Void Where Prohibited

GENE, WHAT COULD I POSSIBLY SAY HERE? I'M DEVASTAT...

2008-12-29T01:54:00.000-08:00

GENE, WHAT COULD I POSSIBLY SAY HERE? I'M DEVASTATED, I'M DISAPPOINTED. I'M SAD BEYOND ALL WORDS THAT YOU FOUND COMFORT (EVEN IF IT'S FALSE COMFORT) IN THE IDIOCY HE SPEWED. ABOUT ALL YOU CAN SAY ABOUT THE "NIMBLE NONSENSE OF NOSTALGIA" IS THAT IT'S ALLITERATIVE. WHAT THE HELL IS IT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?

I'M NOT GOING TO READ ANY MORE OF WHAT YOU'VE WRITTEN. I HAVE CARED ABOUT YOU TOO MUCH AND BELIEVED THAT I MADE MUCH MORE OF A DIFFERENCE THAN I ACTUALLY DID. BECAUSE OF THAT I KNOW THAT READING MORE WOULD ONLY RIP ME UP. I WOULD BE GRATEFUL IF YOU WOULD BURN THIS MANUSCRIPT. NO, I'M TELLING YOU TO BURN THIS MANUSCRIPT. START FRESH IF A DAY COMES WHEN YOU ARE ABLE TO BE EVEN SLIGHTLY HONEST.

HA! I'M EAGER TO READ HOW YOU ENDED UP IN PRISON I...

2008-12-29T01:47:00.000-08:00

HA! I'M EAGER TO READ HOW YOU ENDED UP IN PRISON IF EVERYTHING IS SO OK.

Today was Gene's second session. It was infinitely more productive. And, I'm afraid, infinitely more destructive. I learned a great deal more about what plagues him, but the sobbing went on longer and this time he didn't collapse into sleep. He just fell silent, pulled himself up, and planted himself in front of a window, staring at nothing. By that time, he was no longer under hypnosis so I have no idea what he was thinking.

He's still there. In fact, I'm still here. Sitting dozens of yards away on a couch in his absurd football field of a living room, I feel like a voyeur or a PBS nature show cameraman. In this rare and odd situation, there is a certain ineffectual pragmatism to the room. Gene can have the illusion of total privacy. I can have the illusion that I'm keeping an eye on Gene and will be able to get to him fast enough if he tries to do anything to hurt himself. He's shown no signs, but this whole situation summons the worrier in me. How's that for cryptic? This "whole situation." It sounds like a matter of National Security.

I don't even know for sure how to reconstruct what happened here today. It caught me so totally off-guard. Gene too, judging by the intensity of his reaction.

At the start, the session went just like last time. Only I anticipated the crash and was able to pull him out of it. With some questioning, I was also able to snip his string of "No. No. No." It was hard to tell at first since what I asked caused him to utter the same word.

I asked, "Gene, are you on the water?"

"No."

"Gene, can you see a dock on the water?"

"No."

"Look all around in every direction. Is there a pier or anything at all where we can tie up our boat?"

"No. What boat?"

"OK … are we swimming?"

"No."

It went on like that for an embarrassing amount of time. Don't let it be said that I don't pick up on clues.

Then finally.

"Gene, the last time we were in this place you said dock. Are you sure you don't see it now."

"I see him now."

It seems so simple in black and white but I actually managed to miss that clue, too.

"Great! You see a dock on the water."

"No."

"Does the thing I'm calling a dock have a different name. Like pier or something?"

"Yes."

"So it's pier?"

"No."

"What is it?"

"Enos."

"Enos?"

"Enos."

"Isn't that the name of your shrink?"

"Yes."

Light bulb!

"Oh Jeez! Gene, please spell dock for me."

"D-O-C."

"Is Doc a person?"

"Yes."

"Is Doc your therapist?"

"Yes."

"Please describe him to me."

"He's about ten."

A long pause as I waited for him to finish his sentence.

"He's about ten feet away from you?"

"No."

"What do you mean then?"

"He's ten years old?"

"You have a ten-year-old therapist?"

"No."

"Are you seeing your therapist as a young boy?"

"Yes."

"Are you seeing yourself as a young boy?"

"…"

"Gene, do you see yourself?"

Still no response. His nostrils started to quiver and his facial muscles tightened.

"O.K. Gene … We're not going to focus on you for a moment. Since Doc is the person you were seeing on your own, we're going to focus on Doc. O.K.? What is Doc doing?"

With that it was all over. Subtleties like quivering nostrils and tight facial muscles were obliterated completely. The full-body sobbing hit our session like a detonated suicide bomber in a rush-hour bus. The comparison seems insensitive, I know. But that truly is the image that comes to mind. The only thing I know whose suddenness and violence seem up to conveying the psychic carnage that my question ("What is Doc doing?") unleashed.

What happened today reminds me how much more I have to learn as a guide. But the fact that I recognize today's progress as progress reminds me how much I have already grown. I began today wondering what role a dock played in Gene's torment. Now I know there was no dock. I also know there was a person, his psychiatrist. And I know that he is imagining this Doc as a little boy. This is all so precarious, though. The wrong question makes him absolutely crumble. Next session I will see what I can add in the way of a seismic retrofit for this house of cards.

But for now the resident of that house (and this house) is still standing autistically before a window. If nothing else, I hope the long night ahead gives me time enough to think of a way to be of some help.

~
~
~

It's been eleven days since what I assume will turn out to be my last session with Gene. In that time neither of us have left his house. With an inexhaustible supply of pizza, Chinese, and everything else we can get delivered, there will be no reason to leave until we run out of toilet paper or something. We do almost nothing. Gene has a collection of books that looks like it was bought wholesale from a single airport newsstand. I can't bring myself to open a book cover featuring (in hot-pink, 72-point bold mind you) a single word from a review by a paper in Schenectady: "… ELECTRIFYING!" I always imagine that in full context such reviews are actually something like "The author's ability to combine cliché, sexist characterization, and third-grade-reading-level prose is nothing short of electrifying!" That's the trouble with sarcasm. It's so easy to manipulate when stripped of its context.

Can you tell I don't want to be writing about anything real? The third session with Gene sent the writer in me into a coma. Since I started keeping a journal in fifth grade, I can't think of a time when I have gone this long without writing in it. If I had the trunk with all my journals here, I could research that. And I'd have some decent reading material. No matter.

Still now, I have no stomach for a blow-by-blow account of the last session. What's more, I won't forget it and some future biographer of mine won't have any business knowing all about it. So what would be the point.

Unlike the previous two sessions, we were not walking in white-out fog. It was more like a cloudless winter noon in the mountains when the sun's brightness would hurt even if it weren't amplified by reflecting off the snow. Yes, the light of the truth is no 100-watt Sylvania. It makes eyes wince. It makes skin turn red and peel away.

I imagine Gene's soul lobster-colored right now. Literally hot to the touch and recoiling when a friendly hand tries to apply aloe vera.

At first I thought this guardedness was because he was mad at me. But he actually seems grateful. For all of the other problems, Gene wakes up refreshed now, having slept peacefully. He says that only takes care of the first five seconds of the day. But even that is a new luxury for him. I am never there for those first five seconds, so I secretly wonder how he can possibly have any reason to feel grateful. This was all a mistake.

I also spent the first few days worried that Gene would hate me, see me as an extension of the perversion that harmed him so. I didn't know how to bring it up. I was startled beyond belief when Gene brought it up on his own.

"It must be a relief to you to know that Doc isn't gay."

I didn't know this. I mean I hadn't given it any thoughtful consideration. I was just worrying about what facile conclusions Gene might be jumping to about me and "my kind" and what I might have really been doing to him under hypnosis, for that matter. So I just looked somber and nodded my affirmation.

"His wife was so proud that she was a virgin until her wedding night. I wonder if I should tell her what I know, what he used to brag about."

I wasn't sure what he meant. It seems right there between the lines, though. In any case, he wasn't asking my advice. He was just sort of thinking out loud.

"Yeah … Just a predator," he added. "Any flesh will do."

He looked down at the pizza slice balanced in his hand, dropped it back onto the torn half of the delivery box serving as his plate, pushed away from the table, and went back to staring out the window. This house has plenty of windows. I think I'll go do the same.

I CANNOT BELIEVE WHAT I JUST READ, GENE. IF YOU W...

2008-12-23T21:41:00.000-08:00

I CANNOT BELIEVE WHAT I JUST READ, GENE. IF YOU WANT TO STICK TO THIS “I DON’T REMEMBER” SHIT, I HOPE YOU’LL CONSIDER NOT EVEN PUBLISHING THIS BOOK. THERE ARE STILL MANY, MANY PEOPLE OUT THERE WHO REVERE YOU, PEOPLE THAT YOU COULD HELP IF YOU SHARED YOUR EXPERIENCE. I AM SO DISAPPOINTED RIGHT NOW THAT I AM PUTTING THIS FUCKING MANUSCRIPT DOWN AND LOCKING IT IN A CABINET BEFORE I ACCIDENTALLY DROP A LIT CANDLE ON IT. I'LL BE BACK TOMORROW TO COPY DOWN WHAT REALLY HAPPENED DURING THAT FIRST SESSION AND TUCK IT INTO YOUR REVISIONIST PERSONAL HISTORY. JUST ONE LAST THING: I KNOW THAT YOU REMEMBER EVERYTHING. YOU ADMITTED IT BEFORE WE DROVE OFF INTO THE DESERT. AND IN THE DESERT YOU TOLD ME YOU HAD NEVER FELT SO FREE. THINK BACK TO THAT WHEN YOU DECIDE WHAT TO INCLUDE IN HERE. I WILL FORGIVE AND FORGET THIS WHITEWASH IF YOU DECIDE TO REMEMBER REALITY IN THE FINAL VERSION.

I am writing this journal entry outside Gene's bedroom. My hands are shaking. (But I guess that's pointing out the obvious.) Through the thick hardwood door I can still hear Gene sobbing. I don't know what happened. Today I guided Gene to a despair that left him speechless. Either that or he considers what he found there to be unspeakable. This is not supposed to happen and I feel very guilty and inept.

I will try to reconstruct what happened. The session (our first) was going normally. The descent into the subconscious was controlled and calm. A gentle glide, not an emergency-landing plunge. Just as I wanted. Just as I always strive for.

With no warning that I noticed, Gene crashed or exploded or began to spin out of control. In a high, high, high voice he screamed the word "dock" once and then "No! No! No!" I can't for the life of me begin to figure it out. The "No! No! No!" could literally signify anything bad. And "dock"? I suppose he could have confused the landing-airplane metaphor with a boat metaphor and was crying out because we were somehow passing the dock where he needed to get off. But that is wishful thinking in the extreme.
???????????
Jeez! I keep thinking maybe a near drowning (his own) or an actual drowning (someone close to him). But that obviously is total conjecture.

I tried every technique I'm trained in to get him to articulate what he was seeing. But he was totally unreachable. A deeply scary thing in this kind of therapy. It is supposed to be a guided journey into the subconscious. And Gene was not responding to my guidance. He fell into a rhythmic whisper, hissing "No" over and over. I don't even want to think about the noise his grinding teeth made through all of this.

Though I was trying desperately to get him back, I cannot say for sure that Gene didn't just surface on his own. Suddenly he was just back. But not all the way back. Or at least not all the way Gene. A suit of armor was missing. That became clear immediately. In the space of a second, his face went from placid to red, strained, and tear-covered. The sobs were throaty and filled with unmistakable agony. Sobs may be the wrong word. They were groans that went on and on. Dying animal sounds that I have made myself in my most devastated moments. Sounds that to the person making them seem equally impossible.

When it happened to me, it was an out-of-body experience of a sort. I remember hearing the noise and wondering what was making it. Figuring out that it was me was not comforting.

I'm digressing deliberately here into my own experience because those groans are the only lighthouse and empathy is the only boat floating that can help me surmise what it's like to be where Gene is right now. I take it for granted that finding the actual place is impossible for now. Gene can't tell me about it at the moment. Right now he thinks he will never be able to. Because right now he doubts that he will ever stop crying. He is mourning with every muscle. Or at least this is how it was for me. When he stops (because everyone does eventually stop) he will be sore and spent and desperately in need of sleep. I just hope his nightmare doesn't come. But it seems certain that it will. If it does, I will try to help him. But today has left me greatly humbled as to what help I can actually offer this man.

~
~
~

At last there is silence. I just tiptoed into Gene's room and found him asleep. He looks like hell but for now his jaw is still. I have taken some sofa cushions and made a little bed for myself here in the hallway. It's sort of ludicrous. There are ten guest rooms in this mansion. But my gut tells me I should stay near. I'd rather wake up tomorrow with a sore back than go to bed with a searing conscience every night for the rest of my life because I failed to stand vigil, failed to stop something horrible. I hope that in the re-reading this will seem like melodrama. But right now I am scared. Scared of what Gene might do to himself when he wakes up. Scared of the Gene I will encounter when he wakes. I hope I can rest.

~
~
~

I am home and as confused as ever.

I woke this morning to the smell of coffee and pancakes. The cushions that began the night under me were strewn across the breadth of the hallway. My neck felt like I had slept in the center seat on an airplane. I deliberately avoided a mirror and headed straight toward the breakfast scents.

They were (shocker!) coming from the kitchen. All sarcasm aside, here comes the real shocker. I saw Gene before he saw me. He was standing over the griddle holding a spatula, completely oblivious to the fact that I was watching him. And he was smiling. Smiling! He looked infomercial fresh, infomercial happy. He looked like his insipid angel-peddling, cheery, made-for-TV self.

I walked in, feeling like it had all been a dream or maybe was still a dream in progress. Too bizarre to talk.

My shoe made a fart noise on the hardwood floor. Gene looked up.

"Luc! I take it things went late. I'm glad you stayed here rather than drive home drowsy. But please next time use a guest room. I didn't make all this money so that my friends would have to crash on the floor like college kids."

I don't know what I did. I don't know how I looked. Well, OK I kind of do because he said: "You look like you've been through the wringer. Here, have some coffee."

I took it, thanked him, and drank it. Though it was weaker than I like, it was a welcome gulp of familiarity.

And here's where I chickened out. Gene seemed so happy that I didn't ask him about the session. I didn't ask him whether he remembered anything. I didn't ask him if there was any trauma in his past having to do with a dock. I know it's bad. It just felt like it would have been like pointing off the edge of a cliff and saying "Wow! Look how far you would have fallen!" to somebody who had just managed to pull himself to safety. Not helpful.

But that's a pretty self-serving analogy. Gene may have needed me to say the equivalent of "Jesus Christ! That was a close one. I was scared you were going to fall. I was scared you were going to die. I'm so glad you're OK." That is if he knows what happened. I mean he's supposed to, but nothing in his demeanor suggests that he does.

I just left it simple: "You did well yesterday. I hope we can do another session and explore some of the leads it uncovered."

He nodded and we ate breakfast.

I have no time to write right now. So naturally I ...

2008-12-23T21:30:00.000-08:00

I have no time to write right now. So naturally I am writing. Just needed to scribble away some anxiety. As soon as I dot the period at the end of this sentence, I am walking out the door to go to Gene's for his first session.

Gene came to me today full of reservations. I ha...

2008-12-23T21:27:00.000-08:00

Gene came to me today full of reservations. I had dreaded this. I can't claim to be altogether secure when it comes to my work. Actually, that's not quite true. I'm incredibly insecure about how society and prospective clients perceive my work. The conviction that I have mastered a craft is the inner security that keeps me believing I should go on at all.

I'd rather not dwell on the specifics of the actual conversation. There were many missed steps on my part and lots of confusion on Gene's. Besides there wasn't a court reporter in the room. Only I remember the whole conversation and I'm not talking. Here's the all-news-radio summary of what happened. I stopped the cajoling and cut right to the heart. At first Gene didn't believe me when I told him that he would remember everything from our session. But once I got him to look deep, deep into my eyes, he was convinced. Just kidding. But the point is: everything's back on track. All is right with the world. Unless you count the fact that I'm still alone and obsessed (paternally, not sexually) with a deeply confused straight boy. Who says I'm wasting my life?

Once I got over the shocked joy of Gene's phone ca...

2008-12-23T21:22:00.000-08:00

Once I got over the shocked joy of Gene's phone call, I had to get down to the serious work of trying to figure out how best to help him. It's all about getting to the place where despair lives. That's not as easy as it may sound. A person under hypnosis can't simply wander the downtown streets of their subconscious until they come to a gray edifice marked "Despair Inc. — makers of Suicidal Depression™." No, you have to know what despair looks like because it's not a building at all. It's a swirling conspiracy of cupped hands. It's never been photographed and it's only been painted once. Even then, it was too intense to be the focus. Van Gogh hid it in the upper left-hand corner of his painting of the church at Auvers. If you look closely at what appears to be a cloud in the despondent blue of the sky, you can see a pair of cupped hands. Just to the right is another pair of hands. They look like they're applauding. But what is there to celebrate is this swirl of black and deep blue? Despair's escape! Yes, looking even more closely into the first set of hands you can see the point of a beak and then a whole bird — despair itself flapping its wings, taking advantage of the change of heart of the one-time captor now cheering it on, and flying out into the open where it can be seen and then ideally understood and calmed.

ANOTHER JOURNAL ENTRY THAT MIGHT HELP HERE. I'LL ...

2008-12-20T21:38:00.000-08:00

ANOTHER JOURNAL ENTRY THAT MIGHT HELP HERE. I'LL SUPPLY MORE AS NEEDED.

The dentist's probe of my assertion made Gene wince as sure as if he needed a root canal.

Now, here I arrive at a descriptive problem. Clinton impersonators have rendered insincere the words that belong here: I feel Gene's pain. I truly do. But that vessel doesn't carry water anymore. Anyway …

I felt for Gene, but I was trying to be professional so that he could be human. That's what I needed most when I was in his situation. I had never given myself permission to be human. I vomited into my characters the fear, self doubt, and confusion that bubbled inside me. The real me never saw the real light of day. Only screaming stagelights and the distant, cool, blue of the bathroom nightlight. Drama and dreams.

I see now that I, at least, had balance. A public, conscious outlet as well as the sly, mysterious stranger of sleep. Deprived of my public outlet, Gene was sacrificing his jaw to the private outlet.

It was painful to know that I could help him, but to wonder if he would go for it.

Other forms of healing don't know this kind of doubt. People with aches, pains, shortness of breath, or sizzling of bladder seek out and turn themselves over to doctors. These days people with the blues think nothing of taking little blue pills to limit their range of emotion. People who will poison their veins and their brains recoil at the prospect of someone putting them into a trance. And efficacy doesn't have a damn thing to do with it. Ask the herbalists, the homeopaths, the acupuncturists, the massage therapists of this world if results have much to do with credibility. What are we to make of a society that considers ancient truths avant garde? What does it say about us that we endure debilitating treatments before almost hopeless desperation drives us to consider a harmless herb?

Sometimes I think I should just write all that on a notecard and tape it to the cover of this journal. How many pages have I filled with these monotonous laments? I could simply start writing: "No business today. Frustrated. Please see notecard on cover." Oh well, I gave up long ago on the teenage fantasy that my journals deserved to be published unedited one day. Not everything I have to say is that interesting. And I do have a tendency to repeat myself. Rereading this very paragraph, I see that I have already said that. Alas.

Back to Gene and a real story with real events and — hopefully — fewer excuses for digression. Oh, but don't count on it. I live for digression.

"What's with the smile?" Gene asked, clearly angry. "Are you getting some kind of sadistic pleasure out of this?"

"Oh, God no. I'm terribly sorry."

It was a shock to learn that I was as unaware of my face as Gene was of his.

"If there's a smile there, it's probably because I know that I can help you."

"Oh, so it's not sadistic. It's angelic. If that's supposed to comfort me, it doesn't. And it's not as if you have an original solution to this. I've already tried accepting Jesus Christ as my personal savior. No dice."

My surreptitious smile exploded into full-fledged laughter. I had never been accused of being an evangelist before. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, Catholic school kids are still explicitly instructed not to read my plays. As a result, in self-imposed retirement, I'm still a hit with the plaid-skirt set.

"Whoa, there," I managed to say through a mouth chockfull of chuckles. "Is it the Darwin sticker on my Jeep or the homoerotic art on the walls that made you think I was a missionary?"

He paused. I could see his mind was playing the last few seconds of conversation over and over again, looking for meaning in the blur like a conspiracy buff ogling the Zapruder film.

"I have a hell of a time understanding you. For starters, I don't have any recollection of ever being in your car. And … and … I've never even heard of a store called Home of Erotic and I sure as hell wouldn't recognize the art they sell. If you're trying to say that you're not a religious nut, try saying 'I'm not a religious nut'."

He used his fingers to make those inane quote signals that I abhor. Why don't people just wear a sign saying "Uncultured Jackass" around their necks?

"Suit yourself. I'm not a religious nut."

"That's better. Are you a shrink? 'Cause I've got a shrink."

"I am not a shrink," I said slowly and mechanically. I plead guilty: I was trying to bait him with mock simplicity for his disapproval of my speaking patterns.

He ran his fingers through his hair. I flashed back to boyhood and to the textural pleasure of petting my Irish Setter.

"So, now you've got me curious," he continued. "Who other than a Christian or a Freudian would be cocky enough to promise that they know they can help a person in my situation?"

"Freudian. Big word. I'm impressed. I would have guessed that you thought a Freudian slip was a little designer something that your girlfriend wore under her dress."

Luckily, he had the right attitude and shared laughter put us back on the path to actual communication.

"I won't keep you in suspense," I finally said when the chortles and giggles had settled into satisfied smiles. "I'm trained as a hypnotist and I feel confident that if there's something troubling you deep inside, we can go into your mind and find it. Before you say anything, let me just tell you that I was once very troubled and hypnosis worked on me. It changed my life so much that I gave up everything I had ever done to make hypnosis my life's work."

This sales pitch is where I tend to lose people. The inevitable tears that well up when I talk about my metamorphosis seem to make people think I'm a little off-balance. Not the sort of person you want in the cockpit as you slumber through an overnight flight to the subconscious.

"I'll think about it," Gene said simply.

I knew what that meant.

I don't remember anything else we talked about after that. Mostly small talk and discussion of how he should get home. He turned down a ride, saying he didn't want to put me out any more than he already had. I called him a cab. After he left, I berated myself for squandering my opportunity to help him.

NO REAL SIN OF OMISSION HERE, GENE. I'LL JUST THR...

2008-12-20T21:16:00.000-08:00

NO REAL SIN OF OMISSION HERE, GENE. I'LL JUST THROW IN A LITTLE JOURNAL ENTRY HERE FOR SOME COLOR. YOU'VE NEVER READ ANY OF THIS SO I FEEL LIKE I SHOULD AT LEAST GIVE YOU THE CHANCE TO WEAVE IT INTO YOUR BOOK. MIGHT HELP WITH CONTEXT. UP TO YOU.

I can't get Gene out of my head. I can't get over the stupidity of this fixation. I'm supposed to be out gallivanting, finding someone to help me get over being dumped. But I don't have experience dealing with my sort of problem — tangible, identifiable. I, of course, have plenty of experience dealing with Gene's problem — palpable psychic pain of unknown origin. I've been kicking that phrase around in my head since last night, since our talk. Maybe I'll put it on my business cards:

LUCAS KENNETH TOUMEILLEISE
HYPNOTIST
SPECIALIZING IN PALPABLE PSYCHIC
PAIN OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN

THIS “HEARSAY” CRAP IS PURE SHIT, GENE. IN CASE Y...

2008-12-18T01:00:00.000-08:00

THIS “HEARSAY” CRAP IS PURE SHIT, GENE. IN CASE YOU FORGOT, I OFFERED YOU MY JOURNALS TO FILL IN THE BLANKS. I'M HOPING THAT THIS IS A CASE OF LAZINESS, NOT JUST YOU HIDING FROM THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH. (I MOSTLY HELD MY TONGUE ON THE FIRST PAGE WHEN YOU PARROTED DOC WORD-FOR-WORD ABOUT RECOVERED MEMORY DELUSIONS. I PRAY THAT THAT WAS JUST FOR EFFECT.) I'M OBVIOUSLY GLAD TO HELP YOU SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT. IN THAT SPIRIT, I FOUND MY JOURNAL ENTRY ABOUT MEETING YOU. I HOPE YOU'LL FIND SOME WAY TO USE THIS IN THE FINAL DRAFT.

The escapade du jour began at Mortie's Liquors on 37th. I was at my lowest, feeling like I did in my drinking days. Don't freak! I'm still on the wagon. (Why do I act like I'll actually be in suspense when I read this years from now? Drama! Or maybe, I want to keep my biographers interested: "This would explain his abandonment of fame (Guilty as charged.) and fortune (Hardly!). This would explain why he never wrote another play. This explains everything," they'll say. Well, sorry fellas and gals, it just ain't so.)

The liquor store was just shelter from the stormy weather we've been having since my man and I ain't together. Mortie is not so much an old friend as a fantastic conversationalist. I sit in his store drinking Snapple after Snapple whenever I'm on the rebound. It's a healthy reminder to be around someone who is so charming, yet so utterly repulsive physically. Good god, am I snatchy! But honest. Truly honest.

Anyway, I promised an escapade and an escapade I shall deliver. Mortie was telling his liquor store war stories. Great stuff that in my former life I would have stolen, driven across the border, paid experts to paint a different color, and finally driven triumphantly back onto an American stage as my own. I was rapt. But Mortie, who already knew the stories and how they ended, was alert enough to notice the cab pull up. I don't know if he smelled trouble or just the alcohol on the passenger's distant breath. But he stopped talking and prepared for what might come. I just took in the scene.

The passenger was famous, but I did not know that yet. All I saw in front of me was a thoroughly disheveled man. Just a little taller than me, which is just tall enough to be considered tall. His hair looked like it belonged to someone who had survived a hurricane, gone to bed with sopping mop, woken up the next day, and survived a lightning strike. In color, the hair was wonderfully unusual without being freakish. A red that was mutedly cayenne pepper, rather than screamingly paprika. Bloodshot as they were, his eyes looked as if they might have been attacked with either of the spices. Only his irises (the gentle green of certain Japanese restaurant teas) hinted at a calmness I felt certain lay at the heart of the man on his good days.

This was plainly not a good day. His sober, exacting gait told me immediately that he was trashed. He disappeared into an aisle and did not seem to notice that the cabbie was pulling away.

Now that I am aware of his financial situation, I think I know what happened with the cabbie. The crapulent customer … (in spite of my sloppy digression I want to keep him nameless and save some element of suspense) … The crapulent customer must have made the mistake of handing the cabbie an impressive wad of bills: "Herebuddy … sinceyerwaitinforme … havethis." At this point, the cabbie knew there was never going to be a better time to drive off. Lots of money, still no vomit on the vinyl seats. Whatever reason, he pulled away and our friend did not notice.

Mortie kept talking. I wanted to listen, but the drunk was ranting now. Why, he demanded to know, wasn't the hard liquor alphabetized? He asked this often and he asked this loudly.

Then, from what I infer would have been the "J" section, came a mighty, grunting struggle, and, after some time, the crash of a single bottle.

He emerged from the aisles smiling stupidly, swaying impressively, and all but dropping three bottles of Jagermeister cradled in various parts of his left arm. His right hand hung by his side. He leaned against the checkout stand and let his bottles slide slowly, safely down his stomach.

Having wowed us with his prowess, he then felt compelled to make sure we knew who he was: "Heyhihowaryaguys. GeeNettix." Oh dear god, I thought, I'm standing here face to face with a ranting, slurring, piss-drunk incarnation of the world's most famous peddler of angelic schlock. Me, a member of the cultural elite with at least one wonderful snob friend who bought a dart board just to tack Nettix's picture to it. Incidentally, Freddy (the aforementioned friend) did not want to risk his freshly painted walls so he held a dart in his hand and poked holes in a picture torn from Time magazine. Why the grudge? Freddy, of course, had been doing interesting things with images of angels for the better part of two years. When Nettix made angels cheap, plentiful, and unavoidable, he unwittingly made Freddy's work seem commercial and obvious.

Yet again I digress!

OK, just one more digression on top of that last one. His name. I marvel! Always have. As well as any name I know, it demonstrates the redemptive power of celebrity. Gene Nettix. Genetics. Gene Nettix. (Not as glaring as Jen Nettix would be, I grant you. But still. We’re talking about a man whose name is practically Genetics.)And yet nobody but pun-drunk newspaper headline writers seems to notice. Let’s face it: Celebrity trumps all. If cruel parents had given Michael Jordan the name Shitface Jordan, every Gatorade-chugging wannabe dunker would want to “Be Like Shitface.” In a sane world, Shitface would be a name beyond redemption. So would Gene Nettix.

Now, to get at long last to the point: Nothing I knew about Nettix predisposed me to liking him.

Just then, he gave me cause to like him even less by dangling his very limp right wrist in front of me. The whole caper could have ended there with me punching his mocking homophobic lights out. But I restrained myself, thank goodness. As it turns out, I don't think he has figured out yet that I am a queen of all I survey. In fact, I know he hasn't. The boy is clueless. Read on to learn just how clueless.

My non-violent reaction entailed looking Nettix up and down, shaking my head at his offered hand, and recoiling to the end of the conveyor belt to get away from him.

Mortie rang up the three bottles. Nettix told him to add two more.

"But you only broke one," Mortie and I said in unison. We exchanged bemused smiles.

With his flaccid hand, Nettix grabbed mushily at my sleeve. He gave up and resorted to his left hand, his "weak" hand. With jerking head, he signaled that Mortie should follow us. He marched us back to an aisle oozing with the abominable liqueur and pointed to two bottles that must have shattered simultaneously.

This ridiculous little episode impressed me tremendously. Impressed me enough to consider him redeemable, to consider the taunting homophobe worth rescuing. What can I say? I'm a sucker for a damsel in distress. Actually, damsel is just the sound you get when you drunkenly slur "damn asshole" fast enough.

Nettix slipped into a pathetic panic when he realized that the cabbie was not only gone, but gone with the last of his cash. I paid for all five of his bottles.

I helped him into the parking lot and into the Wrangler and pretended to load the bag of bottles into the back. I winked at Mortie, who went into the lot after we drove away, picked up the bottles, and restocked them inside. Mortie will insist on giving me something free the next time I'm in. I accept!

With all the windows rolled down, we drove. Eventually, Gene passed out cold. If nothing else, being closeted for years teaches you the value of discretion. So, I did not take Gene to a hospital, where his shame would have become the stuff of tabloid headlines. I pulled over to a pay phone and called doctors. Friends, at first. Then acquaintances. Then friends of friends. Then acquaintances of acquaintances. And then finally "You Know Who."

I hope it doesn't take any explaining for posterity to recognize why it was humiliating to demonstrate so tangibly that getting dumped had left me lonely enough to be hanging around a liquor store shooting the shit and ultimately serving as chauffeur for someone who I believed to be a total bigot.

My dumper was just as giving as I remembered. Since he did not want his hardwood floors to smell of county hospital, he insisted that we use my house as the infirmary. Once he got there, his annoyed diagnosis was a simple one: "Stinking drunk! What do think?" His expert advice, which I really shouldn't downplay, consisted of making sure Gene was lying on his side so he wouldn't go like Hendrix.

Oh lovely! My prayers are answered.Gene, that’s 2 ...

2008-12-14T21:45:00.000-08:00

Oh lovely! My prayers are answered.

Gene, that’s 2 blowjob references in like 5 pgs. Lose at least one.

Well, that was cruel. Just when I realized that I ...

2008-12-12T20:18:00.000-08:00

Well, that was cruel. Just when I realized that I could not stop reading... no more novel!
I'm not sure how you do hilarious and sad at the same time, but this book is seriously funny.
Please hurry and post the rest!

"recovered-memory delusion"?Joking, I hope!

2008-12-09T00:24:00.000-08:00

"recovered-memory delusion"?

Joking, I hope!

This epigraph needlessly guts your credibility bef...

2008-12-09T00:15:00.000-08:00

This epigraph needlessly guts your credibility before you write a single word of your own. I know why you picked it, of course. But that’s only because I’m one of two, maybe three, people who know your real story. Never forget that this book is for everyone else. Memoir readers don’t want to hear that there aren’t facts to stick to. So try this quote instead. I re-read it recently and all I could think of was you.

"Your memory is a monster; you forget — it doesn't. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you — and summons them to your recall with a will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you!"

- John Irving, "A Prayer for Owen Meany"

Don’t panic, Gene. I promised not to primp every s...

2008-12-09T00:07:00.000-08:00

Don’t panic, Gene. I promised not to primp every single word. And I won’t. But your working title would give a hummingbird narcolepsy. For obvious reasons, “Void Where Prohibited” is more evocative.
Think it over.

And what’s with your fancy name?!
Who’s Eugene P., Gene?

With those two things off my chest, I’ll strive to keep my promise and read this mostly as a reader.

Don’t panic, Gene. I promised not to primp every s...

2008-12-08T23:20:00.000-08:00