Falling in Love (21 page)

THE STORY

PART TWO

All night, I tried to devise a way to end my misery: pills, leaping off the Brooklyn Bridge, diving in front of a subway train. But I was a coward. A failure both in life, and in death.

At dawn, I finally called Elaine. We met in Central Park. The sun shined brightly with the last vestiges of an Indian summer. The trees were ablaze with ripe oranges, brilliant yellows and rusty browns as a breeze swirled leaves down to carpet the emerald grass. Yet the park’s splendor barely filtered through my blotched eyes concealed by dark shades which matched my desolate mood. My turtleneck covered the bandaged cuts on my throat. We sat silently on a bench as skateboarders, cyclists, joggers and lovers ambled by. I shoved my hands beneath me to keep them from shaking.

Finally, I said, “I could have killed him.”

“I know. Fortunately, you didn’t.”

“I think I was really trying to murder him because then I knew I would finally have to murder myself. I couldn’t face a trial, jail, living with what I had done.” I turned to Elaine. “I tried to end it all but I didn’t have the courage.”

Elaine took me into her arms and embraced me. I felt her warmth. “We’ve all been there, Sherry. You just have to get up again.”

“I can’t. I can’t go on.”

“The irony is that for the first time in your life, you probably can. You’ve now seen your only two real choices. You go on or you die.” She leaned back but held my arms in her hands. “Take off your glasses.” I complied. Elaine stared straight into my puffy eyes. “Are you willing to do anything to get sober?”

I looked away. It didn’t matter what I said. I would only fail again. I was doomed. Elaine grabbed my face and turned me back to her. “Are you?”

I started crying and finally whispered, “Yes.”

“Then no sex for a month?”

I nodded, then added, “Except masturbating?”

“Nothing.”

“It’s the only thing that puts me to sleep.” Even on the edge, I was already back-pedaling.

“Try working out. Get tired.”

“Can I at least kiss?”

“No.”

I didn’t want to be alone, not now. “But I can date though?”

“No.”

“But can I—?

“—No.”

A month seemed like one day less than forever. “For a month?”

“Yes.”

I had no choice. Was I such a hopeless fool that I could not to see that? I whispered, “Okay.”

Elaine got up. “Come on. I’m buying you a present.”

“What?”

“A sweatsuit. You’re going to join them.” She motioned to two joggers cruising over a bridge. “The living.”

That afternoon, I stood beside the Central Park Reservoir while wearing my spanking new sweatsuit. I nervously smoked a cigarette as I stared at the track encircling the still blue water and tried to summon the courage to complete one circuit. It looked like an awfully long way around. I crushed out the cigarette and started jogging. Fifty yards later, I stopped, gasping for breath. Since the purpose was to get myself tired, I tried again. I managed to circle the reservoir twice before I was sure that I was going to throw up or die, or both.

After this extreme bout of exercise and my previous sleepless night, I expected to collapse into bed and fall asleep without having to masturbate. But for insurance, I bought two bottles of Napa Valley’s best. I had been trying to avoid alcohol because it usually led to acting out. But I swore to myself that I would not leave my locked apartment or touch myself, no matter what.

I lay on the sofa and surfed channels until I struck upon a syrupy Doris Day-Rock Hudson film. I didn’t want anything even remotely provocative. I quickly became bored which I hoped would put me to sleep. It didn’t. Instead, I lay there for three hours, enduring Fifties comedies while slugging wine from the bottle. Eventually, the picture became hazy, the bottles became empty and I was passed out.

Not surprising, I awoke with a crushing hangover but weirdly, I felt a small amount of pride.
You did it, Sherry!
I had just managed to go twenty-four hours without having any sex whatsoever. I couldn’t remember that last time I could say that. But it had been years.

Afraid to be at home alone, I called a temp agency, convinced that since it was mid-morning, all the day’s positions would be filled. No such luck. Another temp had walked off a job and within ten minutes of replacing her I realized why. The job entailed typing and copying endless documents that had to be in court immediately while enduring screams to increase both my speed and accuracy by the lawyer who must have graduated from hell’s finest law school. I worked all day in a cold sweat, without taking lunch or bathroom breaks. It was horrible and great because I had no time to think about anything but getting out those damn documents.

Upon my parole, I practically crawled out the door, slunk into a Mexican restaurant and ordered a pitcher of Margaritas. I knew that it would lead to extreme regret but I had a plan. Whenever a member of the male gender approached me, I would give him the same decibel level I had endured all that day. It wasn’t long before the manager asked me to leave. Triumphantly arriving home alone, armed with another bottle of wine and the largest strawberry cheesecake found anywhere in D’Agostino’s. I collapsed on my sofa and watched another syrupy movie while I swigged from the bottle and gorged myself on one creamy slice after another. Finally, I was sick to my stomach and hoped that I would crash from this weird alcohol-sugar high into a sound sleep.

It didn’t happen. For the next several hours, I slowly sobered up into a horrible hangover, more and more certain that only Artie could coax me into slumber. I kept crossing my legs as if to squeeze out any desire in me but it was futile.

I finally traipsed down to the corner deli for another bottle of wine but ended up with a bottle of nighttime cold medicine. Having endured a horrible experience with cough medicine when I was in junior high, I feared slugging it down but managed to sip it until I finally passed out. The next morning I awoke with another mind-crushing hangover and dragged myself to another temp job, managing to work two shifts before I finally fell on my bed well after midnight.

Completely exhausted and figuring that I would have to eventually fall asleep without any crutches, I decided to go cold turkey—a good idea that turned out to be one of worst nights of my life.

Seconds seemed like minutes. Minutes were hours. The longer the endless night went on, the worse it got. What began with an itch between my legs, turned into an entire body of cells demanding to be satisfied. My hands were shaking and I was sweating and breathing hard, feeling painfully sick. I knew I had to grab Artie from the drawer, rationalizing that I wasn’t really doing anything wrong. Masturbating wasn’t like acting out in some seedy bedroom with a bunch of guys. But the moment I touched the handle, I knew that if I opened that drawer it would be the end of me. I knew why Elaine had said I could do nothing, as in nothing! Because if I let myself slip the slightest bit it would turn into a freefall! I knew it was true even though I didn’t believe it. As I reached again for the drawer, I heard myself snap, “No!”

I pulled back, only to waver again. “
NO!
” I screamed. The handle felt hot and seared me. The sweating and hyperventilation was becoming worse. I was going through physical withdrawal! How could that happened? Sex wasn’t a drug like alcohol or heroin. But it was! It most certainly was. I climbed out of bed and ran to the sofa, away from that drawer. I bundled myself up in an old thick robe for protection. I had to somehow survive the night.

I tried Emily Dickinson, reciting any verses I could remember.

“The flesh surrendered, canceled,

The bodiless begun.

Two worlds, like audiences, disperse,

and leave the soul alone.”

“I died for beauty, but was scarce

Adjusted in a tomb

When one who died for truth was lain

In an adjoining room.”

I barely heard the words above my heaving breaths.

“
He questioned softly why I failed?

‘For beauty,’ I replied.

‘And I for truth,—the two are one

We brethren are,’ he said.

And so, as kinsmen met a night

We talked between the rooms,

Until the moss had reached our lips

And covered up our names.
”

I couldn’t remember anymore. Why? I knew countless verses. Was I losing my mind? Dizziness engulfed me and I slipped my hand inside my robe. My heart pounded furiously. I’m going have a heart attack! Great! Anything to end this night! My hand slid over to my breast, caressing it felt so wonderful. Too good! I yanked the robe tightly around me.

I wasn’t going to make it through the night. I knew that. I began crying and dived down to my knees and whispered, “Please, God. If you exist, just help me get through this goddamn night.”
Nice, Sherry, you swore!
“Oops,” I said, “Sorry about that.” I prayed, “Our father who art in heaven, hallow be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done.” I couldn’t remember the rest. I tried again, “…thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven…”

My strained brain couldn’t remember another word. I tried the Steps. “One, we admitted that we were powerless over our addiction. Two, we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Three, we made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to God as we understood God. Please understand God!”

Somehow, it helped. My breathing softened and my heart subsided so I just kept repeating the Steps all night, aching for daylight, which finally came.

I threw on some clothes and dragged myself down to the corner coffee shop and sipped on mocha while trying to read a blurry
Times
. I didn’t even think about trying to go to some job. I just walked around the city all day, popping aspirins drinking coffee, and calling Elaine for support until it was time for group.

I arrived first so I set up the chairs in neat rows. Elaine hadn’t arrived by the time the meeting started. Gregory was the first speaker. He paused a moment, as if wondering how to begin, then said, finally, “The short form of my addiction list is, I’m not a gambler.” After a pause, everyone laughed.

When Elaine walked in and headed for the coffee table in the back of the room, I practically ran to her. “I can’t go on,” I said loudly enough for several people in the back rows to turn around.

Elaine dumped three packets of sugar into her coffee before hugging me. “Sherry, you have been sober for a week. That’s fantastic. It gets easier.”

I broke away. “It’s too hard to get easy.”

“When I first read the Twelve Steps,” Gregory was saying, “I went right to Number Nine, to make amends. I thought, this is great. I can call everyone up and—see if they want to get together.”

Several people laughed again.

Elaine again stirred her coffee and then asked me, “What do you want more than acting out?”

“What everyone wants,” I retorted. “Love, marriage, a family.”

Elaine tasted her coffee and proceeded to add three more sugars until she seemed to be stirring syrup. “You’ll never love someone else,” she whispered, “until you love yourself.”

“I don’t feel much love for myself.”

“Small wonder, since you’ve been trashing yourself for years.” Elaine sipped her congealed concoction and turned to me. “Wanting a lifetime love may be a little big right now. How about something small, something that you might actually be able to achieve?”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “I’d like to go back to school, see if I can still kick a soccer ball.” I laughed. “Get a manicure.”

Elaine smiled. “Fine. Tomorrow you will register for one college course, go to the park and kick a soccer ball, and get a manicure. Then call me.”

Gregory was smiling at Skip, his lover and my gynecologist. “Skip agrees to come whenever I share,” he said, “as long as I don’t embarrass him. We’ve been together nine years now. Only nine gay years is like forty-nine straight years. Sometimes, I wonder why he puts up with me for nine seconds. But I thank God everyday that he does.”

Elaine sipped her syrup. “About that love. There is one lifetime love we should work on. Why don’t you start saying, ‘I will love myself?’ No, say, ‘I will show love for myself by becoming the person I’ve always wanted to be.’”

“How often?”

“How about a thousand times a day?”

I stared at her. She stared back at me. She was dead serious.

I called Hunter College and asked for a course list and an application for the Spring Semester. Then I got a manicure. I didn’t kick a soccer ball but I did join a gym called the West Village Workout and tried to begin a regular exercise schedule. While everyone else paraded around in tight outfits revealing their taut bodies, I swathed myself in my baggy sweatsuit. Even though my body was flabby compared to everyone else’s, I didn’t want some guy with fogged up glasses hitting on me.