No bullshit

I wasn’t very bonded with my father, and I haven’t grieved his death much. I was surprised at the more normal emotional reactions of my siblings and have kept silent out of respect for them and my mom. Guess it was just me.

But a year and a half later now, at a sunset singing circle overlooking the Hudson, I hear his voice, shy for once, singing the old tunes. I’d forgotten he’d liked to sing and forgotten he was self conscious about it. He sings with me, and more than once I have to stop so I don’t cry.

I found a voice memo in which I described this dream. Listening, I remember it, but I no longer feel the dream. It was a powerful dream then, and now it just seems like a story:

I dreamt of a collective unconsciousness. There were a thousand of us maybe. All of our minds, pooled together, to lay the smallest of hand on a frozen child. Together, we gently opened her mouth, maybe a quarter of an inch, and called it victory.

I think it was like reiki, we pooled the energy of the universe to try to save her.

I woke at dawn, as usual, but then went back into heavy sleep. I was a grifter, in a family of grifters. We were running a scam that involved scanning cell phone conversations from a device called an Oculus. I was carrying the Oculus in a black bag, the rest of the family all had their roles. At one point we were in a park, and then in a car — we were traveling, and stopped at a motel. All of the bags were in the hallway, by the elevator, as we sorted out our rooms. I was supposed to keep an eye on the Oculus at all times, but I must have gotten distracted, and it was missing. I went into my room — a suite, really, with a couple of rooms — and two bad guys followed me in. They were menacing, threatening, but not overtly at first. They were searching for the Oculus and I thought they already had it, but they kept asking me about it. One was youngish, a thug, overweight and shiny, and he leered at me and leaned in to kiss me. It was clearly about power, and intended as an assault. I knew I couldn’t get away, but I also couldn’t resist because they had the Oculus and I needed it back, so I tried to accept it as passively as I could under the circumstances. It was awful. He made some awful comment, I don’t remember now, and they left. I realized he had hacked my Facebook account and put up some crazy posts, and I started to delete them but realized I was late for family dinner, so I changed and went back into the hallway and met up with my (dream) mom. Somewhere in there, there was also something about a swimming pool, but I forget what now. Mom was happy to see me and I took her arm to escort her down to the dining hall. I was able to confide to her everything that happened, and she was helping me plan what to do next when I woke up.

Awake, I realized that in my dream, I was young, maybe 20s, and that it was the first time I could remember having a dream where my POV was completely invested but I was a different age. My dream mom was probably my actual current age. She was awesome. I also still felt a little like I’d been sexually assaulted.

Sexually, he’s attentive and highly skilled. He cares about my pleasure. He takes his own, easily and without fuss or challenge. His body is close to physically perfect. I love the sight of him. I find it hard to sleep next to him. He’s always polite, never assuming. He always wears a condom (except that once, when he was really, really drunk). He’s funny, and he tells me stories. I enjoy his company. We want nothing more from each other than the pleasant company we keep.

Been a while, dear reader. In just over two months this year,

I went to:

• -Iceland
• -Miami
• -The Everglades
• -Virginia
• -London
• -Virginia
• -Atlantic City

I got a new boss. My father died. I sold my apartment. I found a new apartment, and moved.

If I can survive Q1 2016, I can survive anything.

More later.

I can’t help it. I view every suicide as a failure — mine. Ours. We could have done more.

Ultimately, he died alone, and he died because he thought he was alone. He was our friend. He was my friend. I knew he wasn’t okay but I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t think it would end like this. We weren’t that close. Someone else could have stepped in. We should have stepped in.

It’s my fault. It’s our fault. He died alone, and he died because he thought he was alone.

My heart is breaking. We could have done more.

RIP Dave.

Summer’s over and G. called up for a dinner date, the son now safely ensconced up at university. Dinner, a drink back at his place, stayed over as usual but he didn’t fuck me. I sucked him for a while, and he liked it but didn’t come, and he barely fondled me. He did, however, bring me a gift from Paris, and invite me up to his country place. I think he’s just getting older. Not sure how I feel about this change – it’s not like I like him so much that a sex-less relationship is going to cut it.

We get together more regularly now, my old friends and I. I try to make sure to see them when I go down to see my parents, which is more often now that Dad is so frail. But after a certain number of beers, the conversation inevitably turns to the tragedies. I know not everyone had teen years like these. I’ve met a lot of people over the years, and  I know this isn’t normal. After dinner, we drink and talk about our dead friends. We’re damaged, B. maybe most of all, he was in the room when D. shot Leon., but all of us, interrelated in our damage for sure. Maybe it helps to talk about it, at least it’s not a secret here. But I can’t have the same conversation over & over. It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have done anything more. We tried. We failed.

My father has not been well. He’s 86, a multiple cancer survivor, and he’s tired. He’s frail. He’s 139 pounds and 6’1″. His legs are about the circumference of my arms. He looks like the pure instantiation of will.

I was visiting this weekend to help out and run errands. We bought him a new suit, a statement of hope that he will be here to go to the next party. But he also had me type up the details of his career for his obituary. He wants to be remembered for what he did, who he helped, that he made a mark in this world. I can feel him pulling back. He’s almost ready.

I’m not afraid of death, and I’m not opposed to choosing your time to go. But I cried on the train home.

It’s the weekend before 9/11 and I am coming back home to the city on Amtrak. We pull out of Newark and around that curve and I don’t see the new tower, I don’t see the current landscape at all, all I can see is that burning plume of smoke through my tears.

I took an overnight train Thursday into Friday that week in 2001, a train chock full of heartbroken New Yorkers, all of us desperate to return home. Most of us had been up since Tuesday and crying and/or drinking ever since.I had been drinking vodka nonstop since Chicago. It doesn’t actually dull the pain but it made me feel like I was trying.

We all knew what had happened, we had watched every detail on tv. But this was our home, and we hadn’t been there, and we had this unbearable compulsion to bear witness, to help, to just fucking be there.

We came around the curve, and there was a collective sob. We gasped. A few of us wailed. You couldn’t breathe. All you could see was this hole in the skyline, these giant plumes of smoke rising high in the sky. The train practically tipped over, every single one of us staring at the eastern skyline and what wasn’t there.