Going Down

Ugh! I've waited too long to blog! Not only are the details of my dramatic Saturday night becoming hazy, but new events have reshaped the entire point of the story, and I'm not even sure where to begin. I guess I'll just try to fill in as much as I can remember from where I left off.

I was telling you all about last Saturday night-- the night of NDN's birthday party. At around 2:45 am, I set off to meet Narc at the Patriot. When I got there, I found him sitting in the upstairs area of the bar, reading the short story mentioned in my last post. He pulled up a stool for me and we began to make chit chat... mostly about how awful the aforementioned story was and about the party that he had been to.

"It was all pretentious Vassar graduates in black," he laughed. "I'm trying to be more fiery these days."

He held out his sleeve. I noticed that he was wearing a new jacket. It was a sort of silvery pink.

Anyway, the conversation went on like that for a little while.

"What are you doing with yourself these days?" he asked me. "How do you spend your evenings now that there's no more drinking?"

I think he wanted to know whether or not I'm seeing anybody.

"Well... I've been spending more time at home," I said. "I don't know... watching TV... relaxing. Oh-- and I've been going to AA meetings."

This was the first time I really admitted to Narc that I was going to AA. I never told him that I was doing outpatient rehab either. If you recall, when I stopped drinking, I gave him the ridiculous explanation that I was doing it "to lose weight."

Well, as I could have predicted, Narc made a scene.

"You can't be serious!" he exclaimed. "Tell me you're joking me!"

"It's not a joke... I like it. It's good for me. It's not a big deal."

"I don't even know you anymore! Fuck!" He slammed his fist down on the bar. "What happened to you, Hyde? Fuck! This all started when you got your new gay best friend. He did this to you!"

"My 'new gay best friend' has a name... it's Brick... And he didn't suck me into anything. For your information, I met him in an outpatient program that I signed myself up for in May."

His eyes widened.

"Yeah, I know... Surprise, surprise..." I smiled weakly.

I could see the way this was going to go and it wasn't going to be pretty.

Narc went on to argue with me for the next half hour. He told me that AA is a cult and that they're trying to "brainwash me."

"I don't think so, Narc," I sighed. "Besides-- shouldn't you have more faith in me than that? I have an independent mind. I can assess whether or not what they put out there makes sense to me and it does."

"Yeah, just like the Nazis made sense," he said.

"What?!?! That's a totally false analogy and I'm not going to even bother debating you if you're going to be so ridiculous."

Of course, I shouldn't have bothered debating him from the very start. I should have gotten up and walked out of the bar. I shouldn't have been IN the bar to begin with! Who the fuck do I think I am that I can walk into a bar at 3:00 am and under pressure from a man who has so much emotional sway over me, avoid a drink?!?

"You don't know you're being brainwashed, Hyde!" he said. "They make you think you're sick. That you have a disease."

"I do have a disease," I answered. "It's called alcoholism."

"Oh! Oh!" he slammed his hands on the bar again, as if I had just proven some dramatic point of his. "See!!! You're changing!" he exclaimed. "Who are you? Who is this girl? You know they're all about God, right? You're like one of those crazy middle-America Christians with all their God talk. I can't even talk to you anymore. What happened to my Hyde? To the girl I could talk to about anything?"

That hurt. He always knows how to get to me. So he can't talk to me anymore? So I've betrayed him? My stomach was knotting up.

"I'm not a crazy Christian, Narc," I sighed. "I don't believe in Christ. And even if I did, there's nothing wrong with that. It's my prerogative. If being a Christian-- even a 'crazy' Christian gives my life meaning, then it's none of your business!"

He was getting more and more worked up.

"Do you know what step three is, Hyde? Do you know what it is???"

"Of course...Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him."

"Exactly! You have no will of your own! It's craziness. That's how they get you!"

"Narc-- that's not what it's saying. And besides-- it's better that I turn my will over to 'God' than that I turn my will over to another person... to a false god... that I misplace myself, my trust, my heart... That's what I've been doing, you know. You know I have that hungering to worship. I know that you know."

He smiled at me and I laughed.

"Don't look at me like that, Narc."

"Yes, I know what you want, Hyde. I know how you are. You should have come to me. You should have come to me for this."

"I think that coming to you has been part of the problem."

"Hyde! I told you how to fix that so long ago," he sighed dramatically, as if exasperated with me.


"Oh?"

"I remember it. I remember it, so you can't tell me otherwise."

He was beginning to sway a bit on his barstool.

"Yes, I remember!" he went on. "We were in your kitchen. All coked up. You and me both-- all coked up. I was sitting on that stool. I remember. And I told you that all people have that void. And I told you that I was inventing a way to fill it..."

"Are you talking about your 'religion?'"

(This might take a little explaining... The month that Narc and I met, he told me that he had developed a brilliant religion. He gave the religion his last name (with an -ism ending). At the time he asked me to challenge his principles "if I dared to." I told him that I had no interest in attempting to shoot down someone else's religion. I thought he was such an ass before I fell for him... A real "narcissist.")

"Yes, Hyde! It had a lot of principles."

"So, you are the way for my life to have meaning?" I started to laugh.

"Look... what's step one? That you're POWERLESS. They tell you that you're POWERLESS so they can brainwash you!"

"First of all, there's no 'they.' Second of all, it's 'powerless over ALCOHOL,' not just powerless."

"You're not powerless over alcohol."

"Yes, I am."

He called across to the bartender and got a glass of Jack Daniels. He put it down in front of me.

"You're telling me that you're powerless over this? So if I got a bottle of Vodka and put it down here, you'd lose the battle?"

"If I started to drink it? Yes!"

"Hyde! You're no more of an alcoholic than I am. You just have a blood sugar problem! You know what you need? Whiskey. Two ice cubes. That's it. No coke with it. That's the problem. It's the sugar that's poisoning you."

"Narc, I drink diet coke. Or straight whiskey. This is stupid. Let's just agree to disagree, okay? I think I know a little something about alcoholism."

"Why? Because of your father? Your father?" He was beginning to slur his words. "I'm sorry for what happened to your father, Hyde. I'm sorry that you had to go through that and all, but you are NOT an alcoholic just because your father drank too much. I was RAPED as a child, Hyde!"

"I don't see what that has to do with this," I said. "What happened to you was horrible, but it's not genetic, nor does it have anything to do with what we're talking about. I do have alcoholism in my family. And there IS a genetic component, so whatever... just leave it alone. Let's change the subject."

"It's not genetic."

"It is."

"Oh really? How do you know?" he challenged me.

"There have been studies..."

"Studies?" he started to laugh.

"Narc! Let's just change the subject, okay? I'm done talking about this. I'm done!" I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.

"Well, I'm not!" he growled.

He grabbed my upper arms and began to shake me hard.

"Look me in the eye, Hyde! Look at me!"

"Narc, stop it!"

He shook me harder.

"I'm going to say this once and I'm saying it because I love you. Okay? Look at me while I say this because I love you!"

I felt sick. But I looked up at him. Sometimes he acts like he thinks he's all "James Spader" in Secretary.

"I-WANT-YOU-TO-STOP-WITH-THIS-AA-CRAP!!!" he said.

He shook me again and repeated it even slower.

"It's bullshit, Hyde. It's bullshit and it's DONE. I want you to stop it."

I glowered at him.

"Really?" I asked.

"Yes, really."

"Well, then..." I smiled. "I-WANT-YOU-TO-STOP-WITH-THIS-PopStarChick-CRAP!!! How about that? I think that's bullshit. And I want that to be done!"

He glared at me. I glared back. Then we both started to smile.

"Touche," he said. "You're such a wanker, Hyde."

"No," I laughed. "You're the wanker. You call me up; you tell me that you love me; you ask me to come see you; and yet all the while, you're supposed to have some kind of new girlfriend. What the fuck is that about?"

"Yeah, I know," he mumbled. "I mean... I was with you. Then I was with her. Now I'm back together with you."

"Back together with me? What do you mean by that?"

He went on, as if he hadn't heard the question.

"But I don't know about her," he said. "I mean, we're not exclusive. She's probably dating a million different guys over there... I don't know."

"Well, you certainly seemed to be sure of it when she was in NY," I answered.

"Whatever... I only saw her once every ten days or so. I think she's too busy to date me. I don't know what she wants."

"Yeah, I know the feeling," I said. "But you said you love her, Narc."

"I mean, I do... in a way... But I love you, Hyde. I really do. I love you."

"Do you love me when you're sober, or only when you're drunk?"

I couldn't believe I asked him that. He paused for a long time before answering.

"I love you when I'm sober. Of course I do. But I love you from a distance."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I don't know, Hyde," he sighed again. "Sometimes you just make it so impossible to talk to you!"

Now I was concerned... worried... Had I done something wrong?

"What do you mean, Narc? What do I do? Why is it hard to talk to me?"

"Ugh! Exactly! You're doing it now!"

He looked away in disgust.

"Narc?"

"You don't love me!" he suddenly blurted. "I worked four fucking years on my script and you haven't even read it! What the fuck, Hyde! What the fuck?!??! You don't give a shit..."

He was angry. I was a little alarmed.

"I'm sorry if that hurt your feelings, Narc. I mean... You're right. If I had wanted to read it, I would have. I guess I was just being passive agressive."

"Passive agressive?"

"Yeah... I mean, I've been a little mad at you. Hurt by you. All the stuff with PopStarChick. You know how I feel about you, and--"

Ugh! I couldn't continue this conversation. I had to end it then and there.

"Whatever," I laughed. I had to laugh. It was too fucking absurd. "Just give me a hug, okay?"

I got up off my barstool and leaned into him. He put his arms around me and I hugged him tightly. Then he started kissing me. Then he started trying to make out with me... right there in the bar! I can't do that sober. I tried to push him off, but he was pretty insistent.

"Why don't we just get out of here?" I suggested. "It's almost closing time anyway. We can do all that at home."

"One more round," he insisted.

"Okay, it's on me."

I flagged down the bartender and ordered him a jack and coke and a diet coke for me. I shouldn't have done that. It felt awful and strange. Ordering the drink was maybe the hardest part of the night for me. I never would have anticipated that.

"Hmm!" he laughed. "I can't remember the last time a girl bought me a drink."

"That's because you haven't been hanging out with me anymore. I used to always buy you drinks, remember?"

"Oh, yeah." He gave me an affectionate squeeze.

With the last round only half gulped down, the bouncer came over to usher us out of the bar. It was well after 4:00 am.

Down on the street, Narc wanted to stop and smoke a cigarette. He was stumbling a bit-- unsteady on his feet. I thought that he would smoke and walk, but he stopped on the corner and leaned up against the wall.

"C'mon, Narc! Let's go," I said, tugging on his sleeve. "Let's just get home."

"No, Hyde! I want... I want to have this cigarette."

His eyes were red and his voice was slurred. I felt a strange, wistful surge, taking care of him while he was drunk. I am addicted to that feeling I get when he needs me. It was so nice. I took his hand and led him towards his apartment. When we got to his street, there were sprinklers running, spraying water all over the sidewalk.

"Let's walk to the other side," I suggested.

"No. We can go through here."

"But we're going to get wet!"

"Have patience, Hyde! Patience..."

We stood there for a good five minutes, Narc staring at the sprinklers with glazed but squinting eyes, me waiting for him to give me some instruction.

"Okay, go!" he finally shouted, grabbing my hand.

We ran through the water and both got wet. I was laughing though.

Once back up in his apartment, he stopped me at the door.

"There's a new rule in my house," he said.

"What's that?"

"You can't wear your clothes."

This was too funny. It's the kind of thing I probably would have found really sexy and intense had I been drunk, but it just seemed so awful being sober for this attempted seduction. In any case, I complied. And as usual, I'll skip out on the sex part of things, as I don't want to subject anyone to that. There are only a few things that happened that I want to mention...

First of all, he was very chatty with "dirty talk," etc... much more so than usual. He also mentioned the pregnancy a few times, which is really weird, because I haven't heard him bring it up in about a year. Why is that on his mind all of a sudden? He also told me over and over and over and over again that he loves me. That he adores me. That he needs me. I believed him.

The second notable thing-- he got up at one point to put some music on his laptop. When he did, I noticed that his desktop background is a picture of PopStarChick. I almost puked right then and there. I can't tell you how much it hurt. Why didn't I get out of the bed? I don't know. Because I'm sick, I suppose. I'm fucking crazy.

Narc saw that I noticed the picture. I turned my head away from him as he climbed back into the bed on top of me.

"I love you," he said, trying to kiss me. "I love you."

"You don't," I whispered.

"I do. I love you, but I also love her."

"Eww. Get off of me, then."

I made a weak attempt to squirm out from under him, but he pressed me down with a kiss.

"Stop it, Hyde. Just stop it. It's all okay."

"Yes, okay. It's okay," I repeated.

I was losing my mind. I am losing my mind. I didn't resist. Instead, things just picked up again.

Narc told me that he doesn't want me to be with anyone else. That he wants me to be for him. He said that he loves me. I felt like shit one moment and wonderful the next. I felt like I deserve to be in pain. The one thing I hate most about being sober-- I can't get away from how much I hate myself. It's with me all the time, like a beast on my back. It's a hungry beast, and it gets fed when I hurt myself the way I do. Sometimes I think that Narc isn't using me at all. I'm the one that's using him.

We must have fallen asleep at nearly 7:00 am.

The next morning, we awoke around noon and had a lot more sex. Again, and in the light of day, he told me that he loves me. I think that he just misses saying those words. When he and I first got together two and a half years ago, he used to tell me that all the time. It confused me, as he didn't even know me back then. As our "friendship" grew, he expressed it to me less and less. Now, it was like I was back with the Narc from the old days-- the Narc who ordered me to come down to see him wearing nothing but a trench coat. The Narc who used words like "darling." He was still rough with me, but without the bitterness, the hatred that grew between us in the summer of 2005. That was the summer that things soured irrevocably... the pregnancy and the Exhibitionist. But this past weekend, it was undone. It was a dream.

At around 2:00, I had to leave. I had plans to meet Hammer for the Kol Nidre service and I had to go home and change first. I met Hammer at her place where she was preparing a delicious chicken dish that I didn't get to taste. The two of us are so bad at planning that we realized that we had no time for her to finish the dinner, and so we rushed out to a diner instead. We ate a crappy meal and dashed off to the service.

It was absolutely beautiful, as always. I grew very pensive. I want to find myself... to free myself... but I just can't see my way out of the thicket sometime. When we sang Avinu Malkenu ("our father, our king") I thought about masculine and feminine gods... about men. I am always daughter or mother or both. I want so badly to learn how to be a peer. Anyway, I reflected on a lot of things, some of them to be discussed in later posts.

After the service, Hammer and I went for a stroll down the West Side. We walked about forty blocks total, deep in conversation, before parting ways near Times Square. From there, I headed home.

My head was spinning from too much emotion. Too much action. Too much conflict. How can what I want and what I don't want be so diametrically opposed and yet I want them both?!? I want. I WANT. And I want to be free from want. I want to "turn it over." I want to have more faith. I want to be able to not depend on being needed. I want to be able to shut off my cell phone without being afraid that I will miss Narc's call, and what if he needs me, and what if he's upset and I can't hear the message and can't read his move and can't give him just what he needs... what he wants. I hate myself, that's all. I don't know how to reconcile any of this. I hate making no sense. I hate how frustrated I am with myself. I hate how stupid I'm acting. I hate feeling weak. And in the midst of all this self-hatred, I'm supposed to stay sober?!?! How ridiculous is that? I remember, now, why I wanted to end it all 9 years ago. I can't sit with all this. I want to not be with myself. I want to be with him. I want to not be with myself at all. I want to be for him. But I don't want that either. I want to be okay with myself. Ugh. I'm going to stop this ramble before it upsets me anymore or becomes any more incoherent than it already is. Suffice it to say, I'm struggling a lot right now...

So, that night, I went to bed with knots in my stomach and my phone in my hand. The next morning I woke up depressed.

To be continued...

Okay, so there's a lot more to the story... but at least I didn't drink, right? (I know, it was INCREDIBLY stupid to put myself in that situation.) I'm off to a meeting now. I'll try to finish the story by the weekend...

-h-