Thought.is

This morning, when the doorbell rang, I knew that downstairs a mailman had my little book, Disjointed Fictions. I went to the door half-naked and nearly signed the wrong form.

We made love at 1 AM on her living room couch. I love holding her, hugging her, her legs, her smell, her wisps of hair where a man’s sideburns would be, the beauty mark on her left breast. . . I don’t care if she’s also seeing a 21-year-old law student now. I want her to be happy.

My first impulse was to move away, but I thought they would think I was a racist. One moved over to the other side and one came over and sat to my right. “Take everything out of your pockets,” he ordered in soft voice.

Being interviewed terrifies me. Dad couldn’t understand why anyone would want to interview me, and neither could Mom at first. To Dad, I’m just “some schmuck typing away in his bedroom.”

I don’t really care what the New York Post says about me . . . it’s better to be talked about negatively than not at all.

The more I think about fame, the closer I inch toward it, the more frightened I become of changing into someone I wouldn’t approve of. Yet I consciously, desperately, seek fame – all the while knowing this will probably make me unhappy.

I passed some intimidating hoody-looking kids. But after listening to their conversation, I suddenly realized that all of these guys hanging out on my own neighborhood corner, smoking cigarettes in their sleeveless undershirts, were gay. It was weird.

Avis says that her heart is still in the late ’60s: “That’s where Germany’s at now, compared to the States . . . It could also be a problem of mine.”

Mikey and I walked through Washington Square Park, a kind of obstacle course of drug dealers who offer their wares in a monotone: “Grass . . . Quaaludes . . . loose joints . . . Tuinals . . . cocaine . . .”

Sometimes I wonder what will become of Libby. Twenty years from now, will she be a fortyish hippie, a relic of the 60s? Most of us, it seems – me, Libby, Mason, Avis, Teresa – don’t seem to be on solid ground yet.