From my Journal November 1999

Wednesday - 12:17AM -  Thanksgiving Eve

What is it?  Holidays?  Full moon?  Shit, who knows.  But something has everything all turned upside down.  P, who got his disability check this afternoon, was robbed tonight when he left his motel room to walk across the parking lot to buy a soda from a machine.  Of course, he was staying in the cheapest--and therefore the sleaziest--motel in Macon.  Anyway, he called me at about 10:00PM, hysterical and crying.  He had called the police, but they had not arrived.  I woke Clint and told him I was going to go pick P up and bring him to our house for the night.  Clint, cranky, said he was going with me.  So, the two of us went down to the Macon Inn to find P, calmer but still on the verge of hysterics, waiting for the police.  From that point, it was really a mess.  There were two black guys standing around staring in our direction.  It was creepy, but I was just mad enough to stare right back, meet their gazes with one of my own.  When one of them had the audacity to ask me how I was doing, I spat out at him that I was not doing so well, as my son had been robbed.  


Then the police cruiser arrived, and when the officer stepped from the car, he asked P, “What are you doing here?”  Then he looked at us with no small amount of wonder.  That set the tone for the report.  I then realized why it had taken so long for the police to arrive.  They don’t routinely get calls from places like that, and when they do, they don’t respond unless someone presses them.  (The owner/manager--an Indian--evaporated into thin air when P mentioned the Police). God, I am naive.

Clint was silent on the trip back over here--P in tow--except to say that P had no business in the place to begin with.......................  

When we got here and Clint realized that I was actually going to let P spend the, night he disappeared.  I found him out in the front, pacing.  He said he was going to the beach--right then.  I begged him not to go, said I would take P to a motel if he didn’t want him in our house.  God, what I am I going to do about this?  It’s so terrible to be torn between what’s good for my marriage and doing what I think is right where P is concerned.   Even if Parrish had been stupid enough to move into that dive, he didn’t ASK to be robbed.  It’s this a time when it’s appropriate for me to help?  

About 11PM, I drove P over to the Hampton Inn, where it took about twenty minutes for him to register because three cars pulled up just in front of us.  I left him there and came home to face Clint.

When I got here, he was sitting at the computer, playing his computer game........................  I walked over to him and told him how sorry I am, told him that I need him, told him that if he wanted me to make a choice between him and P, I would do it, choose him and abandon P.  That’s what he really wants me to do, I think, but he won’t put me through that.  It all boils down to this:  Clint loves me more than he hate Parrish.   He gave me his word that he would help to make things go smoothly for Thanksgiving.  I don’t know how I’ll ever make this up to him.  It’s clear to me that he will never be able to tolerate P, and that’s a fact I will have to accept and find a way to live with it...............................

After we talked, I started to cry, and I thought I was not going to be able to stop.  It wasn’t loud sobbing crying, but that quite kind when your heart aches so strongly that you whole body hurts, and tears just pour down your face like a waterfall.  Clint has always been good about letting me cry without asking a lot of moronic questions, but I hid most of it from him, because it just fuels his hatred and resentment of P...................