Boys

I just got off the phone with the Stallion... I haven't spoken to him in forever! He's still living out in San Diego with his (fiancee? wife?), but he said that they're moving to Portland soon.

It was an incredibly sweet conversation. He told me that he's proud of me for my sobriety and asked me how my birthday party went.

"It was great," I said. "But it was hard to get through a sober birthday-- to do the party differently. You know... without..."

"Without party favors?" he interjected.

"Yeah," I laughed.

"I've been trying to stay away from that stuff too," he said.

"Oh?"

"Yeah... I have a baby now."

"What???"

I couldn't believe it... The Stallion with a baby!

"Yup... I have a beautiful son."

"How old is he?"

"Two and a half months."

I congratulated him over and over. I don't know why it made me feel so good... so warm... but it did. Perhaps it's because it's nice to know that everyone grows up-- that it's okay for things to change. The Stallion named his son "Brooklyn."

"My brothers are coming out to visit soon," he said. "And it'll be hard to avoid partying with them, but I try to keep it under control."

Sometimes I think it's strange that I'm still talking to the Stallion. He was a one night stand I met while all coked up and on Ecstasy seven years ago. How can I still be talking to him? How can I be talking to him about his baby? About my sobriety?

I asked him how his mom was doing. He asked about my brother.

"And romance?" he asked. "Are you still seeing that guy?"

"Um... yeah... Well, sort of. He's still circling around."

I told him that Narc started dating PopStarChick in the summer and that it devastated me, but that she then left for Russia. I told him that Narc suddenly planned to marry PopStar but that he had a near death experience and was forbidden to fly, thus putting a chink in his plans.

"You are an amazing woman, Hyde," he said. "And you deserve better than him. You deserve better than both of us... better than what either of us was giving you."

"Thanks," I stammered. I wasn't quite sure what to say to that.

Anyway, we talked for a while longer. The Stallion said that he wants to be friends. He kept telling me that he wants to hang out when he comes to NY.

"I just want to give you an enormous hug," he said. "I just want to squeeze ya!"

I laughed awkwardly.

Before we hung up, he told me that he loves me.

"I really do. You don't know it, how wonderful you are. You don't know how you change people's lives."

It was strange to hear him say that he loves me... now... I mean, the Stallion! He is a part of my shady past-- the drugs, and the indiscriminate sex.

I don't know...

Anyway, a while after that, Narc called. I have had a lot on my mind this week in terms of Narc-- mostly to do with events surrounding Valentine's Day. I have to blog about all that, but I'm not up to it just yet.

Anyway, Narc and I talked for over an hour--mostly about video games. He kept telling me about this game and that... about how he has to kill some dragon and walk around for a long time to get strength. (That is, virtual strength.) His world is small. I tried to tell him that.

I told him what I had been up to for the past 24 hours-- going to the Planetarium Sonic Vision show with Bezoukhoff, eating Smores at Max Brenner's, hitting the piano bars until the wee hours with Bezoukhoff and Brick, going to AA this morning, bumping into my sponsor at Union Square later in the day, buying a rug for my living room, hanging with NDN and making plans to see a play with Hammer.

"You're doing so much!" he exclaimed. "I played FF12 for 10 hours today... and yesterday. I got out for a bit to see Lives of Others, but that's it. I've just been on the phone about hospital bills and getting bloodshot eyes in front of the plasma screen. I probably have about 20 hours left to go on this game."

"I used to feel like I was living the same day over and over and over," I said.

"I still feel like that," he told me.

"Not me. I'm moving now," I answered. "And I'm not sure how it happened or when... but I know it has to do with my sobriety. But more than that, it has to do with being open."

Narc insisted that there's nothing at all he can do to change his life-- that everyone in NY is the same and that no one has anything to offer him.

"Why don't you learn something new, then?" I suggested. "Maybe it'll do you some good to stimulate a different part of your brain."

"I'm not going back for more school," he grumbled. "I did all that."

"I'm not saying you have to go to school. Download a podcast and learn a language. I don't know... just do something different! You can't sit around and play video games all day every day for the rest of your life!"

"I know that," he sighed. "But there's just nothing else to do."

The conversation took a few turns after that-- from the moving conversation I had with a woman at AA on Thursday to Britney Spears' newly shaven head to slash fiction. I told Narc that I didn't know what "slash fiction" is.

"Hydeeeen! You of all people should be into that!"

"Why?"

"Because people take characters from their favorite universe and write them into violent sex scenes. It's not only that-- people do other things with it-- but there's a lot of rape and eroticism."

"Make up things in their favorite universe? Like Pride and Prejudice II?" I laughed. "Mr. Darcy's virility was only surpassed by his devotion to his wife?"

"Yeah, sort of..."

Anyway, Narc was sad and I was sad. "Narc and Hyde" are gone. There is only "narc" and "hyde" now. He mentioned the Patriot to me. I thought of it like a ghost.

There are ghosts all around.

Narc didn't ask me to come down. I didn't want to go down there.

If I'm not running to fuck Narc, who am I?

All my boys are ghosts these days...

-h-