secrets and shame

 

She whispered to me, “You’re the nicest guy I never got to know.”

 

I knew exactly what she meant. I’d been less than forthcoming with certain information. Never knew which aspects of my personality to share with her.

Just assumed the fewer the details, the better. Not that I was ashamed of myself. I can hear her say, “There exists within each of us a level of self-loathing.” Mine wasn't that strict, although I avoided mirrors and other people’s eyes. I wasn’t exactly dissociative. I like to think I was involved on a certain level?

 

I had just recently begun to role-play, against type. We’d stand in groups of three and four, hands in our pockets, nodding slowly, swapping anecdotes with no pay-offs, saying, “Mm hmm, right,” and then those long uncomfortable pauses, as long as our frown lines.

 

Then somebody would say, “Well, I think I’ll go get some cocktail wieners and fruit punch,” and we’d all scatter across the room, searching for our cliques. But all the cliques had gone home for the night, complaining of headaches and toothaches and early morning meetings with someone (themselves).

 

I’d end up in the corner of a room or in a crawl space under some stair case with a pint of something my father used to drink before and after the Sabbath, reciting Jonathan Livingston Seagull to some young lady who’d just gotten over the flu or a manic episode.

 

I’d leave around two or three in the morning, alone, of course, and drive around town for a couple hours, circling the reservoir.

 

Who the hell knows why?

 

When I’d return home, I’d forget why I was there, then turn around and drive back into town where I’d park on Main Street by an expired parking meter, listening to the radio, and draining the battery.

 

Funny thing is, I never thought life was passing me by in those days.

 

You don’t think about things like that because they're just too painful to think about.

 

So you think about other stuff instead, like babies and novels and the Bible and Disney and scrambled eggs and the Crusades and Batman and tequila and whatever else comes to mind.

 

Huh, I haven’t thought about you lately.

 

Wonder why.

 

Probably because you don’t love me anymore.

 

The day you stopped loving me was the day I began to forget.