I called it “the dance.” If you spend enough time watching the choreography of who goes when or who waves to whom, you begin to develop an ability to predict the general behaviors of, well, anyone. I could walk around town, point to a car, and tell you the story of the driver. Intersections are undervalued social experiments.
Because of the way the street was marked, as many as nine cars could be stopped simultaneously at the four-way intersection outside The Gym. And when all nine cars were there, I was in my happy place. I loved to watch the confusion unfold. Sure, there were laws that dictated what was supposed to happen when, but I was more intrigued by the psychology that seemed to preempt those laws. There are good people. And there are assholes. I figured if they balanced each other in total numbers, we were going to be okay. Every time I watched, I just needed one person to wave someone ahead, and it would make my day better. Like one good golf shot can save an entire shitty round.
Timmy cleared his throat and continued speaking. “Erik loved watching cars. Always pointing out some impatient asshole who believed that his time was more important than the others and, therefore, he shouldn’t have to wait his turn. This guy, Erik would suggest, was so full of himself that he thought it was a bother to even pretend to stop. This driver’s actions were met with the usual orchestra of horns, rage, and middle-finger gestures from the other drivers. Especially, as Erik said, from the Lululemon-wearing housewives on their way to yoga, Pilates, tennis, therapy, the pharmacy, getting laid, picking up the kids, or going to soccer practice.”
I laughed. Some of my friends used to describe taking a shit as “dropping off the kids.” And I knew a few women who referred to getting their recreational prescription drugs as “picking up the kids.”
Tim proceeded. “Erik once told me that he imagined that the Mercedes driver would soon be home to his unhappy household. As a result of running the stop sign, our driver would arrive home just a few minutes earlier than expected and find his wife twisted into a most unfortunate position by the young neighbor boy, recently home from college and full of unlimited stamina. If he had only waited his turn, his wife’s lover might have escaped, and nobody would be the wiser. Instead, that rolling stop cost Mercedes Guy half his net worth. Erik loved that.”
I didn’t really. I pretended I did. I even lied to my closest, best, most intimate friends. I needed to fake it. I needed a mask. Even with them. Mostly, I just hated the way Mercedes Guy treated other people. I didn’t want his life destroyed. The truth is that he was probably unhappy for a huge number of reasons that neither Tim nor I would ever understand. I sucked for making jokes about him. I sucked for pretending to root against his family. I sucked for acting like I thought it was funny that he was miserable. But that’s what I did. Always.
My reactions to this guy were counter to the way I had wanted to live. Counter to the guy I wanted to be. When I said shit like that and got laughs, I felt horrible. But just like my dad, sarcasm carried me through the times I felt uncomfortable. For the first time ever, I looked at my dad and wondered what he was hiding. I wondered what my dad’s authentic self looked and sounded like. I cannot believe I hadn’t thought of that before. Damn. Sorry, Dad. I should have noticed. I should have asked.
“Ironically, Erik died in this intersection. I imagine him having total consciousness for that brief second, knowing it was his time and experiencing something he had never known: peace. The very thing he had strived to find in the pages of his books. I like to imagine that he felt it. Even just for that second.”
Timmy wiped another tear away from his eyes and looked at Jess. Not even I could look at Jess. “One of his favorite teachers died golfing. Erik always said he thought it was the most beautiful, poetic death imaginable. No pain. Doing what he loved. Erik always said we should all die in our happy place. As fate would have it, so it went for Erik.”
Timmy was using fate generally, like all of us had at one time or another, but the fact is, fate had absolutely nothing to do with it.
CHAPTER THREE
While preparing for their wedding, a young couple finds a picture of themselves both playing on the same beach just a few feet apart from one another—eleven years before they met and fell in love.2
My friends congregated at The Gym. As it should be. I sat on the far southeast corner of my intersection and watched them arrive one by one—each skillfully navigating their way through “the dance.” I was proud as I watched them all do the right thing. Taking their proper turns and waving others on when the right thing was too close to call. Well done, boys.
A week ago, I was in my car, stopped at this same intersection. The sun was bright and warm, despite the calendar and clock’s mutual assurances that it was a winter morning. Geddy Lee and the rest of the Rush boys were belting out “Tom Sawyer” in the private concert I held in my ancient, dark blue BMW 2002. I was right there with The Holy Triumvirate, turning my steering wheel into Neal Peart’s famed drum kit. Bang bang bangbang! (bang bang) Bang bang bangbang! (bang bang) Bang bang bangbang! (bang bang) And on it went.
Rush was kryptonite. Their music made me weak, and all abilities to remain civilized were lost. The start of any Rush song required an impulsive and immediate cranking up of the volume. Windows must rattle! The steering wheel must be pounded! And early in the morning, humanity must be awakened! Bang bang bangbang!
Busted. My friend Max was laughing in the car to my left. This was my favorite part of living in a small town. Sometimes. Other times my least favorite. I guess it depended upon who I saw, but it was impossible to go through a day without seeing someone familiar. I was happy to see Max. I rolled down my window and turned it up even louder. He joined in, singing at the top of his lungs and wailing on the steering wheel of his pristine, perfect SUV. Our version of car karaoke.
Some impatient asshole honked as Max and I rocked out. I waved my apologies and drove on. Moments later, the offended honker sped past me and gave me the finger. I could only laugh. It’s okay, dude. I know you. I used to be you. Not this day, though. It was my birthday, and I was already having the day of my life. After nearly fifty years, I was determined to live my perfect day. To borrow from Thoreau, I was going to live the life I had imagined . . . for the first time ever.
For as long as I could remember, I had asked my friends to describe their perfect days. Most couldn’t do it. They couldn’t wrap their heads around the idea of not worrying about money. They couldn’t let go of their perceived reality. “What’s the point?” was offered as an answer more than once. I never had that problem. I could rattle off my perfect day with ease. Sweat. Write. Fuck. Have deep, meaningful discussions. Fuck some more. Write some more. See live music. Eat good food. And fuck.
While some might think that the particulars of the perfect day change over time, mine never did. From the first time I thought about this day, which was probably some time in my twenties after selling my soul to start my career, the list of activities stayed the same. Still, I had only ever talked about it. On this day? No more talking. Only doing. I was going to live the life I imagined. All of it. And a perfect day needed to start with a perfect morning.
Before jamming with Max and being flipped off by the impatient guy, I had woken up early and gone for a leisurely run on the local mountain trails. (Sweat: check.) Six, maybe seven miles of a sunrise-painted, moving meditation. I’m not sure how long it took, and, for once, I didn’t care. I ignored the self-loathing I typically experienced as my average time per mile slowed enough to blur the line between jogging and walking. Instead, I was in every moment of the movement. I noticed the rocks, trees, squirrels, and roots. I had a conversation with the creek running alongside me. The water talked back with encouragement, and time flew by. Even if I no longer did.
Following my run, I walked through the back door of my rented, tiny, two-story guesthouse that sat in the woods on the corner of a massive estate, which was rumored to be owned by some dotcom zillionaire. I never met the guy, but I heard he sold his first company when he was still in college.
His estate was built on multiple lots and managed not to be terribly ostentatious. It was huge, but tasteful. The tennis court, pool, basketball court, manicured grounds, and ten-thousand-plus-square-foot house were built neatly into the environment. Kudos to the architect. The landscaper probably retired on that job alone.
I did see the owner once. From afar, he looked tall, fit, and kind of normal. He was wearing jeans with a puffy vest over a hoodie. I was getting out of my car when I saw him heading to his garage. He gave me a hesitant wave that seemed, what? It seemed . . . I don’t know how it seemed. Lonely? Then, with his choice of sports cars in the garage, he drove off in the beat-up, classic American pick-up truck that was always in the driveway. I imagined it was his first vehicle and a thread to who he really was or wanted to be. I could relate.
My own beat-up BMW 2002 was the same. I bet I would have really liked that guy if we managed to have a conversation. Despite our obvious disparity in wealth, I imagine we would have learned that we had a lot in common. That’s all any of us wanted. Just to know that there were people with whom we had something in common. Connection. I wondered how many people I never met who could have been a good friend. Hundreds. Although I learned to honor the moments, it would sometimes sadden me to have a great exchange with someone in passing. But wait! I wanted more of you! Instead, they were gone forever.
Upon returning to the house, I was immediately greeted by the smell of freshly brewed coffee. Strong, dark coffee. Jess, barely awake, her long brunette hair tousled and falling in her eyes, stood in the kitchen wearing one of my T-shirts and singing along to Mondo Cozmo on Sonos. Couldn’t wait to go to his show later in the week. A birthday present.
She handed me my cup of coffee, smiled, and wished me a happy birthday with a gentle kiss and slap on my ass. When I’d left the house earlier for my run, she was still asleep. Good morning, treasure. I went upstairs to shower. I wasn’t alone for long. What started in the shower finished on the bed. (Fuck: check.) After nearly five decades on the planet, I had done this countless times with countless women. But, that day, on that perfect morning, it was different.
I had fucked women. I had sex with women. I had slept with women. The truth is, though, I had never really made love to a woman. I scoffed at the very idea. There’s a striking difference between fucking, having sex, or sleeping with someone. Fucking, to me, was the most passionate form of sexual engagement. It was raw. It could be dirty. It was without barriers. But it could be deeply intimate and connected. As opposed to just “having sex,” which was devoid of any real emotion. It was far more mechanical. Masturbation with a body.
Making love? That’s movie bullshit. That’s the kind of crap that ruined relationships. It just sounded stupid to me. Always had. I had never, not once, uttered the phrase “let’s make love” to any woman. And if any woman ever said it to me, I’d go through the motions but know the relationship, or whatever it was we had, was doomed. I felt as though it wouldn’t be based in reality. I couldn’t compete with Richard Gere and Julia Roberts. I was no white knight. Plus, to make love, I needed to love myself. And that was completely out of the question.
But on this morning, as Jess and I fucked, everything changed. It was as though I found myself awash in a glow. Her glow. She looked up at me and smiled a kind of smile I had never seen before. It was a look of complete . . . “submission” isn’t the right word, but maybe “trust”? Was it a look of complete trust? It was a look of peace. That’s what it was. Total peace. No. Surrender. She was at peace in that moment and, with that look, invited me to surrender. To her. With her. Inside of her. Let’s surrender. It’s okay to love yourself, Erik.
It was a look that let me know that I was, for maybe the first time, safe. Whatever I did. Whatever I said. However I supported her, or even hurt her, which happened repeatedly over the years we were together, that look told me she was in for the long haul. It told me that, for maybe the first time, I could let go of the fear. I could let go of the pain that had haunted me since I was, I don’t know, maybe seven years old. I could simply let go.
Just a year earlier, when a friend asked what I wanted for my birthday, I told him, “Peace.” A year later, I was finally getting it in a most unexpected way. I made love, I surrendered, for the first time in my life. Not even Timmy would be told how hard I cried when it was over. For the first time in my life, having sex, or even fucking, wasn’t physical at all. We fused. We created energy. We made love. I cried.
Jess never blinked. Never flinched. She just held me and let me cry. I hadn’t cried in front of anyone for as long as I could remember. Certainly never in front of a woman I was seeing. Never after sex. That sort of vulnerability was reserved for the privacy of my own space and time. Usually in the front seat of my beat-up 2002. Sometimes with Timmy. And almost always in the most unexpected moments. Songs set me off the most. A reminder of a dark cloud that was never far away.
I didn’t want to get out of bed. I didn’t want to leave the house, but the perfect day needed to carry on, and Jess and I would be meeting again for lunch. After the re-shower, she forced me to get dressed. She playfully told me to get the fuck out of the house and again slapped my ass. I was in deep. And I liked it. I reminded myself not to fuck up again.
It was time to write.
When Max busted me banging out my best Rush solo, I had barely left my house and was on my way to the well-hidden café, Robby’s on the Water. Only locals knew of Robby’s, and none would dare tell the flow of tourists who rode their rented bikes through town about it. A lucky few found it anyway, and they were welcomed; but mostly this place was Cheers for the coffee-set. It was of the regulars, by the regulars, and for the regulars. Except there was nothing regular about the people who hung out there. They were freaks and weirdos of the highest order. The regulars at Robby’s were outcasts everywhere else. And I was proud to be one of them.
I pulled off the road, and the rocks crackled under my tires. As always, I parked next to the fire hydrant. Local knowledge: it wasn’t a real hydrant. Then again, I’m not sure it would have mattered. No cars were being towed from Robby’s. I grabbed my weathered, black, leather backpack, which was filled with my laptop, frayed power cord, a couple of old, stained books, and the new journal and pen that Jess had given me after we surrendered and before she slapped my ass out the door.
I loved pens. I collected them the way people collected watches. A good pen, to me, was an invitation to time travel. With a pen, I could go back and reminisce, forward to dream, or even into space. The pen was a source of freedom. It could take me anywhere. My pen was truth serum. I couldn’t lie when I used a pen on paper like I could when typing words on a screen.
I was wearing my favorite Fear Less, Love More T-shirt, old, ripped jeans, a battered Patagonia flannel, and my Red Wing boots. The boots were probably twenty years old, but like my car, the jeans, the backpack, the T-shirt, and Timmy, they were trusted friends. They had soul in their soles. I felt so uncomfortable when I first bought them. I wasn’t sure they were “me.” I wasn’t sure I could “pull them off.” Twenty-odd years later, I’m not even sure what any of that means. I worried way too much about shit like that for way too fucking long.
Robby’s was the ideal place to be in your own mind-space to write or to strike up a meaningful conversation with a friend. And everyone inside Robby’s was a friend. I suspect Robby’s was the setting for more confessions than church. Robby’s was church. Or at least what I thought church was supposed to be.
Unfulfilled professionally and personally and lacking love for myself or anyone else, I had stumbled upon Robby’s several years earlier during an early morning walk. I hadn’t slept for days, was stressed, disheveled, broken, and lost. I probably looked a little scary in my torn T-shirt and tattered jacket. I probably smelled equally scary. I had given up caring for myself. At least on weekends. I walked into Robby’s, and nobody gave me so much as a disapproving glance. Instead, I was asked if I wanted coffee. Acceptance by caffeine.
