A Madwoman's Diary

by Lawrence Block

Things are so much simpler for Jennifer Starr.

  21 February—Sunday

  No entry since Thursday. Sat down prepared to write and made a mistake. Read through what I had written so far.

  Embarrassment at my own words. Not shame. No shame for either the self-revelation or the occasionally forbidden words. Nothing on these pages I haven’t previously shaped in thought.

  What I felt was not shame but exposure. Arlene sprawled naked on the neatly typed page. Thighs wide apart, holding her labia open for the camera of her own inner vision.

  Felt a great urge to destroy these pages. Like selling the store and fleeing Brooklyn. Running from the past. Satchel Paige—”Don’t look back, something might be gaining on you.” Don’t even think back lest you sense the pursuer’s presence in your wake.

  Think this verbal diarrhea may be important. Read one of a series of articles in tonight’s Post on group therapy and encounter sessions. Read something last week on Women’s Lib and their consciousness-raising sessions. Couldn’t handle any of that. If I were invisible, if I could watch and listen, but not to function in that context, not me, never.

  Think this may be serving a similar purpose for me, and safe because it is between me and me, with the typewriter as silent permissive nondirective therapist.

  I block even now. Wrote nothing yesterday, and so resolved to place each entry where it will be safe not merely from intruders but from my own eyes The radiator has a cover with a hinged top. Beneath the top is a tray, slightly coated with rust, which one may fill with water to raise the humidity on arid winter nights. I’ve turned off that radiator, turned it off when I moved in. The one in the bathroom is enough to heat this little place. Yesterday I put my dozen pages of typescript in that tray, face down, and closed the hinged top. When I finish this, these pages will be added to the stack.

  I wish I had written something yesterday. If only a line, a description of the weather, anything. I’ll try to do something every day from now on. It irks me, having missed the 19th of February.

  Did today’s Double-Crostic in less than an hour. They’re so much more gratifying to solve than the usual puzzles. It’s a matter of cracking a code, of using the definitions to get words in the text and vice versa, until there is a sudden breakthrough with everything falling together, revealing itself. At the end it becomes a matter of filling in the last blanks as quickly as one can move the pencil. I always finish them, though.

  I’m very good at them. I’m a clever person, logical and intuitive, with a quick mind. Though no one knows it.

  And I am still not writing about Screw. It’s funny that I still can’t.

  22 February—Monday

  Worked late at the office. Just got home and too exhausted to bother with this, but I just yesterday resolved to do a line a day at least. It seems too soon to break a vow.

  Mr. Karlman left me virtually nothing to do all day, then called me in for two dozen rush letters that had to go out tonight. Didn’t even leave for dinner. He called Smiler’s and they sent over corned beef sandwiches and coffee and we ate at our desks.

  He wanted to drive me home. Would have driven me all the way out to Brooklyn but I insisted he drop me at the Union Square subway stop. He let me talk him into it. No one really wants to drive to Brooklyn in the middle of the night. I walked a few steps down into the stairwell, let him drive off, then took a cab home. $1.90 on the meter so I gave the driver $2.25. All to keep him from knowing I had moved to Manhattan.

  Next time I’ll know better. Make a fake phone call, tell him I’m staying over with a girl friend rather than traipse to Brooklyn late at night. And have him drop me around the corner from where I live.

  Why am I so devious when there’s nothing to be devious about?

  Happy birthday, George Washington.

  But today isn’t a holiday. The holiday was a week ago yesterday. And it was not a holiday at our office. We all came in, and got an extra day’s pay as a bonus.

  Who cares about this? Not I. Just wasting time to avoid what I can’t write about.

  Mr. Karlman is a flirt. I don’t know if he does anything about it or just wants to. Never flirts with me, though. Senses the futility of it, or else I don’t turn him on. Or both.

  Came closer than ever last night. En route to the subway. Said, “I hate to go home alone on a night like this. My place is so much more comfortable when there’s someone in it with me.”

  I said something suitably dumb about what a boon television is for lonely people. Purposely missing his pitch entirely. Caught a glimpse of his face, eyes turned heavenward in an attitude of God-what-a-simpleton-this-one-is. And will surely make no passes again at Arlene the Machine. At Krause the Mouse.

  I suspect Jennifer might have handled things somewhat differently.

  24 February—Wednesday

  Bought the new issue of Screw today. Went to Times Square for it, which is silly, and sought out my blind news dealer, which is also silly. But bought it directly, walking straight from the bus to the stand, placing two quarters in the outstretched palm and saying, “Screw,” saying the word without hesitation. Carried a larger purse which accommodated the paper easily. It’s probably even easier to buy the Post and tuck Screw inside it, but I’d worry about it falling out.

  I read the new issue all the way through. I am still shaky. I have been drinking coffee all night long and cannot be sure how much of my shakiness is from the coffee and how much from what I’ve read.

  It is not like dirty books. Some of it is funny and some of it is tasteless and some of it is off-putting but all of it is real, vividly real. It is obsessed as I am obsessed, and it is about all of the things that I am about, and it is real.

  It excites me but does not make me want to masturbate. I do so every night before I go to sleep, and the scenarios I write for Jennifer often grow from what I have read, but it gets me hot when I read it in rather a different way. It makes everything real and awakens me to possibilities, possibilities not for Jennifer in fantasy but for Arlene reborn as Jennifer in real three-dimensional life.

  The ads.

  I knew about the ads. I was not positive Screw carried them but knew they existed in underground sex tabloids of this sort. And in the bulletins of correspondence clubs. They sell those bulletins in the Times Square book stores; if I dared enter them I could buy one. They also sell them through the mail. The addresses are printed in Screw, if only I dared write for them.

  (I knew all of this from the books I read. About swingers. About the sexual underground. People who meet each other through the mails. I read about it in nonfiction paperbacks, in cheap novels. And drew up fantasies along these lines. But it is wholly different to read ads placed by real people and know that they exist, that they are only a phone call or a letter away.)

  I read the ads over and over, over and over. I know some of them by heart now. I play little games with myself, deciding which ads I would answer if I had the courage.

  What am I afraid of?

  Getting fucked? I have been fucked. I was fucked regularly by Gary, though less regularly toward the end of our marriage. I never hated it. I partly enjoyed it. Sometimes I had something that seemed vaguely like an orgasm. Never a real one. Just the frigid woman’s equivalent thereof.

  It was never me that got fucked. It was something that happened to the body I was wearing at the time. That cock in my cunt never touched Me.

  I don’t want to be fucked, or touched, or in any way open to anyone. I want to be an invisible watcher at an orgy. I want to be Jennifer.

  I don’t know what I want.

  I am so sad.

  25 February—Thursday

  My favorite ad has appeared in both my issues of Screw. Wednesday, when I pay fifty cents to a blind man for a third issue, I’ll be anxious to see if it still runs. As always, I’ll read the paper through from the beginning, skipping nothing, tantalizing myself like a child eating the cake first and saving the frosting for last. And I’ll even resist the i
mpulse to skim the classifieds. I’ll take them in turn, hoping to stumble on his ad.

  UNSATISFIED WOMEN—Why miss out on the best part of life? Divorced sensuous man, 42, attractive, athletic, will make sure your needs come first. Your pleasure is my aim. Tireless French expert, specialist in frigidity cures. Absolute discretion and understanding. Any race welcome, but you must be between 18 and 40. You needn’t be beautiful, but if you’re fat, please see Weight Watchers before you see me. My ex-wife was fat and it turns me off. Remember, if you can’t come, call Bill. TOTYG-13.

  Bill. 868-9413. That’s what the TOTYG-13 is all about, a phone number coded with letters. 868 is a Manhattan exchange. In Zone One, below 59th Street.

  He could live in this neighborhood. In this building. My exchange is 691. Are all the phones in a building on the same exchange? Bill.

  26 February—Friday

  I went to a chamber music concert on Barrow Street. I walked around the Village after I left the office and passed a music school where they have free weekly concerts. There was a sign advertising one tonight. I bought a souvlaki sandwich and ate it in the park and then went to the concert. Some violin sonatas with piano accompaniment. I don’t know enough about music to say if the performers were good or not. I enjoyed the concert.

  A man with a very neatly trimmed beard tried to make small talk with me as I was on my way out. I managed to exchange a few words with him about the music. He invited me to have coffee with him. I said I had to meet my husband but thanked him. He said something pleasant about maybe some other time. I don’t know if he noticed that I don’t wear a wedding ring.

  Perhaps I ought to wear a wedding ring.

  27 February—Saturday

  I wonder what Bill looks like. Attractive, athletic. I don’t know if he’s tall or short, young or old for his age. He is divorced and his ex-wife was fat. I am not fat, nor am I under eighteen or over forty.

  Is he handsome? Does he have long hair? Is he bald? Does he have a beard?

  I see men on the street and wonder if they might be Bill. Pointless musing.

  The man who spoke to me at the concert was no more than thirty-five at the outside. So he couldn’t have been Bill.

  Today is Saturday, and has twice the usual number of hours in it. And tomorrow is Sunday and the last day of the month. Next year will be leap year with an extra February day to endure.

  I hate all weekends, and month ends most of all.

  28 February—Sunday

  Twice this afternoon and once tonight I picked up my telephone and dialed 868-941. And each time, after a greater or lesser period of hesitation, I cradled the receiver without dialing the 3.

  I have almost twenty thousand dollars on deposit in a savings and loan around the corner from my office. I live on my salary. I don’t need that money for anything and so it sits there gathering unnecessary interest. The proceeds of Mother’s insurance. Never would have guessed she carried any.

  I could take that money and do something with it. I could find a psychiatrist, a good one, and I could go to him once a day five days a week and give him a chance at straightening me out. It’s not as if I needed the money for anything else.

  Or would it be easier to force myself to dial Bill’s number?

  Well, I did it. Got up from the typewriter and dialed 868-941 and, after the usual pause, dialed 3. The phone rang three times. I thought, after all this toe-wetting, he was not in. But he answered after the third ring.

  “Hello … hello … hello …”

  Krause the Mouse, careful to keep her breathing inaudible.

  “You know, there’s really nothing to be afraid of. If you can’t talk now, call me back when you’re ready.”

  I hung up.

  His voice is like his ad. He sounds honest, sympathetic, sincere. The adjectives on the page are banal. But he does. And he sounds very self-confident, a deep and strong voice. A person who could put other persons at ease.

  No Double-Crostic today, and the crossword puzzle was a bitch.

  1 March—Monday

  I went to the phone a few minutes ago. Put my finger in and out of the 8 hole, then dialed NERVOUS and let a recording tell me the time. My watch was two minutes fast. I always keep it two minutes fast. I dialed NERVOUS because I am.

  I think I could come with Bill. I think if I lay back and closed my eyes while he ate me, and let my mind wander as it does when I touch myself beneath the blankets, I think I could come. If I were sure that he would be content with that. His ad gives that impression.

  Perhaps he would expect to fuck me afterwards. I would not want that, and if I had to worry about the possibility it would keep me from relaxing, and thus from coming. It would be necessary to get everything straightened out beforehand.

  I’ll buy Screw the day after tomorrow. A promise to myself—or a promise of Arlene to Jennifer: If his ad is still running, I will call him.

  2 March—Tuesday

  I will have to find out just what is involved in getting a Post Office box. There are things I would like to order from advertisements in Screw. Various books and pictures. Also some sex devices. Dildoes and vibrators. I don’t know if I would enjoy them or not but I would like to find out.

  They sell them on Times Square, but even if I dared walk into one of those stores I could not possibly purchase a rubber cock for myself. I don’t even apologize for my reticence. How many women, however liberated, could do this?

  I won’t order things through the mail with my own name, or to this address. I could take a Post Office box in the name of Jennifer Starr. And I could pay for my orders with money orders in the name of J. Starr, and whoever filled my order would not even know I was a woman.

  Do you need identification to get a Post Office box?

  3 March—Wednesday

  His ad appeared in Screw again. There are also other ads that interest me. Couples who want to meet single girls. Other things. But Bill’s is the only ad I can imagine myself answering.

  I stalled all night, dialed his number a few minutes ago. Was so relieved when it was busy. It’s getting late now, and I can no doubt convince myself that it’s too late to disturb him.

  Perhaps he’s taken the phone off the hook. Perhaps as I type these lines his tongue is nibbling at a pink young clit.

  I swear I’ll call him tomorrow.

  4 March—Thursday

  Came right home from the office and called him immediately, fully prepared to talk to him. I won’t tell him my name or address or phone number. He won’t be able to see me. There is nothing to be afraid of and I am not afraid.

  Called him at a quarter to six and every fifteen minutes since then and it’s almost midnight and I’m giving up. The bastard isn’t home.

  5 March—Friday

  I just finished talking to Bill. I don’t drink, but if there were liquor in the apartment I would have a drink right now. It’s late and I’m sure the liquor stores are closed.

  I don’t really need it anyway.

  I want to put down the conversation as well as I can remember it before it slips away. I called every fifteen minutes from the time I got home. This time the line was constantly busy. I’m sure he took it off the hook. I kept calling because I knew sooner or later his guest would leave and he would hang up the phone. Unless she stayed all night.

  Around eleven I got through.

  Bill: Hello.

  Me: Hello. Is this Bill?

  Bill: Yes, it is. I was hoping you’d call.

  Me: But you don’t, I’m not someone you know.

  Bill: I was still hoping you’d call.

  Me: I called a few days ago. But I couldn’t talk. I sat there and couldn’t talk and finally hung up.

  Bill: Happens a lot of the time. Do you feel like talking now?

  Me: I think so.

  Bill: It’s a little scary, isn’t it? The unreality of two voices coming at each other over the wires. Why don’t you tell me a little about yourself?

  Me: Like what?
>
  Bill: Anything.

  Me: Uh. Let me think. My name is Jennifer and I live in Manhattan. I’m single. I live alone. I’m twenty-six years old. I—

  Bill: What’s your sign?Me: Uh, Virgo.

  Bill: I’m Leo, Scorpio rising, moon in Pisces.

  Me: I don’t know die rising and moon part, just the sun sign. I don’t pay much attention to it. I used to read my horoscope in the Post but I usually don’t bother.

  Bill: Uh-huh.

  Me: I’m five foot seven and weigh one-twenty-eight. I have dark hair and brown eyes. I’m not beautiful but I’m not ugly; I don’t think. I wear glasses for reading. My skin is good. I never had pimples or blackheads. I’m clever but no one knows it because I’m so timid. I suppose I’m the shyest person in the world. For days I kept dialing the first six digits of your phone number and hanging up. Or I picked up the phone to call you and called the time bureau instead. I do Double-Crostics in half an hour.

  Bill: In pen?

  Me: Pencil.

  Bill: Show-offs use a pen. I live on 35th Street near Fifth. Would you like to come over?

  Me: You mean now?

  Bill: Sure.

  Me: No.

  Bill: Okay.

  Me: I would like to but I can’t. I’m too nervous. I have to, I would want to, know in advance just what would happen. And I can’t even say what I want because of my nervousness. I’m shaking. I’m looking at my hand right now and the fingers are trembling.

  Bill: Would you like to give me your number and I’ll call you back in a few minutes?

  Me: No. I don’t want anyone to have my number.

  Bill: Would you like to call me, then?

  Me: I would tense up and not call. No. This is important to me. Oh, God, I’m surprised you put up with this hysteria instead of just hanging up. Just give me a minute. I want to get a cigarette.