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8th & Folsom
By
Caroline Lackey
At night, when only the homeless people are in the Walgreen's buying beer I go in for a fresh coloring book and crayons. I rediscovered how comforting it can be to narrow your life's focus to staying in the lines and selecting the perfect colors.
This year has been the hardest of my life and I have lost every friend I had. It turns out I lost them ages ago but I only just now got to noticing. Coloring makes it less noticeable, especially with talk radio on.
The rain is coming soon so I buy two and tuck them in my coat.
A trip to Trader Joes and dinner at Tu Lan's and I'm in for the night. I guess I could go back out and walk by Brainwash but the cutie I like quit, I think, and it would only make me check the MCs on CL relentlessly tomorrow. I'm standing in the foyer with my coat on, my kitten waiting expectantly. We do this regularly. I got him to help me stay in more. He is doing it now.
My only real problem though, besides being under-employed, is that I lost my health benefits as the result of reduction in hours at work and I had been putting off getting a lump in my breast checked. My sister died of breast cancer when she was about my age. I know it seems like I'd be all broken up, and I was and will be again, but these are moments of lucidity.
I step into the shower and give myself a breast exam. Ever since I found it I only do this in the shower & I shower in the dark. I sing and have running conversations in my head. I even masturbate and sometimes with a friend.
What’s been eating me is that my mother will not survive another loss like that. I imagine ways to soften the impact. I’ve even imagined that an accident would take her before I go. So, I have to find a way to both prepare her and distance myself from her.
When I try to look at this from the outside it looks like I am making excuses but I have analyzed it to death and decided that I am choosing the best course.
When I get out of the shower, I put on my robe and sit in front of the fireplace. It doesn’t work, I don’t think, so I have made crayon pictures of fire all around it and put some candles in it. I light a smoke and the candles and try to get Kong to come to me.
His shadow is enormous.
It’s been 2 months since I saw Trey and he doesn’t know I’ve decided to die. He’s sort of my make-believe boyfriend when I want to alleviate the loneliness. We were great in bed. Other than that we didn’t have anything too special. Maybe that is special. We still have sex several times a week. Trey just doesn’t know it.
I think about calling but I don’t want to complicate things. For me. I am scared I won’t be able to go through with it, but it’s what I want to do. So many depressions, so many times wishing somehow… This is the silver platter. If I don’t take it, then what?
The boys at the bike shop where I work on 8th Street have started to notice something’s up. They try to cheer me up, bring me candy and tamales from the tamale lady. I finally gave in to Tony’s offer on this old 82 Yamaha. It rides like a champ. He’s letting me pay him a little each paycheck and even signed me over the title. Sweet.
I colored an awesome picture of a motorcycle but I felt too dorky to bring it in. And anyway it was a Harley.
Thinking of the bike makes me want to suit up but I look at Kong. He’s wicked cute. He’s trying to get me to interact with him.
I decide to go out anyway. The lump needs some fresh air.
Things to do in SOMA vary widely:
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Go to the Friendster thingy;
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Score down on 6th;
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Get called dyke anywhere;
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Go to restaurants I can’t afford.
Priceless.
Let’s see what’s behind door number 2. It’s a quick trip and Kong is disapproving. “C’mon, man. A taste is all.”
When I’m high, which is more and more often, I think a lot about sex, which is not (necessarily) to say I feel sexy. But I get there if it goes ok. Trey, call me because I cannot call you. Trey will never call. So, I get on Craigslist and get fix 2.
The missed connections are the best category in general if you do not count Best Of. I read until I’m back to where I last left off and when the time is right I check out casual encounters. 95% or more are m4w and I imagine one of them is Trey. I read to find him. When I do I write back this anonymous email with some fantasy of mine or his but I almost never mail it. And when I do, I learn that sadly Trey was not the recipient.
Tonight I am posting my own fantasy as w4m. This will assure me some interesting reading for the night. The fantasy is that I am turning 18 tomorrow and my dad is taking me out to dinner 1 day early to celebrate. And I put the moves on him in a restaurant. I write it tasteful and slow.
The responses didn’t vary too widely but all were favorable. One was interesting enough to risk revealing my email address to engage further. He was an out-of-towner. I decided that meeting with him would not jeopardize my long range goals. By now it was past midnight.
I stayed in his hotel room with him. It was nice to be with another human being. It made me miss it. It made me think too – about his wife, about me and Trey and my decision to let nature take it’s course.
I stood in the wide, bright quiet of a SOMA Sunday street and knew that if I went inside and called Trey and he came over and I changed my mind because of loving him, I would always look back on this last few months as though I were never really going to stick with that absurd decision. And I know now that the decision may seem absurd, but that going through all of that only go off lithium again and again becoming more broken and ultimately fragmented only to end it all anyway just makes so much less sense.
And if I knew what time Brainwash opened on Sundays, I could swing by and get a coffee before heading home to feed Kong. Starbucks will have to do.
Copyright ©
2003 Caroline Lackey
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