02/28/01

I didn’t sleep at all last night. Kept thinking about Rocky rotting in jail. Kept thinking about myself maybe ending up there too. Kept thinking about that dog with it’s leg shot off. Kept thinking how much of an embarrassment I’ve become to Maddy. She’ll be lucky to have any police career at all if we get ourselves in any more legal trouble. Was imagining all night Phebe and Stash Skimington sitting in the Walden Diner telling each other funny stories about me while they wolfed down strawberry pancakes and played footsy under the table. Yeah, I had a whole lot of different crazy things running through my head. They all seemed to repeat over and over again in a loop like an 8-track tape. Actually started to wonder if Phebe was right with her thought to seek custody of Mookie. Not to say we did such a spectacular job raising Rocky, but which family really gives Mookie his best chance at success in life? I don’t think there’s really any comparison. Not that Betty and Fauntleroy are bad people, but Betty’s health keeps failing, and when was the last time anything good happened on Lander Street in the City of Newburgh? Actually started to think maybe that’s what Phebe and I need--- a purpose again---something to devote ourselves to again, like raising a child together. But then maybe the burdens of parenting in later years would just end up making things worse between us. Another worry that keeps creeping into my mind is what’s going to happen to Hiram Palfrey’s farm now that it‘s on the verge of being seized. Had this thought I needed to talk to Porch Rot about getting his son Phil’s body dug out of the well and giving him a proper resting place before it‘s too late. I keep thinking once Hiram’s farm is flipped to developers and the dozers start ripping the ground apart, that filled-in well won’t be much of a resting place at all. I think Phil needs to come out of that spot one way or another. I just need to work up the nerve to go talk to Hiram, tell him he should do something before it’s too late. Or let me do something even. Hell, I’ll dig him out at this point. I don’t care. I live for trouble.