January 2009
I was dressed up, but I can’t remember exactly why. It was a
meeting of some sort. Somewhere at U of T. The slush and ice crunched beneath
my feet. The morning snow had warmed up in the afternoon sunlight, but the
crisp wind didn’t cede, still allowing flurries to flutter through the air as
my socks grew increasingly soaked through the only pair of dress shoes I owned
with the holes in the heel. I wore extra thick socks to compensate, but I just
felt like a sweaty, icky mess all over.
The meeting isn’t the important part of the story. Being at
the corner of College and Spadina was.
I never expect to see anyone from my time Massachusetts
up here, friendly or otherwise, but the universe works in strange ways. A voice
called to me from behind, but it wasn’t one I could immediately place. Even
when I turned around to see where the call was coming from I could place the
face, but I had forgotten the name. Was it Matt? Was that his name?
“Hey! It’s Jay!” Shit. Yes, Jason. I don’t know why I really
forgot his name since he did have some oddly tangential relevance to a story I
started telling here a while ago. Probably because he was who she dated in the
interim between our implosion and the man she ultimately found happiness in.
The two of us had hung out and they didn’t date until after I was well out of
the picture. I know he was present for the last time I spoke to her face to
face and I told her what a terrible person I thought she was. I was drunk.
People do foolish things when they’re drunk. But he never judged me for it or
even mentioned it.
We caught up in the briefest way I could keep it. It’s not
that Jay was a particularly bad guy, but he was a spectre from a past that I
only selfishly like to revisit on my own terms. Plus, I was cold and miserable
from whatever had happened earlier that led to that street corner in the first
place. Much like the meeting would become a distant memory, I thought what
transpired on that corner would’ve faded as well, but it became something that
I always came back to. I don’t even fully remember why Jay was even in town
since he lived in Hartford now, but
as former friends tend to do, they get your mind racing.
“So have you talked to Kerri at all?” He asked somewhat half
heartedly in an attempt to be relevant and remind me that we once had common
acquaintances. I knew he still saw her quite a bit. In the digital age you know
exactly who hangs out with who and where quite easily whether you want the
answers or not.
“I can’t say that I have and that I have no desire to in any
way.” I lied. Partially. I was always curious, but what would I say to her that
wasn’t already made clear?
“Yeah, I figured.” He nodded slightly and smirked. “You know
she’s not doing so good, right?”
“Yeah, I heard she has some sort of degenerative muscle
disease or something like that?”
Jason proceeded to tell me a bunch of what I already knew
and more than I cared to know. That she can barely walk and that she rarely
leaves the house. When she does it takes over an hour to prepare everything,
sometimes needing a wheelchair and a helper dog on the worst days. She’s in and
out of surgery and physical therapy on a regular basis. Dan still takes great
care of her and they’re still together after eight trying years.
I pretended to care, but I went back even further in my mind
and grew angrier. I went back to the time where Dan didn’t even know me and he
hated me. The biggest gap in my personal relationship with Kerri is wondering
what she said to him to make a complete stranger hate me enough to do what he
did. It had to be the fall out from that party, but as faded as that memory has
become I know things never got above a shouting match before she was asked to
leave. Was it because my friend Julie asked her to leave? Did she feel I had
effectively divided our formerly close knit group of friends?
“You know, she still brings you up. We all do. One day you
just kind of vanished and now here you are. Do you ever come back?”
I hadn’t been back in ages. I really had nothing to go back
to aside from some casual friends who probably wouldn’t be down to hang out at
a moments notice.
“You should try calling her or writing her.”
“I might just do that.” I had no intention of doing that. As
vaguely pleasant as I remembered Jay being, this wasn’t something I was going
to think about much in the future.
That’s also a lie.
May 19th, 2012
I’m getting way too old for this. What the fuck is wrong
with me?
The sun is coming up. My sternum is incredibly bruised and
my right fist is throbbing. I’m rounding College and Spadina after doubling
back on myself. I stumble past the roundabout in the middle of the street on
Spadina vaguely veering into non existent traffic. Alone, on foot, and
incredibly drunk, I duck behind a U of T building to promptly vomit behind a
dumpster and to hurl a Rubbermaid trashcan in disgust.
I was angry. Really angry. But at who and why? I didn’t even
remember anymore. It was a building up of a lot of emotion over time that just
had to come out somehow. Part of me had just had enough of being me.
It was the drunkest I had ever walked home without hailing a
cab, but part of me wanted every second of inconvenience and pain. Somewhere
deep down I thought I deserved it and that I had to learn the final lesson of
all of this. The final realization that life is just one giant pile of shit.
That sun was really bright even at 5:30am. Almost blinding. I might have bobbed and weaved to
avoid its rays even if I didn’t have 12 beers and three shots in me. There were
also breaks to sit and cry. And a stop at McDonalds to try and soak up the
booze in my stomach with five hastily purchased hash browns. Pretty sure I was
crying at the counter there, too.
December 22nd, 2011
“Hey, it’s me
How have you been? It’s been a while, but from what I hear you
seem to be doing great. You’re a film critic now? Somehow that makes perfect
sense to me. lol
You’re writing again, which is cool. I’ve noticed your blog.
You’re still really great with words. The last I heard about you before this
was when I talked to Jay and he said he saw you in Toronto
a few years ago. Are you still there? What’s it like? I hear it’s like Boston,
but less expensive. lol
Anyways, I don’t know how much you know about what I’m going
through, and I don’t want to stop you, but I want you to know that I’m sorry. I
really am. You didn’t deserve any of that. You have every right to say
everything you want to about me. What I did to you was terrible. I was young
and you didn’t deserve to have someone like me around all the time.
I didn’t know what to do. I blamed you for things for so
long, but I didn’t know what I was trying to get from you. I have so many
regrets from that time, and a lot of them never went away or I just made things
worse. I was really young and really stupid.
Write me back if you want. I would understand if you didn’t,
but I would love to talk. I don’t really talk to many people from back then
anymore. It doesn’t help when you can’t really leave the house, and talking to
your dogs and cats starts to get creepy after a while. :-/
I would love to hear how your doing. But even if I don’t
talk to you again, just know you are in my thoughts a lot and that I hope for
the best for you.
Love,
K”
August 2003
I normally wouldn’t have gone to check out Dan’s crappy band
under any other circumstances, but I had to see how he would react if he played
the song he wrote about me while I was there in front of him. After all, he had
never met me before and he wrote a song about how much of an asshole I was to
his current girlfriend. It was a pretty dark secret that Jay and Matt had
leaked to me quite a long time ago that he had written it before sending it
over to me and making me promise to not say anything. Apparently they had
gotten a few laughs out of it, too.
The band was playing Tammany Hall in Worcester.
I wasn’t in the city, but I was willing to make the trip because this girl I
had been hitting on quite heavily happened to be a bartender there. I could
kill two birds with one stone on this trip. Heck, maybe if she knew the song
was about me she would actually sleep with me. That has to count for something,
right?
Tammany had their tables set up that night since Dan’s band
wasn’t one that was likely to start mosh pits. Sure, they sounded like Days of
the New, but who the hell wanted to mosh to that? Besides, Tammany was a
hippy/house bar back then and their three pronged sonic assault of acoustic
guitars and a shitload of snare drum went over well with the often permastoned
clientele. It wasn’t a dance night. It was a drink your face off and space out
at a point on the wall night.
I sat as close to the stage as I could, but since it was as
dead as humanly possible I moved back to the second row of haphazardly arranged
round tables so I didn’t appear too eager. As the band began to set up, Dan
looked directly at me. Keep in mind we had never met in person, but he had to
know right away. The true mercy I showed in all of this was not inviting all of
my friends who wanted to laugh in his face to tag along. I just sat there
drinking a gin and tonic and returning the gaze that was there from the start.
I never took my eyes off of him except for when I got
drinks. There were maybe 65 people there, but no one was going to take my
table. I would just go right back over there and waited for the song to start.
“This is a song about not being able to let go. It’s about
someone who’s here right now. Name of the song is ‘Old Man.’ It’s on our record
for sale in the back.”
One
Two
Three
Four
May 18th, 2012
“Can I just hang out with you here for a while? My
boyfriend’s in the theatre and I don’t really want to go back in there. I don’t
care what I’m doing, but, like, I want to do something with REAL
PEOPLE. And I haven’t done that in so long.”
She was gorgeous. Thick rimmed glasses, loose fitting
T-shirt, curly black hair, and a frilly dress. She was also clearly
intoxicated. We had been flirting and playing with a balloon outside the
theatre for twenty minutes before she even mentioned she had a boyfriend. Or
that she had been drinking. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t picked up on it before,
but then again, I didn’t know who she was. She just seemed pretty cool to me.
I introduced myself. She said her name was Sara and I asked
if it was Sara or Sarah with an h. She thought it was cute. We kept talking for
a while and with every line of conversation she moved closer and closer to me,
eventually with her placing her hand on my leg and me getting closer and closer
to making a terrible decision on so many levels.
Before it could get to that point, her even more intoxicated
boyfriend emerged from the theatre. He had to be younger than her or she was
just really mature for her age. He was frumpy and wearing an Atreyu hoodie with
a very clear drink stain on it. They didn’t look like the kind of couple one
would ever see together.
“Sweetie, I got up and I can’t find my drink now.”
“Go back in and try to find it! I just can’t sit there and
watch this movie right now.”
He went back inside and the second he was gone she kissed me
quickly and asked me to leave with her right then. The mind reeled in so many
different directions and I was never good at snap decisions. I had just been
complaining to a friend – an ex-girlfriend, no less – that it seemed like
everyone around me was getting laid, but me. My stress level had been through
the roof. What would I do?
He came back to me with all their stuff like they were
leaving. It was probably for the best for the both of them, or at least that’s
what I was telling myself. I didn’t know their entire story. I only knew her
for about 30 minutes from playing with a balloon in the lobby of a movie
theatre and talking about our favourite childhood memories.
He went to the washroom and she gave me her number. Then she
went and he waited behind and gave me the glare that screams back off, but with
a hint of a deeper sadness that I somehow knew all to well.
I haven’t called her. I just don’t know.
May 19th, 2012
On the floor. Empty apartment. Just threw some empty coffee
cups around in a fit of rage. Why can’t I finish anything I start? Can there be
just one thing in this life I can hang onto without it leaving me or without me
screwing it up? What did that asshole at the party earlier tonight mean when he
told me that death just seems to follow me around? He pretty much told me I was
cursed and if the last 48 hours were any indication he wasn’t that far off.
What the fuck did I have to do? What could I have done? Was there anything that
could be done? Why the fuck is everything bothering me so much these days? I should
be fucking ecstatic. I’m such a shithead.
July 4th, 2002
It was a drinking game of some sort and it was the last time
face to face. She said something about maturity in regard to a comment I made.
I told her a real sign of maturity is cheating on your boyfriend the day he
found out his mother died and then promptly breaking up with him. She was
silent for a moment. It felt like an eternity.
“Well, maybe if things didn’t keep happening in your life
like they were, we would still be together.”
She never clarified the statement. We were all drunk. I
threw my pint glass full of rum and coke at the wall and told her to go fuck
herself. Astoundingly I didn’t get thrown out of my friend Julie’s house for
that. Instead, she did. It was the last thing she said to me.
Sometime earlier this
year. Maybe February. While talking to a writer friend who will remain
nameless, but is probably reading this right now.
“Whatever happened to your personal blog, anyway?”
“It’s still there. I just wrote myself into a corner. All my
film writing started getting gobbled up by other outlets that were willing to
pay me for things, and I started a personal story I wanted to get back to, but
I couldn’t figure out just where in time I wanted it to progress to. I wanted
to hurry to the end, but I didn’t want to shortchange the story. If that makes
any sense…”
“It does. But maybe it was for the best that you stopped
doing those personal entries. It’s not like you’re writing a memoir or
anything. I mean, all of those Letters to Ex-Girlfriends is just more of that
dating diary bullshit that’s out there that everyone thinks they can do, but
every few can write adequately enough about it. I mean, it’s probably the most
egotistical thing someone can do. ‘Oh, look at me! I’m on some next level shit
because I can be all open and talk about things in my life that I probably
screwed up in the first place.’ You’re honestly better than that.”
“But what if that’s what I actually want to ultimately write
about the most?”
“Oh, I didn’t say DON’T
do it.”
May 17th, 2012
I found out Kerri had killed herself in the middle of
discussing my pitiful sex life with a friend online. Well, actually, I was just
getting jealous because she was talking about how great her’s was going and I
wanted to put a fist through my own face.
Jay emailed me out of the blue. I thought it was spam from
someone’s long forgotten account, but apparently he still works for the
university he went to so everything was still in working order.
She had passed on two nights prior following an overdose of
pills of some sort. Details were sketchy. He wanted to know if I wanted to be
kept in the loop for the funeral. Apparently she still talked about me and a
lot of our old friends wanted to see me again.
I didn’t respond, but I did pull up the email from last year
that I never responded to, and I just proceeded to cry.
August 30th, 2001
“I have to go.”
I was still in her bed, pretty much begging and crying for
her not to leave. I had just lost my father. My mother was about to die any day
then. It was a lot to ask for her just to stay for ten more minutes. In
hindsight, it was pathetic to a degree and probably one of the reasons she
cheated on me to begin with, but even though she was only going to be at
university I just couldn’t lose her right then.
I held on so tightly as she slowly got up to make her way to
her already packed suitcases. On top was a care package I had come by to give
to her so she would have something to remember us by. Pictures in frames,
posters to hang, tiny stuffed animals, and keepsakes from everything we had
done that year.
“I don’t know what to do right now.” It was the only thing I
could blurt out because I knew it was the only thing that came to mind.
She came back towards me and kissed me softly and sweetly.
“I love you. Just remember that.”
I cried for about fifteen minutes as her grandparents told
her that they needed to leave an hour ago and that I had to go home because
they had dinner reservations on their way to New
Hampshire. It was a family thing. I wasn’t invited.
I took a deep breath and wrapped my arms around her one last
time.
May 19th, 2012
Hitting on every girl in sight was probably a terrible idea.
They can smell desperation and I had to reek of it. My sternum and fist were killing
from a playful fight in the front yard in one of the most primal displays of
ritualized mating I probably ever engaged in. I even technically won the fight
in the proper sense. I don’t even know why we did it. Either way, at the end of
the night all I could see out on the street and at the party were people making
out with one another and it was all too much. This was a terrible idea. I
shouldn’t have left that barbecue earlier in the evening that made me even
drunker than I probably would have been. As people tend to do when they
essentially bottom out emotionally, they try to find anything they can to numb
the pain, but they only make it far worse.
I could hear the voices of people fading in the background
asking me to come back to the party, or to grab a glass of water at the very
least. I didn’t look back. I didn’t want to be around anyone anymore. I was
going to pay for it tonight, tomorrow, and forever for the past. And in that
moment I realized I’m the type of person who just can’t ever let anything go.
That was roughly at the same moment I vomited behind that U of T dumpster and
threw the trash can in a rage.
I never felt smaller than screaming to myself in that moment
with no one around to hear it.
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