night how Pauly was the closest friend he ever had, confused by the fact that Pauly is interested in the love of his life.

Carol has always been the temptress. She apparently expected Pauly to “speak with Alf,” and how Pauly was going to spend the weekend, alone.

Pauly failed to talk to Alf about it and has spent the last two days looking for excuses why he shouldn’t have to.

So Pauly came to me and said I had to tell Alf.

Rick, however, said Alf had already found out about Pauly and Carol and plans to tag along.

It was just like the old days when Pauly used to steal any woman Alf was interested in, just to prove he could, though I said it was worse than that this time.

All of us are older. This wasn’t a game anymore.

Alf cleaned up his act, no more drugs, no more drunken brawls. He’s actually trying to find a place in a society he couldn’t stand being apart of when we were young.

He feels pressure, and is trying to heal some wound inside himself, to get over all the abuse Pauly heaped on him when teens.

Alf loves Pauly, but hates him, too. Almost the way a child hates a father who beats him yet can’t help but love him anyway.

Everything Alf has ever done is about finding love – and acceptance, often Imitating Pauly’s tricks, which come off as cruel when Alf does them, but clever when Pauly does.

This afternoon, Pauly finally told Alf to go home, then boarded a bus to New York City to go stay with Carol in the Village, leaving a broken Alf standing in the buses exhaust fumes on the curb, mumbling at me, “It’s the same old shit.”

 

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