Deliberations

Yesterday the world was coming apart; falling down about my ears. Yesterday, I stopped in the middle of a courtyard lined by windowed buildings and screamed, not caring how many faces were staring from behind those rows of mirrored glass. I screamed until I felt like I had escaped, and then continued on my way. Yesterday, I was a different person. Yesterday, you were a different person. Yesterday, the world was a different place, and I am never going back.


When you called at three in the morning, I didn't think twice. I grabbed my coat and stepped out the door without a glance at the silently flickering television set in the room behind me. You had called, and I was coming, because that was the way of things. As I walked the long blocks to your apartment, streetlamps quivered and then flashed out behind me. A dog barked as I walked by a long picket fence, but I ignored it. Only you could host a party in the wee hours of the morning and expect people to come. I adore you. Everybody does.


Three buildings down, I stopped. I shoved my hands into deep pockets and waited and watched. The sliding glass door stood open onto your second story balcony, and the sounds of laughter and pop music drifted down to the street. You passed by the window once or twice, a blonde girl on your arm, a red plastic cup in your hand, and that prize winning smile you always wear, lighting up the room like a miniature sun. Do you even notice that people on the street part when you walk by? The woman who smiles at you whenever you go into work, does she mind the crooked grin that blooms on her face whenever you're near?


I stood there on the cooling sidewalk between buildings, and smiled sadly. I realized then how caught I was. You had called, and I was coming, and there was not one god-damned thing I could do to stop myself. How could I refuse the call of a highline socialite such as you? Its pure habit that after all these years you even call. Pure custom. Pure convention. Yet still you had called, and still I was coming.


Yesterday night I ended up leaning against a plaster wall in the corner of your room, sipping kegged beer out of a cup while doing my best to ignore the ardent couple making out on your bed. You noticed when I tried to leave, setting down your blonde and brown bottle and cutting me off in the hallway. No, no, you urged me, I couldn't leave now, there was someone you wanted me to meet. A girl. A special girl.


You led me to a quiet stairwell, patted me on the back and shoved me in. Somewhere in the exchange an off-brand condom had found its way into my shirt pocket, I ignored it, and silently moved down the stairs. A flight, and then a landing, and then, sitting on the top step with her face held in her hands was the girl. Hello, I said, hello, she said. I took a step, hesitated, then sat down beside her. Suddenly, her lips were on mine, hard and needy. I took her head in my hands, and pushed her away. She stopped and looked into my eyes. Black tears slid down from eyes heavy with mascara, and she cried. I held her. I let her wet face rest on my chest. For a moment, I was the protector. Sometime later, she moved away without a word and slowly walked back up the stairs. I took the condom out of my pocket and carefully placed it on the steps before pushing open the door at the bottom of the flight. I stepped into humid pre-dawn without a backwards glance.


My legs felt wobbly and unused, and I barely made it to the coffeehouse where you and I would spend bleary-eyed mornings. I made my way to the back, to our regular table and steadied myself against the wall, holding down what felt like every meal I had ever eaten.


I sat there, blinking in the shock of early morning sunlight for what felt like hours. People came, people went, and still I sat. It wasn't until much later that I picked myself up and moved outside.


A crowd had gathered at the corner, to gawk at something I could only guess. Further down the street, an ambulance moved slowly through the crush of people, making its way to whatever nightmare scene was hidden by the press of humanity. The perfect example of society keeping society in check. If you hurt yourself, you better do it out of sight, or else you run the risk of a hundred is-he-okay-ers and give-him-some-air-ers and somebody-call-a-doctor-ers crowding around. Not helping, not willing to get their hands bloody, but content with knowing that they were part of something bigger. These day-to-fucking-dayers who will stand over your body and hold a hand over their mouths and watch you die, only to sit with their families during the evening news and proudly say, I was there, I saw it happen. The urge to belong is so incredibly undeniable that its worth a little human life to claim relevance. Anything is worth it to maintain a shred of importance in this life. Anything.


The ambulance finally made its way to the center of the mass and after a few moments of flurried activity, pushed back to the street, sirens blaring. The crowd blinked collectively, and made the difficult return to reality. These witnesses to tragedy quickly become fuck-i'm-late-ers and rush back to whatever task they had at hand before this small excitement broke the routine. Disgusted, I turned my back on the scene and started walking.


It was nine in the morning and I still was without any idea at all as to where I was going. I stopped and looked around. A street lined with sky scraping office buildings, little industrial parks lined with trees and beautiful fountains designed to increase the morale of thousands of cubicled employees. Idealogic, sure, but it didn't change the fact that they were all wasting their lives in a fucking box designed to increase productivity, all contributing to some meaningless project who's whole they would never truly comprehend. I looked around the courtyard, at men in suits and women in modest dresses hurrying around with briefcases and important files and took a breath and screamed. I screamed and I screamed and a woman dropped her boxes and a man dove for cover behind a smiling stone lion. I screamed because you had abandoned me years ago and I was too won over to notice. I screamed because nothing was right with the world, and I was too drawn out to do anything about it. I screamed because my body was the last thing I felt I had control over. I screamed because it felt real.


I stopped when the last pigeon had left the area in ruffled surprise. I got a what the fuck, man? from the man behind the lion, and a frightened backwards glance from the woman with the boxes. I looked up at all those stories of indentured would-be capitalists and just kept on walking. I was better off, I decided, down here than up there. At least here there was a chance that I could accomplish something important.


I took the subway back to our neighborhood, and spent the late morning sitting on my front porch eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I pulled my legs up into my chest and watched cars go by. Each car filled with dreams and ideas, problems and solutions. Little sitcoms rolling by at five miles over the speed limit, and I just sat and ate and watched.


I used to have a notebook that I would carry around and write whatever little sparks of inspiration floated up during the day. I would scribble and sketch and put it on my nightstand and sleep and dream and write it all down, but eventually the pages got thin and the writing got harder and things just trickled out. You threw it away, I remember. You saw me crying, standing with the little book in my hand and wishing I could make something of it. You took it from me and tossed it into the trash with the leftover scrambled eggs and toast. You told me that it was the only thing that was holding me back from success in the real world, this obsession with fantasy. You told me that I was better off without it.


What a fucking lie.



I realized, as I watched the slow suburban caravan move past, that strange ideas are the only things that keep me alive. Without that little notebook, you could control me. Without my dreams, I was absolutely nothing. And thats exactly how you liked it.


I dropped the rest of my sandwich, and sat stunned. Even more than before, I hated myself for loving you. I was a tool. The perfect best friend for an authoritative fuck. Submissive, agreeable, easy. You had owned me, and I hadn't even seen it.


I remember the realization hit me like a freight train, and how I struggled to pull myself onto my feet, leaning stiffly against a post.


I remember tears fell unexpectedly, and I stumbled into the front door, the hallway to my living room was really only one long fall.


I remember hitting my couch hard, like packaged iron. I remember pulling my coat around me and falling into deep, orphic sleep. My dreams were troubled. Your voice overlayed images of cold dark water and the inexplicable feeling of being chased down a long, dark hallway.


Five minutes past ten, my phone rang. I pulled myself off of the couch and, eyes thick with sleep, picked up. I'm coming, you said, and hung up before I could reply.


I stood there, hands on the receiver and tried to think of a way out. The revelations of the day before drew me out to the point of breaking, but there I was, about to get caught up again.


I heard your car horn minutes later. I remember setting down the cordless.


I remember stepping out of the house and seeing you there, grinning with all the menace of a Sunday morning. I remember trusting you. I remember falling in love with you all over again. But when you tripped, coming up the stairs to the door, something in your face slipped. Sunday morning became Thursday night, and nothing was ever the same.