I Spy Your Tortured Soul

We sat in a deep red room on a 3-cushion, brown leather couch. Pictures of Lenin adorned the walls. And whenever any other people poked their heads in, they quickly withdrew. Some people walked all the way in, pondered whether to sit in the other 5 seats that were available, but ultimately withdrew also. Mr. Renaissance said to me at one point We own this room.

At first I didn't have anything to drink; he ordered a vodka martini and commenced a long night of rolling cigarettes and yawning. The tiredness that was weighing him down 2 weeks ago is still with him. He's obviously depressed... he keeps hinting at it, but then says he doesn't want to get into it. He told me that his first meeting with his priest went well and offered him a good perspective on "things." I asked him if he ever wanted a 'normal' (as opposed to an artist's) life. He came back with "yeah; I want to get married, have kids, and live in a big Victorian house..." I told him I wanted that element of life too (nevermind that I have always dreamed of a Victorian house with a gazebo in back. never mind that), but that it needed to have a macabre edge.

When I brought up the topic that prompted this little gathering, he seemed oddly disinterested in it. His summation was that basically an artist should press on no matter what. Fame or not. I told him that I have always expected to be famous--since I was 10, anyway--I've had no concept of not being known for my writing. In total, we discussed this for maybe 3 minutes.

I practiced being unrushed in that time with him. Not despising the small seeds of his just being there with me, not being in a big hurry, the complete lack of sexual tension or innuendo. I just tried to do my part by going with the quiet patches (which were not uncomfortable), but when something occurred to me, I told him. Deep secrets about what it was like to watch my dad hit my mom for the first time, the consuming embarrassment I feel when I fail at something.

We even discussed the "master vs. mammy" diad that I brought up a few weeks back in this blog space... He introduced the topic, actually. I told him I had written about this in college and he expressed a desire to see the paper if I ever found it. We were talking about my mom and he told me he had the feeling that I was very accepting of her in spite of my problems with her. He then told me that he tends to get along great with older black women. He posited that it's because they are such an "other" that there is room to see the beauty in that difference. Even behavior that might vex him in anyone else, he finds charming when displayed in them. Suffice it to say, he'd like to meet my mother someday.

Finally, I did have a drink. It was at the 11th hour, literally. He was incredulous. "You're having a drink now?" "Well, are you going to nurse it, or just drink it?" The idea being that if I intended to take my time, he would have another (after the vodka martini he ordered a Mai Tai). I told him I wasn't going to chug it, but that I also wouldn't make the consumption a production or anything. He said then, "Oh, I forgot. You drink your drinks pretty fast." I do that. His noticing and calling up that information was a sliver of an indication that he sometimes pays attention to me.

When the rum and coke hit my blood stream I felt the sexless vibe between us diminish, and I leaned in closer, and the tone got pretty confessional when he asked me if I had any regrets. "Oh, so many," I told him. He asked me how I handle it. I told him that I am haunted by my regrets--to the point that I cannot often be alone with my own thoughts. I asked him what he regrets. He was quiet for a long time, then finally gave me some vague answer. Melancholy baby.

Oh.Now he's thinking New York may not be right for him, because he might try his hand at Interior Design. I did nothing to hide my lack of a vision for this venture. I told him he's not supposed to do that, that he could just save himself a lot of time by asking me what he should do, because I've always known what is best for him. That I have never once been wrong when I had a feeling about his life...