To: The Words

"In my life,
I loved you more."

-The Beatles

The Harmony

He was a financial advisor. Sharp suits and the right haircut. Completely demented. He hallucinated that he was killing children, especially when he was driving. He looked the way I had pictured Patrick Bateman in my head while reading American Psycho. He was good looking, but he physically repulsed me. There was never a sexual relationship between us. He wanted to want me, but the voices in his head, thank the gods, cockblocked him all the way. He told me so. And I said, "Good. Listen to them."

He was sure it involved me. The hallucinations. The psychosis. He was sure I was meant to be there. I didn’t argue that. I just don’t remember.

I was sure the hallucinations began somewhere, and I was sure there was a root. A seed. A starting line. Some thing that had happened. Maybe in his childhood, or his head. I don't know. A memory or a wish. What’s the difference, really. I knew it was in him, and I knew it was bad. I just didn’t know what it was.

He told me he needed to be forgiven. I asked for what, I asked by whom. He didn't answer. I don't know that he heard me.

I felt some kind of a pull to help him, while at the same time, I wanted to push away. Out of no where he would offer to do something odd and grand for me. Then immediately he would follow it with some insane reason as to why he couldn't do it. Then he'd make the offer again. He jogged, all the time, listening to INXS. If he fucked something up, at work or with a friend, he would create this web of half-lies so he'd be the martyr in the story; blamed and persecuted for no reason. He even used Words like "swaddling clothes" and "prophet" when he described himself. He had a roommate that I am not convinced wasn’t imaginary. He told awful stories of his drunk mother. When he drank from a Snapple bottle he'd wrap his whole mouth around it like a snake. Looking at him made me sick to my stomach.

He was wearing a red shirt when I told him. I'm not even sure why I said it. I just knew he needed it. I said, "I forgive you." Once I said it, I felt released. Once he heard it, he got on his knees on my kitchen floor and cried.

That night he slept on my living room couch. Well, I don’t know that he slept. But he spent the night in my apartment because he was afraid to drive home. You know, with the running over of little children and all. I slept locked in my bedroom with a knife. Because, you just never know.

And that was the night. The night I dreamt of whales and dolphins. I was at the bottom of the ocean looking up at them, swimming all together in one direction. Penguins were peaking at me. Sunshine filtered down through the crisp clear deep ocean water. There was a oneness and an order. It was magical. A vision. I woke up feeling whole. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the night this psychopath slept under my roof I had the most meaningful beautiful dream I’ve ever had.

Sometimes you have to go to come. And sometimes we all sing in harmony.

He called a few months later. I asked him to never call again. He replied, "OK. I'm gone." And he was.

Sometimes forgiveness is the most intense power you possess. Sometimes the accepting is bigger than the danger. All things become, and then, all things have the ability to fade.
.

LD does Dallas

Me - So how was your trip?

LD - You know how they say everything is bigger in Texas?

Me - Yes?

LD - It's true! And they taste stronger!

Me - They do?

LD - Yeah. And they come in super-size glasses, that sometimes you can keep!

Me - Are we talking about the same thing?

LD - I'm talking about cocktails, baby!! Cocktails!!

Me - So am I!

LD, laughing - Good Lord, we're winos, not perverts! Who knew?


"We were the first band to vomit in the bar,
And find the distance to the stage too far.
Meanwhile it's getting late. Ten o'clock.
Rock is dead, they say.
Long Live Rock!"
- The Who
.

A Thousand Ships

I could write circles around most, my love.
One of the reasons you continue to hold my attention after so many years, is your ability to join me.

You’ll taste things I’ll never know because of your beauty.
It opens doors.
Your beauty is mesmerizing.
I’ll never be beautiful. Not like that.
No one will.

The ones that look at me and think I’m beautiful, are being lied to.
I almost wish it weren’t so familiar.
It’s stuck. I’m stuck.
And it was our war.
Wet and honorable.
God, we were so strong
For so long.

I think we ended badly. I don’t remember.
But I can still feel the resentment and the anger.
It lays on the love
that will draw me forever.

It gnaws at me
Who you chose
And what you choose to say.

I’m sorry that he broke your heart.
Those cryptic Words make sense to me, mostly.
I know you.

I know you.
I know it’s not all gorgeous and poetry.
I know how much it hurt, and how lost you were for those tiny moments.
I know you can be a little snot.
I know you aren’t modest, or humble, or grateful.
I know you.
And I loved you anyway.

I wonder what you remember,
And how you remember it.
I hate that I can’t see you.
But I can’t stop looking.
.

Almost Gone

The last time I saw her she was wearing red, like the cape that tempts the charging bull.
The last time I spoke to her was over the phone, illuminating the fact that she's been a billion miles away from me for a very long time.
The last time I heard anything about her at all, was through a mutual friend, who told me she had been thinking about moving to Chicago. When I asked why, he said he didn't know.

The last time I thought about her was every day.


"And I wish that you were here with me
And I wish that somehow things would change.
You'd lose your fear of me
And the fear that things might be OK.
But wouldn't that be strange."
- The Last Time, by Danny Elfman
.

From the Fester

I was reminded of Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. I was reminded of that scene in the bathroom, when she holds that huge knife in her hand down by her side, and she’s just picking at her leg with it while she is saying, “You’re so stupid, you’re just so stupid” to the wife. Blood is running unnoticed down her leg from her stabs and picks. Picks, the way someone might pick at the label of a beer bottle without paying attention.

He was digging the pen in his hand into his leg in much the same way. Mindless to the act, focused on the fester. Not drawing blood, but stabbing and digging and picking just the same. He leveled his stare at her.

She finished orally berating and grading his short story and handed it to him, extending her arm. He hesitated. Still staring. Making her wait. Letting her wonder. Taking back just a few seconds of control before putting his hand on the papers and accepting them.

I followed him out of the class. Through the hall. Down the stairs of C Building, out through the big glass doors to the tiny courtyard. He didn’t look as he released the papers from his hand over the garbage can. Mindless to the act, focused on the fester. I slowed and waited until he was out of site. Then I retrieved it.

I sat on one of those weird wood and concrete benches and I began to read.

The campus was always quiet in the evening. I remember feeling safe there, safe enough to sit out in the nightfall alone. Maybe it was a combination of things: the different world it was back then, and the safe little corner that campus remains.

I read the short story three times.

I remember thinking, this is different. This is unique. This hasn’t been said before. And I remember thinking, the English Professor is a moron to have missed that. It needed editing, it needed spell check. It needed some cleaning, and some revision. But it was good. In it’s most raw base, at it’s core, in the essence, it was something new. Something good.

When I looked back up I saw him again, over the garbage, digging. He had returned. I walked over to him.

“Excuse me.”

He ignored me.

I tapped his shoulder. “Excuse me.”

“What!” He looked at me with the same glare he had given that teacher.

It made me nervous for a second. I lifted the papers higher so he could see. “Are you looking for this?”

He recognized it and snatched it out of my hand in an instant. Mindless to the act, focused on the fester.

“It’s good.”

“What do you know.” He couldn’t get away from me fast enough.

I stood there a little surprised, a little taken aback. I stood there thinking, how painful this day must have been for him. So painful that he was unable to surface. Unable to shake it off.

He never returned to class.



I’d thought about him from time to time over the years that followed. Not obsessively, just occasionally. Wondering if his spirit was crushed. Wondering if he was ever able to surface again. I don’t think I ever forgave him for being so abrupt with me. I haven’t still. But I understood it. It just remains as the thing that separates us.

I was running through Charles de Gaulle airport, late for my flight. I was dragging my huge carry on, my café au lait and my ass. Still blurry-eyed on no sleep I zoomed past a book stand in one of those airport shops. I was a good hundred feet beyond when my mind did some kind of review. I stopped. I turned around and went back.

There he was.

Not the actual him. A photo of him. On a book jacket. On the rack. It was in French, a language I don’t read. But I was sure that was him. Older. Black and White-er. The name seemed right although I’m not sure why. And now I don’t remember it.

I smiled. Good for you, I thought. Good for you.

I put the book back. Mindless to the act. Focused on the fester.

I boarded my flight to JFK. I ordered a martini. Then I ordered one for the stranger sitting next to me. “Toast with me, will you?”

Smiling, he raised his glass with mine. “Oh that's Fine! What are we toasting?”

“An author who made it.”

He looked genuinely pleased by that, “That’s great! Congratulations! Who is it?”

We clinked glasses. I took a long slow sip.

And I grinned. “I have no idea.”

The Budget

I've spent a lot of time thinking. Too much time festering. Not enough time earthbound.

I've spent a lot of time being above it all. Too much time angered and disappointed by those that aren't. Not enough time working.

And I've spent most of my time writing.

There doesn't need to be balance when there's this much calling.

It's always raining somewhere.

"I'd eat your heart out but my teeth are sore."
- What Made Milwaukee Famous

Gestures

We were together for a few months. And then we broke up for 2 years.

Lines.
Scripted, or not.
Lines on the page, in the sand, on the mirror, on the highway, on my face.
Lines you wait in.
Lines you form.
And very clearly there are lines you don’t cross.
But sometimes you can’t help it. And you cross them anyway. Clear or not.

He held my hand online once in Waldbaums. It was late at night, summer, after band practice, Jersey. I was wearing overalls and a tube top, and skips. His friends were food stamp grocery shopping. We bought Fruit Loops, then drove off in the night to fuck our brains out in the back seat of his car.

I remember he called me somewhere inside of 1992, during one of the “We Can Not Keep Doing This” periods. And even after we admitted we couldn’t really be in the same room without sex just happening, we pretended we could control ourselves and he came over. We sat on the floor in the living room of my apartment. We had a couple of beers and exchanged CD’s. He returned some, he gave me some, he was taking some. We were listening to music, and trying so hard not to rip each other’s clothes off. The body heat was insane. We were sweating, breathing heavy, wetting our lips, on opposite sides of the room from each other. I remember he was sitting on his hands, rocking back and forth. I asked him what he was doing. I remember the look on his face, and the way his adam’s apple moved when he swallowed and said he couldn’t keep his hands off me. I remember the coupling, something chemical, something base and guttural, animal and innate. His scent made me dizzy. I was so attracted to him. Those long thirsty kisses. It was explosive. Addictive. And in the intoxication I saw things that weren’t there, like a boyfriend, or a future.

I knew when I moved out of that apartment that there would never again be one of those nights. It would really be over, like we always said it was, but now it would actually happen. It would actually end. I packed thinking about funerals, and hockey pucks, and cops, and betrayals. I left, thinking about the mind-blowing sex and what I pretended that would mean. I looked back over my shoulder at the place: a place he made damn sure I would never belong. He bent over backwards to keep me severed. And it worked.

At the time it hurt.

Years later, I couldn’t be more grateful.

From Out of Character

“I’ve taken a shit on mushrooms. And on a mushroom.”
- Andy Botwin, “Weeds”

“I’m Bill Murray, you’re everybody else.”
- Mike, “Be Kind Rewind”

"The Ramones are more important than the solar system."
- Sean Finnerty, "Grounded for Life"

“The voices are back. Excellent.”
- Dexter Morgan, “Dexter”

“Gentlemen, I have a very simple philosophy: What you shove up your ass is your own business.”
- Captain Tucker, “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry”

"Where would we be without the agitators of the world attaching the electrodes of knowledge to the nipples of ignorance?"
- Dick Solomon, "Third Rock From the Sun"

“You want me to teach you how to be less gay so you can sleep with more men? OK.”
- Earl Hickey, “My Name is Earl”