Reasons for crawling into a bottle of Southern Comfort

Trip guide: St. Christopher

About a week or so before I finally left, things had gone from bad to worse. We bickered constantly. "I love you, I hate you." Axis one bipolar plus axis two borderline in a relationship is a match made in hell. Things would go well, and then I'd notice one or two things to be inconsistent with stories she had told me. Receipts would come up around or in our house for places she claimed to not have visited, on days in which she told me she was at work or school. She began arriving home from her classes nearly every day with another man, one I wasn't introduced to at any point. I think my naturally occurring sense of inadequacy could have permitted this if I weren't already feeling like I was fighting a losing battle.

Every promise that had ever been made to me was broken already. The tension was building. Anyway, we were fucking as much as we were fighting, and that kept things rolling on a purely biological level for some time. But in the final week before I finally knew I had to leave for my own emotional and physical well being, she would kick me out nearly once a night, ultimately always coming after me after she or I had packed my bags and telling me not to leave. "I love you, I hate you. Go, don't go. Stay."

Like many other couples, at the end of the day, we didn't find much in common to talk about. Our days were spent eating out, or drinking expensive whole bean coffee. Or eating expensive gourmet chocolate. Or drinking expensive gourmet top shelf booze. Smoking expensive medicinal marijuana. Completely bourgeois sensibilities. I gained about 20 pounds in three months time. On the surface I was fat and complacent, one might have even argued that I was happy. But my inner life, my intellectual life and emotional growth was stagnating. I felt alone. I knew that I loved her. I knew that she loved me. Or at least I thought that I knew these things, but somehow it wasn't enough to keep the lies from piling up. To keep the resentment from growing, and to keep the distance between us from accumulating with the speed of a runaway shortbus on a collision course with a happy young family on a Sunday picnic.

At night, we spooned and watched syndicated episodes of Twin Peaks. Or cartoons. We made love, if you could call it that. And for the sake of honesty, you really couldn't have called it that. I smoked an awful lot of dope. We went for long walks in the woods, but at the end of the day neither of us felt fulfilled or understood.

I remember the day I left. I stayed with the neighbors next door. Katherine had thrown me out again: This time, she wanted me gone. This time was different. So she packed my bags again, and by this I mean she took all of my shit and threw it into a pile on the floor and furiously stuffed it into the few remaining boxes that I had. By this point, I had traveled for some time and had very few things. It was very convenient when she actually wanted me to leave. I needed only to grab the few pieces of musical equipment I had brought with me, my journals and books, and the three pairs of jeans or a couple crumpled up socks, invariably crusted with semen, and wad them up into my suitcases and boxes. This continued for about a week's time before the last, final eviction notice. "I WANT YOU THE FUCK OUT. LEAVE NOW."

So I left that night, and as I said, stayed with the neighbors. Two of the men there have since become very friendly with Katherine. I don't know and I don't care. So it goes.

One could say that I loved her, in a sense. I loved her much more from afar, before we became involved and when I was still really capable of honest love. I really was never meant to be with her, not least of which because of the distance between us geographically. Some odds seem impossible for a reason. Around Christmas time she took a trip back to our hometown, where I was still living. To be fair, my life was every bit as stagnant there in the midwest as it had became in the final days living with Katherine in South Lake. She stayed with me for the most of two weeks, sleeping in my arms every night after hours of marathon sex. It was like being in high school again. In the morning, she would wake in my arms and kiss me and play with the hair on my chest. It drove me crazy, and I'd push her away to roll over on my side and attempt to get another few minutes or hours of sleep. It's funny how the little things mean the most, in retrospect.

At the time, I knew I cared about her. My rationale for not wanting to become involved with her was simple. I knew how these things ended. I knew she wasn't nearly as old or as wise or mature as she feigned at being, and for that matter, neither was I. It seemed more simple to tell her that I loved, or that I cared for her in the way that I attempt to care for all other humans. It was that simple. I want to love, not to be in love. I wish to inspire, not to possess. I never expected nor did I care to have a long term anything with Katherine. I kept my distance, even while being near her throughout those days, until one night when everything suddenly changed.

I don't know what it is about the tears of a woman. Realistically, I understand woman to be a savage and cruel being, often times capable of acting in ways many times more brutal than men. But the external frailty, the ability to weep and to move my heart- Such tenderness! Such warmth. I remember exactly the way her tears tasted the night she finally won me over, in spite of myself.

We had just finished making love. "The Boatman's Call" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds was droning on in the background, undoubtedly some song of a lost love taking a train back to the west or a long dead lover haunting the dreams of the narrator. She pressed hard into my arms and buried her face into my chest. At first, I thought it was just an attempt to move her body closer to mine, as if by pressing her face into my abdomen with all of her might, she could somehow manage to penetrate the physical and emotional border between lives. Then, the tears, those gushing salty waves of euphoria and melancholy, an ecstatic and sorrowful and tender emotional outburst. She raised her head above my arms and looked up directly into my eyes, a look so sweet and tender that it moved me to the very depths of my heart in a way that only a weeping lover ever could.

"I love you so much. Do you know that? I can't.... I am so afraid. I am so, just so FUCKING AFRAID, that you will not love me in the way that I love you." She gazed into me, locking eyes. Her cheeks were red, her eyelids smeared with the eyeliner and mascara that was now running down her face.

I was taken aback, only at first. Why were all the walls suddenly crumbling?  This was not in the game plan. This was a turning point, something critical was hanging in the balance here. I could only begin to fathom what it was, and even then I was in no way prepared for it.

"Katherine," I began. "I care about you very much. I have a problem. When I become involved with any one individual, I become blindsided. I often am unable to think or reason in the ways I would like to, as a person. My love for everyone, my love for other people, my life, becomes inhibited. You may not understand this, but my idea of perfect love is selfless love. And I don't think what you want from me is what either of us needs. Because the type of love you want from me is selfish. And it makes me selfish. You would come to see parts of who I am that you do not know, that you don't want to know. And it would never be because I didn't love you too much. You are consuming me already."

She began to cry harder. I felt her trembling in my arms. She looked like a scared little child. I wanted so badly then to hold her, to brush the hair back from her eyes and to tell her everything would be alright. I knew that it wouldn't. How could it? The type of aching I knew that she had felt, that she had felt now for years- an indescribable yearning, and aching to be wanted and loved and accepted, had to come from within herself. Just like it did with everyone else. How could I ever be anything but a quick fix for such a lonely, fragile young girl?

"I only want you," she said. "I just want you."

She buried her face into my chest once more, and I felt her need. I knew that I loved her. Mentally, emotionally I knew that I wasn't prepared to give her what she felt she needed. Katherine was mad. She has always been mad. Anyone who knew Katherine would have told you that Katherine was mad. And they did. Three suicide attempts, one hospitalization, and one trip to the county jail for Katherine after I had shared this moment with her, and Katherine was still mad. And selfish, childish and cruel. And every bit as beautiful as she was the moment I met her.

What could I possibly offer that could deliver her from herself?

And I held her while she trembled in my arms.

"I love you too," I told her. And I took the plunge. I fell deep, fell endlessly, into what seemed to be a dark and yawning void. It swallowed both of us. In the months to follow, through the blood and the intoxicated fucks, the shouting and the laughter, the light and the darkness and the frustrated attempts between both of us to reconcile the differences, that simple decision and the path taken that evening has made all of the difference.

And it is the reason that I am sitting here, somewhat embittered, a good deal wiser and a whole hell of a lot older, writing this to you now. I am 25 this month. I have no job, or permanent residence. No real lucrative future career prospects. I am homeless, roaming from place to place in Southern California, living hand to mouth and very badly shaken. And very much intoxicated. This is the path of love, and what they often don't tell you in the Disney movies. Love is not pleasure. It is not "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." Love is blood, and entrails, and dying baby birds. Love is aborted dreams, snuffed out candle flames and broken wine bottles. We don't follow the path of love because we want it. We do it because we have to, as if by some invisible compulsion towards a maddening and already foreseen disaster: A beautiful trainwreck.

You can chart relationships in a sort of a flight pattern. The plane takes off, it reaches its natural apex, it plateaus and, in the case of some genuinely lucky sons of bitches, it lands safely and all of its passengers depart to their respective locations, unshaken. My relationships, in hindsight, seem to be Boeing 747s flown by developmentally disabled chimpanzees: they never quite make it off the ground until they are well past the runway. The landing wheels and gears scrape against the natural terrain of the lay of the land, and when they finally do make it off the ground they don't stay in the air for very long. No, they come crashing to the ground when the chimp decides to nose dive into a school bus full of small, innocent young children which is in itself on a crash course with a schoolhouse full of smaller, more innocent young children. Add about 40 gallons of nitroglycerine to this volatile concoction, and viola! The Katherine affair.... The horror!

Reasons for crawling into a bottle of Southern Comfort:

I still remember the way that her hair smells.

I can't quite convince myself I am better off without her.

Was it all her, the violated personal boundaries I tried in vain to establish, the lies and the trickery, or was it my pride? Did I take a stand when I should have shown my belly? Could I have been happier if I were a dog person, rather than a cat person?  Did I zig when I should have zagged?

Could there ever be hope for us again?

Does it cause more pain to entertain that thought, or to banish it completely from my mind forever? Are all of the bridges burnt?

Can I do this again? Would I even want to?

Will I die alone?

So when Mickey, our good Samaritan neighbor who has since become very friendly with Katherine, agreed to drive me to Sacramento where I would catch the bus to San Fran and meet up with Salvatore, I was all smiles. I knew, at the time, that I was finally getting myself FREE. No more watching Katherine feign interest when I'd describe to her in detail the various pieces of writing, music I had produced, or projects in the works that meant so much to me. No more listening to her describe her frustrating, pointless day as a waitress being shit on by her patrons and verbally abused by her amphetamine riddled coworkers. No more fucking, no more fighting, no more get the hell outs and let's stay togethers. No more shrinking from her touch like a coward, during the countless anxiety attacks I suffered that I was convinced were completely a result of her overbearing and stifling presence. I knew my life would be that much easier. That getting free of Katherine was all I needed to become whole, to find myself anew and to start over with the numerous adventures and partners and Great Works I had convinced myself were waiting for me in the golden land of opportunities.

And I was wrong. I'll swallow my pride, which has usually done more harm to me than it has good ultimately and tell you that here and now.

And I said a quick prayer to St. Christopher, the patron saint of travelers, and Mickey and Terry got into their Jeep with me and we left South Lake. And on the way out of town, I took pictures of its beautiful mountains and lakes and hills that I had taken for granted with all of my bickering with Katherine for so long. And I didn't look back. At least, until we made it to Sacramento.

I pulled up to the depot minutes before they closed, and managed to buy a ticket by bribing a fat office worker to let me in and order a one way to San Francisco. I sat and watched the trains go by in the yard, took my boots and socks off and let my tired feet breathe in the air. The sun was shining. The breeze was cool, but it was hot. There wasn't a cloud in the beautiful blue sky above.

And when the bus pulled up, I grabbed my cardboard box and my one duffel bag and my backpack and I hopped on, just in time before the driver left without me. I must have been a comical sight, hundreds of dollars worth of musical equipment falling out of cardboard box onto the concrete, sprinting to make it to the door of the bus before the driver left without me. I handed him my ticket and hopped on.

And I have been drifting from town to town, house to house, on benders and hallucinations and dreams and rambling incoherently to anyone kind enough to listen ever since.