We Spoke

Holy Shit!
So much has happened so fast.

I have a lot to tell you guys and I don't really have the energy to do it, but I'll at least try to start...

Yesterday I was in the midst of a crazy stressful day. I had no time to eat, no cash on me (or in the bank, as I'm waiting for a paycheck and a student loan to go through) and loads of work to do. Everything was going along fine until sometime around 6:30 when my entire body was filled with an overwhelming nauseating urge to call Narc. I had just disembarked from the 34th street crosstown bus and was standing on 10th avenue to get the M11 going North.

Don't do it, Hyde! said the little angel on my shoulder.

Why not? demanded the devil. It's not a big deal! In fact, you can just make the call and then push it out of your mind and pretend it never happened!

Just scrap it? I asked the devil, increduoulsy.

Absolutely!

Okay...here it goes!

"Hey Narc, it's Hyde. I'm just calling to say hi. I got your messages on Tuesday night, and so... um, well I thought I'd give you a call back and see how your trip was. Just wanted to see what you're up to. I'm on my way to teach now. I have a crazy schedule this semester--teaching til late on Tuesday and Thursday nights. It sucks. Anyway, I just wanted to return your calls and check in. Hope you're doing okay. Um... alright... Bye."

As soon as I hung up the phone, I felt nervous. Sickeningly nervous!

Forget it Hyde! Just pretend it didn't happen. Put it out of your mind and go to class!

I sent Hammer a text to tell her what I had done. Gonna scrap it! I wrote.

And from there I went to administer a midterm exam.

When I got out of class, I paused to light a cigarette and turn on my cell phone. I had three new messages. Wait.... Could it be? What the fuck??? One of them from Narc?!?!? I breezed through the first message from my mom. The second was from Hammer.

"Hey Hyde! I'm out with Val. Call us!"

Okay, okay...

And then, the message from Narc:

Hey, What's going on? It's me... Trying you back at about, uh, I don't know, 9:00 here on Thursday. Guess you're still in class. Was gonna see if you wanted to pop on down and watch the Apprentice. But you're probably in class a little bit longer. Um... Well... Yeah, I don't know. Give me a call back when you get this. Alright. Bye.

I was flying!!! My heart flipped over and over in my chest and I couldn't breathe. I could feel my pulse racing, my stomach churning and I literally felt my like my feet were lifted off the ground. My face grew hot as my cheeks were flushed. It must seem like I'm dramatizing here, but I'm not. I was that half-crazed by the call. (When I told this part of the story to B, he couldn't believe it. "Over Narc? That asshole!" he exclaimed. Then he called me a "sick fuck." It made me laugh).

Anyway, I had to do something to pull myself back to the ground. NDN was having dinner with his grandpa, Hammer and Val weren't picking up the phone. But I knew exactly who to call at a time like that-- Sunshine!

She was a godsend on the phone. She totally calmed me down and gave me some perspective. It's good to have girl-friends around when you need them! I talked to her for the entire bus ride home, and once off the bus we continued on the phone as I wove through the Second Avenue crowds. (Once you hit Thursday-Saturday, there are always clusters of people clogging up sidewalk traffic, smoking outside bars). We basically agreed that I should get something for dinner, go home, unwind, and clear my head before calling him. We also agreed that I shouldn't go see him that night. Fine. I stopped for Chinese take-out, proceeded back to my place, and got home at around 10:00 pm.

According to plan, I kicked off my shoes, started my dinner and tried to get myself into "stay at home" mode. At about 10:30 or so, I decided to call him back. He didn't pick up until the fourth ring or so. It made me nervous all over again.

"Hey, what's up?" he answered

"Just calling you back," I said.

Now, normally, I would transcribe the entire conversation, but in the interest of time and my own sanity, I'm going to try to cut some corners and just give you the highlights.

When I asked him about his trip, he told me it was "not what he expected."

"Why not? Didn't you have fun?"

"I thought it would be more partying," he sighed. "It was too much running around from one city to the next."

"Were the people cool, at least?"

"Yeah, there were some nice people. A huge group of Australians. I don't know. I just thought it would revitalize me somehow, but it didn't. And I was sick for the whole last leg of the trip."

"Oh no! What went wrong?"

"Pneumonia."

"What? Narc, that's awful! Did you go see a doctor?"

"Yeah. In Amesterdam. I was literally at death's door. I couldn't breathe or anything, but I was trying to ride it out."

He was milking it. He SO wanted me to give him "mothering" and attention.

"Then they gave me some amoxicillan, but it turns out I'm immune to it," he went on. "I was collapsing by the time I got back to NY."

"I can't believe it!" I said, trying to pour pity into my voice. "I hope someone there looked out for you. Are you feeling any better now?"

"Yeah. I'm pretty much better."

"Poor you! And you had to come back to that awful week of rain!"

"I know."

"So, what have you been doing since you've been back?"

"I don't know. Catching up with friends, I guess. I saw CouchSleeper the other night, but not James. His crazy wife won't let him out of the house. She's always pissed at me for something. It's like she won't let him see me specifically. I don't know. I feel like everyone's busy these days."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, people are just not getting back to me. I thought I had all these friends, but then they all just disappear."

"Why is that?"

"I don't know. They're all coupled-up, I guess."

"But still... That shouldn't be a reason for them to neglect you," I said.

"Yeah. I guess I'm just not that important to anyone. I'm not a priority to anyone. Maybe I should just go off in the corner somewhere and shrivel up and die."

(I'm serious--that's just what he said.)

The real Hyde thought to herself: What the fuck? Why are you so self-pitying? You're acting like no one cares about you when all I do is think about you and hope for your happiness and come running whenever you need me, but it doesn't seem to count for anything, does it? Do you not realize how much I care about you? Stop being so pathetic. Get over yourself!

But that's not what I said to him. Instead, I cried out...

"Don't say that, Narc! C'mon! That's awful. And it's not true. You know your friends care about you! People just get busy. Don't say things like that. Maybe you just need to find a way to meet some new people."

"Like how?"

"I don't know... Think outside the box or something."

I told him about the new people I met at that party of singers NDN and I went to last week (I still haven't posted about it here... I'm getting to it!)

"Well, what have you been up to?" he asked.

"Oh, just school, I guess. I have a crazy schedule this semester... teaching three classes and taking two. And I have my choir for three hours on Wednesdays. And then voice lessons twice a week. And therapy. And a variety of family obligations. And then just hanging out with NDN, Hammer and B, and that keeps me pretty booked."

I went on to tell him how much I absolutely LOVE my choir (I do! I do!), how I'm really enjoying my classes, and the new professor at our school seems really cool, how I got a great teaching evaluation, how my voice is getting stronger now that I've cut the coke out of my diet, save for once a month or so.

"So Hammer's back from D.C.? How are she and the Wizard?" he asked.

"Oh... They broke up. But she's good. She was internet dating for a little while there. And she's seeing the Arch now."

He was sad about their breakup. He went on to tell me some story about bumping into a girl on the subway this week-- a girl he had been on an internet-date with two years ago or so. Then he told me about a cool new restaurant that opened in his neighborhood called "Ninja." It's some kind of pricey Japanese place in a cavernous setting where you get served by "ninjas." (Narc is really into the whole Ninja thing). A meal there will run you about $125 a person.

"Well, that won't be happening for me anytime soon," I said. "I'm pretty strapped for cash at the moment. A summer of boozing and taxi-cabs will get you every time!"

"I know, I know!" he laughed. "My lease is coming up pretty soon and I've got to decide whether or not to renew. Oh! Speaking of which, you know the Exhibitionist, right?"

Do I know the Exhibitionist? What kind of fucked up question is that? We've only had, what, two major fights about her?

"Yeah, I remember her."

"Well, she's become a prostitute."

"Wait-- what?!?! You're not serious, right?"

"Dead serious, Hyde. I tried to talk her out of it, but I couldn't."

"I don't get it. Why???"

"She's taking a new apartment in the West Village--Hudson and Charles, I think, and she can't really afford it."

"That's ridiculous," I insisited. "Is she working for an escort service or something?"

"No. Nothing like that. Just CraigsList. She's just meeting guys who want sex and are willing to pay her for it. I think she said she met a married guy from Long Island who wants to fuck her at $500 a pop once a week!"

"Does she realize how dangerous that is?'

"That's what I tried to tell her. Maybe I should stage an intervention or something."

Why were we spending so much time talking about the Exhibitionist? He likes to play games with me.

"I don't know, Narc. That's just sad. I feel bad for her. I hope she's okay, that's all."

"Yeah, me too," he said. "She's got issues, though, I guess."

"But wait-- I thought you said she was a prude."

"Yeah, that's what I thought," he said. "She hasn't fucked anyone in like four years or something. Then she slept with some photographer friend of hers this summer and thought that just because he fucked her, he was her boyfriend. He wasn't her boyfriend, you know? She gets delusional about that stuff. So he kind of ignored her and then she got all upset about it..."

"That sucks," I said. "Sad."

Just then, he got a call on his other phone. It was the Exhibitionist. I could hear him through the phone. "And that was it?" he said. "I'll call you back in five minutes." I wondered if he was going to try to get me off the phone. Thankfully, he didn't.

"That was her? What happened?" I asked.

"She was supposed to meet some guy tonight. They had dinner, but then she didn't go through with it."

I wanted to change the subject.

"Well, what about you?" I asked. "How's all your movie stuff coming? I know you said you were going to get started as soon as you got back."

"Oh... that. Well, I haven't really started. It's just-- nothing's what I thought it would be. I've just been feeling really depressed and unmotivated. I don't know what it is. I just can't seem to get going. It's not taking off."

We went on about a few other things, but the entire time, the conversation had a kind of anxious underpinning. There were a few things that no one was saying but that were heavy between us:

• Was he going to apologize for what he did to me the last time I saw him and for the names he called me?
• Was I going to go over there that night.
• Were we going to continue to have sex in general?

Something had to be said. He ventured a try.

"Um... So, I still have your shirt here," he said, tentatively.

"My shirt?"

"Yeah. From the last time you were here. It's hanging in my closet."

"Oh, well, not a big deal," I was as casual as possible. "I replaced that shirt weeks ago!"

"You did?"

"Yeah. It was cheap... From Old Navy. So I just picked up a new one."

He was silent for a long time. I could tell it got to him. Score one for Hyde's dignity! Imaginary trumpets played a fanfare for me!

"Oh. Well, I was going to say you could come pick it up."

Why can't he just come flat out and say he WANTS to see me?

"I'm sure I can, at some point," I said, again, maintaining as casual a tone as could be. "But I don't know about tonight. I've got a lot to do."

"Like what? It's already 11:00."

"Well, just some work. I have a busy weekend ahead. I have speech therapy tomorrow and I'm going to the opera on Saturday with my mom...and then to my sister's niece's birthday party that night. Oh, and on Sunday morning, I'm going to see my brother in the hospital. You remember his accident right?"

"Oh, um, yeah..."

He seemed uncomfortable. I think it's because Narc was in a pretty bad car accident when he was 18 and ended up hospitalized for three months with tons of broken bones. As he tells it, no one came to see him even once. Not even his mother. So I think he feels a tinge of something when I talk about my brother. Plus it was the focal point of our February "break up."

"He just had the skull replacement surgery again," I went on. "Remember, they had to remove that chunk of skull 'cause of the brain swelling? Well, they're trying to replace it. So, I want to go see him."

"What are you in speech therapy for?" he asked.

"Abusing my voice when teaching and stuff. My teacher thinks its impacting my singing. Really, though? I think it's too much late night karaoke."

He laughed. I told him that I have to do strange exercises on "M" words like "milk" and "meat." He laughed at that too, when I gave him an example.

"So basically, I'm busy," I said. "But I'm sure I'll see you sometime soon."

"Oh. Well, okay, then."

"Are you gonna be up late tonight?" I asked.

"Yeah. I've been home moping all day today, and I slept in really late, so I don't expect to be able to get to sleep any time soon. I'll probably be pacing around and watching TV til the wee hours."

"Alright then. Maybe I'll give you a call later if I change my mind, or if I can't sleep."

"Okay."

We hung up the phone. I heard angels singing. :)

Right about then, NDN called and said he was on his way up in the elevator. I ran and cranked out a quickie post in my excitement, and then went to meet him. After I updated him on the whole Narc phone call, Hammer finally called me back. She had some exciting gossip. She was tipsy and hanging out with Val. Val's friend always goes to Bar and Books, one of Narc's favorite late night spots. She got on the phone with me and told me that she's seen Narc there several times. In fact, she had just seen him on Tuesday. She told me that he tried to "steal" her lighter and that the bartender refused to serve him at some point and asked him to leave the bar because he was too drunk.

"What time was that?" I asked.

"Around 2:00 am-ish. And I think he was by himself."

Interesting... So he left Bar and Books and went to the Village Tavern and then called me at 2:30 am or so and left me those stupid messages.

I had a good laugh with the girls about that. Pretty pathetic on Narc's part, right? (Shit! As I just wrote this, I got a small swelling pain in my heart for him. I don't want him to be sad and drinking alone. But there's nothing he will let me do for him.)

Anyway, I was so hyper and in SUCH an amazing mood after all of that, that I was just bouncing around my house in joy, hanging out with NDN. I felt victorious... As LavaLady would say, I had "hand" big time! I had turned down his invitation; I had told him that I wasn't holding out to get my shirt back; and I had him calling me at 9:00 pm while sober. What could be better?!?

Ah, but here's where Hyde becomes master of her own self-destructive universe...

"Wanna go to Cheers and get a drink with me?" I cheerfuly piped to NDN.

"Sure, but I can only stay for one."

And we were off!

The night was just beginning. And for the rest of the story, you'll have to wait. My typing fingers have had their fill of the keyboard for the moment!

Later!

-hyde-