2

Back at the county seat, I stopped at a set of high-end outlet stores oddly set out in the middle of nowhere that was this county.
I still had Julia Child s must-have list somewhere in my brain and bought a spring-form pan and a little bowl and club that s used to grind down herbs. The sales clerks seemed to treat me as if I didn t belong there. I figured it was because of the way I was acting .. lost in thought.
As I waited for the call, and wondered about the call, I allowed a connection to the rural landscape around me that was triggering more seemingly-insignificant memories, like one time when Mom ordered pizza and bought some two-liter sodas. As a little boy, soda never tasted that good at a restaurant, but at home in ice cubes it tasted great. I only drank the dark sodas.

I felt too awkward to hang around any longer so I left for home. It was a two hour drive and just as I was entering the town where I lived, I got a call from an investigator. He seemed friendly and cheery. He didn t ask questions like how may I help you, but seemed informed of the situation. I felt thankful to the first cop I had talked to for not making me go through that part again.
_It s really important we get you in here,_ he was telling me. _I don t want to have to take your statement over the phone. I d really like you to come in and talk to one of my guys. Can we make an appointment for you to do that?_

I told him I d call him back. I pulled into my workplace and told my boss I needed tomorrow morning off so I could drive down and give some statement the cops needed. He had a quizzical expression on his face. I told him I had come from social services and it looked like someone was pressing charges against one of the homes I had stayed in once. That seemed to satisfy him and he told me I could just come in at lunchtime.

I called the investigator back and we made the time for tomorrow at nine.

I came home to Oprah talking with sexual offenders. Each made sure to qualify that they had never forced themselves on a child, as if that made things better.
Oprah continued to treat sexual abuse as if it weren t horrific, as if it were a manageable offence, like she was making sure to not scare the audience. Maybe she just wanted the audience to understand what was going on out there, in the Real world, but a world certainly separate from the one they were living in.

It s_cked that I had to do laundry, and would have to drive to the laundry mat. Outside in the laundry mat parking lot I listened to what turned out to be K__ s voicemail.
I didn t know who he was at first. He has such a low, deep voice it was hard to recognize, plus the way he spoke the message it sounded ambiguous. I was afraid he was House, because he referred to me as his former roommate. _Hey Chuck. Just wanted to check in on my former roommate. See how you were doing. Give me a call back_, he said.　
I immediately thought to myself: You re still on your own, no matter what, even if he turns out to be an okay friend. It s all on you now.

I called him back and left a voice mail, then a short text. I sat in the laundry mat, my head filling with hope despite myself. Maybe I ll have a normal friendship again, live that normal life I always seem to see around me but never seems to actually exist.

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I remember the plane ride coming home from Basic Training. I had chosen to not be regular military, but instead reserves. That way I could feel things out, and could always go regular military later. I thought about how free I felt so many states away from home. I felt like a totally different person. I thought about that on the plane ride home, how I could just not go back, just go regular military and start my life from there. But doing it at home where all the horrific stuff is would be more challenging, I thought to myself, my head against the plane window, looking down on the city lights.

And that sealed the deal for me, as if it were a moot point.

Why was I like that? What kind of person automatically chooses the most challenging situation possible, as if on auto pilot, as if the reasons were so obvious they were frustratingly silently assumed.

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(Tuesday morning)

I woke at the correct time due to the alarm, but had slept so deeply it surprised me. I set the alarm on my phone for nine, and went back to sleep. I debated with myself about it, but decided that the whole point of this was for me to be okay, not necessarily for justice. If the boy-I-am wants to sleep this deep, then I ll just reschedule the appointment, and that s what I did, at nine, for next Monday.
The investigator was his usual friendly cheeriness, as if I could do no wrong, and was fine with my excuse that I had been called into work this morning. I fell back asleep.

I woke from a slew of sex dreams an hour or so later. I laid there thinking about them, what they were trying to get across to me. It's not okay to sleep with someone who is raped-gay.

That's why I'm glad no guy ever seduced me before I remembered. I made sure of it by killing my looks.

Masculinity and feminimity is a soul-choice. It has nothing to do with sexual orientation. There s plenty of effeminate acting men who are penetrators, and plenty of masculine-acting women who are penetratees.

It's not right to steal another man's masculinity (or woman's heart) by tricking them into letting you penetrate them - by being a predator. It is okay to give them what they want if it's truly what they want.

I got up, and started my day. I had to get to work. I tried to get present, despite the supposed heaviness of the last few days, and found it easy. When I become the boy - like that afternoon in the hammock - it's like nothing's happened. I can feel the blank slate - and I have my life back.

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(Tuesday night)

I find my job too easy. I notice that the other people who get bored because they re too capable use humor to make up the difference, as if trying to be funny was the most convenient way of making things challenging again.

When I m at the office I always feel as if I'm being watched and heard, so I'm not really myself. Thing is it's like that at home and whenever I'm alone - always on guard. I play the piano better when I experience myself, as myself, and don't imagine an audience. It's like that when I dance. I rarely feel left alone.

I watched the show Parenthood. In it, one of the characters is my age, and is dating the Mom of a teenage girl in the class he teaches. Watching someone my age on screen got to me. I don't know if I'm okay with being so old. I took a leak during a commercial. I looked in the mirror in the bathroom as I washed my hands: _You're going to kill yourself at some point, aren't you?_

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(Wednesday)

I would've been here anyway at some point - twenty seven years old. And all the other differences that my life-story -- not my Life -- imposed can be washed away by my being Brave. Who s to say that maybe this would ve been my life at twenty seven anyway. Maybe I m closer to my Soul (my self) this way.

This is the world. And as long as there are human beings it will be the world. Who am I to not have been the one with this life story. Why have it put in on other shoulders? Why not be the Brave one?

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(Friday)

There s a real person in there, I think to myself, as I deal with people at work, especially the ones I don t like much. I never noticed that before.
Some are old and negative looking. A lot of them have smoked cigarettes their whole lives. That s what they see in the mirror. Not a Him or a Her.

It is choices, in the end, that will ensure future happiness.

I ve started to where sunscreen every day.

There are other people here, just as here as I am, experiencing the same moments I am. I m not on the outside looking in anymore.

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