A Writer’s Diary Entries From Late September, 2001
Friday, September 21, 2001
9 AM. I’m going out for coffee (tea for me) with Frank in an hour.
I didn’t sleep much last night, but that was because last night’s Poetluck ended so late and I felt exhilarated by my performance, which was the best reading I’ve ever done.
I started with “My Grandfather’s Other Son,” then read selections from Eating at Arby’s and “Y/Me.” After Crescent persuaded me to keep going, I read “‘But in a Thousand Other Worlds.’”
I got a lot of laughter and applause. Now I know how an actor or stand-up comedian must feel when he’s really rolling and has the audience with him. With some practice, I’d become a very polished performer, I’m certain.
Yesterday, right after I finished my diary entry, Vincent Turco called me to say he was going to drive straight to Eureka Springs tonight, stay at a motel, and call me at 10 AM Saturday morning.
I can meet him downtown or we can connect here. I still can’t believe he’d drive this far for a visit, but at least he’ll get to see Eureka for the second time.
I felt pretty restless yesterday afternoon, probably a result of jitters about Poetluck, though I didn’t experience any subjective nervous symptoms. In truth, performing is a tonic for me.
Only about 20 or so people showed up, bringing all kinds of dishes.
Crescent introduced me with a story about how her father, Maurice Zolotow, was the first person to get Delmore Schwartz to start drinking alcohol. The two men 
were very close: Delmore dedicated In Dreams Begin Responsibilities to Crescent’s parents.
Then Crescent said how pleased her father was to have the I Brake for Delmore Schwartz bumper sticker on his last two cars.
As I said, my reading went well, and then we ate and chatted. I sat with Cedric, Cindy and a couple of gay guys. One of them, Josh, was the first Poetluck open reader, and last night he read a clever newspaper column he writes for some local paper.
One by one, poets, novelists, essayists and humorists – hobbyists or aspiring writers – got up and read for four minutes, timed by Arik, the keeper of order.
Some asked for criticism, and Crescent was gentle; I offered a few observations and suggestions. Some had memorized their poems or read out of a handwritten spiral notebook.
I liked the eccentric guy – though everyone in this town is eccentric to some degree – who sold Eureka Springs Air Force t-shirts with a drawing of the Christ of the Ozarks, his arms outstretched, flying over the town in quadruplicate formation.
Crescent read last, a long poem from a journal entry that was – naturally – about Ned’s death. Clearly, she’s still in mourning, and who can blame her? Ned’s death was so shocking, and they were really soulmates, having survived his recent affair.
When everyone left, Crescent told me and Cedric that just that afternoon, she’d written to the 17-year-old son of the woman Ned had an affair with. The kid, of course, knew all about the “secret” and hoped that one day Ned would become his father.
Crescent may be self-dramatizing at times – but after all, she’s had a very dramatic life, and I applaud her for being that way; she’s like a force of nature.
I slept only from midnight to 5 AM, not counting the four or five awakenings during that time, so I feel a little tattered this morning, but I’ll be all right.
Tonight is Cedric’s one-man Macbeth at the library at 7 PM, so it will be another late evening. After tomorrow, things will quiet down and I’ll start to think about going back to Arizona, and undoubtedly some anxiety will arise anew.
Because of Poetluck, we missed Bush’s speech before Congress. I still don’t know where this “war” is leading us or what it will be like.
Peace movement groups are springing up at colleges; Muslims Arabs and Sikhs are targets of anger and violence; and it now appears that well over 6,000 people died at the World Trade Center.
*
9 PM. I just walked back from the library by myself at the Cedric’s one-man Macbeth on the landing in front of the building. It’s been a long day but a good one.
This morning Frank picked me up at 10 AM and we went to the Daily Planet Internet Café, where he had decaf and I had the fruit plate.
Frank said he’s been canning applesauce and herbs, making scones for tonight’s library performance.
Tonight, after Cedric’s performance, I realized how dumb Frank can be: he told me he had absolutely no idea what was going on, that Shakespeare is too hard for him to understand.
But Frank is a nice guy, very into gardening and home life. And after we left the café, he was nice enough to take me to Hart’s to buy skim milk.
I spoke to Thelma at Nova Law School today, and she’ll try to get me reimbursed for the flight. She also let me know that I’m one of three finalist candidates.
I’m going to meet with Dean Harbaugh at 8:30 AM on the morning of October 23; Thelma said I should call on Pat Jason when I come in, and she’ll take me in to Dean Harbaugh’s office. The interviews with him and others will last till 1 PM, and they want to have dinner with me, either that day or the evening before.
When I got to the library at 1 PM, the place was swarming with seventh graders from the Clear Spring School, the local progressive private school, who were doing reports on Arab and Muslim countries.
I got on the computer, as scheduled, to check email. Teresa emailed that she’s felt nervous since the attack and can’t sleep well.
Jade lost a friend who worked at the World Trade Center, and although Teresa and Paul don’t know anyone who died there, Teresa is very paranoid about a biological or chemical attack on New York City.
Pam still hasn’t left Locust Valley even though she’s paying rent in Brooklyn. I’ve given up being surprised by her hesitancy to move.
Oddly, Teresa decided to put an ad in the paper for the house, but nobody answered it. I told her she’d have to wait a long time before she gets an offer like the one she got this summer, as housing values will probably go down for the next four years. Who knows what “the war” will bring?
Cindy left Poetluck early last night, after I finished but before the open reading. When I got back here, I learned that as she took a shortcut through the trail to the Crescent Hotel, a bat flew into Cindy’s face.
It either bit her on the bridge of her nose or clawed her – but the doctor wants her to take the shots for rabies, starting tomorrow.
She filed as an indigent because the shots cost $1100. I hope she’ll be okay.
After we had dinner, we hung out and together walked to the library. About 50 people showed up for Cedric’s performance, including Crescent and Steve, who had come from the Dairy Hollow board meeting in Fayetteville, and James, Cindy’s art gallery owner friend.
There were also a lot of people from last night’s reading, kids with parents, and others I know, including the librarians.
As the sun set and the moon rose on this clear autumn night and I watched Cedric perform Macbeth, I thought about the four weeks I’ve been in this weird town in Northwest Arkansas and how resonant my experiences been have been.
Saturday, September 22, 2001
6 PM. What a weird day. Spending nearly six hours with Vincent today was a great experience. He’s someone I have a lot of respect and affection for.
Vincent seems to me a man of integrity who’s done so much in his life. He’s smart, honest, funny and self-aware. I felt both protective of him and wanted his approval and reassurance.
I guess I am attracted to Vincent, but my reactions are not so much because of his looks. He’s someone I feel comfortable and compatible with.
Over the years, he’s obviously had a lot of older guys trying to help and protect him – and as he said, that was not always a good thing.
I don’t know where to start in describing him and our discussions.
We talked a lot about a writer who basically got him published. He didn’t mention his name, nor did I, though I could tell it was Dennis Cooper. Vincent said that the guy turned out to be – along with his writer friends – “a major pedophile.” Duh.
Vincent will be 33 next month, but when I spotted him sitting and reading a book at the trolley depot as my tram pulled in, he looked like he was in his early twenties, if not younger.
Of course, like the narrator in his novel, he had all these experiences, and the most important parental figure in his life was the madam in a New York brothel where he worked.
It’s weird that someone with as sheltered life as I’ve had could make someone like Vincent inspired to be a writer, or to keep writing.
Like me, he’s been on antidepressants and tranquilizers, though he distrusts them. For a while, he was big into gay community work in Memphis.
More recently, he’s managed to reconcile with his family. We picked out a birthday gift for his mother, who’s become a born-again Christian in Hardy.
After moving around so much, Vincent has made his home in Memphis. I met John, the friend he drove down here with, and I assume he’s the guy Vincent lives with there, the boyfriend with whom he’s had an open relationship.
I could be wrong, though, and we saw John only because we ran into him walking around downtown. He’s good-looking and seemed nice.
Vincent is obsessed with JT Leroy, author of Sarah, whom he’s been compared to.
Leroy is supposedly this young ex-hustler who grew up in a trailer park. He’s gotten tons of publicity out of his background and has been linked with Dennis Cooper and other gay writers.
Vincent thinks JT Leroy is a total fraud. It bugs him because Vincent could have exploited his upbringing and his background to sell himself as a media personality – but he didn’t.
Vincent won’t say why he wouldn’t do that, but I think it’s because he has integrity. He paid for a new cover for his novel because he found St. Martin’s original cover, featuring a shirtless stud, tasteless.
We went from coffee shop to pizzeria to park bench back to coffee shop and the steps of a store for all these hours, and we always had something to talk about – whether it was Oprah’s Book Club, Jonathan Franzen, my weird but loving family, or Vincent’s relationship with his grandmothers.
I know I’m not very articulate now. I’m sure that Vincent is writing about me in much more measured, eloquent prose, but that’s probably because he’s a better writer than I am.
Whatever else I can say about Vincent, I can surely say better another time.
When we parted, I said it would probably be a long time before we saw each other again, and he said, no, he’d visit me in Florida if I get the job at Nova. “Phoenix would be a harder sell, but I’d come there, too,” he said. “New York is better.”
His novel is coming out in paperback in November, and as with the hardcover, he’s had to arrange his own readings, which is sort of torture for him.
Anyway, I have warm feelings towards Vincent, and I think he feels the same way about me. While I’m not wildly attracted to him, I think I could be – or I could just be happy being friends.
I know that I haven’t felt this way about anyone in a long time, and I like the feeling. It’s great to connect with someone like Vincent, who I feel is – and it’s embarrassing for me to write this word at age 50 in the middle of a “war” I don’t understand – a soulmate.
After taking the trolley back here, I had to help Cindy cope with her anxiety.
Her doctor had said it was imperative that she get the rabies vaccine today because saliva from the bat bite might have gotten into her eye and go into her bloodstream faster.
But the vaccine is sitting in a locked building in Harrison, the doctor can’t be reached, and the nurses at the little Eureka Springs Hospital were rude to her.
She made us turkey burgers and went home to call people, including the guy at the state Health Department in Little Rock.
Wednesday, September 26, 2001
10 PM. Of course, there was no reason for me to be so nervous yesterday afternoon about going to Fayetteville last evening.
I need to remember that in the future because I have to push myself to get out more, whether I’ll be living in Arizona or Florida.
And now, after last night, Fayetteville is somewhere in my “comfort zone,” as Susan Jeffers terms it in Feel the Dear and Do It Anyway.
Crescent didn’t get here last night till 6 PM, but we got to the restaurant in Fayetteville by 7 PM, when it was still daylight – though just barely.
I didn’t see much of town, but it felt a lot like Gainesville, and I’m sure I would have liked to see more of it.
As I told Tom, I’m sure a great deal has changed since his undergraduate days. The main streets, Dickson Street and College Avenue, are pleasant, and we got to see the stately outside of historic Old Main and the impressive new Walton Arts Center, a performing arts venue.
The reading, at a corner bistro, was sponsored by the Ozark Poets and Writers Collective, and of course, Crescent knew everyone, as she always does.
We sat at the same table as University of Arkansas MFA faculty members. Molly Giles said she missed my Poetluck reading only because of a class she had to teach.
Miller Williams said, “I hear you hold the record for most short stories in literary magazines.” I lamely replied, “Well, it’s quantity, not quality.”
The featured reader was Jo McDougall of Little Rock, whose book Dirt, was nominated for the Pulitzer – not that that means anything.
Some college-age open readers came on as we had our (mediocre) dinner, and then McDougall and a singer/actress who performed McDougall’s monologues went up to the mic.
I found the work competent, pedestrian and a little foo-foo, but it got me writing in my head, and I did write a bit this morning.
On the way back, Crescent, Cedric and I stopped at Shakey’s, a frozen custard stand in Rogers, though I abstained despite the availability of fat-free versions.
We got back to Eureka around 10:30 PM. The night was chilly, and stars shone brightly. Although I felt cold in my studio, I slept well enough. It’s supposed gradually warm up over the next couple of days.
But early this morning, after exercise and a bath, I dressed myself in four layers (t-shirt, long-sleeved polo shirt, sweater and zippered sweatshirt) and caught the tram into town. Today I was Bobbie and Jo’s only passenger.
I took out a credit card cash advance from the Bank of Eureka Springs, got USA Today, and because it was sunny, sat outside with my iced tea at the Local Flavor Café.
Back here at 10:30 AM, I wrote in my notebook for half an hour. I do feel like kind of a fraud, having written so little finished work here.
If I’d had a computer, I could have worked on my In The Sixties stories or at least put the old typed versions into digital format.
Of course, I could have done that back in Arizona all those weeks I was there.
If I do get into Yaddo this fall and CompUSA hasn’t yet fixed my computer, I’ll make sure that I rent, buy, or steal one.
I saw Frank at the library, and we agreed to meet tomorrow morning.
I declined the fresh green tomatoes he brought for the librarians, who told me they were coming over here this evening to have dinner, which will be made by Crescent so that Cindy can rest.
She’s still very sick after getting the first of the rabies shots yesterday.
Cindy told Debbie she feels like she’s going mad. The doctor offered to prescribe Xanax, though I’m not sure if she took him up on it.
At the library computer, I spent more than an hour answering email. Vincent says he’s reading I Brake for Delmore Schwartz, and it’s making him manic with ideas for writing. He asked me for a bio note for Low Blue Flame.
Though I think about Vincent all the time, I try to moderate my letters to avoid getting too gushy and mushy.
Ronna’s email was mostly adorable dictated greetings from Chelsea and Abigail, on the general theme of “I miss you” and “Come visit soon.”
Sat Darshan emailed that on Tuesday she woke up to a different world, one without a job she really liked. Getting laid off from the real estate office was a big shock for her.
When she got home on Monday she filed by phone for unemployment, and yesterday she went down and registered with the Job Service.
Sat Darshan wants to find out what she would need for a teaching certificate.
Tomorrow she’s got an interview near her house at the Hospice of the Valley, where Sat Kaur is a nurse, and she’s got two more interviews, including one as an administrative assistant for a headhunter on 44th and Camelback.
Because she figures it’s not a good idea to wear Indian clothes to the interview, Sat Darshan needs to buy some new Western clothes. Since she’s gained so much weight, her old outfits make her look fat.
Teresa spent Thursday to Tuesday on Fire Island, “completely convinced that we’re 
doomed.” But as time goes on from September 11, she’s becoming more rational.
Jade is moving out this weekend, to a house belonging to one of PJ’s friends in Garden City near Hempstead.
Jade learned she didn’t graduate from Purchase, and Teresa said that Jade will never make up that one incomplete in her major.
Paul told Teresa not to say anything about it, but of course she couldn’t resist, and Jade got all excited and defensive.
Although she no longer enjoys catering, Teresa’s glad to be doing the annual firemen’s ball on Fair Harbor on October 6.
No word about Pam’s moving to Brooklyn or about Teresa working with Susan.
Mark Bernstein wrote that if last year was his mother’s time to die, this year it’s time for his mother-in-law, whom he’s known since he was a teenager. The visit to her nursing home in North Carolina was depressing although he and his wife did get to see some lovely fall foliage.
When I checked Yahoo By Phone later, I was entranced by a long message from Vincent. He finally figured out where he’d actually first read about me: in the new edition of Kostelanetz’s A Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes.
Vincent said he’s realized that he can’t use his phony JT Leroy interview. (Rick Peabody told me he thinks JT Leroy is a creation of Mary Gaitskell and Dennis Cooper.)
Vincent ended by saying that my stories give him ideas for his own writing.
After sitting around for a while mooning over him, I felt happy and sleepy. But after a nap, my feelings toward him turned more realistic.
Though that was is kind of a downer, it’s obvious that we’re not going to be in a relationship. I’m sure our currently intense friendship will level off to something closer to what I have with other writer friends and allies.
Crescent made a wonderful dinner of food from South India. (She once lived in Kerala.)
The librarians – Jean, Kate and Kathy – joined us along with Kathy’s six-year-old grandson Seth, who for some reason wore this funny, grotesque mask. Like most kids that age, he was cute until he got a little wild.
Crescent told me about a wonderful letter she received about my reading last 
Thursday that said my humor was an antidote to all the bad news in the world.
I found all the dinner conversation interesting and was happy not to have to eat alone. At the end of the evening, Cedric and I went back to Crescent’s writing studio so he could change a light bulb that required a tall person to do the job.
Crescent and Ned had planned to build a house, but for now it looks like she’s got this studio, which is cozy and has space to write and a kitchen in which to test recipes.
Thursday, September 27, 2001
7 PM. There were two deer – mother and child – in front of my door when I woke up this morning.
Frank came over at 9 AM, and at the Mud Street Café, he had a big breakfast while I had a pot of hot tea.
After I told him about Vincent, Frank said that he’s felt similarly infatuated with a guy in Mississippi that he’s having an email correspondence with.
Frank’s family doesn’t really accept him, and they’re cold fish anyhow. He says he doesn’t have a friend here in Eureka to confide in, but some of his good friends are 
coming from Chicago this weekend. He says he does all that gardening and cooking and domestic stuff because he’s had to nurture himself.
Although Frank isn’t the brightest guy in the world, he’s got a good heart.
At the library after lunch, I emailed Vincent.
Sat Darshan reported that she had a good interview at Hospice of the Valley, but they do have internal candidates for the position.
Despite the lower salary, I think Sat Darshan would like working near her house in the same place as Sat Kaur and where she could wear her Indian clothes.
I wrote back to her as well as to Ronna and her daughters, Mark Bernstein, and Tom, whose Washington Post Book World review I liked.
Back here, I ordered a cab from “Fuzzy” to pick me up and take me to the airport at 
8 AM on Monday.
Alice called and said she’s been okay. Because of Giuliani’s mandatory carpool rules, she has to go with Peter tomorrow when he reviews a play in Madison, New Jersey, so he can drive back into Manhattan with a passenger.
Last week Alice sold one book for $40,000, and tomorrow she’s got an auction; though it may have just one bidder, she expects to get more than $50,000 for it.
Alice got a cheap rate on a hotel room in Boston for her and Peter this weekend, as travel bargains are everywhere.
Cindy still felt too sick from the rabies shot to stay here the whole day, so Debbie left me dinner. For whatever reason, Cedric never showed up, so I ate by myself.
I had a touch of anxiety this afternoon, but I took a Triavil and it passed.
Friday, September 28, 2001
2:30 PM. Last night I fell asleep early, only to wake up at 11 PM, thinking about a remark Alice made on the phone.
After I’d mentioned my crush on Vincent, she said, “Well, at least he’s not 18 years old.” I said no, he was 33 and just looked younger.
It didn’t bother me in the middle of the night. Unless memory fails me, the only 18-year-old guy I dated was Sean (whom I emailed today), and that was when I was 30 or 31.
I resent Alice bringing that up because it felt as though she considers my relationships trivial. My impression is that as liberal as my women friends like Alice, Teresa, Ronna and Sat Darshan say they are, they really don’t want to hear about my crushes, dates, relationships or affairs.
During the night, I thought about this and resolved to write to Alice to discuss this, but in the end I decided to let it go. Enduring friendships always require letting some things go.
(I did call Alice today to find out how she was coping with the anniversary of the death of Andreas. Speaking of age differences, by now, we both know that he was twenty years older than Alice – unlike what he had told her all those years.)
Last night, still unable to sleep, I turned on talk radio and listened to callers say 
how they were all afraid to fly, and this got me thinking even more.
I can’t understand why people think flying is more unsafe now than it was before September 11.
People with generalized anxiety disorder can’t properly gauge the probability of a bad event happening. In therapy, Susan used to have me write down my worries, estimate the probabilities of the events I dreaded occurring, and then dispute the thoughts and recalculate the probabilities – which were always sharply lower.
Am I now more healthy than all these Americans who’ve stopped flying? I’ll be on a plane Monday.
Anyway, I didn’t get to sleep till after 2 AM and woke up before 5 AM.
Again, I was Bobbie and Jo’s only passenger on the tram downtown. Tourist visits here are nothing like they were before the attacks. It seems like the Crescent Hotel has emptied out.
USA Today wasn’t in the box, so I got the Rogers Morning News, intrigued by the headline about a school being 53% Hispanic.
Northwest Arkansas has the fastest-growing Hispanic population in the country, thanks to all the workers Tyson Foods and other companies have brought into Springdale and Rogers.
Last Sunday I was sitting in the back of Ice Cream Delights downtown, and there were a group of what seemed like high school kids speaking Spanish at the table next to me.
They definitely were not tourists, so I assumed they were from one of the nearby towns. It was great to hear Spanish being spoken in Eureka because I’m so used to it, and it made me a little homesick.
In other articles, I read that a local Hispanic group had a panel at the University in Fayetteville and that there’s still a shortage of skilled workers in the region.
The paper’s religion section featured a story on Yom Kippur, which passed unnoticed by me yesterday.
The only synagogue around here seems to be one in Fayetteville; a couple of weeks ago, Crescent showed me a postcard she got from it about their High Holy Days services at a church.
I ended up having two refills of iced tea at the Local Flavor Café before catching the trolley back home.
After I packed up my typewriter, Debbie took me to Bunch’s, where I shipped it back to Apache Junction.
There were no emails from Vincent when I logged on to the computer in the library.
Tom wrote that when he went out with Bill Harrison and Miller Williams and their wives, Williams was rude and drunk and didn’t like Tom’s vegetarian, non-drinking ways.
Williams also sent back a manuscript of Tom’s stories to Bill with the comment, “If he were in my MFA class, I’d kick him out because he couldn’t learn anything.” And Miller said he hoped his comment would help Tom! Another asshole academic.
Tom reminisced about his days at “The Spectral University” (the title of his essay, still being taught), and living on Dickson Street, where his famous knife fight occurred.
Today is warmer and sunnier, and walking back from the library, I realized how much I’m going to miss this place.
Crazily, living in Eureka Springs reminds me of being a kid in Brooklyn – maybe because I used to walk on sidewalks and take buses there?
Saturday, September 29, 2001
2:30 PM. Yesterday I got to hug Cindy before Debbie drove her home. She was shaking and said she felt weak, dizzy and nauseated from the rabies shots.
I wish this awful thing with the bat had never happened to her. During our dinners alone together, I bonded with Cindy, though I guess I bonded with a lot of people in Eureka Springs.
As I told the conductor on the tram today, I’d consider moving here if I could figure out a way to make a living. I’ve got a feeling I’ll be back someday, and I have an open invitation to return to Dairy Hollow.
Debbie left me a card that was so nice that I’m embarrassed to reread it. I guess I must be a nice person after all to have attracted so many friends – or else Eurekans are just naturally friendly.
After Cedric and I had dinner, I took the TV back to my room and watched the CBS Springfield affiliate, KOLR, which featured sitcoms starring Ellen DeGeneres and Daniel Stern, That’s Life, and 48 Hours, which lulled me to sleep.
In his latest email, Vincent asked if I was nervous about leaving Arkansas and mentioned his last week of a three-month stay in Spain and how nervous he felt.
As I wrote to him, anxiety is always going to be my main obstacle in life. Before what happened over this past year, though, I guess I would have felt the nervousness I’m feeling now and not assumed it was pathological. I haven’t had sweaty palms in the morning for a long time, but I suspect they will return as a symptom within the next week.
Five weeks ago, Debbie said that Eureka was a place people came to in order to hide out or heal. I’ve done a little both here. But now I have to go back to my financial and career problems.
Or do I? Nothing really changed while I’ve been here in the Ozarks; I just decided to put off thinking about bankruptcy and job prospects.
In a week or so, I’ll start getting nervous about the trip to Florida, but I can put off seriously looking for a job until after the Nova law school interview. And maybe longer.
I checked my diary entry from August 23, which begins, “Today is about the most nervous I’ve been in as long as I can remember” and also has this sentence: “I’m scared not only because of the trip… but because I’ll be staying in a place that’s totally foreign to me.”
Of course, now Eureka seems like home. Tomorrow will be my last full day here.