a bike mechanic/welder i dated years ago called me tonight. he’s the person i spent summers sweating with when i first moved to athens, hanging out at a bike shop and lying in driveways with hardly any clothes, impressing each other with our dexterity. his physicality is so pronounced. like, being with him was all about the body and dirt and open windows. his momentum inspired me — we talked incessantly about the things we could do and he about what he was building. there was never much room for politics or ideas; he was anti-intellectual out of insecurity, but i never stopped wondering where that insecurity was indiscernable from something else. selfishness? yeah. there’s a way i’ve been looking for the earthenness i knew with him in all lovers since.
our problem, or one of them, was that we would outjudge each other. there was no...mercy. he tried to commiserate through judgment tonight and my response must have been perplexing, perhaps refreshing. “i’m much more flexible than i was then, i try to appreciate the good things.” the truth was that the commiseration didn’t feel good, because when he said “we” i knew it was more about him and his karma. i could never relax around him because of that incessant deflection from himself, he was constantly warding off potential rejection and he always had to win with grand gestures of indifference. we talked about the last time we had seen each other, probably about 2-3 years ago. he fell asleep beside me and i left, like i always did, in the middle of the night.
one of my favorite memories is riding down prince avenue with him and the bike shop owner on our way to critical mass (2008?), him with a santa-size bag of donuts we’d just dumpstered slewn over his shoulder and all three of us grinning. when he asked and i told him i’d been dating “writers” (his summation not mine) he goes, “isn’t that a little too wienery for you, liz?” i had a great laugh. it’s incredible how someone can know you and yet not know you at all.
