The Cambridge Chronicles

Finally I hear from Ken. He returns a message left at the est office. He is not pleased at my asking him about missing the appointment with Linda. I feel this great tension in the air. His response is to accuse me of wanting to be right. That I have other motives. Its true. It is something I've looked forward to with more than a little glee. Especially after his trying to get me to take est last SAturday night. I am shaking all over, and have a knotted stomach. He had a gritted teeth and tight fist tone in his voice. He accuses me of having some other tone in my voice. What are you really trying to say, you covert asshole, you self-righteous fault finder, he demands. I have to admit to less than honorable motives. His response is all out of proportion. I do not plan to make him wrong all the rest of his life. I can say that I am guilty of similar failures and do not enjoy having them pointed out. But these est people have this way of trying to get out from under what they have dumped on themselves. I know I have to communicate this to Linda, he says. Do you believe that, he asks. Well, I say. But don't get a chance to finish. So I sense that it was something more than his just finding another apartment. Slowly this tension and anxiety in me subsides. Its like the old bear jumping at me from behind a bush. A thing that comes up in my dreams. The same scared feeling. Fear. But just from the tone of a person's voice. It was all est jargon. He was very angry, but very controlled. I believe there is more behind it. Who knows exactly what. Last Saturday night I told him how est was one of those surface ways of dealing with life. That I expected contact with us here would cause deeper things to start bubbling to the surface for him. There must be something very hard under the skin of these successful est graduates. I ask him about my notes. He finds them more than interesting and wants to talk more about them with me but is pressed for time at the moment. Simone and Jack wonder how much of this reaction was provoked by me. She is interested to find out when she sees Ken next. So he will or won't call me or Simone.

Nadine called me yesterday. She wasn't feeling well and wanted to have lunch with me. She has an interesting situation with a man. He wants her to spend more time with him, and also be monogamous. Meanwhile he is going out with several women. He is always giving her ultimatiums. Monogamy is nonsense, she tells me. But she also does not use her knowledge. She's not able to act on this. She has this very childish way of explaining why she wants to have lunch with me. It is a physical reaction like a shy child. Swinging the shoulders back and forth, a big smile, head held high in the air and tilted back, raising a shoulder up to her chin. And a slightly high-pitched tone in her voice. She is very self-conscious in telling all this to me. Next day, today, she comes by and sleeps here for several hours. Then to an appointment with Linda about staying/living with her on Norfolk Street. Later in the evening she is still there. She was going to leave for NYC right after the meeting.

An interesting story about Darby, Nancie's friend. It seems she and her boyfriend were robbed one night at knife-point. He got freaked out by the incident for some reason. Perhaps he felt like a failure for letting it happen, and broke up with her. Its not clear why. Probably just looking for a reason. He claims not to be able to handle the situation with her. It could also be that Darby is now thinking of getting a permit to carry a gun. This sort of thing causes me to start sweating and turn red.

Simone has a gun incident this weekend at her psychosynthesis course. A woman from Wyoming has a boyfriend that she's trying to get away from, and who also carries a gun. Simone started to get in a position of befriending her. More sweat and seeing red. I get this feeling of panic and practically beat her over the head if she doesn't say right now that she will end anything happening. Later she tells me that the woman was kicked out of the program because something might have happened, or so the group leaders thought. Simone tried to use her new skills in therapy to assure me she could handle the situation. Sure, like flies influence the direction of an elephant stampede. She has, for that time at least, a completely false sense of knowledge. Maniacs and criminals are the only people who carry guns like this sort of person. Therapy and reason does not work with them. But I hear no more of the whole thing.

Judy Levy shows up at the Turtle Cafe as we are about to leave. Me, Simone, and Jack. She's with Bruce, a boyfriend of many years ago. He got married, had a child, and now separated or divorced. He called me about a job, that's all, just a job, a few days ago, she informs me. This I don't believe, is my response. You're way off, she assures me. I tell her this evening that he certainly was looking for more than just a job. I whisper in her ear, just as we are leaving, call and tell me all about it, ok. She says yes. Its a bit uncomfortable with her.