The Last Time I Fell, part 2

This is not a new year's post.
This is my therapy.
This is for me.
This is a really long one.
And there's another part to come.

Don't read it if you don't want to.
Skip down to Six's interview questions. Or read my interview answers.

But I'm gonna work through this part of my life, hell or high water.
And for what it's worth... this still isn't the really pathetic part.
Aren't you excited?

(Tonight, of course, will be a night off. I intend to sterilize my emotions with pure ethanol. Woo-hoo!)
--

(read part 1)

The future...the past. Old friends long gone.
For a good year after that, it was pretty good between us.

We each had our own mix of friends, but I considered myself lucky that I could be part of his life.

He was really a good friend to me.

I had no illusions about him being gay. He had the usual girl troubles - and, I'll add, they wanted him very badly. See, he had this kind of who-gives-a-shit rebel personality about him. Not overwhelming and obnoxious. Just a strong aroma of "bad boy" attitude. And that drove girls wild, it seemed. Obviously, I liked it too.

But I saw he was deeper than that, in my eyes. He had a strong moral streak. And that made me like him so much more.

Down deep, I adored him. But I wasn't in love. I wasn't. It was different, it was platonic.

Look, I'll tell you when it happened. Not yet.
--

Do or Do Not
During this time, I was still in the emotional aftermath of getting over the Kid.

But I was trying to lift myself out of it. And, finally, as I was
emerging back into the sunlight, I moved into a house on campus where my friend lived with some other guys who were mutual friends. It was because of all them that I moved there. But he had a special place in my heart.

You would think being there would have made it all better.

But that's when my world began to turn again.

Now that I was living in this new place, over the months, I actually started feeling more distant from my friend.

And, once again, sad and angry.

This time not for love – this time for what I felt would be the loss of someone I cared about very much.

Why?

I realized I'd reached a wall…

Remember, at this time, I still had no outlet - no one in the world to talk to about being gay. I had no social net for this. I knew how to take care of the physical but not the real, the important stuff.

So, the way I saw it, a real good friend was someone with whom you could share a lot about yourself - without fear. And I felt at a loss that I couldn't share the one part of me that was "the big secret".

And for good reason. I had seen many examples of why that might be a bad idea with him. I didn't sense he had any respect for gays.

But I knew I didn't want to go through this kind of resentment again.
I had to take some kind of action - and I knew I'd have no help from anyone, this time.
It had to be on my own.

So how to bring it up? I could never relax my inhibitions enough to hear that emotional signal to DO IT NOW – SAY IT!
--

Always with you it cannot be done. Hear you nothing that I say?
And then I thought of a way to force the issue.

See, he was taking a lot of theater type classes – he was thinking about acting.
And in one of these classes he learned a game…

In this game, two people would improvise themselves into an emotional clash. It was to be a fake situation that invoked real emotions as a way to coax people out of their protective shells.

He had played this game with other friends, though hadn't tried with me. And I really wanted to play.

I knew this was the way to do it. I figured I could act my way into a frenzy, if I wanted to. The trick was to bring to argument to the end that I really needed.

I knew how I'd start it.
I knew how I wanted it to end.

And this time, this time, thing's were gonna be different.
--

"What's in there?" ... "Only what you take with you"
It was now a rare moment, the two of us alone, chatting and drinking in the basement pool room. No one else was around.
Somehow, we got the discussion around to the game.

And he was into playing it with me.
While he told me the basic form, I braced myself.

And we began.

(this one I am trying to piece together from the remnants of memory. I don’t remember much about the middle, except the emotional release. Any random names are fake, natch)

Atari: I’m really pissed at you.
Him: Why?
Atari: You remember the party last week?
Him: Yeah
Atari: You really insulted a friend of mine…
Him: What are you talking about?

Atari: Remember Mark was there? You balled into him and called him a fat fuck, and then shoved him out of the room!
Him: I did not!
Atari: Fuck you! I was standing in the same goddam room and you totally ripped into a friend of mine!
Him: OK, look, he was being a real jerk; his sorta said some fucked up things to Lisa
Atari: Oh bullshit! You know he’d never pull shit like that!
Him: So why the hell else would I have said something like that?
Atari: How the fuck should I know. Maybe it’s cause you’re a goddam asshole!

Him: What?!?
Atari: You think you’re so high above anyone else, you’re better looking, richer, and more deserving than anyone else. People like Mark piss you off, you think they’re losers and you’re the winner.
Him: What the fuck? That’s so bullshit!
Atari: And you’re the same with me.
Him: WHAT?!!
Atari: Look, I know you like to tolerate people like Mark and me. I dunno, you think you wanna do something good and be nice and give them pointers in life, like we're little pets that need petting, but I don’t believe you anymore. I don’t. You don't give a shit.

Him: what… … ?
Atari: It’s the truth. Tell me I’m wrong.
Him: why are you saying this, man?

Atari: Cause I need to. I can't keep this inside anymore...
--

Will he finish what he begins?
During this, we’d moved around the room a bit. By this point I remember I was sitting on the edge of the pool table. He was in front of me, facing perpendicular, looking out, long past me.

He paused.

We'd been yelling. It was real, just the dialog was false. Well, most of it.
But now, we'd fallen quiet. Something I said, I think, actually hurt him a little. That’s what I remember, anyway.

Then, he looked contemplative:

Him: You were pushed around back in school, when you were a kid, weren’t you? You you bullied.
Atari: No. Actually, not that much. I keep thinking I must have been. But it wasn’t as bad as others had it.

Pause

Him: Why are you so mad at me?
Atari: I told you!
Him: No. Why? Really why?

Pause

Atari: I… I feel like you’re not a friend anymore
Him: why?
Atari: Cause I can’t talk with you any more.
Him: Maybe I noticed that, but why?
Atari: Cause I can’t be honest with you.

He looks straight at me.
I'm slowly curling myself up on the pool table, sitting down on the green, knees to chin.

Him: Honest about what?
Atari: about me…
Him: what about you…?
Atari: …
Him: …

He takes a long breath.
I’m not breathing.

He crouches down, closer to me.
But I can’t see… my eyes are looking at my kneecaps.

“Look…” he almost whispers, in a gentle voice, “it’s not that I think this is true, not that people would think you are, but… are you… are you…”
“DON’T!” I snap in a sob, then whisper, “Just... don’t... say it”

He gently straightens up.
“You’re not acting.”
I slowly shake my head.

And he turns and walks out of the room and out of my life forever…
That's how I realize this will end.
--

You will know... when you are calm, at peace
But he was still there.

He didn’t hate me.
He had some problems with it, but he seemed to care about me enough that he’d work with it. That’s my sketchy memory of it.

I cried in front of him. I remember that.
Cried into my arms to hide my tears.
But then I just sobbed.

“I won’t tell anyone,” he offered.
“I know,” I said, knowing with all my heart that he'd never hurt me. He was a good man, and I believed it.

Even though I had never said “the words”, I had done it. I’d made it known, directly, that I was gay. The big fucking secret.

And I wept at the journey.
And who it ended with.

We talked a lot more for a while.
A long while.

And I looked at him.

I hadn’t lost him.

He was still there.
--

"I don't - I don't believe it." ... "That... is why you fail."
Finally, he needed to go to bed.
And there’s one bit of memory that I think is pure fantasy, but it lingers anyway.
Purely as a sign of friendship, he kissed me on the cheek.

I remember going to sleep thinking “mostly, you did what you set out to do. You didn’t think this would go the way you hoped, since it never does - but it did. And he hasn’t abandoned you. The world isn’t completely against you.”

And maybe it wasn’t.

This should have ushered in something really good in my life. A great and unlikely friend who understood my deal, and still wanted me to be happy somehow. Maybe that might have even given me the strength to open up to others, to explore, to meet guys that would like me, to learn about the larger world outside of my mind.
And to still have this wonderful person as a friend.

Yeah. Maybe the world wasn’t against me.

But, apparently, *I* was.

Because, after all this work was done... I destroyed everything.

(see part 3, in which I end this.)