by Trisky
Sometimes I think my life is a kaleidoscope. There’s a constant shift in unexpected directions. One optical illusion after the next. I don’t trust any one moment in time to last for long because I know there’s one right behind it, just waiting to edge it out of the way. I don’t expect this to last for long either. I expect that I’ll wake up and look through the gaps in my memory, sew them up and the world will shift back onto its natural path. You’ll be you and I’ll be me and together we’ll defy the patterns of people’s expectations, because despite all that shifting you’ve become my constant.
I don’t suppose you ever imagined that would be possible. If I listen closely enough I can almost hear you choke back the laughter from the mere thought of that happening. I can see your eyes wrinkle, despite the constant, empty threats of Botoxing them into oblivion, and your nose turn up as if you just discovered what shit smells like for the first time in your life. The possibility of my being right is clearly impossible. Not because you think I’m wrong, but because you’d never admit that you were.
I miss you when you’re gone. I just had to say that. I know I never have, though you’ve probably deserved to hear it a million times. I’m always the one that leaves and even as I feel myself taking the steps, I know you’ll be back the moment I need you. The little fucking faggot in me still doesn’t know what to do without you. I’d never tell you that, when you came back. Because you’d always come back. I can’t think of a time when you didn’t.
You told me once that I’d never be back and once again you were never wrong. Do you remember that? You probably don’t, but I do. In fact I went over it in my mind so many times over the years that I think I could almost reenact every breath we took. I listened from the bed while you took a shower. Normally I’d find a reason to make myself busy in the bathroom, but for some reason I just couldn’t look at you that time. You were so . . . broken and beautiful. I think you must have lost about 15lbs. I could stick my fingers between your ribs and count them. That fall you took on the bike, because stupid you insisted you could do it, because you were never wrong, made your arm dangle lifelessly when it was out of the sling. Every time you moved it your entire body seemed to cringe from the effort of your collarbone moving in concert with it and that made me physically ill. You’re never supposed to be the broken one. Still, you insisted that you could take your own damn shower and didn’t need my help. I really couldn’t bring myself to argue with you, not because I was trying to save your dignity, but simply because I just couldn’t look. I couldn’t turn away, but I couldn’t look up close.
I think you must have sensed that about me from the beginning. You weren’t wrong, then, at least.
The sound of a shrill “FUCK! JUSTIN!” made me frantic and I hustled myself off the bed so quickly that I fell face forward, landing with all of my weight on my knee. I finally knew what people meant when they said they saw stars. I saw stars, constellations and planets as yet undiscovered. Somehow I had enough common sense about me to know not to panic you. If you could ride hundreds of miles on a bike with a broken collarbone, I could pick my ass up off the floor on my own. It’s kind of funny when I think about it now, but it wasn’t so funny then. I was in some serious pain but I owed it to you, to keep it to myself. I barely ever got a chance to be the one to take care of you. I wasn’t about to fuck up my one opportunity.
What a mess that sink was, shaving cream covered the basin, water splashed all over the counter but all I could focus on were your trembling fingers barely holding onto a razor while your hand tried to grasp the sink. I felt nauseous. I still feel nauseous when I think about it. I don’t know if my cold sweats came from the nausea or the pain in my knee, or both, but I just remember how heavy lidded your eyes were when you looked over at me. Helpless. We stood for a moment just like that, quiet and still, memorizing . . . memorializing . . . and you knew. I know you did. You let me have that last moment, as you always did, to decide for myself to let you go. I want to thank you for never making me feel like you were the one who let go first. For always giving me my pride even when you had none of your own left to give.
I worked in silence without a single protest from you, too worn down to try, shaving the contours of your face, my fingers tracing the slope of your cheeks and the shape of your lips. When I was done, I kissed you, rinsed the razor off and joked that it would have been so much sexier if I were naked and you owned a straight razor. The same fingers that shook so hard were so steady on my wrist while you held it in place that it silenced me. Something we both know is hard to do.
“Go. And don’t come back.” I really didn’t have to ask, there was no point in trying to hide the inevitable, though I did do a great job of pretending otherwise, insisting that I would. I couldn’t even look at you, I had to talk to your reflection in the mirror and when I looked at it, all you could say was “You won’t be back.” The air seemed to shift and deflate and I couldn’t argue. I remembered my knee and felt a throbbing pain somewhere in my chest.
*****************
Sorry, I meant to finish this earlier but I was interrupted by a phone call from my mother telling me that they set a closing date for the apartment. That’s all well and good, but I really can’t deal with that right now. My mind is just scattered in a million different directions and I find if I focus on one small thing at a time, I don’t get overwhelmed by how much still needs to be done. Right now my main focus is on getting out of this airport in time to catch my connection, which doesn’t look likely. I’m sure I can catch another flight but I just really don’t want to be here any longer than necessary. It’s pouring rain outside and though I know it’ll let up eventually, I’m starting to feel as if I’ll never leave this place. As if my life’s destiny is wrapped up in my ability to stay or go at will. The longer I’m held back by circumstance, the longer it’ll take me to move forward.
I don’t want to be here alone.
I want you to be here with me, assuring me that this is the right thing to do and you support me no matter what. Not that you’d say it in so many words. In fact it’d probably come out more like “get the fuck out of here already” but I’d know what you meant. I fully expect that you’ll forever be the voice in the back of my head asking me “why are you still here” and my silence will be the only answer I need. Why am I still here?
You know, I thought I had you pegged and could predict your actions as well as I could predict the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. I never expected you to volunteer to drive me to the airport that afternoon. I figured goodbye scenes just weren’t your thing. Unlike today, it was a sunny and clear day, for all intents and purposes it was perfect. It was perfect for flying, perfect for driving with the window down, perfect for seeing the endless possibilities of the future, just a perfect day to break a heart. That was the longest car ride of my life. I thought it would never end. I guess I always pictured it like something out of a movie. You’d let me go and I’d look back fondly, walk away with my head held high, fighting back tears and then you’d burst through the terminal and beg me not to leave and I’d somehow find it in my heart to give up all of my dreams because the man I loved finally showed himself.
Somehow, I didn’t expect to find myself telling you some bullshit story about all the thinking I’d done and the conclusions I’d drawn that we should make a clean break, we shouldn’t call, or email or keep in touch, while standing outside of an ATM in the food court of the airport. It just seemed like the right thing to do for you. Call it arrogance if you want to but I knew you’d never let go of me. You might not let me back in without a fight, but you’d never let me go entirely. After so many attempts to get rid of me didn’t work, I think you’d learned your lesson that it was pointless to even try. After all you were the one who branded me from the start, no matter who I was with, you’d always be there. You weren’t wrong.
I thought I saw a momentary glimpse of something resembling shock pass over your face but you’d never betray that to me. Instead, you blinked a few times and mustered up an “it’s about fucking time” and total agreement with my suggestion and almost made me believe that it was what you’d been thinking all along as well. That it wasn’t my idea, I’d just caught onto your plan and everything had fallen into place just as it should. Except it wasn’t anyone’s plan. It was a spur of the moment decision on my part. I’m sure you thought I did it for me because I wanted to be free to pursue whatever or whomever I felt like pursuing in L.A. It really wasn’t like that though. I just didn’t want you to feel like you had to hang around and wait for me to grow up and get it all out of my system. It didn’t seem fair to you, to keep you constantly waiting for something that might never happen. I’d always be the one playing catch up, or so I thought. The only way I could think to make it easier on you was to do for you, what you’d always tried to do for me. Make it hurt enough that you wouldn’t want to come back much less have the chance. I knew that in my heart of hearts that if I did come back, you’d always have me. In that way, it was selfish of me, I admit it.
It’s just that, you were right, I wasn’t coming back. I didn’t know it for certain at that point, but you always did know the answer to “why are you still here” long before I did. I was still there waiting for you while the world was still out there waiting for me.
I hated L.A. even more than you hated being stuck in the Pitts. It was such a soul sucking, life draining experience. You know better than anyone that I was never one to twist myself into a pretzel to please someone else. How I thought I could survive the plastic world of Hollywood that’s all about giving people the perception they want is beyond me. You would have fit in perfectly! Hollywood really is just one big ad campaign. It’s all about how much ad revenue they can generate and buzz they can create, with some creativity thrown in between the cracks. I doubt you would have enjoyed my cramped one bedroom apartment in West Hollywood, but I’m sure you would have enjoyed the scene itself. I was miserable, lonely and tired all the time and yet I still didn’t want to come home with my tail between my legs.
I took up jogging to clear my head. Did I ever tell you that was the reason? Sometimes I’d go in the morning and then again at night. I used to just take off on these long runs through the paths in the Hollywood Hills, breathe in the smog filled air, take the sun in and think about you for hours. I’d imagine you were already at the office if it was morning or still there if it was close to sunset, barking at your employees and drowning yourself in work. If you weren’t home, you were at the gym or having dinner at Debbie’s house, playing with Gus while she finished making a tray of baked ziti.
I tried not to think about you out at Babylon. In my mind you were always having sex with me or at least always imagining it was me. I never told you this but that night I had to drag you out of Hanabi, that little place on Haight Street, after you’d drunk nearly their entire inventory of saki, you practically admitted as much to me. That you’d be with other men and start picturing me. You didn’t say you did it all the time, but I’d like to think that was true.
I never paid much attention to my knee. Sure it would swell up but I figured it was because I wasn’t used to running and I’d get so caught up in my thoughts that I wouldn’t even feel any pain until I was home with my leg propped up. I spent a lot of nights like that while I was in L.A. Not that I was a perfect angel while I was out there but I found out that I really only liked going out so that I could lose myself in the moment. It wasn’t about hunting my prey or scratching some kind of itch. It was just another form of release for me. I had much more fun doing that with you, than without you.
People would call to see how I was faring and after the first ten or so times of telling them I didn’t want to know, they’d finally get the hint and stop trying to update me on your life. I hope you know it wasn’t because I didn’t care, I just had to hold onto my imaginary life for you because I couldn’t deal with hearing about the reality.
It never even occurred to me that you might find someone else to love.
*****************
Well I’m finally on the plane. As predicted, I won’t be making my connection so I’ll have to make other arrangements once I get to the airport. We’re flying away from the rain so hopefully the weather will be bright enough everywhere else, that I won’t have any problems from here on out.
Life always seems brighter somewhere else doesn’t it? L.A. seemed brighter to me while I was in Pittsburgh and you seemed brighter to me while I was in L.A. I couldn’t really win either way. After almost 18 months of what I affectionately like to call “Hell-ywood” I was almost relieved when Rage failed. I know that makes me a bad homosexual, that I should have been more like Ben and Debbie and found it to be a political calamity of epic proportions. I never set out to make it fail, of course I wanted it to succeed, but I can’t deny that the thought of never having to step foot into that studio again made me far happier than it should have. Rage didn’t fail because it was a “gay” movie, it failed because it sucked, plain and simple. I don’t think the word nuance was even in Brett Keller’s dictionary. Though I’m sure I should have fought for my job a little more since it wasn’t my animation work that made it fail, I was actually grateful for the chance to be asked whether I wanted to continue to pursue making films with the studio. I make better decisions when I feel like I have power over them. Of course I didn’t have any other choice but to say what they wanted to hear, but at least I felt like there was a choice to be made.
When I walked out, I just felt like a burden had been lifted off of me and my first instinct was to call you. I’m sorry I hung up, that was stupid of me. As soon as I realized who I was dialing, whom I’d always dial first, I realized I’d never really be able to give you up any more than you could give me up in return. I truly believe that I needed that moment of clarity, of pure acceptance after having lived a little bit, before I could ever have you back.
Maybe it was fate, maybe it was just good timing, maybe someone had told you, unbeknownst to me about my decision to move to San Francisco and you just showed up to reclaim your stake. I never asked. Though I can’t imagine how you’d plan that. I just accepted that running into you thousands of miles away from home, because that’s what Pittsburgh was then, outside of a Starbucks of all places, was part of my new start. You always seem to find me when I have no particular destination in mind, other than following an instinct.
Oh God, I can still picture your face which probably mirrored my own perfectly. It makes me laugh imagining how dumb I must have seemed when you saw me waiting for the light to change on the corner and all I could think to do was turn around and walk back into Starbucks, as if walking away would somehow erase your presence together. I swear I was not in my right mind. I think all the L.A. smog I’d breathed in had somehow killed off pertinent parts of my brain cells.
I don’t think I’ve ever smiled more widely at the sound of my own name. I knew when I’d turned back and you just stood waiting for me to hear you that I didn’t need to hear you say anything more than that. If you didn’t want me to know you were there you would have let me go on with my life, forever imagining you as some faint ghost that I’d just dreamt up one late afternoon. Maybe you thought you’d seen your own ghosts come back to haunt you when you saw me but you didn’t turn away from them. You’ve never turned me away and you never would.
Thankfully your hotel room was far enough away that the walk back was long enough to let us live with the illusion that we’d somehow thought out our next course of action. Acted like two responsible adults making a well-informed decision, instead of like two rutting animals, who just follow their instincts. We could pride ourselves on the fact that it was deliberate and we’d safely tucked away that part of ourselves and moved on with our lives. It was just a little fun between old friends.
Two days and many pints of port and saki later, I finally emerged from your room and took off on foot, running as far as my legs would carry me. I felt like I could outrun the world. It wasn’t until the taxi ride home that I stopped and thought about your not making a move to follow me. You just laid back down, closed your eyes and never even asked me for a phone number where you could reach me. Like I said, it never occurred to me that you’d fallen in love with someone else, not even then, when it might have been the only thing that made sense to any rational human being. Even though I’d been seeing people on and off, nothing too serious though, I just figured you hadn’t. I’d always known that. I might not have faith in a lot of things at the moment, but I had faith in that and you never let me down. You loved me enough to keep on letting me go, mistake after mistake.
I have to admit I was kind of angry with you for just taking off without saying a word. You never did let me have my fake Hollywood moment, declaring my love for all the world to hear. Instead you packed up your bags, left for home and left me standing in your hotel lobby arguing with the concierge that it was impossible for you to be gone, you had just been there hours before. Once again you proved to me that I could never take being right about you for granted since it was such a rare occasion.
Why aren’t you here to prove me wrong again?
*****************
I’m officially declaring myself done with traveling. I don’t know how you did it so often. My hat is off to you (not that I ever wear one, but if I did) for not killing anyone along the way. There might be a whole world out there for me to explore, but unless I’m traveling on a private charter I have no desire to see it at the moment. I’m being a drama queen again, I know, I’ll get over it soon enough. I’ve finally made a connection and I find myself stuck in what feels like the world’s smallest airplane cabinet with the world’s loudest and crankiest three year old. It’s too bad the flight attendant refuses to serve the kid some alcohol, maybe that would knock him out, before I do at least.
I’m growing impatient in my old age, all 30 years of me. I’m not quite as bad as you were at that age but I’m getting close. You know, I don’t remember Gus being that obnoxious when he was three years old. Were you slipping him Jack Daniels when the rest of us weren’t watching? He’s not even that obnoxious now, at 13 years old. Oh my God, I really am old, Gus is now a teenager. I wasn’t that much older than he is now, when he was born. How did you put up with me? Better yet, how did I put up with you? At 30, I think you were more immature than he is at 13.
I’ve got a lot to teach that kid. I never thought I’d hear myself say something like that but I feel semi-obligated to not let him down like we all have at some point. I know you’ve told me over and over that I didn’t do anything wrong, but I still feel like I ran away from him and then eventually took his father with me. It was your decision, I know . . . I KNOW, okay? Just let me feel guilty anyway. Though I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t glad that you came.
Believe it or not there wasn’t a whole lot of stability to be found in being a freelance graphics artist in one of the most expensive cities in the country. I’m sure this news just shocks you. I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do with myself, other than not come back to Pittsburgh and it felt too late to go back to school. Once you have a taste of the real world and living your life on your own terms, it’s hard to discipline yourself enough to let anyone else dictate your future. I just wanted to live. I didn’t want to be taught how to do it.
That didn’t stop me from being eternally grateful to see you walk through my hospital room, there to take care of me and make sure I had everything I needed. Part of not having any kind of stability means having to take some risks you might not otherwise. Ignoring my knee seemed like as good a risk to take as any. What’s a little swelling between joints?
I remember exactly what I was thinking about during my jog that morning, your Naked Guy painting. I hate to be the one to break this to you, but that thing is disturbingly ugly. I was trying to work out, in my mind, why that was the first thing you reinstated in the loft when you still didn’t have a couch to sit on. As I was coming to the brilliant conclusion that it was a manifestation of your assertion as alpha male, back and better than ever - and this was before I even had fun drugs to make me imagine these things - I felt my knee just buckle and I didn’t even have the instinct to throw my hands out and break the fall until the very last second. I think that was the only thing that stopped my skull from being cracked open. Again. Not that landing on my face, with my knee practically twisted backwards was any picnic, but there was far less blood than there would have been otherwise.
You have no idea what it felt like to have to call my mother to tell her that her son was once again an invalid in the hospital. I never really figured out how you wound up showing up, in her place. It sounded like a game of telephone gone awry and I still can’t believe she let you. I’m sorry I missed that conversation! She told me once that you felt like you had to do it, that you’d somehow failed me the last time I’d been in a hospital and I don’t want to say you did, because that’s not true, but I am glad you decided not take that change again. If I hadn’t gotten hurt, I’m not sure how you would have ever convinced yourself that someone needed you, that I needed you and you needed to be with me.
You came without reservation and you stayed. Do you know how amazing that is?
I’m sure I was quite demonic when my pain pills were wearing off and I didn’t want to go to physical therapy but you pushed and pushed and sat through that entire summer with me. Never once did the suggestion that I move back home where everyone could pitch in and help me cross your lips. Why is that? It seems like the most logical thing to do, rather than cause such a huge upheaval in your life and business to come babysit me. I think you just liked the sunshine!
I liked having you there, especially your idea of rewards if I just cooperated, particularly that one you did in front of the bay window when the sun was setting, your eyes as still as the horizon staring back at me, giving me and not what you were doing, your full concentration. You never seemed more beautiful to me, then at that moment, when I felt like you were so fully present and vulnerable for all the world to see, if they just took the time to look in the window, but I was the only one paying attention. I felt loved and I felt protected but mostly I felt trusted by you and that you felt safe with me, felt that I could match you moment for moment, trust for trust.
Jesus fucking Christ! I try not to blame you, but why couldn’t you picture that and remember it, when you needed to? Why was that not enough for you?
I hate this plane! I hate this trip! I fucking hate you!
*****************
I’m calm now. I’ve cried a lot and slept a little. I want to erase that last sentence, but I won’t because at that moment it was true. Blame the screaming kid. His voice went right up my spine into my better judgment and it just got the best of me. The first thing I did when we touched down was have a drink at the airport lounge and call Gus and thank him for being such a good kid, never giving anyone a moment of heartache. I’m sure he thought I was a drunk, blubbering idiot but all he could ask me was when I was coming home. I didn’t know how to answer that. “Sorry kid, I don’t plan on it” seemed wrong, because I’m hardly ever right. I just told him that I’d be back when it felt appropriate, which isn’t exactly an outright lie. I just don’t know when, or if, appropriate might ever come.
I’m scared Brian. Really fucking scared. I know being scared is a weakness in your eyes but I’m quite sure I can’t do this. I don’t know who to be in a world that’s not defined by knowing you’re always there in some small way. I don’t know how to be by myself. I woke up a few days ago, reached over for you and you just weren’t there anymore. What do I do with that? Shit, now I’m going to cry all over again and I that’s the last thing I need right now. Leaving you behind is hard enough. I have to focus on something small, some task I can manage to take my mind off of this but you’re all that’s on my mind. You’re the only thing that’s ever been in the back of mind consistently, diddling with my common sense. It should have told me to make you go back to your life and stop interfering in mine.
The truth is I never wanted you to stop.
When you packed your bags to head back home to the loft, to your life, safe in the knowledge that I was mobile and could get myself around without your help, I just felt, I don’t know, like maybe you wanted me to ask you to stay. So you’d know what it feels like to have a choice for once, even if you couldn’t make the one I wanted for us. San Francisco was just too far from the rest of your world. I could see the stress you were under, trying to handle me, Kinnetik, Michael missing you and a crying six year old who missed his father. There’s no way I could ask you to walk away from that and follow me down a road I hadn’t even thought out yet. There was no way you would have, even if it was possible, because you made all the big decisions for us, that was never my job.
So I sort of lied to you. I feel terrible about it now so please don’t hate me, but it was it was the only thing I could think to do. No one called me from New York to offer me a job based on my talent. I worked my ass off to find a job for myself. I did freelance work for companies in San Francisco that I knew had offices in New York, just to get my foot in the door and I used all the charm and technique I could remember learning from you. Sometimes I’d listen to myself speak, not even knowing where I’d come up with some of the things that came out of my mouth, until I’d remember hearing you say them. I think you would have been proud of how much I’d picked up without even realizing it. It paid off, because I finally got an offer I could live with.
I didn’t want you to feel pressured into having to make a decision, so I thought if I just made it seem convenient that a great job opened up in New York that it would almost seem to be a shame not to take it, and you’d think I wasn’t moving for you and it didn’t matter to me one way or the other if you came or went. Then it could be your choice, it would just become clear to you that it made the most logistical sense for everyone involved. Nothing would feel too far away and if you could make Kinnetik work in New York, well then everyone wins. I know how much you wanted that job way back when that you didn’t get. It made sense didn’t it? Please tell me you don’t hate me for that.
My hand shook like I was having my own personal earthquake during that phone call asking you to at least think it over. I was so sure I’d trip myself up and you’d hang the phone up in disgust or I wouldn’t and you’d hang up anyway. I didn’t know which thought was worse you saying no because I lied or you saying no to what you thought was the truth. I know my reasoning sounds lame in retrospect but I just wanted you to feel safe with me, the way you’d made me feel so many times. I didn’t want to force you into anything you weren’t ready for and the one thing I’d learned the hard way about you, is that the only way to get you moving forward was to hold your hand and take baby steps the entire way. That sounds more condescending than I meant it to but I’m sure you’d agree that you weren’t the easiest person to handle in a relationship. I couldn’t even call it a relationship for the first few years!
Of course I would have loved to hear you say “Justin, I’d follow you anywhere” while soft tinkling piano music played in the background and a montage of our greatest hits flew by on screen, but the chances of hell freezing over or Emmett being considered butch seemed much more likely to happen in my lifetime. Luckily I managed to not take your “you have to be kidding me” too personally. It could have something to do with the fact that your next question was when this was all supposed to happen, which anyone else might have ignored, but the fact that you even asked as if it were of any interest to you, pretty much reassured me that it was only a matter of time.
It was one of the few moments in my life that I knew I was absolutely right about you and you didn’t disappoint me.
Do you know what my favorite part of the last five years has been? That no matter how crazy we might drive one another, and we certainly did, or how little sleep we’d gotten, and we certainly lost a lot of that, you’d always wake up and run with me through Central Park. We might not even be on speaking terms but you were faithful about following me down those paths and there was always a hot cup of coffee and a newspaper on your dime, at the end. I’m sure you started out following me to make sure I didn’t trip and hurt myself again but eventually I think you grew to love it just as much as I did. Every morning it woke you up out of your stupor and when it was over, nothing seemed impossible. Even the companionable silences as we concentrated on our breathing being even and collecting ourselves for the day ahead, made me happy. When we first started I’d look back and find you staring with such concentration at my feet or my legs that I could have led you straight into a brick wall and you wouldn’t have noticed until it smacked you right in the face. But you’d built up enough confidence in me to know that I wouldn’t do that. Eventually you caught up to me, sometimes even jogging ahead and in the back of my head was a little cheering section roaring for your small victories.
You may have never told me you’d follow me anywhere but I never told you I’d always come back, that home for me, was you. It took me thousands of miles and months of time to find that out and still you waited. Like I knew you would.
*****************
Well it’s time that I do this. It’s time I let you go. I decided on Ibiza because you never did get around to taking me here. I figured I’d take you instead. This wasn’t exactly the way I envisioned it happening.
They called it a massive heart attack, you couldn’t even do that simply or quietly. No, you had to go storming out of the world, just as hard as you charged through it in life.
You waited for me, fought yourself so that I could have that one last moment. I thought I saw peace when I looked at your face. We stared for a moment just like that, quiet and still, memorizing . . . memorializing . . . and you knew. I know you did. You let me have that last moment, as you always did, to decide for myself to let you go.
Now I’m without a home to crawl wearily back to or someone to look after me. You were my one constant and now that’s gone.
I don’t know where I’m going after this. I don’t even see the road behind me that clearly much less the one ahead. I see you though, standing and waiting patiently at the finish line.
You’re my constant and though it might not be soon, know that I’ll always come back home to you.
Love,
Justin
Screencap courtesy of Princess of Babylon, Mia and Elliot