133
Michael
called me up from his college closet dorm room in New York.
He told me he was gay. He asked
me how I felt. I told him, “I am happy
for you. This does not change our
friendship. I just want you to be happy
with who you are.” For my eighteenth
birthday, Michael sent me this letter harkening our creative writing days in
House’s class.
Michael-March 31, 1993- Happy eighteenth birthday and
stuff! I wish you eighteen cows and a
bottle of rum. Here is an eighteen dollar
check.
Famous Ethan Baker Quotes: “Oh, the dinner buffet is
on Tuesday nights. Chicken, we’re going
to eat better than that crap. Dad, bad
news I lost the keys to the car. Kristi
likes me, that’s like not good. I
thought to myself. God has blessed me to
be able to do this. Then I thought does
everybody do this? Why else would my
cousin spend twenty minutes in the bathroom with the fan on?
Oh God, it’s like amazing that I actually got some
college credit. You’re absolutely sure
that François is gay? Well, it’s just
funny ‘cause he was my wrestling partner.
Ok Cut! I wonder if we should
have asked to see the buffet before we ordered.
These people are snotty. They
name their kids stuff like Pierce and Logan.
(Pierce; paging Pierce you have a telephone call.) I only get even channels. Hold on, I’ve got to go see Tim’s pooh!”
Famous Ethan’s dad Quotes: “Boy if I didn’t spend so
much on your god damn teeth, I’d punch them all out! Ethan telephone, its Golden Fro. I’m getting some tonight.”
I
also got some magic dryer lint Michael sent from a story about with a Queen
UmFuFu who ran a Laundromat-empire in the Bronx. Michael sent well-wishes and sentiments about
how much he missed and did not miss New
Orleans. It was
nice having a friend, even if I could not see him.
Michael
was more the normal college student; on his fifth major in a foreign time zone
dormitory. He was indebting himself like
a self-administered American suppository.
The doctors said the process was good for you and in four to ten years
the benefits would surely trickle down.
If the admissions department student loans didn’t get you, their
consiglieres with the credit card companies camped out like street corner smack-dealers
would. Debt or heroin, which is the
deadlier addiction? Neither ever really
wants to cut you off, they want you hooked.
(That
was their plan all along, when you were looking for a freebie; they were
looking for another teenage prostitute, crack whore to ferry into the
debt-slave trade behind a smile and a signature. If they didn’t want you hooked, they wouldn’t
send it in the mail or be at the counter.
They would cut you off with no re-finance after month two. Nah, they want you to keep chasing that high,
destroying a little bit more of yourself each time. You are their best customer, Mr. Tragedy,
destitute; they are feeding off the hell in you. Does any kind of drug dealer have customer
standards? )
134
During
the spring my dad a few of his friends, Tim and I went rabbit hunting and
fishing in Port Sulfur. Port Sulfur is
down by the Gulf of Mexico in the wetlands of Louisiana.
It was my only time hunting.
The
inlets were bountiful. The redfish were
plump, prompting heavy tugs on the line, bursting out the water like Christ was
beckoning. Brown pelicans were
nesting. The re-imported birds from Florida were recovering
from pesticide almost annihilation. The
marsh flats were windy and assembled in a patchwork of just enough root plants
to ward off the hurricanes clawing up to New
Orleans. Every
hour football fields of the wetlands washed into oblivion. The vanishing beauty of a gerrymandered delta
was awesome.
I
got to fire the twenty-two at a milk jug for my first target. The sound was startling, yet buffered by my
own reluctance to let any novelty bubble to the surface of the testosterone
huddled around me. The blunt surrounding
silence of bullets fulfilling their birth rite was noticeable. No one would come running out there; miles
away from civilized mechanisms of consequence.
We
marched out to burst the cotton-tailed litters from the moor. I never jumped any rabbits, but I saw the
aftermath of my father’s friend’s fresh blood.
He demonstrated the way the insides of a being could be evacuated
through its own asshole. One twist of
the neck, a blade and a squeeze like a toothpaste tube and the fetid entrails
of the herbivore popped out for buzzard tapas.
A clean carcass could be transported to a carving block. It was like a bovine processing plant, except
we did not let the excrement get into the patty. We were pure hare.
Out
on the slush-step fields my dad talked about the Vietnam rice patty almost-deaths
and smell of not-almost around him. My
dad said, “It is hard to separate a stereotype of a people trying to kill you
from a Darwinian-inclination towards negative conceptions. If anything could out weigh it though, it
just may be the fact I was sent over there to kill my opposition.” The world seesaw must have balanced out,
because my father taught me to judge a man for his self not his bulletin-board
punch list.
I
spent dusk walking over to some natural oyster bed. I harvested a few for our feast of speckled
tout, redfish, rabbit and mollusk. All
of the bounty was from this delta land.
We had guy-time under a bursting-orange setting star with a motorboat
evacuation in the morning with immigrant Vietnamese shrimpers trolling out from
Versailles in
New Orleans East out in the Gulf.
135
I
went to visit my St. Baptiste English Teacher Mr. James House over spring break
with my friend Justin who worked on our James Bond movie. House lost his wife Susan to a brain aneurysm
in three days. Normal on a Friday, by
Monday Susan was dead.
Susan
was House’s second wife. His first was a
hell he would often infer in our coordinating writing. I remember we were assigned a skit about a
couple getting divorced. My partner was
Jamie, this subsequently announced lesbian.
With
the more ironic Jamie coming out as the crux of our story line unavailable, I
wrote this naïve squib about a husband explaining how he just did not love his
wife any more. He thought they should
amicably divorce. House laughed in my
face as to the lack of visceral combative nature such a scene would
warrant. The inference was there in his
demeanor. He knew
relationship-infernos. House once
described his first wife as a mix between Lady Macbeth and Nurse Mildred
Ratched from Kesey’s Cuckoo’s Nest.
Susan
was House’s shinning savior, divorced herself, calm personable and felt to his
Kenneth Patchen mangled-heart-body.
James found Susan after so much of his journey. House offered me some ice-box apple pie. I ate the latticed confection cold sitting at
House’s kitchen table trying to console a broken man with college nothings.
136
At
home on Sunday’s I went to church with my parents at Mater de La Rosa. Mater de La Rosa is an old uptown church near
the bend in the river with stained glass and a baroque organ towering in the
choir loft. Portraits of bloody-thorn-adorned
weakened Jesus litter the halo-dome over the altar with smears of saints and an
adjudicating father image presiding down from the ceiling.
Father
William was a meticulous Irish priest.
He was finicky and particular.
Father William was a repressed revolutionary revitalizing the parish
with an Erin-go-Bragh diction, bringing the young in to corral for later emerald
donations.
The
blood of the church was swelling into the pews.
One of the old guard was Mrs. Mary Roberts, the widow of Mr.
Roberts. I remembered seeing her from
the wake in black attire with a semicircle Catholic head-veil, to cover her
head, but not her face. She was St.
Veronica-like. My parents and I grew to
be friends with Ms. Mary, who kept her husband’s surname.
I
did not know Ms. Mary’s life, her journey, her pains or joys, but she
remembered the letter I sent and thanked me.
She gave me Mr. Robert’s in-school-color maroon Mont
Blanc pen. I was ignorant
to the implied exclusivity of the premium writing utensil’s performance
embodied in the white-curvy star-topped golden-ringed modern quill. It was valuable to me because I knew it was
his. It had inked his thoughts.
137
I
finished my freshman year. I
professionally processed my examinations in a perfunctory receipt of
attention. I hurdled that first unit of
post-secondary education. I made state
student council workshop staff again.
This time I was the senior leader in my pairing with an indigo-girl folk
singer named Amanda from Lake Charles
as my partner.
Mr.
Pete put us together with my poetry and Amanda’s guitar in the closing
ceremony. I wrote the lyrics to a
song. Amanda strummed for the whole
staff to sing. The after party was moved
Amanda’s way to some richer parent than mine’s Lake Charles outpost on the water. The event was less eventful, although I know
some number of the attendees got laid.
Sidney-June 22, 1993-I feel like the Queen of the
Fuck-Ups trying to survive without fucking up again. The past eight months with Vinnie have been
too good, unreal. Believing someone
could love me for who I really am is a struggle within. Vinnie asked me to marry him. I told him I loved him enough, but we should
put that discussion on hold until after I graduate.
The
summer melted. I worked for my dad’s second
oil field employer doing basic accounts payable entries and driving a pickup
truck down to Buras. I whirled around a
fork lift in the back warehouse listening to the Howard Stern show on FM
radio. I got my first taste of
accounting software and the scent of office life.
138
My
sophomore and junior years of college blur.
I studied finance and ran through future values of presentation skills
with public speaking aspirations. I
learned how to write management reports.
I structured business communiqués with a game plan for the reader to
harvest the message efficiently.
Communication became war-like, a battle plan. Dollar-blood was at risk. Electronic word processing and spreadsheets
became weapons.
In
the fall of my sophomore year I played intramural flag football with the Towns
Students Association. Our confederate team
never won a game. The Yanks were bred
taller. I was too short to contribute
much as a receiver, but I was quick for a Caucasian and could rush the
quarterback. During our third game an
inch away from the flag, my left knee twisted and popped. I thought I had sprained it. I iced my patella down on the sideline.
After
a few weeks of my knee feeling alien, I went to a physician. The orthopedist informed me I had torn my
anterior cruciate ligament. I could walk
on the joint, but if I ever wanted to run and twist again I would need
surgery. I had the operation a year
later on Christmas break.
Sidney-October 17, 1993 - We always hang out with
Vinnie’s friends. On the occasion we
hang out with mine, Vinnie becomes invisible.
When I started doing my own thing instead, we started fighting. I babied Vinnie too much. He thought he was done growing up; a man who
knew what the rest of life was going to be.
O.J.’s
White Bronco was running before Tebow. A
truck in the bowels of the World
Trade Center
had exploded, unable to fell the corporate-constructed dominoes. School was in motion. I wrote a lot in my free time.
139
I
took a negotiations class taught by an adjunct bank CEO in my spring semester. The teacher split the class into two factions
with opposing pieces of partial supply and demand parameters to try to develop
our abilities to assess the unknown middle ground of shrouding what we really
wanted. Our goal was to exaggerate
reluctance to relinquish excess resources in exchange to obtain limited
ones. The course was a measure of
playing poker, of bluffing, of marital training, of opening the opportunity for
our opposing party to divulge data that they assumed we knew, because of our
implications, but in fact only acquired in their misstep. There were foreign bond translation
considerations and finance provisos to harvest golden-wheat yields.
I
enjoyed the gamesmanship of cash was king ruling an equity-transaction
throne. The course was graded on the
method of preparation and in reality subterfuge. My data was kept in an electronic
notebook. Unfortunately for me the file
I kept my work in got corrupted a week prior to turning in our final
grade. I did what I could with the aid
of a fellow nerd and supplied written side-notes and this garbled mess of text
recovered from ghost-software. However
as most matters of business, in the end, intentions are meaningless compared to
productive results. My grade suffered.
Sidney-April 4, 1994 –I moved off campus to an
apartment. I am dating Don for five
months. He is a blue-collar guy 26, a
supervisor at a grocery store. Don is in
the process of getting a divorce from his separation form two and half years
ago in New York. Don wants to get his G.E.D.
We bicker sometimes.
A lot of his insecurities stem from the fact that his wife cheated on
him. His parents are coming to
visit. This summer we have plans to go
to New York. I know with Don I do not have to be the “yes”
girl anymore.
140
My
mother received a call from one of her friends in the neighborhood we grew up
in on a Tuesday evening. My childhood
friend Bortz’s was dead. The grapevine
of ferried-lines made its way to former playground-mothers from the times of
sheltered monopolized lives. Bortz hung
himself with a belt in his parent’s garage.
No
note, no message, just a neck. I imagine
a twenty-first century scene as part David Caradine, part John Locke, part some
kid I always seemed to want to get his time to play with and never could meet
in the middle. What images do we have of
suicide except for television byproducts before we see death? I cried for the guy. I said prayers. I have always wondered where Bortz’s life
went to go to that place ending the chain pre-progeny. Selfish fuck.
141
In
TSA we had a video scavenger hunt reminiscent of the 1980’s cult classic
Midnight Madness. The night included a
ready-made list of points assigned to doing stupid college shit on video that
mortgage-burdened adults would rarely contemplate. The co-ed crews split into two teams with a
designated driver assigned to each. The
members of the losing squadron had to dump a beer over their head and streak dripping
in their underwear through the quad video taped by the opposition.
Items
included ten potential points with some only one team could score. Presenting license plates from the furthest
state. Maine won.
Feeding a cat inside a Wal-Mart with food right off the shelf. Doing jumping jacks in a fast food parking
lot with the female members chanting, “I love the fatties.” The most members of the team shaving a single
eyebrow off. The most members of a team
asking a random stranger over the age of fifty if they wanted to go fuck in a
parking lot. Eating a pound of cheese
followed by chugging a gallon of milk.
It turns out like you think it does.
The
most members urinating in the Mississippi River
at once. Create a fake wrestling belt
and challenge a man over two hundred pounds to a wrestling match. Confiscate a pair of parking cones from
campus security. Eat a live cockroach,
the six-legged kind.
Our
team lost. We were made-up of a scalawag
animal house crew with single word names.
Skeet refused to shave. Hemstreet
ate the cheese and held the milk for five minutes in a noble effort. Oriole wrestled a big-ass mother fucker. But the other team found the damn cat and
managed to dodge the Walton’s geriatric security forces for the win. We strutted through the quad with a ding-dong
chant from the other side. Somewhere in
the world TSA runs wild is on VHS.
Sidney-July 16, 1994 - I broke up with Don. I’m really depressed. Don cursed at me, fought and got mean. I am so tired of the obligations, feeling
bad. I tried to explain to Don that he
was hurting my feelings. Don started
yelling at me, telling me I was the one who was doing the hurting. Don accused me of planning to have sex with
one of the guys I work with. I had
enough.
Don came over to get his stuff from my place and all
he said was “Fuck you” and pulled out of the driveway. Don started leaving nasty messages on my
answering machine and calling me at work.
Don screamed, “Shut up you fucking slut,” and hung up.
I am in Maine
with my dad and starting to understand why my relationships always fail. I try too hard to please the other
person. I neglect my own life. Eventually that catches up with me.
I feel guilty over so much stupid shit. I need to trust and like myself. I need non-agenda friends; people who expect
nothing of me except for me to be myself.
I want to thank you for listening to me for all these years, four so far
and for never giving up.
142
Tim
moved in with my parents after returning from Florida in debt and with his degree that
offered inapplicable employment options.
Coming home from his retread-option night school for his psych-degree,
Tim got mugged in the front yard we grew up in by a kid with a hand gun. As Tim got out of his car, the assailant with
the aid of a driver sped up from down the street, pulled up into the drive,
jumped out and pistol-whipped Tim to the ground with his teeth brazing the edge
of the concrete driveway.
The
thud swelled immediately. Tim’s focus
was dulled. His arms were in a paralysis
of trepidation. The kid had to be of
early high school age, but whether the thug was in high school was
questionable. Maybe it was a gang
initiation. Maybe it was just a random
free-willed act. Either way Tim’s wallet
was confiscated, but his life was not.
His breathes from that moment on were borrowed.
Tim
contemplated becoming a priest. Tim went
on and on about how God had a purpose for him in his life being spared. Tim spoke to God on some new-found slanted
terms some brazen fuck-hole apparently unlocked the gate to with a gun.
Two
months later Tim met some freckled Canadian girl on tour with a band down in New Orleans and forgot
about the collared-life. In the meantime
I finished my sophomore year, got all my reading done and processed through the
summer.
143
My
junior year I had an international business course, to enlighten me on social
structures set up in China, Iran, Spain, Holland, Mexico and billiards pockets
of the world not commercially identical to American television bickering
amongst the channels. Squirrels from
other forests scavenged and buried under other rules and religions for their
own domestic nuts.
The
systems might seem absurd on the peripheral, but in context to the
tribal-tributary spirits haunting each country, there was logic. There was a link from each modern action to
the shivers of its ancestors. If we
looked close enough we could see how a man is just the accumulation of
decisions of the dust in local graveyards.
Sidney-January 30, 1995-I sent two letters I guess you
never received. I was wondering why you
never wrote back. I broke up with Don
because he became verbally abusive. He
stalked me, called me at work and yelled.
Don would not return my pager, cds or the money he owed me. Don told me I was a good for nothing bitch,
liar and a whore. Then Don called and
tried to get me to go back out with him.
I have started seeing a new guy Conner and a shrink
for my depression. I realize I was
repeating a pattern of my mom’s. I hope
you get this letter.
144
My
ambition was worn dry; raw like an irritated callus debating whether to
form. I wanted the loneliness and the
want of something other to bother me that it would iterate change to obliterate
the apathy hording my subconscious into a clouded mud-balled given. I wanted to take the dirt, rub my eyes and
see. I wanted the space between waking
and sleeping to include at least one action to change my tomorrows. I wanted war with complacency.
I
wrote poetry to manufacture synthetic sentiments like my own Prozac. The feelings were fabricated like commercially
disease-resistant Florida
tomatoes, red on the outside, but hard and unnatural to the taste buds. These were just expedited fruits engineered
for swift and rocky transport.
How
could I write about love subjectively and have the output not be a complete
farce? I was naïve and hungry. I made up names of people who never existed
to manufacture love letters. I wondered
what if my stories with ghosts sharing splendid moments were true. What if the lonely hurt was imagined? What if it were the reverse?
I
prayed on a scorched earth’s fertility, to harvest, but I had to starve first. I felt like a half-grown owl from a cracked
egg fallen to the forest floor, down in the smolder, looking up at every branch
thinking every nest will reject what has already been broken. I was a man in his own fragmented egg in a
fetal position scribbling on my own skin.
My
ego was alone, tucking my legs and knees sitting balanced on my buttocks with
arms wrapping a superego cave of lower limbs with chin pinned to the vertex of
the created angles, positioned with eyes and jaw ahead. I am swallowing myself.
Mundane
was a recorded piano melody. I could sway left to right, cheek balanced to
cheek gripping tighter, winding inward remembering how things never were, of
being held, of my gross misrepresentation rocking to the sounds alone in Id stereo.
There
was a tempest in me, breaching. I could
feel the swell in crinkle differences like soggy fingers trying to grip
repetitive trinkets. I saw a busted
face, a black-hole mouth, licking wrong and flying out in trip-trail
cattle-guard barriers of sand in grains like cannon balls appearing to change
so much, but they were merely dust.
Everything was exacerbated over emphasized, when it was in fact simple. Poetry became bulimia.
Sidney-August 3, 1995 - Conner and I have a nice one
bedroom one bath apartment. On July 10th
I got engaged. In Gainesville at a concert the band stopped
playing and the singer asked if there was a Sidney Evans in the audience,
Conner has something to ask you. Then
Conner got down on one knee, pulled a ring out his pocket and asked me to marry
him. I said, “Yes.” We are planning to marry in September
1997.
I am quitting my job at Staples in two weeks. I have had enough of the public to last
forever. I am tired of fighting for
hours, getting paid crap and having to deal with so many assholes.
That
was the last letter I ever got from Sidney. I wrote again to no avail. Maybe Sidney and Conner got married and lived
happily ever after, the whole spiel.
Maybe Sidney
found a career after the military. Maybe
she got sent off to some sandbox and got buried. Over the years I have looked Sidney up seven different
ways and never found her. But in that
month, maybe we each finally had a reason to let go.
145
The
summer before my senior year, I finally convinced the dental-powers-that-be to
allow me to get my permanent dental implants drilled into my maxilla. The oral surgery meant the end of the
denture, the pink plop-it-in-there and hope sticky-ceiling tooth shelter. I was paroled without fanfare. I was done growing my bones years ago. No more height acquired in the night since
Marie. At least I could contemplate
biting into apples.
My
first class in September was corporate taxation. The only two sections scheduled were both at
eight a.m. The illogical synchronicities
in timing produced a registration imbalance.
Five of us were requested to switch.
My friend Skeet and I raised our hands and proceeded to sit in the
second row of the United Nations-style tiered seating of our sister country of
tax-nerds.
On
the third day of class I noticed the legs of a girl in the front row. Her thighs were tan and apportioned in a
cute, but not skeleton or model-like configuration. The upper legs were a slice of naked skin
distraction on a girl in glasses with a mid-length brown hair.
Her
pippin-apple face was an arrangement of semicircles paired with a jutting
square chin in a resemblance to a Louisiana-born Reese Witherspoon. Her smile was constant and her hand was
astutely raised in an elevated statistical anomaly above the class average to
respond to the instructor’s queries in such a small sample of days. Her tiny section of table space was efficiently
laid out with notes.
I
pretended to need a pen. I was certain
from her girl-scout-like preparedness she would have one in her stores. I thanked her in a slightly prolonged
sentence hanging a minute, making eye contact into her brown eyes. I detected the subtle upward curvature of the
apex of her smile. The inflection in the
geometry computed a confidence in me that her scent, her lines, her skin tone
were available for further interrogatories.
After
class I introduced myself,
“I
usually don’t forget things. Thanks for helping me out. I’m Ethan. ”
“Ashley”
“Where
are you from?”
“Nottoway,
it’s a little town north of here.”
“I’ve
been there before. I am friends with
this guy Tracer.
“Tracer, everybody knows Tracer. He was practically my best friend growing
up. It was me, Tracer and this guy
Ben. We were like the three amigos.”
“Yeah,
I was in this student council, LASC, staff-thing up in Natchitoches with him. He’s a really cool
guy.”
“Yeah, Tracer’s awesome. His dad is sheriff. Everybody knows him. He’s just a great guy.”
“My
buddy Skeet and I got switched over from the other section. I think this one is better. I think the guy over there is use to talking
to computer screens more than humans.
Well it was nice meeting you.
I’ll see you Wednesday.”
It
was a simple coincidental and beautiful introduction. I had no reason to know of her little no-name
town and maybe if I had not written a poem or gotten on staff, maybe our
conversation would have led to a more awkward outcome. Ashley was not from New
Jersey, Florida, or Brazil. Ashley was actually from Louisiana, a relative local, even if it was
from nowhere. It was a nowhere I had at
least visited.
146
Fall
started interview season with the Big Five international public accounting
firms: Ernst and Young, Deloitte, Price Waterhouse, KPMG, and Arthur
Andersen. Thursday October 12, 1995,
Ashley and I had interviews set up in the career development center. With the benefit of time Ashley shared her
diary of that day with me.
Ashley –It was early on a Thursday. Knots looped my stomach about to interview to
intern with Arthur Andersen. I was
trying desperately not to seem desperate.
I wrenched my hands. My stomach
leaped. My heart raced. I saw you.
The interviewer’s door opened. You emerged.
Time became silent. You smiled
and said, “Hello.” I sat
dumbfounded. What just happened? I pushed you out of my mind. Calmness vanished with your drifted
scent. I knew that I had seen you in my
business taxation class, but I was not sure who you were. A week went by, I pushed that moment
out. By Friday, I saw you at the Beta
Alpha Psi meeting
Beta
Alpha Psi was the accounting honors society.
We had guest speakers tell us about public accounting. Ashley missed the previous meeting. Her reading glasses were off. Ashley asked me if I had the agenda or could
recap.
It
was a not-so-subtle return of favor, a request inside of a request, veiled in
adolescent lures, which thankfully I was capable of picking up on in my typical
doltish grades in flirting. I told Ashley
about the perfunctory details. We moved
under the bows of the massive campus oaks.
I told her, “There is this poetry reading night down at the Dragon’s Den
in the quarter on Thursday I read at sometimes, would you like to go with me
next Thursday?”
Ashley–October 20, 1995, I missed last week. I asked Karan Kamar, but he did not have the
notes. I turned around. There you were. I did not connect you with the guy before the
interview or from tax class. I asked if
you had the notes.
We walked outside.
You conveyed the pertinent details, but I did not listen to a word you
said. It was meaningless talk. You showed me the handout, I glanced. We walked down the sidewalk. I remember not wanting to leave.
I did not know you.
I did not even like you as anything more than an acquaintance. But I did not hesitate to say yes when you
asked me to a poetry reading at the Dragon’s Den a week away on Thursday.
We went our separate ways. I was hitting myself. I had a group meeting that evening and my
special-ordered dark green upholstered chair was coming in. I had a million things to do, but still no
hesitation. Amazing!
Ashley
pulled out a yellow sticky-note pad and wrote her number down. The top had her pre-printed name, Ashley
Hingle. Ashley seemed like an organized
girl, the kind that planned and appreciated surprises along as they were within
range of her expectations.
147
The
next week I rode a nervous edge guising normal.
I did not want to stir the hen’s feathers before sunrise. The rooster’s crow is not always so
certain. No matter how many times I
might like to deny it, I was a still a novice on the cusp of a normal.
Ashley –October 30, 1995-A week went by, business tax
was a little uncomfortable, but exciting.
Thursday finally arrived. I
figured what the hell. We will have an
okay time. Maybe it will go all
right. Who wants to listen to a bunch of
people read poetry in a bar?
You picked me up in your car and drove. That was a big deal. He is driving. I do not have to pick him up and drive him
all over town. This is great, one point
for Ethan! In the car you asked me to
predict what type of poetry you read.
Poetry YOU read? You write
poetry.
I wanted to start crying. You picked me up in your car. You’re beautiful. You’re intelligent. You write and read poetry. Ok, ok, when does the abuse start? When does the verbal bashing begin?
Ashley
wore a black sweater and blue jeans. Her
hair was down and perfumed with some Chanel fragrance wafting through my
base-level compact vehicle. I picked
Ashley up from her little white picket-fence sequestered shotgun. Jasmine grew along the property line. I opened the passenger door.
After
my inquiries, we headed upstairs to the den above the Siam Café. The usual crowd gathered. I signed up.
We sat by the Turkish-style eight-inch high tables near the balcony door
Indian-style on large cushions. We
conversed, backgrounds, scripts, introductions.
I was third up to the microphone with my neophyte business-school
stanzas that seem like vomit poetry.
It’s shit. I can smell my
own. Olfactory competence improves with
judgment, I am still waiting.
The Chance – I have this and time, tools with a limit
and it is not mine, the choice, Two loves flipped like a coin, my eyes attach
to see your palm grab what I could never create alone, The chance to live as if
my heart was free for the taking and for that chance I risk it breaking in the
cervices of your skin to have that moment when, We stare behind prayers,
blooming digits in a silver circle draining out like a weight, Your hands out
stretched stroked to my face, a kiss like a storm finally passing and this the
love I feared for asking.
Normal to Her – Unbalanced for a forking life,
drifting dizzy, energy drained wondering, why it has to end up the same? In a scrapheap of attempts stacked like
decimated battle plans divided by ten in the corner of her cavernous room
Glaring out a window into a plain yard and a future that seems just as hard as
a past providing answers like tacks in the foot surfacing in the worst of
occasions and the saddest of any is that, this is normal to her.
Length – Like water for the horse at journey’s end,
your words come to me resolution for the muddy steps and frigid nights I can
start to hold what I think might be your heart for the long road. Was a length I had to venture the sacrifice
enough to pass through walls of stoned in years? Could this step be our first, my last deed to
prove, what I can not from how far you have backed away. That there is no length I will not go to pay
the price I have to pay. For the toll of
the bridge is not always paid in coins, but in lengths that one will take to
have two hearts adjoin.
I
spit my sophomoric script written before I met Ashley, scavenged out my most
recent notebook, half intentional, half not with my naïve love poems to girls
with made up names and ameba faces.
Shit, all of it shit. I hoped I
did not weird Ashley out as if I had written the selections for her.
148
I
returned to my seat. Ashley smiled with
a coy invitation-grin. We listened to
the rest of the lineup. I shifted the
location of my palm over her wrist and slipped my digits over her fingers in a
seamless wave of want unlocked with a skeleton-key smile and the curvature of
my confidence. A brass band took the
stage. We attempted to transition the
nonverbal for the verbal in a buffered conversation.
Ashley–October 30, 1995-You’re poetry is
beautiful. I’m straining to hear. Your voice flows through me, considerate, not
demanding or overbearing, but soothing.
When you return I want to kiss you, because you can not be real. They are never real. I want to kiss you now while you are still
real and wonderful, just to have that moment of ignorant bliss. But you do not kiss me, you grab my
hand. My soul is crying. I am afraid.
What if this is really you? How
can I be feeling all these things for you so soon?
You reduced me to silence. My heart pounded. My mind screamed. My body was so alive, but I
did not want to scare you. I am just
me. I have been alone so long. I never date.
The last guy was a retarded weirdo.
Silence is all I can offer.
Silence and a smile of disbelief and awe, let me have this moment of
amazing.
The band started.
You tried to talk. You said, “Let’s
leave.” Great, let’s get out of this
place, because I do not want to miss your words.
149
We
exited downstairs and sat in my car parked parallel to the Mississippi
River next to the French Market.
I had a Spiderman figure strung from my rearview mirror. In all my nerd-dom, I explained to Ashley how
Spiderman was my favorite superhero, because he was just a normal guy thrust
into being a hero. He could never tell
the people he loved his secret for fear of harm coming to them. He lived under their judgment of why he
appeared absent. The newspaper cast
Spiderman as the villain. He never got
to explain. He could have left town, but
he stayed. I respected the nobility in
that.
Ashley-October 30, 1995- Sitting in your car,
discussing the unique qualities of Spiderman, you asked me if I like to take
things slow. My mind raced through the
files of my past. I saw men trying
everything and doing horrible things.
Here we sat in the epitome of evil.
I say, but think in a screaming voice, “YES, let’s take it slow. Do not hurt me yet.”
There you were looking at me with your blue eyes, your
innocent blue eyes. I realized that you
just wanted to kiss me. I was so
overwhelmed with shame. I clumsily
apologetically leaned and said, “No,” and goodbye to my heart.
You made everything beautiful. You did not even have to try; blue eyes. The monsters vanished into the Quarter.
The
night budded in teenage-television drama impracticalities shared a million
times by a million loves, bought and sold by zip-code twenty-seven year olds
playing high school kids, but I did not care about clichés or poems. Happiness was swarming me.
150
Ashley
and I started to spend time together every day.
I learned about Ashley’s family.
Her dad was born and raised in Nottoway. Her mother was from Holland.
The Hingle’s were still married.
In some anomaly of the universe we both came from non-divorced
homes. Ashley was Catholic and prayed, complete
with the font of guilt about every fear or choice to make sure she suffered a
commensurate measure internally for each conceptualized deviation from
perfection as was God’s intent.
I
introduced Ashley to punk rock and my strain of sarcastic humor. How can you have never heard of the Clash;
Joe the Plummer over Joe Strummer? Ashley was more of a corny-joke boot-scoot
taste of girl raised in Garth Brooks’ country.
Her favorite joke was about a string that got kicked out of a bar. The string gets someone to fray his ends and
tie him in a knot. The bartender asks
the string, “Hey aren’t you that string that was in here?” No, I am a frayed knot. This was Ashley in her twenties, cute and
corny, sweet and smart.
We
sat in the quad and conversed. We hung
out at Ashley’s apartment. Her dad had
fixed the place up, so Ashley did not have to live in the dormitory. Ashley told me about playing point guard on
her basketball team in high school and tearing her knee. Ashley showed me her scar. I pulled up my pant leg and showed her
mine. We each had our full complement of
limbs. I met some of Ashley’s
friends. None of them lived in New Orleans. They were all from Nottoway.
151
Ashley – December 16, 1995 - I am sitting by the glow
of my tap light, many punk songs and Simpson’s episodes later. The doubt begins, where I become difficult
and start to push you away. I love every
second with you, but the hunger consumes me.
All I want is more. I know this
is gluttony. I feel my self-control
dwindling.
Today we went to a wedding. It has been two months. I met your mother and gained insight into
you. You came home and gained too much
insight into me.
I am not ashamed, but I know maybe this will not
work. Doubt is about to settle and sink
its vicious teeth. When I dropped you
off at home, we did not want to say goodbye.
We parked. I felt the doubt.
I know I will mess things up. Blue eyes I see your soul. I know due to my insecurities or actual
inequities that you will leave. Maybe we
will have a few wonderful moments. You
deserve someone who will be so happy.
On my religious drive back from Nottoway,
my ritualistic-meditative journey away from home to hell, you talked to me
freely. I did not like what I
heard. I heard the fear. I do not want to open my eyes to shed
unquenchable tears. I have so many horrible
faces where the wild things are.
I know it will come.
Come on. I will let you hurt me,
because it is your turn to hurt someone.
I wonder when it will be my turn.
I want shameless.
I
was still living at home. Ashley was on
her own, but her parents were paying the mortgage. Ashley was vehemently conceptually
independent. Sometimes when it was late,
my mother would call to see if I was staying at Ashley’s place or going to
drive home. My mom needed peace that her
son had not been abducted face-down to the concrete in the Desire
projects. This was all still
pre-me-having a cell phone.
The
disparity in jurisdictions rubbed Ashley’s nerves. Mrs. Sara Baker was not friendly enough in
tone, for Ashley’s uncertainty of having access to me; my staying or
leaving. Ashley wanted to be
prepared. Ashley felt restricted from
saying what she really wanted.
152
We
went to out for Mexican at el Rana Azul.
Our college budget was addicted to free refills on soda and chips and
salsa with the occasional non-soda. Our
waitress asked for Ashley’s ID. So
Ashley resigned her illegal inebriation to an estrogen-mandatory-to-imbibe
non-alcoholic straw-colada. Later, the
cheese was not melted on Ashley’s enchiladas.
Ashley asked the waitress to cook the enchiladas longer. The opposing female called her picky.
In
due course of defending the idiosyncratic battlegrounds females grid out in
their minds in lieu of fisticuffs, to scorn Ashley’s mortally-opposed, I mocked
up a comment card. “Picky who’s picky? Un-melted strands of cheese, cities have
been sacked for less.” It made Ashley feel better. I had Ashley’s back, even against skank-ho
waitresses. Who tells a Dutch girl she
is too persnickety about the heated texture of her queso? Yeah, try that shit in Alkmaar.
153
Ashley
and I were growing closer. Christmas was
approaching. Ashley’s favorite day of
the year was the day she got to acquire her Christmas tree. Ashley was enamored with the boreal-fresh
aroma permeating her stuffed shelf of a not-Nottoway house. .
The
girl was a college junior with a full array of gold and silver beads and
adorning Yule-tide accoutrements. Ashley
had a system of decorations befitting a forty-year-old house marm with a craft
addition. Her father helped his miniature
Martha Stewart set up the tree before I even got a sniff of the inclination to
start looking for rehabilitation facilities.
I
was falling for Ashley. I made
reservations at the most romantic restaurant in New Orleans.
Bella Luna was positioned in the crescent elbow of the city overlooking
the bridge and drifting ships lit up in night-time candles. We had wine, lamb and a gulf fish in
exquisite saffron. The weather was huddle-walk
intimate.
We
went back to Ashley’s place. Ashley was
smiling so hard she told me her face hurt.
We curled up on her dark-green matching sofa with the room only lit by
the light of the Christmas tree. I told
her, “I love you.” After Ashley caught
her breath; she reciprocated.
154
Ashley – December 21, 1995 – A letter, Keep your eyes
closed and just keep waltzing…
Everyday amazes me how strong you are. I have been through a lot. I wish that I had never experienced some of
it. I get sick of being strong, of
trying to handle everything on my own, keeping it inside. I break.
In the morning I put my strong-woman hat on, but I need to supplement
with hours of weakness. I need times to
turn everything over to God, my stupid journal or my cat.
I am reluctant to turn to you. It is so soon. I promised myself I would send this message,
even if I have ditched so many before. I know you will understand or ask if you
do not. I am not crazy. I do not have problems that can not be
overcome, only that one thing I told you.
It is like I am waiting for the voice of God to boom,
“You are forgiven, damn it, now get over it!”
I know I am forgiven, but I want a family. I want children. I want a husband that adores me that I
adore.
I just repeat to myself, “Keep your eyes closed and
just keep waltzing. Keep your eyes closed
and just keep waltzing.” No matter what
happens I will always feel blessed to have you in my life, for you truly are a
gift from God. Love, Ashley
Ashley – January 11, 1996 – A silver letter to herself
I read later.
It is 1:59 a.m. My computer will not start and you are
gone. I feel dirty. We did nothing wrong. I guess it is not what you do or who you are
with. It is me.
How can I have worked so fucking hard and so fucking
long to fix this, to work through this shit?
Why can’t I say, “No, I do not want to?”
I know it is not you sweetheart.
One day you will realize what I have forced you to become.
I do not want to lose you yet, but I know that if I
loved you I would let you go. I would
let you go before my poison sinks, spoiling you forever, but when we kiss.
I wish you could see all my fears, my pain and hold
me. Let me cry. That you would not want what anyone could
give you. You would want what only I can
give you. You will have my disease. You will have my demon.
155
We
were courting and both in school full time.
Ashley was a year younger junior, with an intelligent tailor, making
better grades than I did, always two steps ahead. Ashley was a perfectionist, always worried
about her grades and ending up with A’s.
Ashley wanted to have the perfect resume for the big firms come hire
time.
Sometimes
we would get lost in ourselves and occasionally skip a class. Ashley would beat herself up about the
truancy later, rationalizing it with scheduled make up study time as if Ashley
could self flagellate her focus on a measure of productivity at one a.m.
We
use to meet and walk to Ashley’s shotgun apartment. I carried Ashley’s book sack and made up
silly stories. Ashley left little notes
with scribbled stick-figure drawings on where she would be on campus, her
schedule, menu options, or instructional material. Ashley wished me luck on my
examinations. Ashley brought me snacks
like a scout leader den-mother mom in training since she was six years old.
156
We
went out to Nottoway one time to meet her
friends Beth and Joe and their two-year-old daughter Gaia. Joe had traveled around with some
hippie-commune caravan called “The Rainbow Collective.” Now they lived off government subsidies as
vegetarians while Beth was pushing through college. Joe played guitar in a band called “Moth
Muzzle” and studied to become a boiler maker.
Joe and Beth were happy and married, young and living in a smoke-bowl
two bedroom house.
Ashley – January 19, 1996 - We went to Beth’s house
for what I thought was a diner party. We
ate homemade vegetable puffs on the floor.
You and I played with Gaia. Later
you hung with the guys. Beth and I went
for ice cream. I told Beth I think you
might be the one. We left late and had
to decide where to sleep. You were
scared we would run out of gas. We went
to Speedway,
the only place open. You pumped.
Ashley – January 25, 1996 – Our first jointly prepared
dinner. We cooked a stuffed meatloaf roll.
I saved a jar of pimentos. You
had a good idea to fill the jar with dried flowers. We painted the lid blue and
yellow with our initials. You hung the
mirror in my bathroom too.
Ashley-January 30, 1996- I wanted to eat Chinese and
use chopsticks. We were at your parent’s
house. I was upset because I told you I
was not hungry. You ate your mom’s
food. I made you feel guilty. I was upset because you should have known. I wanted Chinese. You should have taken me. After I almost left several times, you said I
should stop being selfish. You were
right.
You went with me to get crab Rangoon, lemon chicken, Mai Tai’s. We watched part of the eclipse as we froze in
the grass of your front yard talking about our planned trip to Europe over Mardi Gras.
Ashley
had grand plans to fly across the ocean and whisk me to see the countryside she
spent her childhood summers gallivanting and lamenting the boredom. Kid Ashley was imprisoned eating out of
breakable egg cup dishes that Ashley was too frenetic to keep un-cracked and
intact the way her Dutch grandmother, her Oma, found suitable for a girl of her
age.
Ashley’s
Oma from her description was a Gestapo-guard harsh on any XX chromosome
descendants. This propagated Ashley’s
own mother’s opinions and was detected and smeared upon Ashley’s memories of
the Orange Queen’s country of her maternal genial line.
Ashley
renewed and I applied for my first passport to leave the United States that January. We never made it out. The trip got canceled for logistical
complications.
157
Ashley – 2/17/1996-You made an Ethan-pallooza name tag
at your Aunt Audrey’s birthday party.
Aunt Audrey kept telling me about you and about men. You put your arm around me. I felt like we were a couple. It was you and I and then everyone else. I think our families will get along.
Ashley – 2/19/1996–To Ethan–I know life is
overwhelming. Today I was saying, “Life
sucks.” Lately, I have felt
pressure. I want you to know that I am
here for you always. I would do anything
to make your life easier. I can never
hope to repay you. I love you, Thank
you, Ashley
Ashley – 3/17/1996– Do you ever think that being who
you are can ruin everything? Everyday my
suspicions about who I was destroying who I am to be are coming true. I know that my past will kill me
eventually. Those experiences had made
me so strong. Terrible memories; the
only person I am still good enough for, I am too good for and I will never be
with someone strong because I was once so weak.
I will not sweep the shame. There
is forgiveness.
Maybe you are the one. That one sentence is profound enough to stare
at for hours. Just days ago, my mind was
a broken record repeating, “Let’s keep our eyes closed and just keep waltzing.” But then with such ease, like no one ever
has, you opened me up. My defenses were
down. You dragged my soul from the very
thing that I can not let go. You laughed
at its unimportance. I felt free,
relieved, forgiven.
Like a dream I had months ago, Jesus was holding me
suspended in mid air. He loved me,
forgave me. I realized that was you
holding me. I could not even cry. You took it away. You keep it.
My body is tingling. The tears
are falling. You heard what I have never
shared with anyone. You simply looked at
me and my deepest-darkest secrets poured forth.
How did you do that?
The very thing that consumes my thoughts and journal entries for the
past seven years, you simply asked for it and I gave it to you as if I know you
are always going to be here.
Ashley
continued leaving me stick-figure illustrated notes at her apartment for when I
would stop by in between classes. Ashley
listed the food available, macaroni, pizza, hot pockets, chips and her precious
Dutch-girl gouda Ashley left instructions
on how to operate kitchen appliances like the dishwasher or the convection
oven, as if my lumbering man-fingers were incapable of navigating such
technologies.
158
On
an innocuous February Saturday we made love for the first time. I lost some measure of my innocence in
Ashley’s skin. I left my virginity on
her doorstep. Everybody fucks somebody
first at some age. Mine just may have
been older. The insertion is not a
crucible-measuring marker. The passage to
me was never as important as could I handle the emotions I wanted to be present
being present. I knew I would never want
to fly in such airport hubs to be just a traveler in a woman’s terminal with a
ticket laid for a red-eye flight. I
would rather fly solo in my own cockpit, than carry all that excess baggage.
I
was not playing games contemplated in some high school drunken hot tub
binge. This was life happening before me
and Ashley’s repeating Catholic guilt. I
respected what was dear to her. I did
not wish anything to be so confined and defined by chaste inaction legislated
by men in dresses married to a man in heaven.
The
whole debate tore Ashley up for old pits she wished she could fail to
remember. The years and weeks leading up
to that night created our divergent paths.
Ashley wanted to fuck and not say the word. Ashley had her former friends with Ketamine
and indoctrinated hallucinations. I had
my labyrinth head. We could exile each
other’s demons.
Ashley
was independently building a love with me.
Those old wounds would re-bleed.
I gave Ashley gauze-assurance that in me was love, despite knowing her
secrets.
159
Ashley’s
grandfather Josephus declared his intentions for a second marriage to a British
Camilla-of-Cornwall woman. Ashley’s
whole domestic family called mutiny. The
man was widowed just before I met Ashley, by the family matriarch, Granny
Darling.
Ashley’s
grandmother was idolized and pardoned of her sins as Ashley’s personification
of what it meant to be the mother, the strong woman, the grail of her
family. Granny Darling loved
butterflies. Every Monarch flutter
spotted became a sign from beyond the grave.
Ashley was shy of twenty-one and immediately yoking her life into the
role vacated by her paternal grandmother’s death. Ashley had heirloom pearls for her clavicles.
Ashley’s
American grandmother was the Catholic-martyr vat of glue that kept the Hingle
family crew rowing. The replacement
red-coat harpy was badmouthed and gossiped to have taken her dentures out and
sucked Grandfather Josephus’ penis into a deep-willed late-life Polident
betrothal. Lawyers in the family were
curmudgeons about the contracts of contact.
This woman was going to infiltrate the reserved haul for tenured-blood
children for her trailer-trash Welch horde circling the tower gates to drink
the milkshake of Ashley’s grandfather’s mistake. The drama was far from revolutionary.
160
Our
spring semester Ashley and I each enrolled into the most demanding course of
our tenure at Tulane, Advanced Managerial Accounting under Professor Sotaman Y
Sotaman. We referred to him as the
Egyptian Hairball for his predominant bald dome and protruding ear hair which
he twirled during lectures like a bizarre Bozo-the-Clown.
The
course was condensed into half a semester in successive all-day Saturday
lectures, which were designed to be every other week, but by the nature of no
one in the class realizing the full voracity of this professors desire to test
our limits was permitted by democratic vote on the first day. Which marine is going to say he or she can
not take it?
The
course was case-based. The first four hours
was a lecture, which recapped the entire contents of the pre-requisite
managerial accounting course. There were
twelve of us starting the course, six of us finished. Every week we were split down the middle
between two cases. One was a major case,
the other minor.
On
the major case we were partnered and had to analyze a set of data for a company
or a government who was dealing with raw data on how to manufacture something
with multiple variables with limited givens, transport supplies and manage bottlenecks. We had to find the most efficient and
effective path by resorting and reorganizing the data using cost modeling and
variance analysis.
In
preparation for the major case we had to write a fifteen-page report according
to the guidelines of the management communications writing center in the
business school. The management report
had to be reviewed by the writing center and turned into Sotaman by Thursday
for his secondary review. We had to
prepare a power point presentation to present our case data in competition with
an opposing team on the following Saturday.
The
fellow members of the class critiqued each other, prying out pedantic and
self-exculpatory points and inferences in the data that they may have picked up
in their research that were missed by the presenters to make a beneficial
impression with the masochistic-method professor. Sotaman planted dirty-bomb explosions
targeting failure by distracting us with unnecessary dead-end source data like
in real life. When a group picked up
that booby-trap ball and tried to score, Sotaman reveled in his anarchistic
antics.
For
the minor case we prepared an executive summary report in order to be prepared
to critique the case, which was not our major case. This was the kind of work that separated
critical thinkers, planners, from those that simply follow instructions. This was the kind of work that made Ayn Rand
wet.
I
was rooting the microfibers of muscle to transcend from one who completes tasks
to evolve into a conundrum assassin. If
such patchworks could be solved by a lower pay-grade then I would not be
utilized. I was an accounting ninja
against cluster-fucks and bottlenecks. I
both wanted and resented the challenge.
This
course included more condensed work in a pressure-cooker than anything Tulane’s
undergraduate business school had to offer.
Somehow Ashley and I thought it was a beneficial idea to co-attend, not
that we consulted. Ashley has been
Sotaman’s teacher assistant since the second semester of her sophomore year. Ashley spent a significant chunk of her
non-class time trying to please that unappeasable asshole. It was always, “Yes, sir what can I do for
you?” Ashley was the only junior in the
class. Why because Ashley was just that
eager of a beaver, undaunted and drunk on validation.
Ashley – 2/18/1996-Adriana tried to kiss butt in
Advanced Managerial and handed out these Valentines suckers. She is such a kiss-ass trying to bribe the
teacher. I know this course is hard, but
if we hang in there it will be worth it.
161
By
the third class some of the flies fell.
I built this expansive Microsoft Excel model to compute an optimum
solution based on variances in supplied data.
I got a ladder-rung bell-ringing compliment from Sotaman for a case that
Ashley only had as a minor case.
Resentment set. The out-of-rhythm
pulse was detectable that I had the easier path. If only Ashley had been allowed to present,
Sotaman would have altered the direction of his approval.
162
The
work hours were long. That semester was
like we were only taking two courses for our eighteen hours of credit: Managerial and everything else. The collective workload of the remainder was
the minority. I spent many of my hours
at Ashley’s apartment with us sawing away at indefinable results. Ashley could not handle it, something
popped. She wanted to run.
Ashley – 4/15/1996-– I do not want to lose you. These days have been difficult. I do not think you are happy. That is all a relationship is supposed to be;
to make each other be happy. I feel
trapped.
I know I will not see you on Monday and hope I do not
on Tuesday. I am so afraid I will be
alone forever. I know I am hard, but I
want to be happy. A few tips: I really
do want you to be happy. Women care
about the small things: the looks, the flowers, and the way you look into their
eyes and touch their hair just softly and kiss them helplessly.
I have always felt so different, distant and
alone. You know this was not going to
work. You stuck here and listened to
me. You have innocent dreams. You misunderstand how people can hurt
themselves the same way over and over. I
hate being out of control. I do not want
to write these two a.m. good bye letters.
I feel almost betrayed that things did not work out, that I opened up to
you. I gave you everything I had, all of
it!
I end up here back at lonely. I do not even have my
secrets. Here you know me so well and
still. I am sorry. I told you in the beginning. I warned you.
Ashley.
Ashley – 4/25/1996– I can not believe you. Don’t talk to me. Don’t’ look at me. Don’t come to my house ever. Don’t try to fix this. I know I don’t have to worry about that,
because right now you’re just going to get pissed off and say you didn’t do
anything wrong. Ahh! You’re so sweet. You’re so great. Oh, fuck you.
I never want to have another conversation with you ever again.
You act like you don’t care about what other people
think, like you are all honest or some crap.
I see right through it. You
care! You care so fucking much. So make sure you look real sweet and smart
and composed and together and a real asshole who is not going to sit with his
girlfriend. You don’t have a clue.
Ashley’s
emotions were in a storm surge. I could
feel her toy-box fears popping out like misfit jack-in-the-boxes and bat their
eyes Barbie dolls leaping for suicide.
Ashley was throwing them everywhere.
I remember her hitting me in the chest.
I did not leave.
Not
leaving was like this dark line in the sand of tolerance of how I would and would
not allow Ashley to treat me. I was a
gender reversal of what mother’s who watch Lifetime with their daughters pray
their daughters never do. I watched
football.
Ashley
became fixated on comparing her experiences with my non-experiences. I struggled with my defensiveness. I was not use to this type of criticism.
Ashley
saw me as this Peter Pan who lived at home and she was this Wendy world
traveler. In Ashley’s fears I saw this
raw woman battling with her vulnerability, a clenched fist of a girl that I
tried to love to loosen her petals.
163
In
the upcoming weeks, times were hard. We
were barefoot. Sometimes I swear Ashley
was intentionally breaking beer bottles.
Ashley made plans for us to see a band at the House of Blues in the
French Quarter. Ashley and I met Beth
and Joe at the show. Ashley was really
only interested in going because of her friend Beth. Ashley’s musical tastes were sporadically
limited to 311 from her drug days, candy-floss country and Perry Como and not
much in between.
The
evening ended with me sitting on the brick steps of Ashley’s shotgun, waiting
for Ashley to wander home at three a.m. after she jumped out of my car blocks
form the Magnolia Projects, officially C.J. Peete. While sitting there not knowing what
functional process I could accomplish I resorted to stealing pages from
Ashley’s printer and sat outside in the night writing.
Ashley,
Tonight
you lied. I figure you are: afraid, hate
me, disgusted, either way, none are fair to determine or hold you to right
now. I love you.
I
love you, but sometimes you are afraid or repulsed by me, my actions. The things I fail to do. I am deeply sorry for this. It aches me in a way I imagine you
understand, but do not believe. Right
now I am admixed with fear. You are
traveling alone past midnight inebriated, weakened without identification,
money or rations. I tried to get you
back in the car. I thought it was better
that you be safe than you like me.
I
wanted to see you tonight. I asked about
the price and the band, but that never meant I did not want to be with
you. I am sorry I did not show up early
to see you, but if you wanted that well?
I
never felt like I could have a good time knowing you did not want me
there. I am confused and hurt. When you apologized for saying that you did
not want me to come, I accepted that.
That is all I needed, but you got up and claimed that I wanted to go
hang out with Tim and pushed me. You
told me I could leave at anytime.
(You
just called me) I got up washed my face in the bathroom. Now I am back in my head at the House of
Blues.
I
watched you wall up. You said you would
ride home with Beth. If riding home in
my car is so deplorable that you have to jump out after promising me you will
not that you do it anyway and risk your life; then why didn’t you just ride
with them?
You
scared me. You are still scaring me,
this not knowing where you ran to, trying to track you down. I would have gladly given you cab fare. I am sorry I am such an asshole. I am sorry for running you down and grabbing
you and trying to give you a ride home two blocks from the projects.
I
know you were not in the frame of mind to talk.
You say you are always so unhappy.
I ask you how, why, and usually I do not get a response. If you want to break up with me, then tell me
why or just do it, but own your choice.
(I
just saw a cab drop off your neighbor.
It scared me, that it was not you.)
You said, “I am too good for you.”
I wish you would never think, say or listen to your demon again.
I
am sorry I have your purse right now. If
I would not have tried to get you to come back to the car, you would not have
swung it at me. I was only trying to
give it back to you when you ran off.
I
am numb. I make you feel guilty? You say, “Everything is your fault, you are
messed up.” That is what you said about
yourself. That must suck to believe. (I just saw another cab, but it did not
turn.)
You
sad you are not ready. Then make a
choice. You said if you pick to spend
time alone, there is no going back to us.
If you want to break up that will be your choice. I feel like you pressure me to break up with
you. (Another cab, no turn. It does not feel like the others.)
I
feel like you believe that is the easiest way, the least stressful. (Your phone is ringing in my pocket
again. I left my car to go look for you
again, when you hung up on me.)
I
did not see you on these steps when I pulled back in, but you were here. Thank God.
I do not know what to do. Maybe
if you read this letter later this would do some sort of good. At least you are safe now, crying, but safe.
I
was alone in my thoughts. I resorted to
my best friend in writing. Writing was
infinite in its capacity to listen through digital typing or another numbered
composition notebook or in this case some typing paper I grabbed off Ashley’s
printer. The night ended. Ashley would not talk to me. I drove home dejected and confused.
164
The
next day I called Ashley. Things were
smashed in her “let’s just move and forget about last night” tones. I was lost.
A week later it was Tim’s birthday.
Ashley blew up again; this time over the phone. I wrote a rhetorical letter to myself to sort
my brain.
(“Why
did you hang up on me like a conceited child?
Broken promises, shamble apologies, and retaliation over me spending
time at my brother’s birthday. It is
selfish. You said I am going to be
busy. You are going to Nottoway. You curse me out with, “Fuck you’s.” I told you I loved you. You gave me a fuck you and a dial tone.
You
run down streets, other rooms, it hurts.
You said you always want me to come after you, to stop you. I told you how the hang ups make me feel. I ask you questions. You change the subject or leave the house,
the car, why?
I
am angry right now, because I called you about twenty teenage-times. You did not answer or talk to me on any of
them. )
165
A
few days later we met for Mexican. We
made up and set the neutron bombs aside into a radiation enclosure. Some scenes do not obliterate upon
detonation. The remnants seep into the
creases of the contextual prism into how a person is perceived with
indeterminate half-lives.
I
was not perfect. I did not expect Ashley
to be perfect. I wanted human love. In her tenderness Ashley’s waters receded,
the deluge of car ejector-seats and F-bombs were being replaced by hand-held
kisses. Remediation was in joint
phases. Maybe this ugliness was the fear
washing off.
I
sat with Ashley at her coffee table on the dark-green sofa, I wrote words of
what she wanted in her life and about her self-image. At the bottom I printed, “Love or Fear.” I told Ashley she could only pick one to rule
her life. It was up to her. Each had their givens, independent of
me. She had to let go and recognize this
swamp. God did not intend for this. Ashley circled love.
Ashley-May 10, 1996–We were laying in my bed in the
middle of the afternoon and out of the blue you said, “I’m gonna marry you.”
Ashley
and I were two bridge-builders of brokenness, diligence and zest for the
elation of love’s balancing freedom. In
our weakness there was an arched strength.
In my frail absences I found her, the completing source code to my
system. Hope blew that northern wind,
that all the too-slow time-trials had a purpose in each other.
Ashley
was kind when her insecure mole monsters were not feeding on her garden. I approached intoxicated in her humanity
wanting complex joy to eat me raw.
Ashley-May 20, 1996–in a green maze greeting card – It
has been seven months. It seems like
yesterday we were comparing knee scars and were “boyfriend and
girlfriend”. You have made me so
happy. Like the time you put little
notes all over my house or held me close when I told you all my darkest secrets
the times you would not let me push away, or you pulled my chin up and forced
me to look into your eyes and be honest.
Ethan, if I ever have doubts it is because of my fears
about my own shortcomings. Although I
have difficulty looking into the future, I can not picture one without
you. You would make an excellent husband
and a wonderful father. How did I get so
lucky? Yours, Ashley.
166
I
graduated from Tulane within the tip-toe of my parent’s path. Discernable differences crossed the T. Time magazine’s editor commenced our class in
the Superdome. At the graduation Ashley
saw her friend Ben Bastion from Nottoway who
graduated in my class. Maybe they were
not that good of friends, since the whole time since meeting Ashley, the three
of us were never in the same place.
I
had an entrepreneurship course my junior year and vaguely remembered Ben. The course was seated stadium style in
alphabetical order. The teacher produced
Tabasco neck
ties and taught me that the first rule of business is to never run out of
cash. I wonder if Dick Fuld knew
that. Green and white confetti fell to
the Superdome floor like peanut shells swept under the seats. I was officially a college graduate.
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