Authors: U
one. This fall I’ll watch football at the tavern.
* * * *
April 22, 1978
Wrote another ten pages last night but got too tired to continue. I
fell into bed about 11:30 PM and slept for fifteen hours straight. I
plan to finish the notebook draft of Chap. 49 today, come hell or high
water. The high water thing is an actual possibility. It rained last
night. It poured last night. It fucking came down so hard it even
woke me from my wine-drunk sleep a couple times. An incredible
deep rumbling sound on the roof. The streets are awash in water this
morning.
I must finish this goddamn novel.
I’m sick of it, almost. I feel like writing something else.
Anything else.
* * * *
April 27, 1978
Last night, at 11:15 PM, I officially completed the draft of the
novel I am calling
The Dark City
. There is still much work to be done
on it, polishing and whatnot, but the big push is done. A complete
rewrite. A much better, tighter, more subtle, and far more cohesive
version of my great masterpiece.
It looks fucking beautiful.
I must work the beginning over again in a few spots. I’m not
completely satisfied. During next few weeks I intend to polish it into
marketable shape.
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Then I will try to sell it. Yes, I plan to unleash my creation on the
world! What will the reaction will be?
Probably ho hum yawn.
The manuscript is 184 double spaced pages, about 60,000 words
altogether. Five weeks should be plenty of time to get it ready. The
initial marketing phase will commence sometime in June. I’m
compiling a list of possibilities from various sources and then I’ll start
spreading it around.
Another book will soon follow. A sexy romance novel, with the
working title something like Permission or The Girl and The Boy.
Get it out of my system. Pen a serious, mature work of erotic fiction.
Perhaps even a classic of the genre.
* * * *
April 30, 1978
The clocks got changed to Daylight Savings this AM and I was
apparently the last person on earth to spring forward. I am now no
longer a full hour behind everybody else in town.
Been reading the manuscript over and over again, touching it up.
There is not much more I can do with it. It has evolved very neatly. I
am so pleased with this project.
I’ll have the finished typescript in my hands within a month. It
looks as though I should only need to fine tune the first 40 pages or
so. Probably should have begun doing the notebook drafts sooner
than I did.
I had a ball working on it. The most fun I have ever had! At times
like this I wonder why I would ever consider hooking up with another
woman. In return for a physical connection, you must devote all your
time and energy to them. At least that’s the message I got from Polly
Ellsworth.
I would never have gotten this far this fast if I had been in a
relationship with her. No way.
Right now, I am still on a complete and total high from my amazing
writing feat.
Think of it – 60,000 words cranked out in five months. While I
worked full time! That is discipline.
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Oh, it will be easy to say bad things about it. Even to me it still
seems a trifle clumsy. I’m working on it. For laughs, I like big
industrial words from time to time – like "perambulation," and
"rhomboid."
It’s a joke, like something W. C. Fields would say.
Not sure I have the technique down yet. I’m sure there will be
many who are willing to tear it down.
To them I say:
"Show me your 60,000 word manuscript."
Meanwhile, I’ve learned that life itself cannot be touched, let alone
approximated. All you can do is write. Try to do it in an entertaining
fashion. Reality itself is writ too large for a primate with a typewriter.
My works are strictly entertainment.
At times I think
The Dark City
is merely a vehicle for my sense of
humor. You know humor really is the truth. I’m not sure if I’m
capable of doing anything really exalted, like Dr. Zhivago or Gone
With The Wind. Essentially I just try to make outrageous statements
in a light, though deadpan fashion.
I was so disappointed in the first version. It simply didn’t hang
together very well, wasn’t coherent. I should have known better, but I
felt that I had wasted my time. But anything worth doing is worth
doing poorly at first. No doubt I should have rewritten it sooner than I
did. It might have been substantially better. Instead I stewed about it
and waited. Whatever is my process, I think now the final product is
really good.
Still, it’s not perfect. However, it is the very best I can do at this
particular moment. I put everything I had into it.
The Dark City
. My
first novel.
Life is a dream, says Kerouac. Someday we’re gonna wake up in
heaven.
Later: re-reading goes on. And on. I’ve gone over it twice and
there isn’t much more I can do. I am very close to having a finished
manuscript.
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Soon I will get a phone so the typist can call me about questions
and clarifications as she works. I want to closely monitor the product
it as it is typed. I like to work on things right down to the end.
Lately I’ve been reading my journal again. Also a book by Sara
Davidson called Loose Change, her memoir of three women living in
the 1960s. Sara had a boyfriend who used to call her up and invite her
over by saying:
"Hey Sara, let’s get together tonight. We can eat and drink and
fuck and suck."
Another book, Cell 2455, Death Row, by Caryl Chessman, was
irresistible this morning. Couldn’t stop reading it. I love true stories.
My leisurely weekends are read-a-thons and I love every minute of
them. Now, if only I could quit smoking.
Made myself an excellent dinner tonight. A small sirloin steak,
fluffy white rice, a huge green salad with mushrooms and tomatoes,
carrot sticks and a glass of milk. It really hit the spot. I like to cook
but it’s no fun eating by myself. I mostly like to cook when there’s a
woman around. If you make her warm and mellow with good food
and drink she is much more amenable to a nice long session of
physicality in the rack. I would say that Ms. Davidson’s boyfriend
knew his girl.
Need to take better care of myself. Need to calm down, be less
driven, less brittle, less emotional.
Intend to polish up the script in a slow, deliberate manner. No
sense punishing myself. It is done and I don’t have anything to worry
about anymore. There is plenty of fuel in my literary engine, more
than enough. I must preserve the vehicle of my talent, such as it is.
Going to bed early tonight. Sometimes I lay awake thinking about
women I have known. Lately it’s been Marie Susan Montambeault.
It’s because I came across one of her letters recently, in a folder in my
black trunk. There were a bunch of other letters of hers, too. I
thought I got rid of them. Guess not. This one was dated July 16,
1975.
It reads in part:
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Patrick, you should fucking come to Florida. There’s plenty of
room in my apartment and in my bed. I’m making almost 500 net a
month. Enough to feed us both until you get one of those big shit
jobs. How long can you handle cutting roses?
It wouldn’t take you long to save up for a plane ticket if you put
your mind to it. I think you should consider it seriously and think
objectively about the comforts of home and old friends.
Hey, your beard looks great in the photo you sent. I’m glad you’re
letting it grow again. Was it taken at Manuel’s in Atlanta? I wonder
what it would feel like between my thighs. (You’re not the only one
with lecherous thoughts.)
There’s more along those lines but that’s all I can transcribe
without getting pissed at myself all over again. The thing is, when
Marie wrote that to me I was already six weeks into my disastrous
affair with Polly. Talk about bad timing.
I wonder how Marie is doing? Such a sweet and sexy woman. So
smart and so much fun to talk to and be with. I sure hope she found
someone who truly loves her. I have since kicked myself at least a
thousand times for blowing her off as I did. I’d call her right now if I
wasn’t still so ashamed.
For example, whenever I think of that first time I went up to her
cabin in Northern Georgia four years ago, I feel a shudder and start to
curse myself.
One beautiful, eerie photograph from that weekend still exists
among my things, a picture of me and Marie standing in front of her
little blue VW, our arms around each other. It was taken by Marie’s
roommate Carolyn, and I can’t look at it for more than a few seconds
before I start to think that I am insane.
After spending all those years with Leanne (1970-73) I became
convinced that I would probably never find a woman who liked me on
a permanent basis.
Leanne liked me at first, then she disliked me, and eventually it
became impossible to tell whether she liked me or not. In retrospect, I
think the fundamental issue was that the chemistry between us just
wasn’t right.
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That was definitely not the case with me and Marie. We hit it off
immediately, and as lovers, were as compatible as a couple can be.
The sex was fantastic from the start, as Marie reciprocated my
enthusiasm in every way. For birth control, we had to use what Marie
called "yucky" foam, but that did not seem to interfere with the
pleasures of our lovemaking.
It was a real revelation to be with a woman who got off on me as
much as I got off on her.
Before the weekend at her cabin, we had made love in Atlanta
where I lived, but those had been hurried affairs, conducted in less
than perfect surroundings. Then I visited Marie at her place in the
woods. I had no fucking idea how sweet sex could be until that series
of hot (in more ways than one) July nights.
Marie had a covered porch in the front of her cabin, with a screen to
keep the bugs out. The sun went down in a blaze of red and gold as
Marie fed me dinner and glass after glass of red wine. Her Napa
Valley origins were evident in the fact that she seemed to know her
way around wine, far exceeding me in the level of her sophistication.
"I bought this table wine in Atlanta when I was there," Marie said.
"There is nothing remotely drinkable around here."
"This wine tastes very good," I said, swigging it from one of the
long stemmed glasses Marie brought from home when she joined
VISTA.
That was another thing about Marie. The way she went through
life, it seemed almost effortless. Although her cabin was small and
kind of ramshackle, Marie and her roommate Carolyn kept the place
perfectly and had it nicely appointed with many attractive feminine
touches.
There was a Persian run on the shiplap floor in front of the fireplace
and the furniture was well-worn but clean. Window dressings of lace
and chintz gave the place a comforting feel, as did the abundance of
flowers, incense, and candles.
Moreover, and this was perhaps the most engaging thing, there was
always plenty of delicious food on hand when Marie was around.
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And, skinny as she was, Marie wasn’t shy about eating. A woman
of good appetite who remains slender, sleek, and eminently fuckable
is truly a prize. In my previous relationship with Leanne, the prize
had eluded me. Not so with Marie.
Man, oh man, did Marie love to fuck! And I loved to fuck her.
When my cock was in her pussy, it was in heaven. I also loved
kissing her and sucking her nipples, not to mention the shapely breasts
they crowned.
And there was her hair. Both up top and down below, her hair was
long, thick, soft, and luxurious…
All right, enough! Back to the present.
I loved Marie, but I just couldn’t bring myself to move in with her
after my unfortunate affair with Ms. Ellsworth. I was still suffering
from aftershock. I honestly believed that I was in love with Polly.
What a fool. I’m not always the best judge of where my interests lie.
Sometimes I think if Marie had lobbied me a little harder – maybe