The girl in 310

Francis,

How are you man? I'm sorry I have not written in some time. I am painting a hotel in San Francisco. It is repetitive work because all the rooms look the same. The 'guests' consist of minor con men, sex workers, fags, artist types and crazies. Knock on a door, you never know what you’re going to get. Some of them...Jesus Christ...they're like monsters from an old black and white movie. 

I work with a Mexican name Juan. He speaks about ten words of English so, combined with my eight words of tourist Mexican, we get along just fine. 

The person I do not get along with is the manager. Raoul. He is a jumped up little punk with a big set of keys. The number of times I have wanted to deck this little bastard...man I can't tell you how gratifying that would be. 

Having said this, I am always aware how this kind of behaviour will land me back up in the system so I will continue to keep a cool head. Seems like I am forever counting backwards from 10. (Actually, in Raoul's case, it's usually counting backwards from 100). The point being, it's hard out here in the straight world brother. Just trying to stay calm and be a normal citizen. There are trapdoors everywhere. A little dispute in a bar with some downtown type could easily turn into a problem first for him but ultimately for me.

The big news is I have met a chick. She is English and she has a crisp little Mary Poppins accent. Her name is Greta. She lives in room 310. It is a good connection on all levels. Physically we can't keep our hands off each other. Sometimes it's 3 times a day. (I know you said send details about this kind of thing but I feel self-conscious going into all that). 

I haven't told her about my past just yet. This is something that I'll need to introduce into the conversation carefully. She works in a tourist restaurant around the corner. She spends a lot of her free time keeping a journal on her laptop. It actually inspired me to put pen to paper and write this letter to you. 

Anyway, you can tell by the things she says and the books she talks about that she is an educated person. We are a strange combination in this way. She says she likes my physicality. 'With you, what you see, is what you get'. That's what she says to me. 

Personally, I think it's one of those 'opposites attract' situations like in the Paula Abdul song, what with Greta being all refined and tiny like a bird and me being the way I am. That's about it for me man. I will try to write you more regular. Tell the boys I said hello.

Francis,

How are you brother? I am still painting that old hotel on Broadway. And I am still with the girl but things have changed since I last wrote. We have been partying a bit. Bars and clubs in the city. They love this house music shit now. Big rooms full of lasers and electronic music. 

Anyway for a while there it was all getting a little too intense for my liking. I won't go into too much detail as there will be other eyes on this letter. Regardless of music style, you know how it goes with that scene. You stay up all night, not doing the right thing, the lizard part of your brain making the decisions, pushing you into increasingly stupid situations. 

I guess things with Greta haven't been that great recently. We have been fighting a lot. I have tried to explain to her that I wanted something more significant from our relationship. Something long term. The problem is she doesn't. I have come to realise that she keeps a distance between herself and everyone else, including me. I didn't see it at first but its true. It is frustrating especially when you give yourself body and soul to another person but they won't reciprocate.

A few weeks ago I borrowed a car and we took off to hippy hot spring. I thought if we got out of the city, we would have a chance to talk through a few things. 

The hot springs was the kind of place where middle-aged dentists who drive BMW's go to score younger chicks. Men with ponytails, little gold earrings and soft bellies. I tell you man...seeing 30 people doing yoga buck naked in the middle of the day, their junk on full display...that is a sight to be seen brother. 

Anyway, Greta and I fought the entire time. And when some old dude came on to her in the hot springs, something in me snapped. There was a bit of pushing and bam! I nailed this guy, knocked him on his ass. After that he's all, 'I'm gonna call the police...you'll hear from my lawyer....' whah, whah, whah...the thing is: you just can't mess with another man's woman and not expect it to come back on you. Especially under those conditions (it being all primeval and us being naked out there in the woods). I mean what the fuck did that guy think was gonna happen? This ain't Woodstock. 

Anyway, this didn't sit well with the hippies who ran the place. And it certainly wasn't cool with Greta. Isn't that always the way with women? What they first like about you (strength and not taking any shit from anyone) later it becomes a weakness. A problem. Anyway, it was a shitty end to a shitty weekend. The icing on the cake being that some John Law pulled us over twenty miles outside of the city. This cop put us through the whole power shakedown. He tells me I was driving erratically. I'm like, no shit Sherlock. You would be too if you had the pissed off female problems I got. I think he picked up on that pain cause he told me to chill out and sent us on our way.

And after that, Greta and I never quite recovered. There was more fighting. More time for me sitting around in lonely bars after work, trying to figure things out. Less good, healing fucking. Like I said, she was pulling away from me. She spent all day and all night glued to her damn laptop. And Raoul tried to move in on her like a vulture circling roadkill. He'd been sweet on her ever since she turned up. That was why he had a beef with me from the moment I arrived. In his mind, I was the one who moved in on his thing. Anyway, this caused even more static. 

Eventually, I just said, to hell with it. I need a break from the whole mess. I told Greta I'd be back in a month, that I was going down to Mexico with two brothers I knew. Greta and I agreed this would be a good idea, that we needed space and that we'd talk when I got back. She saw me off. She cried a little bit. It's only a month, I said. She seemed so sad. 

The brothers and I are currently heading south after crossing the border. The trip down has been long and has worn a continual groove into my brain but I am now at peace. The shopping malls and freeways have fallen away and the mountains have reared up in the dusk. It is quite amazing.

Francis,

Hey buddy. In your last letter, you asked what happened to the British girl in the hotel....I was driving around with those Brothers I mentioned? Down in Mexico? Well, it was good at first but then things started getting heavy. They had this kind of brotherly love-animosity thing going on, so they were always fighting, smashing up hotel rooms. The violence came out of nowhere. 

Actually, most of those six weeks down in Mexico I can't honestly say I remember much of what happened. For me, it comes down to a string of loosely connected memories. It was the booze I guess. And some other stuff which I won't go into. Still, I know for a fact that I stood in that main square in Mexico City. The one with the big national flag. That I saw a real Mayan temple poking out of the jungle and swam in the Caribbean ocean. 

I also spent a week camped out on this German guy's property, helping him build a house. These things are true and minted in reality despite my slipshod memory. 

Building that house was a good time. The German guy had his own private stretch of beach. And the sky was full of stars at night. It was a hell of a place. I never felt so free. There was nothing out there to get on top of you. It was just the land and the sea coming together and all you had to worry about was food.  

Arriving back in San Francisco was not what I'd expected at all. Thing was, I'd been writing to Greta the whole time I was down in Mexico. I mean I really got into writing these long, epic letters. First and foremost, they were love letters but also they were also full of things I saw: the churches, the people, the ugly drinking events, the endless driving, the hazy beaches. My heart and thoughts blending together, travelling down the length of my arm, ending up flowing with the ink onto the page. Words of love. 

And whenever I found a mailbox I sent them back to her. But by the time I got back to the hotel in San Francisco she was gone. No forwarding address. No phone number. Nothing. Raoul was there grinning like the god-damn cat that caught the canary. He handed back my letters. They'd all been opened. My private meditations on love and life laid bare. Well, if it ain't Jack fucking Kerouac, said Raoul. I nearly clocked him then and there. He had it coming. In the end, I just walked out. I felt terrible.  

The funny thing was, when I started thinking about what I actually knew about this woman of mine... I mean what information I could use to find her....I had nothing. Her name and where she came from. And that was it. 

You know what I found out later on? This was through Bob Kearney. I found out she was a writer. She was only impersonating a British person. In reality, she was America. She's been other people as well. An Australian actress living in Los Angeles. An Amish girl on Rumspringa. A bipolar sex worker living in San Antonio. And Irish nanny in New York. The list goes on...

When I tell people about this they look at me like 'damn son, you must be stupid'. I'm telling you Francis...she had us all fooled. We thought she was Lady McDuff from England. 

Eventually, I got a hold of the book she wrote. In the introduction, she called what she did 'immersive journalism'. Said she was 'Documenting the lives of the disenfranchised in America by becoming one of them'. I just call it plain lying. I still don't know what to think about it. Part of me still has feelings for that girl I lived with back when I was first painting that old hotel. But another part of me thinks I must be a fool and it was all bullshit anyway so what's the point of holding on to something like that? 

I tracked her down and I wrote her one more letter. A pretty angry one. Didn't get a reply. After that, I ended up back down in Mexico. I now live on the German guy's property (I mentioned him in my last letter to you). I help him and his woman. I gotta Mexican girlfriend out of the deal from the little fishing village down the coast. (You know I made sure she was the real thing). 

I sleep in an old, broken down school bus with the scorpions. All-in-all I'm pretty happy. It is going to be hard for me to say what follows. The thing is Francis, I am trying to not think so much about the past these days. In order to do that, I don't think I'll be writing to you as often as I have been. I know this might sound disloyal or shitty. But I'm trying to do something with my future. And if that means letting go of the past, well then, that's just what I have to do. I hope you understand. Is nothing personal against you. 

I wish you and the boys all the best. I sincerely do.