When the Messenger Is Hot (18 page)

Of course Steven later broke up with her, and the very day he did that he rode his motorcycle over to my house (he had moved over from car changing to motorcycle collecting and had about a dozen of them) and came up and laid on my bed and told me his sad story, crying, asking me to help him and asking me why does he make bad choices over and over again and saying I'm the only one who understands but expecting me not to read anything into that even though it came in the same breath and it was
pretty hard not to
. We grew close again and he took me on a fantastic motorcycle ride by the lake, and he began to share many things with me about his feelings. He had finally come to realize his dream of dog breeding (albeit accidentally as two of his dogs, Ernestine and Cletus, who were brother and sister, got it on one time while he was out) and was very excited about it, but within a week after Ernestine gave birth to her eleven puppies she flattened all but one of them, and Steven had to put them in the freezer until he had time to take them out to the country to be properly buried, all of this causing him, in the retelling, to sob violent sobs over the memory of Wilbur and that he had been so shut down emotionally in his crack addiction that of course he could not feel the pain of that loss. Which I believed was very brave of him to admit and I felt brought us together in a new way, because I noticed that every night that he was at my house talking he was just a little bit closer to me on the couch until finally we were watching a video one time and he kissed me and I knew right then something that I had not known the first time and I don't know why I had this realization during the kiss, which was as good as it was the first time, but I knew psychically that I was going to end up being hurt even worse than the first time and yet I proceeded anyway just in case there was the smallest possibility that because of the development of his sober feelings he would be able to eventually recognize his love for me. I was also feeling a greater understanding of him on the basis of my being as addicted to him as he had been to crack, but I did not have the willingness to give him up. We didn't ever really discuss the terms of what was happening between us and I understood that there was no commitment. I just hoped.

Then what happened was something I could not have predicted, which was that while I was on a trip to New York my mother died in a very terrible accident (about which I was maybe not having so much gratitude for having worked so hard on having accessible feelings because this was a case of having many more feelings than I ever wanted to have at one time) and Steven rode his motorcycle to come to the memorial service, which I felt tremendously impressed by and I felt was not something you would do for just anyone. He was totally present for me and held my hand and rubbed my head and wiped away my tears and even though my other friends from New York were there I wouldn't have known which of them would come such a great distance to the memorial service of my mother (plus it was winter and he must have been very cold riding a motorcycle) and I felt that it was a kindness I had never known before. I stayed in New York for another week to pack up my mom's things and he went back to Chicago on his motorcycle the next day and as soon as I got back to Chicago I got a violent nauseated sickness and Steven brought me rice and ginger ale, but I knew psychically without any apparent evidence that he had gone back to the bone girl and when some apparent evidence presented itself I asked him what was going on and he admitted it. He admitted that he just happened to have run into her at a party and they talked all night and that he was in love with her even though he had previously admitted to me that the bone girl was not capable of loving feelings and was possibly in need of some medicine for her own psychiatric disorders. I was deeply saddened to have learned this a week after the tragic death of my mother and felt that although it was inevitable that our romance would find a demise that there was no reason that he had to turn a simple demise into a betrayal, and that he should have told me before my bad psychic feeling was confirmed by other sources because now he was a liar and I could never trust him again. I was not so stupid as to not realize that he knew it was a very bad time to be admitting such terrible truths, and I really didn't think he was a hateful person, but it became worse when it became a lie, and I admitted to him that I did not ever want to see him again. I was in touch with the surprising feeling of hate.

Several months after the death of my mother, when I was not leaving the house all that much, was when I came home that day to find all those people in my house telling me that they did not believe I was an alcoholic and that the program of Alcoholics Anonymous did not seem to be helping me in any way that was apparent to them and I was pretty flabbergasted but I presented all the evidence of my growth as a person and the details of my levels of feeling and they wanted to know why then was I coming home from the grocery store with my pajamas on? I pointed out that I was wearing a coat over them and it was morning and I just went to the corner to get some coffee, but because I was also wearing slippers they were not convinced. I told them that I was just taking care of myself and that I was not willing to rush my process of grief and that because of my having lost someone close to me and learning the lesson that life is short, I was no longer focusing on my love life (I learned that it was best to leave that area alone and embarked on an open-ended period of celibacy) and was instead following my lifelong secret dream of being a poet. I could tell that between the pajamas and the disarray in my house and their doubt about my alcoholism that they were formulating a B plan (contingent on my unwillingness to admit I was not an alcoholic) which was I don't know what, because there's no rehab for people who aren't alcoholics.
Just listen
, I said, and I read them this:

A
FORCEFUL
SERENDIPITY

by Alice Jones

and even though

and furthermore

and in spite of the one thing

but then also even

when she considered the other thing

and several more incidents and episodes

and maybe even because of all that

when viewing it from far away

the thing about it really

if given the choice and/or the opportunity

she was reasonably certain

she would repeat it in its entirety

with almost no changes

T
HERE IS NO EXPLANATION FOR THIS.

He is very cute, but you are thinking about other things. You are thinking about that boy who plays guitar that just got out of rehab. You are thinking about that boy who graduated high school in the nineties. You are thinking about the one you can't have, the one you may never stop thinking about. These are the boys that you think about. The very fact that you use the word
boys
, at your age, says a lot. You could make an argument for the fact that they are all boys, these people otherwise recognized by their age as men, but the truth is, you find yourself more interested in men who seem like boys, ones who work in record shops or deliver things, or who sleep really late, or who smoke as soon as they wake up, or ones who are often not even especially tall, than you are in men who seem like men, who work in offices, tall men who comb their hair and wear ties, who seem
responsible
, even though you claim to want a boyfriend who will drive. Who knows the exact location of his driver's license. Who has some kind of a vehicle. You have, in the past, considered yourself to be open-minded, you have been willing, when necessary, to do the driving, split the bill, go to a rave, but at the moment, you could be interested in a guy who drives. Who will, at least sometimes, pay.

So this cute guy starts flirting with you. He seems
happy
. You detect a little sadness around the eyes, you guess that sad things may have been seen, historically, but he seems happy. It needs to be said that he looks like a boy. He is only a little bit taller than you. He is in his thirties, but could easily pass for seventeen. He would be the perfect after-school special narc. He wears silver jewelry. He has piercings. He has tattoos. He calls them
ink
. He has fresh
ink
inside each of his wrists with the Chinese symbols for god and child. He shows them to you and says,
See, child of god
. He is committed. He is cool and happy and believes in god and he is Italian and he is from New York. You are also from New York, but you are not so cool. You exist in a cool universe but you are an impostor. You go to bed early. You have smoked maybe three cigarettes in as many decades and you have never snorted anything. You know who Chandler and Monica are.

The subject of
West Side Story
comes up.
West Side Story
. Your all-time favorite movie, the movie you'd want to have on a desert island. You say,
That is my all-time favorite movie
. He says,
Yeah?
and looks at you with heavy-lidded hazel eyes, sex eyes.
I have it on DVD
, he whispers in his New York accent. You make note that when you lived in New York, you did not find New York accents to be sexy. You make note that in Chicago, New York accents are simultaneously captivating and comforting. You make note that in Chicago, in the presence of New Yorkers with New York accents, you suddenly have a New York accent yourself. He whispers,
You wanna come over and watch it sometime?
You smile and say,
Sure
. He says,
You like fish? I could make a nice piece of fish
. You say,
I like fish
. He says,
Yeah? You like salmon? I could make you a nice piece of salmon with dill sauce?
Like a question, he says it. You say,
That sounds great
. You try to sound cool. He is now very very cute. A week ago he was just that happy guy from New York. Now you will have sex with him.

You bring dessert. You are expecting nothing. That is what you have come to expect. You quite often get more than nothing, or you get a little something and a lot of someone's
big ideas
, but never have you gotten so much more than nothing than this. You have been taken to the finest restaurants in Chicago and New York but you have never been witness to, never even heard stories of, quite such a presentation as this.

He opens the door. The lights are dim. There is music. Etta James is crooning,
At last, my love has come along, my lonely days are over
. . There is candlelight emanating from every room in your sight. You make note that they're fancy candles, new candles. Many many brand-new fancy candles everywhere. There are fresh tulips in the living room. He shows you to the kitchen. There is a table for two set with wineglasses, placemats, more candles,
focaccia
, the works. There is something of a jungle in the kitchen. A giant, bathtub-size fish pond filled with giant fish, entirely surrounded by tropical plants. You feel like you are on an island. You smile. You are not sure, but you think your mouth may be hanging open. He smiles. He smiles a kind of Oh-it's-nothing-really smile, but you both know it's not nothing. There are pictures of babies on the refrigerator. He is someone's godfather. When you ask him about his godchild he beats his chest and says,
That's my heart
. You are a big sucker for stuff like this. You would have sex with him for the photos alone, never mind the elaborate presentation. You talk about New York and your past lives and when you tell him you're a writer he reads you his poetry and his prayers. He reads you poetry and prayers. You will not see
West Side Story
. You will have sex with him before dinner is over.

There are more fish in a tank in the living room. You comment on the tropical theme. He shows you the birds in his bedroom before he starts the movie. One bird flies out of the cage. He tells you he
hatched them from eggs
. You don't know quite what to say about this, nevertheless you are in his dimly lit bedroom talking about hatching birds from eggs. You will not see
West Side Story
. You will have sex with him right now.

It's a little chilly in the living room. He covers you both up with an afghan. Your legs are touching under the afghan. He starts the movie. He knows the dialogue. You know some of the dialogue and you know lots of
WSS
trivia and you both know all the songs. You talk and sing and giggle all through the movie and agree that there is no better movie and that possibly the clothes were better back then. He tells you he once met Gene Kelly. That he was, as a kid, a huge Gene Kelly fan. The tattoo guy says this to you. You think, there is nothing cooler than a guy with tattoos who loves Gene Kelly. You tell him that you were a Fred Astaire fan, that you took tap-dancing lessons when you were eleven. He tells you he was getting stoned and cutting school when he was eleven. At one point you notice that he's staring at the fish. He notices that you notice. He says,
I like to watch them sleep. See how they're all bunched up there together? Like it looks like they're watching us? That's them sleeping
. You love that he loves watching his fish sleep, even the one with the big brain-head. You imagine him watching you sleep, wondering if you catch a break from your own big brain-head when you sleep. (Your imaginary answer: Not usually.) You think, I want to be with someone who stops to watch the fish. Now is the time when you will have sex with him. You watch the whole movie.

After the movie you talk about god. He believes very strongly in a loving god. You believe very strongly that he should be making out with you right now. You want very badly to believe in god. Previously, in his presence, you have openly discussed your confusion about the god issue. What is it, is it here at all times, does it have facial hair, does it have a personality, why do bad things happen, if there is a god, why haven't I had sex in such a long time, and so on. He calls you
one of the complicated people
. He points out that you wear a small cross around your neck. You say you like religious imagery. He says,
So you think that's coincidental? You
say,
I do not know
. You ask how he knows for sure there's a god. He tells you he just does. He says,
I try to ask myself all those questions and it just doesn't go anywhere. I ask, Why do bad things happen, and there's no answer and I go about my day. I don't have to know. I'm being taken care of. I should be dead. I give props to the G-O-D, you know what I'm saying? I'm a simple guy. It's cool
. You like his simplicity. You are delighted for the refreshing change from months and years spent with guys who complicate things, who think complicated thoughts, who provide further complications for your preexisting complicated thoughts. You want to believe he's right. You want to believe that something so simple could be so right, could need no further examination from you. You wish you were a simple girl. You will take a simple guy.