Date: Wednesday, 10/22/69

This was a good day. A long day one too. I’m upset with Charles but I don’t want to only write about that because so much good happened today that I want to keep that in mind.

So, Jason and I got along well today. In fact, I now believe we’ve broken through the new teacher syndrome. I found that very gratifying.

Like most Wednesdays, I ran the whole course with the men and women teams. I love the sound of the whole team out for a run—of our breathing, the placing of so many feet on the paths. It’s an exciting sound, makes my blood race in time with my feet.

An early morning run like that is the best way to start the day. I feel invincible. As if nothing can go wrong in my life. When my body works that hard love comes pouring out of every pore. I know that no matter what happens, I will survive. Even if I don’t like what is happening, I will be fine.

Alex set a faster pace than usual today. We all met the challenge and worked harder. When we finished, most of us were so “up” that we could have done anything we wanted to do—created world peace, found the cure for the common cold or cancer, been our own rocket to the moon.

The best part of running isn’t the way my body looks but the way it feels. I’m often asked if I’ve read the short story, “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.”

The people who ask that question haven’t read the story. It’s obvious. The story isn’t about what it’s like to be a long distance runner. It’s about something more substantial than that—about power and who has it and why.

I never could have written that down so clearly were it not for Charles. He has really helped me to understand this idea of class warfare much better than I ever saw it before.

After classes, I decided to do what Charles had assigned me to do for the party—buy the decorations. That meant I had to put my belongings together, leave them in his Jeep and hot foot it to Town to tutor Jason before shopping. Then get to his place for dinner.

I couldn’t help but feel “Halloweeny” as I walked into Town from the College. The spooky sound of the acorns dropping onto the road, the wind tearing through the spindly branches, the sight of their long fingers scratching the sky made it feel very much like I had walked into a scary movie. By the time I reached the cemetery on the border of the Town, the scene was completely set. I rushed along; I still had a long way to go to get to the Day Care Center and then to the stores. I got so frightened by the cemetery though that the invincibility disappeared.

Jason was glad to see me. I think I smelled like the great outdoors when I walked inside. They keep it warm there and cozy for the kids. To me, it felt like I had walked into a furnace. Once we settled down to work, I forgot the temperature and the time. We had to buckle down because Jason was preparing for a test this Friday. I didn’t want to rush him and I didn’t want him to fail the test. I had created these puppets out of popsicle sticks for him to use as he studied. He had a much easier time learning when he had to teach the puppets how to multiply than he did when I tried to teach him.

By the time I left him, I was as certain he would pass that test.

I raced back towards Town and the stores. Now I feared the stores would be closed.

At least the Town is small and the stores close to each other. Partly because the College is an arts school, these stores are well stocked with all that I needed. But they are really expensive. I had a long detailed list from Charles. Lists by Charles aren’t just lists of what to get but also what not to get. That’s why they are long. And wonderfully written and helpful.

Having such a detailed list meant I got through shopping much more quickly than if he had left it up to me. I paid for everything with the money he encloses with his lists. I felt relieved that for the most part, I had finished everything I had to do before going to his place for dinner.

Suddenly, I felt light headed and nauseous.

As I tried to push open the door, I fell to one knee. Lauren was in the store and saw me fall. I hadn’t known what was going on but my body knew that I had done too much. Thank God for Lauren.

Lauren grabbed my arm and helped me pick up the spilled bags of supplies. She offered to take me to the cafe for a cup of coffee. I know I looked awful and could have used that coffee but decided to forego it and get home as fast as I could. I calculated how much time I had spent in my walks, the tutoring and the shopping and realized I needed to get home for dinner.

Charles wouldn’t have been angry if I had been late. I wanted to get home and eat and lie down. I was wasted, I had spent it all today.

I asked Lauren to help me get home. She told me she would have to go back to the Day Care Center to get her car. I realized she didn’t know I meant to Charles’ apartment. I told her that I didn’t mean the College but that I had a friend in Town and I was going there.

From the look on her face, it was clear she was confused. I would have explained it to her if I had had the energy but I knew complicated stories weren’t possible at that moment.

In order to talk about something as she helped me to Charles’ apartment, I asked her, “Have other students from the College tutored at the Day Care Center before?”

“Yes,” she said, “and they really liked it. I think they recognized that they were helping someone with way less than they had and it made them feel good. Though I don’t think that’s why you’re doing it, is it?”

Her comments took me by surprise and since I couldn’t come up with a smart reply, I told her the truth.“I have no idea why I’m working there. I know I enjoy it and because I said I would, I’m there.”

She chuckled, squeezed my arm and we kept trudging along.

“I don’t usually buy supplies at that art store. They overcharge for the simple things I need. When we don’t order enough through our normal supplier, I have to go to them. I wish they would give us a discount but I understand. They’re in a tight financial spot. Without the students at the College, they’d be out of business as would most of the restaurants and cafes and other small businesses here.”

I hadn’t thought of that before—the relationship between the Town and the College. I wondered if Charles had. While I walked with Lauren, the cooler air revived me. That helped take some of my load off Lauren.

When we arrived at the back stairs that lead up to Charles’ apartment, I smiled a thank you. And left her standing down there in the dark. My manners had left me along with all my energy. I should have invited her upstairs with me but I felt desperate for Charles and wanted to be alone with him. I ran up the stairs with all the packages.

I got inside the door and saw Charles in the kitchen. I left the packages by the door and threw myself into Charles’ arms. He looked surprised at how glad I was to see him but not sorry about it.

I wish I knew Charles well enough to be able to predict what he will do or say. He’s still a mystery to me, his wealth, the places he’s been to, the things he knows about and has studied. Entering into his world has been like learning how to play in a completely new world where the rules are similar but not the same and people speak the same language but often mean very different things.

I wanted when I returned from the store to make us dinner but he had already made it. Everything was ready. We sat down immediately. I was starving. I also enjoyed how domestic our lives together had become. Something inside me wanted to blurt out the whole story about tutoring Jason. Put on a song and dance rendition of meeting Lauren and all the kids and then having been mistaken for someone coming for a job and then getting the job and working with Jason and his imaginary trumpet. All of that seemed like good material to set to music.

However, something told me that Charles wasn’t the sort of person who enjoyed song and dance routines. Pops would have loved it. Charles, I fear, not so much.

Having lost that one form of storytelling, I lost all ideas about how best to present it to him and so blurted out this confusing, silly and ridiculous account of something that I happen to care about very much.

It lit something in him and he went off like an angry man whose wife had cheated on him without first explaining to her husband why she was dissatisfied. I wasn’t dissatisfied. I wasn’t accusing him of anything.

On one count, he was correct. I never told him about it from the start. I didn’t because, as I see it now, he wouldn’t have agreed with me that it was something I had to do. When it came to me running in competitions with the cross country team, he had objected and I had listened to him and followed his wishes. Not because I didn’t want to compete, I did, but because I knew about the time commitment, he was right and I wouldn’t have been able, for example, to go to the march in Washington or home with him for Thanksgiving.

The tutoring job, to me, is completely different. But perhaps not different enough for me to have told him about it from the start.

As we argued, for that is precisely what we were doing, we cleaned the apartment. I don’t know how we figured out how to use the energy this way but for a while now, whenever we disagree, we clean together.

By the time everything was dusted, arranged and put away, the argument hadn’t been settled. He thought I should quit and that I didn’t need the money or to take the time away from my own work to tend to the needs of some little kid who wouldn’t be able to rise out of the poverty he was in because some “nice girl from the College took pity on him and taught him his multiplication tables.”

At some point, my work ethic saved me from continuing the argument. I bit my tongue and went to the now clean living room and sat down on the couch to work and to sleep. He continued to “explain” to me how using my guilt to help someone was doing, perhaps, the right thing but for all the wrong reasons and it was sure to blow up in my face.

He continued talking but I wasn’t listening. At times I think he’s not talking to me at all but to someone else he had a relationship with and she is making him miserable while I am doing absolutely nothing. Is it like this with most couples? Does one live in a battle with some phantom girlfriend while the current girlfriend battles her old boyfriend? I don’t know how you could prove that but it might be interesting to know what it’s like to live in the present and the past at once.

Maybe that is why young people are encouraged to be virgins when they marry. Too late for me.

Mr. Charles Foster Payne, I could have said to Charles while he complained about me not taking him into account, I don’t feel guilty about this job. I didn’t take the job out of guilt.

He finished arguing and went off to bed. I continued studying until I fell asleep on the couch with my books open on my chest.

At some point during the night, Charles woke me up to tell me he was sorry. I might have been dreaming except that he took me back to bed where I woke up a while ago and now sit next to the sleeping Charles while writing in here.

I heard him say the things I feel too. “I think I got jealous. I thought of you with that kid. You’re spending time with someone I don’t know. But you care about him. It hurt.”

He held me close to him and we fell asleep that way.

The sun is rising. A band of light crawls across our bed like a cat coming to wake us up. I am liking love more now.