And before I could protest, or ask what she meant by not yet, she started inside.
"Good night, Charlie, and thank you again for a lovely… lovely time."
And closed the door.
I was furious at her, myself, and the world, but by the time I got home, I realized she was right.
Now, I don't know whether she cares for me or if she was just being kind.
What could she possibly see in me?
What makes it so awkward is that I've never experienced anything like this before.
How does a person go about learning how to act toward another person?
How does a man learn how to behave toward a woman?
The books don't help much.
But next time, I'm going to kiss her good night.
May 3
One of the things that confuses me is never really knowing when something comes up from my past, whether it really happened that way, or if that was the way it seemed to be at the time, or if I'm inventing it.
I'm like a man who's been half-asleep all his life, trying to find out what he was like before he woke up. Everything is strangely slow-motion and blurred.
I had a nightmare last night, and when I woke up I remembered something.
First the nightmare: I'm running down a long corridor, half blinded by the swirls of dust.
At times I run forward and then I float around and run backwards, but I'm afraid because I'm hiding something in my pocket.
I don't know what it is or where I got it, but I know they want to take it away from me and that frightens me.
The wall breaks down and suddenly there is a red-haired girl with her arms outstretched to me—her face is a blank mask.
She takes me into her arms, kisses and caresses me, and I want to hold her tightly but I'm afraid.
The more she touches me, the more frightened I become because I know I must never touch a girl.
Then, as her body rubs up against mine, I feel a strange bubbling and throbbing inside me that makes me warm.
But when I look up I see a bloody knife in her hands.
I try to scream as I run, but no sound comes out of my throat, and my pockets are empty.
I search in my pockets but I don't know what it is I've lost or why I was hiding it. I know only that it's gone, and there is blood on my hands too.
When I woke up, I thought of Alice, and I had the same feeling of panic as in the dream.
What am I afraid of?
Something about the knife.
I made myself a cup of coffee and smoked a cigarette.
I'd never had a dream like it before, and I knew it was connected with my evening with Alice.
I have begun to think of her in a different way.
Free association is still difficult, because it's hard not to control the direction of your thoughts… just to leave your mind open and let anything flow into it… ideas bubbling to the surface like a bubble bath… a woman bathing… a girl… Norma taking a bath… I am watching through the keyhole… and when she gets out of the tub to dry herself I see that her body is different from mine. Something is missing.
Running down the hallway… somebody chasing me… not a person… just a big flashing kitchen knife… and I'm scared and crying but no voice comes out because my neck is cut and I'm bleeding…
"Mama, Charlie is peeking at me through the keyhole…"
Why is she different?
What happened to her?… blood… bleeding… a dark cubbyhole…
Three blind mice… three blind mice, See how they run!
See how they run!
They all run after the farmer s wife, She cut off their tails with. a carving knife, Did you ever see such a sight in your life, As three… blind… mice?
Charlie, alone in the kitchen early in the morning.
Everyone else asleep, and he amuses himself playing with his spinner.
One of the buttons pops off his shirt as he bends over, and it rolls across the intricate line-pattern of the kitchen linoleum. It rolls towards the bathroom and he follows, but then he loses it.
Where is the button?
He goes into the bathroom to find it.
There is a closet in the bathroom where the clothes hamper is, and he likes to take out all the clothes and look at them. His father's things and his mother's… and Norma's dresses.
He would like to try them on and make believe he is Norma, but once when he did that his mother spanked him for it.
There in the clothes hamper he finds Norma's underwear with dried blood.
What had she done wrong? He was terrified.
Whoever had done it might come looking for him….
Why does a memory like that from childhood remain with me so strongly, and why does it frighten me now?