I said, “He doesn’t stutter anymore.”

The doctor replied, “When did John stutter?”

I left the hospital. As I drove away, I thought, John is nuts.

October 16, 2006

Well, there is some justice in the world. The nominations for the National Book Award were announced. A Gentle Death is on the list. Leon called me and breathlessly confided he’d known the news for a week but hadn’t been allowed to leak it to anyone. Right. No matter. It’s not that I care about the prize itself. But it will boost sales.

I’m still at the hunting lodge. I feel inspired to use this time to write, to collect my thoughts. Find myself thinking about ’Gitte. How is it that beauty can endure for so long? I haven’t seen her in what, thirty years, and yet she has the same hold on me she had when I was just a kid. What makes beauty so powerful? How far from symmetry does beauty have to stray for it to be less than beauty? Isn’t that how art is judged? The elements must fit together harmoniously to create the whole. ’Gitte is like that. I can’t get her out of my mind. Crazy. If I could only touch her, for just a moment.

March 19, 1978

The unexpected becomes the norm. It’s all happening now. I can feel it, like surfing a tidal wave. And it’s up to me to take it all. Blake knows a movie producer who wants to buy one of my stories. For twenty-five thousand dollars!

I hang out down at Max’s every night. Sometimes I have nosebleeds in the morning from all the blow. Makes no difference. The hand of God, the hand of God, nothing can stop the hand of God. My spit is golden, my jism is golden. I’m like some ancient king, even my hair and fingernails are holy.

It’s important to get really fucking drunk at least once a week. To clean the slate. Renew the spirit by obliterating the spirit. I am the Phoenix! To catch the pulse of the universe in my alcohol-saturated veins. To scream and laugh and dance like a lunatic. Like a religious experience. Except my church is a shithole bar on Spring Street. My holy sacraments are speed runs and drunken fights and quick sex with strangers. Fighting and fucking is what God made me for. And writing. And writing.

Got eight stitches in Roosevelt Hospital last night because Zim and I decided to hang out in Times Square. We were walking along 44th Street and this sleazoid emerges from the shadow of a doorway and wanted to know if Zim and I “like girls.” The guy said he “has girls.” All we had to do is follow him! Zim and I did the sideways glance bit knowing full well that there were no “girls.” But what the fuck, why not? Nice night for something, whatever came down. We followed this asshole out of Times Square down Eighth Avenue past the darkened post office to an abandoned building. While we were trotting along, the hustler’s like, “You guys visiting the city?” Zim’s like, “Yeah.” And the creep was like, “What do you guys do for a living?” Zim said, “Computer sales.” The guy was like, “Yeah? A lot of money in that?” Zim said, “You better believe it.”