he was very drunk, and really quite adorable. What were his intentions, coming to my apartment at 2:00 AM, I won't ever know for sure. He might never know, either.
The doorbell rang in the same rapid-fire sequence I tell the welcome ones to use. I assumed it was one of my rare occasional lovers, specifically a bicyclist named John, and at first I wanted to hide and let him go away. Then I imagined his mouth on mine, and recalled how, when he comes, he stays for the night, and how I would like that, especially tonight. So I went down the stairs, and opened the door. In the place where I expected John was a drunk blonde twenty-year old (I'm really not making this up!) He stumbled through an explanation of 'these kids who want to beat me up', who were chasing him (apparently a pursuit they had abandoned before Brendan found his sanctuary with me--no one was outside). The kids, he said, were college juniors wanting to perform some sort of hazing on this sophomore from Clarkson. Not Clark, which is in Worcester; I specifically checked if he had displaced a syllable. He had not. He was from Clarkson--in New York.
He lingered, leaning on the wall in the hall, and I noticed his hand tug his crotch more than once, a gesture he seamlessly spliced between other hand movements. He seemed like the young men of distant memory who were open to approach, ready to allow--even encouraging--my invasion of their space; a memory from a younger time. But I have a Greek chorus, singing songs of caution, and wailing complaints at any approach to potential pleasure. The chorus and I have become very close. So, at their behest, I attributed the gestures of this youth--perhaps lonely like me, and certainly uninhibited--to an itch.
He was not in distress, or terrified. If he appeared desperate I, rightly or wrongly, would have been much more defensive and reluctant, and left him downstairs, outside the front door. But he was a charming drunk, with an outlandish story, and without demands--he didn't even want to use the phone. In fact, he seemed to be waiting for direction from me. God! Is God good, or what? Here was a friendly young man, alone, come to this lonely man's apartment in the middle of the night. I briefly suspected one of my friends had given him my name, as one in need of such a visit. "You want to come up?" I said.
"OK," he said. "Sorry for waking you."
"It's alright. I wasn't asleep."
Our date was unplanned, to say the least. So we continued together what I would have been doing alone--sitting at my computer. I can't help thinking (worrying) that he wanted me to make a move. "Sorry," he slurred after his chair, on wheels, rolled slightly and his shoulder touched mine. He stayed there. I wonder if he wanted me to declare--by a subtle hand upon his thigh or a light touch to the nape of his neck--who I could be for him on this cool September night. Or who he could be for me. I suspect he wanted me to be brave, to commit myself to something (to anything! Anything at all), and to admit what I wanted--to tell him right out loud. And perhaps he wanted me to take it from him, too. A young disinhibited male, miles from home, is liable to want some things he might never want at home.
what I remember from boyhood and youth are not the hopes and dreams I cultivated, but the clear perspective on life I have since descended from. This is fairly generic, but the truth of it was so clear to me at the time, it bears repeating: I was about 8, and after plaguing my father with an unending cascade of "why's", he said (as you might expect) "Why do you ask why so much?" I replied, "It's what I came here for," and I felt proud that I had conveyed a truth from 'there' to the consciousness of someone here. Now, I only remember a shadow of my assurance of the infinite, only fragments of my intimacy with the eternal. But I did not want these things to die, and I remember looking for someone who had been on this path longer than me, who had kept them in bloom the whole way, who could show me how--or at least prove that it would be possible--to keep from losing touch with the origins of joy, of life, and of love. Because I did not want it to die. I remember.
And such is the student's search; to find a teacher who has remained whole--or mostly whole--through the claws and teeth of experience; to find a brave soul who has not spent their integrity as payment for easy passage; to meet the person who knows how to pursue fearless growth without losing a rich and intimate contact with the eternal origin; to find a heart with its bon voyage streamers miraculously still intact, all the way back to 'there'. When the true student does finally meet his genuine teacher, he takes a rare and simple step, humble and mundane, a single footfall that was always and ever will be the intention of the universe for each one of us. Let us not speak of my suitability--or lack therof--for the teacher's role, but I was honored in this unexpected visit, to be considered for the job--even briefly and accidentally--by an intoxicated young man, pretending to be lost.
whatever is me, I keep it concealed as if precious and diminishing. I hide it, and keep it alone. I pretend that what I am is priceless and cherishable in denial of a nagging suspicion that I might actually be worthless and discardable. This is how I got into the weird situation of desperately wanting to be me, and never ever getting there.
brendan left. He did not boldly put his hands on me and sit us both down on the futon. He did not press on mine his Jim Beam-tasting mouth. He did not enjoy my strong embrace, nor I his. He did not give his tender neck to the gentle stroke of my tongue, or press his soft peach-fuzzed cheek against mine, thick with greying beard. He did not use me or conduct me in using him like I wanted him to, and he didn't finish the excursion he began at my door. But he did his part.
Drunk in the street, reckless in the dark, irresponsible--dismiss it any way you want--he took a risk. He walked into a quiet house at 2:00 AM, likely coaxed this way by the din of cooperative souls that invisibly crowd the lonely spaces between all us mortals. And he stepped away from solidly familiar predictability into the deliciously anxious space where we don't know what might happen next.
I failed to meet him there, to match the risk he took. Instead, I stayed where I usually am, aloof and untouchable, where I deny all desires, especially sexual ones. I did consider a wild lunge to another familiar place, where I make everything sexual; a place where I'm nothing but a mouth, and he's nothing but a cock. But the place I needed to be was somewhere in between those two, a place I was too afraid to go--a place where he and I might have met.
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