My mother's boyfriend has an uncanny ability to recognize truth, a rarity these days. Here is a rough draft of our first meeting, and the beginnings of his influence in this last year of my life.
After moving back from Denver in June of 2005, I spent a month or so living out of my car, which at that time was a Ford Taurus. I enjoyed it immensely solely for the fact that people on the highway pulled over due to the fact it looked like a police car. Now, its primary purpose was to protect me from the elements until I found a place to live. I was 26 years old, without much of a job history, having been nomadic for well over a third of my life. This isn't to say that, while used to it, I enjoyed living out of my car.
I tried going back to the apartment and woman I left at first. While the reception was warm, the sex was passionate, the ugly truths about our relationship, my shortcomings in particular, that fact I had left her alone, the fact I had no income now, made it only a brief stop in my journey.
I couch-surfed. Showered when possible. I have carried a tent and sleeping bag in my vehicles for quite some time now, anticipating the inevitable downfall of man, but I doubt I will make it to that day alive.
Statements like that all but insure them to be true, should I continue to believe them. Those tiny electrons dancing around in our hearts are amazingly powerful, and attract similar vibrations. Fear begets fear, hatred begets hatred, and love begets love.
As it was late July, I was fortunate enough to be able to bath in ponds, rivers, and water supplies of any kind. I tried to believe things would turn around.
While I take no credit for the deed, I was given the opportunity to save the life of a man. It was more that I taught him how to fish that he may eat. There was no pushing him out of the way of a moving vehicle, or rescuing him from the bottom of a well. I just showed him what I had been shown; this power that to this day has extended my life far beyond any earlier expectations. I showed him that love saved me.
Which brings me to my mother. My parents had divorced in early 2004, and my sympathies lay with my father, who I held in my arms as he cried the day my mother left…for another man. All I knew at this point was my father's story, and to watch the man cry opened up my own old wounds, the scars of hooks women had left with me, and these holes opened wide again, baited with pain that fear and mistrust feed upon. I had very few words with my mother over the next year, contacting her only to tell her I was moving away to Denver for a while, that it may be the last time we see each other.
(A lesson I've learned since is that every moment may be the last time I see someone - nothing particularly profound, just a simple universal truth. Like the idea that 'there are no more original ideas.' My experience in life is that, while this may be true to some degree, an idea, any thought, that pure living brings one to a truth is as original in the heart of the present originator as the past.)
Back from Denver and living in my car I eventually found a job - actually the one I left in the first place - managing a cigar shop, a longtime hobby of mine turned into passion. It was difficult going to work every day from the back of my car (cigar smoke will only mask one's odor so much), and I knew I had to change this circumstance. I could ask my mother, but there was the problem of the man she left my father for. I had never met him, and was more than slightly opposed to the idea.
On my trip to Denver, I stopped for several days in Washington, D.C. to visit a friend of mine. It was there I heard one of the most poignant statements of my life, one that I carry to this day. A gentleman told me that, 'love is when your heart beats outside your body.' I nodded and pretended to know exactly what he meant at the time, leaving confused, befuddled…had I ever known love, then? More importantly, had I ever really loved someone else?
I picked up the phone at the cigar shop to call my mother, and while it rang, that statement shot through me with unparalleled clarity. I loved my mother, and to love my mother was to respect her decisions, her life. She answered the phone. Without really thinking about what was about to come out of my mouth, I told her flatly, 'Maybe someday I could meet Robert,' emphasis on someday.
I can't pretend to remember her reaction although I'm pretty sure she was surprised. I thought I knew plenty about him already. Once I found out his name when she left, I used what limited talents I have to scour the Internet for anything I could find out about him. Credit rating. Annual income. Address, of course…and job. A janitor. For Christ's sake, I thought, a fucking janitor. She must be mad.
Another lesson: the clothes, or in this case, the job, don't make the man.
She said he'd be happy to hear that, and I hung up the phone. Fifteen minutes or so passed, the usual crowd coming in and out of the shop. I was used to regulars, being the only tobacconist in town, so when the stranger walked in, I knew exactly who it was.
Someday, evidently, meant now.
I don't shake very often, mostly with rage when I do, and on the rare occasion I'm nervous. Stare death in the face, or stand at hell's gates like I have, nervousness is a rarity.
I told the owner, an old Greek in his 80's who had discovered water (while he was inventing the wheel) that I was going to sit up front for a few minutes. He was chagrined to say the least, but fuck him.
I shook the hand I had avoided for well over a year now, looked into the eyes of this man who I blamed for my father's tears…and all I saw was kindness. That and the tattoos. This man was the exact opposite of my father. I could see his wasn't a heart that would attempt to paint the jewel that was my mother anymore, rather, he was an instrument to help her chip away those layers splashed on her for years.
After meeting Robert like that almost five years ago, I moved into his house, albeit briefly. It was small, but perfectly sized for the two of them. He has, to this day, a thing for frogs, vast conspiracy theories (about which he can expound for hours), a propensity to collect goods cast aside (some might call it junk) and spins approximately 100 times every morning. He was a warrior, as well, gentle with my mother but not coddling. He might spend hours outside at work until his hands and feet blister and still find the energy to come home and read for an equal amount of time.
Five years later, with 3 months left in my life, Robert offered me the opportunity to come and stay over whenever I wanted. I wasn't quite sure where the offer came from, though he said that it made my mother happy to have me around, and that I may need to get out of the city occasionally, decompress.
Two weeks later, two and half months to go, I took him up on his offer. The devastation of the loss of Kristin grew daily, and I needed to get away from the city, the memories. His only condition, he said, was that I take him for a ride in my new car, so the first night back in Worcester, we did just that. I took him out to a new hamburger joint, a pal-around adventure. After all, it was still my city.
We sat and observed together, talked about the illusion that we're presented with, and sat, not in judgment or pity, discussing the endless flow of people in and out and their relationship with the illusion. Who knows, maybe some of them were keyed in, as well.
Then he asked me, in his unique, soul-gazing manner, not to commit suicide…at least not until he could treat me to a hamburger.
I wasn't taken aback by the question, although I choked up a bit. I was startled that he knew.
