Fool’s Gold?

June 12, 1982

There are peace marches in New York today.

Singers sing. The spirit which made the Sixties the Sixties lights up on the cold walls of these old skyscrapers.

Meanwhile, us old folks lie on our couches and suffer with our weary and aching bones, made all too aware that this ain’t the Sixties no more.

Hank fell asleep on Pauly’s couch after some free family picnic with Pauly’s family. Then, he went home for another nap.

The cycle swings back to what it was; but we are not the same. We no longer scream and vent in our insanity.

Pauly tends his garden like a good little wizard, trying to spread his magic like seed, but doesn’t realize he can’t build his mystique that way.

Meanwhile, I clean my little cave, trying to put all the pieces of my life in order, trying to find perspective. But I am not the same.

I keep thinking Louise will see this when and if I ever get to see her (she’s returned to Scranton after her run to Portland) and I think she might flee again, seeing me as a lost cause, while I continue to cling to this one loose thread I hope will lead to love.

I don’t want to die like this, alone, living in a cold water flat in Passaic, New Jersey.

I don’t want to waste the next ten years digging graves for dying friends, like Hank – who despite predictions managed to live passed 25, and now 30, but raises doubts about making it passed 40. I even have my doubts about Pauly, although I’m sure Garrick will outlive us all, his life punishment to live as an eternal hermit, watching each of us pass away.

The sad part of life is watching all those who you care for most pass on with you condemned to push on alone, growing old on a park bench feeding pigeons bits of bread.

I keep thinking this may be my last chance, and that Louise has come back into my life to save me. But then, this may only be the glitter of fool’s gold, a lonely man’s false hope, struggling with the illusion that I might yet find happiness in this cold world.

Louise has returned to this part of the world, but I’m really ready.

I never will be. So let her come. Maybe part of the Sixties is still smoldering in my blood, enough again to inspire love.