Told Phebe I was going to head out to visit Percy for a while, but what I was really setting out to do was talk to his neighbor there, Cupcake, try to let her know I really didn’t want to get stuck at this point fixing her Winnebago---that I didn't want to hear any complaining about it neither through her boyfriend, my probation officer. But Cupcake wasn’t home. Percy said she hasn’t been seen in the last 2 days. I guess Cupid Boy has been stopping by at all hours day and night knocking on the girl’s door.
I think one of the times he stopped by she had another guy in there with her, but they acted like no one was home and just let the poor guy keep knocking. It was so annoying!
So anyway, my whole mission in going over there was to unburden myself of an obligation someone thought I made to them, and what does Percy do? He brings up his damn Mythopoetic Men’s Group/ Get Revenge On My Old Boyfriend Cricket Team.
Didn’t you say you’d help me get your relative Fauntleroy to play on my cricket team this summer?
No!
Really Joseph, after all that I’ve done for you! Opening my home to you in the dead of Winter when you had no where else to go!
Makes me almost want to go back to taking the meds Swami Hard Salami says I need to stay on.
Shit! I think I was supposed to have an appointment with him today too!
I tried to write some on the Phebe Reynolds novel so I could have something to show for myself, but all my fucked up brain kept thinking about was how an airplane wing creates lift by forcing air to travel a longer distance over the top of the wing than the bottom. That was from a book I read in Percy’s library when I was living there.
How do trust a fucking airplane to stay in the air relying on such a stupid principle, I ask?
Yeah, fucked up brain alright. . .
Monday, September 5, 2011
Sunday, September 4, 2011
03/19/01
Cupid Boy got on my ass today about not reporting my change of address to him. Fuck head.
I didn’t change my address, I say, I went home. I’m back at my legal address. You know where to find me!
And then he lets me know he’s unhappy about me promising to fix his girlfriend’s Winnebago and then not following through.
Do you realize she has only to the end of the month to get it off the lot or else it could be sold at auction?
So what, I think to myself, you gonna make fixing Cupcake’s fuckmobile a term and condition of my probation?
You really should make an effort to live up to your promises, he says.
Fuck head.
Did some serious daydreaming before. Tried to imagine life around here during the Revolutionary War. Thought maybe I could get somewhere with the story I’m supposed to be writing about Phebe’s namesake Phebe Reynolds. But it didn’t work. My mind slipped back further in time---way back further--- to the retreat of the glaciers. To when the mastodon were still roaming around here, being hunted by Paleolithic man. There is only one mastodon left anywhere. A tribe tries to protect it as a sacred being but it proves impractical to guard. Fearing it will inevitably be lost to a rival tribe, it is sacrificed and consumed. The last of the mighty mastodon.
Not sure that would steam up Phebe’s panties though.
I didn’t change my address, I say, I went home. I’m back at my legal address. You know where to find me!
And then he lets me know he’s unhappy about me promising to fix his girlfriend’s Winnebago and then not following through.
Do you realize she has only to the end of the month to get it off the lot or else it could be sold at auction?
So what, I think to myself, you gonna make fixing Cupcake’s fuckmobile a term and condition of my probation?
You really should make an effort to live up to your promises, he says.
Fuck head.
Did some serious daydreaming before. Tried to imagine life around here during the Revolutionary War. Thought maybe I could get somewhere with the story I’m supposed to be writing about Phebe’s namesake Phebe Reynolds. But it didn’t work. My mind slipped back further in time---way back further--- to the retreat of the glaciers. To when the mastodon were still roaming around here, being hunted by Paleolithic man. There is only one mastodon left anywhere. A tribe tries to protect it as a sacred being but it proves impractical to guard. Fearing it will inevitably be lost to a rival tribe, it is sacrificed and consumed. The last of the mighty mastodon.
Not sure that would steam up Phebe’s panties though.
03/18/01
Phebe didn’t bring up the subject this morning of me falling asleep on the couch. I’m sure she was wondering why I didn’t stay with her, but she wasn‘t pressing me to say. She just tried to flatter me with a bunch of compliments. Said she noticed I lost a lot of weight, that all those months in the cold trailer eating oatmeal seemed to do some good. She also said she was impressed with my knowledge of the Revolutionary War used in my novel. Yeah, if only the novel existed. In reality it was all information I had heard from Percy, but how was she going to know that.
Yeah, the Iron Act was a big factor in the Revolutionary War, I regurgitated. I thought for sure Phebe would be bored out of her mind, but she was listening intently. I think it was enacted in 1750. The British had depleted much of their forests by then and relied on their colonies to supply pig iron to make finished metal products in England. Pig Iron is sort of the raw unfinished iron that comes out of the ore when you heat it up. You need a whole lot of wood energy to produce it. The finished metal products come from pounding and shaping the pig iron in a forge. The British wouldn’t allow that pounding and shaping process to take place here, you see, because they had factories all set up in England they wanted to keep supplied. They also wanted to profit from selling the finished goods back to the colonists and tax it as an import item. But the temptation was great for an iron mine owner here in this area to take some of the pig iron they were producing and take the next step in manufacturing in defiance of the law. Over in Bellvale the British destroyed a forge, and when the war broke out, most of the people in the neighborhood joined the rebellion as they had remembered what happened to their forge. It made the difference in keeping the iron mining region in the hands of the Continental Army. The people might have stayed loyal otherwise.
That’s good, Phebe said, but I hope you don’t sound like a professor like that in the novel.
Yeah, the Iron Act was a big factor in the Revolutionary War, I regurgitated. I thought for sure Phebe would be bored out of her mind, but she was listening intently. I think it was enacted in 1750. The British had depleted much of their forests by then and relied on their colonies to supply pig iron to make finished metal products in England. Pig Iron is sort of the raw unfinished iron that comes out of the ore when you heat it up. You need a whole lot of wood energy to produce it. The finished metal products come from pounding and shaping the pig iron in a forge. The British wouldn’t allow that pounding and shaping process to take place here, you see, because they had factories all set up in England they wanted to keep supplied. They also wanted to profit from selling the finished goods back to the colonists and tax it as an import item. But the temptation was great for an iron mine owner here in this area to take some of the pig iron they were producing and take the next step in manufacturing in defiance of the law. Over in Bellvale the British destroyed a forge, and when the war broke out, most of the people in the neighborhood joined the rebellion as they had remembered what happened to their forge. It made the difference in keeping the iron mining region in the hands of the Continental Army. The people might have stayed loyal otherwise.
That’s good, Phebe said, but I hope you don’t sound like a professor like that in the novel.
03/17/01
I decided to go over to Stash Skimington’s house this morning, try again to have a man-to-man talk with him. This time he was home, but he wouldn’t open the door for me.
I’m under advisement not to speak with you, he says. I understand you’ve been spreading rumors around town that I was involved in your trailer fire. It’s just not true!
Why the hell are you calling my wife late at night? I ask without receiving a reply. Why the hell are you under advisement from someone if you haven’t done nothing?
When I got back home, Phebe said we needed to go to Newburgh with the baby to visit Betty. Turns out Betty had a stroke. They’re not sure whether she’ll ever be well enough to care for Mookie again. She’s paralyzed on her right side. Doesn’t look like the custody case now will be much of a fight at all.
Phebe broke out a bottle of wine tonight after the baby was put down for bed. Said St. Patrick’s Day shouldn’t pass without a little celebration. She was in an amorous mood for sure. She kept asking me to read from my novel I was writing. Apparently the story was a turn on for her.
For a moment a word picture formed in my head---Phebe Reynolds stood at the arched entry of her father’s iron forge while the morning fog lifted from the surrounding Ramapo Mountains---and then just as quickly vanished.
Maybe another night, I say, my voice trailing off, I’m in the middle of revision work.
And then I came out here to Phebe’s computer, leaving her alone in her room, and wrote this down.
Yeah, I’m one for romance story writing for sure.
I’m under advisement not to speak with you, he says. I understand you’ve been spreading rumors around town that I was involved in your trailer fire. It’s just not true!
Why the hell are you calling my wife late at night? I ask without receiving a reply. Why the hell are you under advisement from someone if you haven’t done nothing?
When I got back home, Phebe said we needed to go to Newburgh with the baby to visit Betty. Turns out Betty had a stroke. They’re not sure whether she’ll ever be well enough to care for Mookie again. She’s paralyzed on her right side. Doesn’t look like the custody case now will be much of a fight at all.
Phebe broke out a bottle of wine tonight after the baby was put down for bed. Said St. Patrick’s Day shouldn’t pass without a little celebration. She was in an amorous mood for sure. She kept asking me to read from my novel I was writing. Apparently the story was a turn on for her.
For a moment a word picture formed in my head---Phebe Reynolds stood at the arched entry of her father’s iron forge while the morning fog lifted from the surrounding Ramapo Mountains---and then just as quickly vanished.
Maybe another night, I say, my voice trailing off, I’m in the middle of revision work.
And then I came out here to Phebe’s computer, leaving her alone in her room, and wrote this down.
Yeah, I’m one for romance story writing for sure.
03/16/01
Phebe kept spying on me when I was writing yesterday on her computer. She kept coming in the room, looking over my shoulder at the computer screen.
Whatcha doin‘? She asks.
Oh. . . nothing. . . really, I reply.
A little bird told me you’ve been spending all Winter on the computer writing about everybody, she says.
A little bird? I’m not writing about everybody, I lie, I’m writing a novel.
A novel? really? May I read it?
No. . . you can‘t.
Why not?
Because. . . it’s not finished. . .it’s. . .in a. . .rough draft.
Well, why did I see my name on the screen?
Because the story is about your namesake, Phebe Reynolds.
Really? Historical fiction?
Yessiree!
What happens?
Oh. . .uhm. . .well. . .see. . .I take a lot of poetic license. . . It’s kinda like a Romeo and Juliet story.
Romeo and Juliet story? Really? I like that.
Phebe Reynolds in my story belongs to a family who had their Iron Forge destroyed by the British for not complying with the Iron Act. A rival forge owner with a handsome son turned them in---
And when the war breaks out Phebe’s family sides with the Patriots while the family of the rival forge owner remains loyal to the crown? Phebe asks.
That’s exactly right, my dear. Exactly right. That’s the premise I came up with. I’m still hammering out the finer details: Phebe Reynolds gaining intelligence from her secret lover to smuggle the forged links needed to create the great chain that spanned the Hudson past Claudius Smith’s men in Sterling Forest, so on and so forth.
You have to finish that so I can read it! She says excitedly, leaving me to my work. Maybe you’ll be the next Nicholas Sparks!
Okie dokie.
Little bird? Maybe that’s like a Freudian slip or something, description of Stash Skimington’s anatomy.
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