Decoy Project

I had begun to feel tyrannized by my landlady Mary Perpetua’s constant complaints about my behavior, that I didn’t think things through before acting, that I was smart enough about intellectual things but in practical terms I was a mess, that I was still putting peanut butter in the refrigerator.

Though she claimed that her criticisms were for my own good, I didn’t change my ways. In any case, whatever I did or didn’t do seemed to make her angry.

I was aware that she was growing increasingly unhappy because of the situation with her longtime boyfriend, John. Days would go by and she would not hear from him, and her temper grew shorter. Her unhappiness grew more and more oppressive as she realized he was never going to marry her.

Toward the end of 1944 I decided I had to make a change.