I have no idea what I was expecting when I bought this book.

I told her, "I'd like to rip that fringe off your jacket-we could begin there!" Lydia walked off. It hadn't worked. I never knew what to say to the ladies.

The POEMS were stapled together, mimeographed and called HERRRR. I read some of them. They were interesting, full of humor and sexuality, but badly written. They were by Lydia and her three sisters-all so jolly and brave and sexy together. I threw the sheets away and I opened my pint of whiskey. It was dark outside. The radio played mostly Mozart and Brahms and the Bee [end of chapter].

I put on a shirt and some pants and opened the door. Then I ran to the bathroom and vomited. I tried to brush my teeth but only vomited again-the sweetness of the toothpaste turned my stomach. I came out.

"You're sick," Lydia said. "Do you want me to leave?"

"Oh no, I'm all right. I always wake up like this."

"Look," I said, "I know your tragedy."

"What?"

"I know your tragedy."

"What do you mean?"

"Listen," I said, "just forget it."

"I want to know."

"I don't want to hurt your feelings."

"I want to know what the hell you're talking about."

"O.K., if you give me another drink I'll tell you."

"All right." Lydia took my empty glass and gave me half-whiskey, half-water. I drank it down again.

"Well?" she asked.

"Hell, you know."

"Know what?"

"You've got a big pussy."

"What?"

"I can't stand those people either. [...]. We just drink beer and talk. It doesn't mean anything."

When I see a man with a tidy place I know there's something wrong with him. And if it's too tidy, he's a fag.

"I grew up in a ranch. My father was a drunk. He's dead now. Maybe that's why I'm with him...." She jerked a thumb at me.

Randy Evans was sitting next to me. i could see he was watching Lydia too. He began talking. He talked and he talked. Thankfully I couldn't hear him, the stereo was too loud.

“Few beautiful women were willing to indicate in public that they belonged to someone. I had known enough women to realize this. I accepted them for what they were and love came hard and very seldom. When it did it was usually for the wrong reasons. One simply became tired of holding back love and let it go because it needed some place to go. Then, usually, there was trouble.”

When I came I felt it was in the face of everything decent, white sperm dripping down over the heads and souls of my dead parents. If I had been born a woman I would certainly have been a prostitute. Since I had been born a man, I craved women constantly, the lower the better. And yet women--good women-- frightened me because they eventually wanted your soul, and what was left of mine, I wanted to keep. Basically I craved prostitutes, base women, because they were deadly and hard and made no personal demands. Nothing was lost when they left. Yet at the same time I yearned for a gentle, good woman, despite the overwhelming price. Either way I was lost. A strong man would give up both. I wasn't strong. So I continued to struggle with women, with the idea of women.

Human relationships were strange. I mean, you were with one person a while, eating and sleeping and living with them, loving them, talking to them, going places together, and then it stopped. Then there was a short period when you weren't with anybody, then another woman arrived, and you ate with her and fucked her, and it all seemed so normal, as if you had been waiting just for her and she had been waiting for you. I never felt right being alone; sometimes it felt good but it never felt right

I was drawn to all the wrong things: I liked to drink, I was lazy, I didn't have a god, politics, ideas, ideals. I was settled into nothingness; a kind of non-being, and I accepted it. It didn't make for an interesting person. I didn't want to be interesting, it was too hard.

"Goodnight, Cecelia," I said.

I pulled her to me. She was naked. Jesus, I thought. We kissed. She kissed very well. It was a long, hot one. We finished.

"Cecelia?"

"Yes?"

"I'll fuck you some other time."

I rolled over and went to sleep.

Nothing was ever in tune. People just blindly grabbed at whatever there was: communism, health foods, zen, surfing, ballet, hypnotism, group encounters, orgies, biking, herbs, Catholicism, weight-lifting, travel, withdrawal, vegetarianism, India, painting, writing, sculpting, composing, conducting, backpacking, yoga, copulating, gambling, drinking, hanging around, frozen yogurt, Beethoven, Back, Buddha, Christ, TM, H, carrot juice, suicide, handmade suits, jet travel, New York City, and then it all evaporated and fell apart. People had to find things to do while waiting to die. I guess it was nice to have a choice.

"It's 5 AM. What are you doing?

""I want to watch the sun come up. I love sunrises!"

"No wonder you don't drink."

"I'll be back. We can have breakfast together."

"I haven't been able to eat breakfast for 40 years."

"Do you have a girlfriend?" asked Hilda.

"No. Not now."

"We'll stay," said Gertrude.

"There is only one bed."

"That's all right."

"Just one other thing ..."

"What?"

"I must sleep in the middle."

"That's all right."

"I think you fuck women just in order to write about fucking them."

"I don't know."

"I think you do."

"O.K., O.K., forget it. Drink up."

[...]

Suddenly Tessie grabbed me.

I walked around naked and noticed that I could be seen from the street through the front window. So I had a glass of grapefruit juice and dressed.

I walked up and bing-bonged Debra's bell. She opened the door and seemed glad to see me. That was all right, but it was things like that which kept a writer from getting his work done.