Spiraling down.

I had a three year lease. Bill Katavolos would come down and look in. We would all go out and eat Italian in little Italy. As the summer advanced into fall, The neighbors showed up. There was just a couple in the small loft one floor up on the other side of the elevator a small contractor married to a Japanese silversmith and a painter and his wife two floors down.
There was a cotton waste business opposite the painter. There was a photo finisher on seven. I was 6W. The contractor saw what I had done and I began to get work. It almost paid the rent. Nancy got strange. She was smoking pot laced with pcp. She began to diet. Not a good idea for her. Her docs had beefed her up to stabilise her moods. In this process I had lost the habit of regular meals. Nancy and I hitched north to visit a friend rusticated in central Quebec. He was having a rough time fighting with his homosexuality. While there I took a walk around the pond and got lost in the woods. No trail and very little grade. I found my way out in about an hour but late fall and a sleety rain made it memorable. We stayed three days and took a bus home. Nancy went out to her parents in Garden City. They caught her taking the washing machine apart and lecturing it. They institutionalised her. Electro-convulsive therapy. I had told her that machines were easy. you just had to "speak their language."
Bill Katavolos showed up with about 16 young adults who wanted to continue under his instruction. September was very exciting. At the end of the month He took them to Ohio where they could graduate from an accredited program. Life was quiet. No work. Nancy came back for a visit and recovered her memory. She sent her father for her clothes.
I hear she is a tenured professor at U Va. I felt abandoned. By my profession. By my friends. By my life. Depression and sleeplessness. Food was not worth the effort. I stopped reading and eating. I dropped thirty to forty pounds . I found I could suppress memories while in that state. I did. I started at that time and dumped everything that led to real pain. All of art school. All of design. All of college The last three years of High School. It was not a complete wipe but I made it all fall out of consciousness. Toward Christmas I was wondering why I existed. I found one bare and distant hope. I was still in love. She was not dead, only married. In time that could change. If it did, she would seek me. I roused out, had a meal and went home for the holiday. I weighed one hundred and twelve pounds and smelled like fresh bread.