6-5-00 M 12:32 PM

I didn’t write at all in Chicago. I wish I would have. We landed in a thunderstorm. It was like a fireworks show on the el from O’Hare to Irving Park. I waited under and overpass for a taxi to take me through the rain to Bernie’s flat at 3630 Racine.

A key under a flowerpot on the stoop allowed me to let myself inside:  wood floors, nice furniture, and a big bay window facing Wrigley Field. A note on the table said they were at Sheffield’s. I remembered Sheffield is one of the streets along the stadium, so I walked that way to ask around.

The rain had stopped. The stadium is surrounded by bars and restaurants. I found Sheffield’s, a big place with different rooms. I ordered a beer and maneuvered through the crowd, but I didn’t see my sister. I had another beer and waited, but she still hadn’t appeared by the time I’d finished it. I thought I’d look into some other bars. I rolled a smoke while I walked. They weren’t in any of the other bars, so I walked back to her place, and there they were.

Mac and Mitchum were there, and a girl named Biffany, and another named Erica who were stewardess friends of Bernie’s. We sat around drinking and joking, and then we got into a cab and rode to another bar at about two or three in the morning. The place was packed. I talked some baseball with some guys. Rolled a smoke that aroused some suspicion. “This place is full of cops,” the doorman scolded me. After several beers, we hailed another cab and passed out at Bernie’s.

The next morning was sunny. I took a shower and got dressed. Bernie recommended a place called Salt and Pepper, but the service was terrible, so we went to a bar next door. I got a steak sandwich and buffalo calamari to go with a couple Kahlua and coffees and a bloody Mary. We went to a bar called Sluggers and drank Old Style. We picked up our tickets at will call. Our seats were right behind home plate.

 

7:24 PM PDT 9:24 PM CDT June 1, 2000 Th

Somewhere over Iowa. Dark out there now, but the clouds glow in the night like monstrous phantoms. I saw a flash of lightning, and the ride is getting bumpy. The glowing clouds make threatening faces. The wing blinks a worried red light. Thirty minutes or so to touchdown. I’ve got to take the Chicago Transit Authority’s Blue Line to Irving Park and then flag a cab to 3630 Racine, my sister’s place. A key supposedly awaits me under a potted plant on the porch. I’ll wash up and hit a bar. Bern recommends Murphy’s, but she says there a lot of good bars in Wrigleyville. She said to just walk up to Clark and Addison.

That sexy Lina came to pick up her stepdaughter today in some backless Columbian jungle-woman top that made my dick do handstands.

Kendoll and I were trying to get the idiot kids to rehearse the fucking Battle of Puebla, but we might as well have been trying to get a litter of deaf puppies to perform Swan Lake.

I gave Carlos twenty bucks to dump me off at the airport. We said that a man is supposed to have many wives, and we couldn’t figure out how monogamous marriage became the rule. He stopped at the Wilshire Division headquarters where there’s an ATM, and I took out a hundred and sixty bucks. I had a tall beer in the airport bar while I stood by. I boarded, no problem. The stewardess gave me a free beer. I don’t know if she forgot to charge me or if she adores me.

He was in the air again. But he wasn’t high. He wished he was. He wanted some amazing thoughts. The dust in the air fuzzed the desert below; all was indistinct. The attendants were coming by with the drink carts. He wanted a beer, a Kahlua and coffee, and a screwdriver. He wanted to know if ordering a drink was a now-or-never proposition: should he order ‘em all at once, or would they be coming by again?  He didn’t want to play the drunk character even though he wanted to, so he ordered only the screwdriver. He'd ask for a beer when they brought dinner and the Kahlua and coffee when they came to collect the after-dinner detritus. He wanted to announce that he intended to get off the plane drunk, but he didn’t. There was the Grand Canyon. It looked more like the So-So Canyon. He unscrewed the cap off his little vodka bottle and dumped in in the juice. He toasted the So-So Canyon. A lone little lost cloud, a little turd of a cloud, all by itself, lost over the So-So Canyon. How in the whole sky, he wondered, is there only one little turd of a cloud like that? There should have been a monumental blanket of clouds, or vast scattered herds, or pure blue sky, not just on little lost turd of a cloud over the So-So Canyon.

 

A note for Janet’s father

6-1-00 Th 12:32 PM

I started a third-person page after class last night, but I couldn’t finish it. Rochelle and I watched the beginning of “Dogma,” a sometimes-funny challenge of Catholicism with foul-mouthed angels and prophets. I made arrangements with Bernice to stay at her place in Wrigley Village. I’m supposed to fly out of LAX at three fifty. I’ve got to call Aurora and tell her I won’t be in. I hate that. I was supposed to give a test tonight and bring a letter of recommendation for a student and now it’s all going to be put off until Monday. I feel like a worm. People are counting on me, and I’m blowing them off. Why don’t I just go to Chicago on my vacation in three weeks? I won’t be pressed for time, miss work, could plan to see the Cubs AND the Sox. But this is when my brother and Fick will be there. How important is that? Trusting that bastard is always a gamble. ~~ I already read the newspaper. I didn’t type this morning. Shit. What else? It’s hot and sunny today. There are thunderstorms in the forecast for Chicago today. Looks like it should be sunny tomorrow. I need to write a lesson plan for tomorrow. Mac wanted Xbombs. Looks like he's going to get them for everyone but me. His buddies come first. Whatever. Bernie said she’d leave the key for me. I know that’ll get fucked up somehow. Mac’ll take it and dick me over. Can’t forget my smokes, directions, nor big notebook. Haven’t done my attendance for the week. What else? Rochelle gave me the cell phone but it’s not working. Betty wants a report card for a student who’s long gone. A note for Janet’s father. What’s with all this crap? We’ve got to leave for music in a few minutes.

 5-31-00 4:03 PM W

When I got home from school today, a bouquet of flowers rested on the bed beside a note from Rachel. The flowers had been gathered from the yard. The note said she loved me, a full page of lined paper saying she'd do anything for me and a lot of stuff recommitting herself. I think it's an example of what she wants me to do for her. I'm such a bastard. These kinds of things always make me feel worse.      I was reading a three-year-old journal. I was so horrible to Shirelle. It made me sad, and I missed her.      I rolled a smoke. I put it in the ashtray after a few puffs.      The Indians and Chuck Finley were supposed to be on, but it was raining in Cleveland, so they were showing the Royals in Boston. Sox coach Jimy Williams was ejected from the game. I have to live to work here in about a half hour on the red bike I don't like. Another gift that pains me. I'm a jerk. Felix fixed the window. He put longer screws with wider threads through the hinge, and that seemed to do the trick. I yelled at Donkay pretty good today--gave him my Bobby Knight impression.    I've got to mail that gift to Scott and Kim.      It stopped raining in Cleveland. Salmon greeted his old teammate by belting one into the right center seats.     My mother gave me some photographs from before the divorce when my siblings and I were small children. They make me sad. I was going to draw a picture of my brother and me in feathered Indian hats, arms folded on our chests at Knott's Berry Farm. I couldn't do it. My brother's innocence lost. I couldn't draw it. I couldn't think about it. I couldn't bear to look at it. I can only write about the feeling of it, from an obtuse angle, like light through a prism. I can't decide whether to paste that photo in this book. It seems a dishonor to the boys in the photo. I was four. He was two. The light comes from the right of frame. I don't know if it's afternoon or morning. I should call him and mom about Chicago. Read Stevenson's "Enjoyment of Unpleasant Places." Type a third-person page. Read more Bukowski.

Maybe I should just fake my death

5-30-00 Tu 3:43 PM

I’m at home on the couch. I want to write, but I don’t have the energy. Actually, I just don’t really want to write. Felix and Jose are working on the sprinklers out front. They own the place. I don’t own anything. We talked a little. What we said didn’t matter. There’s a house down the street they’re asking two twenty-nine for. If Rochelle made twelve hundred a month, we could bid on it. As to be shown it. Call up what’s her name. Whatever.

I typed fifteen minutes this morning. I put on blue jeans, a light blue cotton dress shirt, brown leather shoes, and a watch. My dad gave me the jeans, my grandma, the watch. I took a crap and skipped breakfast. Rode my bike to work. I should ask Felix if I can use his channel locks to tighten the handlebars on that bike.—

            I tried. It didn’t work. I think I need an Allan wrench. Ugh. I don’t even like that bike. Whatever. I went to the corner store and bought a newspaper, just like every day. I spent as much time reading it as I do teaching. The kids talked about their weekends and journaled. Lester was a prick. We worked on graphs after recess. I fell asleep at lunch. The kids sucked after lunch. Whatever. Whatever. We tried to do silent reading, but Dontay wanted to argue with me the whole time. They didn’t hear a word of the social studies lesson. A couple of kids banged on the door. They were from Miss King’s class. I had forgotten about the play. We’re going to stage a reenactment of the Battle of Puebla for the Latino cultural program next week. Ms. King too the performers and I have the non-performers who are not in the play because they don’t want to be. I took them to basketball. I watched as they separated themselves into totally unfair teams. But the underdog third graders jumped out to a 20-2 lead. The fourth graders fought back, though, and won 46 to 38. I had to sit through a faculty meeting after school. I was late and didn’t get a chair. I had totally forgotten about it except I saw that the library door was ajar.

After the meeting, I got on my bike and rode home. That’s when I came upon Felix and Jose in the yard. Rochelle’s mom called. She said to lavish praise on Rochelle so that she won’t want a big wedding ceremony. Something like that. Maybe I should just fake my death.