A YEAR IN ROCKAWAY

1980

A YEAR IN

ROCKAWAY

1980

RICHARD GRAYSON

Superstition Mountain Press

Phoenix – 2010

Copyright © 2010 by Richard Grayson. All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America.

Superstition Mountain Press4303 Cactus RoadPhoenix, AZ 85032

First Edition

ISBN

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To the memory of my great-grandmotherYetta Katzman Saretsky

A Year in Rockaway1980

Sunday, January 13, 1980

Crossing Miami Gardens Drive at 5:30 PM with the bag of groceries in his arms, Grayson suddenly had one of those moments when life seems to make perfect sense.

It was warm, but with a breeze. Everything was clean. His mother and grandmother were in the car. He felt wonderful: he wanted to remember the moment, the scene in front of his eyes, forever.

And when he felt foolish about that, he stopped thinking.

On the way home to Davie, they got lost – his mother’s fault – but Grayson did not mind and found his way back. They went to dinner at the Luvin’ Oven in Cooper City with his brother and father.

Grayson’s father had to use an extra napkin at meals. Because of his surgery in 1978, some of his salivary glands were exposed, and so when he ate, the side of his face would water uncontrollably. Grayson had gotten used to seeing his father constantly dab at the side of his face when he ate.

It was a fairly pleasant meal, Grayson glad that his father wasn’t talking about business. Grayson did not want to know anything about his father’s business. His father seemed to be taking on dozens of new lines: outerwear, suits, jeans, big and tall men’s clothes that looked ridiculous.

Grayson hoped his father would “make a living” in Florida. Jonny seemed to be enjoying college, and that pleased Grayson. Even Grayson’s mother seemed more relaxed, less of a perfectionist. She didn’t have a cleaning woman in Florida, yet she managed. Perhaps she would even lose weight.

At night Grayson slept soundly, heavily, and was hardly able to rouse himself in the morning. It was cloudy and Grayson frittered away what was left of the morning.

He took a drive up 441 past the Seminole reservation with their $5-a-pack cigarette stands, bingo parlor (the Indians did not have to pay taxes) and crafts center. Davie was filled with cowboys and Indians, he reflected. Literally cowboys and Indians.

Broward County seemed to him more Western than Southern. If he had to live in Florida, he would prefer Dade County: more cosmopolitan, more urban, busier.

Grayson spent the afternoon finishing Heller’s Good as Gold, one of the best novels he had read in years. And it had gotten bad reviews, too – that made Grayson feel better about the Minneapolis Tribune review of his own book. As did Leo Castelli on Dick Cavett saying that one New York Times writer had once called Roy Lichtenstein “the world’s worst painter.” Grayson liked to think he was in good company.

For dinner that night his parents took him to Pumpernick’s in Hallandale. It was a shock to see so many old Jewish people who all seemed to come out of Heller’s novel. The waiters were all gay. Grayson had an egg salad platter and two delicious dark rolls. The rest rooms were labeled Guys and Dolls.

Despite himself, Grayson felt comfortable at Pumpernick’s. He was a Jew. Jonny remarked that he felt more comfortable being Jewish in Florida, because so few people – at least in Davie – were.

They went to the dog track in Hollywood after dinner and Grayson enjoyed himself. He bet two dollars on every race and won back a dollar on the third. The greyhounds looked like nervous little animals; one couldn’t feel affection for them. The styrofoam rabbit they

chased was much cuter, and he came in first in every race.

Grayson didn’t have the brains to gamble because he constantly second-guessed himself. He came home feeling that it had been a full two days.

Monday, January 21, 1980

8 PM. I slept soundly last night and woke up feeling fine this morning. It really was a 48-hour virus, I guess. Look at it this way: I have survived the illness I feared the most by myself, and from here on in, it looks as though I can handle anything life throws at me.

In the last month I’ve gotten over my two last fears: flying and vomiting. I don’t really have to be scared of anything again. Nothing that isn’t real, anyway. I went out shopping this morning and bought $35 worth of groceries and supplies, so I’m well-stocked-up.

Avis phoned from work, wanting to know how I was feeling. She told me that Simon, like Josh, has decided to take the NYU computer course in the spring. It’s a shame they’ve got to do it, but they’ll probably be making a fortune while I’m still starving.

I did get a $15 check from Permafrost in Alaska for a story, but such checks are few

and far between. Again, I’m facing a real money shortfall. I may have to sell the General Telephone stock Grandpa Nat got me for my bar mitzvah. I can’t sell my other stock because Dad is the custodian (they were given to me when I was a minor, too, but Grandpa Nat didn’t bother with legal niceties).

Well, I’ll just have to manage. I did manage to clean up the apartment today and to plow my way through stacks of mail. Susan Schaeffer invited me to a publication party for her new book at Books & Company on February 7. Kevin Urick wrote me a letter, praising my book. Scott Sommer says he’s been trying to get me for months (I’ve been trying to get him for months – and I still can’t).

There were notices about the annual meeting of The Authors Guild and ballots for the board of directors of Associated Writing Programs. Aspect and Dark Horse came, as did numerous small press books. The Fault had my blank “perfect poem” as part of a very funny issue.

Marc came over with Curt at about 3 PM after Marc had taken photos of Grandpa Herb’s car for the insurance company. Curt spent most of the time trying to turn me on to whippets; I kept refusing, and he started getting desperate.

He said they’ll open up a new world for me as they did for him. I think I want to stay off Curt O’Malley’s world, thank you. I did smoke

some Afghan crazy weed with them, but I wished they would leave and finally they did.

Gary called, saying he’d settled in to his new apartment. I don’t know if it will be as easy for him to be getting used to being single again. Mikey also called; he’s busy studying for the bar again.

I phoned Ronna, who’s still unemployed. For the three weeks Jordan was home from Boston during his semester break, Ronna did no job-hunting, and she’s going there to visit him this weekend. Ronna said she ran into Harry, who said he bought my book (God bless Harry). Ronna and I might get together on Thursday night; I’ll call her.

Little by little I’m getting used to New York and winter again. While I miss Florida and my parents, I realize that I do have a life here. Maybe it’s better than that my parents and I remain far apart; I feel closer to them this way. (An oxymoron?)

I really don’t have anything to do for the rest of the week, so I’m going to try to enjoy it. I suppose I should give Brooklyn College a call next week, to see about a job.

Tonight’s the Iowa caucuses, the first non-event in the ridiculous political calendar. I’m a political junkie, so I’ll watch the results, knowing it’s important only because the media says it is.

It’s 32° and windy now, a far cry from a week ago when I had the air conditioner on in Florida, but I’ll survive. In two months, it will be spring, right? I’ve missed four weeks of winter already.

Wednesday, January 30, 1980

8 PM. I’ve just come in from dinner at my grandparents’ and washed up, put on my thermal underwear and athletic socks, put my lenses in their Aseptron, set the alarm for 6:30 AM, and gotten under three blankets.

It’s cold – about 20° -- and the temperatures are expected to remain frigid throughout the weekend. The north wind makes my apartment very cold. Last night, when I came in, I met Gussie, my neighbor, on her way out to catch a plane to Fort Lauderdale, and I wished I was going with her.

Two weeks ago I was sunburned and sleeping with the window open. I’m giving definite thought to moving to Florida; I’ll talk about it with Dr. Pasquale. Mom phoned last night and we talked for fifteen minutes.

Jonny is quite happy at school. Last week he did a scene from Waiting for Godot in his acting class, and everyone thought he was marvelous. And after another scene this week,

a girl in his class said to him: “If anyone here can make it in the theater, it’ll be you.”

I always knew Jonny had it in him. And maybe he doesn’t dislike me so much: Mom said he gave my book to several of his friends (they liked it).

I was awakened at 6 AM by a call from WMCA radio. Steve Powers was off, and Barry Farber interviewed me. Mostly he read my press release about the Ethel and Herbert Sarrett International Fan Club.

I did talk, though, and I had him in stitches. When it was over, he called me “mah new best friend.” Marc taped it and later played it for my grandparents, who found it hysterical. The Voice never called me back on it, and I don’t want to push it; I don’t think they’ll use the story and it will probably never find its way into print.

But I keep learning: this has been my week to be on radio twice. Actually, I’ve guested on a number of radio shows Lee Rogers on WIND, Chicago; Bill Phillips, WROK, Rockford; Ira Lebin, WBAI; and now Barry Farber on WMCA.

I’ll be making my TV debut on PBS with the adult home show – which reminds me, I got a call from Special Prosecutor Charles Hynes’s office today, asking me if I know Mr. Farber’s (not Barry!) home phone number in Rockaway.

Speaking of phone numbers, I just got off – half an hour has passed since I just wrote that before – with Beth, a 19-year-old Pratt student whose Voice ad I answered. Weirdly, she lives just twenty blocks from here – on Larry’s block, Beach 138th Street.

She’s Jewish, has a condo (her parents do) in Bal Harbour, Miami Beach, and wanted a bi guy. I think we might turn out to be friends. She’s bubbly and cute and intelligent. Beth. Who knows? She said she’s gotten hundreds of replies and has already found one guy who’s really cute: “I think you’d like him, too.”

Of course, she may never call again.

Today I didn’t do much: I ate lunch out at the Ram’s Horn, read A Critical Assembling (most of it is junk; I think a few people had some intelligent things to say, and I liked the punchy sentences in my own piece on young writers), washed seven shirts, had antifreeze put into the car.

I got a letter from Libby, who’s taking secretarial courses at the local community college. She says Grant may have sold a song; he’s supporting her now. Libby likes the Los Angeles weather better than Portland’s.

Dad just called; he has the flu, as do his sister and mother. But at least it’s 75° in Florida (I know that probably doesn’t help when you have the flu, but what the hell, I’m cold now and I think it does).

My first W-2 form (from SVA) arrived today. I wonder if I should itemize this year.

Monday, February 11, 1980

2 PM. I don’t know when I’ve ever been so depressed. It’s beginning to seem that there’s nothing to live for anymore. I’m not interested in eating, sleeping (I can’t do those things anyway), work, sex.

I don’t even make my bed anymore. I’m so incredibly depressed and dizzy. The whole world has been floating by for days. Last night the vertigo got very bad. I couldn’t even lie in bed. I felt very alone and I tried to cry, but not much came out.

In the early morning, about 5 AM, I managed to get a few hours’ sleep, and I had lovely dreams about being with my family in Florida. When I got up, I was so dizzy I was scared. I called my grandparents, who told me I was panicking.

But I wanted to see a specialist. I made an appointment with Marc’s doctor, Dr. Brownstein, and Grandpa Herb brought the car over. I was very dizzy and sick driving out to Bay Ridge.

In the doctor’s office, he did some tests and said it’s just labyrinthitis caused by a bad sinus condition. He gave me a penicillin prescription and one for Actifed, which I already had.

I filled the prescriptions and put $300 in my checking account so that I could cover the $50 check I wrote the doctor as well as this month’s rent. Now I’m here.

In the mail: My loan was rejected, I got a note from a magazine saying they had no money to publish poems that they’d accepted, and Miami-Dade Community College said they do have part-time openings that pay $750 a course but they need to interview me to see if I’m qualified. Also, a 13-year-old girl in Wisconsin wants to know what I’d do about inflation.

I feel empty, and it’s scary because I don’t feel scared. I feel isolated, without hope, unable to work or eat or do much of anything. It’s as if there’s no way out, so what’s the sense of hanging on? I wish I had the courage or the cowardice to stuff all the Triavils, Actifeds, Antiverts and penicillin pills down my throat.

I’m tired of all this coping. Sure, I eventually bob up a little, but that’s only because I can’t stay that depressed for long. I do feel that I’ve got nothing to live for.

Eleven years ago tomorrow was the nadir of my 1968-69 depression, and I don’t want to

face that kind of hell again. Life seems more and more a simple cycle in which false expectations, hard education, and darkest despair go round and round – until it is simply too painful for me to make the swing from despair back to expectations again.

Great expectations? No more. I’m too tired, too sick, too cynical and too smart for that stuff. A pity I haven’t got something a little more terminal than labyrinthitis. All in good time.

This diary isn’t going to be finished. Part of me has known that since Christmas, or maybe before that. Yep, I’m checking out of the hotel, leaving the station, ending the lecture, finishing the last bottle, walking out of the theater during intermission.

I have little desire to see the 1980s turn into whatever they turn into. I had one second chance, and I made it through the 1970s. Why spoil a good thing?

Contemplating suicide tends to relax me. I’m sure a genuine attempt, if failed, would give me enough spirit for another go-round, but what would I do for an encore? “Goodbye, cruel world”? Ah, Grayson, always the sardonic wit. But the pain, my friend, is very real.

Wednesday, February 20, 1980

3 PM. I’m still dizzy, but I’m trying to function. The penicillin ran out, and I’m not taking Actifed because it makes me sleepy. It’s a beautiful day – sunny and 50°– and I’m writing this by my open window. There just may be a spring this year after all.

This last month, since I’ve returned from Florida, has been one of the most difficult of my life. I’ve had to cope with health problems, money problems, career decisions and pressures, and basically I’ve been on my own.

I can’t wait for February to end; it’s been a horrible month. Tonight I’ll do my best to teach for Touro at Beach Channel High School, and I’ll try to manage teaching tomorrow morning at SVA. I just hope I’ll be up for Alice’s party and the WNET taping this weekend.

Last night Scott called to see if Avis and I wanted to have dinner with him. He was his usual charming, self-centered self (although he did say his father heard me on Barry Farber). I phoned Avis at work and she said to make it another time, as she, along with Simon, is coming down with a cold.

Teresa also said she wasn’t feeling well when I spoke to her at work today. Teresa told me that Avis had said my apartment is “too neat, it’s like somebody’s mother’s place.” But Avis

herself is such a slob; Teresa said she could tell that the way Avis left everything after spending the night at Teresa’s.

I enjoy keeping a clean and orderly apartment. I hate clutter and dirt. Let Avis and Josh and Simon and Ronna live like slobs; I refuse to apologize for being neat. I’m annoyed with Avis, who’s always judging.

This morning I went to the Dime and took out another savings book loan for $200; I want to keep most of my money in Citibank now. I have no money at the moment, except for $40 in checking and $10 in savings.

I went across Flatbush Avenue to Herzfeld & Stern, where I sold seven shares of CBS and one share each of Martin-Marietta and Viacom. Next week I should get a check for that for about $400 – and I’m going to need it.

Marc came over last night and said he’d give me money if I needed it. Marc said I should ask him rather than upsetting Mom and Dad. I guess I’ll have to manage somehow. Right now I’m not in debt at all, and so I don’t feel too bad about borrowing money.

It’s always going to be a struggle. Maybe I should take on odd jobs instead of teaching – you know, drive a cab, be a waiter, clean up apartments. If I have to write, I’ll write.

Felix Stefanile wrote an essay in Sunday’s Times Book Review in which he said that the

best advice he could give a writer is: Get a job. I don’t want to rely on grants or cushy jobs on the literary circuit, and it seems almost impossible to make a living from my writing.

But I would rather be broke than prostituting myself for Hollywood; I don’t want to produce junk for some dumb public to swallow whole.

Most writers, throughout history, have had to work to support themselves, and maybe getting out of academia into something with more of a future will be good for me – not only financially but for my writing as well.

Harry Smith asked in Small Press Review: “Can you name a great poet with a Ph.D. in English? Or a great novelist with an MFA from a writing program?” I aspire to be more than a Baumbach or a Sukenick, authors who write books no one but themselves and each other read. I believe I’m better than that.

So I can’t count on NEA, Guggenheims, Yaddo, MacDowell, readings at the 92nd Street YMHA, or any other gift. At least I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing I’ve done it all on my own. And right now I do have that satisfaction.

Thursday, February 28, 1980

8 PM. It’s been a bizarre evening. This afternoon I was contacted by a 12-year-old boy who said he was a guest writer on the Soho Weekly News. He was interested in the Fred Silverman for President “campaign” and took me very seriously.

In the course of the conversation he asked me whether I’d considered supporting Gov. Cliff Finch of Mississippi. Anyway, I went out and forgot about it.

When I returned home, I got a call from someone who said he was Gov. Finch’s staff. He said the Governor (whose term has just expired) would be very interested in getting my support. I didn’t quite understand.

The campaign staffer told me they were in Georgia, where Gov. Finch was fixing somebody’s roof as a publicity stunt. He told me that Fred Silverman wasn’t going to run (big surprise!) and that he wanted me and the Governor to get together for a meeting.Finch will call me tonight, he said, when returns home to Jackson.

I was bowled over. The Governor of Mississippi calling me to ask my support for his Presidential candidacy? Is he off his nut or what? The call sounded legit, but again, I didn’t think about it until the kid from the Soho Weekly News called again and said he learned I was now supporting Finch. I told him yes, I was.

This was unbelievable, but then Josh suggested that someone was pulling my leg. I’m not sure. It’s like something out of Good as Gold. Apparently Gov. Finch is coming to New York and needs bodies at a press conference. Or something.

Frankly, it’s wackier than anything I could possibly dream up as one of my publicity students. It’s surrealistic. Anyway, onto saner matters:

I had only three students show up for the Touro class at the high school last night, but I had a good class nonetheless. David Wolfe didn’t get back to me until midnight when he told me to cool my heels for a few weeks. Peter’s talking me up to both David and Don (Peter just read my book and was surprised that it was that good) and I guess something will come of it.

I had my SVA class write this morning – they complained my topics were boring – and Pete Cherches met me for coffee afterwards. He too finds it hard to write when he’s working – and he’s at Baruch or Brooklyn College every day.

I showed Pete the “perfect poem” issue of The Fault in which we both appeared, and we chatted about literary politics and the poetry scene. He’s rushing to get the crime issue of Zone out by April, when the Book Fair will be held (at NYU’s Loeb Student Center this year).

I decided to go to the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary after lunch because I was feeling quite dizzy. I paid $17 to get a clinic card, and I was lucky enough to be assigned #1 in a crowd of people waiting to see a doctor. (There’s always a first time…)

The Chinese doctor I saw questioned and examined me and said I didn’t have labyrinthitis because I didn’t show the standard symptoms: rapid eye movement, ringing in the ears, loss of hearing.

He didn’t think it was sinuses either, and he ruled out any psychosomatic factors. The doctor said it was probably a virus, in which case it would slowly go away by itself. He told me not to worry about the dizziness, as the body will adjust to compensate for it.

I’ll go back to the clinic next week. He did say there was a possibility it was vestibular neuronitis, with the nerve pressing against the inner ear. But my ear looked clean to him, and I obviously didn’t have a brain problem.

Part of me wonders whether I’ve got M.S. or some degenerative nerve disease; I’m more than a little scared. Yet doesn’t some part of me want to die?

I got The Madison Review with my story “That’s Saul, Folks.” Remember how happy a story coming out would make me feel? Now I hardly take notice; it’s just another piece to xerox and file away.

I got a cruel rejection (“Who cares?”) and nothing else of interest in the mail, unless you count a newsletter addressed to Rocjard Grauspm. Obviously somebody had their right hand on the wrong typewriter keys.

Wednesday, March 5, 1980

Noon on a rainy, mild Wednesday. The day has just begun, really, but I wanted to record what I’m feeling, because I’m afraid it might go away at any time and that my despair will return.

For once I feel I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, that this great depression will eventually end, and I’ll come out of it – cliché time – a better person. If nothing else, it’s got me writing again.

Writing is the most important thing in my life. I got a lot of writing done after my other great depressions: in the winter of ’68-’69, when I was stuck in the house; the fall of ’71, when I broke up with Shelli; and the fall and winter, ’74-’75, when I stopped seeing Ronna and stopped therapy and had to work for the first time in my life.

Remember how depressed I was in the fall of 1971? Because Shelli broke up with me, it seemed as if my life was over. I kept getting

sick. I lay in bed, inert and crying. I thought I was having a breakdown.

But look what happened to me during that same time: I conquered my fears of going into the city. I remember the sweet triumph of driving to Manhattan on a Sunday morning and going to see Sunday, Bloody Sunday at one of those theaters on Third Avenue and 60th

Street.

I really found myself again back then; I learned about herbs; and I even flew back home from Washington on Thanksgiving weekend, which seems to have been the turning point. I came out of that despair and was stronger and wiser.

I’m sure the same thing will happen with this. I may not be lucky, but I’m a resourceful and tenacious person, and I will learn from this. I am going to have setbacks, I know – tomorrow I may plunge into darkness again – but I’ll survive and even do better than mere survival.

I’ve just got to hang on. If my years of diary-writing have taught me anything, it’s that life is constantly changing and that nothing is permanent. This isn’t going to be the last of my depressions, either; they are a part of life.

Dr. Pasquale has faith in me; my parents do; my friends seem to. Remember that quote from Aeschylus I used to love, about the pain drop by drop becoming – against our will,

through the awful grace of God – wisdom? It is wisdom I need.

My apartment seems somehow cozier this morning. Sleeping till 10:30 AM seems more a sign of renewal than inertia. I was buoyed by John Anderson’s near-victories in Massachusetts and Vermont; maybe he can make it. His slogan, like that of the ’69 Mets, is “You gotta believe.”

I gotta believe that life won’t always be like this for me. I can get from here to there. I’m stronger than I think. I won’t always be dizzy. (I’m almost certain it’s my sinuses or an allergy now.)

I won’t always be poor. (Listening to my grandparents tell me of their financial fluctuations over fifty years will help me remember this.)

I won’t always be alone. Life will get better, I believe.

* * *

10 PM. All things considered, it has been a good day. I got my SVA check, and I got a haircut, and I had a turkey sandwich for dinner. My class went well tonight. Next week is Open School Night at Beach Channel H.S. so we get a vacation. This means only two classes before the spring holidays.

I can finally believe that spring and Easter will come. Actually I have an ideal schedule now. I like my SVA and Touro classes, and I have time to enjoy myself. The only thing I don’t have is money.

I called a yeshiva in response to an ad. The rabbi wanted to pay me $240 a month for 28 hours of work. I told him the salary was too low. Taking such a job would be bad for my self-respect. I’ll get something better.

The earliest Mom could get plane reservations for me to come down was March 31, but I’ll be flying with Dad, who’s coming in to New York for the menswear show.

Wednesday, March 12, 1980

6 PM. Ordinarily I’d be teaching tonight but the high school’s Open School Night has given me a break.

Winter has returned. Those high winds that knocked my phone out Monday night have kept my apartment very chilly, and a snowstorm is predicted for tomorrow. In nineteen days I’ll be in Florida, though, and when I come back it will be well into April.

Last night I went over to my grandparents’ for dinner, bringing along my laundry. It was a

pleasant meal, as they did not harp on me too much about money.

I came home to listen to the results of the Florida, Georgia and Alabama primaries; Carter and Reagan won all three in landslides. The Kennedy campaign has collapsed, Anderson can never be nominated, and as usual, I have no place to go electorally.

I got into bed and read seven or eight little magazines which had been piling up on my desk; it made me feel good to stay in touch with the small press scene. Most of it is poetry that is highly competent but unspectacular.

I woke early because I knew that the phone repairman was coming, and sure enough, he was here at the stroke of 9 AM. He was inside and outside several times, and finally the phone was restored to working order.

I left my frigid apartment for the Paerdegat library, where I devoured magazines and newspapers; then I had lunch across the street at the Arch, went shopping at Waldbaum’s, and came home to exercise, watch soap operas and send off résumés after looking at the new AWP Job List.

Bill-Dale sent me the latest chapter of his novel. It’s good, but he seems to be fighting villains who are so banal that it hardly seems worth it. I mean, suburban Republican sports addicts who put plastic on furniture are such

easy targets. As are clingy girls who want nothing more than to trap a husband and live in a suburban cottage.

Of course, I’ve never experienced suburban life, and besides, I’m beyond the adolescent rebellion stage. My parents now seem to me people who worked very hard, tried their best, and were always supportive of me.

Of course Mom and Dad are a bit meshugenah, but then who isn’t? It can’t be easy to be a parent. One thing I’ve learned is that you do learn just by living longer. I’m almost 29 – imagine! – and not an adolescent anymore. I’ve kept some of the artifacts of adolescence, but these too, are wearing thin.

Speaking of adolescents, I got a call from James, that 12-year-old boy who’s with Finch for President. He called to tell me Finch finished fourth in Georgia, with 1% of the vote. James is beginning to be a pest; he asks me all kinds of questions until his mother tells him to get off the phone.

Odd, I just realized that Bill-Dale is closer to James’s age than he is to mine. I don’t think I want a closer relationship with Bill-Dale; like Justin, he would demand too much and not know when to leave me alone.

I don’t intend to call Justin anymore, though I’ll be friendly if he calls or if I see him at Avis’s. Like Avis, I’ve come to the conclusion that Justin is too immature, too chatty, and too

brimming-over-with-exuberance for someone like me. I need cynical friends like Alice, Teresa and Josh.

I’ve been dizzy today, but then again, I haven’t been taking my pills. How do I feel, besides dizzy? Cold. Washed-out. Lonely, a little. A little apprehensive. Worn down. But there’s still hope.

Sunday, March 23, 1980

6 PM. I feel like a mess. I’m coming down with a cold, I’m dizzy again, I’m fatter than I’ve ever been, and my face is all broken out. I haven’t slept well in days and I feel like my whole body is rebelling against me.

Last night at the airport I met a remarkable woman of 70, who looked 50; her skin was clean and unlined, her body slim and smooth, her eyes perfect. She was full of energy and explained that years ago she was an invalid, unable to walk.

She went from doctor to doctor, and no one gave her any hope. Then she decided to change the way she lived: “to cleanse my body of its poisons.” She cut out smoking, all meat and fish, milk, butter and eggs.

She began eating only organic foods and drank as many as forty glasses of carrot juice a week. Today she’s more active than most 40-

year-olds, playing tennis for three hours every morning.

This woman radiated health and contentment. I told her she must be doing something right to have gained that kind of control over her body and mind.

We were both waiting for the delayed Fort Lauderdale flight at Delta, which didn’t come in until after 1 AM. I saw Dad coming, and my companion said, “He looks very young.”

After I kissed Dad hello, she came over to him and said, “You have a lovely son.” Why did she think so? I’m overweight, I have bad skin, I look lousy and I’ve been ill for months. For the first time I’ve begun to look my age.

Maybe living all those years in my parents’ house and behaving like an adolescent kept me youthful. Now I feel like a broken-down wreck. I’ve abused my body terribly, eating junk food, sugar, meat, saccharine.

No wonder I’m an emotional wreck as well. I feel as though I need a complete change in lifestyle. I don’t want to end up like one of those chain-smoking, pot-bellied, dead-to-the-world people you see buying garbage at Waldbaum’s.

Granted, I never smoke or drank – as usual, I’m being too hard on myself. I have tried. Now I feel as though I’m coming down with a cold and if that happens, I may not go to

Florida after all. I don’t want to aggravate my condition by flying with a cold. That’s how I got into this mess with my dizziness.

Hell, I don’t know what I want. That’s my big problem, as I mentioned yesterday. I feel so unattractive – I’ve made myself so unattractive – I can’t imagine anyone wanting to get involved with me. I have no self-confidence anymore. My pleasures are shallow.

Last night I went to Simon’s to join him, Avis and the two Germans – Hartmut and Martin – for a dinner of Peking duck. The Germans were very interesting people – Martin has traveled all over Europe, Asia and Africa – and I enjoyed being with them, although I felt a bit out of it when everyone spoke in German.

We all went for a ride in Manhattan. I lost a hubcap on the South Street viaduct; that road is just impossible. Then after we had ice cream in the Heights, I dropped everyone off and went to the airport via Atlantic Avenue.

There was a long wait, and I walked a mile in the cold to the International Arrivals building so I could get the Sunday Times. Dad looked tired but tanned; he said it’s been very hot in Florida and he was unused to the cold weather here.

We didn’t get back to my place till 2:30 AM. It was freezing in the apartment, so Dad must have been really cold. He had to get up at 6

AM to go to a Sasson meeting before the Coliseum show. Dad took my car into the city.

I woke up at noon from a fitful sleep and later took a walk on the boardwalk to my grandparents’. Today was the first real spring day, and there were throngs of people enjoying the outdoors, but I felt too enervated to really let myself enjoy it. Then Grandpa Herb drove me and my laundry home.

Sunday, March 30, 1980

9 PM. The air conditioner is on, but it doesn’t work all that well. My parents have installed huge fans on the ceiling of their bedroom, Jonny’s, and the hallway but not this one.

I just walked outside for a minute. The sky is cloudy and there’s a ring around the moon. Today was another hot day.

Last evening we at Valle’s in Hallandale; we had an hour’s wait and the food wasn’t that good. Then we went to the Lauderhill Mall to catch the 10 PM showing of Coal Miner’s Daughter with Sissy Spacek, which I enjoyed.

I couldn’t sleep last night; I kept wool-gathering. I’ve been feeling fat since I came down here. I see all these skinny kids and wonder why I’m not like that. Then it occurred to me: I was like that ten years ago

when I was 18. But now I’m a little more than a year away from my thirtieth birthday.

Granted, I eat too much – but even so, I’ve got to realize that I’m not a kid anymore and I don’t have a kid’s body. Even at this age, I’m starting to develop little aches and pains, like my neck problems.

This afternoon I went to see Grandpa Nat at the nursing home in North Miami. I found him slumped in his chair. He didn’t have his teeth in and he kept chewing on some piece of meat. When Cousin Scott was here, he didn’t even recognize Grandpa. He has aged very much; there’s also that vacant look in his eyes.

I talked with him as much as one can talk with him. Although I explained who I was, he didn’t really seem to understand. He told me, in answer to my questions, that he was fine, that being old was terrible, that he liked Florida and liked to have visitors.

Only once did I see a glimmer of the old (younger) Grandpa Nat’s expression: when I said, “You must be about 80 now.”

He scoffed, “Nah, what are you, crazy?”

Afterwards I went over to The Moorings but Grandma Sylvia was too deaf to hear me ringing the bell. So I had lunch at the counter of Pumpernick’s – we couldn’t get in there last night – which has the New York Jewish wiseass atmosphere I like. My seatmate and

the waitress and I discussed the impending New York transit strike.

Then I drove up A1A by the beach. All those honky-tonk motels attract me, as do the young boys and girls on spring break, tanned and youthful and full of energy.

Since I’ve been in Florida, I’ve felt interested in sex again, and even though I have no sexual outlet here, just having the feelings makes me feel more alive.

I went out to the beach at Dania. It was late afternoon and cloudy, so there weren’t many people out. Why is the water here such a silvery-green rather than the blue-black ocean we have in Rockaway?

I love driving around Dade and Broward Counties. It makes me feel like an explorer or somebody trying to soak up the atmosphere of a place.

South Florida is filled with an extraordinary natural beauty. The tropical climate makes life much different than in New York.

This morning I sat out by the pool, but the sun’s rays were almost unbearable. I have been feeling a bit dizzy, too, though I promise not to complain. My face and body are now deeply sunburned and my hair is streaked blond again.

After three and a half days in Florida, I do feel better. I finished Endo’s Silence, a magnificent novel. It made me think a good deal about suffering. I still don’t know what the purpose of my life is, and I fear that one day I will be like Grandpa Nat and I’ll have lived eighty years without finding out why I’ve been alive.

Saturday, April 5, 1980

2 PM. As my visit to Florida ends, I can’t help thinking of the way I felt when I was about to leave here eleven weeks ago. I thought I had a good spring ahead of me.

I figured I could choose courses from among BC and Kingsborough, I had two Touro classes and my SVA one, and so I was assured of more than enough money.

Everything fell apart almost immediately upon my arrival in New York, when I got that terrible stomach virus. After that, everything seemed to go wrong. I became ill and wasn’t able to teach; the BC and KCC classes never materialized; and I was more unhappy than I ever had been.

What a rough winter it was. And I can’t shake the feeling that the worst is yet to come. Will I be sick again when I return to New York? Will I be able to find enough money to live on?

What do I do if my car dies? I won’t have the mirage of an idyllic Florida to keep me going.

I’m scared of the future. This recession will be rough for everyone, but I have no idea how I’ll survive. On my wits, I suppose.

Last night we went out to Heidi’s, dining amid familiar faces: the owners, Dad’s salesman friend at the next table, the counterman from the Mill Basin Deli. There was an anniversary party in the back, with live Jewish music.

My left contact lens has been bothering me; it’s got some kind of film on it, making my vision blurry. This morning, for the second day in a row, I got up with diarrhea.

While I was eating breakfast, Gary phoned from Fort Lauderdale Airport; he’d come down on the spur of the moment to stay with his Uncle Izzy in Miami Beach.

When I opened the door of the house, I saw my parents and Jonny walking back. “Guess who called?” I said cheerfully, and then realized from their expressions – especially Dad’s – that something was wrong.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. Dad remained silent, but Mom said the car got stuck again. For some reason I felt it had been my fault because I had been cheerful. Once inside the house, Dad raged and you couldn’t fun away from him fast enough.

I had forgotten how he could be. Living on my own, I’m not subject to anybody’s moods but my own. When I’m happy in my apartment, the mood is completely happy.

Also, Dad’s behavior shows me how I react to events beyond my control – and it isn’t a very effective way to act, besides its unpleasantness. Dr. Pasquale keeps telling me I’m making progress, but I don’t see it and I wonder if he’s not just saying it to make himself feel we’re accomplishing something in therapy.

Now I see clearly what kind of a pessimistic, negative background I come from. No wonder I get depressed so easily. Like my father and his parents, I can be fine when things go well – but I can’t handle misfortunes: I tend to lose all my self-confidence. I dwell on my “mistakes.” I castigate myself for my “inadequacies.” And I feel helpless to control my life.

I wish I could believe good things are headed my way, but all I see is more struggling and more pain. No light at the end of the tunnel. What a crazy time to be unhappy in!

Sunday, April 13, 1980

4 PM. I’m in my usual pre-flight panic, this one exacerbated by a bad sinus condition that

caused waves of dizziness last night. So I stuck two Q-tips up the old nose and got out a lot of mucus. Now I have a bad taste in my mouth. Feh.

If I sound more down-to-earth than usual, it’s because I’ve been reading Flannery O’Connor’s letters, The Habit of Being, which I found last night in the Broward Mall. Her style is wonderful, and since I’m mostly a mimic and a thief, I may be trying it out.

She was a gallant woman who bore her burden gracefully. But O’Connor had something she believed in; not for a minute did she doubt the Church. I, on the other hand, have no faith to fall back on.

Last night, at dinner at Danny’s we discussed the Grayson traits of negativity and despair. Dad himself brought up his reaction to the car breaking down. I asked him if blaming himself for something he had no control over helped the situation.

“I can’t help blaming myself,” he said. Which was no answer. Mom said she’s been trying to talk Dad into seeing a therapist, but he says that while he probably needs therapy, he can’t afford it and spending the money would make him feel like a schmuck.

Mom said that Dad laughs when his mother despairs over some insignificant situation but then does the exact same thing himself. “What’s the alternative?” I asked. “Suicide?”

Dad was silent. Poor man, he hates himself terribly. Jonny said he felt life was just getting better and better with each new day, that there were great possibilities if only you had a positive attitude, etc.

Dad and I replied that that was because Jonny is 19 and hasn’t really lived yet. I felt that way when I was younger, I suppose Jonny should, too. Give him some happiness; I had my LaGuardia Hall days.

Dad says he feels worse than I do because he’s 53 and what has he got? I reminded Dad that when he was my age, he had it a lot easier than I did, and Dad agreed; he had a rich father he was working for who didn’t want him to work too hard.

Mom’s parents are just as negative as Dad’s; if it were up to Grandma and Grandpa Sarrett, no one would do anything because it might cost money or mess things up. No wonder Mom became a compulsive cleaner and I ended up with agoraphobia.

Jonny says Marc is the happiest of us all because “he’s got that positive attitude.” I think Marc’s happiness is caused by all that pot, hash, cocaine and Quaaludes he consumes. Marc called to say he’s going to California next month with Curt and his wife. And also that they have a plan to rent roller skates out of Curt’s van on Oriental Boulevard in Manhattan Beach.

I stayed out in the sun between 11:30 AM and 1 PM, then went for a drive through Davie after lunch. God, I love Florida. Whether I end up living here or not, this place will always be a magical haven for me.

I watched a baseball game yesterday, and that made me feel that it’s going to be spring in New York, too. I have a 10:10 PM flight that is supposed to land at Kennedy at 12:30 AM.

Monday, April 21, 1980

8 PM. It feels like a long time since I’ve written in my diary. But the last two days and nights I’ve been desperately trying to keep busy, and for the most part, I’ve succeeded in keeping depression away.

I do have a terrible sinus headache now which is causing a lot of dizziness. Also, I don’t think my car can last much longer, but I’m trying to keep up my spirits.

I called Janice, who is very, very ill. She’s now working for Con Ed in their cultural affairs division, but she’s so weak from the chemotherapy that she works only a few hours every day.

For weeks Janice was unable to do anything but lie in bed and cry and think about suicide.

She said she’s been very disappointed in some “friends” who have left her since she’s been ill.

Alice says Janice looks awful, and of course people tend to avoid others who may be dying – and Alice thinks that Janice is. I offered any help I could give her.

Larry and Mikey picked me up on Saturday night and we drove out to Franklin Square. First we had dinner at Coco’s, this awful restaurant, and then we went to visit Mike and Mandy at their new house.

It’s a gorgeous old house; the rooms are small but they have four bedrooms, a giant back yard with a screened-in porch and a swimming pool, lots of land out front, and a garage.

They’re into antiques and are both very handy around the house, so they’re making it a cozy place to live in.

Mike is head of the adolescent male division at the mental patients’ ward at Kings County Hospital, though officially he’s on the staff of Downstate as an assistant professor of clinical psychiatry. Mandy is still at the same office, though her firm will be moving to Great Neck soon.

We had a nice old evening, reminiscing about the college days and this person and that one and what became of them. Mikey, Larry and Mike and Mandy are all pleasant,

unpretentious people, and I enjoyed being with them.

Larry dropped me off at 1 AM and I slept late yesterday, too late to go to Prospect Park for the softball game. The weather has been sunny and in the 70°s. I spent yesterday working on sending out résumés and answering want ads in the Times.

Late in the day I went to Kings Highway to hang out with Josh and Fat Ronnie. We sat in my car and watched the goofy people pass and cracked adolescent jokes.

Ultimately we decided not to do anything, but I had fun anyway. Josh is very dissatisfied with computers; he feels it isn’t really an alternative for him. I promised Josh that if I ever “make it” (as what, I don’t know), I’m taking him along with me.

This afternoon I got up early and started working on my list of 20 Things to Do; I accomplished most of them.

After lunch, I went over to the Reading Center at BC to hang out with Pete Cherches and his friend Harold, who’s now an intern at Kingsborough. Pete gave me a copy of Crime Zone, which looks great. Crad Kilodney writes that he’ll be visiting New York soon, and I can’t wait to see him.

In the library this afternoon I found a review of my book in Choice – only it was in Grindal’s

(the mystery writer who uses my name as his nom de plume) name. It said in part:

“Fiction as joke, word play, vehicle for whimsy: these are the hallmarks of Grayson’s stories . . . merely cute, ingenious . . . One is left with the impression of a writer whose forte is the one-liner, a Bob Hope who would be a Saroyan.”

Monday, April 28, 1980

8 PM on the third day of heavy rain. Nothing happened at all this weekend; I stayed home almost all the time. I did speak to people on the phone, though.

Mark called and reiterated Consuelo’s invitation for me to come to live with them if things really get rough financially. I appreciate their kindness, but it would never work out for me to live with married friends with two kids.

I phoned Gary, who was depressed after a day when his family descended upon him in New Jersey. Betty has been calling him too, and she said something to the effect that if it weren’t for Gary’s family, they could have made a go of their marriage. I tried to cheer Gary up.

Curiously, earlier in the evening I had been reading my 1970 diary. Gary was then going

through hell in basic training at Fort Polk, and Mark was introducing me to student government, journalism and poker. It’s nice that a decade later Gary and Mark are still part of my life.

Then Janice called, and we made up that I would drive her to the Foundation Library on Friday.

I slept well, dreaming of good times in the old neighborhood with Alice and her mother. I drove into Brooklyn about noontime and went to the bank at Kings Plaza.

At BC I dropped in at the Reading Center to see Pete. He was upset because they may have lost out on a wonderful loft they were planning to rent for their Zone art gallery.

Back home, I got letters from Tom Whalen and Rick Peabody and a note from Georg C. Buska, a small press writer and editor who years ago sent me into a tailspin when his rejection said I had no talent for writing short stories.

Buska’s note said he’d been seeing my stuff around and has been enjoying it and he wanted to say hi and see how I was doing. That was a great triumph for me: I won over someone who didn’t believe in me.

I also got an affirmative action form from Murray State University. As I was looking it over, who should call but Dr. Wilder, chairman of the English Department at Murray State.

He said they had narrowed their search to three finalists, that I was one of them, and that he wanted me to come to the campus for an interview this week. They would reimburse me for half the expenses, he said.

I’d have to fly to Nashville and someone could pick me up at the airport and drive me to Murray, which is 110 miles away. “We’re pretty isolated here,” Dr. Wilder said.

I told him I’d have to call him back. Now comes the question: Do I go on the interview? There are a number of factors to consider. First of all, I don’t think I could get the job.

I know what kind of appearance I make, and for Kentucky, I’m too young, too New York, too Jewish, too gay and too casual.

Would I want to live in Murray, Kentucky? Of course not. But I’ve been so depressed that I’ve been feeling I’ve got to accept an offer outside the city.

Am I afraid of the trip? Not really. It’s an inconvenience, but I’m not scared of flying anymore.

What’s the salary like? Between $10,000 and $12,000, which isn’t very good. True, you can live cheaply there, but would it be worth it?

I called Avis and she said I should go, just to see what it’s like. I called Janice next and at

first she said I should probably go, but then she stopped and said, “Richie, I think you can make it in New York.”

Then I called Mom and she said that moving to South Florida is one thing, moving to Kentucky quite another. Dad and Josh both said the same thing: “Are you crazy?”

God knows why I feel I have to poll people; in effect, all these opinions cancel each other out anyway. Maybe I’m lucky that Alice, Teresa and Ronna weren’t in when I phoned them.

If I turn this down, will I blame myself when I can’t find anything here?

Hell, I don’t want to take that job – but I feel I probably should.

Friday, May 2, 1980

9 PM. I’m feeling rather relaxed now. Last night I thought to myself, “Well, you’ve gotten through one-third of 1980.” Somehow I managed. There were some very rough times, and I expect more rough times ahead, but I can see all of this despair coming to an end.

Trite and clichéd as it sounds, I have grown a great deal in the past four months. I’ve just got to face it: this is a difficult time in my life, but eventually I will come out of it.

Avis has been very depressed lately. She thinks she’s getting much too dependent upon Simon. Of course she’s always had the tendency to attach herself to a man, whether it’s been Scott, Alan Karpoff, Helmut or Josh.

And Avis can’t take a chemistry course at LIU as she had planned this summer, which means that nursing school has to be put off again.

Ah well – tomorrow she’s going to help Simon pick out a suit for job-hunting in the computer field. Neither one of them has any conception of fashion, so I’d love to see what they end up with.

I slept well and felt better this morning; the bright, sunny day helped. After breakfast, I drove to Canarsie and picked up Janice at her house. She looks bad: drawn, thin, walking with the aid of a cane. I didn’t want her to tire out, but she knows how to pace herself.

We drove into Manhattan, stopping at Sloan-Kettering (Janice calls it “Sloan Catering”), where I picked up her portfolio, which was left over from an art show in the recreation department.

Then we went to the Foundation Center at Asian House across from Carnegie Hall. We had a barely edible lunch and went to the Center’s library.

For two hours, while Janice researched possible funding sources for the Brooklyn Boys Chorus, I looked at grants and wards available to writers, most of them already familiar to me.

I did find my name in a book, where I was listed as one of the 1977 Bread Loaf Scholars. I managed to amuse myself until 3 PM, when Janice finished. She pushed down the seat and lay back as we drove home, stopping off at Con Ed in downtown Brooklyn so she could pick up her paycheck.

Janice seems so fragile now; I think she may be dying. She told me, though, that she’s getting better and that when she was really bad, she could think only of suicide and didn’t do it because of her daughter.

She said she’s learned that one’s health is the only thing worth worrying about: “Before I was sick, I could not even imagine this kind of pain.” But mostly she’s still cheerful, punning, insightful.

Janice told me that Dolores is divorced now. Her husband has custody of their son and lives with a woman in Florida. Dolores is alone for the first time in her life, and it’s very difficult for her.

I dropped Janice off at her house, where Ingrid came out to help her with her things, and then went to my appointment with Dr. Pasquale.

I told him I was feeling that I’m a very self-destructive person, so we examined areas where I felt I had behaved that way. What we came up with was in Dr. Pasquale’s words, “behavior that isn’t remotely self-destructive.”

As usual, he said I’m being too hard on myself. He thought I had made a very reasonable decision in regard to not going for the interview at Murray State, that it wasn’t a self-destructive act.

I consulted others, Dr. Pasquale said, weighed various factors, and made my decision. Not calling the college back was discourteous, but it certainly won’t affect my career adversely.

Why is it I keep thinking I’m the world’s biggest fuck-up? Even my posing nude for that book last week doesn’t seem to have any negative consequences. So why do I insist on being so self-critical?

Friday, May 9, 1980

1 AM. I just got home after a long and satisfying day. It was satisfying because I kept busy and got involved with people and activities. Thinking back on my life, I see that the happiest times where when I was most involved: at Brooklyn College, in particular.

Back then, I was so wrapped up in student government, the peace movement, and various causes and the LaGuardia social scene that I didn’t have time for self-pity.

Up at 8 AM today, I relaxed a little and then went to work, designing and typing up a new résumé. I wrote several letters and jotted down some ideas. After exercising, showering and eating lunch, it was 1 PM before I got out of the house, but I had already accomplished a great deal.

So when I got the Post and didn’t see my name in it, I felt only slightly disappointed. I got my laundry, filled my prescription for Actifed (though I haven’t been dizzy in weeks), got gas, and read in the public library.

The mail brought another rejection, this one from Western Michigan University. Now my only shot at a full-time academic job is at either Florida Keys Community College or LaGuardia Community College, and I don’t expect to be a finalist in either place. Okay – I can handle it.

I got a press release from WNET/13: From Back Wards to Back Streets will be shown on TV here at 9 PM on Wednesday, May 21. I also got a sweet post card from Debby Mayer, thanking me for the good words I had sent her about her story in Zone.

At the Junction, I xeroxed my new résumé, which is the most comprehensive one I’ve ever made. I’ve stressed other things besides my academic background: my Fiction Collective and Alumni Association Bulletin editing experience and my working on the Conference in 1977.

I walked around BC, remember how hectic life on campus was ten years ago during the strike in the aftermath of Kent State. I got good nostalgic feelings and was in an “up” mood when I went to Dr. Pasquale’s office.

There, I discussed some of my (lessening) ambivalent feelings toward “calling attention to myself”; I told him about my posing nude. I expressed my fears of one day becoming psychotic, and Dr. Pasquale showed me that those fears are just fears.

He knows I still don’t feel comfortable enough to discuss my sexuality with him, but talking to him about other things made me realize a fear I have: that if I finally go all the way and have sex with a guy, living out my fantasy, I will somehow become a different person, a “faggot” who will go completely out of control.

Control again. Everything with me comes down to that. But I do think I’m starting to get a handle on things, and I left Dr. Pasquale’s office in a good mood.

I drove through Prospect Park to Avis’s; we had made up to drive to Teresa’s together in her parents’ car. Avis’s parents have bought a condo in South Florida (she didn’t pay attention where) and will take title this summer.

We dropped Ari off at a party in the Village and continued uptown. I probably annoyed Avis by not merely helping her with directions but by giving her advice on how to drive more aggressively in Manhattan.

She again started telling me how depressed she is that she can’t “plan a future” with Simon. He admitted that he feels a bit “smothered” and he wants her to pull back a little. Avis feels an old pattern in re-emerging: “Nobody will give me a commitment.”

I didn’t know what kind of commitment she meant. “Marriage?” I asked.

“I don’t know what marriage is,” she replied. And then she said she would stay with Simon until they did get “something permanent going” or “until he gets tired of me.”

I asked her if she couldn’t imagine another possibility, and she said she didn’t know what

I meant. “Well,” I said, “you might get tired of Simon.”

But Avis couldn’t imagine that happening. She knows she’s insecure but can’t seem to do anything about it. She worries that Simon and Josh talk about her.

When I told her Josh never mentioned that to me, she said Josh wouldn’t tell me because he’d know it would get back to her.

No one was home at Teresa’s, so we let ourselves in with Avis’s key from the transit strike (one of the reasons she had come was to return it) and hung out there.

Teresa arrived with her sister and her sister’s boyfriend, who met when they were on opposite sides of a juvenile court case in Queens: Lucy prosecutes them and Kenneth gets them off.

Barbara came down – she looks very done-in by the bust-up of her marriage – and Diana dropped by, and then Shirley, Fern and Robin, three women who are taking half-shares in Teresa’s Fire Island house (alternating with Teresa, Diana and Barbara) arrived. Avis and I witnessed a raucous scene as they tried to divide up the weekends.

Teresa was in a good mood as she had been on all three 6 PM newscasts (there’d been a derailment on the LIRR), and of course that

she’s leaving for Greece on Thursday also made her cheerful.

It was another of the many pleasant evenings I’ve spent at Teresa’s: coffee and cake, nice people, a lot of laughs.

Unfortunately, Roger Greenwald never showed up; he called Teresa to say he couldn’t get out of Toronto on time and would be here on Sunday night. I got on the phone and he told me how grateful he was that I’d found him a sublet in Manhattan. I’d solved Roger’s problem and Karen’s as well.

Avis and I left at 11:15 PM, dropping off the women downtown, and I got home just a little while ago.

Wednesday, May 21, 1980

3 PM. Miracles do happen. Last night I felt wretched was just about to give up writing altogether. This morning, after a great night’s sleep (I dreamed of Helmut and the old LaGuardia Hall gang), I got a call from Nancy Englander of the MacDowell Colony. They had a cancellation and wanted to know if I could come for June. Hell, yes!

I told her that I couldn’t make it until June 5 because of my Touro College class, but she

said my studio would be ready by June 2 and it would wait for me.

Everything changed for me. MacDowell may be the answer to my prayers. It will give me almost a month of time to write, until no disturbances or worries or distractions. I’ll be in New Hampshire, in the country, and I’ll get free room and board.

Most of all, it will give me time to think over what I’m going to do with my life. I am a writer; not everybody gets invited to MacDowell. I will meet other artists there and I’ll be treated with respect. Thank you, whoever cancelled!

I felt great all day, and the day seemed to bring other pleasures. I got a research packet from The People’s Almanac with my first assignment, a biography of Edward Stratemeyer, the children’s book author who wrote and published the Bobbsey Twins, Hardy Boys, Tom Swift, Nancy Drew.

And in my post office box I found a letter addressed to the Herbert and Ethel Sarrett Fan Club. Inside was a check for five dollars; the writer said they’d heard my grandparents and me on the Barry Farber show last Thursday night. I’m sorry I missed it, but I’m glad it was on and I’ll try to get a tape.

So I’m feeling very good. I realize that both yesterday’s despair and today’s joy are based only on external situations. If my car hadn’t

broken down, if someone hadn’t cancelled at MacDowell, I wouldn’t have these intense feelings.

I called my friends, just the way I used to when I had good news. Both Avis and Alice were glad for me.

Josh was too, but he’s very much involved in his own problems. His landlord is emptying out the building to prepare for a co-op conversion, and Josh doesn’t know where to go. Josh and Simon are thinking about Boulder (Josh’s girlfriend might go along too).

I called Mom, who was very glad to hear my news. She told me it’s been a three-ring circus in Florida. She likes Nikki although at first she was put off by what Mom termed “her Rocky Horror appearance.”

But Nikki is from a different world; her friends are the jet-setting super-rich (one of her friends is getting married in Acapulco and they’re sending a private plane to take her and Marc to the wedding).

Nikki’s father, “a very powerful man,” deals in gold and has made a great fortune. Nikki used to work for him but said she didn’t like the crooked things he was doing so she quit. He had given Nikki her own house that had maids and servants just as she had growing up at home. But now her father’s got her two children and he won’t let her see them.

Nikki is crazy about Marc and feels he’s shown her a whole new way of living. Marc loves her but is very confused. Yesterday, after he picked up a rental car, he fell asleep at the wheel and crashed into the car in front of him – which, thank God, was Dad’s station wagon.

Mom and Dad are very upset and they talked to Marc about his future. Nikki wants Marc to rent a condo with her on Singer Island, and that’s not really in Marc’s league.

Marc said that Curt’s sister-in-law Bernice is another complication; she’s the reason Marc didn’t stay in California, and now Curt’s mad at him for leaving them.

Nikki told Mom that Curt’s own marriage is breaking up, mostly because his wife doesn’t want to move to the West Coast with him. Curt’s always pushing his sister-in-law on Marc and figured if Bernice went to California with Marc, then she would want to stay there and then his wife would agree to live there, too. Very diabolical.

Mom said that she thinks Marc is under Curt’s spell, much as Dad used to be controlled by another manipulator, Lennie. Mom and Dad don’t know what Marc’s getting himself into here.

Jonny is disgusted with all the goings-on, and Mom said that yesterday he professed that I was the only person in the family! Jonny said I should be writing all of this in a novel (and

that might be a great idea; An American Comedy, I’d call it).

Jonny told Mom that he now admires me greatly and says he’d like to be more like me than Marc. I always knew Jonny would come around someday. He’s interested in the arts, in becoming an actor, but he knows how hard it is.

Last night I called Bill-Dale to wish him a happy graduation and a happy 21st birthday. He doesn’t know what he’s doing with his life.

If he gets the money for grad school at Harvard, Yale or Rutgers, he’ll go. Bill-Dale knows there’s no future in academia, but it can be an easy way to spend a few years. (He had a full undergraduate scholarship.)

He spent the day in Manhattan getting the runaround at agencies and publishing houses. He needs to work this summer, as he owes a lot of money to a number of people. Bill-Dale said he’d call me next week when he’s in the city.

Oh well, life suddenly seems to be working out. Back Wards to Back Streets will be on TV tonight and I’m kind of excited about it.

Thursday, May 22, 1980

4 PM. Yesterday’s good mood carried into today. Last night I saw Back Wards to Back Streets and I thought I looked like a fat idiot. I’ve got to lose some weight. Maybe at MacDowell. And maybe I’ll grow a beard there, too.

My parents called after the show; they said that Marc and Nikki came over to watch me and that Grandma Sylvia was excited to see me. Marty and Arlyne, also in Florida at Arlyne’s mother’s (Grandpa Herb and Grandma Ethel are in Oceanside watching Joey) were flicking around the TV dial and were stunned to see me on the tube.

Josh called and said I looked “nervous as hell.” That’s Josh for you. Since it was about the twentieth take on the show, I had nothing to be nervous about, just tired.

I spoke to Mikey and we made plans to meet at the beach this weekend. A guy whose Voice ad I answered called me at 11 PM. His name’s Joseph Silver, he’s a writer for The Soho Weekly News and he sounds pretty nice. He’s very busy next week, so I said I’d call him when I return from MacDowell.

This morning I took my SVA class out to breakfast at McDonald’s. We had a lot of fun. They were a nice group of kids and I enjoyed the year (nine months, anyway) I spent with them. I got to know some of them – Laurel, Daryl, Liza, Dean – pretty well, and I will miss them. It was sad to see them go.

I walked down Park Avenue South the few blocks to the Taplinger offices to say hello. Mary is very sweet and always has a nice word for me.

She said that they’re awaiting the return of the fall catalog from the printers; then they’ll have a sales conference, the ABA convention in Chicago, and the ALA in New York. After June, things will slack off.

Mary showed me a great cover Jim designed for Elaine Suss’s A Money Marriage, the book Wes was editing last summer. Jim and Beth are now on their honeymoon.

At the Junction, I had a quiche at Circles Café, then came home to lie on the beach for an hour; it’s great to live right on the boardwalk this time of year.

I was rejected for jobs at Queens College, Wesleyan and Brevard Community College. Thank goodness for MacDowell: I got accepted somewhere. Funny, Joan Schenker at SVA told me that on Tuesday she was also asked to go up to MacDowell, but she couldn’t make it, and apparently I got the spot she was offered first.

Saturday, May 31, 1980

5 PM on a cloudy and humid Saturday. Last night I ended up staying home. Josh wanted to see Wise Blood at the Quad, but I wasn’t up to going into Manhattan, even though I had wanted to hear Dennis Cooper read at The Glines at midnight. Dennis is a fine poet; I read some of his latest in the new Beyond Baroque, which arrived yesterday.

I spent much of last evening looking through my twelve-year-old AIA Architectural Guide to New York City. It reminded me of incidents from my childhood. There are places that I used to go to which no longer exist: Ebbets Field, Freedomland (it’s now Co-op City; my grandparents, Uncle Abe, Aunt Annette, Mitch and Eddie went there and rode on the rides and saw Chubby Checker perform).

I was also reminded of the day in December 1960 when that plane crashed on Sixth Avenue in Park Slope. Mom had fallen down the stairs that day, in her seventh month of pregnancy, so we went to Dr. Levine’s office on Plaza Street and people kept coming in with news of people’s injuries and of the fire that the crash had caused.

The Myrtle Avenue el is gone. So are all the trolleys. I remember riding the Church Avenue line with my great-grandmother between our house on East 54th Street and hers on East 42nd Street; she let me ring the bell to get off.

I remember “mountain climbing” with Dad in Prospect Park, how, when Mom was in the hospital for her varicose vein operation, we lost the keys and were unable to get into the house.

The New York of 1960 doesn’t exist any longer. Hell, I used to walk home from the Ralph Avenue bus and the sidewalks on Avenue O weren’t even paved; there were just wooden planks.

A woman named Barbara ran a shack-like general store on our corner; it even had a potbellied stove which we’d run in to warm ourselves after playing in the snow.

Planes took off every day at Floyd Bennett Field and we could hear them. There was no Kings Plaza mall, and on narrow Flatbush Avenue from the Airport Lounge to Ben Maksik’s Town and Country restaurant and the Floyd Bennett farmers’ market, there were cobblestones.

Gee, this sounds like one of those “I Remember Old Brooklyn” letters that they used to have in the Daily News. Were the good old days really that good?

I stayed in bed till noon, when Mikey called and asked if I wanted to go for a ride to Inwood with him. I hurriedly showered and dressed. Mikey’s car, like Grandpa Nat’s once did, has become very rusted because of the

salt air by the ocean, so he wanted to see if he could get an estimate on a complete body job.

We drove I the rain, went to the place, and got an estimate; then we had franks at Nathan’s in Woodmere, shopped at TSS there, and talked a blue streak.

Back home, I got my mail at the P.O. Iron arrived from England with my two stories illustrated with terrific drawings by Tim Thackeray, who thanked me for encouraging him.

George wrote that “like Erma Bombeck says, the grass is always greener.” Of course he wishes he had “a real book” like mine. But George pointed out an important contradiction: I say I don’t want to get locked into the role of writer, yet I complain that I don’t get asked to read my work in New York. He’s right.

George sometimes feels trapped at the paper, in the boondocks, with his magazine continuing to lose money year after year. He said he couldn’t live like Rick, off others, with no home or work of his own: “I could forgive him if he wrote the Great American Novel, but he’s too comfortable to do that yet.”

Count your blasphemies, Grayson.

Wednesday, June 4, 1980

3 PM on my 29th birthday, which has to be the worst birthday I’ve ever had. Nothing comes easily in my life. I was looking forward to MacDowell and now it seems meaningless. I don’t know if I should go.

I couldn’t sleep again last night. This morning I didn’t want to get up at all. I went over to my grandparents and learned that the doctor had called Grandpa Herb last night, telling him that he’d better go into the hospital as soon as possible.

Grandpa is still waiting for the call from Peninsula, telling him that they’ve got a bed ready. You can’t imagine how I feel. I feel a cold spot of nausea inside my belly. I feel like lying in bed and never getting up. I don’t know what to do.

We sat around the table, talking. Uncle Morris and a neighbor came by, and there was quiet, disjointed conversation. Grandma Ethel cried. Grandpa Herb seems resigned. “That’s what life is,” he said in regard to something else.

I could not stand it any longer, and after Grandma gave me my laundry, I came home. No mail today.

Today was the first birthday I’ve ever had when I didn’t have a birthday cake or get a

single card. Even my grandparents didn’t get me a card – they’ve got more important things on their minds – although they did give me a $20 bill.

I feel cursed. I know it’s selfish of me to think this way, but all the timing in my life seems to be wrong. Usually I like to read the horoscopes for “Today’s birthday,” but today none of them related to me.

I feel overwhelmed. I packed, but my heart wasn’t in it. What could have been the best time in my life has already been ruined. At MacDowell I’ll just be going through the motions. Of all the times for this to happen!

It seems like I’m only allowed hope and never fulfillment. Last night I thought about how lonely I am and I started crying. Will this pain over Grandpa Herb result in wisdom or will it just mean more depression?

The other day on TV, Max Lerner was saying that no one can escape tragedy in his life, but that some people are destroyed by it and other people are depressed by it. Which will I be?

* * *

8 PM. I’m feeling a little bit better. I spoke to both Mom and she told me that I must take advantage of my opportunity to go to MacDowell, that Grandpa Herb wouldn’t want me not to. Dad phoned from Orlando to tell

me the same thing and to say he loved me and really missed me today.

I went over to my grandparents’ apartment for dinner, but we all just picked at our food. I hugged them both tightly when I left.

My Touro students handed in their papers and gave me a birthday card: “To the world’s strongest man.” The inside showed a nude man from the back, his weights held by what is obviously his penis. Prude that I am, I was horribly embarrassed. (Vito once sent me the same card.)

When I got home, I marked their papers and will mail out their final grades in the morning. I just took four Triavils and am beginning to feel woozy. I want to sleep tonight.

I’m anxious, as I always am before I start a trip and a new experience. I worry about how I will manage with my luggage. Why are my trips always very early in the morning or very late at night?

Tomorrow should be a horror: six hours on that bus and then a van and a car afterwards, and all that confusion of being in new surroundings. Still, I suppose I shall survive. If not, it doesn’t matter anyway.

Friday, June 13, 1980

5:30 PM. I’ve just come back from an outing at Willard Pond, about 25 miles north of here. I was sitting on the lawn outside Colony Hall working on a story when Lucille asked if I wanted to go with her, Linda, Jane DeLynn and Dan Gurskis (the tall blond playwright).

I always like serendipitous trips, so I said fine. The weather really changed today; it’s sunny and it got up to nearly 80°. It was great to get out into New Hampshire.

We stopped at Hancock, where Lucille bought me a can of Diet Pepsi, which I’ve been craving for a week (I was wearing pocketless gym shorts and didn’t have any money).

Then we drove along these great one-lane highways past tall, thin trees and brooks until we got to this nature preserve, run by the Audubon Society, that Linda knew about.

We stayed there for about an hour. Only Dan and Jane went in the pond, as the water was icy; Lucille and I were being pestered by insects. I used her Off!, which was a mistake, as it didn’t help and made my eyes smart. (I’ve now taken off and am boiling my lenses, and I just hope I didn’t damage them.)

I loved the feeling of camaraderie that was on the ride; it made me feel a part of MacDowell.

Last evening I called Grandma Ethel, who said that the doctors seemed interested in Grandpa Herb’s chest x-ray; I bet they’ve spotted

something on the lung. I told her not to worry and that I’d be in touch.

After dinner, about a dozen of us when to the library to see some slides of paintings by Mark Dean, the dark, bearded, energetic guy who’s always working.

Mark showed some great paintings beginning with landscapes he did at the Rhode Island College of Design, and then some of Rome and Florence, and finally some very Matisse-like studio paintings he’s been working on as a graduate student at Queens College.

The best thing about MacDowell is that I feel I’ve been stimulated by the work of other artists: painters like Mark and Marcia (who afterwards showed slides of her landscape paintings of Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard), composers like Conrad, and other writers like Michael Blumenthal.

I took out of the library a book by a MacDowell fellow, Eric Lax, called On Being Funny: Woody Allen and Comedy. Last night I began reading it and I finished it this afternoon. It’s given me new respect for Allen’s comic genius and a few ideas of my own.

I was up early this morning after only a few hours’ sleep (I cannot remember my dreams in this place). There were fresh blueberry muffins this morning; the cook said she herself had picked the blueberries around here.

I went into town with Lester at 9 AM and had ninety minutes to kill before my dental appointment, so I walked around Peterborough. It really is a lovely little place: very New England, with these clean little clapboard houses and people who are either very friendly or very reticent.

I cashed the $35 money order my parents had sent me and then read my book on the bridge over the river that flows through town. I ran into Mark and Sandy Walker and his dog, and we chatted for a while, mostly about the cynicism and competitiveness of Sandy Sokoloff and his wife (or girlfriend) Melinda.

I went to see Dr. Lawrence, a trim elderly man wearing a bowtie. After taking an x-ray and probing, he told me that my problems were causing by grinding my teeth.

I do tend to gnash my teeth at night and even when I’m awake, and Dr. Lawrence said this is part of a tension syndrome which also could affect the ear and the neck. (All my trouble spots!) He advised me to have a splint made when I get back to New York – and he said my gums are very bad.

Monday, June 16, 1980

3:30 PM. It’s a clear, crisp day – neither cool nor warm. I’ve just walked back from my

studio where I wrote yet another story today, a ten-pager called “It’s Another Beautiful Day in Broward County, Florida.” It’s a little forced but is probably publishable by some obscure little magazine.

The important thing is that I’m getting back into the habit of writing again. I’ve done three stories in three days, which is almost more than I’ve done in all the last six months. They may not be masterpieces, but they are something.

The great thing about MacDowell, I’ve decided, is that I don’t have to worry about my car, money, shopping, cleaning or cooking: those little details of my life, which when added up, keep me from working.

It’s so good not to be constantly thinking about putting gas in the car or getting milk and orange juice. But I’m going to try to keep up my writing when I return to New York.

Last night I went back to my diary for this time a year ago. I had just started seeing Dr. Pasquale. My book was out, but nothing was happening. Dad was thinking of moving to Florida. I was scared about going to Albany until I visited there for a day.

Then things started to happen: Liz Smith mentioned me in her column. My Skylab letters were printed in the papers. Dad got the job with Ivan’s family in Florida. I decided

not to go to Albany or spend August in Virginia.

So much has happened since then; it’s been a long, difficult year, but I’ve grown tremendously. I finally became an adult, slowly and painfully.

Last night, after dinner (our first inedible one, some Chinese garbage) I called Grandpa Herb. He sounded okay, and said that Marc and Nikki had just left.

Tomorrow they’ll be making an incision to see just how far the thing in the lung has spread. But even it’s the worst, Grandpa Herb is not going to die immediately.

Cancer kills you slowly, as with Janice, not suddenly. I’ll have lots of chances to be with him and time to adjust to life without him. I’ll be home in two weeks; hopefully, he’ll be out of the hospital by then.

Last evening was quiet: I watched some TV with Lucille. Heretofore I had felt embarrassed about using the set, but it was almost a relief to see television again: a PBS documentary on Egyptian hieroglyphics and Disraeli on Masterpiece Theatre.

I slept fairly well, nodding off as I listened to the rain. Sandy Walker and Marcia left today. The transitory nature of MacDowell means that relationships are always changing as people come and go.

Jane hurt me at breakfast with a critical remark about my “trying too hard.” She’s a very sharp person and can be cruel. Still, I mailed her gay culture article to the Voice when Frederich and I went into town with Lester.

I needed more typewriter cartridges and I bought the new Voice. Fred is a hysterically funny guy with a deadpan delivery.

Last night I spoke with Tanya Grossman, who writes in Russian and has been here only three years. She’s from the Moscow elite and looks down upon the materialistic Soviet Jews of Brighton Beach. Tanya told me some of them only pretend to be Jewish so they can get out of the country.

My teeth hurt and I am dizzy today, but I shall survive it.

Thursday, June 26, 1980

4 PM. Like some schoolgirl, I want to write: “Could it be only three weeks since I arrived at the MacDowell Colony?” The past three weeks have been one long peak experience for me. Now that my visit is almost over, I look with dread on my return to the “real” world.

I’ve done so much work here, but I feel I’m just beginning to renew my creativity. At my studio today I didn’t do very much; I sort of cranked out seven lousy pages. I sat in the sun and watched a pitched battle between an ant and a caterpillar.

But when I came back to Pan’s Cottage, story ideas started coming at me fast and furious. I feel I need more time here. Last evening Ellis Koh drove Jane and me to the picnic dinner at Hillcrest.

It was quite a spread: roast beef, salmon, tomato aspic, thick hot slices of bread, good drinks and delicious chocolate fudge cake for dessert.

Nancy Englander is a bit intimidating. Having those Dobermans around her sort of reinforces her image – but I managed to go up and tell her how productive and enjoyable my stay here has been.

I spoke with Miyoko Ito, who seems very sad. She’s been ill, and the University of Chicago is doing a retrospective of her work, “which at my age feels like an obituary.”

Dan Meltzer was nattily attired in a polka-dotted bow tie, and I talked with him and Anne LeBaron, who’s looking forward to her Hawaiian vacation with her boyfriend. Patty Hansen and Margaret Garwood discussed their dogs and cats; Preston, Elaine and Ellen were deep in composer talk; Tanya and David

were together, as usual; Jane complained about feeling feverish, and she did look very tired.

Hillcrest is a magnificent house, built by the MacDowells. John had just read Doris Grumbach’s Chamber Music, a novel based on their lives that made both the MacDowells out to be bisexual.

Edward, a handsome young man (there was a gorgeous bust of him on the piano), actually did die of syphilis – but apparently he was quite a ladies’ man.

I walked Nancy Miller to her studio, trekking on to Colony Hall alone while fighting off the mosquitoes. (They got me all over, including one bite on the palm of my right hand.)

Medrie and Lucille and I waited as John spent half an hour on the phone, trying desperately – and theatrically – to arrange his marriage.

Finally I called Marc, who said he and Nikki were coming to Providence today. He told me to call him tonight at their hotel in Seekonk, Mass.

Maybe I can come down to Providence by bus and drive home with them or else they might come to New Hampshire to pick me up. So I could be leaving as early as tomorrow; if that doesn’t work out, I’ll take the bus home on Sunday.

I had marvelous dreams. In the final one, a girl tried desperately to convince me to take her to the top of Mount Monadnock and “marry” her there. That jolted me out of sleep at 8 AM.

Lucille was upset by a crisis in her department at C.W. Post: one of her teachers quit. Lesley and Elaine both left this morning; I didn’t really say goodbye to either of them, although I did like Elaine.

Today was very hot but not so humid. I feel my remaining time here is precious, but I’ve already started looking ahead to New York. I don’t want to face my hot apartment, my dying car, Grandpa Herb’s illness.

I don’t look forward to doing my own cooking, cleaning and shopping again. I almost feel that I could live better if I never see Rockaway again. I’ve changed because of my stay at MacDowell; here I’m a more relaxed, more creative person, and I don’t want to go back to what I was.

Thursday, July 3, 1980

2 PM. A cool breeze is coming from the window. I rearranged the furniture to put the bed back against the window, so it will be easier to sleep on these hot nights. It’s a cool, cloudy day.

Yesterday I didn’t do much. I got out all the money I could from the bank, but I still have only $28 to get me through the weekend. Money is my most pressing problem.

I have $300 in the bank and those checks may not clear for several days. I’m expecting another check for $160 from Touro College this month. I don’t know when I’ll get the $100 honorarium from the Voice of America.

Even if I’m allowed unemployment, I won’t be able to sign for my first check for at least three weeks, and the rent is due in two weeks. I have a $100 bill from the telephone company. I just don’t see how I’m going to get through this summer.

Last night I saw Dr. Pasquale. I didn’t have the money to pay him, either. We talked about my perceptions of myself as a writer and how they have changed.

MacDowell didn’t cause this to happen, but it set the stage for me to perceive myself differently. In a way I wish Dr. Pasquale and I had discussed more practical matters – but he said I’m able to handle those things fine on my own.

Now I have no doubt that writing is what I want to do with my life – and my judgment about my self-worth is not dependent upon outside forces, it comes from within.

I might have seen it without having gone to MacDowell, but my stay there seemed to clarify everything.

Yesterday morning I took Grandpa Herb to Peninsula Hospital to pick up his x-rays and records for a consultation with a doctor Marty found, someone at New York Hospital.

I’ve been driving Grandpa’s car and it’s a pleasure, although parking is difficult in Rockaway I the summer. I want to be out of here soon. I could take Avis’s room in Park Slope, or I could take over Marc and Nikki’s apartment in Sheepshead Bay, but I’m just not sure what it is I want to do.

I was at BC yesterday and I noted from the English Department bulletin board that there might be evening classes Neil Schaeffer could get for me. I suppose I could find more adjunct jobs and get by, but is that what I really want to do?

I spoke with Avis, who’s dazed by all the sudden changes in her life. On Monday she and Anthony went to see his elderly parents on Long Island. Mr. Cuccarelli kept saying, “I just hope you kids know what you’re doing.”

Avis’s parents were shocked by the news, and they had a big fight. Yet they were also pleased that Avis is “finally” getting married. Tomorrow her parents meet Anthony at breakfast, and then he and Avis will motorcycle upstate for the weekend.

Anthony got into a program run by his hospital workers’ union; he’ll work part-time, get $150 a week, and go to school at NYU-Bellevue to become a respiratory therapist.

Avis will move into his Bay Ridge apartment and they’ll look for something larger and under $300 in that neighborhood. Like me, Anthony doesn’t like congested neighborhoods and wants to live close to the water.

Avis said he is a bit gun-shy because of his disastrous first marriage. I can’t wait to meet Anthony, but it will have to wait. They’ll probably get married in August, hopefully at the UN Chapel where her sister and brother-in-law were married.

I haven’t heard anything from Marc and Nikki, so I guess they’re still in Rhode Island. Deanna called me this morning want to know the name of Mom’s (and Ronna’s) gynecologist. I saw no point in telling Deanna that Marc’s going to be married; besides, I was a bit too befuddled to be up to it.

I still haven’t done half the things I wanted to do: the laundry, cleaning the apartment, xeroxing my new stories and résumés (I don’t have the money for that), and calling Linda Lerner and Frederich.

Still, I’ve been getting the urge to write, and I’ve been taking down notes for stories. This

weekend I want to see if I can work out some plans for my future.

Thursday, July 10, 1980

11 PM. Today was a busy day, and a hot and humid one as well. Grandpa Herb saw the doctor in Manhattan this morning and was told that the growth appears localized and that removal of the lung is necessary – if Grandpa can breathe with the remaining lung.

I spoke with Grandpa Ethel, Cousin Wendy and Mom, and they all hoped the decision would be made soon; the waiting and uncertainty are awful.

Meanwhile, according to Mom, Marc and Nikki spent today driving around Brooklyn in a Rolls Royce. Fredo Milano, the rock promoter with whom they’ve signed a contract, sent Nikki down here in the Rolls with a chauffeur. Nikki went back to Providence this evening, and things seem to be working out.

As to my literary day, I arrived at the Scott Meredith office at 2:30 PM, and Russell Galen showed me to his office. He’s a young, very think, attractive blond man whom I liked immediately.

He thinks that ordinarily he would have thrown my letter and publicity package away,

but he sensed that maybe he would like my work. I brought him Hitler and a few other things, and he said he’d read the stuff over the weekend and let me know if he felt we could work together.

Russ wanted to make sure that I didn’t expect him to make me a best seller overnight, I assured him not at all, that I was in the business for the long haul. He has forty clients and has had hassles with other authors, so he was wary about taking on a “character” like me.

He also told me what I expected to hear: that he was interested only in a novel. Russ works on a salary, not a commission, so he doesn’t have to worry about making every sale. What he cares about is his track record.

He seemed very sharp, with a healthy ego and a cynical yet charitable view of the publishing business. But he also said good books don’t go unpublished, a contention with which I disagree.

I left his office hoping that we could work together but with the knowledge that Russ Galen isn’t the arbiter of my literary abilities. A taxi stuck in traffic made me ten minutes late for the Voice of America taping.

I rushed into the studio and sat next to Kenneth Gangemi. Across from us were Steve Dixon and Carol Emshwiller; Richard

Kostelanetz moderated the symposium from another table.

We talked about the contemporary short story, our own careers, our influences, the nonexistent literary market for stories, and we read several paragraphs of our own work.

I was surprised that the others, Steve Dixon in particular, seemed familiar with my work. I was no more stupid than I usually am or anyone else was. After the taping, we rushed into the downtown subway.

Steve’s next short story collection will be put out by Johns Hopkins, and they gave him a teaching job for next fall. Carol will be taking over Steve’s class at NYU, her first time teaching.

Steve’s latest novel has been turned down by Harper & Row, who published his first books, and also by Taplinger. Carol is readying a second manuscript of stories for a university or small press. I told her how much I admire Joy in Our Cause.

Richard won the Berlin Prize and will spend a year in West Berlin lecturing.

I got off at West 4th Street and walked with Steve and Carol through Washington Square Park, where we passed that 14-year-old boy I met on the subway in November; he was standing with some gay kids, and our eyes met for a moment of recognition.

I had parked Grandpa’s car by Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, and with everything, I didn’t get home until 7:30 PM. I had a two hour talk with Linda Lerner about adjuncting, writing and managing to survive. She said that Neil Schaeffer sold his book on satire to Columbia University Press.

Tuesday, July 22, 1980

4 PM. The only thing I can hope for now is that eventually some good will come out of all this pain. Life has ground me to a cinder. I am on the verge of giving up, but I don’t even know how to do that.

My life has become nightmarish as all my support systems fail. I don’t know how to cope with all the stress.

Yesterday Josh told me his building was condemned. He has thirty days to move out. It’s another example of the little person getting screwed, like me with Touro College and them denying me unemployment benefits because the school still owes me money for the spring term.

As I ate dinner at the Ram’s Horn last night, I watched the people at the counter drive a new waiter crazy. The poor guy just couldn’t

manage, through no fault of his own. Yet he kept smiling through it.

Even though I couldn’t afford it, I gave him a big tip because the waiter, to me, epitomized every little guy that’s trying to make it despite great odds. But I wonder how long he will last.

At JFK Airport, Marc and Nikki came over to me. Nikki had on her usual hideous makeup and had stars pasted on at the sides of her eyes. She babbled on about clothes, about her father “blessing” her coming marriage or something, about she and Marc “sneaking” to see her kids today in Providence.

She will also see a cardiologist; she’s been very ill and during the course of the evening she looked faint several times. Nikki sickens me; she’s not a person but a hideous thing.

Mom came out of the plane looking like Mom, and I watched Nikki kiss her like she was her sister. As we walked with the luggage, people kept staring at Nikki. When Mom and I were alone in the car, I said sarcastically, “Your daughter-in-law.”

Mom said she’s decided that there’s nothing she can do about it: “I’ll just treat her as something which one day will be gone.”

I complained to Mom about my having most of the burden for Grandpa Herb’s illness and told her that Marc never calls anyone. When Mom

said she could only stay through the weekend because Dad has a show in Miami next week, I exploded with rage.

She told me she wanted to see Grandpa Herb today, but I said I was too exhausted to drive into the city. I felt like, and I still feel like, I don’t have a life anymore.

Mom gave me two $100 bills. I thanked her and immediately felt guilty for having to take them, also knowing that this money wouldn’t even pay the rent that was due a week ago.

Back at Grandma Ethel’s, we sat around waiting for Grandma to arrive. I couldn’t imagine why she wasn’t home, and I guess it’s a sign of my nervous state that I panicked and pictured Grandma dying of a heart attack in the hospital.

Just as I said I was about to call the police, she returned from a neighbor’s apartment. After Marc and Nikki left, Mom said it’s like Marc’s “bedeviled.” Why is it he can’t see what any normal person sees: that Nikki is a sickie, that she’s poison.

Nikki told me that if “Dad” (my father!) can’t walk her down the aisle and give her away at the wedding, she wants me to do it. Me, father of the bride of Frankenstein! They want to get married in Central Park as soon as possible. What a freak show that will be.

I came home at 11 PM, feeling exhausted. I called Teresa and she told me that I absolutely must make some time for myself. So today I told Mom I wouldn’t go to the hospital. Instead, we went to Waldbaum’s, where Mom bought me $55 worth of groceries.

We were in line behind Stacy, who’s house-sitting for his father and his new wife. Stacy’s sister and Phyllis are both getting married this summer, she said.

In Brooklyn we fixed the car’s air-conditioning, met Evie for lunch at the Floridian, shopped, and had Grandpa Herb’s ring appraised. The jeweler at the said it “might” be worth $125 to $150.

That was the last blow. I broke down and wept like a baby in the shopping center. Grandpa had always told me that ring he gave me was worth thousands. Mom said she would pay my rent and telephone bill with a check on Friday. But what then?

Saturday, July 26, 1980

1 AM Sunday. I just came home half an hour ago, and I’ve been answering want ads in the New York Times. Tomorrow I’ll send out résumés for twenty jobs. I had new résumés xeroxed earlier today. It’s all part of Richie’s Get Your Shit Together Weekend.

I feel I can start moving now – to where, I’m not certain, but I am going to get somewhere. Last night I went over to my grandparents’ to say goodbye to Mom.

I decided not to go with Marc and Nikki to take her out to dinner and the airport; I was tired and I had spent a great deal of time alone with Mom. She and I got along wonderfully, and I enjoyed her company. I’m very lucky to have a mother I can really talk to – Mom understands.

Last night I spent several hours cleaning up the apartment. I straightened out most of my files, and I scrubbed the bathroom, dusted the furniture, and made myself feel good.

I also composed an open-ended list of things I have to do. I slept well and woke up at 10 AM. At the post office there was the usual junk mail – but Charlie Labeda of Street Bagel forwarded me a fan letter from a girl on Long Island who read my story in the last issue and loved it.

That’s always nice. It makes me feel I am reaching somebody after all.

Josh called to say he’d gotten a job as a programmer for $14,000. That’s a relief. I hope things work out as well for me.

I relaxed and read and went back to my exercises today, and it was a fine morning.

I’ve gotten so accustomed to my little apartment after nine months. Rockaway can be gorgeous in the summer, and I’ll never be sorry I had this experience.

At 2 PM I drove into Brooklyn and xeroxed my résumés and the new Hitler reviews. An hour later, I picked up Alice and we drove to Sloan-Kettering. Between Janice and Grandpa Herb, I feel I am living in that neighborhood of hospitals.

We found Janice looking a little better but still in bad shape. Ingrid and Janice’s mother were there – Frankie, a neighbor, had driven them – but they left soon after Alice and I arrived.

Janice was getting a blood transfusion and her arm was all purple. She kept trying to take off the oxygen mask and was crying because there’s no one around to help her feed at mealtimes.

When Janice’s calligrapher friends, a mother and daughter, arrived, Alice began making schedules for feedings. Janice also complained that the nurses were taking away her Percocet tablets and asked Alice to get Ingrid to smuggle them in daily.

It was heartbreaking to see Janice so helpless and in such pain; I was glad to be able to get out to First Avenue to feed the meter. Alice and I left at 5:30 PM.

She’s very depressed about Janice and said, “It makes you realize your own little troubles are so insignificant.” Alice told me I was invited to the usual Saturday evening gourmet feast she makes for Peter, so I called Dan and told him I’d be by later in the evening.

I waited while Alice brought chicken and shrimp, and then, up in her apartment, as Alice prepared the elaborate meal, we listened to the tape of the Barry Farber show with my grandparents. It played very well and will be a lasting reminder of them.

Peter came home and the three of us dined in the air-conditioned living room. It was wonderful to be with my friends instead of with sick and old people.

Lately I’ve been so tense that my sexual desire has been fading, but I feel pretty perky now. Living at the beach in this summer heat, I get to see some very cute bodies, and it would be the answer to a prayer if I could find a guy I really liked. Today I almost believe that that part of my life will work out, too.

I haven’t heard from Bill-Dale in two months and I don’t know what’s happened to him – although I’m sure he’ll turn up sooner or later.

Well, getting back to Alice’s, her dinner was very good: curried chicken and shrimp with rice and an apple/pineapple sauce.

Peter told me he’ll be going to the Democratic convention as a representative of The Big Apple Report, and Carlos and June are going in connection with their children’s book on the life of newspaper reporters.

Alice showed me Janice’s book on calligraphy; Simon & Schuster did a great job with it. Alice said she had a lot of cash and offered to lend me $200. She was glad when I accepted. I don’t want to get into the habit of borrowing money, but this is a rough time, and I know Alice can spare the money.

God bless my friends: they feed me nutritionally, financially and emotionally. Can I ever really repay them? Driving uptown in a raging rainstorm, I realized how lucky I am.

I have my health, my brains, my looks (no, I’m not kidding), a family who’s supportive, a group of friends who can’t be beat, a nice apartment, food in my stomach, my writing. Remember the Sam Levenson title: Everything But Money. And you know you can’t have everything.

I was lucky, too, in getting a parking space right in front of Dan’s West 74th Street apartment, not an easy feat on a Saturday night when you consider that Plato’s Retreat, the famous sex club, is down the block.

Dan and his pretty girlfriend and roommate Tal entertained me and gave me lemonade. Dan is hoping to get adjunct courses for the

fall; we talked about that and about MacDowell people and about the theater.

I enjoyed the conversation and left at 11:30 PM only because I was tired. The ride back to Rockaway was pleasant.

Looking at the Sunday paper, I got the petty satisfaction of seeing Baumbach get another bad review in the Times Book Review – but at least he got reviewed by them. Oh well, I’m not going to complain tonight.

Sunday, August 3, 1980

5 PM on a hot and humid Sunday afternoon. I’ve been trying to work on my novel all weekend – “work on it” in this case meaning planning and not writing, and I’m not getting very far. Being a writer is hard work.

On Friday evening I took myself to Kings Plaza to see Fame again. I wanted to see how that story worked. All those kids at the High School of Performing Arts have dreams and talent, but what hard work they’ve got in front of them. Like writers.

Is it worth it? Even now, depressed, I believe that it is. Look what I’ve accomplished already. I’m not just your average weirdo; I’ve

developed a style, a voice, a Zeitgeist or whatever, and people (however few) read me and see what I’m trying to say.

My problem with the novel is that I don’t know yet what I want to say. More agonizing and teeth-grinding (Gnashville) will be with me until I get it right. Or at least get it down on paper.

Bert Stratton, that Cleveland writer whom I met last summer sent me his novel, Gigging, which he self-published in a handsome trade paperback. Obviously he couldn’t get it commercially published.

It’s an unfocused book and Burt is careless with language and punctuation (he overuses exclamation marks on every page), but there is a lot of energy in the novel and it gets that Shaker Heights Jewish milieu down to a T – or a chai. I’ll have to write him.

The other night I called Crad to tell him how much I admired Lightning Struck My Dick. Crad is very cheerful these days. He’s had a lot of luck selling his own books at a new location, and last Sunday, Virgo Press had him come to the Canadian Booksellers Convention.

Virgo’s head, Thad McIlroy, is only 23 but he’s the perfect publisher for Crad: he’s aggressive, innovative and very hungry. Thad has made up Lightning T-shirts, and of course the title has aroused a lot of attention in Canadian publishing circles.

Crad just may find himself famous before too long. No one (but me) deserves it more. Then again, Crad might be disappointed and depressed in the future – but still, it will have been worth it.

Remember how thrilled I was last summer when reviews of my book kept coming out in the papers? There will be times like that again, and I’ve got to keep that in mind.

I hope Love Street Books accepts the short story collection I sent them, but my attitude is that if they don’t want it, it’s their problem, not mine. As I told Russ Galen, I’ve always been in this for the long haul, and I’ve come too far to give up now.

On Thursday night on Montague Street, Josh and I ran into Cheryl Tarnowsky, whom I knew at college from having classes with her. She is still with the Social Services Department and she looks like she leads a very comfortable and very boring life.

I may envy her Brooklyn Heights apartment and her salary, but I still think I have more than she does. Whether I make it as a writer or not, nobody can say that I didn’t try.

Writing is an act of will, an act of ego, and I must keep at it. Like the “Fame” song says, “I want to live forever,” and the only way I can do that is through my writing. I am no longer an apprentice but I am not yet a craftsman.

I spoke to Marc today, but he was busy with the kids and couldn’t talk for very long. I’m sure he’s annoyed with me for what he probably considers my “spying” on him, but in the past I have had to force any information out of him.

Oh well, Jimmy Carter has Billy Carter. I’d better keep my distance from my brother for now.

I was on the beach for an hour today, but I have no patience for it anymore. There were no decent jobs advertised in the Sunday Times. I keep wondering how the hell I’m going to get through August.

Tuesday, August 12, 1980

11 PM. In so many ways this summer has taught me more about life than any other time I can remember. Undoubtedly, as Mom said the other night, I will use my experiences in my writing.

The Democratic convention is on this week. Ted Kennedy lost the rules fight and withdrew as a candidate, but tonight he made one hell of a speech. He quoted Tennyson: “I am a part of all I met . . .” I feel that way too.

Life is a journey, and I’ve had many disappointments and setbacks and much pain,

but I’ve come through. Tonight I said to myself: “Richie, you’re basically a nice person.”

Usually I think I’m horrible, but I’m learning to like myself and to become more understanding of myself.

This morning I went to Janice’s funeral. Alice didn’t want to go – she said it would have upset her and she didn’t want to see the hypocrites like Albert who didn’t do a damn thing for Janice cry their crocodile tears. I respect Alice’s feelings, but I needed to say goodbye to Janice to make the experience complete; otherwise, I would have felt that I never really accepted her death.

I arrived at the Guarino Funeral Home on Flatlands Avenue at 9 AM and went into the room where Janice’s body lay. She was dressed in a light blue gown, her hair made up, holding a bouquet, the casket under a garish plaster Jesus.

Few of Janice’s friends were there; it was mostly family. Her sister and brother-in-law came over to me and said, “Aren’t you glad you spent all the time with her that you did?” I do feel good about the last month I spent with Janice.

Late this afternoon, while I was watching Marc and his kids scamper along the beach looking for shells, I picked out a piece of paper from my pack pocket and discovered it was

from the game of “Pig’s Pen” that Janice and I had played last Monday night, the J’s and R’s in the pen-and-pencil boxes.

I can’t believe Janice is dead. She was so scared, as Grandma Ethel is scared about Grandpa Herb. When I saw Grandma after I came back from the funeral, her hands were shaking and she needed a Tranxene.

I’m scared, everybody’s scared – but life goes on. I thought a lot of the funeral was Catholic bullshit, and I don’t know if Janice believed it or not, but I did like the prayer which concludes “. . . world without end, amen.”

The world is without end, and that’s the source of all the beauty and all the pain of life. I went up to Janice’s body to pay my respects; Dolores, very upset, touched Janice’s hands, but I could not bring myself to do that.

The funeral was at Holy Family Church, and the priest hardly mentioned “our sister Janice” at all. Nobody said anything about what kind of person Janice was, and I could only think how Janice would have made sarcastic cracks throughout the ceremony.

I held hands with Maura, who said that on Saturday Paula had gone to her Russian Orthodox church, and not knowing she was dead, lit a candle for Janice – and it flickered and died.

I nearly knocked up Grandpa Herb’s car getting out of a space to join the funeral procession to Canarsie Cemetery. Janice was buried next to her father. At the gravesite, the priest said a few prayers and we all threw flowers onto the casket.

Many people were weeping. Ingrid and her grandmother seemed doped up, and Janice’s cousin Betsy seemed barely able to endure her grief. There were hugs and handshakes, and the cars drove off.

Sometimes I have the fear that the people in my life will start dying one by one and that I’ll be going to funerals and mourning continually, but I know that’s only a nightmarish fantasy.

I thought I was composed by the time I stopped at Kings Plaza to go to the bank, but I kept writing the numbers wrong on my withdrawal ticket. I was next on line for the teller when I heard someone call my name.

A few people behind me was a guy I couldn’t quite place. “It’s Jordan, Ronna’s friend,” he said. After our transactions got done, he came over to me. Jordan changed; he shaved off his beard and grew a mustache.

I must have sounded a little rattled to him, and I was, and he seemed concerned about me. I was grateful for the chance to talk to Jordan, to someone, to anyone.

I asked Jordan about the bar exam, which he said was hard, and about his plans. He’s taking a ten-day trip to California by himself (Ronna couldn’t get off work) and in September, he’ll start his job at that midtown law firm and probably get an apartment.

I noticed for the first time how nice-looking and well-built Jordan was, but I realized that years ago, I would have compared myself to him unfavorably.

Jordan is a kind, caring person, and I like him. I’ve been upset with Ronna for not answering my calls or letters, but I still think she’s a good person and I’m really glad she has Jordan. We shook hands warmly and I wished him well; I think he likes me, too.

I went over to see my grandparents. Yesterday Grandpa Herb and I had had taken in his car to be fixed; replacing the water pump cost over $100. Grandma Ethel was nervous and upset; she feels she will not be able to function without Grandpa.

Arlyne called and urged Grandma to consider seeing a psychotherapist. Marc called and said he was coming over with the kids, so I stayed, and I was glad I did.

Nikki was home cooking, so Marc brought little Tara and Lee, and they were more lovable than I remembered. They are perfect storybook children and I love being their step-uncle, if that’s what I’m going to be.

Tara is a little doll, always saying very adult tings, and Lee is quiet and so affectionate; for some reason, he seems especially fond of me. Like the other time, Tara climbed onto Grandma’s lap and started kissing her over and over again. I saw Grandma starting to soften, and her face looked better.

The first time the kids called Marc “Dad,” I was a little surprised, but I liked hearing it. Marc is good with the kids, surprisingly good, and they listen to him as they would to a father.

He doesn’t like to go out on the terrace, so I took the kids out they and they sat on my lap and hugged and kissed me. After the funeral, it was wonderful to be touched like that.

Nikki must have some good qualities to produce such loving children, and she seems to be coming to terms with her own parents, to whom they’re returning the kids tomorrow. (Here’s a funny: Tara told me, “I have three Grandma Graysons.”)

Marc and I took them to McDonald’s, then Lee drove with me as we followed Mark and Tara to my apartment. They played with my typewriter and I gave Lee the key to the stolen Cadillac. “I’ll keep it forever,” he said breathlessly.

The kids made me recite that jingle from my childhood (“I won’t go to Macy’s any more, more, more . . .”). Finally Marc took them

onto the beach as I watched from the boardwalk.

Next to me an old Jewish lady was hugging her black grandson, and when my neighbors asked me who those kids were, I said, “My niece and nephew.”

The other day a feisty old man in my building asked me how I was and I said, “I’m poor.” Today he saw me holding the kids’ hands on the boardwalk and said, “Today I see you’re a millionaire.”

I kissed the kids goodbye, ate dinner at The Arch, and went back to the boardwalk to talk with my elderly neighbors. Life goes on, it seems.

Upstairs the phone rang, and it was this guy, Boris, 23, whose Voice ad I answered. We walked for a while, and he seemed okay but a little vapid and pretentious. He said I sounded like a nice guy and said he’d call me again on Friday. We’ll see what develops.

My parents phoned, and it was great talking t them. Mom said she’ll pay my rent this month after she gets back from Atlanta with Dad next week.

I got a letter from Russ Galen and he sent back my book and my “notes” for a novel. I’m sorry I gave him the material and I’m too embarrassed to read his letter, so I stuck it away in a drawer unread.

Saturday, August 23, 1980

6 PM. Today was a warm and sunny day. I slept well and work up early. At the post office I found three pieces of mail, none of them good. First was a dunning notice from Getty Oil; next was a note from the Unemployment bureau telling me I lost my case; and the third, for which I had to pay thirteen cents postage due (more insult added to injury) was from Touro College.

It contained my “revised” schedule. They took the P.S. 199 course away from me and just gave me the two at Beach Channel. So I’m not full-time, and that’s over $3,000 gone. Damn Touro College and those crooked Jews who run it.

I can’t believe how they’ve screwed me. Now I’ll screw them. I am not going to take their damn courses – who knows when I’ll get paid? – and instead I’ll take courses elsewhere and not tell them.

Let them find an instructor at the last minute. Before this past year, I never realized the extent to which the little people of the world are exploited. Now I feel no compunction about doing what’s best for me, so long as it’s legal.

And I can even have an understanding of what makes people like Marc want to sell cocaine and beat the system. Look at Nikki’s father: as a gangster, is he any more immoral than the hypocrites at Touro or CUNY or the NEA or CCLM? Enough ranting.

I tried not to wallow in depression and so I walked out to the beach to catch the sun for a couple of hours. Lying there, I decided that my luck has got to change sooner or later; MacDowell can’t be the last good thing that will ever happen to me.

I guess I haven’t worked on the rage I feel at having done everything the way I was “supposed to” and ending up a failure anyway.

Yesterday Kurt Nimmo wrote that I should send him quotes about me so that they could have something to use of the cover if they go ahead with the chapbook. Collected all my reviews and decided to send him all my other clippings, too. After looking through all that press, I couldn’t help feeling that I’m not such a failure after all.

Nassau Community College sent me a form letter in response to my application for their full-time opening. They said they’d be interviewing in late July (!) and asked if I was interested in adjunct courses at $835 a shot. I wrote back that I was; I’m afraid to let anything slip out of my hands.

Back in the apartment, defrosted my refrigerator, dusted and vacuumed and did my laundry. Josh called a little while ago and said he was totally “bummed out.” Remember Olivia, that pretty blonde Josh used to go out with in college? (Actually, he went out with a lot of pretty blondes.) But I liked Olivia.

Anyway, this afternoon Josh ran into her in a hardware store on Court Street. She came up to him as he was haggling with the store owner and said, “Remember me?”

Josh said she was even more beautiful than before. She’s married to this Italian guy she’s been living with for years; she’s going for her M.A. in Art Therapy at Pratt and works in a frame store on Atlantic.

Josh said his heart fell to his foot and he was so flustered he didn’t know what to say. He was with Simon and he worried Olivia thought he was gay. She was really well-dressed and he looked like a slob, wearing a Manny, Moe & Jack Pep Boys T-shirt.

It made Josh feel creepy to tell Olivia he was a computer programmer. He walked her to the car where her husband was waiting but didn’t want to meet the guy. Josh said he looked very macho.

“I felt like a fool, mostly because of the letters I sent her trying to get back after we broke up,” Josh said. (I remember his writing one in Prof. Roberts’s Russian class.) “I feel sick, like

someone punched me in the stomach.” Poor Josh.

Sunday, August 31, 1980

9 PM. Life can’t be all bad. Here it is, another Sunday night and I’m feeling happy. The past week has been another learning experience and there’s some hope in the air.

I think the part of life that I’ve been luckiest in has been friendship. It strikes me that I have gotten more delight out of my friends than anything else, including my career as a writer.

Generally my friends have remained my friends: Alice, Avis, Teresa, Josh, Mikey and the others. I invest a lot in my friendships and I hate to see one end. My friends, more than anything (except maybe my family) have gotten me through this difficult year.

It sounds corny, but without them, I couldn’t have made it. They’ve been so generous to me. I know I’m a good friend, too.

The saddest disappointment is that Ronna threw away our years of friendship. I will never call her again, as I’ve decided there’s no sense in wasting my energies who doesn’t give a damn when there are more giving people to be friends with.

Last night Mikey picked me up. I had been standing in the lobby talking with a lonely old lady whose relatives all live out of town; she just needed someone to talk to, and when I left, she said, “You’re a delight.”

Obviously I have ulterior motives when I’m nice to people: it makes me feel good and I like to be liked. But I’ve decided that people should be judged on their actions and not their motivations. Don’t tell me that a 14-year-old rapist has “a good heart”; give me the louse who donates to charity out of a sense of guilt.

Mikey and I drove to Woodmere, to that shopping center where Dad once had a store. Unfortunately, the New York Post had given us the wrong time for the show, and neither of us were in the mood to wait an hour.

So we drove back to Rockaway, Mark taking me home a new way. The Five Towns looked so gorgeous at night. I bought the Times and Philip Roth’s The Ghost Writer at the newsstand on Beach 116th Street and came home to a long snooze.

This morning I began reading Roth’s book. Naturally I loved it. Roth is so masterful; I would be happy if I had one-tenth his talent. I identified like mad with the 23-year-old short story writer (obviously the young Roth) who visits the older, established Jewish literary figure, an amalgam of Singer and Malamud.

(In May, Malamud said he and his wife had been invited out to dinner in London with Roth and Claire Bloom. “He was taking notes on me, I later realized,” Malamud said. “Roth’s problem is he thinks I’m his father.”)

Scott called from his parents’ house and said he was going to Neponsit with a friend and his family and would walk over to my block.

Avis phoned just after she and Anthony got back from Cold Spring. I told her the B-9 bus, which stops at her corner in Bay Ridge, now goes to Riis Park on weekends and she should come out that way.

While I was eating lunch, Josh called from his parents’ house: Yesterday’s move was a headache, and the super gave him such tsuris that he didn’t even want to tell me the story.

Josh asked what I was doing today, and when I told him that Avis and Scott were both coming over, he said, “You planned it – up to your old tricks.” Josh meant that I like to put people together and observe what goes on.

Actually, if I had tried, I couldn’t have panned it any better. I was outside on my beach blanket when Avis and Scott came toward me from different directions at precisely the same instant.

I watched their faces as they said hello to each other and to me; it was the smallest bit awkward. Mostly Scott and Avis talked to

each other rather than to me: about his job, her life in Germany, her marriage, his forthcoming marriage.

I was reminded of all the times, years ago, when the three of us did things together: a summer Sunday at the Botanic Gardens, a stoned drive on the night of Shelli and Jerry’s wedding; Avis and I seeing Scott off to Europe and trying to calm him down.

I thought how novelistic or cinematic the scene on the beach seemed. Scott was calm and didn’t talk only about himself, and he told jokes that were very funny.

A delightful bit of God’s irony occurred when a seagull shitted right on Scott’s back. As he went to the ocean to wash himself off, Avis smiled and said, “He’s not as bad as he used to be.”

Scott left after about an hour, and then Avis began telling me about how badly she and Anthony were treated upstate by his supposed friends. Anthony, she says, used to play the fool with his friends – which is a role I can’t see him in at all.

Avis and I soaked up some sun, jogged by the water, and had a good old time. Her marriage may change some things, but our friendship is stronger than ever.

We went upstairs to change and then walked over to the Ram’s Horn for dinner, for which

Avis generously paid. We spoke about Josh and Simon, who Avis said are “interesting characters”; as the ex-lover of both, she would know, I guess.

Both Simon and Josh are insecure, have poor self-images and basically treat women as sex objects. Avis said that Josh sees himself as a failure and that Simon is the laziest person she’s ever met.

She said that after three weeks of marriage, she and Anthony are getting along fabulously. The worst fights are over food; he keeps telling her what’s not good for her (eggs, beef, etc.).

As I drove her back to Bay Ridge, she told me her mother treats her with more respect now that she’s married, a hypocrisy which infuriates Avis. Anthony came home just as we pulled up.

Today was his last day of work before his classes at NYU begin, and I went up and joined them for a drink – they had beer and I had lemonade – to celebrate. I do like Anthony a lot; he’s solid, dependable, calm, strong.

Today was a nice day.

Friday, September 5, 1980

3 PM. It’s a cloudy afternoon, which is nice for a change. This summer has been the driest in New York history, as well as the third hottest. All this sunny 85° weather has gotten to be a drag.

I’m feeling pretty good. Dad’s visit perked me up, and so did the Coda article. Debby Mayer sent it in today’s mail and said it was one of the most effective pieces they’d ever published. Bernhard Frank of Buckle also sent me a note, saying he’d seen the piece and my story in the gay issue of Beyond Baroque.

Last night when I called Carolyn Bennett, she also mentioned the Beyond Baroque piece; I guess gay people really respond to it. And Taplinger sent along a fan letter from a “B. Cohen” in Great Neck, a pencil-scrawled not telling me “Introductions” was the best piece in the book.

So I feel my writing career is moving forward again. As to my teaching career, I still have had no word from Brooklyn; last night Baruch called me, but the courses they offered conflicted with Kingsborough so I had to turn them down. I hope I get more offers next week; I’m almost certain I will.

Yesterday I went down for my interview at Food Stamps. I asked all the bureaucrats their names and carried a briefcase, so I got taken care of rather quickly – unlike an asthmatic Haitian woman and a Spanish couple who waited for hours.

My big break was that I paid off my passbook loan. My bankbook showed I had slowly withdrawn $700 and so that bolstered my claim that I was living on my savings.

I got authorization to go to Manhattan (I drove quickly from Rockaway and I got there by 4 PM) to pick up my food stamps: $63 worth of them issued to me because it was an emergency.

All afternoon, in Arverne and again in Chelsea, I was surrounded by poor people, mostly black and Hispanic. It made me feel funny to be among them, but I think I understand the indignity of accepting government assistance a little better.

My food stamp card is almost like a badge of honor: it says I’ve been down and out, too. The $63 in stamps will come in handy; it’s the maximum for a single person.

Yesterday I was at my grandparents’ place. Grandma Ethel was complaining as usual: “Today I had made up my mind that I was going to be well. . . and then the pains began.” Grandpa Herb bugged me to get him cigarettes.

I didn’t go over there today; I don’t want them getting over-dependent upon me. When I think about all my grandparents and the old people around me in Rockaway, I sometimes

think that most people’s are lives are too long rather than too short.

The Touro check arrived today finally, and the Voice of America check cleared, so I’ve gotten through another week by the skin of my aching teeth and poor gums. (If I had the gum treatments the dentist says I need, I wouldn’t be able to make it.)

Part of me believes that I’m never going to see a time when I can be financially secure. I’ve held off buying a new car, getting dental care, buying clothes and books for so long that I don’t think I’ll ever have enough money to save.

On Wednesday night I had insomnia; for some reason I felt this neurotic superstition about things going too good. Maybe I’m just accustomed to disasters and crises now. I keep wondering what bad event will occur next.

Jonny called late last night, but I was asleep and not very coherent; still, his calling made me feel that my little brother is now my friend. I’ve been incredibly lucky in my family life; that’s one area in which I’ve gotten more than my fair share.

Teresa got a job offer to coordinate the speakers’ bureau for Carter’s New York campaign, and she’s going to try to take a leave of absence from the LIRR.

Last night Carolyn told me that she’s just returned from Newfoundland with her lover, Terry, with whom she’s been living. Carolyn lost her job at P.S. 193 because the grant wasn’t renewed and she’s looking for work.

Thursday, September 11, 1980

3 PM. I feel more peaceful than I have in some time. Rosh Hashona is important to me even though I don’t practice formal Judaism. It’s a gorgeous day, sunny and mid, not a cloud in the sky, not hot, not humid.

Last night I slept soundly and had delicious dreams about babies – always a good sign. I felt relaxed this morning. Now I know I have options and I have money coming in.

I walked to the post office this morning, took money out of the bank, and decided to get a haircut. I wanted a change from the disco-Italian look and the Beatle cut it always seems to evolve into, so I went to a hair stylist on Beach 116th Street.

He did a good job in giving me a preppy kind of hairstyle. For the first time since I was a freshman, I got a side part, and I like it. It’s a new year, 5741, and I want to change.

My Rosh Hashona resolution is to lose twenty pounds in the coming year and to become as slim as I was in high school. I think I’ll grow back my beard, too. I’m going to drive less and walk more. I’m going to exercise more, too; maybe I can buy myself a set of weights.

And I want to write that novel. God knows why I’m so optimistic all of a sudden, but I do feel hopeful. I feel calm. I feel I can handle whatever comes, that the worst is over, that I can go on with my life.

If my life from the day I returned from MacDowell could be made into a novel, I’d like Rosh Hashona to be the ending. Why can’t I start fresh?

I’ll be going back to Brooklyn College to teach, I’m almost sure, and that place has been lucky for me from the day I began as a freshman eleven years ago. Remember 1969 and my Rosh Hashona in the Village? I read Emerson’s “Circles” and it seems to apply to my life.

An hour ago I was in Kings Plaza an hour ago and I decided to get a computerized horoscope. I don’t know if the year matters (I mistakenly gave my birth date as June 4, 1980), but here’s what the computer astrologer typed out:

You will be released from responsibilities which have been restraining you this month. You will find you are freer to act in the area of

finance. There will be periods of luck which may bring you much happiness. As it progresses, the month will get better and will end with you more positively situated than you are now. A word to the wise: Do not neglect yourself because of ambition.

Could I have asked for a better horoscope? Funny how it all seems to fit – of course because I want it to fit, that’s how horoscopes work. But if only ten percent of it turns out to be true, I’ll be happy. (No, I won’t. I may settle for ten percent now, but when the time comes, I’ll want it all.)

I have nothing more to write now, but I wanted to record my good mood.

* * *

11 PM. Six hours ago I went over to dinner at my grandparents’. I just missed Marty and Arlyne.

Grandma Ethel served a delicious meal: cantaloupe, lettuce and carrot salad, applesauce, sweet potato, London broil, peas, apple pie and the round challah that symbolizes life, which goes on and on and does not end (see Emerson’s “Circles”).

We talked, as we always do, and after dinner I went out on the terrace with Grandma Ethel to watch the synagogue members go up on the boardwalk and throw their sins away.

It was so cool that Grandpa Herb gave me his windbreaker, and I remembered a photograph of myself at 17, taken on that same terrace on Rosh Hashona a dozen years ago. Our house was being painted and it was 1968, the year I was too sick to start college, and I had hoped that staying with my grandparents would make me feel better.

I hate sounding pompous, but it couldn’t help making me think of the enormous changes that have taken place – in my life, my family, my friends and the world – in the last dozen years.

I can’t really complain about the way life has treated us. Yet a part of me still expects perfection, although I know that a “perfect” world would probably be the worst world imaginable.

Thursday, September 18, 1980

9 PM. This week of heavy teaching has made me a wreck. I haven’t been able to eat or sleep properly and so I’ve gotten sick. I awoke this morning with a bad sore throat that got worse during the day, and I’ve got that run-down feeling that precedes a cold.

As I expected, I couldn’t take all the stress. I couldn’t relax or exercise, and I’ve been very tense. I’ve been grinding my teeth – I can tell

from the pain – and have been getting dizzy at times. I just hope I don’t end up with another case of labyrinthitis.

Today I left the house at 7 AM and didn’t return until 8:30 PM; it was a killer of a day. And tomorrow morning I’ve got to be up early again for Kingsborough; they left a message with Grandpa Herb that I’m to come to the office after my 8 AM class.

I picked up Mikey this morning and drove him to the Junction. Mikey called last night to tell me that his mother has been in Peninsula Hospital all week; they still haven’t diagnosed her illness.

I know how hard it must be for Mikey, staying in Rockaway, commuting to work, visiting his mother every night. She may be released tomorrow, though.

At BC this morning, I gave my Veterans’ class the CUNY Writing Assessment Test; most are terrible writers and some are definitely unteachable. I met with Bill Browne, head of the Veterans’ Outreach program – he really likes me – and said we just have to do the best they can again, as they can keep taking English 0.2 over and over again.

The teaching observations will start at BC soon; I’m glad Steve Jervis will be doing my class. I took the subway to John Jay – it’s a long ride to Columbus Circle – and managed to teach both my classes back to back.

It was tough, and I still get lost in the maze in that building, but I’m getting adjusted to the school. Doris, the department secretary is really nice; she was the one who typed up Mikey’s master’s thesis.

Denis, too, is working himself crazy, what with courses at Pratt and John Jay and four nights of law school at Fordham. The rush hour crowd on the subway was a pain, but the BC campus was calm and quiet when I arrived there at 5 PM.

I tried to rest by reading quietly and drinking iced tea in Kosher Country. The bad eating habits of the last week led to my getting even more overweight, and without time to exercise, I really feel like shit.

No one seems to understand how hard it is to be teaching 22 credits at three different schools. Avis, Grandpa Herb and my parents think I should be taking on even more classes.

But after tomorrow at Kingsborough, I’m determined to make Brooklyn and John Jay my limit. I won’t be happy otherwise; the extra money isn’t worth it if I’m totally sick and miserable.

The most pleasant moment of the day came when I passed a vaguely familiar guy in the BC library. He stopped and said, “That was a great article in Coda.” It was Michael Cohen

from the MFA program, on his way to meet John Ashbery.

He had seen the story “Hitler” because his poetry appeared in the same issue of Shenandoah. Michael said the article had made him glad to see “a little guy with no connections could make it,” and he was obviously impressed.

At 6:25 PM I gave my Liberal Studies class the CWAT; those writing tests appear in my dreams.

Home for the last half-hour, I’m now ready to collapse and get into bed and start the whole thing over tomorrow. What a life. I didn’t even have time to get my mail today.

Wednesday, September 24, 1980

9 PM. I won’t say I’m having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have, but I am surprisingly happy. At the moment a dull toothache and a slight sinus headache are my only problems.

My cold seems to have gone away more quickly than I would have expected. Yesterday I was very hoarse, but I’m better today. Tomorrow, with four classes from early

morning to evening, will be my most difficult day, but then I have a three-day weekend to recover.

Last evening I had a good class at BC and today I had good classes at John Jay. I’ve discovered that I’ve completely lost my nervousness. Years ago, maybe even last year, I would tense up before a class and wonder how I’d do. But now I can go into a class cold and teach a great lesson off the top of my head.

I’ve taught in so many places and under such adverse conditions that I’ve gained confidence in my teaching ability. Of course, there are days when everything falls flat and neither I nor my class is at our best – but generally I think we both do pretty well.

My classes this term are generally good; the first John Jay class is a bit rowdy, but not as bad as most of my classes at KCC. Today I drove into Brooklyn and took the D train to Manhattan; it was a quick, painless, almost pleasant ride. Both coming and going I was in an unlit car, which helped soothe me – just as long as it wasn’t the rush hour.

I myself didn’t feel rushed today. It was a cool, clear, crisp day and everything went smoothly. I had time for myself and didn’t feel pressured.

Last night I spoke to Teresa. I’m going over to see her Friday night. Marc told me that he

was awaiting a call from Nikki, who was in California. I imagine that it’s “business” and I hope all goes well this time.

This evening I spoke to Grandpa Herb, who said Grandma Ethel is doing well after another session with the psychiatrist today. So, for the moment, everything seems to be working out.

I can’t help thinking disaster is lurking around the corner, but maybe I’ve be proven wrong.

From the Grayson mailbag: I got turned down for full-time tutoring jobs at LaGuardia and Nassau Community Colleges (still no word from Clark). Judith Appelbaum thanked me for the plug in my Coda piece (“What’s next?” she asked), as did Richard O’Brien, to whom I also sent my clips.

Richard gave me the phone number of Saturday Night Live producer Jean Doumanian, and said I should use his name (“she knows me as Woody Allen’s publicist”) and try to get a job as a writer with the show. I don’t know, but I guess I’ll call on Friday.

Richard also suggested I’d have a good chance of getting a job as a press agent. I don’t know about that, either.

Dan Meltzer sent a flyer about a reading of his new play at St. Clement’s; I’m going to try to make it to show my support for Dan. When I phoned his apartment, Tal told me he was

going through a “slow period” and needed help.

Rick Peabody didn’t know my Gargoyle story got an honorable mention in The Pushcart Prize; he told me Loris Essary and Chuck Taormina also nominated me. Rick was in London when Scott Sommer’s novel came out there, and it got good reviews.

Speaking of reviews, Kevin Urick asked me if I’d review Colonel Johns for someplace. I still haven’t reviewed Bert Stratton’s Gigging yet (he sent me the underground paper The Cleveland Express, which contained a review of it).

Kevin is teaching six courses at three colleges and he has to get drunk a lot. He invited me to a party next week with the Plymells, Eric Baizer, Rick and Gretchen, John Elsberg and maybe George. I’d love to go – but how can I make it down to D.C.?

Wednesday, October 1, 1980

9 PM. Three-fourths of 1980 has gone by the boards, and I’m betting that the last quarter of this old year will be the best. I am feeling better than I have in months. I have a lot of energy, a lot of plans, and I just have the feeling that the worst of this year’s depression is over.

Last night I began reading Dale Carnegie and I was quite amused by the dated material in the book and the funny style. I got this idea for my next book. It would be called The Only Book You’ll Ever Need to Read.

That title is dynamite; it’s so full of chutzpah, but I think I could pull it off. I pulled off “Joe Colletti” and “The Greatest Short Story That Absolutely Ever Was” and similar pieces. What it tells me is that I’m getting my old confidence back.

Look, right now I can’t write a conventional novel, but I think I can write a rambling fiction/nonfiction book in the form of a send0up of self-help books. The book would be my self-help book, and the style would be relaxed, chatty – maybe something like “Diarrhea of a Writer” or “If Pain Persists.”

I could ramble from topic to topic, tell the story of my summer, put in little anecdotes (Teresa saying yesterday, “I hate my memory,” because she thinks of Nick; Josh’s L.A. girl Lauren writing that she was crossing Santa Monica Boulevard looking for the perfect pair of shoes when some guy in a Corvette shouted at her, for no reason, “Fuck you, Blondie clone!”), philosophize and be me, not some stuffy novelist.

Woody Allen complains because he wants to be serious and people want him to be; I want to be to be funny and people tell me I need to

write a serious, traditional novel. I really feel I know what kind of books I want to write, and I also feel that writing them should be a pleasure.

The irony, of course, is that I don’t have much time for writing these days. But I can do it. Maybe I can set a goal to finish a book by next summer, MacDowell or no MacDowell.

Now I see myself working on a project and being happy just working and not caring what the mail brings. Today’s mail brought me a much-needed $50 money order rescue package from my parents, bless them.

The stupid Queens College Student Union scheduled my writing workshop for Thursday, when I can’t make it, instead of the agreed-upon Wednesday. But the class probably won’t get enough registrants anyway.

Last night I learned that my KCC Story Workshop didn’t come off, which is just as well, since I couldn’t have made that class, either. At least this way Kingsborough Continuing Education will keep me in mind for the future.

Aunt Arlyne sent the first issue of her Oceanside-Island Park Herald, on which she did a pretty good job as editor. She told me I’m welcome to come to dinner anytime.

My first class today at John Jay was a riot; I brought in

Hitler to show the kids, and of course it increased their respect for me. Mr. Grayson isn’t just some grammar fanatic, he’s a writer. The earlier class is very high-schoolish and we had a wild session today.

The second class was more controlled and better. I do feel I’m doing something worthwhile at John Jay.

I took the train home with several of my students, including this guy named Johnny Serpico, who wants to go into law enforcement. He started confiding in us about his love affair with a Puerto Rican coke dealer that ended badly. (And this guy wants to become a narc, yet.)

I liked talking to him and my other students and feel they consider me a regular guy. I’ve been dressing up in a tie every day and I’ve been looking better than I’ve looked in months.

After shopping today, I lifted weights; both my exercise program and my diet (I’ve been having salads for lunch) have paid off already. I feel very positive about my life.

I got an $8 rent increase, a fuel pass-along surcharge.

Tuesday, October 14, 1980

1 PM. I’m very unhappy. This cold weather has brought back the memories of my misery last winter. I even feel dizzy today. I can’t stand the sounds of the howling wind, and I can’t stand my skin being so chapped and dry.

I’d forgotten how enervating the cold can be. It seems it’s been a long time since anything’s gone my way. Every day the world grinds me down a little more. I just don’t know how long I can take it.

I feel I have no future. I don’t want to go through another winter like last one; I’d rather die. I’m again thinking that the best solution would be to move to Florida.

If I’m going to stop teaching anyway (and I can’t remain an “adjunckie” all my life), I might as well try a fresh start in a new place that’s warm and clean and familiar and where I have the support system of my family.

I’ve been on my own a year already and I’ve proven that I can take care of myself. Aside from moving to Florida, I don’t see any alternatives. Though I may try for every full-time teaching job in sight, I’ve got to be realistic and assume I’m not going to get any.

There’ll be no paperback Hitler, so I have no publications to look forward to. I want to put all the pain and frustration of the past year behind me.

The only things I’ll be giving up are some degree of privacy and independence and the daily and easy contact with my friends and maternal grandparents. I can’t afford to return to therapy, and I’m not going to make it financially.

At Citibank today they told me Mom’s $100 money order will take a week to clear, and unless I can somehow cash Thursday’s paychecks, I’ll have to borrow money to survive.

I can’t take the thought of being in this position much longer. I have always felt I could be happy I Florida. My car cannot ride much longer – and then I’ll be left nowhere.

Last night Teresa called and all she did was complain about how depressed she is because of missing Nick. Teresa has a terrific apartment, an exciting and glamorous new job, money, family and friends – and so she has to make up this stupid “problem” to keep her life interesting.

But I listen to her with sympathy even when I’m losing my patience, even though I feel Teresa’s complaints are like someone with a cold complaining to someone with terminal cancer. Maybe I overdramatize my plight the way Teresa does hers, but my pain is very real.

Oh, I’m sure Teresa’s pain is very real to her. But one by one I’m seeing all my hopes

crushed, and even little disappointments – like no mail today – set me off.

This morning I met Mikey on the bus to Brooklyn. Yesterday he put his mother in Peninsula Hospital for all these tests, and he’s got to stay in Rockaway while she’s there. Another lousy break in life.

I just feel I can no longer handle the pain. Every day I wait for some sign of relief which never comes. Is it unreasonable to think that I can ease my pain by changing my environment? I was happy in Florida and in New Hampshire.

Otherwise I don’t see any way out but suicide – that, or just subjecting myself to fresh injuries, new insults, more pain. I’m so tired of living this way. Even when I feel happy, it’s not happiness the way I used to know it.

Maybe I’ll feel better tonight, after I teach again, as I felt better after teaching at BC this morning. But that will be just a change in mood, not in situation.

Florida isn’t the answer to my problems, but remaining here isn’t, either. If I’ve got to start all over again – the way Dad did – I’d rather do it n a new place. I can’t – I was going to say “I can’t take it,” but I’m just belaboring the obvious.

* * *

9 PM. This afternoon Ted Rosenfeld from Taplinger called. Lou Strick had given him my letter. Ted said that though it was highly irregular, he would sell me the paperback rights if I wanted them.

I mentioned $1,000 and he said that seemed reasonable. He also said there were 2,200 copies of the book in stock and they would probably have to remainder them. They cost Taplinger $2.19 a copy and they would like to get half that.

I told Ted I’d get back to him in a couple of weeks. For $3,000 I could have the remainders and the paperback rights. But of course there’s no way I could raise the money.

Then I called Clark University to find out if I was still under consideration for the writer-in-residence job; they told me they’d sent out a letter saying they’d appointed someone else. Fine.

Next I called Mom and we spoke for half an hour, and we agreed that I would give up my apartment in January and move in with them in Davie for a while.

I probably should have done that this summer, but I want to give it one last college try. I told Mom I would try to be a good member of the family and show concern for their house, and she said they all only wanted to help me.

I have to work out a lot of details, but they will get taken care of. I felt sad but more hopeful. I have no idea what I’ll do in Florida, but as I told Mom, I’ll work hard and keep plugging away. At least I may get into a field with a future.

I did get some mail at the post office – just rejections – and then I drove to Brooklyn College. After dinner at Burger King, the only place I could afford, I walked around the campus feeling very nostalgic.

I stopped into LaGuardia lobby and scenes from the past came to my mind: Shelli, Ronna, Elspeth, Elihu, Mark, Avis, Mikey, the elections, the desk in the corner, The Ol’ Spigot and Kingsman, so many happy memories.

I felt I had to physically touch the furniture, the phone booth, to come into contact with the past. I looked out at the BC quadrangle, so pretty now that the grass is thick and the landscaping is done.

I thought to myself: You’re young, not yet thirty, you look younger, you can start over. Accept the fact that you failed – but you picked fields in which the odds against success are pretty steep. There’s no shame in failure.

I am not stupid, though. (Jack Gelber was the only person whoever accused me of that.) Even I can see the illegible handwriting on the wall by now. I tried damned hard to make it

as a writer and college professor, and I had fun trying.

But that part of my life is over. I can do things besides write books and teach – and nobody says I can’t get back to one or the other or both someday.I started from scratch before: in 1969, eleven years ago, when I began these diaries, and I had nothing then.

So let’s say I was one of those Algerians lucky enough to survive the earthquake (20,000 didn’t – “Hope Fading Fast,” said tonight’s Post headline) but who lost everything: I’ll just pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again.

(Another song lyric ran through my head: “This time we almost made it didn’t we?”)

At least now I have something to look forward to.

Before my class, I went over to Midwood High School, where my life fell apart the first time, and sat on the steps trying to remember the skinny, shy boy who sat there fourteen years ago.

Elaine Taibi came by. I explained why I hadn’t paid my Alumni Association dues yet and somehow I needed to talk, so I poured out my troubles to her. She was a sympathetic listener and when we said goodbye, I kissed her. She said she had missed me.

I told her I was moving to Florida. Soon I’ll tell everyone; I wonder what people’s reactions will be. I had a very good class in the Plaza Building; I’ll end the week Thursday night by having them write.

And I came home to the apartment I rented exactly a year ago. I’m glad I won’t be here much longer.

Wednesday, October 22, 1980

9 PM. Yesterday went fairly well. I had a good class at BC last night and got home around this time. I called Mikey, who sounded very upset. His mother is still in the hospital and refusing to have any more tests done, saying that she felt better.

I can understand how Mikey’s mother feels; those tests can make you feel like an object, and doctors don’t help matters. The four pulmonary men at Peninsula who were anxious to operate on Grandpa Herb are also pushing Mrs. Morris into a variety of biopsies and other tortures.

Living in Rockaway instead of his place in Chelsea has ground Mikey’s social life to a halt, and he is fed up with commuting to and from work. I hope I helped by allowing him to

blow off some steam. That’s the most I can do: say things like, “It must be very frustrating.”

Avis phoned. Nothing was new with her and Anthony except maybe that they plan to look for a used car this weekend. I told her she could have my Comet, but for some reason she declined the honor.

Dad also called from his hotel; he had another good day at the menswear show, which ended this afternoon.

This morning I decided I wouldn’t go into John Jay tomorrow, so today I told my students I was canceling class then. This will be spare me just one of my hysterical Thursdays and give me a chance to catch up on marking papers; perhaps I can also see Dad before he leaves.

All my checks cleared, and as of this morning I have $575 in Citibank – but I wrote out checks for the rent, the phone bill and the druggist which totaled $360. Still, a week from tomorrow I’ll have another $600 – possibly more if the KCC check comes through – and I should be able to begin straightening myself out.

My classes went smoothly today, and commuting wasn’t bad. It’s been chilly lately, but I’ve been adjusting to it; I’m now wearing my pea coat.

The letter from Clark finally arrived, and it was a personal letter, complimenting me on my “excellent qualifications” and urging me to reapply in the future.

I’ve begun to get some rejections of the stories I’ve been sending out lately; at least a little feedback, even negative feedback, is better than none.

I had dinner at the Ram’s Horn and came home to read, watch the news, and lift weights; I’m making progress with my exercises.

Marc called to give me his new phone number and to ask if I wanted to go out with him and Dad for dinner, but I declined. Dad will probably sleep over at Marc’s tonight although I was hoping he could come here.

Marc told me Nikki came around again, but he went outside rather than let her back in the apartment. She promised to reform and quit taking drugs and dealing and drinking and lying and generally fucking up; Marc said he’ll believe it when he sees it.

I don’t think Nikki can change without professional help. Mom thinks Marc is worried that everyone thinks he was a schmuck. Well, he was – but being a schmuck is forgivable.

I’ve been looking at myself in the mirror and not liking the result. My complexion is sallow

and blotchy, my face is puffy and fleshy, my hair is lifeless and drab. Generally, I look tired.

I’ve been feeling quite dizzy again lately, and though I haven’t really lacked energy, I’ve been feeling a bit washed-out. Maybe it’s just The October Blahs.

Tomorrow I’m having the BC veterans write, so it should be a fairly easy day. I just wish I had more time to read and to write, as I’ve been getting ideas for stories.

Tuesday, October 28, 1980

9 PM. I just got home from Brooklyn College. Because my car is running so badly, I’ve been relying on the bus, and I really don’t mind taking it. I look at these familiar places carefully now because I’m going to be moving.

There are hundreds of memories that come back to me as I go over the bridge or past Kings Plaza or Kings Highway. But, as I was thinking before, maybe I can achieve the artistic distance from New York that I’ve always been looking for when I move to Florida.

When I’m lonely there – and I expect to be lonely much of the time – I will call on my memories, and I hope that will lead to good

writing. With each passing day, I am more and more certain that moving is exactly what I want to do.

Suddenly this fall seems not something to be merely endured, but my last season in this city and therefore a time to savor. I know I’m leaving, so I can just put up with the horrors of New York a little more easily.

Everywhere I go, I keep hearing Frank Sinatra or Liza Minelli singing “New York, New York.’’ A line from the song goes, “If I can make it there / I’ll make it anywhere,” and it’s a line I believe in.

I came pretty close to making it in the Apple; after this, everywhere else should be a cinch. Last night I called Elihu and Vito and told them both I was moving; I haven’t been close to either in years, so they weren’t surprised.

Elihu says his job at Goldman Sachs is an okay way of making money, but there’s no creativity in what he does and he’s very bored. He still hopes that if he writes a great dissertation, he’ll get a job in academia; of course he knows that isn’t going to happen. The faculty at LIU is still on strike and they may cancel the semester, Elihu said.

Vito was busy running the Abbey-Victoria newsstand, where he’s earning good money: $20,000 a year. But he’s embarrassed to tell anybody what he does and there’s no future in his job, so he’s preparing for the LSAT and

applying to Fordham, Brooklyn and other law schools.

I called Marc last night. Conversing with him is harder than getting a response out of my most silent student. We talked about banal subjects and I was relieved to end our “conversation.” I heard Nikki in the background, but I was afraid to ask if it were she. Marc’s just stupid enough to take her back.

I felt so dizzy last night, I couldn’t sleep. This morning I was early and caught the 7:25 AM bus, which Mikey also got on. He said his mother was getting antibiotics and feeling nauseated.

I taught my veterans’ class and told them not to come in on Thursday (I’m alternating taking off my one allowed sick day at the two schools, and this week I want to give myself extra time to prepare for the observation at John Jay).

Then I came home and got into bed and actually slept for an hour or so. It was a dark, rainy day: a perfect day to sleep. In the afternoon, I exercised, shopped and did my laundry.

Avis called to say that on Sunday, two weeks before her due date, her sister had a boy, a seven-pounder they’ve named Gabriel. Avis’s parents have gone to Virginia to help them get the baby settled.

I had my evening students at BC do an essay, so I didn’t have to give a big lesson tonight. The Carter/Reagan debate will be coming up in a few minutes, though I’m sure it will be more of a press conference than a real debate.

Wednesday, November 5, 1980

6 PM. Last night was not so long after all. By 7 PM the TV networks’ exit polls were preparing us for a Reagan landslide, and by 10 PM Jimmy Carter conceded.

Reagan swept New York and every other big state for a lopsided Electoral College victory; Carter carried only six or seven states. Most people, like myself, simply wanted a change, particularly with regard to the economy.

I called Dad, who said all his customers voted Republican, as he did (Mom, like me, went for Anderson and Jonny stuck with Carter).

The GOP took control of the Senate for the first time in over 25 years, and McGovern, Church, Bayh, Culver and other liberals lost; Al D’Amato whisked by Liz Holtzman in New York.

I slept poorly, as I stayed up late to watch Reagan’s victory statement and the late returns. I think New Deal liberalism is finally dead, and that Reagan has created a new

coalition that may dominate politics for awhile. I’m glad things will be changing, but I just hope the Moral Majority types don’t start telling us how to live.

I was dizzy last night and all day today, and I don’t feel very well now. I’ve had this problem for over a week now, and I’m probably going to have to see a doctor.

My classes went terribly today, and I hated teaching, but everyone was in a bad mood. At John Jay, going up the stairs, a smart Puerto Rican kid in my first class, said, “This is bad news for the P.R.’s and the BL’s,” meaning Reagan’s election.

I hate the cold weather too, and I want the next two months to pass quickly so I can be in Florida already. I can’t stand the howling winds I hear now.

I get nostalgic and impatient when I see cars with Broward County license plates or see Florida addresses like the one on the belated campaign material I received in the mail today.

I want to get out of New York; there’s nothing for me here. I called Mikey last night after the doctor had given him a very bad report. Mikey’s mother has a rare lung disease which may kill her in six months – or she may live ten years, getting progressively weaker.

What a tragedy! Mikey will be left completely alone. Naturally, he was very upset, but he was trying to be optimistic.

Josh was frantic because his car needs a new generator. Geneva has given him the heave-ho, and he said, “I need new meat.” Josh treats women like objects. He told a co-worker who was supporting Liz Holtzman that the congresswoman was “really ugly” and wondered why the woman got so upset.

I called Avis, and Anthony answered the phone by saying “Sat nam.” Now is that normal? Avis said I should come with her to a yoga class at the ashram on Monday. I don’t know why she expects me to share her enthusiasms.

If I sound rather misanthropic tonight, chalk it up to unhappiness and not feeling well. I don’t want to face the next few days because I think some new disaster is in store for me.

I’m sick of teaching and would quit in a minute if the National Enquirer were to ask me to go work for them. I am disgusted by my students’ stupidity, by the filth of New York, by the cold weather, by nosy Mrs. Calman (who asked me yesterday if I had company – what’s it her business?), my brother, and about a zillion other things.

I’m just in a bad mood, and the more I write, the worse I feel. Of course what I’m most disgusted with are the academic and literary

worlds. I don’t care if I ever teach college or write for publication ever again.

I suppose it’s better to be angry than depressed and filled with self-loathing. I’d like to sleep till January and wake up in Florida.

Thursday, November 6, 1980

9 PM. I just got home and am now in my bed, still unmade from when I left it exactly fourteen hours ago. These Thursdays are killers. I was dizzy last night and it got worse today, so I’ve made an appointment with Dr. Prince for 9:30 AM tomorrow.

I just came from Grandpa Herb’s; he lent me his car. I did sleep well last night, however; I’ve got to be grateful for little things.

I taught my 8 AM Veterans’ Outreach class and then had time to drive back to Rockaway and check my mail. The University of Illinois Press rejected my story collection and quoted from their reader’s report:

“I imagine that Mr. Grayson is a young writer, and therefore I assume that he is a prolific one as well, to have published so many stories. Unfortunately, the quality of his ms. does not measure up to the quantity of work provided. Far too many stories are thinly fictionalized (or

perhaps not fictionalized at all) accounts of events from the author’s own life. It’s as if he were carrying on a monologue . . .

“The material is not shaped into any sort of cohesive narrative form. There is a way to write about oneself that is interesting, even entertaining, but Mr. Grayson rarely hits upon this method. Since the author has apparently succeeded in publishing so many stories as they stand, I doubt he will find it necessary or desirable to write the kind of fiction which would be suitable for your series. In any case, I recommend against any further consideration of the manuscript.”

Another kick in the teeth, I thought. I felt crushed. But it wasn’t too long before I was on my way to Manhattan and realizing that this was one person’s judgment. He sounds humorless, like a D.G. Wnek type, and fairly pompous.

Even if he were a nice guy, what he values in a short story (and what Illinois apparently values) is not what I even desire to achieve. I don’t want to write like most of the dull “well-crafted” academics they publish; I don’t enjoy reading such stories.

What I am trying for is a kind of monologue, and perhaps I should stick to nonfiction, which pays better anyhow. “Quality” is a subjective word. It doesn’t make me any less disappointed, but I must be more self-assured

than I’d thought if I can handle such a rejection so well.

A year ago it might have been crushed me for days. But I don’t think I’m going to submit any more stories for little magazines or small press publication. The bottom line for me is money (I’m joining the human race).

I see no point in writing or publishing stories in little magazines anymore; the satisfaction isn’t worth it in terms of the cost (postage, xerox, envelopes, the pain of rejection). I’m not going to buy the new International Directory and I intend to submit only when I’m asked by editors I know.

I had my John Jay classes write while I graded papers, and I did the same with my evening class at BC; they need the practice for the CUNY exam.

I was telling Neil Schaeffer that because of teaching, I didn’t have time to write, and he said that should be the most important thing and was supportive of my decision to quit teaching.

Steve Jervis asked me if I was interested in teaching at BC this spring, and when I said no, he asked if I’d mind getting a letter of non-reappointment. “Not at all,” I said, glad to do him a favor, especially if it might help me collect unemployment insurance.

Again today, I was disgusted by New York: the

filth of the streets, the graffiti-scarred trains, the girl who had to wear a gas mask while bicycling in Manhattan. I want, more than ever, to make a fresh start in Florida.

I have five days off now. I just hope I’m not too sick to enjoy my vacation. I called Teresa last night, and as I expected, she was very disappointed about Carter’s loss. The BC English secretaries told me that Laura came in yesterday wearing a black armband.

Wednesday, November 19, 1980

10 PM. It’s been a long day. Last evening I taught a class on capitalization at BC, and it went well. It was cold and dark waiting for the bus at the Junction and somehow I was reminded of a little booklet Shelli made for Ivan ten years ago: “Things to Do While Waiting for the Rockaway Bus.”

I remember one entry was “Count the number of hairs in your mustache.” I can do that too now. I sometimes wonder where Shelli and Ivan are (Shelli in Madison? Ivan in New Jersey?) and if they’re happy.

In the two months I have left before I move, I’d like to see a number of my old friends. I probably won’t get the chance, though.

When I got home last night, I found a note Mrs. Epstein left; it said to call a Bonnie St. John at a Long Island number. It was a collection agency calling about the $103.18 bill I owe on my Getty credit card. I suppose I’ll pay it, but I think it may be illegal harassment for them to call my neighbors.

I hadn’t been dizzy all day yesterday, but I didn’t have a very good night; still, I managed to get a little sleep. This morning I opened an account at the Jamaica Savings Bank on Beach 116th Street; Citibank’s service charges are getting to be too much.

I have to pay the rent and that Getty bill. It just seems I can’t save money. I called the payroll office at KCC and they said I should have my check on Friday.

In January, Doris is having an operation to remove a tumor of the parotid gland, like Dad had – but Doris’s lump is much smaller than Dad’s was. At John Jay, I had lunch with Livia, who’s really sweet. She’s been avoiding writing the prospectus for her dissertation; instead, she reads Dorothy L. Sayers mysteries.

My classes didn’t go too well today – I was disorganized and they were rowdy – but I got through them. I think most of my students will pass the CUNY exam, if not on the first try (in three weeks), then on the second during final exams.

In Rockaway by 4:30 PM, I shopped at Waldbaum’s, got a slice of pizza, check my post office box (nothing for the second day in a row) and came home to read the papers, exercise and relax.

But at 5:30 PM I got a call from Bob Schippa at KCC’s Adult Education division. A writing workshop teacher at Edward R. Murrow High School had just canceled and he wanted to know if I could fill in. I said I would, and he gave me all the information.

Borrowing Grandpa Herb’s car, I drove off into Brooklyn, stopping for an ice cream cone to keep me going. It felt exciting, as if I were a doctor on an emergency call.

Recently I read an article about the joys of substituting; I can understand it better now (though I can also understand why Cindy thinks it’s a pain).

I filled out personnel forms and a W-4 and started the class at 7:15 PM. There were a about a dozen students: older people, including one married couple, a few young women in various stages of weirdness, and one middle-aged black woman.

They were of course impressed with my book, which I’d brought along, but they wanted to stick with their syllabus. I guess I’d forgotten they were on a beginning level.

Each read a character sketch, and while they were clichéd, they were fairly well-written. I found I had a lot to say about each piece and a lot to say about creative writing in general.

Over the years I’ve picked up so much that I’ve never been able to use because I never have taught creative writing. I feel I could be a great creative writing teacher if I had the chance.

At the end of class, I spoke about markets and manuscripts and they really got interested. Mr. Schippa said he’d mail me a check, probably about $30, by Christmas.

Thursday, November 27, 1980

8 PM. I think I’m coming down with a cold. My glands are swollen and I have a sore throat.

Last night, though, I slept well and had vivid dreams. In one, Avis and Helmut and my student Maxine Cohen and I were riding over the Verrazano Bridge to get ice cream in Staten Island.

In another dream, Dad was showing me a map of South America with all the countries bearing names of U.S. states: Chile was Florida, for example.

I woke up feeling ill and rather depressed, but I couldn’t put my finger on its cause, so I assume I’m not well physically. Mom called at 11 AM to wish me a happy Thanksgiving. Dad was out running, she said, and it was another hot day.

Yesterday they took Grandma Sylvia to a young cardiologist at the Miami Heart Institute. After examining Grandma, the doctor told Mom and Dad that she has an aneurism running from her neck to her stomach, and even if she were only 40, there would be nothing they could do.

At most, he said, Grandma Sylvia could live one year, but it seems to be near bursting now, so she can die at any time. However, it will be an instantaneous, painless death, and I find that a comfort.

She had a lot of physical suffering in her life with three occurrences of cancer, so I’m glad Grandma Sylvia will die quickly and quietly. That’s the way I’d want to go.

They had a man come over to look at Grandma’s condominium for his brother-in-law, and he seems to be interested. Mom and Dad are asking $65,000. Grandma says they can get $100,000, but what does she know?

They’ll put her in a home or hotel and use the money from the condo sale to pay her expenses. She can’t drive anymore, but Mom says her car doesn’t run too badly and that I

should use the car when I come down in Florida.

At 1 PM I went to my grandparents’ and drove them to Oceanside. Marty and Wendy were both asleep when we arrived; they’d gotten up at 5 AM to drive Arlyne, Joey, Sheryl and her boyfriend Randy to the airport to get an early flight to Nashville.

Arlyne’s mother and the woman who takes care of her were flying up to Nashville from Florida for their family reunion. Larry lives there with his girlfriend and her two children and sometimes his daughter Gina (he’s got joint custody with Sarah, who has remarried).

Marty took us in his BMW to the Lincoln Inn in Rockville Centre, where we had a 2 PM reservation. The food was good and the service was fine, but somehow I would have preferred being at someone’s house rather than a restaurant.

I didn’t really feel I had anyone to connect with. My grandparents are so predictable by now, and though I adore them, they do begin to get on my nerves.

Grandma Ethel was cold and so sat in her coat throughout the meal, and she kept complaining about Grandpa Herb’s smoking, about his not seeing a doctor, and she kept worrying about Marc and everyone else.

I told her all her worrying won’t do one bit of good, but she says, “It’s my nature,” and I think it makes her feel virtuous to lose sleep over Wendy’s height or Marc’s relationship with Nikki or Grandpa Herb’s health or my financial problems. Still, I resent her for taking on all our burdens.

Grandpa Herb was quiet during the meal, and so was Marty, who doesn’t look well. He’s aged; his hair is tinged with gray, his face is puffy, and he’s put on weight. (Grandma says he’s “aggravated” about his failing business.)

Marty was less sarcastic than usual, although he couldn’t resist putting down Marc (granted, he’s an easy target) and my “returning to the safety” of my parents’ home.

Well, that’s the way Marty is, and he was generous enough to pay for my dinner and of course he refused my offer to put down the tip. (Marty caught a $20 mistake in the bill. I wonder how many diners didn’t catch the mistake.)

Wendy was talking about school in that eager way of hers; I find her pleasant but vapid. She and Marty are obviously so pleased with themselves that she got into Wharton.

All she could talk about were material possessions and vacations, restaurants, clothes, and her business courses. She can’t understand why I don’t just find a teaching job

at an Ivy League college, and it wasn’t worth the effort to explain it to her.

All in all, I preferred last Thanksgiving at Avis’s parents’ co-op in Sheepshead Bay.

Back at Marty’s house, he showed movies of Wendy as a kid. Some were in Rockaway, and I caught glimpses of me at 14 (so slender and nondescript), Jonny with his green truck, Marc at about 10, and a much younger Mom and Dad, Marty and Arlyne, Grandma Ethel and Grandpa Herb.

Then he showed movies of them in Puerto Rico. I remembered the view from the Caribe Hilton balcony, the corner where the Normandie Hotel was, and the pink flamingos by the swimming pool. It’s been over twenty years since I was last in San Juan.

Marty had gotten me cartons and tape for moving, and I loaded them into Grandpa’s car. Grandma, of course, is worried about how I’m “going to manage.”

Driving home to Rockaway, she started in about what a pity it was that Wendy is so short and isn’t “going with a fella” or getting married like other girls. I wanted to scream. I told her that maybe on Thanksgiving she might consider looking on the bright side of things.

She always wonders why bad things happen, I said, but she never wonders why bad things

don’t happen. For example, I said, why isn’t Wendy a drug addict? Why didn’t I get polio? Why wasn’t Grandpa Herb run over by a truck?

Like Grandma Sylvia, Grandma Ethel has never been one to count her blessings. I see that I’ve learned to be a pessimist from my grandmothers. They can’t change, but I can. So I have no more complaints tonight, only thanks.

Friday, December 5, 1980

11 PM. Today was a totally pleasant, uneventful day. Last night I called Florida and spoke with Dad and Jonny. Jonny sounded especially well; it’s been eight months since I’ve seen him, and in that time he seems to have changed enormously.

He had just come home from an art class and said the teacher had let them out early – “because we’re up to Abstract Expressionism and he figured all those paintings look alike.” He told me not to shave off my beard until he can see it.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Jonny and I could really be friends at last? He sounds like the kind of person I would want to be friends with – and it’s going to be lonely for me in Florida.

Dad said it was beautiful down there: mild but no longer humid. Last night I froze here under three blankets. This morning I lay in bed for three hours after I woke up. Lolling around seemed like such a luxury after yesterday.

I finally got up and went to check my mail. There was a lot of it, but nothing promising, and I have decided to stop submitting to little magazines for a while. I’m moving out now anyway, so it’s not practical.

I am still interested in the small press scene (I read Northeast Rising Sun avidly and I resubscribed), but it doesn’t pay anything. I could have 300 stories published in little magazines and I wouldn’t be any happier or any richer.

I guess Hitler’s failure has made me a little bitter; I expected so much more. But I know my work is good – I just reread Disjointed Fictions and was surprised at how much I liked my old stories – and I know that it was not my fault that the book didn’t achieve more financial success.

But I’m very enthusiastic about my prospects in Florida. I will try any field that looks promising and in which I might have a future. I want to make some money at this point in my life.

My dream is to be able to afford my own little condo in Florida. If I put as much time and

energy into finding work and then at working hard as I did on my stories and my publicity campaign, then I’m sure I can do well.

Lately I’ve been telling myself that all my job experiences will one day pay off. Even seemingly irrelevant things I’ve learned – about the publishing business, about teaching remedial writing and controlling a class – will be helpful to me in some way.

I drove into Brooklyn, filled a prescription, had lunch at the Arch, and did some shopping at the Flatlands center at Woolworth’s. Then I came home to spend the afternoon exercising, watching soap operas and writing George Myers, Rick Peabody, Richard Kostelanetz, and Merritt Clifton.

I went to my grandparents’ for dinner, and Grandpa Herb gave me a $100 check for Chanukah; he wanted to share the profits from his accident settlement.

He’s having trouble walking and he’s been having diarrhea (I told him to stop eating raisin bran every morning) and Grandma’s been having heart troubles (the doctor gave her new medicine for her angina).

Grandpa Herb told me something he said he’d never told anyone, not even Grandma Ethel, before: When he was first married, he developed that terrible cough of his and he always assumed he would die before his children grew up.

Odd to think that even old people once thought that they would die young. In a couple of weeks Grandpa Herb will be 77. Back home tonight, I did the laundry, vacuumed, trimmed my beard, and watched junk TV.

Thursday, December 11, 1980

3 PM. Feeling good for a change. Oh, I do have a sinus headache and a little dizziness, but I’ve just finished my weight lifting and I’m gaining strength. In the last month I’ve begun to feel so much better about myself. My depressions have been short-lived and not as deep.

The beard really helped me in seeing myself in a new light; I look older and more masculine. Some silly things also made me feel good in the past twenty-four hours:

Twice I was asked for subway directions and both times, I was addressed as “sir” and I was able to give detailed instructions. (Just as I’m leaving New York, I’ve finally mastered the intricacies of the subway system.)

At Citibank I was asked by some Hadassah woman if I wanted to buy a knit scarf for my wife.

Last night, at the Ram’s Horn, I sat next to a guy on my block I’d always assumed to be an Irish tough, and I avoided him, but in reality he turned out to be a very meek and even effeminate person and when we talked, it was obvious he respected me.

Hey, I respect myself a little more now. I sent Alice a $200 check, wiping out all my debts except the Authors League Fund loan. But I don’t owe any individuals outside my family any money, and I have $1,000 in the bank.

That security is a wonderful feeling, especially when I remember six months ago I didn’t have a dime to my name. When Teresa and I had lunch the other day, she didn’t have to pay for me, and that too made me feel better.

I read Jay Neugeboren’s piece in The Nation, as June had recommended. Even with his renown, he still has to submit stories to little magazines; he’s gotten thousands of rejections, and most of his stories get rejected more than twenty times before they’re accepted.

His last novel was rejected a dozen times, then accepted by a publisher who had rejected it a year before. And when Neugeboren edited that fiction issue of Ploughshares, he accepted thirteen stories out of over a thousand submitted.

He sent me a personal rejection, and that means (according to what he wrote in the article) I was one of the lucky few. Maybe I’m wrong about deciding not to submit anymore.

Today there were two manila envelopes in my post office box, but they were not rejections. The Nantucket Review wrote that they’d accepted an old story of mine months ago and only through a mix-up was I not notified before. And another old story (both acceptances were longshots) was taken by Shadowgraph. Great!

I was up bright and early today and felt invigorated by the crisp 25° cold. I had my veterans’ class at BC, and then I went into John Jay just to pick up my paycheck.

Back at BC, I got my other check and had lunch in the faculty dining room. Lou Asekoff said he actually wrote me for Vice President last month!

I deposited my checks, got my mail and came home to relax. Tonight I have the evening class at BC and all day tomorrow at John Jay we mark CUNY exams. This is a rough week, but I’ve sailed through it with ease.

And there is only one more week left before the holidays. It’s three months since Rosh Hashona and I’ve done well in the time I had. What I’ve finally gained back is my self-confidence.

It’s been rough, but I’ve come through the worst of it – and I can take more if I have to. Last night I dreamed of puppy dogs and Florida (where my parents’ house had been converted into a MacDowell-type artists’ colony).

Friday, December 12, 1980

7 PM. Marc called me early this morning to ask if I could drive him and Nikki to the airport to catch a flight to Providence.

I was already halfway out the door on my way to Manhattan, so I explained I couldn’t and told him to have a nice trip. He said, “Well . . . ,” as if I were crazy.

This afternoon Mom called me with the details of the story. It seems last week Fredo’s house was robbed of gold and jewelry and “he went nuts.” He got a bug in his head about Marc and Nikki owing him money, and he came down to New York with another hoodlum.

They kept Marc and Nikki hostage at gunpoint for two days. Fredo and this other guy wouldn’t let Marc or Nikki make a move without them. When Marc spoke on the phone, Fredo was listening on the extension.

Fredo had been at Mom and Dad’s house in Florida and decided he would shake them down for some money. So he had Marc tell the story about owing Fredo money for drugs.

“I’m giving your son a gift,” Fredo told Dad.

“A gift?” Dad said. “What are you talking about?”

“The gift of another day of life,” Fredo said.

That scum. On Tuesday Joey Fisher came over for a visit and he told Mom that Fredo bodily threw him out of Marc’s apartment.

All of Marc’s friends knew what was going on but couldn’t call the police for fear that Fredo would kill Marc and Nikki. As it was, Nikki was badly beaten up and her jaw was nearly broken.

Yesterday Marc went out to see if he could borrow money from Ernie, and Fredo’s cohort had a gun on him all the time. Finally Fredo became ill and decided to settle for $1800.

Joey brought over Marc’s car, which was signed over to Fredo. Now Marc and Nikki are in Providence under the protection of Nikki’s father and her family. (Little Lee met them at the airport and he was excited to see them. Marc told Mom he’s gotten so big.)

Mom said that Nikki’s father will “take care of Fredo” and get the car back. “So it’s over,” Mom sighed.

“Until next time,” I said, just as I had to Dad on Wednesday.

Anyway, here’s what’s happening in my life: I had a good class at BC last night. I have such a great rapport with my adult students. I find teaching the fine points of grammar a real challenge.

When I got home, Avis called with the news that she and Anthony have taken a new apartment, on State Street between Bond and Hoyt, three blocks from the ashram, in a brownstone on a pleasant block.

The owner is a young black woman who is renovating the building, and Avis said the apartment is “huge” and “gorgeous.”

Denis called and we decided to put off getting together for a while. We did see each other today at John Jay. I slept well, but it was hell to face a frigid, hectic rush hour.

At school we sat around a conference table and “normed” our grade scores on sample CUNY exams. Two readers read each test, and conflicts went to Betsy Gitter and Pat Licklider.

Early on, some people noticed that my students were doing well. By noon, it was

getting hard to distinguish between passing and failing grades, we were so punchy from reading so many papers.

In my earlier class, 16 people passed and 9 failed; in my later class, it was 10 passing and 11 failing. “That ratio is phenomenal,” Betsy told me, which to me seems pretty sad, but I was glad I look like a good teacher even if I felt embarrassed because during the test I did go around and sort of silently point out with a pencil when my students were making run-ons or fragments or tense errors.

I didn’t tell them anything, just tapped with my pencil. I don’t care if that was “cheating.” I don’t believe my students, especially since most of them at John Jay are ESL (Spanish speakers), should suffer through another term of remedial, and this kind of timed test doesn’t reflect what they really can do.

What the hell. I’m leaving teaching anyway.

Sunday, December 21, 1980

8 PM. Winter and the shortest day of the year. I wasn’t feeling very well when I got up this morning, so I decided to skip Teresa’s open house. When I called her this afternoon, she was very annoyed, for I’d been about the seventh person to cancel because of illness.

I think I’m coming down with a cold or the flu. I have a bad sore throat and a stuffy nose and I’m also dizzy (so much so that it was very hard to sleep last night). Maybe I’ll call in sick tomorrow; unfortunately I have to teach at BC in the morning. It’s so cold out and the below 20° temperatures are supposed to last all week. Yesterday I had a busy day and I was out too long in the cold. I went out at 11 AM and got my mail. Mark Alan Stamaty, to thank me for the letters I wrote him “during a non-cheerful period of my life,” sent me a copy of his book MacDoodle Street, a compilation of the Voice cartoons.

I was delighted with his kind gesture and felt such a kinship with Mark, who will one day be one of the great cartoonists of the century. It made me feel as though I, like him (and Crad Kilodney and Bill-Dale) am part of the creative world. I’ll never be able to thank Mark enough, for he brightened up my whole weekend.

I took the train into Manhattan, and as I was early, I decided to go to the Strand and see if I could find any review copies of Hitler on sale; there was only one.

At the St. Marks Bookshop, I overheard a salesperson mention my name to a phone caller, and I took the call. It was Roger, sounding very ill, apologizing for not making

it. I told him not to worry, although I’d come into the city specifically to see him.

I bought the new Poets & Writers directory and had lunch at The Cookery, treating myself to a last meal in a place that had some great memories for me going back to Yom Kippur 1969, when I ate there with Joe Spitz.

Then I called Alice, who told me to meet her and Richard Rothstein at Andreas’s gallery-workshop in Soho. He rented an enormous storefront where his huge, whimsical sculptures have room to breathe.

I was impressed by the lightness of such large, heavy sculptures; Andreas doesn’t want to sell any, just to let the public enjoy them. But he will accept commissions.

Andreas told me going to Florida is a “crazy” idea, but then Andreas has always tried to run everyone’s life. He said he never gets depressed, and I believe that – but as Richard later said to me, “Someone who doesn’t get depressed in these times just isn’t paying attention.”

Richard, Alice and I went to some pretentious café for cappuccino, and Richard mentioned he was going to Kennedy Airport to pick up Liliane, who was in L.A. on some French consulate business.

Impulsively, I said I’d go with him, and after Linda went back to Andreas – she treats him

as if he’s an infant – Richard and I walked all the way to his apartment in the East Village.

It was a little cold and too far for me. Their apartment was expensively furnished and very cozy; they pay only $280 because it’s rent-controlled.

We had a hard time getting out of Manhattan because of the holiday traffic and were really stuck to a standstill on the LIE, but I (ta-da) saved the day by showing Richard how to take Woodhaven Boulevard and the Nassau Expressway to the airport.

On the way, we had a nice talk and I enjoyed the serendipity of the car trip. The airport was jammed, but Liliane was ready when we got there.

They dropped me off at the subway at Cross Bay and Rockaway Boulevards; it was a twenty-minute wait at the freezing Broad Channel station which helped me get this cold.

Sunday, December 28, 1980

Midnight and I’m feeling good. Last night I got out all my diaries, twelve solid red books going back to 1969. They are my life, and they are probably a finer writing achievement than the stories.

I turned to various days: the day I met Shelli in 1970; a day in which mourned the breakup of our relationship in 1971; the opening of the 1972 Democratic Convention in Miami Beach; graduation in June 1973; December 27, 1975, five years ago, also a Saturday night, when I celebrated Avis’s birthday with her, Teresa and Libby; my twenty-fifth birthday in 1976; the night I met Wesley Strick on Rosh Hashona 1978 and he told me my book would be published; the tenth anniversary of my diary, August 1, 1979, the day my parents sold our old house.

It is all there and most of it brings such good memories. Looking at it in perspective, I had to agree that I’ve been a very lucky fellow. Being alive is interesting fun. I may be silly and pompous and narcissistic, but I do enjoy life. And I can’t wait to get down to Florida and start living there. I went out for the Times at 11 PM last night; a light snow was falling, and it was pretty rather than annoying. I drove down to Neponsit, to Beach 144th Street, by Ivan’s family’s old house. Once I fantasized about owning that house myself one day, but that dream is long dead.

I didn’t sleep much, listening to classical music all night. I woke up at 11 AM on a grey day. Avis called and invited me over later in the afternoon. I phoned Ronna, who said my manuscript was almost ready and that she would mail it to me this week.

We had a nice talk, but we don’t bring out the best in each other anymore. I often wish Ronna and I had never gone out; if that hadn’t happened, I bet we could have been really close friends.

I do hope she and Jordan come to Florida this winter, although she says she has no desire to see the place other than to visit her grandparents. I detest people who put down Florida as a place for old people; they don’t really know what it’s like.

I went to pick up Marc’s mail, but his landlords weren’t home. Then I dropped in on Avis and Anthony, who shared some fantastic cinnamon tea Libby sent from California.

It was a pleasant afternoon, just lying around the living room and bullshitting with them. I left at 3:30 PM, but then Avis ran down to get me and invite me to the movies with them.

We finally settled on Ordinary People in Brooklyn Heights, and Grandpa Herb’s car got there in a snap. I loved the movie a second time (Anthony generously paid), and they liked it, too.

We had dinner at the Cadman afterwards, as Anthony told me I eat too many hamburgers. We laughed a lot and had a nice time; I tried to etch it into my memory to save it for lonely days in Florida. I will miss Avis, and I’ve grown fond of Anthony, too.

Back home, I was feeling deliciously happy when Kevin Urick called and made me happier when by telling me his White Ewe Press will definitely do my next book, the short story collection rejection by the University of Illinois Press.

Kevin hopes for a fall 1981 or winter 1982 release. I told him to do whatever is best for him, to use whatever stories he wanted. He said he’d be going over the manuscript for the next three months, but doubted he’d do any but minor editing.

The book will be published in hardcover and will probably sell mostly to libraries. He’s got a new Albert Drake book and one of his own coming up before then. Kevin said he’d send me a contract although he can’t afford to do royalties as yet.

I don’t expect to make a cent from the book, of course. Even Grandpa Herb is now fond of repeating what his New York Hospital roommate Ed Sorel told him when Grandpa said I “can’t make a living” although I had a book published: “Nobody makes money from books.”

Kevin suggested we call it Richard Grayson’s Book, which I think is a little too fey. (Even I am not that narcissistic.) But I hung up feeling good. I again have a new book to look forward to: something to stick around for.

This has been a red-letter day.

Tuesday, December 30, 1980

7 PM. “Penultimate” is the word for today on my Word-a-Day Calendar, the one that Alice gave me back in January. Every day I’ve peeled off a day and here we are.

I didn’t sleep as well as I hoped I would last night; it was all right, but not the big, beautiful sleep that I need. I always become uneasy at the end of the year and usually imagine some disaster taking a place.

I just wish it was already was a month from now and I was settled in Florida. I remember feeling the same way when I moved to Rockaway.

Mom called last night and told me my new Small Press Review was delivered there. She said that “your friend George Myers” had an article on Ted Berrigan, and when I told Mom who Ted Berrigan was, she said it jibed exactly with George’s article: “You’re so smart.”

The weather has been cool in Florida and all the tourists are complaining. Mom gave me a million instructions about moving, most of which I’ve already forgotten.

I worry about getting the flu, which I am 98% certain I shall contract before I get to Florida. I felt achy again today. I bought masking tape and mothballs and packed away some linens and towels, and I threw out more stuff.

Dad will be here on January 9 and will be staying at the Sheraton Centre. It’s been over two months since I’ve seen him, nearly two months since I’ve seen Marc, six months since I’ve seen Mom, and almost nine months since I’ve seen Jonny.

In the last eight months, there have been only about fifteen days when I’ve seen any of the members of my family. What a change from when I used to see all of them every day.

Ronna called this afternoon to ask if I knew where the MLA convention was being held, as she was trying to locate one of Redbook’s authors. She said she mailed out my manuscript this morning and wished me a happy new year.

I couldn’t find that black guy at the Sunoco station and I’m getting nervous about selling my car. I’ll deal with it tomorrow or Friday. But time is running out.

In some bizarre way I feel that I am going to die. Leaving New York is like finalizing a long and bitter divorce. This last week I’ve been free and my unhappiness has had time to make itself felt.

But mostly I feel anxious. What if things don’t work out in Florida? What then? What’s going to happen to me? I’m scared shitless. I’ve always dreaded change, and this is probably the biggest change of my life.

I know I need a change and I can’t let my fear rule my life; if I stayed in New York, I’d be staying only out of fear and complacency. I can’t do that to myself.

There was no mail again today, and I’m beginning to feel panicked. Suddenly my life seems so empty. Maybe I have the flu already and I’m feverish and that’s why I’m so depressed this evening.

All I want to do is sleep. Perhaps I should call Dr. Pasquale for an appointment. I’ll see how I feel.

Gary invited me to spend New Year’s Eve with him, and I probably will – if I’m feeling okay. I’m very dizzy again. I miss things to read, even those horrible remedial papers.

Not working, I feel I don’t have a purpose to my life. I feel so fat and creepy-looking. I wonder if things will ever work out or even if they’re supposed to. I hope I’ll feel better tomorrow.

I suppose I’ve gotten through 365 days this year and I can handle whatever happens. On Another World, a character took a nap and

didn’t wake up; sometimes I wish I could do that.

But most of the time I knew that I have a lot to look forward to: my new home in Florida, being with my family, a new career, new friends, maybe a love affair, the White Ewe Press book, 1981 and beyond. . .

Thursday, January 8, 1981

6 PM. Tonight it’s the hell of the moment. What a day it was! If God had planned it, he couldn’t have done a better job of making me absolutely crazy. It’s like a race between me and Life to see who is going to win: Will I make it out of New York on time? I now doubt it.

Mrs. Hubbell called at midnight to say that McKey, her husband, the mover, wouldn’t be able to come until Friday at 4 PM, not today. He got stuck in North Carolina someplace with his truck.

I had no choice but say all right, even though it will be a horror tomorrow because I have to mark CUNY exams at John Jay. But last night, after I lay awake awhile in bed, I felt okay about it, that it would give me a day to tie up loose ends.

This morning I decided to drive to John Jay to pick up my paycheck – my first mistake. It was

so icy on the streets that when I returned to Grandpa Herb’s car, I was stuck – but good. It was nightmarish. This sounds unbelievable, but I was stuck at the parking spot on Ninth Avenue for two and a half hours.

That was the unexpected crisis I had been expecting. I tried kitty litter, sanding, rocking the car, and I ended up facing the street at 45° angles – both ways. At least ten different bands of good samaritans tried to help me, and all eventually gave up.

Finally, the last valiant band got me totally on the sidewalk and shoved me onto the street. But the car was riding oddly and on the tedious drive down the wreck of the West Side Highway, my brakes went.

I was so sick I thought I would die. But I managed to get the car to Bob’s. It was frigid again, and I froze as I went to Brooklyn College by bus; I got my paycheck, then gave Payroll envelopes (as I had at John Jay) for them to mail my remaining checks to Florida.

Then I had lunch, cashed my checks at the check-cashing place and took the money to deposit in the bank. I waited in the Flatlands library until 3:30 PM. When I called Bob, he said he had to replace the brakes and it looked to him like someone had been driving the car with the emergency brake on.

Of course! During one of our struggles to get the car out of the ice, one of the good

samaritans told me to put the emergency brake on. I could have killed myself for my stupidity! Why hadn’t I thought to release it? Now I’ve ended up paying $40 on Grandpa Herb’s car for no reason.

As long as I was in the old neighborhood in Brooklyn, I decided to fill my Triavil prescription, but Deutsch Pharmacy was again mysteriously closed. Maybe Mr. Deutsch died.

Back in Rockaway, I got my mail at the P.O. The University of Minnesota guy wrote back to me, explaining I was not able to be considered for an assistant professorship because they are “looking for younger, less experienced” people.

Fuck academia! I give up! No more applying for teaching jobs! They’d only be three-year non-renewable gigs anyway, the next step up after you’ve been exploited as an adjunct. I am so filled with rage that it’s no wonder, on top everything else, that I’m going nuts.

I came home. I don’t have enough boxes for all my things; I kept going through old letters and staring off numbly into space; I finally gave up on trying to sell my own car and a guy is coming later this evening to tow it away for $20.

I give up, world. This is it: I surrender. Tomorrow will be another nightmare. I have to sit at fucking John Jay and read fucking

exams and then rush home to the horror of moving – if I’m lucky.

All I really want to do is die. It’s so cold, I put the burners on now, and maybe, if I’m lucky, I’ll be asphyxiated tonight.

Friday, January 9, 1981

I suppose this will all seem like some kind of learning situation I the future, and that, as I now view the events of last summer, I will eventually see that I’m a better person for it. But it’s right now, and living through it is very uncomfortable.

I fell asleep with my clothes on late night, only to be awakened by the door buzzer. It was the guy with the tow truck who had come for the car. I went out; I had already taken out my lenses so the world was fuzzy, dark and icy. We went to the corner, where I gave him the keys and the title to the car, and I signed a bill of sale.

I remembered, as I watched him take off the license plates, that first day I got the Comet. It was June 1973, and the car was shiny and new and full of hope, just like everything else in those days following my graduation from BC.

I didn’t stay to watch the car be towed away in exchange for the twenty-dollar bill he handed me. What an ignominious end.

This morning I drove to John Jay, arriving half an hour late. I actually managed to get trapped in the fire corridor of the Lincoln Center basement parking garage.

We marked CUNY writing exams for three hours; I was so preoccupied I hardly read the papers. At one point, Audre Lorde pointed out that I’d given a 1 to a paper she thought was a 6; I looked at it again and saw I must have been crazy to do it.

I got a headache from tension and eyestrain. I left as soon as I could, after I got all my students’ papers back and entered their grades. Everyone who should have passed, passed.

I rushed back to Rockaway and made good time, but I just missed the ringing phone. I was very anxious that McKey Hubbell wasn’t going to show up, and by 3 PM I began looking through the Yellow Pages for movers.

Just then he called to ask directions. He was over by 4:30 PM; his wife was downstairs and in pain from root canal work. We loaded up the elevator with the boxes first, just the two of us; then we took the furniture.

I wasn’t as careful as Mom would have been, but I think we did all right. It was exhausting

work, but we managed to do it in just three elevator trips. To my amazement, he was able to get all my stuff in his truck, though just barely.

We were finished at 6:30 PM and called Mom, who spoke to him and gave him particulars. McKey wanted to get to Davie on Sunday, but Mom told him the storage place stays open only till 6 PM. He said he’d give her a call later tonight.

I went to Citibank to get him $150 (Mom will pay him the other half) and then gave the Hubbells directions on how to get to New Jersey.

My apartment looked so much smaller devoid of all the furniture except the bed. I couldn’t help flashing back to the first time Mrs. Calman showed the place to me when I came to the building in September 1979.

I felt weak with hunger and stress, so I took some luggage and got into the car and went to McDonald’s for dinner. I was shaking like the proverbial leaf in the restaurant, a combination of exhaustion, emotional stress and the cold.

I came up to my grandparents’ apartment and swallowed twenty vitamin capsules. Since I didn’t get an upset stomach, I’m assuming my body needed and absorbed it all. I felt feverish and sickish (and I was upset to learn

that Grandpa Herb is sick in bed in Florida) and very tense.

There was a nice hot bath and then I rubbed myself with baby oil – that felt good – and called Dad at the Sheraton. He had arrived in the morning and was at Sasson all day. I made up to meet him at 1 PM tomorrow in his hotel room.

Then I phoned Teresa, who said she’d be home at 6 PM tomorrow and we’d go to the theater then.

I still feel very tense and I know the next five days, my last in New York, will be painful – and memorable.

Saturday, January 10, 1981

Sunday, January 11, 1981

11 PM Sunday, and I’m combining the entries for the past two days. I’m in Dad’s room of the Sheraton. This has been one of the most memorable, and yes, happiest, weekends of my life.

As difficult as the past week has been, that’s how wonderful this weekend was. It almost makes me believe that everything does turn out well in the end.

I didn’t get ill, all my furniture and possessions are now safely in Florida, and I’ve spent the last two days with people I love.

I came to Dad’s hotel room at 1 PM yesterday. When he opened the door, he looked at me in amazement; it took him several minutes to get used to my beard. Dad looks well – probably better than I do.

We went out to lunch at a health-food restaurant and talked. He said he was glad to get away from Grandpa Herb and Grandma Ethel, who are driving everyone in the house crazy. It’s good to know I’m not the crazy one; sometimes, when I’m alone with my grandparents, I begin to think that they make sense.

Dad was upset that Sasson took away their ladies’ line from him, but they offered him the job as their New York salesman. However, he wouldn’t move back to New York even for all the money he could make here.

He loves his life in Florida: the house has become a more valuable property, he and Mom see more shows and attend more cultural events than they ever did here, and Jonny is much happier.

It’s just too bad that Marc is such a mess. Dad screamed at Fredo over the phone Thursday night; he told Fredo that we’re not used to dealing with such people. Mom had been angry with me for telling Evie about Marc’s

plight, his being in hiding, but as I said, she knew about it already because Marc had called Bonnie from Providence.

Jonny and Mom are very nervous about Fredo, who sent a girl around to the house to check to see if Nikki and Marc were in Florida.

Dad and I spent the whole day together, taking a walk up cold Seventh Avenue, watching a movie in his room, and then having dinner at the hotel coffee shop. Dad and I had a good talk. He wanted to see a show, but when he found it was $28 a ticket, he changed his mind.

I left at 7 PM to get to Teresa’s in time to see whatever show she’d planned to take me to. When I opened the door of her apartment, I saw a big grey poster that said NEW YORK WILL BE GRAYER WITHOUT GRAYSON and had a picture of teary-eyed Statue of Liberty holding a torch and a copy of With Hitler in New York.

“Surprise!” shouted a crowd of people from the living room. I was stunned, although everyone was sure that I had known that Avis, Alice and Teresa had planned a going-away party.

But I didn’t know what to say as I kissed and shook hands with Avis, Alice, Teresa, Peter, Mikey, Diana and Richard. I was handed presents and told I had come a bit early (as usual!). Within half an hour, Wesley and

Marla, Scott Sommer, Ronna and Jordan, Barbara, and Simon all arrived.

It was something I’d wanted all my life: a party given for me, just like the going-away party given for Mary Tyler Moore in the opening credits of her old show. I was incredibly touched and a little shy. It was one of the happiest nights I’ve spent.

I was told the reasons for the absence of others: Mason called me to offer his apologies; Mikey said Mike, Mandy and Larry had a wedding to attend; Josh couldn’t come because Avis was there; June wasn’t invited because Richard was; they couldn’t locate Gary or Elihu; and no one wanted Elspeth or Scott there (hey, the three women making arrangements were all his ex-lovers). Teresa’s sister and brother-in-law stopped in at the party for a few minutes, too.

Avis said that Anthony needed to stay home to study for finals; she also talked a lot about their new vegetarian diet, which didn’t sound too healthy to me.

Ronna brought her résumé for Teresa to give her neighbor at the Times; she said that her brother told her how great he thought I looked with a beard. I went over to talk to Jordan, who didn’t know anyone but Ronna and looked a little lost; he’s slightly boring but very earnest and sweet, a nice guy.

I introduced Jordan to Marla, and they discovered they were born on the same exact day. I can’t imagine two people less alike: straight-arrow Jordan and wacky Marla, who died her hair purple and told me she changed her last name to Darling.

Wes is doing work at that posh mental hospital, Gracie Square (where Shelli’s father stayed when he had shock treatments). He played me a tape of his band’s newest songs, which I really liked.

Scott, true to his nature, did not seem excited by his movie sale; he looked as depressed as ever. His blond hair has gotten even longer, and he told me he’d like to get out of New York, maybe get a teaching job.

Peter wasn’t feeling well, but I thanked him for making such a great sign for the party. Alice gave me some gifts: the new International Directory of Little Magazines, a ream of Sphinx typing paper and a bag full of artificial snow.

Teresa and Alice brought out wine, cheese, crackers, a turkey with gravy and stuffing, veggies, salad, and later, creampuffs. Barbara said she’ll really miss me, but she’ll call when she visits her mother in Hollywood.

Simon hasn’t visited his mother in Plantation yet, and it sounds like he doesn’t plan to. Richard put down Florida and most of the

other guests; he and Peter have a funny, theatrical feud going.

Some people left early: Ronna and Jordan, on their way to meet Sid and Carol, said they’d call me when they go to Florida to visit Ronna’s grandparents in Orlando. The last guests finally left when Alice and Peter, Richard and Mikey went to share a cab downtown. Then Teresa and I got into our night clothes and gossiped as we cleaned up. She made the couch for me, and we chatted until we both felt sleepy.

I slept like a king, not feeling the cold outside. In the morning, Diana came over and we had waffles that Teresa made from scratch. A friend brought over the Sunday Times and we made out invitations to Teresa’s parents’ thirtieth anniversary party.

It was a wonderful, leisurely day: I love sitting around with Teresa and Diana, bullshitting and relaxing. When I get to Florida, I’m really going to miss my friends.

After a late lunch, I decided to take a drive, to Inwood and Riverdale and finally all the way up to Yonkers, where I’d never been before. As I returned on the Henry Hudson Parkway, the red sun was setting over the George Washington Bridge. It was gorgeous.

I came back to the Sheraton and waited for Dad to come back from the Coliseum and we

went out to eat at the Carnegie Deli. When we called Mom, she had strange news as well as good news.

Joel phoned her with the news that Cousin Robin has married Jerome, that black ex-convict she lived with years ago. Moreover, she’s gone away with him to parts unknown, leaving 12-year-old Michael to come home to an empty apartment and a note saying that he should go live with his father. Joel got a note saying the same thing, and no one knows where Robin and Jerome are.

Meanwhile, Marc called and told Mom that Fredo wanted Nikki to leave Marc and come back to him, and that’s what precipitated the crisis and their having to go into hiding. What a family!

The good news was that McKey had brought all of my furniture and packages over to the storage place.

I’ll sleep here at the Sheraton in Dad’s room tonight and in the morning walk over to John Jay to hand in my final grades; I had a pretty nice term there and I’m grateful I had the opportunity to teach at John Jay.

Then I’ll go to Brooklyn to see if the CUNY writing tests are in so I can hand in my grades there before I go back to Rockaway to Grandma Ethel’s.

And so, with just a few more days in the city, everything seems to be falling into place.