Once back upstate, we stayed in contact via text
message and phone calls. We talked to each other on the phone more than junior
high school girls. I actually do not
know why I used that metaphor because I have no clue how often junior high
school girls talk to each other on the phone, but if I had to guess I would say
that they spoke on the phone as much as Nate and I were speaking on the phone,
constantly. Nate was still detoxifying from all the dope. I had kicked, in
Montgomery County Jail, but I still had long term residual traces of dope
slowly leaving my body and keeping me of sore and feeling sorry for myself. His
quitting junk made me happy. It gave me the little push I needed to keep the
needle out of my arm for a bit.
A typical day for us started with me leaving a text message
of encouragement for him to wake too. In my last partnership I was told that I
was self centered and hardly ever asked my partner how his day went or how he
was feeling. He would text me, upon awaking, to thank me for my morning text.
Shortly after I received the text message I would call. We would then spend the
day trying to think of ways where we could see each other. It seemed so hard.
Impossible!!! We were both kicking drugs, neither of us was working and the
desire to work. I had everything I could do to wake up and find a reason not to
get high. I was not alone. I had Jan and a few good friends in the area, and
Mickey, Jan’s Shih Tzu, to all keep me pretty busy and happy. I know that was
not the case with him. He was alone in North
Bend, Indiana. Deep
down I knew he was not ready to stop, I knew I could not be reason enough for
him to get sober. Besides I knew that an addict can only get sober for
themselves and no one else. I should have stopped entertaining the idea that we
would be together in the future, but it felt good. A little bit of hope felt
damn good.
Our conversations started to become more meaningful. We
began to dig deeper into each other’s personal ideologies, accomplishments,
failures, fears, hopes and dreams. I started to believe that he was not the
straight punk kid he wanted the world to see. I knew he sold sex for drugs. Selling
sex for drugs doesn’t imply anything but exactly it is, selling sex for drugs!
It doesn’t mean this person is gay, bi, curious or straight! It just shows
desperation. One last point before I move on, I have heard many junkies talking
shit about how they would never sell sex for dope. All I can say to that is
that they have never been really dope sick with no means to cop (buy) drugs or
they are pretending to be strung out. Who would want to pretend they were a
junky? A cop undercover, an idiot, or someone desperate to belong somewhere,
are a few instances, in which a person might play junky. I don’t know any
junkies that haven’t sold sex for drugs or drug money or at least wished they
knew who was buying sex? When
dope-sickness comes knocking on the front door, the need to get money to secure
drugs is of the utmost importance. The quickest way to make money is the best
way to any addict. Selling sex is pretty safe and easy and if the person has to
pair up with the same sex, for that ‘get fixed’ cash, it doesn’t matter. The
dope matters.
Just because Nate sold sex to a couple of the sexual
predators prowling around LES, didn’t make him gay. But feeling bad that he got
arrested and could not keep a date with to go out to eat, see an off Broadway
show, and what he wined and dined you for the ‘piece de resistance,’ fellatio,
after all his name is ‘Suck your Dick’ Rick! I understood the BJ for dope
money, but the collect call from jail to tell him he would not make it on
Friday, was a bit much. He is a pervert slithering up to young strung out boys
for their sex. He doesn’t deserve a phone call explaining why you won’t be
attending Friday nights meet. Fuck. He explained to me that Rick was not like
the others that he slept with for drugs. Rick was kind and caring, he didn’t
push him away when it was over, and Rick was different. I think Nate needed
more than a bit of the “ole in/out in/out,” as Malcolm McDowell would say. He
was developing feelings for this man. Years ago, I feel in love with a doctor
who I started visiting for pill scripts, so I understood what was happening
more than Nate himself understood.
Our conversations lengthened and little subtleties that made
me feel that he too was falling in love with me, escaped his lips. He remembered the music that was playing the
day I was arrested, seven to eight months after the arrest. I only remember
little facts about events when I am with someone I really care about. He spoke
of ‘rock n rollers’ he would never kick out of bed. He used terms like hot,
gorgeous, and adorable to describe certain qualities. Most importantly he never
spoke of a desire for female companionship. He actually spoke of how he didn’t
understand women and he found relationships with women to boring and
uneventful. He wasn't straight. I don’t even think he is bisexual. He is most
likely gay and nervous his secret would escape.
He was born and raised in Dallas, Texas.
Yikes! His friends tormented him for selling sex for drugs. He was scared of
how his friends and family would process this information. I guess like me it
was easier for him to call himself a junky than to admit he was gay, but I am
straying to far from the point at hand, love. Is anyone really 100% straight or
gay? I mean there is always that person of the opposite sex who drives that
sexual part of us crazy. Dogs don’t mind what they fuck until it’s time to
procreate.
Are you still reading? You are probably wondering what this
has to do with an apology from me. It has everything to do with an apology. It
does show you that I do have the capacity to try and live without dreaming of
us being together. I am hoping that it just might salvage our friendship
because for the first time in my life I realize that this is what I always
needed from you and you from me and I failed us fucking both. While writing all
of this out I have also, realized that twice in my life I have fallen in love
at first site and that love is still in my heart for the both of you.
We continued to talk daily. He had
a court date coming up, in NYC and he asked me if I could find a way to escape
upstate NY and meet him in our city. Of course I would meet him. I was not
going to make it to the city until you had been there for a couple of days. I
wanted to be at the train station in Utica
to wave to his train as it passed through the station. I boarded my train the
next day and headed to meet my new love and maybe sleep with him. I was
reluctant about meeting him. I feared I would suffocate him and the newly
budding relationship.
When I finally arrived in the
city, I was so excited to meet with him. Something was wrong. Everything seemed
a bit off, He had gotten high, but that was not the problem. He felt distant,
at a loss for words, and a bit on edge. The one day we really had together was
great. We went to an exhibit of punk ‘zines’ and record covers. Then we
strolled around china town taking pictures with exotic fruits and fish. When
night came about we found ourselves in Brooklyn
at his friend’s loft. We had lived here before in the basement by all the
boilers, It was so warm down there we slept in shorts. We hung out on the roof
for awhile with his friend. At one point she said she had stuff to do and that
we probably wanted to be alone. He begged her to stay on the roof. I wanted to
ask him what the fuck was up, but instead I just let the feelings drop into my
gut. Fuck him, I thought.
I found myself slipping by myself,
in the same space we occupied a year or so ago. We still had a mattress and
blankets, clothing to sleep in a pillow. I made up the space, got naked and
crawled into bed. This would be the first night that I would not sleep by his
side since the first time we met. I felt like crying. I felt like shit. Why did
he ask me to come to NYC? I pulled the pillow out of the bag and buried my head
in it. Of course I imagined small traces of his scent on it, but that was just
wishful thinking.
I couldn’t sleep so I left around
4:00 am. Nate didn’t have to be in court until 11:00 am. My bus didn’t leave
until 2:30. I went to my old panhandling spot and made some money. I met Nate
at 10:00 pm just as he was leaving for court. We walked to the train. He asked
me how he looked. I said okay as I tried to brush some wrinkles out of his
shirt.
We boarded the train and headed to
Manhattan. We
were on an express 5 from Brooklyn and when we
arrived at the Fulton St.
stop my heart started to get heavy. I couldn’t swallow. The first tear hit my
cheek. I looked away. I felt his hand brush it away.
C’mon,
man, not here, please.
Sorry.
I’m such a sissy.
No,
you’re a bit to Emo for such a hardcore punk!
He
smiled. I cried more.
The
next stop will be Brooklyn
Bridge.
Another
tear splashed, it was bigger.
Now
you did it! He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.
This
is Brooklyn Bridge.
We
hugged. I left snot and tears on his collar. He held me. I squeezed. He let go.
I
tried to roll up into a ball. I stood there the door closing.
It
hit me. He came back. He got on the train. The door closed.
I
have time. I want to say something.
He
took my hands and held them tight.
I
am not ready for this. I don’t know what this is I am scared.
I
understand.
The
train was pulling into Union
Square. We hugged again. He nuzzled up to my neck.
He kissed me ever so lightly. His lips burned into my neck. I had gooseflesh.
I
have to go. Please understand? Please wait for me to work this out?
The
doors opened and this time he was gone.
I
leaned against the closing door and splashed the dirty stained train tile.
Once back in Utica I began working on a book that might
explain my hectic fucked life. I wrote daily. I wrote through a stream of conscious,
a song would play on the computer; it somehow would allow me to reflect upon an
event from my life. Then my fingers were just start rat a tat tapping. It
worked. I am still working on the third rewrite. I think this apology will
grace the pages inside the cover. We continued to text and talk daily, even
after Nate secured a job at Notre
Dame University
in the kitchen. Jan and I eventually moved from the warehouse to her parent’s
farm. Winter was coming and the cold and wind up there on her parent’s hill
began to be unbearable. I started chipping away at a habit. Depression was
setting in and dope was calling me home.
Nate was having problems at his
fathers and we discussed his moving to Utica
with me. Jan was against the idea from the beginning, but she finally gave in.
We decided that he would move to NY after he went home to Texas for the holidays. Then suddenly, the
phone calls stopped, the text messages ceased. I even tried Face book but to no
avail. I saw he was speaking with others, but I no longer existed. Then I was
removed form that account too. I lost it. I grieved and mourned, but par for
the course was feeling sorry for me. When I am alone and scared and my
depression is riddled with contempt my old lover the needle, usually knows just
how to comfort me. Once again he didn't let me down. I let everyone else down
and found myself homeless in NYC again. Not feeling a damn fucking thing.
Months later I am panhandling and
I get a text message from him. He tells me that he is scared to be gay with me.
He was falling in love with me and he isn’t gay. If he moved upstate with me he
would have done stuff with me because he felt bad and that would have made him
sick. This was probably the worse text message I had ever received. He ends by saying
how confused; his love was out of camaraderie and friendship not lover love. I
loose it and reply with a few lines from Morrissey,
“On the day that your mentality catches
up with your biology,” blah blah blah and “and if you ever need self-validation
just meet me in the alley at the railway station!” He replies that I was being
mean. He was just telling me the truth. Yes he was doing that and not giving on
care as to how worthless it was making me feel.
We didn't talk for a year or more
and then one day I received a text from him. I replied. We sent a few messages
back and forth. I apologized for what I said. He apologized for not being the
friend and lover that I needed. He then said that he would still sleep next to
e whenever we were in the same city. He stressed the word Sleep, like I was
some sexual perversion. Argh!
One more part to go. hang in there.....
cheers
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