it's kinda nice, the production of these pages. My 'practice', my spiritual daily workout, it's how I'm learning, stretching my soul, creating the being I'm supposed to be. Somedays it's all I do. The pages look good, and sometimes the words go together well. Everything renders like it's supposed to, at least for me. But what about you? Is everything OK, for you? And if you were an old friend, with whom I had a history, would I care?
steve is/was a friend of mine from long ago. Actually, not that many years. It was only '86. I guess that's long ago. He called this morning at 4:47 AM.
He was an angry adolescent, who fought with his mother a lot. She seemed a lot like mine; I couldn't blame him for being often enraged. That's the one thing in the whole world which I am incapable of describing: a barren mother. It's as if she never really gave birth, as if she never really gave anything. Everything, from food and shelter to love and acceptance comes with the rule that you must accept her sorrow for the tragedies of her life, her damage from the abuse she suffered, because she won't. She gave you life, but it still belongs to her. Don't even think about trying to make it your own.
Mother bashing is not part of my practice here. It's an illusion, a diversion, and an escape. I loved my mother more than anything else I've ever loved. But I hated her, too. I can scarcely look at the life she lived and not feel a heartbreaking compassion, right to the limits of what I can bear: the subtle and not so subtle abuse from her mother, a tyrant; the excruciating dichotomy she carried like her cross, between a well of angry bitterness seldom revealed, and a genuine goodness—a saints soul—in her every action, thought, plan, and endeavor. She was brutal to herself, and most people like that end up being brutal to others; she never did. But she could not let me just have myself. She wanted to, but she could not let go of me and let me be a whole new person, because it left her too terribly alone; I was the only whole person she posessed. I was she.
Now, don't everybody go sending me numbers for psychotherapists. I told you I was incapable of describing a barren mother, and I'm sure I've missed the mark. I will edit her in days to come, until my life is done, and even then I won't quite get it right. In any case, it's just me now.
i met Steve, after his mother threw him out, at a homeless shelter which had just been founded by my friend. Steve was gentle and sweet, timid even, but not hiding. He would smile right into you, his eyes would solidly connect. He, too, had been trained in how to be a part of someone else. I guess I fell in love.
Or lust, perhaps. Or just a need to hold, to whisper sweet nothings that cause a smile, little splashes of hapiness. But there was a rage inside of Steve, a high-pressure fury that he probably could have released without losing control of it, except that we got scared. He'd punch a wall, or break a chair, but never hurt a person, not even himself. There was a frigid bitch who ran the shelter (she was another scared and barren soul), and she was annoyed that Steve did not stuff his anger back inside, like she had always done. The place was a dump and most of the walls were being torn down and replaced, but if he punched another hole in one, she'd gladly throw him out. Tyrant.
This was not a guy having a tantrum; his rage was not for rage's sake. It needed to come out. But the last time it tried to vent, I talked it back inside. I made him keep it in. I thought, even as I talked him down, that something's got to give. But I had no plan, I could conceive of no solution beyond postponement. Save the wall right now, later we'll get to saving Steve somehow.
He spent two days in his room alone after that, cutting and bleeding. Eventually he came out, and someone found him sitting on the stairs in an emotionally absent state, his hands blue and immobile; the tendons all were cut. He told me later it would have been worse, but he couldn't hold the knife anymore because he couldn't move his hands. And no, he said, it didn't hurt.
mental health clinicians are often quite bizarre in the way they do their jobs. I've worked around them for nearly twenty years. I know what they do better than some of them. So to say that getting Steve out of the oldest state hospital in the country was a trip down the rabbit hole would be an understatement. Steve's mother, his sister, and I met with one particular purveyor of insanity. She was a young, tall, well-dressed woman in heels. She appeared out-of-place striding down the hallways amid all the disheveled entities at Worcester State Hospital. She looked like the First Lady on a tour, only nobody pretended to like her.
He had voluntarily committed himself for a certain number of days (about a week), and that term was up. But they did not want him leaving... sort of. Our Clinical Social Worker would not say so right up front, but all they wanted was someone to take responsiblity for him. In fact, right up front she said he was not ready to leave, which made me wonder why she arranged this meeting in the first place. And that was the least of the incongruities. As I said, it was a trip down the rabbit hole.
Looking back, I can surmise she was antagonizing us as some sort of a test, which I guess I passed. As we were leaving—with Steve—she caught up to us at the door to explain (without explaining anything) that she was just doing her job, which apparently was to make us hate her, perhaps to see how we would handle contempt.
Steve came home with me. And if it's possible to go two ways at once, then Steve and me got closer and more distant, after that. We lived together for a while. I guess we were lovers, of a sort, but probably not like other lovers. Sex has always been my way of dodging intimacy. If things get too close for comfort, then screw.
We didn't fight or get resentful, we just lost interest; it was a gradual separation. He got his own place and I moved to the Cape. And I guess we became ex's then. Our friendship was no longer powering-up, like on take-off. It was on its final glidepath, and that descent is nearly the same—whether it ends in a gentle landing, or a catastrophe. It's how it ends that matters. Sometimes the anxiety of how it's going to be settled makes you want to jump. I don't want to call him back.
I have lots of excuses, but they're not comfortable. They'll work, of course; they always have. But then, who am I? What am I when comfort is the goal, and evading those who care about me is the means?
I am the man I make myself in you. Not the thing I create here, in this journal, but the thing I create there, in my relationship with Steve (or with John, the homeless shelter founder; or with Daniel, the South Boston boy in pain; or with Fred, the one who called me on my refusal to change; or with Eduardo, the one who waits). They are all outstanding friends, and I'd say I love them but if I loved them, I'd let go this fear and be with them. Instead, I'm here with you. And "...what about you? Is everything OK, for you? And if you were an old friend, with whom I had a history, would I care?"
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