Post #10: Saying Goodbye to Rockbottom with One Last Escape
Something’s not right. I can’t put my finger on it, but something is definitely wrong. But what? I’ve made the proper preparations for the perfect evening. My phone is completely charged, my youtube playlist is ready to go. I have a case of cold light beer chilling in the fridge, I have three separate flasks full of whiskey in three separate rooms, and I’m wearing my freshest socks to ensure some slick risky business-esque slides. Everything is primed for an epic last escape. And yet, something is off.
I go and look in the mirror and see perfection smiling back at me. I look like a million bucks with my freshly buzzed head and my finely shaped and trimmed red beard. I’m wearing my favorite ocean blue long tee with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow. Both my biceps and pectoral muscles like fantastic thanks to the two hundred heartbreak pushups I’ve been doing almost every day. Over my blue tee, I’m wearing my black vest, unbuttoned, spotless and clean. This is my peak tour guide uniform, and I love how I look in it. If I was a customer on my tour right now I’d tip at least twenty bucks for appearance alone.
And yet, I’m still not feeling it. The music leaves me cold, my dance moves aren’t coming naturally. My elbow thrusts, my head shakes, my shoulder shimmies, they’re all lacking. I learned a long time ago that if your shoulder shimmies aren’t working, something is definitely wrong.
But worse than that is my mind. I’m not going off to my special place. I should be working out the next chapter of my novel in my head, visualizing what the characters need to do next. Plus a side escape was supposed to be a good bit of daydreaming of what my life will be like after this big move tomorrow. I’m moving on! This should all be an experience of elation.
But again, nothing.
I frown and walk around the house, trying to put my finger on the issue. I come to the living room and smile despite myself. Oh the irony. After six weeks of being unfurnished, there is finally furniture in the living room on my last day. A bed and a dresser. I picked these up today off of craigslist for my new place, but I can’t move my stuff in till tomorrow, so here they stay for the night. At first I was worried this would interfere with my planned escape, but then a vision came to me: a catwalk. Like the ones models use, strutting down their runway while fans cheer them on. I positioned the dresser and the bed so that they ran parallel to each other in the living room with a gap in between them just wide enough for a person to walk/slide/dance through. Boom. A makeshift catwalk. Dream becomes reality. When I first stare upon my creation, I just know when I make my way down this catwalk my house will transform into an elegant fashion show, with seas of loving fans cheering all my moves.
But even the catwalk leaves me hollow. I’ve tried it several times with different songs, and sure I can conjure up the crowd, but they don’t seem all that impressed by me. There’s an announcer with a posh, upperclass voice speaking into the microphone, and he is doing everything but singing my praises.
“Tonight, Randy the Escapist, has decided to test his crowd of adoring fans by seeing how long they are willing to endure his boring, tepid dance moves. A brave choice to be sure…”
Stranger still, at the end of the catwalk is the front door, which I figured I would be using frequently to get to my front porch, the main stage of my escapes, of course.
But each time I go through and find the front door in my face, I instinctively do a quick sidestep and moonwalk (poorly) back to the dining room, as if I’m avoiding the porch, like there is something out there I don’t want to deal with. But what?
The kitchen also has its own oddity. Whenever I go to the fridge for a fresh beer, I have found myself hating the toaster oven. It is the only appliance in the kitchen not boxed up with the rest of my stuff in the back of the u-haul parked outside. I do not wish to bring it, nor do I have any desire to look at it, or feel its eyes on me.
Through the music in my headphones I can hear the house creak and moan around me. I know this is impossible but it’s true nonetheless. I swear this house is alive, and it’s decided to kill itself on my last night here, planning to collapse in on itself while I’m still inside, before I can ever truly escape rock bottom.
Fuck this, I think to myself, I’m just anxious about the move. I just need to take a piss and regroup, then I’ll be fine.
I head through my bedroom to get to my bathroom. It’s dark of course, for I demand the whole house be dark during my escapes, and in the darkness I swear I can hear the soft sound of sexy women beckoning me to my bed.
Very strange.
In the bathroom I unzip my fly and try to piss. But I can’t. Instead of releasing anything, I start to feel a heavy static well up inside me. Anxiety, I realize. I try to find my peace, thinking back to that beautiful moment at the bayou house with Jake and McKayla, but it’s not working. I start to rub the center of my chest, as if this might relieve the problem. But the static continues to grow.
And just when I feel it’s so great that I’m gonna pop, that’s when I hear a terrible sound. A loud metallic clank that echoes from behind the shower curtain. With a shaky hand, I reach out and pull back the curtain. I look down to the shower floor and find my worst fears realized. The shower head. The one that fell off the wall six weeks ago, and was only repaired by a traitorous plumber two weeks ago, has torn itself from the wall again, leaving that damn shower hole exposed. I watch in bewilderment as the hole spits out globs of water onto the fallen shower head.
Impossible.
Perhaps, but it’s happening anyway. I shouldn’t care, this is my last night here after all and I couldn’t care less if the whole place should burn down tomorrow. But a nagging voice inside me tells the truth of it, or at least what very much seems like the truth.
You can never truly leave rock bottom. Once you’re down here, you stay down here.
I chug the rest of my beer and charge back to the kitchen for a new one. I find the toaster oven staring at me again and I hurl my empty beer can in its face before retrieving a new one from the fridge.
“Yo dawg, mind if I grab one,” I hear a familiar, and welcomed, voice behind me.
I whip around to see my favorite fictitious rapper/roommate Clever Banger standing in my kitchen, leaning against the counter, looking as cool as always, with platinum chains hanging off his neck.
I toss him a beer and pretend everything is fine, but like any good imaginary friend, he sees right through this.
“What’s wrong, g?”
“I’m not sure, I just feel…off.”
I hear the ladies calling for me again through my bedroom door and shout at them to shut up.
“You gotta talk to me man.”
“I don’t know Clever, I know this is my last day and tomorrow is my big fresh start, but something doesn’t feel right and I feel like my world is collapsing.”
“Maybe there are things inside you that you ain’t dealing with?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, but maybe let’s start with why you got Cory Chase, Tera Patrick, and Esperanza Gomez calling for you in your bedroom?”
“Fuck if I know. Maybe ‘cause of that essay I wrote about porn.”
“Oh yeah, that was kinda weird that you did that. Sharing it on facebook too. No shame.”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I thought parts were funny, and you made some good arguments, but what was the whole point of that?”
“I don’t know. I guess the idea of writing about that really scared me, and sharing it on social media really scared me, and the whole point of this is to show that now that I’ve hit rock bottom I don’t care what anyone thinks, so to prove that I wrote about porn.”
“But you didn’t make it personal. Everything else you wrote was on the same narrative structure, but this was an impersonal essay.”
“Yeah, I guess it was. I guess that seemed too personal to get into all that.”
“So you do still care what other people think?”
I shrug my shoulders at this and look down at the floor.
“I guess if I could do it again, I’d make it clear that my main point is that porn being so widely available to the lonely and depressed is a recipe for some bad shit. And during this pandemic, I feel like that recipe is being made all over the world, but we don’t know it or talk about it because who knows what goes on behind the doors of the houses of the lonely? I mean, take this house for instance. Would anyone driving by have any idea what I’ve been going through for the last six weeks?”
“Do you want people to know what you’ve been going through.”
I can’t help but roll my eyes at this. “Well, obviously.”
“So what would you tell em about how it affects you, personally?”
“Uhh…” I take a long gulp of beer here, trying to buy some time to focus my thoughts. “I guess if I’m being honest, the reason I included all that in the rock bottom blog is because that my lowest points during this time have come just after I’m finished you know, and I’m just lying there in bed and feeling… I don’t even know, like this sneaky suspicion that it’s turning me less than human. It’s becoming a replacement for partnership, like my need for a loving partner seems to decrease every time I pop open my laptop. It’s a deadly cycle. I go to porn because I’m lonely and isolated, but it only makes me more lonely and isolated…”
“Damn, you should have written about that.”
“Yeah, it was just a lot, you know, to share that with the world, with facebook.”
“So then you do care what people think?”
“Why do you keep bringing that up? I don’t know maybe.”
Clever tosses his head back and laughs before finishing his beer. He casually drops the can in the sink and starts to walk toward the hallway.
“Tell ya what? Why don’t you try giving your dancing or whatever another shot. And then, in a bit, we’ll meet up again.”
That sounds like a plan to me, so I put my headphones and select the number three track on my playlist, Paint it Black. A rather obvious choice, I admit, but I know it has more than enough kick to get this escape up and running in proper form. So I hit play and let Keith and Mick take over my body and lead me around the house like I’m a strung out 70’s rockstar on the verge of destruction. And I gotta admit, Clever was right, as things definitely seem to be taking a turn toward the divine. I’m feeling much more in my element. I’m chin-jutting, sidestepping and hip shaking just the way I wanna. Feels good.
It feels so good in fact that I head over to the catwalk and unleash a fury of booty moves and fierce high knees to the delight of my sea of adoring fans.
“Well, at least he’s less pathetic than before, that’s something,” I hear the posh announcer say into the mic.
When I come to the end of the catwalk, again the front door greets me, the porch behind it beckons me, but I refuse it again, still feeling a dark energy out there, and twirl back to the other end of the house.
When I arrive at the dining room, I’m treated to a shock, as I find someone sitting at my “writing desk” that stands along the far wall. It’s a man, who’s typing furiously away on my laptop, completely oblivious of me. I contemplate making a big scene and kicking him out but something inside me tells me this would be a bad idea. Instead I study the man. I realize I know him, but I’m not sure where. Then it hits me. It’s me. It’s Randy, but a younger version of me. Around the early twenties era I believe, with a head much fuller of hair and a body less full of bulk. He’s scrawny, wired, and hungry to write. Just past him, on the wall, I notice the ants, a long line of ants moving down the wall, yet never seeming to get anywhere, staying in the same spot as if they’re walking in place. Then I see younger me take out my pill bottle, open it, and ingest an orange pill.
The little bastard, I think.
“Yo dawg, leave him be,” I hear Clever Banger’s voice echo from down the hallway, to the back rooms of the house. “Come back here, you gotta see this.”
Curiosity gets the best of me and I leave my younger self to the writing and head down the hallway to see what Clever’s up to. I find him in the third bedroom, the smallest one, looking around in amazement. I don’t understand what he’s looking at, as it just looks like an empty room to me, until I step in and find that half of the room has transformed into a giant ballroom that’s been made to look like the french quarter. And it’s full of ghosts. Yes, ghosts everywhere, all of whom are familiar to me. Old friends who I have spoken about thousands of times in the past, moving around the room repeating the cycle of their demise.
There’s the mischievous, horny 18th century boys hanging from wrought iron spikes that pierce their midsection, their guts and intestines dangling past their knees. There’s forlorn widows dressed in black, jumping to their death over and over again. Adulterous husbands burning in the great fire. And of course, there’s the pirate Jean Lafitte, standing in the corner with a tankard of ale, laughing at all of them.
“Hey homie, I think you got some fans behind you,” Clever tells me.
I turn around cautiously and discover a large group of folks, young and old, tall and short, drunk and sober, standing on the other side of the room. At first I think they’re here to watch the ghosts, until I realize they are all staring at me, they’re all hanging on my every word.
“God damn, Clever, I miss being a tour guide.”
“What do you miss about it?”
“I miss being able to enrapture people with just my words. I miss being able to take a group of strangers and using my stories to make us all feel like we’re old friends. And if I’m being honest, I miss having a job that required everyone to pay attention to me and what I had to say.”
“And all that happened every time?”
“Well, no, I mean that was during the best of it. But man, during the best times there really was no feeling like it. The rush was undeniable. There were times when at the end of the tour I would give my tip line and not only would they tip out the ass but they would chant my name in unison like I was a conquering hero.”
“No shit?”
“No shit. It wasn’t easy at first, being a tour guide. It took a year just to get my bearings, and then another year to really understand what the real point of my job was.”
“And what was that?”
“To entertain to the point of escapism. To bring my group to a different world, where they could get lost and forget about their own troubles. Sure, sometimes the job could be a drag, and sometimes the customers can be jerks, but overall, it was the best job I ever had. It was the only job I was ever good at. And I was great at it. And it helped me a lot. There’s nothing like having a job that you’re good at to boost your confidence. I met both my girlfriends thanks to that job. I became a pro storyteller thanks to that job. I owe a lot to that job.”
“Damn.”
“And now it’s gone. Taken by this fucking pandemic, and I’m not sure it’ll ever come back. At least not the way it was before.”
He nods his head at this knowingly.
“You know, one of the biggest frustrations of the job was the way it was viewed by others, my friends and family. Whenever I would try to explain how significant the job was, how being a tour guide had really helped me grow, most just didn’t seem to get it. Sure, they would say some kind things in response, but you could tell that in the back of their mind, they considered it a very silly job that attracted children and drunks. Not something to be truly proud of. They didn’t understand.”
“Still caring about what other people think, eh?”
“Why do you keep bringing that up?”
“No reason, g. Hey why don’t you do another song now, this is your last night after all.”
“Yeah, ok.” I agree, putting in my headphones and selecting Moth’s Wings by Passion Pit. A real indie slapper of a song. I leave the ghosts and the tourists in the small bedroom and gyrate my way down the hall, bending my knees at the right time, flouncing my arms the rest of the time. I make it to the catwalk, and the place transforms again, and the crowd is much more enthusiastic this time, and even the posh announcer says that it looks like I’ve finally found my groove for the night.
And it’s all going fantastic until I get back to the dining room and find myself still typing away at my “writing desk”, except now I notice that I’m no longer so young, I look like the age I am now, shaved head and all. And on the wall, that line of ants has turned into a circle, running counter clockwise. I see myself take another pill from the bottle and shiver.
This is too weird, I decide, and prance my way back down the hall, to J’s old room.
J was a former roommate mine, a curmudgeon of a man who didn’t care for me or my weirdness in the slightest. Which is why it always gave me such pleasure to dance in his empty room these days, like the freak that I am. And so here I am, drifting and dropping, sliding and twisting to that insatiable drum beat of Moth’s Wings, just really feeling myself, when I notice J, my old roommate, standing in one of the dark corners, staring at me with wide, angry eyes.
I yelp and turn away, only to yelp again, as I find my nasty landlady M standing in another corner staring at me with even angrier eyes.
“Don’t let em get to you, homie,” I hear Clever call out from the hallway, “you gotta do you.”
But it’s not that easy. Sure it’s one thing to be as weird as you want when you’re alone, but to put yourself on full display in front of others, even those that you know loathe you for being you… that’s a bit more challenging.
“He hates me because I’m weird,” I point to J. “And she hates me because I’m a deadbeat without a ‘real’ job or real money.”
“You’re always gonna have haters, but you can’t reach the level you wanna reach by half-stepping. You got to be full on you, no matter what. It’s the only way you’ll find peace.”
I know he’s right, so I restart the song on my phone and turn into a pair of moth’s wings, fluttering around the room like the fabulous escapist that I am, and a minute into it, I notice both J and M start to crumble, piece by piece. By the end of the song, there’s nothing left of either of them than a pile of clumps on the floor. I feel pretty fantastic now.
“Yeah boy! That’s what I’m talking about! You earned a beer for that one. Go get you one and meet me in the living room.”
In the kitchen, after grabbing a fresh beer, I notice the toaster oven again on the counter, and I’m tired of feeling its eyes on me, so I go over and turn it around, so it’s facing the wall.
I head to the dining room, where I find Clever Banger staring down at the other me, the one who’s still typing furiously on the computer.
“You sure are working hard.”
“Yeah,” I agree. I notice the circle of ants on the wall has changed again, it’s still a circle, but now it’s all filled in with more ants, a complete 360 of ants, some moving clockwise, others moving counterclockwise. It’s dizzying to watch.
Even more alarming, I discover the other me at the desk is much older. Wrinkled and frail. Still typing away frantically.
“What if nothing ever happens?” I ask Clever. “What if I keep going on like this, writing every day, and never sell a thing. What if I never make anything of myself as a writer, and I just go from odd job to odd job for decades to pay rent and just move from small apartment to small apartment for the rest of my life? What then?”
Clever shrugs. “Would that really be so bad?”
“I mean, kind of.”
“But would it really? If that’s the worst it can get, is that honestly so bad. Consider who you are, and what you want out of life. You think if you jumped on some corporate ladder now you’d be happy in ten years? You think working a job you don’t enjoy that takes up all your time will give you peace because you’ll have security?”
“No, I guess not.”
“Exactly. You just gotta do you, man. People like you cause you got a good heart. You’re definitely not perfect, but even if nothing ever happens with your writing, you’ll be remembered fondly by those that cared about you, those who were impacted by you. You’re telling me that isn’t enough?”
“Yeah, ok, I see your point. It’s still really scary at times though, going after your dreams, especially as you get on in life.”
“Heard that. If it makes you feel any better, I think something will happen, I’m a big fan of your writing, that shit’s tight.”
“Thanks but that doesn’t mean anything, you’re just an imaginary person based on an absurd email I got. I’m sure the real Clever Banger wouldn’t give two shits about me or my writing.”
“Well, he might not be about the way you turned him into a two dimensional stereotype who speaks the way an out-of-touch millennial thinks a black rapper would speak. Not to mention the certain ‘magical black man who helps the main character find his way’ prototype you’ve created with these last two posts. You know what I’m sayin’, homie?”
“Yeah,” I admit, before arguing, “But doesn’t it make sense for you to talk this way since you’re a creation of my mind, that’s the layer of irony-”
“Better just let it go, g, move on.”
I nod in agreement. My other self stops writing for a second and picks up the pill bottle again, taking another orange pill.
“Privilege pills, eh?” Clever says.
“Yeah,” I sigh. “I wanted to do more about my privilege, my upbringing, and all the opportunity it gave me, and the certain guilt that comes with it, I was gonna do a whole post on it actually, but I didn’t. Lost my nerve.”
“Scared about what people would think?”
“Yeah, I guess so. It’s just weird presenting yourself as a struggling writer while also acknowledging you come from an upper middle class family that has afforded you a security net if you should ever fall from your tightrope. Who wants to read about that anyway?”
“Probably about the same as those that want to hear your thoughts on porn.”
“Fair,” I laugh. “Ok, yeah, coward’s move on my part.”
“Maybe if you hit rock bottom again you’ll go for it?”
“Yes,” I laugh, “that sounds like a plan.”
Clever turns his body towards me, gestures to the front door.
“Alright man, I think it’s time.”
“Time for what?”
“You know what.”
I shiver a bit at this.
“I’m not ready.”
“Of course you are, homie, but you do need another drink first. Why don’t you grab one from the kitchen and meet me back at the catwalk.”
In the kitchen, I take some sips of whiskey from one of the flasks and crack open a new beer. I stare at the toaster oven, readying myself for what’s to come. But I’m not ready yet, so I put on Britney Spears Toxic and circle the segmented wall that separates the kitchen, dining room and hallway. My calves have never looked so good and rhythmic before. The song ends, I gulp, and head to the catwalk.
“You got this,” Clever assures me, leaning against the windowsill.
“Yeah for sure,” I say, putting on my headphones. “See you on the other side.”
“Oh homie, no. I won’t be on the other side. You know who’s waiting for you on the other side.”
I say nothing to this but my face must have been showing my fear.
“Don’t even sweat it. Like I said, you got this, you hot little pepper.”
Clever gives me a big smile before fading away in the darkness. I take out my phone and try to figure the most appropriate song to play at this moment. I am at a loss at first, until it hits me, The Longest Time by Billy Joel. A corny pick, to be sure, but it was one of the few songs that we shared together. Due to the generational gap, there wasn’t a lot of cross section, musically. But we both had a soft spot for Billy Joel, especially this song. So I punch the play button and close my eyes, preparing for what comes next, my socked feet edging toward the entrance of the makeshift catwalk.
And just like that, it begins. With Billy Joel unleashing his Whoa Whoa Whoas while I stand on the balls of my feet trying to slowly prance to the song. It doesn’t take me long to realize this is not the easiest track to escape to, at least, not for me, it’s not my standard tempo. Too slow and lovey-dovey. The sea of supporters on either side of the catwalk seemed confused by the selection, with the posh announcer even suggesting to them that this might be a joke pick.
Billy Joel continues to croon.
If you said goodbye to me tonight, there’d still be music left to write….
The memories of us together start flooding back, but not with the same brutal dagger thrusts I’m used to, it’s more peaceful than that, a more kind of sweet sad. And as my heart processes this, my prance becomes more eloquent, more precise. I do a quick spin as I near the end of the catwalk, and then spin the opposite way, and head back to the entrance. Back and forth I go, across that seven feet of catwalk, wriggling, gliding and twisting my way through Billy Joel’s hopeful lyrics. The memories of her and I together continue to come, and sometimes the sweet sad becomes far more sad than sweet, but other times it’s just the opposite. But no matter what, I continue my escape.
“Incredible!” I hear the posh announcer address the crowd, “he’s turning his raw emotions into dance! Into art! I don’t believe that’s ever been done before in the history of the world!”
My moves are just pouring out of me now, my body nothing more than a machine of gyrating swivels and bouncing wiggles.
I don’t care what consequence it brings, I have been a fool for lesser things…
Indeed, Billy, indeed.
As the lyrical bookend whoa whoa whoas arrive, I let my current spin come to a natural end. I wipe the sweat from my brow. Billy’s voice slowly fades away as I collect myself. Silence now except for the deafening cheer of the crowd that surrounds me. I wave goodbye to them and
push through to the other side. My house returns back to me, that damn front door stares at me, and I know I can’t avoid it anymore. I reach for the knob and turn. It’s hard to breathe. The darkness of the night greets me at first, until the light of the porch suddenly blasts on, temporary blinding me. I wait in pain while my eyes adjust. When they do, my heart skips. She’s standing not six feet away, at the edge of the porch, with her back to me, staring out down the street.
I don’t know what to say.
“I knew you’d come crawling back,” I call out to her.
“That was a joke,” I explain when she doesn’t respond. Still, nothing but silence.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m really sorry.”
Nothing.
“Look, I’m sorry alright, I know I fucked up. I just… I was in a really bad place at the time, you know?”
And yet still her frame doesn’t budge an inch. Is she made of stone? How pathetic does she want me to be? I start to feel myself getting mad now, and there are words forming on my tongue that I know should not come out of my mouth. But I see her there, just standing there, her back facing me, completely ignoring my existence, and I can’t help it. My mouth opens, my tongue moves, my anger is unleashed.
“Look, I’m not the only one who fucked up here. You really hurt me bad. We dated for a whole year and you refused to post any pictures of us on facebook, but in less than a month, a week after you even told me about him, you couldn’t put up pics of you guys together fast enough. How is that right? How is that not gonna destroy a person?”
My heart stops beating as soon as the words come out, and I see her shadowy figure finally move. She’s turning around, toward me. I barely have time to register this before her eyes are on me. Her angry, rageful eyes.
“Seriously?” she asks. “Seriously? After all this time, you still think that?”
“No,” I answer honestly. “No, I don’t think it, but I feel it. Not all the time, not like before. Now it’s more like in the middle of the day the feeling will just hit me and consumes me with darkness, heavy darkness that weighs me down. It keeps me at rock bottom. My mind knows the truth, but that doesn’t seem to be enough.”
“So what then?” she spits out. “So you want me to help you? You want me to spell out why what you just said was unfair, untrue and bullshit? Is that what you want?”
I take a breath before answering. “Yes… that’s what I want. I think that’s what I need.”
“Alright fine. Have it your way. Randy, you remember how we met?”
“Of course, on one of my tours. You took my tour. My pub crawl. I thought you were cute. We started talking at The Dungeon and I got your number.”
“Did you wonder how old I was at the time?”
“Of course I did, you looked young. I mean I knew you had to be at least twenty one because you were taking the pub crawl, but I was hoping at the time that you were older.”
“Why?”
“Because twenty one is pretty young, especially for someone like me at my age. I knew it would’ve been a thing.”
“Do you remember what I told you when you asked what I did?”
“You told me you were a student at Tulane.”
“I told you I was a student at Tulane who was working undergrad and grad programs.”
“Haha, yeah I remember that. You skewered the truth a bit. You later told me you wanted me to think you were older than you were because you were worried I would think you were too young.”
“Yeah, I gave you hope I was a grad student in her mid twenties so it wouldn’t be so weird.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you remember how long it took for us to finally ask each other’s ages?”
“A couple of weeks, I think.”
“Yeah, after texting throughout the day everyday before then.”
“We avoided asking as long as possible because we were afraid the truth would ruin everything. But finally, we asked and you found out I was twenty one and I found out you were thirty four. And we both took sometime to figure out how we felt about it and then separately decided ‘what the hell, let’s just see what happens’. You remember that?”
“Yeah.”
“And what happened?”
“We fell in love.”
“Yeah, over the months we fell in love. But for a while it was our secret love. We waited a good long time before introducing each other to our friends, and the idea of family knowing was insane to both of us.”
“Yeah, I was terrified people would think I was some older creep manipulating you.”
“You cared what people thought.”
“I cared what people thought.”
“And when people found out, what did they think?”
“At first some were a little put off, I think. Some of my friends definitely made some judgemental comments. But when they saw us together, saw how we were with each other, it wasn’t a big deal.”
“Yeah. Because I wasn’t some naive innocent college student being taken advantage of, and you weren’t some older creep trying to control me. We were good for each other, and good to each other, and that was obvious to anyone who paid attention.”
“But you told me early on that we couldn’t have any pictures of us on social media.”
“Yeah, I have certain family members who would have a real hard time understanding, and I didn’t want to deal with that. And when I told you you said you totally understood and it wasn’t a big deal.”
“It wasn’t. I had you and everything was great so who cares about something as dumb as social media.”
“Right. But it wasn’t just social media that we avoided either. Did you ever invite me to Sunday Dinner to meet your extended family, your cousins, aunts, and uncles that live here?”
“No, never. I didn’t want to deal with the stupid drama that it would bring.”
“Hmm, gee, it sounds like the same line of thinking that I had too. It sounds like we were both in the same awkward boat because of the age difference but it didn’t matter cause we were in it together, and what else mattered.”
“What else mattered.”
.
“And there was a condition to all this. I had already accepted a job in New York City upon graduation, so you knew from day one I was gone in a year. And when the feelings between us increased, we talked about you moving to New York and you said you had no intention of doing that.”
“Yeah, I really don’t like it over there. Fun place to visit but god is it depressing and expensive to live there.”
“Yeah, I understood that you felt that way. So we just didn’t talk about the future much and enjoyed our time together. We were the odd couple in love and it was great.”
“It was great.”
“But then as soon as you found out I had met someone else in NYC and we were doing typical boyfriend girlfriend things together, like sharing pictures on social media, you lost your shit and acted like I betrayed you. Like you had always wanted to scream your love from me from the highest building while I was ashamed of you and kept you hidden like a dirty secret. And you know that’s bulshit.”
“Yeah.”
Silence now. She’s looking at me. Waiting for me to say more.
“It just happened all so fast, you know. A week after you rip my heart out by telling me you’ve met someone else, you tell me you’re off to London with him and sharing your happiness with the world in a way you never did with me. It was a lot.”
“OK fine, but let’s talk about the six months before any of that happened. You act like I left New Orleans and found someone immediately after… six months had passed, Randy.”
“But we were talking and texting all the time during that time like we were still dating.”
“No. No we weren’t. In the beginning, sure. But even then it was me doing most of the reaching out. Even when I came to visit you you seemed distracted. But in those last three months you became really distant. You truly made me feel like you had moved on, I don’t know, met someone else or something. But it was definitely apparent that you were no longer interested in me.”
My throat tightens here while the night breeze flows past my shaved head. I know what I need to say but I don’t want to say it.
“I remember you telling me this same thing in real life,” I tell her, “It was the last time we spoke on the phone, remember? You said how distant I was. I didn’t believe you at the time. I thought you were just saying this to make yourself feel better, to alleviate your guilt. It wasn’t until lockdown started, until I had weeks on end to do nothing but think and self-reflect, that I realized how right you were. I did become distant, and probably acted disinterested. I honestly don’t think I was fully aware of it at the time, but I think that was me subconsciously trying to deal with losing you. Out of sight, out of mind, you know?”
“You never even seriously considered coming to visit me.”
“You were living with your parents at the time. That wasn’t gonna happen. I figured I could just wait until you got your own place in Manhattan and visit you. Then I’d come… if I hadn’t found someone already by then.”
“Ha! Exactly! I was far from a first priority for you. And that’s fine. That made sense. What didn’t make sense was us stringing each other along when we both knew our paths were no longer connected.”
“Yeah.”
“So yeah, distancing yourself from me and all that was fine, it hurt, but I understood. I was never mad about that. But then, six months after we last saw each other, when I gave you the bad news, you snapped and acted like some broken hearted Romeo who only wanted his Juliet back.”
“But I was brokenhearted. Seriously. I hadn’t done any of the emotional work required to actually move on. I Just pushed you out of my mind and tried to get on with my life and figured that would be sufficient.”
“But it wasn’t.”
“But it wasn’t,” I agreed. “When you told me you found someone else I can’t begin to explain the pain. It was honestly like a dagger in the heart. As cliche as that sounds. Food had no taste anymore. I took hour long showers and whimpered throughout. The only thing I could think about was how I wanted a time machine and go back in time and do things over again.”
“You were heartbroken, I get it.”
“But do you? Because a week later you went to London with him and shared pics on facebook! I was dying inside and you didn’t care. Sometimes I feel like part of you did that because you were upset that I became distant at the end and you wanted to hurt me.”
“Randy,” she says her next words slowly, delicately, “that wasn’t it at all. I can give you the truth, but I think it’ll actually hurt more.”
“Go for it, after these last six weeks I can take it,” I say, unsure that I can.
“I think most likely I did care about your feelings, despite everything, but I cared more about his. He’s the man in my life now so I’m going to make him feel loved just like I did with you when we were dating. He became the priority, and you, well, were kind of an awkward obligation, you know?”
The words are both devastating and expected.
“Yeah. When I saw those pics on facebook, I could tell. You guys looked really happy together. I think that’s a big reason why I acted the way that I did.”
“…acted the way you did,” she repeats the words back to me with contempt. “You know, I knew you it would hurt when I gave you the news, but I had no idea what kind of eruption I was setting off when I told you about London and the fb pics. But once I did, once I actually understood that you were waaaay more hurt than i had anticipated, I reached out to you on the phone multiple times and had some very difficult conversations I did not enjoy just to assure you I wasn’t purposely trying to hurt you or be a bitch. That I still cared about you, but things were over romantically. I really, really tried to make you see the truth of it, Randy.”
“Yeah.”
“And what did I get in return? A nasty email on VALENTINE’S DAY, asking me how I could do this to you, bringing up the same points that we had already been over a number of times.”
“I wasn’t in the right state of mind.”
“No shit. It just pisses me off that after all we had been through, you could just take every one of your insecurities and glue them on to me, and then go running to your friends yelling, ‘look at the monster over there! Look at her! She said she loved me but she was lying! She’s ashamed of me cause I’m poor, because I’m a tour guide, because I’m weird!’ you self-projecting jerk.’”
“Yeah.”
“The audacity.”
“Yeah.”
“The fucking audacity, Randy.”
It goes quiet again. I look back down at the porch, I think back to that Halloween we had together, where we carved pumpkins on this porch, sitting on the floor covered in newspaper, watching Halloween cartoons on my laptop from when I was a kid.
“I guess I just didn’t know what I really had til I lost it. Like I knew I loved you, and I knew it would suck for us not to be together, but it wasn’t until you sent that text about him, when I finally felt the door slam closed, that I knew what this meant. I had never experienced that before. I had never had my heart broken before I met you.”
She doesn’t reply to this. Maybe she doesn’t know what to say. I let the porch fill with silence again before another thought hits me.
“I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I had that nasty toxic thought, about the email. I was in the kitchen making a sandwich for lunch, hurting with every fiber of my being but trying to keep it together. I remember my roommates were over in the dining room talking about what they were going to do on valentine’s day. Of course this made me think of you, and your guy, having the best valentine’s day ever. Doing all the fun rich stuff we couldn’t do. No couple was more happy on Valentine’s day in the history of the world than you two were in my head. I remember I had finished making the sandwich and I was considering whether to pop it in the toaster oven and warm it up, you know so the cheese got nice and gooey. But behind that happy thought was all my darkness. Me just staring at the toaster oven while the darkness grew and grew inside me, until I didn’t even feel like me anymore. I felt like some kind of monster, a toxic stranger I never knew existed within me. And that’s when I had the thought. That was when I decided to email you and tell you what I really felt, and see how you liked that! Try enjoying your day of romance then!”
I feel myself getting worked up. God, how embarrassing.
“Even at the time,” I continue in a calmer tone, “I knew how bad it was, how I was crossing a line that would take a long time to fix, if ever. But I couldn’t stop myself. I had no love in me. I’ve always thought of myself as a loving person but I had none in me at that moment. I was ugliness personified.”
“That was a really shitty thing to do, Randy.”
“It just felt like you were ashamed of me, but not him.”
“Ok fine, but ask yourself this question honestly. Would you have felt that same way, so strongly, if it was you who found someone else first? How much of this is legit heartbreak and how much is because you’re just hurt because I moved on before you?”
“Yeah, that’s definitely a part of it.” I admit. “I will always regret that email, I truly am sorry.”
She doesn’t say anything to this, but her face softens a bit. Or at least, I think so. It’s hard to tell.
“This is going to sound ridiculous,” I say, “but I often think back to that moment, that toxic toaster oven moment. And then I remember how the whole world turned horrible just a few weeks later, and it’s just like, I almost feel responsible you know? Like my personal moment was so fucking toxic that it infected the whole world with the plague.”
She laughs at this. “You know, no one hates what you did more than me, but even I can’t blame you for this pandemic.”
We smile at each other for the first time tonight.
“This fucking pandemic.”
“This fucking pandemic.”
It goes quiet again. A beat up sedan slowly makes its way past my house, carefully swerving left and right to avoid the numerous pot holes that decorate my fucked up street.
“You know what really annoyed me when we were dating, regarding the age difference thing?” I finally say, “I couldn’t even say to people ‘you don’t understand, she’s really mature for her age,’ because that’s the go-to line of every creep who’s dating someone too young for them.”
“Haha, yeah.”
“But it’s true, you were incredibly mature. Remember when Hunter’s wife found out how old you were and her jaw literally dropped?”
“She thought I was at least in my late twenties.”
“When I think about it, you’re about as mature for your age as I am immature for mine.”
She laughs at this, but nods her head in agreement.
“We truly were the odd couple. A thirty four-year-old ghost tour guide/struggling writer who pretty much lives day to day without thinking much of the future, and a twenty one year old finance major who secured a job at one of New York City’s top tax firms before graduation, who already has a decent retirement plan. That’s absurd. What made any of that work? Love?”
“Eh, you look good in that work vest,” she replies, “that’s probably it.”
I smile. “You know, it really is too bad how things ended. Or rather, it’s a shame how my actions forced things to end. What we had really was great. We were a good team. I really miss the support you always showed me, with my writing, and tour guiding and everything else. I really miss how much you embraced who I was. Even the weirdness. You never questioned it. I always thought the only way a woman could ever really love me was if I became a successful writer. I know how stupid that sounds, but that’s how I felt. I guess you proving me wrong in that regard alone is why I’ll always be grateful to you.”
“We had a great thing.”
“Had.” I repeat. “The past tense can be so sad sometimes. From have to had just like that, in one foul swoop something beautiful is gone forever.”
“Yes and no,” she suggests. “Yes it’s gone, but the good that came from it, the good it did us, that’s still in us, that still exists.”
I walk toward her and take a seat at the edge of the porch so my legs are dangling above the side lawn. She follows my lead, sitting down next to me.
“Do you think we’ll ever talk again? Like in real life?” I ask her.
She shrugs her shoulders. “Who knows.”
“Some of my friends tell me I should never contact you again, ever. That I should try to forget you entirely. Like you never were, like what we had never was.”
“That seems a little silly to me,” she responds, “I don’t see why you can’t move on from someone while still keeping a piece of them in your heart.”
“I feel the same way.”
“Of course you do silly, I’m an extension of you.”
“Oh right.”
I take another sip of my beer. She moves in closer and rests her head on my shoulder. I can feel the weight of her but I can’t smell her hair. In front of us, my giant Uhaul truck stands parked on the street, looming over us in the dark, packed to the brim with everything I own.
“Tell me about your new place.”
“It’s great. It’s got this kind of cozy but cool feel to it, and it’s in a prime spot. Lots of action, or at least it will be when things get back to normal. And the bayou is a short walk away. I think I’ll find peace there.”
“That’s good,” she tells me, “I’m excited for you.”
I take a gulp of beer.
“Things really are better now. That raw open pain isn’t as present anymore. There’s still pain, but it’s duller, it’s sort of just become a part of life now, you know?”
“You’re healing,” she tells me.
“Yeah. But sometimes… sometimes I still find myself just wanting one more day with you, you know? Just one more, that’s it.”
She doesn’t say anything. I can still feel the weight of her head on my shoulder, but I know not to look down. Instead, I finish what’s left of my beer.
“A new chapter in your life is about to begin.”
I stare out into the night, reliving a thousand memories at once. I notice something off to the side, blowing in the wind. It’s a long piece of thin paper, a receipt, I realize. Dirty and tattered. It dances with the breeze down the sidewalk until it disappears in the darkness. I suddenly feel both incredibly hopeful and incredibly tired. I place my empty beer can on the porch and stand up. It’s time to go to bed, I realize. It’s time to get some sleep.
Tomorrow is a big day.
