Andy promised to call me this afternoon from Boston. I hoped to stay with instead of my parents in Milton. I waited by the SRO hall phone at the 11th Street SRO. Nothing. I walked over to the St. Marks Bookstore, browsing Peter Matthieson’s THE SNOW LEOPARD. I wished I was a plane to Kathmandu. I barely have the money to go to Boston for Christmas. I thought about clipping the travel book, but this store isn’t chain, so I returned it to the stack. I walked across town through Washington Square Park, resisting the pitch of the reefer dealers. Fat chance of getting high on their toothpick joints. Reaching the Carmine Street Cafe, I sat with Grant and then Cyrena. I had quick sex in the bathroom with Rafaela, the married owner, then returned home to speak with Willem and Joe Han about making a movie.
I have presents for everyone, but my brother, so I’ll buy him DISPATCHES by Michael Herr, hard core. But what about Alice? Still in West Virginia. I wonder if She’s had her period. I don’t have the courage to ask.
I miss her and yesterday walking down Second Avenue smelling the scent of pine and thought, “Why isn’t Alice with me?”
She’s skiing with her father and will celebrate Christmas with her divorced mother. We haven’t spoken in three days, the longest silence since our summer split. The last time we conversed I remember how her voice had sounded elitist. A college ingenue filled with erudition. Now her voice has been tempered by New York, unlike mine, which remains faithful to my New England.