December 18
This evening, as I was walking to my truck, I had the strangest memory. It came from out of the blue. I found myself singing John Lennon's "Working Class Hero". It's a song I happen to like a lot, and then I remembered a night, well a morning, probably 1993 or 1994. I was seeing a guy named John (his real name, because really, there are a lot of Johns in this world). I was seeing him in a way that fit me at the time. I saw him on Friday nights. Only. It was that kind of thing. He'd call me sometime Thursday at work and ask me if I had plans. I never did, and because of who and how I was, it would never have occurred to me to say no, to say "this is bullshit, you are using me!". John and I had a game plan: we'd meet at a bar on a Friday after work. He would inevitably be an hour late. I would never have thought of leaving, I just sat and waited. Finally, he'd show and I'd be half drunk because I'd been sitting there alone with nothing to do but write in my journal and drink while I sat. So he'd show up, smelling of sweat and wood (he was working as a carpenter building sets at the time) with the paper rolled up under his arm. He'd swoop down, and give me a tight lipped kiss and ask if I'd been waiting long. I'd always answer "No, not too long.." whether I'd been there for 5 minutes or two hours. He'd go off and buy the first pitcher. We'd finish it. He'd tell me about his day, his week, while asking me utterly pointless questions I had no answer for, then tell me I was without opinion because I couldn't think of a response. I'd buy the second pitcher. If it was a period of time when we'd not seen eachother in a while (because this happened, he would disappear and I'd not hear from him for a month and a half, then he'd call, drunk, telling me things I thought I wanted to hear from him, telling me all about how much he missed me, and how he didn't understand why I wanted to keep seeing him. I had no answer, because I, myself didn't know) he would tell me, without fail, of the amazing woman he'd met and fallen in love with in the time we weren't seeing eachother. In excruciating detail, he would tell me of how very perfect she was, of her beautiful body, her great car, her winning personality, her important job and I wouldn't see this as him being an asshole so much as I saw it as my failure, my inability to walk away, my punishment for being weak. When it came time to get the third pitcher, John would say "I need to go to a money machine, I'm starving and I don't have money to get the next round" and he'd disappear. We were drinking on the lower east side of Manhattan, banks machines are not few or far between. He would take off and I'd sit there, waiting, alone, nursing my beer, buying myself more, pretending to be absolutely engrossed in whatever song was playing, going back to my journal and absolutely, under no circumstances looking over at the couple sitting across the bar, with their eyes burning love and passion and devotion and heat into one another, with their mouths together and their hands together and their legs pressed together, so much together I could tell that the very act of breaking the continuous bond of their skin even for the moment it took to sip wine was actually a sorrow, a loss, a small tragedy. I couldn't bear to even consider that I wouldn't ever have that, would try and quiet the voice in my head telling me I didn't deserve it and so I'd keep my eyes to myself, almost ashamed to have them look to me, in my darkened corner, alone, while the man I was with went out to get money. By the time John came back, I'd be drunk. He would have a full meal he'd picked up from Chinarican restaurant. He would eat it, in front of me, never asking if I wanted any. He would get the next round. Somewhere around midnight, the negotiations would begin. They always ended the same way. We would walk to the corner Korean Deli, buy two wholly unnecessary 6 packs, and catch a cab back to his place in Jersey City. He lived in a illegal warehouse apartment he hadn't paid the rent on in about 6 months. The cab would drop us off and he would leave me waiting out back, on a deserted warehouse street, while he ran around to the front door to let me in. This would always take 10 minutes, because he would always go into his apartment first, for a minute or two and I never knew why or what he was doing, except maybe listening to voice mail, but it was always just long enough for someone looking for a whore to see me standing there, holding a beer, shivering in the cold with my jacket clutched around me or sweating, wilting in the heat fanning myself with something I'd found on the floor. When he'd finally come around to let me in, I would tell him what happened, who had talked to me, what they'd wanted and he never believed me, not once. We would trudge up the metal stairs to his place, which was a strange riot of fishtanks and birdcages and art he'd made. He would put in a tape and open a beer. I'd tell him I had to pee and I'd slip out the door, creeping down the hall towards the huge, filthy communal bathroom. The toilets never flushed all the way or they flushed too much and the floors were wet and rusty and damp. The roaches were defiant about the light and darted in and around the taps where you should have been able to wash your hands. I'd go as quickly as I could and run back, where I'd find the door locked. Always. Every time, so I'd knock, and he'd walk slowly, slowly to the door to let me back in. I'd go to his makeshift sink and wash my hands, scattering more roaches. He would hand me a beer, which I'd drink, though I was already drunker than anyone ever needed to be, and we'd sit there and pretend to make some kind of meaningful conversation until he'd pose the question: "Shall we go to bed?" We would take our beer and walk to the bedroom, which really wasn't a bedroom at all, just a corner of the place he'd sectioned off with a frame and army blankets. In the summer, it was sweltering. The air conditioner he kept running only served to cool it down a few degrees, but on a sweaty summer in New York Friday night, the kind where tempers flare and people get killed for making eye contact a beat too long, it was an improvement. In the winter, it was freezing, a huge leaky window didn't stop any air or, if the wind was right, snow from blowing in. If I lay there, shivering, he'd curl himself away from me, more tightly wrapping himself in the blanket. Some nights, we'd sit there in bed, and he'd read his favorite poet, Auden, to me. But it wasn't as it sounds. It wasn't as it should be, someone reading words of amazing love and tenderness because they are feeling what they read to you, because they are loving you there, in their bed, because they know you and they want you and they want to share these words. It wasn't because he'd been at work earlier that day and thought of Auden, say, for instance: This lunar beauty Has no history, It complete and early; If beauty later Bear any feature, It had a lover And is another. This like a dream Keeps other time, And daytime is The loss of this; For time is inches And the heart's changes, Where ghost has haunted Lost and wanted. But this was never a ghost's endeavour Nor, finished this, Was ghost at ease; And till it past Love shall not near The sweetness here, Nor sorrow take His endless look. And thought of me, and said "This is something I must share with her". He would read to me, asking me question after question about what I thought he meant, what the words meant, why I thought things were as they were. He'd ask me to read, and then yank the book from my hands when I didn't read the way he wanted. And then he'd move to kiss me, he'd move his hands to his clothes, he'd take them off, he'd motion me to take off mine, which I did, because, after all, that was why I was there, wasn't it? We'd lie down together and do whatever it was we did then, whatever it is two people do together who aren't even pretending to be in love who aren't even able to remember why it is they bother wasting eachother's time, two people who are so afraid of being alone, that this: this awful sex, this angry, bitter, sorrowful self loathing time and space shared, this is better than being by ourselves, on this Friday night, the only one we will ever get in 1993, this is the better choice, by far. After our lustless and almost always painful coupling, we'd fall asleep. More often than not, it was so late it was early and the sun would be coming up. But on this one particular night, I remember waking to the sound of John painting in the other room. I listened to him drink and paint, Iight cigarette after cigarette and very very quietly, I heard the song:
As soon as you're born, they make you feel small
by giving you no time instead of it all
till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all.a working class hero is something to be a working class hero is something to be
they hurt you at home and they hit you at school
they hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rulesa working class hero is something to be a working class hero is something to be
when they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years
then they expect you to pick a career
when you can''t really function you're so full of feara working class hero is something to be a working class hero is something to be
keep you doped with religion and sex and tv
and you think you're so clever and classless and free
but you're still fucking peasants as far as I can seea working class hero is something to be a working class hero is something to be
there's room at the top they are telling you still
but first you must learn how to smile as you killif you want to be like the folks on the hill a working class hero is something to be
a working class hero is something to be
if you want to be a hero well just follow me if you want to be a hero well just follow me
And tonight, walking to my car I remembered back to the person I was then, the love I saw around me so brilliant, I couldn't even raise my eyes to meet, the love I wanted so badly I could taste it and would have given anything, anything for it, tonight, as I walked to my car I realized that I've finally gotten what I wanted. That in the humming of a long forgotten song came the remembrance of a strange Friday night, listening to someone I pretended I could fall in love with paint quietly in the morning, that my life now is the life I wanted then, that if I could go back and tell myself what I was going to have someday, maybe I would have gotten up and walked out. It is perhaps too late for giving thanks, but I am thankful and blessed and utterly stunned by the love in my life. Every day, I am humbled and astonished. Every day, I live the way a woman-a lonely 22 year old would have killed to be able to live. I am that person in the bar, so aware of my luck or karma or whatever you'd like to call it, I will never walk through life with lowered eyes again.