Faerieland
November 9, 2008
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the selfsame song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that ofttimes hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
John Keats
Ode to a Nightingale
WAYSWEST
San Francisco-The mash potato hills dolloped themselves upon Twin Peaks like beached whales, enfolding the city in an icy embrace. The darkness of Daly City dissipated with each well-worn landmark. We cleared the Candlestick hills south of Frisco on our way southwards to Lala-land. Didn’t quite know the ground beneath my feet was quickly disappearing. Not quite sure what this pain knotting up in my chest is about. It is as if a host of demons have been loosed upon me, much like disturbing a hive of agitated hornets or stepping upon an adders’ nest. This year has been crazy, why should it let up now it’s late autumn? The inevitable call came this morning: Scott was dying.
Scott ran back to L.A. after college to make his fortune, the great dysfunctional smelting pot. We met through a mutual friend one evening. Couldn’t think what lured this recently out Jewish boy to this land of painted faces and celluloid. Perhaps it was the moving pictures that ensnared the hero of our story, for Scott was a maker of visions, bent on taking Hollywood by storm. Scott always believed deep down in the American dream and the intrinsic goodness in people that only wide-eyed innocence can offer.
That was until the fateful day at the good Doctor’s, after a plague of migraine episodes. The Doctor holding the x-rays up to the light said “uh oh”. Scott said, “That wasn’t something you want to hear a doctor to say”.
I’d often bandied foils with Death before, having done my fair share of familial pall bearing as a teenager, but there was something particularly cruel in this latest acquisition to the silent netherworld of no return. Scott was in the bloom of youth, just discovering who he was. He tried to play it their way for most of his life, but was just starting to accept himself. It hardly seemed just.
Asleep in the passenger seat is my traveling companion, April my girlfriend. We look quite the young urban professionals. I make pretty pictures for NASA and April is a web designer. The setting sun emblazons her sleeping skin for a moment. She is Italian-extracted, mid-20’s, wearing a smart pinstripe business suit and oblivious to the rows of agriculture careering past. We have been going off and on over the past few years- currently we’re switched “on”. Perhaps if we play the music loud enough, we can forget where we’re going and what we have to do.
Belle and Sebastian
“if you’re feeling sinister
tiger milk
The sun was tangled in the fogs of the grapevine as we wound towards the city of the Angels. On the outskirts of Santa Barbara, the inbound traffic crunch had already begun. We pulled over and watched the sun sink into the ocean, feeling as though a certain bridge was in the midst of being crossed. The scenery was strangely honeymoon-esque, not to mention it was the place of my parents and grandparents’ wedding sites. It was hard to believe anything was wrong in the world.
In the midst of dour traffic reports, sweltering heat, disgruntled commuters, and mindless classic rock, my mind flits away to that fateful day we met. Although I had April for a painting class at SFSU, we never really exchanged more than a smile for one another. One day after a class I was on my way home and I came to a fork in the road. My options were to either go up or down when I saw the silhouette of a young woman in the moonlight smoking a cigarette. I recall thinking at the time, “always go towards beauty”, but I am ashamed to say that I was too shy to say anything as I drew closer. The light was in my face and I could not see. She called out to me in the darkness, “hey Eric!” I hadn’t recognized her in the shadows. They had just finished scoring Scott’s film, No U-Turn and were having a cigarette. April was to be my girlfriend for the next four years. That was also the night I first met Scott.
A Bob’s Big Boy somewhere in Northridge, we pull off to make a phone call at a booth. I figure restaurant phones can’t be as nasty as service stations. We fumble about the floor of our rented vehicle for change and feed appropriate quarters into the slot. Cell phones weren’t in wide use yet. We remembered to ask for change at the last junk food stop. I grab the receiver with a napkin, dial the number, and then wait for the recording:
“Please deposit $1.00 for the next three minutes”.
Families and other unlucky simps of the road were dodging the Bataan Death March of the 405 in this cozy restaurant. How strange they are all in their protective bubbles enjoying life and I’m on my way to say “good-bye” to a friend. How delicate the balance of our lives seems.
"O mortal man, gracious and tenderhearted,
Who through the somber air come to visit”,
Dante Inferno Canto V The Lustful
Eyeing the painfully slow trudge of the semi-trailers, I suggest to Apey we wait out the storm. We sit by each other hunched over a menu. Lately we’ve been growing distant, but today she’s sitting close and holding my hand. I can feel the warmth of her next to me. Scott’s imminent demise has kindled a momentary spark of affection between us. We’re not really hungry, but needing a break from the road.
“I’ve never known anyone who’s died” Apey says somewhat distraught.
“What about your Grandparents?” I ask.
“They lived on the East Coast, I didn’t really know them” her voice trails off.
Onwards into the inland empire, the barrios of East Los Angles, until the downtown lights were just ornaments on the horizon, as the river of fire poured further south. Past Dodger Stadium, Little Tokyo, the Elysium Park, the vast dysfunction of Disneyland, onwards into the heart of an insatiably hungry beast.
“It’s really fucked to know how and when you’ll die” April says at the freeway traffic.
“You mean it would be easier to get killed instantly than to live for five years knowing and suffer through chemo and radiation just to stay here?”
“Well, something like that. You know he was talking to me last month saying he was afraid to die. I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t say ‘it’s going to be alright’. I could only say ‘I love you and I’ll look for you’”.
At the next payphone, we reach Scott’s room and his mother Sue answers.
“Where you two at? The traffic thinning out?”
“Not much, somewhere in the Valley, it’s probably going to take another couple of hours to get down to Irvine”.
“You have directions still from this morning?”
“Yeah, hey do you know a motel near-by we could stay at?”
“I wouldn’t hear of it, you’re staying at my place tonight”.
Highway 5 Laguna Nigel 8:45 southbound
The sign in front of Disneyland reads “Happiest Place on Earth”. I think of fireworks in the summer and a childhood outing with my Mother and Father. It certainly wasn’t that day.
We pull into the parking lot and pay for our slot. Everything seems so loud, the lights so bright, and this place reeks of death scrubbed over with Comet. We are ushered into the ICU. Sue and Scott’s grandmother are keeping a vigil at the bedside. Scott is in a room overlooking the brightness of Orange County, hooked up to a machine that beeps and keeps him alive. The curtains are drawn, keeping out the blinding lights that still want to come through. His breathing is forced and mechanical. He’s already gone and can’t hear you.
I dumbly ask “how things” are. Sue and Grandma are quick to say “great” as if we have been late for some party, but we know it’s something else. What happens when the common is met with the extraordinary? When words lose their meaning and leave you standing without a ride?
What to say? This is it. This is good-bye.
Standing over the Sleeping Prince, I take his limp intravenous-laden hand and say, “I’ll look for you in the next life, souls bright as yours are hard to miss”. April lifts his cap where he was recently operated on to offer a kiss on his bald spot. The tears aren’t here yet, but they’re on their way.
After an hour we follow Sue, along the meaningless streets back to her flat in Newport Beach, but he’s no longer here to see this. I’m tempted to say let’s all go to the beach for a stroll, thinking the ocean air might do us some good, but everyone was emotionally exhausted. It being a full moon didn’t seem to matter. The sound of the waves and the pounding surf only seemed to echo Scott’s love of the ocean.
Sue lights a candle and pours us some drinks. We sit not knowing what to say for what seems like an eternity. April is visibly shaken with tears. Sue motions us over for a hug, we gather ourselves into a kind of embrace that reminds me of the wailing women I’d seen in National Geographic. My mind tries to step outside-to not feel this cause it’s too much, but these tears become mine as well. This crying starts erupting from the three of us in spasms and sobbing. We hold each other in this embrace that seems to step outside of time. We come back to ourselves shaky and withered.
“Scott loved you both” Sue said before making her exit. An alarm is being set for tomorrow. A light goes out behind a closed door. More quiet sobbing.
“Come to bed sweetie, there’s nothing more you can do”, April yawns.
“I’ll be back in a minute”. I step outside and light a ciggie and exhale on the veranda. I could see the illusionary diamonds sprinkling on the water and I thought of how Scott loved the ocean. I press play on the CD player:
Pink Martini Orchestra
“Brazil”
Sympathique
I let myself out the gate and walk out to the waves. I know this place from childhood and recall beach trips with my family. The lights of the pier reflect in the water. Tonight feels so full of promise, but so empty. He was kept alive for us to say good-bye. That pain in my heart from earlier was no mere coincidence, already growing by leaps and bounds.
A Photo Booth on the Edge of the Galaxy
FLASH! It was impossible not to recall the New Years Eve, when Linda, Scott, April, and I poured into photo booth on in the Mission. FLASH! We switched positions several times for a laugh. Strange to think, these pictures tell little lies all their own. FLASH! I guess it would be equally tragic if nothing ever changed. FLASH! Even at the time, it seemed like the thing of nostalgia, because this is what we would be thinking about when we were older. There wasn’t going to be any more of those photo booth sessions, only the flash of coastguard boats looking for smugglers. For some reason I saw the four of us hanging at the senior center. Is it over already? Surely there’s more time? There’s gotta be one more photo booth somewhere on the edge of the galaxy.
I climb onto the fold out and fall asleep holding April who still has a kerchief in her hand. The music is barely audible as we fall asleep to the sound of waves and laughing gulls. I can’t time travel, but maybe I can raise the dead.
We groggily come back to something resembling consciousness the following morning, but everything seems so surreal, it’s already like a dream. Sue has already gone to the funeral home to make arrangements for this weekend. A sort of haze has settled upon Costa Mesa. It’s Friday morning and the service is on Sunday.
After showering off, we want to see Scott’s room at the end of the hall, to say another good-bye. The door is slightly ajar, and a slight breeze is coming through the blinds. All the things he’s leaving behind. How hard to be in this room, but there’s no place we’d rather be. April and I hold each other for a minute. We are in awe of this place, just staring at his photographs, his CDs, and his clothes. This is all going to change. On his desk was a laptop he used to communicate with the planet. Next to that was a half folded piece of paper. We began to read…
September 2000
To all loved ones:
I am writing this letter because the disease I am fighting could perhaps take me sooner than expected. This is a gift, as I can leave my feelings and insights with all of you to carry on throughout the rest of your lives on the planet.
The teardrops are accumulating on the bottom of the page. We lock the door behind us and step out into a brand new day. On the radio, we listen to Scott’s favorite station KCRW 89.9, all the things I am experiencing you are not. Things seem special, but in a bad way.
Faerieland
What is he whose grief
Bears such an emphasis? Whose phrase of sorrow
Conjures the wandering stars, and makes them stand
Like wonder-wounded hearers?
Shakespeare
HAMLET
ACT V
SCENE I. A churchyard
The Golden Gate pierced the dusky fog as flecks of sun-dappled bay broke through the haze. The final descent of this metallic bird touching down, “fasten seat belts, extinguish all smoking materials, let us be the first to welcome you to Oakland”.
Picking up Scott at the curb, he looked reasonably well in his new hat that concealed the recent hair loss from chemo. Queuing up to pay the bridge toll, we eye the downtown lights, looming like a flashlight dropped into a bowl of spit pea soup. The blather of the bridge and tunnel folk were all about us. Just like the Jersey turnpike.
Knowing somehow it was to be his last visit, Scott is giving one last fond adieu to the City by the Bay. How he had missed this place since leaving for Hollywood. It was a love affair with a town Scott wished to rekindle. His premiere of his first documentary: No U Turn at an independent film festival in the Mission would be tomorrow night. It was a last dance before the final curtain.
First morning back in S.F., Scott is flipping channels and lands on the Arts Station. The distinctive opening bars of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, squeaks through the speakers.
“You know Gershwin died of the same thing I have”, Scott said.
“Yeah, he didn’t make it out of his thirties”, I reply.
“I hope I make it out of my twenties”
A curious sort of silence follows and I don’t quite know how to affirm in the right way. Not the sort of conversation you have every day.
“Yeah, me too.”
We following night, we are gathered at the Roxy Theatre watching Scott’s loving ode to Market Street and the people who make her. He filmed the common person and made them the stars of his movie. Everyone was so glad to see Scott. A florist, who gave her philosophy while pruning the daffodils attended the premiere. The doorman of the W Hotel talked of making a left hand turn in a city of “do not” signs. These people came out to be honored and to honor Scott. It was a loving tribute to a town he loved.
What brings all these souls to the edge of the continent to peer back from an isthmus resembling a hitchhiker’s thumb? What makes us keep looking for something better? You know it wasn’t the Summer of Love anymore. Kerouac’s Frisco was a thing of the past. Do we stop here because we cannot go any further on this continent? Being here for only a time, because after all, this is our time.
About the swan neck hills and the painted ladies we spent a week in June. All this time with Scott threw my worldview into a tailspin. How can you ever be upset if you aren’t dying? What if you only had a week to live? I have often asked myself this question throughout my life and here I am watching someone answer that question right now by living in this moment. It was hard not to appreciate everything, but what a cost to come to that conclusion.
We all knew Scott hadn’t much time left on the clock. Often he’d flag for energy going up a hill, but he’d keep a ready smile for those moments. The treatments had taken so much from him physically. I suspected his fears of not being, it swims about us, this constant specter of annihilation. We never spoke of what it means to be alive or death.
What is this pain I am feeling? Is it a loss I’ve felt before or one I’m yet to experience?
This sunset is the last sunset, this walk in the park shall not happen again. The world has taken on a sort of glow, not that it’s any different. It just appears that way because you won’t be here tomorrow. All of these special experiences carry a sort of emotional weight. Why does it take the loss of one such as yourself for us to appreciate life? Why does it seem like autumn in spring?
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Magritte Retrospective Exhibition
We wander about the gallery and see the work of the Belgian surrealist painter. We come upon the painting of the coffins “Family Portrait”.
“That puts it into perspective”, Scott says, gazing for a moment at the painting.
Scott speaks with almost everyone he comes across. Everyone can sense there’s something special about this boy. There’s a peace that one arrives at after only having been though the fire and it seems as if Scott is now in that place. People are eager to talk with this radiant young man who seems almost messiah-like. The smiles they give are so beautiful; I lose sight of the paintings. It often occurs to me this is the last time.
Let us pack up our stars
Let us throw our worries in a jar
The day is done my Prince.
It’s time for the sleep of reawakening.
The world has taken on a luster all it’s own
Everything seems so alive today.
Wish we could bottle the days and
Store them away on some high shelf,
Where we could take them down again
On some cold rainy day when we are old. Alas,
We are driving towards the cemetery in an unseasonable rain; a pair of dress shoes (the kind that slip when carrying coffins down grassy, moist inclines), a coat and tie. Sue reads the letter you left behind. Not a dry eye in the house. Owning death, going towards it unflinchingly. The first time I have been to a funeral where someone prepared a letter, the one I found on Scott’s bureau. I was all cried out at this point. I am amazed at the place Scott got to in such a short space. Don’t know how noble I would be in the face of such circumstance. Your favorite music is playing and I know you’d be smiling to hear “Come Sail Away” over the P.A.
Graveside, the Rabbi gives the last rites. Somehow the words do more to cajole than console. I see the same faces from your last birthday party back in June. Your family is shoveling earth upon your coffin. I think of the painting of the coffins standing up like a family portrait at the Magritte show a couple of months ago in Frisco, you’d think it was funny if that happened right now. I see your Grandmother being helped to shovel the last pile from her wheelchair. It’s more than I want to see or remember. At the reception is your father who is shoveling cake into his fat gob. The movie you were working on is playing in the living room and everyone is at a standstill to see your dreams coming to life. Your friend is going to edit your film and shop it. We leave L.A. severely traumatized in a downpour.
David Bowie
Five Years
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
RCA Records
The lights and the music were all around us. Linda Goo and I sat at the bar nursing our gin & tonics. It was our obligatory Saturday night in the Castro on a Halloween no less. Goo-girl (as she liked to be known) was dressed as an Indian squaw, which was easy for her with mixed Scottish/Salvadoran ancestry. I am decked out in drag, caught like a deer in the headlights.
Goo and I weren’t much for dancing that night, but Scott was literally having the time of his life. It was ironic Scott was the Scarecrow from Wizard of Oz, considering he had brain cancer. It appears as if Scott has a nibble with another young man dressed as the Mad Hatter. Through the loud music and smoky room, Linda and I make the fish-reeling sign and the pen and paper sign, which Scott dutifully notes and gets his card. Scott comes back drenched in sweat, shy as a schoolboy.
“What do I do now? I’m so shy!” Scott says blushing.
“Ask him what he’s doing now”, Linda says giving an encouraging shove.
The young man across the emptying disco is picking up his coat when Scott goes over to invite him out for a nightcap. Scott can barely contain his excitement.
I have to keep reminding myself that this is Scott’s coming-out; one can imagine what that must be like. We charioted through the streets after midnight with the radio playing the cheesy hits of the 80’s. We disappear into Linda’s flat in Burnal Heights overlooking downtown. Scott and Brandon fall into a lip-locked embrace upon Linda’s couch, whilst Linda and I find the last of the beers in the fridge from the party earlier.
That crazy fog just keeps on a rolling across the Trans-America building. The lights on top of the Golden Gate Bridge are twinkling. The massive swiping arms of Alcatraz come out to say hello. The Twin Peaks tower answers with a language all her own. The cable cars edge their way upwards towards the stars. A homeless man lies down on a heating vent. The wannabe poets of North Beach continue their rant. The roving minstrels of the Mission are huddled in an all night taqueria, now playing songs for themselves as the speedy rave-kids look on, “aye yi yi yi, canta no llores”. The great lions guarding the entrance to Chinatown purr like kittens. The great shipyard cranes are pleased to see the newly arrived cargo. Coit Tower nestles against the velvety sky. The painted ladies of Alamo Square whisper of someone breaking hearts. The seals below the Cliff House let out their doglike barks. The BART train lets out her strange yelp beneath the waves. The crackling of the electrical streetcars seems to speak your name. The flag of many colors continues to wave. A young couple has their first kiss in a tiny room and a whole new world opens up. A thin ray of light peaks over the Berkeley Hills and illuminates the Oakland Tribune building. It’s morning again as we drive triumphantly down the palm tree lined Valencia Street, through the sleeping Sunset to a dearly won bed.
The following night was a party in the Mission for Dia de los Muertos: the feast for the dead, the votive candles, the sand paintings, the sugar skulls, and the parade down 24th Street. Everyone was dressed like it was carnival. After some running about the city, we found a table at The Make Out Room tavern. We stared across a flickering candle in the red lights. The roving minstrels played the bolero style, the sort that always seems comical when all’s well, but cuts when you’re not ready.
April and I are holding hands tightly. Looking across the table at Scott and Brandon. The thought suddenly crosses my mind, “this is going to be the last time we are all together”. Everything was moving in that slow motion sort of way it does when you’ve had too much to drink. These thoughts began to well up in my eye. Ever since I’ve been a child I’ve been blessed with an uncanny ability to cry out of only one eye. I immediately dabbed a napkin and drank deeper.
I am trying to be happy for Scott and his first boyfriend as short-lived it was to be. It’s often hard to recall the ecstasy of the first love. Here I am seeing it happen to him, it was hard not to be moved seeing this in someone who had been alone his whole life finding it right before he dies. At this moment I could say something was right in the world.
From our waiting coach, I watch Scott give his last good bye to Brandon. Two silhouettes departing, with only one knowing it will be the last.
“Did you ever tell him about your condition?” April asks from the backseat.
“Nah, why burden him? ”, Scott shrugs it off.
Firstly I want you to know how blessed I feel to have had contact with each and every one of you. There is a reason we have all met at one point or another. Perhaps it was something as simple as passing on a smile or a laugh on a bad day or help with a major life decision. It was meant to be and I hope that I will always stay in your heart.
Through my fight with this disease, I have learned a great deal. Most importantly, I want to share the insight that we are spirits living in physical shells. Regardless of what affects your physical body, keep in mind your spirit thrives within you. Be mindful of this, you’ll be surprised how far it will take you.
Experiences are worth more than any material possession. As I look through my mementos, I find difficulty in equating material goods with the lives I have come into contact with. Life is about the experiences, emotions, memories, and the love we share.
This is not goodbye. Allow my spirit and our memories to remain within. I am thankful for the time we have known one another.
God Bless,
Love Scott
The Wounding of Narcosis
April and I drifted further apart, eventually splitting early the following year. We hit an off spot, but it was hard not getting back together until she found someone else. I lost my job with NASA and left to live with a school friend in Mexico until Christmas. I found myself alone in another country, grieving about this sudden irrevocable change in the fabric of my life. All the while, trying to forget. I had a recurring dream of auto accidents and walking down a highway bleeding not knowing where I was going. Often finding just a moment to hang the day on became my sole pursuit in life. Can I find one redeemable moment today?
In the midst of such darkness, my mind started tracing over my past like a shipwrecked sailor searching for land. My thoughts turned back to a girl named Amelia from years before. How young and foolish we both were, our time was so brief. My days in the village were spent thinking about seeing her again when I get back to the States.
When first we met, I thought I had stepped into a strange dream. We only realize we are in the garden when we are leaving, pursued by angels with flaming swords. I once said to you “I ran away from the circus to find home”. The world became magical just being in your presence or I could just be delusional? The first night we kissed, I saw the alignment of the planets on the television screen, but I’m not one to take signs too literally. It was no coincidence you worked at a grocers called The Good Life and on Cortland St. Now I am the sole chronicler of such things.
It’s hard to articulate the logic of the heart, our unfulfilled desires that haunt us through our lives. What doesn’t get resolved in childhood seems to crouch on the fringes of our adult life. I wonder what forgiveness looks like. The last time I wrote you all I could say was “sorry”. The heart hurts to tell of such things.
After five years apart, walking down a street in Frisco we ran into each other one day. We began by simply being friends, with no expectations. Even though I loved you, being with you wasn’t on my agenda. Thus began a subtle sort of kindling courtship built up from tiny embers of our past. Little moments would creep in, where one would catch the lingering gaze of the other. Our little outings to Point Reyes and North Beach seemed to accumulate like sand dollars in a well-staged Pacific campaign.
It was after several months of casual outings, you slowly stirred a toe in the waters, reintroducing the idea of “together”. For a moment it seemed as though it was going to happen. We began to talk of marriage, children, a life together. We spoke of names for our sons and daughters (that would obviously make the world a better place) and how we would never be like our parents.
We walked hand-in-hand through North Beach on warm evening and I could’ve been Dante strolling with Bea in Il Paradiso. However, you gotta to be weary when dreams start walking into your life. The colloquialisms were following me around, along with Scott’s ghost.
It was still a dream, until an email arrived one afternoon at work. It came as a flaming arrow through an open window. The dispatch said, “It must be obvious to you that our balance of our friendship would be compromised were we to become intimate”. I couldn’t believe she would do this in an email. I stared at the screen in shock, not entirely registering what I had just read. It’s not what you wanted to have happen on a Friday afternoon right before going home. I wrote back in a panic.
Ghost of Christmas Past: I am the ghost of your past!
Scrooge: That’s odd, I didn’t know I had one!
A mad night of drinking followed, mainly snapshots before the iceberg ripped out the hull. My friends Michael and Giovanni were bent on not letting me wallow in my sorrows, but ladling drinks down my throat. It was putting off the inevitable. My befuddled mind was poxed with memories, her face in every mirror, the skyline of a heartless city, and a school of Parana taxis prowling down Van Ness for victims.
Somewhere around midnight the drinks were catching up with my empty stomach. I was found passed out near the coat-check by the bouncers. It was definitely third grade stuff. In a perfect world she’d find me and nurse me back to health, but I know that’s not this world.
“I love you whether you believe me or not” was the last thing she wrote.
”This guy your friend?” the Bouncer asked.
“Yeah, don’t trip, I’m taking him home”, I could hear voices over me.
“Man, he’s fucked up” someone says.
Being carried down the street by two friends, tears coming out of my eyes. The garish faces parading along the street: the careless eye of the out-of-towner and the gaze of a street man who has seen too much. The freaks all come out at night. God I miss you. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be, is it? A sort of forgetting for a moment, the pain will be waiting for you somewhere else. Yes, let’s do lunch sometime next week.
What folly these humans commit! Could it actually make the angels weep seeing the things we do? Or do they have to be here like the rest of us to get it. Is that why we keep coming back?
A message on my machine, “Hey Eric, we should meet and talk about stuff this weekend. Call me, kay?” More appointments down the hall.
Saturday morning found me in bed with the same pain I was running from Friday. My sickness hobbled my motivational skills and rendered me slothful. Dazed as a fighter who had come into contact with the canvas. With a hangover that wouldn’t let me get away, the sadness was now coming for me, in gargantuan waves towering over my bed. A kind of stabbing started in my chest like knitting needles; the sort you’d swear was an old wives’ tales, were it not happening to you. Perhaps there comes a point where the hurting stops, but I wasn’t there yet. The blighters were back.
We meet for drinks the following night at the Make-Out Room in the Mission, the same place we met with Scott and Brandon a year ago. How out of place the Christmas lights seem. We made small talk for a minute-glad to see one another; both perplexed how to take on this behemoth challenge.
“It’s not going to work out with us”, came the first volley over the bow. I could tell I was taking on some serious flooding below deck, but everything looked all right above at the helm. I was preparing myself for what was to prove a messy evening.
“It does seem like you were messing with me,” I say angrily.
“That wasn’t my intention”, Amelia said defensively. Thus began our evening.
I could sense she didn’t want to hurt me, but was trying to extricate herself from this situation. She cried the whole time into her beers. I was taking my Jedi mind tricks to the next level with this one. So many people were telling me I was lucky to have gotten away, but love is blind and I couldn’t hear what they had to say. Why do we run towards our destruction? Do you make me think of someone who treated me badly? Is that why I treated you so badly? Do I make you think of someone you no longer know?
“I’ve found someone else”, Amelia said diligently between gasps and deep drinks.
“I don’t own you,” I said as selflessly as I could. What does unconditional love look like? I didn’t know what the tears were about, for whom?
Her face turned down again then looked up to register my reaction. It wasn’t what she expected. It was almost as if she disappointed because she was unable to illicit some greater sort of anger or sorrow. I was beyond that, but it still felt like I had already been through the fire. At the back of my mind, I couldn’t believe we were ever together, like it just couldn’t last. If she was she testing me, do I really want a passing grade?
“It was a sweet thought”, I said.
“We could just be casual”, Amelia said.
“That wouldn’t work, it’s better we part as friends”, not believing my own words. Amelia wasn’t the sort of girl you could be casual with or share with anyone. That would hurt far worse than this. Being this way was proving to be hard.
“That wouldn’t work for me either,” she said, correcting herself.
There wasn’t much more for it. We sat and nursed another round, relieved it was over, but how do you follow something like that with small talk?
“I’m not going to be able to see you for a while”, was all I could come up with.
“Take all the time you need”, Miels said reassuringly.
After a slippery ride through the Mission, I say “farewell” for the last time. I am angry with myself for allowing myself to be hurt. “I’m so stupid” is all I can say. We sit on the icy seats for a moment, taking in the severity of everything. There are still tears in your eyes, but I’ll never know what they’re about. I can feel all the love and hurt between us, but there’s nothing I can say. I don’t believe in fairytales or an interventionist God, but it would help at a moment like this. There’s no script for all this. I’m not crying, I’m holding it together for I don’t know what. Tears aren’t here, but they’re on the way.
“Take care of yourself, sweetie”, I kiss her on the cheek and that’s that.
Driving and crying in the rain, couldn’t have ordered a better exit from the Supreme One upstairs. Down suicide hills sobbing, hoping I don’t kill anyone. Trying to get past the Haight as quickly as possible. Just want to collapse behind the door of my room. It feels like the whole world is crashing around me. This is a bad dream that I can’t wake up from. Why do I love her? What could we be thinking of? Hopefully that wine bottle is somewhere handy. I don’t want to cry myself to sleee…..
Sleep, sleep took me to that netherworld of forgetting and remembering. The star of our show has returned to make a cameo in my subconscious midnight movie. Deep into this dream, it is Scott back from the great beyond. The séance has come to me apparently. Vividly I see Scott is speaking into a recorder with a microphone:
“Tonight, I am going to name off all of the good things about life. Are you listening? Smiles on children, rainbows, flowers, sunsets, birthdays, holding hands, walks in the park after midnight, coffee in the morning, giving someone a hug, ice cream, opening presents, saying ‘I love you”’, and the list went on. “You getting all this?”
He read them off as if reciting a catechism or the secret of existence. When Scott was finished, he pressed eject and placed the cassette inside a box. He wrapped up the box, put a ribbon on top, and pushed the box at me. The last thing Scott said, “Don’t get down on life, Eric”.
I awoke instantly, as if from a light slumber I flew to the window and threw open the blinds. I was really here! The sun was illuminating the stained glass of St. Ignacio. I am truly glad to be here today! Today was special because there would be no other day like it. I am alive-this is it! I went outside and ran across the street into Golden Gate Park. The pidgins flew in great swaths around the Museums, the Japanese tea garden, and the botanical gardens. The faces on the couples dancing to swing music were filled with a delight all their own. The sky was an icy blue, but that didn’t stop the people from being a part of it. The Salvation Army was gearing up to take the stage.
“Hello? I’m calling heaven? I want to make a request from the Supreme Being upstairs”.
“This is KCRW 89.9 Santa Monica…”
Yeah I want to make a dedication for my dead hommie. His name was Scott and he was a good soul. I know if he’s out there in the Ethers, he’ll get this. Can you play ‘Come Sail Away’ by Styx?”
“We don’t normally play AOR format radio music.”
“Yeah, but come on, let me have a moment. He died 8 years ago this month, you can manage that right?”
“We’ll see… I’m going to have to talk to the Program Director, that’s executive decision making you’re asking for.”
Jaysus, was just makin’ a request.”
History is full of hurt and tears
But nothing worse than the fear,
I'm forgotten
Most of all I want to say
I hope you find your own way
And never quit but remember this
Life is quick; make the most of it
And when you lie asleep at night
I'm beside you in your dream life
And when you open up your eyes
If you think of me...
* Written by Amelia Nash
For Scott Giroux 1973-2000
