On a Park Bench

I've had a really rough night tonight. I didn't get out of the house all day. I never went and took that walk. And I ignored phone calls all afternoon.

I finally got up and got dressed at around 6:00 pm. I had agreed to go to a meeting with plans to meet my sponsor (Talis) for dinner afterwards. Meema called me just before the meeting and told me that she'd be there. I found her (in spite of the crowds) and we sat together. She gave me a present for my 90 days. "From your sober sister," she wrote.

Afterwards, Talis and I headed to dinner. It was the first chance I've had to have a really long talk with her. She is a lovely woman, young and very structured in her approach to "sponsorship." I think it's a good thing for me. Even so, it was hard for me to open up, and I have to be mindful of the ways I was judging her in my mind. I'm trying so hard to stay open and to overcome my narrowminded-ness at times.

Anyway, afterwards, I felt wired and I didn't want to go home. I felt unsettled-- not quite depressed, not quite anxious, but certainly not content. I talked to Brick on the phone for a few minutes and then to my mom as I walked home. Something was missing from me.

Missing, missing, missing...

And then I went to Cheers.

Why did I go to Cheers? I can't say. I just miss... miss myself. I miss my life. I miss Narc.

IrishBird was behind the bar. She kissed me hello and served me diet cokes. I was the only girl in the bar. I recognized a few others. None of the boys I know well, but a few men that were semi-regulars... I watched them watching baseball and drinking beer. The silver spouts on the bottles gleamed like sharp blades on sharp knives, slicing the air, lined up in rows. Perhaps my vision is getting worse, perhaps I was tired, or perhaps it was a trick of the mind, but the world was blurring. The bar was blurring.

I was tired.
No... I was not tired.

PumpedUp came up from below the bar and waved hello to me. IrishBird asked if I am still seeing Narc. Brick called me and was upset that I was at Cheers.

I hope u r not being complacent about ur recovery just because u have ninety days, he wrote to me.

I'm not being complacent. I'm being depressed/ testing or something. I'm fine. Just need to think tonight. Will call in a bit, I wrote back.

Brick was right, of course. But I didn't care. I honestly don't know what I was thinking, what I was doing. I don't know what I am thinking. I don't fucking know anything anymore. I left there at around 11:15 and I called Hammer.

It was good to talk to Hammer. I think that both in my (former?) obsession with Narc and my current immersion in "recovery," I often forget key pieces of myself-- the artistic/academic pieces of which Hammer always reminds me. We talked for nearly an hour before she had to go to get some sleep. She has been waking up early all summer, teaching out in Brooklyn.

When we hung up the phone, I lay back in my bed and let out a sigh. Then my phone rang. It was Narc.

Fuck.

Pick up?

No! Don't pick up! Let him leave a message.

No! Pick up!

Just--

I picked up. Of course I did.

Narc and I talked for over an hour. We just hung up a few minutes ago. I have so many mixed feelings right now that I don't know where to start. I just don't know. I feel so-- so many... I-- I just...

Hmm...

(Fuck. I hate this.)

Hmm...

I told him that I laid around and did "nothing" today. He said he did the same. His friend A is in town and the two of them went clubbing last night until nearly 4:00 am. (Flash-- you met A at Waikiki Wally's.) He said that tomorrow night he's going to a party with his new friend J-- a neighbor in his building. (I wondered if that's the girl he was with a few weeks ago when Brick bumped into him in Tribeca).

"She asked if I could get any stuff," he said. "I told her that I didn't have a dealer easy to get to right now."

It made me feel strange that he said that... that he's still doing that. I don't know how to tell you just how I feel right now, but... Anyway, he said that he was also out partying on Friday night. He went out with James.

"It was a real bender," he said.

He told me what had happened that night-- that the last thing he remembers was James leaving him in the Tavern.

"Then I woke up on a park bench," he said. "It was Saturday at around 1:00 pm. I was on the corner of Franklin and Lafayette. Can you believe it?"

"Narc! Are you kidding me? Wow..."

I thought of June, 2005, when Narc and I made out on a park bench. I wondered if it was the same one.

"Yeah. And I lost my glasses. Somehow my glasses ended up with James' doorman in the West Village. No clue about that. Weird right? I just woke up on the park bench."

"Were you sleeping upright? Or laying down?"

"Laying down. On my back. I mean, I guess it just looked like I was napping, right? Then I stumbled home... crashed out and played video games until late that night."

That's when he sent me that text to come distract him, I thought.

"Sounds like you guys has a fun night," I said. "I'm jealous. My partying days are over."

I DID feel jealous. But why? How could I be jealous when he woke up on a fucking park bench? What's wrong with me?

"Apparently so," he laughed. "So... what? You must have just hit your three months, right?"

"Yeah, I did! On Sunday... How did you know that?"

"Of course I know," he replied.

I told him that I've been going to AA.

"You don't need that," he laughed. "You've been fine on your own, right? And besides, they have all that God crap there."

"Narc, it's good, I think. I've been in so much transition, you know? So much fucking change. It's good to be around other people who have changed... are changing. And in terms of God, I can take it or leave it. I go to church all the time with B, but you don't see me claiming Christ as my personal savior, do you?"

"Yeah, I guess."

Why didn't I tell him that I believe in God? Because I'm a coward.

He told me to go sign up for some "meet-ups" instead. He doesn't want me to go to AA. I think he is scared. Narc doesn't really believe in "help."

Later we were talking about money.

"I just dropped a bundle in Miami," he said. "We hit all the best clubs, and of course, we were staying at the Ritz Carlton."

"Oh, okay."

So he took PopStarChick to the Ritz Carlton. Why was he telling me this?

"So... are you still planning on getting a job in September, Narc?"

"Yeah, I guess I have to. If I don't sell my script soon, that is."

"Are you even done writing it?"

"I have a major deadline on Monday, the 14th. There's a screenwriter's competition and I'm submitting."

"You better hurry."

"Yeah, but I have all these other obligations this week. The party with my neighbor tomorrow... and then going to hear PopStarChick's gig on Thursday."

"Hmm... So guess you don't want to hang out anytime soon..."

"No, I do. But I'll have to call you about it after Monday. Definitely we can, um... go out some time then, you know?"

I imagined him waking up on a park bench. I imagined him in his bed, my head on his chest. I imagined him opening the door. I imagined him kissing me. I wondered if he knows that I still love him. I wondered if he knows how much this hurts me.

***************************

I just took a break from writing this post because I noticed B online. It's now nearly 3:00 am. I always feel better after talking to B.

"You can't save him," he said.

"I don't even want to save him. I want to win," I replied. "But don't ever remind me that I said that, okay?"

When I started talking to B, I was in tears. I stared at the computer numbly. My cheeks were hot. And every now and then, I'd get a surge of pain in my chest, a welling of sadness that was unbearable until it passed. When I finished the conversation, I felt a strange mixture of anger and self-disgust.

"I guess stupid PopStarChick can be happy with her boyfriend who wakes up on park benches and doesn't have a job," I wrote.

"Yeah, and he can be happy with a gold-digging mediocrity."

It's not like B to put people down. I thought it was sweet he said that for me.

The bottom line is this-- if I have really lost this one... if I really give up on my Narc project, then everything I've been through with him, all of the crap I've taken from him was for NOTHING. And that makes me feel worthless and flooded with pain and anger. I could forget everything, forgive everything, as long as I was in it. If it's over, and I start to see the bigger picture, all I can ask myself is WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE?

I'm really sad right now. Sad, angry, lonely, frustrated, confused. Wounded.

I don't feel like editing this post. I don't feel like checking to see what I left out of that Narc conversation or if things make sense in the order in which I wrote them. I'm just leaving it raw for now, that's all...

Fuck. I want a drink. I'm going to try to get some sleep.

-h-