Richard Grayson

When I was a teenager, I never imagined life could be this good.

In Sugar Bowl at dinner, I was angling for some sympathy, so I told Simon that no one had ever really loved me. “Tough luck!” he said, and we both broke up laughing.

I remember something Helen once told me: “Most people don’t break up because they stop loving the other person. They break up because they can’t get along.”

A kid about 19 in a leather jacket passed by and asked us if we had a light. After we said no, he kept walking but looked back. “I thought he was going to mug us,” I said. “No,” Elihu said, “I think he was cruising you.”

But Morty said she was only seventeen, and besides, he doesn’t want to fall in love: “It messes you up so that you can’t sleep or do your work or anything.”

Everyone was running around as the scent of revolution was again in the air, although Stanley said to me, “We’ve both seen better revolutions in the old days.”

She’s never lied to me about orgasms, she said, although at times I almost drove her to do so. It occurred to me that maybe Simon sort of led his old girlfriend to fake her orgasms.

These have been two wonderful years, and now it’s time to move on. . . I’m willing to lose Ronna as a girlfriend if it will prevent my losing her as a friend.

I think a couple of years ago, the criticism my story received in the MFA Workshop would have torn me up – but now I realize they’re only criticizing my story, not me.

I asked her if she was angry with me for leaving her, and she said, “I think you’re projecting your feelings onto me.”

A sea of youthful humanity filled the raceway. One cop told us that over 70,000 people had showed up. The first performer was Jesse Colin Young, and then the Beach Boys came on.

Over coffee, Paul told Robbie, Josh and me that in the twelve years he and Pat were married, there was “good shit, bad shit and medium shit.”

It’s curious how some things, some people, stay with you. In the shower a little while ago, I found myself singing “Brainchild California,” the song that Stacy wrote and sang.

It was so gratifying to know that I’m alone and responsible for myself; adulthood has more concrete joys than childhood any day.

It was exciting to do it in public, outdoors, for once. I think Ronna found my aggressiveness surprising but she responded with passion.

We watched TV in her bedroom and started making love again. It was one of the most intense sexual encounters that I’ve ever had. Ronna said she nearly passed out…I don’t think I’ve ever felt so close to another person’s body.

Yesterday in the hospital, Vito asked me, “Is it manly to cry?” “Of course,” I said quietly. “Then I think I’m about to be very manly,” he said.

Ronna told me that last night she dreamed she was in bed with both me and Ivan.