Tuesday is garbage night. I'm out of City-approved garbage bags. This will be significant in a minute.
My credit card was declined and I can't sell stuff on Ebay. This too will be significant.
I'm moving. I've got to be out of my current apartment by December 1.
It's a DAMN bitch to move stuff when you don't have a car. I've been bringing stuff over on my back -- dishes, clothes, books, a chair... It's only six blocks, but have YOU ever tried carrying 100 pounds of books in your arms and in a backpack for SIX BLOCKS? The trick is to balance yourself; get the same amount of weight to bear down on ALL your muscles at the same time. Another trick is to chant to yourself the names of the streets you're passing: Mather, Walnut, Chapin, Murray, Oak... Mather, Walnut, Chapin, Murray, Oak... Matherwalnutchapinmurrayoak... Keeps you from yelling, "SHIT, this is heavy!"
I swear, this is gonna kill me.
Am not yet sure how I'm going to get my furniture to the new place. I don't know anyone with a truck, and my dressers are huge. NO WAY am I walking six fucking blocks with a 300-pound dresser on my back.
Peter's things are still in my apartment. (This is where the first things are significant.) He moved out in fucking APRIL, and his stuff is still here. I've given him deadlines, extended the deadlines, given him new deadlines, gone out to lunch with him... And going out to lunch was a fatal mistake, because we had a good time, and now it seems he thinks he can leave his shit here forever, because I'm a good friend and like spending time with him.
This is where garbage night and Ebay come into play. I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THIS STUFF!!! What the hell am I going to do with Playbills and theater books and CD's of music I don't even like? What am I going to do with three lounge chairs, a cot, and a dresser? I'm never going to read these books, never going to listen to this music, and certainly never going to sleep in that fucking cot ever again.
I've been WAY more than nice. I've got NINE days until everything has to be out of here, and NOTHING is out of here.
I went into Peter's room, took a look around.
Everything reminds me of him, and I want to slap him. A little purple garbage can labelled "Diva," after his "drag" name, Diva Divine. Stacks and stacks of theater stuff: memorobilia from shows he's seen. Peter has seen everything that's been on Broadway since at least 1994, I'm pretty sure, compliments of whomever happens to be taking care of his finances at the moment. He can get to New York once a month to see all the new stuff in theaters, but can't find the money to rent a truck?
Yes, I am heartless, and I think I honestly could find it in my heart to throw away most of this stuff. Obviously, it's not all that important to Peter, or he wouldn't have left it here since April. Books and CD's are replaceable. Stupid purple garbage cans are replaceable. Little furnishings and decorations are replaceable. But there are other things, too... Specifically, a cardboard box under the cot...
In this box, which is about the size of two large toaster-ovens, there are letters. The box weighs about 30 pounds, and is filled to the brim with letters. MY letters. Letters I wrote Peter from the time I was 15 years old. Love-letters, and friend-letters, and letters written from high school French classes that just ramble on for hours about nothing. Letters that say, "fuck you too," and "why did you have to lie to me?" and "shove this 'ex' bit up your ass," and "I'm sorry you're so ashamed of me." Letters begging forgiveness. Letters written from Greyhound busses, and maybe a plane in Washington DC. Letters I never meant to send. From Santa Fe. Postcards from my trip cross-country: one from every state except Michigan because Michigan apparently doesn't sell postcards. Postcards that were taped to the refrigerator at Crack Central; postcards that I foolishly believed were hung there because Peter missed me. Construction-paper cards I made myself; Mike said he thought some of them belonged in galleries, but I think he was being a little too kind.
Cards with three words in them: "Rutabaga. Love, Carebear." We had this stupid joke when I was at college, where I'd send him a card with the name of a vegetable, and he'd call my answering machine and leave the name of a different vegetable on it. Now, there is a collection of vegetable names cluttering up the apartment.
Ironically, Peter has sent me approximately three letters in his life, and one of them says, "I think you'll love this; tell me what you think," referring to a book he sent along with the letter. (The book was "Assassins," which I did love, and which I would not have the heart to get rid of...) All my letters went unanswered. All my stupid jokes, the song lyrics in the margins, the confessions of love like you couldn't imagine in your wildest dreams, met by silence. I mailed Peter in Ithaca, in Cortland, in Binghamton, in Austin... Even in Tallahassee. Two addresses in Ithaca. Two addresses in Cortland. Half a dozen in Binghamton.
Six years' worth of "thanks for coming to Lost Dog with me," and "are you ready for the prom?" and "I think I'm finally going to go all the way..." and "how's Steve?" and "sorry about the play," and "I think it would be a good idea if you let me go on with my life once and for all..."
I think it would be a good idea if you let me go on with my life once and for all...
(There's one postcard missing from the collection. Gahd knows where it is, but I certainly didn't see it in the box. It was the one that says, "Charlotte, The Queen City," and on the back says, "I think I may be in the right place after all... Love, Carebear." Something to that effect. It's missing. Probably in a landfill or something.)
I wrote Peter the first letter on blue paper. Maybe pink. I can't remember anymore. I don't remember what it said, just, "hi," or something, I guess. That stupid letter -- what the hell was I thinking? I was fifteen -- I WASN'T thinking. I started a fucking RELATIONSHIP with those letters. Maybe that was what I meant to do. Maybe I was trying to seduce my friend in the only way I guessed I could. If I'd never written that stupid blue (or was it pink?) letter, what would my life be like now? It would be a hell of a lot easier to move, I guess, for one thing.
The past SIX years came directly from those letters. Without them, I would have lost Peter into the abyss of his constant motion. For some reason, it occurred to me that I couldn't afford to allow him to forget me.
I wrote, "I guess this is it."
I wrote, "I love you. I will always love you."
I wrote, "Last night was unbelievable."
I wrote, "Forget everything I've ever said. I'm pretty sure I'm happy for the first time in my life."
"I don't know what's going on... I didn't think people were supposed to take blowjobs so seriously! I wish your phone wasn't busy; I wish I had somebody to talk to about this, because I REALLY don't know what I'm going to do with all the stupid men in my life and I could use your advice."
"Are you absolutely POSITIVE it was him you saw? I'm SURE he said he didn't have a girlfriend, that she was just his room-mate."
"I'm in French class right now, not learning a damned thing. Merde."
"I'm in Study Hall right now. We've got a substitute with a tattoo of a spider on her ankle. She's about 3'4" in height and absolutely beautiful. But it's that spider that really gets me. How do people like this make it in the real world if I'm not even passing social studies because I hang out with weird goth kids?"
"173 miles left to Albuquerque. Am pretty sure I just saw the Lord Jesus Christ Almighty walk by with a life-sized cross on his back. I am SO not kidding."
"I don't understand this commercial. It says, 'Betty Crocker knows what guys want,' and then this good-looking guy comes onto the screen with a spoon in his hand and says, 'POTATOES!' I don't know about you, but I bet if I took a poll of the other guys I know, they would say they want sex and drugs and CD's and more sex, and maybe some more sex. Potatoes, from my experience with guys, do NOT enter the running."
30 pounds of this bullshit. Six years of me babbling constantly about whatever filled my mind. Six years of sitting at a computer and sobbing my eyes out as I typed because I was trying so hard not to say, "I love you" or because I had said it and felt guilty about it. Six years of fighting and trying to resolve it through letters. Six years of trying to give a shit about somebody who didn't give one about me. Six years of "I miss you," and "Maybe I'll come to Texas and see you," and "I really don't care what you think about this; if you want out of my life just because of who I'm dating, then it's your loss."
The story about the time Erich and I got two flat tires on the way to Cortland, met two middle-aged gay guys with a dog named Rocky, and caught hell from his parents. The story about Mike trying to throw a chair out the window because he thought I was cheating on him. (I wasn't, then. But after the chair incident, it didn't take me long...) Blowjobs. AIDS. Pregnancy tests. "12 Monkeys." Commentaries on social nudity. "Do you think I'm a lesbian just because I think Tori Amos is beautiful?"
I'm currently holding in my hand a letter from when the first season of "The Profiler" came on, and I watched it religiously for the theme music. Fuck, I'd STILL do that if I had cable.
I'm holding in my hands a letter about the first time I saw "Pulp Fiction" and thought it was stupid.
Letters about learning to do the Time Warp.
Letters about being worried over two dorky friends of mine who made a HUGE deal about how they'd gotten ahold of some acid and were going to take it, and me subsequently freaking out and assuming that all people who drop acid walk into traffic and try to fly off buildings.
A letter from the very first time I set foot into Java Joe's. (I've gotten myself engrossed in this one; am trying to decide whether to laugh or cry. Don't remember any of this, except that David was wearing a hideous white sweater. I managed to write down absolutely every second of that first visit to Java's: a discussion about The Profiler, which I really did love; my friends trying to rip off the salt-and-pepper shakers; David's hideous white sweater and his assertation that he had the best ass north outside of NYC...)
Six years. What am I going to do with this shit? Peter has apparently abandonned it. Six years of airheaded babble and unrequited love, stuffed into a cardboard box under an unslept-in cot. Fine, I'll buy more garbage bags -- I'll find some way of getting rid of the books and CD's and furniture. But what am I going to do with the box of letters?
I can't believe you don't even care enough to take the letters... I can't believe you would actually leave them... I don't care if you never loved me; I don't care if you never cared enough to write back; I don't even care if we barely speak now. But how can you just discard six years of my thoughts? How can you leave these here, like a girl who worshipped you and spent more than a quarter of her life writing to you MEANS NOTHING.
I haven't written you a letter in months. Not since June. I'm pretty sure that everything is over; my letters have since been turned over to a beige notebook. The entries aren't addressed to you, and I'm never going to send them anywhere. I can't imagine telling you my secrets now. I can't imagine addressing concerns to you about oral sex and musings about The Profiler and study hall. I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that I'm not going to be writing any more confessions of love your direction. It's over. My letters belong to me now.
My letters belong to me now.
~Carebear*
"I am now burying my head in my hands and going into a shocked denial that I have talked about pigeons for an entire page..." --from "The Bathroom Book," September 21, 1996.
"Babble-letters are something of a religious experience. You get writer's cramp so badly that you start seeing white light and tunnels. It's kind of weird, like writing a journal for someone else to read. I've stopped writing in my journal because I argue with myself too much Well, anyway, happy bathroom reading... Careful what you wipe on." --from "The Bathroom Book," October 9, 1996