Journals : 1982 : Part 6
Soundtrack:
Laurie Anderson, Flash and the Pan, Billy Idol, Pete Shelley, Kim Wilde, Gary Numan, Boomtown Rats, King Crimson.
4 November 1982:
I am employed by the electronics department at Brendle's...approximately 25 hours a week...It's only a temporary thing until Christmas...I saw Ken...We never see each other. Every time I run into him, I've got something to do, or he's got something to do, and we can't get together. I need to talk to him, because of my decision Saturday night that I'm too young to commit myself.
7 November 1982:
I would guess that Ken is basically out of my life. After (last week) I decided to call it quits...I'll just mark him down as a past experience that didn't work out...I've already moved on to conquering another goal: Fred of the Coraddi Magazine.
15 November 1982:
On the subject of Byron: his overconfident arrogant exterior is like new paint on a crumbling building. Inside him, there is a deeply troubled individual almost at the point of total collapse. As Carroll and I went out to his "Xanadu" tonight...the whole evening was scary...We came to the conclusion that his entire problem is centered around his home and Reidsville...He lives...completely alone surrounded solely and completely by constant memories of painful relationships with his family and his peers. The house is down right eerie...He doesn't belong in that house, but at the same time it's the only place where he really does fit into the greater scheme of things...
I could hear echoes of ancient arguments...I could see Byron lying in his bed (in the "Bicentennial bedroom: he still sleeps in) at first shedding tears and then retreating into his own fantasy world...He desperately needs other people, someone other than the ghosts and the fantasies he lives with, but he won't let anyone get close enough to him...As we left tonight, Carroll and I made guesses as to what he was doing now that we were gone...sitting with the ghosts watching something really awful on TV.
16 November 1982:
Risa talked to John (from high school). According to him, I'm a about the most un-gay gay person he's ever known. (Is that good or bad?)
22 November 1982:
Kenneth Crump is dead. It' such bullshit. He fucking killed himself...he jumped out of a ninth-story window and killed himself. When I went to my 10:00 class, I was told that someone had jumped to his death last night. After lunch, I found out from Fred that they had released the name...God, I saw him only a few hours before he died, casually walking down Tate Street. Who could've thought that the next thing I'd hear about him was that he was dead?...
The paper said his peers in Strong Dorm didn't know him. They knew him all right. He was "that fag down the hall" A lot of help they gave him. But no one knew how bad off he really was...About 12:30, a janitor found him sleeping on a couch on the seventh floor. He'd been drinking earlier...He talked to the janitor and said he had to go to the bathroom. Somehow he made his way up to the ninth floor. When the janitor got up there to clean up, he noticed the broken glass and saw the body nine stories below...
Sybil told me tonight that Risa took the news especially hard. I know Risa; she'll feel guilty. She shouldn't. Kenneth knew how she really felt about him. When she first saw Sybil this afternoon, she just ran into her arms and cried for a long time.
23 November 1982:
I didn't feel particularly compelled to go to any of my classes today...We decided today might be a good time to get a little bit drunk...Everyone, particularly Sybil and Carroll, seemed to be feeling bad for me. I think they all suspected there had been something more between us than there really was...Memorial service tonight...Thank God Thanksgiving break starts tomorrow. We all need to get away from UNCG.
26 November 1982:
(Long conversation about very deep and personal issues with someone I'm still friends with. May appear if he's OK with it.)
29 November 1982:
News about my "favorite editor": Risa and Cleo said that he'd been at "the bar"...a lot.
30 November 1982:
I did something fairly major today...I officially changed my major from Broadcast/Cinema to Psychology and French.
2 December 1982:
According to Byron, the Executive Board is considering that I may have been involved in a large album theft over Thanksgiving Break. I'll admit that it must look damned suspicious; I was sure they'd think about me. After all, I had keys over the break...but I absolutely didn't steal them. For God's sake, do they think I'd be stupid enough to do something like that when a key was checked out in my name? They insult me...
Jeff (from the Limited) called tonight. He made a few requests and talked to me some. He was going to stop by the station on the way to "the bar" to give me some cigarettes, but he got held up. (I think he finally paid up.)
8 December 1982:
Any time I don't include her, she goes into trying to spread guilt...saying no one can stand to be around her, and she's treated like a sub-human. Good God, who could stand to be around someone who's constantly running herself down and complaining about how unfairly life has treated her?
9 December 1982:
About Fred, talking in code, etc.: He talked about intuition and recognition and how it leads to a driving force...It was as if each of us was expecting the other to move first. Unfortunately neither of us did. I gave him a ride home...nothing happened
15 December 1982:
Problem again...it had been heard by Byron that she was circulating a rather unusual rumor...I was having some sort of affair with Carroll. How absurd! Not just that I'd be having an affair with Carroll. The really ironic thing is that after years of worrying that someone would discover I was gay, and after living through one set of rumors in eighth grade, I'm now upset and angered by the fact that someone might be accusing me of being straight...I was actually worried about my reputation being ruined.
19 December 1982:
I saw Ken (remember him?) today. He was coming out of the mens room at the mall with Mark (the 14-year-old I was with several months ago)...He agreed to meet me at McDonald's in ten minutes. The fucker never showed.
21 December 1982:
Barry and Helen are here watching "Star Wars". But why do I have them here? I most certainly don't want them here...I'm getting so I don't particularly like her; she's been bitchy as hell...She's hung up on the word "queer"...Why don't they go home? Helen feels like shit, she doesn't want to see the movie, and she's irritable...I'm sure they;ll end up in a fight. The fight is here. Barry just got up and turned off the tape...I hate to see them fight, but more tan that, I hate to see them fight in my room.
22 December 1982:
The rumor was about Susan and me, not Carroll.
23 December 1982:
One was a really young guy I'd met up with before. He couldn't be more than fourteen or so, but he's cute as hell and he knows what he's after...I lost him... (He'll be back...see 1985...) As I walked out, I saw this fantastic looking blond. I'd estimate he was 17...We talked some as we walked to Belk's. He's from Memphis -- here on vacation...I tried to be as romantic as I could, but it just doesn't work with legs poked under the panels in a public toilet. I sucked him...I caught all his cum in my mouth. It tasted so good...
What does it get me? My rocks off, for one thing, and a feeling of desertion and shame for another. So why do I do it? What else is there to do? Face it, I'm bored shitless. School's out and all my friends are home for the holidays. This seems to be the best and most convenient way to waste my time.
25 December 1982:
Christmas...family...As I was driving home, I found myself trying to picture how my friends would spend Christmas. The only one I couldn't see in the loving, traditional environment was P----r...His parents seem more like roommates than family. It's just not real. It's not a home.
28 December 1982:
I spent yesterday in Charlotte...It's such a wonderful feeling of independence for e -- the sensation of being completely alone in a foreign environment...However, the real highlight was seeing Carroll...I feel that Carroll is the only person who really knows me...There's never been anyone I've shared so much common experience with...I'm closer to her than I've ever been to anyone...
An interesting part of the evening was when Carroll started reading her journal to me It was really strange as she talked about all these events which happened before I arrived on the scene: Sybil's campaign and moving into her apartment, Carroll's first meeting with Byron, etc. I realized that life didn't begin when I arrived at UNCG. I'm just another step along their lives, just as they're another step along mine.
29 December 1982:
I've been missing Fred for quite a while. Tonight I saw him...I offered him a ride back to his apartment (which he'd told me before he was working on). In the car, I told him tat my curiosity was too much to handle; I had to see it.So he invited me up...The night progressed. We listed to music. We drank a little beer. We talked. We looked at each other...a lot...We started talking about New Years Eve...
"You have a standing invitation"
"OK...I'll be here New Years Eve. Even if no one else is here. Even if you're not here and there's no sign of life anywhere around.
"Serious?"
"Yeah."
31 December 1982:
I truly believe he'll be there waiting for me...So many times in the past, I've counted on something like this and it hasn't come off as planned. This time things will be different...