2. I’m bored.
3. I spilled a full glass of ginger ale on the floor and have nothing to clean it up with.
4. I went to the grocery store and spent $5.37 on total crap.
5. I made beans and franks on my hot plate and it was just a mushy mess.
6. I want to be in school.
7. My radio is suffering from me falling asleep on it.
February 23, 1978
Chapel Hill
I am totally frustrated and can’t relieve it. Nothing to go back to, and nothing to look forward to.
?, 1978
Raleigh, North Carolina
Last night Dad caught me off guard by asking me to leave and not come back. We can’t begin to reason with each other. I said awful things, and he said he wanted to smother me. I cried and am glad. Gretchen says the three best times to smoke a cigarette are:
1. after food
2. after sex
3. after crying
I hadn’t cried since I started smoking, and she was right—it was a good cigarette. Then Gretchen cried. She always comes to my defense. What would I do without her? And Mom cried, and Lisa. Everyone cried but Dad. Now he says that Thursday night he wants to talk to me. I’m guessing the topic will be self-respect.
April 19, 1978
Chapel Hill
Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh Uh
June 14, 1978
Atlantic Beach, North Carolina
Overheard:
“I always thought I was close to God, but climbing those mountains, I mean, it just brought me closer.”
“If welfare can buy these niggers a Continental, it can buy some poor white kid a horse.”
June 23, 1978
Chapel Hill
I have $211 and it doesn’t make any sense.
September 6, 1978
Odell
I’m back in Odell finally. In the trailer instead of the cabin. Promoted? Norm begins many of his sentences with the words “A guy oughtta…” He told me that the cherry crop was good and that his dog, Ringo, died. I have five days until apple picking starts.
September 10, 1978
Odell
I scrubbed my trailer floors with Janitor in a Drum and listened to the radio—country music mainly. Talked to Rodrigo, who uses camebackir as a verb meaning “to come back.” Nosotros combackamos. “We come back.”
September 13, 1978
Odell
Picking started. Apple Betty, the cat I let in, is eating a tea bag and I’m too tired to stop her.
September 18, 1978
Odell
Norm came by, very drunk. We both smoke menthols. He likes to explain things about farming. He says, “Why, heck, Dave…” “Why, heck, Dave, you should come here in the summer and hike and camp.”
He has confidence in my picking, though I drop a lot and sometimes break branches. Breaking branches is called trashing. Skirting is picking the low-hanging fruit on someone else’s tree. This is what Norm calls an Okie tactic.
September 22, 1978
Odell
We began the Bosc pears today, just me and Jesus. Norm dismissed all the others, all Mexicans. They liked to have a good time at night, using their car headlights as lamps and always with the radio on. They were late this morning, so that was it—fired.
Tonight I went to the grocery store. I ran up a bill of $6.50 with only $1 to pay for it.
September 26, 1978
Odell
While picking today I thought about capital punishment, Alaska, Eudora Welty, and blindness.
If you talk to people, you can have whatever you want.
No matter where you go, you cannot escape the Bee Gees, either on a radio or on a jukebox.
I once considered suing Farrah Fawcett for invasion of privacy. Hardly a day passed when I didn’t see her on a magazine cover, an ad, a poster. She was destroying my life, but now she’s OK.
Ronnie was the first person I met who didn’t live at home. That year in Cullowhee we went to see The Day of the Locust, my favorite movie. The man at the box office gave us a discount, saying, “I can’t charge full price for something without a plot!”
September 28, 1978
Odell
In 1951 Norm worked at the sawmill and a guy named Barney Bailey gave him the nickname Peewee, which is what everyone here calls him. Barney Bailey has a wife he calls Buffalo Grass. Buffalo Grass Bailey. After filling the final pear bin, Norm, Jesus, and I drank beer. I made $211.24 this season. Back in Raleigh I have $150 in savings. That’s a total of $361.24.
I am optimistic that things will fall into place, and one day I’ll be sitting in New York City with correct bus fare in my pocket.
September 29, 1978
Odell
I hitched to the employment office in Hood River and talked to a woman named Sylvia. She is sending me to a fruit-packing plant—$3.41 an hour to sort the bad apples from the good. She said, “And, my, it’s tedious.” I would work from four to twelve at night.
October 1, 1978
Newport, Oregon
Leaving Hood River, I was picked up hitchhiking by a man named John who wants me to work for him cutting and polishing jade and taking things to the crafts market in Portland. I can also clean his pool, help finish his sailboat, and install solar panels on his house. He said at one point or another:
1. “You haven’t lived until you’ve sailed.”
2. “I had a bubble put on top.”
3. “The day will come for you to marry.”
4. “I have wooden legs.”
He’s invited me to his workshop on Tuesday morning.
October 2, 1978
Odell
Yesterday was one of those miserable days for hitchhiking. It took almost thirteen hours to get back from Ted’s place in Newport, most of it walking. My first ride was with a Catholic priest. He was in robes and had a rifle in the backseat. Later I found $14.50 worth of unwrapped gay-sex magazines in the woods when I hiked off the road to pee. What are the chances? I think the guys posing were all in jail at one time or another. They’re all skinny with acne and it’s pretty clear they aren’t enjoying themselves.
October 3, 1978
Odell
I went to John’s and saw his studio. He explained what all his tools do and then he suggested that he could pay me in Christmas gifts. If he has a pool, two cars, two Streamline trailers, and a home with two fireplaces in it, he can pay me in real money. I don’t think his wife likes me too much. Christians are strange people.
I went to the packinghouse at four. The presize machine is broken, so now I won’t start until Thursday.
October 4, 1978