I’M GOING TO MAKE it. I’m going to make it, Man. I’m going to make it.
I’m still over the west ridge, hunkerin down on my daybed, night bed, trying to meditate, trying to see into this darkness, this true dark of true dark. What is it? What is evil? In the sixties we were taught there is no such dichotomy as good-evil. Only shades of gray. In the seventies even that became irrelevant. But how? How did civilization—American culture anyway—lose control? Lose sight? Lose insight?
What right do I have saying, I’m going to make it? I should have died at Dai Do, or at Loon, or on Storrow Drive. What I did to Linda and to my daughters is almost exactly what Bobby’s father did to him except where Wap’s old man was chased away by Miriam and whatever demons he had, I only had the demons—and Jimmy.
My daughters were one-day-old and I un-assed their AO. If Grandpa Wapinski hadn’t called my Pa, and then gone and seen Linda, told them both I was disturbed by the war, which I don’t know how he knew because we didn’t ever but that once talk about it, and if he hadn’t “paid” Linda all those wages I never earned, I’d probably never of come back, never of been allowed back.
I did leave Linda a note. I guess I’m trying here to justify what I did. I left a last adios that said something like:
Babe,
I’ve gone to get help. I’ll be away a while. I have to get my head together—not just for me but for you and those two beautiful girls you brought into the world. I’m afraid for you and them.
Maybe I didn’t include the last line ... but I wanted to. Maybe I didn’t write that note at all ... but I think I did.