down there a thousand times making Dave Wain wonder as he’s come back with more wine—We sit there slugging out of our separate bottles, in my paranoia I begin to wonder why I get to drink just the one bottle and he the other—But he’s gay “I am now going out surf castin and catch us a grabbag of fish for a marvelous supper; Romana you get the salad ready and anything else you can think of; well leave you alone now” he adds to gloomy me and Billie thinking he’s in our way, “and say, why dont we go to Nepenthe and private our grief tonight and enjoy the moonlight on the terrace with Manhattans, or go see Henry Miller?”—“No!” I almost yell, “I mean I’m so exhausted I dont wanta do anything or see anybody”—(already feeling awful guilt about Henry Miller anyway, we’ve made an appointment with him about a week ago and instead of showing up at his friend’s house in Santa Cruz at seven we’re all drunk at ten calling long distance and poor Henry just said “Well I’m sorry I dont get to meet you Jack but I’m an old man and at ten o’clock it’s time for me to go to bed, you’d never make it here till after midnight now”) (his voice on the phone just like on his records, nasal, Brooklyn, goodguy voice, and him disappointed in a way because he’s gone to the trouble of writing the preface to one of my books) (tho I suddenly now think in my remorseful paranoias “Ah the hell with it he was only gettin in the act like all these guys write prefaces so you dont even get to read the author first”) (as an example of how really psychotically suspicious and loco I was getting).
Alone with Billie’s even worse—“I cant see anything to do now,” she says by the fire like an ancient Salem housewife (“Or Salem witch?” I’m leering)—“I could have Elliott taken care of in a private home or an orphanage and just go to a nunnery myself, there’s a lot of them around—or I could kill myself and Elliott both”—“Dont talk like that”—“There’s no other way to talk when there’s no more directions to take”—“You've got me all wrong I wouldnt be any
