That Awful Day

I've been writing about a lot of pain, sorrow, and death, and well, I guess this'll be another one. But I hope to explain the love that's underneath our pain. We don't feel a thing when something we don't love leaves. Love is the feeling you get when you embrace anything that can break your heart. When my Dad died, I could just shut down and go straight to work, taking care of all the things death requires in this world. You'd think if there was ever a time when they'd stop demanding bureaucratic hoops and government demands, it would be when you died. Or when someone you love died. But no, it's a whole thing, and truthfully, I was grateful for it. And so maybe I'm answering my own question. Perhaps they create all these systems and pathways and dances of death just so you can focus on something other than a big chunk of your heart being yanked out.

              My Dad's death was something very heavy. I just wasn't prepared for it. And we'd become so much closer over the years. Once he found out about my addiction, and he was certainly crushed by it, but it dissolved some veneer we'd always had between us. Once you get to the bottom, there's just no point pretending you're at the top. We'd talk, and I'd admit things to him that 10 years earlier I couldn't conceive of.

              My Mom is different. My Mom has always been as much a friend as a mother. She sat me down once on my dog-hair-covered Ikea couch here in Eagle Rock and laid it all out for me. She was visiting some time after my Dad died before she decided to move out here. She loves it in Pasadena, but she misses her Maryland yard. She misses the garden and the flowers. She probably misses other things that she spares me, but all in all, she likes it here. And I'm certainly so relieved and happy and grateful that she's just 3 minutes away. I'm an only child, and we just have each other. I'd drive myself crazy if we were 3000 miles apart.

And so she sat and told me what it was like when I came into this world. She suffered severe post-partum depression. They didn't even have a name for it then. To feel this was to just be a bad mother. A bad person. As much as I love my Dad, I have to say that, according to my Mom, he didn't leap into any sort of empathetic embrace. He wanted her to snap out of it. He threatened to call her mother, which would have destroyed my Mom. And he didn't take up any slack as far as parenting goes. My Mom describes my first year as me lying, crying in a crib, and being fed. She couldn't imagine loving me and my Dad, well, it wasn't his job.

My Mom tried to kill herself. She ate a bottle of Valium or some such thing that I’d later covet, Mom, if you're reading this, know I'm writing this because you've become the most important person in my life. I love you with the heat of a thousand suns. I can't tell this story without telling this, and I do so with so much love. Just so much adoring love for you. And so, my first year or so, I was fairly alone. Plenty of people who are "experts" in this sort of thing, and I suppose I'm on the periphery of this group, will tell you that this sort of non-attachment will do a number on a kid.

But you know what? All of my memories of my Mom are of her being incredibly loving, attentive, and protective. At some point, before my memories started taking hold, she "snapped out of it," just as she was told to do.

My very first memory is crawling across the kitchen floor of the house I grew up in and experiencing every first, every new and magical thing. We moved there when I was two years old. I can see myself crawling in nothing but a diaper. My memories are always in the second person. Like a movie. Sometimes like a filmstrip. I'm slowly crawling towards the doorway that opens to the family room. I can sense my parents behind me and watching but letting me go. The family room was a step-down. I was headed for a tumble. I don't remember actually falling over the step, but I distinctly recall a sense of knowing that I was responsible for my own safety in this world. My life never had overt, dramatic aspects of that. I lived a fairly uneventful childhood, except for the whole molestation deal, and my parents certainly loved me and protected me from every demon they saw headed toward me. But I knew, I knew that it was all up to me. And at some point, all of this settled into one simple edict, which I still believe to my core even though it's been disproven a thousand times.

The idea that has guided and driven me since banging around in diapers in this new family house where all my most cherished moments happened is this; I'm only as lovable as I am convenient to love. I've always known I had the power or the gift to attract people to me, but I also knew that they were gone if I needed any help or was in any way a bother. Long gone. I learned to keep everything outwardly level. I became a ship on the calmest sea. Nothing was ever wrong. My Mom tells a story of me having strep throat for a week before it became too much to bear, and I told her about it. I was one tough, scared little kid. Stay under the radar. Don't ask for help. Keep smiling. And everyone might stick around for another day.

I'm not even sure how any of this connects to what I wanted to write about. I think it's just to explain how much I loved my parents and how far away from them I was for so much of my life. Not because I didn't want to be close but because I didn't figure I deserved it. But dogs were different.  I deserved a dog's love. I've always had dogs. So many have passed through this life. It's why I believe in Heaven. A little kid's version of Heaven. Someday I'll die. I'll get to see all my dogs who slipped away, my Dad, Jack, Fred, and everyone else who just stopped. They just stopped being in my life. It costs me nothing to believe this, and I'd be a damn fool not to. And so, I feel somewhat secure. Somewhat held. Somewhat safe. No matter what happens to me, I'll wind up with the whole lot of them. I don't care what anyone thinks about me believing in Heaven. It feels good, and there's no way to ever know if it's true or not. I'll stay a little kid and hold onto these ideas forever.

But this is what happens with our lives. People leave. People die. And animals die too. I've had so many dogs in my life. My first dog was Duffy. I was so little. One night he was sleeping on the couch, and I crawled up to pet him. He awoke in a start and bit my face. It was a big deal. I still have a scar on my nose that I sometimes notice and cherish. I wish he'd pulled my whole head off. I felt so bad for him. It was my fault. "Never wake a sleeping dog." Something like that. I never saw him again. The next day my parents told me they gave him to people on a farm where he could run around all day and be happy. I believed that for years. It crushed me, but I believed that story. I don't know where Duffy wound up, but it was because of me. I became a hassle.

When I met Fainche, I saw the next eight years roll out in front of me like a cartoon. Or a P.T. Anderson movie. One night I played Password with him, Johny C Rielly, and Phillip Hoffman. We had to eat lots of Saltines before we could give clues to one another. Jesus, talk about a surreal and magical moment. A couple years later, I beat him in foosball with his sister Amanda as my teammate. All of this after being swept off my feet by Magnolia. Magnolia may be the greatest, most beautiful movie ever made. But that all came much later. I remember standing in the living room of an art department house. Maybe it was the production designer or the coordinator. I know whoever it was spent most of his time upstairs smoking crack and would appear every now and again in his underwear. Just a weird scene. But, whatever, commercials can get weird. I saw a Ford explorer pull up out front, and this beautiful girl stepped out. I turned to everyone in the room and proclaimed, "I'm going to marry her someday." I went outside to ask if she needed help unloading countless purchases from Ikea and such. Nope. She was fine. But Christ, I fell in love. She was Irish by way of Canada, but she was fully Irish. Fainche is an obscure name even there in Ireland. And she had this beautiful dark hair and two kind of crooked front teeth that I thought were just some sort of extra helping of beauty that God only gave to a couple people now and then. And so I went to work, and we wound up buying the house I'm typing in right now. We never got married, but we bought a ring in Capetown. We came close. But it wasn't meant to be. We're still friends. I love her like I love everyone I've ever loved. Maybe there's a spectrum, but I've never understood breaking up and just trying to erase a whole chapter of a life. I love them all. I certainly don't expect them to love me given what I've done, but I love all of them still. Robin, Leslie, Melinda, Stephanie, Denise, Fainche, Sabrina, Jana, Nery and Laura. God forgive me if I'm forgetting someone. But I love you all. I hope I didn't make you as unhappy as I think I did. Jesus, I've had such a long list of just beautiful and loving women in my life. And yet…..look how many are somewhere else in love with someone else. It's something. It's not nothing.

Fainche had Jake when we started going out. Another Jake in the list of girlfriend's dogs. Jake was a beautiful big guy. I remember sitting in my parent's family room on a visit home and the phone ringing. I can't remember if Fainche was there or if she was calling me. But it was over. Jake had left. She was crushed. I was too.

We moved into a little bungalow apartment in West Hollywood. I've mentioned it before. Pat, the matriarch of the joint who'd been there for decades and had worked with Halston and Warhol, always told us that our apartment was where Pam lived. Pamela of LA Woman. Pam of Jim Morrison love. Who knows? What do I gain by not believing it?

We rescued Calvin. A beautiful Rhodesian Ridgeback mix who ran up to us at an AA meeting in Echo Park. He didn't have much time left. We coerced him into the Explorer and took him home. He ate like a champ and slept for three days. Calvin was the king of dogs. He looked down upon alphas and patted their sweet little heads. He was regal. We'd trick him into coming to bed with us each night with treats. But he'd leave as soon as they were gone. He wasn't into affection. He was into being him. He was into being Calvin.

In time we got it together to buy a house, this house, in Eagle Rock. We were a little happy family. Maybe the cracks were starting to show, but we hung in there. One day our friend Sandy came by with a black dog that she said had been dumped into her fenced-in front yard overnight. He was beaten up. Ears were bitten off, and bb's still in his body, we'd come to find out. As God is my witness, I would push the button to torture and kill anyone who could do that to a dog and sleep perfectly well that night. Michael Vick, fuck you. There's no place for you here.

This guy we named Koufax. He became my dog. You know how it is. I loved Calvin and Fainche loved Koufax, but he was my connection to all those feelings of being a hassle. He'd been a hassle, and they'd harmed him. It took a long time for him to trust us. He kept trying to run away, and I got it, but I'd run after him and just hold him, kiss his nose, and tell him I get it. We're in this together. Just stay with us, and I promise we'll take care of you; we'll love you like you've never been loved before. It took a while, but he settled in.

We had a nice little life. We made a beautiful home. We went to Africa and tried hard to love each other enough. We tried so hard. Fainche and I were together longer than anyone I've been with, and still, despite how it ended, or maybe because of how it ended, I'd take a fucking bullet for her tonight. Hell, I'd take one for all of my loves if it gave them just one more day around this place. How far is Heaven? I'll go tonight.

We had so many dogs. We kept finding banished and hurt little guys winding up in our orbit. We took them all in. Richard Parker, Spike, Lady, Harry, Bridget. Some were from family who went onto Heaven. Most were just strays who could feel that our house was special in some unknown way. To this day, Buckley and Winnie are loping around here, waiting for treats. Buckley was just a little young guy when we brought him home, and he drove Calvin nuts. Until Calvin did his THING and Buckley backed off. Nothing physical. Just psychic. Calvin would eventually just growl the growl of God, and all the dogs understood. "Ok, cool, I get it. I'll just stay over here. If you need anything, let me know. I'll just be inspecting my tail between my legs for a while."

One day I was on set working on some commercial. We were on a sound stage in Hollywood. Maybe Raliegh, maybe Quixote. I got a call from my Mom. You know those calls. You just have a gut feeling it's bad. It's THE call. And it was. My Dad had a stroke, and no one knew what was happening. I remember telling the production designer, whom I didn't know very well, that I had to go. I broke down. I was weeping. I was so embarrassed. It was uncontainable. She told me to just go. I got home, and Fainche had started looking for flights for me. And the thing is that Fainche and I had ended our relationship already. It ground to a halt. As sad as it was, we immediately fell into just loving each other as friends. We had to stay in the house together. Neither of us had money to buy each other out or whatever the hell you do in these situations. I slept on the couch for a year. Fainche in the bedroom. I think our friends had a harder time with it than we did. But we still loved each other we just weren't going to get to that sunrise together. So we did the best we could. We lived together and loved our dogs.

And so I flew home and spent the next couple of months navigating my Dad's death. I've told you about it already. It was awful, and I just shut down and focussed on all of the many details that death brings to a family. In time I came back home. I was sober this whole time, and for that, I'm grateful. I'm so thankful I could be present to experience such a depth of pain and be there for my Mom. But I did something no one knows about. When they told my Mom and me that we had to decide if we wanted to take him off life support, we went home. We were meant to give them an answer in the morning. I'd been sober for a while. A couple years, maybe. And yet, there was a bottle of cough syrup in the upstairs guest bathroom. Likely forgotten for years and filled with Codeine and Promethazine. It wasn't really on my mind. We were in such shock over what we had to wake up to. Who can walk through such a thing without confusion and automation? But I saw that bottle and just drank it all and went to bed. I got well and good loaded. I've always felt horrible about that. Never told anyone. I gave in when my Mom and Dad needed me most. And who knows, maybe I needed it. It didn't lead to more, but I felt like I had let him down. I felt like I wasn't supposed to dull the pain. That the pain itself was a metric of how much I loved him. But I did it. I got loaded. And the next day, we set things in motion that took my Dad and my Mom's husband away from us in about 48 hours.

Eventually, I went back home to LA. We had a big party for my Dad. We had an Irish band and tons of people. It was a joyous, beautiful, drunken day. It's exactly what he wanted. And I'd set that up. I pulled it off. And I know he at least loves me for that. I know he loves me for more, but that was a really special day. I couldn't read what I'd written at the funeral mass because I couldn't stop crying. I cry all the time. I mean, I cry a lot. Usually, I'm fine with t. I'll even try to cry once a day if I remember. It's life-affirming. But then, I couldn't hold up in front of many people. I just said I love you, Dad, and walked away.

Life settled back into some sort of normalcy. I slept on the couch, and Fainche slept on the bed. I think she may have started to see someone. Maybe not. I was ok with it. I wanted her to be happy. I stayed sober except for that bottle of couch syrup on THE night. But time moved into summer, and Koufax started having issues. He had so many problems over the years. He had spinal surgery, hip surgery, and countless knee and arthritis issue. We'd spent almost $30,000 on him. But who cares? He was our dog. He was my dog. In the end, I had to help him onto the couch like I do now with Buckley. They just can't do it on their own, and they stand there not understanding why. They just look at me and say, "what’s happening to me, Dad? Why are things so different?” And so I help them up and get them comfortable and pet that little space behind their ears that looks like a little kid’s short haircut. So innocent. So hopeful for what’s to come. But nothing’s really coming. I know that.

In the end, Koufax would walk from his dog bed in the corner of the dining room and stand in front of me with his face gently in front of mine until I woke up. I was usually around three o’clock. I’d pop up had lift him onto his spot at the other end of the couch. His space. I’d hug and pet him, and he’d go to sleep, and I’d feel a huge tsunami of sadness slowly coming to swallow everything up.

He got sick one more time, and we took him to the vet. I don’t even remember what the issue was. But I’ll never forget the vet coming out and crying and telling us it’s time. Fuck. I wasn’t ready for this. Not right after my Dad. I went outside and smoked and shook. I knew I needed to be happy for him so he’d leave knowing he was loved. Fainche was there. We brought in Calvin. They brought him in wrapped in a blanket, and he tried to lift his head up for us. Jesus. He just never stopped trying. They never do. They live their entire lives trying to make us feel ok. They did what they do with syringes and liquids, and I saw the light go out of his eyes. I wanted to die. I really did. It was the first time I actually felt that feeling so acutely.

They let us just leave. They didn't make us settle up any sort of debts or paperwork. We just left in separate cars. Fainche asked me if I was going to be ok. She asked me if I was going to go get high and please don’t. Please Don’t. I told her no, I was just gonna drive. She begged me not to get high.

And. I did. I cried all the way to the mission and did what cowards do. I walked around until I found someone with a ten-dollar balloon of heroin in their mouth, and I bought it. And I got an outfit, and I got high for the next six months or maybe a year. I’d never got high because of pain like that, and there’s no way I’m saying it’s a valid excuse. It was a coward's way out. I should have been with Fainche. She was hurting too. And yet, I just couldn’t bear it. And I gave in. I gave in again.

Koufax, I named you after The Left Arm of God. The greatest pitcher ever. I loved you like I’ve never loved anyone. You were such a pure, hurt, beautiful, bright black pudgy dog. The look in your eyes when I’d grab your feet when we’d play on the couch, and you’d pretend to bite my hands. But we were both playing. We’d never hurt one another. It was July 4th when you left. God, I hate that day. Every year. I hate everything about it. I can’t wait to see you again. And fuck ‘em. I know I will. Why wouldn’t I?

Something Borrowed

I met Melinda in 1990 at Impact House in Pasadena. Impact was and still is at the top of the mountain where the slippery road ends, all leading to the one most hardcore of treatment centers. After coming back to LA and stealing Ricky Lee Jone’s Percodans and floundering for a few months at Paul’s house in Frogtown, something had to be done. By this point, my parents knew I’d relapsed, and that was such a weight. I remember my mom getting on the phone and just yelling, “What the fuck are you doing?! What the hell is wrong with you?” What could I say? I didn’t try to defend myself. I never did. I was always the villain in the story. It was just easier. And it’s not like I wasn’t. It was me who fucked up. Being a hero requires others to sign on to that. Being a villain involves nothing but your own black heart. It’s hardly noble; it’s just easy. It makes sense. It’s why kids always blame themselves for abuse. Something needs to make sense, and being the bad guy is the quickest path to it.

              Next store to Paul’s house was an older couple. I forget her name, but he was Lyle. They had to have been in their late 70s. I really loved them. It was something else pure I did to knock back some of the horrors of being a junky that just destroys everything. One night I took Lyle to a Dodger game. Of course, I was high, but he didn’t know, and it was a really beautiful night. It was like what hanging out with my grandfathers might have felt like. I’ll always have that night. I always imagine them living there whenever I drive down Fletcher to and from the 2. But that can’t be. They must have long ago crossed over. I’ll see them again. I believe it.

              My days were all spent in service of getting dope. A balloon was 7 dollars. What a weird price to arrive at. It made asking to borrow 7 dollars for some contrived need tricky. If I forgot to round up to 10, the gig was up. Who asks to borrow exactly 7 dollars? Sometimes I worked. I even got it together enough to get some Art Direction gigs from other PAs who had moved up the ladder. I couldn’t hack it. I was so intimidated by anyone higher up the food chain than me. I had zero sense of self-worth. I was so far out from shore. The relief I’d feel if I got enough money to cop was so incredibly overwhelming. Even before I shot the dope, I knew that for the next few hours, I wouldn’t be me. Fuck. I hated me. And so, you can imagine what you’ll do for that. I stole books from used and vintage bookstores and sold them to other vintage bookstores. I broke into friends’ houses and stole CDs to sell. And even then. Even at that lowest ebb, I could tell myself I was doing them a favor. I’d only take CDs that they shouldn’t like to begin with. I’d take The Beatles, and The Who and The Clash and maybe some others I can’t remember. But at the very instance where thought becomes a choice, I always thought I was doing the right thing. I think we all do that. No matter how obviously fucked up our actions and choices are to the entire world, we always think we’re doing the right thing. It only needs to appear for a fraction of a second. The point is we can not see ourselves as the broken people we can become in the nanosecond where decisions exist. We think we’re doing something good. And that leads to a whole universe of bad.

               I went to a couple NA meetings and tried to connect. I’d been very connected to NA in Baltimore for the year I spent there clean after The Christmas Where Everything Collapsed. NA in LA is ok, I suppose, but it’s nothing like what I was exposed to in Baltimore. Baltimore is a dope city. And so NA was strong and for real. I never felt that in LA NA. Look, I’m sure my perception is based almost entirely on wanting to stay high, but I just never really connected. But I did meet a guy named Peter who sponsored a bunch of people. He was a graphic designer. I’m not going to give his last name, but he was well-liked in the clean scene. Hell, he was one of the leaders. People loved this guy. I did, too, but the timing was just all off. At some point, he suggested I go to Impact. It was free, and it worked. Impact House was a residential rehab where you’d go for months. It was for convicts and anyone who just had nowhere else to turn. People didn’t go there expecting to be cured in 30 days like so many of my clients today demand. It was basically behavior modification with a massive focus on NA. At full census, there were probably about 50 people? Maybe 100? God, I’m so bad with gauging numbers and amounts but suffice it to say there were a lot of people there. Lots of cholo Mexicans with pristine white shoes and creased Dickies. Waxed Mustached White Power convicts coming or going from long sentences, Black Muslim crackheads and an assortment of the rest of us. Young kids with nowhere else to go and just wanting to get loaded, somehow we made the call and wound up here. They’d sign us up for General Relief, and that’s what we paid. Look, the place is truly a God-send for so many people. I don’t have a single negative word to say about it. There were things  I hated doing, but they cared. They really did. And it was tough. They’d kick you out on a dime.

              And even though we did everything together, the men couldn’t speak to the women. Sounds crazy, but otherwise, it always leads to the same deal. Rehab romances always, and I mean 100% of the time, end in catastrophe. If both of them actually stay alive to get back to treatment, it’s a miracle. People “fall in love” and decide to leave and build a life together. This life is cobbling together a couple hundred bucks and getting loaded in a cheap motel. One of them usually dies. Gone. People die every 8 minutes in this life.

              But, if you were just a little more clever, you could find ways to communicate with HER. Little fragments of song lyrics as she passed by while you were serving lunch. Sitting near her and talking to your buddy but loud enough that she knew you were talking to her. And, of course, I fell in love. And it wasn’t Melinda. First, it was  Laura. Laura was this beautiful blond junkie with a tattoo of an eye a few inches above her pussy on her stomach. I saw it when they took us to the beach one time. God, I loved that tattoo and what it was so close to. Like the Holy Grail. Just a couple inches down. Be still my beating heart. She was in there after getting arrested for a series of bank robberies. Lots of bank robbers in there. You’d be surprised how many people try and rob banks. They just always get caught, and they get so little for it. Don’t rob banks. It’s a sucker’s game.

              I’d try to get as close as possible to Laura throughout the day. Usually, it was just looking at her from across the yard where we all smoked, and I thought of that tattoo and what it would be like to have my nose pressed against it and my mouth just a few inches lower. Such are the thoughts when you’re 22 or so, and you’ve wound up in a Southern California treatment center for convicts and other junkies, like you, who’ve just blown every chance at a reasonable life. You fall in love and imagine making them cum, and then maybe some new beautiful life will spring forth, and all this will fall, far away behind you.

              The last time I saw Laura, it was years and years later. We’d wound up in AA together on the East Side of LA. She came to my house to ask if I could help with a stray pit bull she’d found. Buster. He was named Buster. I couldn’t take him in as I had three dogs then, but I gave her some money for dog food, and we talked. I never told her about all those images, hopes, and dreams I’d created around my idea of who she might be. I hope she’s still doing ok. I don’t count on it anymore. If I don’t see people, I assume they have died. I’m usually right. Most addicts will die from using. Like almost all of them. Maybe 2, 5, maybe 10% make it. It’s a low fucking number. We get this poison in us, and it sparks up our spines and worms into our brains for years, and ultimately it’s just easier to die. And we die by mistake. We get stronger dope. We get clean for a while, our tolerance goes down, and we get some “fire” dope with Fentanyl in it. And poof. We just become dead weight for some paramedics to have to lift and transport.

              My thing with Laura lasted most of those first couple of months. And then this new girl appeared. New women appeared all the time, but most were all torn up, as torn up as most of the men, and I’ll happily assume I was part of that group. But, being 22 gave me a little something of a leg up. The point is that this gorgeous, tall, black-haired Hungarian chick rolled in, and I just shattered into a million little sparks and wafted around all the trees and planter boxes and skimmed along the cement pathways and twirled around all the bored convicts’ heads and coalesced in my stomach, and I zeroed in. Melinda showed up.

              The story of Melinda and I is too long, at least in my mind, to jam into one story. It floats along the lines of soulmates and despair and more drugs and obsession and self-pity and sex and crying in the rain from across the street watching her kiss someone else. The story contains everything that makes me a sucker and some sort of an adult. I fell in love with her. I know I say that a lot, but as God is my witness, everyone I’ve ever truly fallen in love with happened immediately upon first sight. I don’t even understand how it can happen in any other way. We’re not negotiating a relationship here. We’re not offering and retracting and counter-offering. I either get hit in the heart by the club of love, or I might, at best, say, “hmm, sure, I’d like to fuck her.” But that’s it. When I fall in love, it happens in the space of fractions of millionths of a second. And that God for it.

              Melinda and I spent the next few months there at Impact. We got out. We hung out. My love was unrequited. And then it was for a month, and then for years, it was just off and on, and I built an entire career around documenting my heartbreak, and eventually, I just got tired and moved on. But those were some of the most intense and embarrassing years of my life. I should have stuck with just wanting to lick Laura. I’d probably have saved everyone a lot of trouble. But, the heart wants what the heart wants.

              And really, I don’t regret a second of it. I still love Melinda, and she’ll likely never read this. I still love everyone.

Right wrong

As I write these things, my focus drifts and gets blurry, only to become diamond sharp as something pops up like the little Johnny-Jump-Ups of my youth. My mom always said they meant the beginning of spring. I’d start to survey the lawn as soon as the winter chill started lifting. I think they were little bluish-purple flowers. If I found one, I’d pick it for my mom. The thing is, I can’t remember actually ever giving her one. I can just remember the feeling of having given her one. So, I must have. And if not, it’s still a nice thought. And so, all of this writing is me just slowly surveying my life and looking for little Johnny Jump-Ups. These are the little flowers of memory that I’m giving to you.

              What I’ve shared is from all over the place. From my very first memory to two days ago. At first, I thought there’d be more of an order to it, but that’s not how it’s panned out. And while I sat down thinking to give more shape and form to Melinda and those years of Lifter and days spent in bed watching People’s Court on repeat and all of the little specs of time that comprise a chapter of a life, well, another Johnny Jump Up has appeared, and I’m back on Franklin with Leslie.

              Things were going along in ways that precluded true happiness and peace but not so bad as to jump off the train entirely at the next vaguely familiar stop. My memory of what I think I must have been like to love and live with must be out of whack with how Leslie saw me. I can’t imagine her putting up with me the way I saw me for that entire year. And yet she did. I suppose that she knew I loved her and that my heroin use really had no connection to that. I understand fully how people who love junkies, alcoholics, and a zillion other addictions feel like, “If they loved me, they’d stop.” I understand that perfectly. But I also know what it feels like to love someone so deeply and feel completely powerless to keep from breaking their heart each day. This stuff’s tricky.

I’d hate to sound like I’m trying to excuse my behavior, but I’m truly not. It’s entirely possible to be deeply in love with someone and continue doing the one thing that causes them so much pain. We get stuck in a cartoon snowball rolling down a mountain, getting bigger and faster, and so wanting out but so incredibly afraid to stop moving. Feel what it’s going to be like outside of the snowball. Standing there stock still, frozen and sick. We just keep it going because stopping terrifies us, and love has nothing to do with it. That said, to anyone who I ever caused this kind of pain, I make myself completely available to you. Say and do whatever you want to me. It’s the least I can do.

              We kept the band going for a while there. I know it ended on Halloween night that year, but it was likely all but dead for a time before that. But for a while, it was happening. We’d get a show every now and then, and we’d rehearse at Hully Gully. I wrote some songs, Aaron did as well, and Rob wrote the most. We also did a lot of covers. Honestly, that was my favorite part. We did Skulls from The Misfits, She’s Like Heroin to Me (of course) from The Gun Club and a bunch of cool British obscure pop songs that Rob turned us onto. All of this was happening pre-Nirvana. This meant that we never thought of getting signed or anything. It just wasn’t an option for a group like this. We did it for fun, and while I surely still had those junky/rockstar ephemeral dreams, I wasn’t banking on it. We played to play, drink beer hang out, and it felt so incredible to sing on dope. I’ve played a lot of shows loaded, and nothing feels as good. Well, maybe striking someone out or that first taste of her compares, but you know it was a wonderous sensation. Singing loaded. Maybe that’s the name of the book.

              I have a hard time remembering what gear I even used. At some point, Leslie bought me a black Stratocaster for either Christmas or my birthday. Jesus, that was a big deal for me. Not only was it a guitar that wasn’t cheap, but it told me she cared about what I cared about. One of my deepest longings has always been wondering what Leslie thought of all the music I created after we went down separate paths. It always mattered to me. I’d be writing, and I’d wonder if Leslie would like it. I’d wonder if these lyrics were good enough to print on one of her t-shirts.

              When I met Leslie, and I mean, just sorta passing her in a space, I noticed her t-shirt. My friend Darren was dating Marion, Leslie’s younger sister. At some point, I went with Dareen to pick up or hang out with Marion, and Leslie passed through the frame. In an instance. I was in love, like a jolt of 540 watts from a Classictone Power Transformer in an old Fender Twin amp. Just, oh my, look at her. Look at her black hair, shy nervousness, that ever-present black mini-skirt, and the entire head-to-toe perfection. I fell in love. It took a lot of months and listenings to the Violent Femmes’ first record to win her over, but it happened. She made these shirts. She’d write all the lyrics from a loved song within the borderless confines of a block of text on a white t-shirt. Totally illegible unless you look really closely. Eventually, she made one for me. I asked for “A Box For Black Paul” by Nick Cave. I wore it forever. Well, I wore it until I got too big. My weight was always my core issue. We’ll get to that later.

              Just a quick note, some motherfucker just shot off about 3 dozen fireworks in my neighborhood. Big, loud, flash the yard ablaze in white light rockets. My dogs are traumatized. I hear other dogs in the neighborhood barking and yelping. I just walked out back and yelled as loud as I could, “Stop being such a fucking cocksucker!” Who knows? Maybe they heard me. Likely they didn’t. I just want you to know who you’re dealing with. But you know what? I was that cocksucker growing up. I was the kid always setting off fireworks and bombs throughout the year. I was the motherfucker scaring all the dogs. I guess this is karma. I just hate that it spills over onto my dogs.

              I fell so deeply in love with Leslie. A part of me wants to tell you about the first time we had sex. But, It’s not for me to share her secrets. And the truth is that just earlier tonight, I got a call from a friend, and he nervously asked me if maybe I could change something in one of these

              Ok…everything has changed. Everything went red with rage. Another barrage of explosions happened, and my dogs are dying with fright. I ran outside and saw other neighbors standing outside, wondering what’s going on. The Fourth of July was weeks ago. I just happened to see new fireworks shooting from the street a few blocks up. I just felt something come over me. I thought about the gun but threw that idea away immediately. I just realized I was bulletproof and don’t give a fuck about physical pain. I’ve kicked enough dope to just go. I just went. I started marching down the street, and another car pulled over, and a guy got out. He said, “Jesus, that’s some crazy shit.” I blurted out something like, “I’m gonna fuck this motherfucker up.”

 Look, I never act this way. I just don’t. I fantasize about it, but I keep it there. Safe. But I was pushed. Some energy and a complete lack of self-care pushed me forward. I came to a corner and saw the empty carton of about 24 rockets still smoking in the street. Now what? I can hear a party around the corner to my left. I make a snap decision and just go berserk. I start asking, screaming, “which of you motherfuckers is lighting off these things, and don’t you know there’s dogs and babies in this neighborhood?” Some big cholo motherfucker rushes up, challenges me, and says, “Why you gotta come like that?” “Fuck you! Why do I even have to come at all motherfucker?”

Immediately two of his friends start separating us. I know the guy would have made easy work of me, but it felt so good to just unleash and not feel fear. I just didn’t care about any sort of damage, any sort of pain. Once you’re had guns pushed into your right temple and knife blades pressed against your throat and kicked a thousand times, there’s just not much anyone can threaten you with. All I was afraid to feel was the pain of regret if I hadn’t rushed in. Now I was safe. I had most certainly rushed in like a fucking banshee! I just kept telling him he was a cocksucker! And a motherfucker! and what the fuck did he think he was doing? Jesus, I know I just looked like a crazy guy. But it worked. Two other guys started apologizing to me, and I immediately embraced them. Now he was alone. And then I tried to give him some sort of love. He wasn’t having it. He was in gangbanger mode. But fuck. To feel so free and utterly unconcerned with pain was so beautiful it made me love them all the more. They picked up their stuff, and all of the twenty or so excited and confused party just started walking inside.

              This isn’t about whether I did the right thing or not. I’ll do horrible things to protect my dogs. But this is about the absence, the complete absence of fear. How far is Heaven? I’ll go tonight  motherfucker.

              And the truth is that I wish I could have one extra thing. If there’s just one thing I’d give anything for, it’s to somehow be friends with this guy. I was him most of my life. I regret how strong I came on. Who knows, I’ll look for him. I can see us being friends. But fuck, I’m so filled with adrenaline now I need to back off. I love you all, and Dodger hat-wearing cholo, I love you too. I bet t happens because I’ll put the effort in to make it happen. I’ll make that guy real pozole.

              Sorry if this got derailed. Sometimes life intervenes.

              This is easily the most embarrassing and vulnerable thing I’ve shared with you all.

Dive For Your Memory

I just walked around my neighborhood. I walked to Vons, the neighborhood grocery store that I go to at least once a day. I prided myself on marching in there every single day for the first year of the whole pandemic debacle. I showed unity. I know all these people working there like family. One of the security guys calls me “The Gambler,” given my Kenny Rogers beard. He positively beams when he sees me. I love this little old guy. I buy food for each meal. I love to cook. And I want to walk to stay in suit-wearing shape. I waited my whole life. I’ve tried to lose enough weight all my life to wear suits like Nick Cave or Warren Ellis or any other guy not afraid of being the fat little kid at age 50. And it happened. I did this thing called Noom with my best friend Dan last year. I lost 100 pounds. Jesus! It’s just crazy how much that is. I got legitimately skinny. It’s all I ever really wanted. It changed everything! Like a fucking ton of Semtex going off under your bed on the first day of spring! Wham! Transported to an entirely new dimension. I was raised in a house where the unspoken Golden Rule was that only thin people were good people. Heroin kept me so filled up I never ate. I’d extend habits just to lose a few more pounds before I’d slink into rehab and gain it all back. But, something’s different now. It’s been about eight months since I got to 160 pounds. I have no memory of weighing that ever before. Clearly, I must have because I surpassed it, but I don’t know when. Maybe high school? And so I walk.

              But today, I was walking around and looking for anyone connected to the scene I created the other night. As much as I know I was motivated by my poor terrified dogs, something else was also at play. It wasn’t just about Winnie and Buckley. I was into the rage. I was into flowing along a river of hate, looking for rocks and skulls and sleeping bears on the shore hoping for a salmon to jump into their mouths. And so I was kinda hoping I’d see someone so I could talk and apologize. I came on like an enraged lunatic. I’m convinced it was what saved me from any repercussions from a party of young, drunk toughs. I think they sensed how unhinged I was. But, there were kids around. I only see them now in the memory movie, but then they were blurry and out of focus. Little kids don’t need to see me losing my mind. Anyway, I didn’t see anyone, and I wasn’t going to just hover around their house. Someday we’ll meet, and I’ll say my piece. In the meantime, I’ll keep walking, skating, dropping things on my tongue, and writing all of you these love letters.

              These things really are love letters to whoever cares enough to read them. Every aspect of my life is so wholly formed by the different variants of love. Showing love. Feeling love. Fearing the lack of love. Seeing this same lack in others and just holding the door open for strangers. I do that religiously. And it’s not because I’m so magnanimous but because I believe it’ll get me closer to love. And I want that.

              Before the whole fireworks ordeal of the other night, I was writing about first meeting Leslie, and how captivated I was by her. It bears repeating that she was a gorgeous, shy, quirky artist chick a few years older than me. She was like seeing some mythological beast appear on your back patio asleep one morning. How? Why here? Why me? She was that.

              And the shirts she made. Her’s was, I’m pretty sure, an Echo and the Bunnymen song squared up and tangled, tingling and wrapping around each other, every letter. She made them with Sharpies, I presumed. When she finished mine with the “A Box for Black Paul” lyrics on it, I was bowled over. I’m not even sure if we had even kissed yet. I wish I still had that shirt. It would be really big on me now! I’d wear it with my purple velvet suit and just take over Vons! I’m the Pope of Eagle Rock Vons! I’d wear that shirt to the wedding of Jesus and Jennifer Lawrence. I imagine them together.

              And now we’re back in the Franklin year. Those months moved on playing music, working on so many corny hair-band metal videos. The video “vixens” seemed so interchangebale. Weirdly enough, and I don’t think it was just the dope, they never really turned me on. They were beautiful, sure, but they were so afraid. Afraid of losing status or maybe this troglodyte bass player’s affections. And always too much hairspray. You just knew that if you ever got the chance to fuck them, you’d only smell perfume and nothing of them. That’s so sad. I always wanted to taste and feel and smell them like they’d just run a thousand miles to meet in some overheated room with dope and days to spend just crawling into each other. And no fucking showers. Just primal. And really, fuck the dope. The taste and scent were enough. Like that eye tattoo just inches above…The smell. The taste.

              And again, real-life interjects. A friend, a Facebook friend, reached out to me a couple days ago. I will go to great lengths not to give even a hint as to who this is. I think we’re pretty safe. I don’t even think I know what this person looks like or if we’ve actually met in person. Maybe we have, and I am now shattering their idea of me being someone who could help, me who can’t even remember them. But we’re friends on Facebook, and we’ve had a few interchanges over the years. All fairly nice. But I’ve always felt that this person would hate me if they really knew me. I feel like that a lot. Like I have some unforgivable opinion lurking under my skin that will push me out of polite society. This isn’t an indictment on this person, it’s never happened, but I feel that way nonetheless. I feel wildly out of place in the echo chamber I find myself in. But, I like this person. Genuinely.

              This person messaged me because of the stuff I’ve been writing. They confided that after many, many years of being clean, they got loaded at the beginning of the mask phase. And it’s just kept going. And could I suggest any help? And so we talked, and I offered up some ideas, but I knew they’d be hard to swallow. Nothing feels like the right thing to do in these moments short of being put to sleep for a week or so. But it’s very important to me that this person, who I don’t even really know….feels how much I’m in their corner. The loneliness of needing to kick combined with no one even knowing you’re strung out is like a little small bomb slowly exploding and pulverizing your quite lovely slow, beautiful beating heart. It’s fear and shame made flesh. At least, it was always that way for me.

              We just talked a little more on Messenger. The detox I suggested was a no-go. Too many bad Yelp reviews. What can I say? I just want this person to get on the other side. Maybe they can find a GP to help them with a take-home detox. I offered my bedroom as a place to kick. I fully realize how potentially creepy and preposterous this sounds, but I’m serious. I rarely sleep in my bed. They could just sweat it out in there with a TV and a dog or two if they wanted them. The thing is, I’ve kicked on so many stranger’s couches over the years. We just do it for each other. Anyway, they know I’m here. I’m here on another end of another thread of where this love with heroin takes us. And maybe I’m projecting that onto them. I don’t think so. So I wrote them a poem:

               These things that we have to do

These things which we’ve carved out of fear and black concrete

Getting past all the sensors, all the guards

And here we stand with a lake of “fuck, what have I done?” lapping at our feet

We can see the other side, but we know

We know almost no one ever gets there.

But I can! Maybe I can  throw off these old t-shirts and scared texts

I can maybe do what I am so fucking afraid to do

I can maybe almost die to get over there.

These are the things we have to do.

A couch and a shitty TV

Hourly white pills and electric blue Gatorade

(they say that’s good)

And one million perfectly sensible reasons to make the call

Make the call and feel better.

And six months later

A year later

These things that we have to do

Are still there.

It’s just a quick little poem I wrote to express how I feel about this, all but unknown person, but also how much I love them because I know the pain that invades them. The subtleties of addiction are many and varied. But we, the sorry tribe, understand.

And so, after the poem,  I started writing more about Leslie and those middle months where things weren’t catastrophic, but things were sad. Leslie would still make potato salad every now and again, but it lacked the excitement from the downstairs days. Once we moved up to the exposed brick wall, second-story apartment life started trickling out of a slow drip IV onto the pavement. Dripping just where everyone would stand and yell up, “Hey! Through down your keys!” That’s how we visited each other then. We’d throw down keyrings so our friends could get past the shitty security system and just walk up. Here’s what Mick has to say about it:

Can’t you hear me knockin’, ahh, are you safe asleep?

Can’t you hear me knockin’, yeah, down the gas light street, now

Can’t you hear me knockin’, yeah, throw me down the keys

Alright now

Throwing down your key ring. Such a part of living in LA in those years. It was intimate. It was trusting; it felt like you were throwing down part of your little soul. And really, it was just a key to get in, come on up, hang out, eat potato salad and drink.

When I started writing this piece after the first attempt, after I assaulted the gangbangers’ late fourth of July party, I had some theme in mind. It seemed important. It seemed important to explain and describe the moment when everything you’ve been so sure of, everything that drove you, turned out to be, in a fucking FLASH, wholly and regrettably wrong. You were just wrong about everything.

I felt that as soon as I started screaming at that cholo motherfucker. I didn’t need to do that. But maybe that’s all they’d understand with a guy like me rounding the corner. The point is, in an instant, I knew I was wrong.

I felt that later that summer/fall with Leslie and my friends in the band. I was only getting worse. I can’t even remember if Dean was still around. I’m not sure where he’d be, but my memories are only of copping and getting high alone, almost always in my car listening to Dodgers games. I just remember whole stretches of periods where nothing happened. The months that I know must have occurred but were filled with drug monotony that they escape memory.

At some point, we, the band, Sleep, rented a rehearsal space above the Hollywood Billiards Club on the corner of Hollywood and Western. The billiards place was fairly historic, I think. Who knows? I think it was. Several floors above were sectioned into individual shitty carpet-covered rooms with enough outlets for a band to practice in. Noise be damned. We just all hammered it out together. It felt good having our own place. But as is always the case, you play way less once you have a 24-hour lockout. It’s always available. What’s the hurry? It all just grinds to a halt.

We got the place a day or two before Leslie had had it with me and kicked me out. I don’t even know what that meant. She deserved so much better. She deserved to tell me to fuck off, pay your rent. And come back when you had at least 60 days clean. I don’t think that happened. I left for a while and carried on like a piece of shit. We practiced for a while and maybe played some shows. The weather was getting colder. I remember walking around downtown to cop after dark and feeling like it was harder than usual; it was getting cold. That felt sad. Everything was sad. Nothing was working out the way I thought it would. Not at all the way I’d imagined. I know it was near Halloween because of the big Halloween parade in Hollywood. Was it a Gay Pride thing? Was it just Halloween? Did I imagine the whole thing? I went down to Bonnie Brae and 6th to cop.

Sorta slim pickings, but I found a guy and bought a ballon for all I had to my name. 7 bucks. At least I had that. I drove back up the 101, got off on Western, drove up to Hollywood, and found parking. I think I expected to practice that night. I remember planning on sneaking to the bathroom to get high and play. I went in and up the rickety elevator to our floor. We all had a key, so I opened the door and stood there flummoxed. Just scraps of papers, empty beer bottles, and my guitar and whatever amp I was using. I can’t remember what it was. How can I not remember that? The room was empty. They’d all left.

And still, it didn’t hit me. I closed the door and set out to shoot up. I pulled the balloon knot apart with my teeth and extracted the little wax paper folder piece of heroin. It seemed weird. There was way too much of it. You never got extra. I smelled it. It didn’t have that vinegar scent. But still, it was brown, and IT JUST HAD TO BE DOPE.

That’s always the thought. It just can not be dope. And so I put it in my spoon and squirted some water on it and started cooking it. It just got thick. It didn’t behave. I knew in my gut what was happening, but I couldn’t accept it. Sniffed again. Smelled like chocolate.

I’d bought seven or eight or whatever dollars worth of a tootsie roll. Just a common-looking thing that looked like dope. And it took several actions to get to the center, just like a real tootsie pop. I’d been burned. I was alone. My band had taken all their gear, and Leslie had kicked me out.

These are the moments when the worst things you can feel for me are sympathy or empathy. I’d orchestrated every single second of the play, which ended with me here, sitting on a rotten carpeted Hollywood rehearsal lockout with everyone gone but the junky singer who’s trying to tell himself that maybes there’s dope in this glob of thick brown liquid he’s about to inject into his right arm.

What can you do? You shoot it. You push it in and wait and pray to God that maybe they put at least the smallest amount of dope into the chocolate. There’s nothing else available to you.

So you sit and wait and feel. You feel really hard. I there anything? Anything at all?

And no. You’ve just injected pure Tootsie Roll into your right arm, and your friends have left you, and there are queers in costumes parading up and down the street, and everyone has a life except for you. And you gave yours away. You have no one but yourself to blame. This is where you end up.

And this is that moment you’ll feel later racing into the cholo fireworks party and challenging them to shoot you, the moment when everything you counted on crumbles. Everything you thought was without question falls apart in an instance. Turns out that being a junky didn’t make you a better singer. Didn’t make your band better. Didn’t attract people to you. You aren’t Lou Reed or Nick Cave. You’re Mike Coulter, and the world couldn’t care less.

It’s funny how much we believe in fantasies until the very moment they fall apart. Heroin made it easier to believe. But, c’mon, who really wants to love a junky? I guess I’ve just been driven by hope and fantasy throughout all of this.

Fairytale of New York

Remember the feeling of going to bed on Christmas Eve? I suppose it wasn’t always so good for everyone. If was just another knife prick in a little kid’s life for you, I’m sorry. Seems like it should be a given for everyone until they reach like 10 or 11. It just seems like it should be this way. Giddy, excited and ultimately exhausted, drifting off into sleep on Christmas Eve. Counting off the minutes tangled in dreams of things that don’t hurt. Christmas Day was always my favorite day of the year, but the going to sleep the night before and popping into consciousness in sun-filled Christmas day bedroom light was the essence of it. Even during the Bad Times, nothing could really puncture that bubble. I loved running into my parent’s room to wake them up. As sleepy as they were, they’d get up and act excited. They’d get into the feel of it. They did it for me mostly. It was just the three of us. I guess they liked Christmas as well, but it all revolved around me.

I’d run down to see what was under the tree while my Mom put on coffee in one of those Sunbeam percolators. Was it Sunbeam? I remember it being white enamel with some sort of snowflake design hugging it around the bottom. Dad would ask me to bring in some wood to start a fire. I’d bolt out to do it. We all had our roles, and I loved fire; soon, the fireplace would have its once-a-year blaze of paper wafting up into the chimney, and the dogs would be running around inspecting all this unusual activity. They never remembered. It was a new experience for them every year as they sadly changed places and replaced each other. I can’t wait to see all of you in Heaven. You must be quite a herd by now.

              I loved all of it. I have for most of my life. I poke fun, tease and outright mock the simpletons who’d complain about hearing Christmas music in stores after Halloween.. pretending you hate something because you’re afraid they’ll kick you off the team for not hating something. Hate for real or love. You don’t play around with this stuff. It’s too important. Figure it out. Hate for real or love.

              There was a part of me, the last little pieces of the little kid in me who missed all those mornings and all the dogs throughout the years and just the coming together of the whole thing. This was the part of me that was still looking forward to coming home for Christmas after our first year and a half in LA. All of us were going home. Leslie and I and Marion and Lynn. The truth is that maybe Lynn stayed back with Nigel. That would have made sense. But maybe it was the whole lot of us. I think this was the first time we’d been home since we moved to LA and witnesed life get slowly so very unwieldy. It went wild mustang-like chaotic. Chaos wrapped in slow, steady despair. There was that part of me that was looking forward to Christmas at home, but the other, larger, smarter, more cynical part of me kept whispering, “this is gonna end in tears. just no chance of you pulling this off.” I looked down at my feet at the airport in some sort of resolved shame. How was this ever going to work?

              I told you about the Propaganda Christmas party, which featured me smoking crack for 3 hours in a ridiculously large men’s room in some old but beautiful LA theatre. Remember the guys in tuxes working for tips while people like me hid in stalls and got high? I always think of them. The stories they must have. The party was the night before this flight home. I have memories of being at the airport and navigating our way home to Bel Air, and I seem fine in these flickets of memory, these little flicking pages of a flip book. I just know that can’t be true. I can’t imagine having dope with me. I surely would have done it all the night before. I think I was a stumbling wreck, but I guess I pulled it together because I remember our parents, maybe just my parents or maybe just Leslie’s meeting us at the airport. They didn’t all collapse around me in heartbreak and shock. I must have been fairly human-like, but I distinctly remember feeling like a bug. Just some little creepy thing that might dart right underneath you if you took your eye off of me.

              We were edging closer to The Collapse.

Eventually, I wound up at home in my house, and Leslie and Marion were at theirs. My parents were so excited. They were so happy to see me again, and Jesus, here I am, knowing that I’d become a horrible thing they couldn’t even imagine. And this is not hyperbole. There were truly unprepared for what eventually came gushing out. Once my Mom found a joint in my bedroom and decided not to tell my Dad. Another time, my Dad found a pill in my room and decided not to tell my Mom. Both thought the other could handle it. And maybe they both told, but those things weren’t within a lightyear of where I was and had been for years. Long before dope, I was so fucked up, but I pulled it off by getting good grades and staying under the radar. Don’t ask for much. Play it cool. But this was a whole different animal. This was a volcano considering a flickering match. And to think of all I put myself through trying to keep being molested a secret. I was sure they’d hate me for that. But that was nothing compared to this. I chose this. I worked for this. This was all my doing. I had no older kid predator to blame. Now they’d find out about it all, and it was inevitable. We hung out a bit, standing around the kitchen, letting my Mom show me new things and changes here and there. They were both so truly happy to have me home. I certainly tried my best to keep it together. I was never sullen or in any way anything other than desperately trying to seem happy. I had a beer, but eventually, we all went to bed. I had a paycheck and asked my Dad if I could sign it over to him so I could go Christmas shopping the next day. He always had cash somewhere. “Sure. leave it out before work.” I went and laid down on the couch, which is where I slept every night since being molested. Dad never knew. Mom and I kept it from him until the end. It was exactly the right thing to do. As I lay on the couch flipping through channels to try and go to sleep, I heard my Dad walk back downstairs and come into the room. He just said, “It’s good to be home, huh, Buddy? love you, pal.”

              Fuck., Jesus Fucking Christ, I wanted to just cease. More than that, I just wanted him to have no recollection of me. It just killed me. What do you say to that? I know that his entire world is going to be completely turned upside down and all the good bits shaken out and into the Christmas paper ashes if we even got to that. “It is Dad. love you too.” He just smiled, paused for a moment and went back upstairs. I waited for a few minutes and listened, and when I was sure he was upstairs, I walked into the other room and opened the liquor cabinet. Do people even still have these? I just grabbed some bottle that seemed fuller than the others and just swigged it down.... Blot. It. All. Out.

I wonder what was on TV when I finally fell asleep. I wish I had a list of every show that was on at the very moment I fell asleep on that couch over all these years. Let’s say about 12 years, away at college and in LA for some of it, let’s say 7 years of nightly shows flickering as I fell asleep, too terrified to have anything like reflections, only titanic intrusive thoughts and looping rumination. I wonder what it was I fell asleep to that night. Maybe we can find some trauma-focused intervention in it all. Some shows must mask getting raped by an adult more than others.

              The plan was to go “Christmas shopping” in Towson the day before Christmas Eve with my friend Jack. Towson was basically on the outskirts of Baltimore but not quite the city. Not really suburbs either. Jack lived there. You’ve met Jack. Jack was my friend who turned me onto pretty much everything I loved in high school. He was getting loaded by now too. Today, he’s at least 15, maybe 20 years passed away. His family kept it a secret. No one knows how he died. But he was ready to go that day. He was ready to go on that day before Christmas Eve day as well. I drove my Dad’s corvette into the city to get Jack. Dad always had some sort of crazy fast sportscar deal. Ever since I was little. He loved them. I think he got a kick out of me driving it into the city to hang with Jack. Dad was very much into having a good time if at all possible. He was super organized and almost militaristic with his finances, but he loved people, and they sure did love him. When he passed away, and I set up the funeral service and Irish wake/party that I knew he’d want, the church was completely unprepared for how many people showed up. It was like everyone in the town I grew up in loved Jim Coulter. It wasn’t just ”like that”; it was fucking true. My Dad was a Godamned good man. There was just nothing I could do that ever stopped him from loving me. He sure got handed a weird deal when I came along. I always knew he loved me. I still know it. He’s standing right behind me, rubbing my hair and telling me he loves me as I cry onto this shitty keyboard. “Get a new one,” he says. “Just get one. charge it to my card.”

              The rest of the day is just filmstrip style. All of the moments are single frames. Flick! I’m at Jack’s front door. Click. I’m sitting on his bed, excited. The machine moves a step forward. We’re in some parking lot. Flick. We buy cigarettes. Advance! We’re in the city, the ghetto, The Wire corners. Jack has some connections. Next frame, I’m back on his bed with a syringe registering from my arm. The socket turns the film and stops as I’m almost home, realizing there are zero Christmas presents to show for my day. It hadn’t even occurred to me to pretend. Not to buy the simplest, most thoughtless gift. All I thought of was getting high. Try to imagine being that utterly selfish. The cogs turn. I’ve pulled the corvette into the garage. My eyes look down as I watch my hands push dope and an outfit into my socks. The filmstrip ends with me looking up and seeing that the door to the house is open and my Dad is standing there.

              There are moments in life that are so are singularly awful that they defy description. I look at him with a veneer of guilt and fright, covering my face as he’s looking at me with disbelief and rage. We’re locked in time and space together. I make the first move and open the car door. I get out empty-handed. “Where have you been?” he asks to which I mumble an ineffectual, “with Jack.” “Come inside” he says. He looks away and closes the door behind him. It’s as if he’s giving me one last chance to evaporate, to disintegrate into the cold Christmas air. But I can’t do it. I surely would have if it was possible, but I’m stuck here in this thing in the shape of me. This is it. It’s all out in the air, and so I stumble, still high, into the family room. My Mom is sitting on the edge of a chair, just praying there’s some mistake, “So what did you do today? Where were you?” I want to know what he knows, and he simply says, “Leslie told us everything. Do you have any idea what you’ve done to her?”

              I’ve never been one to get defensive or resort to denial. It’s not a noble thing. It’s just how I’m wired, and it always struck me as so incredibly pointless. I didn’t say anything. I just stood there looking down at the floor with the dogs, happy to see me. I remember the feeling, though. Just the feeling you get when you know that you’ve just destroyed or, at best, injected grapefruit-sized tumors of pain into the very two people you’ve been trying your whole life not to let down. Surely I’d let them down in the past, but nothing on this level and nothing so sudden and unimaginable. At some point earlier in the evening, they were at home, happy I was back with them and looking forward to Christmas. And then the phone rings, and it’s Leslie and everything changes in a flash.

I never really knew how Leslie explained what was going on but I never for a moment had anything but respect for what she did. Jesus, the balls to do what she did. And sure, she’d had it and wanted an out for herself as well but to tell my parents directly what had happened to me could not have been anything anyone would confuse with easy. At some point, my Dad asked if I had any more drugs left. He was furious. And I did what we do. I lied and said no. I told him I just had a needle, and before he could say anything else, I told him I’ll throw it away, and I walked into the garage and threw it into one of the garbage cans. I had to be out of sight in order to get it out of my sock without them seeing the dope. God works in mysterious ways, and he allowed this to happen. They didn’t follow me out. It was actually worse. Even now, they trusted me to just throw it out as if it would forever be unusable, having lied atop some trash in a cold garage. I think I had maybe two bags left. Maybe one.

              I don’t remember much of what we talked about or, more to the point, what they said to me, but I think it was decided to just all go to bed and deal with it in the morning. Christmas Eve. I remember sitting and wanting to sleep in this reclining chair perched in front of the TV. I never slept there, but I was still a little high, and it felt good. I was also obsessed with the dope I still had in my sock and the outfit lying in the garage. I so wanted to just do it all and be done with it. No point in saving it for tomorrow. But I also knew that to be caught would be just too much. So, I just laid there and waited and sorta nodded a little. I must have at least snorted it and very well may have waited until they went to sleep and snuck out and got the outfit. I have a vague memory of cooking up a shot while everything was hidden behind a picture on the mantlepiece of the fireplace. I’d do one little operation at a time, then go back and wait in the chair to see he anyone was coming. Eventually, it was ready, and I think I just muscled it. That is, I just pushed it into my arm in the muscle. I doubt I’d had the patience to try and find a vein. Who knows? I just know that by Christmas eve morning, there was nothing left but a very unhappy little family in Bel Air, Maryland.

              The next day started a whole new life. Some of it was good, and so much of it dragged on through decades of just futile attempts at trying to not do just one thing. Just one fucking thing. One thing can be really hard to cast aside. Christmas Eve that year was a leather blanket wrapped tightly around a suffocating man. People mean well. They love you. But they just have no idea what there’s up against.

              In a way, Christmas came early that year.

The Good Son

The Good Son. When you're the only son, I guess this title trips you up sometimes, just by default. One of the benefits or mortifying truths of writing these things and posting them immediately is the feedback. It's just incredible how off the reservation my memory has lurched in so many ways and with such solid collaboration from multiple people. Make no mistake, I ruined Christmas for everyone that year. If only I was a sociopath; what an achievement to have that much power. But I'm not; I'm a lot of things, but I'm not a sociopath. If anything, I suffer from pathological empathy at times, although not much of that has been on fucking display in these stories. I really don't know how far the ripples of my collapse traveled outwards, but I know I fucked Christmas up for everyone I truly cared about. Even the dogs were confused. They couldn't make sense of all the excitement right on the verge of happening and then just people crying. They don't like people crying much at all.

              I woke up today to some messages about what I posted last night. I want to get this right. I so desperately want everyone I love to be seen in the best possible light. No one came at me, correcting me or pointing out flaws or selfish oversights. I think we all agree on the overall story. I'd become a junkie. My parents found out, and everyone had an awful Christmas and then some. And maybe that "some" lasted for years. But my memories are very different at key points. What seems to have happened is even worse than my recollection. I guess even in my memory of my worst moment, I spared myself some dishonor.           

              The whole filmstrip trip with Jack to cop and get loaded in my Dad's corvette seems to agree with the general sentiment. But it wasn't that I just arrived home with no Christmas presents and a sock full of dope after Leslie calling and spilling the beans. No, I'd found some whole new level of tunnel vision to travel down of which I have no memory.

              I fell in love with Leslie in our rural or at least semi-rural little town. I became friends with her sisters. And I certainly became friends with her parents. Her Mom was like some European princess who had somehow been shipped off to some backwoods plantation and told to wait, and eventually, her flock would follow. By that, I mean she was regal. I truly loved Leslie's Mom. I'll say the same thing about her Dad, so you may not believe it as maybe it feels like I'm just trying to curry favor after the fact. But it's true. I loved them and, more importantly, I really liked them both a great deal. What this was bound to do to them was no small issue to me. I guess I just thought that the explosion in my own house would be so tremendous that I'd just never hear of any repercussions, like how they put out forest fires with dynamite. If the thing blows up big enough, there's just no oxygen left for the flames.

              But Leslie's Mom. She was regal in the best way I can describe it. She held her head high without cruelty. She maintained appearances without demeaning others. At least, I never saw this side of her. I just knew I could make her laugh and felt completely open around her. She was an actual friend if such a thing can be said about the mother of a girl you not only love but have wild sexual fantasies about.

              Leslie's Dad was just kind. While my Dad was kind and outgoing, it seemed like he was kind and inward inviting. He was ready to accept you if you came into his orbit. My Dad was more about widening the orbit. Both were beautiful, and I think that's why they liked each other.

              Jesus, I pray that this is not the moment that propels someone to message me and tell me that our parents didn't actually like each other. That somehow, I have all this fucked up too. But I don't. My parents loved Leslie's parents because I loved them. God, there was so much love rolling around the hills of our youth, and even without the heroin, I don't think any of us really understood how precious it was. Nothing matters in this life except love. It forms the basis of every fear, every desire, every question and hopefully, every answer, and yet we talk about it like it's some throwback hippy trapping that we should be vaguely embarrassed by. I love you. You. You who are reading this right now. I realize it's a fucking easy and empty thing for someone who's caused as much pain as I have to say, but I do. I have to. Otherwise, I'm just that same shell, looking at my shoes in the garage, something in the shape of me, but not actually a person, just a malformed scarecrow. So, believe it or not, I love you. I don't really care what you think of me saying that. I'm not an idiot. I know how it sounds. But the cost of this life is telling people you love them even if it confuses them. I've tried everything else. Nothing works.

              And so, this is what I didn't remember. Evidently, we all had plans for my family to go to Leslie's house and have dinner with her family or maybe just desert or who knows? The messages haven't got that detailed. But there were plans, and I just never showed up. When it was time to go, my parents were left wondering where I was. Long before cellphones or even pagers. I was just a no-show on the night before Christmas Eve when we were all meant to go to Leslie's and be happy. I mean, that's always the plan, right? Be happy. And happiness is a purely good thing. It's not something to be cynically debased. And I was nowhere to be found. From what I gather from my Mom and Leslie, some phone call occurred likely from my Father in some perplexed, worried state of mind because, remember, my entire persona my entire life was The One Who Never Causes Problems. And I guess, I hope. I pray that Leslie just said something like, "Jesus! I just can't do this anymore. I'm out of ammo. I can't keep lying for him and for me and for us." And somehow, it all came out. Jesus Leslie, I did so much to hurt you, but putting you in that position to talk to my Dad at that moment is the worst. And it's just today that it hit me. And it only hit me because we spoke. I had no sudden epiphany where I saw my fault. I was faced with it. My memory of the night was a little easier for me. I was still to blame, but there was some choice on your part. There really wasn't, I don't think. 18 months of watching my inane and delusional daydreams and deflections came to a screeching halt holding that phone next to your dark hair against that beautiful ear on the other end of my Father in God knows what sort of state. I can't write any more about this because I wasn't there. I was off somewhere getting high. So, I'll shut the fuck up. But Leslie, you're the hero of this whole thing. I suspect it's not any honor you want, but it's the truth. Someone had to have the guts to derail this catastrophe, and you took your shot.

              I talked to my Mom today. She read what I posted. I asked what she remembered. She tells me she was sitting in the family room waiting up for me after the phone call. The gig was up. She remembers my Dad had gone to bed. Likely not to sleep but somewhere dark and alone. She remembers me coming in, and she started crying. She told me that all I said was, "I'm still the same person Mom." And we hugged. That feels good to hear that. It casts me in a beautiful, vulnerable childlike light. But I don't deserve it. Even if I said it, I was trying to escape the wrath. Maybe I wasn't. Perhaps it was real. The whole night is so fucked up no matter what memory you go with. And I think of so many friends who had nights like these weekly, daily for years. Friends like Richie, whose parents tried to hug him back to life for years, didn't work. You see, this is the thing. This is just one story. It's my story. It feels incredibly singular and important to my family and me. But people have these moments, and people die from Fentanyl and Meth and Xanax and bullets every Godamn second. But this is all I have.

The pain I caused my Mom was enough, no matter how mundane. And I can imagine wanting her to believe that underneath this heroin addiction, I was still her son who went on picnics with her, made candles with her, and decided to let me take off days from school to just hanging out like buddies. I want to imagine that. Someday she'll be gone, and these memories will be all I have. No one should outlive their parents. What do we do to deserve such pain? If we could only just die together in the same exact flick of a switch of a bored nurse in some Johns Hopkins back room. How far is Heaven? I'll go tonight.

              At some point, my parents called my Uncle Bud. Uncle Bud, the doctor. Uncle Bud the doctor and the fisherman, and the lover of the Brooklyn Dodgers. I had a chance to get him a signed Koufax ball once, but it fell through, and it killed me. What I wouldn't give to hand Uncle Bud a ball signed by Sandy, his hero. Again, my memory of the next day, Christmas Eve, is foggy, but Uncle Bud is there at some point. I guess he came because there was a family crisis. I remember sitting on the couch with everyone around me and being silent while Uncle Bud asked me questions about my use. I knew nothing about addiction then; I knew nothing about getting sober. I'd never conceived of a place like a rehab. I just knew that if I didn't get enough of this stuff in my body, I wanted to die. I actually felt like I would actually die. I knew intellectually that wasn't the case, but I'd experienced enough kicking to see that it felt like a fight or flight reaction to imminent death. And so I'd do anything to get it in me. Imagine being that strung out on pizza, or apples or reader's digest. It's ludicrous. But man, I'm telling you…

              I always thought the best of people. I still do. I don't give myself a pat on the back for it, it's likely naivety, but I felt like Uncle Bud was there to help. But I just felt like there was a huge part of this thing he was missing. It was all about detox meds, and somehow I knew it went way beyond that. But he drove there for hours on Christmas Eve. And God love him for that. It's truly one of the main reasons I wanted so much to get him that Koufax ball. The worst part is I got one. Signed to Mike. I cherish it because Koufax is my hero, too, but if one of us deserved it well..

              The day went on, and I know I tried to cop Dilaudid from a friend who Jack knew in town. A friend of a lot of us. I won't mention his name. I was on the basement phone trying to arrange for me to somehow get there and him run out, and some whole big fiasco, but my Dad came downstairs, and it was all over. Later that night, I found some Librium in an upstairs bathroom, crushed them up, and tried to shoot them with a filed-down basketball needle taped to a turkey baster. I did that. Imagine all the steps of such a project and all done in moment-to-moment secrecy. I wound up with just a big welt on my arm and felt nothing.

              I asked my Mom today what she remembered from Christmas day. She told me she walked into my bedroom, and I was asleep on my stomach with my face pointed toward her. She says she remembers that clearly. I told her I couldn't even imagine sleeping in my bed. She said, well, you were. She told me she sat on the bed, and I woke up, and she told me I was going to rehab today. She tells me I begged to have at least Christmas Day at home, and I'd go tomorrow. Somehow that's what happened. I remember talking to the intake guy on the phone. The place was called Changing Point, a place outside of the city. It's funny because I've been that guy on the other end asking all those intake questions so many times since starting to do what I do now. I've done so many "intakes," "pre-intakes," and "BPSs." And I was just trying to get one more day. It's nice to think that I just wanted to spend Christmas with my parents, but I'm sure there were some ideas of somehow getting high one more time.

              But, it was arranged. I'd prevailed. I was going in the next day. I was relieved, actually. The game was over. I was no closer to heroin than I was to, well, imagine the most wildly filthy and fantastically decadent person's body you can summon. I was that far away. And I was tired. I'm sure I spoke with Leslie, but I don't remember. My memory of those 3 or 4 days can't total more than 2 and a half hours total. What the fuck are we here for if nothing ever sticks?

              By the end of the day, things had settled down. It was the three of us, Mom, Dad and I, just talking. The poor dogs were still a bit bewildered but attempting to settle in. We don't care enough about how our choices and actions affect our dogs. They're little pieces of God sent to keep the fire from swarming over every tent. Every village. At one point, and I surely remember this, my Dad gave me my Christmas Present. Just typing those words breaks me up. He said, "I got these for you, pal; we'll see what happens." He was so excited about how excited I was with the Dodgers winning the 88 World Series, and he just assumed I'd been building a life there with Leslie that he got me what any real Dad would. I opened up this envelope, and it contained a voucher for 1989 Dodger Season Tickets.

              I just can't even go on

Little Baby Buntin

              They let me stay home for Christmas day. It seemed important. I couldn't imagine going into some God Knows what sort of place on Christmas day, And so, early the next day, I picked up some things. Not much; I always travel light. Light as can be. I took something to play music on and some cassettes. I took whatever worn-out clothes I'd brought home for Christmas and just went. The place was a palatial smattering of old houses here and there. All with different functions. I landed in the detox house first. Everyone was kind. Older Black nurses and some young guys in scrubs are taking blood and asking questions. How much was I using? How many grams a day?

I always undersell my habit. I shouldn't. I'd get more meds if I told the truth, but I was ashamed. I just told them maybe a gram a day. It was more, and there was crack as well, but I didn't mention that. They knew. They had systems in place to regulate my story. They walked me to a bedroom and told me to just lie down, and they'd be back soon with some meds to help me sleep. I'd really done it this time. God, If I only knew what a huge part of my life this whole ritual was to become. You think it's only going to happen once. Once a year, maybe.

              The next few days, I slept, was woken up and led to a dining room table to eat with the other detox patients. We didn't talk much. We were all just cold-cocked by shame. We'd huff in some bologna sandwiches and shuffle off to our beds.

              In time I started feeling better. My blood pressure reading and whatever else they were checking seemed ok. I was ready to be moved to one of the residential houses. I packed my bag, and someone walked me to a beautiful stone house across the grounds. People were milling about. Saying hi, and what's your name? I tried to be kind, but I was scared. They were all sorts of people. O’l black guys and middle-aged white guys who looked like plumbers, and one young girl in sweatpants who I just fell in love with. I just followed them upstairs to my bedroom. I had a little table and other beds in the room, but no people. Who was I to meet? Man! I can't begin to describe the fear and confusion. They were gentle with me. Just lie down. If you want to get up and walk around and meet people, that's fine. It's so cold in Alaska. That line pops in my head. I was so cold and scared.

              There were no dogs there. That seemed wrong. Just no little saints licking the tears away, we'd have to do for ourselves.

              My first friend was a guy named Muhamed. He was at least 70 and had worked at the GM plant in Baltimore for decades. A good job, But every cent went to shooting dope. He had it down. I suppose he was here now with his Koran and ready to change. He called me Hollywood. He was fascinated by what a wild young kid I was, dressed in goofy clothes and listening to crazy music. But we bonded. He took me under his wing. We walked to the dining hall together, and he introduced me to all of his friends. I was so completely blown away. It had never occurred to me that regular working people got strung out. I'd deluded myself that only hipsters and musicians fell into this trap. I was surrounded by normal people, mailmen, mechanics, and GM workers. It blew my mind. Jesus, What had I been thinking? This thing got into all of us. The tendrils of heroin could penetrate every kevlar vest. I was just Hollywood. Just another version of the sick.

              Days went on. There were AA meetings and There were sessions with my therapist. She was a hard beautiful woman who pulled no punches. She told me aI needed to call a guy named Peter and ask him to be my sponsor. He was a New York, Lou Reed type. I was terrified, but I did it. I closed the door in the payphone booth and called him and asked him for help. He was with me for the next year until I returned to LA. Peter, you did more for me than anyone. I hope you're alive and happy somewhere. I can at least imagine that,

              At some point, I had to write my own obituary. I'm sure I tried to make it arty and interesting, but I think I just died in it. There was nothing interesting about just ending a life so unlived.

              At night I'd play music on the little cassette player I had. I had Killdsozer's Litlle Baby Buntin. It caused quite a stir in the room. It was abrasive and sang about my old man getting his face blown off in a flour factory explosion. I was thrilled at how fucked up it sounded to everyone. We smiled and laughed,

              And then there was the sweatpants girl. I think her name was Robin. A couple years younger than me, but we stuck together. I needed someone to love. She was there because she watched her boyfriend Rafe die from snorting dope in Egypt. It just killed him. Her parents swooped her up, and she landed here. I came so close to kissing her one night, but I held back. I couldn't do it. I felt it would fuck her up, and I’d be a monster. I don't know where she is, but I hope she's safe and far away from me

              Days moved on, and there are visions of AA meetings in rooms and waking to the meal room and then going to town once to buy stuff and the CVS. I saw a magazine with Nick Cave on the cover. I held it like it was the holy grail. The story was that he’d gone to rehab in England, Fuck! We were both in rehab together. That just floored me. It gave me hope, I beamed, I swooned, I put it down and walked away. Maybe I had a chance. I didn’t want this life anymore as much as it pulled me in with pleasure and relief, even if it was killing me. I’m too young to make these decisions. I’m just a kid, I walked out of the store and cried a little and waited for the group. I didn't let them see,

              I just kept going and doing what the told me to do. And I kept doing it over and over for decades. I just kept landing in places like this and saying ok, I'll try.

I don't know just where I'm going
But I'm gonna try for the kingdom, if I can
'Cause it makes me feel like I'm a man
When I put a spike into my vein

And I'll tell ya, things aren't quite the same
When I'm rushing on my run
And I feel just like Jesus' son
And I guess that I just don't know
And I guess that I just don't know

I have made the big decision
I'm gonna try to nullify my life
'Cause when the blood begins to flow
When it shoots up the dropper's neck
When I'm closing in on death

I wish it was all so different

Shine

I’ll see you shine. I wrote that years ago. I wrote it hoping that I’d get to see it someday. It hasn’t happened yet, but I like to think it’s happened, and I just wasn’t around to see it. I want Melinda to shine. As I’ve said, we met in Impact. She often wore a white t-shirt with the word Java printed on it. Java was a hip coffee shop on Beverley where she worked from time to time. At some point, I found a sharpie and made my own t-shirt in the same style, the same bold font, but it said Jihad instead of Java.

I remember one particularly large Black Muslim character kinda upset with such a shirt. He asked me why I would wear such a thing which seemed to mock his religion. I just said, “It’s just a shirt, man.” I guess that was enough. We walked away. But it sent a message to her. It told her I saw, and while we couldn’t talk, I connected with her through the shirt. I stayed at Impact for about nine months. At some point, you had to decide if you would find a job somewhere or stay and start training to be a counselor. Everyone who worked there had gone through there. All the counselors and whatnot did their time and stayed on. I chose to leave and get a job. I’d still live there, but I’d get to go to God knows whatever job I could find each day.

              Somehow I found a job in Glendale where they made acrylic fish tanks. I hated it. I had no idea what I was doing. I had to cut sheets of acrylic sheeting down to size and then glue them together to form huge fish tanks. A router was involved. One day I had about 50 of these things to route the edges cleanly and then glue them together with this solvent that instantly bonded the plexiglass sheets. After about half an hour of routing these things into shape, I realized I’d fucked every piece up. I’d put a perfect scratch along every edge as I was using the router wrong. I panicked and just hid the whole pile of wasted acrylic deep in the bowels of the warehouse, and I just quit. I’d only been there like 8 days, and I just walked out. I was so ashamed. I just fled. There was a girl who worked there who doused herself with rosewater each day. What an awful scent. I think it was the rosewater that put me over the edge. I just left and never looked back. I didn’t ask for money or anything. I just vanished. The boss was a bit of a prick to boot, making it a little easier. One day, a few months later, I saw him pulled over on the 5 freeway arguing with some cop. I chalked it up to karma. Everything felt ok.

              But quitting the job meant having to leave Impact. And I really had nowhere to go. I had a friend in Hollywood named Mellissa. We’d been on and off friends with benefits over the years. She said I could stay with her for a while. Eventually, it led to more sex, which was fine but also weird. I had to find some other place. It was about this time that Melinda left Impact. She and another impact friend named Rosie got a house in West Hollywood. I started staying there. I’d sleep with Melinda, although nothing ever happened. Talk about torture. Every night we get in bed in our underwear, if that and just talk and fall asleep. So close and yet so far. I was wildly in love. I may have even told her, but she fended it off and never pushed me away. Eventually, we got an apartment together in Silverlake. A beautiful old two bedroom place, I painted my room bright blue, Just like my room is now. I love blue rooms. We both had hookups with various people but never each other. It was torturous to hear her having sex, but what can you do? You just play Nirvana’s Bleach to blot out the sound as loud as possible. I started playing music again and finally bought my dream guitar. A cream white 66 Jaguar. God, I loved that guitar. It’s what Rowland Howard played in The Birthday Party. I loved it for years until someone stole it from our van one night.

              In time two single apartments became available across the street, and we moved into them. I lived right below Melinda. Our friend Winnie, who one of my dogs is named after, lived there too. So did Rosie and Marty. God rest his soul. We formed a little family of sorts. We were all sober and spent a lot of time hanging out and drinking coffee. I was working back in the Art Dept. I don’t know if it was ever discussed or if I would continue with Leslie and me. Looking back, we were back in the same city, but it just seemed like we’d grown too far apart and that I’d hurt her beyond repair. I guess I did the coward’s thing and just kept looking forward. It sometimes gets confusing because I forget that this all happened after I’d stayed in Baltimore for a year. After Changing Point, I stayed in a sober living house in the city for a few months. I got a job as an engineer at ATT.

I have zero recollection of what I did there. Absolutely zero. At one point, someone from some other department called me to ask a question about some piece of work I’d done. I panicked. I adopted a faux Brooklyn accent and told him Mike wasn’t in that day. Jesus. I’d have to face him eventually. Surely he’d see me at some point. The next day I went to see him with the same Brooklyn accent and just tried to bluff my way through it. I guess it worked. Or maybe he was so blown away at the balls on me that he let me slide. That job lasted a year.

In the meantime, I bought a car. It was a beautiful 67 blue Fairlane. God, I loved that car. It was the typical car left in a garage for decades, and I got it for almost nothing. I also met Trish. I was always falling in love. Eventually, I left sober living and moved in with her. We had plans to move back to California at some point, although she wanted to go to San Francisco. Oh boy, not me. Every day is Sunday in San Francisco. But we had time. After a few months of living together, she told me she was married. That’s not nothing. It had been a green card marriage, but it was still weird to hear it.

And so I kicked around Baltimore for a year and made pipebombs and cannons with my friend Paul. I slept with a couple people before Trish, and eventually, I just gave in. I got loaded. I shared that Arron and Paul were coming out to drive back to LA with me. Paul found out I was using the first night there. Jesus. I really have a knack for disappointing people. But off we went. We set off fireworks in the car with all the windows up, seeing who’d break down first and open a window. We did crazy stuff like that. I was long out of dope, but I made it. I got high the first night I was there, and everything started back up. A few months later, I was in Impact, and I was living with Melinda a few months later. After Impact, I stayed sober and went home to see my parents. It was nice. One night I was talking on the phone to Melinda, and she told me she’d had an abortion recently. I don’t know who the father was. I didn’t want to know. But I remember writing a song about it a month later. When I got home from my parents, I couldn’t find the keys to my apartment. I think Melinda had picked me up at the airport. She said just sleep with me. I was still so shocked about the abortion deal that I petulantly said no, even though I wanted to more than anything. I just pushed my door open like some cop would. She seemed sad and went upstairs. I went in and just felt like shit. But a funny thing happened. The next night I did sleep over, and we had sex for the first time. It’s like we just fell in love, just like that. I was elated and reborn. It was so surreal. We spent all of our time having sex, eating ice cream, and drinking iced coffee. I lasted for a month. And then she was gone. She told me she couldn’t be with anyone once it got too familiar. Whether it was the truth or not, there it was. I was crushed. And so began the 2 years of me being Heartbreak Guy. I wrote so many songs about her. Good songs. Brilliant songs. Eventually, they got me a record deal. We’d hook up every now and then. We’d pawn stuff, go to Vegas for the weekend, and just fizzle out. She’d spend a day or two in bed with me and then go back to some other guy. Christ, it was horrible. One day I was laying on the couch watching People’s court. The plaintiffs were named Mike and Melinda Coulter. Jesus! It’s a sign! It was a sign, alright. Those two suckers lost their case, and Melinda wound up married to the guy who directed Dumb and Dumber and Something about Mary. I have to see those billboards everywhere. In time it just fizzled out, and new women came into my orbit. There’s so much more to tell but we can only bear so much at a time. Listen to the record if you really want to know.

Here’s the song I wrote at the end of the 2 months that Melinda and I spent together:

Two Months

It’s Christmas, and I’m down

Feeling like a loser

Talking about an abortion

Trying to get married

And wanting to cry

And now it’s three weeks later

And it’s all summertime

And I don’t care about nothing except the cats and the dishes and a quarter to seven

And now I’m cleaning her house and now I’m drawing her a bath

And now she’s sitting on my lap, and I don’t hate work anymore, and I’m not as late

It took a lot of time to get what I wanted. But two months isn’t worth it, and I don’t ever want to feel this way again

Last night I told her to leave me, and I watched the last two months, and medium coke and some cigarettes walk out my door and leave me.

And I called Winnie, and I cried.

Memory Of a Free Festival

              I don’t know how far I can keep going with this thing. I don’t know how much sadness and misery I can keep foisting on the world as if I’ve never known a moment’s happiness. And God knows I have. So many little moments that filled me with sunlight and waves of love. They seem disconnected, but they really aren’t. I will play this song on loop until I think of as many beautiful little moments I’ve been gifted with until I just can’t think of any more. I’ve lived such a charmed life. Just because I’ve virtually lived on heroin for most of my adult life and sit here to tell about it with a smile on my face listening to David singing “Memory of a Free Festival.”

              My Mom would let me stay home from school often, and we’d go on picnics or attempt some sort of fishing. It didn’t matter that we had no idea what we were doing. We were with each other. We were so happy. I swam in my Mom’s love. My Dad’s too, but it was always my Mom where I felt the most at ease. Later other things happened. The first kiss. The first taste the first time doing THAT. That was such a mind-blowing moment in life with Robin in that ramshackle apartment with Music for Airports playing all night long. Whole new worlds sprang forth, and I never wanted to leave them.

              Maybe all the pain and sadness in life make the other moments so powerful. Just so many random moments of magic. Sitting at a table in an Italian restaurant with some friends and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. He was in LA filming “Moneyball.” He drove up to LA from Long Beach to meet us. He’d bought the rights to the book about the baseball team I’d started. He was going to direct the film version and play me. As surreal as it gets. He died about a year later, but we stood outside and smoked at one point, and we talked like two happy sober junkies. Happy. “Baby, won’t you keep me happy.”

              I remember the first time sleeping with Jana. Jana had the most beautiful full head of immaculate black hair. Just miles of it. Christ, she was and still is gorgeous. Every girl who ever accepted me was stunning. God’s honest truth. I’ve been one lucky motherfucker when it came to the women in my life. I couldn’t keep any of them, but I wrap every memory around me like a diaphanous slip of starlight. My hair was always long as well. At some point, our hair got so tangled up in each other. We just started laughing, “Fuck, we have a lot of hair going on here, huh?” I kissed her for the next year.

              It’s so easy to focus on the happiness of love. Because it’s real, and it’s all that really counts. Leslie was my first real love. I remember lying in my bed the day after we first made out. It seemed to me that we should just be doing that forever. Just put everything else in life on hold and just kiss and wherever else that took us forever. I called her to try and make such plans, but it occurred to me not everyone thought this was, but it was good enough. I was in love, and while I surely hurt her, I know she knows that I love her deeply. I never stopped. I just became too dangerous for her, so I left. But I love her to this very moment while listening to the Pixies play “Gouge Away.” But other sparkles of light spring through as well. It seems so much easier to elicit emotion from people with tales of sadness. I’ve traveled in it. It’s been my stock in trade. And while it’s all true, it’s somewhat lazy. I want to make you smile. I want to fill your heart with light and feathers and dogs’ eyes when they first wake up to see you looking down at them. And I already find myself trying to pull the beautiful from the ugly. The ugly seems to swell and crash upon the shore and drown out the little trickles of the streams of joy. But I’ll do it. I’ll sit here, and I will fight for it and make my best showing.

              And then there’s the part of me, obviously, who says, you? Why would you deserve happiness after all you’ve done to Leslie, and Jana, and Denise and Trish and Stephanie and Nery and Your Mom and Dad and others I’m shamefully forgetting. You’re lucky you have a single fuck to hold onto. But I rail against that. I’ve done some good things too.

              A few years ago, I noticed a couple little kids and their mothers stopping to play in the garden on the side of my house. The elementary school at the end of the block would let out, and my street would fill with parents parking to walk down and pick up their kids. Just little kids. 1st, 2nd, maybe 3rd grade. One day, I was on my front porch when I noticed them stopping and the kids fiddling in the plants. One of the moms caught my eyes and walked over. She said, “I hope you don’t mind, but they call your garden the fairie garden, and they like to visit it each day.” Jesus.

I loved that. I started putting little “treasures” out there for them to find. Just little things like coins, little metal stars, and broken jewelry. I usually didn’t see them each day, but one of the little kids, who had surely been coerced by her Mom, haltingly walked up to me and handed me a little note she’d written. She asked me to give this thank you note to the fairies if I happened to see them. That made every awful thing I’ve ever done worth it. As Lou Reed would say, “I thought I was someone else. Someone good.” I shared this story years ago on Facebook, but it’s no less powerful for me now. Lord knows I’ve done some good things too.

              We go through this life keeping score of the good and the bad. We hope it’s at least a wash, if not slightly better than worse. But who are we to tell. We’re living it. We can’t really tell. The bad feels so awful and the good so wonderful it’s just so easy to get overwhelmed and lose track.

              I’ll admit that I turned “Happy” off. I’m just listening to whatever comes on. I’m listening to Sweet Jane by the Cowboy Junkies. That’s the record I listened to on repeat when I finally gave in and started getting loaded in Baltimore before Paul and Arron came to bring me home. But, later that year, I saw them live at the Wiltern. That was beautiful enough, but one of my most cherished memories was seeing Townes Van Zandt open for them. He was near the end. But he was Townes. He was God. I got to see him one last time before he passed. I can’t say that’s happiness, but it’s a gift, and a gift will do. Same with seeing the Go-Betweens. I got that as well. I’ve been pretty lucky. I’ve been in the right place and the right time many times.

              I got to sing “Wild Horses” for a room full of documentary filmmakers one day after a crazy series of events. They paid me two tickets to see the Stones play Sticky Fingers front to back for about 200 people. Jana and I went. The right place at the right time. Even the wrong times and places seemed ok.

              And Jesus, all the Dead shows. Friends packed into cars headed to God know where to be a part of something that felt much more like church than a concert. The music was always incidental. It was the community. I never felt so free to be me. No matter what I was wearing. No matter what I’d ingested or didn’t ingest, I felt accepted. I got really lucky falling under the Dead’s sway for those years when It overtook me. Such joy and love and lovely confusion. I think I turned away from it too soon, but what can you do. Life pulls you along like a goofy puppy on a brand new blue leash. I wish I’d taken my Dad that one night, but I can’t dwell on that. I just can’t.

              A couple of years ago, I went to my friends’ house in Joshua Tree. We’d planned this trip for a couple months. There were 5 of us. We sat in a circle in the sand, and the sun and each of us said some intention we wanted for the day. It was such a beautiful day. We had this little ritual, and then we all took LSD. I remember sirring at a table outside about 30 minutes later, talking to one of my friends. And wham, It hit me like a fucking torpedo. I had to get up and walk back into the yard with trees and sun. I remember there was a tree of some sort that was just so vividly iridescently green. I touched it. I couldn’t imagine anything being that green. I hugged the tree. I fell in love with it. I realized there was just so much love in the world, and I’d been pushing it away for years. Cynically and full of fear and I had to stop. The next 12 or so hours are one of my life’s most singular beautiful days. Just one squirming sliver of light and love wrapping around another one as they took turns fading away. I haven’t had that experience since, but Jesus, I want to. To spend 12 hours wrapped in love and music and singing and watching wood ripple and dogs lick you and spending an hour eating a grape. Well, Christ, you can do worse than that.

              Ultimately, what I’m trying to say isn’t so much about finding happiness. It’s about finding love and forgiveness. God knows I’ve done awful things, but I think that if I love hard enough and let love in, I can balance things out.

              I’ve had a truly beautiful life. Every fucking second of it. While I’d certainly change so many things, I did to other people. I wouldn’t change a second of what’s happened to me.

              Let love it. Do it. Be a fucking pussy. Man up. Let love in.

              And now the perfect song has come on. The perfect song to end this thing with.

              “The Sun Machine is Coming Down, and We’re Gonna Have a Party...

              The Sun Machine is Coming Down, and We’re Gonna Have a Party...

              The Sun Machine is Coming Down, and We’re Gonna Have a Party...

              The Sun Machine is Coming Down, and We’re Gonna Have a Party...

              The Sun Machine is Coming Down, and We’re Gonna Have a Party...

              The Sun Machine is Coming Down, and We’re Gonna Have a Party...

              The Sun Machine is Coming Down, and We’re Gonna Have a Party...

              The Sun Machine is Coming Down, and We’re Gonna Have a Party...

              The Sun Machine is Coming Down, and We’re Gonna Have a Party...

              Uh, huh huh (I love you all)

Out On The Tiles

We woke up and drank coffee. We were fairly miserable, but we weren't talking about it. I was supposed to be getting clean? I think. But it was evidently just something that was going to somehow magically happen in spite of our constant frantic efforts to keep us and really her in pills. I was shooting dope by then, and we didn't talk about that either. She knew, of course, but she was adamant about not crossing that line again herself. So I kept buying her Roxies whenever she'd ask, and I'd sneak off to shoot dope. It was an unspoken deal we'd made. She wouldn't crucify me for using dope, and I'd valiantly go cop her oxycodone 30mg pills from some invariably Persian or Armenian guy from Craigslist..

These connections would usually last anywhere from a couple weeks to a couple months, and then they'd replace each other. Sometimes it was on the Westside and sometimes the Valley. All different faces but the ritual was the same. I'd get hundreds of dollars and drive, heroically to some Vons or Walgreens parking lot and wait for them to show up. There was really nothing to it. It was and likely still is, incredibly easy and organized. Every day was the last day. That's always how it is during a run. "I'm gonna kick tomorrow" sings out from the song and it's a universal truth. Always tomorrow. Sometimes it would get confusing when I'd come home with a cigarette pack cellophane wrapper full of light blue pills and inexplicably not want any. It made no sense. Of course, I was already high on dope, and we had to readjust our script to maintain. Why not just take some oxy on top of the dope? Wouldn't that solve the problem? But I always wanted her to have what she needed. It really did feel heroic and when she was sick, and I could give her something that made her immediately better I felt love. I loved her intensely. I still do. I still love all of them. Sometimes I wonder if I wanted to be loved so badly that I mistook the love I reflected off of her as her loving me. In, any case, we woke up, and we felt bad.

I wasn't sure if she'd actually wonder aloud if we should get some drugs. It was always so off again-on again, although it's never really off until it ends. That was another part of the deal. She had to suggest it. There is a word derived from the Yaghan language of Tierra del Fuego. The word is Mamihlapinatapai. It refers to the unspoken understanding between two people who both desire something but which neither wish to initiate. If she brought it up, I was allowed to agree, and even though I was already getting high behind her back, we might keep the subterfuge going and be able to get high together and have the kind of day that we used to have before all this. We'd go to places like Bed Bath and Beyond and look at KitchenAid mixers and towels.

There was an ice cream maker period as well. We'd buy things for the house and talk about when we'd live together and have a kid. There was nothing debaucherous about our using except the drugs themselves. After shopping, we'd get loaded and order pizza and watch Game of Thrones. We fucked perfunctorily. Opiates and sex are just not a workable combination. Dope deadens the sex drive. It's part of its appeal. To be completely devoid of libido can be quite liberating. So many things go with it. So many aspects of self-esteem just vanish when you don't care who might want to fuck you. But we'd pull it together every now and again when the blood levels were right or when there were other things like Molly and Quaaludes. But mostly, we just got high and pretended we were normal.

We sat there on the couch, and she was on her phone looking at Instagram, and I was watching Baseball Tonight. I was waiting. Eventually, it started. "Ugh. I don't feel very good today, Baby." "Oh man, baby, I'm sorry." Thirty milligrams of Oxycodone, she was fit as a fiddle in twenty minutes. And so our scene moved forward, and eventually, the stage was set with her pain, and my final line was uttered, "Do you want me to get you some stuff?" That's it. It was over. We'd signed on for another day, and this day was not tomorrow.

I went into action. I texted whomever it was at the moment. There were a couple to choose from and for whatever reason, I chose the Burbank guy. He told me where to meet him, and I started putting on my boots. At this stage, there's just no stopping me. Nothing. This is going to happen, and I am going to be her hero. "Can I go with you?" She had never said that before. I always went alone while she stayed home or waited for me to bring them to her at work. It was just something a man does. I asked her, "really?" and she said yes. She threw on some clothes, and out we went. This was a new thing. God, I remember it so well. It was hot, and the sun blared down on us. We got in my car and headed to the bank, where I pulled out yet another three-hundred dollars. The seemingly endless pile of money was from a home equity loan we'd taken out to work on the house for her eventual moving in and it was just getting consumed by daily runs to parking lots all over Los Angeles and Orange County. The sickness and self-loathing I felt then and even now thinking about this was just one more thing to disassociate from in that mad world of tunnel vision.

We pulled over at the spot somewhere along the Glendale part of San Fernando. We waited. We didn't wait long, and around the corner, my guy came. He looked a little worse for wear, but it was early for this world, and I really didn't care. He got in the back and said hi. A little more nervous than usual. He told us he had it in his apartment and that he'd leave his cell phone in the car. I told him he didn't need to because I trusted him. I'm always trusting everyone. I don't see red flags; I see special features. She said nothing beyond hi, and I remember feeling proud that he knew she was part of my life. She was, is, gorgeous and now this Persian or Armenian Craigslist drug dealer knew that someone gorgeous likes me or loves me or would at least want to spend some amount of time with me even if it might only be in an effort for me to buy her drugs. Whatever, she's gorgeous, and he saw that. And then he left. And we waited.

There's a lot of waiting in the drug world. Tons of it. You never really get used to it, but you grow to expect it. I've waited for hours in parking lots staring into my rearview mirror for the sight of him turning a corner. The relief you feel at that moment is like nothing else. And generally, he always comes back. God knows what takes them so long other than there are often multiple hims involved, and each one adds a bit of delay. And so we waited. We eventually looked at his cell phone, and it didn't turn on. It seemed like a shitty phone. And we waited. I walked around as if that might lure him out of cover. Nothing. Finally, she said, "He's not coming back." "Fuck," I said. What else can you say? And we still waited. And then the moment that I've carried with me for years happened and yet nothing actually happened. He never did come back. But oh, while we waited.

The feeling of defeat and desperation that accompanies the realization of getting ripped off is immediate and has a diamond-honed edge that just slices through your soul. Perhaps that's a bit hyperbolic, but truly nothing feels that way. There's a somatic quality to it that feels like your stomach is cut. A paper cut. Like your actual stomach has been exposed and a sheet of paper dragged across it. That's how I felt in that moment. And for the first time, someone else was feeling it with me. And I looked at her.

She was wearing black yoga pants and a t-shirt with some cartoon print on it. She was wearing big dark sunglasses and a hat. A white wide-brimmed hat covered the top of her ridiculously long and thick black hair, and she was staring straight ahead. She looked like something that was perfectly formed for some specific task. She was a machine designed to make me feel the depths of sadness and the heights of love and attraction all at once. It's such an odd feeling to feel everything at once. I wanted to cry and fuck her at the same time. Whenever I think of how beautiful and wanton and sexy a woman can be I think of her at that moment. I distinctly remember thinking about Bonnie and Clyde and those two that killed all sorts of people in that movie Badlands. I was part of a crime-fueled love affair, and it felt good. I could do this forever. We could just keep going, and well, I didn't think about what we'd actually do crime-wise, but we'd fuck a lot in the car and on the hood and in cheap motels, and we'd get high, and it would be us against the world. I wanted her smell on the skin of my face as I tasted her and felt her sweat drip into and tangle her hair and we'd just self-immolate as we came and we'd take the whole world with us. I wanted to spray an M27 Automatic rifle towards whatever onlookers were gawking at this scene. I wanted to smell and taste every part of her body. Her sweat, her pussy, her spit, her hair. I wanted us to laugh together, saying, “Jesus! We have so much hair to deal with!” Whatever we did, we'd do it together. I wouldn't have to do any of this alone anymore, and God, she was so beautiful in those yoga pants and sunglasses and hair. All that beautiful hair.

That moment and all of its fantasy lasted a split second as those things do. "Is there anyone else?" she said. "Yeah, there's the guy in Pasadena. Let me check." And the moment was gone. The Pasadena guy was home, and so we got more money and got more pills. I don't remember what we did that day, but I'm sure it was some sort of bleak attempt at normalcy. The Bonnie and Clyde moment had passed.

That's as close to going berserk as I've ever come. I've certainly done more selfish and manipulative, and I-don't-give-a-fuck things for drugs, but nothing ever had that feeling of abandon and of knowing nothing can stop me. The way she looked that day and what our lives had become meant I was a God if I was the one she wanted to be with.

I think an awful lot about love. I've come to a definition for it after years of wondering what exactly it is that I'm feeling that I call love and it is this: Love is the feeling you get when you embrace anything that has the potential to break your heart. Love seems to be the reward for ultimate vulnerability. The willingness to crawl along a razor's edge must have some sort of payoff. I think that's what love is. And so, there's this aspect of going berserk in love. At least in my idea of love. There's this state of being relieved of the fear of consequence and having everything of value focussed on a single point and the absolute certainty that every molecule of that point is meant for me and that it might disappear and destroy me in a second. That's the feeling I had sitting there with her on that hot, sun-baked late Friday morning on the side of San Fernando Road. I've felt variants of that before and since but none quite so desperate and sad and proud and turned-on as that. I hope I can feel it again someday. I feel incredibly lucky to have felt it at least once. Maybe I went berserk.

The Palace

It's amazing how much you can fuck up when you're sure you've covered every base, defended every decision, and made sure everything was safe and sound. I posted a story last night and went to great lengths to hide the identity of who I was writing about. I truly thought I'd figured it out. But Jesus, I truly dropped the Goddamned ball just like that bowling ball that narrowly missed my head on that forgetful day at Penn State. Just another day which means nothing other than the pain it would have caused. Does every day, every choice have such a capacity to bring such pain to someone we love?

              And so I wrote this story and posted it, and they were furious. They have none of the interest that I have in getting all my weaknesses out there. And as much as I tried, I made that decision for them and just dragged them into my own inane plot. I thought I hid them, but I left things in which anyone in their family would surely recognize. And I'm terrified that I'm doing it again, so no more details. No more about the story.

              What is starting to weigh on me is how to write about me when it all involves all of you. I'm nothing without you. How does my reaction to anything even exist if it doesn't impact on someone else? This whole project, this "book" thing, has taken a massive emotional toll on me. I don't say that in any way looking for sympathy. It's just nothing I considered would be a part of all of this. I figured I'd just remember stories, write them down, try and come up with interesting ways to phrase fairly mundane ideas, find a song to attach it to and be done with it. But it hasn't been that at all. You start digging into your life, and you keep finding things, long-buried, that were buried for a Goddamned good reason. They hurt. Or they're embarrassing. Or they're shameful. We never bury the good stuff. Fuck, three shovelfuls, and we'd be done.

              I spoke to this person on the phone today. I wanted to try and tell them that I meant well. That I wrote what I wrote with love, but they weren't having it. They just saw my words as ways into parts of their life that they were not ready for anyone else to know about. And I just blew it all wide open.

              I deleted the post immediately. Just easier to make it all go away than to try and coax some safe version out of it. This was hours ago, and I still feel horrible. Christ, this person is one of the small handful of people on this earth that I do not want to hurt in any way. Almost all of the rest of them have figured into these stories, but his one hasn't. And I just dragged them into it.

              How do writers keep track of this stuff? How do they decide who to expose and who to hide? And how does the truth get told with such value on editing coming to the fore? And what the fuck do I even know about writing a book? My whole life, while making records, Japanese knives, perfect lasagne, and beautiful furniture for some other girl I love and all manner of new things I've learned to do, well, writing a book has always seemed like the very top of the mountain of creativity. Any asshole can write a record or make a knife but to write a book is a wholly different animal. When Cormac MacCarthy wrote Blood Meridian, he had to have known that he surpassed every other human alive, dead, or even unborn. No one was going to pass that one. Every road has an end. And that's where that road ended. Blood Meridian. Something has to be the best in every conceivable sport. And he'd written it.

              I wonder where all this will lead. Maybe like so many things, it'll feel exciting for a while and then just slowly fall back inward on itself and turn to salt. The salt we create with excited dreams and trickles of tears are the stuff of what they paid the Roman soldiers with. They paid them in salt. That's where "soldier" comes from. That's where the word "salary" comes from. Sal meaning salt. Imagine that the stuff of our tears that our dogs will lick away for hours is the very thing that allowed our species to not only survive but thrive. Salt is the single most important element in our species' evolution. And I just produce it every few hours while writing this stuff. I'm single-handedly saving humanity by writing and crying. If you cry too, take a bow. You're keeping us all alive.

              Do you remember the first time you fell in love? Not your first crush. And not your first bout of lust but the first time you felt that feeling, that assurity that if he or he was to leave, you'd be destroyed. It sounds like something to be avoided, but it's everything worth living for. Love requires such a massive risk. Love requires us to put our neck on the sharp blade of steel that, at any moment, some big guy with a mask can pull a string and allow another 25-pound piece of steel to fall and separate us from our body. Our head just rolling about, thinking, "I guess I'm not in love anymore." But you know what? It was worth it. Dying from love is always worth it. Imagine a life safely removed from such a risk. What a flat, vapid life.

Imagine never feeling the soul-crushing pain of having to decide to put a dog down after years of love and months of suffering. What kind of fucking cretin wouldn't take that risk? We need to filter these people out. We'll never evolve if we allow the safe to call the shots. We need people unafraid of the deepest pain in return for the deepest reward to lead us. I don't think there's a Goddamned one of them in any position of power who is capable of this. Those that suffer the risk rarely seek power. They seek love. Love and power almost never, if ever, cross paths.

              What's the point of any of this? Why am I even writing this? I'm sitting here smoking and listening to Magnolia Electric Company. Jason Molina, he knows what I'm talking about. He took it as far as one can take it. Dead in the street after years of drinking away his heartbreak. Not something I encourage, but he felt it, sang about it, and gifted us with it. Some of us have much bigger balls than others. And I'm not equating courage with self-destruction. Truly I'm not. But if you find yourself twixt the two, well, then go for it. Let the steel blade fall. Risk everything for love. Safety and passion can not ride in the same car.

              Imagine a world where everyone took chances and shot for the stars. Imagine a place where everyone did everything for love despite the implicit danger. Imagine this place. Does it seem horrible or beautiful? Or maybe it seems pointless. I don't know. Seems pretty good to me. I know I'd rather die trying for the stars than dying in a safe hole in the ground. And, here's what's more! Who am I to say I even know which one I'm choosing? Maybe I'm a coward pretending to be a hero. Maybe shooting myself full of heroin for decades instead of feeling pain renders me a safe hole dweller. Fuck. Perhaps that's what I am. But maybe not. Maybe my fantasy of myself is at least a little true.

              When I spoke to my friend earlier today who was furious with me, they said, "I know you want to expose all of you. You say that. But we don't all want that, and it's not for you to decide." I read back on all of this, and it seems like I'm making many decisions about how people should live their lives. I need to stop. I can only live my life as much as I think I know best for others. Clearly, I don't, or I wouldn't have felt such rage today.

              One of these days, this life will end. I wonder how? I wonder where I'll be? Will it involve suffering or just a quiet slipping into an endless sleep? Will anyone miss me? Will it make a difference? It's something to consider. Someday this will all end. It seems I better get to work and shrink the cost of wasted days that I think we all must pay with at our last breath. Such regret. Such wishes. Ty Cobb's last words were, "I wish I'd had more friends."

Christ, Can you even imagine what that must have felt like to have such a thought spring into your heart the second before it just stopped beating?

Love like a fucking crazed hero. Go berserk with love.

My Shit's Fucked Up

              I was doing my intake paperwork at the place I was doing my practicum, And at one point, I saw one of the ladies, I'm not sure what her job was, shuffling through some pictures of clients, and I noticed one. I told her. "For what it's worth, I know her. She's a friend of mine. Is that going to be a problem?" she seemed momentarily flummoxed but simply said
"No, It shouldn't be a problem."

              I've learned enough now to let you know who this person was, but I've also learned to be very careful about what I divulge of her. Suffice it to say, I'd see her in groups, and I developed a crush on her. I'd known her for a few years. Even went to her wedding, but I'd never felt these feelings. Soon it was time for the World Series to begin, and I asked her if she wanted to come watch with my baseball friends just to see this side of me.

              By the end of the night, everyone had left, and it was just the two of us sitting on the couch talking. The crush started elevating. She was so smart and witty and beautiful. But I saw no how to proceed.

              I'm not sure how we arranged it, but somehow she came over another night, and we lay in my bed in the pitch dark, listening to music and talking for hours. Nothing happened; we didn't kiss or anything; we just took turns sharing music,

And then the next night happened. We traded music, and we started to kiss. I was so afraid that I didn't have a condom. I felt that was my responsibility, so we just kissed, and I just ate her pussy over and over again; it was perfect; I think she came a few times. At least she said she did.

A couple days later, we talked about it. She said she was confused that I didn't try to have sex with her. I explained about the condom deal. She said she couldn't imagine a guy caring that much about her even considering it. We laughed about how chivalrous I seemed to be. But I guess it worked because eventually, we did have sex. I still didn't have any condoms, but it seemed fine. We decided we wanted to choose a song that would be playing at the exact moment when I finally entered her. It was a Warren Zevon song. I can't remember what song it was at this point, but maybe she'll remember.

And so, this became our pattern. She'd come over. We lay in my bed in the pitch dark, listen to music and have sex. The sex was amazing and just kept getting better. But it's where I fucked up. We never did anything else to speak of. I took her to the movies once, and I'd make her things. I'd make her key lime pies. I'd make her lasagne. I hade her pieces of furniture and beautiful cutting boards which she still won't use because she doesn't want to ruin them. I kept telling her I could always refinish them back to normal in minutes, but there they sat. In her room, on the shelf, I'd made her.

At Christmas, I bought her son a computer. I really liked him. He's a really cool kid, and I knew that there wasn't money coming from anywhere else to get him a new computer. We bought all the parts and built it ourselves. God, it felt good.

But I never did enough to keep her. It was just sex and giving her things. I think I was afraid to become an actual boyfriend even tho I desperately wanted it. I just blew it. Eventually, she stopped coming around so much. Part of me was relieved, but most of me was devastated.

One night she texted me about an ex who had decided to come out to LA because he still loved her. This was him doing something for her. There was some story about him rebuilding a Volkswagon Beetle years earlier and somehow crashing it. Somehow this seemed incredibly romantic to her. I'm still unsure of the mechanics of all of this, but clearly, she still loved him, and he was willing to make a grand gesture and move here and resume their relationship. I was cold-cocked. I didn't let on. I think I answered the text in a couple days and just said, "good for you." What else can you say? Just another girl who I'd loved that I'd let slip away.

We'd keep in touch sporadically, and I'd never ask about him at all, and she'd never mention him. I assume they're still together. I hope so because then something awful happened, and she needed someone to be there all the time for her. And I'd missed my chance.

Her Dad got sick. I'd met him once or twice and really liked him. He was a drummer and a cool guy. I wrote a poem about this and pointed out that he hated Bowie but LOVED the Velvet Underground. She still had one of his original VU Banana t-shirt to prove it. I was drinking at the time, and I'd do that thing where I'd send her drunken texts professing my love for her. So inhumane. But still, we texted now and again. It seemed like her Dad might be pulling through.

He seemed to wax and wane like my Dad did, but he came home from the hospital at some point. She told me that he was home but basically needed round-the-clock help. I offered to spend time with him if it would help. I remember feeling like such a fraud for even putting it out there. But I did mean it. I would have done it. She told me I "was a good man." Fuck, no. No, I wasn't. She said she loved me, and I told her the same.

I kept thinking of her new boyfriend and started to be grateful he was around. Or at least I assumed he was. I was happy she had him. In an odd way, I came to love him too for taking the place next to her that I'd clearly fucked up. I'd blown it, but at least she wasn't alone.

I kept drinking, and it got worse. I'd just lie in bed with all the lights out, and all the curtains closed and just wait until it was late enough to go get something to drink. I'd drink at night and shake away the shame in bed the next day. I'd have to rally at times to do sessions, and Jesus, the guilt I felt then. Trying to help clients get sober while I knew they thought I was well on the other side of it. Every aspect of my life felt like a fraud. Even my dogs seemed to lose some faith in me. We just know.

And so time went on, and I'd made some sort of peace with how I'd blown it with her. Why couldn't I have done things with her? Why didn't we go anywhere? Why did we never go away for the weekend? I just cared about having her over and having sex and talking for hours. And we did talk a lot. Some of the best, most meaningful conversations I'd ever had. At some point, I told her I wanted to take things to another level. I told her I loved her and wanted to be her boyfriend. She said she wasn't ready for that. I know it meant she didn't think I really had it in me to pull it off. I'd certainly not given her much evidence of being there for her except my bedroom and buying her love with things I'd make for her. And so, that was it. This new guy came into the picture, and I just folded. Christ. How can one person fuck up love so many times?

One day I got a text from her. It just read, "My Dad's gone." I threw my phone out of reach and just started shaking my legs in the dark bedroom. I knew how much this was destroying her. I knew she had the same ultimate fear of life without her Dad that I have about my Mom. I just wanted to hold her like a friend. I just wanted to help her do whatever it is people do when they become so shattered. I was grateful for her boyfriend. He'd know what to do.

We still text every so often. I still love her dearly, but it's the Saudade. The Portuguese call it the "exquisite pain." the feeling of intense nostalgia and memory of someone or someplace or thing that you've loved intensely combined with the absolute knowledge that it's gone forever. Just feels like pain to me.

I'll let her read this before I let anyone else read it. I want to know that she sees all of this at least partly like I do, or at least she believes that I see it this way.

I fell in love with you, and I blew it. It's an awful thing. But I truly hope you're happy, at least sometimes. You're definitely one of the good ones.

I Seen What I Saw

How could I not write about Denise? Denise, who maybe loved me the most and yet disappeared one night as if we were two car dealers finalizing a deal and driving off into the night.

              The first time I saw Denise, she was sitting forlornly and almost angrily in a folding lawn chair just outside of the door of Steve Hadley's Highland Park apartment. We'd returned from eating breakfast, ready to write and record the day's song. We did that for a while. I'd come over, we'd eat and then we'd pull together some song. Some of it was about Melinda, who he'd already been run through by, and some were just about things. Eventually, he started a band called The Acetones. I told them to change it to Acetone. And so they did.

              But one day, we returned, and there was this hot little blond girl curled up and ready to strike like a cobra at Steve. Evidently, they had a history. It was over before it began. They muttered some gibberish, and she left, and I watched her ass walk away. Sad, Her ass was sad.

              Years or maybe months passed, and she was pulled into my orbit again at a cookout at Mike Watt's place. Christ, you couldn't get away from this guy. Nice enough, but he had his hand in everything. I was there with Winnie and John, and Winnie knew Denise from work. They'd both wound up being waitresses at Capri, a cool place in Venice on Abbot Kinney. We talked. It was clear I liked her. As we left, John tried to poke some fun and said, "Mike just wants to fuck Denise." All I said was, "Well, if it comes to that, but I really just want to eat her pussy for a week."

              All of these memories become so entwined, and at some point, Beatta got involved as she and Denise were fast friends, as were Beatta and I. Beatta told me flat out, "She'll give you a blow job, but she won't fuck you." She said it sternly as something I should consider before taking action. Christ! Who was I to care about such things? She might as well have said, "she'll only touch the tip of your nose, but she won't fuck you." And I still would have gone all-in.

              It's all a blur, but one night I find myself in my bed in my little Los Feliz hovel, kissing Denise. She's radiant. She has this beautiful underbite and unshaven pussy. We kiss for hours, and then as if on cue from Beatta marshaling all of this from above, she takes me into her mouth.

              I'm in love as if I wasn't already.

              I have no recollection of how we got together, but we found each other in sheets and air of singular apartments, sharing the same breath and kissing each other's lips. We kept on.

              Eventually, and very ritualistically, we had sex on her bed in the room she rented from some Cal Tech engineers at the far end of Lake in Pasadena. We'd discussed it for days. This was the day. I bought pounds of Ahi to share with the guests of some party they were having, and when it was over, we slipped into bed and kissed, and I entered her, and we were together until it ended.

              Denise, I loved you. You were maybe the weirdest of the bunch, but only maybe, Nery loved me as deeply as you did. And you went through the heroin with me. It happened like it always did. At some point, I gave in and started getting high again. Beatta was furious that she'd still be with me. I’m ashamed to say I must have been wearing shorts. Beatta pointed to my skin-abraised knees and asked, "what the fuck is that?!" I just said I fucked her on the carpet, on the floor. Beatta was furious. I think she hated both of us for putting up with my disease. Beatta loved me too. And I love Beatta. Christ, I just love everyone. Truly. I just do. I see something shine in everyone, and I wrap around it like a silken wrap and hold them tight. I try and fall in love with everyone. What's the fucking point otherwise?

              At one point, we drove to Dallas, where Denise was from. Her dad, Billy Prince, was the Dallas Police department Head before he retired. He was an extremely big deal in Dallas and, by extension, Texas. We stayed with her Mom, who had long divorced Billy. Her brother was schizophrenic and on the streets and just not of this world and dealing with everything this world heaps upon someone like that. It was heartbreaking. I think he came to the house at one point, and I think he wore glasses. I just remember looking at him and wishing I could change it all. And then I fell into a diminishing pool of failure and sunk below the room, and he left. What could I do?

              We visited her Father in some palatial Dallas, the TV Show sorta place. He took us to Black Beauty Ranch, where we saw, pet, and loved all sorts of misused and rescued animals. I'll never write anything with more love than I'll write about that place. They cared. They fought. They paid. They saved so many animals that the rest of the world would just throw away. Either you love animals, and I'm in your corner, or you don't, and I'll wrap a morning star around your skull. It's that easy. It's that simple. It's that right.

              Eventually, we started to drive back to LA. The visit was over. It was nighttime. We were on the outskirts of Dallas, and out of nowhere, flashing lights pulled us over. I pulled over. I had no idea and barely cared what was happening. I have very little self-preservation instincts. I'm an imbecile when it comes to this. Two cops approached from both sides and asked for the usual registration and license. I gave it to them, but they noticed two pill bottles in Denise's handbag, and all alarms sounded. She had two bottles of completely inert health food store nonsense, the same as all of you eat each day. But they looked like drugs. They asked us out and separated us. I could see her talking to officers, now grown to several cars worth. I knew her. I knew she'd never invoke her name. But I would. I sure would.

              One of the cops asked me why we were in Dallas, given our CA licenses. I said we'd come to visit her Father, Billy Prince.

              The fucking sea split. They all stood back, wondering how they might get out of this. Now they were the villains. "You mean Billy Prince, The Chief of Police?" "Yes, that's her Father. We were visiting him." Christ, you've never seen so many 20-something-year-olds scramble to make it comfortable for us to drive away. Within minutes we were back in our car with all her ersatz pills, and we were driving West. She asked me what I had told them? I told her exactly what anyone would, she was furious, but I said take it down a notch, chief. We're moving.

              We lasted a few more months. We had wild sex outside in the sunlight like animals, and we gave each other gifts like saints, and then one night, it just ended. We said we should have a talk, and that talk lasted 2 minutes. We kissed. She left. And I've never seen her again.

              I miss her. I hope she's found someone to love for more than a few months. I love you, Denise.

Beware of Darkness (Day 2 Demo/Take 1)

When I lost all the weight, I just wanted to wear suits. I wanted to look like Warren Ellis. Some combination of a devil-may-care old guy who stopped giving a fuck but had the sense to still follow all the rules. These rules count. You’ll never see Warren Eliss in shorts. Men should never wear shorts unless they’re like 25 or 30 feet from some body of water that they plan to engage within in some way. And no, watering a garden doesn’t count, Jewels. And men who wear shorts to work or like going to the bank, well, just don’t even get me started on these cretins. You just know these are the same motherfuckers who put ketchup on their hot dogs.

              Look, I have a lot of rules. I think they make the world a better place when they’re followed, and when not, they sure give me a lot to spirit to spring into righteous mockery and judgment. Like, how about those troglodytes that don’t put their shopping carts back at the grocery store? They just leave ’em them there. What kind of subhuman does that? So many rules. So when I got skinny, I decided to dress like a man whenever possible. Certainly, I can’t do it all the time. When I’m out in the garage grinding steel for some inevitably botched Japanese chef’s knife, I’m not in a suit. But I’m not wearing any goddamn shorts either, and don’t even get me started on underwear. Why any man needs to wear underwear after the age of like 8 is beyond me. I mean, what does underwear even do? It’s not like your cock and balls can’t just rest in there comfortably in whatever non-short pants you’re wearing, but guys sure do seem to love ’em, and Jesus, the supposed advances in underwear technology are bewildering. Personally, I don’t buy it. I mean, I don’t buy it at all, and I just don’t believe it. And let’s face it, when it comes to sex, it just gets things going that much quicker. Boom. All systems go.

              So anyway, I bought some suits, and I realized I could have little things embroidered on the left inside right above the little pocket. One was “Duende.” One was “Saudade.” Another was simply “Love.” But my favorite one, which is inside the purple velvet suit, simply says “Beware of Darkness.” So where did this come from, I hear you asking.

              I never really liked the Beatles. I was a Stones guy, and by that, I mean when the real Mick was in the band, Mick Taylor. Everything the Rolling Stones created, which was gilded in the fine gold of genius they did when Mick Taylor replaced Brian Jones, that goofy-looking autoharp player or whatever the fuck he was. Mick Taylor stood in the back and turned the Rolling Stones into The Stones. Even Mick Jagger, in the Scorcese documentary, admits that they became basically clownish once Taylor left and was replaced by Ron Wood. Successful as all hell, to be sure, but the Sister Morphine and Moonlight Mile days were over. Taylor says he left because he figured he’d be dead from heroin in a year if he stayed. There’s just no keeping up with Keith. One day he just wasn’t there anymore. He split. And so I was wired as a Stones fan; it seems we’re all one or the other; I have vast neurological theories about how the same brain cannot love each band equally. They can like them both just fine, but when it comes to who you want to be played at your funeral, only one will do, and you’ve carried that decision since you heard them both for the first time. Same with Neil Young and Bob Dylan. Clearly, the better among us are wired for Neil, but that’s a whole different essay.

              And then the damndest thing happened. The hobbit guy, Peter Jackson, had the audacity, the sheer balls to produce and release an eight-hour documentary about the Beatles making their album “Get Back.” That’s the name of the doc. It came out around last Christmas. If you haven’t seen at least some of it, well then, I’ll be kind and just pat your little kid’s head and say a little snickering prayer for you. I watched it from start to finish in three days. Initially, I will just watch any documentary. But quickly, something started happening to me, and it quite literally changed my life.

              I’d been lied to. We all had been. We were led to believe that John Lennon was some sullen asshole and that Yoko got in the way of everything. We were told McCartney resented her presence and that by this time, the four of them all but hated each other. But none of it was true. The film follows them all but daily for about a month, and their true colors show. Lennon is a kind, jovial, always laughing guy anyone would want as a friend. Yoko is never more than 12 inches from him, but she just minds her business and only pipes up with little bouts of encouragement. Ringo is clearly the anchor. The only myth that seems true is how down Harrison was kept while McCartney and Lennon worked. Jesus, what they much have thought when they heard All Things Must Past and realized he tried to give them most of these brilliant songs.

              In any case, the doc moves on and ends with the legendary noontime roof concert above Apple studios. The pathos at realizing they never ever played again as a band is heartbreaking. By this time, I had just fallen in love with all of them. And then it ends. A couple more days of overdubs and the gorgeous Glyn Johns presiding over everything, and it’s over, and all my theories about loving only one band are dashed or maybe not; maybe I just got rewired.

              And can we please just talk about Glyn moment? His name has been synonymous with so many great records through the years. I dare you to go into any recording studio and start mic-ing up a drumset without someone demanding the “Glyn Johns” sound. I’d never seen him before, and Christ! I’d switch teams for this motherfucker in a heartbeat! He’s beautiful and dwarfs everyone else in the movie with his style.

              And so I went down the rabbit hole of listening to and catching up with all things Beatles. I never cared before. I think I just couldn’t stand Beatles fans and the sacred cows they’d created. But now, I was free to listen while I made knives or drove around listening to “Dig A Pony” on repeat. Eventually, I got to Georges’s first album and arguably the greatest Beatles album that never was. So many slices of sunrays and space radiation. “My Sweet Lord” and “Wah Wah,”( which he wrote the night he quit the band right in the middle of filming the doc..a shot straight at Paul) and “Apple Scruff.” And almost every fucking song was new to me. Anyone should be so lucky to wait so long to hear these songs for the first time. I was ready. I was primed. I loved how devout he was. I loved how unapologetically he was stating his love of God. I’d found myself there too by them. Years of shooting dope, cynicism and losing every girl I ever loved didn’t leave me much else to grab onto.

              And I started noticing one song more than the others as I played the album over and over. It was just an acoustic version of a song that appeared later on the record. “Beware of Darkness (original demo” I think it was titled. I could look it up, but it hardly matters. This was the only one-take acoustic song in the mix. He sings about being wary of the pain of strangers and how it can linger. And then he sings a verse that has changed my very way of looking at life. He sings this:

“Beware of sadness
It can hit you
It can hurt you
Make you sore and what is more
That is not what you are here for”

It’s that last line. “That is not what you are here for.” Well then, what are we here for?

And as close as I can figure is this. Happiness is nothing to be deserved. It’s not something to be hoped for. Happiness is our fucking job! We’re here to do whatever it is that makes us happy. And not in some vapid pleasure-filled way but truly happy, truly at peace, because only then are we most able and likely to show love to others, and that is why we’re here. To show and give and receive love.

It’s that simple. We either love, or we cause pain and hopefully perish quickly. And that is not what were are here for.

              And so, everything changed for me. All I care about is showing love, and I couldn’t care less what someone might think of that. I’ve given more than my share of pain, hate and hurt. Now it’s time to love. So hold the door open for a stranger. Smile at someone who seems miserable. Offer someone something, anything. And beware of darkness. It will find you, and it will hurt you. And that is not what we are here for. Just love you cocksuckers, Just love.

Frankie Teardrop

I’ve written about Nery already. But to such a small degree. And I need to say more. And I can’t just focus on the Frankie Teardrop part of what happened between us. There was the magical Nick Cave show and our first kiss at the Beyonce show and how it just ended on a dime on my birthday a year after going out with her for the first time.

              She’s owed so much more. And so am I. No one has done such a thorough scrambling of my heart and soul like Nery did. And it’s only recently that I realize I must have done a number on her too.

              We met through hate. I was talking to a new friend on Facebook one night, and she became very energized about some chick named Nery that she just couldn’t stand. A braggart. A know-it-all. A psychic of all things. She asked me to check out her page while we were on the phone to share in her splendor. Now this person is a good friend of mine. She still is. And, as it turned out, she wasn’t entirely off the mark. But I navigated to Nery’s page, and I was immediately transfixed. She was beautiful, but she had the crazy confidence, and everything I’d railed against for years within my cloak of arrogant cynism was what seemed to create her entire persona. She was an astrologer (ist?), a psychic, an anti-vax; she was everything I’d mocked for years rolled into one package with a fucking beautiful ass. The ass stuck out to me from the get-go. Plus, I noticed she’d be arguing against typical feminist causes; she was surely the first woman or man, for that matter, who claimed that Amber Herd was the actual abuser in that deal. So, anyway, my friend’s plan didn’t quite pan out. I became intrigued.

              I sent her a friend request, and she answered back right away. She said she was somewhat surprised because she’d reached out to me a year earlier, and I’d turned her down. I had no memory of that, nor have I ever said no to a Facebook friend request.

              She was having a “full moon” party in a week, and she invited me. I assumed it would be me, her and 4 lesbian witches. Well, I took two friends, so the numbers got thrown off. It was in her backyard. A little house a mile away from my own right over the hill into Highland park. She read some tarot cards around the fire. We ate snacks, and I was just truly obsessed with bending her over the folding table, lifting her floral dress and just spending a week there. I was smitten,

              But she was so not so like anyone I’d ever gone out with. She was Spanish and Columbian. She had no accent at all, but she misspoke all the time as if she was having an aneurysm. That just endeared me to her more.

              A few nights later, I messaged her and asked if she wanted to go with some friends and me to see the one-night showing of the Nick Cave doc, “One more time with Feeling.” She said yes, and the four of us ate tapas before going to the theatre in Pasadena. We had to jam ourselves into the back of my friend’s car, and she made some comment about her “Spanish ass” and how she’d be fine. God trickles little flowers on your heart and cock every so often just to let you know he’s still there. We went to the movie, and at one point, she put her head on my shoulder and fell asleep for a few minutes. That’s all it took. I’ll love you so Goddamned, completely, I thought.

              I took her to see Beyonce a couple nights later as our first real date, and I remember just stopping talking and taking and grabbing her face (gently) and kissing her. It shocked both of us. We spoke for hours, and at the end of the night, when I asked her if we could go out again, she said, “You are such a glowing red neon Bright red flag, but I’m gonna risk it because we talk well together.” And so the best and worst year of my life started

              I’ve written a lot about her and this year, but there are things I need to get straight for myself. Nery was an intensely jealous woman. I’d never experienced anything like it. One of our first dates ended with her asking me why I was giving such “energy” to the woman sitting next to me. As God is my witness, I KNOW I was sitting next to an elderly guy in a parka. But she saw things the way she did and never questioned anything because she was a psychic and, therefore, infallible. That should have been such a screaming red flag, but her jealousy sorta turned me on. I never figured I’d be worth jealously, and here it was. And so we got past it. She had a daughter who I won’t name, who was 14. They pretty much just fought all the time. She was at that age. She told her Mom that “I was too old and my hair was too long.”

              I can go on and on about her jealousy and rage and near hysterical blackouts, but there was this other side of her too. And I’d never even come close to experiencing that; she loved me like I’d just never been loved before. She supported every idea or interest I had. She was the first to tell me I could do anything, and she single handily cleaned out my garage and got it started into the workshop it is now. She did all that, Fuck, the love she was able to give was only matched by the vitriol and hate that would come out of her roughly every 10 days.

              And the sex. It was just a whole new level of dirty, filthy, primal animalistic sweaty unshowered entanglement that just kept coming and cuming

              Nery was the woman who loved me the most deeply. I don’t even wonder about that, and yet, when it ended, it took my therapist a few weeks to make me buy into the idea that I had been classically abused. It’s hard for men to own up to that. It feels so weak and powerless, and yet, all the signs were there. I’d also never considered that one might abuse another without even realizing it, as if abuse was always a conscious aim in and of itself.

`            Whenever I tell the story of how we broke up, I always leave one part out. I’ve convinced myself that it pales by comparison to the jealous rage, but I did something which threw a wrench into the whole delicate clockwork. One day I was driving to DUI school, and I got a text from a number I didn’t know. They simply said they had blues and if I wanted any. I reflexively said yes. I knew that blues were 30 mg oxycodones. I was about two miles away, so I just said yes and went there and got a few.

              Ultimately that’s what ruined us. She was in the middle of trying to find the perfect wedding dress, and I just wanted relief from “Jack.”

              You don’t even know about Jack yet. But Jack was the part of me that had a huge role in destroying her and me, and as much as she tried her best to, Jack was destroying her too. I’ve never admitted this part of history. Fuck, I’d rather tell you about fucking some guy in a shower stall.

              We called him Jack as a way to externalize him and get some answers for him. This was her idea. She so truly wanted to free me of this.

              The pattern had been reoccurring for years. Once I fell in love with a woman, Jack would appear, and he’d always create the same scenario, which I’d buy into fully. I’d become fixated on some random, casual sex they’d had before meeting me, and I’d view it as the pinnacle of sexual abandon and primal hedonism. There was just no way I could compete with Jack. I’d tell myself that I had enough good qualities that they’d want to be with me, but they’d made a bargain with themselves to forgo intense sexual pleasure in order to have me cook for them or buy them things or love their kids or care about their pain. But they knew that real sex was over for them, And that killed me, and it would always turn into a classic OCD pattern of rumination, anxiety,  questioning, and then a doubling of the pain. And it always lands on them. No matter how much they told me, these experiences ranged from awful to forgettable, I knew. I knew a bargain when I heard it.

              In Nery’s case, she’d told me she’d met a guy on tinder who I knew really well. The kind of guy that, well, is no one you’d want to know the love of your life had been with. I kept bringing it up and magnifying it in my head. It became debilitating.    

              All I can see is her getting undressed for bed after we got engaged, with both of us smiling and counting the milliseconds until we could hold each other and say how much we loved each other. That’s what I see right now. How perfect her naked body was and that beautiful face and the knowledge that he’d seen and used all of that as well. My underlying distrust and attempts at pretending jack was gone would just mock me in those moments as she stood naked under the one ceiling light with one bulb always burnt out,

              Nery had nothing to do with Jack short of trying to understand him. She endured so many questions and my gradual loss of identity. She’d tell me repeatedly that they just went out once and just “fooled around.” Not that she even owed me this much history. Who was I to demand answers.? She just tried everything she could imagine. She’d take me out to the garage and tell me to lick and fuck her. This was a gift. She knew this was such a fetish of mine. To be told to taste and use her in the most non-sequitur moments was and still is such a thing with me. One day I was watching the Orioles, and she just got up, stood in front of me, pulled down her panties and bent over the table and offered herself. The point of all this detail isn’t to titillate but to show how well she knew me and how willing she was to make that part of me feel understood and validated.

              And so one day, someone from my past offered something that I thought might give me a few hours of relief, and I said yes,

              And no matter how I spin it, that’s what started those last awful 6 weeks. She found out purely from her psychic ability. I have no other explanation for it. And she went mad with rage. And who am I to blame her? My drug history and sobriety were incredibly important to her. To who would they not be? Her father and stepfather had both destroyed her with their drinking, and here it was happening all over again.  

              I’m sure we could have worked the thing out, but it wasn’t up to me. Throughout the entire Jack period, she kept assuring me that she only “fooled around” with this one guy one time. And then on the porch one day, in the noon sun as we were just talking about whatever, she turned to me and very calmly and casually said, “and I fucked him more than once. And he didn’t need a coach” I just collapsed like a kid when you tell them not only Christmas but even birthdays aren’t real. I just got up and left and wondered how someone could be so calculatingly cruel. And yet, I’ve never considered my own cruelness in it all this time.

                           We found ways to hurt each other that neither of us had ever conceived of before. I was being punished, and it just kept escalating. I had to allow her access to all of my phones and devices and computers and would be grilled about any random girl she’d come across.

              I was talking to Jaymee on the phone later on the day that she told me she’d fucked that guy multiple times and that “he didn’t need a coach.” I’m not sure what that meant exactly, but I know it was calculated to eviscerate me. And it worked. I still see and feel and hear that moment. I was in some sort of panic. I had nowhere to go. Jaymee very calmly said, “If you stay in this relationship, you’re going to die.” Maybe he meant heroin, Maybe suicide, Maybe it was a metaphor.

              And so I went into the house, and she was sitting at the table on the back patio. I just told her I couldn’t live like this anymore, And I was leaving. She was furious, and for the first time, I just didn’t engage and just left. She told me I was a pathological liar and that I’d done nothing but cheat and lie to her our whole time together. This just wasn’t true. She also told me that when she gets angry or afraid, her method is to cause as much pain in the other person as possible. None of it was by mistake. She said it was all conscious and well-considered.

              And so I left and went to my Mom’s house. I stayed there for a few days while Nery moved all her stuff out. I arranged for movers to come to do the work. I saw her one more time in my life. About two months later, I saw her in a parking lot near Trader Joe’s. She walked past me, and I said hi. She said nothing but smirked and kept walking

It’s been 3 or 4 years since the last day I saw her. I just left my house and never saw her again except for that moment in the parking lot. I think about her all the time. She gets all confused with women I’ve loved before her and since. She’s become a specter and an angel wrapped in diaphanous floral prints and pulled-down panties.

              It was such a singular experience that there’s no recognition of it in any other beautiful entanglement. I suppose I’m lucky to have felt that level of passion, but I fear it will mark the end of my life. Not that I’m destined to die alone, but isn’t that all our core fear?

              I’ve told this story about how Nery and I broke up while planning our wedding so many times it feels scripted by now. But I always leave my part out. I lie by omission as to what I did that unleashed all of her trauma, rage, and fear, And I have to have everyone know this part. Otherwise, I’m just making her a witch and myself a saint. And neither of us were either.

              One more thing that’s so interesting to me in these matters is that it’s so easy to only remember the beautiful parts. The pulled-down panties, the fact that she’d take pictures of every dinner I cooked for us. That she once bought our four dogs at least 100 little stuffed toys to play with as we just dumped the whole bag onto their happy and excited little heads. They went mad. I remember all of this, and I’d take her back in a second, but then I start remembering the other stuff, which gets confusing. There’s cognitive dissonance. The Nery I loved I still love with all my heart, and the Nery who tried so hard to hurt me and did quite well at it, I kind of love her even more because I know what people have been doing to her for her whole entire life. And I was just another one who came along and broke her trust. I know I’m not a monster, but I have to be honest about my part in all of this beautiful mess. I just couldn’t handle it anymore than Frankie could.

Hey Jude

The world needs more Lotties. I started finding my way to Lottie about 6 or 7 years ago when I shot a bunch of dope, took a bunch of Xanax, smoked meth and wound up totaling my car and two others on Magnolia Blvd. Thank God no one else was involved, and no one was hurt. I don’t think I’d be able to carry that. As it happened, I got arrested for a DUI and wound up back in the same rehab I’d left just two months earlier. I could only afford to stay for 3 weeks. My insurance was a mockery. But I knew the people there, and they welcomed me back. I’d been dodging bullets my whole life in the drug and sex addiction world, and finally, it all ended. I remember coming to and thinking very soberly that I should kill myself. I’d never really thought that before, but it seemed like nothing was left. My likely-to-be fiance had split. Who wouldn’t? I couldn’t work as I had to drive for work. And so I came to and just decided maybe I’d lived enough. But I couldn’t do it while my Mom was still alive. There’s no way I could do that to her. And what about the dogs? But I figured I could just give up and sit at home and drink until we all died. For some reason, I thought my Mom could make peace with that.

              Jaymee, Lacee, Carson, and Chris often checked on me. We’d become close my first go around. I think it was Chris who said, “You should just go back to school and become a therapist. The clients talk to you more than they do us. They trust you.” That was preposterous. I was too old. Too broken. But he said something to the effect: “three years are going to pass no matter what. You might as well have a degree to show for them.” And then Carson, Carson the southern gentleman Deadhead, told me to go home after group and lie face down in the grass and just feel the earth. Reall hippy shit. But I was open to it, and so I did. I just laid there in the grass with the heat on my back and felt every blade of grass slither around my arms and cheeks and wrap itself in my long filthy hair.

              And something happened. I had this image of my world being completely exploded, but it was a world of old dead, sandy rocks held in place with dried tears, and it just shattered, and when it did, this brilliant new light shown forth. Look, call me a hippy, call me whatever you want, but that was the moment everything changed. Well, not everything, I still have all my same vices and struggles and perversions and loopholes, but they sort of became contained in some manageable way. Within six weeks, I’d found the closest MFT program to my house and started classes.

              These years have all sorts of silly and crazy stories within them, but I have to get to Lottie. I graduated and began the process of getting my license. California basically said fuck you. “You aren’t a good fit for this work” was as close as I can remember how they phrased it. “You’re not good enough for us because you have this DUI.” Now half of the therapists in CA are only therapists because they derailed their lives to such a state that all that was left was trying to save others from the same. But they said no to me, and it fucking hurt. Imagine having imposter syndrome about as far as you can take it, and then the State of California sends you a letter saying, “You're right. You are an imposter." I fought it for a year with a lawyer and ultimately just told them to fuck off. I'll just be a therapist without your asinine rules and controls.

              Ultimately it's the best thing I've ever done. I'm a much better therapist for simply abandoning all their horrible rules. My ethics and respect for confidentiality are beyond reproach, but I want to be my clients' friends and share everything with them. That's very much frowned upon by the BBS, the CA office of who gets licensed or not

              I wound up working with Jaymee and Lacee at a place they started in Santa Barbara. I'd go up on Monday, they'd put me up in a hotel, I'd work Tuesday and come home. No one does that for some unlicensed kid therapist. But I started a family group, and it took off, and they supported me like few ever have. All of them. Not just Jaymee and Lacee. But eventually, they left to do their own thing, and I lasted about 4 months and started drinking again. I couldn't handle the guilt, so I just left and got help. I up and left. I still feel pretty rotten about that. But, everything leads to some new thing, I guess.

              Jayme and Lacee lived in Ojai (of course) and started their own private practice. We stayed in touch, but I never see them as much as I want to. There are simply not the right strings of letters in our language to describe the depth of love I have for these two.

              A few months ago, they decided to start this Thursday night meditation/process group. Mainly clients of Jaymee and Lacee's and some friends like me. I loved it. I still do. I missed once to see Nick Cave. That tells you pretty much everything you need to know about how special this thing is to me. It's an odd assortment of characters who show up each week, and some come and go, but there's a core group. And we don't hold anything back. That's where I first met Lottie.

              Most of my stories involve a her who I've fallen madly in love with and go all in on until the wheels fall off. And you know what? If I was about 30 years younger and about 700 miles closer, she'd probably be "her." But she not. She's just this young mother of two boys who seems so filled with the alternating beams of love and self-loathing that she blinds everyone around her.

              All of these groups are done via Zoom. One night she mentioned something about making music, and I sent her a private message asking to hear some of it. That led to text conversations and innocent exchanges of music we liked. Truly innocent. Now make no mistake, she's gorgeous. But I wasn't going down that road. I really felt like I had found a friend. A real friend who just happened to be beautiful.

              One night I told the group that I wished we could all meet somewhere and spend the weekend together and then get snowed in for a week, and we'd have to just really get to know each other. I'd still love that.

              A few weeks later, Jaymee asked me if I'd be into letting Lottie and her friend crash at my house because they were driving to LA to see some sort of Buddhist type music deal. God only knows what that is. And I said, of course. And the hour came on a Saturday afternoon when this car pulled into my driveway, and these two little pixies popped out all nervous, and we met. I was totally unprepared for how little they were. Not weirdly little, but just pretty little girlish-type creatures. They came in, and we immediately just started talking like we'd known each other for, well, for at least more than 6 minutes.

              Both had been brought up and had somehow escaped the whole Warren Jeffs polygamy/underage sex predator deal. They weren't tight-lipped about it, but that's where they were formed. You could smell the trauma on them. And sometimes, trauma doesn't smell so bad, I've learned. I made them bread, and they went off to their concert and Ubered back. It was one of the purest weekends of just friendship I'd had in years,

              I've grown to really love Lottie. She's a beautiful person and an amazing mom. I often text her to see how she's doing, and I can tell she's making it seem better than it is for me. I can sense the pain in her. She is one of those people that come along every now and then who you just want to shake and make them see themselves the way you see them.

              I believe someone referred to her two sons, aged 8 and 6, as two little saints, always looking for something to do to help Mom out. One night I Venmo'd her 100 bucks and told her to get them all pizza and ice cream. At first, she was not ok with it. Not mad but just underserving. You know that feeling. But, what could she do? Once I sent it, she couldn't send it back. She sent pictures of their time at the pizza place. Or somewhere. There was definitely pizza involved.

              So what's my point of all of this? Is it just that I'm some old creep who has latched on to some young beautiful girl states away? And no. It fucking is not that. The point is that she's a truly good and beautiful person who needs help from time to time, and who am I to talk about love this and love that and not try and help?

              And then I saw the video. The video of her and her son singing Hey Jude. And I wept. Look, I cry a lot. Fuck it. I feel. I cry. But this was something wholly different. It's such a beautiful moment, and you can see the love between the two of them.

              The world needs more Lotties. The world needs more women who have endured and escaped unspeakable trauma at the hands of heinous motherfuckers who should all be shot in the face slowly over the course of a day or two, somehow keeping them alive while they endure the pain. And after all of that, to raise two beautiful little boys who don't seem to have an ounce of "what about me?" in them. And I'm sure they do. Kids are kids, but these boys don't turn out half this good without a Lottie in their life.

              The other day she sent me a package in the mail. It had four bags of coffee from the roaster where she works. It also had a long poem she wrote giving a name to all her pain, and it referenced a little book I made called "Johhny Hotdog" that she found the weekend she visited. She loved it, and so I gave it to her. It also had a painting in it, which she's been holding onto for years, refusing to sell until she realized and admitted during last Thursday's group that
"It was Mike's painting."

              I'm having a hard time ending this because it feels like it’s just the beginning of a long friendship with her. I still want the whole group to come hang out here for a weekend and just lay around and cook and camp out in the backyard. And I want her sons to come. I guess what I'm trying to say is that some girls, no matter how beautiful, transcend the mundanity of sexual attraction and all the bullshit that goes with it. I want to be making bread for her for decades. I want to see her sons turn into the saints they seem to be. Or maybe the devils. But I want to be there with them.

              And all of this is because I shot too much doped, ate too much Xanax and smoked too much meth and got behind the wheel of a car. There is no Lottie without that. Every second. All the good and the bad leads up to this moment. Every awful and beautiful thing I've done put me in front of Jaymee and Lacee and then across the zoom divide of a Thursday night meditation group where I sent Lottie a message. Which, by the way, I was sure she would think was some creepy come on. But Lottie's the real deal. We need more Lotties.     

              I just wish she could see herself the way I do. She'd rule the world if she could, and it would be a pretty nice world I bet. I love you Lottie you sad, bright little pixie.

Farewell Transmission

              I just watched Stephanie drive away after dropping me off at my house. She’d come over for dinner, a rare visit. I’d made this wonderful Tunisian soup the day before and it was even better today. As she was leaving, I asked If she’d mind driving me to the store so I could get some cigarettes. And wine. She probably suspected the wine, but she didn’t say anything. Stephanie was the one who got away that I was forever trying to replace in some other way. I never realized that until a couple years ago when I wrote her a letter for her Birthday.

              I met Stephanie through AA friends in the early 90’s. I had a crush on her pretty much right away. Not to take anything away from her because she was a beautiful young Jewish girl, and are there any hotter young girls? But I developed crushes quickly. Stephanie was smart and witty and confident, maybe in that way we’re only confident on the outside, I remember taking to her on the phone for hours one night and asking her all sorts of questions about music and who she liked. At one point she just stopped talking and said, “wait! Are you quizzing me about my taste in music? Is this something I might fail?” I was struck dumb because in that instance I realized I was. Thank God she passed the quiz.

              Stephanie and I never really dated, and I love her husband Tim so I don’t want to be too graphic but there’s only so much I can hold back. Somehow, we found each other in our friend Jonathon’s bed on some night as she was housesitting for him. And, come one. Who really needs a house sitter? Anyway, we were lying on the bed just slowly talking and I felt my hands tentively move a little upwards upon her legs. Starting at her angles and taken what seemed like hours to get to her thighs. I was so in touch with her breathing. It told me everything. I moved slowly up to the material covering her. I waited for a reaction. Deep breathing. I reached up and pulled her panties down and tasted her. I had her in me. We never said another word. I just did what I did until she finished, and I rolled up to hug her and we went to sleep. That’s my memory. Her’s may be wildly different but one fact remains. I made her cum with my mouth, I hugged and kissed her and we fell asleep.

              The next morning, we found ourselves naked on Jonathon’s couch with me kissing her and trying so hard to take things farther. She was stalwart. She was no easy prey. That confidence I spoke of. We kissed and I came while kissing her. And then the couch collapsed. We’d broken it. Historically and forever a fucked couch from our first coupling.

              Stephanie was too smart to fall into traps. She was wild and open, but she set the rules. Our sex for the first period involved no intercourse. Imagine what you will. She asked me once if my roommate could hear us. “Who knows” Jesus. He’s probably too high to even understand,”

God, she was so incredibly sexy to me. I have to admit a thing for Jewish girls. In fact, I have to say that as a kid I always wished I was part of some big loud Jewish family. I loved all things Jewish, I kinda still do. The fact is that she still is. She’s a million little sparkles wrapped in a candy bar foil waiting to spring out and hand you a golden ticket to her heart.

              Eventually we had sex. And when I pushed in she sighed as if some tragic or magic moment had just occurred. We were in my fucked up bed in my junkie apartment in Echo Park. But I remember every millisecond of it. The feel. The look in her eyes. The distance of my mouth from hers and the rate of her breathing. I loved this fucking Jewish girl.

              It never got any better than that. I was strung out and about to sign a record deal. The label, Interscope, put me through rehab before I even signed. Miracles of miracles. When it was over, I just moved in with her. It was way too soon and all out of sync. We’d never even been on a date. We lived together and had great sex and great talks but I quickly became just another problem to someone who loved me, testing her. Almost teasing her with how low I could go. She reminded me tonight that I showed her the tracks on my arm with a nervous, guilty smile on my face as if I knew she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. As if this was some well-kept secret I’d managed to hide from her. This is her memory. I have none.

              At one point she was taking a photography class and wanted to document me shooting up. I was fine with it. God prevailed though and it didn’t happen. No one needs to see more of that ugly inanity.

              The truth is that I truly loved Stephanie with all my heart, but I never felt even remotely good enough for her. So, I’d wear my addiction on my sleave so to speak to try and scare here away. She was too smart. Too mature. Knew too much about love and was willing to go much farther in than I was. I was still, and maybe I still am in, my love is the payoff right before heartbreak phase. Stephanie truly got jammed up with a charming shitbird junkie.

We lived in a really nice apartment. “Handcock Park adjacent” she loved to say. She also loved to say it was a “tony” neighborhood. We had a roommate. The girlfriend of Tom of Myspace. What a weird fucking time. I went off to make our record and I told her I didn’t want to be sober. I wanted to be a “real” rockstar. Christ, how fucking clueless are we when we’re young? She visited Boston where we were recording and we filmed ourselves having sex one night.  It didn’t turn out so great. I mean, she looked great. I looked like something from where the Wild Things Grow.

              We lasted a few more months after that. She begged me to come to couples therapy with her therapist. She didn’t need to beg; I was all for it. I think she felt she had an ally. But the therapist took my side and I’ll never forget the look of pain when that 50minutes ended. I would have done anything for her. Anything but change the immature asshole junkie I’d become. But she didn’t ask me to take her back so we just drifted away  in different hot Valley directions..

 I had to break up with her multiple times over the next few weeks. She’d call and ask why we were breaking up and I’d have to go through it all over again. And It sounds like she was the weak one but she wwasn’t. I just felt like I was some sort of poison to her. One night she called while I was watching the Dodgers game. I turned the sound off but get the picture on. It was the inning Fernando Tatis hit two grand slams in one inning. Did I really just se what I think I did as I cried on the phone with her for an hour?

              Look, all I know is that Stephanie was the one I truly fucked everything up with. If only I wasn’t so young, afraid and full of self-loathing.

              I saw her tonight and I just fell in love with her all over again. I don’t think she realizes why we see each other so rarely. It’s because I just love her like she can’t imagine can still exist after 40 years. I told her tonight that she looks exactly the same to me as when I first saw her. She found that somewhat preposterous but it’s true. But I really  do. I love seeing her here. I love it so much. But it hurts. She’s the one I let go with youth, pride and just being a stupid boy. What I wouldn’t give to have her back. I’ve probably written that in this fucking book multiple times about multiple girls and maybe I’d be happy if just one of them would take me back. But in the big lottery in the sky my winning scratcher would reveal “Stephanie” under my dirty fingernail.

              I think this is just an introduction to Stephanie. I think there’s so much more to write but I can’t do it anymore right now. It kind of hurts too much. See ya later.

Take A Walk on the Wild Side

I think the thing that being molested as a kid does to some people more than anything is that it makes them chase the shame for the rest of their lives. Or at least until they figure it out and get some sort of handle on it. More than anything, more than the confusion I felt about something I knew was wrong and feeling good was the shame I felt for years after. It broke me. It made me a bad little kid that my parents would never love if they found out. And yet, after pushing it down for years, it resurfaced, and these experiences are my deepest darkest secrets. I've said I wanted everything out there, but I don't know. This might be too much.

              I know that a large part of my life, in between relapses with heroin, has been spent obsessed with finding ways to have sexual adventures that I knew everyone who loved me would completely disown me if they found out. It was part of the thrill. How much shame can I hide and endure? You'd think it would take a different turn, a more sensible one. If something hurts you, why would you keep running towards it only to be beaten by the same stick but even with more force? And yet, that's what so many of us do. At least that's what I did.

              If I was gay or Bi, none of this would work because it would all just make sense. I'd just be doing what I was into. But I'm not, so all these things I sought out had the expressed purpose of debasing me. And that was the thrill. Walking into a room of friends, knowing I'd just had sex with multiple people of every conceivable gender, was such a thrill because I was so close to exile. Could I keep it together? Would they suspect?

              Short of children and animals, there's not a conceivable type of sex I haven't indulged in at length. The sex itself might have felt good. Generally, flesh on flesh does, but it was the feeling of walking away from some stranger's apartment knowing I'd just added to the list of things that made me a monster is where the real thrill came from. And how fucked up is that? It's like allowing yourself to be shot each night with one extra bullet because surviving it was such a thrill.

              When I started writing this thing, I said I wanted every part of me out in plain view. But I held this back. There was no way this wasn't going to the grave with me. And here I am. I mean, I'm just typing. No one can see this yet, but you might. You might. And the banishment that I've feared/ longed for decades might actually happen.

              If you've seen the movie "Shame," well, then you know exactly what I'm talking about. Something happens to a kid. It goes underground, and one day it springs up like a black orchid commanding me to move. To act, to lie, to fuck, to shame myself in whatever way is available.

              I've talked to other people who understand this force. This demand to build up walls of damage as if they're armor.

              I remember nights running from some transgender hooker’s apartment in West Hollywood and stopping just long enough to get enough cash to get to some other hooker’s apartment in the valley and then, after finishing rushing to meet some guy I met on some dating site. The more unspeakable, the better. It's as if I was telling that kid when I was 8 or 9, "I'll show you motherfucker. I'll go beyond what you can even imagine, and I'll emerge with the wounds to prove it. And All I ever really and truly wanted was to kiss her, whoever she was at the moment. The only thing I can say that I guess I'm somewhat proud of, if even a word fits, is that none of this happened when I was with anyone. I never cheated. I never cheated on her, but I certainly cheated on myself and the memory of that little kid.

              I don't want to, nor do I need to go into any details of the acts. You can google anything you can imagine, and I've been there. But the frantic nature, the panic, the thrill is what matters. I suppose it's very similar to cutting. A million little slits of my soul by way of anonymous, always anonymous, ejaculations as if they were razor blades. Then a mad dash to get dressed and get the fuck out of there. And it's amazing how many people are ready and willing to do this. How many of us were fucked as little kids, and this is our only means of sanity? It seems way too many.

              And I always think it would be much easier to bear if I'd at least been loaded. But I never was. These episodes always happened between relapses when I was otherwise sober. But the double life would emerge, and I'd go into some state of mania where I just couldn't have enough sex. And sometimes you can't, so you go a level deeper and start with computer hookups and webcams. Pure debasement made victory.

              Shame is an odd thing. It's not a singular emotion. It certainly begins as such, but at some point, it becomes a slim safety net. And then an armor, and then it becomes the goal. Maybe it’s simply trying to overcome the initial act. Perhaps it's something else entirely.

              I did these things, all these things, something I can't even begin to describe, but no one can't imagine them, and if you can imagine them, I did them. And I'd get in my car, light a cigarette and add one more little notch into the bedpost of my soul.

              At some point, it seemed to stop. It's been years since it was as effervescent as it became. But the thoughts are always still there. The desire has just been replaced by age and a lack of willingness. No healthy understanding has intervened. I've simply been saved by laziness, I guess.

              If I actually put this out there, well, then there's just nothing left of me to hide. Not even remotely. I may not be bulletproof. In fact, I may become a target, but I know I'm empty of secrets. I'm also just kind of empty. This stuff sucks a lot out of a person's soul. I play a good game. I can be the big loud happy guy in a room full of strangers, but they're always a part of me that knows that I'm just one slip of the tongue or one weird recognition of popping like a balloon. And then I'll just flitter away, into the ether

Man on The Moon

When I wound up in rehab again after getting a DUI and totaling three cars, I mentioned that there were very special people there waiting for me, and I felt loved. I also felt like killing myself. I'd dodged so many bullets over all the years of my using, but finally, it all came crashing down upon me like an avalanche. No subtle buildup. No slow burn. Just a huge cartoon anvil dropping upon my head. And as awful as I felt, I was also grateful that finally, something truly terrible had resulted in all of my selfish choices. There was some feeling of atonement, but it certainly hadn't transformed into the courage to change. I just felt some sort of relief that, at least now, if I wanted to shut off all the lights, it would be somewhat understandable. I could hear so many people murmuring to each other, "Mike was a great guy, but Jesus, he just never got it. He didn't even seem to try. It was bound to wind up this way. Poor Mike, where should we go for lunch?" And they'd all just move on with their lives like I have after the hundreds of deaths I've experienced since first getting strung out and sober at a relatively young age. When you get sober, get used to friends dying. It happens like fucking clockwork, and it's a relentless assault. You might as well try to hold back an ocean wave as prevent the deaths of so many people you'll come to love or at least share something so intimately with.

              But, of course, I didn't kill myself, and I've written about one of these people suggesting I become a therapist. I remember when they first said it, and it was as if they suggested I become an astronaut. I said I was too old, and truly I didn't have a wealth of self-esteem to draw from either. Becoming a therapist would require years of school and then years more of getting hours and tests and exams and all that stuff. It still seemed easier to just go home and sit and drink until my Mom passed away, and then I'd be free to shut it down. Oh wait, I also had to wait for my dogs to go too. I couldn't leave them. And so, as this person said I should become a therapist, I was simply considering how much time I'd have to endure before the three most important creatures in my life left this world, allowing me to leave too.

              But a funny thing happened. I thought about what he said later that night in the detox bed I was put in until I was well enough to move to more opulent housing. I started getting a little excited by the idea. My friend, Chris, the one who suggested the therapist's idea, had said by way of answering my claim of being too old but simply saying, "Look three years is gonna pass one way or another, you might as well get a degree out of it. What else do you have to do?"

              I called Jana the next day. She'd had it with me, and our relationship was certainly over but she was kind enough to still answer my calls. I remember telling her of this new idea and that I could even become a PsyD or doctor with a few extra years. She reacted the way anyone would upon hearing such ramblings with someone in rehab who was days away from shattering her dreams. She said, "that sounds good baby. Why not?" I don't think I was foolish enough to expect anything more excited and supportive as that but at least she didn't just shut down the whole idea as just another detox fantasy looking for any piece of straw to grab onto and try and wriggle out of the quicksand which had engulfed me. I'm sure she had zero belief that any of this would happen but she was kind and let me have my moment and we said goodbye.

              I kept thinking about this inane prospect and eventually my three weeks in that place came to an end. No money left to stay longer. To their credit they gave me a free week. But I left and went home and somehow this crazy idea still held. I know myself fairly well. The good and the bad. Or at least I know my general patterns and habits. I knew that if I didn't dive into this it would vanish as an idea and become some irretrievable rusted tin can upon the pile of all of my other forgotten dreams and aspirations. So I googled Marriage and Family Therapist programs near me. Literally as close as possible. At the time figured I wouldn't be able to drive anymore. Turns out you can drive almost indefinitely after getting a DUI, at least your first one. There was a place called Pacific Oaks in Pasadena and was about 3 miles from my house. And so I just fucking applied. Just like that. I'd been out of rehab a day and I was filling out the online application. It wasn't particularly grueling. Basically I needed a BA undergrad degree and money for tuition.

              One of my degrees given the 5-year college program I finished was a BA in Physics. A preposterous coupling. But hey, I had one and it was good enough. I did all the transcript shuffle business and eventually set up a day to come in for an interview. Now I'm maybe 3 weeks out of rehab and still sober. I met with the head of the MFT department and he asked all the questions you'd expect. He was a good guy. Looking back I can't imagine what I might have answered which would have precluded me from writing my first trimester tuition check but nonetheless, I did the interview and they accepted me. Classes started in about 2 weeks.

              Five weeks earlier I was wondering how long I'd have to wait to be able to kill myself without breaking any of three very important hearts. Now I was wondering what sort of notebooks did I need. How does one go to grad school? What did I need? How would I marshall my fears and damning secrets.

              A day or so before classes were to start I got a notification from the school that I needed to take a special remedial writing class. They presented the idea like it was a reward. Basically, they determined I couldn't write worth a damn and had to have special practice in this class of twelve of us. And truly, 11 of us couldn't write a sentence to save their lives. But what the fuck? I said okay and took the thing. I didn't think I had much choice. It was a lot of extra work, but I just did it. And now look at me! I can write sentences!

              The three years I was there were actually really great years. I came to be very close with my "cohort." I'd always associated that word with criminality, but I guess they use it a lot in academia. They're really big on calling obvious things by new awkward phrases. You hear the word "praxis" a lot in these places. I'll try and remember some more of them. By the end of the first trimester, tho, I was a little worried. I'd received 100% on every single writing and assignment I'd turned in. Absolute perfection. Look, I'm a smart enough guy, but that just seemed crazy. And it just kept happening. Somewhere near the end of the first year, I got a grade in the high 80s and was so excited! I kept asking friends who were already MFTs if it should be this easy. Was I even learning anything? They all said the same thing. Just get the masters. You'll learn everything by doing it, starting with practicum. So I just kept going. I remember thinking one day at home while doing some assigned reading, "Jesus! If I knew that grad school involved so many naps, I woulda done this years ago."

              At the beginning of the second year, you start your practicum. This means you find a place to be an intern. If you're lucky, there'll be enough clients for you to actually do therapy. I got very lucky. A friend was the clinical director at a place called Refuge Recovery. It was a Buddhist-based rehab. I had just reached out to her for general guidance, but she said we need a male therapist; want to come on board? It was that easy. I started working there as a case manager before I was even allowed to start therapy. You couldn't do that until your actual Practicum class started. I had a couple months on everyone else. I loved it. They trained me in EMDR, and I just worked there as much as possible. I was wracking up hours. Shortly they hired me full-time, which is virtually unheard of in practicum Ville. They were paying me, and I had a full caseload and handled all of the case management. It was crazy, but I loved it.

I became best friends with Dan, the clinical director who replaced my friend. The rehab moved from Silverlake to Venice, and a lot of people said Fuck That! But I went and capped out on my pre-degree hours, but I was working full time and loving it. I truly loved sitting in a room and having people tell me things they'd dare not share with anyone else. I felt so incredibly honored. I still do. I take it very fucking seriously. I also realized that I was developing my own style and breaking virtually all of the stylistic rules I'd been taught. I shared anything about myself if I thought it would make the client more trusting. I told them I wanted to become friends. I told them I was in this with them and that we'd get through all of this together. Of course, It didn't always work out. Most people flame out of rehab, and those that complete generally get loaded within a month. Staying sober is an incredibly low outcome procedure. But at least we were "planting seeds" in them. Rehabs love saying " planting seeds." And so I planted seeds.

              And then the big day came, and I graduated. I had a master's degree. There was a ceremony, and I asked Jana if she wanted to come. She was so excited and said of course. I think she was just in full disbelief that those crazed and drugged mumblings that night from detox had led to this. Thank you, Jana, for being there. You'll never know how much that meant to me.

And so, the next chapter begins. I was now a holder of a Masters's Degree. I was proud. Look, it was easy, but I did the work and earned it. The next step was applying for my "associates number" from the BBS. The BBS is the California Board of Behavioral Sciences. They give out the licenses to therapists, Doctors, Psychiatrists etc. And to apply is no small feat. I had to cobble together all sorts of letters of recommendation, and since I had a DUI on my record, I had to give them all the documentation I could get about it. Police records, Court records, proof of rehab. All kinds of things. I was okay with it. I expected it. I did a crazy thorough job. I disclosed everything. After all, it was purely the DUI that had changed my life and put me on this path to becoming a therapist. So I put together this whole huge package and mailed it off to them and waited. Usually, it takes around 6 weeks to get your number. Everyone got one. Half the MFTs in CA are MFTs because they derailed and emerged wanting to help people.

              By this time, I had moved to a job in Santa Barbara. A great place started by the people who helped me so much at the other rehab. They started their own place, and they really wanted me to work with them. But I couldn't move to Santa Barbara, so they did something which is simply never done. They hired me and would pay for a hotel, and I'd work the next day and go home. I started a family group while I was there. I primarily did couples and family therapy. The family group I started, which was just for family members and not clients, took off. In time the Santa Barbara DA would send people there. I put a lot of myself into the whole thing. It felt good, but still, I was plagued with imposter syndrome. I'd be sitting in a session realizing this person is suffering greatly in front of me and hoping I can fix them. We know we can't, but every client wants to be fixed. Of course, they do. I'd ask myself, "who are you to think you can help these people? You're just a worthless junky who fooled a handful of hippies into thinking you were worth a damn. You figured out how to talk like them and look like them, but deep down, you're still Mike. And Mike is no good." Classic imposter syndrome. But I got through it when it got bad. I'd talk to Lacee, and she'd relate, and I'd pull it together,

              And so I waited. I doubted. And I ran family groups. And I like to think I helped some people, and the mail came one day. A big envelope from the BBS. This is it. I was so excited. I literally walked around with it, just holding it for a moment. It felt like a really important moment. I felt like I'd been accepted on some level, whether I'd fooled anyone or not.

And so I opened it and started reading. And then I just stopped and fell into some weird state of shock. They agreed with me. It said so right there on the first page. They decided that I was a phony. They denied my number because they said I wasn't a "good fit" for working with a troubled population. They told me to stop all activities, and I could either reapply in a year or ask for a hearing. I was fucking shattered. Imagine having your imposter syndrome endorsed in print by the state of California. They'd found me out, and they didn't want me.

At some point, after I leveled out a bit, I called CAMFT, which is the group that defends MFTs and therapists in general. I told them my story, and they were shocked. They couldn't believe I'd be denied because I had a DUI before I started school. They kept asking, "Are you SURE there's nothing else on your record that you didn't disclose?" Fair question. But the truth is that there just isn't. That DUI is my only engagement with law enforcement besides getting caught skinny dipping as a kid, which resulted in a visit to my parents, and that was it. They told me to get a lawyer who knew how to work the BBS, and good luck.

              And so I did. I got a lawyer and set about asking for a hearing or appeal. I had an army of people willing to come to testify for me. I fought this thing for a full year. Thankfully, the rehab I worked with fully supported me. They just said, "we'll give you a different title, and you keep doing what you're doing; we need you here." That felt good.

And so, for a very slow year, the BBS slowly fended off requests for hearings and ultimately offered me a probation deal. A three-year probation deal in which I'd get my associate's number, but I'd have to adhere to a list of requirements. I told my layer to just say yes. Whatever. I just want this over and want to move on with my number.

In about a week, I got a huge envelope from the BBS. It contained the 20 or so pages of stipulations of my probation deal. I was meant to sign it and send it back, and the deal would be done. So I started reading. And it just got worse and worse. I realized there was no way I would live like this for three years. So many requirements. I had to call in daily for possible random drug testing. That was fine. But I also had to be analyzed by one of their psychiatrists twice a year to ascertain if I was still fit enough to practice. I had to find all new supervisors to work with. Even my supervisors were being called into question. In addition, any time I got a new client, I had to have them read this agreement and sign it and then I'd have to get it to the BBS. And it just kept going on and on and on. It felt like killing someone required less restitution than this. Meanwhile, three of the interns I'd worked with over the last year had all gotten their associate's number while receiving DUIs while in school. Three of them!

I googled to find out what I was legally allowed to call myself without a license in CA. One was a therapist. I could legally call myself a therapist. And so I called my lawyer and told him to tell the BBS to fuck off. I wasn't going to give them the very rug that they could yank out from underneath me at any time.

And so, the whole process ended. I really wanted to be a licensed therapist. I wanted to be accepted by something bigger than me, which represented a lot of time and work. It's easier now to say it's the best thing to have happened to me, but at that moment, it felt horrible. The things that hurt us the most are when the world agrees with the parts of us that we think are the most fucked up. I thought I was a fraudulent therapist, and they sent me a letter telling me, "yep, you are. Get lost."

I'm very open about not being licensed. It's the first thing I tell any new client. I also tell them if they want to know why I'm not, I'm happy to share it with them. So far, no one has asked. Some have even said, "oh, I didn't even realize there was a license involved." Most just say I don't care. It's you who I care about and if you can help me. Two clients thought my not having a license was a wildly awesome thing.

I love what I do. And I'm good at it. I know I can connect with people easily and can form a mutual trust pretty quickly. And it's simply because I break all the stupid rules they teach us. I share about myself when they ask. I give advice. I tell them I'm in this with them. That we'll try and get through this, whatever this is, as a team rather than a client and a professional "holding space." Christ, I loathe that term. "Holding space." It's therapist code for just say nothing and wear them out with silence, so you don't have to offer any part of you to them.

And so now here I am. I'm a therapist. I get to talk to people and hear their darkest pain and most ebullient joy. I couldn't possibly be happier. And I have clients all over the globe because I can. Because I don't have a license. Best thing that ever happened to me was the thing that I thought had finally destroyed me.

Wolves

            What's it like to be me? You probably wonder the same thing about yourself. We're these slightly similar things splattered about the earth, just trying to figure out where to go and how to get there. There are times when I feel like I really know Mike. And there are other times when Mike is some forgotten fragment of some life I can barely remember living.

            I know that love has been the most important thing to me since I was a little kid. I just wanted her to love me and want to stay with me until we died. But that never happened. For whatever many reasons, they all left. And I truly had what I consider the pick of the litter. All of them were beautiful and kind and good and free to be who they really were. And yet, here I sit and type alone with no one wondering when I'm coming to bed. No one cares when I go to bed. No one is concerned with my late-night habits. They're gone. And so what happened?

            How can someone who puts being in love as the only real desire on this planet fuck it up so many times? Christ! The chances I've been given would boggle most minds. So many. "There must be something terribly wrong with you." I truly believe that if something awful happens to you more than once or twice, it's probably you in which the problem swishes around in.

            I think about all my loves. Everyone. Too many to name, although I think they've all been named by now elsewhere in this thing. This thing other people call a book. I call it typing while drinking and crying and listening to whatever comes on Spotify. That's my life these days. Or at least these nights. Where did they all go? Why did we talk like we did? Why did we pretend to imagine a future which could never happen? Did I fool them that deeply? Surely the heroin ended some of them but not all. Some just died on the vine with me, desperately trying to water the shriveling little plant. Maybe I watered it too much. I've been told that can happen.

            It seems the lucky amongst us get fucked as little kids. Literally fucked or forced to suck cock or lay back when some older person does it to you, and you reel with the guilt of the pleasure and then sin, and all that's left is that it's your fault. But lucky ones endure that, and for the rest of our lives, we have some answer to why we can't stay in love when it's the single thing we've ever wanted. We have something to blame. I was so lucky and yet it doesn’t really work. I don’t really buy it. People like me we just get through life, we rarely live it. We slide underneath piles of wet snow and can barely breathe, but we crawl out and emerge alone with her gone. And who can blame her? I'm such a handful. Even without the heroin addiction, there was always the relentless assault of Jack… I've talked about Jack. And we slowly convince them they've made a mistake in loving us, and so it makes it easier for them to leave and lift any thoughts that they're destroying us. And, of course, they aren't. None of them destroyed me. They did their best, and some part of me, yet undiscovered, pushed them away.

            So what is about me that has fended off love so successfully? I don't think I've been unkind. I don't think I've been anything but attentive. The sex has always been something they said might ruin them for other people. I attach to them at the hips. I think that might be it. I needed them to love me so much that it was just too much pressure on them. Now you might ask them why and get all sorts of answers speaking to my lack or weaknesses. But I think that's not the truth. I think I committed some larger, more earthshaking sin. And I don't know what it is. It's the thing that's compelled me to shoot heroin or eat horrible food to gluttony or isolate for months at a time. The unanswered question of why they always leave. It renders my tongue a collection of speechless slivers. No tongue can tell secrets while in little slips of flesh getting tangled up in each other's length and blood.

            I may sound like I'm asking for compassion. But I'm not. That is the absolute last thing I’m asking for. I'm asking for concrete boots of truth slamming down into my throat to tell me the truth. "Mike, You were just too fucking….." What is this last word? They never say it. They try, but it is lost in all the static of the preceding statements, and I almost fall out as if ODing trying to hear them. What is that last word?

            The problem with Mike is Mike. I don't believe I've been dealt a hand any harder than others and certainly better than most. And yet, here I am. Just wanting to hold some warm body who wants to be held. And all I have to hug is the pillows I keep next to me just in case. I've never used them that way, but I've considered it and kept them there just in case.

            How did we get through the beginning? What did we talk about? Who puts these questions in us? And where does it go when it dies? She seems to transfer onto some other person, and they wind up marrying. And although I love my exes as best I can, I still wonder what it was that made us die on the vine. Again, heroin was at fault at times, but for others, it was something else. It was that last word screamed in the static with a boot upon my neck.

            The last thing I want is compassion. Or empathy. I want brutality and shame, and truth. Why has everyone left me? Perhaps I'm just too much to love. Not in the sense that I'm too lovable but as if I'm too much of a job.

            Today I saw the end of Thin Red Thine. The private who has flashbacks of his love at home gets a Dear John letter. My immediate thought is that he's surrounded by loaded guns. How can one not kill themselves in such a moment? I know that the future holds infinite possibilities, but in that second, how did he not pull the light weight of the trigger and, in a flash, put 100 or so grams of lead into his brain, and then it's over? How did he not do that?

 I recently started online dating. I'd been terrified of it for years. Firstly because it would kill me to see Nery on there. And then I heard she had moved, and still, the terror persisted. But then this thing happened. This writing attempts to lead with everything I most want to hide. I feel like I have a tool now and an acid test. If they can read any part of it and come back, there's a chance. Most of them don't. I send them the link, and I joke that this is where the conversation usually ends. And it often does. I don't blame them. I'm such a huge liability at this point. The chances of me destroying your heart are mathematically high. And yet I feel different. But you can't put that into words. Who says such things? Who's responsible for the dialogue that would explain such a life as mine? I figure when I die, I'll have been a net negative. I've caused more pain than I've shown love. Maybe it happened too late for me. Maybe there's not enough time left to show love and balance the heartbreak I've caused. Maybe, I'm fucked. I really mean that. Maybe I’m past the tipping point. Maybe anyone who winds up with me, if only for a week or two, risks being pulled under by my sickly undertow.

            So who am I am? I'm kind. I believe in love. I believe in showing love, and I believe in making people feel that they're heard and risk no judgment. I'm all of these things and more. But there's that one concrete boot on the throat that won't allow me to know the full secret of who I am.

            God lives in a little blue house at the end of my block. I walk by there every day. His dog barks and barks, and God asks him to stop. Sometimes he does. But sometimes, amidst all the barking, I look at God in his eyes as he stands on the threshold of his early '20s craftsman home, and he says nothing. I just look, and he says in his eyes, “I wish I could help" I thank him and look down at my feet and just continue shuffling on throughout this jungle. I look back, "The last word" Do you know it.?" He smiles and says. “Of course, I do."