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(morning) 26FEB2010
The higher I get, the more I remember, but the harder the fall.
Most of the morning I’ve been curled up on the bathroom floor upstairs, each door locked, shivering, wondering what’s going on.
I got up once, and ransacked the my bedroom, and the upstairs dressers, made a mess looking for any more of the pills, so I could stop the fall, or at least ease it.
House said something to me, coming out of his room, on the way to the porch for a cigarette. He tried to be upbeat but I just grunted at him, looking through the kitchen cabinets, focused, not looking at him, trying to think of where I might have hid something if I had hid anything at all.
I found two bottles of cough syrup, and checked the labels, looking for active ingredients, how much, doing the math, but I felt like they’d make me throw up, so I curled back on the floor, and shivered for hours under a blanket in the upstairs bathroom.
I heard House call my name from outside the door, but I didn’t answer.
I remembered in the low place, despite the new pain of being in the low place, and I could see Trevor again, and the shiver turned into me shivering from his touch, and I remembered how powerful I used to be, powerful enough to be born into this story, brave enough to not give a damn.
You made a promise, I thought to myself, when the rapes stopped, you made a promise that you’d be brave and powerful enough to always remember that you were lying, just like the grandfather in Invisible Man. All the Yes sa’s and Yessum’s you promised you’d always remember you were him .. Him.
But Trevor’s gone. People are content to go their lives with their soul mate ahead of them. What if the story is did and done, sex, love, trust, friendship, abuse, heartache, resilience, awareness, memory, the life already lived.
What is left but death.
And I felt his touch and the shivering felt like it was awakening me. I felt his tongue along the back of my ear, and how he liked to trail the tip of his erection along my stomach and chest, along the line between my pecs, neither of us knowing we weren’t men, not understanding that we were little boys, because we were in the soul place, the only place, it turns out, for the horrific; a game he’d play, he’d run it along my neck, as I tried to act passive, breathing heavy but still not moving.
He was so glad to know me. He knew I was brave and I was his. I’m glad Trevor never saw me getting raped in the bathroom, all those nights after his death, but I still wish he had been there, I wish he was here now.
Everyone else’s lives are lived forward, mine is the opposite, all I have is memory, my life already lived, like Meryl Streep in the Bridges of Madison County, the memory was enough to sustain her, because what was there was Real. The memory is strong in the low place, I figure because of how far into the high place I went.
I can even remember the bathroom, and R__ having me backed against the door, trying to force his member into my mouth, jerking himself off, aiming his ejaculate, that dry dryness in the morning, all dried up in my mouth so I couldn‘t breathe. Him taking a toothbrush and toothpaste and forcing my teeth brushed, while I cried ‘help me, help me, in a slow, rhythmic wail. I can remember the cracking paint on the cabinets by the door and the metal door knob, and the lights above the sink, the dark areas near the tips of the bulbs.
(afternoon)
I must remember the rest, so I collect from around the house: orange juice, two large unopened bottles of cough syrup, a bottle of 100 proof rum.
You sure you can handle a stronger fall than last time? I think to myself If you keep getting higher and higher, the falls will get worse and worse.
Twenty something years, B, twenty something years I got to get back. That’s why the wall was trying to kill me; it wanted me to relive everything day by day, but if I do that I got to pay the twenty something years all over again, then I’ll be an old man, in some coma, looking on the back of my eyes memory and memory, day after day. No, I’ve paid costlier costs, no fall is too Difficult.
It doesn‘t matter who you grow up to be; you‘ve already been. You‘re already ben. . ha ha.
I guess I’m deep in a depression. I’ve been on the bathroom floor for over forty eight hours. I’ve never grown so much facial hair before, and yet it’s still not a beard, go figure.
I’ve been in the low place, all day, but remembering just the same, El__, especially, and Trevor’s death, and how when he died I couldn’t make sense of anything, and learned to stay high in Denial.
There are two different kinds of high, both opposite, one Real and the other UnReal. I had to pretend to be ignorant until I could make sense of things. That was my crime.
I’m always living for others. Looking for Him but also who He’s supposed to save. But the boy I saved is me. So I’m supposed to live my life for myself.
Huh.
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(Late night Saturday/Sunday)
The low place became unbearable for some reason, so I went back up. And everything was alright again. I sat and thought about why this was happening to me.
It’s because Trevor was right. My body couldn’t take what my Brave Soul had taken on. He was right, giving me that cough syrup, acting concerned, he knew the human body couldn’t take it. So that’s where the disconnect is. Trevor was right.
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4MAR2009
Woke from dream where I was eaten by some huge furry animal, just after having a dream where I watched a large cat behead a tiny, adorable one after what looked like an impressive fight by the little one.
Inside the large animal was a world of warehouses and hallways, and a work force trapped there.
One was an attractive girl, who liked me because I was Him, and I slowly f-cked her against a wall. As I f-cked her I kept telepathically telling her: die with me, be brave and die with me, and she came.
House is me. Same as the LT during deployment, both of them using something they have going for them -- good looks, rank as an officer -- or being hard working, which was my good thing -- to convince people to allow me the trip I’m on.
Our friendship really got going when I started always joking with him about his inexplicable dimple, which allowed him to lie and get away with everything even though he shouldn’t have been allowed it. Why would he then think that inevitably I would fall for it? How could that have been his plan all along?
What’s the point of not being Real? What’s the point of House being so refreshed by someone who sees right through him, but then crossing the pond, and changing his mind, deciding he’d rather just live off a dimple after all.
By choosing that, he was choosing that none of his qualities would be Real, people would just allow him them. His bravery, not brave, his strength, not strength, his intelligence, not intelligence.
He came home from his new job, and kept doing the dimple thing, acting cute and adorable, flashing me a smile.
I looked at him, stunned that he could think me so dumb. He was lying when he said he didn’t want to be UnReal anymore. He was lying when we were in Iraq and he said he didn’t want to go home to the same friends because they allowed him to be UnReal -- they always fell for the dimple.
He only told me that story because it’s the story he tells people when they don’t fall for his dimple.
I blurted out that he had to move out, I told him he needed to leave.
He gaped at me.
_It’s not a debate. Just get out._
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