A likeness of May
My journals continue in late April with a full account of my disintegrating relationship with Lindsey:
“Of last Sunday night, after working the previous five days, eating and sleeping well, I had it in mind to be high, started Sunday morning and did house chores. May came by about one to participate (doing lines). Lindsey was around and we were cooperative. All three of us sat down to liquor and lines, with Lindsey sometimes getting up and doing small chores.
“We talked pleasantly of ephemera. May and I took a drive 4–7 p.m. and talked of break-ups, mine in particular. We had a glass of wine at the ‘Upstart Crow’. Back here we sat down with Lindsey again. I tried to call Martin for company because here I was outnumbered and subjected to a bias more feminine than pleasing. We talked fairly seriously though, Lindsey and I arguing sometimes, May fading out of it for a few hours around midnight but coming out of it by 3 a.m. as me and Lindsey were arguing semantics and I was getting down on her superstitious, anti-science, astrology, acupuncture, alchemy stuff, not as severely as I might, just trying to point out the limitations and false assumptions of pseudo-sciences. But she conceded not a jot…I retired to the bedroom and wrote this journal entry.
“At 4:30, listening to ever more animated conversation on women’s issues and men in general and me, I return to the fray, trying to explain some men’s views on rape, abortion, marriage. May thought I was defending such views as I tried to explain that I was only stating the common male views, which she only half-believed.
“Then Lindsey and I got into rehashing old difficulties, Lindsey’s finances and poor record keeping. She got upset and started to cry. But May acted as a buffer and a good mediator for two hours. I didn’t want this discussion, but we fell into it and L. pushed it very much further. Around seven we all slowed down.
“At 9:30 the landlord group comes by for a five minute survey. We told him we were moving out sometime in May. At 11 I open the door and usher a friend into our bedroom for a large ‘transaction’ and by 11:30 I’m back at the table, our guest gone, divvying up the cash”.
I can’t believe we did an all-nighter, with May over, then our landlord showing the apartment to strangers with it’s closet quickly ‘cleaned up’, all the while arguing, doing lines and drinking Vodka with such important matters at hand. I dump a paper bag with fifteen thousand in it, in hundred dollars bills and split it evenly with Lindsey.
“Then we continue arguing louder than ever, May trying to intercede with little effect. Lindsey is so hard-headed and self-contradictory that nothing I offer is acceptable. Now she wants all the money in return for her quick departure with her brother. Yet she still doesn’t have a car or know where to go. I told her where that would end up, just like what happened two months before. He would steal all her money and spend it in a flash on drugs and porno, to which I wasn’t about to contribute. But she was spitting venom in my face and screaming loudly now”.
May got up in disbelief and for her own safety grabbed her purse and fled out the door. Who knows what the neighbors were hearing? Lindsey stormed off a moment later, with her half and nothing more. Thank god she was gone for two days. It was scenes like these that proved her insanity and determined me to ditch her. The fact that even May ran out the door, after all the nightmare scenes she’d lived through, was telling enough.
It’s amazing there wasn’t some awful ending for us, the way she’d lose all sanity at the most critical junctures, because she could just as easily have lost it in the street as in our apartment, flinging hundred dollar bills in the air in her rabid rage, with a squad car pulling up to arrest the both of us. I strongly suspect she finally did meet some tragic and violent end from her crazy behavior, always coming out at the worst of times, as if she were bent on self-destruction just like her brothers.
“Sun. May 12th, 3 a.m. Alone at home. I’m finally enjoying this place all to myself. Lindsey is almost entirely moved out and stays at a motel most nights. I’m half moved out but will drop by to the end of the month, in comfort and safety, with all the valuables gone. May was here again Wednesday, getting high on lines and drink, being in the way a bit as Lindsey and I were having a rare, civil conversation trying to tidy up loose ends. May left in the evening but returned late, drunk and sad after seeing some lone drinker keel over and die at ‘Brennan's’ bar. Then she phoned her sister back East from our kitchen for an hour and a half and stayed up with Lindsey all night, conversing on men and me and themselves, while I tried to sleep in the other room, unsuccessfully. She left Thursday afternoon but called several times from a nearby motel hoping to be invited back for more lines. But Lindsey and I were too tired, trying to sleep together, perhaps one last time. She seems to have her sights set on me, at least for a part time companion”.
It wasn’t out of the realm of possibilities. She’d broken up with Bones again for the tenth time (for I don’t know how long), had not many friends (maybe none but us) and was staying in motels. She’d been coming to our place each week, sometimes sleeping over on the couch all day long in her clothes. At night we always did lines.
One afternoon, when Lindsey stormed out after another argument, I snuggled up with her on that couch for an hour, getting only a few compassionate hugs. She was an emotional mess in her own life at that time and in our apartment she was at least half in Lindsey’s camp, they spent so many hours talking privately. I was sad and confused and she was beautiful, even in her own sadness (which made me pity her) but I let go.
But it would have exponentially complicated matters and further scrambled all our minds, with Bones my old friend and Lindsey her new friend. But sanity prevailed and I saw my priority was to end the madness and make a clean break from the place and from the both of them. After I accomplished that I breathed such a sigh of relief I secretly swore off all women for several months.
“Lindsey was up 3 ½ of 4 nights this week but much less mad or vexing to me. May was there some of those days and talking to her and that helped. We’d finished all our transactions now (with another large gain) and talked much and she’s accepted our separation. Part of her late happiness came with her recent purchase of a used Toyota truck and talk of an imminent vacation to mountains and rivers with her brother.
“I still prefer her childishness (when she’s in a good mood) to May’s lone adulthood. Though in part silly and stupid, it has life and honest smiles and joys. May’s laughing seems acted, shallow or desperate and has a note of grief or loneliness to it. She has no deep interests and depends on others for distraction from her private griefs. It pains me to compare the two, or contemplate their lives, too much sadness in both.
“Because Lindsey’s mind is so unpredictable, it’s scary. I can’t love her for her numerous infidelities. She thinks I abandon her for no good cause and hates me. Then the unstoppable arguments begin beyond all logic or reason. Added to this, I could never fathom the extent of her anger. But I do remember, from some hint she let drop (after a rabid, hours-long fight), that I thought she was going to stab me in my sleep that night and I lay awake many hours half expecting it”.
So our parting was ‘well made’. It was a surprise to me; this show of final good humor after so many battles. I moved to my tiny bedroom at Louie’s, little bigger than a closet, a single bed, a small desk and window, with a bookshelf below. Lindsey disappeared, and I only had a few phone calls from her for the next six weeks, pleasurably brief. I probably told May where I was moving but I also described it. She never came by either. She must have deduced from the description that I didn’t want company. I had the means to rent luxurious apartments, fully furnished with spare bedrooms and she knew that too.
