Current mood:	relaxed
Current music:	Joe Cocker Greatest Hits

Well here is the next installment of the NANO folks and I missed getting any comments on the last one. I guess everyone's gearing up for the holidays, I know I should be. I need to finish cleaning my house and start cooking for Thanksgiving. As for the mood on this one, I just cracked open a brand new bottle of 12 year old Glenfiddich, so I am enjoying the libation of the Gods.

As I have said before behind the cutline is a story involving male/male pairing and sex. If these things offend you don't go there, otherwise enjoy.




Wednesday, November 2, 1984

Well I guess God protects fools and little children, because I’m still here. Just my luck Jeannette chose Monday to drop in for a few days and surprise me. She found me in the bathroom and called an ambulance.

I remember injecting the morphine; I remember the scalpel and slicing my wrists. The next thing I remember is the little hospital room at Charity hospital where I woke up.

Jeannette was holding my hand and I could see she had been crying. I knew then that I could not hurt her that way or Garret. I cleared my throat and she jumped.

‘Garret,’ I croaked. ‘Does Garret know?’

‘No, Jack he doesn’t. No one knows, I gave the hospital a fake name so that no one would find out.’

‘Don’t ever tell him and I don’t care about the rest of Boston finding out. I’m done with Boston. As soon as they let me out of here I’m moving.’

‘Damn right you are. You’re coming to New York with me, baby boy. I’m not letting you out of my sight until I know you won’t try this again.’ She pushed her hair back out of her face and I could see I was in for it. ‘How could you be so stupid, Jack. You should have called, I would have come.’

‘I know, Jeannette. I didn’t want to be saved. I wanted to die, I still wish I could, but don’t worry. There won’t be any more suicide attempts. I’d just botch it again.’ I gave her a slight grin. ‘But you have to admit, it was very Theda Bara.’

‘Jack, you big goof; only you could make a joke out of nearly killing yourself.’ Suddenly she was holding me and sobbing. ‘I nearly lost you Jack, do you have any idea what that would do to me?’

‘Jen, don’t cry. You know I have an inability to let anyone cry alone in my presence.’ I joked; it worked, she stopped crying and hit me.

‘You asshole. Don’t think your jokes are going to spare you the ass chewing I have planned for when you are out of here.’ She started crying again. I just held her and kept telling her that it was never going to happen again.

Once Jen, calmed down, she asked me when I wanted to move. I told her the sooner the better. When she left to start getting things moving it suddenly hit me that if I had succeeded I would have wound up in the morgue. Garret would have seen me and it would have destroyed him. I would have hurt him beyond belief, far more than Maggie ever could and what I wrote to him in my journal would never have been enough to stop him from blaming himself.

I cannot say that there was not a part of me, that got some small satisfaction from the thought of him weeping inconsolably over my body, but mostly I could only be glad I had not succeeded, it would have crushed him.

Well, suicide didn’t work so I guess I just have to learn to live with the pain and the loneliness. All things considered, I’d rather be in Cleveland.


Wednesday, October 31, 1985

Happy Anniversary to me. Jeannette and Dr. Hannah Kirshenbaum, the psychiatrist she insisted on dragging me to my first week in New York, both said that I should start keeping a journal again. So here it is, I suppose I could write endlessly about work or Jeannette’s crusade to pull me back to life, but that would be dancing around the issue.

Her name is Abigail Margaret Macy, she was one year and two months old as of yesterday and the first accomplishment of her young life was to be the catalyst for my mental breakdown.

I was managing to survive Garret being out of my life, barely. I was working, eating and sleeping some; with Jeannette constantly nagging me, I could only avoid her when I slept. It was the day after she had finally went back to New York, exactly twenty-three days since he had finally said what I had longed to hear for fourteen years and then walked out of my life for good. I had managed to stop counting the hours just barely, but still caught myself thinking every morning that I was disappointed I had not died in my sleep.

Standing in the nurses’ station concentrating on charting my patient’s persistent requests for morphine, I over heard his name from the lips of the charge nurse, who turned to me and said, ‘You’re friends with Dr. Macy that went to work at the morgue, right Dr. Slokum?’

I nodded and she continued, ‘They just released his little girl from Neo-Natal ICU this morning. I’ll bet he and Mrs. Macy are walking on air.’

I mumbled something noncommittal, hurriedly finished my orders and walked off. Entering the elevator, I pushed three and soon found myself standing at the nursery window, looking at a squalling, writhing bundle with the name Macy on her bassinette. I stood transfixed by the sight of the tangible proof that he was truly gone from my life. I went home in a daze and tried to kill myself. Fortunately, Jen showed up that night.

While I recovered from my suicide attempt, Jeannette handled everything, packing my apartment, calling the hospital to tender my resignation due to illness and moving me to New York. The first couple of days she left me alone, I sat on the bed looking out the window wondering how the people outside could go on with their lives and what secret they knew that I’d missed. What lesson had their parents taught them that mine neglected.

My parents taught me to chew my food thoroughly and wash behind my ears. They taught me to say my prayers and look both ways before I cross the street. They taught me to respect authority and say the Pledge of Allegiance. They taught me not to judge others by the color of their skin and not to take candy from strangers.

They unintentionally taught me self-loathing, but they never taught me how to live with a broken heart. They never told me what you do when the only person you have ever loved moves on to a new life and leaves you standing in the wreckage trying to remember how to breathe. How to find something to hold on to that has any meaning, because the only meaning in your life is gone

The third morning Jeannette walked into my room and announced that I had a psych appointment at three.

I do not know what I expected, but the tall slim motherly looking Jewish woman who shook my hand was not it. I stammered that there must be some kind of mistake and that perhaps I should see someone else. She smiled the warmest most loving smile I had ever seen and spoke. ‘Do you think I will be shocked by your orientation, Jack? The majority of my practice is with the gay and lesbian community and I assure you, I do not find anything shocking about the lifestyle.’

I relaxed a little and sat down, we talked about Boston and New York, the weather and traffic, patients and administrators. By the end of the session, I felt as though I was visiting an old friend. When I walked into the waiting room, Jeannette was sitting there expectantly.

She asked me how it went and I told her everything we’d talked about, wondering why I felt lighter and freer even though we hadn’t discussed anything but trivial chit chat.

For the next several sessions, I sat across the desk from Dr. Kirshenbaum talking about anything and everything except him. I finally spoke his name one afternoon in January. It slipped out in a discussion of jazz, one moment we were talking about Dizzy Gillespie and the next I was sitting stunned by the sound of his name on my lips.

Hannah sat watching me as I rolled the taste of his name over my tongue and felt tears beginning to gather in my eyes. ‘Tell me about him, Jack.’ She said softly and I started to speak, pouring out fourteen years of pain and love for her to pick through, examining my life with him.

For the next four months, I told her everything, every detail of my time with him. Every thought, every feeling, all the pain and self-doubt that I had held inside. Hannah never judged, never called me a fool for holding on to something that I knew instinctively on some level would crush me in the end.

When I finally came up to the night he had left for the last time, she looked at me and asked the question I had been dreading. ‘And what are your feelings now, Jack? What would you say to Garret if he were here?’

I debated putting on a brave front and lying to her, but the one thing I have learned about Hannah is that she has an unerring bullshit detector. I hated to answer her honestly, because I knew just how pathetic I would sound.

‘I would tell him, that I love him and I’ll take whatever I can get with him. That I want him back in my life in anyway he can be there. That no matter what I will always love him and want him with me.’

I saw the disappointment in her eyes and was afraid that she would decide I was a lost cause. She looked at me for a long moment and sighed. ‘Jack, you have to find a way to kill the love you still hold for him, before it kills you. You can’t hold onto him and move forward. It’s not possible.’ She came around the desk and sat on the couch beside me, putting an arm around my shoulder. ‘I’m afraid that I may do you a disservice in saying this Jack, but I’ve come to think of you as more than a patient and I’m saying this as a friend. Let go of Garret, let go of the past. Forget him, rip him from your mind in anyway you can’

I looked at her through my tears. ‘I can’t Hannah, I’m afraid; afraid that if I do there won’t be anything left of me. The best part of me walked out the door with him and all I have left is the love and the pain. If I let it go, there may be nothing of me left to move on. Just a shell of what used to be. I’ll be stumbling through life without a heart because that’s the only way to be rid of him, because as clichéd as it may sound he took my heart with him.’

Her arms came up around me as I broke down for the first time since he walked out my door. I sobbed until there was nothing left inside of me and as she handed me a tissue to wipe my eyes I decided that it would be the last time anyone saw me cry for him.

I will somehow toughen up at least on the outside. If no one gets close, no one can see the pain and the tears. I will become impervious, at least to the world if not inside my heart. Never showing vulnerability, never letting anyone close again, because when you let them close they hurt you and one more hurt will be all it takes to send me over the edge. I am not trying to be maudlin or dramatic but I’ve taken in all the pain I can stand and if I have to face one more ounce of pain, I will kill myself.

I do not mean to sound as if I am contemplating suicide again; I am not. I may wish I could die, to be free of this pain, but I am far from stupid enough to try killing myself at this point. To kill myself now would be just too cliché, narcissistic and far too poetic for a scientist. I may be proud but I am not self-absorbed. Only the self absorbed, the insane and the teenaged idiot seriously contemplate suicide. However, if I allow myself to get close to someone and add more pain to what I already carry, I will go insane and then I know that if I lose it, I will kill myself.

I am sorry Jeannette, I know you asked me not to let this change me, but I can change or die, it is that simple. Become a hard arrogant prick on the outside and keep them all at arms length so no one can hurt me like this again or stay your ‘baby boy’ and end up pulling a knife across my wrists again and succeeding this time.

Garret is gone and nothing will change that, but I can move on as long as I avoid letting anyone inside to see the pain or cause me anymore. I will never be over him, he will always be a part of me, but I can avoid any more pain caused by others.


Thursday, November 1, 1985

Another birthday, another day without him. I survived another night.

I do not make decisions lightly anymore so I read back over what I wrote yesterday and I still believe that it is the best thing I can do for myself. Starting today no one gets close, no matter what it takes to keep them away, I will do it.

I have also decided to stay in New York for a while. I think this city and I will get along well, it can teach me to be cold and impersonal. There is also the added advantage of not chancing running into Garret.

God even the thought of him hurts. His name cuts through me like a knife and yet the pain is sweet too. I sit for hours remembering, thumbing through the images in my mind, the ones I stored away against the day when he’d be gone. The long talks in bed and the times when the only sounds were our moans. The way he looked when I gave him that leather coat just before our first Christmas and the summer on Fire Island, laughing and making love all summer long.

I remember every look, every touch as though it was yesterday and as bitter as it was, my favorite memory is hearing his voice saying ‘I love you, Jack.’ The words that could have erased all of the pain if he’d said them and stayed, instead he found the courage to say them but not the courage to stay and see things through.

I wonder what he did last night, Friday night was ours and I wonder if he’s found someone else to fool around with behind Maggie’s back. I knew when we were in college he was not the type to be tied down to one lover, so I suppose he has found someone else by now.

I hope they do not fall in love with him the way I did, because as much as I still love him, Garret is a selfish man. He cannot tolerate being thought of as less than the face he shows the world; although if his new playmate is female that certainly will not diminish his image. I’d like to think it is a woman. It makes it easier to think that I was unique at least in that respect. Funny I can picture him with a woman and it only bothers me slightly, but if I picture him with another man, I want to scream, to track down this mental image lover and rip him to shreds.


Wednesday, December 4, 1985

God, that bitch, somehow, she learned where I was and sent a Christmas card to me here at Jeannette’s. The bitch has won and she just cannot help but rub it in. I opened my mail this morning and there it was. I thought at first Garret had gone back on his word and written to me. I ripped the envelope open and there was a Christmas card with their family portrait on the front.

She was standing there holding Abby and gazing lovingly up at him with that saccharine smile of hers, that only I seem to be able to see through. And Garret, oh God, Garret. He looks so good in the picture until you look in his eyes. They are so sad, so haunted. I wish I could take him in my arms and love away both our pain, just hold him until neither one of us hurts anymore.

I opened the card hoping that he might have written something, anything. Just a word to help me feel connected to him again, to let me know he does love me still. Even just to see Merry Christmas in his handwriting would make me feel something besides pain.

But instead inside in the bitch’s handwriting were the words. ‘I won asshole.’

I tore out his picture; put it in my wallet with the faded brittle petal from the rose he gave me that first Valentine’s Day and threw the rest in the trash.