Playground Andy, 7/24/08

Did I ever tell you about the time I cheated on Frank?

I was angry at Frank and this guy, this Andy from my hometown that I liked for a long time, was staying at my apartment. He was in a band that did a brief Midwest and East Coast tour, traveling in a shoddy van and sleeping on people's couches, and I happened to be the only person they knew in Chicago. Even earlier that day, I promised him he could stay in my bed. Maybe even earlier that week. He did, and he's so shy that it was hard to understand what he wanted, even as he came to lie down in bed next to me. He brought his sleeping bag with him. There was some small talk and he didn't make one move. Eventually I grabbed his hand and he turned to me and kissed me and not one guilty thought went through my mind about Frank; Andy was as perfect as I remembered him back home, skinny with a drummer's arms and a worn black t-shirt that was half-tucked into his jeans. He smelled both sweet and sweaty, like a boy who had been on the playground all day. I went down on him and he came and we chatted and fell asleep. Not for one second did I regret it or feel bad about it. Even later, days and weeks later up until now, I realize exactly what I did, I still don't feel bad about it. Now Frank is long gone, which actually had nothing to do with Andy.

Andy was in town again yesterday, playing drums in the same band as before, doing a three-week tour across the US. I had text messaged him a few weeks earlier, then again a few days ago, but I didn't hear anything from him when I finally went to the show. When I eventually saw him, he had already gotten a head start on drinking. Despite that, he was still shy and awkward, like me, which is why we probably never got along too well.

It didn't seem like much would happen, but I hung around anyway.

Then he poked me. Such a sweet boy, sweet Andy, little 6-foot-1 with shaggy black hair who hasn't shaved in five days, looked at me sideways and poked me in the arm with his long index finger and I know what that means when you're just a shy kid inside. At one point, on the street near their van, he started walking away, by himself. I caught up to him.

We should go somewhere, he said. Where should we go?

We walked down the sidewalk at 10:15 PM, past houses with their lights still on.

There was one that had just been rebuilt and still under construction. It was surrounded by temporary chain-link fences that were covered with heavy dark-green tarp. The walls were still covered in Tyvek and some of the windows were sheets of plywood instead of glass panes. I pointed it out and we turned back and walked around the fence to the side of the building, a dark and narrow walkway shielded from the street and the back yard. He then grabbed my arms and he was against the wall and he kissed me and his kisses were familiar. He even smelled the same, like he had been playing at the neighborhood park, running through the streets and climbing trees and laughing with leaves in his hair.

There was a stack of wooden two-by-fours that could have been a low bench. I led him to that and unzipped his jeans.

He finally wasn't a boy anymore and he wasn't shy: he talked blunt and rough and crude, and when he looked at me, it wasn't with those playground eyes. I kissed him and pressed my forehead against his head and his chest and his torso; I wanted to meld into him, like two pieces of hot metal. I wanted to be a part of his chest, burned into it like his tattoos, live in his skin until he was so old and wrinkled that you couldn't make out the markings anymore.

Let me fuck you, he said.

And he did; it hurt and felt good at the same time. We didn't have a condom so he finished with my mouth around him. I swallowed it and it was bitter.

Later, I walked away staggering like I was drunk.

And through the rest of last night, and all of today, I felt great about it. I was so happy and satisfied that I got shivers whenever it went through my head. But now, right this second, I kind of hate myself. I want him again, I want him every night and all to myself. I hate it because it hurts-- it's even scary-- when I think about how he could have done that the previous night with a different girl, and tonight with another. And though I'm some kind of repeat, some old friend, I'm eventually just another one of those girls. One of those girls who he'll never be real friends with, or for fucksake, fall in love with.

But whatever. I think the band is coming through here again in a couple months.

A totally miserable love letter, 1/11/07

Dear Dylan,

When I was on the plane back to Chicago last winter, I nearly started bawling-- I was practically fucking weeping-- sometime during the turbulence over the Rocky mountains. Not because I was scared, though; I kind of like that feeling, that dropping and shuddering, so it wasn't at all because I thought the plane would crash or anything like that. I was crying because I thought of those stories about the people on a hijacked 9/11 plane making phone calls before they died: I wondered, while clutching my armrests, who I'd call and what I'd say. Of course I'd call my mom and a couple of my best friends or whatever but those words would just be the typical expressions of love and anything anyone else would say on their deathbed. But what really made me cry was what I'd say to you, and I repeated it in my head over and over until I could recite it half awake, or in this case, plummetting 20,000 feet with an oxygen mask strapped to my head:

You don't have to say anything; you don't have to say anything now or ever to anyone, but I have to tell you this. I want someone to know. I loved Jack more than anything, more than life itself. I would have given up everything for him. But you know, Dylan, I think I love you just as much.

And that's the truth. In the time before I die, if only one more thing were to be heard from me, it would be that I love you. I love you and Jack so dearly that I would die just to confess it. And I know it is selfish, I know so painfully well that neither of you are mine to love.

I sound like some kind of miserable martyr or something, like Jesus but instead of dying to save everyone else, only dying to save my own ego. So maybe I am terribly self-absorbed and maybe I can't see out of my own head-- the insides of it like a cramped, pressurized plane cabin-- but at least you know it. At least you know I love you.

It's sad. It is fucking miserable, I know. A little airplane turbulence and I blurt some pathetic confession. No real wisdom at all, but at least it's the truth. I don't know how else to end this letter but to say, after you read this, I will be content enough to die-- or worse, never see you again-- knowing that at least you have this knowledge of me.

Yours Truly,

Rebecca