I debate whether I should push it again.
I put my finger on it, but don’t push.
Take it away.
Put it back.
Take it away.
Two minutes.
The bags are getting heavy.
I debate whether I should push it again.
I could actually imagine her not letting me back in.
Which would be kind of funny, and kind of amazing.
And very much like her.
And would kind of break my heart.
Or actually break it.
I wonder if she’s still asleep.
Could be.
But I’ve been gone awhile.
I wonder if she went out to get me flowers and bread and cheese and tomatoes and wine and a copy of the Herald Tribune and a couple fashion magazines and some candy bars.
Maybe.
She’s kind of sweet and amazing like that.
Three minutes.
I debate whether I should push the button again.
Bags are really heavy.
I put my finger on it, but don’t push.
Take it away.
Put it back.
Take it away.
Fuck it.
I’m gonna push it.
Fuck it.
I do.
Firmly and with gusto and with the cheer and optimism of a new year.
I push it.
Let go.
Wait.
And then.
Then.
Then.
The greatest motherfucking sound in the whole wide world.
My heart leaps!
It leaps!!
Like a hare running from the big bad wolf it leaps!!!
The buzzer on the door makes its beautiful buzz.
Like a sound from heaven.
As if composed by Mozart.
And sent to me by God.
I hear the buzz.
My heart leaps!
And I go inside.
*
She opens the door wearing a fluffy white velour robe her hair in a towel drops of water running from her forehead down her cheeks and off her chin and her neck down her chest she’s smiling and she speaks.
I was in the shower.
I can see.
I kind of wanted you with me.
I very much wish I had been here.
I step inside she closes the door behind me I walk over to the kitchen start unloading the bags.
I got some supplies.
I see.
And I got you some flowers.
Thank you.
And if you don’t want me here, I will absolutely respect that and take off.
I very much want you here, Jay.
I turn around she’s leaning against the wall facing me, light is streaming through the windows cascading off her skin and lightening her eyes, reflecting off the drops of water running down her face and body, I stop breathing for a moment and I smile.
You are seriously the most beautiful girl I have ever seen in my life.
She smiles.
Thank you.
Can I just stare at you for a minute or two, or maybe thirty or a couple hundred?
She laughs.
Yes.
And I can compliment you in other ways while I stare at you, if you would like.
I would like that, I’m a fan of compliments.
You’re smart, and funny, and cool as shit, and you have great taste in clothes and books and art and apartments and men.
She laughs again.
I’m not sure about that.
I smile.
The men part?
Yeah.
Yeah, you’re probably right. I take it back. But I have others.
I’m waiting to hear them.
You kiss magnificently, you’re cute as fuck when you’re sleeping, you have wonderful breath, your tongue tastes like ice cream, and your lips are like pillows from heaven.
Laughs again.
You’re laying it on thick, Writer Boy.
I start walking toward her.
Your eyes light brown like cocoa are windows into some kind of lost paradise, the tips of your fingers magic, the words you choose like the poetry of angels, your voice is that of a siren princess.
She’s smiling, smiling like she did as a child, which is the greatest sight of my life, greater than any sunset, any painting, any vista, any photograph, any anything, any anything that I have ever seen, I stop in front of her, lean against the wall in the same manner as she’s leaning against it, face her, smile.
And your pussy, your pussy is the sweetest most delicious most magnificent most delirious most peaceful calming inviting exciting incredible absolutely awesome and amazing pussy that has ever been on this earth in the entire history of existence, absolutely 100 percent glorious and astonishing and miraculous.
She laughs.
You are definitely going to be a famous writer someday.
Right now all I want is to be your boyfriend.
That’s all I want you to be too, Jay.
What about your rules?
Made to be broken, right?
Made to be fucking smashed.
Then let’s smash ’em, Boyfriend.
I smile step forward put my arms around her look into those eyes light brown like cocoa they are windows into some kind of lost paradise I start kissing those lips like pillows from heaven I taste that tongue like ice cream and feel the electricity as the tips of her magic fingers touch mine.
Don’t break rules.
Fucking smash them.
*
We spend the morning in bed reading talking flirting joking laughing smiling staring touching kissing fucking staring. We eat lunch bread and cheese and tomatoes and wine. I need to go home get a change of clothes. We walk through Le Marais across Pont Marie and Île Saint-Louis into Saint-Germain we hold hands as we walk bump hips and shoulders I put my arm over her shoulders pull her in tight and kiss her. We stop at Flore for a coffee watch people walk past make up stories about who they are and how they live and love and laugh and hurt the stories get increasingly ridiculous until everyone we see is either a spy or an assassin or one of the long-lost Russian Romanovs. We walk to Saint-Placide I take a shower halfway through she gets in with me we kiss under the stream she tells me she likes me clean I tell her I like her dirty she laughs and says she thinks we can be clean and dirty at the same time, I suggest we test her hypothesis and she agrees and we test it and she is correct. I pack a bag some khakis, T-shirts, a hoodie she laughs at my pitiful clothes I tell her I am a simple man who likes simple things she laughs again and says I’m a broke writer who spends all his money on books and booze instead of clothes and once again she is correct. We walk back through Saint-Germain stop in a little bistro on rue de Buci eat dinner I have escargot and a steak she pushes a salad around we split crème brûlée and a whiskey. We walk across Pont Neuf stop at La Comédie, Petra is working she’s surprised to see us together thinks we’re cute we split another whiskey we go to her place climb into bed snuggle up. I kiss her and thank her for the best day I’ve had in Paris by a large margin easily the best day, she asks me if I’d like her to make it even better and I smile and say yes and we spend the next hour making my best day even better. We fall asleep together entwined boyfriend and girlfriend in love with each other though we won’t say it we’re in love.
I don’t need to have any dreams.
The dream is in my arms.
Boyfriend girlfriend.
Love.
Los Angeles, 2017
* * *
I have been given so many gifts, so many blessings, so much grace. A beautiful wife, healthy children, a loving family and trusting friends, home work success, comfort beyond necessity, resources beyond requirement. And I am grateful. So grateful. I understand things could have gone another way. And that I have been so lucky, so incredibly lucky.
And yet.
And yet.
And yet.
> I look backward. Think, reflect, and wonder. Not on all that has gone right and all that I have to be grateful for, but on the mistakes I’ve made, the hurt I have caused, the wreckage I’ve left behind. The pain I’ve created echoes across time and the years, it calls to me and I hear it, it sings a song of sorrow that lives within me, it cries and no matter how or what or why I can’t make it stop. No matter how or what or why no matter how long I spend kneeling or how long I look to heaven I can’t and it won’t I hear it and it cries a song that never stops.
I love the sun of Los Angeles. The crystal-blue sky. The warm air drifting. But more than the sun I love the water, the looming black horizon of dense sea, the crash of repeating waves endless and eternal, the depths unknown and unexplored and unfathomable. When the song of the unfixable past comes to me singing and crying I go to the water. Drive a winding road lined with privilege and manicured green through the hills and down to the sand I park as far from anyone else as I can, I take off my shirt and my shoes I wear a pair of simple black shorts I am stripped as bare as I can be. I walk across searing black asphalt my head down I don’t want to see anyone or speak to anyone all I want is to hear the song that brought me the echoes and the cries and the sadness and the sorrow and the regret, the days past that I cannot recall or change or fix or make better, I would give anything and everything if I could make them better. The sand moves beneath my feet I know when I’m closer I’m closer I am closer as the endless and eternal crashing rings I keep going until I am in one step two steps three steps I am in.
There is always a shock of cold. The Pacific vast and deep the Pacific graceful and terrible the Pacific never warms. The shock of cold with every step deeper as with so many things in life if you stop it will scare you and paralyze you so I keep going one step two steps three steps four. I shudder as the cold and the black move past my waist I shudder as they move past my chest and shoulders I shudder when I descend, diving into the crash and swimming through it and past it, I find the breaking point and go beyond.
And there I stay.
In the calm beyond the break.
It’s cold and still and deep and black.
Unknown and unexplored and unfathomable.
And there I stay.
Listening to the song and the cries and the echoes, the voices and the words and the stories, the pain and sadness and sorrow and regret.
And there I stay.
Alone, floating, lost.
And there I stay, beyond the endless and eternal, before the horizon line, on my back, staring at the sky it’s crystal blue and full of love and life and hope and absolution and paths changed and pain forgiven and mistakes corrected.
And there I stay, floating in the water and floating in my mind and floating in my past and floating in my heart and in my soul, floating in some kind of dream that I can somehow make everything okay, make myself okay, make everything right, make it easier to look in the mirror, make the yoke lighter and the burden weightless and make myself believe that I somehow deserve all that I have been given because I don’t believe I deserve it, I don’t believe I deserve it, I don’t believe. But there I stay, hoping and dreaming that someday I will.
I will be able to listen to the song and smile.
Hear the echoes and let them bring peace.
Listen to the cries and cry with them.
Make myself believe.
Make myself believe.
Paris, 1993
* * *
We fall into a routine as normal and beautiful and perfect and simple and easy and fulfilling as I have known in my life, new young true love. We wake up together I make coffee. We sit in bed drink the coffee talk about whatever, sometimes what we did the night before, sometimes the news, sometimes the day ahead, sometimes the books we’re reading, sometimes art we’ve seen or want to see, sometimes we talk about the weather. Sometimes we fuck, we usually shower together, sometimes we fuck again in or after the shower. I keep clothes at her place, a toothbrush and some soap. Most days she has castings or fittings or meetings or shoots and she comes and goes as she needs and as she pleases. I work I’m writing a new book maybe the third time will be a charm. This one is about a teenage drug dealer who leaves home to ride around on trains with his girlfriend it doesn’t have a title. Katerina gets me a fancy notebook to write in, a fancy pen, it feels kind of nice, makes me feel a little bit fancy, though the words I put on the fancy paper with the fancy pen are anything but. If she’s around in the afternoon we go for coffee or a walk we go to the d’Orsay together, the Louvre, le Centre Pompidou. We walk along the Seine stop in the little book stalls and look at the old books, though I can speak French I can’t read it, she teases me and calls me a dumbass it’s hard to argue against her diagnosis. We look through the little art stalls at old paintings every single one made by someone like me with big dreams and big hopes and big ambitions and big expectations of being in one of the museums, now they’re forgotten, lost to the cancer of time, whatever they made, and some of it truly beautiful, is being sold for a few francs in a little shed on the side of a river. We go to the pet shops at Quai de la Mégisserie and look at puppies oh boy they are all so cute, we talk about getting one of them we laugh we can barely take care of ourselves. We walk around place Vendôme look in the windows of the jewelry stores Katerina sees a necklace she loves in the window of an old fancy French jeweler it’s a heart-shaped diamond pendant I want to buy it for her don’t care what it costs her smile is worth more to me than every penny I have. We watch break-dancers in Les Halles listen to buskers in front of la Fontaine des Innocents have coffee in Faubourg-Saint-Denis. Sometimes we stay in and fuck or nap or read or some combination thereof. When she’s out in the afternoon I often walk around Le Marais and buy supplies for dinner, try to cook, usually with some degree of disaster, simple things like pasta or steak or baked chicken, neither of us actually eats that much, especially Katerina, though she appreciates the effort and thinks it’s cute, I give the leftovers to homeless men who sleep in the streets and parks around le Centre Pompidou I know I am not that far removed from their life and their pain. Sometimes we go out for dinner, to one of the little bistros in the neighborhood or in Saint-Germain, or we walk up to Montmartre. On a night when we know she’s free the next day we go to Le Refuge des Fondus and have a proper date, I put on my only decent clothes some khakis and a sweater she wears a cute little black dress we drink wine in baby bottles and get crazy drunk and make out in streets and alleys and bars as we walk back to her place we spend all night kissing, licking, sucking and fucking, doing blow and laughing, talking about crazy dreams, what-if situations, what if she gets a Chanel campaign, what if I write a best-seller, what if she gets L’Oréal, what if something I write becomes a movie they get more ridiculous and more dramatic what if I win $100 million in the American lotto and buy the biggest castle in France we hold hands and walk to the Seine at dawn watch the sun rise sleep all day. Other nights we go to the movies snuggle up in the back row, we do double dates with Philippe and Laura, Laura loves Katerina and is happy I’m mellower it keeps Philippe mellower. Some nights we hit the old spots Polly, Stolly’s, Bar Dix, nothing crazy just hang out and have a drink or two almost every night we stop at La Comédie and have a drink with Petra who thinks we’re cute and kind of can’t believe how domesticated we’ve become, we share a whiskey or two a bottle of cheap wine, I drink a beer she has a glass of champagne. We fuck every night, and every night our eyes lock, deep and holding, our eyes open and vulnerable and giving, our eyes our hearts lock our souls lock intimate. I occasionally go home, maybe once a week to check in with Louis who says he misses me but is happy alone and without the mess and drama I often create. I stop in at the boulangerie my friend the Baker says he misses me which makes me laugh his wife smiles and offers me their best bread, best pastries. I check my money situation. I came to Paris with $1,200 in cash and $18K in traveler’s cheques I have $10K left after almost nine months, I should be able to stay at least anoth
er year, longer if I keep my alcohol intake down. I don’t ever want to leave Paris, I don’t ever want to leave. Through January and the start of February I live a life and I have a routine as normal and beautiful and perfect and simple and easy and fulfilling as I have known, full of work and books and art and food and joy and new young true love with a smart cool badass woman beautiful inside and out a woman I still can’t believe wants anything to do with me, I live I live I live. Fuck that machine. I don’t need it. Don’t care about it. Don’t think about it. Work save vote obey teach your children to do the same pay your taxes die rot in a hole none of it matters I’m in love.
Love.
Los Angeles, 2017
* * *
You never sent me your number.
I know.
Why not?
I’ve been thinking.
Thinking what?
I don’t want to talk to you.
Wow.
Wow?
Yeah, wow.
Wow what?
Wow, that hurts, actually quite a bit.
It won’t, when I tell you my other idea.
Which is?
I want to see you.
Wow again.
That hurt too?
No, that kind of makes me smile.
Good.
Actually makes me really smile.
Even better.
It’s been way way way too long.
For good reason.
What’s that?
I’ll tell you when I see you.
When will that be?
When are you free?
I have a pretty mellow schedule.
Could you come to Europe?
Sure.
Soon?
Probably.
I’ll figure a couple things out and let you know?
Cool.
Thank you.
I’m curious, though.
About?
Why all of a sudden?
You’ll understand.
Tell me.
No.
Why?
Let me do this the way I want to do it.
So mysterious.
Always have been.
True.
You’ll understand when we see each other.