projectionist
I was talking to my friend Ellen that same night, an older lady, in the winter of her life. Beautiful nonetheless. I was friends with her boyfriend first, Big Iron Bill. Black cowboy, vietnam vet, incredibly charismatic! still handsome at his age, real stallion. Beat cancer several times, the most incredible stories. Apparently when he was born, you had to mail notice to some office somewhere before you could get a birth certificate, someone would have to take it on horse back. He was born in the south, jim crow and segregation still haunted the black population down there. He said it took so long to get your notice to the office, that they’d just say your birthday was the day they received the letter giving notice of your birth. So his official birthday, on his government papers is a month and some change after his actual day of birth. Told me about how the birds would alert Vietnamese guerrilla fighters about US army movements, and about what it was like playing football with the scraps, the hand me downs from the rich white suburban kids and still whooping their asses. Incredible guy. One day he said, “Ellen sure loves you, I asked her if she were younger if she’d marry you and she said yes!” I told him to tell her I’d have her as she is now, and I meant it. I mean it when I say she’s beautiful, and that I would have her as she is now, I’ve thought often about what it would be like to bed her.
Ellen told me that night, Bill is currently recovering from having a pacemaker put in, and that he also has bladder cancer he’ll be having surgery for. It isn’t his first one. For weeks, months now I’ve been thinking that I should ask if I can visit him in his home, I want to see him before anything should happen. I mentioned it to her that night, she said it can’t hurt to ask, I’m not sure if she knew I was asking her to ask for me. Bill is an old school sort of man. We always shook hands while Ellen and I always hugged. I’m not sure he’s keen on that sort of sentimentality, though he did often mention the poetry he’d write when the night terrors woke him up. Ellen and I got close when she told me about her husband who had passed away many years ago, she’s the only person I knew personally who knew what it was like for someone you love romantically to just up and die on you, she was the only person I knew who swallowed as much grief as I do. If Bill passes before her, she’ll have to go through it all again.
I’ve survived again. I’m told some new friends from work were speaking about me at a bar the other night (I was not present) and asking the friend we had in common all sorts of questions about me, my travels, etc. Apparently a lot of the answers and stories ended up being about the handful of very near death experiences I keep running into. Today one of them asked about how to travel around and when I mentioned that some places are dangerous for colored folks as I’ve experienced he said “oh yeah I heard about that!” very odd to me that I exist in the minds of others. Cancer scare, overdose number one, two, three, Malaria god knows how many times exactly and yet I keep. waking. up. In hindsight, in every instance of hindsight though, I’m glad to have woken up, because there were things I experienced that truly made me grateful to be a conscious entity. Hawaii, into the spiderverse 2, that pussy in particular, the ratatouille, so on and so forth. You’d think that would be enough lessons and examples for me to always remember there’s something to look forward to when my phantoms come to drown me every 2-4 weeks, but I forget every time. When it’s happening, it feels like truly nothing is worth it. Walking home the other night they began to sink me again. I thought about my family, my ailments, my poverty, my physicality, everything. Lastly I thought of my wife, and the most devastating sentence entered my mind . “if they were still in my life, i could very easily, quite enthusiastically, and perhaps even happily deal with everything that ails me. I’d face and conquer anything with them by my side. for them.” But not for myself. It’s a bit pathetic, I can only live and do things in the name of other people. Only for you mon cœur. That’s not very attractive I know, but you became my entire universe. Though as time goes on I understand more and more why it’s hard to be with someone like me so I am making peace with it slowly. Making peace with it however, doesn’t seem to set me free. I wish I could also see what everyone else sees in me. All this on my mind that night, of course I could not go to the bar with everyone. It feels dangerous to drink around people when I’m in such a state.
One odd comfort of being so severely estranged from my family is that I never have to hear about it when anyone dies. It’s my single greatest fear, and it’s inevitable. I wish I would die before all of them, despite everything, despite the anger, dejection, wailing and gnashing of teeth, I love them so so dearly. It would shatter me even further to receive such bad news. I realized last night, or perhaps this morning, sometimes in between lapses of consciousness… I realized, I’ve already mourned my family, and I’m already living life after them, and actually, I’m fine.
When Ellen and I were talking that night, she asked me to tell her a story about this darling ex I just couldn’t seem to get over. So I told her about how almost every day, if not every day, they would have some sort of ice cream or similar cold treat, and how we’d always go scoping out for new ice cream spots or new flavors when we were grocery shopping. Ellen responded by saying, “you must have a beautiful map of ice cream spots in your heart.” I never thought of it but it’s true. I can tell you all the best places to get ice cream in Massachusetts.
My best friend got married on Saturday. Everyone was there, all our friends from middle school and beyond. The whole boys night crew even. All of us best men, but I was missing, I wasn’t there. Couldn’t make it. I hope my absence wasn’t felt. I hope my absence is never felt. I turn 27 in a few months. It always seemed so far away, and now it’s here.
