I was sure you wouldn't hurt me, but I thought you might hurt yourself.
So I figured I'd hang around. I felt so sorry.
Anyway, I kept this handy, just in case…" She pulled out a heavy book end she had wedged between the bed and the wall.
"I guess you didn't have to use it."
She shook her head.
"Boy, you must have liked peanuts when you were a kid."
She got out of bed and started to dress. I lay there for a while watching her.
She moved in front of me with no shyness or inhibition. Her breasts were full as she had painted them in that self-portrait.
I longed to reach out for her, but I knew it was futile.
In spite of the operation Charlie was still with me.
And Charlie was afraid of losing his peanuts.
June 24
Today I went on a strange kind of anti-intellectual binge.
If I had dared to, I would have gotten drunk, but after the experience with Fay, I knew it would be dangerous.
So, instead, I went to Times Square, from movie house to movie house, immersing myself in westerns and horror movies—the way I used to.
Each time, sitting through the picture, I would find myself whipped with guilt.
I'd walk out in the middle of the picture and wander into another one. I told myself I was looking for something in the make-believe screen world that was missing from my new life.
Then, in a sudden intuition, right outside the Keno Amusement Center, I knew it wasn't the movies I wanted, but the audiences.
I wanted to be with the people around me in the darkness.
The walls between people are thin here, and if I listen quietly, I hear what is going on. Greenwich Village is like that too.
Not just being close—because I don't feel it in a. crowded elevator or on the subway during the rush—but on a hot night when everyone is out walking, or sitting in the theater, there is a rustling, and for a moment I brush against someone and sense the connection between the branch and trunk and the deep root.
At such moments my flesh is thin and tight, and the unbearable hunger to be part of it drives me out to search in the dark corners and blind alleys of the night.
Usually, when I'm exhausted from walking, I go back to the apartment and drop off into a deep sleep, but tonight instead of going up to my own place I went to the diner.
There was a new dishwasher, a boy of about sixteen, and there was something familiar about him, his movements, the look in his eyes. And then, clearing away the table behind me, he dropped some dishes.
They crashed to the floor, shattering and sending bits of white china under the tables.
He stood there, dazed and frightened, holding the empty tray in his hand.
The whistles and catcalls from the customers (cries of "hey, there go the profits!"…
"Mazel tov!"..and "well, he didn't work here very long…" which invariably seems to follow the breaking of dishware in a public restaurant) confused him.
When the owner came to see what the excitement was about, the boy cowered—threw up his arms as if to ward off a blow.
"All right! All right, you dope," shouted the man, "don't just stand there!
Get the broom and sweep up that mess.
A broom… a broom! you idiot!
It's in the kitchen.
Sweep up all the pieces."
"When the boy saw that he was not going to be punished, his frightened expression disappeared, and he smiled and hummed as he came back with the broom.
A few of the rowdier customers kept up the remarks, amusing themselves at his expense.
"Here, sonny, over here.
There's a nice piece behind you .."
"C'mon, do it again…"
"He's not so dumb.
It's easier to break 'em than to wash 'em…"
As the boy's vacant eyes moved across the crowd of amused onlookers, he slowly mirrored their smiles and finally broke into an uncertain grin at the joke which he did not understand.
I felt sick inside as I looked at his dull, vacuous smile—the wide, bright eyes of a child, uncertain but eager to please, and I realized what I had recognized in him.
They were laughing at him because he was retarded.
And at first I had been amused along with the rest.
Suddenly, I was furious at myself and all those who were smirking at him.
I wanted to pick up the dishes and throw them. I wanted to smash their laughing faces.
I jumped up and shouted:
"Shut up!
Leave him alone!