Honest Conversation Is Overrated
Actual Human Interactions Witnessed Or Overheard
In Twentieth And Twenty-First Century America
In Twentieth And Twenty-First Century America
“This is totally driving me crazy.” Ben says. And he launches into this story about some art opening he went to a few months ago. “I’m minding my own business, when this” and he shudders “fat kid, like Wisconsin fat, corners me. And I’m tripping balls, and his huge chins are all like jiggling while he talks. And eventually I gave him my phone number just so he would go away. It’s so gross.” He fluffs his hair. “I think I’m reasonably attractive,” You’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’rebeautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful “and I would never just go up to some stranger and force my presence on them until they gave me their phonenumber in an act of self-preservation. As if he even had a chance, he’s sooooo fat, and gross.”
“You used to be fat.” I say. I’ve seen the pictures of Ben as a kid, as overweight in junior high and early high school as I was. “Fuck you. I was never fat like this kid. And the point is, I’m not fat now, so why would this guy think he had even a remote chance with me. If I was trapped on a desert island with him and no food and nothing to do, I would make him turn away from me when I masturbated. I don’t get all these people who think I would even bother with them. Anyway, he called me today. He hasn’t called in like weeks. Like, back before I met you, he called me a bunch of times in one night. And the messages went from normal what are you up to chit-chat to well, I guess you don’t care about me you self-righteous prick in the course of like four hours. And, yea, I really don’t give a shit about him. And I probably wouldn’t have called him back anyway, but certainly not after that barrage of messages. So, today he calls and wants me to apologize for breaking his heart. Breaking His Heart? Ugh. I’m so tired of all these men who say that I’ve broken their hearts. I’m completely up front with people. I’m a rock. It’s not my fault that people keepslamming their hearts against me." He is a rock. Last week, I felt like waves crashing over him. “You know I love you, right.” His eyes go cold. “We are not talking about this right now.” “Why not?” “Look, I’m not letting myself be in love or lust or like with anyone right now. I mean, spending time with you is awesome and everything, but no. We are never a yes. Always no. You and me? No. Friends.” And he steers our conversation to safer shores. How he’s going to New York in a couple of days with Lisabelle to procure some acid. How he really likes Celeste, and wants to hang out with her more. “I was looking through one of my ex’s Myspace accounts.” He says. “And he said There is no option for ‘I don’t care’ in relationship status, and then he listed his sexual orientation as straight. Apparently, there was no option for fucken liar in sexual orientation. I should be flattered. I’m the only guy he’s ever been with. But when we were making out one time he said I want you to fuck me, and then come on my face. I can see a straight guy getting drunk and maybe asking his gay friend to blow him, but asking to get fucked and have a guy come on your face is pretty much an exclusively gay thing.” Then he says Labor Day pussy drink extra pillow pigeon. Sign language van seatrelationship Galouises. I don’t hear more than one word in any sentence he says. I am sitting on the van seat. Asscat is scratching at my leg, but I don’t have the energy to pet him or wave him away. I just sit there and watch Ben pretend I never told him how I felt. I listen to him turn the conversation toward his HIV positive ex. How much he still cares for him. How he’d have unprotected sex with him, so that the two of them could share the experience of dying together. A funny anecdote about what happened to him at work the other day. He just keeps talking at me and talking at me like I’m capable of listening or comprehending. And I realize, I’ve never been on his playlist. I am an unrequited eyefuck poppy seed zombie. Bombastic proposal of anorexic analogies. You’re beautiful. Never a yes. Always no. Beautiful. Never. Rainbortion. Language. I’m maybe not rebuilding but wrecked. Maybe van seat. Maybe fat kid. Maybe vapid. “I think seventeen is a perfect age” Too old for him anyway. Too bombastic. Too pussy drink. Too stem thick. Never too. Never positive. Never you’re. Never beautiful. There must be maggots under my skin. It looks like I’m still breathing.
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There was Fledge first. Then Noj. Then Chris, who turned out to be an online persona of a twisted pedophile. Then Andy. Then Saint. Then Ryan. Never Elvis. Then Liam. Then The Notebook. Then my almost mutual infatuation partner, David. Then nothing for years. Then Dmitri. Then Ben. I can’t say for sure if any of it was love. I never pursued Fledge. Noj was terrified and far away. Chris wasn’t real. Andy scared me. SAINT was straight. Ryan died before things could get complicated. Liam was straight. The Notebook was too young. David was terrified of what our relationship would do to him. Nothing was too easy. Dmitri had a boyfriend. Ben? No, I stillhaven’t figured out what’s going on there. Celeste asks me about our “relationship question mark”, inflection is too subtle, she has to spell out the interrogative nature of our friendship/living arrangement/whatever it is. We discuss we and ours, but, if he has his way, he’ll be leaving the city too soon enough.
Fuck all if I know if this is love. If I understood love, I wouldn’t be a writer or a waiter or a useless fucken philosopher, I’d be a God. I don’t know what Ben is thinking. Why he invited me to live here. Why his voice makes my neck crack. There is no logical reason why the way he describes the way he loves someone who isn’t me, doesn’t put me off. I now find the word “Boo” sexy (though not in that Snoop Dog, Usher/Alicia Keys way). His ugly duckling scowl gives me swan bumps. I could give a class on how people can fall into what they think is love. How wonderful it feels. But just because I could teach it, doesn’t mean I’ve learned enough of it tounderstand it. I don’t think the average high school math teacher really knows why the Quadratic Equation works. They don’t need to understand why, as long as theyunderstand how. I know that the first time I saw Ben, I thought “He’s kind of cute, but so annoying.” I didn’t want to get to know him. I didn’t mean to invite him out to dinner that first night. My mouth worked faster than my brain. Thank God. Thank mouth. I don’t know when I started thinking “Wow, he is fucked up in the most wonderful ways. I think I could love him.” I’m not sure why the thought of him leaving makes my lips twitch. I wonder what this laugh is between us that makes my heart seize. I love him. No, not in that sappy I’m so in love with him way, and no, not in that lustful he is so hot, I want to fuck him way, and not even in the friendly way that I love Celeste, and Zuzu, and Wiz, and D. This is a weird love, even for me. It’s mostly that I enjoy spending time with him. He’s funny, he’s smart, he’s a good listener with a good singing voice, he’s talented at what he does, but he is flawed in ways that are frankly none of anyone’s business unless he decides to tell them. So it’s a friend love. But God I want to kiss, protect, defend, and hold him. And it’s not because he has magnificent hair (though he does), and it’s not because he has an amazing ass (he doesn’t), and it’s not because his body is stunning (and I wish he could appreciate that it is), or even because...I don’t know why it is, it just is. There’s a not in my stomach that I can’t undo. I can’t drink it away or even drink it nearer. The day I move into Ben’s apartment, we notice a mother pigeon on his balcony, sitting on an egg. “It’s a sign.” Ben says.
“Oh, baby,” I say, “are you saying you want to have children together? I’m all for the experience, but you should know, I’m not properly equipped to conceive.” “Booooo.” I can’t explain how much I love that sound. “I tend to dominate.” Ben says. He has been doing most of the talking (I’d say three and a half blocks worth), since we left the coffeehouse where I work. “I have to tell my friends that it’s okay to talk over me. I know I can be kind of domineering. And it’s not just in conversation.” His point is that we’ve been walking aimlessly around Boston, but he looked so purposeful that I hadn’t questioned that he knew where he was going. “Where should we go?”
In the other direction. We backtrack two blocks, talking about the cow he had as a kid. And then we’re in a liquor store, which seems like not just a good idea, but possibly the best id that’s ever been eaed. “Do you like Miller High Life?” He asks. And, then, immediately “Wait, you don’t like beer, do you?” “No, but I’ll drink it.” Because I need to get drunk. “Fuck that. Let’s get something we’ll both like.” So it is that we end up with a four pack of tiny margaritas, walking back to his place, talking about old jobs and bad music. I am enamored of Ben in a way that I haven’t been enamored before. He’s hot, and smart, and funny, and we’re so in tune that we both have written love poems/songs based on a phrase from a book that most people have never read. I should really want to fuck him senseless or climb into his bed and melt around him. And it’s not that those feeling aren’t there, it’s that they’re superseded by the desire to talk and listen to him. My inner whore must hate me. It’s not long before the margaritas are gone. It occurs to me that I didn’t really eatanything, and drinking on an empty stomach can occasionally lead to bad judgment, but there’s nothing to be done about it now. And we’re talking about Lord knows what, and then “There'’s this guy I stalk on Tuesday nights. He hangs out at The Anorexic. We should go.” So he gets dressed, and I lament my lack of foresight. It’s jeans and my “God Bless America” t-shirt for me. The Anorexic is empty (which is truer than metaphor), so we decide to go to another bar down the street. Also pretty much empty. So we play video trivia. He, drinking High Life, me downing Southern Comfort and Cokes. “Hey, I think that guy down there tuned my piano. He’s kind of hot, and he’s in this really cool band―” “And I went to high school with him. Jack?” And it’s Jack Marple, who lived across the hall from me my sophomore year. We shoot shit about performance venues, and his band, and the irrepressible Ben dominates the conversation, and kicks me when I mention that we only came out tonight so that he could stalk someone at The Anorexic. Soon the bar is closed, and Ben and I head back to The Anorexic, which is open foranother hour or so. The stalkee isn’t there. In fact, there aren’t many people there. We’re both buzzed and talking about publishing and music, and I love his opinions and the sound of his voice, and I might be vaguely dizzy. Soon, I am following him back to his house because both the bus and the subway have stopped running, and I am way far away from home, and I think...hope...I left my backpack at his place. I did. “Do you mind if I play you some of my music?” He asks. Mind? Ben’s music turns me almost fanboy. Some of the lyrics make me feel the way I feel about Billy Collins poetry: I shouldn’t like them, they should be cliché, but they’re not, so I do. And I’m not the sort of person who thinks someone is talented because I like them. When someone sucks, they suck, even if they’re hot and I want to sleep with them. Even if they’re just a really good friend. Ben doesn’t suck. Is, in fact, hugely talented. “Your music makes it hurt to be alone.” I say. “Huh?” And I am drunk, so I’m sure I’m not explaining myself properly. When I hear his love songs, and even some of his not love songs, I want to run my fingers through someone’s hair, put my hand on their face and kiss them for hours. His is the kind of music you should hear with someone. And, technically, I’m with him. But even if he weren’t using his hands to play his instruments, running my fingers through his hair or kissing him are not options. Ok, they are options, they’re just bad ones. Not now. Not when both of us are so jaded about love and gay men. Not when I’m three Soco and Cokes and twomargaritas over an empty stomach. Not. Not. Not. There’s a not in my stomach that I can’t undo. The computer lab where I check my e-mail plays a loop of about ten songs. Usually Eminem’s “Mocking Bird”, Destiny’s Child’s “Soldier”, something by Mariah Carey (sometimes a new one, sometimes a classic...tonight it was “Emotions”), a 50 Cent track, and other assorted hip-pop. Tonight, I heard Aerosmith’s “Don't Want to Miss a Thing” seven times in there. Which is odd enough, but I’d heard the song on my way to work via someone else’s loud headphones, and then again at work, sandwiched between Weezer’s “Beverly Hills” and Nine Inch Nails’s “Only”. Why is BCN playing Aerosmith? I like it, but what the fuck? It doesn’t fit in the playlist.
And the song...in 1998, after my first boyfriend killed himself, after I tried to recuperate by fucking as many strange men as I could meet over The Internet, I got kidney stones. While I was recovering, out of my mind on Demoral, I’d accidentally bought a plane ticket for a strange gay kid in Georgia. And we ended up roommates and sort of lovers, and it had been a huge mess. The thing is, I don’t remember ordering him the plane ticket. I don’t remember the car trip home from the airport. Whether he smelled like cigarettes even then. Whether he smiled. I don’t remember the last thing he said when I put him on a bus back to North Carolina, a month later. But the day I woke up with a Demoral hangover, and a voicemail message reminding me to pick Elvis up at theairport, I heard the song “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” six times between Hyannis and Boston. I’m not complaining. Sure, it’s pretty bombastic as far as Aerosmith songs go. Yea, it’s by far their most popular song, without actually being one of their best. Still, I like it. It was a guilty pleasure in a summer of guilty pleasures, Elvis, definitely included. But the point is, the song. It was all over the radio that summer. So romantic, so winsome. I was on my way to pick up a complete stranger, a gay complete stranger, a gay complete stranger who was coming specifically to spend time with me, and this horrifically cheesy operatic rock ballad is playing all the time. It should have been our song. We should have been happy, and so in love we couldn’t bear to be apart, especially when the government asked him and my father to fly into space to blow up that meteor coming to destroy the Earth. But it didn’t work out that way. I ended up wanting to hurtle him into space dick first into the meteor. I was afraid his head may actually crack through it. As soon as the relationship went bad, I stopped listening to the radio. I wasn’t weepy, or violently angry. I was just afraid that if I heard that stupid song that should have been ours, I would have to climb inside the radio, shake Steven Tyler by the frilly things that hung from his sleeves, and say “Love like that doesn’t exist you fucken asshole. And I know you didn’t write that song, but fuck you for singing it and making me believe that sort of love was out there waiting for me.” By the time the summer ended, the song had completely faded off the playlists of the radio stations I listened to. Mr. Tyler must have known what the consequences of me hearing that song would be. So, for years, I’d banished that song to the part of my brain where Celine Dion and Meatloaf lyrics hibernated. And during those extremely rare times when I smoked a joint or drank to excess, I tried really hard to fry the cells in that particular section of my brain. Tonight, the song is back with a vengance. During its seventh revolution at the computer lab, I look at the clock, and see it’s about time for me to go catch one of the last buses of the night. I put my notebooks in my bag, and my skin starts to bristle, in a good way. Air conditioner in Miami on an August day bristling. I have this smile, like I know the world loves me for a change. This can only lead to disappointment. I’m thinking of picking up some pizza on the way home for my new roommate. I don’t like her, and I’m fairly certain that she doesn’t like me, but pizza makes friends of almost everyone. I’m on my way out of the lab when I hear the hottest, most intriguing voice in the world saying “Baby” in a way so sexy, I have to turn to see who God blessed with such a power of inflection, and it’s Ben. Fuck home, fuck my roommates, I’m an asscat, and Ben’s voice is a can opener. I follow him to a trendy bar down the street called The Anorexic. It’s trendy in that horrid way. A room half-full of mismatched wannabe scenesters drinking their shitty beers and trying to look and talk cool. There’s a lot of people wearing argyle socks on their arms, in place of sleeves. “Do you serve wine here?” Ben asks. The bartender points to the wineglass sitting in front of another customer. “No, he brought that in from next door.” “Is it any good?” Ben asks the guy with the wine glass in front of him. “The white is ok.” The guy says. “But I wouldn’t drink the red.” “I guess I’ll have the white then.” “Sorry, this bar only has one wine glass.” The bartender says. But his wisecrack is drowned out by the other wine drinker, who says “White wine at a bar? What are you, some kind of homosexual?” “I’m the best kind of homosexual.” Ben replies. “Can I take you home and take naked pictures of you?” The other wine drinker asks. “Sorry,” Ben replies, tilting his head. “I’m gonna be famous soon. Naked pictures would be scandalous.” And he pays for his wine, and we move to the other side of the bar. We’re about a minute and a half deep into a conversation about Ben’s impending New York trip when Aerosmith’s “Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” clicks on the jukebox. “¿w-t-f?” I sign. “¿song everywhere ― s-t-e-v-e-n t-y-l-e-r dead?” And I have to be careful, because I made a joke about Nell Carter’s death in 2003, and she had a fatal heart attack that very night. So I attempt to steer the conversation in another direction, but Ben is clearly the coxswain tonight, and he leads me down a different current of conversation, and soon we’re walking out of The Anorexic, headed to a better bar. A guy he knows and is attracted to, who isn’t me, is sitting at the corner table. While Ben and I discuss our various relationships with older men and younger men, his eyes keep darting toward this other guy. “I don’t want to date an older man.” He says. “They’re always going to go on about achieving my potential. And I already have an internal voice saying that all the time. I don’t need another one.” I want to say I would never go on and on about your potential. You’re an amazing artist, and sure if you worked a little harde....fuck. but I’m not quite that awkward, and I know his comment wasn’t about me. Maybe it’s the four rum and Cokes I had before I went to the computer lab, or perhaps the Soco and Cokes from the Anorexic, but I’m starting to get jealous of the way he’s looking at this other guy. I make some lame joke about the guy who offered to take naked pictures, and Ben says he needs to take new pictures for his LiveJournal page. “I’ll take your picture.” I say. “I’ll even make sure you keep all your clothes on.” So we’re back at his house, me with his digital camera in my hand, taking picture after picture after picture. I hate the way I see a perfect shot, and the digital camera waits three seconds, thereby getting a completely different, never as good shot. Every picture is at the wrong angle, in the wrong light. “My face is too fat.” Ben says. “My forehead is gigantic. Like that Pixies song. Gigantic. Gigantic. My big big head.” “Your head is not gigantic.” I say. “It is. I’ve totally got that great big gay guy head, where it looks like the guy’s Godzilla sized head is in a battle with the rest of the body for supremacy, and the head is winning.” “You do not. Your head is fine. It’s your jaw that’s too cleft for your face.” I’m being an asshole. His jaw is cute. “I don’t want to be cute.” He says, as if I made the last comment out loud. “I want to be hot. My hair is too fuzzy duckling head. Look at it bounce. Why is my head so big?” And I think, but do not say, because whenever I’m around you, I inflate it. “Your head’s not that big. It’s not like ten years from now I’m going to have to e-mail you from New Zealand, saying ‘Dear Ben, I was in the ocean taking pictures of a pod of dolphins, and somehow your face is in every frame.’” “I’ll write back ‘Sorry, I’m in the Australian Bush.’” I was going to say he was in Cleveland, but I let it slide. “I’m beautiful in motion.” He says. “But I’m ugly in stills.” “You’re not ugly. You’re hot.” “Keep telling me that.” He says. “Eventually, I’ll believe it.” You’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful and I know that you’re going to destroy me you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful “I’m tired.” He says. “We’ve taken how many pictures, and only five of them don’t suck. I’ll hate two of them by tomorrow morning.” Rufus the Asscat hops on the bed. Ben grabs him into a super bearcat hug. “Oh, let’s take a couple of me and Asscat. I love when you’re holding onto a cat, and they know they’re trapped, so they just tense up and wait for you to let them go.” Ben says. “It’s like OW!!! Fucken cat!!! Hsssssssssssssssssssssssst.” Rufus leaps from the bed and into the kitchen. “Man, that’s deep.” He says, showing me his sliced finger. “Hey, Asscat,” I shout at Rufus, who is peeking around the corner, “how would you like to be drumskin?” “You know he’s thinking, how would you like to be a colander?, right?” Ben asks. I laugh. My head falls onto Ben’s bed. We scan through the pictures I’ve been taking one more time. I never captured him quite right. He’s so beautiful, and these pictures of him are so pedestrian. I am the older man who wants him to live up to his fucken potential, as though potential were a goal and not a starting point. I try and figure a way to work I love you into the conversation, but the playlist is high school memories and internet celebrity. Eventually, we wind into a discussion about exes, and he’s talking about his HIV positive ex, and I’m rambling about Ryan, and surely I love you would fit anywhere around here. But it doesn’t. It’s too cumbersome. It doesn’t match the decor. I love you is the perfect couch to sit on, but we’re decorating the kitchen. So I say “Dear Ben, I am in my subconscious, taking pictures of all the men I’ve ever loved, and somehow your face is in every frame.” Proposing Marriage To Strangers 101 Like most Introductory Courses, we begin with a thesis statement. By the end of this course, I expect you will be able to walk up to someone you barely know and tell them you love them. You will fall in love with a laugh, the way he makes eye contact with a squirrel and doesn’t even break it when he rests his hands on the small of your back, the way she makes the word “fuck” have three syllables. You will learn to say “I love you” before you know your betrothed’s name. You will learn to actually be in love before, and despite, all those wonderful imperfections that lead to annoyance, arguments, divorce, and, ultimately love. You will realize that while “no” means “no”, “you’re crazy” means “not yet, but soon”. Syllabus Week One, Forgetting the Complications of Previous Love Experience: During this class we will discuss why none of your past relationships were actually love. We will tear pages out of your photo albums, and smash all your When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, The English Patient, and all those other nonsensical “love” DVDs.
Week Two, Determining Your Type, Then Overcoming It: We will discuss your fetishes, and why they’re wrong. You will learn to forget about hair styles and skin types and how much money people make, and learn to only follow the exquisite twist of stomach and the tingle of hair. Week Three, Dropping Pick Up Lines in Favor of Honesty: This is not a week to fuck with the professor. Listen, learn. Pick up lines only work on prissies and prostitutes. Week Four, Field Trip to End All Field Trips: Bring a lunch or money to buy a lunch. You’ll all be blindfolded and dropped off at various parts of the city. The weather will be ideal for love. It may be snowing, or sunny, or raining cats and locusts. Whatever it will be will be perfect. You won’t know where you are. You will be lost and dizzy. This is what love feels like. While you’re pondering this (s)he will catch your ears, your eyes, your nose, your arms. You won’t need a diploma. The only degrees you’ll get are from the fever. Class difuckensmissed. Like most members of the animal kingdom, I am a bundle of nerves. Strike the right one, and I'm yours.
So far in my sensual history, I've fallen in LOVE with three people: Ryan, MAMIP & Liam. All of them sweet, and willing to do almost anything for anyone. One was straight and easily spooked, one gay and easily spooked, the other, completely unable to cope with his sexuality. But love is so overrated. The guys I fall in LUST with get on my fucken nerves. In our first conversation, Elvis's voice was like a cat in heat being rubbed claws down on a chalkboard made of aluminum. Of course, I was Demoraled out of my mind, at the time, so I invited him to fly up and visit me. Worse, I spent money I didn't have buying his ticket. Just about every guy I've found hot is either a spaz, a compulsive liar, a dingleberry or a user. Dmitri doesn't appear to be any of these. Annoying? Well, yea, but in SUCH a HOT way. The sort of annoying you want to get up real close to and kiss, and throttle so that the annoying tongue slides into your mouth. I haven't been this nervous in quite a while. In six hours, I head over to my friend Cali's for a haircut. I'll give her a couple of books to take to one of my friends in Ireland, and then we'll drive to the airport, where she'll be heading off to Europe, and I'll be meeting Dmitri and taking him home. Yep, for the first time since Elvis, someone is coming from out of state to spend time with me. Unlike Elvis, however, this is a very short term platonic visit. Three days, two nights. So why am I so nervous? I really like Dmitri. He's funny, smart, hot, and while he's not A WRITER, he happens to be a very talented writer. Much more talented than most of the "writers" that I know. He's also cruel, needy, and sarcastic. Three attributes which, against my better judgment, are HUGE turn ons for me. So, in the week since I've known he was coming, I've been calmly trying to thing of fun things we can do on my...ahem...extremely limited budget. I've also been leisurely getting my room organized, and attempting to not freak out Dmitri, who is also a bundle of nerves. For the first few days, I successfully remained unfreakedout. Then my computer crashed. Then my TV crashed into my computer. Yesterday, I walked a mile into the evil sleet storm that hit Boston. The sleet was so hard, the discman I was holding was skipping. Today, on my way to work, I missed the bus I was aiming for, but the bus didn't miss me, slamming a HUGE puddle of slush first on my left side prompting me to say "Ohhhh gross." which allowed my mouth to be open just wide and long enough to get a mouth full of yummy Somerville slush. These are all wonderful signs. So now, I'm in freak out mode. Straight Roommate leaves for Kaleeeeefornya in four hours, so he's hogging the washing machine, so I can't even finish my laundry. I tried doing it yesterday, but Landlord was doing his. The day before? Straight Roommate. Fuckers. I was going to borrow Zuzu's car to do the Logan run, but it won't start. I left my tips at work. The first time I wrote this entry, I tripped over the power cord and....yea. I'm hoping that I get all this bad luck out of my system BEFORE Cali starts cutting my hair. I'm also hoping that Straight Roommate gets off the phone soon, so Dmitri can call. Right now, he's really getting on my last nerve. Crush. Crush. Crush. Orange Crush. Grape Crush. High School Crush. Crushed Velvet. Crush from Demolition. Crush. Crush. Crush. I've had every sort of crush imaginable. Hot boys with no brains. Smart boys with no asses. Big dicked, boner-brained hipsters, hippies who've met every criteria associated with the word thick you can imagine, I've even crushed on dorks with overbites so big you could hang them from the Sears Tower by their upper jaw. Does anyone remember Strawberry Crush or Watermelon Crush? Back in the days of Fresca and Tab you could get any type of Crush you wanted. The options were...well...crushing. I've been all kinds of crushed. Emotionally, physically, spiritually, agnostically. I crush. You crush. We crush. I have been crushed.
The two people I've fallen hardest for, I haven't been able to write about. MAMIP and Liam. Liam was a pretty typical crush for me: cute nerd who everyone thinks is quiet, but is secretly a jaded neurotic type with a killer body and hot nerd tongue. Not that we ever kissed, but the ex-girlfriend who stole his virginity, then did the whole "I think I'm pregnant" routine with him TWICE when he tried to break up with her, she told me the things he could do with his tongue were amazing. Unfuck her for torturing me that way. MAMIP was far from typical. Sweet, charming, sincere, honest, sexy. He has a voice that makes women (and ten percent of the guys) orgasm from fifty feet away just by saying the word "Oy." His Portuguese Oy has often caused me to give a Yiddish Oi. His voice. A man that hot, but so sweet and shy shouldn't have that kind of voice. He should have to talk through JAWS...with a lisp. But no, he's got Voice. Imagine my pants splattering surprise when, after seven months of not talking to each other, he called me. When his name showed up on Caller ID, I dropped the phone on the sidewalk, then scrambled to pick it up, elbowing two old ladies, and a toddler with a clear learning disability. "Hey (let's for the fuck of it call him Mark) Marc!" "¿Stevie?" He had dialed the wrong number. "No, it's Safey." "Oh, hey Safey. I'm sorry I was trying to dial someone else." Imagine how disappointed I'd be if that's how the conversation had actually gone down. It didn't. After seven months, I'd had all the silence I could take from him. So I called him when I KNEW he'd be at work. How did I know? Certainly not because I called his work first to find out if he was there. What kind of desperate psycho do you think I am? Surely not THAT kind. When his voicemail picked up, I smoothly left him a message: "Oh, Marc, I'm sorry I was trying to call my friend Martin. Hey, I haven't talked to you in ages. I don't know what you've been up to lately, but I miss hanging out with you. Maybe I'll stop in and visit you at work one of these days. Happy Holidays." Oh, yeah. I'm smoove like Smoove B. I combined my awkward lack of social skills, creative dishonesty, and free cell phone minutes into a looooooooooooooooove trap. And that's why I dropped the phone, and beat up a couple of septuagenarians and an infant to get at my cell. "Hey, Marc, how are you?" "I'm good." And the way he said good was just...soooo...gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood. It was twenty-someodd degrees and I was melting. "How are you?" Well, I was, if not depressed, very much apathetic. No Internet access, I'm not fully moved out of my old place or into my new one. I've been couch surfing by request. A few nights with Zuzu, a few with Cali, now with Celeste. All in all this week has gone from not very good to wow, this is going to suck. Until the call. I'd regale you with all the sensual details of our conversation, like how we're going to get together for coffee, even though neither of us drink coffee, but that sort of thing is boring. Instead I'll talk about all the sex we aren't going to have because he's probably still not out, and he lives with his close-knit family, and I now live with... Ahhh, the new house. The Landlord is The King of Signs. The door tells the mailman where to leave which letters. There's a sign on the bottom stair telling you to watch your step, and clean your feet. At the top of the steps, each bedroom door is marked with which roommate lives in the room. There wil be four of us, including the landlord. We certainly don't want to get all confused thinking someone lives in the wrong room. The kitchen tells you which glasses The Landlord would rather you use, as well as which spices go with which kind of food, and how long to dry each type of dish. Don't even ask about the full colored manual in the washing room. It has graphs. Plural. GraphS. The first night that I crashed at my future house, there was a note telling me how to turn on the lights. Unfortunately, I couldn't see the sign because all the lights were out. This caused me to stumble into Roommate #1: The Frat Boy, who was stumbling drunkenly down the stairs. He gave the typical Frat Boy Mating Call "What the Fuck?" when he bumped into me. I introduced myself, he went to the bathroom, and then to bed. I haven't seen him since. Roommate #2 is on The Real South Beach Diet. Pills. Many many many pills. Even Barry Bonds has called the house asking Roommate #2 to stop taking so many goddamned pills. It's freakish. The way he hunches over when he shuffles downstairs to smoke or take some pills. It's the only thing he leaves the house for: to get more pills from the pharmacy. Luckily, Roommate #2 will be gone in two weeks. I'm not sure who will be replacing him. Frat Boy will also be gone in the new year. Roommate #3 is...I didn't get his name. He was talking to me for about ten minutes, but the entire time he was talking, all I was thinking was "pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty", which I'm pretty sure means he's straight. Which beings us back to Marc, who isn't straught, but who plays one in his social groups. I've missed him like astronauts miss gravity. He wants to see my new place. In my mind this means we're going to fuck all day, fall in love, make beautiful Brazilian-Irish-American babies. But I know in his mind, he's just curious about where I live. I'm fairly pessimistically certain that he's incapable of loving me with the furor that I love him. Next week, I'll be back in his orbit. He will pull every bone, muscle, and organ into a new alignment. I will be so atrophied that the gravity of his kiss will tear through my body, leaving me as a pile of bones on the carpet of my new place. Crushed. Again. Maybe I’m in the minority (and I don’t just mean because of the gay thing), but I don’t find rape confessions to be a big turn on. Sex was no longer on my mind, in fact it wasn’t even in the same zip code as my mind, as I held Ryan sobbing in my arms. “I’m so sorry. I know this isn’t” sob “what you planned on tonight.”
I kissed the top of his head. “Don’t worry about it.” I fell asleep sitting against the couch with Ryan in my lap. When I woke up it was light out. Ryan was still asleep. I wiggled out from beneath him, and put a pillow under his head. I went upstairs to shower my drunk off. It was my day off, but I had to go to work, pick up my check, cash it, and frivolously spend it on CDs. I’d get some writing done until Ryan woke up, then either fix us breakfast, or head out to a diner. By the time I was done with my shower, Ryan was up. “Hey.” I flashed him my ridiculous looking smile. “Morning.” “Thanks for the pillow.” “No problem. It’s probably not as comfortable as my inner-thigh, but it’s the best I could come up with on short notice.” He grinned back. I’m a sucker for goofy smiles. “I should probably head home and get ready for work.” “Want some breakfast first? I asked. “Nah. Never touch the stuff. Are you working tonight?” “Nope. You’re working with Karen.” “Mind if I stop by later? No drinking this time.” “Sure. Give me a call when you’re on your way.” He did his best to dewrinkle his shirt and headed to the door. Then stopped, walked back toward me and kissed me. I’m also a sucker for good kissers. I spent the day in a daze of good music and happy thoughts. I went swimming, fired up the grill and made some chicken. I was adding my homemade teriyaki glaze when the phone rang. “Hey Safe, it’s Ryan. I’m on my way.” His arrival was perfectly timed with my completion of dinner, which was delicious. I felt incredibly domestic. As Ryan and I put the dishes in the sink he threw his arms around me and kissed me on the cheek. I giggled. This was the gayest I’d ever been without having my dick in someone’s ass. “Do you want go upstairs?” he asked. I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to waste any energy walking all the way to the other side of the condo and up the stairs, but I said yes. If I were to go on pure lust factor, perhaps the sex would have been mundane, very vanilla. But this wasn’t about sex. This was someone I’d been subconsciously in love with for years. Someone who, if he didn’t love me back, at least wanted to take a chance on me. I fell asleep with his arms wrapped around me. His personal faith in humanity flotation device. I could save him. I woke up the next day and he was gone. My panic attack lasted just long enough for me to notice the note on my computer desk.
He loved me. I did the happy underwear dance around the room. Looked longingly at the phone. I wanted to call everyone I knew and tell them the news, but, of course, I couldn’t. I wasn’t going to be the one to push Ryan out of the closet. Not yet, anyway. I went through the motions of my day, as though I was on ecstasy, which, in a sense, I was. I got home a little late, made myself some mac and cheese, and sat down to write. I don’t know when I fell asleep, I only know that I woke up next to a blank piece of paper and half a bowl of cold macaroni and cheese. I looked at my answering machine. No messages. I was okay with that. After only two days of knowing Ryan was gay and interested, I wasn’t going to turn into that obnoxious “Why didn’t you call me?” obsessive lover. The next day, I got up early, headed out to work, and started doing some of the miscellaneous jobs that should have been Ryan’s. I was organizing cases of wine by brand when the phone rang. “Thank you for calling Cranberry Liquors, this is Zachary, how may I help you?” “Safey, it’s Karen. Is Ryan there?” “Not yet. I was about to give him a call. I got so busy organizing the wines that I didn’t realize he was late. Want me to give him a message.” “No. He didn’t come in yesterday.” My Adam’s apple falls into my stomach. “What?” “I would have called you, but it was so dead yesterday that he sort of did us a favor.” “Ok. Well, thanks Karen. I’ll call him and see what’s going on.” I call his cell phone, and am not terribly surprised to get no answer. I am wearing my best pessimism. He freaked out about us and moved to Tibet. His mother had another heart attack, and he’s at the hospital again, and was too overwhelmed to remember to call out for work. But Ryan isn’t the sort of employee to even call in sick, nevermind do a no-call no-show. And if there was some sort of emergency he would have called me. I’m his boyfriend. Sort of. I must have come on too strong, and now he can’t even stand to look at me. I am just reaching the meat of my pity-me sandwich when I see him walking toward the door. I crack my knuckles, breathe deep, and say, “You’re late.” “It’s eleven o’clock in the morning. If anything, it’s a little early to be buying a case of beer.” “Sorry,” I say to the person who isn’t Ryan. “I thought you were someone else.” “No problem.” As he walks over to the beer cooler, I dial Ryan’s home number. “Hello.” “Ms. Evans? Is Ryan there?” “Who is this?” He is screening his calls. Or she is. She sounds like she’s holding back tears. Did he tell her? “Safey Mode. I work with him at Cranberry Li―” “Oh, Safe. I’m sorry. I should have had someone call yesterday. I’ve just been so―” I remember seeing Michael Hutchence’s father, Kelland, interviewed on VH1. He was telling the story about how, on the day his son’s body was found, the first phone call he received was from a reporter asking if he had a comment for the papers. “You mean about the new album?” Kelland asked. The nervous reporter muttered only “Oh God.” and hung up. “He died yesterday.” The beer cooler slams shut. I sit down. Ms. Evans and the man with the case of Michelob Light are talking to me at the same time. So sorry. How much? Visions of his car wrapped around a tree. Lovely day for the beach. Drunk driving. Incorrect change. Cryptic suicide note. So sorry. Dead. Have a nice day. Dead. I hang up the phone, walk over to the door, and lock it. I pull the chain on the open sign, and walk into the beer cooler to scream. |
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