Something terrible happened this evening. (I haven't been to bed yet - it's past midnight, so technically it's March 2nd, but I'm still feeling like it's yesterday... All the damn caffeine was too much, I guess...) Let me explain.
While talking to somebody online, I began talking about my play. My play where I control everything, where I say who falls in love, who moves to Florida, and who stays in town out of loyalty to and love for his best friend. Talking about it, I realized there was nothing in the world I'd like more than to work on my play. NOTHING. I found the disk, safely resting on my mousepad. I inserted it, clicked "open," and waited. Nothing. Then an error message. the disk is destroyed. I don't know how, I don't know why. I lost everything on the disk. Fortunately, I found some backup copies on my hard drive, although they weren't as complete as the copies on my disk.
About ready to kill something, I sat down to try to reconstruct the play. I found my synopsis. I found my binder. I found some Papermates. I clenched my fists, banged them together once, and got to it, still wiping tears away.
Jeff came online. Please no, I thought. I didn't want Jeff to be online. He's one of those people that instant-messages me no matter what. I just wanted to be left alone, to soak in my misery for awhile, to stare at the piece of incomplete crap that had once been my masterpiece. I wanted to stare at it like a mother would hold her dead child in her arms, weeping. Jeff really didn't need to be any part of something that intimate, right? Not only that, but if I told him what I was doing, he'd probably ask about the play, what it was about and so forth. And then I'd have to explain that it sounds like it's about me and David and Peter, but that it most certainly isn't. And then I'd have to prove it somehow. Gahd. I REALLY wasn't happy to see Jeff's screen-name pop up.
I met Jeff on July 2, 1998. The second? Yeah, I think it was the second. It was the four days I spent running from home. I was nearly raped the first night and I stayed with Peter and Ken the next night. The NEXT day, Ken and I had a little chat about Peter's online "boyfriend" (which Ken had initiated - I'm not that much of a bitch, okay?) which led to Peter kicking me the hell out of his house and walking away, arm in arm with Ken, who believed me but refused to let himself lose Peter. I followed them. They were a good quarter mile ahead of me, then a half mile. I ran as fast as I could with my heavy bookbag, but they disappeared into the night. I'd made it to Main Street, but they were out of sight and I assumed they'd gone back to their apartment.
I stood there in the middle of the street, helpless. I waited for a car to hit me. For the first time I think, ever, there was no traffic. I considered just dropping my stuff where I stood and running into the night - not caring where I went, not caring where I ended up. I considered walking down to The Bridge. I considered jumping off the top of the highest roof I could climb to.
Those thoughts passed quickly enough. The highest roof I could think of overlooked State Street, and I couldn't fathom David walking out of his apartment, going to work, and seeing a body splattered on the front porch of the coffeehouse. Especially my body. Still, I had nowhere to go. NOWHERE. I was homeless. I surely couldn't go back to my parents' houses. I was about as welcome there as rotten fruit. And I wasn't about to go back to Brian Andrews' house. The dirtbag.
As I stood, contemplating, waiting for traffic, waiting for some idea to come to me, I heard music... Dance music... I looked up. I looked around. A lightbulb went on over my head. It was the gay bar. that's where the music was coming from. I ran across the street, checked my pocket for my ID in case someone wanted to see it, and, taking a deep breath, entered.
The first people I saw in the bar were Ken and Peter. They glared at me. Tears fell from my eyes. It wasn't really very appropriate for me to be crying among a crowd of drunk people, drinking people, and drag queens, but I barely noticed my own tears. "Please..." I implored Ken. "Let me talk..." Peter grabbed his arm and they trotted outside, leaving even before they'd finished their drinks -- and believe me, I found out that this was plenty unusual for Ken. So I was alone. Again. In a gay bar. Full of drunks and drag queens.
Suddenly, arms grabbed me from behind. "Helena!" I whirled around, wiping at my eyes desperately. It was my friend Anthony, who'd worked at the coffeehouse for about two days and who had especially impressed my mother one night by slamming her car stereo with his fist until it played correctly. I didn't want to see him - my eyes were red and my nose was red and my hair looked like hell from the distance I'd run. "Helena, I want you to meet someone," Anthony said. "This is Jeff."
I looked toward where Anthony was pointing. Jeff was tall and skinny with dark hair. "Wait, are you... wait, you're JEFF?" I asked stupidly. "Peter's ex? Didn't we talk online once or twice?" "Yeah," replied Jeff. "You're... Helena? Wow!"
*Click!*
"Wow, I thought we'd never meet!" I said. "Peter wouldn't let me meet you when you guys were dating because he thought I'd fuck it up." It was a stupid thing to say, but I was tongue-tied. Jeff was adorable, not quite the weirdo I'd expected from everyone's descriptions. Fortunately, he either didn't notice how dumb I sounded, or he ignored it. "Where is Peter, anyway?" asked Jeff. "He was here a minute ago."
"We had a fight. He saw me come in here and left," I explained. Then I couldn't stop. I told him everything: my chat with Ken, Ken telling Peter, Peter going balistic, and the two of them leaving me on the street, which I probably actually deserved, but still... I told it all to Jeff, despite the loud music.
Jeff was horrified. He dragged me onto the dance floor. "Oh, I don't dance..." I protested. "Me neither," he said, thrashing around a little. Anthony giggled at us both and went off to hit on someone.
I don't remember the song that was playing, but it quickly ended. I'd managed to sway around a little, feeling totally awkward and uncomfortable. But the next song was Madonna's "Ray of Light." I'd heard it a couple of times, but it was a brand-new song. Still, the beat captured me. "Dance!" commanded Jeff. His eyes dared me. So I danced. Never having danced before in my life (except to "Lady In Red" at the prom with Peter, and once in David's kitchen to some one-hit wonder slow song...), I was sure I was doing it all wrong. But the song dug its claws in. Jeff's hands squeezed mine tauntingly, and soon I'd lost control of myself: my body was moving in ways I'd never taught it to move, knowing instinctively where the beat was, knowing how the arms went and the feet went so I didn't fall over.
The lights flashed. I barely saw Jeff. The silhouette of Peter and Ken walking out the door dropped from my mind and fell to the dance floor, where it was trampled by a drag queen in high heels. Pain knotted my side and my chest and I couldn't breathe, but I couldn't stop dancing, either. Jeff glared at me and stuck out his tongue, trying to be seductive. I giggled. It was the only thing that drew me away from the music, even for a second. Everything was in that music, everything... "And I FEEL!" sang Madonna. "And I feel! Like I just got home, and I feel! And I feel! Like I just got home and I fee-ee-ee-el..." Jeff smiled at me. I was lost in some gap between time and space and the pulsing of Madonna's latest - and best ever - single. And Jeff was smiling at me. "She's got herself a universe gone quickly, for the call of thunder threatens every... ONE..." I reached my index finger as high as it would reach. I realized I was smiling. I realized I was singing along. I realized Jeff could barely breathe either. Everything fell back into perspective. I was dancing. Lights were flashing. Masses of people were crowded around me dancing. Sweat ran down my skin.
The song ended. I looked around. My eyes filled with tears again: tears of happiness.
"Where you staying tonight?" asked Jeff. "I don't know," I said soberly, remembering that, despite the adrenaline rush from dancing, I had some serious things to consider. "Stay at my house," invited Jeff. And how could I refuse? After all, Jeff had just seen me sweaty and dancing so hard I was about to burst an artery, and vice versa. We were bonded for life.
By the time I went home - to my dad's house - after my four days of staying away, Jeff and I were fast friends. He'd taken Anthony and me to see a baseball game, during which Anthony and I torched May-Flies and eaten rose petals off a stray rose bush. Jeff, ever the sensible one (well, maybe not...) ignored the two of us, but watched the July 4th fireworks intently as I briefly considered laying my head against his shoulder and thanking him... for saving me from being a corpse on State Street, for giving me a home when I had none, for daring me with his grin not to be depressed, for being one of the only people I've ever clicked to in my life.
I didn't dare. Not then. Not yet. I was too chickenshit. So I just watched him, staring happily at the sky, filled with fireworks and ash that fell in a rain into our hair.
I was really bummed out when Jeff came online this evening. Dammit, I thought.
Jeff asked me first of all if I was okay - apparently he didn't believe my email after my almost overdose the other night. I was very touched that he cared enough to ask at all, much less more than once... Jeff's got his own life - we don't talk a lot, and we're rapidly losing things in common as we grow up a little more every day on opposite sides of the country. Why should he care? But, just like he and Madonna cheered me up the night we met, Jeff made me smile one more time: by giggling with me over dick sizes ("Jeff, did you know that the average erect penis is only 5.1 inches long?" "Seriously? Wow, I'm huge!" "Regular freak of nature, Jeff."), and insulting some girl who instant-messaged him to ask if he was gay.
Lesson learned: life might suck, and your computer might eat the one thing you've dedicated your life to, and you might feel like commiting some kind of killing, but I highly recommend a friend like Jeff for those days. Jeff, you put a smile on my face faster then the speeding light...
Naming my firstborn "Zephyr"...
~Helena*
"And I feel! Like I just got home!" --Madonna, "Ray of Light."