the needle &the damage done

“In New York, I can never tell what the weather feels like by looking at it.” I write this sentence on a flight to Florida, I am on my way to some version of spring break. I have no idea at the time that this sentence will soon sum up my life entirely.

I have no idea that I will buy a banjo instead of a bed, that I will have to keep my goddamn mouth shut. Headed south I still believe all my lovers who have spent half of a year lying to me. You know me, I believe everyone, I plot through seasons like you use graphs. I close the notebook.

The plane does not crash, the flight does not make the evening news.

I arrive back in New York on March 20th, which is a Friday and the official first day of Spring. I take this as a sign because well, I take everything as a sign. I like the sound of it. My first and really my only obligation upon arrival is to finish my reading for class and to buy a bed. You know about the bed right? How we broke the bed back in November? Right after the election when everything was a celebration. It was the night of the chocolate cake, one of those nights that set everything into motion. It was also the night that ten or twelve of us all were lying in bed together. Twelve adults, one golden doodle, one chocolate cake, a camera &a poorly made IKEA bed. If you've ever experienced putting together an IKEA bed you know not only that the directions are all in pictures but that the beds are assembled with “slats” the slats lie on the bed frame, and this holds up the mattress. Back in November, Obama wins the election, Blair buys us a chocolate cake, we are drunk off God knows what and we are all lying in bed. The bed breaks, the slats fall through, relationships start and even though the first day of winter-- December 21st according to the calendar is over a month a way, it's freezing. But I'm not done, we have to go back.

When I leave for Florida things are good and people are chipper. We are kissing with open mouths and groping with open hands. Getting into the cab John grabs me by the arm one last time-- fast and hard to kiss me and then he shuts the door. It's freezing in New York and I will be going through something like a fifty degree temperature change within the next five hours. In Florida, I see people. I bathe naked in the Gulf of Mexico, I address the issue of dismantled beds, the status of relationships, the different ways people believe in God or do not believe in god. I don't know that I will meet boys from the West Coast or decide that it's time for revival meetings. I don't know that the man on the other side of the telephone is lying through his teeth. I do know that he's had braces, that I used to want to touch them. That there's never been metal in my mouth.

In Florida my mother says “you talk about him like you hate him,” and I ask her why she says that “you always just call him that naked man in your bed.” I tell her that I don't call him this, try and explain something about identity and writing and then just give up. I tell her that I like him because he's older but doesn't seem that much older, because he's nice and attentive and patient. And then I say something which I probably shouldnt say-- I probably shouldn't say it just because the act of saying something out loud can make it more true than it was before, I say “he is the most judgmental person I have ever dated.” I say it, and it's true. Mind blowingly true. I've brought this up with him but he denies it. He is the kind of person who thinks that they are perfect. He believes in therapy and has a gym membership and will randomly tell me things about a music scene that does not hold my interest. I like him because when ever I have any doubts he is fast on his feet to tell me that this is unfair, that I can't base my judgments on him on my past relationships, that he is not like these other guys. He tells me I have no reason not to believe him because he comes over when he says he will come over and he calls when he is supposed to call. I don't remember him ever telling me that anything was actually his fault, but this is how it goes.

My skin tans lightly, someone takes a photograph. My mother says a prayer and we burn incense for good luck. I am staying for only five days-- maybe six, but this is enough. I need the sunshine to clear my brain. To refresh my head. This is my idea of Florida, I refer to the process as “bleaching my brain”. I can wade into the water, I can sit in the backseat or the passenger seat or fuck I can even drive the car and maybe it will rain, but mostly it is sunny. It is not Spring yet according to the calendar, but in Florida it's probably already been summer for two months.

When I get back to New York my plan for the weekend is to buy a bed. I like the idea of this. I like Spring Cleaning so much that I capitalize it and I like the idea of new beginnings and I am excited to buy another IKEA bed that will collapse through some other love affair or party no one regrets. That's my game plan. That's my responsibility-- buy a goddamn bed.

If you've been reading you may know that things don't really turn out this way. But please understand why I know when seasons start and end, it is an after effect of living in Florida. For example, the day I am scheduled to fly back to New York I am talking to the man next to me. For some reason we are seated in first class and I am heavily sedated. For some reason we are talking about the evolution of the Gregorian Calendar. Mind you, I have no fear of flying but I do believe that if the plane happens to crash I want to be in a state where it won't bother me much. The man next to me travels often. He is trying to explain the “vernal equinox” and I am trying to drift off.
“I don't even know what that is.”
“You were talking about Spring sweetheart, the Vernal Equinox-- that just means today.”

Maybe resting my head against the window or a shoulder, I close my eyes. If I was my mother I'd vomit into a paper bag out of actual motion sickness; If I was my best friend I'd burst into tears because she really is scared of flying but since I am myself both Dramamine and xanax in my body. I fall asleep, not nauseous, not scared of clouds or crashes. It is officially Spring and John comes over to officially end our relationship. Suddenly he wants to tell me that he is eleven years older than me, suddenly he wants to repeat for a few hours that he is not in love with me. To me he sounds insane. I am probably screaming, but at least the shit that comes out of my mouth is rational. We are lying on a broken bed, we are lying on the same exact spot where we started. It goes on for hours, I can put his shit into a brown paper bag but I am too exhausted to negotiate the concept of IKEA. I will sleep alone, I will let the slats fall through.

The worst part about John in my opinion is that he thinks he is a really good guy. He thinks he does the right thing with just about everything. I can imagine him waking up in the morning and patting himself on the back. I have never said this out loud because at this point I am terrified of him (he says to me once through text message 'there is no reason to be scared of me') he also says through text message that none of this is his fault. And I leave it at that. If none of this is your fault, then I just won't write back. I don't say it out loud but he is the most manipulative person I've ever dated, and that my friends is something for the record books. I have been losing my virginity to con men since the age of fifteen. Now it's all terminators and the CIA. One million secrets and the ability to be rational. He is rational so he says things like this to me: “This is better for you,” and “I am being honest with you,” and the whole time the bed is breaking. He says things to other people like: “I tried and it just wasn't working out,” and “she is young, she has her whole life ahead of her.” Of course I am terrified. I am scared out of my fucking mind.

I guess I should say how the banjo comes into play, the banjo instead of the bed and it's not about Bluegrass-- it's all goodbye Babylon to me. It's all revival music on front porches. Gregg's friend Alex is visiting and somehow we start listening to this stuff, he gives me a history lesson of a hundred years and the only way I can describe him as for the first few days of knowing him is “dreamy” he is left handed which is a sign. He taught banjo lessons so I decide I need a banjo. That is how rational I am in the spring of 2009. We drink beer because for months beer has been on a banned list. One night I have a drink of whiskey in it and it feels good to listen to good music with good people and think about porches and caverns and I am giving a talk suddenly in a diner about going North to get South and I know that John would never get it but I still blame him for the bed. For the bed and for generally doing everything he said he'd never do.
I blame myself for not being able to separate my fingers far enough-- banjo or guitar-- I always want to pinch them together when I am supposed to. I cannot grasp the concept of fluid motion. Alex comes over and I basically pretend that we are in the Appalachian mountains (except for that we can watch them on YouTube). He is just visiting which makes everything even more dreamy. I am David after dentist, every day I wake up and ask<i> “why is this happening to me?” is this real life?</i>. I sleep in anyone else's bed, it's nothing personal. My back hurts, my head hurts, everyone really was a liar. I get so angry with myself because I believed anyone in a kitchen, anyone lied to be by the bedside table and I said "fine you're different." Everyone wants to be an individual so instead of vomiting, I nod my head.

Is it going to be like this forever? I don't know, David. I don't know, Daniela. Everyone is ten years my senior. I hang out with my roommate (out of circumstance), my classmates (out of principle), my intern (out of habit) and everyone else-- well, they are all dudes in their 30's. They don't use their refrigerators but they pay for my drinks. Food expires if you can't freeze it and no baby this aint Florida but these bed sheets are as transient as my body can get itself to be.

I can never tell what the weather feels like by looking at it-- and this pretty much sums up everything up. This is human beings not just book covers.

This is Spring 2009:

I was supposed to be in love, but instead I got a lecture. I was supposed to buy a bed, but instead I bought a banjo.

out of gas, out of road

The reading goes well. I don't remember what I do the week before. I am on the phone with my mother. On the phone with friends in other countries discussing the summer. I am not "in the now" as they say, but the reading goes well.

The day of I wake up at 6:15 because I want to have time to shower and do some kind of power pilates before my intern is to arrive at 9:30 sharp. By 10:00 I am screaming at her on the phone for fifteen minutes while she is telling me that she is brushing her teeth. At 10:15 I walk outside, I know it's cold, I think it may be raining and I am not sure if I'm really dressed and hand a cab driver twenty bucks. My friend Gregg (who complains that I never write about him) has a friend, Alex, staying with him from Portland and he walks over right before I can find reason to yell at Jayme. I hand Jayme a copy of "Everything That Rises Must Converge" and tell her to type up the parts I've highlited, I also hand her a stack of pages that I've hand written you know just in case I change my mind about what I want to read within the course of the next eight hours. Alex and I walk to the diner where we eat sandwiches &owners &patrons alike help me plot out how the evening will unfold. I am nervous &I am not sure. I am nervous and I am not sure.

Back at the apartment I stare at the clock and then lie on the couch while Alex prints up brochures and Jayme puts everything I am going to read together. I read it all to her once aloud to make sure the time will match up. She always forgives me because despite when I am screaming, she knows I love her the best, that I will hand cab drivers twenty dollar bills in my underwear &get her breakfast. She's read all of this stuff already but for a moment I feel devastated I look her in the face and say "but now it won't be a surprise" as if I was going to reveal something so different, so unlike myself.

I wander around the apartment aimlessly. I dress and undress myself. I walk around topless, then in a slip, then drinking ginger ale until my roommate finally just sews the dress I've bought for the occasion. Well, she doesn't sew it-- what does she do-- I want it shorter-- she hems it? Is that what she does? I want it shorter so she hems the dress. Alex asks me about margins and Jayme asks me about characters. Kiley wants to know what's short enough and then I lie in bed sobbing. I cry and I cry and I cry. I am sobbing and when Gregg walks in he says it's like I have a complete staff. Alex is next to the printer, Jayme is in a stack of papers, Kiley has her fingers full of thread and I am curled into the fetal position.

I hold a pillow. I am a horrible friend.


The reading goes well. The reading goes really well. My friends come and my professor and some strangers. The restaurant is packed and I am slightly terrified. The tables have mason jars filled with gin and there are pitchers of Shirley Temples. I turn on a tape recorder. I feel like I am doing theatre-- so it is very convenient that Tyson Savoretti-- one of the best stage actors I've ever met in my twenty-four years of life walks up to me and says "do you want me to introduce you?" The room is loud-- everyone is talking and I must nod or something because Tyson commands attention. He is very good at grabbing the attention of a room. We went to high school together. He knows how to project, to voice without a microphone, and luckily, so do I.

After I start reading, I realize it doesn't feel like reading, it feels like more like performing. It feels good because I wrote all of it and all of it is true. I say "this is about me" or "this is about someone else" and plates of chicken and waffles and pulled pork sliders and cheese sticks come out. I talk over the kitchen and the slamming doors and I like it. I really like it. Jay and Kari are in front of me and they clap the loudest. My class from monday night is at at a table in the back of the room. Some people I have known for a decade, some I've never met before in my life.

I go on and on about men being monsters and the Catholic Church and what Florida can do to anybody and I talk desperately out to the crowd about what's it like to go North to get South. It feels good.

It feels good and I feel grateful. I did nothing but think out loud basically, but it feels good. I feel grateful. I can do nothing but read and write but somehow this balances out. Somehow everyone groups together to help me pull through. At twenty-five dollars a seat the room is full and afterward it is good to hug everyone to hear what they have to say.
I wrote it and I read it. I can be awful, I can be truly terrible, I can be motionless, but I can project.

but you don't really care for music-- do ya?

I. I am in my own room and a boy wants to kiss me.

"Holland 1945" comes on shuffle out through the speakers into the room. He tries to push his hands around further like I am some pit, some gold mine. I sit up and say "You know what this song is about? You know what this whole album about? It's about the holocaust! It's about Anne Frank. Listen to the lyrics are you even listening to the lyrics? What's wrong with you?" He doesnt hear a word I say. He says "that's cool babe. that's deep." I want to get up but instead I lie down, what's the use? What's the point? It's a good song so I listen and nod my head when he gets to "and it's so sad to see the world agree that they'd rather see their faces filled with flies."


II. This could happen anywhere.

Jackson and I will never have sex or romantic relations while Bruce Springsteen is playing. I don't mean just with each other I mean with anyone. I listen to a lot of Bruce Springsteen so this becomes a problem if itunes is ever put on "shuffle" a song will come on. No one is going to ruin these songs for me, nobody. I will run out of bed. I will jump out the window, I am telling you. If someone wanted me to put my hand on their dick while "Bobby Jean" was playing or God forbid something like "Reason to Believe" or "For You" or "Incident on 57th street"

if someone wanted me to do that, that wold ruin my whole life. That would ruin my whole life.

III. I am in a penthouse apartment overlooking Washington Square Park.

I am saying that I didn't know that these things even existed. A man has made a playlist of songs he thinks girls my age would like. He keeps pouring glasses of red wine that I am not even drinking. Greenday is playing and I start thinking about the 8th grade and the first time I let someone finger me. It was in a shed in Cory Brun's backyard. I wouldn't let him kiss me though. I was too terrifed to be kissed so I just let him finger me in a shed. I think about the 8th grade and I remember how much I liked this album but I have no idea why this man would think that "girls my age" would listen to this now.

"Fall Out Boy" starts planning and I am saying Mister, look, you've got the wrong girl. You've got the wrong girl. He changes to another CD. Music that girls my age will like and you won't even believe it, but it's "Taking Back Sunday" that album remember the one we listened to in cars?

I am laughing because now I have my own personal inside joke over looking Washington Square Park. He takes this as a sign that I am so into this, and then he looks at me like this could be the most romantic thing in the world and he says

"You know what I'd really love to do? I'd really love to fuck you in the ass."

From the stereo the words are playing "She said COME ON COME ON let's just get this over with"

And then I cannot stop laughing. I am on the floor laughing. I tell him "that was perfect timing" and then I grab my bag and I take the stairs.