This morning, I descended the outside stairs to colored condoms strewn out on the coffee table, down in THE FRIENDSHIP GARDEN. I was gone for two days, visiting my parents, three hours south, in Ft. Myers. I come home, and the condoms are still there, blaring electric pink and blue, when everything else around them is dark green.
They're wrinkled all to hell as if two lovers tried using them without removing the packaging. But really, they're wrinkled because I was squeezing them in my pocket at that fashion show the night before I left for Ft Myers. All night I squeezed, compulsively; a handful of them, four or five.
The condoms were handed out on the way in the fashion show, like a hint; before going upstairs to get fucked up and watch beautiful girls in small amounts of really nice, creative clothing.
No one else knew what was going on in my fist. All night, my one hand would be shaking someone else's, smiling, normal, while the hand in my pocket grappled with the squishy mass of condoms in my pocket. White knuckled hard squeezing, like taking it out on those red rubber stress-release dolls from Sharper Image; the ones meant to make cubicle prisoners not reach for their guns. Cathartic squeezing like chewing on a nearly deflated balloon and no matter where the air is violently forced when you apply pressure; the sharp, square package of the condom, with its slimy ring of guts inside, will not tear, pop, show any weakness. You can cause them no harm. They are a challenge and a comfort..
'Something is wrong with me,' I thought all night, even to the point of bringing it up as a joke, to several people I ran into. I'd pull the mauled rubbers out of my pocket, open my palm so that the condoms were on stage, and laugh and say, "I've been squeezing onto these all night like my life depends on it; isn't that weird?" Bringing attention to it, made me feel better.
We were all drunk and yelling and mocking the models but really enjoying it all too. There were two beautiful boys modeling; 16-year-old-kids with moppy dirty blonde hair and bare bird-chests, and as I watched them in awe, a girl I hadn't met slapped me in the arm, "Would you suck their cocks?" She yelled over the music.
I answered as fast as I could, "Yes."
"Without hesitation?" She asked.
"Well, first off, I couldn't do it two at a time. I don't want porno, I want romance. And also, I couldn't do it if he were stupid and talked a lot. But the same goes with women."
"Good answer." She patted me on the shoulder.
"Yeah, thanks, but I just made it up: I wouldn't suck a cock - ever - for less than $1500. If someone offered me $1500 right now to suck a cock, I definitely would. No questions; I'd just ask him to wash it off beforehand. But other than doing it for money, the idea does nothing for me. I really need money right now though."
"Goodbye." she said.
As she walked away I squeezed the condoms and tried to discern the shape of her rear as her black pants faded into the dark, and I thought about how I could never handle a cock in my mouth because I can't even brush my teeth without gagging.
I've only been setting off my gag reflex with my toothbrush for a mere five years; the habit seemed to come from nowhere. But now I can't stop. I have to gag myself until my eyes water or I won't feel satisfied with my brushing.
This compulsion began, I think, with realizing how much better my breath smelled with a thoroughly brushed tongue. And from there I think I just began wanting to clean my whole tongue, even waaaaaaaaaay in the back, and now I rely on my gag reflex to tell me when I've done the best job I could do.
The sound of it used to set MY EX-GIRLFRIEND off, screaming mad. She hated me in the few moments I had to gag, and I understood; it sounds horrible. It sounds like a weakness, like those dogs trapped behind my neighbor's fence, coughing their lungs up so irritatingly pointless that I yell at them sometimes from my bedroom window: "Shut up, or jump the fence and make a fucking run for it!"
I came home from the fashion show drunk enough to think of calling ex-girlfriends for sex. But instead I brushed my teeth.And when I was alone as hell, bending over my sink, cleaning my tongue, thinking of how I will be living in Costa Rica in two months, I was scared as shit when the usual tears came so I let them come harder than I do when there's a woman waiting in my bed in the next room., or I'm sober and not frightened of the future. I let the tears run big and sincere down my nose into a sinkful of toothpaste spit white suds. And when the drama of it tired me out I felt like I might vomit up the alcohol and I thought of my writer friend, Jonathan.
Four days ago I drank four glasses of wine before going to work and on my way out the door I felt an intense sad bitterness, drunk emotional trauma. That never happens. Later wrote and told Jonathan about it. He wrote back:
"Listen, don't hate me: but I have a drinking problem, brought on by many things, including an oversensitive worldview. All this to say: 'who am I to talk?' But do keep an eye on your own drinking and 'smoking' . I know you love the stuff, but if you think maybe it's taking more than it's giving, then just be careful. I'm just putting that out there: these substances help with all our torment but then they sneak around and come in the back door and create all sorts of torment (even just brain-chemistry-wise) and we're not even aware of it. So I just wanted to say that because you're a sweet, smart, talented, sensitive human being and I like you and I want you to be well and to look after yourself.
I met Allen Ginsberg once -- an interesting story -- and at the end of our conversation (I was 22 and just starting I Pass Like Night). I met him coming out of a bar with a young poet and I offered him one of the beers in the two six-packs I was carrying. I did this as we were parting: I suddenly turned back and said, feeling ungenerous, 'Hey do you want a beer?' And he shook his head 'no' and then wagged his finger at me and said, 'Be careful.' And I felt like he KNEW me , knew my kind, and it scared me. And a few months later I was doing my first stint in AA , which I've been doing off and on for fourteen years. I'll tell you the full Ginsberg story some day . So I say to you, because I feel the need to: be careful.
And speaking of Ginsberg -- last night in this cafe I saw his famous lover, Peter Orlovsky, and he's basically this wet-brain, near-homeless person. Very sad. I spoke to him once too a long time ago and he told me, thrilling me, that I looked like Neal Cassady (this years ago when I was working the door at this club. . . ).
Your pal,
ja
My response:
Thanks for the advice. I do worry and I do keep an eye out. I'm really not much of a drinker. Less so than my friends, actually. My dad was an alcoholic, he went cold turkey when my sister was born. So I keep a frightened eye out. I know I told you I drank during the day yesterday, but it was one of a single digit number of times I've ever drank in the daylight: BBQ's included.
'Smoking' is a different story. I am totally addicted. But I have a hard time being worried about that: It motivates me, focuses me, sands the edges: the opposite of what it supposedly does. (I know this sounds bad - but bare with me).
I've always had a hard time focusing: too many things flying too fast through my head and out my mouth: maybe some of the ideas or thoughts were even good, but they wouldn't slow down long enough for me grab on and explore them. Then I became a 'smoker' and everything slowed down to what I feel is a 'normal' pace, undeniably a much more tolerable one. I guess when your brain moves at the right speed and you 'smoke' a lot, you turn slow and dumb. But I started writing about a year ago, when I started 'smoking' all the time.
The other night at work I took a RIDLIN, the drugs they probably wanted to give me as a kid (some guy at work is on it for his ADD). And everything I don't like about myself went away. It fucking scared the fuck out of me. It was way too strong and imposing. But people take RIDLIN, and give it to their kids, for the exact same reasons I am drawn to 'smoking'. I don't get 'fucked up' when I 'smoke': I do better at job interviews. It doesn't make me crazy, it sands off the top layer of crazy that impedes my comprehension and productivity. It definitely doesn't do the same thing to me that it does to most people.
This isn't a justification. I hate the idea of not being who I want to be and feeling like I am going outside myself to find mental stability. Hopefully some day I'll just calm down naturally. But I really do believe that most mental problems are chemical imbalances (as opposed to determinism - being beaten or whatever) and 'smoking' throws my chemicals into balance. I know I'm not being self-destructive, or trying to lose myself. I'm shooting for self-preservation.
Thank you very much for caring enough to write that. And I'll keep it with me throughout.
Jonathan's missive will stay with me. Even if I do cockily believe the old cliche: 'I can handle it.'
And in Ft. Myers, my parents are dealing with their definitions of addiction, compulsion and obsession:
"She came home from this gambling junket thing that she went to for a weekend in New Orleans, with her friend." My dad said as we sat at the bar eating Thanksgiving leftovers, in their cool condo kitchen. My mother, his wife, was out shopping with his daughter, my sister.
"It was midnight when mother came home and she crawled into bed and she was shaking and she said, 'Pat, I'm never gambling again. I have a really bad problem.' And it was late and I didn't want her keeping me up all night talking about something I knew she wasn't really gonna do. So, I said to her, 'Well, I don't believe you but that's good, let's go to bed and talk about it later.' But she was really upset so she kept me up all night talking about how she was gonna go to Gambler's Anonymous and how she was gonna totally quit going to BINGO; she'd been going four nights a week. I told her she'd forget about it in the morning but she swore up and down."So, she kept it up for two weeks she didn't go at all and I was really proud of her but then she started asking me, 'Pat, can I just go to BINGO on Sundays?' And I said, 'No, not if you're gonna quit because it'll just be back to four times a week in two months.' Then later that week we were taking a ride in her Camry, that we'd just bought less than a year ago, and we passed the Lexus dealer and they had just got the new ones in and she said, 'Let's just go in and look at them.' And of course as soon as we got in there she was: 'Pleeease.' But I said, 'No, the Camry's all paid off and we have nothing to worry about, no payments.' And she says, 'I promise I will never play BINGO again. And the money I save not gambling can easily pay for this car.' I was like, 'Really?' I didn't know how much she'd been blowing. So we drove out of there with the Lexus.
"But then two weeks later she's saying, 'Let me just go on Sundays.' And I say 'no' and so now she's on this kick that I'm controlling her, cause I won't let her go. And I say, 'Well, remember how you were shaking and saying you had a problem..' But she just says, 'Why are you trying to control me?'
So then she gets it in her head that she wants a parrot," My dad points across the room to the Indian Ringneck screeching softly to itself. "And she knows I hate birds but she says, 'Now that I don't have gambling, I don't have anything.' And birds scatter seed all over the dining room and walk around shitting on the kitchen counter…"
He trailed off into a bite of his turkey sandwich, while gesturing again, with the deviled egg in his other hand, toward the pretty little green bird across the room, sitting on top of its cage.
He then told me about the compulsion of their next door neighbor, a 40-year-old single mother who's husband ran off to be gay a few years ago. She now goes to Disney World for an entire week out of every month. Her 13-year-old son rolls his eyes at the mention of another trip, with the Mickey Mouse head bobbing on the top of the radio antennae of their car as they drive, again, to Orlando.
"That's not an addiction, dad." I told him. "That's a compulsion."
"No, it's like a disease: the gambling and the Disney."
"I don't believe that. I think an addiction is something that takes control of your physical body; your organs and shit." I said sternly. "Gambling is just a weakness. The 12-step programs call it a disease so that people won't get so distracted blaming themselves that they can't focus on getting rid of the problem. Considering a 'compulsion' a 'disease' takes the blame away. But you're not gonna throw up and cold sweat if you quit going to Disney World."
He didn't agree: "She was shaking." He said. "Gambling is an addiction."
And mine is writing. It's all I do since I took it up. I write or I work, or go out to bars and talk to girls, but come home early to drunkenly write. I might end up at Disney World or the BINGO parlor without it.
I wrote this:'He apologized for trying to screw The Little Red-Haired Girl. "I just don't control myself very well when I'm drunk." He said, blowing blue smoke toward my high living room ceiling. "I'm an alcoholic. Explain that to all your girlfriends tomorrow morning. Especially The Little Red-Haired Girl." I told him not to worry. I was actually proud; like he'd autographed her for me or something…"
and my editor at OPEN LETTERS, who thought the 'autographed her' bit was too harsh, suggested:
"How about: 'I told him not to worry. I was proud; like he'd validated my obsession.' or 'endorsed my obsession'?"
I told him 'no': that 'obsession' was 'not a good description'. But I couldn't bring myself to say, 'she's not an obsession.'