Yesterday was one of the weirdest days of my life, EVER. I have only about an hour before I have to go to class. And I'm completely burned-out and exhausted from the events -- and accompanying drugs... that is, caffeine -- of yesterday, so I'm unsure how coherent my translation of yesterday will be... I'll do my best... I may try again later and work with the journal entry I wrote on the bus...
Woke up at 6.30. Was on the bus at 7.30. Uneventful. Relaxing. Was too excited to sleep on the bus. Hadn't slept much that night, either, only about three hours. Had to slam a beer to get to sleep at all, a practice I've rarely had to resort to.
Got to NYC. Got lost in the bus station. Found my way out of the bus station. Began walking in the direction of the theater. Found a Starbucks first.
Had coffee. Starbucks coffee is like drinking a liquid equivelent of techno music. Good techno. Was shaking like a leaf and sort of freaking out within twenty minutes.
Found the theater. Picked up the ticket I'd bought the night before. Walked around NYC, quasi-lost, taking notes on stuff I saw and generally trying to keep the coffee from fucking me up too badly.
Read a four-page article about "Mulholland Drive" in the Village Voice while trying to chill out in a bagel shop. Read a two page article about "Mulholland Drive" in the New York Press. Promptly freaked out and nearly tossed my bagel and cream cheese into the air with glee. Good reviews, both of them, although the Press one was pretty damned uninformed. (Whoever says "Eraserhead" has a linear plot has NOT seen it...)
Walked around.
Saw "Mulholland Drive."
...I'm a firm believed that, when seeing a film, one of the ways to tell whether or not it's a good one is to keep an eye on the doors to the theater and watch people walk out in the middle of the film. I'm speaking as one who appreciates the bizarre in movies. I'm speaking as one who joyfully watched two old women walk out of "Dancer in the Dark" claiming, "that girl's so WEIRD! I can't watch this anymore!" I'm speaking as one who silently cheered when people walked out of "Memento" griping that they didn't get it. I'm speaking as one who watched no fewer than FOUR separate people walk out of "Mullholland Drive" bitching about how bad it was and how they didn't get it. The best movie I've ever seen in a theater, I think, and one of the best I've ever seen in my life, EVER.
I SOBBED during the pivotal scene in the film. It was SO beautiful. The very essence of everything I've ever loved about David Lynch. A scene worth a 400-mile journey into and out of a city I don't particularly enjoy. A scene worth risking getting lost in New Jersey. Beautiful. It was simply beautiful. And I guarantee, if you don't like weird films and mind-fucks, you'll hate it and you'll think I have horrible taste. It was weird, it was a mindfuck, it was GLORIOUS. I must have sat on the edge of my seat, mouth open, hands clutching cheeks, for the entire film. I'm also pretty sure I neglected to blink for two hours and twenty-six minutes.
Had a plane swooped out of the sky as I stepped out of that theater and smashed me to bits, I would have been okay with that. I wouldn't have been HAPPY about it, but I would have been okay with it.
I stepped out of the theater, amidst a crowd of whining middle-aged people who were upset that they'd wasted so much money on seeing such a piece of shit. (I'm telling you, if the conservative-looking people think it's shit, it's not shit... And to quote another Lynchfilm, I know shit from shinola.) I stepped out of the theater with tears in my eyes, and I believe I was sort of yelping and whimpering and making little hiccup noises. Maybe not. If I wasn't, I should have been. Was so disoriented by the intensity of the film that I forgot, for a good thirty or forty seconds where I was. Looking out at Manhattan, I wasn't sure if I was in Manhattan, my bedroom, Hollywood, or the Afterlife. Couldn't remember my damned NAME for a good twenty or thirty seconds. Decided I had to call someone and scream at them what a fantastic film I'd just seen. Couldn't remember any phone numbers except my own, and I dialled it. Norman answered. I screamed, "I think I just saw the best film I have ever seen in my entire life." He smiled -- I could hear it. I don't know if he could comprehend how enormously messed-up my mind was, but I think he felt the enthusiasm.
Walked around New York. Attempted to buy the Mulholland Drive soundtrack to no avail. Attempted to locate the bus station, to no avail. Found the bus station eventually. Came home.
The bus trip was mostly uneventful. Relaxing. Couldn't fall asleep. I was too excited. And far, far too caffeinated.
Got home. Pulled off my bookbag and discman. Threw my coat in a heap. Said hello to Norman. Picked up the phone. Dialled a number in Owego.
On Saturday night, I received a phone call from an all-too-familiar voice that I hadn't heard in far too long. Long enough, in fact, that I didn't recognize that voice.
"Who is this?"
"I thought you'd say that," and I could hear the smile, the smile that launched a thousand demons. The one, the only...
"NEIL!"
"How are you?"
"I knew that was either a West Coast ring or a nocturnal-person ring when I picked up the phone."
"Can you keep a secret?"
"Of course." (Of course not...)
"I'm not on the West Coast... I'm in Owego..."
I made plans to call him the moment my bus got in from NYC. We made plans to meet. We made plans to make plans.
I called him. He said, "meet me on Wall Street, by the river in about half an hour..."
I saw him walking toward me, emerging out of the darkness like a character in a Lynchfilm. He's changed a lot, gotten bigger and shed the goth-look.
I hugged him harder than I've ever hugged anyone in my whole life. I don't think his internal organs will ever function properly after that hug. Neil, that scrawny kid with the grown-up voice and the eyes that insist they've seen everything twice. Neil, no longer scrawny, but just the right size to envelope me in a hug. Neil's hug, as familiar and comforting as if he'd never left. Neil's eyes, a light blue with enormous black irises. I'd forgotten those eyes. I'd forgotten the tiny scar on his cheek and the voice that launched a thousand demons, and his sweet smell... It all came back, though, in a flood.
We went to my apartment, the two of us and the two friends he was travelling with. We had coffee. Java Joe's coffee. We talked. We had little to say of any profundity, because nothing has really changed. I guess we've probably both had our hearts broken, seen places and things we never thought we'd see, met people who changed everything we'd ever believed in, and done quite a bit of growing up. But between us, the essence of Neil and Helena, nothing has changed. And so, despite the three and a half years of one another's absence, last night, we were still the same two kids who bummed around the streets of Binghamton late at night: half-wired on caffeine, half-drunk on River energy, half in love with each other, and completely alive.
One of his friends was a real bitch. She had that whiny tone. I recognized the whiny tone as one Neil's always had a weakness for. She hated me from the start. A jealousy thing? I don't know. But she bitched and griped and complained and said I made her uncomfortable, and kept asking bitchy questions about whether or not Neil and I had ever slept together. Tactless, rude, and generally horrible. But I get the feeling she has a redeeming side: she just hated me. Fine by me. It was funny when she accused Neil and I of having had some illicit love affair. We never had, of course. We'd never even kissed each other. Or perhaps we had... Yes, I guess we had once. But Neil and I never needed to resort to sloppy screwing. We were kids, we were wired, we were intelligent and kind of weird, and we were half in love, and that was that.
Norman and Neil greeted each other like old friends as well. I guess they'd had a few conversations of their own over coffee at Java Joe's. Back in the old days. Gahd bless, we're ALL connected. They'd liked each other, I gathered. I'm not surprised. They're both brilliant, more than a little nuts, and quite capable of being able to fuck with the mindset of the entire world if they had the inclination and the ambition...
We sat on the porch. We sat on the couch. We talked about 'zines and the weather and the alleged stench of Tacoma. And Neil and I sang softly along with Tori Amos. Neil has a splendid voice; it was the first thing I loved about him. I'd ever so politely asked his friend what music she liked, and she'd -- ohh, there's no such thing as a bad coincidence! -- recommended Tori. The same CD Neil had once played at me for an entire night on repeat. Nothing ever changes. Not really. Just the little things: clothes, hair, weight. A reunion. The sort of reunion I imagine high-school sweethearts might have after a long separation. You comment on what's different, what's changed, and nothing really has, and you're seventeen again and wired and half in love. I was shaking as he hugged me. He said, "You're shaking." I said, "I can't believe you're here." He said, "I read your letter." I said, "I know." He said, smiling, "I never claimed I wasn't crazy. But I have fun with it." I said, "I know." And that was everything.
I kissed him as he left. I stared directly into those crazy eyes. I said with my own eyes, "I'm not afraid of you, you fucking psycho." I said, "I've missed you." I said, "You're beautiful." I said, "I'm half in love with you." He said, aloud, "You'd better make it to Olympia soon." I said, "December, I hope." What he meant was, "I don't like being without you." I meant that too. I kissed him again. I tried to make it last, tried to make it the sort of thing I could keep forever, because I know Neil will disappear again, and I don't know when I'll see him next. It didn't last though. It was all too brief. It was warm and soft and desperate. His breath smelled like cigarettes, psychosis, and love for me... For ME. Indeed, Neil loves me quite as I am; all stupid issues of sex and manipulation and jealousy and heartbreak are irrelevent and non-existant. Neil loves me. Neil KNOWS me, and loves me. Neil is as beautiful as he is fascinating. I love him too, quite as he is.
That was all.
I didn't say goodbye. Neither did he. We'll see each other again. Who knows when or where. But when we see each other again, nothing will have changed. But tears filled my eyes as I turned away. It will be a long time before I see Neil again. Maybe not three and a half years this time, but it will be awhile. I'll not lay awake at night thinking about it. I'll not wait anxiously for the day to arrive. I'll not sob for loss of him. I'll merely shed a tear or two because I'd prefer my friend to be nearer to me. Someday. I smiled. I didn't look back. Brian says if you look back, you'll never see the person again.
Went to sleep on the couch. Couldn't sleep. Lay there in Lynchian, demonic, glorious ecstasy. Stared at the television and couldn't quite see it. Fell into a light, caffeinated sleep, and dreamed of pressing my face to Neil's shoulder while watching a Lynchfilm.
Had a cup of ginger-peach tea at Java Joe's today: a ritual performed upon realization that your life has changed and you'll never be the same person you have been. A ritual usually accompanied by the departure of a loved one. Or a reunion with a loved one. Or anything that really makes one aware of being very alive.
Years go by, will I still be waiting for somebody else to understand...?" --Tori Amos
~Helena*