Eternal Recurrence, Part III (Crucifixion)

The Short Goodbye...Hail to the King...The First Night...Real Time...It Never Rains Under My Umbrella...Enter Sandman...12:15PM (The Moment of Clarity, Part I)...Retail Therapy...Stigmata...2:30PM (The Moment of Clarity, Part II)...The Medication is Wearing Off...My Descent Into Madness...Nightswimming

2/23/99

Dear Dar,

The Ex offered, and I accepted, to bring my duffelbag by the office on Friday afternoon (1/22/99) so I wouldn't have to take it with me to work on the bus in the predicted torrential rains--indeed, it was supposed to rain the whole weekend. No question, this was above and beyond the call on her part.

I was to be spending the weekend with Summer. Not the whole thing; Friday evening, normally Lilith, was called off because she had a prior commitment to meet a friend in Bolinas. (More on Bolinas later.) Or they were coming in from Bolinas, or something like that. In any event, they'd be back in Bolinas and she'd be in Berkeley on Saturday morning. Anyway, I'd be spending Friday night with my brother Barefoot in Oakland, then meeting Summer in Berkeley on Saturday at a Neil Gaiman book signing. Gaiman wrote a graphic novel series called The Sandman, amongst other things, and he'd be reading from his new novel. Sounded pretty cool, and the simple fact was I'd follow her anywhere. Afterwards we'd go to her place in San Rafael and hang out, watch movies,etc. She'd never seen Crash or Se7en, both movies which I suspected she'd appreciate.

Difficult though this may be to believe, I had no aims for anything beyond that. Just to be with a friendly face--a face I with which I was madly in love, to be sure, but I have simple needs. In spite of the fact that many of my friends and family believed I was having an affair with Summer, I'd done nothing more up to this point in a physical sense than peck her on the cheek a few times. Not even too many goodbye hugs in the past week. And I had no expectations of doing any more than that. ("Want" is irrelevant. This world is not about what I want.)

So The Ex came by at about 3:45pm. It was, to use quite possibly the most mild word possible, awkward. We were about to be apart from one another for at least two days yet did not hug or exchange I-love-yous or any real kind of sentiment. This was completely foreign to our relationship, since normally she gets teary in these situations. Indeed, she was fighting them back, but not the same kind.

She confirmed something important, though: her friend Trisha was in fact coming up from Fresno. See, in spite of Summer and I having made vague plans earlier in the week to get together over the weekend, the primary impetus for my travels was Trisha's visit. Being for the purpose of consolation, it was very clear to me that I should make myself scarce. And Summer had offered to let me hide at her place, so it worked out nicely. Problem: it was looking very much like Trisha might not be coming up after all. Having a three year-old son (whom she was not bringing) and no vehicle to call her own, the logistics were difficult at best.

Even if Trisha didn't show up, I'd still be gone for the weekend. Leaving The Ex by herself in many ways is the height of cruelty, and I'm really not a cruel person. But me not going would somehow be missing the point of breaking up...perhaps it's not so much that I'm not a cruel person as I am a basically good person who occasionally feels they hav to do cruel, selfish things. This theory eased my conscience just enough. That it required easing at all was also very telling.

Summer was kind enough to keep the bag in her car so I wouldn't have to take it with me on the BART the next morning. I left at 5:30pm to hook up with Rox, Barefoot's wife, who just happened to work a few blocks away. I put on my fuzzy black beret (you know the one I'm talking about, Dar) and hit the road.

Not so much because she was asking (though she admitted curiousity) but because I was feeling the need to tell, I brought her up to speed on the situation and my own doubts and fears on the BART ride to Oakland. I vocalized what I'd been thinking for quite some time: that I was ruining my life and bound to fall flat on my face at any time. And I emphasized that in all likelihood absolutely nothing would occur between Summer and myself over the weekend, if ever.

Now, this might seem like heavy stuff to lay on one's sister-in-law, but in fact Rox and I go back a long way; she worked in the same video stores as Barefoot and The Ex and myself back in Fresno, and for a while we'd close the store together on Friday nights and open it on Sunday mornings. This was long before anyone even suspected her and Barefoot might end up married--at the time they were just each others' designated fuck. (A concept which I've heard of before, but continues to be as alien to me as casual sex in general.) In addition to always being completely supportive, Rox more than anyone else believes that I need to get it over with and just come out to my mother.

Barefoot met us at the station in Oakland and we went in search of food, ending up at our old standby, a wonderful Chinese restaurant called King Yen. I had an ethical objection seeing as how The Ex loves the place and going there without her seemed wrong, like the ultimate insult after everything else I'd put her through recently. (Earlier in the week she'd cried because neither Barefoot nor Rox, with whom she'd always been very close, hadn't written her to send their condolences for the breakup. My mother was the only person in my family to do so, though it had been a cc in the context of how disappointed she was in me and how self-destructive I was being. Nobody in her family has contacted me, of course.) But, when you're living the Bay Area, there's one all-important detail: where the fuck are we going to park? There was no parking around the other places we tried, so King Yen won.

Afterwards, we went back to their place and just sat and talked (not much about my situation, actually) and listened to music and hung. Barefoot's recently upgraded his CDR hardware and software, so he can now record them without the heretofore unavoidable 2-second gaps between tracks. As a result he's re-recording most all of the ones he'd done up to this point and giving me his older versions. Except for the 2-second gap there ain't a damn thing wrong with any of them, and my CD collection grew by about thirty that night.

Something else happened that evening: I laughed. Hard. Practically to the point of tears. I honestly don't recall what it was about, and in a way it doesn't really matter. In spite of having eleven years, two other brothers and ultimately very different life experiences between us (and I'm completely out to him), it never ceases to amaze me how well Barefoot and I click and how goddamn similar we are in terms of intellect and sense of humor. *Particularly* sense of humor. (On the other hand, we're very different in regards to temperament; he's easy to piss off, and if the phrase "road rage" didn't exist it would be necessary to invent it to describe his driving style.) Like I said, I don't recall what it was about, but we were both busting a gut over something--and significantly the television wasn't on, so whatever it had been had developed from our conversation. For a while, I was comfortable.

They crashed at about 11, and I was up a bit longer, lying on their couch listening to CDs (not the ones Barefoot had just given me, but from his otherwise ample collection) and trying to clear my head. I slept for maybe six or seven hours.

It was raining when I awoke on Saturday 1/23/99, of course. The rain was supposed to last all weekend, and there was no doubt in my mind it would do just that.

The Gaiman thing in Berkeley was at 11:30, so I figured if I was at the BART station by 10:00 that would get me there in more than ample time. And right around 8:30 I got an e'er-so-brilliant idea: I'd whip myself up a tape from Barefoot's collection, an impromptu soundtrack for the weekend ahead of me. I've been making compilation tapes for years, ostensibly for The Ex, but usually a lot of preparation goes into them and I'm working from my own stuff. This would be on the fly from Barefoot's stuff.

Here's what it ended up being. Side One: Going Going Gone, Tough Mama, Dirge, Nobody 'Cept You (all Dylan); Blackhole (Beck); Fitter Happier (Radiohead); Rid of Me (PJ Harvey); How Soon is Now? (The Smiths); Bottoming Out (Lou Reed). Side Two: I Will Buy You a New Life (Everclear); Asking for It (Hole, live); 16 Days (Whiskeytown); Give Me Back the Key to My Heart, Anodyne (both Uncle Tupelo); Celebrity Skin (Hole, live); Something in the Way (Nirvana, demo); Ball and Chain (Social Distortion); I Hope You Want Me Too (The Mavericks); The Sweetest Thing (U2). There were actually two more songs which I somehow goofed on and resulted in large gaps on the tape, but it was fitting. The tape was situational, of that particular moment in real time didn't leave my walkman for the entire weekend.

I arrived in Berkeley at 11:00. It was raining, but I didn't use my umbrella. Indeed, I felt absolutely no desire to protect myself from the rain beyond my jacket and beret. Otherwise, if it was going to rain it was going to rain.

The bookstore was just a few minutes away from the BART station. No great shock, a line was already forming, about ten people deep. Summer was not in it. Indeed, she didn't arrive until noon, after Gaiman had arrived and was preparing to read. And she was two people short of being alone.

One I recognized, one I did not. The one I recognized was c0g, whom I'd met at Lilith. Of course, he was the friend from Bolinas, and last I'd heard he'd gotten involved with a girl named Demi. He was small and thin with pale makeup, though his eyeliner and shadow work was very intricate. The other fellow, whose name I never caught (so I'll arbitrarily call him Bob) was more of Terminal and myself's body type: just plain big, though much fatter. No makeup, but a few piercings and the de rigueur black leather jacket. (Unless specified otherwise, everyone I mention is wearing a black leather jacket.) Something about him didn't quite sit well with me. I suppose a pattern was emerging, though I didn't quite recognize it at the time.

The layout of the store and some poor strategy on my part resulted in me being separated from them by a large bookshelf for most. At about a quarter past noon I made my way back over to where they were. c0g's hand was on Summer's shoulder.

Two thoughts struggled for dominance: that they were just good friends (and unlike myself c0g isn't self-conscious to the point of catatonia which was extremely fucking obvious to say the least), and that they had come together. Either one was fine with me, of course. I knew all along that her and I probably woudn't end up together, and this was to be expected. Sure. No problem.

After the reading and a brief Q&A session, the signing began. It was based on ticket stubs given out while in line; as a result I was among the first 20 people, while Summer and entourage were much further back. I had Gaiman sign a Sandman book which I'd bought for Barefoot, a fan of the series. Seemed only right after his hospitality.

There would still be a solid half hour if not longer before Summer made it all the way in and back, I realized. I could try to stand with them and take up space and generally be in the way (a skill of mine, to be certain) or do something with myself for the time. I chose the latter.

I retrieved my extremely heavy backpack from behind the counter (Tactical Error #1) and told Summer I'd be doing a bit of running around and would be back in half and hour or so. She was vaguely surprised but didn't object. Duh.

My plan was simple: to Amoeba Records on telegraph and back. My emotions were beginning to swirl dangerously and, for better or worse, quite often buying music is the only way to help them. That's what's left when you don't smoke or drink or use any other kind of chemical means to dull pain. For the record, I haven't smoked grass since the first of the year. I may have quit for good, I don't know.

Of course, Amoeba was a healthy trek away, but nothing I couldn't handle, and my body was crying out for the exercise. There and back in half an hour would be tricky but doable.

Fortunately, I found exactly what I was looking for: Sheryl Crow's new album, The Globe Sessions. "My Favorite Mistake" was beginning to have great resonance for me, and I suspected the rest of the album would too.

It was at the half-hour mark that I began heading back, so after stopping at the university to use the restroom I picked up the pace, going down Addison towards Shattuck faster than I should have. Well, I didn't want to be too late. Besides, I normally run at 5mph for an hour every day, so a light run would be simple, if in full battle gear and carrying a loaded backpack.

Unfortunately, I didn't look closely enough at the fencing set up along the side of the street. I realized it meant I'd have to be more careful about the traffic, because being hit by a car would simply ruin my whole day, more than it--

--and suddenly I was airborne.

No cars were nearby, but I'd failed to notice the feet (for want of a better word) of the fence sticking out perpendicular to the fence itself. Unforunately, one of *my* feet came in contact.

*WHOOMP!* By god, I'd done it. I'd been saying all along I was going to fall flat on my face, and it had finally happened. Except I didn't land on my face but rather my hands and knees, which proved equally fitting. I got right back up and kept walking, trying to assess the damage while still making decent time.

My glasses were fine; clothes were scuffed, though this sort of thing tends to add character to leather jackets; and the the face of my watch was badly scratched. My hands, however, were fucked. Two nasty gashes on either side of my left hand underneath the pink, and a big ugly one on my right wrist. (Lest you think I required stitches, none of them were larger than an average band-aid.) And although it would be several hours before I actually got a close look, my knees were hurting, too. Fortunately, nothing seemed broken.

The coincidental significance of the placement of the wounds didn't escape me. It was like someone had tried to crucify me in an extemely sloppy matter, which was exactly what I'd felt like I was doing to myself. My own personal stigmata, a physical accompaniment to the growing emotional pain. If I was gonna hurt, I was gonna hurt in every way.

I got back to the store, and naturally didn't mention anything about my little golgotha. Bob commented that it looked like I hurt my hand, and I mumbled something about tripping on the way back. True enough, and he was satisfied. Neither c0g nor Summer heard us.

I somehow found room for my sweater in my backpack to give my wounds a little breathing room, though I continued wearing my jacket and my beret. No way those were coming off. I tried going without the beret for a few minutes, but that simply wasn't right. I felt minimally more secure with it on.

Next was a trip (ironically enough) to Telegraph to do some thrift shopping. First, though, c0g, Summer and I stopped at a McDonald's to use the restroom, giving me a chance to actually wash off my arms and maybe maybe maybe stave off infection. As luck would have it I had a few band-aids in my backpack, old and crumpled though they were, they would have to do. By then, Summer and c0g noticed.

We ended up at a vintage store on Telegraph called Mars. It was there, watching Summer thoroughly enjoying herself trying on clothes, that I realized my heart was breaking. Indeed, it felt more like it was expanding and about to burst out of my chest. It sunk in, as it should have from practically the moment we met, that she would never be mine. That I really had thrown away everything I had, led astray by a pretty (nay, gorgeous) face which in fact had made no promises. I was acting under my own free will and had to accept any and all responsibility by myself. If this was self-destruction, it wasn't the coward's way out via drugs or alcohol. This was taking the blade and plunging it in without blinking.

Whatever wonderful vibe existed between us at first was now quite clearly gone, probably forever. For her, the honeymoon was over. After Mars we went into Hot Topic, of all places (you'd think a group of goths would avoid *that* store like the fucking plague) and I wandered off on my own. I became entranced in a particular dress which I won't bother attempting to describe--if you've been in there before you know the kind of stuff they carry. I found Summer, asked her to join me when she had a chance so I could get her opinion on something, and went back to the dress in question. Eventually she came over and I showed it to her.

She replied, more than a little curtly, that it was pretty but it would never work on me because of insufficient breasts, though I could probably use water balloons--and she sounded *serious*, almost as much as she'd sounded sincere when she'd told me I was beautiful. Hearing her make a comment like that was as painful as hearing her say the other things had been wonderful. She knew that I'd been reluctant to buy a corset because in an odd way it would seem like cheating, and now she was suggesting water balloons? The night we went to see Elizabeth we stopped by Ross, and she had been incredibly enthusiastic about the possibility of finding a certain dress she'd seen at another Ross because she thought it would be perfect for me. (Or as she put it, "When I saw it I thought of you.") We'd found the same basic design, but much too small for me--an 8 petite when I still stretch a 12. She'd seemed disappointed when I decided not to try it on at the store for that very reason. Perhaps that was the fatal mistake; right then and there she realized she couldn't really be involved with someone so cowardly.

Fortunately, we parted company with Bob after that, and the three of us started the drive to Summer's in San Rafael. A trip to Bolinas to drop off c0g, if it were to happen at all, wasn't happening that night. Saturday evening bridge traffic being what it is it took about an hour to get there.

As we neared the San Rafael side of the bridge, I decided to get it out of my system: I really, really needed help in terms of makeup. I was just so tired of waiting. I protested a bit too much, stating up front that I knew it was something that required a lifetime of practice and couldn't be taught overnight, but just a little push in the right direction, some momentum, and I could take it from there...and, of course, I'd be more than willing to buy all of my own stuff for hygiene purposes.

Summer, who had recently seemed so intrigued by the idea of making me up, couldn't have possibly seemed more noncommittal. She mumbled "Yeah, sure," and that was that. Almost immediately (my usual turnaround time) I regretted bringing it up at all. This was the wrong time, the wrong place, the wrong everything. This was Louise all over again, just much more compact. Over the course of a few weeks rather than several months.

c0g, on the other hand, perked up his ears. We talked a little about the various kinds (spooky vs. natural), the expense, everyday vs. special occasion, that sort of thing. He sounded genuinely interested, but I didn't buy it. I've had people sound interested before. This was another dead end, another brick wall to crash my head into.

Stepping into Summer's apartment added another level of surreality to a situation which my mind was already trying to disassociate itself from. I was in a place which I on at least one level I desperately wanted to be, but I was not there for that reason. Indeed, it was more like being reminded of what I'd never have. The worst possible place for me to be, even though there were no viable alternatives.

Her apartment was very simple--kitchen, living room with futon (my eventual destination), bathroom and bedroom. Small TV and stereo in the living room, certainly enough for my purposes. She also had two cats, a large black one named Ed (short for Edward Scissorhands), and a more anonymous calico named Lestat.

I decided to try the time-honored trick of making a superficial cosmetic change to improve my mood; I took off the beret, brushed my hair, and put it up in ponytails. It didn't really help, and after a trip to the store and back to buy beer (well, they bought beer and I bought a new bottle of water), I took my hair back down and put the beret back on. It felt much more right, somehow. It wasn't coming off until absolutely necessary. Or maybe when I slept, but I wasn't convinced I'd be sleeping.

I spent a fair amount time sitting on her floor, usually crouched against the wall writing in my notebook. "Writing furiously" is probably a more apt description. My mind was racing, and I was trying to keep up with it. What was coming out what was pain and rage and desperation and anger and self-loathing and futility and a fully realized sense that I was solely responsible for what I was going through, that I was in a hell of my own creation, that I'd willingly gone astray because of a pretty (nay, gorgeous and mind-numbingly beautiful) face which had stroked my ego but made no promises whatsoever and was in fact now involved with someone else and I was left hanging without her and without The Ex and without much of anything except an overwhelming sense of shame and guilt and my own goddamn stupidity.

Perhaps the one brief saving grace was that as far as they knew, I was grieving over breaking up The Ex. That was an element, yes, but mostly it was Summer. Though I'd made it clear that I was fond of her and would be more than happy to go out with her if she ever asked, I don't think they truly suspected there was more happening than that. In a nutshell, she was protected from that particular mindfuck, and that was very important to me. Ruining our friendship would have been even more intolerable.

...and there I remained when the movie started. c0g and Summer were having none of it, though. I was joining them on the couch/futon, and that was all there was to it. So I found myself on the couch, c0g and Summer laying together in a state of extreme (but fully clothed) familiarity with one another, and me occupying the remainder of the space. It was a remarkably unique form of hell.

I forced myself to put the notebook down and watch the movie, Se7en. Considering the similar habits of the killer in the film, I figured it was just as well.

After a while, Summer strectched out more and put her (socked) feet in my lap. I didn't object. I casually put my hands on her feet, savoring even such a minimal contact--not just with a woman for whom I was aching so bad, but just human contact at all. I rubbed them in what I hoped seemed like a casual almost absent-minded motion.

She didn't object.

Suddenly things didn't seem quite as bleak. Yes, later on they'd move into the bedroom and I'd still be out there, but now, just for this moment, all was just the tiniest fraction closer to being well. Not well by a long fucking shot, but closer. Sometimes that's the absolute most you can ask for.

At one point the movie was stopped for a little break. c0g went outside for a smoke, and for the first time all day, Summer and I were actually alone. We talked for the few minutes we had, and it almost began to seem like I'd wished the night would be: just her and I. She leant me a book to read, something Egyptian-themed which dealt with finding and losing one's soul mate and things like that. Although I said that were many other things bothering me than just The Ex, I didn't go into specifics. She simply did not realize how strongly I felt for her, and it had to stay that way.

As much as I resented his *presence*, I did not resent c0g at all, and wasn't jealous of him. Nor did he seem to be bothered by me being there, as many would have been.

But that's just how he was, and perhaps how the game was played. A world where she could tell me that we hadn't gotten together because we were both going through breakups, and while still in the midst of said breakup she hooks up with someone else entirely who had in fact just gotten involved with a third person, and it's all cool. This was the world I was entering, and I'd damn well better get used to it.

After Se7en, we watched the first half-hour or so of Trainspotting, then it was decided to call it a night. This was roughly 1am. Despite my protests to the contrary, for I was perfectly willing to sleep (ha!) on the couch as is, she unfolded the futon into bed form and brought out sheets. They went into the bedroom.

I kept the light on, ostensibly so I could write, but also because if I was going to be awake I might as well be able to see. I realize that doesn't quite work logically--maybe, just maybe, if it was dark I could fucking sleep? Nope. Being alone in the dark would have been much worse, another physical manifestation of where I was inside.

So the lights stayed on, and I hid my watch and covered the clock. I didn't want to know the time. Time was no longer relevant; this moment, this eternity, would last as long as it would last, and no order could be imposed upon it.

I laid on the bed on my stomach mostly, writing and listening to the tape in my walkman. Over and over. Based on the number of times I flipped the tape at least three hours must have passed in that fashion. I wrote as much as I could, most of it just this side of coherent, somewhere between Naked Lunch and the chapter in The Sound and the Fury where the kid's about to kill himself.

Ed joined me, which was another of those little perks. I haven't had a cat on my bed since Mary died last March, and he was in many was as affectionate as she was.

Eventually I slept. I only know this because I dreamed. Based on my sleeping habits (five or six hours a night at most) I don't dream much, yet this was the same one as the last time I dreamed, the night The Ex and I broke up. It had been paradoxically my first truly pleasant dream in a very long time, but it was cut short. Why? The Ex woke me up to turn me over because I was snoring. That's gotta be metaphoric of something.

Being a dream it's naturally hard to describe, but the most overwhelimg sense was that of *belonging*. Of finally having found a home, a group of people with whom I could be comfortable. On one level they were very definitely trannies, but that seemed a minor detail at best--more that whatever it was I was seeking, it could possibly exist. That no matter how desperate the situation around me, I simply had to hang on as best as I could.

How long I slept, I of course don't know, but I'd guess probably for no more than two hours. Once I awoke--as always--I was awake and that was that. When I finally looked at the time, it was barely 6am. Jesus. Another six hours of this, at least. For however long they may have been up, c0g and Summer would surely have crashed by now.

I paced. I tried to read the book Summer loaned me. I listened to my walkman, and to CDs through Summer's stereo with my headphones. I wrote--a bit more coherently, it's true. I looked at myself in the mirror a lot. Too much, perhaps. Of course the beret was back on, and it wasn't coming off anytime too soon. Hell, I'd probably start wearing it at work. (Why not? My reputation as a freak was well-established already.) My wounds never stopped hurting, and Summer had no bandages so I was stuck with the already soiled ones. And, for some reason, I didn't cry once. I wanted to, I needed to, but I didn't. Couldn't. Wouldn't. Should have, but it was not to be.

Summer and c0g emerged around 1pm or so.

I'd survived the night.

Next: Clogged Arteries, Southern Style...The Shirt Off Her Rack... Bolinas or Bust: The Planning Stages...Calling Home...A Moment of Ecstasy...Can We Do Her In Buffalo '66 Next?... It's Always Midnight Somewhere...The Reverse Snipe Hunt...Initiation...The Men and the Rest of Us...Bolinas or Bust: The Drive...Diving for Pearl... c0gLand...A Little More Bonding...11:30PM (The Moment of Clarity, Part III)...There Are Certain Times When You Simply Don't Want To Be In a Truck Careening Down a Dark Rainy Winding Mountain Road Taking Sharp Turns In The Wrong Lane With A Lovesick And Potentially Suicidal Goth Behind The Wheel Who Probably Considers You To Be The Enemy, And This Was One of Them...Landing On Water, Redux