PFK1 (47 page)

For my birthday, Megan gave me an expensive pocket watch, a new

book, and a toy tank. She baked a cake but I could only eat part of it

because I was still too hung over from drinking at Leanne’s reception.

Blew out the candles, though. After Leanne’s shindig we went to

the dormitory where Chesley and I showed Megan our old rooms

from 1969-70. After that, we went to see the football game at Parker

Stadium, where the Beavers got clobbered by USC, 42-5.

* * * *

October 8, 1979

Long weekend at the beach with Megan. We slept a lot, ate,

walked on the beach, and generally just goofed around. This world

spins on a tilting axis, a blue pearl, belonging to us alone. We are

growing into it, and it grows into us.

Played cards with Megan’s neighbors Ginny and Chuck Saturday

night. The Ducks beat Cal in football, 19-14, but it was way too close

for comfort.

Gotta get my hair cut this week.

* * * *

October 9, 1979

Cripes. Arianna called me at work this afternoon (these women

seem to be able to locate you at a moment’s notice) and wanted my

advice on filling out a 415A form.

Apparently she is pregnant (again) and wants to have the taxpayers

foot the bill for an abortion. So I coached her through the process and

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told her what to write down. For about twenty minutes there, I was

Arianna’s own personal welfare worker.

Ah well. She can do what she wants to do. I don’t care. I am

serious and she is not. What really bugs me about her though, is that

she’s a fucking troublemaker, too.

I don’t care if she’s the former U. S. Senator’s niece. Arianna

enjoys making mischief. I’m sorry I ever touched her, ever got

involved with her. Yet another mistake.

* * * *

October 14, 1979

Cripes. Saw Jenny Justin out front of Nordstrom’s downtown on

Sunday. I had been inside with Megan, shopping for threads. We’ve

been invited to Lloyd Schenzler’s wedding and I need some new stuff.

Lloyd’s marrying his beloved Jean, and the event is next month. Can

you believe it? The Schenz getting married? I almost went into

shock.

But that’s another story. Outside of Nordstrom’s, Jenny looks

Megan up and down and then starts telling me snidely that the other

one has gotten married, describing the details, essentially flicking me

shit in kind of a snotty, mean-spirited voice.

Why Jenny has to give me shit I have no idea. I’ve never done her

any harm, never spoken ill of her, either now or in the past. She went

on and on about the wedding, the reception, the bride. Finally, I cut

her off and said I had to get going.

As we walked away, Megan asked me what that was all about. I

shrugged and told her Jenny was a person I used to know. There

seemed no point in going into it and Megan maintains that she doesn’t

want to hear about my past affairs anyway. So we let it drop.

Nevertheless, I was unable to contain my curiosity about the

wedding, and so later on I looked it up.

At Maryhill Library they have a large selection of out-of-town

newspapers, including the Redmond Ranger. During lunch I checked

out back issues of the Ranger to see if there was a story about the

nuptials.

I was also hoping to maybe see a picture.

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Nope. I found the story but was truly disappointed that there was

no accompanying picture of the happy couple. That was what I

wanted to see most of all – their faces.

However, not only did I find the July wedding announcement, I

also found the engagement announcement, dated a month earlier.

Took less than an hour to find it. Although it is a daily, the Redmond

Ranger is just a tiny little rag. We’re not talking The New York

Times here.

But it was mildly interesting. The wedding announcement was

mainly a rehash of the engagement story, with a few details added.

Here’s what it said:

REDMOND – Polly Ellsworth, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Chester

Ellsworth, became the bride of Dr. Keith Gordon, Ashland, at a noon

ceremony on July 27.

The groom is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Burke Gordon, of Napa,

California.

The Rev. Clarence O’Malley officiated at the ceremony, conducted

at Our Lady of the Desert in Redmond.

Given in marriage by her father, the bride wore a gown of old ivory

fashioned with a high neckline, and antique lace trimming on the

fitted bodice and sleeves. The bride carried a bouquet of mixed

summer flowers.

Peggy Ellsworth of Portland was the maid of honor.

Best man for his brother was Bob Gordon of Weed, California.

Paul Ellsworth, the bride’s brother, read scripture selected by the bride

and groom.

Following a garden reception at the home of Mr. and Mrs. John

Fitzgerald in Redmond, the couple left for a wedding trip to Hawaii.

The bride graduated in 1969 from Redmond High School and in

1974 from the State University in Eugene. In 1977, she graduated

from the Nursing program at Southern State College.

She is presently employed as a registered nurse at Ashland

Community Hospital. The groom, a graduate of Loma Linda School

of Medicine, is a physician at Ashland Hospital, specializing in

urological and internal medicine.

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End of story. I really liked the part about the reading of the

scripture. No doubt that was Prude’s idea. It’s nice to know the

marriage will be based, like many others, on a solid foundation of

total hypocrisy. We need more of that in society. It helps keep the

divorce rate up and thereby provides our attorneys with a crucial

source of revenue.

Hmmm. The vacuum-cleaning urologist. I will leave all the usual

jokes unsaid at this point, except to recall that when I was growing up,

performing digital rectal exams on portly middle-aged men was

precisely what every red-blooded American boy dreamed of doing as

an adult.

The professions of baseball star, pro football player, captain of

industry, astronaut, mountain climber, Indy race driver, jet fighter

pilot, famous writer, congressman, secret agent, or world adventurer

were way down the list after urologist.

However, I realize that urology is fairly lucrative and, more

importantly, somebody’s gotta do it.

Hmmm. By "wedding trip" I believe once again I detect the hand

of Mother Prudence at work. She probably can’t bring herself to say

"honeymoon" after her daughter shacked up with the jerk on and off

for three fucking years. Uh uh.

You know, I almost feel sorry for her. (The bride, I mean.) In fact,

I do feel sorry for her. From these words in the hometown newspaper

I get the strong feeling that she probably had to eat a lot of shit before

she finally got that chump to marry her.

The poor, poor girl. She was so fucking desperate.

Of course, writing this also makes me disgusted with myself all

over again. I was so goddamn wrapped up in my own problems when

I got involved with her that I never realized how truly insecure she

was. It never made any sense to me because she was so intelligent

and beautiful that I never thought she could be that desperate.

But I was wrong. She was that desperate. She completely blew

away the competition but I stubbornly hung on to another woman just

to spite her. I did because she had this unfortunate tendency to want

to bully me, although she would never have called it that.

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She would have called it "nagging."

The whole scene with her was so strange. She was a mystery

wrapped in a riddle folded in an enigma, like pigs in blanket. Though

I did love her, she would never just let me be myself. Then suddenly,

she dumped me. Wham.

That was it. If I had it to do all over again, I would have cut my

ties to the other woman and dealt with her bullying on an as-needed

basis.

But because I didn’t, I really wasn’t being fair to her, myself, or

anybody else. Sometimes, you need to do more than just rely on the

tools at hand. You need to think things through.

And then there was that pregnancy thing. Call me despicable, call

me rotten, but overall I still say it is a poor strategy to fuck another

guy, dump your boyfriend, and then turn around and expect said

former boyfriend to become Sir Fucking Galahad the instant you

announce that you are knocked up.

From January to March, 1976, she put me down in every

conceivable way. I read those letters more than once. She said that

she loved Blane, was with Blane, had made Blane a permanent

fixture. So when she tells me she’s pregnant, I’m supposed to be

thrilled?

I figured that she had gotten pregnant by Blane or that other guy

she fucked. It never occurred to me until much later that maybe she

was saying the baby was mine. She never came right out and said it.

Maybe she didn’t even know. When she had the abortion, well, that

was it.

My experience with the welfare crowd tells me that it is a very rare

man who will cheerfully support another man’s child. Only a rare

man will tell a woman he loves her so much that he doesn’t care about

the circumstances, that he loves her and cherishes her no matter what.

Of course, a rare man I am not. Never have been. In most respects,

I’m as common as dirt.

Later: I’m sitting at my desk now, thinking. In about five minutes I

will drive back to my apartment downtown. I have photocopies of the

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wedding stories from the Redmond Ranger. They are clean, crisp

photocopies. I keep looking at them.

Right now, at this minute, I feel such a deep sadness for her. And

for myself as well. How can you expect someone trust you, to place

their trust in you, when you do not deserve their trust? I keep thinking

how she poisoned things almost from the start by sneaking through

my journals. It wasn’t an accidental or strictly one time deal.

Violating my privacy was a regular part of her routine. She promised

she wouldn’t do it but then she kept right on doing it. She broke her

promise.

She lied to me about important stuff. How can a man trust a

woman who breaks her promises?

What other promises would she have broken?

Nor would she let my internal development proceed at its own

pace. What can I say? At least I was trying to deal with my

problems, not ignore them. At least I was trying to grow myself up,

and I never got any credit for that. Just grief.

She cheated on me virtually the whole time. I was her stupid

trusting bird dog, tail wagging, ready to fetch when she gave the

signal. As she herself said in one of her last letters, it was a close call,

very close.

Indeed it was.

All the sad young women. Deep down, I feel very sorry for them.

They crave love, security, companionship, and physical affection.

Desperate for it though they may be, they frequently blow themselves

up with their own bombs. And we men get blown up with them.

The poor, sad daughters of the earth.

Here they are and here we are.

Once in a while they see a chance for love and grab it. Women

want babies and men want women. That is about as much as I can

figure out so far. To the woman I call the other one, I raise an

imaginary champagne glass:

Good luck, sweetheart. You’ll need it.

Thank heavens I have found Megan.

* * * *

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October 20, 1979

Megan spent the weekend here again, driving up from the beach on

Friday afternoon.

She looked so beautiful when she arrived. The moment I opened

the door, I could feel my heart start thumping in my chest. We were

in bed minutes after the door closed.

Besides being beautiful and intelligent, Megan is an absolute

delight physically, eager to help me explore my many sexual twists

and kinks, including some perversions I’ve never confessed to anyone

else before.

The problem has been, up to now, is that I’ve never felt

comfortable enough with anyone else to really get deeply involved in

the weird stuff I’d like to try. With Megan I sense a willing

accomplice who appears more than ready to explore peculiar practices

as much or even more than I do.

The simple truth is that being in love with Megan seems to have

cast aside all my inhibitions and being in love with me has cast aside