This was not going to be easy. This was not going to be clean either.
Sitting in the sunny room with bird song filling the air, she allowed him to recollect himself before moving on. She knew well enough that he would not run from anything asked, yet it was very easy to shut him off. He thought so much that if he kept on the same thoughts he would only continue on into the same answers he arrived to and would lead him down the same thought patterns. She needed to disrupt that. She needed to provoke him a bit more and in the right way, and yet she knew that he was already used to the cause and effects of it all. He thought too much for these situations.
She needed to change the subject just enough to make him change directions without him knowing.
She spoke first, "You look good."
His eyes shot up to meet hers in a second before they looked away. She noticed that he hadn't looked at her directly until now. She did have the advantage, but she didn't think she would need to use it. There was some mixture of anger and confusion in his eyes. It could be of the situation or perhaps it was something he was not ready to hear from her.
He mumbled some sort of response.
"What?"
"......"
"I can't hear you."
"....ank yo......"
She gave him a look back. She hated how he used mumbling as a means of creating distance.
"I mean it. You really do look good. You really kept up through out the years."
He laughed joylessly, "You should have seen me just a few months ago."
"Oh? Why?"
"I was in bad shape. I've lost alot and gotten stronger, but I was a real mess then."
"The injury?"
"Yea."
This isn't working. "I'm sorry, I would have like to gotten a hold of you...."
Anger this time. Almost hatred. This time the flash was brilliant and furious.
"You know what I mean."
"Yea......I guess......umm......yea....you would have gotten back to me, I guess. I don't think I would have made it easy though."
There, an opening.
"Oh, why is that?"
"I shut myself down a while back. Realized that people were looking for me or they found me though social media and I didn't want people to find me."
"Why?"
He looked up this time, a bit more annoyed, but not as angry. As if he had gotten used to something and realized no one was to blame.
Maybe your friends think I'm just a stranger
Some face I'll never see no more, wrong
"That was another life. I'm not that person anymore."
"You've done this before?"
"Yea.....I've lived at least three....maybe four lives so far."
"What do you mean? What exactly is living another life."
He took in a deep breath and his shoulders loosened a bit. He sat back in his chair and thought about what he was going to say.
"I've lived really extreme moments that somehow don't connect with each other. One second I'm married with children, struggling with making ends meet in a marriage that is not the healthiest and another second I'm this guy with all this free time, too much to really contemplate, trying to play catch up to things."
"Catch up?"
"Catch up. I've left school and started life early. I had some sort of an idea in mind, but I had no idea how that idea had not chance. I mean, I call it the young and stupid age. It's romantic, poetic and very.....devastating."
"How?" Keep talking.
"I was young. I was in love. I wanted to make things better and had an ideal on what things should be. It was all very Romantic, as in Shelly and Keats sort of way, not flowers and hearts kind of crap. I set out into life with my heart on my sleeve and a dream to make the world a better place."
"Didn't end up that way, huh?" She poured him some more tea.
He laughed bitterly again, "No.....no in any way. I look back now and I realize that I was very innocent and trusting. I believed that life would take care of me. I had no defenses against things. It was like tossing a baby down the mountain and forcing it to survive. I mean......life had a mean sot of way of making you adapt. You either build up defenses quickly or it made you it's bitch before you were tossed aside."
"You were really that innocent?"
He looked at her again, this time it was sadness. "Come on, you remember when we met. You couldn't believe how naive I was then. You laughed at how 'sweet' I was back then and how life didn't shake that out of me."
"Did it?"
"Like a British nanny."
"Ewwww....."
"You asked."
They stared at each other and started laughing. This time his laughter was genuine and the real deal. She would have to make him laugh more to get closer.
"You were so sweet when I met you. You still are."
"I don't feel sweet. I feel nothing like sweet."
"Oh really, what do you feel like?"
"I feel like I'm a walking monster. I feel too big to fit in and to barbarous to be left alone."
"You are no such thing! Who the hell told you that?"
"No one, or at least not to my face. After a while I just......stopped caring about being kind and nice. After a while I just wanted to be left alone. Just left be. I had enough of people and I would have thought they had enough of me."
"Didn't work that way, did it?"
"Being left alone? No.....thanks to Ann Rice and that kind of shit, if someone is by themselves they must bee brooding and brooding is sexy and you must throw yourself at that like some mindless slug."
"Sounds like twilight....."
"Don't it? I mean, I gotten to a point when I realize I didn't fit with people around me anymore. I was the man out. I mean, out of all things I wanted to blend in and just fade away and every time I get shoved into some sort of spotlight." He started to sing, "One of these things is not like the other..."
They laughed again.
"Man, after a while I felt out of place and out of time. I didn't fit with everyone around me. And that always hung on my head. The last thing you want as an introvert was attention."
"You were never an introvert when I knew you."
"You were different. you made me comfortable in my own skin. You made me forget that I had responsibilities and demands and people trying to get a hold of me just to tell me off. I mean, you made me feel as if I was just another human being. I felt normal around you."
"Good, you deserve to feel normal."
"Yea, I think I stopped feeling normal after you. Then after I was just shoved out into the spotlight and I was the monkey on stage. People thought I knew something. People started to ask me what life was as if I was the wise man on the mountain. Ha.....almost fell or it too until I realize that people just wanted to know a kook instead of needing advice. They wanted someone to confess to, fix them up just enough to get them to the next shitty moment they would make themselves go to. They wanted to tell someone how fucked up they are just to be happy enough to keep getting fucked up. I mean.....sickening."
"I bet."
"And of course that made me a magnet for broken people."
"Broken people?"
"Broken people. People who lived some sort of trauma and were just trying to live or worse, looking for someone to dump their shit on. I'm a perfect person somehow since I'm SO successful." He waved his arms sarcastically. "People want to tell you their abuse. Their shitty moments to just unload. Few people want to make life better, just want to tell someone for some special treatment or kindness. Tell me things that I didn't need to hear as if just talking to me would make them better."
"They didn't help, right?"
"No, but if I realized that they can change something. Do something to make things better, then they would just do the same thing over and over again. Ha.....you know what is someones natural response to someone they admire?"
She nodded. "Sleep with them."
"EXACTLY!" His response echoed in the room and scared the birds outside into silence. He went on. If I handed to you a pill bottle prescribed just to you to cure your illness, just easy things to help. I'm not talking a miracle pill or years of therapy shoved in a pill. I mean little advice and outlook that most people ask for and when they get it.....", he shook his head. "I mean, little things such as you should stop 'dating cause there is a pattern of bad people in your life' kind of stuff. Well, imagine giving that to them and then seeing them just start rubbing the bottle against themselves to get off."
"Masturbating with it?"
"Basically. You would start saying, 'what's wrong with you? Take the pill. Stop rubbing it against you.', but people don't want to be strong. They want to fuck someone who is strong. People don't want to be smart, they want to fuck smart. People don't want to be sane or calm, or what ever it is you are missing. You want to get off and then go out with it and marry it and wonder why you are still sick and now why you are being abused by the bottle?! People would not even take the medicine if you made it a miracle drug. Too hard. How they hell will they ever get through their hell and make life better?"
"That's a little unfair."
"It's not when you are the bottle. Cause now you are part of their sickness and you can just focus on your own. Both your crazies interact with each other and you are either getting hit by both or you are walking on eggs to make sure you don't trigger them both. I mean, I am in no way sane or healthy in any way, but I know that I'm working on it. I'm trying to make things better so that I can...."
He trailed off.
"So that you can?"
He took a moment of time before he spoke again. "You know what? I don't know. Before I wanted to make things better for me so that I can find someone. then I just wanted to be a better father. Now I just want peace of mind. I want to fall asleep and stay asleep. I want to never cause harm or any sort of shit. I am constantly walking around as if I'm this walking toxic waste that needs to be watched for unless people around me get sick. I want to feel normal for once. I want to sit down and just have no one notice me. I want to lose myself in a crowd and just not exist anymore. Forget finding someone..."
"You want to find someone?"
He looked up hurt this time. "Well, you're not available, right?"
The comment hurt him more than it could ever hurt her. He meant it that way.
Who's that woman on your arm?
All dressed up to do you harm
"You shouldn't be alone."
"Not everyone was like you."
"No......sad right?"
He started to tear up just a bit again. "Yea, tell me about it. You were great. You are still great. You're...."
She reached out to him this time and he let her take his hand before taking it back. "Sorry, but I don't want to get used to it."
"Touching you?"
"Yea.....that and being touched. It's too personal now."
"Why?"
He gotten a hold of himself and forced a calm voice forward. "You only have two things that you can control in the end. You have your name and you have your personal space. They can still take your personal, but you can fight them off. Same with your name except that your name has a way of defending itself if you let it. Like that koan that I read once about that monk accused of fathering a child with his grocer. You know it?"
"Yes. You gave me the book, remember."
He did smile. "Well, the main thing is if you just keep doing what you know if right you will get redeemed one way or another, but it's not your name that you redeem, but people realizing that you were shitted on. If you just don't care and move on you can. It's like calling someone something they are not......well, outside of a pedophile or rapist. Some things you can work through. I guess the others you can you just have to find away and place to redeem...."
"Focus."
"Yea....well, people can usually tell if you are or are not something if they really want to know, but you honestly have to believe that things will be right and you have to believe you never acted in a bad way or in the end you'll end up believing that you did do it. Either way a clean conscious clear all."
"Still doesn't mean that you don't live through hell."
"Yea, that's certain. You will still live through hell, but as long as you believe in yourself you can tolerate it a bit more. I've lived that a few times. It's nothing I would like others to live through, but it's one fucking hard crucible to live through."
"You lived through it, huh?"
"Yea.....black sheep. Worst in the family. Stupid. Worthless. The only thing I can say is that after a point you actually see that you survived the moment when others realize that you were never in any harm. I mean, I came from the stupid kid who thrown away his measly, worthless life to being someone who you can talk to about anything. And yet, ...."
"Yet?"
"And yet, I'm surrounded by people who still like to remind me of that hell. As if trying to take me down a peg. As if I didn't live enough shit already. As if I need to suffer more cause I'm outspoken and ever more militant now than then. I know I've done stupid things and I don't hide from it, but hell.....you'd think I made it and I must be doing some good. I'm not asking for a cookies, not after what I've done. but shit.....how about not spitting at me anymore?"
He dropped his head on the table in a thump and then thumped it again.
Let it loose, yeah, let it loose, let it loose
Let it loose, let it all come down
"Don't do that."
"Or"
"I'm going to do this." She ran her finger on his hair. "You grew it out."
"Twice now." He didn't move.
"Twice. Hmmmmmm......I like it wild."
"Too much to deal with. I just hide it under a hat until I can tie it down and deal with it."
"You and your hair. Just wild things that should not be tied down."
They laughed again and he picked his head up. "Can I get that on a prescription, Doc?"
"Of course."
They laughed harder until the joke left them calm once more.
"You let me touch you."
"I trust you. I always had."
"Took me years too."
"Yea, well. I always figured you were out of my league."
They continued on like this for a small moment. Small flirtatious talk that was harmless and yet walking around the elephant in the room. The one that made him not want to realize no matter how much it bothered him. The moment he did this would be over and he could never talk to her again. That elephant just sat in the room and he ignored it as much as he could. In the end, he shook his head and drank some of his cold tea.
"Cold."
"It's been a few hours. Want me..."
"Nah...." He drank it all at once. "I want to see if we can finish this. Ok?"
She looked up and nodded with a smile. "Ok."
He took in a deep breath, let it out and asked, "What do you want to know?"
"Touch."
"Ok.....touch. What about it?"
"Why are you so guarded? What made you this way?"
"......I guess it was you."
"Oh?" She looked surprised.
"Yea.....not in that way. I actually had some time to think about it.You were really good. Trusting. Loving and kind. I got used to that. You never forced and issue or made me swallow things or even made me feel bad. You were just there. You were just there and with this unlimited amount of patience imaginable. I mean, we hung out like thieves for a year or so. Movies, book stores, anywhere we can cause trouble or even play at. And you just wore me down. You just made me feel that you were always going to be there. You made me feel that life was going to be normal. I mean, you always gave me the last smoke and even told me it was bad for me."
"It is you, know."
" And you still gave it to me anyways. Then that one time on the couch just......wow."
And I'm hip to what she'll do
Give her just about a month or two
He was speaking of a moment watching SNL before it went down hill on her couch. They ate their fill and sat on the couch comfortably watching. By the time the news came on she had her head in his lap and he was stroking her hair. She giggled and looked up as he looked towards her and said, "This took a long time." He smile and laugh as she joined in. And like that they were a couple. Their time would be short, but sweet just like the kiss they shared that moment. They kept watching and sharing the warm moment. It was a different calm before the storm. It was a moment when they realize that they would share a bed and Sundays with the paper between them, late night movie runs to remote video stores or to small theaters that had a midnight showing of a flick that was word of mouth and had no help from any social media. It was organic and pure and she knew that he was apprehensive and almost gun shy. In that moment, he asked her what did she mean only to be hushed as it got good, but she would answer him. It wasn't to find a bedmate or a fling, but she wanted something that she valued and knew she would always keep even after it was over and she moved to colder climates not to be seen again.
"I wanted to win your heart, not just you."
She delivers right on time, I can't resist a corny line
But take the shine right off your shoes
"Well, not everyone was like you. You lifted that bar high, but I think that is what done me in. Everyone else was.....settling in a way. So after a while I just tried and well, I realize that if I didn't trust someone it wasn't worth it.I mean, we were great friends and I loved that alot, but not everyone who is a great friend is made to be a lover. There is something missing that just makes things worse. So after a while I just stopped sleeping with friends. You were....different."
"Yea.....you have to be really stable to do that."
"Yea.....well. It's also rare. If anything I tried it a while back and I have to say that it's like finding a diamond inside an opal rare. No one is going to believe you and no one wants to. I think back to it and I realized we were together for ....three years? Most of that time we just hung out. We were friends for most of it and that was not lost. It made us stronger, but you never held me back. I mean I spoke to you about who I was seeing and whatever and you were just supportive and amazing. You let me vent and cheered me up. You understood my crazy and you help me realize it may not be me. Not at that moment, but after some time I realize that you made me feel whole without any motives."
She just smiled and nodded.
Some things, well, I can't refuse
One of them, one of them the bedroom blues
"And you are probably one of the fewest relationships that ever was healthy. I mean, you were great and sadly not everyone out there was just as great. You didn't make me feel you were out for me or that you wanted me in any way outside of making me feel awesome. And that stayed with me. You were no fling. I was not a masturbatory device to get you off. Sex was more than sex. It was this powerful connection. Even moments where we just .....you know...." She smiled bigger. "....it just still safe and warm even then. I mean, I didn't even feel that when I was married."
"Oh come on!"
"Ok......I didn't feel it enough when I was.You made me feel safe. Even when we went on our ways we left in a good way. It was just time and space until we met up again."
"I'll meet you in the middle."
"Yea.....", his mood was changing quickly.
She was on it, "So that just made things worse with others?"
"Yea.....it was just either finding soul mates, fun for the time, people bouncing from person to person, or just short flings masked like relationships. I mean, that and the lying just made me sick. I mean, people are fucking children. You never have a conversation on a real level unless it's to break up. Not even, 'hey I'm having some issues' or anything else. If anything I just played House with them and when snack time was here or someone else was wanting to play, I was out. I was the guy making them feel better about themselves or I was their monkey wrench until they either broke up and I was a band aid or some other guy joined in. I've always been the other guy! I mean, I have been the guy to cheat with. Not even the one to keep, but the one to cheat with. It's .....sickening. I mean one girl just straight out made me feel like whore. Cheap and worthless. I mean I was either there or not. And in the end, she "broke up" with me on social media as if that wasn't insulting enough. That one was the last fucking straw! I just said, 'you know what? I'm already heavy, I feel like I'm worthless and used, and I don't see any way of healing so that I can even be naked with anyone anyways.....why the fuck do I care any more?' That's was the final coffin nail. I mean there is only so much shit you can take."
Bit off more than I can chew
And I knew, yeah, I knew what it was leading to
Silence hung think for a moment. He leaned back and looked up, almost as if he was questioning the gods above in hopes of forcing an end to the silence. He reached up and slid his hands up to his hair only to find it tight and not giving. Too tight for him. He started to pull of the bands that held his braid and quickly, with nimble trained fingers, he loosened the braid and the hair at the scalp. He then dug his finger deep into his scalp and pulled tightly and let out a sigh of relief. He moved his fingers to along his head and repeated tightening and sighing. He did so until the hair fell across his face hiding his red eyes from her sigh. He dropped his hands to his lap and let out another sigh. She tried to speak, but was silenced with a raised hand that turned to a finger motioning for a minute longer. He took in a deep breath and screamed loudly, still looking up through the ceiling.
Let it all come down tonight
Keep those tears hid out of sight, yeah
"Your bed was the last bed I've ever slept well in."
"I'm sorry."
"Yea....well.....it's not your fault. It never was. I've made peace with that. I made peace with that when I was making my way out."
"You keep saying that. You keep saying you were on your 'way out'. What do you mean?"
"Not now....I can't talk about it now. I've already talked enough about it. About losing you and not finding anyone even close.....well.....now I know it was never close. But I can't talk about it now."
"When?"
"Soon. I promise. Soon."
"Time and space", she asked.
"Time and space", he responded pulling his hair back into a loose tail to get it out of his face. She let it go. She knew he kept his promises.
Oh, yeah, in the bar you're getting drunk
Oh, yeah, yeah, I ain't in love
"So.....I just drank. Alcohol is a solution or at least it was for those with nothing to lose. I drank and I drank enough to forget. I drank enough to function and to get me through. I've been drinking hard for over 10 years. It's not a good way to end things or a happy one and it's never going to be an after school special, but it helped. I trained my body to hit and be hit and I drank. After a while I could not do it anymore so I started to take painkillers also. Just enough to balance it out. To numb me fully and to make me functional. No one either cared or I made sure to never let them make it an issue. I drank, took painkillers and functioned. Day in and day out. I needed to function. I needed to continue. I needed to survive. I just gave up on things that would hold me back in any ways. I knew that after a while it had to be me. I had to be either a magnet that pulled shit towards me or it was coming from me so I just pulled away from others unless I was needed. Every one love a hero and everyone......every FUCKING one likes a happy ending even though you know tomorrow is a new day and nothing was solved, no work was done to make things change, or serious therapy want taken to make them better. There was a fucking musical number with Disney effects and fucking rainbows and life returned to shit the next day. They never show the nest day, but the next day made everything cheap, worthless and disposable as I felt. Because people don't believe in peace, harmony, and life being made better, just give them a happy ending and a big production to let them know they should just shut up and keep suffering until prince asshole rides up or princess huge tits devotes her life to you. People......people just want to suffer......."
I ain't in luck, oh, no, no, no
Hide the switch and shut the light
"Do you really feel that way?"
"Yes. No. Maybe. I don't know. I just know that I was stuck in hell and there was not out, despite of whatever I tried. I needed that out. I needed to way of getting out and my choices were just getting thin."
"What did you do?"
"Me? Well, not to give too much to it I decided to leave. I decided that I was finally on my way out, but I didn't want to end it like others did."
"Others?"
"Not now....soon. Promise."
"Ok."
"I wanted to see how far I can get out if I just death marched it. If I just made a run for it. If I forced my way out of Truman's world for the door. How much would the world change and who would get in my fucking way. Like a fantasy of mine I had for years. Making my way out to the airport near the ocean to a leaving plane, but I had to get away.....the world would chase me down, ask me to stop, beg me to stop, people will get sick and hurt, and leave and fall apart and I would just death march it. I would either make it or die trying. And if I would not make it there I would throw the strays I dragged with me and throw them to the exit. As long as someone got out. Someone was getting out and I wanted to show the fucking hypocrisy that kept me, I knew kept me behind. So I did everything to get the fuck out, even to the point where I called people out and told them that I was beyond patient and I didn't know how long I can remain patient. I know that now. When you give up on everything you finally choose how to leave the world can not hold you back. So I bet my life against what was against me. I had nothing to fucking loose."
"And....."
"I won. I got out."
"Good?"
"Yea, but then I realized that I finally got out and it was for what? I was willing to 'walk down the street' and to get to a point in life where there was more hell. I mean, it was as if Truman finally got out of that room and realized that his way out was crossing the Himalayas. Nope, happy endings made things happy. Ignore the man who lived his entire life in a Skinner Box. He's ok! No abuse or trauma to deal with. All resolved and the cartoon ending made it so. Not shit afterwards. All absolves, scapegoat killed, and notes passed to Wailing Wall and done. Instead I finally made it through realizing that that not only took all my fight, but I didn't want to go on. I still had to construct a life and that scared me the most. I wanted not to make it cause then I would be remembered as they guy who died trying and because a Martyr for High Hopes, Disney movie in the works with happy ending included.......fuck....I was on my way out and I actually won. Who was prepared for that, cause I wasn't."
"And?"
He looked over and smiled at her.
"And I end it here."
"But you are so close."
"No.....I'm not. I'm no where close, because I already written how it ends and I knew I was missing this also."
"You're breaking the 4th wall again...."
"Well, that I am and I am going to devastate it in the end too. But for now, I have to finish going. There are things to do and I can't sit here anymore speaking to you."
"Why can't you?"
"I can only ignore the elephant so long before I go mad or I scream at the elephant. You already know that about me."
"Ok. You are coming back to finish this?" As if she needed to ask.
"Promise. I promise I will."
She smile that smile that always haunted him. That smile that he only caught glimpses of in others for a small moments.
Yeah, right off your shoes
Carryin', carryin' the bedroom blues
....
He looked up from the old lap top and sighed heavily. How he missed her.
"Silly creature indeed."
Won't you shut it? Yeah
Let it all come down tonight
Let it loose, let it loose, yeah, yeah
Let it loose, let it all come down
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