There were all sorts of things I wanted to record, but that’s the thing about a diary, if you don’t put them down at the time the impulse gradually diminishes, and by the time you have a chance you wonder what it was about, the whole thing that was fresh in your mind.
Of course Liz went right on tricking during this time. Even the first day, when I had to stay in bed. The couch in the living room is a Castro, and she opened it up and turned a couple of tricks on it while I lay in bed in the bedroom and listened to the springs squeaking and wondered whether I was going to live or die. After the first day I wasn’t stuck in bed anymore and I would sit drinking coffee in the living room while she balled her tricks in the bedroom.
There was something interesting that happened that would have gone into the diary but it has become very vague in my mind since then, so the hell with it.
Liz paid my rent. She insisted, and I didn’t argue very hard. She says I can pay her back once I’m back on my feet. Once I’m back off my feet is more like it. I can’t earn any money on my feet.
Anyway, I’ve been on them since yesterday. I took far too long to go back and work the bars again. It didn’t have anything to do with the abortion, I don’t think. I don’t see how it could have. The doctor said four days before resuming relations, and I took twice that length of time, and there were no complications and no pain, so I obviously was stalling.
Yesterday I made eighty dollars. I took my tricks to Liz’s place. Her idea. You really have to have a place to take these men, and having a hotel you can get into easily the way I did is not the answer. A lot of men just don’t like the idea of going through the aggravation of checking into a hotel, and then they’re in some sterile hotel room and they don’t care for it. I can understand this.
Liz wants me to move in with her. I guess we’re pretty close, and there’s a sexual thing between us that seems fairly strong. Although except for that one phony baloney trick where we put on an act, we haven’t really done anything.
While I stayed there of course we slept together in her bed. And naturally we would cuddle and touch a little, and sometimes sleep in each other’s arms.
Hey! The first person, first and only person, that I have literally slept with since Howie!
As far as living with her goes, I am tempted. It would be nice to have someone around. And Liz is someone I could stand living with.
But I also like this place, damn it. It’s ridiculous for the amount of time I spend here to be paying almost four hundred dollars a month. I could move out. I’d lose the month’s security, but the hell with that. It wouldn’t matter.
Or I could keep this place and split the rent on Liz’s apartment so that I could spend the night there occasionally and use it as a place to take Johns. But if I did that I’d be spending a fortune on rent. It just seems ridiculous to spend that much money on rent.
Actually if there were a two-bedroom apartment in Liz’s building that we could both take, that would be perfect. Or, and this would be even better, now that I think about it, if there were a small apartment in her building that I could take by myself. Because her place isn’t really big enough for two girls to bring dates to at the same time, and also because I think I would like a certain amount of real privacy. A place to sit and write in this book, for example. And have whatever thoughts I want to keep to myself.
I just took a walk around the neighborhood and I felt like a complete stranger. Not just since the abortion, but when I was tricking uptown I found myself spending less and less time around here.
I guess there’s no real point in having an apartment down here anymore.
I wonder where Eric is. And Susan. People keep walking in and out of my life. He might be around — I haven’t been here to answer the phone.
I could go over to his apartment and ring the bell and see what happens. But I won’t do that because I’m afraid he might be there.
There’s an argument for moving. I would just as soon be unfindable by him.
Though I have this irrational feeling that if he really wanted to find me there’s no place on earth I could hide. Like he has this all-seeing eye. I know it’s nonsense but I can’t dismiss the feeling.
August 11
There’s a vacancy coming up as of the fifteenth in Liz’s building. The superintendent showed it to me this afternoon. Just one room and a vestigial kitchen. The bathroom is big enough to turn around in if you plan your moves carefully in advance. Not a bad view, though, of Fifty-fourth Street.
It’s two hundred and ten dollars a month, and I have to take it as of the fifteenth, and my place downtown is paid through the first, not to mention the security, so there’s a lot of money I’m throwing away. But the hell with it, I’m taking it.
If the super had his way he’d rent to no one but whores, according to Liz. She told me how much she gives him at Christmas, and the doormen, and everybody else connected with the place. She really throws money around, and as a result they fall all over themselves to do her favors and open doors for her, and of course she has no hassle about men coming to her apartment. The respectable tenants, meanwhile, sometimes have to wait three months to get a leaky faucet fixed.
I went crazy yesterday and made a hundred and thirty-five dollars.
August 17
I met Howard yesterday. Walking downtown on Lexington between Forty-eighth and Forty-seventh. He was walking uptown, I was walking downtown. And there he was.
Talk about awkward.
Miss Plastic Tits was nowhere to be seen. He was alone, carrying that attaché case that I used to think was welded to his hand. We just stopped in our tracks and stared at each other, each waiting for the other to be the first to say something. When we finally started a conversation it went something like this:
“Well, what do you know.”
“Well, hello.”
“I always wondered when I’d run into you, Jan. A few months ago there was a time when I kept thinking I saw you around town, but I would look and it was never you. You’re looking good.”
“Thank you. You look good yourself.”
“You’ve lost a lot of weight.”
“I’ve been gaining a little back lately.”
“Well, you look good.”
“Well, I—”
“I’ll buy you a drink.”
“Actually I have an appointment.”
“I said I’ll buy you a drink. We have some things to discuss, Jan.”
“I have this appointment.”
“I’ll make a scene.”
“Huh?”
“Listen, bitch. You walked out without looking back. You gave me some bad nights, bitch.”
“I’m sorry about that. Let go of my arm.”
“I will like hell let go of your arm. We have some things to talk about. I want a divorce. I don’t want to wait to talk about it until we happen to run into each other again. No, you can’t brash me, Jan. I’ll raise my voice, I’ll attract attention, I don’t really give a damn.”
“You want a divorce?”
“I’m sure it’s impossible for you to believe that anybody could want a divorce from you. Jesus, you’re sick, do you know that? You’re a sick person, do you know that?”
“Of course I know it.”
“Huh?”
“I don’t especially want a drink, Howard. We can go across the street for coffee. All right?”
We went across the street and had coffee. He had to have my lawyer’s name and address. That was nice, except I didn’t have a lawyer.
“Just a minute.”
“You’re not going anywhere yet.”
“Oh, fuck off, Howard. I have to make a phone call. I won’t go out of your goddamned sight.”