An Association
My heart went out to them. I sent flowers.
This was in the summer of 2008 when I was driving from Silver Lake to Venice a lot and every day on the radio there would be news of another suicide. Eventually, not soon after, but later, I was financially forced to restrict my heart from going out so much. Even today I can tell you the names of florists in many cities and towns across the United States. And what they charge for delivery.
I was driving to Venice so often because I was dating Paul, who worked somewhere or other for some sort of company that required him to live there or near there, just outside of Venice, off the 90. Oh, sure, still, in my dreams the 90 is a freeway that can take me places.
Once, at a red light, I was trying to reconcile why a kid had done it. You know, why he'd pulled the plug on his life. There were six or seven that summer alone. All by way of hanging. What or who had made their lives so difficult? What could I do to eliminate, or at least decrease, this number? For a moment, when the light turned green, I was sure my car had stalled. Then I realized my foot just wasn't pressing the pedal. Sudden realizations like that, little epiphanies of nothing, arose the most while driving.
In those days, I always drove on an empty tank. I'd pass both Chevrons on Beverly, the ones across the street from each other, past the 78 a block over, the Arco after that, and even the Mobil further. Valero or bust, I'd say to myself. Valero, or nothing at all. It was cheapest. It didn't matter which way I was going - East or West. In Los Angeles, all gas stations are in exactly the same order on any street anywhere, like a map of palindromes, until the road ends.
There was always an accident, a traffic jam, a billboard, a homeless person to interrupt you. Driving in Los Angeles gives you a lot of time to think, but never enough time to finish a thought. Thoughts were often cut short like a life or a low-rated TV series.
Paul lived (or lives?) in one of those West side high rises where you cannot only not smoke inside the building, but anywhere on or near the property. Paul didn't smoke - had never smoked - and my smoking was becoming a problem between the two of us. We were not, by all appearances, a perfect match. But, where does one actually find one of those? I've always wanted to know. This was during my phase when I could not go on, or have anything more to do, with the men in Silver Lake. Paul was different from what I was used to. He lived the Beach Life. By that I mean he lived near the beach.
"You reek of cigarettes." He'd say every time I'd enter his white, white, white apartment. Everything in it, even he, was white.
"Well, I would, wouldn't I? I smoke!"
Then we'd have sex, but not before a shower and an Altoid.
I was falling in love with Paul. I'm sure of it, looking back now. What wasn't there to love? He was beautiful, quite brilliant in his own way, kind, full of life. He had an HBO subscription when no one at that time, at least over where I lived, did. In short, he had his life in order. I had not. My own real life I considered to not have started quite yet. A standstill, road blocked, like in that interim time on the 405, approaching the 90, but not there yet. The exit to the destination within your vision, but not your reach.
I first met Paul at an industry mixer at Lola's. I had drank too much coffee that day, and scotch that night, and taken an Adderall. I stopped to prop myself up at a doorframe and asked, to no one in particular, "Why am I out of breath? Why is my heart racing?" While passing, he heard me and replied, "Because I just entered the room." Here, I thought, was a man for whom I could give up Marlboros. Here was someone, at least.
Later that year the suicides had halted, or, perhaps this was just during KPCC's pledge drive and I was no longer hearing about them.
"If you aren't OUTRAGED you aren't paying attention" I'd see on bumper stickers throughout the city. But there is a limit to the amount of misery and pain we will put up with for change. True change, I think. Outrage drains us, wears us down to the thinness of a mesh tank. Outrage, I'd decided, is finite. We only have so much to give! I'd volunteered at a suicide prevention hotline for a few days before I realized I was one of those people who was not good on the phone. I'd marched with my people from Pershing Square to City Hall all while counting the minutes until happy hour. I'd driven down to Oxnard for Larry King's wake and then went to the beach after. Life, I'd felt, was just a series of someone else's tragedies and outrages, not my own. My heart could go out to them, but how far? My life had recently taken a turn for the okay! I had been promoted at work and Paul had asked me to move in. I couldn't pretend I had felt anything but joy. Not joy maybe, but I was learning to be content with being much happier than I deserved. I couldn't pretend that Ryan Halligan, Jamie Hubley, Tyler Clementi, Larry King, or any of the others were anything but a distant, unpleasant thought, a hurt I’d learned, over time, to live with. But, really, I had forgotten about them. They, like a midnight lover from Akbar or, worse, The Eagle, no longer crossed my mind. They had died. They had picked up their jeans and put on their shoes and walked out of the apartment early, before I even woke up. I didn't get their numbers. It's difficult for me to recall their names. Like ghosts, they visit from time to time, but only in passing, and never long enough to take a good look at them.
For weeks I didn't listen to any radio at all. It wasn’t just the suicides that returned. It was oil spills and Palestine and Sarah Palin. I'd try to listen and shout, "No more! Suppose I don't have the time or energy to rectify this problem! Why should this be left up to me?" and hit the dial. During that period with no radio I pretended, out loud and alone, I was a host giving people guided tours of Hollywood on one of those big, red, double decker buses, “And, this,” I’d say, driving down Sunset Boulevard, “is the old location of The Coach & Horses. A bar I went to a few times to meet a guy who never called me back. Oh, and over here, is the Samuel French Bookshop where, once, my credit card was declined.” Then the guilt of not paying attention set in. I’d drive and drive until I came across a Cigarettes Cheaper, all the while shouting to this or that ex: “Repent, handsome, young fellow! You never understood me. I didn’t love you half as much as you loved yourself!” I was beginning then, I know now, to lose it.
Past both Chevrons, the 78, the Arco, the Mobil and, finally, I arrive at Valero.
"Just one pack today?" the attendant asks me. This is a question I like. This is a piece of dialogue I can really get behind. "Just one!" I say, "But I"ll be back later today." And I know I will. I know this is the day Paul breaks it off.
"You aren't yourself." He'll say. "You've been smoking and drinking too much. These classes and seminars and vigils and wakes and marches are too much." He'll add. "This isn't working out."
"Paul!" I'll say calmly, "Have you considered that you may be making a terrible mistake? I mean, have you thought this through? Has it even crossed your mind that, in fact, you are making the wrong decision?"
"Yes," he'll say. "And I know I’m making the right one."
Of course he is, I know, but I won't admit it. Well, what's to blame? Surely it's something. It's always something. Is it the fact that I depleted my bank account donating to The Trevor Project? So what - I can't afford eating out right now, we'll eat in! My dollars will have meaning! They’ll effect change! Or maybe it's because, just last night, I asked him if he had ever considered suicide while growing up. He said yes, but I doubted him. So what if I mistrusted the willingness to which he’d admit that and so what if I hit him upside the head when he called me “cause obsessed.” It must be, I hope, I pray, someone else. Tell me it's someone else so I know that it's not because there is something wrong with me.
"No. There's not someone else." He'll look away, he'll look out the window at the Pacific Ocean, up at the pier, at the glass towers in Marina del Rey. He'll look anywhere but directly at me, until he does, and says simply, "It's you."
I’ll throw my drink at his head. The glass will miss him but somehow the contents will spill out onto the floor in front of him, on which he’ll slip and fall.
I’ll realize rage isn’t an emotion Paul is interested in. It’s not a feeling or experience two people can share.
Embarrassed, I’m out the door before he can pick himself up and ask me to leave.
A week, a month, a year. It's now today, or maybe not too long ago, or not too far in the future. It certainly gets better, but it doesn't get any easier. I’ve learned how to care about certain outrages while ignoring others. I hardly ever think of Paul anymore. Recently I had coffee with him, but it was just to get my box of brochures out of his car. Surely, that was it. I told him I'd quit smoking and drinking and started running and working out and am still volunteering and that I'm getting married. He nodded and sipped his Americano and checked his watch.
Reader, I have not even a photograph with him. He never had a Facebook. This was before Instagram. My friends didn’t meet him. He exists only as a memory. There is no reminder, no physical memento of our time together. I don't recall him when I smell the fragrance of his cologne on another man. The sunsets at the beach don’t make me miss him. There isn't a song we shared. A movie we saw. There is just that summer of suicides. Paul was an episode. Those kids were not - will not - be merely an episode. They were an experience. They are the proof, the evidence, the take-away. Paul, ultimately, only an association. Let me not forget the experience.
At some point down the road, I'll sell my car. And I'll put my whole life, up until now, inside it.